The virtue named σϖφροσύνη, which designates « self-restraint », « temperance », « prudence », « circumspection », sometimes condensed in the term « wisdom », is first a moral virtue. In other respects, this word signifies « right senses » in contrast with « frenzy » (either god-inspired or as a part of illness). But the notion of σϖφροσύνη has also a meaning in literary criticism. And in this very context, it presents several employments. One of these is stylistic. (...) Another regards narrative structure and content : this is the subject of the present study. After I have referred to the use of this narrative concept in Plato, I shall demonstrate that its interpretation by Aelius Aristides allows, with that of Maximus of Tyre, to understand Longus’ prayer at the end of the prologue to the Pastorales. This interpretation sheds light specially on the process of a significant episode in the plot of this novel. (shrink)

A long-standing tradition presents economic activity in terms of the flow of fluids. This metaphor lies behind a small but influential practice of hydraulic modelling in economics. Yet turning the metaphor into a three-dimensional hydraulic model of the economic system entails making numerous and detailed commitments about the analogy between hydraulics and the economy. The most famous 3-D model in economics is probably the Phillips machine, the central object of this paper.

Background: Family members are often required to act as substitute decision-makers when health care or research participation decisions must be made for an incapacitated relative. Yet most families are unable to accurately predict older adult preferences regarding future health care and willingness to engage in research studies. Discussion and documentation of preferences could improve proxies' abilities to decide for their loved ones. This trial assesses the efficacy of an advance planning intervention in improving the accuracy of substitute decision-making and increasing (...) the frequency of documented preferences for health care and research. It also investigates the financial impact on the healthcare system of improving substitute decision-making. Methods/DesignDyads (n = 240) comprising an older adult and his/her self-selected proxy are randomly allocated to the experimental or control group, after stratification for type of designated proxy and self-report of prior documentation of healthcare preferences. At baseline, clinical and research vignettes are used to elicit older adult preferences and assess the ability of their proxy to predict those preferences. Responses are elicited under four health states, ranging from the subject's current health state to severe dementia. For each state, we estimated the public costs of the healthcare services that would typically be provided to a patient under these scenarios. Experimental dyads are visited at home, twice, by a specially trained facilitator who communicates the dyad-specific results of the concordance assessment, helps older adults convey their wishes to their proxies, and offers assistance in completing a guide entitled My Preferences that we designed specifically for that purpose. In between these meetings, experimental dyads attend a group information session about My Preferences. Control dyads attend three monthly workshops aimed at promoting healthy behaviors. Concordance assessments are repeated at the end of the intervention and 6 months later to assess improvement in predictive accuracy and cost savings, if any. Copies of completed guides are made at the time of these assessments. DiscussionThis study will determine whether the tested intervention guides proxies in making decisions that concur with those of older adults, motivates the latter to record their wishes in writing, and yields savings for the healthcare system. Trial RegistrationISRCTN89993391. (shrink)

The AAR-SBL Women’s Caucus session on ‘Beyond Down and Dirty: From Good to Great Sex’ revisited the Good Sex: Feminist Perspectives from the World’s Religions project and book with the participation of two of its co-editors, Mary E. Hunt and Patricia Beattie Jung, and co-author and collaborator, Wanda Defeilt. Scholar colleagues, Brandy Daniels, Fitri Junoes, and Alicia Besa Panganiban, presented intriguing papers on feminist religious and ethical reflections on what constitutes great sex as they examined the issues discussed by feminist (...) scholars and activist authors of Good Sex. Moreover, the session was an exhilarating dialogue of international, interreligious, and intergenerational perspectives on what women think is great sex. It was an exciting starting ground for intergenerational discussion with senior scholars, associated with the Good Sex book, providing generous, constructive, and well-considered responses to the presentations of their colleagues. The diverse international audience of masters, doctoral and senior scholars – male and female – was included in the complex, fun, and challenging discussion of sex. Amidst various issues raised, there was a consensus that discussions on great sex must address issues of safety, justice, and pleasure. Overall the session was a success as the platform for the presentations modelled a feminist method that was intentionally designed to give more time for discussion, not only among panelists but also with the audience. (shrink)

