Dancing, Declamation, and Deipnosophistry in the Deiotariana

Palamedes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 61-92
Author(s):  
Brian Krostenko
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Political Decisions ◽  
As If ◽  
Formal Features

This article argues that some formal features of Cicero’s speech pro rege Deiotaro reflect Cicero’s understanding of the ideological strains of those days. Some of the charges brought against Deiotarus seem likely to be true. Cicero’s rebuttals of those charges seem weak by the normal conventions of courtroom argument. But the rebuttals draw on modes of speech appropriate for sophisticated dinner parties—literary criticism, poetry, and moral philosophy. The arguments are not necessarily more successful for that, but they do make an ideological point: if political decisions now depend on one man, that brings political decisions very close to questions of taste and sensibility, which in their turn become a valuable and even necessary source of arguments. This aspect of Cicero’s rhetorical approach in the speech exploits the setting, Caesar’s house: Cicero speaks as if he were in a place where, not forensic convention, but intellectual intimacy was the chief value. But Cicero’s artful voice also lapses into patent sophism, making pointedly clever and painfully false argument. That, too, makes an ideological point: if the monarch must depend on intellectual intimates, he is also susceptible to flattery.

Rereading Rape in the Critical Canon

differences ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 122-160
Author(s):  
Erin A. Spampinato
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Assault ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Rape Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
Criminal Conduct ◽  
Forms Of Violence ◽  
As If ◽  
Physical Outcomes

This essay identifies what the author terms “adjudicative reading,” a tendency in literary criticism to read novels depicting sexual violence as if in a court of law. Adjudicative reading tracks characters’ motivations and the physical outcomes of their actions as if novels can offer evidence, or lack thereof, of criminal conduct. This legalistic style of criticism not only ignores the fictionality of incidences of rape in novels, but it replicates the prejudices inherent in historical rape law by centering the experiences of the accused character over and against the harm caused to the fictional victim of rape. By contrast, the “capacious” conception of rape proposed here refuses to locate rape in a particular bodily act (as the law does), rejects the yoking of rape’s harms to a particular gender, and understands various forms of violence as equally serious (rather than creating a hierarchy of sexual assault, as current legal conceptions tend to do).

Linguistic Philosophy and Perception

Philosophy ◽  
1953 ◽  
Vol 28 (107) ◽  
pp. 311-324
Author(s):  
Margaret MacDonald
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Common Sense ◽  
External World ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Sense Experience ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Perceptual Variation ◽  
Linguistic Philosophy ◽  
As If

Philosophical theories of perception are generally admitted to be responses to certain problems or puzzles allied to the ancient dichotomy between Appearance and Reality. For they have been mainly provoked by the incompatibility of the common–sense assumption that an external, physical world exists and is revealed to the senses with the well–known facts of perceptual variation and error. If only what is real were perceived just as if only what is right were done it is possible that many of those questions would never have been asked which lead to moral philosophy and a metaphysics of the external world. But sense perceptions of the same object vary so that it appears to have contradictory qualities and are sometimes completely deceptive. Nor do illusory differ internally from veridical perceptions. Moreover, perceptual variation and error can be unmasked only by such procedures as looking more carefully, listening harder, trying to touch, asking others, in short by more sense experience. So the senses are, as it were, both accused and judge in these disputes and why should a venal judge be trusted more than the criminal he tries? Such “correction” of one experience by another of the same kind seems no more reliable than the original “error.” Philosophers have found all this very puzzling.

Latin Love Poets and the Biographical Approach

1976 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 132-139
Author(s):  
M. L. Clarke
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Latin Poetry ◽  
Roman Literature ◽  
Biographical Approach ◽  
Hellenistic Poetry ◽  
As If

In 1962 J.P. Sullivan reprinted in Critical Essays on Roman Literature, Elegy and Lyric an essay by H.F. Cherniss with the title ‘me ex versiculis parum pudicum’, which he described as a ‘still too little heeded warning against the biographical fashion in literary criticism’. Fashions seem now to have changed. The biographical approach is out of favour. Recent studies of Latin poetry give the impression that the key to it is to be found not in the writer's personality and experience, but in the Greek, particularly Hellenistic, poetry which he supposedly used and imitated, in the form and structure of the poem, even in its position in relation to others in the same book. ‘The only thing’, writes Georg Luck, ‘that the elegiac poets take seriously is their art’ —as if Propertius was never serious about Cynthia. The refusal to believe that Latin poets meant what they said leads to some strange perversities of interpretation. We had always supposed that after Tibullus gave up, or was given up by, Delia he took a new mistress whom he called Nemesis, and that, as he tells us in 2.6.29–40, she had a sister who died from falling out of a window. Now it appears that Tibullus invented Nemesis to give variety to his poetry, and invented the unfortunate sister to give factitious reality to Nemesis.

