Heidegger’s relationship with Nazism has been debated since the 1930s. In the late 1930s, Georges Bataille wrote an incomplete text that would have added to these debates, “Critique of Heidegger: Critique of a philosophy of fascism.” I draw on this fragment and Bataille’s writings from this era in order to develop a fuller critique of Heidegger and his relationship to fascism. This expanded critique completes the promise of Bataille’s original fragment, offering a full Bataillean criticism of Heidegger and displaying the (...) connections between his philosophy and Bataille’s understanding of fascism. This critique hinges on Heidegger’s concept of authenticity and community, as a Bataillean reading would interpret these ideas as mere inauthentic useful concepts in the name of a nostalgic vision of the ancient Greeks. Heidegger wanted to fight against modern technological alienation—exemplified by the modern sciences and founded on subject based modern metaphysics—by returning to a more originary relationship with Being, but, on Bataille’s reading, without the will to pervert modern ideology and the political system. This desire for a return renders his Destruktion of the history of metaphysics means to an end, further calcifying preexisting values. As a result of this inability to pervert, Heidegger’s return promotes the reconstitution of contemporary political structures with a strong centralized authority figure empowered to guide this nostalgic return. (shrink)

Abstract:Epode 16, Horace's famous decline poem about Rome before Actium, has long been viewed as a cynical response to Vergil's prophecy of a returning Golden Age in Eclogue 4. In this article, I argue that there is another, unrecognized intertext for Epode 16—Pindar's Olympian 2—to which Horace's bleak poem alludes in a "window reference" refracted through Vergil's bucolic. As such, Horace's cynicism represents, in fact, a lament over the lost simplicity and timelessness of Greek oral poetry, and an attempt (...) to reclaim for his listeners/readers the originary experience of listening. In so doing, Horace takes up the Pindaric mantle of poet-prophet. (shrink)

This chapter attempts to examine nostalgia as both a mood or disposition in general, and as a mood or disposition that is characteristic of philosophical reflection. Nostalgia is a combination of the Greek nostos, meaning home or the return home, with algos, meaning pain, so that its literal meaning is a pain associated with the return home. Part of this inquiry will involve a rethinking of the mood of nostalgia and what that mood encompasses. Rather than (...) understand the nostalgic as characterized solely by the desire to return to a halcyon past, it is explored through the connotations suggested by its Greek etymology as precisely a longing for the return home—a return that cannot be achieved—a form of homesickness, and so as unsettling rather than comfortable, as bringing with it a sense of the essential questionability of our own being in the world. (shrink)

This paper provides an analysis of Aeneas' visit to the "parva Troia" in Epirus , centered on the theme of "substitutes" and "doubles," and beginning with Andromache, the heroine of this encounter. With Helenus as a substitute for her deceased husband, Hector, Andromache is involved in a sort of levirate marriage. Moreover, she reacts to Aeneas and his companions as if they too were "substitutes," living persons who immediately evoke images of the dead, "doubles" for her lost loved ones . (...) This makes Andromache perfectly at home in "parva Troia", which is itself a "double," a "substitute" for the city destroyed by the Greeks. Except that, like all "doubles," "parva Troia" is an insubstantial illusion, the effigy of something that no longer exists. This city and its landscape can only be "seen," not actually "inhabited." These Trojan exiles are thus victims of a syndrome very similar to "nostalgia" . Helenus and his companions are "too faithful" to their vanished city; their destiny, like that of the dead, has been hopelessly fulfilled. Aeneas, however, is not allowed to become a prisoner of the past. Against his will, he must be "unfaithful" to his former city: he will not rebuild Troy. The companions of Helenus and Andromache suffer from an "excess of identity" . Aeneas, on the other hand, submits to the almost total loss of his own identity: except for the Penates, a highly significant, sacred part of the lost patria, which will contribute to the formation of his identity in a way similar to Helenus and Andromache's own nostalgic cult of the image of Troy. (shrink)

Bajo la pregunta por las razones que llevaron al poeta y pensador Friedrich Hölderlin a manifestar en su juventud una atracción especial por la ciudad de Jena, donde permaneció una corta temporada en el semestre de invierno de 1794 a 1795, el autor rastrea y analiza las influencias que ejercieron so..