Future practitioners of sustainable agriculture and agroecology must have the capacity to address the wicked problems in the food system to make progress toward sustainability. Undergraduate sustainable agriculture students from a variety of backgrounds may struggle with the question, is the challenging and complex work of addressing wicked problems of agroecology for me? Our case study investigated sociocultural tensions associated with identity encountered when wicked problems teaching units were integrated into the Advanced Practices of Sustainable Agriculture course at a large, (...) Midwestern Land Grant University. The research and course employed a four-part framework that focused on attending to individual needs and identities, facilitating practice-based and community-based learning, engaging in problems situated in regional contexts, and supporting awareness of local and global political and ecological issues. Researchers used a community of practice theoretical lens, and focused on the sociocultural tensions that may have impacted individual and community identity formation. Two wicked problems teaching units are described by drawing upon documentation and audio recordings from planning meetings, course sessions, student and instructor interviews, and course artifacts. Vignettes were constructed to situate four interrelated types of sociocultural tensions encountered by instructors and students. These tensions reflected forces at the individual, community, local, and global levels which interact to influence learners’ capacity to become full participants in sustainable agriculture. The study fills a gap related to affective dimensions of learning like identity in agroecology education. Dilemmas and implications related to identity, pedagogy, and epistemology are discussed. (shrink)

Marcel Proust offered the twentieth century a new psychology of memory and seeing. His novel In Search of Lost Time was written in the modern age of photography and art history. In Looking Back One Learns to See: Marcel Proust and Photography is an intellectual adventure that brings to light Proust’s visual imagination, his visual metaphors, and his photographic resources and imaginings. The book features over 90 illustrations. Mary Bergstein highlights various kinds of photography: daguerreotypes, stereoscopic cards, cartes-de-visite, postcards, book (...) illustrations, and other photographic mediums. Portraiture, medical photography, spirit photography, architectural photography, Orientalism, ethnographic photography, and fin-de-siècle studies of Botticelli, Leonardo, and Vermeer, are considered in terms of Proust’s life and work. The net is cast wide, and each image under discussion has been researched with subtle attention to art, literature, and cultural history. This scholarly study in literature and visual culture will be a delight, too, for general readers who love photography or Proust. Mary Bergstein is professor of History of Art and Visual Culture at the Rhode Island School of Design. She won the 2012 “Courage to Dream” book prize from the American Psychoanalytic Association for, Mirrors of Memory: Freud, Photography, and the History of Art (Cornell 2010). She has published numerous books and articles on art and visual culture from Italian Renaissance sculpture to contemporary photography. (shrink)

This paper summarizes (in German) recent tendencies in the philosophy of the life sciences.

The metrology literature neglects a strong empirical measurement tradition in economics, which is different from the traditions as accounted for by the formalist representational theory of measurement. This empirical tradition comes closest to Mari's characterization of measurement in which he describes measurement results as informationally adequate to given goals. In economics, one has to deal with soft systems, which induces problems of invariance and of self-awareness. It will be shown that in the empirical economic measurement tradition both problems have been (...) on the agenda for a long while, and that the proposed solutions to these problems provide clues for the directions in which one could develop a measurement theory that takes account of soft systems. (shrink)

This article follows the discussion begun by Pierre-Marie Beaude on the distinction between singularity and intention in aesthetics, considered in its relation to theology. If it is admitted that an author really has an intention, this may be perceivably different than a particular expression of singularity. Also, the concept of intention can be considered from an analytical perspective based on linguistic criteria, with intention becoming an intentional state and the substantival proposition an intentional object. Propositional attitudes, particularly the attitude (...) of belief, play a primary role in this perspective. This allows for the consideration of theological discourse as a collection of sentences meant to incite to a transfer of belief. (shrink)

