A Sense of Beauty -- Hearing -- Seeing -- Touching -- Tasting -- Smelling -- Epilogue.

This article argues that history played a larger role in the thought of Gottlob Frege than has usually been acknowledged. Frege’s logical writings frequently employed statements about the past as examples that included references to historical persons. Frege also described history as a science and argued that historical propositions could support valid inferences and reliably identify historical persons and events. But Frege’s eternalist theory of reference, designed primarily for formal concepts and objects, struggled to accommodate such propositions. Identifying an objective (...) referent for the subjectivity of historical actors was particularly problematic. The article suggests that Frege’s writings are interesting for the philosopher of history for at least two reasons: first, his work is clarificatory when considering the key features that historical propositions must have to count as objective knowledge, and second, it foreshadowed the issues with historicity that analytical philosophy experienced in the twentieth century. It concludes that the problems Frege raised exposed the need for a new concept of inter-subjectivity to replace his own Platonic foundation for objectivity. (shrink)

This thesis develops and defends epistemic fictionalism, according to which knowledge talk is metaphorical. One of the distinctive features of metaphor is that metaphorical sentences have multiple readings: a literal (or ‘face-value’) reading and at least one metaphorical (or ‘non-face-value’) reading. Typically, speakers who utter metaphorical sentences intend to communicate a content that corresponds to the metaphorical meaning. Epistemic fictionalism posits that, as is standard for metaphors, sentences of the form “S knows that P” admit of at least two different (...) readings: a face-value (literal) reading, and a different non-face-value metaphorical reading. A face-value reading of sentences of the form “S knows that P” is that S is infallible with regards to P, and as such are always (or almost always) false at face-value. However, such sentences are not typically used to communicate their typically false face-value content, but some other, typically true metaphorical content. The thesis applies the methods of function-first epistemology (Craig 1990, Hannon 2019a), taking as a starting point the question of what knowledge talk is used for. I argue that understanding knowledge talk as metaphorical coheres with the function that knowledge talk plays, in spite of all (or most) knowledge attributions being literally false: there are advantages to communicating the non-face-value, metaphorical content. Another key advantage of epistemic fictionalism is that it explains the intuitions surrounding sceptical arguments. On the one hand, sceptical infallibilism is compelling because it is the correct analysis of the face-value content of knowledge attributions. On the other hand, sceptical infallibilism is not threatening to everyday knowledge attributions because it does not threaten the truth of the metaphorical content that knowledge attributions are typically used to express. Overall, the main aim of the thesis is to motivate epistemic fictionalism as a serious contender worthy of further investigation and development. (shrink)

Our manuscripts of Cicero contain dozens of Greek words that are presented in some passages in Greek letters, and in others are transliterated into Latin. In a recent paper I collected the evidence for this phenomenon in connection with common nouns and adjectives, surveyed scholarship to date and posited an interpretative framework which is assumed in this study also. Key components of this framework are the use of mixed alphabets in surviving ancient documents and an awareness of the frequency with (...) which modern editors change the alphabets in the manuscripts when dealing with Greek words—hence the importance of using the apparatus critici, not just the printed text, of our editions. The earlier paper was also strict in its exclusion of words in continuous passages, and even short phrases, of Greek, since that context excludes the option of transliteration for the author. The major contention of that earlier study was that a coherent pattern of use in the manuscripts can only really be a reflection of Cicero's own considered choice of alphabets: consistently inexplicable choice may indicate that Cicero himself was indifferent to which alphabet he used for single Greek words, or that our copyists paid no attention to this aspect of their exemplars, or both. (shrink)

In a series of philosophical discussions and artistic case studies, this volume develops a materialist and immanent approach to modern and contemporary art. The argument is made for a return to aesthetics--an aesthetics of affect--and for the theorization of art as an expanded and complex practice. Staging a series of encounters between specific Deleuzian concepts--the virtual, the minor, the fold, etc.--and the work of artists that position their work outside of the gallery or "outside" of representation--Simon O'Sullivan takes Deleuze's thought (...) into other milieus, allowing these "possible worlds" to work back on philosophy. (shrink)

