Illness in old age is part of an individual's fate and must be approached with acceptance

Older members of the Greek community see aging and the ill health that may accompany it as an inevitable part of life. They associate illness very closely with God’s will, and largely believe their state of health is an aspect of fate and / or luck that they do not have control over and must simply accept. This paper, based on research conducted in Melbourne, Australia, describes the way in which the experience of old age is understood in the worldview of this group. The words fate and luck (τύχη = tyche; γραφτό = graphto) are often used by older Greeks to characterize their situation. Luck, to this group, is not random. The term (τύχη) was used in classical times to refer to a kind of minor deity that controlled the fortune of the Greek city states, and an element of this idea of intention remains today. In the modern context, luck comes from God, and for this group, is part of γραφτό, or destiny, something that is written. In its usual usage in Greek, γραφτό refers to something that must happen to a person because it is predetermined and cannot not occur. The meaning that these older Greek individuals give to the word luck in the modern world is manifested in their acceptance of the problems of aging and their approach to coping with their own experience.

A just judgement? Considerations on Ronald Srigley’s Camus’ Critique of Modernity

This paper responds critically to Ronald Srigley’s groundbreaking 2011 study Albert Camus’ Critique of Modernity. Srigley’s book reasserts Camus’ credentials as a deeply serious thinker, whose literary and philosophical oeuvre was dedicated to rethinking modernity on the basis of critical reassessments of theWest’s entire premodern heritage. Yet we challenge whether Camus was ever, even in his final writings, so uncompromisingly anti-modern as Srigley contends. Srigley’s attempt to present Camus as committed to a return to the Greeks, on the basis of a total critique of modernity as deleteriously post-Christian, forces him to occlude important distinctions in Camus’ thought: those between unity and totality, rebellion and revolution. By contrast, we compare Camus’ defence of modern rebellion with Blumenberg’s argument in The Legitimacy of the Modern Age: finding justification for this rebellion in the deep problem faced by Christian theology of resolving the ‘problem of evil’. Finally, we suggest that Srigley overplays the extent of Camus’ ‘Hellenic’ critique of the Christian heritage (notably its ethical commitment to protecting the weak), in contrast to Christian theodicy and eschatology, which serve to rationalize avoidable suffering.

The poetic presentation of philosophy:Leo Strauss on Plato’s “symposium”

This essay undertakes a close analysis of Leo Strauss’s remarkable but undertreated Leo Strauss on Plato’s “Symposium,” reading it as opening a privileged purview of his own (and his students’) wider understandings of philosophy, poetry, and politics. The essay begins by drawing out Strauss’s three framing justifications for his manner of reading the Symposium as a document in the “ancient quarrel” of philosophy and poetry concerning which of the two should rightly shape the culture and ethical ideals of the Greeks (part 1). Then, following the course of Plato’s Symposium, the essay ascends through Strauss’s readings of the first five speeches in Plato’s dialogue (part 2) toward the highlight of Strauss’s reading, namely, his three remarkable sessions on Socrates’s speech. Part 3 analyses Strauss’s reading of this speech up to its climax, which Strauss argues involves the philosophical “demotion of poetry”: a criticism of poets as motivated by the Eros of fame and of tragic poetry as at its best creating captivating images of gods and heroes which reflect their creators’ self-love and patriotic love of “one’s own,”as against any transpolitical truth. Part 4 then looks at Strauss’s unusual reading of the culmination of Socrates’s great speech (Diotima on the “higher mysteries”) alongside Alkibiades’s speech in the Symposium as representing Plato’s “poetic presentation of philosophy.” The essay becomes more critical as it proceeds. Strauss’s reading of the Symposium, like his reading of the Republic, is remarkable for its own “demotion of metaphysics” in Plato, and in my concluding remarks, I will question this status, or disappearance, of metaphysics in Strauss’s Platonism and whether this disappearance compromises Strauss' ability to differentiate philosophy as he sees it from poetry.

