This article considers the case for a theory of the queer object that focuses on its pliability – an object which operates queerly to amplify and elaborate the context in which it appears. It looks at the case of the altered book covers that Kenneth Halliwell and Joe Orton circulated through the Islington Public Library, activities for which the men were convicted and incarcerated. It considers their activities as versions of “trolling” and of otaku database fixation. It argues that (...) rather than simply disrupt the circulation of library books the men introduced queer objects to the library that facilitated and fostered new and more engaged understandings of the library’s collection of book objects. It reads the covers for the ways in which they connect otherwise disparate and neglected instances of texts with a virtual database of images and concepts that foster new readings of them and advance a new meaning for queer engagement with archives, libraries, and databases. (shrink)

Steven Halliwell’s book has set a new standard in the scholarship on the philosophical aspects of mimesis. The book is clearly written, extensively researched, and, most importantly, it is a comprehensive analysis of the history and development of the complex, but often oversimplified, notion of mimesis. This is the kind of book scholars are lucky to come across in doing their own research, and a book of this level of achievement is something that we can all use as a (...) model for our own writing. This is undoubtedly the most extensive and useful book on the subject of mimesis available today. (shrink)

In the field of philosophy, Plato's view of rhetoric as a potentially treacherous craft has long overshadowed Aristotle's view, which focuses on rhetoric as an independent discipline that relates in complex ways to dialectic and logic and to ethics and moral psychology. This volume, composed of essays by internationally renowned philosophers and classicists, provides the first extensive examination of Aristotle's Rhetoric and its subject matter in many years. One aim is to locate both Aristotle's treatise and its subject within the (...) more general context of his philosophical treatment of other disciplines, including moral and political theory as well as poetics. The contributors also seek to illuminate the structure of Aristotle's own conception of rhetoric as presented in his treatise. The first section of the book, which deals with the arguments of rhetoric, contains essays by M. F. Burnyeat and Jacques Brunschwig. A section treating the status of the art of rhetoric features pieces by Eckart Schütrumpf, Jürgen Sprute, M. M. McCabe, and Glenn W. Most. Essays by John M. Cooper, Stephen Halliwell, and Jean-Louis Labarrière address topics related to rhetoric, ethics, and politics. The final section, on rhetoric and literary art, comprises essays by Alexander Nehamas and André Laks. Originally published in 1994. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

In the "Republic," Plato has Socrates attack poetry’s use of mimēsis, often translated as ‘imitation’ or ‘representation.’ Various scholars (e.g. Blondell 2002; Frank 2018; Halliwell 2009; K. Morgan 2004) have noticed the tension between Socrates’ theory critical of mimēsis and Plato’s literary practice of speaking through various characters in his dialogues. However, none of these scholars have addressed that it is not only Plato the writer who uses mimēsis but also his own character, Socrates. At crucial moments in several (...) dialogues, Socrates takes on a role and speaks as someone else. I call these moments “Socratic mimēsis.” While previous commentators have noticed some of these moments, they have either overstated their rarity or they have not studied them collectively. My dissertation is the first in-depth investigation of this phenomenon in the dialogues. Socrates’ dramatic imitation of others is way of teaching in a voice separate from his own, and it is also a way for Plato to speak to, and to educate, different kinds of audiences. Although “Socratic mimēsis” occurs throughout the Platonic corpus, I focus on three passages from three different dialogues, which are paradigm instances: [1] in the "Crito" Socrates plays the part of ‘the Laws’ (50a-54c); [2] in the "Theaetetus" he acts the part of ‘Protagoras’ (166a-168c); and [3] in the "Menexenus" he recites a funeral speech learned from ‘Aspasia’ (236d-249c). Instead of one-sidedly reading the dialogues as either only literary works of art or as only a series of philosophical arguments, this study gleans philosophic insights from the literary and dramatic details of the dialogues. In chapter one I argue that in the "Crito" Socrates tries to convince Crito of a universal and absolute ethics based on never committing injustice, but Crito is not able to understand. In order to make Crito more just—but not yet at the level of Socratic ethics—Socrates creates ‘the Laws’ to persuade Crito to expand his personal notion of justice. Socrates instills a political obedience in place of Crito’s existing lawlessness as a second-best recourse. Plato expects the astute listener or reader to see the contrast between Socrates’ earlier ethical principles, said in his own voice, with what he says in the voice of ‘the Laws.’ In chapter two I argue that in the part of the "Theaetetus" where Socrates defends Protagoras (often called ‘the Defense’), Socrates, by imitating ‘Protagoras,’ is actually criticizing Protagorean relativism. The Protagorean theory cannot account for mimēsis and Socrates’ mimetic act performatively contradicts the identity of appearance and reality, which the theory presupposes. Finally, in chapter three I argue that in the Menexenus the funeral oration that Socrates recounts for Menexenus that he heard from ‘Aspasia’ is actually a disguised criticism of political rhetoric and of Athenian imperialism. Although the speech is never interrogated within the dialogue, Plato provokes the listener or reader outside the dialogue to question its message and to see how it conflicts with many of Socrates’ positions in other dialogues. Beyond reconsidering the long-standing and persistent view that Plato was against poetry and mimetic performance, I re-examine the role that performance and role-playing can have in philosophy and pedagogy more generally. Actors, by taking on other personas, and audience members, in observing actors and their actions, are both involved in acts of imagination that can expand their horizon of thinking and feeling. (shrink)

