In early 19th‐century German medicine many doctors had a strong interest in historical pathology. They investigated the historical records of fevers and epidemics in detail, trying to find out how the changing influence of the epidemic constitution worked and hoping that history would help them to define specific disease entities. The underlying theory of this endeavour was that diseases undergo a historical development similar to the evolution of plants and animals. This paper tries to show that historical pathology was, in (...) its time, a legitimate attempt to solve the most urgent problems of empirical medicine. (shrink)

Em 1646, o médico inglês Thomas Browne (1605-1682) publicou a obra enciclopédica, de inspiração baconiana, Pseudodoxia Epidemica, também conhecida como Vulgar Errors. Browne Nela abordou o que seriam erros disseminados sobre vários temas, incluindo concepções sobre os animais. Ele explicou a origem de cada concepção. Discutiu ideias e observações de outros autores e, em muitos casos, apresentou seus experimentos e observações. Tomou como decisivo o testemunho ocular. Apresentamos uma tradução contextualizada e comentada do Capítulo 1 do Livro III do (...) Pseudodoxia. (shrink)

This essay explores Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia epidemica, with its lengthy book on 'errors' in animal lore. In the limited critical literature on Browne's natural history, this author is generally seen as stumbling towards a zoological idiom and clearing away the emblematic 'clutter' of earlier writers on natural history—Gesner, Aldrovandi, Topsell or Franzius. This essay proposes that Browne is working with a more complex set of co-ordinates in his thought, beyond his experimental inclinations and his Aristotelian assumptions. It will explore (...) the extent to which his studies of animals emerge from, and duplicate, the presumptions of his biblical hermeneutics, and it will suggest that Browne regularly exports terms from scriptural exegesis—the categories of the literal, the figurative, and the emblematic—into his investigations of the natural world. (shrink)

The present contribution aims to investigate, from the point of view of text and content, fr. 95 K.‑A. of the comic author Philemon. The fragment, which likely belonged to the prologue of a comedy of name unknown, is spoken by Aere (perhaps an allegory), which provides a self-presentation of traits that are para-philosophical and, specifically, Presocratic. Line 2 of the fragment has been condemned by all editors to date, but through an analysis of the fragment’s textual tradition, the line’s syntactic (...) structure and the parodic implications, it is proposed here to retain the line. Finally, reflections are offered also on line 3, considering it in accord with the textual choices adopted in relation to the preceding line. (shrink)

Trata-se de uma resenha do livro História e descrição da febre amarela epidêmica que grassou no Rio de Janeiro em 1850, de José Pereira Rego, publicado pela Chão Editora (SP) em 2020. ISBN: 978-65-990122-4-2.

O que significa dizer, como fez o coletivo Indigenous Action em meio à pandemia de covid-19, que “o capitalismo é pandêmico” e que “nós [indígenas] somos os anticorpos”? Quais os vínculos entre crises pandêmicas, o capitalismo em seu estágio globalizado e a emergência climática que ficou conhecida como “Antropoceno”? De que modo esse vínculo é visto por aqueles, como os povos indígenas, que, não obstante à margem do processo, são os mais diretamente afetados por seus efeitos deletérios? Com base nessa (...) provocação e nas diversas articulações feitas por Davi Kopenawa, em diálogo com Bruce Albert, entre mercadoria, epidemia (xawara) e fim do mundo (“queda do céu”), buscamos, neste ensaio, pensar a relação entre capitalismo e catástrofe a partir da noção-chave de “contágio”. Nossa suspeita é de que, com a repetição deliberada do termo “xawara” ao longo de A queda do céu, Kopenawa não está apenas utilizando um termo técnico para doenças epidêmicas em geral, mas caracterizando conceitualmente o tipo de relação “imunológica” que os brancos (napë pë), “povo da mercadoria”, estabelecem com a alteridade em geral. (shrink)

