Zusammenfassung Seit der Entdeckung des Gilgamesch-Epos am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts wird von der Forschung angenommen, dass dieses Epos den Inhalt der homerischen Epen beeinflusst habe. Der Beitrag legt dar, wann und auf welchem Wege der kulturelle Transfer zwischen Mesopotamien und Griechenland stattgefunden haben kann. Ferner werden mehrere Passagen aus den homerischen Epen diskutiert, in denen die Forschung eine Beeinflussung durch das Gilgamesch-Epos erkennen möchte. Gezeigt wird, dass diese Ansicht zum Teil subjektiv ist und zum Teil auf (...) veralteten Ausgaben des Gilgamesch-Epos beruht. In einem Exkurs wird zuletzt eine aktuelle These zur Datierung der Ilias analysiert. (shrink)

In the first part of my paper, drawing on the works by David Heyd, I argue that, in the choices related to procreation, an autonomous decision of the woman involved should play the key role. In the relation between a healthcare professional, on the one hand, and a pregnant patient, or a patient who intends to become pregnant, on the other – the former is ethically obliged to provide proper help in the decision-making process that should nevertheless be founded on (...) the ethical ideal of a morally good person. The decision should also be informed by the conception of a morally good person endorsed by the woman . In the second part of my paper, I refer to the conception of the sanctity of human life, developed by Ronald Dworkin, to claim that, in a complex medical model, the tendency to equate the fetus with bodily organs should be curtailed as far as the relation between the pregnant woman and the fetus is concerned. The idea of the sanctity of life also serves as the ground on which what I call a ‘procreation epic’ is based. The suggested epic, viewed as a general philosophical framework for the healthcare and reproductive medicine policy, is considered relevant to democratic societies. (shrink)

Este texto se ocupa de dos volúmenes de la obra de Heidegger: el curso sobre Parménides de 1942 y la recopilación De camino al habla de 1950-1959. El curso sobre Parménides trabaja los términos griegos mythos, logos y epos, y los determina como “los mismos” –lo que no precisamente corresponde a la identidad–. En sus diferencias mismas, remiten a la “palabra” (das Wort). Varios años después, la “palabra” es invocada en la triple denominación de Sprache, Wort y Sage que, (...) en sí mismos, no dependen de ninguna lógica de la identidad, sino más bien de una lógica de la “tautología”: la poesía misma. (shrink)

Ovidians continue to be puzzled by the 404-line speech put into the mouth of Pythagoras in book 15 of the Metamorphoses. Questions of literary decorum and quality are insistently raised: how does the philosopher's popular science consort with the predominantly mythological matter of the preceding fourteen books? Do Pythagoras' revelations provide some kind of unifying ground, a ‘key’, for the endless variety of the poem? Can one take the Speech as a serious essay in philosophical didactic, or is it all (...) a mighty spoof, as intentionally laughable, perhaps, as the imperial panegyric with which the narrative of book 15 concludes? Or should we beware of imposing modern tastes on Ovid's original audience, and respect the Hellenistic and Roman predilection for scientific poetry? This article seeks to establish further contexts for the evaluation of the Speech of Pythagoras through a study of Ovid's allusive practice within the Greco-Roman tradition of hexameter epos. The figure who provides a foundation for Ovid's construction of his own poetic genealogy turns out to be the Greek philosophical poet Empedocles. The resulting reflections on Ovid's manipulation of generic conventions may be timely in the light of the recent appearance of sophisticated and fresh approaches to the question of whether the Metamorphoses is, or is not, an epic. (shrink)

Cet article propose une analyse des huit occurrences de la formule homérique epos t’ephat’ ek t’onomazen qui sont précédées, dans le premier hémistiche de l’hexamètre, par le verbe enenipein, dans le but de mettre en lumière la signification particulière qu’y recouvre le verbe onomazein « apostropher par des mots injurieux ».

Purpose. The research is aimed at substantiation of the process of formation of various human images in the postmodernism era in the context of biophilosophy, taking into account the need to find an adequate response to historical challenges and the production of new value orientations reflecting succession of civilization development. Theoretical basis. The author in his theoretical constructs proceeds from the need of taking into account the biophilosophical aspect of postmodern man, as the one who, remaining a representative of the (...) species Homo sapiens, began to dynamically change, losing its own natural and functional qualities, acquiring to a large extent the socio-technology-related qualities. The thesis that in the postmodern society the moral and legal foundations of existence of human being, as the subject of actions and responsibility for these actions, practically coincide with the biological foundations is taken as initial argument. New biological knowledge, as well as the related technologies, orient the public consciousness towards production of fundamentally new or modernization of the existing bio-philosophical ideas. The author's vision of the anthropological collision of the Post-Modernism era is caused by the fact that the issues of a postmodern man acquire a special urgency at the end of the ХХ – early XXI century. A progressive disproportion between a human being, whose abilities as a representative of the species Homo sapiens are biologically limited, and the human community, which sees no limits in its information and technological expansion, is of current interest. Originality. The author reveals the key features of the Post-Modernism era, in which a fundamentally different civilizational space originates, and where a new type of person emerges in its internal culture, which is called the postmodern man. The postmodern man was considered through the prism of bio-philosophy. Its interest in man is caused by his or her place in nature, the prospects of development at the individual, population and species levels. Conclusions. In the process of development of bio-philosophy, its research field will be naturally expanded with the use of philosophical means of perception of life as such and filling the bio-philosophy with philosophical and biological issues. In contemporary conditions, the study of the boundaries of biological reality and its previously unknown properties, definition of new horizons of theoretical knowledge in the science of life, the critical rethinking of the concepts of biocentrism and anthropocentrism in the space of modern scientific knowledge, the definition of perspective trends in the study of man, his or her place and role in the planetary being is of great importance. (shrink)

There was a time, in the late 1970s and 1980s, when great feats were expected of recombinant DNA biotechnology, some verging on the miraculous. According to both business enthusiasts and sober analysts like the U.S. Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, the new techniques of gene splicing would not only lift the drug industry out of its deep scientific and economic rut (characterized by long-declining introduction rates of genuinely novel medicines), but rejuvenate the American manufacturing sector (Chase 1979; Chemical Week 1987; (...) OTA 1984). Once freed by policy interventions to promote academic-industry collaboration, such as the 1980 Bayh-Dole Act, lifesaving drugs locked up in ivory towers would .. (shrink)