Aristophanes' description of the stages of promotion in the Athenian navy recently received renewed attention, when Mastromarco and Halliwell enlisted it in their battle against the traditional opinion that Aristophanes' early career fell into two stages, a secret one of writing plays but not producing them, and a public one in which he undertook both activities. Mastromarco argues for a tripartite career, and Halliwell, who is against a too strict correlation, for a gradual development, a sort of a (...) complex apprenticeship, which eventually he divides also into three stages similar to those discerned by Mastromarco. In summing up their position, MacDowell paraphrases the above passage according to its prevalent interpretation: ‘The nautical metaphor , with its progression from oarsman to prow-officer to helmsman, indicates that Aristophanes did not take over his task all at once, but by stages. But what were the stages?’. (shrink)

The metaphysical conception of the generation of the macroworld from fundamental physics that Hawthorne considers is criticized in this Commentary, and compared with the scientific account offered by Halliwell and Hartle. It is argued that Hawthorn's critique of Everettian quantum mechanics fails.

Kaum ein anderes semantisches Feld durchzieht Platons Werk von den ersten Dialogen an bis zum Spätwerk so prägend und zugleich so spannungsreich wie das der Mimesis. Von der Sprachphilosophie über die Ästhetik und Moralpsychologie bis hin zur Metaphysik, Kosmologie und Theologie: in erstaunlich vielen Themenbereichen gewinnt die Semantik der Mimesis bei Platon hohe Relevanz. Der Tagungsband „Platonic Mimesis Revisited“ bietet eine umfassende und kontextsensible Neubetrachtung der Mimesis in allen einschlägigen Dialogen. Anders als frühere monographische Behandlungen des Themas vereint er eine (...) bedeutende Auswahl wissenschaftlicher Perspektiven aus Philosophie und Philologie und gibt so einen breiten Einblick in moderne Forschungsansätze.Mit Beiträgen vonMichele Abbate, Alexandra V. Alván Leon, Laura Candiotto, Andrea Capra, Elenio Cicchini, Michael Erler, Francesco Fronterotta, José Antonio Giménez Salinas, Stephen Halliwell, Irmgard Männlein-Robert, Lidia Palumbo, Anna Pavani, Julia Pfefferkorn, Antonino Spinelli, Benedikt Strobel und Justin Vlasits. (shrink)

In this article, I challenge Simon Critchley's recent suggestion that tragic art is not morally educational in Aristotle's analysis and instead argue that it can be inferred from Aristotle that tragic art can morally educate in three main ways: via emotion education, by helping the audience come to understand what matters in life, and by depicting conduct worthy of moral emulation and conduct that is not. Stephen Halliwell's reading of how catharsis helps the audience of tragedy learn to feel (...) pity and fear appropriately is discussed. Two objections Lear makes to Halliwell's account are thereafter outlined and responded to. I maintain that for Aristotle, the pleasure proper to tragedy is prompted by an understanding of what matters most in life—not making mistakes that threaten the prosperity of loved ones. I pull the article together by questioning aspects of Christopher Falzon's reading of Ruben Östlund's film, Force Majeure. I conclude that the film both exemplifies and critiques Aristotle's account of moral learning through tragedy. (shrink)

There is a tendency to prune the record of restrictions on the freedom of thought and expression in fifth-century Athens. K. J. Dover has demonstrated that many of the stories of attacks on intellectuals rest on little more than flimsy speculation. Similarly there has been a reluctance to accept the historicity of the several restrictions on comedy recorded by scholiasts. Thus, for example, H. B. Mattingly has expressed doubts about Morychides' decree, and S. Halliwell has rejected Antimachus' decree as (...) a fiction and has adopted an agnostic attitude towards Syracosius' decree. But one cannot sweep all the references aside as fallacious inferences. This short paper looks first at the evidence that Cleon initiated a legal action against Aristophanes after the production of the The Babylonians, in the light of what the Old Oligarch wrote about curbs on comedians. Secondly, the historicity of Syracosius' decree will be tested by an attempt to define its nature and purpose in its political context. This exercise will show that circumstantial evidence adduced against the historicity of the decree has no compelling force. (shrink)

