An outline of the life of Heraclides and his fragmentary writings (on the theory of matter, astronomy, ethical and religious topics) is followed by an attempt to reconstruct his thought. He emerges as not so much a profound thinker as a many-sided writer of considerable literary gifts and occasional flashes of brilliance.

Cultural variants may spread by being more appealing, more memorable, or less offensive than other cultural variants. Empirical studies suggest that such “emotional selection” is a force to be reckoned with in cultural evolution. We present a research paradigm that is suitable for the study of emotional selection. It guides empirical research by directing attention to the circumstances under which emotions influence the likelihood that an individual will influence another individual to acquire a cultural variant. We present a modeling framework (...) to translate such knowledge into specific and testable predictions of population-level change. A set of already analyzed basic cases can serve as a toolbox. (shrink)

People often justify their moral opinions by referring to larger moral concerns. Is there a general agreement about what concerns apply to different moral opinions? We used surveys in the United States and the United Kingdom to measure the perceived applicability of eight concerns to a wide range of moral opinions. Within countries, argument applicability scores were largely similar whether they were calculated among women or men, among young or old, among liberals or conservatives, or among people with or without (...) higher education. Thus, the applicability of a given moral concern to a specific opinion can be viewed as an objective quality of the opinion, largely independent of the population in which it is measured. Finally, we used similar surveys in Israel and Brazil to establish that this independence of populations also extended to populations in different countries. However, the extent to which this holds across cultures beyond those included in the current study is still an open question. (shrink)

Discussions of political issues may influence people's opinions. Is there any systematic difference in opinions between those who discuss frequently and those who do not? We measured the association between self-reported discussion frequency and the probability of holding the more liberal opinion on moral issues, using data from the General Social Survey and the American National Election Studies. This association looked different among liberals and among conservatives. Having more frequent discussions is associated with a higher probability of holding more liberal (...) opinions among liberals, while there is little association between discussion frequency and opinions among conservatives. These findings can be explained by the moral argument theory, which is an account of the long-term liberalization of public opinion on moral issues as an outcome of repeated discussions. The key assumption of this theory is that opinions that are justified by the kinds of arguments that only conservatives accept have a disadvantage compared to opinions that are justified by the kinds of arguments that everyone accepts. Consistent with this theory, we find that the effect of discussion frequency is stronger for moral opinions that have a bigger argument advantage. (shrink)

Game theory is a formal approach to behavior that focuses on the strategic aspect of situations. The game theoretic approach originates in economics but has been embraced by scholars across disciplines, including many philosophers and biologists. This approach has an important weakness: the strategic aspect of a situation, which is its defining quality in game theory, is often not its most salient quality in human cognition. Evidence from a wide range of experiments highlights this shortcoming. Previous theoretical and empirical work (...) has sought to address this weakness by considering learning across an ensemble of multiple games simultaneously. Here we extend this framework, incorporating artificial neural networks, to allow for an investigation of the interaction between the perceptual and functional similarity of the games composing the larger ensemble. Using this framework, we conduct a theoretical investigation of a population that encounters both stag hunts and prisoner’s dilemmas, two situations that are strategically different but which may or may not be perceptually similar. (shrink)

Game theory is a formal approach to behavior that focuses on the strategic aspect of situations. The game theoretic approach originates in economics but has been embraced by scholars across disciplines, including many philosophers and biologists. This approach has an important weakness: the strategic aspect of a situation, which is its defining quality in game theory, is often not its most salient quality in human cognition. Evidence from a wide range of experiments highlights this shortcoming. Previous theoretical and empirical work (...) has sought to address this weakness by considering learning across an ensemble of multiple games simultaneously. Here we extend this framework, incorporating artificial neural networks, to allow for an investigation of the interaction between the perceptual and functional similarity of the games composing the larger ensemble. Using this framework, we conduct a theoretical investigation of a population that encounters both stag hunts and prisoner’s dilemmas, two situations that are strategically different but which may or may not be perceptually similar. (shrink)

This article aims to give an overview of Jewish archives and archival sources in Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Besides describing significant existing collections, the article looks into ongoing archival projects, digitizing and infrastructure programs, and maps out future challenges.

