McCarthy et al. have made an important contribution to the field of ethics by identifying the important similarities between Christian and secular bioethics that can be drawn on to further s...

The revival of virtue ethics is largely inspired by Aristotle, but few---especially Christians---follow him in seeing virtue supremely exemplified in the “magnanimous” man. However, Aristotle raises a matter of importance: the character traits and type of psychological stance exemplified in those who aspire to acts of extraordinary excellence. I explore the accounts of magnanimity found in both Aristotle and Aquinas, defending the intelligibility and acceptability of some central elements of a broadly Aristotelian conception of magnanimity. Aquinas, I argue, provides insight (...) into how Christian ethics may appropriate central elements of a broadly Aristotelian conception of extraordinary virtue. (shrink)

What does it mean to be human? The traditional answers from the past remain only theoretical possibilities unless they come to mean something to today's generation. Moreover, in light of new knowledge and circumstances, a new generation may call these old answers into question, and seek to reinterpret, or, indeed, provide alternatives to them. In the 1960's, the Catholic Church's Second Vatican Council attempted such a reinterpretation, an aggiornamento, for the post-war generation of the mid-twentieth century by proposing, in Gaudium (...) et Spes, a theological anthropology founded upon the ideas of human dignity and the common good. Fifty years later is an appropriate time to revisit those answers, and to seek again to reinterpret or provide alternatives to them, in light of new knowledge for a new generation. Taking the themes of Gaudium et Spes as its starting point, this book looks at developments in theology and philosophy in the latter half of the twentieth century that call some of these 'old' answers into question. It identifies some of the 'new knowledge and circumstances' that need to be taken into account for this generation's answer to the question of what it means to be human. In five parts, leading philosophers and theologians ¥ offer interpretive lenses for reading the theological anthropology of the twentieth century; ¥ address the challenges of anthropocentricism, alterity, incarnation, and postmodernity for the notion of the human subject; ¥ tackle the important moral concepts of conscience, responsibility, evil and guilt; ¥ investigate the claims of atheism, fundamentalism, scientific naturalism, nihilism, and pluralism; and ¥ consider questions of the relationship between the individual and the community in the modern secular state. In so doing, this book prepares the ground for the development of a theological anthropology for the twenty-first century. (shrink)

The pronunciation of Augustine’s name is a matter of some dispute, between those (including most British scholars) who pronounce it aw-GUS-tin, and those who pronounce it AW-gus-teen. This essay argues for the former as the preferred pronunciation. It is (humorously) modeled on the technical argumentative model of the medieval disputation, which is known best by philosophers in the form of Thomas Aquinas’s masterwork, Summa Theologiae.

Issue Title: Moral Luck, Social Networking Sites, and Trust on the Web I argue that the problem of 'moral luck' is an unjustly neglected topic within Computer Ethics. This is unfortunate given that the very nature of computer technology, its 'logical malleability', leads to ever greater levels of complexity, unreliability and uncertainty. The ever widening contexts of application in turn lead to greater scope for the operation of chance and the phenomenon of moral luck. Moral luck bears down most heavily (...) on notions of professional responsibility, the identification and attribution of responsibility. It is immunity from luck that conventionally marks out moral value from other kinds of values such as instrumental, technical, and use value. The paper describes the nature of moral luck and its erosion of the scope of responsibility and agency. Moral luck poses a challenge to the kinds of theoretical approaches often deployed in Computer Ethics when analyzing moral questions arising from the design and implementation of information and communication technologies. The paper considers the impact on consequentialism; virtue ethics; and duty ethics. In addressing cases of moral luck within Computer Ethics, I argue that it is important to recognise the ways in which different types of moral systems are vulnerable, or resistant, to moral luck. Different resolutions are possible depending on the moral framework adopted. Equally, resolution of cases will depend on fundamental moral assumptions. The problem of moral luck in Computer Ethics should prompt us to new ways of looking at risk, accountability and responsibility.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]. (shrink)

