Whereas communication is today conceived as the “transmission” of “signals” along a “conduit,” Latin speakers’ understanding of this concept was delivered by a system of metaphors recruiting images of cooking, serving, eating, and digesting food. More than providing simply colorful ways of speaking about thought and speech, however, these alimentary metaphors functioned together to deliver a coherent overall model of how mental representations come to be verbally shared among individuals. While it is not the only metaphorical model available (...) to Latin speakers in conceptualizing communication, the alimentary model also represents a privileged model that informs scholarly and philosophical theorizing. (shrink)

During the Middle Ages many Greek mathematical and astronomical texts were translated from Greek into Arabic and from Arabic into Latin. There were many factors complicating the study of them, such as translation from or into other languages, redactions, multiple translations, and independently transmitted scholia. A literal translation risks less in loss of meaning, but can be clumsy. This article includes lists of translations and a large bibliography, divided into sections.

The pitfalls of the Wadding edition of John Duns Scotus illustrate a general feature of the study of medieval philosophy: the gap that separates the authentic words of the medieval thinker one wishes to study from the Latin words one sees on the pages of a printed edition — and further still from the English words one sees in a translation. The aim of this essay is to make clear both the nature and the size of that gap, not (...) in order to dismay prospective students of medieval philosophy, but in order to explain the hazards in such a way that students can equip themselves properly to meet them. I will begin by discussing in a general way the channels of transmission by which medieval philosophy has made its way down to us. I then turn to three specific cases by which I illustrate some of those general points as they apply to texts of different sorts and from different periods. Along the way I draw attention to the kinds of errors that are liable to be introduced at the various stages of transmission between a medieval lecturer’s spoken words and the text of a modern critical edition, and I outline the tools and techniques that the careful historian of medieval philosophy will use in order to minimize such errors, especially where no critical edition is available. In the second half of the essay I turn to problems of translation. I provide an example that shows how a reader can sometimes detect errors in a translation even without checking the Latin text, and another to illustrate how translations sometimes reflect controversial views about how a text is to be interpreted. I then conclude with a look at the translation of particular terms, discussing a number of standard translations that are apt to be misleading, and giving some idea of the range of translation of certain key terms. (shrink)

Marie-Therese d'Alverny devoted a large part of her research to discovering and describing manuscripts of scientific texts, especially those translated from Arabic. This volume contains those of d'Alverny's studies devoted to the Latin transmission of the works of other Greek and Arabic authors (Aristotle, Galen, Priscianus Lydus, al-Kindi, Albumasar, Algazel and Averroes), the authors responsible for this transmission (Scotus Eriugena, Raymond of Marseilles, Petrus Hispanus, Henri Bate of Malines and Pietro d'Abano), and some of the themes of (...) the transmitted texts (astrology and the planetary system of Herclides), as well as three articles summarizing the whole transmission process. (shrink)

In L. D. Reynolds , Texts and Transmission: a Survey of the Latin Classics , it is stated by J. G. F. Powell and by M. D. Reeve that MS. Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek Lat. 4° 404 , containing Cicero, De amicitia, and Publilius Syrus, Sententiae, is missing. Not so: it is currently held with numerous other Berlin MSS., including humanistic and musical autographs, at the Jagellonian Library in Cracow, where I saw it on 5 May 1992. Other classical (...) MSS. from Berlin now held in Cracow are Lat. 4° 1 , 257 , 590 , 939 , and 8° 102. (shrink)

The articles collected in this volume have their origin in an international workshop dedicated to “Experience and Knowledge Structures in Arabic and Latin Sciences.” Specialists from Great Britain, France, Denmark, Spain, Morocco, the United States, and Germany gathered in Berlin in 1996 in the context of an interdisciplinary research project on the history of mechanical thinking at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. The workshop initiated a process of discussion focused on problems of the intercultural (...) class='Hi'>transmission and transformation of knowledge. The present double issue is an outcome of this ongoing discussion. (shrink)

Chagas disease or American trypanosomiasis is an important health problem in Latin America. Due to the mobility of Latin American population around the world, countries without vector presence started to report disease cases. We developed a deterministic compartmental model in order to gain insights into the disease dynamics in a scenario without vector presence, considering congenital transmission and transmission by blood transfusion. The model was used to evaluate the epidemiological effect of control measures. It was applied (...) to demographic data from Spain and sensitivity analysis was performed on model parameters associated with control strategies. (shrink)