Si je relis de vieilles lettres -- Où placer la liberté ? -- Les lettres -- L'oubli de soi -- L'inégalité des civilisations -- Celle que j'ai cherchée -- Nostalgie -- La patraquerie -- Ma sensibilité -- Les morts -- Les amis -- Le grand philosophe -- Simplifier la vie -- Les héros dans l'histoire -- 1936 -- Maria et Marissou -- Compter pour quelque chose ou pour rien -- Mes peurs -- Laura -- Les yeux -- La tristesse -- (...) La jeune fille -- Le sourire -- La création de soi par soi -- Éva -- Les jeunes filles -- Les garçons -- Les nuits de fête -- La beauté et les classes sociales -- Le plaisir d'enseigner -- Vie réussie et vie heureuse -- Contempler -- Éva (2) -- Ma journée -- Ma grand-mère Marie -- Le "réel" -- Le corps -- L'humilité -- Charles Martel -- Un homme d'État -- Pascal et l'amour -- S'oublier soi-même -- Oncle Urbain -- Les cadeaux -- Mon ressentiment -- L'amour qui empoisonne -- Seize heures par jour -- La cause et la raison -- Eric Weil (1904-1977) -- Maurice Pradines (1874-1958) -- Mon rêve de cette nuit (16 mai 2018) -- L'enfant qui est en moi -- Le matérialisme -- Florette me plaît beaucoup -- Être -- Le bois de la Masse (Aidée Bernard) -- La vérité -- L'amour -- La "création du monde" -- La valeur des systèmes -- La pensée -- Liberté et vérité. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ContributorsMichael Bernard-Donals is the Nancy Hoefs Professor of English, and an affiliate member of the Mosse-Weinstein Center for Jewish Studies, at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. His most recent book is An Introduction to Holocaust Studies: History, Memory, and Representation.Oliver Marchart is a professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Lucerne, Switzerland. He is the author of books on Hannah Arendt (2005) and postfoundational political thought (2007) and coeditor, (...) with Simon Critchley, of Laclau: A Critical Reader (2004).Michèle Richman's research and publications focus primarily on the relations between Georges Bataille and other intellectuals with close ties to the French School of Sociology's founding figures, Emile Durkheim and Marcel Mauss. She is Professor of French Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.Anthony Sampson is a practicing psychoanalyst, member of the École lacanienne de psychanalyse, and teaches in the Institute of Psychology at the University del Valle, Cali, Colombia.An assistant professor of English at East Carolina University, Mikko Tuhkanen has published essays in American Literature, diacritics, African American Review, GLQ, Modern Fiction Studies, and elsewhere.Copyright © 2007 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In the study of organ and tissue transplantation, the focus tends to be on donation. But where there is “giving,” there is also “getting:” receiving help. Altruism, helping behavior, and the exchange of benefits have received extensive attention from social psychological researchers. The gift exchange described by anthropologist Marcel Mauss provides a framework for reviewing this social psychological research on altruism and exchange and applying it to transplantation. An overall conclusion is that altruistic donation is not so ethically or clinically (...) problematic, while receiving help has a complex psychosocial context that needs to be acknowledged and given more attention. (shrink)

Née à Nuremberg dans une famille juive, d’un père allemand et d’une mère suisse, Rita Thalmann fuit avec les siens le régime nazi, dès 1933, se réfugiant d’abord en Suisse puis en France. Ayant perdu son père (arrêté sur dénonciation et déporté à Auschwitz) puis sa mère (internée et morte de carence alimentaire à Dijon), elle survit grâce au réseau de solidarité organisé par la directrice du lycée de jeunes filles de Dijon, Marcelle Pardé, résistante et déportée à Ravensbrück. (...) En 1945, Rita T... (shrink)