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Vagaries of Exemplarity: Distortion or Dismissal?Michel JeanneretExample is an uncertain looking-glass, all embracing, turning all ways.Montaigne 1Ancients and Moderns: Negotiating CoexistenceDo the Ancients provide the Renaissance with a repertoire of infallible examples? Do they have such absolute authority that their models, whether ethical or aesthetic, retain their relevance in every circumstance? The question is part and parcel of that thinking, which is fundamental to the sixteenth century, on (...) the status of Greco-Roman paradigms in the management of public and private life, or in the methods of science and the arts. Before analyzing two particular responses to classical exemplarity—by Erasmus and Montaigne—we shall set the problem in its general context.Whether lobbying for intense faithfulness to the models or recognizing the need for divergence, whether insisting on continuity or the need for change, on the possibility or impossibility of equaling the masters, everyone in the sixteenth century measured art, knowledge, and moral reflection according to the Greek and Roman norm. Scholars and artists together entered into this exchange on a daily basis and everybody, whatever the extent of their dependence, knew that their work could not be conceived or perceived as anything other than the more or less free modification of a particular vestige of classical heritage. To escape tradition was unthinkable, but to accept it resignedly was absurd. All room for maneuver was therefore in the shifting difference between [End Page 565] old and new, and in the extent of its transformation. 2 It is then predictable, given these conditions, that the transmission of classical examples should be subject to turbulence without, however, undergoing any violent break.The question was even more relevant given that the sense of history, the consciousness of time past being irrevocably lost took on a new resonance now. Recognizing and acknowledging the phenomenon of irreversible development—whether good or bad—counts as one of the most important intellectual acquisitions of the Renaissance. 3 The Middle Ages had been able to maintain the illusion of continuity and, by dressing Antiquity up in the manners and colors of feudal chivalry, had seen itself reflected in it as in a mirror. With the influx of new documents and the perfecting of more rigorous methods of interpretation—the techniques of philology—intellectuals had to acknowledge evident change. The past could no longer be modeled on the present; all imitation would henceforth be witness to the impossibility of any perfect match. At the same time as the classical world was coming to light, it was also getting further away, getting lost. This bereavement sometimes sparked off enough regressive nostalgia to provide matter for many an antiquarian project. In reaction to this loss, most humanists were motivated into salvaging the salvageable by injecting a dose of novelty into the rift created by their awareness of history. The intellectuals of the Renaissance would often have felt as if they were reenacting the famous encounter of the Romans and the Greeks; like the Romans they wanted to be both conquering and conquered, free and faithful, differing and deferring. For them also the antique model will be an ideal simultaneously present and lost, necessary and foreign.Two opposing solutions to this dilemma seemed to offer themselves: on the one hand an unconditional return to the sources minimizing the effects of history, and on the other an exploitation of the eclipses of the past, giving the present a chance to fight it out with the Ancients. We shall sketch out each of these two strategies: both the methods of respectful transmission and those of transformative intervention.Fine-tuned by the humanists, philology was closely linked to the advent of historical consciousness. Since classical civilization had definitively come to an end, the philologist devoted himself to reconstituting and preserving it, in all its original specificity. He removed the layers of interference accumulated over the centuries, reestablished the texts in their authentic versions, maybe even providing commentary on the meaning of the work within its context. Theoretically his intervention stopped there. Acknowledging the difference and [End Page 566] superiority of past authors, he did not touch their works except to restore them to their pristine selves. Soon... (shrink)

