scholarly journals ON THE MIRROR OF TYRANTS: XENOPHON’S HIERO AND ITS CONTEXT(S)

Author(s):  
IVAN JORDOVIĆ

This article argues that in the Hiero, Xenophon skilfully combines elements of wisdom literature, epinician poetry, the Mirror of Tyrants and logoi Sōkratikoi. In doing so, he pursues two objectives. One is to link his reflections on leadership to respected and influential traditions in order to give his views additional weight and render them interesting for a wider audience. The second objective is to respond to Plato’s challenge to the traditional way of doing politics and, more specifically, the view that it is irremediable. For these reasons, this paper attempts to reconstruct the influence of wisdom literature (hypothēkai, Seven Sages), the Mirror of Tyrants (Isocrates), epinician poetry (Simonides, Pindar) and Plato’s dialogues on the Hiero.

2011 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ben (C) Fletcher ◽  
Jill Hanson ◽  
Nadine Page ◽  
Karen Pine

Two 3-month longitudinal studies examined weight loss following a 1-month behavioral intervention (FIT-DSD) focusing on increasing participants’ behavioral flexibility and breaking daily habits. The goal was to break the distal habits hypothesized as playing a role in unhealthy dietary and activity behaviors. The FIT-DSD intervention required participants to do something different each day and to engage in novel weekly activities to expand their behavioral repertoire. These activities were not food- or exercise-related. In Study 1, the FIT-DSD program was compared with a control condition where participants engaged in daily tasks not expected to influence behavioral flexibility. Study 2 used an active or quasicontrol group in which half the participants were also on food diets. Measures in both studies were taken pre-, post-, and post-postintervention. In Study 1, FIT-DSD participants showed greater weight loss that continued post-postintervention. In Study 2, all participants on the FIT-DSD program lost weight, weight loss continued post-postintervention, and participants who were also dieting lost no additional weight. A dose relationship was observed between increases in behavioral flexibility scores and weight loss, and this relationship was mediated by calorie intake. Corresponding reductions in BMI were also present. Increasing behavioral flexibility may be an effective approach for tackling obesity and also provides affective and potential life-skill benefits.


Diabetes ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 68 (Supplement 1) ◽  
pp. 2016-P
Author(s):  
NINA SONNE ◽  
ANNA T. LARSEN ◽  
KIM V. ANDREASSEN ◽  
MORTEN ASSER KARSDAL ◽  
KIM HENRIKSEN

2012 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 267-301
Author(s):  
Michaela Bauks

Interpretations of the trees in the Garden of Eden misunderstand their significance by focusing on sin or a theological “fall.” A tradition-historical approach to the motif of trees in ancient Near Eastern literature and imagery reveals their multivalent quality. Trees are connected with fertility and goddess devotion but also with the power and divine sanction given to kings and dynasties, and with the potency of sacred space, on which humans and the divine come together and meet. As cross-temporal motifs, trees are regularly associated with life-giving and blessing (a plant of rejuvenation; a tree of life); a connection of trees to knowledge and meaning appears as well, in wisdom literature, and in the book of 1 Enoch. Language of a world tree or cosmic tree, though useful conceptually, is a modern imposition on the ancient evidence. More evident from the ancient setting is the image of felling trees, which indicates the downfall of human leaders, especially kings, because of their hubris. Ultimately, sacred trees have an ambivalent value, as a source of both contestation and progress.


Author(s):  
Will Kynes

In order to identify the origins of the modern scholarly Wisdom tradition, this chapter evaluates the purported early “vestiges” of the category. These are (1) early views on the structure and order of the canonical books; (2) the association of a group of books with Solomon; (3) the ancient recognition of shared traits between books; and (4) the title Wisdom applied to several texts. This evidence does not, however, justify the common assertion that the Wisdom category has an ancient pedigree. To the degree that a category approaching the modern one existed at all, its contents and definition differed significantly, making it both quantitatively and qualitatively different from the current category. This indicates that Wisdom as we know it is instead a modern invention, and the accuracy of its depiction of ancient phenomena therefore merits more careful scrutiny than it has yet received.


Author(s):  
Will Kynes

The introduction sets this study in the context of the three recent critical approaches it combines: (1) “metacritical” studies of biblical criticism that identify and critically analyze the “historically effected consciousness” that inspired a particular approach to biblical interpretation; (2) “biographies” of texts that examine their origins and effects; and (3) “end- of” books, which, following the lead of Fukuyama’s “The End of History?” (1989), argue, among other things, that old concepts may fade away as perceptions change. The role of genre methodology in perpetuating the Wisdom Literature category and now in challenging it is introduced. Finally, terminological distinctions are made between the Wisdom Literature category and Wisdom as a genre, the Wisdom Schools associated with it, and wisdom as a concept.


Author(s):  
Dorota M. Dutsch

Modern scholarly accounts of Greek philosophical history usually exclude women. And yet, from Dixaearchus of Messana to Diogenes Laertius, classical writers record the names of women philosophers from various schools. What is more, pseudonymous treatises and letters (likely dating after the first century CE) articulate the teachings of Pythagorean women. How can this literature inform our understanding of Greek intellectual history? To take these texts at face value would be naïve; to reject them, narrow-minded. This book is a deep examination of the literary tradition surrounding female Pythagoreans; it envisions the tradition as a network of texts that does not represent female philosophers but enacts their role in Greek culture. Part I, “Portraits,” assembles and contextualizes excerpts from historical accounts and wisdom literature. Part II, “Impersonations,” analyzes pseudonymous treatises and letters. Texts are approached with a mixture of suspicion and belief, inspired by Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutics. Suspicion serves to disclose the misogyny of the epistemic regimes that produced the texts about and by women philosophers. Belief takes us beyond the circumstances of the texts’ production to possible worlds of diverse readers, institutions, and practices that grant agency to the female knower. In the process, the book uncovers traces of a fascinating dialogue about the gender of philosophical knowledge, which includes female voices.


2021 ◽  
Vol 133 (2) ◽  
pp. 208-224
Author(s):  
Nili Samet

Abstract This paper examines redactional theories regarding the development of the Book of Proverbs from a comparative perspective. Building on the methodology known as Empirical Models for Biblical Criticism, the paper explores patterns of development and redaction in the Mesopotamian proverb collection The Instructions of Shuruppak, including growth of collections, editorial use of opening and concluding formulas, and religiously-oriented redaction. These, in turn, serve as an illustration for very similar processes hypothesized by Biblicists regarding the development of biblical wisdom collections.


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