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"Serc starania stracone" - szekspirowskie libretto Wystana Hugh Audena i Chestera Kallmana

Author(s): Tomasz Kowalski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 13-14/2009

The article deals with the most significant changes the authors introduced in order to adapt the Shakespearean play to operatic requirements, e.g. reducing the number of characters, ascribing new parts to some of the characters remaining or balancing female and male voices on stage. An analysis is made here also of the flow of time inscribed in the libretto and the significance of the scene when the messenger comes to the Princess, saying that the King of France is dead. Their symbolism is interpreted with the additional contexts that were provided by W.H. Auden’s lecture on Love’s Labour’s Lost, which are: court love, court manners, euphuism and the Platonic philosophy and its continuations. This philosophical context allowed both poets to read the play as a process of gaining knowledge of life and feelings which the King of Navarre and his courtiers had declared to study in their academy, but never succeeded.

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A „személyes daimón” elképzelésének alakulása Platóntól Iamblichosig

Author(s): Ibolya Tóth / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 1/2014

In Greek philosophy, the idea of a “personal daimon” accompanying man throughout his life first appears in Plato’s writings. By examination of the relevant passages of the Platonic corpus we find that this idea has undergone major changes even within Plato’s philosophy. However, the basic motif remained the same: the personal daimon’s role is to lead one to his fate. Plato’s heirs felt the need of harmonizing their master’s different conceptions which at certain points seem to contradict each other. In my study, I shall investigate the works dealing with the idea of personal daimon all of which are from Middle- and Neoplatonic authors. These texts show that each era has its unique concept of personal daimon characteristic to it: in Middle Platonism, the personal daimon is intertwined with the idea of Socrates’ daimonion and it has become some kind of reward for a virtuous life, while in Neoplatonism it helps the soul in its quest for salvation.

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A Comparative Analysis of the Concept of Implication in Some Contemporary Logical Systems and Their Origins in Antiquity

Author(s): Doroteya Angelova / Language(s): English,Bulgarian / Issue: 1/2017

This article examines the main characteristics of the concepts of implication in relevant, connexive and paraconsistent logics and discusses the origins of these concepts in Antiquity. It is made a comparative analysis between the meaning of this connective in the three logics in regard to their correspondence to the conditional “if…., then….” used in natural language and presents arguments that the notion of implication, proposed by relevant logic, provides the most adequate formal explication of the conditional connective in the mentioned sense.

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A démokritosi atomok mozgásának problémája Cicerónál

Author(s): Csilla Szekeres / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 1/2007

A De finibus bonorum et malorum I. könyvében a következőket olvashatjuk Démokritos természetfilozófiájáról: „[Démokritos] úgy gondolja, hogy az általa atomoknak nevezett részecskék, azaz a tömörségük miatt oszthatatlan testek úgy mozognak a végtelen űrben, amelyben nincs sem legfelső, sem legalsó, sem középső, sem legutolsó, sem legszélső, hogy az összeütközések következtében összekapcsolódnak egymással.” A concursio szó egyértelműen nem meghatározott irányú mozgást fejez ki: az atomok rendezetlen mozgásuk eredményeként ütköznek össze. A folytatás is ezt az értelmezést látszik alátámasztani, mely szerint a következő melléfogás kizárólag Epikurosé: „Tudniillik azt gondolja, hogy ezek az oszthatatlan és tömör testek saját súlyuknál fogva egy egyenes vonal mentén lefelé hullanak, és ez valamennyi test természetes mozgása”. Következésképpen a démokritosi atomok nem esnek lefelé egy egyenes vonal mentén és értelemszerűen nincsen súlyuk, vagy ha van is, ez nem oka a mozgásuknak.