The medical and philosophical system of Asclepiades of Bithynia ( fl. later second century BC) has been the subject of considerable controversy. His physical theory of anarmoi onkoi in particular has seen intense debate, and although many of its broader features appear to be fairly well established, many of its most fundamental details remain obscure. Perhaps somewhat paradoxically, some of the most important work carried out on Asclepiades has been explicitly focused instead on Heraclides of Pontus, the reconstruction (...) of whose physical theory has often proceeded on the assumption that this was largely replicated by Asclepiades some two centuries later. (shrink)

In De Anima I 4, Aristotle describes the intellect (nous) as a sort of substance, separate and incorruptible. Myles Burnyeat and Lloyd Gerson take this as proof that, for Aristotle, the intellect is a separate eternal entity, not a power belonging to individual humans. Against this reading, I show that this passage does not express Aristotle’s own views, but dialectically examines a reputable position (endoxon) about the intellect that seems to show that it can be subject to change. The passage’s (...) argument for the indestructibility of intellect via an analogy to perception does not fit with Aristotle’s own views. Aristotle thinks that perception operates via bodily organs, but denies this of understanding. He also requires separability from the body for indestructibility, something this analogy rules out. However, Aristotle’s Platonist interlocutors may well endorse such an argument. My dialectical interpretation best resolves the interpretative difficulties and explains its place in the larger context, Aristotle’s discussion of Platonist views on the soul. Aristotle presents a challenge to his insistence that the soul is subject to change, dialectically resolves that challenge, and then ends by reserving the right to give a different account of the intellect. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this article, the issue of corporeal reality in Evagrius is discussed in abstraction – to the extent that this is possible – from its soteriological purpose. An analysis of Evagrius’ statements about corporeal reality reveals a world that cannot be known in itself, but which is established through a hierarchy of qualifications. Evagrius’ account of the elements and their features, of the relationship of qualities to matter, and of the process in which the intellect apprehends bodies, appears to (...) be deeply indebted to the Stoic account of bodily reality. Evagrius differs, however, in that the corporeal reality he describes is inherently unknowable and lifeless. As he develops Stoic intuitions about the commanding faculty into a vision of an intellect holding within itself a model of its bearer’s body, and as he moves the logoi of judgement and providence outside of corporeal reality, the latter turns into a desert from which life and rationality are absent. An intellect, as a soul, is only liminally present in corporeal reality. Focused on itself, it becomes a subjectivity that only interacts with the external bodily world through a model of the latter that it constructs within the boundaries of the soul itself. (shrink)

Pindar's Dithyramb 2opens with a reference to the historical development of the genre it exemplifies, the celebrated circular chorus of classical Greece. The first two lines were long known from various citations, notably in Athenaeus, whose sources included the fourth-century authors Heraclides of Pontus and Aristotle's pupil Clearchus of Soli. The third line appears, only partly legible, on a papyrus fragment published in 1919, which preserves some thirty lines of the dithyramb including most of the first antistrophe.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the theme of mind-broadening travel in the ancient world, as practised by a series of philosophers, starting with Pythagoras, and including Plato, and then a series of Plato’s disciples, including Xenocrates of Chalcedon, Heraclides of Pontus, and not least Aristotle of Stagira, who were attracted to Athens by reports of the interesting new philosophical school that had been set up there. The theme is continued into later times, with the interesting (...) figure of Antiochus of Ascalon, in the first century BC, and then Plotinus, coming from Egypt to Rome, in the third century AD. I raise the question, without resolving it, of what constitutes philosophical tourism, as opposed to more permanent modes of study, but seek to highlight what seems to me an ongoing feature of philosophical study throughout antiquity and beyond. (shrink)

While many Christians are finding comfort in forms of prayer that emphasize silence, others find concern with just such forms, seeing them as doctrinally unfaithful innovations of early monks. This article, then, investigates one influential early monk, Evagrius of Pontus, regarding thoughtless prayer. The article summarizes Evagrius’ life and monastic practice. It explores Evagrius’ mystical theology in general and particularly his understanding of the roles that prayer plays in the various stages of development in Christian maturity. The article then (...) develops a biblical and evangelical response to Evagrius’ approach, examining themes of the transcendent greatness of God, silence, and prayer in the Scriptures. Based on these investigations, the article offers three practical suggestions concerning the use of thoughtless prayer for Christians today. (shrink)

The Aristotelian Πολιτεῖαι collected information on the history and organization of reportedly 158 city-states. Of these only the Ἀθηναίων πολιτεία survives almost in its entirety on two papyri. All that remains of the other constitutions is the epitome by Heraclides Lembus and about 130 fragments. This article will look at the transmission of Heraclides’ epitome and explore the possibility of identifying further fragments of the original text.