Objective: Parental influence during children’s “everyday” pain events is under-explored, compared to clinical or experimental pains. We trialed two digital reporting methods for parents to record the real-world context surrounding their child’s everyday pain events within the family home.Methods: Parents completed a structured e-diary for 14 days, reporting on one pain event experienced by their child each day, and describing child pain responses, parental supervision, parental estimates of pain severity and intensity, and parental catastrophizing, distress, and behavioral responses. During the (...) same 2-week period, a subsample of parent-child pairs completed digital ecological momentary assessments, immediately after any chosen pain event. Children reported their current pain while parents estimated the child’s pain and indicated their own distress.Results: “Everyday” pain events frequently featured minor injuries to the child’s head, hands or knees, and child responses included crying and non-verbal comments. Pain events occurred less frequently when parents had been supervising their child, and supervising parents reported lower levels of worry and anxiety than non-supervising parents. Child sex was significantly associated with parental estimates of pain intensity, with parents of girls giving higher estimates than parents of boys. Child age was significantly associated with both the number of pain events and with parental estimates of pain intensity and child distress: the youngest children experienced the fewest pain events but received higher pain and distress estimates from parents than older children. Hierarchal Linear Modeling revealed that parental estimates of pain severity were significant positive predictors of parental distress and catastrophizing in response to a specific pain event. Furthermore, higher levels of parental catastrophic thinking in response to a specific pain event resulted in increased distress, solicitousness, and coping-promoting behaviors in parents. The EMA data revealed that children reported significantly higher pain intensity than their parents.Conclusion: The electronic pain diary provided a key insight into the nature of “everyday” pain experiences around the family home. Digital daily reporting of how the family copes with “everyday” events represents a viable means to explore a child’s everyday pains without disrupting their home environment. (shrink)

Many have felt to be anachronistic the casting of proskynesis in the court of Alexander the Great as a matter of worship of the king. Taking this premise as its starting point, this article explores the possible origins of this presentation of Alexander's proskynesis, an understanding that is articulated most fully in the ' proskynesis debates' of Arrian and Curtius. It is argued that the misrepresentation was a deliberate strategy cultivated in the Peripatos, and that it was designed to deflect (...) opprobrium away from Callisthenes and, by extension, away from the Peripatos itself. (shrink)

It is widely thought that functionalism and the qualia theory are better positioned to accommodate the ‘affective’ aspect of pain phenomenology than representationalism. In this paper, we attempt to overturn this opinion by raising problems for both functionalism and the qualia theory on this score. With regard to functionalism, we argue that it gets the order of explanation wrong: pain experience gives rise to the effects it does because it hurts, and not the other way around. With regard to the (...) qualia theory, we argue that it fails to capture the sense in which pain 's affective phenomenology rationalises various bodily-directed beliefs, desires, and behaviours. Representationalism, in contrast, escapes both of these problems: it gets the order of explanation right and it explains how pain 's affective phenomenology can rationalise bodily-directed beliefs, desires, and behaviours. For this reason, we argue that representationalism has a significant advantage in the debates about pain 's affective phenomenology. We end the paper by examining objections, including the question of what representationalists should say about so-called ‘disassociation cases’, such as pain asymbolia. (shrink)

Austrian philosopher Heinrich Gomperz attempted to reconcile the Vienna Circle’s project of a unified science with the autonomy of historical knowledge. This article situates him in the context of the ongoing reassessment of the Vienna Circle in the history of philosophy. It argues that Gomperz’s synthesis of positivism with historicity was a response to difficulties raised by Rudolf Carnap and Otto von Neurath. Gomperz achieved his reconciliation via a theory of language and action that had affinities with both neo-Kantian and (...) pragmatist thought, combining Dilthey’s hermeneutics with Carnap’s requirements for scientific propositions. (shrink)

The concept of civilisation is a controversial one because it is unavoidably normative in its implications. Its historical associations with the effort of Western imperialism to impose substantive conditions of life have made it difficult for contemporary liberalism to find a definition of “civilization” that can be reconciled with progressive discourse that seeks to avoid exclusions of various kinds. But because we lack a way of identifying what is peculiar to the relationship of civilisation that avoids the problem of domination, (...) it has tended to be conflated with other ideas. Taking Samuel Huntington's idea of a “Clash of Civilisations” as a starting point, this article argues that we suffer from a widespread confusion of civilisation with “culture,” and that we also confuse it with other ideas including modernity and technological development. Drawing on Thomas Hobbes, the essay proposes an alternative definition of civilisation as the existence of limits on how we may treat others. (shrink)