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A könnyűség súlya, avagy Philétas cipői

Author(s): Elvira Pataki / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 2/2009

Present-day knowledge about Philetas, the first poietes-grammatikos is extremely scant. According to the only information, which seems rather irrelevant, and which was transmitted by late authors, the poet was extremely thin as a result of his laborious poetical activity. In certain sources (Aelian, Athenaeus) the motif of thinness is completed by a bizarre note: the artist, a leptoteros, had to wear lead weights on his feet against the force of winds. The adjective describing his figure cannot be separated of the primordial aesthetical notion of lepton, and it may suggest a poetological interpretation. In order to support this possibility, the article sheds light on a zoological paradox of Aelien which mentions the peculiar habit of bees, light and musical animals and strenuous gleaners of flowers, who carry stones as counterweight against the winds. The implicit image of a poet as a bee is a traditional metaphor with sacral connotations in the Greek literature, which reappears in the Hellenism. The association of the Coan poet with the bees would fit well into the tradition about the poetry and the creative style of Philetas. He was known to have an ardent interest in the natural sciences (periergos), therefore among his poetical and glossographical fragments more than one item concerning hive, bougony, honey can be found. According to reconstructions, the melissa could have had an important role in his Demeter. On the other hand, the critical announcements of Callimachus and Theocritus on Philetas’ poetry employ the same metapoetical imagery of nature (see the rivalry of the locust and the frog in the 7 Idyll, the opposition of the ear and the oak in the Prologue of the Aitia). The best known work of Philetas, the poem of the alder which is considered as a selfportrait, is based on this as well. Accordingly, the representation of the poet in the anecdote has poetological allusions through the motifs of the slenderness and the counterweights.

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A sztoikusok és az állatok: Húsevés vagy vegetarianizmus?

Author(s): Balázs Gaál / Language(s): Hungarian / Issue: 2/2014

On the views of Stoic philosophers on animals and vegetarianism no specific study has been written so far. Th e reason for this may be the fact that the Stoics had not paid much attention to animals in themselves. In the center of Stoic philosophy we find man and his intimate relationship to the gods. However, man himself belongs to the class of beings “endowed with soul”, like animals, and shares a common starting point with animals, but when “reason” comes to be developed in his soul, man’s aim is shifted to a higher level: from seeking the fulfillment of the first requirements of nature to virtue. In this study, I wish to have a closer look at the Stoics’ attitude to animals on the basis of ancient Greek and Roman sources, with special regard to eating meat and vegetarianism. In the first part, I shall discuss the epistemological distinction of the Stoics between animal and human soul. In the second part, I shall treat such subjects as the ontological status of animals, providence and teleology. Throughout my analysis, I hope it will become clear that behind the admirable efforts of the Stoics to create a perfect unity in their system, there are grave contradictions which are characteristic of all systems that try to give a single and uniform explanation to the world’s phenomena.

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Accidentalism in Aristotle? Poetics and Ontology

Author(s): Walter Seitter / Language(s): English / Issue: 61/2016

My reading of Aristotle’s Poetics focuses on what Aristotle calls the “mythos” of the tragedy. By “mythos” he doesn’t understand the content of the Greek tragedies: family-related stories of Orestes and Electra, of Oedipus and Antigone ... but the precise scenario constructed by the poet, id est the “plot”. And Aristotle postulates that in the plot of a well conceived tragedy the causal role not only of gods, but also of human actors should be reduced. Th e strong unity of the tragic action (praxis) should result in a close connection of the partial situations, events, turning points. In this sense the substantial agents should be ousted by the “accidents” (Aristotle calls them “pragmata”). Th is artifi cially unifi ed plot should be the “soul” of the tragedy – thus becoming a souled entity, just as a fascinating animal: a new substance.

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Acedia jako rozpacz człowieka pozbawionego dumy

Author(s): Maciej Slawomir Kostyra / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 60/2015

This study investigated acedia in existential and moral contexts, using its descriptions from antiquity through the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, modern and postmodern times. I have chosen to work with six definitions of acedia. These are: carelessness of heart (the Bible), narcissism (Evagrius of Ponticus), contradiction in will (St. Augustine), sluggishness of the mind which neglects to begin good (St. Thomas, Summa Theologica,II.2.q 35.1), demonic despair of will to be oneself (Søren Kierkegaard), and self-contempt (Jean-Luc Marion). My approach is inspired by philosophical investigations of Evagrius, St. Augustine, St. Thomas, Kierkegaard, and Marion. As we shall see, it is impossible to draw a clear line between carnal and spiritual issues of acedia. Contrary to common opinion, interconnections between acedia and sloth are multilayered and complex, yet the nature and significance of this relationship is incomprehensible for contemporary psychologists who try to turn the attention away from acedia’s dialectical nature. Hence I emphasize that acedia always concerns both carnal and spiritual (not only mental) disorders. If we look at this from the point of view of St. Thomas, we will see that acedia is contrasted to love, not to accuracy. Sloth is evil because it denotes blame worthy sorrow for spiritual good. Seven capital vices relate to the consequences of improper human activity but acedia refers to the condition of people who are unable to perform their social duties, want to do nothing and avoid undertaking moral challenges in the world because of their laziness, passivity, weakness of will, indecision, cowardice. A certain weariness in working, shortage of esteem, contempt for virtuous people are main symptoms of acedia. Oppressive acedia’s sorrow is an inner consequence of being saddened about the good things. Acedia is associated with long-standing frustration of desire. The paper discusses some philosophical and educational strategies for helping to overcome acedia as an evil in appetitive movements.