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore ethical issues arising from the mass deployment and take‐up of mobile technologies.Design/methodology/approachThe ethical dimensions of mobile technologies and their use among the general population are considered within a conceptual framework drawing on James Moor's belief in a need for “better ethics” for emerging technologies and Michel Foucault's development of Jeremy Bentham's panopticon as a tool of surveillance.FindingsIt is found that the mass deployment and use of mobile technologies amongst the general population raise (...) some interesting questions about the changing nature of surveillance and the ethical issues that come out of this.Originality/valueThe paper offers an original perspective on the ethical issues arising from new mobile technologies and surveillance by inverting the established top‐down notion of technology and control derived from Foucault. (shrink)

David Horner has recently offered a medieval argument for an Anglophilic pronunciation of the name of St. Augustine. I claim his disputatious account fails, both on an account of interlinguistic phonological equivalence, and on a Kripkean-style rigid-designator theory of reference. It turns out, surprisingly, that Floridians are closer to the truth about the correct pronunciation of the medieval saint’s name than are Englishmen.

David Keyt presents a clear and accurate new translation of the the fifth and sixth books of Aristotle's Politics, together with a philosophical and historical commentary. The Politics is a key document in Western political thought; it raises and discusses many political issues, theoretical and practical, which are still widely debated today. The major topics of these two books are equality, democracy, tyranny, revolution, and reform.

Introduction A good example of emergentism - interpreted by M. Siderits [1] as - Buddhist reductionism) is an excerpt from the dialogue between King Milinda[4] and the monk Nāgasena[5] about the self, which is part of the text close to the Abhidhamma tradition entitled "Milindapaha". The text was published by V. Trenckner in 1880 in [2] and translated into English by T.W. Rhys Davids [3] in the series "Sacred Books of the East". Furthermore, there is an English translation by I. (...) B. Horner [4] and Bhikkhu Pesala [5] and into Russian by A.V. Paribok [6]. There are also German [7] and French translations [8; 9]. Yet the classical translation by Rhys Davids is currently largely obsolete. Paribok's translation into Russian is not convenient for practical use as it would need to be further translated into English, and this double translation, which is not very good from the point of view of the philological approach to the text. We have therefore decided to make our own, new translation of the passage from "Milindapaha", in which the dialogue about the self is being held. (shrink)

David Houston Jones builds a bridge between practices conventionally understood as forensic, such as crime scene investigation, and the broader field of activity which the forensic now designates, for example performance and installation art, as well as photography. Contemporary work in these areas responds both to forensic evidence, including crime scene photography, and to some of the assumptions underpinning its consumption. It asks how we look, and in whose name, foregrounding and scrutinising the enduring presence of voyeurism in visual (...) media and instituting new forms of ethical engagement. Such work responds to the object-oriented culture associated with the forensic and offers a reassessment of the relationship of human voice and material evidence. It displays an enduring debt to the discursive model of testimony which has so far been insufficiently recognised, and which forms the basis for a new ethical understanding of the forensic. Jones's analysis brings this methodology to bear upon a strand of contemporary visual activity which has the power to significantly redefine our understandings of the production, analysis and deployment of evidence. Artists examined include Forensic Architecture, Simon Norfolk, Melanie Pullen, Angela Strassheim, John Gerrard, Julian Charrière, Trevor Paglen, Laura Poitras and Sophie Ristelhueber. The book will be of interest to scholars working in art history, visual culture, literary studies, modern languages, photography and critical theory. (shrink)

In the most radical rereading of the opening chapters of Genesis since the Zohar, David Kishik reveals the post-secular and post-human implications of an ancient text that is part of our cultural DNA.

The orphaned son of an Anglican clergyman, David Hartley was originally destined for holy orders. Declining to subscribe to the Thirty-Nine Articles, he turned to medicine and science yet remained a religious believer. This, his most significant work, provides a rigorous analysis of human nature, blending philosophy, psychology and theology. First published in two volumes in 1749, Observations on Man is notable for being based on the doctrine of the association of ideas. It greatly influenced scientists, theologians, social reformers (...) and poets: Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who named his eldest son after Hartley, had his portrait painted while holding a copy. In Volume 1, Hartley utilises Newtonian science in his observations. He presents a theory of 'vibrations', explaining how the elements of the nerves and brain interact as a result of stimulation, creating 'associations' and emotions. (shrink)

