Did the Greeks believe in their mythology? The answer is difficult, for “believe” means so many things… Not everyone believed that Minos continued to be a judge in Hell or that Theseus defeated the Minotaur, and they knew that poets “lie.” Nevertheless, their manner of not believing gave reason for concern, for Theseus was no less real in their eyes. It is simply necessary to “purify myth with reason’“ and to reduce the biography of the companion of Hercules to its (...) historic kernel. As for Minos, after a prodigious mental effort, Thucydides extracts the same kernel from his subject: “Of all those whom we know only by hearsay, Minos was the first to have a fleet.” The father of Phaedra, the husband of Pasiphaë is nothing more than a king who was master of the sea. The purification of the mythical by the logos is not an episode in the eternal struggle, from the beginning to Voltaire and Renan, between superstition and reason, a struggle which was the glory of Greek genius. The myth and the logos, despite Nestle, are not simple opposites like truth and error. Myth was a subject of serious reflections, and the Greeks had not yet finished with it six centuries after the Sophist movement which has been called their Aufklärung. Far from being a triumph of reason, the purging of myth by logos is a very dated program whose absurdity is surprising. Why did the Greeks make themselves unhappy for nothing by seeking to separate the wheat from the chaff instead of rejecting in one gesture the fantasy of both Theseus and the Minotaur, the very existence of a fabulous Minos as well as the implausible qualities with which the myth endows this Minos? (shrink)

Paul Veyne, _Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths?_ _An Essay on the Constitutive Imagination_, trans. Paula Wissing (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), 169 pp.

L'ouvrage rassemble les contributions de trois célèbres antiquisants : Paul Veyne, dont les contributions à la pensée contemporaine excèdent largement ses travaux sur l'histoire et la littérature latine, accompagné de François Lissarague, spécialiste en iconographie grecque, et de Françoise Frontisi-Ducroux, iconographe et actuellement sous-directrice au Collège de France. La différence de leurs approches et la variété de leurs champs de recherche présentent ces trois études comme comp..

L'ouvrage rassemble les contributions de trois célèbres antiquisants : Paul Veyne, dont les contributions à la pensée contemporaine excèdent largement ses travaux sur l'histoire et la littérature latine, accompagné de François Lissarague, spécialiste en iconographie grecque, et de Françoise Frontisi-Ducroux, iconographe et actuellement sous-directrice au Collège de France. La différence de leurs approches et la variété de leurs champs de recherche présentent ces trois études comme comp...

L'ouvrage rassemble les contributions de trois célèbres antiquisants : Paul Veyne, dont les contributions à la pensée contemporaine excèdent largement ses travaux sur l'histoire et la littérature latine, accompagné de François Lissarague, spécialiste en iconographie grecque, et de Françoise Frontisi-Ducroux, iconographe et actuellement sous-directrice au Collège de France. La différence de leurs approches et la variété de leurs champs de recherche présentent ces trois études comme comp...

Le philosophe, collègue et ami de Michel Foucault, fait le portrait de ce dernier et présente les grands thèmes de sa pensée philosophique et politique.

Caesarism is contrasted with medieval monarchies, and the emperor is evaluated as a citizen who is in charge of the Republic and is all-powerful. However, two-thirds of the Augustuses and the Caesars died a violent death, often at the hands of close family members. Nobility is a ruling caste, in which bloody rivalries, usurpations and political romanticism are rife as it struggles to retain its social pre-eminence. The Senate, though, does not itself want to govern and eventually degenerates into an (...) Academy. The imperium, with its patriarchal nature, remains very popular among the people/citizens. Though the imperial cult would lead to tyranny, it continued to express both the stature and love accorded to the individual emperor, and the power of tradition, of charisma and the institution. (shrink)