Prior studies in business ethics highlight the role of philanthropy in shaping stakeholders’ perceptions of a firm’s underlying moral tendencies and values. Scholars argue that philanthropy-based character inferences influence whether and how stakeholders engage with firms. We extend this line of reasoning to examine the impact of philanthropy on firms’ contracting costs in the capital market. We posit that philanthropy-based character inferences reduce investors’ agency concerns, thereby reducing firms’ cost of capital. We also posit that the strength of the philanthropy–cost (...) of capital relationship is contingent on uncertainty regarding a firm’s character, visibility of a firm, and prevailing philanthropic norms. We test and find support for our arguments in a longitudinal study of philanthropy and the cost of capital. Our findings have implications for business ethics research on corporate philanthropy and corporate social performance and for organizational research on social judgment. (shrink)

A critical look at two books, Coming to Power – Writings and Graphics on Lesbian S/m, published in 1981, and its ‘long awaited sequel’, The Second Coming – A Leatherdyke Reader, published in 1996, yields many differences and similarities. Both books have been judged negatively or positively on the basis of their sadomasochistic content and in line with knee-jerk positions around the lesbian ‘sex wars’ of the 1980s. The feminist politics represented in each book and the connections to more general (...) lesbian feminist concerns and developments of either the late 1970s (Coming to Power) or the late 1980s and early 1990s (The Second Coming) are often overlooked or dismissed. Comparing the kind of sex acts and personas fetishized in each book as well as the claims made for lesbian sm by its adherents often reveals more than the writers may have intended. A more nuanced reading of both books also reveals connections between lesbian feminism, particularly lesbian radical feminism and the sm dykes. Rather than being the ‘illegitimate children’ of lesbian feminism, as Coming to Power maintained in 1981, it is clear now that sm dykes and lesbian feminists are strange sisters who needed each other to define their particular politicized identities. (shrink)

Introduction: contemporary conditions and diagrammatic trajectory -- From joy to the gap: the accessing of the infinite by the finite (Spinoza, Nietzsche, Bergson) -- The care of the self versus the ethics of desire: two diagrams of the production of subjectivity (and of the subject's relation to truth) (Foucault versus Lacan) -- The aesthetic paradigm: from the folding of the finite-infinite relation to schizoanalytic metamodelisation (to biopolitics) (Guattari) -- The strange temporality of the subject: life in-between the infinite and the (...) finite (Deleuze contra Badiou) -- Desiring-machines, chaoids, probeheads: towards a speculative production of subjectivity (Deleuze and Guattari) -- Conclusion: composite diagram and relations of adjacency. (shrink)

Discussions of whistleblowing whether in academic literature or in more popular media have tended to very one-sided assessments of the moral worth of the act. Indeed, much of the current literature concentrates on psychological or managerial aspects of whistleblowing while taking for granted this or that moral position or eschewing any normative commitment on the question. The purpose of this article is firstly to reemphasise the importance and complexity of the normative foundations of whistleblowing acts; and secondly, through a moral (...) philosophical analysis of the component decisions that make up any act of whistleblowing, to contribute to a more balanced and less polarised treatment of the topic. It is argued that the polarisation of views on the topic is in part due to a failure to decompose the act of whistleblowing into a number of inevitable component moral decisions leading up to the act. It is furthermore argued on the basis of the analysis that it is impossible to state a priori as a matter of general principle that whistleblowing is always morally right or morally wrong . The article will close with a reflection on the degree to which the weighing up of good and bad in the act of whistleblowing differs sharply among cultures; and with a conjecture as to a possible relation to a people's history which may serve as a pointer to interesting future empirical research on the topic. (shrink)

Traditionally, acts of civil disobedience are understood as a mechanism by which citizens may express dissatisfaction with a law of their country. That expression will typically be morally motivated, non-violent and aimed at changing their government’s policy, practice or law. Building on existing work, in this paper we explore the limits of one well-received definition of civil disobedience by considering the challenging case of the actions of animal activists at sea. Drawing on original interviews with advocates associated with Sea Shepherd, (...) Greenpeace and Humane Society International we find that even if animal activists are morally motivated and civil, the transnational nature of their activity makes it difficult to assess their intention to bring about a change in law or public policy. This means that a civil disobedience defence may not be available to activists operating across international borders. This raises important questions about the usefulness of the civil disobedience concept within the context of a globalised world. We conclude that while the actions of some anti-whaling activists may not meet definitions of civil disobedience as conventionally understood, this says more about the narrow way in which that concept has been traditionally defined, than it does about the type of activity some anti-whaling activists have undertaken in the Southern Ocean. Finally, we argue that activists wishing to make a stand against whaling may have no choice but to act as global citizens because policy change within a single nation-state is unlikely to lead to the cessation of this inherently transnational activity. (shrink)