David Levine and Mathew Bowker explore cultural and political trends organized around the conviction that the world we live in is a dangerous place to be, that it is dominated by hate and destruction, and that in it our primary task is to survive by carrying on a life-long struggle against hostile forces. Their method involves the analysis of public fantasies to reveal their hidden meanings. The central fantasy explored is the fantasy of a destroyed world, which appears most (...) commonly in the form of post-apocalyptic and dystopian narratives. Their special concern in the book is with defenses against the painful consequences of the dominance of this fantasy in the inner world, especially defenses involving the use of guilt to assure that something can be done to repair the destroyed world. Topics explored include: the formation of internal fortresses and their projection into the world outside, forms of guilt including bystander guilt and survivor guilt, the loss of and search for home, and manic forms of reparation. (shrink)

Citizens in the contemporary world have become alienated from politics because they conceive of it as an instrumental activity. David Antonini argues that Hannah Arendt's thought can help us recover meaningful political experience: a distinct experience of politics in which citizens can speak and act together.

Assorted fruit from forty years' writing, these essays by David Braybrooke discuss (in Part One of the book) a variety of concrete, practical topics that ethical concerns bring into politics: people's interests; their needs as well as their preferences; their work and their commitment to work; their participation in politics and in other group activities. Essays follow on the justice with which theme matters are arranged for and on the common good in which they are consolidated. Justice here inspires (...) a 'departures' approach, which moves from agreement on departures from commutative justice to agreement on measures of distributive justice needed to forestall such departures. Another essay (first published here) radically undermines the odd but entrenched belief that utilitarianism classically licenced, even prescribed, systematically sacrificing the happiness of some people to give others greater pleasure. Part II and Part III of the book concentrate upon the subject of settled social rules, which are devices for securing the objectives treated in Part I. Part II shows that rules are ubiquitous in ethics, since there are no virtues without rules, just as there are no (justified) rules; without virtues. Part Two also shows that rules are as ubiquitous in social phenomena as the causal regularities sought by one school of social science. Part III captures the dialectic of history at least in part by a logical analysis of changes in rules following the onset of quandaries. It then considers how political choices can be both prudent, by keeping within duly considered incremental limits, and yet imaginative enough to escape the recent embarrassments generated by social choice theory. Characteristically versatile in topic and style, Braybrooke offers original light on all theme subjects. One reader has commented, ' His] prose is elegant and always a pleasure to read. Some of the pieces are nothing short of brilliant.' Which did the reader have in mind? Readers may differ (they already have) on just which pieces they would rank highest. (shrink)

What is the cultural value of illegal works that violate the copyrights of popular fiction? Why do they persist despite clear and stringent intellectual property laws? Drawing on the disciplines of new media, law, and literary studies, Illegal Literature suggests that extralegal works such as fan fiction are critical to a system that spurs the evolution of culture. Reconsidering voices relegated to the cultural periphery, David S. Roh shows how infrastructure--in the form of legal policy and network distribution--slows or (...) accelerates the rate of change. He analyzes the relationship between intellectual property rights and American literature in two recent copyright disputes. And, in comparing American fan fiction and Japanese dojinshi, he illustrates how infrastructure and legal climates detract from or encourage fledgling creativity. Illegal Literature fills a crucial gap between the scholarly and the popular by closely examining several modes of marginalized cultural production. Roh makes the case for protecting an environment conducive to literary heresy, the articulation of an accretive rather than solitary authorial genius, and the idea that letting go rather than holding on is important to a generative creative process. In a media ecology inundated by unauthorized materials, Illegal Literature argues that the proliferation of unsanctioned texts may actually benefit literary and cultural development. (shrink)

Edited in hypertext by Andrew Chrucky. Reprinted with the permission of Professor David Rosenthal. Editor's Note: Due to the limitation of current hypertext, the following conventions have been used. In general, if an expression has some mark over it, that mark is placed as a prefix to the expression. All Greek characters are rendered by their names. Subscripts are placed in parentheses as concatenated suffixes: thus, e.g., HO is the chemical formula for water. Sellars' dot quotes are expressed by (...) bold periods. (shrink)

The material reprinted in this two-volume set, first published in 1989, covers the first eighty-five years in responses to George Berkeley’s writings. David Berman identifies several key waves of eighteenth-century criticism surrounding Berkeley’s philosophies, ranging from hostile and discounted, to valued and defended. The first volume includes an account of the life of Berkeley by J. Murray and key responses from 1711 to 1748, whilst the second volume covers the years between 1745 and 1796. This fascinating reissue illustrates the (...) breadth and diversity of the early reaction to Berkeley’s philosophies, and will help students and academics form a clear image of both Berkeley’s work and his reputation through the eyes of his contemporaries. (shrink)