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Adverbi un prepozīcijas: gramatizēšanās liecības sengrieķu valodā

Author(s): Gita Berzina / Language(s): Latvian / Issue: 2/2012

The article deals with the earliest evidences of grammaticalization in the European text tradition, namely, with the grammaticalization of adverbs and prepositions in the Ancient Greek texts of Homeric Epic. The author analyzes varied facts concerning different stages of grammaticalization of these linguistic units in the language of Homeric Iliad and Odyssey. Concurrent evidences manifest the functioning of the Classical Greek prepositions as adverbs as well as the process of their further development when prepositions connect more tightly with the oblique cases of nouns, or, on the contrary, unite with verbs to form compounds (prefix-verbs).The author observes also the problems concerning the unambiguous understanding of the mentioned linguistic units (adverbs/prepositions/prefixes) in the process of grammaticalization.

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Aitia – wina arystotelesowska. Zagadnienia definicyjne. Część I

Author(s): Waldemar Gontarski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 2/2012

When engaging in polemics with Pythagoras, Aristotle observed that the retributive function of punishment, as distinguished from the preventative one, does not involve revenge understood as material retaliation (i.e. suffering for suffering, meaning retaliation proportional to the damage suffered). It does not encompass a simple reciprocity, such as suffering in turn (ἀντιπάσχω), but instead shall be considered as a just reciprocity, meaning doing in return (ἀντιποιέω), whereby the degree of mental contribution is taken into account. The classical theory of responsibility, at least under the meaning assigned to it by Aristotle, considers human responsibility by means of reference to the mental capabilities of the actor in respect to the particular harmful action. An action involving human guilt is consequently contrasted with an accidentally caused action. In the works of Stagirite the mental attitude of the actor towards his action distinguishes human causation from the accidental one and from the forced one. Pythagoras, on the other hand, discussed material retaliation, meaning objective responsibility. At the same time, the author of Nicomachean Ethics had already experienced the system of subjective responsibility based on the concept of knowingly caused damage as opposed to the system of objective responsibility involving the objective causal relationship between actor’s behavior and the resulting damage. Aristotle has extended the concept of subjective responsibility to cover both knowingly caused damage (intentional fault) and unintentional fault, whereby the damage is directly caused by the negligent conduct of the actor, meaning the failure of the latter to observe required objective and abstract standards. The mental component and related to it subjectivization involve the actor possessing required intellectual capabilities, but not using them in a way as to observe the aforementioned imposed standards. Nonetheless, the potential mental component is itself not sufficient to establish guilt. Otherwise, all the people (apart from those lacking capacity at all) shall be declared guilty regardless of the fact that the damage was caused by them accidentally.

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Aitia – wina arystotelesowska. Zagadnienia definicyjne. Część II

Author(s): Waldemar Gontarski / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 1/2013

