The fifteen essays in this volume, rooted in the work of the Hellenistic Moral Philosophy and Early Christianity Section of the SBL, examine the works of Philodemus and how they illuminate the cultural context of early Christianity. Born in Gadara in Syria, Philodemus (ca. 110-40 BCE) was active in Italy as an Epicurean philosopher and poet. This volume comprises three parts; the first deals with Philodemus' works in their own terms, the second situates his thought within its larger Greco-Roman context, (...) and the third explores the implications of his work for understanding the earliest Christians, especially Paul. It will be useful to all readers interested in Hellenistic philosophy and rhetoric as well as Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. (shrink)

Designed to offer a critical survey of trends and developments in recent scholarship on Philodemus of Gadara and Hellenistic literary theory, the essays in this volume treat the papyrus texts of Philodemus' treatises on poetry and the related subjects of rhetoric and music, establishing links with his Roman contemporaries Lucretius, Catullus, Horace, and Virgil. The volume contains a complete translation of Philodemus' On Poems Book 5. The essays evaluate Philodemus' formalism, which denied the moral utility of poetry as it sought (...) to demonstrate the convergence of the Epicurean and the traditionally poetic. The distinguished contributors are D. Obbink, D. Clay, E. Asmis, D. Sider, M. Wigodsky, R. Janko, J. Porter, D. Blank, D. Armstrong, and S. Oberhelman. (shrink)

This volume contains the proceedings of a conference on the Presocratic philosophers Pythagoras and Heraclitus. Investigated by a team of international scholars are key problems in doxography, Pythagorean Communities, logos, harmony, psychology, flux, number theory, ethics, and theology. Designed for all students of ancient philosophy, this volume will spur further investigations into these cardinal concerns of early Greek scientific thinkers.

Introducing a new method of reconstructing the fragmented papyrus rolls excavated from Herculaneum, Philodemus On Piety offers a new critical text of the philosophical part of Philodemus' De pietate, together with an English translation and commentary. The best known among the papyri from Herculaneum, Philodemus's On Piety was adapted by Cicero in De natura deorum I. An innovative format presents on facing pages the technical details of the papyrus, and a continuous text with English translation and interpretive notes. New work (...) on ancient religion and philosophy and the history of atheism is brought to bear on the interpretation of the text, which expounds Epicurus' theory of the gods and religious cults as an outgrowth of cultural history. (shrink)

The standard histories give notice of a polemical treatise entitled Letters on Empedocles, 'Eπιστολικ. περ'Eμπεδοκλους in twenty two books by Hermarchus, Epicurus' favourite pupil and successor. The work survives in some twenty fragments of more than probable ascription. The most important of these is an extensive extract preserved by Porphyry at De Abstinentia 1.7–12 on the origin in human history of justice, homicide law, and expiatory purifications, which has been the subject of much discussion. Porphyry himself never names the title (...) of Hermarchus' treatise, though he makes it clear that it was in the form of a polemical attack on the views of Empedocles. A recent papyrus find gives the title not as Letters on Empedocles, but as φρς 'Eμπεδοκλα . In what follows it will be convenient to show that this is no mere variant but in fact the original and correct form of the title, and to determine what can be known with certainty as a result about the make-up of the work. (shrink)

Introducing a new method of reconstructing the fragmented papyrus rolls excavated from Herculaneum, Philodemus On Piety offers a new critical text of the philosophical part of Philodemus' De pietate, together with an English translation and commentary. The best known among the papyri from Herculaneum, Philodemus's On Piety was adapted by Cicero in De natura deorum I. An innovative format presents on facing pages the technical details of the papyrus, and a continuous text with English translation and interpretive notes. New work (...) on ancient religion and philosophy and the history of atheism is brought to bear on the interpretation of the text, which expounds Epicurus' theory of the gods and religious cults as an outgrowth of cultural history. (shrink)

Conventional gender analysis of development policy does not adequately explain the slow progress towards gender equality. Our research analyses the gender discourses embedded in agricultural and rural development policies in Myanmar and Nepal. We find that both countries focus on increasing women’s participation in development activities as a core gender equality policy objective. This creates a binary categorisation of participating versus non-participating women and identifies women as responsible for improving their position. At the same time, gender (in)equality is defined exclusively (...) as a women’s concern. Such discourses, as constitutive practices, produce specific knowledge about rural women and new subjectivities that prescribe and govern them solely as subjects of development. Our research suggests that such a limited discursive practice invisiblises gendered power relations and structural and institutional issues, ultimately slowing progress towards gender equality. We demonstrate the importance of studying policy as discourse, beyond the effectiveness of policies or mainstreaming tools, and call for empirical evidence on the impact of these discourses on women’s subjectivities and lived experiences. (shrink)

