INTRODUCTION Any scholar undertaking to add yet another book title to the already virtually uncontrollable bibliography on Plato needs justification. ...

This essay is on the concept of friendship in Aristotle, which plays a key role in his practical philosophy: as a nucleus of human relationships which is the basis not only of politics but of all forms of community, and as that rare element in Aristotelian thought which, at least in part, interrupts the principle of government generally characterizing his system. The author’s argument takes three steps. Beginning with the distinction of individual and collective practice he tries to define the (...) concept of friendship in its tension between the basically different conditions of self-reference and reciprocity. On the basis of this structure, the two communities of oike and polis are reconstructed and a new evaluation of their relationship is attempted. Furthermore, the essay suggests an interpretation of the anthropological dictum: “Man is by nature a political being”, which can integrate both forms of living. Above all, it is pointed out that it was Aristotle who introduced and developed the relationship of ego and alter ego as the nucleus of friendship in practical philosophy. This way he definitely anticipated modern social philosophy with its principal category of intersubjectivity. However, he became entangled in a profound and by no means accidental ambivalence which can be clearly explained. (shrink)

This essay is on the concept of friendship in Aristotle, which plays a key role in his practical philosophy: as a nucleus of human relationships which is the basis not only of politics but of all forms of community, and as that rare element in Aristotelian thought which, at least in part, interrupts the principle of government generally characterizing his system. The author’s argument takes three steps. Beginning with the distinction of individual and collective practice he tries to define the (...) concept of friendship in its tension between the basically different conditions of self-reference and reciprocity. On the basis of this structure, the two communities of oike and polis are reconstructed and a new evaluation of their relationship is attempted. Furthermore, the essay suggests an interpretation of the anthropological dictum: “Man is by nature a political being”, which can integrate both forms of living. Above all, it is pointed out that it was Aristotle who introduced and developed the relationship of ego and alter ego as the nucleus of friendship in practical philosophy. This way he definitely anticipated modern social philosophy with its principal category of intersubjectivity. However, he became entangled in a profound and by no means accidental ambivalence which can be clearly explained. (shrink)

Mircea Flonta, Hans-Klaus Keul si Jorn Rusen (coord.), Religia si societatea civilã Ed. Paralela 45, Pitesti, 2005.

Many neuroanatomical alterations have been detected in patients with tinnitus in previous studies. However, little is known about the morphological and structural covariance network changes before and after long-term sound therapy. This study aimed to explore alterations in brain anatomical and SCN changes in patients with idiopathic tinnitus using voxel-based morphometry analysis 24 weeks before and after sound therapy. Thirty-three tinnitus patients underwent magnetic resonance imaging scans at baseline and after 24 weeks of sound therapy. Twenty-six age- and sex-matched healthy (...) control individuals also underwent two scans over a 24-week interval; 3.0T MRI and high-resolution 3D structural images were acquired with a 3D-BRAVO pulse sequence. Structural image data preprocessing was performed using the VBM8 toolbox. The Tinnitus Handicap Inventory score was assessed for the severity of tinnitus before and after treatment. Two-way mixed model analysis of variance and post hoc analyses were performed to determine differences between the two groups and between the two scans. Student-Newman-Keuls tests were used in the post hoc analysis. Interaction effects between the two groups and the two scans demonstrated significantly different gray matter volume in the right parahippocampus gyrus, right caudate, left superior temporal gyrus, left cuneus gyrus, and right calcarine gyrus; we found significantly decreased GM volume in the above five brain regions among the tinnitus patients before sound therapy compared to that in the HC group. The 24-week sound therapy group demonstrated significantly greater brain volume compared with the baseline group among these brain regions. We did not find significant differences in brain regions between the 24-week sound therapy and HC groups. The SCN results showed that the left superior temporal gyrus and left rolandic operculum were significantly different in nodal efficiency, nodal degree centrality, and nodal betweenness centrality after FDR correction. This study characterized the effect of sound therapy on brain GM volume, especially in the left superior temporal lobe. Notably, sound therapy had a normalizing effect on tinnitus patients. (shrink)