In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ovid's Narcissus (Met. 3.339-510):Echoes of OedipusIngo Gildenhard and Andrew ZissosNarcissistic Thebes?Ovid's tales of Echo and Narcissus, while mutually enhancing in their magnificently suggestive symmetries,1 have long been considered an oddity in their larger narrative context.2 Otis, for instance, is not alone in feeling that they are quite "extraneous" to the Theban milieu which dominates this particular stretch of the Metamorphoses, since they seem only superficially linked to the (...) tragic city through the figure of Tiresias.3 Some scholars have tried to solve the problem of their inclusion in Ovid's "Thebaid" (3.1-4.603) by pointing to thematic correspondences that connect "Narcissus and Echo" to other episodes in the narrative vicinity, such as fatal love,4 the intervention of a vengeful divinity, 5 or the problematization of sight.6 Such sequences of thematic patterns, though, are a rather ubiquitous "surface phenomenon" which can be traced in various ways throughout the entire poem, and which hardly ever explain Ovid's poetry in and of themselves.7 Thus, such thematic [End Page 129] links should not be considered a sufficient justification for Ovid's rendition of the Narcissus and Echo episodes at this point in the poem. Nor should one invoke poetic license, as Bömer does when he suggests that Ovid here merely branches out into the wider mythology of Boeotia (Narcissus being a Boeotian youth).8 Rather, here as elsewhere the narratological enigmas of the Metamorphoses are rooted in the peculiar logic of Ovidian poetics.Within Ovid's Theban history, the presence of Narcissus is not the only puzzling feature. The narrative is here constructed around a remarkable absence as well. As Zeitlin has demonstrated, the imagination of Attic drama, which informs this section of the Metamorphoses, employs three principal clusters of myth in order to render Thebes on the tragic stage: the events surrounding Cadmus' arrival in Boeotia and his founding of the city; the house of Laius, in particular the story of his son Oedipus; and the conception and birth of Dionysus as well as his confrontation with his cousin Pentheus upon returning to his maternal city.9 The third book of the Metamorphoses, which contains the first half of Ovid's Theban narrative, is clearly influenced by the structuring principles used by the tragic playwrights to fashion a thematics of Theban mythology. The book opens with a restaging of Thebes' ktisis legend (3.1-130), and the sparagmos of Pentheus provides the appropriate closure (3.511-733), set up and anticipated by the Semele episode (3.253-315). But Ovid curiously excludes the house of Laius, skipping over a vital part of the city's mythological corpus. Even more surprisingly, he does not make up for this peculiar omission elsewhere in the poem.10 The absence of any extended reference to the myth of Oedipus in Ovid's otherwise rather comprehensive mythological compendium is a remarkable silence, and one that merits investigation.At first glance it does appear that Ovid swerves boldly from his all but predetermined narrative path by recounting the episode of Narcissus at the very juncture when the sequence of Theban legends calls for the appearance of an Oedipal figure. Yet the poet does not simply efface the horizon of expectation established by the sequence of Theban [End Page 130] tales. The glaring absence of Oedipus and the baffling presence of Narcissus are in fact flip sides of the same problem. As has been suggested by Loewenstein and Hardie, Ovid uses Narcissus to render vicariously the thematic complex of Oedipus by relating his Narcissus tale to the most powerful literary representation of Oedipus' fate, Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus.11 We now build on this insight and further explore the precise modalities by which Ovid turns Sophocles' Oedipus and his own Narcissus into the Tweedle-dee and Tweedle-dum of an extraordinary intertextual dynamic.Establishing the IntertextualityAn intertextual relationship, especially one as seemingly arbitrary as that between Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus and Ovid's Narcissus narrative, needs to be strongly marked if it is to be appreciated by the audience. 12 Ovid signals the connection by introducing the figure of Tiresias into his text immediately... (shrink)

This article explores the intertextual connection between Eteocles’ dream in Statius’ThebaidBook 2 and the brief reference to his ambiguous dream at Aesch.Sept.710−11. In Aeschylus’ play, Eteocles understands the true meaning of the dream belatedly, as he is about to enter into a duel with his brother Polynices. The article argues that the ambiguous character of the Aeschylean dream forms the basis of the dream in Statius, and that the poet develops the scene further through elements of epic dream sequences that (...) align his narrative with the epic tradition. However, Statius emphasizes even more the ambiguity of Eteocles’ dream to highlight the tragic nature of his character. Following ancient dream theorists, the discussion shows next that the obscurity of the dream in theThebaidcan be understood as the product of the fusion of different dream classes, which are evoked in the description of the dream in Statius. The proposed interpretation suggests that, on the basis of their personal experience of dreams and their familiarity with popular dream theories, Statius’ readers would have been able to perceive the irony between Laius’ message and Jupiter's true intentions, all of which enhance Eteocles’ tragic character. (shrink)