The primary purpose of this randomized controlled trial (RCT) was to evaluate the efficacy of an unguided, two-week internet-based training program to overcome procrastination, called ON.TOP. Because adherence is a typical problem among individuals who tend to procrastinate, especially with internet-based interventions, the secondary purpose of the present study was to investigate whether adding SMS support increases subjects’ frequency of engagement in training. In a three-armed RCT (N = 161), the effects of the intervention alone and intervention with daily SMS-support (...) were compared to a waiting list control condition in a sample of students. The primary outcome of interest was procrastination. The secondary outcome of interest was the extent of training behavior. Baseline (T0), immediate post-treatment (T1) and 8-week post-treatment (T2) assessments were conducted. Results indicated that procrastination decreased significantly only with intervention group with daily SMS support, relative to control. Moreover, incorporating SMS support also may enhance extent of training behavior. (shrink)

The objective of this study is the delineation of a philosophical tradition linking Epicurus’ ethical philosophy to Democritus. Specifically, Warren seeks to demonstrate that there is an ethical tradition of Democriteanism, anchored in atomism. Tracing its outlines demands extensive philosophical and philological sleuthing. It is inevitable that such a project will tell only a likely story for it is beset with challenges at virtually every stage. The challenges begin with Democritus himself. His ethical fragments, extensive in number, rest on the (...) insecure foundation of Stobaeus’ anthology and a collection known as The Sayings of Democrates. Is Democrates the familiar atomist from Abdera or someone else? Further, do the ethical fragments have any foundation in Democritean atomism? Warren admits that any claim of a foundation of Democritean ethics in his physics is only a conjecture. (shrink)

Negative self-referential processing has fruitfully been studied in unipolar depressed patients, but remarkably less in patients with bipolar disorder (BD). This exploratory study examines the relation between task-based self-referential processing and depressive symptoms in BD and their possible importance to the working mechanism of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) for BD. The study population consisted of a subsample of patients with BD (n = 49) participating in an RCT of MBCT for BD, who were assigned to MBCT + TAU (n = (...) 23) or treatment as usual (TAU) (n = 26). Patients performed the self-referential encoding task (SRET), which measures (1) positive and (2) negative attributions to oneself as well as (3) negative self-referential memory bias, before and after MBCT + TAU or TAU. At baseline, all three SRET measures were significantly related to depressive symptoms in patients with BD. Moreover, repeated measures analyses of variance revealed that negative self-referential memory bias diminished over time in the MBCT + TAU group, compared with the TAU group. Given the preliminary nature of our findings, future research should explore the possibly mediating role of reducing negative self-referential memory bias in preventing and treating depressive symptoms in BD through MBCT. (shrink)

Introduction With an ageing population, end-of-life care is increasing in importance. The present work investigated characteristics and time trends of older peoples' attitudes towards euthanasia and an end-of-life pill. Methods Three samples aged 64 years or older from the Longitudinal Ageing Study Amsterdam (N=1284 (2001), N=1303 (2005) and N=1245 (2008)) were studied. Respondents were asked whether they could imagine requesting their physician to end their life (euthanasia), or imagine asking for a pill to end their life if they became tired (...) of living in the absence of a severe disease (end-of-life pill). Using logistic multivariable techniques, changes of attitudes over time and their association with demographic and health characteristics were assessed. Results The proportion of respondents with a positive attitude somewhat increased over time, but significantly only among the 64–74 age group. For euthanasia, these percentages were 58% (2001), 64% (2005) and 70% (2008) (OR of most recent versus earliest period (95% CI): 1.30 (1.17 to 1.44)). For an end-of-life pill, these percentages were 31% (2001), 33% (2005) and 45% (2008) (OR (95% CI): 1.37 (1.23 to 1.52)). For the end-of-life pill, interaction between the most recent time period and age group was significant. Conclusions An increasing proportion of older people reported that they could imagine desiring euthanasia or an end-of-life pill. This may imply an increased interest in deciding about your own life and stresses the importance to take older peoples' wishes seriously. (shrink)

The Platonic dialogues contain passages that seem to point in quite opposite directions on the question of the moral equality of women with men. Rep. V defends the view that sexual difference need not be relevant to a person’s capacity for philosophy and thus for virtue. Tim. 42a-c, however, makes incarnation in a female body a punishment for failure to master the challenges of embodiment. This paper examines the different ways in which two subsequent Platonists, Proclus (d. 485 CE) and (...) Theodore of Asine (d. c. 360 CE), dealt with this tension. (shrink)

Later versions of Platonic ethics fit the frame of eudaimonism and specify a telos based on Theaetetus 176B and Timaeus 90A-D: 'likeness to god in so far as possible'. This paper examines the development of this idea from the middle Platonist Alcinous to the Neoplatonist Proclus. It examines the way in which Proclus makes this specification of human happiness a bit less "other worldy".