L'authenticité du maigre dossier de correspondance documentant les relations entre l'empereur Frédéric II Hohenstaufen et la cour impériale de Nicée est un sujet de débats constants, tant pour les pièces grecques que latines. L'édition récente d'un nouveau témoin de l'une de ces dernières, en permettant d'en préciser le contexte de rédaction - probablement privé - incite à désattribuer définitivement une lettre qui ne fut sans doute jamais envoyée par Frédéric II à Jean III Vatatzès, et dont le sens véritable n'est (...) même pas celui d'un pastiche. Cette désattribution met sur la piste d'une réflexion sur les contextes de transmission et de rédaction des dictamina politiques latins du XIIIe siècle. Elle incite à réfléchir sur la nécessité de développer des critères méthodologiques tenant compte de ceux-ci pour contourner les apories de la critique interne dans l'examen de dossiers de traitement particulièrement délicat, tels que des correspondances diplomatiques uniquement transmises dans des recueils épistolaires. (shrink)

I consider the question of why Latin American refugees often fail to transmit understanding of the strength of the moral demand on US agents, legislators and administrators to provide them with refuge in the US. To answer this question, I present two forms of hermeneutical injustice that are novel with respect to the epistemic injustice literature. These forms of hermeneutical injustice are what I call misleading resource injustice and psychological commitment injustice. I submit that these two kinds of hermeneutical (...) injustice put into view a dual remedy that involves, on the one hand, diversifying news organizations that populate the social imaginary with interpretative resources and, on the other hand, promoting the number of non-dominant group-controlled news organizations. (shrink)

Continental authors and editors often sought to ground alchemical writing within a long-established, coherent and pan-European tradition, appealing to the authority of adepts from different times and places. Greek, Latin and Islamic alchemists met both in person and between the covers of books, in actual, fictional or coincidental encounters: a trope utilised in Michael Maier’s Symbola aureae mensae duodecim nationum. This essay examines how works attributed to an English authority, George Ripley, were received in central Europe and incorporated into (...) continental compendia. Placed alongside works by the philosophers of other nations, Ripley’s writings helped affirm the unity and truth of alchemy in defiance of its critics. His continental editors were therefore concerned not only with the provenance of manuscripts and high-quality exemplars, but by a range of other factors, including the desire to suppress controversial material, intervene in contemporary polemics, and defend their art. In the resulting compilations, the vertical axis of alchemy’s long, diachronic tradition may be compared to the horizontal plane of pan-European alchemy. (shrink)

Richard Henry Popkin - Sextus Empiricus: The Transmission and Recovery of Pyrrhonism - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:4 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.4 537-539 Book Review Sextus Empiricus: The Transmission and Recovery of Pyrrhonism Luciano Floridi. Sextus Empiricus: The Transmission and Recovery of Pyrrhonism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xv + 150. Cloth, $54.00. This is a most important book for those who wish to understand how skepticism became a vital part (...) of philosophy from the Renaissance onward. For at least the last decade, the author has been working as a historical detective to find out what was known about ancient Pyrrhonian skepticism and the writings of Sextus Empiricus during the Middle Ages and what happened when Greek manuscripts of the texts became available in Europe. Floridi's information enables us to gain a more accurate picture of how, when, and where Greek skepticism reached Europe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; who had access to manuscripts; who translated the Greek texts into Latin; and who read them, thereby correcting the usual picture that I and other scholars have presented. Floridi reveals that there was a lingering knowledge of Pyrrhonian skepticism in philosophical handbooks that were used during the Middle Ages. But it is only in the.. (shrink)

Ibn Sarābiyūn is one of the last exponents of classical Syriac medical writing, and one of the most influential authors for the development of medical theory and practice in late ninth-century Baghdad in particular, and for the Arabic medical tradition in general. During the last thirty years, three important studies have been published regarding the life and work of Ibn Sarābiyūn, each of which dealing with a different aspect of the transmission of this important author’s œuvre. Likewise, during the (...) last twenty-five years, a number of texts associated with Ibn Sarābiyūn's works have been edited, allowing us today to shed new light on the relation between the original Syriac and the numerous translations into Arabic, Latin and Hebrew. Furthermore, through analysing and comparing a number of manuscripts containing different parts of Ibn Sarābiyūn's work which have not hitherto been considered together, progress can be made towards answering the question how Ibn Sarābiyūn was translated and used during the medieval period. (shrink)

Ce livre, issu du programme « Présocratiques Grecs/Présocratiques Latins » financé par l’Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR) et dirigé par André Laks et Carlos Lévy, est le fruit d’une tentative fort intéressante de mettre l’accent sur la question de la spécificité de la transmission et de l’utilisation latine des présocratiques. Car sans nul doute, dans le domaine des études présocratiques, les témoignages issus de la tradition latine ne se trouvent pas au même niveau que ceux provenant d...