Sur la couverture des albums parus aux éditions Delcourt, on peut lire « Marcel Proust, À la recherchedu temps perdu, adaptation et illustrations de Stéphane Heuet ». En affichant ainsi son rôle avec modestie,l’adaptateur-illustrateur réussit à faire endosser à Proust la paternité littéraire d’une BD , ce qui n’est pas rien. Comble d’ironie ou de provocation, la Recherche illustrée par Heuet,c’est Tintin au pays des Guermantes. Dans les cases rectangulaires d’un strip standard au graphisme résolument« ligne claire », ceux qui (...) aiment la phrase proustienne en ses méandres, avec sa lecture au lentcours, découvrent une ligne TGV : Un amour de Swann en deux albums de 517 dessins, au lieu des200 pages en Pléiade. Cette alliance contre-nature est dénoncée par certains défenseurs de la littératurequi y voient une dénaturation de l’oeuvre et par des amoureux de la BD d’auteur qui déplorent une BDsans audace graphique. L’objet de cet article est de répondre à ces deux objections.On the cover of an album series published by Delcourt is written “Marcel Proust, À la recherche du tempsperdu, adaptation and illustrations by Stéphane Heuet”. With such an unassuming announcement of his role,the adaptor-illustrator manages to ascribe the literary paternity of a comic strip to Proust himself, which is no mean feat. And as a final irony or provocation, the “Recherche du temps perdu” illustrated by Heuet becomes “Tintin in the Land of the Guermantes”. As they peruse the rectangularframes of a classic comic strip with their “clear line” graphic style, those who enjoy a leisurely ramblethrough Proust’s meandering paragraphs may well find themselves aboard a high-speed train at full throttle:“Un amour de Swann” in two albums and 517 drawings, instead of 200 pages from the publisher Pléiade. Thisunnatural alliance has been denounced by advocates of literature as a travesty of Proust’s work, and bydevotees of authored comic strips as a work devoid of graphic boldness. This article sets out to answer both ofthese objections. (shrink)

Marcel Beaufils fut un pedagogue exceptionnel qui exerca une influence decisive sur l'evolution de l'esthetique musicale en France, a partir des annees 50. Or, parmi ses ouvrages, Musique du son, musique du verbe est tres certainement celui qui porte le plus fortement la marque de son activite d'enseignant au Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique de Paris ; cette mission, il semblait l'entendre davantage comme celle d'un declencheur d'idees, catalyseur, plutot que du transmetteur d'un savoir fige une fois pour toutes. Bouleversant (...) toute tentative de classification academique, toute certitude acquise, ce livre laisse des pointilles ; un grand souffle traverse son ecriture. N'en deplaise aux musicographes, il s'agit la d'un ouvrage de creation, qui nous rappelle que Marce Beaufils etait egalement un ecrivain qui savait manier le verbe a la fois en tant que dramaturge et en tant que poete. (shrink)

Mary R. Lefkowitz, Greek Gods, Human Lives: What We Can Learn from the Myths, Yale University Press, ISBN - 9780300101454Marcel Detienne, The Writing of Orpheus: Greek Myth in a Cultural Context, Johns Hopkins University Press, ISBN - 9780801869549.

Marie-Magdeleine Davy (1903-1998) était philosophe, écrivaine et maître de recherche au cnrs. Profondément engagée dans la vie intellectuelle de son époque, elle confia ses plus riches pensées à d'innombrables écrits publiés pendant plus d'un demi-siècle. On y croise les figures essentielles de sa méditation : Guillaume de Saint-Thierry, Nicolas Berdiaev, Louis Massignon, Gabriel Marcel, Roger Godel, Henry Corbin, Simone Weil, Henri Le Saux et tant d'autres. Esprit indépendant et non conventionnel, éternelle voyageuse en quête d'absolu, Marie-Magdeleine Davy ne (...) cessa d'affirmer que la connaissance de soi se présente comme une recherche du sens de la Vie, c'est-à-dire une recherche de la Vérité conduisant à une démarche d'intériorité.00± Découvrir sa dimension de profondeur permet de prendre contact avec l'Infini qui est en soi ; ce caractère d'éternité humanise et rend possible la véritable communication avec autrui.? Telle est la conviction de Marie-Magdeleine Davy, après avoir lu, médité et conversé avec des hommes et des femmes en Orient et en Occident.00Pour beaucoup d'Européens, Marie-Magdeleine Davy aura été un témoin de la dimension d'intériorité que tout être porte en lui, une preuve vivante de cet aspect autre de la vie capable de donner un sens au monde et à l'Histoire. ± Une grande dame.? C'est ainsi que les Deux-Sévriens qui l'ont connue l'appellent encore. Ses archives, désormais classées, apportent un éclairage nouveau sur une œuvre et une pensée s'adressant à tous ceux qui sont soucieux de répondre à leur destin. (shrink)