This festschrift collects a number of insightful essays by a group of accomplished Christian scholars, all of who have either worked with or studied under Hendrik Hart during his 35-year tenure as Senior Member in Systematic Philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies, Toronto, Canada.

Hartshorne and Reese thought that in the Timaeus Plato wasn’t quite a panentheist—though he would have been if he’d been consistent. More recently, Cooper has argued that while Plato’s World Soul may have inspired panentheists, Plato’s text does not itself describe a form of panenetheism. In this paper, I will reconsider this question not only by examining closely the Timaeus but by thinking about which features of current characterizations of panentheism are historically accidental and how the core of the doctrine (...) might most fruitfully be understood. I’ll argue that there is a polytheistic view that deserves to be called panentheistic and that Plato’s Timaeus describes such a view. (shrink)

Robert Merton may not remember it, but in the 1930s we met in Cambridge and took one or more walks together – 1 think they were along Trapelo Road in Waltham, then a rural lane. Our conversation must have been interesting, since I remember the episode, but I can only guess at the subject. Since Merton was working on the sociology of science in Newton's day and I had a long standing interest in the relations between mathematics and society, especially (...) at the dawn of capitalism, it is very likely that we discussed the Hessen paper of 1931, published inScience at the Cross Roads. The paper had impressed me, as it had impressed several British scientists of the younger generation, including J. D. Bernal and Joseph Needham; Merton's dissertation, when it appeared, showed that Hessen's “provocative essay” had made its impression on his work as well. It also showed that he was aware of some of the oversimplifications of the Hessen lecture, as was G. N. Clark (see Clark 1937a; Clark 1937b, chap. 3). The almost total omission of the religious factor was one of them. (shrink)

Summary The fate of the Serapeum and especially of its library is still a hotly-debated topic. The present paper aims to provide a consistent reading of the extant source evidence. Christian authors, such as Tertullian, Epiphanius of Salamis, and John Chrysostom, acknowledge that the Septuagint bible translation was moved from the original royal library to the Serapeum by the end of the second century A.D. This could be because the Serapeum had become Alexandria’s main library after the temple was rebuilt (...) following a fire in 181 A.D. Writing in the early fifth century, Orosius is our most important witness that the Christian mob destroyed not only the temple building, but also the library and that this library was the successor of the original Ptolemaic library. There are several other possible allusions to the destruction of the library, for example, in sermons delivered by John Chrysostom in the 390s. This article also argues that Ammianus Marcellinus, Aphthonius, and Epiphanius of Salamis were aware of the destruction of the library when they wrote their descriptions of the Serapeum probably not before 391. Taken together, these sources illuminate the ways in which events of such magnitude broke very quickly in various parts of the Roman empire. Nevertheless, some authors, especially the pagan ones, were hesitant to refer to the destruction other than in allusive and muted ways, probably because of the heated religious atmosphere in the immediate aftermath. (shrink)

L’ordre public social constituerait, selon la fameuse formule d’Alain Supiot, « la clé de voûte du droit du travail français ». Bien qu’elle semble donc constituer une notion centrale en la matière, il s’avère que de nombreux auteurs ne lui attribuent pas, aujourd’hui encore, une définition ou une fonction clairement et précisément définie. En doctrine, l’ordre public social peut ainsi désigner le fait que la loi, au sens large, admettrait en principe, en droit du travail, des « dérogations » par (...) contrat de travail ou accord collectif plus favorables ; il est également employé comme étant en relation avec le principe de l’application de la disposition la plus favorable. Quel que soit l’angle sous lequel il est envisagé, cet ordre public social a perdu du terrain. Depuis de nombreuses années, la loi admet en effet des dérogations conventionnelles, et au cours des dix dernières années, le « principe de faveur » a vu son champ d’application se restreindre. A un moment où le droit du travail est de plus en plus perçu ou présenté comme susceptible, dans une certaine mesure, de nuire à l’emploi, de nouvelles « régulations » se mettent ainsi en place et pourraient au cours des prochaines années aboutir à un droit du travail étatique très largement supplétif, les normes applicables à l’entreprise provenant alors en principe des accords d’entreprise. (shrink)

The commentary on Plato's Republic by Proclus (d. 485 CE), which takes the form of a series of essays, is the only sustained treatment of the dialogue to survive from antiquity. This three-volume edition presents the first complete English translation of Proclus' text, together with a general introduction that argues for the unity of Proclus' Commentary and orients the reader to the use which the Neoplatonists made of Plato's Republic in their educational program. Each volume is completed by a Greek (...) word index and an English-Greek glossary that will help non-specialists to track the occurrence of key terms throughout the translated text. The second volume of the edition presents Proclus' essays on the tripartite soul and the virtues, female philosopher rulers, and the metaphysics and epistemology of the central books of the Republic. The longest of the essays in Volume II interprets the nature and significance of the 'marriage number' whose miscalculation leads to the degeneration of the ideal city-state. (shrink)