Among Greek grammarians a distinction is recognized between a class of nouns capable of referring to several nouns and a class referring to just one proper name. This distinction is very poorly (and problematically) attested in the works of Latin grammarians. This paper explores and discusses some connections so far overlooked, and tries to correct some misinterpretations. In the light of the distinction of proper vs. common epithets, the controversial phrase mediae potestatis is elucidated, by stressing that it (...) refers to the ‘semantic incompleteness’ of the adjective. Finally, the assumption that the concept of ‘adjective’ was not known within Latin grammatical tradition before the fourth century is revised. We bring forward evidence against this assumption implying an early ‘linguistic’ tradition with respect to the adjective which was to some degree independent from the well-known ‘rhetorical’ doctrine on epithets. (shrink)

The theory of negation developed in the grammatical-philosophical system of later Vyākaraṇa remains almost entirely unstudied, despite its close links with the (widely studied) approaches to negation found in other philosophical schools such as Nyāya and Mīmāṃsā, and despite its consequent importance for a comprehensive understanding of the theory of negation in ancient India. In this paper we present an edition, translation and commentary of the relevant sections of Nāgeśa’s _Paramalaghumañjūṣā_, a concise presentation by the final authority of the (...) Pāṇinian tradition, together with an explanatory introduction outlining the grammarians’ theory of negation and its relations particularly with the Nyāya theory of negation. (shrink)

The grammarians of antiquity, unlike some of their modern counterparts, seem to have had little interest in investigating ‘what every speaker knows’, at least as a largescale project, consciously articulated and embarked on. The object of such a project would be to determine what constitutes such knowledge—or mastery, or cognition, or whatever name it is given—in actual speakers. An alternative goal would be an account of something knowledge of which would count as knowledge of the language in question, even (...) if this is not what actual speakers know. No ancient author seems to have set himself either task; indeed, the whole question of what it is to know a language seems to have been raised only very occasionally in classical antiquity. is probably the best known of these rare discussions.) Kaimio is surely justified in making the still more sweeping observation that ‘The concept of language knowledge was rather vague amongst ancient peoples’. (shrink)

David Blank presents a new translation into clear modern English of a key treatise by one of the greatest of ancient philosophers, together with the first ever commentary on this work. Sextus Empiricus' Against the Grammarians is a polemical attack on ancient Greek ideas about grammar, and provides one of the best examples of sustained Sceptical reasoning.

David Blank presents a new translation into clear modern English of a key treatise by one of the greatest of ancient philosophers, together with the first ever commentary on this work. Sextus Empiricus' Against the Grammarians is a polemical attack on ancient Greek ideas about grammar, and provides one of the best examples of sustained Sceptical reasoning.

When dealing with manuscripts transmitting otherwise unknown ancient texts and without asubscriptio, the work of a philologist and literary critic becomes both more difficult and more engrossing. Definitive proof is impossible; at the end there can only be a hypothesis. When dealing with a unique grammatical text, such a hypothesis becomes even more delicate because of the standardization of ancient grammar. But it can happen that, behind crystallized theoretical argumentation and apparently canonical formulas, interstices can be explored that (...) lead to unforeseen possibilities, more exciting—and even more suitable—than those that have already emerged. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Sextus Empiricus: Against the Grammarians (Adversus Mathematicos I)George A. KennedyD[avid] L. Blank, trans. Sextus Empiricus: Against the Grammarians (Adversus Mathematicos I). With an introduction and commentary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998. lvi + 436 pp. Cloth, $105. (Clarendon Later Ancient Philosophers).Sextus was a Greek physician whose "empirical" medical studies seem to have led him to an enthusiastic commitment to what he calls "Pyrrhonian" skepticism, though it (...) perhaps has rather little debt to Pyrrho, who lived in the fourth century B.C. When and where Sextus himself lived and worked is unknown: certainly during the time of the Roman Empire, probably in the second, possibly in the third century, maybe in Alexandria, or Rome, or elsewhere. His extensive writings are a major source for the skeptical tradition in ancient philosophy--a kind of anti-foundationalism that has some appeal in our own age--but their importance goes beyond that, since Sextus explicates in detail the dogmas and theories he seeks to counteract. Against the Grammarians, as Blank notes, is second only to the textbook attributed to Dionysius Thrax for information on the teaching of grammar and is important for knowledge of Epicureanism as well.Blank's introduction, translation (the Greek text is not included), and line-by-line commentary (the first ever published) is a work of great learning and, I would think, of great patience. The volume as a whole greatly facilitates understanding of Sextus, his sources, and the traditions to which he subscribed or which he resisted. Blank has adopted "expertise" as a translation for the somewhat troublesome word techne, and "expert" for technites. This seems a reasonable rendering of Sextus' usage. What he attacks is not grammar (or, in subsequent books, rhetoric and the other arts) as practiced in ordinary life, but the claims to expert, scientific knowledge on the part of doctrinaire teachers of the arts, as well as some physicians and philosophers.This leads us, however, to a general problem in Sextus' writings. At the beginning of Against the Grammarians (chapters 5-7) (and elsewhere) he claims to have discovered difficult problems in the claims of specialists in philosophy and the arts which lead him to suspension of judgment. He will attempt "without any spirit of competitiveness to select and put the effective arguments against the liberal studies." Implicitly, an equal amount might be said in their defense. In what follows, however, he repeatedly claims to have "demolished" dogmas, leading to what has been called "negative dogmatism," the dogmatic denial of dogma. Blank devotes a section of his introduction to this problem, concluding that Sextus' intent throughout is in fact "equipollence." That is probably what Sextus himself would claim. Assuming it is, Sextus must, however, be charged with the fault of expressing himself poorly, for he repeatedly exults at his conclusive refutations of the claims of others.Throughout the work Blank strives, often with considerable success, to provide a sympathetic explanation and logical justification for Sextus' arguments, [End Page 166] many of which may initially strike a reader as blatant sophistries. Sextus was no fool, but he had blind spots and obsessions--infinite regress being one--and he often fails to take into account lines of argument obvious to a modern reader. Blank's objectivity does not extend to blanket approval of all of Sextus' arguments; indeed, he criticizes and even rejects the validity of arguments on a number of occasions. His treatment can be described as generally even-handed, but giving his author the benefit of the doubt more often than I would be inclined to do.Blank's extended introduction considers what is known about Sextus' life and works; the history of attacks on the arts, which go back to the fifth century b.c.; evidence for empiricist attacks on grammar; Against the Grammarians in relation to the other writings of Sextus; and negative dogmatism; then a few concluding remarks on the translation. Both here and in the commentary he convincingly demonstrates that Sextus' primary source is a lost Epicurean treatise--something like the writings of Zeno of Sidon, the teacher of Philodemus, though Blank stops short of claiming Zeno as the source. This Epicurean work contained a detailed attack... (shrink)

This book is the recent addition to the Clarendon Later Ancient Philosophers series, and its greatest significance lies in its being the sole commentary on Against the Grammarians. It also provides the only English alternative to Bury’s 1949 translation in the Loeb edition. As such, it is a clear and readable translation, although, of course, there is no Greek text provided.