The first look at the philosophy behind the _Captain America_ comics and movies, publishing in advance of the movie release of _Captain America: The Winter Solider_ in April 2014. In _The Virtues of Captain America_, philosopher and long-time comics fan Mark D. White argues that the core principles, compassion, and judgment exhibited by the 1940’s comic book character Captain America remain relevant to the modern world. Simply put, "Cap" embodies many of the classical virtues that have been important to us (...) since the days of the ancient Greeks: honesty, courage, loyalty, perseverance, and, perhaps most importantly, honor. Full of entertaining examples from more than 50 years of comic books, White offers some serious philosophical discussions of everyone’s favorite patriot in a light-hearted and accessible way. Presents serious arguments on the virtues of Captain America while being written in a light-hearted and often humorous tone Introduces basic concepts in moral and political philosophy to the general reader Utilizes examples from 50 years of comics featuring Captain America, the Avengers, and other Marvel superheroes Affirms the value of "old-fashioned" virtues for the modern world without indulging in nostalgia for times long passed Reveals the importance of the sound principles that America was founded upon Publishing in advance of _Captain America: The Winter Soldier _out in April 2014. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:FOR A NON-VIOLENT ACCORD: EDUCATING THE PERSON Marie-Louise Martinez Education has been criticized, no doubt justly, for the symbolic violence of its prohibitions and exclusionary rituals that mirror the violence of society (Bourdieu, etc.). But this criticism is short-sighted. When restraints are removed in teaching and education (in the family and in the school), violence wells up anew and produces at least the following two results: access to meaning (...) and knowledge is restricted; access to the law and its structure-inducing prohibitions is restricted. The result is that we foster vulnerable personalities who confuse fiction and reality, and who do not hesitate to turn their violence into acts of hostility directed toward themselves, other people, and society. A further consequence has been a certain violent non-differentiation that has tended in turn to produce a violent re-differentiation ofsociety. There is a nostalgia everywhere today for a return to discipline, to the rule oflaw, etc. One hears talk of the "sanctuary of the classroom" or again of the necessity of preserving a "symbolic cloister." We are not able, purely and simply, to feel remorse for having maintained the rule ofa violent symbolic order. One might ask in what the symbolic consists. How is it connected to teaching and education? Is there not a fundamental violence in the symbolic? Does there exist a less violent symbolic, or even a non-violent one? How might one define it and put it to work in teaching and education? Girardian theory can help us to reinterpret various contributions from a number of authors in the human sciences (Benveniste, Lacan, etc.) and from the personalist philosophy of language. I would like to propose the hypothesis that there are two stages ofthe symbolic: first, a violent symbolic accord and, second, a non-violent threshold within the symbolic, which alone can serve as an appropriate model for teaching and education. 56Marie-Louise Martinez I. The symbolic and its powers. We are not using symbolic in its specific sense as metaphorical or figurative language as it occurs in myth and poetry but in a more general sense, i.e., to refer to the totality ofthe sign and code systems employed by human beings, as that which allows for the production and deployment of significations within society. Stemming from the Greek symbolein (to throw or put together, to assemble), the symbolic is that type or order of signs that assembles. Much more than the pure language of linguistics, the symbolic is the totality ofverbal, non-verbal, and para-verbal conventions, of systems ofexchange, and ofrites. It also comprises the regulated use ofbodies and ofnature. Our definition ofthe symbolic is not idealist: more than simply the expression of ideas, it is also interaction and action, on oneself, on others, and the world. It includes technical and bodily activities to the degree that these have been codified. In this sense, the symbolic (in agreement with philosophers as diverse as Cassirer or Clifford Geertz) can be said to embrace the totality of what is called culture. But ifthe symbol throws orputs together, it is necessary to discuss what and why and how it does so. The modern science ofsigns (semiology) has shown that the sign or symbol serves to place in relation. Relying on the contemporary semiology that stems from the American philosopher Pierce, and also on the work of Francis Jacques in France, we can say that this relation, far from being a simple binary one (sign/referent or sign/signifier) is a complex relation which aligns signs with the objects to which they refer, but also with the people deploying those signs. This latter signifying relation, which is intersubjective and social, was invisible in Saussurean semiology. In itself, the symbolic is the product of a complex relation which links people among themselves and the things referred to by the agency of signs. In other words, the basis of the signifying relationship is not the dyad subject/object (relation to objects) but a triadic relation, subject/ subject/object (intersubjective and objectai). This triangular relationship, which traverses the intersubjective and the objectai, is a relationship of convention, underlined in antiquity by Plato in the Cratylus (for Hermogenes, a word... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Séduire, C'est ToutFrancis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and the Struggle of InfluencePaul Sharma (bio)One of the painter Francis Bacon's favorite bon mots was "séduire, c'est tout."1 With such a worldview, it is unsurprising that Bacon's work and life can be understood using René Girard's insights regarding the desire to influence or be influenced by the envied model, be it a person, a crowd, or even a country, resulting in mimetic (...) forces that unleash violence.This piece looks at Bacon's life and how the mimetic forces he experienced and intuitively understood are displayed in his painting. It examines the social and personal forces at play in four key works: Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944), Head VI (1949), Two Figures (1953), and Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969), beginning with the work that put Bacon on the artistic map at the end of World War II, to the triptych that foretold the breakup of the long friendship between Bacon and Lucian Freud. [End Page 205]1943: THE BLITZ ENDSBy the summer of 1943, the dust caused by the Luftwaffe bombing raid was mostly gone from the air in London, allowing the asthmatic Francis Bacon to return to South Kensington. The same summer, Ralph Vaughan Williams's Fifth Symphony, one of the last great pieces of English neo-romanticism and arguably his greatest work, premiered at the nearby Royal Albert Hall.It is strange to think that at the same time Vaughan Williams's Fifth was being played, down the road in Cromwell Place, the preparatory ground was being laid by Francis Bacon for Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, a work that went well beyond any idea of English nostalgia and of which John Russell wrote, "There was English art before the Three Studies and there was English art after."2Before looking at the work in more detail, it is worth examining its inception, as it follows a pattern outlined by René Girard, that of a conversion in which there is a profound change in beliefs and values. In the same way that diamonds are formed out of coal if there is high enough pressure, Girard notes that "an experience of demystification, if radical enough, is very close to an experience of conversion."3Bacon's conversion occurred at the latter end of 1940 to 1942, a period he never discussed. He retreated to the country sixty miles outside London, to recover from his asthma and very likely from some form of breakdown, following a period as an air raid warden in London.The formula for each conversion is unique, and for Bacon, the catalyst bringing his experiences of art, the Blitz, his view of society, and his personal history together into a single style was the recently issued W. B. Stanford's Aeschylus in His Style: A Study in Language and Personality. A clue to Stanford's importance is Bacon later recalling that "some of the images are so startlingly beautiful in there and so exciting I go on reading it over and over again."4Stanford's insight into the use of a combination of a highly expressive and at the same time formal style in Aeschylus enabled Bacon to gather his influences and preoccupations of the previous decade to create his vision and, arguably, his first fully impactful works. (It could be said that the first work of real originality was the 1933 painting Crucifixion (Figure 1), a protype of the 1944 triptych, being of sufficient force to be included in Herbert Read's Art Now review of the same year).Stanford argued that the Greek playwright's "style was not of the unobtrusive, subtly modulated kind that escapes criticism," adding, "One is reminded of the strained, almost grotesque figures of a painting by El Greco … and the [End Page 206] Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 1.Francis Bacon, Crucifixion, 1933. © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage 2023. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd.reason for both of these Greeks' extraordinary style is similar—the tension between an original and... (shrink)