Michel Foucault and Paul Veyne: the philosopher and the historian. Two major figures in the world of ideas, resisting all attempts at categorization. Two timeless thinkers who have long walked and fought together. In this short book Paul Veyne offers a fresh portrait of his friend and relaunches the debate about his ideas and legacy. ‘Foucault is not who you think he is’, writes Veyne; he stood neither on the left nor on the right and was frequently (...) disowned by both. He was not so much a structuralist as a sceptic, an empiricist disciple of Montaigne, who never ceased in his work to reflect on 'truth games', on singular, constructed truths that belonged to their own time. A unique testimony by a scholar who knew Foucault well, this book succeeds brilliantly in grasping the core of his thought and in stripping away the confusions and misunderstandings that have so often characterized the interpretation of Foucault and his work. (shrink)

Michel Foucault and Paul Veyne: the philosopher and the historian. Two major figures in the world of ideas, resisting all attempts at categorization. Two timeless thinkers who have long walked and fought together. In this short book Paul Veyne offers a fresh portrait of his friend and relaunches the debate about his ideas and legacy. ‘Foucault is not who you think he is’, writes Veyne; he stood neither on the left nor on the right and was frequently (...) disowned by both. He was not so much a structuralist as a sceptic, an empiricist disciple of Montaigne, who never ceased in his work to reflect on 'truth games', on singular, constructed truths that belonged to their own time. A unique testimony by a scholar who knew Foucault well, this book succeeds brilliantly in grasping the core of his thought and in stripping away the confusions and misunderstandings that have so often characterized the interpretation of Foucault and his work. (shrink)

It is said that reality is stronger than any description we can make of it, and we must admit that atrocities, when we see them, go beyond any idea we may have had of them. On the other hand, when it is a question of values and beliefs, the contrary is true: reality is much less than its representation and the ideas it professes. This loss of energy is called indifference. Madame Bovary believed that in Naples happiness was as firmly (...) rooted as the orange trees and as strong as stone. The wisdom of nations knows that that is not the case: “We hope for Paradise but as late as possible,” affirms a Christian proverb. This indifference poses a problem or an entire series of problems (Georg Simmel's work could be considered from that point of view) unless it arises from all our errors, spontaneous or scientific, concerning man and society. I do not know where I read, or dreamed, the story of a young ethnologist who went to study a tribe that was said to believe that the world would come to an end if the priests let the sacred fire go out. He assumed that the priests were as anxious as though they controlled the detonator of an atomic bomb. Admitted into the temple of the fire, he saw the peaceful religious going about routine tasks. Reality is rarely emphatic. Rites and customs, for example, reflect the beliefs of a society. Paintings and sculptures show what the society believes or serve to make it believe what it sees. Sculpture in cathedrals were the bible of the illiterate. Is that really certain? We notice that most often people perform the rites without believing in their significance and, in any case, without interest in them, because the liturgy is not a means of communication giving information. They do not look at the images. (How many Parisians have looked at the Napoleonic bas-reliefs on the Vendôme column?) and if they tried to do so, they would not be able to decipher their iconography or even see them: placed too high, the images are often undecipherable. So it is necessary to sketch out a sociology of art in which the art work, far from conveying an iconography and an ideology, is a decor that we do not even look at, that we can hardly see and that is however very important. The study of all these insufficiencies would be a vast program. Here we will confine ourselves to art. (shrink)

The Greeks invented the words “city,” “democracy,” “people,” “oligarchy,” “liberty,” “citizen.” It is therefore tempting to suppose that they invented the eternal truth of politics, or of our politics, with only one exception: slavery is the major difference between their democracy and democracy as such. For there must exist an eternal politics about which it is possible to philosophize instead of simply writing history. Therein, across the ages, could be found the central essence of politics; despite their diversity, political regimes (...) would have a functional analogy to one another which could be represented in a variety of ways: establishing justice, making men live in peace with one another, defending the group, exercising a domination of the master class over the forces of production. (shrink)