This article reviews the text and interpretation of some ancient evidence on the pronunciation of syllable coda m in Latin. Crucial textual emendations are suggested for passages by Annaeus Cornutus and Velius Longus, and the resulting evidence is reinterpreted in the light of current phonological theories. Some of the accepted views on the pronunciation of –m are challenged by highlighting the likely sound variation in neutralization contexts. The evidence from both grammarians and inscriptions reveals that the possibility of (...) m sounding [n] in the internal preconsonantal position could have been more widespread than previously thought. (shrink)

Truth, etc. is a wide-ranging study of ancient logic based upon the John Locke lectures given by the eminent philosopher Jonathan Barnes in Oxford. Its six chapters discuss, first, certain ancient ideas about truth; secondly, the Aristotelian conception of predication; thirdly, various ideas about connectors which were developed by the ancient logicians and grammarians; fourthly, the notion of logical form, insofar as it may be discovered in the ancient texts; fifthly, the question of the 'justification (...) of deduction'; and sixthly, the attitude which has been called logical utilitarianism and which restricts the scope of logic to those forms of inference which are or might be useful for scientific proofs. In principle, the book presupposes no knowledge of logic and no skill in ancient languages: all ancient texts are cited in English translation; and logical symbols and logical jargon are avoided so far as possible. There is no scholarly apparatus of footnotes, and no bibliography. It can be read in an armchair. Anyone interested in ancient philosophy, or in logic and its history, will find it interesting. (shrink)

Contributed articles on eighteen Indic philosophers and grammarians flourishing between 400 B.C. to 1600 A.D.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer: A Linguistic Interpretation of the Origin of the Greek Alphabet and the Continuity of Ancient Greek LiteracyMichael WeissRoger D. Woodard. Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer: A Linguistic Interpretation of the Origin of the Greek Alphabet and the Continuity of Ancient Greek Literacy. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. xiv = 287 pp. Cloth, $65.Woodard's is an important (...) and groundbreaking work which has put the question of the origin of the Greek alphabet in a new light. His thesis is that scribes literate in the Cypriot syllabary were responsible for the first Greek adaptation of the alphabet, and in order to demonstrate this thesis Woodard must investigate the spelling principles of the Mycenaean and Cypriot syllabic scripts. Although his initial chapters devoted to these scripts may at first seem irrelevant to the reader interested in the origin of the alphabet, they do turn out to be crucial for his theory.Woodard first describes the principles of the syllabic alphabets. Since neither Linear B nor the Cypriot syllabary was originally designed for the representation of the Greek language, both systems are relatively inefficient. In particular the representation of consonant clusters presented a problem for both syllabaries, for which a number of spelling strategies were devised. In Linear B the first consonant of a consonant cluster is either not written at all—e.g., ka–ko [khalkos], a strategy Woodard calls "partial spelling"—or the first consonant of the cluster is spelled with a dummy vowel copying the vowel of the syllable to the right: e.g., a–ko–ro [agros]. This type of spelling Woodard calls "plenary spelling." In Cypriot an internal consonant cluster is spelled either with "regressive spelling," whereby the first consonant of the cluster is expressed with a sign containing a dummy vowel copying the vowel immediately to the left—e.g., a–ra–ku–ro [argurō]—or with "progressive spelling," whereby the first consonant of the cluster is expressed with a sign containing a dummy vowel copying the vowel immediately to the right: e.g., pa–ti–ri [patri]. Cypriot progressive spelling is essentially identical to Linear B plenary spelling. Furthermore, Cypriot regressive spelling is used for precisely those internal clusters which are represented in Linear B with partial spelling.Trying to explain which factor(s) determine(s) whether a cluster will be spelled with, on the one hand, partial spelling in Linear B and regressive spelling in Cypriot or, on the other hand, with plenary spelling in Linear B and progressive spelling in Cypriot has been a long–standing project of Greek linguistics. In chapter 3 Woodard deals with the various theories which attempt to explain these different spelling strategies as the result of different syllabifications of consonant clusters. The simplest of the theories examined explains [End Page 163] partial/regressive spelling as indicating that the first consonant of the cluster closed the preceding syllable and the second consonant opened the following syllable. In other words, partial/regressive spelling is an indication of heterosyllabicity. Plenary/progressive spelling, on the other hand, is taken to indicate that the entire cluster began the following syllable; that is, clusters which are spelled in the plenary/progressive fashion are tautosyllabic. But, as Woodard rightly observes, the syllabifications needed to justify such a theory—e.g., de–so–mo to be syllabified [de–smois]—are abundantly contradicted by the metrical evidence of both later Greek and Vedic, which show that clusters of the type [–sm–] made position and therefore must have been heterosyllabic. If such clusters were heterosyllabic both in PIE, as the Vedic evidence suggests, and in later Greek, they must have had the same syllabification in Mycenaean. More sophisticated versions of syllable–based theories have tried to get around this problem in a variety of ways. The delicate versions of Ruijgh and Morpurgo Davies attempt to explain plenary spellings of the de–so–mo type as reflecting "orthographic syllabification" which arises through spelling in full those internal consonant clusters which are also spelled in full in word initial position. But even these versions, despite their partial agreement with the doctrines of the Greek grammarians, fail in... (shrink)

