Doubts about the origin of Bentham's formula, ‘the greatest happiness of the greatest number’, were resolved by Robert Shackleton thirty years ago. Uncertainty has persisted on at least two points. (1) Why did the phrase largely disappear from Bentham's writing for three or four decades after its appearance in 1776? (2) Is it correct to argue (with David Lyons in 1973) that Bentham's principle is to be differentially interpreted as having sometimes a ‘parochial’ and sometimes a ‘universalist’ bearing? These issues (...) are reopened here with particular reference to textual evidence overlooked in earlier discussions and contextual evidence on the development of Bentham's radicalism in the last two decades of his life. In conclusion some broader issues are raised concerning the character of Bentham's understanding of ‘happiness’ itself. (shrink)

From the late 1790s to the early 1890s, Scottish scholars contributed, as translators, commentators, or critics to the ‘reception’ of Kant's philosophy in Britain. The discussion here considers particularly the work of Richardson, Semple, Gillies, MacVicar, Ferrier, Meiklejohn, and Hastie, and attempts to assess the character, quality, and value of their contributions to Kantian scholarship. An important question throughout is whether – and if so, how far and why – the work of Scottish Kantians can be meaningfully discussed apart from (...) their English contemporaries – one relevant consideration being the distinctive rôle of philosophy in the Scottish M.A. curriculum. (shrink)

This volume offers a comprehensive and authoritative account of the history of a complex and varied body of ideas over a period of more than one thousand years. A work of both synthesis and assessment, The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought presents the results of several decades of critical scholarship in the field, and reflects in its breadth of enquiry precisely that diversity of focus that characterized the medieval sense of the "political," preoccupied with universality at some levels, and (...) with almost minute particularity at others. Among the vital questions explored by the distinguished team of contributors are the nature of authority, of justice, of property; the problem of legitimacy, of allegiance, of resistance to the powers that be; the character and functions of law, and the role of custom in maintaining a social structure. (shrink)

The purpose of this note is to redirect attention to some of the literary evidence that concerns the site of Apollo's temple on the Palatine. For this evidence has an irritating habit of refusing to confirm what would otherwise be irrefutable archaeological proof of the temple's site. It is now fashionable to identify the site of the temple with that occupied by the temple-core that was originally assigned to Iuppiter Victor on the south-west angle of the Palatine in the region (...) of the Scalae Caci, the Temple of Magna Mater, the Casa Romuli, and the so-called House of Liuia. This was, in the view of most scholars, Euander's citadel that Virgil calls Pallanteum and this must be the site of the Augustan buildings. Now the House of Liuia has been identified with apparent probability as the House of Augustus, and we know from literary evidence that the temple of Apollo, Augustus' private house, and the house decreed to him by the senate must have been in close proximity to each other. The temple-core on the south-west of the Palatine is of Augustan date and is built over the remains of houses of the late republic1 which appear to have been demolished for the purpose. If Liuia's House was the house of Augustus then Iuppiter Victor's temple must be assigned to Apollo. (shrink)

In 209b.c.P. Cornelius Scipio captured the city of New Carthage. The victory was crucial for the Roman war effort in Spain, and indeed in Italy too, but Scipio's campaign is especially memorable—and the subject of much debate—on account of the manner in which the city was taken. New Carthage had in effect been built on a peninsula, with the sea to the south and a lagoon to the north, and with a canal joining the two to the west. The city, (...) therefore, could only be approached by land from the east; but, according to Polybius, Scipio had learnt from some fishermen that the lagoon was shallow and could be forded in most places and, moreover, that the waters in it usually receded each evening (10.8.7). It was this knowledge that Scipio exploited to take the city. But this same knowledge he also kept from his men (10.9.1, 10.9.4–5). In his address to his soldiers prior to the attack, Polybius says, Scipio told them that Poseidon had visited him in his sleep and had promised to assist the Romans in their operations in a way that would be apparent to all (10.11.7). (shrink)

In contrast to certain recent work, which supposes that the fetial priests were always responsible for the swearing of the oaths made upon the striking of a treaty and that the rituals they performed went unchanged for centuries, this paper argues that the treaty-making rituals of the Romans changed and developed, and that the ritual which the fetial priests performed may not have been devised until as late as the third century BC.

Professor Richmond's reply t o m y article on Palatine Apollo is argued with his usual enthusiasm and cogency. This reply to him, which has been delayed by my departure for Australia, must begin with an expression of the respect that I feel for an antagonist far more able and experienced than I can claim to be. Indeed, it was while lecturing on Ovid, Tristia 3 that I first met Professor Richmond's masterly article on the Augustan Palatium . From this (...) article my enthusiasm for the subject began, and I know that Professor Richmond has always welcomed discussion and argument about the famous Augustan temple of Apollo on the Palatine. I can but join him in urging any who may have been interested by our discussion to study his original article which contains much more besides a discussion of the site of Apollo's temple. (shrink)

Ennead I. 4. 3: Plotinus is arguing that happiness is fullness and completeness of life, and continues, according to the MSS. , οϋτω γρ ν οùδέ έπακτòν τò γαθòν ύπάρΧοι, ούδ' λλο τò ύποκείμενον άλλαΧόθεν γενόμενον παρέξει αύτò ν άγαθεναι. Mr. MacKenna translates the last phrase by ‘a life needing no foreign substance called in from a foreign realm to establish it in good ’; Ficinus by ‘neque aliud quicquam aliunde adueniens efficiet ut subiectum collocetur in bono.’ Ficinus is undoubtedly (...) right. τò ύποκειμέν means ‘the subject,’ which a few lines above has been identified with the λογικ ζωή. The passage should be corrected by writing τ, ύποκειμέν, dependent on γενόμενον, for τò úποκείμενον. (shrink)