Gell. NA 3.10.13 citing Varro's Hebdomades uel de imaginibus, reports: Venas etiam in hominibus, uel potius arterias, medicos musicos dicere ait numero moueri septenario, quod ipsi appellant τν δι τεσσρων συμφωναν, quae fit in collatione quaternarii et ternarii numeri. He also states that doctors who make use of music theory declare that the veins, or rather arteries, in human beings move in accordance with the number seven; they call this motion ‘the consonance of the fourth’, which is produced by the (...) proportional relation of the numbers four and three. (shrink)

Not only was Gellius' preface received in the fifteenth century at the end of his work instead of the beginning, but it arrived almost or wholly without the Greek, which had to be patched up by guesswork; between siluarum and quidam early editors read ‘ille κηρον, alius κρας μαλӨεας’, the first two names in the similar passage, Plin. N.H. pr. 24. Salmasius, in the preface to his Plinianae exercitationes, printed a text ‘ex vestigiis antiquae scripturae optimi exemplaris [sc. MS P (...) = Paris, BN lat. 5765] partim etiam coniecturis nostris correctiorem’; following κρας he gave, in the right place but with the wrong accent, ‘alius Κρια’. But when eleven years later he came to annotate Simplicius' commentary on Epictetus' γχειρδιον, alerted by Simplicius' statement συνταξεν ρριανς, τ καιριτατα κα ναγκαιτατα ν øιλοσοø κα κινητικτατα τν ψυχν πιλεξμενος κ τν πικττου λγων, he remarked: ‘Quidam et inscripsere libros suos olim τ καρια, quod maxime ad rem quam tractabant pertinentia eo opere persequebantur’, citing Gellius with ‘alius καρια and commenting ‘Ita enim ex veteri codice ibi scribendum est, non ut vulgo editur, κριον [sic]'. Nevertheless, editors preferred his first thoughts to his second; Hertz, in his separate edition of Gellius' preface and in his editio maior , gives three parallels: Plin. N.H. pr. 24, ‘Κηρον inscripsere quod uolebant intellegi fauom’, where the Latin translation guarantees the reading; Clem. Alex. 6.1.2.1 ν μν ον τ λειμνι τ νӨη ποικλως νӨοȗντα κν τ παραδεσ [‘orchard’] τν κροδρων øυτεα ο κατ εδος καστον κεχρισται τν λλογενν , where again the sense requires the honeycomb; Philost. VS 565 πιστολα δ πλεȋσται ρδου κα διαλξει κα øημερδες γχειρδι τε κα καίρια τν ρχααν πολυμӨειαν ν βραχεȋ πηνӨισμνα, where hertz emends καρια to κηρα. (shrink)

In L. D. Reynolds , Texts and Transmission: a Survey of the Latin Classics , it is stated by J. G. F. Powell and by M. D. Reeve that MS. Berlin, Deutsche Staatsbibliothek Lat. 4° 404 , containing Cicero, De amicitia, and Publilius Syrus, Sententiae, is missing. Not so: it is currently held with numerous other Berlin MSS., including humanistic and musical autographs, at the Jagellonian Library in Cracow, where I saw it on 5 May 1992. Other classical MSS. from (...) Berlin now held in Cracow are Lat. 4° 1 , 257 , 590 , 939 , and 8° 102. (shrink)

The purpose of this note is to banish for ever from our histories of Roman literature the term elocutio nouella as a description of the style preached and practised by Cornelius Fronto. Commenting on a speech recently delivered by the Emperor Marcus, Fronto declares : Pleraque in oratione recenti tua, quod ad sententias attinet, animaduerto egregia esse; pauca admodum uno tenus uerbo corrigenda; non nihil interdum elocutione nouella parum signatum. The standard interpretation of the last clause is that given by (...) Haines : ‘some parts here and there were not sufficiently marked with novelty of expression’. It is my contention that it means: ‘some parts here and there were insufficiently clear through new-fangled diction’. (shrink)

Besides the direct tradition, these verses are cited by Stephanus of Byzantium, s.n. Aγυς, who explains: λγος πρ ‘Eλυης Λακωυικς οὒσης κα ρρυ μτκοσης κα τ ’Aλζυδρω κα Δηϊøβω γαμηθσης Commentators have followed him both as to the identity of the three husbands and the sense of θηλπαις: ‘female-childed’.

