This is French version of John Stuart Mill's essay "On Nature" accompanied by a introduction by the translator and a lexicon of English words (used in moral philosophy) often wrongly translated into French and a short reflection on the two senses of the word "law" that often cause confusion.

Animal people are usually confident that Cartesianism is something of the past and that modern science clearly establishes that animals are sentient beings. But actually the scientific status of sentience is anything but firmly established. Not only is the subjective point of view absent from current science; it is precluded by construction from our fundamental realms of knowledge. Physics — the mother-science once we reject Cartesian dualism — is currently unable to include sentience in its account of the world. A (...) large part of the philosophy of mind describes a mindless mind, from which subjectivity — feeling, qualia — has been stripped, leaving only in place functional relations. This situation paves the way for discourses in which sentience seems to escape the realm of knowledge to fall into that of private beliefs, which individuals can choose as freely as their religion. This is a real obstacle to having animal sentience taken seriously; as such it has been largely underestimated. We believe it necessary for the movement for animals to understand that it cannot by-pass the “mind-matter” problem. We must not allow the existence and relevance of animal sentience to be denied in the name of science. One path we are contemplating is a “Declaration on Sentience” in which scientists and other thinkers would subscribe to the following assertion: sentience is an objective reality of the world and belongs to the realm of science. Despite the current intractability of the “mind-matter” problem, we do have something on our side. Although we cannot prove the reality of sentience, we can show it impossible for anyone to disbelieve in it — just as no one can really disbelieve in the reality of the physical world. We thus have enough reasons to reject the main ways in which sentience is denied or dismissed in many realms of current philosophy or science. These reasons are based on our own situation as sentient and deliberative beings. (shrink)

On the basis of recent advancements in both neuroscience and archaeology, we propose a plausible biocultural mechanism at the basis of cultural evolution. The proposed mechanism, which relies on the notions of cultural exaptation and cultural neural reuse, may account for the asynchronous, discontinuous, and patchy emergence of innovations around the globe. Cultural exaptation refers to the reuse of previously devised cultural features for new purposes. Cultural neural reuse refers to cases in which exposure to cultural practices induces the formation, (...) activation, and stabilization of new functional and/or structural brain networks during the individual lifespan. The invention of writing is interpreted as a case of cultural exaptation of previous devices to record information, in use since at least the Early Later Stone Age and the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic. The measurable changes in brain structure and functioning caused by learning to read are proposed as an exemplar case of cultural neural reuse. It is argued that repeated cycles of cultural exaptation, development of appropriate strategies of cultural transmission, and ensuing cultural neural reuse represent the fundamental mechanism that has regulated the cultural evolution of our lineage. A general predictive model of when and under which circumstances the proposed mechanism should be expected to occur is proposed, and the relationship of our mechanism with gene-culture coevolutionary models is discussed. (shrink)

Previous accounts of cognitive skill acquisition have demonstrated how procedural knowledge can be obtained and transformed over time into skilled task performance. This article focuses on a complementary aspect of skill acquisition, namely the integration and reuse of previously known component skills. The article posits that, in addition to mechanisms that proceduralize knowledge into more efficient forms, skill acquisition requires tight integration of newly acquired knowledge and previously learned knowledge. Skill acquisition also benefits from reuse of existing knowledge across disparate (...) task domains, relying on indexicals to reference and share necessary information across knowledge components. To demonstrate these ideas, the article proposes a computational model of skill acquisition from instructions focused on integration and reuse, and applies this model to account for behavior across seven task domains. (shrink)

An extended argument that cognitive phenomena—perceiving, imagining, remembering—can be best explained in terms of an interface between contentless and content-involving forms of cognition. -/- Evolving Enactivism argues that cognitive phenomena—perceiving, imagining, remembering—can be best explained in terms of an interface between contentless and content-involving forms of cognition. Building on their earlier book Radicalizing Enactivism, which proposes that there can be forms of cognition without content, Daniel Hutto and Erik Myin demonstrate the unique explanatory advantages of recognizing that only some forms (...) of cognition have content while others—the most elementary ones—do not. They offer an account of the mind in duplex terms, proposing a complex vision of mentality in which these basic contentless forms of cognition interact with content-involving ones. -/- Hutto and Myin argue that the most basic forms of cognition do not, contrary to a currently popular account of cognition, involve picking up and processing information that is then used, reused, stored, and represented in the brain. Rather, basic cognition is contentless—fundamentally interactive, dynamic, and relational. In advancing the case for a radically enactive account of cognition, Hutto and Myin propose crucial adjustments to our concept of cognition and offer theoretical support for their revolutionary rethinking, emphasizing its capacity to explain basic minds in naturalistic terms. They demonstrate the explanatory power of the duplex vision of cognition, showing how it offers powerful means for understanding quintessential cognitive phenomena without introducing scientifically intractable mysteries into the mix. (shrink)

We find the theory of neural reuse to be highly plausible, and suggest that human individual differences provide an additional line of argument in its favor, focusing on the well-replicated finding of in which individual differences are highly correlated across domains. We also suggest that the theory of neural reuse may be an important contributor to the phenomenon of positive manifold itself.