In Science, Order and Creativity, David Bohm and F. David Peat argue that science has lost its way in recent years and needs to go beyond a narrow and fragmented view of nature and embrace a wider holistic view that restores the importance of creativity and communication for all humanity - not just scientists. The result of a close collaboration by one of the 20th century's greatest physicists and thinkers, David Bohm, with leading science writer F. (...) class='Hi'>David Peat, provides a rare combination of profound reflection and clear exposition that can be appreciated by anyone concerned with science and its importance in our lives. This new edition includes a new preface and an extended additional chapter by Peat which draws upon further discussions with David Bohm before the latter's death in 1992. A fascinating diagnosis and considered proposal for a cure for science's ills, it is also very accessible entry point to the work of David Bohm. Bohm and Peat contend that science has lost its bearings in the last century in favour of a narrow, abstracted, fragmented approach to nature and reality. Tracing the history of science, Bohm and Peat offer intriguing new insights into how scientific theories come into being, how to eliminate blocks of creativity and how science can lead to a deeper understanding of society, the human condition and the human mind itself. (shrink)

Why does agency-the capacity to make choices and to act in the world-matter to us? Why is it meaningful that our intentions have effects in the world, that they reflect our sense of identity, that they embody what we value? David Kyuman Kim addresses these crucial questions by uncovering the political, moral, philosophical, and religious dimensions of human agency. Through a critical engagement with the work of theorists such as Judith Butler, Charles Taylor, and Stanley Cavell, Kim argues that (...) late modern and postmodern agency is found most effectively at work in what he calls "projects of regenerating agency" or critical and strategic responses to loss. Agency as melancholic freedom begins and endures, Kim maintains, through the moral and psychic losses associated with a broad range of experiences, including the moral identities shaped by secularized modernity and the multifold forms of alienation experienced by those who suffer the indignities of racial, gender, class, and sexuality discrimination and oppression. Kim calls for renewing the sense of urgency in our political and moral engagements by seeing agency as a vocation, where the aspiration for self-transformation and the human need for hope are fundamental concerns. (shrink)

In this uniquely and timely collection, David LaRocca offers us a thoughtful reminder that the very possibility and urgent task of thinking, of our acting and judging, ethics and politics, rests upon a willing exposure to an aspect of our everyday and ordinary experience that is hard to grasp and eludes most, perhaps all, epistemic criteria. Metaphysicians, mystics, and moral perfectionists of all stripes have called this 'the transcendental', thus risking the fatal misunderstanding that this means only 'the transcendent', (...) leading to the dualist assumption that we are citizens of two separate (earthly and heavenly) cities or (phenomenal and noumenal) worlds. Yet the truth is far more simple, if much harder to accept and then also live by. We are what we are, here and now. Yet we're not, therefore, irrevocably bound by what thus is said 'to be' -- much less by the proverbial powers that will always be -- in what we can still further imagine and aim or hope for, against the odds, as it were. In this brilliantly edited and introduced anthology, LaRocca presents us with the broadest selection of authors, philosophers, visionaries, and artists, who have expressed this simple, difficult truth and freedom in the most profound and varied ways."--Hent de Vries's review, p. [i]. (shrink)

Wars have played a momentous role in shaping the course of human history. The ever-present specter of conflict has made it an enduring topic of interest in popular culture, and many movies, from Hollywood blockbusters to independent films, have sought to show the complexities and horrors of war on-screen. In The Philosophy of War Films, David LaRocca compiles a series of essays by prominent scholars that examine the impact of representing war in film and the influence that cinematic images (...) of battle have on human consciousness, belief, and action. The contributors explore a variety of topics, including the aesthetics of war as portrayed on-screen, the effect war has on personal identity, and the ethical problems presented by war. Drawing upon analyses of iconic and critically acclaimed war films such as Saving Private Ryan (1998), The Thin Red Line (1998), Rescue Dawn (2006), Restrepo (2010), and Zero Dark Thirty (2012), this volume's examination of the genre creates new ways of thinking about the philosophy of war. A fascinating look at the manner in which combat and its aftermath are depicted cinematically, The Philosophy of War Films is a timely and engaging read for any philosopher, filmmaker, reader, or viewer who desires a deeper understanding of war and its representation in popular culture. (shrink)