Expecting Saving Mr. Banks to be a jolly jaunt about the creative development of the movie Mary Poppins (1964), I found myself waiting endlessly for the “jolliness” to begin—it never did. In fact, rather than joy, there was an ever-present sensation of tension as I watched the film. Having moved house myself in recent days (during a Queensland heat wave), the scenes of the Goff family leaving their home and trekking across hot, dusty Queensland were very emotional. However, seeing the (...) family patriarch Travers Goff (played by Colin Farrell) swig from an alcohol flask in a desperate manner told me that his was no “routine” family move. And, certainly, arriving at their destination—a dilapidated ranch home—shed even more light on the Goff family’s predicament: alcoholism and the cycle of employment and unemployment. Further, it is the downstream consequences of the family predicament that fuel the identity and behaviour of Mary Poppins—a fictional character created by Travers’ daughter, a. (shrink)

Preface to Volumes 1 and 2 Lorenz Krüger xv Introduction to Volume 1 Lorraine J. Daston 1 I Revolution 1 What Are Scientific Revolutions? Thomas S. Kuhn 7 2 Scientific Revolutions, Revolutions in Science, and a Probabilistic Revolution 1800-1930 I. Bernard Cohen 23 3 Was There a Probabilistic Revolution 1800-1930? Ian Hacking 45 II Concepts 4 The Slow Rise of Probabilism: Philosophical Arguments in the Nineteenth Century Lorenz Krüger 59 5 The Decline of the Laplacian Theory of Probability: A Study (...) of Stumpf, von Kries, and Meinong Andreas Kamlah 91 6 Fechner’s Indeterminism: From Freedom to Laws of Chance Michael Heidelberger 117 7 The Saint Petersburg Paradox 1713-1937 Gerard Jorland 157 8 Laplace and Thereafter: The Status of Probability Calculus in the Nineteenth Century Ivo Schneider 191 9 Emile Borel as a Probabilist Eberhard Knobloch 215 III Uncertainty 10 The Domestication of Risk: Mathematical Probability and Insurance 1650-1830 237 11 The Objectification of Observation: Measurement and Statistical Methods in the Nineteenth Century Zeno G. Swijtink 261 12 The Measurement of Uncertainty in Nineteenth-Century Social Science Stephen M. Stigler 287 IV Society 13 Rational Individuals versus Laws of Society: From Probability to Statistics Lorraine J. Daston 295 14 Decrire, Compter, Calculer: The Debate over Statistics during the Napoleonic Period Marie-Noelle Bourguet 305 15 Probability in Vital and Social Statistics: Quetelet, Farr, and the Bertillons Bernard-Pierre Lécuyer 317 16 Paupers and Numbers: The Statistical Argument for Social Reform in Britain during the Period of Industrialization Karl H. Metz 337 17 Lawless Society: Social Science and the Reinterpretation of Statistics in Germany, 1850-1880 Theodore M. Porter 351 18 Prussian Numbers 1860-1882 Ian Hacking 377 19 How Do Sums Count? On the Cultural Origins of Statistical Causality M. Norton Wise 395. (shrink)

Physicists regularly invoke universal laws, such as those of motion and electromagnetism, to explain events. Biological and medical scientists have no such laws. How then do they acquire a reliable body of knowledge about biological organisms and human disease? One way is by repeatedly returning to, manipulating, observing, interpreting, and reinterpreting certain subjects—such as flies, mice, worms, or microbes—or, as they are known in biology, “model systems.” Across the natural and social sciences, other disciplinary fields have developed canonical examples that (...) have played a role comparable to that of biology’s model systems, serving not only as points of reference and illustrations of general principles or values but also as sites of continued investigation and reinterpretation. The essays in this collection assess the scope and function of model objects in domains as diverse as biology, geology, and history, attending to differences between fields as well as to epistemological commonalities. Contributors examine the role of the fruit fly Drosophila and nematode worms in biology, troops of baboons in primatology, box and digital simulations of the movement of the earth’s crust in geology, and meteorological models in climatology. They analyze the intensive study of the prisoner’s dilemma in game theory, ritual in anthropology, the individual case in psychoanalytic research, and Athenian democracy in political theory. The contributors illuminate the processes through which particular organisms, cases, materials, or narratives become foundational to their fields, and they examine how these foundational exemplars—from the fruit fly to Freud’s Dora—shape the knowledge produced within their disciplines. Contributors Rachel A. Ankeny Angela N. H. Creager Amy Dahan Dalmedico John Forrester Clifford Geertz Carlo Ginzburg E. Jane Albert Hubbard Elizabeth Lunbeck Mary S. Morgan Josiah Ober Naomi Oreskes Susan Sperling Marcel Weber M. Norton Wise. (shrink)