This book offers a new description of the significance of Hesiod's 'myth of the races' for ancient Greek and Roman authors, showing how the most detailed responses to this story go far beyond nostalgia for a lost 'Golden' age or hope of its return. Through a series of close readings, it argues that key authors from Plato to Juvenal rewrite the story to reconstruct 'Hesiod' more broadly as predecessor in forming their own intellectual and rhetorical projects; disciplines such (...) as philosophy, didactic poetry and satire all engage in implicit questions about 'Hesiodic' teaching. The first chapter introduces key issues; the second re-evaluates the account in Hesiod's Works and Days. A major chapter outlines Plato's use of Hesiod through close study of the Protagoras, Republic and Statesman. Subsequent chapters focus on Aratus' Phaenomena and Ovid's Metamorphoses; the final chapter, on the Octavia attributed to Seneca and Juvenal's sixth Satire, broadens ideas of Hesiod's reception in Rome. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:TragedyA Lesson in SurvivalChristopher Perricone (bio)Tragedy and Its Historical Context"Tragedy" in the strict sense of the word refers to an ancient Greek literary genre, a form of drama for the most part performed publicly in the theater. As is well known, the word "tragedy" literally means "goat song." The belief among scholars is that early singers of tragedy wore goatskin costumes in imitation of satyrs. Also, as is (...) well known, Aristotle defines "tragedy" in the strict sense of the word as "the imitation of an action that is serious and also having magnitude, complete in itself; in language with pleasurable accessories, each kind brought in separately in the parts of the work; in a dramatic, not in a narrative form; with incidents arousing pity and fear, wherewith to accomplish its catharsis of such emotions."1 Of course, when one thinks of tragedy in the strict sense the names that come to mind are Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. It is arguable that these men not only set the stage for and developed the idea of tragedy in the strict sense, but they also laid the foundations of tragedy for centuries to come.After the Greeks, not surprisingly, tragedy evolves. The strict sense of the term as a point of reference, origin, or nucleus, remains—that is, after the Greeks, tragedy still retains that sense of "an imitation of an action that is serious." However, when one considers what later goes by the name of tragedy, one is hard-pressed, without resorting to Procrustean measures, to fit with any precision those later works of tragedy into the original Greek mold. After the Greeks, Seneca composes tragedies, as do Marlowe, Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, Goethe, Schiller, Ibsen, Chekov, Lorca, Anouilh, Miller, et al. Even the sense of "serious" is not exactly the same: is the seriousness of Hedda Gabler's or Willie Loman's fate at all comparable to the fates of [End Page 70] Medea or Oedipus? The former cases surely seem serious in some domestic sense, whereas the latter clearly are intended to imply seriousness on a much grander and perhaps cosmic scale.The reason I mention all this is that "tragedy," both in what I call the strict and nuclear ancient Greek sense of the term (which does not imply that tragedy is clearly and distinctly defined, even in ancient Greece) and in the looser, derived sense of the word, has a long and compelling history. Tragedy is a form of drama to which we continually return. It is a genre that seems intrinsic not only to our very idea of theater but also to the very nature of art itself. Although one may debate the plausibility of writing tragedies in a disillusioned and nonheroic age, nevertheless one can hardly imagine the theater existing without tragedy. One way or another, it seems tragedies, whether in the strict or loose sense, will always be performed, and not merely out of nostalgia. Indeed, given the compelling nature of tragedy, it seems no accident that among the giants of literature, the tragedians are significantly represented. The compelling nature of tragedy is nicely expressed by the literary critic F. L. Lucas, and his statements should be considered a complement to Aristotle:Tragedy, then, is a representation of human unhappiness, which pleases us notwithstanding, by the truth with which it is seen and the fineness with which it is communicated—"l'amertume poignante et fortifiante de tout ce qui est vrai." ["The invigorating and poignant bitterness of whatever is true"; my translation.] The world of everyday seems often a purposeless chaos, a mangy tiger without even the fearful symmetry of Blake's vision; but the world of tragedy we can face, for we feel mind behind it and the symmetry is there. Tragedy, in fine, is man's answer to this universe that crushes him so pitilessly. Destiny scowls upon him; his answer is to sit down and paint her where she stands.2It is not only true that tragedy as practice and performance has a long and rich history; the study of tragedy has an equally long and rich history. The idea of tragedy has attracted, tantalized, frustrated, and exercised... (shrink)

