Rainer Friedrich legt eine kohärente, historisch und systematisch angelegte, Rekonstruktion von Kants Vernunftrecht vor. Er zeigt, dass Kant den Gedanken eines allgemein-gesetzgebenden Willens im Staat auch für die Begründung individueller Eigentumsrechte fruchtbar macht und dass Kant die Notwendigkeit des Rechtszustandes nicht aus dem natürlichen Privatrecht ableitet, sondern aus dem angeborenen Menschenrecht der Freiheit.

Was Odysseus to Achilleus “as hateful as the gates of Hades”? This is the implication of the prevailing tenor in the exegesis of Il. 9.312-13 from antiquity to the present: that Achilleus is referring to Odysseus, when he states that he detests like “the gates of Hades that man who hides one thing deep in his heart and speaks forth another”. Going one better, an influential school in North American Homeric studies has made the poet himself share Achilleus’ assumed detestation (...) of Odysseus. The very eccentricity of this view and the extraordinary vehemence of this school’s disparagement of Odysseus have had the salutary effect that some doubt has settled on the communis opinio. The exegesis of the couplet Il. 9.312-313 can now pass for a modern zêtêma, involving, as will become evident, larger questions of Homeric hjqopoiiva and μίμησις πράζεως. This is a zêtêma that must be resolved; and the good news is that it can be. (shrink)

At the close of the Cyclops adventure Odysseus piously sacrifices to Zeus the ram that has carried him out of Polyphemus' cave. Yet the god spurns his offering and ponders instead the destruction of Odysseus' ships and their crews :These lines need explaining, as they present two difficulties, one formal, the other thematic. How can Odysseus know what Zeus is pondering? As a first-person narrator Odysseus assumes temporarily the role of the epic poet, yet without being given the latter's omniscience. (...) He retains therefore the restricted perspective of an epic character which precludes any precise knowledge of supernatural processes. (shrink)