“There is not, nor has there ever been, ideology,” write Deleuze and Guatter. This sybiiline aphorism is surely true: an ideology is never more than rationalizing and justifying behavior, which convinces no one but the already convinced and amuses or bores the others. It is thus a small thing in comparison with the random wandering of thought throughout history and the arbitrariness of cultures, “nurtures: “ since Nietzsche, or a certain aspect of Nietzsche, taught us to be in despair of (...) the Truth, we can no longer impute this wandering and this arbitrariness to the distortion of who knows what natural light by ideology. (shrink)

The Hellenization of ancient Rome is not a rare kind of event in history; “outer” India or the Chinese world have offered several other different examples. Roman civilization was an important part of Hellenistic culture much like present day Japan participates in Western civilization. Our purpose is not to recall this evidence nor to argue for Roman originality. (Where has an acculturation ever been total?) We shall not allow either the forest or the trees to hide thi other and shall (...) ask ourselves rather what “ acculturation” might mean in the case of Rome. For the question of acculturation, which describes so well the present condition of the Third World, is inapplicable to other historic situations. The richness of the past is such that our sociologies or our praxeologies are often nothing other than rationalizations of a particular case in history. (shrink)

Examines the true purpose of writing history, explains how history can be understood in terms of plot, and discusses the progress of history.

The great stoic philosopher, playwright and Roman statesman of the first century, Lucius Annaeus Seneca, exercised enormous influence for nearly fifteen years as tutor and political advisor to the Emperor Nero until forced to commit suicide by his former pupil. In the hands of Annales School historian Paul Veyne, the dramatic story of his life - one of power, politics and intrigue - becomes a mirror of the time in which he lived. Seneca's philosophical writings remain our core source (...) for stoic thought, and their immense influence continues to be felt. Veyne's authoritative exposition of stoicism and the interconnections between Seneca's life and thought, make this book ideal reading for anyone interested in Roman history and philosophy. This compact and compelling book is a brilliant introduction to the life and philosophy of one of the ancient world's greatest thinkers by one of the great historians of our own time. (shrink)

Une inscription trouvée à Chalcis célèbre l'exploit d'un Callinikos qui lors des Dionysia a fait 55 fois le tour de l'orchestra, porté sur une perche, et qui a soulevé seul le phallos. Rapprochement avec diverses traditions populaires.

Now in a third edition, Introduction to Philosophy: Classical and Contemporary Readings is a highly acclaimed, topically organized collection that covers five major areas of philosophy--theory of knowledge, philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, freedom and determinism, and moral philosophy. Editor Louis P. Pojman enhances the text's topical organization by arranging the selections into a pro/con format to help students better understand opposing arguments. He also includes accessible introductions to each chapter, subsection, and individual reading, a unique feature for an (...) anthology of this depth. While the book focuses on a compelling sampling of classical material--including selections from Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant--it also incorporates some of philosophy's best twentieth-century and contemporary work, featuring articles by Bertrand Russell, Richard Taylor, John Searle, Thomas Nagel, and others. This third edition contains an expanded glossary, more extensive section introductions, and twelve new selections: Karl Popper: "Epistemology without a Knowing Subject" Richard Rorty: "Dismantling Truth: Solidarity Versus Objectivity" Daniel Dennett: "Postmodernism and Truth" Bruce Russell: "The Problem of Evil: Too Much Suffering" David Chalmers: "Against Materialism: Can Consciousness Be Reductively Explained?" Baron Paul Henri d'Holbach: "A Defense of Determinism" Michael Levin: "A Compatibilist Defense of Moral Responsibility" Plato: Socratic Morality: "Crito" Herodotus: "Custom Is King" J. L. Mackie: "The Subjectivity of Values" Louis P. Pojman: "A Critique of Mackie's Theory of Moral Subjectivism" Thomas Nagel: "Moral Luck". (shrink)