This article tries to make a contribution to a concrete eidetic of thinking by studying the first nine years of Hegels philosophical development in perspective of the question : Which are the origins and how passed the „prehistory” of his later System ? In Tübingen Hegels thought circles round the ideal of a free, noble and happy nation, of which he means to have discovered the -alas ! - lost prototype in the greek paradise. The political and aesthetic-religious nature (...) of this ideal nation is characterized by spontaneous humanity and freedom. Bern is the period of Hegels revolt. On religious level he makes a first effort to play Jesus off against the positivity of the Churches ; on politic-ethical level his philo: ophy of alienation comes into existence. For the more and more growing sharp antithesis between Mastery and Servitude, Nature and Freedom, Freedom and History, God and Man, Hegel tries to find a solution in the glorification of a revolutionary and heroic „Sollen”. The newness of the fragments Hegel wrote in Frankfort , consists chiefly in an implicit „Logic" that manifests itself at once in Hegels analysis of a number of historic-existential phenomena. In virtue of the basic categories, which this logic contains, „the ideal of his youth reflects itself” - to use Hegels own words - in a reflexive „system”. Ideal, fundamental logic and system are, however, - each one in his own, respectively „mythical”, „logical”, „systematical" way -the transcriptions of a preceding or „a priori” interpretation of existence on the ground of fundamental desires and existential options, that can be revealed to a certain extent by an „existential psychoanalysis”. Hegels thought is rooted in the nostalgia for a terrestrial „salvation” : the union through feeling with the maternal Universe by which inner harmony and „beingwith-oneself” is reached. Some beginnings of criticism are addressed to the pre-philosophical options which are the source of inspiration of Hegels first philosophy. His desire for „Beruhigung” excludes every real Transcendent ; the Feeling of Frankfort and the Reason-Knowledge of Jena deny the existence of every Mystery, that is bigger than Man ; Hegels dialectic is an effort to conquer every tragical moment of life by human power within this world ; his analysis of love fail to appreciate the own character of human individuality and community ; Hegels triad is the résumé of a monism of thought, no real Trinity. (shrink)