Este artigo procura a partir do contexto da pandemia provocada pelo coronavírus tecer articulações com o pensamento do filósofo francês Michel Foucault, em seu curso realizado no Collège de France, Segurança, Território e População, sobre as formas de exercício do poder e o tratamento dispensado às doenças epidêmicas. Como pano de fundo, tematizaremos também estratégias de governo pautadas tanto na manutenção das vidas, como na produção de mortos, identificando uma equação que visa atender prioritariamente a pressupostos econômicos em detrimento da (...) saúde da população. (shrink)

Este artigo analisa o problema da pandemia da Covid-19 do ponto de vista filosófico a partir das contribuições de Agamben e Habermas. Agamben aborda a dimensão biopolítica da pandemia e sugere que o isolamento social é uma estratégia política de exceção com vistas a limitar a liberdade das pessoas. Nesse sentido, ele fala em “invenção epidêmica”. Habermas aborda a Covid-19 do ponto de vista normativo ponderando que as questões devem ser refletidas a partir da perspectiva ética da dignidade humana, e (...) do ponto de vista político da solidariedade. A minha hipótese é a de que Agamben acerta em alguns pontos a sua análise, mas tem limites porque não leva em consideração a dimensão biológica da letalidade da Covid-19. A análise de Habermas é mais condizente com uma abordagem realista do vírus porque subscreve as orientações científicas da Organização Mundial da Saúde e reivindica o papel normativo dos direitos humanos nas decisões ético-políticas em decisões que buscam atenuar os impactos da pandemia. (shrink)

Error is a neglected epistemological category in the history of science. This neglect has been driven by the commonsense idea that its elimination is a general good, which often renders it invisible or at least not worth noticing. At the end of the sixteenth century across Europe, medicine increasingly focused on “popular errors,” a genre where learned doctors addressed potential patients to disperse false belief about treatments. By the mid-seventeenth century, investigations into popular error informed the working methodology of natural (...) philosophers, rather than just physicians. In 1646, Thomas Browne published Pseudodoxia Epidemica, a large volume on popular error. Despite Browne’s formal training as a physician, this work examined only a few medical errors and instead aspired to be an encyclopedia of error. Pseudodoxia Epidemica was highly popular, running to six editions, and was known by the Fellows of the Royal Society. Influenced by Browne, alongside Bacon’s theory of the idols, natural philosophic practice in the late sixteenth and seventeenth century developed a focus on error that revised traditional attention to the discovery of knowledge. Fellows such as Robert Boyle and Robert Hooke proposed new ways to secure truth under the far-reaching influence of Bacon’s refutations of “natural human reason” distorted by false idols, of syllogistic logic, and of “theories,” his label for traditional philosophical systems that bias thought toward falsity. In three parts, this article traces the progression in early modern scientific approaches to handling error, and especially medical error – from physicians’ efforts to identify and eradicate it through collaborative effort, to the striking tension in Browne’s work between seeking to eliminate error while also showing a marked tolerance for it, to the Royal Society’s Baconian objective of instrumentalizing error to find truth. Error emerges as its own epistemic category that serves as a driving force toward knowledge production. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn 1651, Alexander Ross published an attack on Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica, Bacon's Natural History and William Harvey's De generatione. Ross's work, Arcana Microcosmi, defended Aristotelian natural philosophy against the ‘new philosophy’ that figures like Bacon, Harvey and Browne represented. Though Ross's attacks on these authors make up no more than half of the treatise’s contents, the book’s paratextual materials emphasise scientific debate. While Ross's authorial approach advocates reading exclusively ancient authorities for the sake of glossing and transmitting their (...) knowledge to a wider public, in order to argue against the new philosophy Ross must engage with its textual production. Furthermore, his works advertise their focus on Bacon, Harvey and Browne, which would have attracted a readership drawn to new scientific approaches to knowledge formation. Ross's polemic represents an effort to model his devotion to ancient authority while also generating a reading public that would resist the new approach to reading that the new philosophy proposed. (shrink)