Besides the direct tradition, these verses are cited by Stephanus of Byzantium, s.n. Aῖγυς, who explains: λγος π∊ρ ‘Eλυης Λακωυικς οὒσης καῷ ἂρρ∊υ μτ∊κοσης κα τ ’Aλ∊ζυδρω κα Δηϊøβω γαμηθ∊σης Commentators have followed him both as to the identity of the three husbands and the sense of θηλπαις: ‘female-childed’.

The late Sir Roger Mynors, in a letter to Sebastiano Timpanaro quoted in the latter's Contributi difilologia e di storia della lingua latina , p. 543 n. 15, states that he had wondered ‘whether it might be a habit of Latin writers, when they were putting only one or two “parolette” between two pieces of Greek’, to use Greek rather than Latin: he invents as an example ‘θος κα πθος where logic demanded θος et πθος’. The answer is that they (...) sometimes did: the present paper will concentrate on the type instantiated by his imaginary example, the use of κα for et. I do not claim to have recorded every case, but those I have observed are the following. (shrink)

Continuing previous studies of medieval and modern false quotations from Gellius,1 I present two more misascriptions, one by an early modern editor, the other by a medieval author.

1. NA 1.22.11 qui dicit ergo superesse se ei quem defendit, nihil istorum [sc. of the legitimate senses listed by Julius Paulus in §§9–10] uult dicere, sed nescioquid aliud indictum inscitumque dicit.

Besides the direct tradition, these verses are cited by Stephanus of Byzantium, s.n. Aῖγυς, who explains: λγος π∊ρ ‘Eλυης Λακωυικς οὒσης καῷ ἂρρ∊υ μτ∊κοσης κα τ ’Aλ∊ζυδρω κα Δηϊøβω γαμηθ∊σης Commentators have followed him both as to the identity of the three husbands and the sense of θηλπαις: ‘female-childed’.

Besides the direct tradition, these verses are cited by Stephanus of Byzantium, s.n. Aῖγυς, who explains: λγος π∊ρ ‘Eλυης Λακωυικς οὒσης καῷ ἂρρ∊υ μτ∊κοσης κα τ ’Aλ∊ζυδρω κα Δηϊøβω γαμηθ∊σης Commentators have followed him both as to the identity of the three husbands and the sense of θηλπαις: ‘female-childed’.

The manuscript B of Aulus Gellius, containing N.A. 9-12 and 13.5, and now split at potuit/admonendi 12.10.3 between Cod. Bern. 404 and Cod. Lugd.- Bat. B. P. L. 1925, is dated by Hosius and Marshall to 1173 on the strength of the subscript to an astronomical work immediately preceding Gellius in Cod. Bern. 404. This work is the ‘Liber Atphargan'i [sic] in scientia astrorum et radicibus motuum caelestium’’ translated by Johannes Hispalensis; the subscriptio, quoted in full by Hertz , indicates (...) the date as follows : Expletus est die uicesimo quarto. V. mensis lunaris anni Arabum quingentesimi. XXVIIII. existente,. . die mensis Martii era. M.C.LXXIII. (shrink)

The manuscript B of Aulus Gellius, containing N.A. 9-12 and 13.5, and now split at potuit/admonendi 12.10.3 between Cod. Bern. 404 and Cod. Lugd.- Bat. B. P. L. 1925, is dated by Hosius and Marshall to 1173 on the strength of the subscript to an astronomical work immediately preceding Gellius in Cod. Bern. 404. This work is the ‘Liber Atphargan'i [sic] in scientia astrorum et radicibus motuum caelestium’’ translated by Johannes Hispalensis; the subscriptio, quoted in full by Hertz, indicates the (...) date as follows : Expletus est die uicesimo quarto. V. mensis lunaris anni Arabum quingentesimi. XXVIIII. existente,.. die mensis Martii era. M.C.LXXIII. (shrink)

Gellius, in N. A. 6. 20, claims to have read ‘in quodam commentario’ that theoriginal text had been not ora but Nola; ‘postea Vergilium petisse a Nolanis, aquam uti duceret in propincum rus, Nolanos beneficium petitum non fecisse, poetam offensum nomen urbis eorum, quasi ex hominum memoria, sic excarmine suo derasisse oramque pro Nola mutasse’. It may be from this passagethat by way of Donatus this story reached the expanded Servius: ‘et hocemendauit ipse, quia Nolam posuerat; nam postea offensus a (...) Nolanis, qui eidemaquam negauerant, “ora” pro “Nola” posuit.’. (shrink)