scholarly journals George Clooney, Brad Pitt und ich, Oder: Die schöne Illusion des Vertrauens

2009 ◽  
Vol 54 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-122
Author(s):  
Josef Früchtl
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Aesthetic Experiences ◽  
Social Sphere ◽  
The Social ◽  
Subject Specific ◽  
The World ◽  
Recent Philosophy ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
As If

Vertrauen hat zunächst einmal eine fundamentale Funktion in der sozialen Sphäre. Dementsprechend fungiert es als philosophischer Terminus vor allem in der Politischen, der Sozial- und der Moralphilosophie. Aber auch in der neueren Soziologie und Psychologie ist es zentral. Im Verweis darauf kann man das Vertrauensverhältnis zwischen Zuschauer und Leinwandheld als parasozial bezeichnen, als eine Als-ob- Interaktion. Für die neuere Filmphilosophie spezifisch interessant ist demgegenüber das ontologische Vertrauen. Statt es mit Deleuze im Sinne einer Kino-Metaphysik zu erklären, scheint es angemessener, die verschiedenen fachspezifischen Antworten noch einmal unter Kants Spielkonzept zusammenzubinden. Ästhetische Erfahrungen bestärken uns in der Einstellung, so zu tun, als ob wir in die Welt Vertrauen haben könnten. At first trust plays a fundamental role within the social sphere. Accordingly, trust serves as philosophical term above all in Political, Social, and Moral Philosophy. But it is also central in recent Sociology and Psychology. Referring to these disciplines, the relationship of trust be- tween viewer and hero on the screen can be called ›parasocial‹, as-if-interaction. In contrast, ontological trust is of particular interest for recent philosophy of film. Instead of explaining it, following Deleuze, in terms of a metaphysics of cinema it seems to be more adequate to com- bine the different subject-specific answers in Kant’s concept of play. Aesthetic experiences then are encouraging us in the attitude to act as if there could be trust in the world.

scholarly journals Epistemic and ethical responsibility during the pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 117-125
Author(s):  
Andrea Klimková
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Human Rights ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Ethical Responsibility ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Policy Responses ◽  
Actual Content ◽  
Political Decisions

Abstract Intellectual (specialised) knowledge is omnipresent in human lives and decisions. We are constantly trying to make good and correct decisions. However, responsible decision-making is characterised by rather difficult epistemic conditions. It applies all the more during the pandemic when decisions require not only specialised knowledge in a number of disciplines, scientific consensus, and participants from different fields, but also responsibility and respect for moral principles in order to ensure that the human rights of all groups are observed. Pandemic measures are created by politicians, healthcare policy-makers, and epidemiologists. However, what is the role of ethics as a moral philosophy and experts in ethics? Experts in ethics and philosophy are carefully scrutinising political decisions. Levy and Savulescu (2020) have claimed that Ethicists and philosophers are not epistemically arrogant if they question policy responses. They played an important role in the creation of a reliable consensus. This study analyses epistemic and moral responsibility, their similarities, analogies, and differences. Are they interconnected? What is their relationship and how can they be filled with actual content during the pandemic?

Religion and Journalism

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory Perreault
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Minority Groups ◽  
Edward Said ◽  
Research Paradigms ◽  
Structure And Agency ◽  
Oriented Research ◽  
As If

The analysis of journalism and religion emerges from two different research paradigms: a post-positivist and a culturalist. The primary debate in the field stems from the two paradigmatic orientations. Post-positivist journalism and religion research argues that religious topics are already complex and so by simplifying, researchers can help explain the topic for broader consumption. Yet culturalist journalism and religion research argues that there is little to be gained from attempting to simplify religion in this way—it is better to represent religion as it is, rather than to make it palatable. The topic developed in the 1980s largely as a result of contributions from Edward Said, Judith Buddenbaum, Stewart Hoover, Mark Silk, and David Nord. Three primary approaches have become dominant. In effects-oriented research, religion serves as a variable in helping explain a phenomenon. In the culturalist approach, the journalism and religion phenomenon is examined through the lens of structure and agency—the power relations integral to the phenomenon. Finally, in the literary criticism approach, religion is examined as the phenomenon being represented in journalism. As paradigms would indicate, the post-positivist paradigm is most interested in predicting the religious representations and the culturalist paradigm is most interested in understanding the representations. Broadly, this subfield is situated within the larger umbrella of journalism and minority concerns. Implicit in this research is Said’s orientalism, a theoretical tradition that emphasizes the “othering” of minority groups, making them appear as if they are in need of being “oriented” to fit ideas of what is normal and acceptable within a society. It similarly builds on Gramsci’s hegemony, which conversely examines how a society proliferates ideas of that which is normal and acceptable practice.