Grammar as a discipline devoted to the study of language was greatly advanced by the Alexandrian philologists, and especially by Aristarchus, as demonstrated by Stephanos Matthaios. In order to edit Homer and other literary authors, whose texts were often written in archaic Greek and presented many linguistic problems, the Alexandrians had to recognize linguistic grammatical categories and declensional patterns. In particular, to determine the correct orthography or accentuation of debated morphological forms they often employed analogy, which is generally defined as (...) the doctrine that grammatical forms must follow strict rules of declension. Modern scholars have often opposed the Alexandrian doctrine of analogy to the Pergamene doctrine of ‘anomaly’, which favoured spoken usage to determine debated forms. Detlev Fehling and David Blank, however, have shown that this strong opposition never really existed and it is mostly due to Varro. More correctly, ancient grammarians identified inflectional rules as well as forms derived from spoken usage or otherwise aberrant forms—however, respect for spoken usage in the latter case was not labelled ‘anomaly’, which was never a technical term of ancient grammar. Rather, and especially in the Roman period, grammarians used the term ‘pathology’ to account for and explain irregular forms. (shrink)

The detrimental effect of the public recital on the quality of epic production in the first century is a stock theme both in ancient and in modern literary criticism. While previous studies on the epic recital emphasize its negative effects, or aim at its reconstruction as social reality, I focus on its conflicting representations by the ancients themselves and the lessons that we can learn from them. The voices of critics and defenders reveal anxieties about who controls the prestigious (...) high genre of epic and about the construction of gender and social status through epic's public performance. Critics of the recitatio such as Horace, Persius, Petronius and Juvenal represent it as an informal and popular event that panders to public taste and incurs infamy. These critics charge that the epic recital has an effeminizing effect both on the recitator and on his audience, a charge traditionally advanced against orators and actors. Because the epic recital in Rome lacks a performative context similar to the rhapsodic performances in Greece, its public image mirrors that of other public performances . The main point of divergence is the presence of the book, the symbol of permanent fame, which casts upon the recital the shadow of an evanescent entertainment. Defenders see the recital as instrumental to the maintenance of literature's value in society. This means that well into the first century there were those who felt nostalgia for the epic recital as a bulwark of male aristocratic values and who wanted to reclaim its prestige. Both Statius as a poet, who performed regularly at Domitian's court, and Suetonius, who acted as Hadrian's ab epistulis some twenty years after Statius' death, defend the waning reputation of the contemporary epic recital in an effort to reclaim it as a prestigious component of imperial literary culture. While critics unanimously negate the recital's role in the achievement of poetic fame in favor of the book, Suetonius chooses anecdotal evidence about the early performances by grammarians grammarians that show the important role of the recital in forging poetic fame. The emperor and the members of the new aristocracy whom Statius explicitly names as the target audience of his epic recitals have a stake in reclaiming for imperial culture an institution that went back to the second century B.C.E. and carried the prestige of an aristocratic event. (shrink)

There is a widespread practice of spelling the forms κεχρώσμεθα in Euripides' Medea 497 and ϕώζειν in Strattis, fr. 9 K.–A. with the long diphthong omega–iota, that is, κεχρώισμεθα or κεχρῴσμεθα and ϕώιζειν or ϕῴζειν. These spellings are not correct from the etymological point of view, but are recommended by ancient grammarians. In this note I identify the foundation on which these recommendations rest, and provide an assessment of its philological solidness.

A long-lasting and sometimes acrimonious debate over the correct vocative form of second-declension Latin words in -ius began more than 800 years ago. For the past century most classicists have considered the matter to be settled, and little discussion on the subject has taken place. Yet the century-old conclusions we now so unthinkingly accept are based on very little evidence and are internally inconsistent in some of their details. The past hundred years have provided us not only with more Latin (...) to work with, better tools for search and analysis, and a more complete knowledge of the history of the Latin language, but also with a new understanding and respect for the ancient grammarians and their views on the structure of their language. It is time to re-examine the ancient and modern views on the vocative of -ius words, to see whether any viable conclusions can be drawn and whether the ancient grammarians may have more to contribute than our predecessors believed. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:True Names: Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological WordplayPamela R. BleischJames J. O’Hara. True Names: Vergil and the Alexandrian Tradition of Etymological Wordplay. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. xvii 1 320 pp. Cloth, $44.50, £35.This monograph provides a study and catalogue of Vergilian poetic etymological wordplay, defined by O’Hara as “explicit reference or implicit allusion to the etymology of one of the words a poet (...) is using. A poet may simply explain or allude to the derivation of a word or may suggest further that the derivation of the name is appropriate because it corresponds to some essential feature of the thing named, or gives the true explanation (etymos logos) of the thing” (3). O’Hara’s monograph includes an introductory essay of 163 pages: in part 1 he surveys etymological thinking and wordplay before Vergil, particularly, but not exclusively, the Alexandrian poets; in part 2 he analyzes the form and style of Vergilian wordplay; and in part 3 he examines how etymologizing furthers Vergil’s poetic goals, focusing on some of the prevailing imagery and themes of the Aeneid. The main portion of the monograph is a heavily annotated catalogue which presents and discusses all examples of etymological wordplay that O’Hara or any other scholar has found in Vergil’s Aeneid, Eclogues, and Georgics.O’Hara’s catalogue of Vergilian etymological wordplay is a gold mine of information and a welcome contribution to Vergilian studies. Bartelink’s Etymologisering bij Vergilius, published more than thirty years ago and never translated from the Dutch, had made Vergilian etymology a largely inaccessible topic. Organized by category and lacking indices locorum and verborum, Bartelink’s work did not readily lend itself to consultation. O’Hara’s monograph, with running commentary format, indexes, and cross-references, is easy to use. His catalogue is heavily annotated: each entry includes a quotation of the Vergilian etymologizing passage, discussion of the wordplay, passages from ancient grammarians or poets that explicitly mention the derivation, passages from elsewhere in Vergil or other poets which allude to the same or similar etymologies, [End Page 300] and, finally, up-to-date bibliographical references. As for dubious examples of etymologies, O’Hara tends to be much more inclusive and open-minded than Bartelink: “I place them in the catalogue, with question marks and often with discussion of the problem, in part because what looks implausible to me may look more plausible to another” (112 n. 367). He does not restrict his study to poetic etymology alone but includes “a slightly broader range of wordplay, both to be more useful and because strenuous efforts to distinguish or separate etymological wordplay from ‘related phenomena,’ are not worthwhile, and probably not true to the practice of the poets” (3). Thus he even includes anagrams (e.g., amor/Roma at Aeneid 4.347) in his catalogue, although he expresses reasonable doubts about their value as etymologies. The catalogue contains a wealth of material not found in Bartelink; see, for example, the discussion of Dictamnum, of mater Acidalia, and the section on wandering Dido and the planets. (This last is a must-read, and, to my mind, provides compelling evidence for Pöschl’s identification of Dido with the moon in Iopas’ song [Art of Vergil, Ann Arbor, 1966: 151–54]; and cf. Brown, HSCP 1989, 322–23).The monograph takes a descriptive rather than analytical approach and refrains from engaging in the debate over the determinacy or indeterminacy of meaning in Vergilian poetry; it may prove more accessible and timeless as a result. O’Hara is a reader’s writer: clear, concise, and helpful; his bibliography demonstrates his characteristic thorough research. The University of Michigan Press has done a beautiful job formatting a text fraught with pitfalls: extensive quotations in Latin and Greek featuring italics, boldface, and dotted underlining; plenteous and lengthy footnotes featuring all of the above. The very few errors I found did not detract from the authority or accessibility of the book; the volume does credit to both press and author.O’Hara’s introductory essay is intended as a preliminary to the catalogue, rather than as a full discussion of... (shrink)

