Prologue

The prologue issues a challenge to all interested in the Classics to address the questions ‘Why does Classics matter now?’ and ‘What should it hope to contribute to the vital issues of our present?’ by exploring how the Classics have always been embroiled in anthropological conversations about our place in relation to others. The aim of the book they frame, they assert, is to highlight—ultimately in positive terms—the contingency of the Classics’ most profound (and often disastrous) conceptual heritage to us. The historical story of the place of the Classical tradition and Classics in anthropology, it claims, enlivens us to the real contribution the Classics might make now beyond the history of Classical reception and enjoins direct engagement with the question of why we need Classics now. This book’s story of the history of anthropology, it argues, tells us this: we need to do it in order to think beyond it.

Aristotle’s Rhetoric in the Latin West

Chapter 4 turns from following the long and varied tradition of stylistic teaching and practice to dedicated theory: now the reception of Aristotle’s Rhetoric and especially its analytic of the emotions from antiquity to the late thirteenth century. This chapter treats pathos and enthymeme in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. It contrasts other ancient philosophical traditions of the passions with Aristotle’s phenomenological treatment of emotion in the Rhetoric. It traces the post-classical reception of the Rhetoric through medieval Arabic commentators on the emotions, Moerbeke’s authoritative Latin translation, Giles of Rome’s important commentary on the Rhetoric, c.1272, and other scholastic commentators on the relevant sections of Aristotle’s text. It also contrasts other medieval philosophies of the passions with what readers would have found in Aristotle’s Rhetoric. In his first engagement with the Rhetoric, Giles did not grasp the political significance of Aristotle’s treatment of emotions because his thinking was still embedded in contemporary medieval theories of the passions.

Avicenna on Equivocity and Modulation: A Reconsideration of the asmāʾ mushakkika (and tashkīk al-wujūd)

This study investigates Avicenna’s conception of philosophical terminology through an analysis of the relation between equivocity (ishtirāk) and modulation (tashkīk) and by drawing evidence from a broad array of logical, physical, and metaphysical texts. In so doing, it also re-examines the notion of the modulation of existence (tashkīk al-wujūd). Although the intrinsic definitional ambiguity of tashkīk makes it possible to approach it alternatively through the lens of univocity and equivocity, there are strong textual and philosophical reasons to believe that Avicenna preferred to regard tashkīk as a kind of moderate equivocity, as opposed to both univocity and a kind of pure or absolute equivocity. As a corollary, it is preferable to construe tashkīk al-wujūd as a “modulated equivocity of being” rather than as a “modulated univocity of being.” On the one hand, this underscores the continuity with Aristotle’s theory of pros hen predication and its late-antique Greek and early Arabic reception, which Avicenna, as heir to a long commentatorial tradition, reinterprets in his own way. On the other hand, the reading of the asmāʾ mushakkika and tashkīk al-wujūd proposed here may explain some of the origins of the ontological debates on the construal of existence that developed from the post-classical reception of Avicenna’s works.

Vintila Horia

Vintila Horia (1915-1992) fue un escritor e intelectual de nacionalidad rumana. Condenado por la dictadura comunista de su país, vivió en el exilio gran parte de su vida, en Italia, Argentina y Francia, hasta que se estableció en España en 1953. Escribió una amplia y variada obra, que consta de artículos, novelas y ensayos, en rumano, francés y castellano. Ideológicamente tuvo un talante conservador y cristiano. Dos temas dominantes de su obra, relacionados entre sí, son el exilio y la disidencia intelectual. Analizaremos en este trabajo la incorporación creativa de la tradición clásica para expresar esos dos motivos. Varias de sus novelas versan sobre personajes históricos grecorromanos que, de alguna manera, representan al propio autor. Entre ellas, Dios ha nacido en el exilio (1960) recrea el exilio de Ovidio y su descubrimiento de la fe cristiana. En este trabajo se analiza el uso de fuentes clásicas por parte de Horia y la incorporación creativa de estos materiales como correlato objetivo y como base de creación de sentido en esa novela. Vintilă Horia (1915-1992) is a Romanian writer and romanist. Convicted by the communist régime of his country, he lived most of his life in exile, in Italy, Argentina, and France. He eventually settled in Spain from 1953. His production consists of articles, novels, and essays, written in Romanian, French, and Spanish. Ideologically, he was conservative and Christian. He develops two core subject-matters: exile and intellectual dissent. In this paper il will be analysed the creative use of the Classical reception for expressing these two motives. Several of his novels portray historical characters who represent the author himself: for instance, God was born in exile (1960) tells the story of Ovid’s exile and his conversion to the Christian faith. It will be examined the use of Classical sources by Horia and the creative assimilation of these materials as a correlative objective for creating meaning