Abstract:In this article, I challenge Simon Critchley’s recent suggestion that tragic art is not morally educational in Aristotle’s analysis and instead argue that it can be inferred from Aristotle that tragic art can morally educate in three main ways: via emotion education, by helping the audience come to understand what matters in life, and by depicting conduct worthy of moral emulation and conduct that is not. Stephen Halliwell’s reading of how catharsis helps the audience of tragedy learn to feel (...) pity and fear appropriately is discussed. Two objections Lear makes to Halliwell’s account are thereafter outlined and responded to. I maintain that for Aristotle, the pleasure proper to tragedy is prompted by an understanding of what matters most in life—not making mistakes that threaten the prosperity of loved ones. I pull the article together by questioning aspects of Christopher Falzon’s reading of Ruben Östlund’s film, Force Majeure. I conclude that the film both exemplifies and critiques Aristotle’s account of moral learning through tragedy. (shrink)

The Aesthetics of Mimesis: Ancient Texts and Modem Problems. by Stephen Halliwell.

This article examines some dimensions of the construction of contemporary celebrity. It looks at issues of image management, where the concern is to link the performance of celebrity to certain kinds of moral credibility, where the performance might be seen as `authentic'. These issues are examined in relation to the career of Geri Halliwell, in her attempts to reconstruct her celebrity image following her departure from the Spice Girls. Specifically, it examines her performance in the documentary film Geri made (...) by Molly Dineen. The focus is on the kinds of talk Geri produces in this context, and in particular the footings she employs as she constructs a persona which combines a public identity with an authored `ordinary' self. Some wider questions are raised about the apparent proliferation of celebrity attachments to `good causes' of various kinds in the global media culture. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:688 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:4 OCTOBER 1995 ters by Robert Payne and Gilbert Sheldon. (To my knowledge the only library in the United States that has The Theologian and Ecclesia.,tic is The Newbury Library in Chicago.) There are also letters in A Collection of Letters Illustrative of the Progress of Science, ed. J. Halliwell (London, 1840. Scholars in recent years have complained, usually justifiably, about (...) the cost of the books they need for their research. While $78.00 per volume is a lot of money, it would be well spent by anyone with a serious interest in the person or the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. These volumes, judiciously building upon the great labors of previous scholars, are the single most important contribution to Hobbes scholarship in the twentieth century. A. P. MARTINICH University of Texas at Austin Jeff Jordan, editor. Gambling on God: Essays on Pascars Wager. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1994. Pp. viii + 164. Cloth, $49.oo. Paper, $19.95. Jeff Jordan has put together nine essays which give those who want to gamble on God something to think about. Though only three of them are really about Pascalk wager, all of them are worth reading. The most entertaining paper is Roy A. Sorensen's "Infinite Decision Theory." Sorensen confronts the St. Petersburg Paradox, which stems from the fact that there are available wagers with a potentially infinite payoff on which no one would bet $ao. Suppose you are offered $2n for each throw of a standard balanced coin until a head turns up. N = the number of tosses. It could be a long time--forever--before heads turns up. By the time n = loo you would have a bag of gold bigger than the sun. But Sorensen says the right bet is at least $23,but not much more. It is also true that since we don't know which actions God will reward, any human action has a possible infinite payoff and since all such actions have the same potential payoff none is better than the others. (Some god was moved to save Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, who had kindly thoughts about water-snakes.) Sorensen also notes that it is often said (Pascal would have agreed) that persons can be of infinite worth. If so, is rescuing one drowning person as good as rescuing five? The total worth seems to be the same. (Luckily, if Cantor is to be believed, there are larger and smaller infinities.) Sorensen ends inconclusively, but he is right that decision theory needs to address the infinite. Pascal would have had something to say. He thought that his bet was morally good. To bet on God is to act as if God exists. One who treats everyone as saved behaves as if God exists. (You don't know who is saved, but if you treat the saved as damned God will be annoyed whereas if you treat the damned as saved you won't detract from their ultimate penalty.) You don't have to bet $3, you only have to do what you ought to do anyway. The incremental cost of the bet appears to be zero. Anyhow, Pascal thought that it was not the infinite payoff (in the sense of a life of bliss) which provided the main motive for the bet but the fact that the required action was one's moral duty. Moreover, nook REVIEWS 689 if everyone behaves as if everyone is saved the result is a world in which God could appear and not be crucified. To be sure, there is a chance of an infinite life. Pascal believed human beings are potentially infinite--as is shown by our capacity for extending our knowledge to the infinite--but we are also potentially nothing, as is shown by the fact that the person never really appears in our scientific accounts. It is through God that our infinity is to be achieved, and so betting on God is also betting on ourselves in a perfectly intelligible way. This involw~s a notion of infinity not explored in any of these essays, which makes it possible to share with God without changing the divine nature... (shrink)