Sarah Fielding (1710-1768), the younger sister of Henry Fielding, and the close friend of his literary rival Samuel Richardson, was one of the very few English women to master ancient languages like Latin and Greek. With the help of Shaftesbury's nephew, James Harris, a distinguished writer, scholar and grammarian, she embarked on the ambitious project of translating Xenophon's Memorabilia and the Apology of Socrates from the Greek. This work, titled Memoirs of Socrates, with the Defence of Socrates before his (...) Judges, was finally released in 1762. She proved a discreet editor and a talented Hellenist, whose elegant style garnered praise from Tobias Smollett in his Critical Review. This superb translation is re-published in its entirety for the first time since the 18th century"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Allegorical interpretation of the ancient Greek myths began not with the grammarians, but with the philosophers. As speculative thought developed, there grew up also the belief that in mystical and symbolic terms the ancient poets had expressed profound truths which were difficult to define in scientifically exact language. Assuming that the myth-makers were concerned to edify and to instruct, the philosophers found in apparent immoralities and impieties a warning that both in offensive and in inoffensive passages one (...) must look beneath the surface for the true significance of the tales. Thus allegory was originally positive, not negative, in its aim; its purpose was not so much to defend the poetic traditions against charges of immorality as to make fully explicit the wealth of doctrine which ex hypothesi the myths contained. Those who wrote to defend the poets could, if they chose, make some use of the results of the allegorical method; passages to which exception had been taken could be shown by allegorical treatment to be quite consistent with the view that the poets were wise and divinely inspired. But the first dim beginnings of allegory can be traced to another and a weightier motive—namely, the desire of speculative thinkers to appropriate for their own use some at least of the mythical traditions. Nor is there any reason to doubt that the same motive was the main driving force in the later history of allegorical interpretation. Objectionable passages were, indeed, regarded as among the richest in deeper meaning; but the leading allegorists applied their method to offensive and inoffensive passages alike. (shrink)

To those who know little about the Middle Ages, the copying of manuscripts of “the ancients” (whether classical, such as the Roman poet Horace, or Christian, such as Saints Jerome or Augustine) often seems either a laudable act of preserving the past or an unfortunate fixation on repeating the words of others rather than penning new and original compositions. Even scholars of the Middle Ages appear sometimes more interested in new types of works such as fabliaux or courtly romances written (...) in the vernacular; when they study the practice of copying, they often concentrate on identifying prototypes or legacies. Finding old wine in old bottles has been a fairly constant theme in medieval studies; sometimes, we must admit, medievalists have just thrown out the old bottles and moved on to something completely new. In this context, it may seem strange to find a work about medieval Latin manuscript commentaries titled “The Birth of the Author,” responding to Roland Barthes's well-known essay “The Death of the Author,” published in 1984 and cited repeatedly since. What can it mean to see new, self-conscious awareness of the act of personal creation in works that are copies by scribes of other works that themselves comment on yet earlier works, often of a certain age or canonicity? Yet in this intelligent, engaging, and beautifully produced book, art historian Jeffrey Hamburger not only shows how those who wrote commentaries came to suggest that anyone who composes a work (even the scribe who copies it) could be considered a creator of meaning but also that the images in commentaries themselves sometimes make statements—indeed, statements more radical than those in the text—about the author of the work being illustrated. Long known as one of the relatively rare historians of medieval art equipped with a wide knowledge of theology and hence of how images respond to and reflect text, Hamburger here shows himself possessed of a shrewd eye for the image itself. He studies illuminated prefaces to, among other texts, the prose and poetic works of Horace as used in the medieval classroom, copies of the major biblical commentary of the High Middle Ages, the Glossa ordinaria, and Rupert of Deutz's erotically charged commentary on the Song of Songs. Changing the lens through which scholars have usually viewed such texts, Hamburger argues that images of authors of commentaries sometimes go beyond anything in the text to assert the authority not only of the author of the text commented on and of the commentator but occasionally even of the scribe.The Birth of the Author is a work of complicated analysis, and its full power demands close attention. Understanding how images construct claims that go beyond the text involves a good deal of careful looking. Hamburger is a patient and clear guide, but the reader must be prepared to flip back and forth between the magnificent colored images the publisher provides and to follow what are often painstaking arguments from comparison of small visual differences or puzzling identifications of seemingly strange details. The result of doing so is, however, to gain not only the reward of Hamburger's ingenious conclusions but also a lesson in how to look. For example, in a discussion of Gilbert Universalis's commentary on the Lamentations of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah, Hamburger shows how Gilbert not only identifies Jeremiah as a “divine rhetorician” but also assimilates his own act of authorship to Jeremiah's prophetic speech. In the only extant copy of Gilbert's text that has a program of illustrations, the artist constructs both Jeremiah's speech and Gilbert's interpretation as similar acts of creation by framing both authors in parallel architectural images that evoke the Old Testament temple and a Christian church. Or to give a final example of Hamburger's interpretive reach: the book concludes not with yet another medieval preface but with an example of the far less usual manuscript epilogue. Here not only commentator, scribe, and illustrator but even the medieval reader construct themselves. Reception becomes interpretation, illustration becomes construction. In a commentary by the Carolingian figure Sedulius Scotus (fl. 840–60) on the Roman grammarian Donatus (mid-fourth century), the illustrator depicts Donatus as author and scribe (thus assimilating author into copier and vice versa). On the same folio, a later medieval reader constructs himself as reader/author in a charming marginal doodle that seems to entrap Donatus in a sort of hangman's noose. Thus, a bit wryly perhaps, Hamburger—himself teacher, commentator, and consummate scholar—seems to suggest that even frustrated students can construct themselves as interpreters and, yes, authors. Behind the seeming repetition and backward glance of the images in medieval commentaries lies radical and forward-looking self-awareness of the acts of authoring, interpreting, reading, and imagining. In Hamburger's analysis, the most seemingly conventional of medieval genres—the preface to commentaries on the texts of others—is a locus of the birth in illustration of the self-conscious and self-expressive author and reader. (shrink)