While Statius' decision to treat events in landlocked Thebes offered limited opportunity to integrate into his poem a maritime episode, which had become a staple epic ingredient by the first centurya.d.,theThebaidis dotted with references to the Argonauts' quest for the Golden Fleece, including a narrative flashback of the crew's time at Lemnos (Theb. 5.335–498). Following in a long tradition of cross-contamination between Argonautic and Theban literary texts (as shown by, for example, the ApollonianArgonautica's use of Antimachus'Thebaid), Statius' poem also (...) evokes works of literature which narrate the legend, notably theArgonauticasof Apollonius Rhodius and Valerius Flaccus. A lack of scholarly focus on this latter area has generally led to a piecemeal scrutiny of individual allusive passages rather than a systematic treatment. However, Stover's recent paper paves the way for a more productive approach through its contention that theThebaidmakes widespread use of the mythic subject matter: ‘It … appears that Statius frequently appropriates the Argonautic tradition and that he does so largely to present the Argives as quasi Argonauts. This suggests that their adventure to conquer Thebes is analogous to the Argonauts’ voyage to Colchis.'. (shrink)

This paper provides a critical review of economic outcome metrics used in healthcare value assessment, emphasizing the evolving landscape of resource allocation, patient-centered approaches, and standardization efforts. With healthcare costs rising globally, the efficient allocation of limited resources is essential. Metrics like Quality-Adjusted Life Years (QALYs), Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), Incremental Cost-Effectiveness Ratios (ICERs), and Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) are central to guiding funding decisions, influencing insurance coverage, and shaping treatment prioritization. Emerging trends, such as the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) (...) and big data, are enhancing the precision of these assessments, while patient-centered metrics underscore the importance of patient satisfaction and quality of life. Additionally, there is a growing push for the standardization of these metrics to create consistent frameworks across diverse health systems. This paper explores case studies, practical applications, and future directions to provide insights into how healthcare systems can adopt more effective, globally aligned economic assessments. (shrink)

Theban Desert Road Survey II: The Rock Shrine of Paḥu, Gebel Akhenaton, and Other Rock Inscriptions from the Western Hinterland of Qamûla. By John Coleman Darnell. Yale Egyptological Publications, vol. 1. New Haven: Yale Egyptological Institute, 2013. Pp. xvii + 454, 246 plts. $150. [Distributed by ISD, Bristol, Conn.].

This article offers a thorough study of Virgil's interaction with the myth of Eteocles and Polynices' war for the throne of Thebes, as represented especially in Athenian tragedy. It demonstrates that allusions to the Theban myth are crucial to the Aeneid's construction of a set of tensions and oppositions that play an important role in Virgil's reflection on the historical experience of Rome, especially in connection with the transition from Republic to Empire. In particular, interaction with Theban stories (...) allows Virgil to explore: the dichotomy between similarity and foreignness in the depiction of Rome's enemies; the tension in differing attitudes towards the state as reflected in antithetical character types—namely, the selfless youth who sacrifices himself for the community and the would-be tyrant prepared to go to any lengths to achieve sole power; and, finally, the dichotomy between opposing notions of time defined by teleology, on the one hand, and circularity and repetition on the other, the two representing the differing temporalities of epic and tragedy, respectively. (shrink)

The majority of The Legend of the Middle Ages: Philosophical Explorations of Medieval Christianity, Judaism, and Islam has been published previously in different forms, but this edition has been completely revised by the author, the well-known French medievalist and intellectual historian Rémi Brague. It was first published in French under the title Au moyen du Moyen Âge in 2006. The book consists of sixteen essays ranging from Brague’s early years at the Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris I) in the 1990s up (...) until 2005. As a collection of articles, therefore, The Legend of the Middle Ages is not designed to be a monograph; one should not expect a single argument from the book, although it does explore key intersections of medieval religion and philosophy that I will touch upon later. (shrink)

Au sortir de cet entretien avec Gauz, Laëtitia Ajanohun nous propose une légende inspirée de ces légendes orales pleinement réécrites qui essaiment dans tout le roman de Gauz, Camarade Papa, qui minent le discours colonial et donnent voix aux oubliés de l’Histoire.