Rethinking ‘One Thought Too Many’

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcia Baron
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
As If

“But that would be one thought too many.” This assertion, common in moral philosophy ever since Bernard Williams coined the phrase, is often used as if we all know what it means. It is used as if we all know that it is a bad thing if there is one thought too many and also why it is a bad thing. This paper addresses what ‘That would be one thought too many’ means. What is the thought that would be one too many and why would it be too many?

scholarly journals Clusters, key clusters and local textual functions in Dickens

Corpora ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michaela Mahlberg
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Functional Groups ◽  
Charles Dickens ◽  
Corpus Linguistics ◽  
Body Part ◽  
Repeated Sequences ◽  
Stylistic Analysis ◽  
Functional Variation ◽  
As If

The paper argues that corpus linguistics can make useful contributions to the descriptive inventory of literary stylistics. The concept of local textual functions is employed as a descriptive tool for the stylistic analysis of a corpus of texts by Charles Dickens. It is suggested that clusters, i.e. repeated sequences of words, can be interpreted as pointers to local textual functions. The focus is on five-word clusters and five functional groups are identified: Labels, Speech clusters, As If clusters, Body Part clusters and Time and Place clusters. The analysis draws on the identification of key clusters comparing the Dickens corpus with a corpus of nineteenth-century fiction, it identifies links to literary criticism and it gives specific attention to the group of Body Part clusters to illustrate the functional variation of clusters.

scholarly journals Bakhtin and Cohen: The First Stages in Building the Philosophical System

2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 436-456
Author(s):  
Ilya Dvorkin
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Interpersonal Relations ◽  
Main Idea ◽  
Personal Integrity ◽  
Main Subject ◽  
Philosophical System ◽  
Oral Testimony ◽  
Philosophical Texts ◽  
Correlative Relationship

Abstact. Although it is generally known that M.M. Bakhtin viewed himself as primarily a philosopher and not a philologist, the overwhelming majority of studies of his work belong to literary criticism. The purpose of this article, relying on the oral testimony of Bakhtin himself and his philosophical texts written in the Nevel-Vitebsk period (1919-1924), is to restore the origin of his philosophical sources and the content of his philosophical ideas of this period. The main idea is the concept of moral philosophy as a philosophical system, whose main subject is participative thinking and an answerable act as an event of being. One of the most important sources of these ideas was probably the philosophy of Neo-Kantianism represented by the teachings of H. Cohen. The article provides four examples of Bakhtin's continuity in relation to the Marburg philosopher - the idea of an answerable act concerning another person as the source of a human's self-consciousness and personal integrity, the idea of a correlative relationship between a person and his neighbor as an expression of a caring participatory being, the idea of distinguishing a moral attitude from an ethical-legal one and the idea of the philosophical system, whose subject is the process of interpersonal relations. In this case, the system consists not only in the integrity of the object but also in its openness. Revealing the continuity of Bakhtin's philosophical ideas regarding Cohen leads to a better understanding of these ideas and Bakhtin's originality of their development. It is also fruitful to compare the perception of Cohen's ideas by Bakhtin and their reception by another philosopher of dialogue, F. Rosenzweig.

Introduction to “Cultures of Argument”: The Loose Garments of Argument

PMLA ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 135 (5) ◽  
pp. 946-955
Author(s):  
Pardis Dabashi
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Graduate Student ◽  
Target Audience ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
The Future ◽  
Labor Crisis ◽  
As If

At the January 2019 MLA convention in Chicago, I gave a paper entitled “The pressure to intervene: A case for the modest (Young) Critic” on a panel called Post-critique and the Profession. The purpose of the panel was to encourage us to think about the postcritical debate in terms of the material realities of literary studies today. My paper interrogated the recent call for postcritical forms of scholarship from the perspective of the humanities' current labor crisis. I had been struck by how arguments for imagining alternatives to traditional hermeneutic modes of literary criticism were inherently future-oriented: “this book joins an animated conversation about the future of literary studies,” Rita Felski writes in The Limits of Critique (2015 [10]). While intrigued by her and others' encouragement to decenter critique and forge other ways of engaging with our texts, I couldn't help thinking to myself, “Wait; what future?” Though one might imagine that the target audience of this plea for new kinds of criticism would be people like me—at the time a graduate student trying to break into the profession—my future as an academic was so terrifyingly uncertain that to plan for a future in which I'd be able to do any form of scholarship, critical or otherwise, seemed imprudent at best. To write about a postcritical future of literary studies and to insufficiently address how grim the future looks to those of us who hold the future of literary studies in our hands seemed a worrisome oversight. In short, while arguments for postcritique, surface reading, and the like seemed as if they should be talking to me, I couldn't help but sense that they weren't really talking to me at all.

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