Is Pāṇini’s grammar prescriptive or descriptive, or perhaps both at the same time? The answer determines, among many other things, how we should render vā and vibhāṣā in his optional rules. If the grammar is prescriptive, these terms can mean “preferably” and “marginally”. If it is purely descriptive, then only “frequently” and “rarely” are appropriate translations. In Pāṇini as a Variationist (henceforth PV )I suggested that both translations are equally valid, on the grounds that the Aṣṭādhyāyī is at the same (...) time a faithful record of the usage of a community of śiṣṭas, and part of a project to canonize that usage as correct, meant to be binding on all users of the language. Devasthali (1983), however, objected that the idea of “better” or “worse” usage is “foreign to the ancient Sanskrit grammatical works and grammarians”, because they do not deal with incorrect apaśabdas, only with sādhusabdas – the correct words of the divine language. (shrink)

In 1931 eminent chemist Fritz Paneth maintained that the modern notion of “element” is closely related to (and as “metaphysical” as) the concept of element used by the ancients (e.g., Aristotle). On that basis, the element chlorine (properly so-called) is not the elementary substance dichlorine, but rather chlorine as it is in carbon tetrachloride. The fact that pure chemicals are called “substances” in English (and closely related words are so used in other European languages) derives from philosophical compromises made by (...) grammarians in the late Roman Empire (particularly Priscian [fl. ~520 CE]). When the main features of the constitution of isotopes became clear in the first half of the twentieth century, the formal (IUPAC) definition of a “chemical element” was changed. The features that are “essential” to being an element had previously been “transcendental” (“beyond the sphere of consciousness”) but, by the mid-twentieth century the defining characteristics of elements, as such, had come to be understood in detail. This amounts to a shift in a “horizon of invisibility” brought about by progress in chemistry and related sciences. Similarly, chemical insight is relevant to currently-open philosophical problems, such as the status of “the bundle theory” of the coherence of properties in concrete individuals. (shrink)

In 1931 eminent chemist Fritz Paneth maintained that the modern notion of “element” is closely related to (and as “metaphysical” as) the concept of element used by the ancients (e.g., Aristotle). On that basis, the element chlorine (properly so-called) is not the elementary substance dichlorine, but rather chlorine as it is in carbon tetrachloride. The fact that pure chemicals are called “substances” in English (and closely related words are so used in other European languages) derives from philosophical compromises made by (...) grammarians in the late Roman Empire (particularly Priscian [fl. ~520 CE]). When the main features of the constitution of isotopes became clear in the first half of the twentieth century, the formal (IUPAC) definition of a “chemical element” was changed. The features that are “essential” to being an element had previously been “transcendental” (“beyond the sphere of consciousness”) but, by the mid-twentieth century the defining characteristics of elements, as such, had come to be understood in detail. This amounts to a shift in a “horizon of invisibility” brought about by progress in chemistry and related sciences. Similarly, chemical insight is relevant to currently-open philosophical problems, such as the status of “the bundle theory” of the coherence of properties in concrete individuals. (shrink)

The Sanskrit term most frequently rendered in English as “truth” is satya, which is derived from a form of the verb “to be” (as). This can be traced etymologically back to the ancient Indo‐European copula, which is preserved also in Greek eirni, Latin esse, English is, and German Sein. The relationship between truth and being in Sanskrit is not just a discovery of modern linguistic science: Sanskrit grammarians, though not engaged in Indo‐European historical linguistics, were always sensitive to (...) the derivational principles of their own language, and they explain the term “satya” as being formed by the application of the suffix ya to sat, the present participle of the verb “to be.” Satya, given a strong interpretation of the semantical influence of the derivational suffix, is therefore literally “what stands in relation to, has affinity with, being.” Read more weakly, it is simply “what has being.”. (shrink)

Most of the commentaries on Greek authors which circulated in the towns of Egypt during the late Ptolemaic and early Imperial periods ignored the critical and colometrical problems which had engaged the attention of the great Alexandrian grammarians. A few, however, based themselves on texts equipped with signs, included the signs in their lemmata and offered explanations. Such commentaries must be the source of the scattered references to signs in the older marginal scholia in Byzantine manuscripts of Homer, Hesiod, (...) Pindar and the Attic dramatists. The only Byzantine manuscript to transmit a pagan text still equipped with a large number and a variety of signs, namely cod. Venice, Bibl. Marc. gr. 454, is also the only one to transmit scholia with lemmata retaining prefixed signs. Just as texts and scholium-lemmata lost their signs in the course of transmission, so too did references to signs within scholia either disappear or become garbled. At best, a statement about the reasons for affixing a sign would turn into one about the content or style of the verse in question. The few mentions made of the great Alexandrians give no cause for thinking that we ever have a verbatim quotation of an πόμνημα written by one of them in order to explain his own signs. Time and again it is demonstrable that an explanation of a sign's presence against a particular verse goes back to some writer like Aristonicus. What survives of the ancient discussion of Latin literature is exiguous in comparison with the Greek material. (shrink)

