JW Hewitt sums up the difference between Greco-Roman and Christian conceptions of charis in a 1925 Classical Weekly essay. Greek religion, “which discovered no impassible gulf between god and man, the relations of man to man and god to god were supposed to hold between man and god.” . . . . Continue Reading »
Medieval Christian thinkers were sometimes aware of the tensions between Aristotle’s ideal of magnanimity and Christian virtues like humility. According to Tobias Hoffmann’s essay in Virtue Ethics in the Middle Ages: Commentaries on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, 1200-1500 . . . . Continue Reading »
In his Political Authority and Obligation in Aristotle (Oxford Aristotle Studies) , p. 173, Andres Rosler questions whether gratitude for the benefits of socialization are enough to obligate someone to obey the regime in which he was socialized. Is gratitude sufficient basis for political . . . . Continue Reading »
According to Gadamer ( Truth and Method (Continuum Impacts) , 405), philosophy essentially began with a nominalist move. The “earliest” view saw an “intimate unity of word and thing,” so intimate that the “true name was considered to be part of the bearer of the . . . . Continue Reading »
In a 2006 article in Modern Theology , J. Warren Smith offers this summary of the Aristotelian argument for self-sacrifice for friends on behalf of the man of Noble Soul: “Aristotle . . . establishes the relationship between self-love and self-sacrifice. In his words one hears the echo of . . . . Continue Reading »
Epicurus wrote an essay, now lost, on gifts and graces ( peri doron kai charitos ), and Norman DeWitt calls Horace’s epistle 1.7 to Maecenas a “sermon” on the theme of Epicurus’ essay. He commends the generosity of Maecenas, contrasting him with a proverbial “Calabrian . . . . Continue Reading »
This is the doctrine of Epicurus, but in a 1937 article in the American Journal of Philology , Norman DeWitt places this slogan in the context of that slogan in the context of the Epicurean doctrine of gratitude. He cites Seneca’s summary of the Epicurean view that “The life that lacks . . . . Continue Reading »
In the Best-of-2011 edition of the TLS , Mary Beard casts her vote for The Archimedes Palimpsest , which she describes as follows: “This publishes a thirteenth-century prayer book, made up - as has long been recognized - out of earlier manuscripts. An international project has deployed all . . . . Continue Reading »
A description of war in heaven from The Fall of Troy by Quintus of Smyrna sounds familiar to Bible readers: “Yet men feared not, for naught they knew of all That strife, by Heaven’s decree. Then her high peaks The Gods’ hands wrenched from Ida’s crest, and hurled Against . . . . Continue Reading »
Gordon summarizes epics that previewed the Homeric epics in quite direct ways. The “Ugaritic Legend of Kret is of Cretan derivation as the name of the hero indicates. Like the Iliad, the story concerns a war waged so that a king might regain his rightful wife who is being withheld from him, . . . . Continue Reading »
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