Milan, David An atheist and his christian friend are engaged in cordial conversation. The latter is taken aback and is rather indignant when his atheist friend declaims, 'On this question of the existence of god I believe that our respective positions are much closer than you imagine'. The Christian's firm riposte is that, by definition, such a harmony of viewpoints is impossible. Unfazed, his non-believing friend offers a thoughtful defence of his claim. He begins, 'You know that, since time (...) immemorial, humankind has taken unto itself all manner of gods, and that almost all of these tribal deities have long since vanished into obscurity.'. (shrink)

Is something true because we believe it to be so or because it is true? How can a culturally bound community achieve scientific knowledge when values, attitudes, and desires shape its beliefs? In this book an eminent philosopher considers various schools of thought on the nature of truth. David Weissman argues that truth exists in the correspondence between statement and fact: what can be said about our world can be measured against a reality that has a character and existence (...) independent of any property we ascribe to it. Weissman begins by evaluating the transcendental paradigm of Kant that has exercised enormous influence in the development of Western thought over the past two hundred years. He develops his critique of the Kantian model, in which value judgments underlie the perception or construction of truth, asserting that it is seriously flawed because it renders a determination of truth impossible. Weissman examines various value-driven perspectives on truth developed by such philosophers as Foucault, Derrida, and Rorty, for whom truth is only the set of affirmations, principles, and procedures sanctioned by power and value. However, says Weissman, truth is the required adjunct to desire. Knowing who we are, where we have been, and the consequences of what we have done is the essential preparation for choosing what to do next. We must respect the integrity of a world we have not made and find our way within it with the help of attitudes and desires that have been informed by truth. (shrink)

An edition of the recently discovered notebook used in the seventeenth-century by John Wallis to teach language to the 'deaf mute' Alexander Popham, who could not inherit unless he could speak - one of the most famous cases in the history of deaf education. David Cram and Jaap Maat place the work in its personal, social, and scientific contexts.

In The Novel and the Modern World I tried to explain the three factors that account for the special characteristics of the modern novel—the breakdown in community of belief about what was significant in experience, new notions of time, new notions of consciousness—with reference with changes to the social and economic fabric of society, for I was writing in the heyday of “social” thinking about literature that affected so many of us in the late 1930s. But I soon came to (...) feel that this explanation was too slapdash and that a much subtler kind of relationship existed between literature and society than the one I tried to present in 1938. That is why in the new addition of the book I substituted for some of the larger generalisations about society a closer reading of aspects of individual novels. But I have never given up my belief that there is a profound relationship between literature and society and that what might be called the heroic period of experiment and innovation of the novel on both sides of the Atlantic reveals something of that relationship. And in the years that followed the original publication of the book I have found no reason to abandon my general theory, but have applied it, with more subtlety , to a wider range of writers. David Daiches, professor of English at the University of Sussex, is the author of numerous books and articles. Among them, New Literary Values, The Novel and the Modern World, Virginia Woolf, and Literary Essays were pioneering studies in modern literature. He is currently working on Was, a book on the nature of memory and the relation of imagination and language. (shrink)