When engaging in polemics with Pythagoras, Aristotle observed that the retributive function of punishment, as distinguished from the preventative one, does not involve revenge understood as material retaliation (i.e. suffering for suffering, meaning retaliation proportional to the damage suffered). It does not encompass a simple reciprocity, such as suffering in turn (ἀντιπάσχω), but instead shall be considered as a just reciprocity, meaning doing in return (ἀντιποιέω), whereby the degree of mental contribution is taken into account. The classical theory of responsibility, at least under the meaning assigned to it by Aristotle, considers human responsibility by means of reference to mental capabilities of the actor in respect to a particular harmful action. An action involving human guilt is consequently contrasted with an accidentally caused action. In the works of Stagirite the mental attitude of the actor towards his action distinguishes human causation from the accidental one and from the forced one. Pythagoras, on the other hand, discussed material retaliation, meaning objective responsibility. At the same time, the author of Nicomachean Ethics had already experienced the system of subjective responsibility based on the concept of knowingly caused damage as opposed to the system of objective responsibility involving the objective causal relationship between the actor’s behavior and the resulting damage). Aristotle has extended the concept of subjective responsibility to cover both knowingly caused damage (intentional fault) and unintentional fault, whereby the damage is directly caused by the negligent conduct of the actor, meaning the failure of the latter to observe required objective and abstract standards. The mental component and the related subjectivization involve the actor possessing required intellectual capabilities, but not using them in a way as to observe the aforementioned imposed standards. Nonetheless, the potential mental component is itself not sufficient to establish guilt. Otherwise, all the people (apart from those lacking capacity at all) shall be declared guilty regardless of the fact that the damage was caused by them accidentally.

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Aktualnost Aristotelove kritike državnog zajedništva u Platona

Author(s): Ante Pažanin / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 03/1989

The author discusses the differences between Plato's subjective rule of wise philosophers and Aristotle’s rule based on appropriate laws. Aristotle is critical of Plato's state communism (community of women, children, and property) because he considers the state to’ be a multiplicity by definition. This does not mean that he denies it the character of a community. According to Aristotle the state as a political community rests upon laws and customs that, being institutions of communal living, define man and his activity as well as his personal characteristics. The dangers issuing from an absolute state to which Aristotle draws attention in his critique of Plato can also be found in contemporary political theory and practice.

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Akty woli w myśli średniowiecznej — od św. Augustyna do Wilhelma z Auxerre

Author(s): Monika Michalowska / Language(s): Polish / Issue: 3/2017

Harry Frankfurt’s concept of autonomy that has been acknowledged as one of the most important theories of autonomy underlines the essential role of a moral agent’s ability to reflect on herself and her life. The core element of the concept is the ability of a moral agent to formulate first as well as second order desires. Intriguing seems the fact that we can find the concepts referring to the complexity of the will and its first and second order acts already in medieval thought. In this paper I examine the development of the terminology and argumentation employed in these medieval concepts which analyze first and second order acts of the will as well as the subtle difference between various acts of the will. I focus on the concepts formulated until the first half of the 13th century pointing out to the terminology and arguments which became the point of departure for late medieval theories of the will.

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Alexander of Aphrodisias on Syllogistic Reasoning

Author(s): Sergei Garin / Language(s): English / Issue: 1/2019

The article deals with ancient ideas on the nature of syllogistics on the example of Empire's official Peripatetic philosopher, Alexander of Aphrodisias. We interpret Alexander's position on the syllogistic form as a theory of constant function. Alexander offers a conjunctive and purely formal understanding of the nature of syllogistic necessity. This approach to the modal properties of assertoric judgments differs from Theophrastus’ ontological position, who believed that modal characteristics of assertoric premises are determined by looking to the state-of-affairs to which they refer. Also the paper examines Theophrastus’ legacy of hypothetical syllogisms related to Alexander. Stoic and Peripatetic versions are also compared against the background of Alexander's logical amalgamation. The article elucidates late “Peripatetic conservatism” regarding the hypothetical syllogistics. We discuss the syntax of propositional / term relations (ei to A, to B), tackling the problem of grammatical ellipsis.

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Al-Kindī’s treatise on definitions and its place in history of philosophy

Author(s): Tomasz Stefaniuk / Language(s): English / Issue: XXIX/2017

The paper focuses on al-Kindī’s Treatise on definitions - the oldest surviving Arabic glossary of philosophical and scientific terms. Its author presents more than one definition of the term falsafa (philosophy). Does this mean that he was not sure how to explain to his coreligionists what philosophy really is? In this article I aim to focus on the content of all six definitions of philosophy presented in the treatise. I also compare some of al-Kindī’s definitions of philosophy with the way in which some Greek philosophers, known to him, understood it, as well as with certain ideas derived from the source texts of Islam. The results of the study led to the belief that al-Kindī sought to induce his readers to agree that philosophy was not a threat to the Muslim faith, but rather a science which aims to improve man in the moral sense, and also to significantly increase the human knowledge of the world created by God.