Etymology, especially that of an ancient language like Greek, is not as a rule a field in which one expects to get conclusive demonstration; and between rival explanations one is often provided with a choice which cannot be made with much confidence. But despite this I think that I should reply to the article by W. S. Allen on ‘The Name of the Black Sea in Greek’ , pp. 86–8), which has raised again the question dealt with in my article (...) ‘The Name of the Euxine Pontus’ , pp. 123–8). This is not so much because I do not feel satisfied with Allen's explanation , as because this particular etymology has considerable historical, in addition to linguistic, interest. (shrink)

It will be best to explain here, at the start, that I do not propose new etymologies for the words εὒξεινος and πόντος. I regard, then, εὒξεινος πόντος as meaning ‘the hospitable way’. My purpose is to show how such a name came to be given to the Black Sea by the Greeks. First, the word πόντος. The familiar explanation connects it with a series of words, of which I give the most important: Gk. πάτος ‘trodden path’; Skt. pάnthā ‘way’, (...) fem. pathyā ‘id.’; Zend paθ ‘id.’; Arm. hun ‘ford, road’; Lat. pons ‘bridge’. Further, as a verb the root appears in Gk. πατεν ‘tread down’ and is given in Walde-Pokorny as *pent- ‘tread, go’: W.-P. points out that the derived nouns mean ‘way’, and particularly a way that goes over or through water, as can be seen from the Armenian and Latin. (shrink)

In Miletus, about 550 B.C., together with our world-picture cosmology was born. This book tells the story. In Part One the reader is introduced in the archaic world-picture of a flat earth with the cupola of the celestial vault onto which the celestial bodies are attached. One of the subjects treated in that context is the riddle of the tilted celestial axis. This part also contains an extensive chapter on archaic astronomical instruments. Part Two shows how Anaximander (610-547 B.C.) blew (...) up this archaic world-picture and replaced it by a new one that is essentially still ours. He taught that the celestial bodies orbit at different distances and that the earth floats unsupported in space. This makes him the founding father of cosmology. Part Three discusses topics that completed the new picture described by Anaximander. Special attention is paid to the confrontation between Anaxagoras and Aristotle on the question whether the earth is flat or spherical, and on the battle between Aristotle and Heraclides Ponticus on the question whether the universe is finite or infinite. (shrink)

The obscure 2 nd century CE writer Ariston of Pella is mentioned in two accepted works: Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History and John of Scythopolis / Maximus Confessor’s Notes on the Mystic Theology of the Areopagite. He is also mentioned in two other works but the attributions are currently regarded with suspicion: Moses of Chorene’s History of Armenia and the Chronicon Paschale. Upon further investigation, it appears that an 18 th century theory regarding Ariston’s presence in the Chronicon Paschale as the author (...) of a previously unknown Christian Apology is correct. Also, the investigation of the theory demonstrates that previous claims regarding the Chronicon material’s reliance upon Ecclesiastical History are incorrect. With these points established, it becomes clear that Ariston can be regarded as the author of a Christian Apology addressed to the Roman Emperor Hadrian, with an internal assigned date during the Bar Kokhba Revolt (132-135 CE). This attribution sheds new light on Ariston of Pella and establishes a more reliable date for his floruit. In addition, it establishes a new Christian Apology from the time of the reign of Emperor Hadrian. It also contributes new information about Eusebius’ sources for Ecclesiastical History and further information about Aquila of Pontus, Emperor Hadrian and the Bar Kokhba Revolt. (shrink)

Archil. fr. 232 West (= 50 Tarditi = 133 Bergk = 230 LB) reads as follows:νόμος δὲ Κρητικὸς διδάσκεταιa Cretan law is taught (transl. Dilts)That the term νόμος should be interpreted here in a legal sense has never been contested, and justly so, since its attested meanings are ‘usage, custom, legal norm, statute, law’. However, from the fifth centuryb.c.e.on, νόμοι are also related to music, referring to ‘melodies’ in general or, as a more technical term, to established ‘musical patterns’. The (...) notion of distribution, of an order socially accepted as valid, seems to underlie the use of νόμος in both the legal and the musical fields. (shrink)

Slutreplik till Malin Thor Tureby om svensk-judisk historieforskning.