This paper revisits Plato’s and Aristotle’s views on mimesis with a special emphasis on mythos as an integral part of it. I argue that the Republic ’s notorious “mirror argument” is in fact ad hominem : first, Plato likely has in mind Agathon’s mirror in Aristophanes’ Thesmoforiazusae, where tragedy is construed as mimesis ; second, the tongue-in-cheek claim that mirrors can reproduce invisible Hades, when read in combination with the following eschatological myth, suggests that Plato was not committed to a (...) mirror-like view of art; third, the very omission of mythos shows that the argument is a self-consciously one-sided one, designed to caricature the artists’ own pretensions of mirror-like realism. These points reinforce Stephen Halliwell’s claim that Western aesthetics has been haunted by a «ghostly misapprehension» of Plato’s mirror. Further evidence comes from Aristotle’s “literary” discussion: rather than to the “mirror argument”, the beginning of the Poetics points to the Phaedo as the best source of information about Plato’s views on poetry. (shrink)

Danto’s interpretation about Plato’s original condemnation of art doesn’t ground in a rigorous and accurate exegesis of the Platonic text. This contributed to making the interpreters doubtful (e.g. Halliwell), since Danto seems to conceive the philosophical genesis of mimesis attributing to it an excessively univocal meaning as compared to Platonic theses. However, interesting topics about the dangers of poetry and the moral and political implications of the “philosophical disenfranchisement of art” arise from the few Danto’s mentions about Plato’s psychological (...) arguments on mimetic art. The article focuses on these psychological aspects suggesting to Danto the ethical reason why art, tragedy in particular, is considered by Plato to be “dangerous”. The analysis will point out that, with regard to a philosophical consideration of the mimesis, dramatic poetry (specifically, Greek theatre) is a perspicuous clue to clarify the control function exerted by art over the sphere of emotions. This will also allow us to recognize Danto’s debt to Nietzsche, with whom he shares the intention to overthrow Platonism. (shrink)

In this article, I oppose ‘cognitivist’ interpretations of Aristotle’s Poetics (Belfiore, Donini, Gallop, Halliwell, Wolff) which defend the idea that the pleasure proper to tragedy is a pleasure of an intellectual nature, and I defend an ‘emotivist’ interpretation according to which this pleasure is essentially of an emotional nature. I pass in review the passages of chapters 4, 9, 14 and 26 wherein the question of the ‘pleasure proper’ to tragedy is dealt with, in comparing them with what Aristotle (...) tells us about musical pleasure in Politics VIII. (shrink)

The aim of this article is to revisit Clement of Alexandria’s Paedagogus 2.5.45-8 discussing whether Clement holds a moderate position οf laughter or, like most early Christians, tends to an “antigelastic” position. Some scholars, such as Stephen Halliwell and Laura Rizzerio, have concluded that Clement holds an intermediate position between an optimistic approach to laughter and its condemnation. However, in this essay we argue that while Clement’s position is not a straightforward antigelastic one, his apparent acceptance of laughter is (...) so narrow that his moderate view ends up being compromised. Ultimately, he is strongly inclined to condemn laughter and to prescribe an ascetic life devoid of laughter. (shrink)

Aristophanes' description of the stages of promotion in the Athenian navy recently received renewed attention, when Mastromarco and Halliwell enlisted it in their battle against the traditional opinion that Aristophanes' early career fell into two stages, a secret one of writing plays but not producing them, and a public one in which he undertook both activities. Mastromarco argues for a tripartite career, and Halliwell, who is against a too strict correlation, for a gradual development, a sort of a (...) complex apprenticeship, which eventually he divides also into three stages similar to those discerned by Mastromarco. In summing up their position, MacDowell paraphrases the above passage according to its prevalent interpretation: ‘The nautical metaphor, with its progression from oarsman to prow-officer to helmsman, indicates that Aristophanes did not take over his task all at once, but by stages. But what were the stages?’. (shrink)

This article sets out to establish links between the main concepts of Aristotle's poetics and literary theory, with a view to illuminating some aspects of Aristotle's ethics and also of general ethical theory. We highlight topics such as weak universals (Halliwell), frame-making and free indirect discourse, that seem to us to establish a link between poetics and moral philosophy.