There is a traditional conception of knowledge but it is not the Justified True Belief analysis Gettier attacked. On the traditional view, knowledge consists in having a belief that bears a discernible mark of truth. A mark of truth is a truth-entailing property: a property that only true beliefs can have. It is discernible if one can always tell that a belief has it, that is, a sufficiently attentive subject believes that a belief has it if and only if it (...) has it. Requiring a mark of truth makes the view infallibilist. Requiring it to be discernible makes the view internalist. I call the view Classical Infallibilism. (shrink)

"Chapters address philosophical aspects of the video game The Legend of Zelda and video game culture in general"--Provided by publisher.

A comprehensive inquiry into how the legend of the descent from Troy has shaped the western notion of civilization.

The magnificence of Augustan Rome is the indispensable setting for Ovid the urbane love poet, rusticitas is the one unforgivable sin. Yet in Ovid's perpetuum carmen cities are for the most part invisible, at best incidental backdrops; the countryside, present in many vividly drawn landscapes, constantly thrusts itself on our attention, a place where mysterious powers menace the individual's identity. This neglect of the city makes a striking, and deliberate, contrast with the Aeneid, a ktistic epic whose meaning is governed (...) by constant reference forward to the ‘altae moenia Romae’. Ovid, whose main epic time-scale does include the foundation of Rome, devotes five words to the making of those walls. The one major exception to this indifference to the central theme of Virgilian epic is the Theban episode in Metamorphoses 3.1–4.603. The story of Cadmus and his family forms a self-contained unit within the flux of Ovid's epic of transformation. It tells of a ktisis that goes wrong: Cadmus obeys Apollo's injunction to found a city , but in the end the exile who had founded a new home is driven into a second exile: ‘exit | conditor urbe sua’. (shrink)

The eagle has always been recognized as one of Pindar's most potent and characteristic images. Horace borrowed it to construct the first four stanzas of his Pindaric imitation in Carm. 4.4, and he presents both himself and Pindar as soaring birds: see Carm. 4.2.25 and 2.20, where the swan outflies Daedalus and Icarus in a way that the imitators of Pindar cannot hope to do. It is standard doctrine that Pindar often describes himself as an eagle, and that Bacchylides ‘imitates’ (...) the notion in his fifth ode , p.l). (shrink)

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, more than 4 million Italians migrated to the United States of America (U.S.), which they regarded as a utopia. The film _The Legend of 1900_, which was inspired by Alessandro Baricco’s monologue _Nocecento_ and directed by Giuseppe Tornatore, tells the story about the genius pianist 1900, an orphan, who is fostered by Danny, a black coalman in the boiler room of an ocean liner, and whose parents are presumably Italian immigrants. Due (...) to immigration law, 1900, a man with neither identity, visa, nor legal papers, cannot legally set foot on American soil. As a genius pianist, his existence is nothing more than that of musician—an entertainer to passengers on the gigantic trans-Atlantic liner Virginian, the only place he is permitted to live. According to Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopia, a ship is “a piece of floating space, a placeless place”—a vessel transporting people to the land of their dreams. However, 1900, who has no legal status, will never arrive in utopia aboard Virginian. He can only construct a heterotopia—a mirror of utopia—so that it to him is a utopia. In the eyes of the law, 1900 is a legally non-existent person on Virginian, a placeless place. However, it is this lawless heterotopia and isolation that create a genius. In this paper, I illustrate how Virginian, as a place outside the law of land, metaphorically gives birth to a pianist, 1900, and why 1900 at the end chooses not to leave the ship, while also discussing the meaning behind the film and the relationship between law and space. (shrink)

Créée par Éric Rochant, Le Bureau des légendes (Canal +, 2015-2020) explore le monde du renseignement en décrivant le travail du service des agents clandestins de la DGSE. Face aux incertitudes et aux complexités géopolitiques du monde contemporain, elle fait le choix d’une immersion au cœur du « renseignement humain ». Cet article envisage l’hypothèse selon laquelle une telle fiction permet de restaurer la confiance des spectateurs vis-à-vis de la capacité d’une démocratie à lutter contre ce qui la menace. En (...) plongeant son spectateur dans les coulisses du renseignement, en le familiarisant avec des personnages complexes, la série questionne la légitimité de la confiance qu’il est possible d’accorder à un service de renseignement. La faillibilité des agents, mise en scène de façon détaillée, réfléchie par la série elle-même, rassure parce qu’elle permet de comprendre et de partager une forme de vie spécifique qui est celle de l’action secrète. L’espionnage, le contre-espionnage et le contre-terrorisme apparaissent alors comme des pratiques reposant en dernier ressort, non pas sur une maîtrise absolue, mais sur la décision de faire confiance ou au contraire de se méfier. Mobilisant les recherches de la sociologie contemporaine à propos de la confiance (Giddens, 1994 et Luhmann 2006), il s’agit de décrire Le Bureau des légendes comme une fiction projetant sur nos écrans, la possibilité d’une restauration de la confiance ou pour le dire à la manière de Stanley Cavell, une issue possible au scepticisme. (shrink)