The ARXMLIV corpus is a remarkable collection of text containing scientific mathematical discourse. With more than half a million documents, it is an ambitious target for large scale linguistic and semantic analysis, requiring a generalized and distributed approach. In this paper we implement an architecture which solves and automates the issues of knowledge representation and knowledge management, providing an abstraction layer for distributed development of semantic analysis tools. Furthermore, we enable document interaction and visualization and present current implementations of semantic (...) tools and follow-up applications using this architecture. We identify five different stages, or purposes, which such architecture needs to address, encapsulating each in an independent module. These stages are determined by the different properties of the document formats used, as well as the state of processing and linguistic enrichment introduced so far. We discuss the need of migration between XML representations and the challenges it would pose on our system, revealing the benefits and trade-off of each format we employ. In the heart of the architecture lies the Semantic Blackboard module. The Semantic Blackboard comprises a system based on a centralized RDF database which can facilitate distributed corpus analysis of arbitrary applications, or analysis modules. This is achieved by providing a document abstraction layer and a mechanism for storing, reusing and communicating results via RDF stand-off annotations deposited in the central database. Achieving a properly encapsulated and automated pipeline from the input corpus document to a semantically enriched output in a state-of-the-art representation is the task of the Preprocessing, Semantic Result and Output Generation modules. Each of them addresses the task of format migration and enhances the document for further semantic enrichment or aggregation. The fifth module, targeting Visualization and Feedback, enables user interaction and display of different stages of processing.. (shrink)

An overview on archaeological evidence, provided by Colagè and d’Errico, reveals that the timing, location, and pace of cultural innovations are more consistent with scenarios that take culture, rather than genetic evolutionary processes, as the key driving force for human cognition. The authors elaborate on those mechanisms by which cultural evolution operates, with a specific focus on cultural exaptation and cultural neural reuse.

The paper aims at proposing an extended notion of epigenesis acknowledging an actual causal import to the phenotypic dimension for the evolutionary diversification of life forms. “Introductory remarks” section offers introductory remarks on the issue of epigenesis contrasting it with ancient and modern preformationist views. In “Transmutation of forms: phenotypic variation, diversification, and complexification” section we propose to intend epigenesis as a process of phenotypic formation and diversification dependent on environmental influences, independent of changes in the genomic nucleotide sequence, and (...) occurring during the whole life span. Then, “Evolvability and phenotypic evolution” section focuses on phenotypic plasticity and offers an overview of basic properties that allows biological systems to be evolvable—i.e. to have the potentiality of producing phenotypic variation. Successively, the emphasis is put on environmentally-induced modifications in the regulation of gene expression giving rise to phenotypic variation and diversification. After some brief considerations on the debated issue of epigenetic inheritance, the issue of culture is considered. The key point is that, in the case of humans and of the evolutionary history of the genus Homo at least, the environment is also, importantly, the cultural environment. Thus, “Bio-cultural feedback” section argues that a bio-cultural feedback should be acknowledged in the “epigenic” processes leading to phenotypic diversification and innovation in Homo evolution. Finally, “Brain plasticity and cultural neural reuse” section introduces the notion of “cultural neural reuse”, which refers to phenotypic/neural modifications induced by specific features of the cultural environment that are effective in human cultural evolution without involving genetic changes. Therefore, cultural neural reuse may be regarded as a key instance of the bio-cultural feedback and ultimately of the extended notion of epigenesis proposed in this work. (shrink)

The construction of complex ontologies can be facilitated by adapting existing vocabularies. There is little clarity and in fact little consensus as to what modifications of vocabularies are necessary in order to re-engineer them into ontologies. In this paper we present a method that provides clear steps to follow when re-engineering a thesaurus. The method makes use of top-level ontologies and was derived from the structural differences between thesauri and ontologies as well as from best practices in modeling, some of (...) which have been advocated in the biomedical domain. We illustrate each step of our method with examples from a re-engineering case study about agricultural fertilizers based on the AGROVOC thesaurus. Our method makes clear that re-engineering thesauri requires far more than just a syntactic conversion into a formal language or other easily automatable steps. The method can not only be used for re-engineering thesauri, but does also summarize steps for building ontologies in general, and can hence be adapted for the re-engineering of other types of vocabularies or terminologies. (shrink)