In 2021, a previously unknown treatise by Porphyry of Tyre, which has been preserved in a Syriac translation, was made available to historians of philosophy: Porphyry, On Principles and Matter (De Gruyter, 2021). This text not only enlarges our knowledge of the legacy of the most prominent disciple of Plotinus but also serves as an important witness to Platonist discussions of first principles and of Plato's concept of prime matter in the Timaeus. The aim of the present volume of collected (...) studies is two-fold. On the one hand, it brings up an update to the state of the art of our knowledge of Porphyry's philosophy and of his role in the transmission of the earlier philosophical materials, especially those of the Middle Platonic works. On the other hand, it focuses on the questions of the reception of Porphyry's legacy, both by Greek and Latin Platonists (with special interest in Calcidius) and by Christian Oriental authors (with particular focus on the Syriac tradition). The primary audience of the book will be scholars and graduate students in ancient and late ancient Greek philosophy, Orientalists and scholars interested in the Christian reception of Greek philosophy, in the studies of the Christian Orient, as well as in Greek, Latin, and Syriac philology. (shrink)

La circulation du savoir philosophique à travers les traductions du grec au syriaque, du grec à l'arabe, du syriaque à l'arabe, de l'arabe au latin forme, depuis un siècle et plus de recherches savantes, un domaine scientifique à part entière. Ce volume réunit des spécialistes des disciplines du domaine voulant rendre hommage à un collègue dont l'activité a ouvert une voie, Henri Hugonnard-Roche. Spécialiste de la transmission du grec au syriaque de la logique aristotélicienne, Henri Hugonnard-Roche a montré (...) par ses recherches la continuité entre la philosophie de l'Antiquité tardive et la pensée des chrétiens de langue syriaque d'un côté, des savants musulmans écrivant en arabe, de l'autre. Réunis souvent par ce que Werner Jaeger avait autrefois désigné comme 'la portée œcuménique de l'Antiquité classique', des musulmans et des chrétiens faisant partie d'un cercle philosophique se penchaient, dans la ville de Bagdad au Xe siècle, sur le texte d'Aristote. Leur 'Aristote' était souvent celui de l'Antiquité tardive : l'Aristote de l'école néoplatonicienne d'Alexandrie que les intellectuels de la Syrie chrétienne avaient déjà rencontré quelque quatre siècles auparavant et qu'ils avaient traduit, en même temps que Galien, et parfois commenté. Des noms presque inconnus comme celui de Sergius de Resh'ayna (mort en 536) commencent dans nos manuels à en côtoyer d'autres bien plus connus, comme celui de Boèce, grâce aux recherches de Henri Hugonnard-Roche. (shrink)

This article proposes a first systematic approach to the manuscript tradition of the Liber de causis. It studies both the manuscript variants and the doctrinal difficulties raised by the transliteration of the Arabic al-ʿaql preserved in the Latin translation. Some authors interpreted this transliteration as a concept forged by Arab philosophers without an equivalent in Latin. Other authors do not mention it because they probably knew a different branch of the manuscript tradition. By examining one hundred and ten (...) Latin manuscripts of the Liber de causis, the article establishes a list of the numerous variations regarding the presence of this transliteration in the text and its forms or spellings. This analysis enables a better understanding of both Albert's position and the hitherto unsuspected diversity of the transmission of the Liber de causis in the Latin West. (shrink)

Composé en syriaque au VIIIesiècle, traduit en arabe au Xesiècle, puis en latin au XIIesiècle, ce traité de médecine de Yūḥannā ibn Sarābiyūn est un exemple typique de la transmission de la médecine hippocratique de l'Orient arabe à l'Occident latin au moyen âge. Mais si la traduction latine de ce traité, faite par Gérard de Crémone, nous est parvenue dans son intégralité, nous ne possédons que des fragments du texte arabe, dispersés dans cinq manuscrits conservés dans quatre (...) bibliothèques européennes.Dans une première partie, on essaiera de préciser les données biographiques relatives à l'auteur et aux quatre traducteurs qui ont effectué la traduction de son traité du syriaque en arabe. Dans une seconde partie, on étudiera les fragments du manuscrit de Paris et des deux manuscrits de l'Escorial, en examinant d'abord ces fragments du point de vue de leur langue, puis en les comparant à la traduction latine. (shrink)