Widely regarded as the founder of the Islamic philosophical tradition, and as the single greatest philosophical authority after Aristotle by his successors in the medieval Islamic, Jewish, and Christian communities, Alfarabi was a leading figure in the fields of Aristotelian logic and Platonic political science. The first complete English translation of his commentary on Aristotle's Topics, Alfarabi's Book of Dialectic, or Kitāb al-Jadal, is presented here in a deeply researched edition based on the most complete Arabic manuscript sources. David (...) M. DiPasquale argues that Alfarabi's understanding of the Socratic art of dialectic is the key prism through which to grasp his recovery of an authentic tradition of Greek science on the verge of extinction. He also suggests that the Book of Dialectic is unique to the extent to which it unites Alfarabi's logical and political writings, opening up novel ways of interpreting Alfarabi's influence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 161 2) You wish him to become what he is not, and no longer to be what he is now (literally: what he is now, no longer to be [283d 2-3]). 3) You wish for his death, since you wish him no longer to be (283d 5-6). The obvious way of dealing with this argument is to make precisely the distinction made by the author of (...) the Dissoi Logoi at V, 15: we should say to Dionysodorus, "Your conclusion that the friends of Cleinias wish for his death is the result of an illegitimate step: you went from 'you wish him not to be ignorant' to 'you wish him not to be'. To have made this step is to have ignored the distinction between existence with respect to some particular thing, i.e., ignorance, and existence in general." (A later critic might point out to Dionysodorus that he has confused the copulative and existential uses of the verb "to be.") It now becomes possible to return to the question, which of the two formulations, (a) or (b), does the author of the Dissoi Logoi presuppose? On the basis of the Euthydemus passage, it seems likely that he presupposed both. The conclusion of Dionysodorus' argument is (b), that Cleinias does not exist, but his conclusion is based upon (a) that Cleinias both is (ignorant) and is not (wise). The Euthydemus passage shows clearly that the words "if someone denies that the man exists" are considerably less of a non sequitur than might first appear. CONCLUSmN. The fallacy-solving distinction of Dissoi Logoi, u 15 was probably understood by Plato~ although not clearly formulated until Aristotle. How is this fact to be assimilated? Is the Dissoi Logoi (or at least this section) much later than has hitherto been presupposed? Or have scholars simply failed to credit its author with this important distinction? Until we have additional studies of the treatise, further discussion would be premature. ROSAMOND KENT SPRAGUE University o] South Carolina HUME'S A LETTER FROM A GENTLEMAN, A REVIEW NOTE In his biography of David Hume, E. C. Mossner notes that on May 21, 1745 there appeared in two Edinburgh newspapers the following advertisement: This Day will be published, and sold by the Booksellersin Town, A LETTER from a Gentlemanto his Friend at Edinburgh: containing some Observations on a Specimenof the PrinciplesconcerningRELIGION and MORALITY, said to be maintain 'd in a Booklately published,intituled, A Treatiseo] Human Nature, &c.I This Letter, Mossner discloses, was sent by David Hume to his friend Henry Home (later Lord Kames), and its publication was, he suggests, the "last 7A later passagein the Euthydemus, 293b ft.,in whichSocratesuses obstructive tactics when the sophistswish to movefrom "knowingx" to "knowingsimpliciter" seems to me to point in this direction.See R. K. Sprague,Plato's Use o] Fallacy (London, 1962),22-23, and passim on secundumquid. 1See The Li]e o] David Hume (Edinburgh: Thomas Nelson & Sons, Ltd., 1954), pp. 153162,esp.p. 160. 162 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY frantic effort" by Hume's friends to stem the rising opposition to his appointment to the vacant chair of Ethics and Pneumatical Philosophy at Edinburgh University. Mossner was obliged to report further, however, not only that this effort had been in vain, but also that what "may well constitute an important document in the further interpretation of some aspects of the Treatise" has "never been located." z Now a copy of the Letter has been located. It was purchased from a Birmingham bookseller in December, 1966, by the National Library of Scotland. And, with admirable celerity, a facsimile edition of it has been published by the Edinburgh University Press. Adding still further to the value of this important discovery is the accompanying Introduction which describes the events, parties, and personalities which occasioned the Letter. The editors tell us that John Pringle first offered to resign his chair of philosophy in June, 1744, two years after he had taken leave to accept the position of Physician-General to the British forces in Flanders. He sent his offer to John Coutts, Lord Provost of Edinburgh, and Courts, in turn, suggested to Hume that he apply. Had Pringle not delayed... (shrink)