This article offers two commentaries on two of Félix Guattari's essays from Chaosmosis: ‘The New Aesthetic Paradigm’ and ‘Schizoanalytic Metamodelisation’. The first commentary attends specifically to how Guattari figures the infinite/finite relation in relation to what he calls the three Assemblages (pre-, extant, and post-capitalism) and then even more specifically to the mechanics of this relation – or folding – within the third ‘processual’ Assemblage or new aesthetic paradigm of the essay's title. The second commentary looks at what Guattari has (...) to say about this paradigm in relation to subjectivity, that is, the schizoanalytic programme or practice of metamodelling. Here the focus is on the turn to asignifying semiotics – but also the importance of signifying material and indeed the actual material scene of encounter – in any programme for the production of subjectivity (it is here also that the symptom makes its appearance). (shrink)

This study examines the influence of mood on corporate philanthropic giving. Drawing on group emotions theory and affect-infused decision theory, we advance the argument that firms allocate greater resources to philanthropy when headquarters-based employees are in a more positive affective state. We also describe three boundary conditions in this relationship—executives’ embeddedness in the firm, executives’ latitude to engage in philanthropic giving, and the firm’s track record of corporate social irresponsibility. We test our arguments using a longitudinal dataset of philanthropic giving (...) by U.S. firms. Our study contributes to the literature by shedding light on the role of affect in shaping the decision to allocate resources to corporate philanthropy. (shrink)

Qualia have proved difficult to integrate into a broadly physicalistic worldview. In this paper, I argue that despite popular wisdom in the philosophy of mind, qualia’s intrinsicality is not sufficient for their non-reducibility. Second, I diagnose why philosophers mistakenly focused on intrinsicality. I then proceed to argue that qualia are categorical and end with some reflections on how the conceptual territory looks when we keep our focus on categoricity.

The background to the regime : Demetrius of Phalerum's early years. The years in obscurity : the reigns of Philip, Alexander, and the age of Lycurgus -- Demetrius' rise to prominence : Athens after Alexander -- The decade of Demetrius : some introductory observations -- Demetrius the law-giver : the moral programme. Burial laws -- The gunaikonomoi and their laws -- The nomophulakes -- Demetrius and the ephêbeia -- The laws : an interpretation and discussion of the historical context -- (...) The institutions of democracy. The citizen body -- The assembly and council -- Elections and the archonship -- Jurisdiction in the courts : the graphê paranomôn and eisangelia -- The Areopagus -- The Athenian institutions : a summary -- Festivals and finances : the economic administration of Athens. Demetrius and the khorêgeia -- The other liturgies -- The Athenian economy, 317-307 -- Philosophy and the Phalerean regime. Demetrius' laws and the Peripatos -- The philosophical schools and political calumny -- Demetrius : orator, peripatetic, and patron of philosophers -- Athens and Cassander. The years 317-307 : a narrative history -- Athenian foreign policy under Demetrius of Phalerum -- Conclusion -- Appendix 1. The literary sources for the regime of Demetrius -- Appendix 2. Gunaikonomoi & nomophulakes : a comparison -- Appendix 3. The duties of the gunaikonomoi : a rejected suggestion. (shrink)

Since at least the 1970s, one of the stock standard tools in the animal protection movement’s arsenal has been illegal entry into factory farms and animal research facilities. This activity has been followed by the publication of images and footage captured inside those otherwise socially invisible places. This activity presents a conundrum: trespass is illegal and it is an apparent violation of private property rights. In this paper we argue that trespass onto private property can be justified as an act (...) of civil disobedience. We look at one particular type of justification: the use of information gathered through trespass in public policy formation. We then animate this analysis both with an historical overview of the effects of sharing information about animal agriculture, and with a specific case study of trespass undertaken recently. (shrink)

A particular model of scientific achievement is embedded within the Nobel Prize, one that privileges the scientific `loner', whoachieves a distinct discovery at a particularmoment in time. A common criticism of this`individualistic' story of achievement is thatit obscures the social and cultural factors inscientific discovery. A collective story,highlighting the role of social relations andscientific milieux, may offer more explanatorypower in accounting for scientific discoveriesand inventions. This paper explores the processby which Henry Dale became recognized as thediscoverer of the chemical transmission (...) ofnerve impulses. It compares the explanatorypower of the story of individual creativitywith a story that highlights the interactionbetween a scientist and his environment. (shrink)

Bertrand Russell developed a conception of the nature of the visual field, and of other sensory fields, as part of his project of explaining the construction of the external world. Wittgenstein's remarks on the visual field in the Tractatus are in part a response to Russell. Wittgenstein, against Russell, analyses the visual field in terms of facts rather than objects. Further, his conception of the field is, in a distinctive sense, depsychologised.