This paper aims at an analytical explanation of the distinctive nature of music, as it has been formulated in perhaps one of the world's very first works on the subject, namely the ‘Sangeet Ratnakar’ of Pandit Sarangadeva, a 13th century musicologist of India. He, in the first chapter of the work defines music ('sangeet' in Sanskrit and Hindi) as a composite of singing or 'Gita', instrumental music or 'vadan' and dancing or ‘nrittam’. In addition, he also holds singing to be (...) the most important component of music. These two ideas are not only unquestionably acceptable , as the analysis in the paper will show, but give to Indian music , in its difference from western music, its distinctively spiritual character, making it a path to liberation or Moksha (Muktidayakam na tu ranjakam). Sarangadeva's reason, here, is not rational but empirico-inductive. It is that mainly by virtue of its 'gitam’ (singing component), which, like the Yoga system of exercise, needing only one's body as its instrument, music too needing only one’s voice is as self-sufficient and autonomous as the ultimate Reality itself (Swayamev Rajate). In the hierarchy (a distinctively ancient Indian insistence) of arts, singing is the highest and unique because in spite of being heard by the auditory sense, it affects our 'reflective sensibility' and transports us to the virtual world of melodic and rhythmic forms. Forms, as against their particular illustrations, are abstract universals. Ultimate Reality is also a Form-all comprehensive and internally harmonious. However, pure Form, whether melodic or religious or even rational like that of triangularity, is almost impossible to concentrate on. Realizing this practical difficulty, Indian scriptures and the world's first Grammarian-linguist, Acharya Panini, framed a composite sound as the manifestation of the ultimate musical Form. This purely formal-because devoid of all meaning, sound is that of 'om', spelt, in Sanskrit as a conjunction (sandhi) of 'a'+'u'+'m'. For Indian musicologists and musicians, ‘om’ is the perfect manifestation of the Sound-God or ‘Nada-Brahman’ because, 1. Its composite nature resembles God, as a harmony of 'sat', 'chit', and 'ananda'; and 2. The composite sound is self-existent as its all three components-two vowels, i.e. ‘a’, ‘u’, and one consonant i.e. ‘m’, can be and are pronounced just as they originally are, -un-elongated and un-vitiated and therefore pure. This is the reason why every recital of Indian classical vocal music is begun with an elaborate rendering of 'om' as an invocation to Sound-God or ‘Nada-Brahman’. Scholarly and authentic, this ancient Indian approach to music, is undoubtedly the earliest and original. My observation is that its main contentions like Sharang Dev’s insistence that of the three components of music, ‘gitam’ or singing is the highest, have only been translated and never argued for. In this presentation my good intention is to provide much needed rational support for making these key statements in this unparalleled Indian text, indubitable and unquestionable. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 33.2 (2000) 116-136 [Access article in PDF] Being, Time, and Definition: Toward a Semiotics of Figural Rhetoric Carol Poster For if History in the transferred sense of particular books called "histories," is rather apt to be false: nothing but History in the wider and higher sense will ever lead us to the truth. The Future is unknown and unknowable. The Present is turning to Past even (...) as we are trying to know it. Only the Past itself abides our knowledge. --George Saintsbury, A Letter BookDefining and classifying figures of speech and thought have been among the more important tasks of rhetoricians and grammarians for more than two millennia. The inventional focus, however, of much modern rhetorical theory has tended to relegate figuration either, on the one hand, to the domains of literary criticism or linguistics (the heirs of ancient grammar) or, on the other hand, to an ancillary position. The concomitant marginalization of the study of figures has had a significant effect upon contemporary scholarship in historical rhetoric. Many of the seminal scholarly works on the history of rhetoric have denigrated or minimized the importance of figural rhetoric. As Brian Vickers (1990, 294-95) has mentioned, George Kennedy and numerous other historians of rhetoric (e.g., Clarke 1996, 34) tend to condemn the teaching of figural rhetoric as dreary, tedious, and otiose. Often, the very periods themselves in which the study of the figures was pursued most vigorously and extensively are omitted from or condemned by modern scholarly discussion. As Marjorie Curry Woods has pointed out (1995, 73-78), biases against the medieval period, especially as found in Charles Sears Baldwin (1928) and Kennedy (1963, 1980) have in many ways defined the contours of our discipline, especially our attitudes toward the study of figures and tropes. Late antiquity and the Middle Ages, the periods of "decline" so deplored by Baldwin, Vickers, Kennedy, and others, were those in which figural rhetoric flourished, and both the sheer [End Page 116] volume of extant figural treatises and the continuity of figural rhetoric from the Hellenistic period through such contemporary semipopular books as Arthur Quinn's Figures of Speech: 60 Ways to Turn a Phrase (1982) and William Espy's The Garden of Eloquence: A Rhetorical Bestiary (1983) demand attention from the historical scholar. Along with the trivialization of figures in contemporary rhetoric has come a drastic oversimplification of the semiotics of figural terminology, which, in turn, contributes to the trivialization of many recent accounts of figures. To recover a more complex understanding of the semiotics of figural terms, we must start with a historical understanding of figuration, because rhetorical terms are encased in numerous historical strata that determine our understandings of them. 1 As Richard Rorty (1984, 49-75) argues concerning the historiography of philosophy, rational and historical reconstruction are mutually interdependent. A brief history of figural rhetoric From antiquity through the present, lists of figures have either occupied substantial sections of general treatises on rhetoric or grammar or have been the subject of specifically figural handbooks. Use of what we might term highly figured speech appears to predate the development of theoretical models for analysis of figures by many centuries. The Homeric epics, which were to provide the standard examples of rhetorical figures for many subsequent centuries, use patterns of speech later to be named and classified as rhetorical figures, but neither figural terminology nor self-conscious reflection upon figures qua figures appears in the epics. Similarly, although Gorgias was renowned for his use of the "Gorgianic" figures that later took his name, there is no evidence that he attempted systematic catologuing or development of specialized terminology for the figures. The testimonia describing his use of poetic words and figures (DK82a1, DK82a2, DK82a4, DK82a32--translated in Sprague 1972) do not attribute to him any invention of technical terminology.The question of invention of specific terminology for rhetorical figures is part of a more general historical question of the development of rhetoric as a self-conscious field. As Thomas Cole (1991) and Edward Schiappa (1991) have pointed out, the first... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Music and Structure in Roman ComedyTimothy J. MooreWell over a century ago, Friedrich Ritschl and Theodor Bergk independently reached the same conclusion regarding the markings of DV and C in some of the manuscripts of Plautus: the initials stand for diverbium and canticum; and their association, respectively, with scenes in iambic senarii and scenes in other meters implies that in Roman comedy passages in iambic senarii were unaccompanied, whereas (...) passages in all other meters were cantica, accompanied by the tibiae (Ritschl 1871–72, Bergk 1872).1 Ritschl’s and Bergk’s conclusions provide the best explanation not only of the rubrics in the manuscripts, but also of descriptions of performance in the grammarians and other ancient authors, and several allusions to the tibicen in the plays of Plautus. It is therefore not surprising that while there have been a few dissenters, most scholars have agreed with Ritschl’s and Bergk’s basic distinction between iambic senarii and other meters based on accompaniment.2 The implications of that distinction for the structure of Roman comedy, however, have remained unappreciated.Not that meter has been ignored by those proposing structural rules for Roman comedy. Soon after Ritschl and Bergk presented their [End Page 245] discoveries, Andreas Spengel (1877) argued that arrangement of lyric passages, accompanied stichic verse, and iambic senarii contributed to a five-act structure in all the plays of Plautus. Much more recently, Adolf Primmer has contended that all Roman comedies can be divided into three or more acts comprised of combinations of accompanied and unaccompanied meters (1984, 16–20). Although both Spengel and Primmer offer some valuable insights into the metrical arrangement of the plays, two factors vitiate their theories. First, in their determination to find universal structural principles, both scholars try to force the metrical patterns of many plays into procrustean schemata, ignoring passages which do not fit the molds they have created.Second, both scholars assume regular division of the plays of Roman comedy into acts divided by musical interludes. There is indeed one passage where a musical interlude certainly occurred (Pseud. 573a; see below), and in other passages the exit and reentrance of a character would make such an interlude likely (Cistell. 630, Trin. 601). Spengel, Primmer, and others who have assumed regular musical interludes have postulated that these occurred regularly when the text suggests that the stage was empty, and temporal verisimilitude would demand that an interval should pass before one of the characters reenters.3 Given the freedom with which Plautus and Terence apparently ignore the constraints of temporal verisimilitude even when the stage is not left empty, however, any attempt to prove the existence of interludes based on how much time must pass between events on stage divided by an empty stage is doomed to failure; and as Conrad, Questa and others have shown, there is much evidence to suggest that with a very few exceptions Roman comedies were performed continuously, without act breaks.4In her study of Plautus’ polymetric cantica Helen Hull Law approaches musical structure from another perspective. She observes that a great number of Plautus’ plays feature regular patterns of iambic senarii, followed by polymetric cantica, followed by trochaic septenarii; [End Page 246] and that on many occasions polymetric cantica occur at the beginning of new units of action (1922, 103–5). Law’s observations are invaluable for an appreciation of the musical structure of Plautus’ plays; nevertheless, they are limited by her emphasis on the polymetric cantica.It is not at all clear how the polymetric cantica were performed. Most scholars have assumed that polymetric passages were sung, whereas the performance of stichic verse other than iambic senarii was either “melodramatic,” with actors speaking independently of the accompaniment, or “recitative,” in which actors chanted in time with the tibiae.5 There is, however, no evidence that the polymetric cantica were “sung” in our sense of the word, or that the method in which the polymetrics were performed differed from the performance of other passages labeled cantica in the manuscripts.6 The most important musical distinction therefore appears to have been not that between the polymetric cantica and stichic meters, but rather that between unaccompanied iambic senarii... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:M. Tullius Cicero: The Fragmentary SpeechesJohn NicholsonJane W. Crawford. M. Tullius Cicero: The Fragmentary Speeches. An edition with commentary. 2d ed. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994. x + 350 pp. Cloth, $39.95; paper, $24.95. (American Classical Studies 33)Here we have a manifestation of the paradox that scholarship thrives on ignorance. Scanty evidence begets profuse speculation and reconstruction, and often the less we know about something, the more we write (...) about it. Hence flows this elaborate presentation of Cicero’s fragmentary speeches, which complements the author’s previous book in the same vein, M. Tullius Cicero: The Lost and Unpublished Orations(Hypomnemata 80, Göttingen 1984). With great industry Crawford presents us 350 pages of intense erudition devoted to the explication of about 220 fragments (most rather short) from sixteen otherwise lost but identifiable Ciceronian orations; this second edition adds a brief appendix of another thirty-one fragmenta incertae sedis.But Crawford’s sprawling edition of these remnants is by no means in vain. They have been unduly neglected, and deserve to be more widely appreciated. If nothing else they remind us of how much we have lost from antiquity, even of an author such as Cicero from whom so much else has survived. This rich inheritance is nevertheless only a fraction of the original legacy, and we must remember that there are many pieces missing from the puzzle, the loss of which distorts the overall picture. This new edition represents a dedicated effort to fill in some of the neglected pieces not just from along the edges, but also from the vital center, to reconstruct their original context, and thereby to sharpen the focus of the whole. The fact that most of the speeches under view in this study date to the 60s B.C., a period not fully represented in the extant Ciceronian letters, [End Page 148]makes them all the more important as valuable evidence in the proper understanding of Cicero’s political and forensic career at its height.The fragments here range in length from single isolated words to several lines; most average one or two lines, though there are about a dozen longer fragments between five and nine lines each. Not included in this edition are orations such as Pro Scauroand Pro Tulliowhich, though incomplete, are considered essentially extant. Some of the fragments come from minor orations about which we know very little (five speeches are represented by a single fragment), while others survive in large clusters from important speeches which were well known in antiquity and whose loss to modern readers must be regretted. There are, for example, twenty-seven fragments from Cicero’s electoral oration In Toga Candida(all preserved by Asconius), thirty-three from the invective In P. Clodium et Curionem,and twenty-five from the speech De Aere Alieno Milonis(preserved in the Bobbio scholia). But the most extensively preserved are the twin defense speeches Pro C. Cornelio,together represented by eighty fragments (well over a third from Asconius) whose discussion consumes nearly a quarter of Crawford’s book. Over all, Asconius, Quintilian, and the Bobbio scholiast provide the most numerous and significant fragments, augmented by their encasing commentary which provides valuable context and discussion. Less important are the stray words and phrases picked out by some three dozen others, mostly grammarians with narrow linguistic purposes, working as late as the sixth century a.d.Crawford’s modus operandifor making sense of these fragments is logical and thorough. For each of the sixteen orations, arranged here in chronological order, she first gives a preliminary introduction rehearsing what we know of the historical facts about the case and summarizing the scholarship on the issues which surround it. Next come the ancient testimonia for each speech, both Latin and Greek, and then the fragments themselves (along with textual apparatus) arranged in their probable correct order. She does not offer translations. Finally, each fragment receives a comprehensive commentary addressing matters of date, prosopography, history, politics and law, rhetoric, style, and diction (including textual questions). Where the fragments are extensive enough, there is also a good attempt to reconstruct the overall structure and argument of the speech. At... (shrink)