Judith Shklar wrote about Hannah Arendt throughout her career. However, her nuanced readings are often ignored by scholars who prefer to depict both philosophers as stark counter-images. In this paper, I offer a more complex comparison on the basis of all of Shklar’s writings about Arendt. Shklar’s critique is grounded in what she sees as the Romantic strand in Arendt’s thought, which she identifies with a metaphysical, elitist, and aestheticizing stance towards politics, a distaste for modernity, and a nostalgia (...) for Greek antiquity. For Shklar, this position comes to the fore both in what she believes to be Arendt’s purely therapeutic notion of revolution as well as the rejection of her own Jewish identity. Nevertheless, Shklar also admired Arendt’s insights about exile and her appreciation of Kant. Through her sustained critique of Arendt, Shklar developed her own conception of a realist, rights-affirming, and anti-metaphysical liberalism. (shrink)

The objective of this work is to understand how Heidegger is inserted in the tradition referring to the German philosophy of the resumption of Ancient Greece and how this author differs from this tradition, having a different way of relating to the Greece from its thought of history. For this, we resume some key points of the philosophical relationship between Greece and Germany, with the aim of establishing a dialogue between Heidegger, Hölderlin and Hegel about the way of understanding ancient (...) Greece as an important point in the constitution of the philosophy of history of each author, articulated by relationship between antiquity and modernity. This choice is justified by the pretense of understanding the originality of Heidegger's Greece, as Hegel is the author, belonging to German idealism, with the greatest influence on Heidegger's thought of history; Hölderlin, on the other hand, is the poet who mediates the relationship between Heidegger and the Greeks, in addition to being out of metaphysics, according to Heidegger. Throughout the text, an attempt is also made to apply Ricoeur's thesis that the German conception of Greece varies between the classical and the archaic and can take on shades of nostalgia or mourning. (shrink)

Eighteenth-century art historian Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768) shared with Hegel a profound admiration for the art and culture of ancient Greece. Both viewed ancient Greece as, in some sense, an ideal to which the modern world might aspire—a pinnacle of spiritual perfection and originality that contemporary civilization might, through an understanding of ancient Greek culture, one day equal or surpass. This rather competitive form of nostalgia suggests a paradoxical demand to produce an original and higher state of culture (...) through the imitation of another. In Hegel’s writings, this paradox goes beyond the relation of the modern world to the ancient world—he exposes the same paradox in ancient Greece’s relation to its own predecessors. The solution to the latter paradox—the possibility of the realization of ancient Greece as an original and self-contained civilization despite its cultural debts—would also, then, be the key to repeating the success of the ancient world in the modern, the overcoming of modern Europe’s cultural debt to the ancient world. The present essay examines how this paradox is revealed and resolved in the writings of Winckelmann and Hegel, and shows how this strategy of culture production—as imputed to the ancient world and aspired to in the modern—simultaneously attempts to justify and conceal a self-deceptive practice of cultural and political conquest. My focus will be on the two writers’ interpretations of ancient Greek art since, as I will suggest, their solution to the paradox of culture production turns out to be modeled upon the role of ancient Greek art in the invention and actualization of a cultural ideal of beauty, unity, and self-containment. (shrink)