This paper investigates the affiliation of Book I of the Latin translation of Euclid's Elements attributed to Hermann of Carinthia with the Arabic transmission of the Greek mathematical work. It argues that it is a translation of a text of the Arabic secondary transmission, that is, of an Arabic edition mixed with comments. Two methodological claims are made in the paper. The first insists that the determination of a text whose transmission was as multifaceted and complex (...) as the Euclidean Elements needs to be based on a systematic investigation of entire books rather than on selected theorems or diagrams of global, mostly structural relevance. The second claim starts from the experience that almost all results regarding the place of a particular document in a chain of transmission are conjectural. It acknowledges that individual results are more or less persuasive, depending upon the qualitative status of the argument. It suggests that the quantitative accumulation of similarities, differences, errors, regularities, or peculiarities allows one to recognize patterns and thus improves the reliability of judgment. (shrink)

In this paper, I explore general features of the “architecture” (relations of white space, diagram, and text on the page) of medieval manuscripts and early printed editions of Euclidean geometry. My focus is primarily on diagrams in the Arabic transmission, although I use some examples from both Byzantine Greek and medieval Latin manuscripts as a foil to throw light on distinctive features of the Arabic transmission. My investigations suggest that the “architecture” often takes shape against the backdrop (...) of an educational landscape. The constraints of the economic marketplace and cultural aesthetic ideals also appear to play a role in determining the “architecture” of both manuscripts and early printed editions. (shrink)

Compared with the Greek and Latin fields, the systematic study of the concept of textual criticism in classical India has made little progress, despite the quality of work produced by specialists. And yet research of this nature would probably lead, paradoxically, to a clearer formulation of the aims and methods of modern critical editions of Indian texts.

Auguste Comte! Ce nom ne dit plus rien à personne. Ceux qui le connaissent encore parlent de lui comme d'un grand philosophe : concepteur de la sociologie, du positivisme et de la théorie des trois états. On oublie cependant qu'il fut aussi à l'origine d'une religion personnelle, un culte des morts destiné à relier et rallier l'Humanité tout entière. Mais au fond, que reste-t-il de son oeuvre? Un vestige lointain d'un cours de philosophie? Une rue connue des seuls Parisiens du (...) Quartier latin?... Voilà un bien maigre héritage pour ce curieux prophète de l'ère contemporaine! Si l'influence quasi mondiale de la philosophie positive n'est plus à démontrer, comment expliquer l'échec de sa religion? Cette question, longtemps boudée par l'historiographie, trouve ici sa réponse, notamment grâce aux diverses références que l'auteur convoque tout au long de son enquête. Parmi elles : Régis Debray, Don Quichotte, Milan Kundera, Philip Roth, Dante, Marcel Jousse, Salvador Dali, Joseph Campbell, Homère, saint Paul, Michel Onfray, Marcel Proust, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Anatole France ou encore Star Wars... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Concept of Will in EarlyLatin Philosophy NEAL W. GILBERT AN HISTORICALDISCUSSIONOf the concept of will is best begun with an analysis of the use of voluntas in Latin philosophy, from its earliest occurrences in Lucretius and Cicero on down to Augustine and medieval times. This development can be traced without much controversy because the line of transmission and development is more or less unbroken. But the (...) correlating of Latin psychological terms with their Greek originals presents problems. Greek philosophy was indeed the source from which Latin philosophical psychology developed: Lucretius reflects Epicurean doctrine, while Cicero and Seneca were strongly influenced by Stoic philosophy when they discussed moral action. However, many modern scholars are convinced that the Greeks had no word that corresponds to our "will" at all, and so we seem to be left with no choice but to regard the will as an original creation of Latin philosophy. But this would be to overlook the fact that ancient Latin writers sometimes specifically equated voluntas with certain Greek terms, and such evidence ought not to go unexamined. Voluntas was well established in Latin usage before Roman writers began to concern themselves with philosophical problems, but it did not have a technical sense. It meant simply "good will," or "favor," or concretely, a "will, or testament. ''I Clustered around it were other derivatives of "volo," such as "benevolentia" and "malevolentia," "well-wishing" and "ill-wishing." When Roman writers began to deal with philosophical problems, there were a number of different contexts in which voluntas could play a leading role. Chief among them, naturally, was the "freedom of the will" which, then as now, intrigued the ordinary man or the moralist. However, discussions revolving around the determinist-libertarian issue often fail to clarify the concept of the will itself. Major philosophers (Chrysippus, Augustine, or Hume, for example) offer fine distinctions within moral action when considering the determinist-libertarian dispute, but lesser figures are apt to "C'est seulement lots de la creation du vocabulairephilosophiqueque voluntas a pris le sens abstrait et technique de 'volont6'." Ernout, A., and A. Meillet,Dictionnaire Etymologique de la langue latine, 4th ed. (Paris, 1959),sub "volo." [17] 18 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY neglect the detailed analysis of moral action in favor of sweeping metaphysical pronouncements. When a Latin writer wished to say that a person did something of his own accord, the locution most natural to him was "sua sponte," an ablative absolute derived from the same root as our word "spontaneous." The nominative case of "sponte" ("spons") was almost never used, so that dictionaries are perhaps somewhat misleading in suggesting that the word "spons" means "free will": it would be more correct to say that the phrase "sua sponte" means "of his own free will." Latin writers also indicate that someone did something willingly by saying that he did it "non invitus" ("not unwillingly "). Finally, they could apply the adjective "voluntarius" to such an action, or say that it was done "ex voluntate." When the latter term begins to be used as a designation for a separate faculty of the soul distinct from reason or intelligence, it begins to resemble the modern concept of will. Augustine is usually given credit for introducing the concept of will into philosophy, but even the earliest Latin treatment of the free-will problem framed the issue in terms of voluntas. Nevertheless, I think that the received view is substantially correct, although it would be more proper to say that what Augustine introduced into philosophy was not the concept of will in general but the concept of the evil will. What Augustine called the "good" will ("bona voluntas") was closely related to the "reasonable desire" of the Stoic sage, rendered into Latin by Cicero as voluntas, without any adjective. The addition of the evil will altered the outlines of moral analysis considerably, involving among other things the major shift from a Socratic or Platonic psychology and ethics (usually labeled "intellectualistic") to a Christian psychology and ethics (usually labeled "voluntaristic"). Such a characterization is likely to be drawn too sharply, and to overlook anticipations of voluntarism in Greek thought or reminiscences of Greek intellectualism in Christian thought. Hence it may be useful... (shrink)