There is an apparent tension in William Blake’s attitude toward the visual. Blake denies the value of sense perception, and of perceptible natural objects, as sources of genuine insight. And he is dismissive of “natural religion” on the grounds that natural objects as present to the senses are insufficient to ground religious experience.Blake’s own spiritual experiences are, however, typically described in intensely visual terms. As a child of eight, he saw “a tree filled with angels” on the common at Peckham (...) Rye in south London, and throughout his life reported “visions” as a source of insight. The narrative of “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” is largely composed of.. (shrink)

A sizable literature exists concerning the structure of Socrates' argument at Euthyphro 9d–11b. Although there is some dispute, a substitutional reading has emerged as a leading interpretation. However, some rear‐guard maneuvers are in order to defend this reading against its competitors. In this paper, I articulate a substitutional reading and argue that it is invalid on two counts: one, Socrates oversteps the logic of his reductio ad absurdum, and two, he illicitly substitutes coreferring expressions in explanatory contexts. Next, I defend (...) the substitutional reading by (1) rebutting its leading contender, Sharvy's formal causation interpretation, and (2) showing how a similar substitutional argument is made in the Protagoras. (shrink)

Through recourse to Gilles Deleuze’s short polemical essay ‘Postscript on Control Societies’ and the accompanying interview on ‘Control and Becoming’, this article attempts to map out the conceptual contours of an artistic war machine that might be pitched against control and also play a role in the more ethico-political function of the constitution of a people. Along the way a series of other Deleuzian concepts are introduced and outlined – with an eye to their pertinence for art practice and, indeed, (...) for any more general ‘thought’ against control. At stake here is the development of a concept of fictioning – the production of alternative narratives and image-worlds – and also the idea of art practice as a form of myth-science, exemplified by Burroughs’ cut-up method. It is argued that these aesthetic strategies might offer alternative models for a subjectivity that is increasingly standardized and hemmed in by neoliberalism. (shrink)

This article attends to Deleuze and Guattari's idea of a ‘minor literature’ as well as to Deleuze's concepts of the figural, probe-heads and the diagram in relation to Bacon's paintings. The paper asks specifically what might be usefully taken from this Deleuze–Bacon encounter for the expanded field of contemporary art practice.

Leon Goldstein’s critical philosophy of history has suffered a relative lack of attention, but it is the outcome of an unusual story. He reached conclusions about the autonomy of the discipline of history similar to those of R. G. Collingwood and Michael Oakeshott, but he did so from within the Anglo-American analytic style of philosophy that had little tradition of discussing such matters. Initially, Goldstein attempted to apply a positivistic epistemology derived from Hempel’s philosophy of natural science to historical knowledge, (...) but gradually formulated an anti-realistic epistemology that firmly distinguished historical knowledge of the past not only from the scientific perspective but also from fictional and common-sense attitudes to the past. Among his achievements were theories of the distinctive nature of historical evidence and historical propositions, of the constructed character of historical events, and of the relationship between historical research and contemporary culture. Taken together, his ideas merit inclusion among the most important twentieth-century contributions to the problem of historical knowledge. (shrink)

What are the relationships between doubt and truth, thinking and writing in Montaigne’s Essais? We usually see Montaigne’s doubt through the lens of ancient schools of Scepticism and yet he notes that the Pyrrhonians ‘ne peuvent exprimer leur generale conception en aucune maniere de parler’: these philosophers describe their doubtful thought in negative affirmations but these are affirmations – ‘propositions affirmatives’ – all the same. This thesis approaches Montaigne’s doubt differently: I investigate the Essais not as an attempt to indicate (...) or describe doubtful, ‘double et divers’ thought but as a tool for thinking doubtfully in writing. Montaigne’s literary use of language is therefore central to my analysis. Irony, ambiguity, the practices of rewriting and overwriting, the ‘polyphony’ of cited authors who advocate different positions: these afford ways of thinking that sustain duality and doubt. I focus on Montaigne’s engagement with Seneca and Plutarch, ancient authors who are, superficially, unrelated to doubt: the Essais constitute a particular form of humanistic engagement with ancient texts, concerned with practices and forms of writing as much as, if not more than, with philosophical concepts. These ‘dogmatic’ authors – they defend philosophical positions of certainty – were, counter-intuitively, seen by Montaigne to have a ‘forme d’escrire douteuse et irresolue’. This doubtful ‘forme’ shaped Montaigne’s own and it was, I argue, in working with and on these authors – reading, writing, and thinking with them – that he constructed a way of writing doubtful in both form and thought: a text that is double, unresolved, ambiguous, and yet ‘truthful’ in its capacity to perform and make legible the complex, multiple nature of his thought and his thinking. (shrink)

If stem cell-based therapies are developed, we will likely confront a difficult problem of justice: for biological reasons alone, the new therapies might benefit only a limited range of patients. In fact, they might benefit primarily white Americans, thereby exacerbating long-standing differences in health and health care.