The Assyrians

This chapter seeks to extend earlier works on Mesopotamian democracy to a civilisation that is not only typically excluded from such discussions of democracy in the ancient Near East, but generally considered to be among the region’s most bloodthirsty and bellicose: the Assyrians. On the one hand it cannot be denied that the Assyrians went through periods of aggressive expansion, that they were cruel to at least some of their enemies and that the more militant Assyrian kings struck fear into the hearts of men and women across the region (I:106-110, 113; II:1, 54-6 in: Grayson 1991: 201). On the other hand, however, it is peculiar that the intermittent war-mongering of the Assyrians is seen not only as ‘a modern myth exaggerated beyond all proportion’ (Parpola 2003: 1060), but also seen to exclude them from practicing any form of democracy. This is starkly inconsistent with the contemporary assessment of other societies of the ancient world, such as the Greeks or Romans who were both belligerent and at least nominally democratic. To give one example of this double standard, Jana Pecirkova argues that while the Greek polis enabled the birth of science, philosophy and the rule of law, the Assyrians were not able to distinguish ‘between the rational and the irrational, between reality and illusion’ (Pecirkova 1985: 155). The reason for this, according to Pecrikova, is simple: their ‘only alternative to monarchy … was anarchy … Political decisions were arbitrary in character and not governed by any laws or generally acknowledged and accepted rules’ and the ‘people were the passive subjects of political decision-making’ (Pecirkova 1985: 166-8). This chapter, while cautious not to over-state the democratic tendencies of the Assyrians, takes Pecirkova’s argument to task by examining the complex functioning of power and politics, the checks and balances on monarchical authority, the rule of law and the sophisticated intellectual scene of the three key epochs of ancient Assyrian civilisation.

‘In joy we prepare our lessons’: Reading Camus’ Noces via their reception of the Eleusinian mysteries

Nobel Prize winning author Albert Camus situates his meditations in both the opening and closing essays in his 1937 collection Noces by referring to the classical Eleusinian mysteries centring around the myths of Dionysus and the goddesses Demeter and Persephone. Noces’ closing piece ‘The Desert’ directly evokes the two levels of initiation involved in the classical Eleusinian cult in a way which prompts us to reframe the preceding essays beginning at Tipasa as akin to a single, initiatory trajectory. The kind of ‘love of life’ the opening ‘Nuptials at Tipasa’ had so marvellously celebrated, we are now informed, is not sufficient by itself. The entire round of these four essays, whose framing suggest four seasons (Spring in Tipasa, Summer at Algiers, then Autumn in Florence), are intended by Camus to enact just what the title, Noces, suggests in the context of the mysteries: namely, that hieros gamos or sacred union of man with nature or the gods at the heart of the ancient cults, tied very closely at Eleusis with reverence for the fecundity of nature, reborn each year with the return of Persephone from Hades to her grieving mother Demeter.

O Brasil, o Império Otomano e a Sociedade Internacional: contrastes e conexões (1850-1919)

Este estudo tem como objetivo analisar a forma como o Brasil e o buscaram se inserir na sociedade internacional europeia – nos moldes Inglesa de Relações Internacionais a define - no período que vai da a assinatura da Lei Eusébio de Queiroz do lado brasileiro e do tratado de Império Otomano, até a criação da Liga das Nações, em 1919. Estes são como “impérios periféricos” ao centro europeu, integrando o grupo que não eram nem colônias, nem potências no período em tela. Assim, contrastar os esforços feitos por Brasil e Império Otomano em utilizar o internacional e a diplomacia – formal e não-formal –, e as formas de transformações que empreenderam em suas capitais visando serem “civilizados”. Por outro lado, chama-se atenção para as conexões que se entre Brasil e Império Otomano justamente em função dessa maior Europa. Estas conexões são analisadas então em duas fases. Uma tentativas formais de relações diplomáticas, chamada de “relações envolveu inclusive viagens de D. Pedro II a domínios otomanos. A vinda de súditos otomanos – gregos, armênios, judeus e árabes – para o Brasil e de novas relações diplomáticas travadas.