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Anaksimandar i teorija evolucije

Author(s): Damir Maric / Language(s): Bosnian / Issue: 1/2014

Anaksimandar's teaching about human and animal evolution caused a lot of discussion among experts. Anaksimandar is the first one that we know of, that gave rational explanation about human and animal evolution excluding interference of gods or some others supernatural powers. According to the testimonies available to us, he held that living beings were formed in water or in primarily sludge and that these were marine animals. In judging if Anaksimandar somehow advocated living beings evolution, alongside of analysis of testimonies from Antique, it is crucial how we understand concept of evolution. Anaksimandar's theory of the human and animal evolution should be understood from her own historical context and we should eventually think if it could be, in some way, an antecedent of ideas that are find in later times.

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Anaksimenov i Diogenov animatizam

Author(s): Željko Kaluderovic / Language(s): Croatian / Issue: 01/141/2016

The research in this paper focuses on two relevant and interrelated Anaximenes’ and Diogenes’ doctrines: the monistic doctrine of air as the governing principle and their animatism. The author considers the opinion of two Pre-Socratics about the aliveness, i.e. ensoulment of everything, which could be explained by the perpetual motion of air and by its observable manifestations. The first principle, as understood by Anaximenes and Diogenes, was deemed as an eternal and therefore necessarily self-caused or self-mobile, in short the soul or life (psyche). The connection of life–breath–soul–air, to which Diogenes also added the mind, was established in the ancient understanding of the life of soul and air, however, Anaximenes and Diogenes reviewed previous standpoints and philosophically perceived the analogy of the soul and the air which a man breathes in order to live. The perception and recognition that air is a cosmic equivalent of the soul, i.e. the life of man, might, nevertheless, be an important motive for the last Milesian and, perhaps, for the last physicist to choose aer as arche of everything. Furthermore, and in accordance with the hylozoistic view, which Anaximenes and Diogenes largely shared, the stuff of cosmos had to be at the same time the stuff of life. It is also possible that the dual use of the word pneuma in the second fragment (DK13B2) led Anaximenes to the parallelism and analogy of man and the cosmos. Finally, with certain modifications, Diogenes confirmed the quintessential identity of microcosm and macrocosm, i.e. the relation between “internal” air, which is the life-giving principle of human and other living beings, their souls, and “external” divine air, which governs everything and regulates everything.

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Anaximander and the Multiple Successive Worlds Thesis

Author(s): Christos Y. Panayides / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2010

Many commentators suppose that Anaximander subscribes to a multiple worlds thesis. In particular, they assume that: either Anaximander accepts that there are innumerable co-existent worlds, or he accepts that there are innumerable successive worlds. The first of these interpretations has been shown to be problematic. In this discussion note I present two new arguments against the multiple successive worlds reading of Anaximander, with the intent to buttress a single world reconstruction of his cosmology.

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ANCIENT DRAMA TODAY. ORESTEIA AND ITS STAGE FORMS

Author(s): Martina Borodovcakova / Language(s): English / Issue: Special/2015

This study focuses on the most important stage productions of Aeschylus’ Oresteia of the 20th century. A special emphasis is given to the possibilities of reading the tragedy, in relation to politics and social climate. Based on selected productions the study also follows the evolution of various modern directing concepts and diverse approaches to staging ancient drama. Productions of Aeschylus’ Oresteia were often an integral part of significant changes in modern history and went beyond established ideas of how to read ancient drama.

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Ancient Mediterranean Roots of Perspectives on Human Rights

Author(s): Leo D. Lefebure / Language(s): English / Issue: 3/2017

ICESCR and Centesimus Annus are heirs to a long tradition of reflection on justice and the universe. Amid the debates over the theoretical basis for human rights, it is important to recall the value of justice in ancient Mediterranean wisdom traditions that provided the roots for later perspectives. In ancient Egypt, Israel, and Greece, thinkers from a variety of vantage points affirmed a moral order of justice in the universe, which offered a basis for recognizing human dignity and for rebuking human rulers who abused their power. Early Christian reflections on the identity of the Holy Trinity and Jesus Christ played a decisive role in transforming the understanding of the human person, paving the way for later developments.

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