This paper is about the phenomenon of encoding, more specifically about the encoded extension of agency. The question of code most often emerges from contemporary concerns about the way digital encoding is seen to be transforming our lives in fundamental ways, yet seems to operate ‘under the surface’ as it were. In this essay I suggest that the performative outcomes of digital encoding are best understood within a more general horizon of the phenomenon of encoding – that is to say (...) as norm- or rule-governed material enactments accepted (or taken for granted) as the necessary conditions for becoming. Encoded material enactments translate/extend agency, but never exactly. I argue that such encoded extensions are insecure, come at a cost and are performative. To illustrate this I present a brief discussion of some specific historical transitions in the encoding of human agency: from speech to writing, to mechanical writing, and finally to electronic writing. In each of these translations I aim to show that agency is translated/extended in ways that have many unexpected performative outcomes. Specifically, through a discussion of the digital encoding of writing, as reuse, I want to suggest the proposition that all agency is always borrowed (or ‘plagiarized’) – i.e. it is never originally human. As encoded beings we are never authors, we are rather more or less skilful reusers. To extend agency we have to submit to the demands of encoding and kidnap that encoding simultaneously – enabling constraints in Butler’s language. Our originality, if there is any, is in our skill at kidnapping the code and turning it into an extension of our agency, that is to say, our skill at resignification – to be original we need to be skilful ‘parasites’, as suggested by Serres. (shrink)

Monoclonal antibodies are essential biomedical research and clinical reagents that are produced by companies and research laboratories. The NIAID ImmPort (Immunology Database and Analysis Portal) resource provides a long-term, sustainable data warehouse for immunological data generated by NIAID, DAIT and DMID funded investigators for data archiving and re-use. A variety of immunological data is generated using techniques that rely upon monoclonal antibody reagents, including flow cytometry, immunofluorescence, and ELISA. In order to facilitate querying, integration, and reuse of data, standardized terminology (...) for describing monoclonal antibody reagents and their targets needs to be used for annotating data submitted to ImmPort. (shrink)

Cocreating meaning in collaboration is challenging. Success is often determined by people's abilities to coordinate their language to converge upon shared mental representations. Here we explore one set of low‐level linguistic behaviors, linguistic alignment, that both emerges from, and facilitates, outcomes of high‐level convergence. Linguistic alignment captures the ways people reuse, that is, “align to,” the lexical, syntactic, and semantic forms of others' utterances. Our focus is on the temporal change of multi‐level linguistic alignment, as well as how alignment is (...) related to communicative outcomes within a unique collaborative problem‐solving paradigm. The primary task, situated within a virtual educational video game, requires creative thinking between three people where the paths for possible solutions are highly variable. We find that over time interactions are marked by decreasing lexical and syntactic alignment, with a trade‐off of increasing semantic alignment. However, greater semantic alignment does not translate into better team performance. Overall, these findings provide greater clarity on the role of linguistic coordination within complex and dynamic collaborative problem‐solving tasks. (shrink)

Smart communities have recently gained much attention. Researchers have been trying to tackle a number of challenges faced by smart communities. Interoperability is one key challenge that occurs due to different systems using different knowledge representations. To solve interoperability problems, ontologies are seen as a promising solution as they provide a commonly agreed vocabulary for representing data that are understandable by stakeholders of smart communities. Smart communities make use of Internet of Things (IoT) and ubiquitous networks to support communication among (...) objects and devices in such environments. Smart campuses are examples of smart communities. Recently, many articles related to ontologies focusing on smart communities and smart campuses in IoT environments, have been published. This paper presents a Systematic Literature Review that has been conducted using Google Scholar. 18 ontologies for smart communities/smart campuses have been identified and analyzed out of 341 articles from year 2010 to 2019. The review classifies the ontologies in terms of domain, ontologies being reused, availability online, limitations, language adopted and coverage. It additionally discusses on the standards, the level of expressiveness, the ontology development approaches and methodologies adopted by the identified ontologies. Our analysis shows that the identified ontologies have been developed based on different ontological commitments. None of them have come up with a core semantic model that models different collaborating domains in a smart campus such as smart learning, smart management, smart governance, smart room, smart health, smart library and smart parking among others and that enhances cross-domain interoperability in a such an environment. Further details on our findings are presented and discussed in the paper. (shrink)