Fragmentos da história das concepções de mundo na construção das ciências da natureza: das certezas medievais às dúvidas pré-modernas

A concepção filosófica do mundo se inicia com os gregos sintetizados por Platão e Aristóteles. Para o primeiro o mundo físico é aparente e para se chegar à verdade é preciso se lembrar das idéias originais que determinam seu significado. Para o segundo as coisas físicas são dirigidas pelas idéias e para entendê-las é preciso a lógica. Durante o helenismo a escola de Alexandria elabora o neoplatonismo, a base da Patrística. Após a queda de Roma, os filósofos bizantinos guardam a herança clássica. A Igreja constrói uma visão neoplatônica da cristandade, a Escolástica. No oriente os persas também sofreram a influência grega. Entre os árabes do Oriente o pensamento neoplatônico orienta filósofos e religiosos de forma que para eles a razão e a fé não se separam. Aí a ciências se desenvolvem na física, na alquimia, na botânica, na medicina, na matemática e na lógica, até serem subjugadas pela doutrina conservadora dos otomanos. Na Espanha mulçumana sem as restrições da teologia, a filosofia de Aristóteles é mais bem compreendida do que no resto do Islã. Também aí todas as ciências se desenvolvem rápido. Mas a Espanha sucumbe aos cristãos. Os árabes e judeus apresentam Aristóteles à Europa Ocidental que elabora um Aristóteles cristão. A matemática, a física experimental, a alquimia e a medicina dos árabes influenciam intensamente o Ocidente. Os artesãos constroem instrumentos cada vez mais precisos, os navegadores constroem navios e mapas mais eficientes e minuciosos, os armeiros calculam melhor a forma de lançamento e pontaria de suas armas e os agrimensores melhor elaboram a medida de sua área de mapeamento. Os artistas principalmente italianos, a partir dos clássicos gregos e árabes, criam a perspectiva no desenho, possibilitando a matematização do espaço. Os portugueses, junto com cientistas árabes, judeus e italianos, concluem um projeto de expansão naval e ampliam os horizontes do mundo. Os pensadores italianos, como uma reação à Escolástica, constroem um pensamento humanista influenciado pelo pensamento grego clássico original e pelos últimos filósofos bizantinos. Por todas essas mudanças se inicia a construção de um novo universo e de um novo método, que viria décadas mais tarde.

Problemas e modelos que contribuíram com o desenvolvimento do cálculo diferencial e integral: dos gregos à Newton

This article refers to a research which tries to historically (re)construct the conceptual development of the Integral and Differential calculus, taking into account its constructing model feature, since the Greeks to Newton. These models were created by the problems that have been proposed by the history and were being modified by the time the new problems were put and the mathematics known advanced. In this perspective, I also show how a number of nature philosophers and mathematicians got involved by this process. Starting with the speculations over scientific and philosophical natures done by the ancient Greeks, it culminates with Newton s work in the 17th century. Moreover, I present and analyze the problems proposed (open questions), models generated (questions answered) as well as the religious, political, economic and social conditions involved. This work is divided into 6 chapters plus the final considerations. Chapter 1 shows how the research came about, given my motivation and experience. I outline the ways I have gone trough to refine the main question and present the subject of and the objectives of the research, ending the chapter showing the theoretical bases by which the research was carried out, naming such bases as Investigation Theoretical Fields (ITF). Chapter 2 presents each one of the theoretical bases, which was introduced in the chapter 1 s end. In this discuss, I try to connect the ITF to the research. The Chapter 3 discusses the methodological choices done considering the theoretical fields considered. So, the Chapters 4, 5 and 6 present the main corpus of the research, i.e., they reconstruct the calculus history under a perspective of model building (questions answered) from the problems given (open questions), analyzing since the ancient Greeks contribution (Chapter 4), pos- Greek, especially, the Romans contribution, Hindus, Arabian, and the contribution on the Medium Age (Chapter 5). I relate the European reborn and the contribution of the philosophers and scientists until culminate with the Newton s work (Chapter 6). In the final considerations, it finally gives an account on my impressions about the development of the research as well as the results reached here. By the end, I plan out a propose of curse of Differential and Integral Calculus, having by basis the last three chapters of the article

A dinâmica do pensamento geométrico :aprendendo a enxergar meias verdades e a construir novos significados