O artigo analisa a pandemia do coronavírus à luz do colapso do neoliberalismo. Os níveis de neoliberalismo no Brasil variaram nos últimos trinta anos e nem mesmo os governos progressistas conseguiram romper com o sistema de acumulação neoliberal implementado no país. Por intermédio de pesquisa bibliográfica de abordagem qualitativa, o artigo apresenta reflexões sobre o neoliberalismo e sua política econômica que favorece a acumulação de capital e a concentração de poder, renda e riqueza, contribuindo para a decomposição da classe trabalhadora, (...) a diluição de formas de solidariedade e a imposição de políticas econômicas e sociais excludentes, com a conversão das democracias sociais em Estados desdemocratizados, com impactos corrosivos na rede de proteção social em tempos de pandemia. Crises epidêmicas ampliam desigualdades e tensões em nossos sistemas, levando-nos a reavaliação dos problemas políticos, econômicos e sociais mais profundos da nossa agenda democrática. (shrink)

The rich apparatus of scholia and marginalia transmitted in Lucian’s manuscripts can prove of vital help for the constitutio textus of his writings. On the one hand, their ancient and stratified origin makes it possible that they preserve traces of an earlier stage of Lucian’s text, both directly, through explicit quotations of lost variants, and indirectly, through hints given in the explanations of lemmas. On the other hand, they may allow us to recognise as problematic passages that otherwise would (...) go unnoticed, especially in the case of intruded glosses which convey a coherent and not suspect text. The Lexiphanes, with its deliberately absurd and confused vocabulary, represents a perfect case study for the peculiar situation where it is hard to state whether a text is corrupt or not. In the present article, three textual passages from this Lucianic dialogue (Lex. 1; 3; 6) will be analysed. In all three cases, hitherto unnoticed errors will be detected and new corrections will be proposed thanks to the direct or indirect help given by the scholia and marginalia found in manuscripts. (shrink)

La agregación del extranjero a la propia comunidad entre las tribus de cazadores recolectores paleolíticos, consiste en un rito de reconocimiento y aceptación recíproco entre la divinidad protectora de la tribu y el extranjero. Este sentido religioso del rito se mantiene en las sociedades neolíticas y posteriores. En el pueblo hebreo el extranjero se integra cuando acepta los valores supremos de la comunidad mediante los ritos correspondientes. Eso mismo ocurre cuando la comunidad integra a todos los pueblos conocidos, desde la (...) constitutio Antoniniana de Caracalla de 212 hasta la constitución de la Sociedad de Naciones de 1919. La forma suprema de hospitalidad es dar sepultura a los muertos, que se practica con los extranjeros de una manera bastante general. (shrink)