The term sustainability has become one of the most significant in the current era. It seems to be ubiquitous amongst academics, politicians, business leaders, media personnel and even the general public. It is no exaggeration to state that it is considered all over the world to be the most pressing issue to be addressed for the long-term future of the planet and its inhabitants. The topic is of course complex, and the issue of sustainability is under much debate as to (...) what it actually is and how it can be achieved, but it is completely certain that the resources of the planet are fixed in quantity and, once used, cannot be reused except through being reused in one form or another. At present, much of the discourse of sustainability has focused upon the environment and in particular upon climate change and the effects that this is having. Thus, the discourse has tended to be about mitigation. Sustainability of course requires all three pillars of the triple bottom line—economic, environmental and social—to be addressed. Indeed, it might be considered that the effects upon the social, and how we choose to live our lives, might well be the most profound effect of achieving sustainability. This book therefore focuses upon some of the many aspects of the social and how we can adapt our lives to accommodate the requirements of sustainability. it therefore takes a very different approach to addressing the issues of sustainability, while of course not ignoring the other pillars. This book therefore sets out to examine various aspects of the changes to personal, corporate and institutional behaviour which may have to come about in our search for sustainability. It is tended to address some of the issues and how they are being dealt with in various parts of the world. As always, our concept is to share best practice and thereby enrich both the discourse and our progress towards sustainability. Thus, we focus upon the current situation while also considering the extent to which the focus is changing so much that we need to think about new approaches to our understanding of behaviour and differing effects in practice. The international origins of the contributors to this book make this an original contribution taking some of the best ideas from around the world. This book therefore addresses these issues from a perspective not generally addressed by researchers, or even by politicians and the press. It therefore provides fresh perspectives upon the important issue of our common future. As always, this approach is based on the tradition of the Social Responsibility Research Network srrnet.org (a worldwide body of scholars with membership of several thousand), which in its 20-year history has sought to broaden the discourse and to treat all research as inter-related and relevant to business. This tradition has always been to explore the subject widely and to seek relevant solutions, while also sharing best practice. This book is based primarily upon some of the contributions from the network at our recent conference and shows both commonality and diversity in approaches and effects. (shrink)

Large software systems are modularized in order to improve manageability. The parts of a software system communicate in order to achieve the desired functionality. To better understand, develop, manage, and maintain the resulting complexity, this paper presents a framework of ontologies. The ontologies range from very general, foundational ones to ontologies that elucidate the specificities of particular modularization and communication paradigms. We support two specific paradigms. First, we define an ontology for software components that may be used in traditional middleware (...) architectures, e.g., application servers. Second, we specify an ontology for Web services. Through the reuse of existing foundational ontologies and our new Core Software Ontology, our proposal offers several advantages. In particular, it avoids the typical shortcomings related approaches exhibit and it allows for the concise definition of commonalities and differences of the two paradigms. (shrink)

Old and Middle Assyrian sources dealing with moths Terminology Moth damage Conditions for moth proliferation Prevention Losses and reuse of infested textiles.

The Vaticanus gr. 573 (14th/15th c.) contains some extracts of the Geoponica with a few lines added to the last one. This supplementary material deals withthe properties of the willow against sexual desire and fertility, and invokes the testimony of the Holy Scripture in support of this conception. Its source can be identified as a passage of Methodius of Olympus’s Symposium, that reuses in the exegesis of Ps. 136 (137) the old Greek idea of the willow as "destroyer of its (...) own fruit" (Hom., od. 10, 510). (shrink)

È possibile delineare due filoni interpretativi sul _Hayy b. Yaqzān_ (_Il vivente, figlio del desto_) di Ibn Tufayl: secondo l’uno, l’opera è uno sguardo realistico su un solitario in una società corrotta e si ispira agli insegnamenti della _Repubblica_ di Platone; secondo l’altro, l’opera ritrae un ideale puro e astratto di vita ascetica e insiste sull’imperativo morale dell’isolamento. Tuttavia entrambe queste interpretazioni precludono qualsiasi possibilità di felicità per l’uomo o per il filosofo all’interno di una società. In altre parole, tendono (...) a interpretare _Hayy b. Yaqzān_ come un tentativo di dimostrare che l’uomo non sia sociale o politico. La perfezione intellettuale e spirituale ricercata attraverso l’isolamento non può, a mio parere, essere separata da uno scopo pratico. L’isolamento del filosofo non viene praticato per distinguersi dalle società imperfette. Al contrario, tale isolamento è intrapreso per condurlo ad una realizzazione più alta e propriamente pratica. Su questa base, sostengo nell’articolo che l’uomo di Ibn Tufayl sia paragonabile allo ζῷον πολιτικόν aristotelico. Attraverso un confronto tra il _Hayy_ di Ibn Tufayl e lo ζῷον πολιτικόν di Aristotele vedremo come Ibn Tufayl si serva dell’_animale sociale/politico_ arabo (_hayawān insī _o _madanī_) di al-Fārābī e lo trasponga dal dominio della città a quello dell’individuo. Analizzando alcuni passaggi chiave, è possibile chiarire come il concetto di ζῷον πολιτικόν sia entrato nella filosofia araba e in particolare nella concezione di uomo di Ibn Tufayl attraverso il virtuoso di al-Fārābī e il solitario di Ibn Bājja. Prevailing academic views on Ibn Tufayl’s _Hayy b. Yaqzān_ (_Living, the Son of Wakeful_) fall into two camps: either the work is a realistic look at an isolated human being amidst a morally bankrupt population and harks back to the teachings of Plato’s _Republic_, or it portrays a pure and abstract ideal of the spiritual life in the footsteps of the natural first man, and insists on the moral imperative of isolation. The difficulty with both interpretations is that they preclude any possibility of happiness for the human person or the philosopher living in a society. In other words, they tend to interpret _Hayy b. Yaqzān_ as an attempt to demonstrate that the human is not essentially social or political. However, the intellectual and spiritual perfection sought through isolation cannot, in my opinion, be separated from a practical purpose. The isolation of the philosopher is not undergone to distinguish himself from imperfect human societies. On the contrary, such isolation is undertaken in order to lead one to a higher, and properly practical accomplishment. On this basis, I argue in this paper that Ibn Tufayl’s man is comparable to the Aristotelian ζῷον πολιτικόν. Through a comparison of Ibn Tufayl’s _Hayy_ and Aristotle’s ζῷον πολιτικόν we shall see how Ibn Tufayl reuses the Arabic _social/political animal_ (_hayawān insī_ or _madanī_) of al-Fārābī and transposes it from the domain of the city to that of the individual. By analysing some key passages, it becomes possible to illustrate how the concept of ζῷον πολιτικόν has entered Arabic philosophy, and particularly in Ibn Tufayl’s conception of man through the lenses of al-Fārābī’s virtuous and Ibn Bājja’s solitary man. (shrink)

