Summary Among the whole burden of the written sources dealing with the urban appearance of Ptolemaic and Roman Alexandria, five or six ancient authors give us precious information which could finally offer a lead to the reconstruction of the monumental center of Alexandria: 1) Strabo, 2) Diodorus, 3) Zenobius, 4) Achilles Tatius, 5) Pseudo-Libanius and 6) Pseudo-Callisthenes. Nowadays, the written testimonia concerning the historical topography of Alexandria are severely withstanding to a hypercritical treatment, to a disapproval instead of a reappraisal.Tkazcow (...) 2013, 687: The reconstruction of the topography of the city in the Ptolemaic and Early Roman Periods was, for a long time, based exclusively on Strabo's description ; the critic is moved against Adriani 1966 and Fraser 1972, 13–34; McKenzie 2007. Yet, there is no other way to solve the puzzle of the monumental center of Ptolemaic Alexandria, but to explain the thinking behind what the ancient authors, principally Strabo, may have seen in Alexandria as eyewitnesses. (shrink)

Theodore Metochites’ Aristotelian paraphrases (c. 1312), covering all 40 books of the Stagirite’s extant works on natural philosophy, constitute one of the major achievements of late Byzantine learning. This volume offers the first critical edition of Metochites’ paraphrases of the three books of the De anima, accompanied by an introduction and an English translation with an apparatus of parallel passages in Aristotle’s ancient commentators. The first part of the introduction presents and evaluates the sources for the text, consisting of thirteen (...) Greek manuscripts, a 15th-century Greek epitome and a 16th-century Latin translation. The genealogical relationships between these are established on the basis of separative and conjunctive errors, identified, inter alia, through critical discussions of more than 300 passages. The second part of the introduction discusses the nature, purpose and sources of the paraphrases as well as several linguistic questions with implications for editing and translating the text. The third part of the introduction sets out the principles of this edition and translation. (shrink)

The article proposes a re-interpretation of the shoreless seascape through a concept the author terms ‘aimlessness’. This concept can function as a hybrid metaphor suitable for investigating the failures of human transcendence. Essentially, every multidisciplinary practice in contemporary artistic, technological and scientific culture is a series of failed geopolitical setbacks. Related actions may well be reversed, interrupted or even recalled at any time with new acquisitions, discoveries or experiments. The understanding of the sea as a theatrical stage can offer spatial (...) observatory mechanisms for decentred perspectives in order to decipher and invent contemporary notions and symbols that are floating into this hydro forest. The article develops a critical reflection based on a series of sea-oriented artworks. Drawing on the ubiquity of the water, these artworks – through representational and performative actions of drifting and floating – examine the concept of aimless floatation. Through an analysis of artistic methodologies interacting with water, the text offers a series of reflections on how such actions become performative, playful and open to unexpected circumstances that lie on the surface or the depths of the water world. (shrink)

Our purpose in this paper is to bring about a new meaning of the term λόγοϛ used in the fragments of Heraclitus' work. In ancient Greek literature this term hasmany different meanings. We are going to restrict our interest in those meanings that Heraclitus used in his fragments, where the term λόγοϛ appears ten times.

Name der Zeitschrift: Byzantinische Zeitschrift Jahrgang: 107 Heft: 1 Seiten: 1-36.

Focussing on the thirteenth-century endings of Byzantine writings against the Latin innovation of the Filioque, the present study aims, on the basis of the work De processione Spiritus sancti (1283), to provide the reader with an insight into the nature of the Orthodox argumentation refuting the Filioque. The work was until now attributed to Gregorios Kyprios Patriarch of Konstantinople (1283–1289). However, it is not a product of his pen, but a compiled version of his earlier work, the “Antirrheticos against Bekkos”. (...) Throughout the study the writer follows step by step Kyprios' reasoning and tries to control the validity and soundness of the arguments advanced, making at the same time specific references to the patristic and philosophical background of Kyprios' thinking. The study shows beyond any doubt that Kyprios is indebted to his predecessors, mostly to the Cappadocians and Dionysius Areopagites, and that he argues on the same line of reasoning with them in respect to the idea of the “Monarchy” of the Father, of the incommunicable of hypostatic properties, and of the possibility of beings to be in communion with God only through the divine energies. On the ground of these three fundamental ideas, a procession of the Spirit also from the Son is categorically rejected. Only the mission of the Spirit (what is implied here, are the gifts of the Spirit and not the Spirit itself) into the world through the Son is acceptable. (shrink)

Theodore Metochites, a distinguished figure in the intellectual and political landscape of the early Palaiologan period (1261-1341), was born in Constantinople in 1270. The On Morals or Concerning Education is an extensive disquisition about the significance and status of cultural education (paideia) in the context of Palaiologan society. The oration might also be seen at least partly as an autobiographical narrative exposing Metochites's inner reflections and anxieties. The On Morals belongs to the genre of the protreptikos, a hortatory speech designed (...) to encourage its readers to study philosophy and attain virtue. With the On Morals Metochites sought to establish himself as a continuator of ancient moral philosophy in late Byzantium. (shrink)

Research in recent history has neglected to address the moral foundations of particular kinds of public policy such as the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs). On the one hand, nation-states have enforced a tightening of the IPR system. On the other, only recently have national government and international institutions recognised that the moral justification for stronger IPRs protection is far from being plausible and cannot be taken for granted. In this article, IPRs are examined as individual rights founded upon (...) natural law, personality development, just reward and social utility. It is argued that these foundations cannot be philosophically sustained. IPRs constitute morally indefensible political developments which aim to reproduce the capitalist division of knowledge and labour at national, international and global levels. The need for such a critical approach to the moral foundations of IPRs has increased in importance as a consequence of their role in justifying corporate power, globalisation policies and harmonisation of such. (shrink)