This article presents the history of the medieval Latin translations of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. It features the names of some key figures of the period like Burgundio of Pisa, Robert Grosseteste, and William of Moerbeke. The main focus lies on the question whether Robert Grosseteste had access to a complete copy of the earlier translation by Burgundio of Pisa, or only to the fragmentary version that has come down to us. To reach an answer, the Latin versions and (...) their Greek models are studied as “fluid texts”, which indicates that all individual witnesses of the text and of its translations contain readings and variants that differentiate them from each other and from the translator’s ultimate intentions. In their turn, the fluid elements cause changes to persist throughout the transmission process and continue to exert mutual influence. A detailed, though necessarily largely incomplete study of some of these aspects leads to unnoticed evidence and to an uncertain but optimistic conclusion. (shrink)

Dans cet entretien, Sabrina Fernandes revient sur son parcours, entre découverte du marxisme, engagement écosocialiste et efforts de transmission d’armes critiques pour penser une transition radicale et une résistance au capitalisme vert. Elle dresse un état des forces en présence sur le front écosocial en Amérique du Sud, dont la composition mêle à l’écomarxisme les luttes indigènes, les combats écoféministes, les enjeux fonciers et alimentaires, l’Amazonie, et les perspectives de résistance face au regain de l’exploitation minière dans le cadre (...) du capitalisme vert qui redéploie et renouvelle les « zones de sacrifice ». Surtout, elle souligne l’impératif de penser la transition écologique non comme un agenda de réformes sectorielles, mais comme un programme politique, à partir duquel organiser la liaison des luttes et une vision transformatrice commune. Sabrina Fernandes propose quelques moyens de compréhension pour faire avancer ce front écosocial sud-américain et sa dimension internationaliste – les enjeux décrits ici mettant en jeu les débats sur les modalités de la bifurcation écologique dans les pays riches. (shrink)