This work is a case study to investigate the dynamics of the historians thought as they produce a knowledge about the history of the area measurement systems as forms of historical expressions and representations. We refer to some of the ideas of David Bohm (1989, 1992, 1994, 1996) to support our theoretical understanding about the operation of thought. We chose a period that is recognized by the theorists as the origin of the geometrical thought -embracing the knowledge developed by the Egyptians, Babylonians, Chinese, Hindus, Greeks and Romans- and is referred to as containing a cycle in the development of this knowledge, described as beginning, apogee and decline. We assume this history, as told by the theorists, as a version that we organize and tell with the help of three sets of categories. The first refers to the elements that take part in the measurement practices; the second refers to the historians understanding about the development of the scientific knowledge. This exercise allowed us to extract the theorists main beliefs, that we criticized in the light of the knowledge about Cubação (Dal Pian, 1990). We stress the importance of the methodological approach adopted in this study to the teaching of Geometry and its history

A retórica em Aristóteles: da orientação das paixões ao aprimoramento da eupraxia

This research brings into focus the relationship between the work Rhetoric, from Aristotle, and the conceptions of ethics and practical wisdom of the philosopher from Stageira. Accordingly, it attempts to show that Aristotle's Rhetoric was produced to guide the construction and orientation of oratory passions of the Greek man, setting it as a reference for practices aimed at social ordering of the polis. In other words, the Aristotelian Rhetoric, designed by the author as the study of what is persuasive in every speech, is not composed with the meaning of persuasion at any cost, in another sense it is conceived by Aristotle as a useful knowledge for the improvement eupraxic (the good act in accordance with the fair and true). This research finds that such work has been prepared by Stagirite a time of strong social transformations and upheavals in ancient Greece: The skepticism expanded, with each person wanting to live their own businesses, and especially in Athens, a city that served as intellectual and political reference, there was a lack of collective spirit. In this tumultuous social environment, Aristotle, with a culture of Greeks eager Trusted reviews and socially shareable in the field of verisimilitude, sought with his Rhetoric, contributing to the development of ethics and political science; referrals for legal and organization of inter-social relations in varied environments, including seeking to provide knowledge about human passions and emotional status of active citizens in deliberative meetings

Nós e os gregos

Este artigo responde afirmativamente à questão, vez por outra retomada, da efetiva contribuição que o estudo do pensamento político dos antigos gregos pode trazer ao debate dos problemas com que se defrontam as modernas sociedades democráticas.

O sistema de partida em corridas de velocidade do atletismo

Não é difícil observar a importância das corridas de velocidade para o cenário esportivo mundial. Entretanto, do stádion, disputado pelos gregos nos Jogos Olímpicos da Grécia Antiga, aos atuais 100 metros rasos, foram várias as modificações. Não por outro motivo, o objetivo dessa pesquisa foi registrar as modificações que ocorreram no sistema de partida das corridas de velocidade ao longo dos tempos. Essa pesquisa teórica, caracterizada como uma pesquisa bibliográfica, concentrou-se na coleta de dados provenientes de livros, artigos, imagens e websites relacionados aos 100 metros rasos. Dentre as modificações identificadas merecem destaque as que ocorreram no sistema de partida e que incluem o bloco de partida utilizado pelos atletas na atualidade, sem o qual, talvez, não se tivesse chegado ao incrível recorde mundial dos 100 metros rasos de 9s58.

Assessment of divine proportion in the cranial structure of individuals with Angle Class II malocclusion on lateral cephalograms

INTRODUCTION: The study of the Divine Proportion (Φ = 1.618) began with the Greeks, having as main researchers the mathematician Pythagoras and the sculptor Phidias. In Dentistry, Ricketts (1981-82) was an early to study this issue. OBJECTIVE: This study proposed to evaluate how some cephalometric measures are presented in relation to the Divine Proportion, with the total of 52 proportions, formed by 28 cephalometric landmarks. METHODS: Lateral cephalograms of 40 Class II adults patients aging from 17 to 45 years (13 male and 27 female) were evaluated. The linear distances between the landmarks were measured using Radiocef Studio software. RESULTS: After statistical analysis, the data shown an average of 65,48% in the Divine Proportion, 17,5% in the relation Ans-Op/V1S-DM16 and 97,5% in the relations Na-Me/Na-PoNa e Na-PoNa/Na-Gn. CONCLUSION: Among all cephalometric measurements investigated, the lower facial third and the dental arches showed the smallest percentages of Divine Proportion.

O processo de integração em Blaise Pascal

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Nas redes da Àte: A hybris de Xerxes em Os persas de Ésquilo

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)