André Comte-Sponville livre ici vingt-six études d’histoire de la philosophie, portant principalement sur les traditions tragique et matérialiste, depuis l’Ecclésiaste jusqu’à Marcel Conche, en passant par Montaigne, Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Spinoza, La Mettrie, Jean-Marie Guyau, Nietzsche et Alain. La préface propose une longue analyse de la notion de tragique. L’auteur y prend au sérieux ce que la littérature et la vie nous apprennent : que le tragique a à voir avec le malheur, mais réel plutôt que possible (par différence (...) avec le «suspense») et nécessaire plutôt que contingent (par différence avec le drame). Loin d’être l’affirmation joyeuse de tout, comme le voulait Nietzsche, le tragique est plutôt la prise en compte inconsolée de ce qu’il y a de catastrophique dans la condition humaine : la mort, la solitude, l’insatisfaction – trois formes de la finitude, qui ne sont tragiques que par la conscience, en l’homme, d’un infini au moins pensable. La conclusion, elle aussi fort développée, montre que le matérialisme, s’il est rigoureux, se doit d’être une pensée tragique, c’est-à-dire aporétique, déceptive, inconsolée. Et qu’une sagesse qui se sait insuffisante et insatisfaite (une sagesse tragique) vaut mieux, de ce point de vue, que la suffisance d’une sagesse prétendument satisfaite. Cela amène à prendre quelque distance avec Epicure, Spinoza, Nietzsche et Marx. Et à se trouver plus proche de Lucrèce, de Montaigne ou du dernier Althusser. (shrink)

La grande littérature française, de Marcel Proust à Michel Houellebecq, avec les chefs d'oeuvre d'André Gide, Samuel Beckett, Nathalie Sarraute, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Jean Giraudoux, Eugène Ionesco, Marguerite Yourcenar, Bernard-Marie Koltès, ou Enzo Cormann, reflète la condition humaine dans le monde des valeurs stables et celui de la modernité liquide décrite par Bauman. Ses interrogations concernent l'homme, confronté à l'Histoire, en proie au doute sur le Moi aussi bien que sur les religions.

The body may be the object we know the best. It is the only object from which we constantly receive a flow of information through sight and touch; and it is the only object we can experience from the inside, through our proprioceptive, vestibular, and visceral senses. Yet there have been very few books that have attempted to consolidate our understanding of the body as it figures in our experience and self-awareness. This volume offers an interdisciplinary and comprehensive treatment of (...) bodily self-awareness, the first book to do so since the landmark 1995 collection The Body and the Self, edited by José Bermúdez, Naomi Eilan, and Anthony Marcel. Since 1995, the study of the body in such psychological disciplines as cognitive psychology, cognitive neuroscience, psychiatry, and neuropsychology has advanced dramatically, accompanied by a resurgence of philosophical interest in the significance of the body in our mental life. The sixteen specially commissioned essays in this book reflect the advances in these fields. The book is divided into three parts, each part covering a topic central to an explanation of bodily self-awareness: representation of the body; the sense of bodily ownership; and representation of the self. ContributorsAdrian Alsmith, Brianna Beck, José Luis Bermúdez, Anna Berti, Alexandre Billon, Andrew J. Bremner, Lucilla Cardinali, Tony Cheng, Frédérique de Vignemont, Francesca Fardo, Alessandro Farnè, Carlotta Fossataro, Shaun Gallagher, Francesca Garbarini, Patrick Haggard, Jakob Hohwy, Matthew R. Longo, Tamar Makin, Marie Martel, Melvin Mezue, John Michael, Christopher Peacocke, Lorenzo Pia, Louise Richardson, Alice C. Roy, Manos Tsakiris, Hong Yu Wong. (shrink)

