It seems that a Greek romance named Chaereas and Callirhoe—if it was in fact written about A.D. 50—might be the oldest extant romantic novel.1 Chaucer's Troilus, Chretien's Erec, Apuleius' Metamorphoses, and for all l know Homer's Odyssey have already blushed under this dubious accolade; and I do not mean to celebrate an old Greek book by thrusting an English genre-label upon it. But nothing quite like Callirhoe survives from an earlier period of western literature; and following our inclination to comprehend (...) such a phenomenon by fitting it into familiar categories we would call it a Greek romance because it is written in Greek, a novel because it is an extensive prose fiction of ordinary moral life that conforms to a recognizable canon of realism, and a romance because its admirable protagonists suffer the most serious threats to their lives and values but survive them all. Its author, a certain Chariton of Aphrodisia, a small city in the province of Caria in Asia Minor, places his book about Callirhoe in the Hellenistic genre of the erotikon pathematon—a story of erotic suffering. This is an accurate label and perhaps a bold one, as erotic pathemata were thought to be more suitable for epic or elegiac verse than for prose. In any case, I am not here concerned to argue that Callirhoe is the precursor of such entities as the novel, nor to speculate about its cultural origins, nor to point out its obvious likenesses to later narratives. I do want to discuss the habits of narrative art Chariton exploits in his book, and to explore a few of the ways he makes erotic suffering pleasurable for his readers—us, and the leisured, literate members of the bourgeois households that had for centuries flourished in the great Hellenic cities of the eastern Mediterranean basin. · 1. I accept the date accepted by Ben E. Perry, The Ancient Romances , p. 350. The standard edition is W.E. Blake's , whose translation I use throughout. Chariton's work did not see print until 1750, so it did not enjoy the vogue enjoyed by other Greek romances in the Renaissance. ArthurHeiserman is the author of several articles, short stories, and Skelton and Satire. 'Aphrodisian Chastity" will appear as a chapter in his forthcoming book, Romance in Antiquity: Essays and Discussions about the Beginnings of Prose Fiction in the West. (shrink)
In this masterful work, both an illumination of Kant's thought and an important contribution to contemporary legal and political theory, Arthur Ripstein gives a comprehensive yet accessible account of Kant's political philosophy. In addition to providing a clear and coherent statement of the most misunderstood of Kant's ideas, Ripstein also shows that Kant's views remain conceptually powerful and morally appealing today.
In “Professional Detachment: The Executioner of Paris,” I concluded with the cheap and some would say libelous suggestion that lawyers might accurately be described as serial liars, because they repeatedly try to induce others to believe in the truth of propositions or in the validity of arguments that they believe to be false. Good lawyers have responded with some indignation that, in calling zealous advocacy “lying,” I have misdescribed the practice of law. I wish to explain why I believe that (...) it is the practice of lawyering that engages in misdescription. (shrink)
But Findlay's remark, like so much that has been written on the subject of time in the present century, was provoked in the first place by McTaggart's ...
Those rights are human rights which, in Professor Gewirth's phrase, “all persons equally have simply insofar as they are human.” His task is to demonstrate that there are human rights, and to demonstrate that such demonstration is necessary to the very existence of these rights. “That human rights exist…is a proposition whose truth depends upon the possibility, in principle, of constructing a body of moral justificatory argument from which that proposition follows as a logical consequence.” As philosophers we should no (...) doubt like to be able to prove the existence of human rights – prove that there are such rights in the event that the fool shall have said in his heart that there are none, even using his folly against him by showing his denial to entail its denial – but it is a bold claim that rights are things whose esse est demonstrari. (shrink)
This is a revised and expanded edition of a seminal work in the logic and philosophy of time, originally published in 1968. Arthur N. Prior (1914-1969) was the founding father of temporal logic, and his book offers an excellent introduction to the fundamental questions in the field. Several important papers have been added to the original selection, as well as a comprehensive bibliography of Prior's work and an illuminating interview with his widow, Mary Prior. In addition, the Polish logic (...) which made Prior's writings difficult for many readers has been replaced by standard logical notation. This new edition will secure the classic status of the book. (shrink)
Arthur C. Danto is the Johnsonian Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Columbia University and the most influential philosopher of art in the last half-century. As an art critic for the Nation and frequent contributor to other widely read outlets such as the New York Review of Books, Danto also has become one of the most respected public intellectuals of his generation. He is the author of some two dozen important books, along with hundreds of articles and reviews that have (...) been the center of both controversy and discussion. In this volume Danto offers his intellectual autobiography and responds to essays by 27 of the keenest critics of his thought from the worlds of philosophy and the arts. (shrink)
In this new edition, Arthur Fine looks at Einstein's philosophy of science and develops his own views on realism. A new Afterword discusses the reaction to Fine's own theory. "What really led Einstein . . . to renounce the new quantum order? For those interested in this question, this book is compulsory reading."--Harvey R. Brown, American Journal of Physics "Fine has successfully combined a historical account of Einstein's philosophical views on quantum mechanics and a discussion of some of the (...) philosophical problems associated with the interpretation of quantum theory with a discussion of some of the contemporary questions concerning realism and antirealism. . . . Clear, thoughtful, [and] well-written."--Allan Franklin, Annals of Science "Attempts, from Einstein's published works and unpublished correspondence, to piece together a coherent picture of 'Einstein realism.' Especially illuminating are the letters between Einstein and fellow realist Schrodinger, as the latter was composing his famous 'Schrodinger-Cat' paper."--Nick Herbert, New Scientist "Beautifully clear. . . . Fine's analysis is penetrating, his own results original and important. . . . The book is a splendid combination of new ways to think about quantum mechanics, about realism, and about Einstein's views of both."--Nancy Cartwright, Isis. (shrink)