This study explores the sustainability transition in Iran's oil towns, emphasizing Masjed Soleyman’s evolution. Stemming from the Industrial Revolution, the search for new energy led to the early 20th century D'Arcy Concession, catalyzing oil exploration in Iran. This resulted in the pivotal discovery of oil in Masjed Soleyman in 1908, transforming an uninhabited area into a thriving town intricately linked to the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC). This research critically analyzes the unsustainable nature of oil exploration, particularly highlighting APOC's colonial practices, (...) like racial segregation between European and Iranian staff. Despite these challenges, the study identifies pathways for sustainable development, emphasizing the role of Masjed Soleyman's oil heritage. It advocates for the adaptive reuse of historical buildings for diverse community functions, thereby promoting sustainability and cultural preservation. This approach not only safeguards the town's rich historical and cultural fabric but also marks a significant stride towards sustainable urban development in oil-dependent towns. (shrink)

Yvon Quiniou, qui s'interroge depuis longtemps sur la condition désastreuse que le capitalisme impose à l'homme, analyse ici les diverses formes d'aliénation qu'il y subit : politique, sociale, économique, individuelle et historique ; et il insiste sur la difficulté qu'il y a à dépasser certaines d'entre elles, dans un processus pourtant souhaitable, voire impératif moralement, d'émancipation généralisée. Loin d'une emphase politique généreuse mais improductive, il en fait un examen précis, intransigeant mais lucide, à la lumière de Marx mais au-delà de (...) lui parfois, en étant attentif en particulier à l'aliénation individuelle et à ses diverses causes : l'exploitation bien sûr, mais aussi l'idéologie et la biographie individuelle, avec son poids psychologique propre, qui amènent l'homme à vouloir ce qui le mutile. Il récuse également, tout en les prenant en considération, les diverses versions d'une anthropologie pessimiste (Hobbes, Kant pour une part, Freud, Girard et, bien entendu Nietzsche) qui déclare impossible une large émancipation de l'homme lui permettant de réaliser ses potentialités et de maîtriser son aventure historique, au nom d'une nature "mauvaise" qui le condamnerait plus ou moins à un vivre-ensemble inhumain, dominé par l'aliénation. C'est aussi une manière de répondre au pessimisme subtil de Marcel Gauchet ou à la démission intellectuelle d'une certaine gauche et, tout en soulignant les difficultés concrètes de cette tâche, d'en maintenir l'exigence, hors de toute utopie."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

Cet article se propose de réinterroger les relations entre le régime d’historicité « présentiste » et le régime de patrimonialité contemporain à partir de l’étude du conflit patrimonial en cours autour de l’ancien couvent Reille, situé dans le 14 e arrondissement de Paris, en attente d’un réemploi et/ou d’un projet immobilier. Cette friche est étudiée comme révélatrice de la fragilité et des apories temporelles de « l’omnipatrimonialisation », qui se caractérise par une dissociation inédite de la reconnaissance et de la (...) protection patrimoniales, par une diversification des processus de patrimonialisation et même par une nécessaire patrimonialisation par réemploi. La brèche du temps ouverte par la défonctionnalisation du couvent se trouve prolongée et élargie par un processus de patrimonialisation multiforme, mené notamment par les riverains mobilisés, et instaure, à l’occasion de la révision du plan local d’urbanisme de la Ville de Paris, un temps d’attente fructueux, propice à l’éla... (shrink)