A paradigm-shifting work that revolutionizes our understanding of the origins and structure of science. Captivatingly written, interwoven with tantalizing illustrations and historical vignettes ranging from Newton's alchemy to quantum mechanics to the storm surge of Hurricane Sandy, Michael Strevens's wholly original investigation of science asks two fundamental questions: Why is science so powerful? And why did it take so long, two thousand years after the invention of philosophy and mathematics, for the human race to start using science to learn (...) the secrets of nature? The Knowledge Machine's radical answer is that science calls on its practitioners to do something irrational: by willfully ignoring religion, theoretical beauty, and, especially, philosophy-essentially stripping away all previous knowledge-scientists embrace an unnaturally narrow method of inquiry, channeling unprecedented energy into observation and experimentation. Like Yuval Harari's Sapiens or Thomas Kuhn's 1962 classic, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, The Knowledge Machine overturns much of what we thought we knew about the origins of the modern world. (shrink)

This commentary on Philip Kitcher’s book What’s the Use of Philosophy? addresses two questions. First, must philosophers be methodologically self-conscious to do good work? Second, is there value in the questions pursued in the traditional areas of analytic philosophy?

To understand why a phenomenon occurs, it is not enough to possess a correct explanation of the phenomenon: you must grasp the explanation. In this formulation, “grasp” is a placeholder, standing for the psychological or epistemic relation that connects a mind to the explanatory facts in such a way as to produce understanding. This paper proposes and defends an account of the “grasping” relation according to which grasp of a property (to take one example of the sort of entity that (...) turns up in explanations) is a matter of recognitional ability: roughly, a property is grasped to the extent to which the would-be understander is capable of recognizing instances of the property. (shrink)

How to regard the weight we give to a proposition on the grounds of its being endorsed by an authority? I examine this question as it is raised within the epistemology of science, and I argue that “authority-based weight” should receive special handling, for the following reason. Our assessments of other scientists’ competence or authority are nearly always provisional, in the sense that to save time and money, they are not made nearly as carefully as they could be---indeed, they are (...) typically made on the basis of only a small portion of the available evidence. Consequently, we need to represent the authority-based elements of our epistemic attitudes in such a way as to allow the later revision of those elements, in case we decide in the light of new priorities that a more conscientious assessment is warranted. I look to the literature in confirmation theory, statistics, and economics for a semiformal model of this revision process, and make a particular proposal of my own. The discussion also casts some light on the question of why certain aspects of science’s epistemic state are not made public. (shrink)

It is only in the last three centuries that the formidable knowledge-making machine we call modern science has transformed our way of life and our vision of the universe - two thousand years after the invention of law, philosophy, drama and mathematics. Why did we take so long to invent science? And how has it proved to be so powerful?The Knowledge Machine gives a radical answer, exploring how science calls on its practitioners to do something apparently irrational- strip away all (...) previous knowledge - such as theological, metaphysical or political beliefs - and channel unprecedented energy into observation and experiment. In times of climate extremes, novel diseases and rapidly advancing technology, Strevens contends that we need more than ever to grasp the inner workings of our knowledge machine. (shrink)

Approaches to explanation -- Causal and explanatory relevance -- The kairetic account of /D making -- The kairetic account of explanation -- Extending the kairetic account -- Event explanation and causal claims -- Regularity explanation -- Abstraction in regularity explanation -- Approaches to probabilistic explanation -- Kairetic explanation of frequencies -- Kairetic explanation of single outcomes -- Looking outward -- Looking inward.

Science as we know it is “dappled”. Its picture of the world is a mosaic in which different aspects of the world, different systems, are represented by narrow-scope theories or models that are largely disconnected from one another. The best explanation for this disunity in our representation of the world, Nancy Cartwright has proposed, is a disunity in the world itself: rather than being governed by a small set of strict fundamental laws, events unfold according to a patchwork of principles (...) covering different kinds of systems or segments of reality, each with something less than full omnipotence and with the possibility of anomic indeterminism at the boundaries. This paper attempts to undercut Cartwright’s argument for a dappled world by showing that the motley nature of science, both now and even at the completion of empirical inquiry, can equally well be explained by proponents of the “fundamentalist” view that the universe’s initial conditions and fundamental physical laws determine everything that ever happens. (shrink)