In this essay, we explore the philosophical and theoretical resonances of the artwork Qatipana from the perspective of some key insights of Gilbert Simondon’s information processing system approach. Qatipana (Quechua word that means flow, sequence, transmission) is a hybrid ecosystem of information flow which, even though not the kind of dispositive systems theory was designed to read, offers some valuable empirical insights to test some key aspects of Simondon’s information processing systems. In particular, we are interested in observing how (...) Simondon’s becoming and individuation play out in an algorithmic cycle performed by the cognitive system of an Artificial Intelligence agent: how does mono-technology and computerization of cultural techniques influence the nature of knowing the affection of being with others (people, things, animals)? We contrast Simondon’s contributions with the work of Norbert Wiener and Stafford Beer on information in cybernetics and the cosmotechnics and Technodiversity of Chinese philosopher Yuk Hui. Furthermore, we offer a provisional assessment of the reach, limits, and possibilities this kind of symbiotic crossing of technologies and arts: it is a field filled with challenges and unresolved complexities that should encourage us to recognize the urgency that is implied in the disruptive (and creative) we can see unfolding in social and political life. The already pervasive (and growing) presence of computational systems has become both a tremendous risk and a vertiginous deployment of liberating opportunities. Latin America and elsewhere are desperately calling for an insightful and imaginative engagement. (shrink)

This book focuses on the development of Platonic philosophy at the hands of Roman writers between the first century BCE and the early fifth century CE. It discusses the interpretation of Plato's Timaeus by Cicero, Apuleius, Calcidius, and Augustine, and examines how these authors created new contexts and settings for the intellectual heritage they received and thereby contributed to the construction of the complex and multifaceted genre of Roman Platonism. It takes advantage of the authors' treatment of Plato's Timaeus as (...) a continuous point of reference to illustrate the individuality and originality of each writer in his engagement with this Greek philosophical text; each chooses a specific vocabulary, methodology, and literary setting for his appropriation of Timaean doctrine. The authors' contributions to the dialogue's history of transmission are shown to have enriched and prolonged the enduring significance of Plato's cosmology. (shrink)

The present article locates for the first time the four medieval Greek-Latin translations of the Aristotelian Metaphysics in the Greek manuscript tradition, based on representative collations. Two of the translations, the Translatio Guillelmi of Wilhelm of Moerbeke, cited up to now in the text editions (Ross, Jaeger), and the Translatio Composita, can be neglected in a new edition of the Metaphysics. On the other hand, the Translatio Iacobi and the Translatio anonyma must be consulted for the constitution of the (...) text: the latter actually turns out to be the oldest accessible witness to the meagerly transmitted _β_ -branch. (shrink)

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

Theodore of Tarsus served as archbishop of Canterbury for twenty-two years until his death in 690, aged eighty-eight. Because the only significant record we had of Theodore was that contained in Bede's Historia, until recently it was very difficult to say anything about his life before this appointment, and even more difficult to determine anything about his thought. All of that changed in the last half of the twentieth century, when the discovery of some biblical glosses from Canterbury was revealed (...) and the ensuing scholarship uncovered more of Theodore's work than had previously been known. The Laterculus Malalianus is a text that benefited from treatment in this period. This present work examines the Laterculus for what it has to say about the person and work of Christ, and establishes that Theodore's main theological inspiration was Irenaeus of Lyons and the concept of recapitulation, even while he cast his thought in language heavily drawn from the Syriac East, and Ephrem the Syrian in particular. The volume represents a contribution to our understanding of the early medieval theological project in Britain, the transmission of eastern Mediterranean thought in the early medieval West and, ultimately, of the work of Theodore of Tarsus. James Siemens continues to research theological questions arising from the encounter between the Greek and Semitic East and Latin West through the late antique and early medieval periods. He is an honorary research fellow at Cardiff University, and director of the nascent Theotokos Institute for Catholic Studies. (shrink)

This chapter presents ‘Spinoza philology’ the application of a specific approach to the texts written by Spinoza. In philosophy most philological efforts have traditionally been spent on the texts of ancient authors. The chapter offers a brief chronological survey of Spinoza's works, explaining the particular aspects of the way they have been transmitted. Spinoza wrote the kind of Latin that had been the standard for scholarly and academic purposes throughout Europe since the Renaissance. The Amsterdam publisher Jan Rieuwertsz brought (...) out all Spinoza's books: DPP and CM in 1663, TTP in 1670 and Opera Posthuma in 1677. The initial transmission of Spinoza's works was taken care of by a small group of dedicated friends, who copy‐edited his texts, had them translated, printed, and distributed. The results of the editorial activities of the circle around Spinoza were sufficient to meet the demand for his works for 125 years. (shrink)

The design of translating into Latin the Avicenna's Shifa' is the immediate consequence of the mediaeval Christian culture concern to include the most advanced islamic inheritance of the age. This is stated in the preface in which Avendeuth dedicates the De anima translation to the Arschbishop of Toledo. Mediaeval transmission of philosophy specifies the significance that the transmission of the knowledge in general has for the history of the mediaeval West philosophy as a search for a Christian (...) culture in accordance with the development of human reason. (shrink)