Bioethics needs an expanded moral vision. It is now time for bioethics to take full account of the problems of health disparities and structural injustice that are made newly urgent by the COVID-19 pandemic and the effects of climate change. Nancy M. P. King, Gail E. Henderson, and Larry R. Churchill make the case for a more social understanding and application of justice, a deeper humility in assessing expertise in bioethics consulting, a broader and more relevant research agenda, and greater (...) appreciation of the profound health implications of global warming. (shrink)

In ”Skepticism,” Peter Klein distinguishes between the “Academic Skeptic” who proposes that we cannot have knowledge of a certain set of propositions and the “Pyrrhonian Skeptic” who refrains from opining about whether we can have knowledge. Klein argues that Academic Skepticism is plausibly supported by a “Closure Principle‐style” argument based on the claim that if x entails y and S has justification for x, then S has justification for y. He turns to contextualism to see if it can contribute to (...) the discussion between one who claims that we can have knowledge about some epistemically interesting class of propositions and the Academic Skeptic. He outlines the background of Pyrrhonian Skepticism, pointing out that the Pyrrhonist withholds assent concerning our knowledge‐bearing status because reason cannot provide an adequate basis for assent. He assesses three possible patterns of reasoning, and concludes that the Pyrrhonist view, that reason cannot resolve matters concerning the nonevident, is vindicated. (shrink)

First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Engineering is 'the people-serving profession'. The work of engineers involves interaction with clients, other engineers, and the public at large. More than any other profession, their work also directly involves and affects the environment. This book makes the case that engineers have special professional obligations to protect and enhance the environment, and the authors - one, an engineer and the other, a philosopher - seek to provide an ethical basis for these obligations. In exploring these ethical issues, the authors aim (...) to show that engineers make a difference. The text opens with a series of case studies in which engineers face complex and challenging decisions about the environment. Succeeding chapters examine different ideas about environmental ethics for engineers, including professional codes and both modern and historical discussions of environmental responsibility. The book concludes with a collection of readings that complement the text. Students, as well as practising engineers, will find much of interest in this well-argued and thought-provoking book. (shrink)

Gordon Baker and I had been colleagues at St John’s for almost ten years when we resolved, in 1976, to undertake the task of writing a commentary on Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations. We had been talking about Wittgenstein since 1969, and when we cooperated in writing a long critical notice on the Philosophical Grammar in 1975, we found that working together was mutually instructive, intellectually stimulating and great fun. We thought that we still had much to say about Wittgenstein’s philosophy, and (...) it seemed to us that misinterpretations of passages in the Investigations were so extensive that it would be worth trying to write a detailed analytical commentary. It is difficult to recapture the excitement of those early days in being among the first to work on the microfilms and, subsequently, on the photocopies of Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. We spent many hundreds of hours poring over the typescripts and the often only semi-legible manuscripts, fascinated and privileged to be able to try to follow the development of the thoughts of a great philosophical genius. We talked endlessly about what we had found in Wittgenstein’s manuscripts and typescripts, and debated how it should be understood. The first fruit of our labours was Wittgenstein – Understanding and Meaning. Its guiding idea was to draw attention to the manner in which Wittgenstein linked the concepts of meaning, understanding and explanation, and so to bypass the connections between meaning, truth and truth-conditions that so fascinated philosophers of the 1970s, and to abandon the red-herring of assertion-conditions and anti-realism. After a hiatus of four years, during which time we wrote a controversial book entitled Frege – Logical Excavations and a polemical book on contemporary philosophy of language – Language, Sense. (shrink)

It is well established that demographic representation in clinical research is important for understanding the safety and effectiveness of novel therapeutics and vaccines in diverse patient populations. In recent years, the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration have issued guidelines and recommendations for the inclusion of women, older adults, and racial and ethnic minorities in research. However, these guidelines fail to provide an adequate explanation of why racial and ethnic representation in clinical research is important. This article (...) aims to both provide the missing arguments for why adequate representation of racial and ethnic minorities in clinical research is essential and to articulate a number of recommendations for improving diversity going forward.Appropriate racial and ethnic representation and fair inclusion help (1) increase the generalisability of clinical trial results, (2) equitably distribute any benefits of clinical research and (3) enable trust in the research enterprise. (shrink)