'Why did the window break when it was hit by the stone? Because the window is brittle and the stone is hard; hardness and brittleness are powers, dispositional properties or dispositions.' Dispositions are essential to our understanding of the world. This book is a record of the debate on the nature of dispositions between three distinguished philosophers - D. M. Armstrong, C. B. Martin and U. T. Place - who have been thinking about dispositions all their working lives. Their distinctive (...) accounts cover many of the issues surrounding dispositions such as the nature of mind, matter, universals, existence, laws of nature and causation. Dispositions illuminates this central topic in analytic philosophy and at the same time highlights deeper concerns of metaphysics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Satyr Play in Plato's SymposiumM. D. UsherIn the Symposium, Socrates jokingly declares that "the satyric—nay silenic—drama" of Alcibiades' drunken panegyric was perfectly clear to the guests that evening at Agathon's house (222d3-4).1 Though this statement implies an extended treatment of a theme, discussions of silenic elements in the dialogue have rarely ventured far beyond the overt comparison of Socrates to a Silenus or Marsyas figure in Alcibiades' speech (215a4-222b7).2 (...) Yet, as Paul Zanker has observed (1995, 38), "There is surely more than one aspect to the comparison of Socrates to Silenus." In fact, the final scenes of the Symposium are riddled with satyric motifs, many of which Plato inverts or otherwise adapts, in the pointed critique of wealth, beauty, and sexual attraction that he achieves in the character of Socrates.Let me begin defending this thesis with a Platonic analogy and suggest that if we look at the big letters first, we will be able to read the smaller ones more readily: Though it has only recently, and only in passing, been adduced as a source (Clay 2000, 74), much of the scene involving Alcibiades and Socrates is modeled on the myth of King Midas' capture of the satyr Silenus.3 While the extant sources for the Midas legend are disparate and fragmentary, an investigation into its literary provenance and the uses to which it was put in antiquity (section 1 of this essay) suggests that the encounter between Midas and Silenus was something of a literary set piece that had been used as a vehicle for popular wisdom and philosophic critique long before Plato's time. Indeed, in [End Page 205] reusing the story in just this fashion in his lost dialogue, the Eudemus,4 Aristotle highlights both its popularity and antiquity, describing it as "having been carried about on the lips of men for many years now."5The finer print (section 2) involves another source never previously adduced in discussions of the Symposium, Euripides' Cyclops, where we will consider both what is particular to that play (our only complete satyr drama) and what is typical of the genre.6 Cyclops was produced in the last five years of Euripides' life,7 when an impressionable Plato, that "nursling of Attic drama,"8 was in his early twenties.An awareness of the extent of Plato's use and adaptation of satyr lore in the Symposium is essential for a full appreciation of his philosophy of love, his technique as an author, and the purpose of the dialogue. Einstein once said that the secret to creativity is hiding one's sources. In constructing the final scenes of the Symposium, Plato is deeply unoriginal in precisely this sense. It would be well to emphasize at the start, however, that the satyric motifs adduced here—as legendary and mythic material—would have had a wide currency in many media, and one need not advance or defend arguments for strictly literary dependence. Indeed, it will be seen that the way Plato incorporates silenic elements into the Symposium is suggestive and indirect, though no less compelling, important, or even intentional for that reason. That Plato's purpose in including them is as apologetic as it is literary and philosophical is discussed in a concluding section where I attempt to bring some recent readings of Plato under one head. [End Page 206]I. The Capture of SilenusSome minor variants notwithstanding,9 the basic outline of this story is as follows: Silenus is captured while sleeping by Midas' henchmen, who have tricked him by spiking a river with wine; whereupon, in exchange for his release, Silenus agrees to reveal to Midas hidden wisdom about man and the nature of the world.10 Both the apprehension of the satyr while sleeping and the conversation that follows in the myth are adapted by Plato in the part of the Symposium where Alcibiades describes his unsuccessful romantic overtures toward Socrates. Having prevailed upon Socrates to come to dinner and spend the night, Alcibiades approaches the satyr-sage in bed and asks if he is sleeping (218c3). By Plato's inversion, however, it turns out that Socrates, unlike the... (shrink)