La ville de Thann, en Alsace, célèbre chaque 30 juin une fête au cours de laquelle on brûle trois sapins, en l'honneur de saint Thiébaut , évêque de Gubbio, mort en 1160 et à qui une légende attribue la fondation miraculeuse de la ville. La présente note suggère que cette légende est sans doute bâtie sur un schéma trifonctionnel d'origine indo-européenne. In the city of Thann , three firs are burnt every 30th of June, in honour of Saint Thiébaut , (...) bishop of Gubbio , who is regarded, according to a medieval legend, as the miraculous founder of the town. The present note suggests that this legend is probably built on an Indo-European tri-functional pattern. (shrink)

Of the four complete Āgama collections, the Ekottarika Āgama (EĀ) has generated the most controversy about whether it can be attributed to any early Buddhist school and, if so, which school it could belong to. This paper examines the various hypotheses about the sectarian affiliation(s) of the EĀ. It shows that a considerable part of this corpus is likely to be of Mahāsāṃghika derivation, and that the EĀ contains numerous salient features of Mahāsāṃghika doctrine, particularly the transcendence of Buddhas and (...) Bodhisattvas. This study also argues that the seeming affinity between several legends in the EĀ and those in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya is likely to have resulted from Mahāsāṃghika influence on the Mūlasarvāstivādins. The Mahāsāṃghika hypothesis for the school affiliation of the EĀ is substantially strengthened in this inquiry while the others are shown to be probably untenable. (shrink)

Sixteen centuries ago the Neoplatonist philosopher Hypatia was murdered by a mob of Christians. Ever since, she has been remembered in poems, plays, paintings, and films as a victim of religious intolerance whose death symbolized the end of the classical world. But before she was a symbol Hypatia was a person. As one of antiquity's best-known female scholars, Hypatia's immense skills as a philosopher and mathematician redefined the intellectual life of her home city of Alexandria. Her talent as a teacher (...) enabled her to assemble a circle of dedicated male students. Her devotion to public service made her a force for peace and good government in a city that struggled to maintain trust and cooperation between pagans and Christians. These intellectual and political triumphs were all the more astonishing for being accomplished in a climate of gossip, scrutiny, and misogyny.Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher is a major new account of this remarkable woman and the culturally rich and turbulent context in which she lived. Utilizing new techniques for reading ancient letters and mathematical and philosophical commentaries-as well as a number of previously unnoticed early modern sources-Edward J. Watts provides a revelatory narrative of Hypatia's life, her formidable achievements, the tragic story of the events that led to her murder, and the rich legacy of her life and death. (shrink)

Philip Kitcher's The Advancement of Science sets out, programmatically, a new naturalistic view of science as a process of building consensus practices. Detailed historical case studies—centrally, the Darwinian revolutio—are intended to support this view. I argue that Kitcher's expositions in fact support a more conservative view, that I dub ‘Legend Naturalism’. Using four historical examples which increasingly challenge Kitcher's discussions, I show that neither Legend Naturalism, nor the less conservative programmatic view, gives an adequate account of scientific progress. (...) I argue for a naturalism that is more informed by psychology and a normative account that is both more social and less realist than the views articulated in The Advancement of Science. (shrink)