Equimetrical translation of verse, which conveys the metre of the source text, should be distinguished from equiprosodic translation of verse, which conveys theversification system of the source text. Equiprosodic translation of verse can rely on the possibilities of natural language (for instance, when presumably Publius Baebius Italicus created the Ilias Latina, he made use of the quantitative structure in Latin), but it can also employ an artificial system (cf., for example, the quantitative verse in Church Slavonic or English). The (...) Estonian language makes it possible to convey the syllabic (based on the number of syllables), accentual (based on the number and configuration of accents) and quantitative (based on the configuration of durations) versification systems. In practice, combined types are most frequent, for instance, the ones in which both the syllable count and the configuration of accents is relevant; in Estonian, versification systems with theparticipation of all three principles are possible as well. Despite the contrast of quantity in Estonian, the transmission of the quantitative structure of ancient metrics still involves a number of difficulties which result from differences in the prosodic structures. The transmission of purely syllabic versification system has also been problematic: it is hard to perceive such structure as verse in Estonian and therefore it has often been conveyed with the help of different syllabic-accentual or accentual-syllabic verse metres. Although equiprosodic translation is not necessarily equimetrical, in actual translation practice it usually is so. (shrink)

Cicero's philosophical works introduced Latin audiences to the ideas of the Stoics, Epicureans and other schools and figures of the post-Aristotelian period, thus influencing the transmission of those ideas through later history. While Cicero's value as documentary evidence for the Hellenistic schools is unquestioned, Cicero: The Philosophy of a Roman Sceptic explores his writings as works of philosophy that do more than simply synthesize the thought of others, but instead offer a unique viewpoint of their own. In this (...) volume Raphael Woolf describes and evaluates Cicero's philosophical achievements, paying particular attention to his relation to those philosophers he draws upon in his works, his Romanizing of Greek philosophy, and his own sceptical and dialectical outlook. The volume aims, using the best tools of philosophical, philological and historical analysis, to do Cicero justice as a distinctive philosophical voice. Situating Cicero's work in its historical and political context, this volume provides a detailed analysis of the thought of one of the finest orators and writers of the Roman period. Written in an accessible and engaging style, Cicero: The Philosophy of a Roman Sceptic is a key resource for those interested in Cicero's role in shaping Classical philosophy. (shrink)

The Doctrina ad Antiochum ducem, incorrectly attributed to Athanasius of Alexandria, owes its importance to the transmission of extensive extracts from the Shepherd of Hermas. Doctrina is transmitted in Greek in two recensions, a brevior and a longa ; however the same recensio longa has been subject to a number of redactional phases. A Latin version edited only recently, the object of this present study, sheds light on these later redactions. Stylistic and historical-literary considerations prompt a dating in (...) the 40’s of the sixth century and assign paternity to Paschasius of Dumium, a monkwho lived in a monastery of the same name in northwest of Braga that was founded at the same time by Martin of Braga. The dating of the Latin version also entails a more precise dating of the original Greek, assignable to the beginning of the sixth century. (shrink)

The ideas of Plato (429-347 BC) have exerted such an abiding influence on western philosophy and political thought that it is easy to forget that for many centuries, between about 500 and 1400, his works were almost unknown in western Europe. This was partly because very few people in Medieval Europe knew enough Greek to read Plato and even if they had, copies of the Dialogues were almost impossible to obtain, with only the Timaeus available in Latin translation. Scholars (...) were therefore largely dependent on earlier Latin authors such as Cicero and St Augustine for a second-hand knowledge of Plato's ideas. It was the rediscovery of the Dialogues in the original during the Italian Renaissance of the fifteenth century that set western thought off on new paths, a rediscovery that was made possible by the preservation and transmission of Plato's work by scholars in Byzantium. (shrink)

Challenges the picture according to which Islamic culture during the European middle ages served as a passive conduit of ancient Greek sources to the Latin West, along with the conjoined conception that the Islamic achievement in science was a mere reflection, and perhaps a dim one, of earlier Greek achievements. Against this view, this article argues for the "naturalization" of science in the classical Islamic context in a way that allowed for distinctive achievements in their own right.