The reception of the work of Thucydides in late antique authors constitutes a huge chapter of allusions and reworkings, on methodological, structural, lexical levels and more. A fortiori, certain particularly famous passages by the historian are well suited for a study of their reception, above all where key terms or rare expressions are concentrated. The case of the adjective ἀλγεινός, a poeticism declined twice in the epitaphios of Pericles (2.39 and 2.43) offers interesting material of this kind in the work (...) of Dexippus, the Athenian historian of the third century A.D., and in the romance author Heliodorus. Alongside a secure reference to 2.39 in Dexippus (F28 Martin = F34 Mecella), already identified by Stein, it is possible to identify a further reuse in another fragment, probably extracted from a demegoria (F26b Martin = F32b Mecella). In the light of these examples, it becomes more likely that we can see a reminiscence of Thucydides also in a passage of Heliodorus of Emesa (5.29), already proposed by van Krevelen but omitted from the repertory of citations present in the Aethiopica prepared by Feuillâtre. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:L’esthétique de StaceA. M. KeithAnne-Marie Taisne. L’esthétique de Stace. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1994. 433 pp. Paper, 280 FF. (Collection d’Etudes Anciennes 122)Anne-Marie Taisne is the author of numerous articles concerning the literary history and artistic context that inform single poems in Statius’ Silvae and self-contained passages in his Thebaid and unfinished Achilleid, papers which lay the groundwork for her comprehensive new study of the literary aesthetic on (...) display in the extant poetic oeuvre of P. Papinius Statius. In this ambitious monograph, she undertakes to explore two facets of Statius’ technical artistry, his spatial and temporal imagery, within the theoretical framework provided by ancient literary criticism. She is particularly concerned to articulate the poet’s dynamic reuse of the weighty literary tradition to which he is heir, and accordingly proposes, in her introduction, to structure her discussion around such central ancient critical issues as imitatio (mimesis) along with its close relatives aemulatio and contaminatio, and doctrina with its associated critical vocabulary of ingenium, ratio, and ars (6–10). Throughout the volume, she explicates these techniques in detailed analysis of Statian imagines, which she defines generally in the sense of “imagery” following S. Viarre (“L’image et le symbole dans la poésie d’Ovide: Recherches sur l’imaginaire,” REL 62 [1974] 263–80), and particularly by reference to individual usages of the term as they are discussed in the article on imago in the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (11).Part 1, “Correspondances dans l’espace,” examines the spatial imagery of Thebaid, Achilleid, and Silvae in three chapters which treat (1) echo and reflection (17–52), (2) metamorphosis, multiplication, and contagion (53–119), and (3) simile (120–76). Part 2, “Correspondances dans le temps,” investigates the poems’ use of time as a structural principle, again in three chapters which discuss (1) prophecies and portents (177–236), (2) digressive elements such as ecphrases and embedded narratives (237–303), and (3) leitmotifs, or repeated patterns of imagery, such as divine and human interventions and the role of nature in the poems. The material Taisne analyzes in part 1 coheres more convincingly with her overarching theme of spatial imagery than that which she discusses in part 2 under the rubric of temporal imagery. I did not understand, for example, why nature, well discussed in connection with Statius’ use of the simile in part 1 (137–62), reappears in part 2 (331–58) with no explanation of its relevance to temporal imagery.Taisne persuasively documents the wide range of literary models on which Statius draws in all his poetry, and shows that the Thebaid makes particular use of epic and tragic models (166–68, 170, 373–75), the Achilleid of tragic and lyric models (168–71, 374–78). Her discussion of the literary echoes and wider symbolic relevance of individual passages is often very interesting, and the sheer accumulation of literary parallels is extremely impressive. I was reminded of and newly alerted to significant literary resonances on almost every page, and noticed only one incomplete assemblage of literary parallels (in her discussion of Hylas [End Page 159] in Silvae 1.2.199 [27–28], there is no mention of Theocr. Id. 13, Ap. Rhod. Arg. 1.1207–72, or Nicander apud Ant. Lib. Met. 26). The service to which this material is put, however, is not as exciting as the length of the study might lead one to hope. Throughout, Taisne argues that Statius’ deployment of imagery is consistent with the overarching thematic framework of each poem, defined as furor and horror in the Thebaid (23 and passim), an ambiguous and deceptive calm in the Achilleid (353–54 and passim), and serenity and harmony in the Silvae (28 and passim), but she does not press her analysis beyond the accumulation of imagery in the service of these themes as evidence of Statian amplificatio. This is particularly disappointing in an author so well placed to discuss the material culture of the Flavian epoch and the interrelations between Statius’ poetry (especially the Silvae) and the culture of display in Domitian’s Rome. Nevertheless, scholars will be grateful to Taisne for the material she has collected... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Athenian Agora: Results of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at AthensWilliam C. WestA. Geoffrey Woodhead. The Athenian Agora: Results of Excavations Conducted by the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. Vol. XVI, Inscriptions: The Decrees. Princeton: American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 1997. xx 1 531 pp. 1 plan. 32 pls. Cloth, $100.A. G. Woodhead characterizes his work as “a still (...) photograph, extracted from a process of discovery, discussion, and reevaluation constantly in motion... a representation of the status rerum... at the end of 1991” (viii). Nonetheless, this is a remarkable book. It reprints and discusses up-to-date texts of Athenian decrees from the Agora and classifies them in five sections: (1) to the fall of Athens in 404 B.C.; (2) from one restoration of democracy to another, 403/2-307/6 B.C.; (3) the “Macedonian Century,” 307/6-201/200 B.C.; (4) Athens and the Roman Republic, 200–86 B.C.; and (5) Athens in the Roman Empire, 86 B.C.-A.D. 203 (xi). The reader is thereby helped to an appreciation of Athenian diplomacy and bureaucracy within the framework of recognized historical periods. [End Page 458]A total of 342 inscriptions are presented: 28 in section 1; 78 in section 2; 149 in section 3; 76 in section 4; and 10 in section 5. Two phases of Agora excavation are represented: 1931–45 and 1946–67. After each section an appendix on material discovered after 1967 lists new discoveries with appropriate references. New studies and new texts are assimilated in the presentation of each item up to the end of 1991. Decrees of the Athenian state form the bulk of the collection, but decrees of other bodies, such as demes, gene, orgeones, etc., are also included. Excluded by intention (vii) are the decrees on councilors and their officers (Agora XV) and the decrees honoring ephebes.For each item Woodhead gives an extensive lemma, with brief description of the stone, dimensions of the letters, and bibliography of previous texts and works contributing to their understanding. Each text is followed by a commentary. He frequently comments on the lettering and style of engraving before entering upon discussion of individual lines.For section 1, the fifth century, the texts of IG I3 (1981) are printed, but for the others, in sections 2–5, the best available text is chosen. Where a new fragment of an old text has been discovered in the Agora, the full text of the entire inscription is given. As many decrees were set up on the Acropolis, it is clear that some material was “thrown or brought down from the citadel for reuse” (3). In the case of the Brea decree (no. 7), the contribution of the Agora fragment is slight, but in that of the treaty between Athens and Argos of 417/6 (no. 19) it is significant, providing the length of the line, 76 letters.When an archon is cited in the prescript of an Agora decree, Woodhead supplies a full discussion of the archonship, seeking to show how opinion was formed concerning the date of the office and the calendar. The earliest to be discussed is Polyzelos, 367/6 B.C. (section 2); the latest, Flavius Macrinus, A.D. 116/17 (section 5).In section 2, the fourth century to 307/6, Woodhead calls attention (41) to the spread of Athenian bureaucracy in the increased detail in the prescripts of decrees, the appearance of new formulae, such as that indicating hortatory intent (cf. A. S. Henry, ZPE 112 [1996] 105–19), and stock phrases enumerating the merits of laudandi in honorary decrees. The inevitable restoration of in the prescript of no. 101 brings in this formula for the first time in Agora decrees, although it is known from elsewhere “as early as 334/3” (154). The Agora contributes very significant decrees on the nomothesia (nos. 73, 75, 106C) and Athens’ regulation of the Eleusinian Mysteries (nos. 56, 57).The next section, 307/6 to 201/200, represents for Athens “the high-water mark of its bureaucracy” (167). The texts classified here attest the variety of documents... (shrink)