Das Spekulative fällt nach Hegel mit dem absoluten Verhältnis als dem im Differenten sich beziehenden Logos zusammen. Es ist das Sich-Zeigen des Logos, das zugleich mit seinem unendlichen Bestimmen ein und dasselbe ist. Die damit angesprochene Offenbarkeit der absoluten Bestimmtheit ist deren eigenes Erkennen als die Unendlichkeit, in welcher sie das Affirmative des Inhalts aus der absoluten Tätigkeit ihres Sich-selbst-an-ihren-Momenten- Darstellens hervorbringt. Dem Hegelschen Begriff des Spekulativen entspricht insofern ein totales In-Beziehung-Sein, das zunächst Unmittelbarkeit, dann Besonderung derselben durch die Verknüpfung (...) ihrer selbst mit der eigenen ideellen Tätigkeit und schließlich Selbstaneignung des Sich-Beziehens, Erkennen ist, das als die eigentliche Methode des Anundfürsichseins sich mit sich selbst vermittelt. Die Theoria ist dann die logische Sicht, unter der die Rückkehr des Logos in sein Selbstsein gedacht ist, aber sie ist zugleich die Manifestation dieses Selbstseins. In der Seinigkeit des Logos aber entsteht die Substanz, was bedeutet: das Sich zueigen-Sein, die Präsenz des Im-Eigenen-Anwesens des Logos. (shrink)

The conception of “prospective potency” was defined by its author H.Driesch as “the sum of the possible modes of development of a given part of the embryo”. However, in the language of science the word “potency” usually means “power”, not “possibility”. Therefore this conception from the beginning possessed a certain ambiguity, that it retained up to the present. The distinction of “active” and “passive” potency, introduced by Roux, has found no general acceptance. It appeared necessary to submit the conception of (...) “potency” to a profound analysis. In the first place it is shown, that the ambiguity of this conception vanishes, if we understand by the word “potency” those fundamental properties of the embryonic material, that are responsible for its various developmental possibilities. We can distinguish among these properties the “reactive powers”, by which the embryonic material reacts to inductive stimulations, and its own “developmental tendencies”. These faculties only differ by their strength; a “reactive power” may change into a “tendency”, when its intensity increases during development; conversely, a “tendency” may change into a mere “reactive power” by a decrease of its strength. The determination of the material results from the conflict of its tendencies. The inductive actions interfere by strengthening or weakening different tendencies, and by activating new tendencies by reinforcement of the “reactive powers” of the embryonic material. (shrink)

Das ältere Mittelindisch im Überblick. Oskar von Hinüber. 2., erweiterte Auflage Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Vienna 2001. 344 pp. €45.10. ISBN 3-7001-0761-7.

Αντικείμενο της παρούσας μελέτης είναι η ταύτιση του οικοδομήματος γνωστότερου με το όνομα «naïsque ionique», που βρίσκεται στην βόρεια πλευρά της επονομαζόμενης Αγοράς των Ερμαϊστών ή Αγοράς των Κομπεταλιαστών. Ο αρχιτεκτονικός τύπος της μνημειακής κόγχης, ομοιά- ζων με πρόσοψη ναού, η παρουσία στο σηκό δύο μικρών βάσεων ιδίων διαστάσεων, καθώς επίσης η τοποθέτηση του ναίσκου σε θέση προπύλαιας λατρείας στο συγκεκριμένο αυτό χώρο, όπου συγκλίνουν τουλάχιστον τέσσερις οδοί, αποτελούν στοιχεία που εμφανίζουν ομοιότητες με ανάλογες μνημειακές και χωροταξικές διαρρυθμίσεις στη Ρώμη (...) και μας επιτρέπουν να αναγνωρίσουμε στο ναίσκο της Δήλου μια λατινική aedicula, αφιερωμένη από τους Ερμαϊστές - Mercuriales στους προστάτες θεούς των σταυροδρομιών (compila), τους απεικονιζόμενους ως δίδυμους αδελφούς Lares Compilâtes. Στη συνέχεια εκθέτονται σκέψεις και υποθέσεις σχετικά με τη νομική φύση, τη δομή και τη λειτουργία των collegia και των magistri στη Δήλο. (shrink)

This book raises in a new way a central question of Christology: what is the divine motive for the incarnation? Throughout Christian history a majority of Western theologians have agreed that God's decision to become incarnate in the person of Jesus Christ was made necessary by "the Fall": if humans had not sinned, the incarnation would not have happened. This position is known as "infralapsarian." A minority of theologians however, including some major 19th- and 20th-century theological figures, championed a "supralapsarian" (...) Christology, arguing that God has always intended the incarnation, independent of "the Fall." Edwin Chr. van Driel offers the first scholarly monograph to map and analyze the full range of supralapsarian arguments. He gives a thick description of each argument and its theological consequences, and evaluates the theological gains and losses inherent in each approach. Van Driel shows that each of the three ways in which God is thought to relate to all that is not God -- in creation, in redemption, and in eschatological consummation -- can serve as the basis for a supralapsarian argument. He illustrates this thesis with detailed case studies of the Christologies of Schleiermacher, Dorner, and Barth. He concludes that the most fruitful supralapsarian strategy is rooted in the notion of eschatological consummation, taking interpersonal interaction with God to be the goal of the incarnation. He goes on to develop his own argument along these lines, concluding in an eschatological vision in which God is visually, audibly, and tangibly present in the midst of God's people. (shrink)