Drawing on archival evidence, this article explores the salience of ‘patriotic’ themes and motifs in the emergence of the Napoleonic legend in France after 1815. Symbolizing France’s defeated and humiliated status, the captive of Saint-Helena became an emblem of French patriotism, a rallying point for all the men and women who refused to accept their nation’s containment by the 1815 treaties. And, contrary to the traditional view that Bonapartist nationalism was merely a celebration of violence, military glory and conquest, (...) it will also become apparent that the image of the Emperor was used in French popular political culture to promote a coherent cluster of ideas and values of ‘nationhood’, which in many respects connected back to the defensive patriotism of the Revolutionary era. Ultimately, through their celebration of the memory of Napoleon, his supporters and allies demonstrated the convergence of republican and Bonapartist values around core notions of the Revolutionary tradition, most notably a resolute defence of French national sovereignty. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence is again attracting significant attention across all areas of social life. One important sphere of focus is education; many policy makers across the globe view lifelong learning as an essential means to prepare society for an “AI future” and look to AI as a way to “deliver” learning opportunities to meet these needs. AI is a complex social, cultural, and material artifact that is understood and constructed by different stakeholders in varied ways, and these differences have significant social (...) and educational implications that need to be explored. Through analysis of thirty-four in-depth interviews with stakeholders from academia, commerce, and policy, alongside document analysis, we draw on the social construction of technology to illuminate the diverse understandings, perceptions of, and practices around AI. We find three different technological frames emerging from the three social groups and argue that commercial sector practices wield most power. We propose that greater awareness of the differing technical frames, more interactions among a wider set of relevant social groups, and a stronger focus on the kinds of educational outcomes society seeks are needed in order to design AI for learning in ways that facilitate a democratic education for all. (shrink)

In Legends of the Samurai, Sato confronts both the history and the legend of the samurai, untangling the two to present an authentic picture of these legendary warriors. Through his masterful translations of original samurai tales, laws, dicta, reports, and arguments accompanied by insightful commentary, Hiroaki Sato chronicles the changing ethos of the Japanese warrior from the samurai's historical origins to his rise to political power. For this purpose, Sato has chosen to translate, wherever possible, writings closest in time (...) to the actual event. His translations are a testament to his mastery of the language for they flow with lively ease that one might not expect from accounts, many of which are ancient. Legends of the Samurai covers legends from mythological times to the early eighteenth century. Through this book Sato describes men accomplished in martial arts, warrior-commanders in battle, and samurai's own views of themselves. It ends with a famous modern retelling of a mass disembowelment in the mid-seventeenth century. (shrink)

The essays collected in 'The Hegel Myths and Legends' serve the function of disabusing students and nonspecialists of these misconceptions by exposing these myths for what they are.

If the question about the causes of the crises has generated a good deal of literature in Spain, the key issue in recent times has been how to create that tangible and intangible wealth that only companies can give. One of the proposals that specialists agree upon is to revitalise the business entrepreneurial spirit, presenting the entrepreneurs’ way of life as an attractive option, due to the good they produce and the social recognition they enjoy. Accepting the suggestions of the (...) so-called “narrative turn”, the article analyses the virtualities of business narratives in order to enhance the role of entrepreneurs. To this end, the article aims to cover three stages: narratives are necessary because they are brain-based, it is advisable to find out why entrepreneurs are not usually considered in Spain as the main characters of good narratives, good narratives, the ones that convince, are the ones that have the capacity to show the meaning of the entrepreneurial activity and the truth of what we have been doing. (shrink)

A community, for ecologists, is a unit for discussing collections of organisms. It refers to collections of populations, which consist (by definition) of individuals of a single species. This is straightforward. But communities are unusual kinds of objects, if they are objects at all. They are collections consisting of other diverse, scattered, partly-autonomous, dynamic entities (that is, animals, plants, and other organisms). They often lack obvious boundaries or stable memberships, as their constituent populations not only change but also move in (...) and out of areas, and in and out of relationships with other populations. Familiar objects have identifiable boundaries, for example, and if communities do not, maybe they are not objects. Maybe they do not exist at all. The question this possibility suggests, of what criteria there might be for identifying communities, and for determining whether such communities exist at all, has long been discussed by ecologists. This essay addresses this question as it has recently been taken up by philosophers of science, by examining answers to it which appeared a century ago and which have framed the continuing discussion. (shrink)

From the early 1930s to the early 1960s many scholars, whether liberalminded or socialist ideologues, Marxist or scientific positivists, classical scholars or political theorists and historians, have shown a widespread consensus in discrediting and assailing the man and political philosopher Plato. Such an extensive assault led the ‘Platonic Legend’ to an unprecedented crisis. Philosophically, it was a reaction to the undisguised Platonolatry coming from Oxford and the school of the British Idealists. Ideologically, the appropriation of Plato by Nazi apologists (...) fostered further this vehement indictment. But a lot of other causes worked to the same effect. The general anguish and humanistic anxiety on the eve ofWorldWar II and the postwar traumas led scholars to reconsider the meaning of history and historicism, the psychology of the masses and the ethical responsibility of the citizen, the role of propaganda and state education. Such complementary elements converged in sustained anti-Platonic polemics, which in turn provoked a vigorous defence. Here an attempt is made to offer a preliminary survey of this complex debate and to provide a general intellectual framework in terms of which that controversy can be further explored. (shrink)