Giuseppina D'Oro explores Collingwood's work in epistemology and metaphysics, uncovering his importance beyond his better known work in philosophy of history and aesthetics. This major contribution to our understanding of one of the most important figures in history of philosophy will be essential reading for scholars of Collingwood and all students of metaphysics and the history of philosophy.

This book is a succinct introduction to the orienting of attention.

I temi della fede e della religione, e del loro conflitto con la cultura laica, sono da qualche tempo al centro di un interesse mediatico crescente, alimentato anche dalle polemiche politiche suscitate dal moltiplicarsi degli interventi e delle "scomuniche" del papa e della Conferenza Episcopale Italiana contro la modernità. Mancava fin qui, tuttavia, un testo di discussione, da punti di vista diversi e reciprocamente problematici, sulle ragioni dell'ateismo e della fede. Un confronto tra gli esponenti di tre posizioni ideologiche molto (...) lontane tra loro, accomunate però dal rifiuto di ogni appartenenza accademica: il cristianesimo nietzschiano del "pensiero debole" di Gianni Vattimo, la saggezza atea di una tradizione antica rilanciata da Michel Onfray e l'empirismo naturalistico-esistenziale della "filosofia del finito" di Paolo Flores d'Arcais. In questo insolito dialogo a tre voci emergono tutti gli interrogativi essenziali legati al problema, a partire da quello più generale: quali devono essere i rapporti tra filosofia e ateismo? L'"ipotesi Dio" deve ormai essere considerata superflua anche dalla riflessione filosofica, visto che le scienze ne fanno metodologicamente a meno? Quali sono le conseguenze etiche e politiche dell'essere atei o, all'opposto, credenti? (shrink)

F. H. Bradley: Logic Although the logical system expounded by F. H. Bradley in The Principles of Logic is now almost forgotten, it had many virtues. To appreciate them, it is helpful to understand that Bradley had a very different view of logic from that prevalent today. He is hostile to the idea of … Continue reading Bradley, F. H.: Logic →.