This work is the latest contribution to the Clarendon Later Ancient Philosophers series edited by Jonathan Barnes and A. A. Long. As with the earlier volumes (John Dillon's Alcinous, The Handbook of Platonism , R. J. Hankinson's Galen, On the Therapeutic Method Books I and II, Richard Bett's Sextus Empiricus, Against the Ethicists, and D. L. Blank's Sextus Empiricus, Against the Grammarians), D(obbin) provides an introduction, an English translation, and a critical commentary predominantly focused on the philosophical content (...) of the text of an author from the period ranging from the first century BC to the fifth century AD. A bibliography of a dozen earlier editions of E(pictetus), a painstaking bibliography of secondary literature, an index nominum, a generous index locorum, and a brief subject index are also included. Overall this edition maintains the high standards characteristic of the CLAP series. (shrink)

Are you genuine? Or merely an actor? A representative? Or that which is represented? In the end, perhaps you are merely a copy of an actor. Second question of conscience.In the beginning was the word. And the word represented the world that was to come. The ancient Indian Grammarian Panini thickened the plot with his aphorism that the word represents its own form. Representation became so intimate and reflexive a relationship that the word and the world could hardly be (...) distinguished. Not only did uttering “I promise” amount to promising; in some cultures saying “I love you” or “I leave you” was deemed constitutive of actually loving or leaving. People could not remember persons and situations... (shrink)

This work is the latest contribution to the Clarendon Later Ancient Philosophers series edited by Jonathan Barnes and A. A. Long. As with the earlier volumes (John Dillon's Alcinous, The Handbook of Platonism , R. J. Hankinson's Galen, On the Therapeutic Method Books I and II, Richard Bett's Sextus Empiricus, Against the Ethicists , and D. L. Blank's Sextus Empiricus, Against the Grammarians ), D(obbin) provides an introduction, an English translation, and a critical commentary predominantly focused on the (...) philosophical content of the text of an author from the period ranging from the first century BC to the fifth century AD. A bibliography of a dozen earlier editions of E(pictetus), a painstaking bibliography of secondary literature, an index nominum, a generous index locorum, and a brief subject index are also included. Overall this edition maintains the high standards characteristic of the CLAP series. (shrink)

This article aims to shed fresh light on the meaning of the term togata. It conducts an analysis of the term as it appeared in ancient sources,1 investigating in particular both how and why ancient authors across several periods focussed their attention on the togata. The paper will also distinguish between the attestation of the term togata in ancient writers, who are likely to have actually watched these theatrical performances in person and known more directly what they (...) were talking about, and the usage of the term by later grammarians, who would have had no opportunity to watch such performances. These later authors, rather, were simply guessing what kind of theatrical representation could have been performed onstage and did so by adopting obvious differences in terminology. (shrink)

THERE WAS A TIME, EONS AGO, when philosophy as the love of wisdom could lay claim to all knowledge. Aristotle’s corpus of writings covered all the main areas of inquiry then known, including an original organon on syllogistic logic and scientific method. But this hegemony over knowledge was soon challenged by separatist disciplines forming their own research strategies. As early as the third century B.C.E., following the deaths of Alexander and Aristotle, the ruling Ptolemies created in Alexandria two centers of (...) scientific research, the Library and the Museum, rivaling the Academy and Lyceum of Athens. In those state-supported institutions specialized research by grammarians, mathematicians, astronomers, physicists, biologists, and physiologists replaced the more speculative syntheses of knowledge of the previous Hellenic period. The resident scholars and those affiliated by correspondence or as legatees were the originators of axiomatic geometry and what we now refer to as protoscience: for example, Euclid, Herophilus, Erasistratus, Apollonius, Heraclides, Hipparchus, and Aristarchus. Each of the major founders of modern classical science acknowledged their indebtedness to these extraordinary ancient Greeks who initiated the scientific exploration of the universe. (shrink)

Este trabalho pretende apontar algumas considerações sobre o tratado Contra os gramáticos, de Sexto Empírico. A análise dessa obra vem sendo feita com algumas questões norteadoras – e, reconhecidamente, temerosas. Duas delas se entrelaçam ao indagarem pela possibilidade de se entrever alguma perspectiva de linguagem preservada por Sexto Empírico; e, em caso afirmativo, se ela poderia ser considerada contemporaneamente pragmática ou representacionista. Nessa etapa da pesquisa, é nosso objetivo enfatizar o movimento espiralado que o texto de Sexto Empírico impõe a (...) seus leitores, em que se pode flagrar (parece) um movimento oscilante no que diz respeito às concepções de linguagem ali presentes. (shrink)

A comparative investigation in the metaphysics of material objects and persons in ancient philosophy, this book provides radically new insights into key themes and areas of ancient thought by drawing on Greek and Buddhist philosophies. Ugo Zilioli explicates the neglected tradition of philosophers who in different ways made material objects either redundant or ontologically dispensable in the ancient world. At the same time, while eliminating objects from the material apparatus of the world, some of those philosophers conceived (...) of selves and persons as the only truly existing items. Chapters cover concepts such as nihilism, elusive objects and the emergence of the self, demonstrating how the philosophy of major thinkers Protogoras, Vasubandhu, Gorgias, Nagarjuna, Democritus, Pyrrho, Epicurus and the Cyrenaics advance our understanding of eliminativism. Zilioli's historical and philosophical reconstruction challenges traditional readings of key moments and figures in the history of thought, both Eastern and Western, as well as providing conceptual tools that are of interest not only to historians of philosophy but also to contemporary metaphysicians. (shrink)

Jaegwon Kim has argued (Kim 2006a) that the two key issues for emergentism are to give a positive characterization of the emergence relation and to explain the possibility of downward causation. This paper proposes an account of emergence which provides new answers to these two key issues. It is argued that an appropriate emergence relation is characterized by a notion of ‘transformation’, and that the real key issue for emergentism is located elsewhere than the places Kim identifies. The paper builds (...) on Victor Caston’s important work on ancient philosophy of mind (Caston 1997, 2001), but appeals to sources he has not considered. (shrink)