"Dans ses conférences annuelles à l'Université du Québec à Montréal, le philosophe flamand Jacques De Visscher dessine des figures de l'hospitalité à partir de lectures phénoménologiques d'oeuvres littéraires (Samuel Beckett, Albert Cohen, Franz Kafka, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clézio, Paul van Ostaijen, Georges Perec, Marcel Proust) dans lesquelles il porte une attention particulière à la mise en scène architecturale, à la corporéité et à l'enracinement des choses dans notre monde ambiant. Il tente ainsi de nous prémunir d'une aliénation et d'un (...) déracinement qui appauvrissent nos relations avec autrui et notre être-au-monde."--From publisher's website. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 121.2 (2000) 179-211 [Access article in PDF] Gifts of Humiliation: Charis and Tragic Experience In Alcestis Mark Padilla Charis is always what bears charis. (Soph. Aj. 522) Not for many does charis breed charis. (Anaxandrides fr. 69 PCG II) A gift that does nothing to enhance solidarity is a contradiction. --Mary Douglas on Marcel Mauss Whether or not in the spring of 438 B.C.E. Euripides (...) anticipated that his festival audience would find his production of Alcestis to be a thought-provoking pro-satyr play, its twentieth-century "readerly audiences" most certainly have. The play has prompted a steady stream of critical studies on a broad range of themes and issues. The trends in the most recent century's approaches to Alcestis are not necessarily tidy, but one critic has summarized them as having three movements: interest prior to World War I in the play's lighter, comic elements; emphasis on Euripides' use of folktale elements, beginning in the 1920s; and exploration of the play's more sinister elements since World War II. 1My analysis here references this scholarly tradition in the service of an ethical-sociological reading focused on the issue of "charis," a theme interwoven in the play's complex narrative levels of irony and fairy tale, tragedy and satyr drama, and dark and light characterization. I argue that it is possible to view Alcestis' offer to die for Admetus as a kind of gift, a gift that in turn effectively devalues the kinds of gifts Admetus [End Page 179] is able to give. In his attempts to restore the efficacy of his own level of traditional aristocratic gift giving, he is driven to extremes. He offers not to remarry; misleads Heracles about the death of his wife; and renounces his father. These acts, however, further lower his standing. Admetus' attendance at the funeral and homecoming then lead to an experience of tragic understanding, an anagnorisis that offers him perspective on the relative merits of his honor code and complicates the reconciliation scene at the play's end.Charis and Gift Giving Charis has a root meaning of "something which delights" (cf. khairo). In usage, charis more typically conveys two ideas: a "favor" that one does for another, and a feeling of "gratitude" that one has for receiving a favor. 2 The term thus lends itself to a sociological inquiry involving the cultural logic of "gift giving." For example, as part of a study of violent social relations in the context of honor/shame societies, William Miller has discussed the problem of "requiting the unwanted gift." Another member of the recipient's society may have chosen to give him such a gift not in the spirit of generosity but, on the contrary, as a way to shame him, providing him, as it were, with a "gift of humiliation." 3The notion of gift giving as a sociological institution was pioneered by Marcel Mauss. Working within a framework formulated by Emile Durkheim, Mauss posited the idea that gift giving is not identified with "charity," for it typically implies the expectation by both giver and recipient of a return gift; more importantly, gifts belong to a larger dynamic that establishes social rank and assigns identity. 4 The sociologist [End Page 180] Pierre Bourdieu has argued that in gift-exchange cultures, individuals who offer gifts think simultaneously on two levels of engagement: they give in a fashion that serves to exploit and dominate the recipient, yet their words and posture can convey altruism and concern. Bourdieu has been criticized for universalizing observations made during fieldwork among the Kabyle in Africa; but his principle that primitive honor societies lack institutional means for economic relationships, and that individuals thus employ elaborate schemes of manipulating codes of honor to further their needs and ambitions, 5 speaks to the heart of the social logic which Euripides' Alcestis thematizes and renders theatrical. 6 [End Page 181]This reading of the play thus follows the work of other classical scholars who have analyzed the dynamics of gift exchange in Greek society... (shrink)