A succinct introduction to mathematical logic and set theory, which together form the foundations for the rigorous development of mathematics. Suitable for all introductory mathematics undergraduates, Notes on Logic and Set Theory covers the basic concepts of logic: first-order logic, consistency, and the completeness theorem, before introducing the reader to the fundamentals of axiomatic set theory. Successive chapters examine the recursive functions, the axiom of choice, ordinal and cardinal arithmetic, and the incompleteness theorems. Dr. Johnstone has included numerous exercises designed (...) to illustrate the key elements of the theory and to provide applications of basic logical concepts to other areas of mathematics. (shrink)

... 243-) INTRODUCTION §§243- constitute the eighth 'chapter' of the book. Its point of departure is a natural query with respect to the conclusion of the ...

It has been over two decades since Miranda Fricker labeled epistemic injustice, in which an agent is wronged in their capacity as a knower. The philosophical literature has proliferated with variants and related concepts. By considering cases in popular music, we argue that it is worth distinguishing a parallel phenomenon of art-interpretive injustice, in which an agent is wronged in their creative capacity as a possible artist. In section 1, we consider the prosecutorial use of rap lyrics in court as (...) a central case of this injustice. In section 2, we distinguish art-interpretive injustice from other categories already discussed in recent literature. In section 3, we discuss the relationship between genre discourse and identity prejudice. The case for recognizing the category of art-interpretive injustice is that it allows one to recognize a class of harms as being importantly related in ways that one would otherwise overlook. (shrink)

Sympathy, empathy, and compassion are strands in the network of love and essential corollaries of friendship. Together with love and friendship, they are the saving graces of mankind. This chapter aims to clarify the relationship between sympathy and empathy. It may be helpful first to list the relevant dispositions, tendencies, powers, and feelings. The most important contributions to the analysis of sympathy were Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature and Adam Smith's The Theory of Moral Sentiments. It was they who (...) provided the first extensive phenomenological description and philosophical anatomy of sympathy. It is noteworthy that Theodor Lipps had translated Hume's Treatise into German. His account of empathy had its roots in Hume's projectivism. With the demise of behaviourism in the 1970s, the notion of empathy became an object for reflections of experimental and practical psychologists and therapists. (shrink)

The distinction between shame cultures and guilt cultures is due to the anthropologist Ruth Benedict. The moral education of the youth in a shame culture will involve a multitude of prescriptions determining how to conduct oneself. Heroic societies with a closed aristocratic warrior class are typically shame cultures. The form of the dominant norms of a guilt culture is the imperative or dominative tense, which determines what one is obligated to do. This is the typical form of the obligation‐imposing commandments (...) of God. A primary focus of shame in the emerging guilt culture became sexuality and the body, and shame became forcefully riveted to the notion of sin. Feeling shame, like feeling pride, lies at the centre of a ramifying cluster of emotions and emotional attitudes. Shame bears a kinship to embarrassment. Embarrassment is distinguished from feeling shame in so far as it is essentially an audience‐involving emotion. (shrink)

Throughout its long history metaphysics has been variously conceived. At its most sublime, it has been taken to be the study of the super‐sensible, in particular of the existence of a god, the nature of the soul, and the possibility of an afterlife. When the young Ludwig Wittgenstein entered the lists, it was entirely reasonable to conceive of metaphysics in this manner. Its subject matter was held to be the language‐independent and thought‐independent de re necessities of the world. The Tractatus (...) is dominated by three problems: first, the nature of logic and logical necessity; secondly, the essence of the proposition and hence the characterization of the general propositional form; and thirdly, the intentionality of the proposition. Logical propositions are combinations of elementary propositions by means of truth‐functional logical connectives. The metaphysics adumbrated in the Tractatus, Wittgenstein thought, was required for the possibility of representation and for the possibility of logic. (shrink)