En 1988, la fouille sous‑marine du port de Thasos permettait l’extraction d’un imposant carreau de marbre, en même temps que d’autres blocs entassés en avant de la jetée antique. En 2017, un nouvel examen de la pierre, qui appartenait originellement à l’élévation d’un édifice de l’agora toute proche, a révélé une inscription rendue très difficilement lisible par un séjour prolongé dans l’eau de mer. Le Peuple des Thasiens y honorait son patron, Caius Octavius, proconsul de Macédoine en 60‑59 av. J.‑C.

Trois incriptions trouvées au cours de la récente fouille sous-marine franco-grecque du port antique de Thasos sont publiées ici : il s'agit de bases de statues en l'honneur d'un philosophe, d'un évergète et d'un patron de la cité ; ce dernier appartient à la famille du grand Pompée.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Something to do with Demeter:Ritual and Performance in Aristophanes' Women at the ThesmophoriaAngeliki TzanetouLike his character the Kinsman, Aristophanes invades Athenian women's religious space. He puts onstage for the whole city a religious festival restricted to women. He suggests that women use this occasion to drink and plot against men, and he portrays them as carrying on adulterous affairs and duping their husbands. As a result of this negative (...) portrayal of women, scholars have concluded that the play undermines women's position in the festival and in the city. Elizabeth Bobrick (1997), for example, argues that the play misrepresents women's experience in ritual. Lauren Taaffe (1993) insists the play shows that women are only men in disguise, that it is not really about women at all but rather uses them to highlight male concerns. And Angus Bowie (1993, 227) concludes that in this play Aristophanes demonstrates that comedy, not tragedy, has the right to "give an accurate and fulsome picture of female villainy."On the face of it, Women at the Thesmophoria satirizes women's real ritual experience and does not respectfully depict the Thesmophoria-a very important festival celebrated throughout Greece, which promoted agricultural and human fertility. And yet, despite the Kinsman's invasion and his mockery of women, the role of women in ritual is not really undercut in this play. The female characters who inhabit the comic stage and protest their portrayal in drama do not aim to redefine their social roles as wives and mothers. Instead, they use the authority of their roles to mount a successful attack against Euripides because he undermines these functions. In fact, the play acknowledges and validates women's contribution to the fertility of the polis in two different ways.After the Kinsman is unmasked and taken captive by the women, four different strategies for rescuing him are staged. After all these strategies, derived from plays by Euripides, fail, a fifth strategy succeeds. As scholars have noted, the Kinsman's captivity and rescue parallel the founding myth of the Thesmophoria festival, the story of Persephone's [End Page 329] abduction and imprisonment by Hades and her rescue by her mother Demeter.1 My reading of Women at the Thesmophoria builds on this analysis by demonstrating how each of the Euripidean parodies moves closer to the myth of Demeter and Persephone. Moreover, with each of the parodies the actors become increasingly feminized. In the final scene of the play every character onstage but one is wearing female dress. Ironically, structurally and theatrically, Aristophanes' play celebrates women's power, as it is demonstrated in Demeter's rescue of her daughter and the rebirth of human and agricultural fertility.Moreover, the play affirms the centrality of women to the fertility of Athenian drama. Earlier studies have seen Women at the Thesmophoria as a competition between Euripides and Aristophanes and between tragedy and comedy (e.g., Hubbard 1991, Henderson 1996, Zeitlin 1996b, Gibert 1999-2000). The play's movement from male to female, especially in the arrangement of the parodies, is also a move from Dionysus to Demeter. The captivity/rescue plot is associated with not only Demeter and Persephone but also Dionysus, the presiding deity of Athenian theater. The stories of Dionysus' captivity and rescue are different, however; in these the god rescues himself and punishes his captors (e.g., Pentheus and Lycurgus). As the rescue strategies in Women at the Thesmophoria [End Page 330] unfold, they move from the Dionysian pattern of self-liberation and punishment of opponents to a Demetrian one of cooperation and reconciliation. This is also a movement from tragedy to comedy, in which tragedy fails to liberate while comedy succeeds. The four parodies and the final scenario move from explicitly tragic situations, including the threat of human sacrifice, to love/marriage plots and finally to men dressing as women to deceive a parodically hypermasculine male, thereby achieving a return to normality. By the end of the play, male cross-dressing does not show how easy it is to become female, but how essential women are to comedy-not only to creating laughter but also to the basic function of comedy: affirming and celebrating the... (shrink)

