It deals with the problems of the Latin text (taking account of Michael Winterbottom's new edition), it delineates the work's structure and sometimes elusive train of thought, clarifies the underlying Greek and Latin concepts, and provides starting points for approaching the philosophical and historical problems that De Officiis raises.

Four experiments supported the hypothesis that ordinary people understand free will as meaning unconstrained choice, not having a soul. People consistently rated free will as being high unless reduced by internal constraints (i.e., things that impaired people’s mental abilities to make choices) or external constraints (i.e., situations that hampered people’s abilities to choose and act as they desired). Scientific paradigms that have been argued to disprove free will were seen as reducing, but usually not eliminating free will, and the reductions (...) were because of constrained conscious choice. We replicated findings that a minority of people think lacking a soul reduces free will. These reductions in perceived free will were fully explained by reductions in people’s perceived abilities to make conscious decisions. Thus, some people do think you need a soul to have free will—but it is because they think you need a soul to make conscious decisions. (shrink)

Morsella et al. argue that science should not focus on high forms of consciousness. We disagree. An understanding of high forms of consciousness is invaluable to the scientific study of consciousness. Moreover, it poses challenges to the passive frame theory. Specifically, it challenges the notions that conscious thoughts are not connected and that consciousness serves skeletomotor conflict only.

Apropos congregatio Zetzel remarks ‘the metaphor is qualified by quasi…, as it more properly refers to animals rather than men’. It seems doubtful, however, that in general the -grego compounds were at this date felt as vividly metaphorical: segrego is used of human beings as early as Plautus and Terence ; aggrego is commonly so used by Cicero. Moreover, our passage is the first attestation of congregatio. Cicero uses the word three times in De Finibus, of which the latter two (...) passages also refer to human beings but are without quasi. Hence the use of quasi in our passage is likely to be related above all to the newness of the term, albeit the etymology may be more strongly felt in a new coinage. Cf. TLL 4, 288.26ff. (shrink)

De fato 35 is part of Cicero's argument against the Stoic theory of causation. He claims in general that the Stoic chain of causes consists of antecedent but not efficient causes. To the examples cited in the previous chapter he adds verses from the opening of Ennius’ Medea exul (lines 208–11 Jocelyn = FRL 2 and TRF 89.1–4) containing the Nurse's lamentation over the origins of the Argonautic expedition that led, ultimately, to Medea's current mental distress. Then follows the question (...) quorsum haec praeterita? and the answer quia sequitur illud, ‘nam numquam era errans mea domo ecferret pedem | Medea, animo aegro, amore saeuo saucia’, non ut eae res causam adferrent amoris, citing Ennius, Medea exul 215–16 Jocelyn = FRL 2 and TRF 89.8–9. Editors and commentators have struggled to explain the relation of the answer to the question. Here it is argued that the relation becomes clear if one adopts non for non and punctuates with a query after amoris. The sense will be: ‘Why have these past events been cited? In view of the sequel … was it not so that they bring on the cause of love?’ In other words, the Nurse, like the Stoics in Cicero's view, cites antecedent events as if they were efficient causes. (shrink)

quod idem [sc. the invalidity of Clodius’ legislation] tu, Lentule, uidisti in ea lege quam de me tulisti. nam non est ita latum ut mihi Romam uenire liceret, sed ut uenirem; non enim uoluisti id quod licebat ferre ut liceret, sed me ita esse in re publica magis ut arcessitus imperio populi Romani uiderer quam administrandam ciuitatem restitutus.

Book 1 of De Natura Deorum exhibits in a nutshell Cicero's philosophical method, with the prior part stating the case for Epicurean theology, the latter part refuting it. Thus the reader observes Cicero at work in both constructive and skeptical modes as well as his art of characterizing speakers. Prefaced to the Book is Cicero's most elaborate justification of his philosophical writing. The Book thus makes an ideal starting point for the study of Cicero's philosophica or indeed of any philosophical (...) writing in Latin, since it delineates the problems such a project raised in the minds of Roman readers and shows how Cicero thought they could be met. There is also a systematic and detailed doxography of ancient views about the deity, an important document in itself, presented from an Epicurean perspective. The volume's Introduction situates this text within Cicero's intellectual development and ancient reflection about the gods. (shrink)