Among the plethora of citations of different authors and genres that help to embellish Plutarch’s learned prose, passages by the choral poets Alcman, Stesichorus, Ibycus and Bacchylides make an interesting group, albeit far fewer than the citations of Pindar and Simonides, which have been dealt with extensively. This paper aims to highlight the modest but significant contribution Plutarch makes to the constitutio textus, reception history, and the very image of these important, but deficiently transmitted authors. At the same time, (...) it addresses the form of the quotations, their distribution and function in the Plutarchan corpus, and their possible sources, including the school. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 123.1 (2002) 136-140 [Access article in PDF] P. M. Petsas, M. B. Hatzopoulos, Lucrèce Gounaropoulou, and P. Paschidis, eds. Inscriptions du sanctuaire de la Mère des Dieux autochtone de Leukopétra (Macédoine). Meletemata 28. Athens: Kentron Ellenikes kai romaikes archaiotetos ethnikon idryma erevnon, 2000. 365 pp. Cloth, price not stated. The Macedonian sanctuary of the Autochthonous Mother of the Gods at Leukopetra, near Beroia, was discovered (...) by earth-moving equipment and emergency excavation in 1965, when a segment of the new national highway was being built. Although the site itself has never been fully excavated, many architectural pieces, four altars, three offering tables, stelai, and plaques were rescued and taken to the Beroia Museum. The original excavator, Photias Petsas, helped recently by a younger generation of accomplished epigraphists, has labored over the years and through many vicissitudes to publish these finds. For this was not [End Page 136] merely a sanctuary, not merely a small marble temple, but a sanctuary and temple covered with inscriptions, most of them (161 of 170 complete enough to categorize) recording the cession or consecration of slaves or children to the service of the goddess. Many of the inscriptions (127 of 194) are virtually complete and dated by local and imperial era, the earliest from A.D. 141-42 (?), the latest from A.D. 313.This handsomely produced and meticulously edited volume therefore publishes a corpus of material that contributes to a number of important topics: to the debate over the legal and actual status of the persons ceded to gods here and elsewhere; to the administration and health of a small sanctuary in the territory of a larger city in Roman Macedonia; and to the religious beliefs that may have undergirded all of the above. It also provides evidence of the erratic but apparent diffusion of Roman legal status, legal concepts, and legal practices even in the backcountry of a larger city, and thereby also sheds interesting light on what happens before and after the Constitutio Antoniniana in one specific place. All this should interest historians of Greece under the Empire, or students of the phenomenon of "Romanization," or historians of Greece keen to track continuity and change in the practices of sanctuaries and slaves.The volume itself is a pleasure to use. The lengthy introduction covers the mythical and actual history of the area (20-23); the geographical and social backgrounds of the dedicators (23-28); the goddess, her multiple names, and her financial dealings (28-33); the legal status of the consecrated (33-60, with a clear summary of a hundred-year-old controversy); onomastics (61-63); and language (63-73)--the Lefkopetra inscriptions constitute a "unique dossier" (63) for how Greek was spoken for centuries during the High Empire. How each lemma is to be laid out is then discussed (74), and the architectural and other pieces described (75-78); for the last, the drawings (figs. 37-51) are indispensable. All that is missing is a discussion of letter forms, itself noted as reserved for further study by J. Touratsoglou (75).The 194 inscriptions (plus five incerta) are clearly presented, restored when need be, translated, and discussed; all but three (nos. 79, 191, and 193) have pictures as well. Because the inscriptions themselves are also very (if not uniformly) formulaic, their readings seem relatively straightforward to me and I can make no suggestions for corrections in what seem to me to be well-read and well-restored texts except to suggest that numbers 136 and 160 belong to the same monument--a suggestion in which I have been anticipated by Marijana Ricl, who was kind enough to send me an article (forthcoming in Tyche 16, 2001) in which she discusses these inscriptions and suggests different supplements or explanations in only thirteen other cases (nos. 5, 26, 45, 46, 51, 53, 58, 63, 78, 90, 93, 115, and 150). In short, these inscriptions have been published by people who know what they are doing, and with all the proper aids and... (shrink)

