Tacitus gives lavish treatment to the mutiny of the German legions in the aftermath of Augustus' death in a.d. 14 and provides an excellent centrepiece in a speech by Germanicus to the troops of the Lower German army at Ara Ubiorum . After the harsh treatment of a delegation from Rome, Germanicus responded to requests that he send Agrippina and Caligula to safety. As the family was leaving the camp the troops surrounded Germanicus, who moved them to repentance by his (...) speech. Previous writers have already discussed particular debts to Livy and to Virgil, but none has, I think, pointed to the most likely source for Germanicus' opening remarks: ‘Non mihi uxor aut filius patre et re publica cariores sunt…’. Goodyear dismisses the sentiment as a variety of the ‘commonplace’. that the state was more important than the individual and refers the reader to Béranger. However, none of these passages is as close or as pointed as the examples I consider below. (shrink)

What happened in the aftermath of Caligula's assassination in January A.d. 41 in relation to the client kings of the period has been the subject of a stimulating note by A. A. Barrett. He has argued that a rescission of Caligula's acta invalidated the legal position of the client kings appointed by Caligula, and that Claudius’ regularising of their position has been misunderstood by the ancient literary sources and has given rise to several apparent inconsistencies in their accounts.

Valerius Maximus’ Facta et dicta memorabilia provide an opportunity of seeing how an undistinguished talent responded to the demise of the republic and the establishment of an imperial system. Fergus Millar has argued that we should view Valerius as a contemporary of Ovid, that is as an author influenced by the last years of Augustus and writing in the early years of Tiberius’ reign, but the internal evidence of Facta et dicta memorabilia better fits publication in the early 30s a.d. (...) in the aftermath of Sejanus’ unsuccessful conspiracy. Although this does distance Valerius further from the key years of transition, he is not remote—and because of the relative paucity of prose authors of the period his presentation of the domus Augusta and of Augustus and Tiberius repays attention. (shrink)

The text in Annals 4.28.1 has exercised scholars' attention since the rediscovery of Tacitus in the Renaissance. The text of the Medicean manuscript for the central words reads: ‘vinctus peroranti filio praeparatur’. Two problems have been perceived: firstly that praeparatur lacks an expressed subject, although from the context it is perfectly clear that Serenus senior is meant; secondly, the meaning of praeparatur itself.

Historians of antiquity are trained to be suspicious of accounts that may retroject onto the early years of figures, who were later dominant, positive traits that plausibly were exhibited only later, in essence the creation of a mythology. In the case of the Emperor Augustus, who exercised a firm control on the Roman world for over forty years after the defeat of his rival M. Antonius and introduced a new form of government, the probability that the years of his ascent (...) to supreme power were subjected to careful recasting is very high. Here I examine an argument that was presented in 2004 on the very beginning of Octavian's public life, which, if correct, reveals a stuttering start by a young man inexperienced in the realities of Roman politics at a tumultuous moment in Roman history. (shrink)

As he draws toward the conclusion of a lengthy string of Romanexemplaon the topic ofmoderatio, a virtue highly regarded by the reigning Emperor Tiberius, Valerius introduces a brief discussion on the challenges he faces in producing the kind of account he wants to create. Unfortunately, for a rare passage in which Valerius speaks about his own work, the text is uncertain: various problems have been identified and different solutions have been proposed, but not, I will argue, ones that satisfactorily recognize (...) the prominence of Valerius’ authorial role here or understand his meaning or pay appropriate attention to the immediate context in which he makes his remarks. I propose a new emendation which helps clarify that the primary challenge concerns the scale and the style of coverage of individualexemplarequired by theFacta et dicta memorabilia. I will show that Valerius deliberately alludes to his own programmatic remarks in the work's preface, which then illuminate his purpose and practice, both broadly in relation to his mission to record and praise outstanding individuals and more narrowly in providing a transition to a specificexemplum. (shrink)

In her well-known paper ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’ G. E. M. Anscombe makes the following assertion: ‘he [Sidgwick] thinks that humility consists in underestimating your own merits—i.e. in a species of untruthfulness’. I should like to show that this is not so.

In conversation, and in the company of a new generation of scholars working in the field, Nigel Rapport and Huon Wardle re-explore the terrain and meaning of cosmopolitan studies now. This book offers a new survey and theorisation of cosmopolitan research, a burgeoning topic responding to increasingly complex patterns of human interaction in world society. It considers the question of cosmopolitan methodology: what are the methods needed for, or elicited by, studying cosmopolitan situations? and how are we to remain (...) faithful to the heteronomous human interiority and intentionality from which cosmopolitan moments are constructed? The volume focuses on the open-ended moment of ethnographic fieldwork that generates the concepts and methods needed to understand contemporary cosmopolitanization. The chapters cover a wide range of ethnographic situations and open up debate on what are the opportunities and responsibilities of a cosmopolitan anthropology in its exploration of human difference and commonality. (shrink)

The Problem of Perception offers two arguments against direct realism--one concerning illusion, and one concerning hallucination--that no current theory of ...

A substantial guide providing an overview of both physicalism and metaphysical naturalism, reviewing both questions of formulation and justification for both doctrines. Includes a diagnostic strategy for understanding talk of naturalism as a metaphysical thesis.

The philosophical contemplation of “first philosophy” is as old as Western philosophy itself, and yet “first philosophy” is often eschewed in contemporary philosophical thought. This is because attempts at arriving at a first philosophy have often been steeped in metaphysical thinking that aims at non-finite foundations as the constitutive ground of human reality. However, in our contemporary world in which metaphysical postulates render themselves increasingly outmoded and immaterial, can we still speak of first philosophy today? This is to ask whether (...) or not it may be possible to formulate a first philosophy based on strictly finite principles. This article seeks to demonstrate that the concept of finite “existence” can be read as first philosophy in the contemporary thought of Jean-Luc Nancy (1940–2021). Firstly, a conceptual analysis on the concepts of “being” and “existence” will be carried out with the express purpose of trying to ascertain the meaningful difference between these two concepts in Nancy’s thought, if indeed such a difference exists at all. From this conceptual analysis, it will be demonstrated that Nancy consistently and effectively elevates the concept of finite existence to philosophical primacy above that of non-finite being and, as a result, brings to light the possibility of (re)thinking existence as first philosophy in Nancy’s thought. (shrink)

Ducklings were placed either singly or in pairs on a platform at two different heights. Both height and pairing influenced performance: More ducklings descended from the platform at low heights, and more single ducklings descended than paired ducklings. The social factor, pairing, made behavior more cautious and decreased the number of distress calls. A similar trend for pairing to influence performance was shown on the visual cliff. Without its peers, the duckling is a distressed animal. Previous careless behavior by ducklings (...) on the visual cliff may be ascribed to testing the ducklings outside their normal social environment. (shrink)

Discussion of partial grounds that aren't parts of full grounds; definition of full grounding in terms of partial grounding.

Scientists and laypeople alike use the sense of understanding that an explanation conveys as a cue to good or correct explanation. Although the occurrence of this sense or feeling of understanding is neither necessary nor sufficient for good explanation, it does drive judgments of the plausibility and, ultimately, the acceptability, of an explanation. This paper presents evidence that the sense of understanding is in part the routine consequence of two well-documented biases in cognitive psychology: overconfidence and hindsight. In light of (...) the prevalence of counterfeit understanding in the history of science, I argue that many forms of cognitive achievement do not involve a sense of understanding, and that only the truth or accuracy of an explanation make the sense of understanding a valid cue to genuine understanding. (shrink)