In 50 B.C. Cicero writes to Atticus as follows : ‘Brundisium uenimus VII Kalend. Decembr. usi tua felicitate nauigandi; ita belle nobis flauit ab Epiro lenissimus Onchesmites. hunc si cui boles pro tuo uendito.’ The antonomasia, the euphonic sibilance, and the mannered rhythm are all prominent in Cicero's hexameter. The line is a humorously concocted example of affected and Grecizing narrative. But it is also a line which, Atticus is to suppose, would value; presumably therefore it is meant to hit (...) off characteristics of their style. Cicero must in fact be parodying what he regards as a typical ‘neoteric’ line, and the significance of this simple fact has perhaps been underestimated. (shrink)

The philosophy of Edmund Husserl, by O. Becker.--The phenomenological philosophy of Edmund Husserl and contemporary criticism, by E. Fink.--The decisive phases in the development of Husserl's philosophy, by W. Biemel.--Husserl's concept of the "absolute," by R. Boehm.--Critical observations concerning Husserl's posthumous writings, by H. Wagner.--Husserl's departure from Cartesianism, by L. Landgrebe.

In The Colorful Conservative, R.O.P. Lopez culls important insights into American culture from the works of Phillis Wheatley, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry David Thoreau, William Wells Brown, and Walt Whitman. Lopez contends that many of the tensions that emerged prior to the Civil War remain unresolved; thus, the nineteenth century never ended and Americans still live in the literary framework of the 1800s. Beyond political distinctions of the left and the right, there are really four poles: The Left, The Conformist (...) Burkeans, The Anarchist-Nihilist-Libertarians, and The Colorful Conservatives. The Left and the Colorful Conservatives are the two poles most at odds with each other. The Colorful Conservatives, Lopez argues, encompass these five American authors and are the driving force behind many unique paradoxes in the United States' political culture"--Back cover. (shrink)

Baron assumes that ethical decision-making can be evaluated without specifying more general features of the cognitive system within which it occurs. It is suggested that ethical principles are heuristics employed during goal-oriented action planning. Heuristics are bound to generate suboptimal decisions in some cases. It is rational to replace a particular heuristic only when the cost of associated error exceeds the cost of constructing and installing a more successful alternative.

With the current resurgence of interest in phenomenology, a second edition of Elveton’s indispensable collection is timely. These essays present appraisals of Edmund Husserl’s phenomenological philosophy, ranging from its earliest reception to the first comprehensive efforts to assess the full scope of Husserl’s writings.

Andreas Battlogg, S.J., one of the supervising editors, discusses the conclusion of the publication of Karl Rahner's Sämtliche Werke in over thirty volumes along with its impact on the study of theology now and in the future.

Andreas Battlogg, S.J., one of the supervising editors, discusses the conclusion of the publication of Karl Rahner's Sämtliche Werke in over thirty volumes along with its impact on the study of theology now and in the future.

The Romans had various ways of justifying their imperial aims and methods, some high-minded, some less so. We find in particular that they could give honourable and satisfying explanations of their aims and methods in war. Here for example is Cicero: quare suscipienda quidem bella sunt ob earn causam, ut sine iniuria in pace uiuatur; parta autem uictoria conseruandi ii, qui non crudeles in bello, non immanes fuerunt, ut maiores nostri Tusculanos, Aequos…in ciuitatem etiam acceperunt, at Carthaginem…funditus sustulerunt…mea quidem sententia (...) paci, quae nihil habitura sit insidiarum, semper est consulendum. et cum iis, quos ui deuiceris, consulendum est, tum ii qui armis positis and imperatorum fidem confugient, quamuis murum aries percusserit, recipiendi. (shrink)

Biography of Sister Alphōnsa, 1910-1946, Catholic nun from Kerala.

In this paper I shall be examining the nature and provenance of what many people state or imply to be a traditional, conventional, even trite figure of speech: the Augustan Elegists' figure of the ‘seruitium amoris’’. It is indeed a very frequent image in the Elegists. As. F. O. Copley says: ‘Of all the figures used by the Roman elegists, probably none is quite so familiar as that of the lover as slave.’’ But frequency does not equal triteness nor traditionality.

The most popular emendation has been Heinsius's somnia sunt. I find the tone of this misplaced. Thepoet has since 66 laboriously catalogued variant aetiologies of Scylla monstrum. It is inappropriate that he should immediately follow this with the statement that all of them were ‘fancy’ or ‘nonsense’. For a start, we may note that the summation quidquid et ut quisque … presumably includes the version of Homer, to whose authority the poet had appealed in the case of the erroneous contamination (...) of the two Scyllas. Next, I suppose that if Scylla monstrum had been the subject of his poem, the poet might have wanted to say that some of the versions were wrong—or at least of less good authority, or less attractive than others for one reason or another. But Scylla monstrum is not the subject of his poem. He confutes, because it is his concern, the contamination; the listing of the rest, variants in a story not his subject, issues largely from an ‘Alexandrian’ delight in such learned display. It calls for no estimation of their lightness or wrongness: neither relative to one another—and certainly not absolutely. (shrink)

In one form or another an elevated, pleasure-transcending view of love is common, we might say natural. For readers of Latin poetry Catullus is perhaps the most impressive spokesman. In many respects, of course, Catullus is special. His particular values and choice of terminology, in his time and situation, mark him out from his crowd; in the Roman world indeed, ‘whole love’, perhaps rather its utterance, is hard to document before him. But a belief that love is powerful and profound, (...) an important if not the most important thing in life, this is not a rarity. Roman tombstones attest to love and devotion, and myths inherited from Greece enshrine love's power, endurance, and transcendence. (shrink)

In one form or another an elevated, pleasure-transcending view of love is common, we might say natural. For readers of Latin poetry Catullus is perhaps the most impressive spokesman. In many respects, of course, Catullus is special. His particular values and choice of terminology, in his time and situation, mark him out from his crowd; in the Roman world indeed, ‘whole love’, perhaps rather its utterance, is hard to document before him. But a belief that love is powerful and profound, (...) an important if not the most important thing in life, this is not a rarity. Roman tombstones attest to love and devotion, and myths inherited from Greece enshrine love's power, endurance, and transcendence. (shrink)