B a c k g r o u n d. The article examines the philosophical and worldview foundations and specifics of the functioning of cultural strategies within the framework of the "One Belt, One Road" (BRI) Initiative, as well as their potential and risks for Ukraine in the context of possible implementations. It was revealed that the theoretical basis of the formation of the cultural strategy of the BRI is the idea of a new democracy, which provides for the creation (...) and development of a "new culture". This idea includes preserving the traditional priorities of Chinese civilization and introducing new aspects that take into account both the Marxist considerations of the leaders of the Chinese Communist Party and contemporary global trends. M e t h o d s. The research methodology includes content analysis of official documents and strategies, critical discourse analysis of scientific articles and studies, as well as comparative analysis of cultural strategies in different regions. These methods make it possible to deeply study and evaluate the specificity and effectiveness of cultural initiatives in the context of the BRI. R e s u l t s. It is revealed that modern researchers in China focus on a number of strategies for cultural development within the framework of the BRI, including increasing the level of spiritual culture formation, ensuring the long-term development and inheritance of cultural values, increasing the overall level of state power through cultural promotion, forming a state with "strong" culture, the transmission of cultural values from generation to generation, the promotion of the building of a harmonious society through cultural initiatives, the use of foreign experience for the benefit of China, the expansion of influence outside the country through cultural initiatives, the development of "cultural" product brands, and the use of historical heritage for development of modernity. It is substantiated that for the effective and full implementation of these cultural strategies within the framework of the BRI, the Chinese authorities have formulated a powerful state policy for the training of personnel in the field of culture, developed and identified key challenges and tasks for their implementation. Particular attention is paid to the peculiarities of the implementation of China's cultural strategies both in countries culturally close to China (regions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean), and in countries that are significantly different from the traditions and customs of China, which is the founder of the BRI Initiative (countries of Europe, Latin America and the Persian Gulf). C o n c l u s i o n s. It is proven that for the possible implementation of the BRI cultural strategies in Ukrainian realities, it is necessary to understand both risks and advantages. If among the key advantages it is possible to single out the spread of the network of Institutes of Ukrainian Studies (such as the Confucius Institutes), which will contribute to the dissemination of authentic information about Ukrainian culture, tradition and language, then among the risks insufficient attention to cultural differences may cause misunderstandings between partners from different countries, which may lead to breaches of contracts or non-fulfillment of the terms of the agreement. This can affect the trust between the parties and cause conflicts. (shrink)

La diffusione del libro nel Medioevo potrebbe essere riletta alla luce di una metafora attuale sebbene non scevra di aspetti dialettici: quella della “rete”. All’ubicazione spazio-temporale del libro nei monasteri medievali, contraddistinta da fisicità e permanenza, si sotituisce oggi un formato digitale e virtuale, che porta ad una sorta di decontestualizzazione e alla continuità del flusso di informazioni, contribuendo alla diffusione capillare del sapere. L’ottica di universalità e globalità accomuna tuttavia entrambe le epoche. Alcuni concetti-chiave dell’informatica potrebbero infatti declinarsi in (...) ambito medievale: Server-Client per la raccolta, la conservazione e la trasmissione delle conoscenze da parte dei monasteri, quali centri del sapere in Europa, agli uomini di cultura; Firewall , per alludere alla necessità di tutelare i manoscritti, mediante la copiatura e la diffusione dei codici; Community , ad indicare non solo la comunità religiosa o monastica in senso stretto, bensì l’apertura ad una costruzione del sapere mediante un’azione partecipativa . I problemi dell’autenticità delle fonti, dell’acriticità delle informazioni e la pratica delle citazioni trovano un precedente significativo nelle Sententiae di Pietro Lombardo: una sorta di “biblioteca virtuale” grazie alla collezione di passi dalla Sacra Scrittura e da fonti latine e greche, paragonabile a un moderno modello enciclopedico di sapere. The diffusion of the book in the Middle Ages could be critically read through a modern metaphor: the “net”. The space-temporal coordinates of the book shift from being physical and permanent in the Medieval monasteries, to being de-contextualized and continue in the flow of information of digital and virtual format. However the universal and global perspective is common to the contemporary and the Medieval periods. In fact some key-words of computer science could be applied to the Medieval context: Server-Client , for the collection, the preservation and the transmission of knowledge from monasteries, as cultural centers in Medieval Europe, to men of culture; Firewall , for the necessary protection of manuscripts, through copying and diffusing codes; Community , referred not only to the monastic and religious groups, but also to an open sharing of the building of knowledge. Problems like the authenticity of the sources, the lack of criticality in the reception of data, and the practice of quotations are well represented in Peter Lombard’s Sententiae : this work can be compared to a modern encyclopedia thanks to the collection of passages from the Holy Scripture and from Latin and Greek sources, as well as a “virtual library”. (shrink)