According to the ‘conceivability argument’ [1] it’s conceivable that a conscious human being H may have a perfect physical duplicate H* who isn’t conscious, [2] whatever is conceivable is possible, therefore [3] H* may possibly exist. This paper argues that the conceivability argument can’t help in discussion of the ‘mind–body problem’ even if [2] is allowed to be true. This is not because [1] is false, but because we don’t and can’t know enough about the nature of the physical to (...) know whether or not [1] is true. This follows from ‘the silence of physics’—the fact that physics neither does nor can tell us about the intrinsic non-structural nature of the physical, and the consequences of this fact for any adequate account of the meaning of the word ‘physical’. (shrink)

Originally published in 1965. This is a textbook of modern deductive logic, designed for beginners but leading further into the heart of the subject than most other books of the kind. The fields covered are the Propositional Calculus, the more elementary parts of the Predicate Calculus, and Syllogistic Logic treated from a modern point of view. In each of the systems discussed the main emphases are on Decision Procedures and Axiomatisation, and the material is presented with as much formal rigour (...) as is compatible with clarity of exposition. The techniques used are not only described but given a theoretical justification. Proofs of Consistency, Completeness and Independence are set out in detail. The fundamental characteristics of the various systems studies, and their relations to each other are established by meta-logical proofs, which are used freely in all sections of the book. Exercises are appended to most of the chapters, and answers are provided. (shrink)

This is the long-awaited publication of a set of writings by the British philosopher, historian, and archaeologist R.G. Collingwood (1889-1943) on critical, anthropological, and cultural themes only hinted at in his previously available work. At the core are six essays on folktale and magic in which Collingwood applies the principles of his philosophy of history to problems in the long-term evolution of human society and culture. The volume opens with three substantial introductory essays by the editors, authorities in their various (...) fields, who provide their explanatory and contextual notes to guide the reader through the texts. The Philosophy of Enchantment highlights the broad range of Collingwood's intellectual engagements, their integration, and their relevance to current areas of debate in the fields of philosophy, cultural studies, social and literary history, and anthropology. (shrink)

In his target paper, John Welwood tells us that we have to beware of 'spiritual bypassing -- using spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep personal, emotional -- unfinished business--, to shore up a shaky sense of self, or to belittle basic needs, feelings, and develop-mental tasks, all in the name of enlightenment'. It's arguable that there is an equal danger of 'narrative bypassing' -- using the idea of one's life as a narrative to 'sidestep personal, emotional --unfinished business--, to shore (...) up a shaky sense of self -- all in the name of' a good life. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction.

2011 Reprint of 1943 Edition. Full facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. "St. Thomas Aquinas" is enriched by the author's unique ability to see the world through the saint's eyes, a fresh and animated view that shows us Aquinas as no other biography has. Acclaimed as the best book ever written on Aquinas by such outstanding Thomists as Jacques Maritain, Etienne Gilson, and Anton Pegis, this brilliant biography will completely capture the reader and leave him (...) desirous of reading Aquinas' own monumental work. (shrink)

David Hitchcock, in his recent “Informal Logic and the Concept of Argument”, defends a recursive definition of ‘argument.’ I present and discuss several problems that arise for his definition. I argue that refining Hitchcock’s definition in order to resolve these problems reveals a crucial, but minimally explicated, relation that was, at best, playing an obscured role in the original definition or, at worst, completely absent from the original definition.

An engaging argument about what experimental music can tell us about being human. -/- In Experimenting the Human, G Douglas Barrett argues that experimental music speaks to the contemporary posthuman, a condition in which science and technology decenter human agency amid the uneven temporality of postwar global capitalism. Time moves forward for some during this period, while it seems to stand still or even move backward for others. Some say we’re already posthuman, while others endure the extended consequences of never (...) having been considered fully human in the first place. Experimental music reflects on this state, Barrett contends, through its interdisciplinary involvements in postwar science, technology, and art movements. -/- Rather than pursuing the human’s beyond, experimental music addresses the social and technological conditions that support such a pursuit. Barrett locates this tendency of experimentalism throughout its historical entanglements with cybernetics, and in his intimate analysis of Alvin Lucier’s neurofeedback music, Pamela Z’s BodySynth performances, Nam June Paik’s musical robotics, Pauline Oliveros’s experiments with radio astronomy, and work by Laetitia Sonami, Yasunao Tone, and Jerry Hunt. Through a unique meeting of music studies, media theory, and art history, Experimenting the Human provides fresh insights into what it means to be human. (shrink)

The empirical investigations over the past fifteen years of evolutionary biologists and cognitive scientists have demonstrated the accessibility and power of the human brain. Whatever moral concepts used to acknowledge the normative appraisals of human conduct are now explained through neurological hardwiring. This essay outlines some of the main views of proponents, but especially Marc Hauser, and I argue that it does not render the end of morals. It does provide an opportunity to view the facts of how the brain (...) functions but this essay finds a large domain of valuing unable to be justified by these new scientific challenges. (shrink)