A common understanding of the role of a game developer includes establishing (or at least partially establishing) what is interactively and perceptually available in (video)game environments: what elements and behaviors those worlds include and allow, and what is – instead – left out of their ‘possibility horizon’. The term ‘possibility horizon’ references the Ancient Greek origin of the term ‘horizon’, ὄρος (oros), which denotes a frontier – a spatial limit. On this etymological foundation, ‘horizon’ is used here to indicate (...) the spatial and operational boundaries that a (video)game environment affords its players. This book chapter discusses a particular feeling that emerge in relation to playful encounters with the ‘possibility horizons’ of videogames. I am referring here to the realization, as a player, that a game environment can be experientially exhausted and is, as such, ultimately banal. In other words, I will examine how our deliberate engagement with the interactive environments of digital games can trigger sensations that are analogous to what Romantic authors referred to as Weltschmerz (‘world-weariness’). (shrink)

The requirement that animals be used in research and testing in order to protect humans was formalized in the Nuremberg Code and subsequent national and international laws, codes, and declarations. We review the history of these requirements and contrast what was known via science about animal models then with what is known now. We further analyze the predictive value of animal models when used as test subjects for human response to drugs and disease. We explore the use of animals for (...) models in toxicity testing as an example of the problem with using animal models. We conclude that the requirements for animal testing found in the Nuremberg Code were based on scientifically outdated principles, compromised by people with a vested interest in animal experimentation, serve no useful function, increase the cost of drug development, and prevent otherwise safe and efficacious drugs and therapies from being implemented. (shrink)

Animals can be used in many ways in science and scientific research. Given that society values sentient animals and that basic research is not goal oriented, the question is raised.

Dear Editor,The April 2014 issue of Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics [1] presented eight essays regarding the use of nonhuman animals in biomedical research. While I appreciate the essays concerning contemporary research—which were well written and offered new thinking from the fields of ethics and ethology—I believe the journal, via the topics and the authors chosen, failed to communicate the most important fact regarding the current science pertinent to the use of nonhuman animals in research.The foundational reason for using chimpanzees and (...) other animals in research is their predictive value for human response to drugs and disease. This was alluded to by several of the authors when they discussed the necessity of using nonhuman animals. For example, Smith writes: “A common assumption in the selection of nonhuman animal subjects for research and the approval of research is that, if the risks of a procedure are too great for humans, and if there is a so-called scientific necessity, .. (shrink)

The current use of animals to test for potential teratogenic effects of drugs and other chemicals dates back to the thalidomide disaster of the late 1950s and early 1960s. Controversy surrounds the following questions: 1. What was known about placental transfer of drugs when thalidomide was developed? 2. Was thalidomide tested on animals for teratogenicity prior to its release? 3. Would more animal testing have prevented the thalidomide disaster? 4. What lessons should be learned from the thalidomide disaster regarding animal (...) testing for teratogenicity? We review the literature in order to address these questions. (shrink)

It is one of the central aims of the philosophy of science to elucidate the meanings of scientific terms and also to think critically about their application. The focus of this essay is the scientific term predict and whether there is credible evidence that animal models, especially in toxicology and pathophysiology, can be used to predict human outcomes. Whether animals can be used to predict human response to drugs and other chemicals is apparently a contentious issue. However, when one empirically (...) analyzes animal models using scientific tools they fall far short of being able to predict human responses. This is not surprising considering what we have learned from fields such evolutionary and developmental biology, gene regulation and expression, epigenetics, complexity theory, and comparative genomics. (shrink)

Pharmaceutical firms seek to fulfill their responsibilities to stakeholders by developing drugs that treat diseases. We evaluate the social and financial costs of developing new drugs relative to the realized benefits and find the industry falls short of its potential. This is primarily due to legislation-mandated reliance on animal test results in early stages of the drug development process, leading to a mere 10 percent success rate for new drugs entering human clinical trials. We cite hundreds of biomedical studies from (...) journals including Nature, Science, and the Journal of the American Medical Association to show animal modeling is ineffective, misleading to scientists, unable to prevent the development of dangerous drugs, and prone to prevent the development of useful drugs. Legislation still requires animal testing prior to human testing even though the pharmaceutical sector has better options that were unavailable when animal modeling was first mandated. We propose that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Congress should work together to abolish regulations and policies that require animal use. Doing so will benefit pharmaceutical industry stakeholders, including patients whose health depends on drugs and the many people who rely on the financial well-being of pharmaceutical firms. (shrink)