Die Magie ist zum akzeptablen Forschungsgegenstand geworden, auch in den Altertumswissenschaften. Dabei hat A. LOTZ den magischen Bereich als ihren Untersuchungsgegenstand eingeschränkt: zeitlich auf die Spätantike (genauer das 4. bis Anfang 7. Jh.), räumlich auf die östliche Mittelmeerwelt (S. 7), thematisch auf die Magie als Element sozialer Konfliktsituationen, „während deren Eskalation der Vorwurf der Zauberei erhoben wird“ (S. 6). Dabei sollen nach Marcel Mauss „Magie und Verbot in einem Verhältnis wechselseitiger Bedingung stehen“ (S. 3) – im Zentrum des Interesses steht (...) somit eine „passive Magie“, die Magie als „gesellschaftliche Ideologie“ und der „Magievorwurf“ (S. 43). L. stellt ihre Einschätzung des Magischen selbst in eine Tradition, für die, neben Marcel Mauss, noch Evans-Pritchard (Magie als Erklärung von Unglücksfällen) und vorab Peter Brown zu nennen sind (S. 44 f. und passim). Dazu ist von Bedeutung die vielbesprochene rechtshistorische Untersuchung von Marie Theres Fögen, denn auch die Arbeit von L. ist stark auf die rechtliche Einordnung und Behandlung des Magischen ausgerichtet. Favorisiert wird eine „streng gesellschaftliche Erklärung von Magie“, und dabei sei eine „Leerstelle“ in Kauf zu nehmen (47) – womit offensichtlich die ‘Innenansicht’ des Magischen und seine Funktionsträger, die Magier selbst, gemeint sind. (shrink)

In this article, I will discuss Aron Gurwitsch's criticism of Edmund Husserl's theory of hyletic data. First, Husserl’s doctrine will be summarized in its earliest complete formulation. It will then be seen that Gurwitsch's problem with this doctrine is primarily due to his acceptance of gestalt theoretic organization. He conceives of hyletic data as being a kind of formless stuff that undergoes organiza-tion by morphetic components of the noesis, which represents a dualism in percep-tion. Instead, Gurwitsch wants to show us (...) that the organization of these contents is autochthonous. I will consider Gurwitsch's criticism against Husserl's own writings, and especially those that were not available to Gurwitsch. It will be seen that Husserl continues to develop this doctrine and that it very interestingly undergoes a kind of noematization and exhibits certain displays of autochthonous organization that in the end are not far from Gurwitsch's own conception of these affairs.Este artículo versará sobre la crítica de Aron Gurwitsch de los data hylé-ticos de Edmund Husserl. En primer lugar, se resumirá la doctrina de Husserl en su primera formulación completa. A continuación, se verá que el problema de Gur-witsch con esta doctrina se debe principalmente a su aceptación de la organización teórica de la Gestalt. Él concibe los data hyléticos como una especie de material amorfo que se somete a organización por los componentes de morphé de la noesis, lo que representa un dualismo en la percepción. En cambio, Gurwitsch quiere mos-trarnos que la organización de estos contenidos es autóctona. Se examinará la críti-ca de Gurwitsch acerca de los escritos del propio Husserl y especialmente de aque-llos que no estuvieron al alcance de Gurwitsch. Se verá que Husserl sigue desarro-llando esta doctrina y que curiosamente sufre una especie de noematización y muestra ciertas manifestaciones de organización autóctona que, a la postre, no están lejos de la concepción gurwitscheana de estos asuntos. (shrink)

The Liber Manualis is a distinctive guidebook to conduct and survival in tumultuous times written by a Carolingian mother for her adolescent son. This edition provides a complete translation in English, accompanied by the Latin original. Advancing views of Dhuoda's individuality and mindset, her possible models and intended readership, the introduction places her handbook within the context of French and Germanic literary traditions. Explanatory references illuminate the life and work of this remarkable and well-educated ninth-century woman. Often called the first (...) Western treatise of childhood education, the Liber Manualis forefronts the name and voice of a courageous mother, whose moral position remains unique in a patriarchal society. (shrink)