Die Reedition der von den Verfassern nunmehr Excerpta Vaticana et Laurentiana genannt wird, findet ihre Begründung darin, dass der Erstherausgeber, der berühmt Rechtshistoriker Contardo Ferrini offenbar auf eine Kollationierung beider Codices verzichtet hat und im Übrigen, aus welchen Gründen auch immer, bei der Edition selbst nicht unwesentliche Versehen verschuldet hat. Der Codex Vaticanus Palatinus ist wohl in der ersten Hälfte des 14. Jahrhunderts entstanden, der Codex Laurentianus 80.6 in der ersten Hälfte des 15. Jahrhunderts. Grundsätzlich sind die Verfasser der Meinung, (...) die mit zahlreichen plausiblen Argumenten vorgetragen wird, dass der Schreiber des Codex Laurentianus 80.6, ein gewisser Stephanus of Medea, als Vorlage den heutigen Codex Vaticanus Gr. 19 vor sich liegen hatte, und als intelligenter Kopist verschiedene Emendationen vorgenommen hat. Eine große Mehrheit der Fragmente der Excerpta Vaticana et Laurentiana von 1–193 muss einem Juristen Anatolius zugeschrieben werden. Jene Person, die sie zusammengestellt hat, muss ein altes Manuskript mit der Summa Codicis des Anatolius verwendet haben. In dieser Summa waren die Termini technici immer noch in lateinischer Sprache verfasst. Zur Selektion der Texte führen die Verfasser an, dass überdurchschnittlich großes Interesse dem Strafrecht und dem Familienrecht gewidmet ist, während etwa Eigentumserwerb, Erbrecht und große Teile des Obligationenrechtes kaum Behandlung finden. Die Exzerpierung der Summa Codicis muss aus diesem Grunde von jemand vorgenommen worden sein, der eine besondere Affinität gerade zu diesen Bereichen des Rechtes hatte. Nach diesen grundsätzlichen und grundlegenden Ausführungen, die ich allesamt nicht nur begrüße, sondern voll mittragen möchte, widmen sich die Verfasser kurz aber prägnant der Person des Anatolius (24–30). Ein Anatolius wird zusammen mit sieben anderen Antecessores in der Constitutio Omne genannt, sowie in der Constitutio Tanta vom 16. Dezember 533 als einer der vier Professoren, denen die Kompilation der Digesten anvertraut worden war. Er bekleidete die Funktion eines Magister Officiorum und wurde aus diesem Grunde als Vir Illustris bezeichnet. Anatolius entstammte einer Juristenfamilie aus Beirut und lehrte dort selbst als Professor. Zachariae von Lingenthal (Griechische Bearbeitung des Codex 70) und Van der Waal (Comentar 111) hatten die Ansicht vertreten, dass es zwei Anatoli gegeben habe: Der eine Mitglied der justinianischen Kompilation, der andere der Autor des Codex-Kommentares. Dem gegenüber vertreten die Autoren die Ansicht, dass Anatolius ein einziger gewesen sei, der, nachdem er maßgeblich an der Kompilation in Konstantinopel mitgearbeitet hatte, etwa zwischen 530 und 533 als Lehrer nach Beirut zurückgekehrt sei, um dort an einer der prestigeträchtigsten Universitäten des Reiches die neue juristische Studienordnung durchzusetzen und ruhmreich zu begründen. Der Kommentar des Codex diente dazu, einen grundsätzlichen lateinischen Text griechischen Studenten zu verdeutlichen, und zwar ausgehend von einer reinen Übersetzung bis zu einem juristischen Kommentar. Die Autoren lösen die Quellenproblematik derart, dass sie davon ausgehen, dass Anatolius das Buch 4 seines Kommentares noch in Konstantinopel vollendet und mit dem 8. Buch des Kommentares in Beirut wieder begonnen hat. Die klare und deutliche Argumentationsweise der Autoren, unpolemisch aber doch tiefgreifend, sollte in Zukunft übernommen werden. (shrink)

The manuscript tradition of Cyril of Alexandria’s apologetical work Contra Iulianum consists altogether of fourteen codices; among these, six are late exemplars of the Renaissance, characterized by a very contaminated text. Despite their limited value for the constitutio textus, they seem to be fundamental to reconstructing the history of the text itself. This philological investigation clearly shows that the six recentiores have to be considered as a group; provides information and details about them – concerning scribes, owners and genesis (...) – definitely useful for tracing a general outline of the timetable of diffusion and circulation of Contra Iulianum in the Renaissance; and furthermore defines relationships between the recentiores and the main manuscripts of the tradition, among which is included the lost so-called Capnioneus. (shrink)

The recent edition, established in 2005 by Giuseppina Matino, of the Panegyricus on Emperor Anastasius by Procopius from Gaza gives the opportunity to discuss about the ecdotical methods until now adopted for the constitutio textus of Procopian works. The errors present in the Italian translation show the complexity of the text often rich in images and figures.