The Drake Relays are one of the iconic events of track and field in the United States. World and Olympic champions test their speed and stamina on the famed Blue Oval in Des Moines, Iowa, every April, and by spring 2013 they had set fourteen world records and fifty-one American records. But unlike most other top meets, this one also features college athletes from all over the country and high school athletes from across Iowa, giving them the experience of a (...) lifetime—competing on the same track with the elite in their sport. This mix brings many enthusiastic spectators to the stadium and makes for an unusually close bond between fans and athletes—it’s as if everyone’s family is there cheering. Pulitzer Prize–winning photographer David Peterson has been covering the Drake Relays for nearly forty years, but his love affair with the meet started earlier, when he ran on three winning relay teams there for Kansas State University. Now, drawing upon an unmatched personal archive, he offers the pictures of a lifetime spent on the Blue Oval. He captures on camera athletes of all levels in triumph and defeat, in mid-stride or leap, embracing their fans, their moms and dads, and their kids. In addition to the stars of the past, such as Carl Lewis, Suzy Favor Hamilton, and Herschel Walker, and those of the ’00s, like Lolo Jones and Jeremy Wariner, we see teenagers who may be the stars of the future, as well as the many athletes who will never be famous but nonetheless show themselves—and their sport—at their best. A beautiful celebration of the Drake Relays and the diverse sports that make up “track and field,” this book will evoke memories and inspire runners, throwers, and jumpers everywhere. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 122.2 (2001) 270-274 [Access article in PDF] Elizabeth S. Belfiore. Murder among Friends: Violation of "Philia" in Greek Tragedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. xix + 282 pp. Cloth, $55. In explaining the kinds of situations that are dreadful or pitiable, Aristotle tells us in the Poetics (1453b14-23) that all actions occur between friends (philoi), enemies, or neither: the classification is evidently meant to (...) be exhaustive, and the third term, is added to the usual binary, friend or foe, for the sake of greater precision. Acts between enemies or neutral parties do not arouse pity, apart from the nature of the event itself (pathos). What one wants, then, is situations in which they occur en tais philiais, such as brother killing brother, son father, mother son, son mother, and the like--in other words, to judge from the instances Aristotle offers, when violence takes place within the family. The somewhat odd phrase, "within affective relationships"--embraces familial bonds, whereas en tois philois would, I believe, have suggested rather friends who are unrelated by blood.Such, at least, is my interpretation of the passage. Elizabeth Belfiore disagrees: in an appendix to the first chapter of her book, in which she discusses my published views on the question, she maintains that here "the noun philos surely has the same range as philia, and both refer primarily, if not exclusively, to relationships among close blood kin" (20). Whatever the sense of philos, however, Aristotle clearly means that tragedy is best at eliciting pity when it deals with tensions within the family, and, as Belfiore notes, such bonds are "central to more than half" the extant tragedies (xv)--and relations by marriage are not included in this figure. Of those fragmentary plays whose plots can be reconstructed with some confidence (Belfiore analyzes 141), 69 involve harm or the threat of harm to blood relatives, according to Belfiore. A dozen more focus on spouses, again classified separately under the heading "reciprocal relationships," which covers also xenia and suppliancy (202-3), although Belfiore (6) notes that Aristotle lists marriage under philia sungenikê (NE 9.4; EE 7.6-7), while guest-friendship belongs rather to koinônikê (supplication is not discussed in NE 8-9). "Reciprocal relationships" is thus a problematic class, since it includes bonds that the Greeks would, I think, have seen as quite distinct. Be that as it may, "Murder among Kin" might have been a more suitable title for this volume, especially [End Page 270] given that violence between friends in the narrow or modern sense is virtually nonexistent in Greek tragedy. It is an unfortunate consequence of broadening the meaning of philos that this circumstance goes unexplained in Belfiore's discussion.Before examining Belfiore's argument in more detail, let me first give an overview of the structure of the book. It falls into two halves of about equal length. The first part consists of a general overview of philia relations in Greek literature, followed by close readings of five tragedies. These include Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris, where the danger is fratricide; Aeschylus' Suppliant Women, the theme of which is defined as "the suppliant bride"; Sophocles' Philoctetes, which is treated as a play about xenia; Euripides' Andromache; and Sophocles' Ajax, in which suicide is taken to be a violation of the most intimate kind of philia, that which obtains with oneself (the chapter title is "Killing One's Closest Philos").The second part consists of three appendices, the first of which summarizes the plots of the surviving tragedies other than the five singled out for treatment in the body of the text. These are arranged by category: blood kinship, subdivided in turn into "parent harms child," "child harms parent," "sibling harms sibling," and "harm to other blood kin" (17 plays in all); reciprocal relationships, covering marriage, xenia, and "suppliancy"; and exceptional plays, including Sophocles' Ajax and Euripides' Andromache. Within each subcategory, plays are treated by author, with individual works arranged in alphabetical order of the English titles. Thus, "parent harms child" begins with Aeschylus' Eumenides, followed... (shrink)