This volume is the first in English to provide a full, systematic investigation into Aristotle's criticisms of earlier Greek theories of the soul from the perspective of his theory of scientific explanation. Some interpreters of the De Anima have seen Aristotle's criticisms of Presocratic, Platonic, and other views about the soul as unfair or dialectical, but Jason W. Carter argues that Aristotle's criticisms are in fact a justified attempt to test the adequacy of earlier theories in terms of the (...) theory of scientific knowledge he advances in the Posterior Analytics. Carter proposes a new interpretation of Aristotle's confrontations with earlier psychology, showing how his reception of other Greek philosophers shaped his own hylomorphic psychology and led him to adopt a novel dualist theory of the soul–body relation. His book will be important for students and scholars of Aristotle, ancient Greek psychology, and the history of the mind–body problem. (shrink)

We argue that the recommendations made by the Institute of Medicine’s 2011 report, Chimpanzees in Biomedical and Behavioral Research : Assessing the Necessity, are methodologically and ethically confused. We argue that a proper understanding of evolution and complexity theory in terms of the science and ethics of using chimpanzees in biomedical research would have had led the committee to recommend not merely limiting but eliminating the use of chimpanzees in biomedical research. Specifically, we argue that a proper understanding of the (...) difference between the gross level of examination of species and examinations on finer levels can shed light on important methodological and ethical inconsistencies leading to ignorance of potentially unethical practices and policies regarding the use of animals in scientific research. (shrink)

One of the main vehicles for the reconciliation of individual and social happiness that has supposedly been characteristic of Greek ethics is the concept of the polis. In the Hegelian tradition it has been thought that the Greeks reduced all norms and values to standards laid down by and for the city‐state, and that this fact made it possible for them to hold that the well‐being of an individual is entirely compatible with the well‐being of his fellow‐citizens and of (...) the city‐state as a whole. However, the Greeks were familiar with and attached substantial weight to non‐polis‐based norms and values, even universalist ones like the Golden Rule, and made ample conceptual room for conflict between the happiness of a citizen and that of his community. Moreover, Greek attitudes on this issue were variegated, not uniform. (shrink)

To be human is to be autonomous, yet this is a trait that most of us lack. We are subject to forces external to our being. We are workers; we are citizens; we are needful creatures. Humanity-proper in these times of neoliberal omnipotence is defined differently. The key terms are familiar: personal betterment, personal responsibility, productivity, pleasantness. A forked tongue slithers in our conscience, tells us that these are the traits of the human condition. Through Bataille, this paper argues the (...) substrate of these oft repeated familiar mantras are other. Neoliberal subjects, propelled by need, understand themselves along the axis of the useful choice. The paper turns to myth to understand the interdependence of need and choice, and how this interdependence posits being as always in desire but never in pleasure. Revisiting Don Giovanni, a character central to Acéphalic thought, and the commentary of Søren Kierkegaard, we think in terms of non-abstraction, of pleasurably floating in change, rather than toiling in desire. For it is by grace in the form of chance, that at the very time of transgression, that we – in and for an instant – become human, become as the sacred in the flesh. (shrink)

The 24th issue of the Epigraphic Bulletin for Greek Religion presents epigraphic publications of 2011 and additions to earlier issues (publications of 2006–2010). Publications that could not be considered here, for reasons of space, will be presented in EBGR 2012. They include two of the most important books of 2011: N. Papazarkadas’ Sacred and Public Land in Ancient Athens, Oxford 2011 and H.S. Versnel’s Coping with the Gods: Wayward Readings in Greek Theology, Leiden 2011. A series of new (...) i... (shrink)

This work augments its companion volume Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy.

Provides translations and interpretations of the texts of works by the great figures of early Greek philosophy.

Marian Wesoły devoted a considerable part of his life and research to studying the philosophical thought of antiquity. He is, therefore, widely known to scientific community as an admirer of Hellas, outstanding scholar and expert on ancient philosophy, which is reflected in his many publications in the field. Importantly, however, Marian Wesoły, has also been a pioneer of research into a much lesser known field of research, namely Greek philosophy in Byzantium. While this neglected and often disdained area of (...) research has been the subject of Marian Wesoły’s numerous publications, this article presents an over view of his most important findings. (shrink)