This paper proposes a new strategy of approach for Dio Chrysostom’s Olympic Discourse, whose constitutio textus, in spite of the numerous editions and studies from which the speech has benefited in recent years, continues to raise strong doubts and perplexities.

In contrast to a positivist conception that considers the objective elements of its topographical location to be absolutely prevalent for the identification of a real estate, the Roman legal sources present a more articulated picture, in which the voluntas, affectio and constitutio of the dominus play a fundamental role in the subjective distinction between locus and fundus. In any case, a merely patrimo-nial perspective appears extraneous to Roman jurist’s thinking. On the contrary, emerges the full awareness of a special (...) juridical relationship of man with the ter-ritory. (shrink)

Obesity is increasingly becoming a problem for Western societies, to the extent that politicians, scientists, patient organisations and the media now refer to it as ‘the obesity epidemic’. Concerns about the damaging effect of increasing body weight on public health has led to a strong growth in the amount of scientific work on the condition, with the medical professions leading the way. This article discusses that, first of all, scientific evidence for obesity-associated mortality is at best ambiguous, and proposes that (...) at least some of contemporary medical preoccupation with obesity has a moral origin in that it seeks to correct unwanted or immoral behaviour. It then continues to reflect on the effect of the conceptual transformation of healthy children into patients, and concludes with some reflections on the ethical implications of the obesity disease for the wellbeing of children. (shrink)

The present paper proposes to establish (§ 1) the data that can be drawn securely from a controversial testimonium on an oration of Cato (Cato, orat. 99 Sblend.) contained in a late antique panegyric (Pan. Lat. 8 (5).13.3), and to illustrate (§ 2) some of its textual and exegetical problems. Further, in the light of a hitherto overlooked comparison with a gloss of Festus, proposals are made: (§ 3) for a new constitutio and interpretation of the text of the (...) panegyric; and (§ 4) for the identification of a textual citation (which will emerge also as a new fragment) from the orations of Cato the Censor, and the identification with Cato of the anonymous antiqui to whom Festus attributes the use (until now not attested elsewhere) of the rare substantive oliueta in feminine singular with the sense of ‘gathering of olives’. Finally (§ 5) some considerations are offered on the possible sources used by Festus (hypothesising as intermediary the De obscuris Catonis of Verrius, which could in turn have drawn its note on the oliueta from the very passage of Cato attested by the panegyric) and by the panegyrist (for whom a direct knowledge of the speech of Cato is proposed). (shrink)

L’epistemologia (detta anche filosofia della conoscenza o gnoseologia) è la disciplina filosofica che studia come gli esseri umani si rapportano da un punto di vista cognitivo alla realtà che li circonda. Le questioni fondamentali che la interessano sono principalmente di natura normativa. Riguardano il modo in cui dovremmo regolare le nostre credenze alla luce dell’informazione in nostro possesso, e la natura della conoscenza umana ed i suoi limiti. Questo capitolo è organizzato in modo corrispondente. La prima sezione tratta della nozione (...) di giustificazione epistemica, la seconda quella di conoscenza, e la terza introduce il problema filosofico dello scetticismo. (shrink)

The paper presents a novel take on the character of South Africa’s governance structure. It argues that, insofar as it constitutionally recognises traditional authorities, figures who rule in accordance with idiosyncratic and localised customary laws, as well as instigate a cheek-by-jowl existence of an asymmetrical property law (where in the urban setting land is nominally bought or transferred for sale, but in traditional rural areas granted by the chief), manifest in the differentiated land laws brought about by the Communal Land (...) Rights Act of 2003, is more akin to, and necessitates a definitional alignment with, the federal system of government than a unitary one – or at least a weak “federalism with South African characteristics.”. (shrink)