Of the hundreds of Greek common nouns and adjectives preserved in our MSS of Cicero, about three dozen are found written in the Latin alphabet as well as in the Greek. So we find, alongside συμπάθεια, alsosympathia, and ἱστορικός as well ashistoricus.This sort of variation has been termed alphabet-switching; it has received little attention in connection with Cicero, even though it is relevant to subjects of current interest such as his bilingualism and the role of code-switching and loanwords in his (...) works. Rather than addressing these issues directly, this discussion sets out information about the way in which the words are written in our surviving MSS of Cicero and takes further some recent work on the presentation of Greek words in Latin texts. It argues that, for the most part, coherent patterns and explanations can be found in the alphabetic choices exhibited by them, or at least by the earliest of them when there is conflict in the paradosis, and that this coherence is evidence for a generally reliable transmission of Cicero's original choices. While a lack of coherence might indicate unreliable transmission, or even an indifference on Cicero's part, a consistent pattern can only really be explained as an accurate record of coherent alphabet choice made by Cicero when writing Greek words. (shrink)

In Max Black’s Objection to Mind–Body Identity, Ned Block seeks to offer a definitive treatment of property dualism arguments that exploit modes of presentation. I will argue that Block’s central response to property dualism is confused. The property dualist can happily grant that mental modes of presentation have a hidden physical nature. What matters for the property dualist is not the hidden physical side of the property, but the apparent mental side. Once that ‘thin’ side is granted, the property dualist (...) has won. I conclude that although Block is wrong to think that the property dualist must argue for so-called thin mental properties, Block, and the physicalist, are able to resist property dualism. But any attempt to bolster this resistance and do more than dogmatically assert the crucial identity runs a serious risk of undermining the physicalism it is meant to save. (shrink)

This article examines Michael Oakeshott's views on European political history, based on the essays, reviews, lectures and unpublished works which he produced throughout his intellectual career. These pieces are less familiar than his writings on political philosophy, but deal with the same themes, notably the relationships between individuals, groups and the state. The conclusion is that Oakeshott was telling a new version of an old tale, the history of the development of a fundamental division in European political thought and practice (...) between two contrasting forms of human association, one communal and consensual, the other individualistic and contractarian. (shrink)

Of the ten ships of the barbarians three the reef that is between Sciathus and Magnesia and is called the Ant. When the barbarians had brought to the reef and set up there a pillar of stone, they themselves set out from Therma, as the way ahead had now been made clear for them, and sailed on with all their ships, having let eleven days pass since the king's departure from Therma. The reef, which was right in their course, had (...) been pointed out to them by Pammon, a Scyrian. (shrink)

The enduring fame of Aeschylus as the earliest of the ‘three great tragedians’ has made him in effect the first dramatist of the Western tradition, in chronological terms at least. At the same time it is worth noting that among the ancients he also enjoyed a reputation as a master of the satyr play, as Pausanias and Diogenes Laertius tell us. It is to this kind of drama, which comprised one-quarter of his output as tragedian, that I would like to (...) turn, with particular focus on his Theoroi or Isthmiastai, and its treatment of another visual medium, the plastic arts. Our fragments of this play begin with a figure presenting a chorus of satyrs with artfully wrought images made in their likenesses which bring them a startled delight. In the second discernible scene of the fragment the chorus receivesνεοχμᾰ… θρματα , usually understood as athletic equipment, which the satyrs find rather more unsettling. The following piece is primarily concerned with the first scene in which the coryphaeus urges his companions to dedicate the depictions as votives on Poseidon's temple, relishing the prospect of the comical, terrifying effect these images would have on his own mother and travellers, the latter probably on their way to the Isthmian games. At least this much is clear from the papyrus . This part of the fragment has attracted a good deal of attention for the evident ‘realism’ of the images that excites the satyrs so much in the first place. (shrink)