This article sets out to establish links between the main concepts of Aristotle's poetics and literary theory, with a view to illuminating some aspects of Aristotle's ethics and also of general ethical theory. We highlight topics such as weak universals (Halliwell), frame-making and free indirect discourse, that seem to us to establish a link between poetics and moral philosophy.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Plato and the PoetsCatalin ParteniePierre Destrée and Fritz-Gregor Herrmann, editors. Plato and the Poets. Mnemosyne Supplements: Monographs on Greek and Latin Language and Literature, 328. Leiden-Boston: Brill, 2011. Pp. xxii + 434. Cloth, $217.00.This beautifully produced volume is a collection of nineteen essays, half of them being initially presented as papers given at a 2006 conference in Louvain. Seven chapters focus on the Republic and address a variety (...) of issues: the ancient quarrel between philosophy and poetry (Glenn W. Most); Plato’s criticism of poetry and his negative attitude toward women (Penelope Murray); mimêsis as appearance-making (Gabriel Richardson); the meaning of mimêsis (Jera Marušič); Plato’s criticism and appreciation of poetry (Stephen Halliwell); thumos and the criticism of poetry (Pierre Destrée); painting, poetry, and the cognitive division of the soul (Rachel Singpurwalla). One chapter deals with myth, invented story, and true account in the Timaeus (Gretchen Reydams-Schils). Two are devoted to the Laws—mimetic correctness and choric poetry (Antony Hatzistavrou), and tragedy and philosophy (Susan Sauvé Meyer). The remaining nine chapters deal with other dialogues, although they are often discussed in connection with the Republic; the topics they discuss include: theia moira, enthousiasmos, and mimêsis in Gorgias (Fritz-Gregor Herrmann); divine possession, inspiration, and mimêsis in Ion and Republic (with references to Plato’s entire corpus, Catherine Collobert); the poet and the rhapsode as hermêneus in Ion (Carlotta Capuccino); the poet, the mad lover, and the mad philosopher as the true interpreter in Ion and Phaedrus (Francisco Gonzalez); inspiration and Plato’s psychology in Ion, Phaedrus, Politicus, Philebus, Timaeus (Stefan Büttner); theia moira in Ion and Meno, and the poets’ incomplete ascension in Symposium (Dominic Scott); Plato’s use of poetry and poets in Symposium (Elizabeth Bel-fiore); poetry and image-making in Republic and Sophist (Noburu Notomi); and poetry, the tripartition of the soul and the Form of Beauty in Phaedrus (Elizabeth Pender).As Stephen Halliwell put it in his essay, there is the seemingly Platonic attitude “which criticizes, censors and even ‘banishes’ poets, and which speaks in terms of unmasking the false pretensions and the damaging influence of poetry. But there is also the Platonic stance which never ceases to allow the voices of poetry to be heard in Plato’s own writing, which presupposes not only extensive knowledge but also ‘love’ of poetry on the part of Plato’s readers, and which at certain key junctures claims for itself nothing less than the status of a new kind of philosophical poetry and art: the status, indeed, of ‘the greatest music’ [Phaedo 61a; cf. Phaedrus 248d, 259b] and even of ‘the finest and best tragedy’ [Laws 817b]” (241). All the contributors address, in one way or another, the puzzling contrast between these two views on poetry. Halliwell, for instance, claims that Book X of the Republic “offers not a simple repudiation of the best poets but a complicated counterpoint in which resistance and attraction to their work are intertwined, a counterpoint which (among other things) explores the problem of whether, and in what sense, it might be possible to be a ‘philosophical lover’ of poetry” (244). While Most argues that “there is little or no evidence for any consciousness” of a generic opposition between philosophy and poetry tout court before Plato, “this opposition may even be in the process of being constructed” in his Republic (19) (Notomi, too, discusses this topic, and refers to the view according to which the “ancient quarrel” was Plato’s invention). [End Page 291]In reading the nineteen essays of this volume, one realizes that in Plato there is not just one poetics, or two contrasting views on poetry, but—as the editors put it—“several models of what poetry is and what the poets do” (xxii). One would have liked that these several models be explicitly discussed in a concluding chapter. The editors, however, acknowledge that neither they nor their authors aimed at achieving a unified vision of the subject: “While certain recurring themes crystallize themselves with increasing complexity in the course of the various discussions, there remain both contradictions and incompatibilities between results... (shrink)