Philosophy

When Prudentius receives attention, it is typically on account of his monumental poems, Psychomachia and Peristephanon—that is to say, as a Christian successor to the pagan epicist, Virgil. But Gerard O’Daly reports that Prudentius was shelved beside Horace, Rome’s foremost lyricist, towards the middle of the fifth century in “libraries in villas near Nîmes”, which suggests “a recognition of their affinity as writers”. In Days Linked by Song, O’Daly reintroduces this Horatian Prudentius, and invites us to revisit some of the most accomplished Christian lyric of late antiquity—Prudentius’ song-cycle, Cathemerinon.

Miklós Szentkuthy — born Miklós Pfisterer, in 1908 — introduced himself to Budapest’s literary circles in 1934 with a self-published novel, Prae, and he remained a provocative figure until his death in 1988. Szentkuthy is still referred to as the “sacred monster” of Hungarian letters, and the expression is apt. His huge output — foremost, the “Romanesque cathedral” that is the Breviary — is at once speculative and manneristic, hyper-erotic and hyper-religious, bleary eyed and clear-sighted.       

Szentkuthy’s ambition was medieval: to produce a catalogus rerum, “an index of all entities.” His method is “Hellenistic-rococo”: he writes spirited variations on the letter of the canon. His syntax and affect are irreverently modernist, yet there is nothing programmatic about his avant-gardism, and what he wrote of Casanova holds true of him as well: “the muck of literary program is not allowed to dirty his white cuffs.” In the Marginalia, “metaphysical facts,” “factual truths,” and deliriums are calculated to transect “with the epic grace of an apoplectic fit.” It is not accidental, then, that he was thrilled by the expression of the15th-century polymath, Nicolas of Cusa — echoed by Romantics like Novalis and Coleridge — that the essence of all things is a coincidentia oppositorum: a “coincidence of opposites.” Szentkuthy is, himself, such a coincidence. ...

From the 13th century to the present day, Augustine’s suggestion that time is a “dilation of the soul” (distentio animi) has been taken up as a seminal and controversial time-concept. In The Space of Time, David van Dusen argues that this ‘dilation’ has been fundamentally misinterpreted.

Time in Confessions XI is a dilation of the senses—in beasts, as in humans. And Augustine’s time-concept in Confessions XI is not Platonic but, in schematic terms, Epicurean.

Identifying new influences on the Confessions—from Aristoxenus to Lucretius—while keeping Augustine’s phenomenological interpreters in view, The Space of Time is a path-breaking work on Confessions X to XII and a ranging contribution to the history of the concept of time.

In Inferno IV, when Dante catches sight of him in a mild foyer to the spiralling pit of hell, Averroes is simply described as ‘he who made the great Comment’; but in Convivio IV, the only other place where Dante references him, Averroes is specifically ‘the Commentator on Aristotle’s De Anima III’. Dante wrote this in the first decade of the fourteenth century, when Averroes was still, in effect, the commentator on De Anima III. But by the last decades of the fifteenth century, a ‘Simplicius’ commentary on the De Anima was being circulated in Italy by émigrés from Constantinople. This commentary rapidly exerted an influence on the likes of Pico della Mirandola and Agostino Nifo. It saw a first Greek edition in Venice in 1527, with a complete Latin translation appearing in 1543, also in Venice. As its first translator pointed out in his prefatory letter, Averroes had a contender in this De Anima commentary. The title of a 1553 Latin translation then left no doubt: here was the Commentaria Simplicii Profundissimi & acutissimi philosophi in tres libros De Anima Aristotelis. And by the end of the sixteenth century, this commentary had inspired a vocal coterie in Italy, the so-called sectatores Simplicii.

This note begins to demonstrate, in a modest but concrete way, that Carl Schmitt’s appeal to Greek and Latin juridical language in the 1932 edition of The Concept of the Political displays nothing like what Jacques Derrida praised as Schmitt’s “vigilant, meticulous, implacable rigour inherited from the tradition.” In light of the evidence briefly presented here, deference to Schmitt’s erudition in the philosophical and historical literature should be tempered; and taking Ernst Jünger’s “cold-blooded” intuition of Schmitt as a point of departure, critical attention should be given to Schmitt’s use of the sources of European law.

KEY WORDS: Carl Schmitt; Concept of the Political; Jacques Derrida; Ernst Jünger; Corpus Iuris Civilis

As Szentkuthy confesses in section 1 of Towards the One and Only Metaphor, his “most primeval” desire is to produce “a Catalogus Rerum, an ‘Index of Entities’”. His chosen material is – impossibly – “the all”. In section 28, he then bisects his index into entities that “time beautifies, crystallizes” and entities that time “distorts and spoils”. Miklós Szentkuthy is still crystallizing.

In these essays, Bataille pursues the question of a “prehistoric human life, hardly distinct from nature,” and while he never hesitates to speak of ‘cave art,’ and so on, he also underscores that “these works were not, by any measure, at any time, objects of art.”

Prior to every cultural transformation or conception of art, what Bataille seeks to glimpse and to delineate is a mutation of life upon which all culture is erected and from which all art is descended. And quite literally, descended.

The original question of ‘culture’ is a question of the origin and sexual propagation of a species—namely, of “our species.” It is thus not in the least strange that we regularly encounter ithyphallic males and eroticized females in prehistoric figuration: the archaic image is never less than “a response to human desire.”

“You suppose that the nature of time is perfectly clear, when nothing could be more obscure,” is Pierre Gassendi’s reproach to René Descartes in 1644. Time’s murkiness is so obvious to Gassendi that he then mocks Descartes outright: “How you would place the whole republic of letters in your debt if you could elucidate the nature of time!” Gassendi later takes up the question of time in his posthumously published Syntagma Philosophicum (1658). Like Descartes, he fails to resolve it. Yet the Syntagma’s nine folio pages on time demonstrably influence Isaac Newton’s definition of “absolute, true and mathematical time” in the Principia Mathematica (1687). This history of absolute time has immediate cachet, thanks to the celebrity of Newton’s Principia. But in Time and the Science of the Soul in Early Modern Philosophy, Michael Edwards begins to sketch a parallel history of what Newton would call “relative, apparent and vulgar time”. ...

In Pilate and Jesus, Giorgio Agamben argues that Pontius Pilate never formally condemned Jesus of Nazareth. “The traditional interpretation of Jesus’ trial … must be revised,” he urges, because “there has not been any judgement in a technical sense.” Pilate’s non-judgement is the original truth of Jesus’ death which has been “covered over and neutralized by tradition.” What would it mean if Jesus’ death had no legal status? If he had not been condemned to the “ultimate punishment” by a Roman prefect, but had merely been killed hors la loi with Pilate’s connivance? These are interesting questions, but Agamben’s use of sources in posing and resolving them is capricious. The present article sets out a critique of the legal and philological argumentation of Pilate and Jesus. In the process, it critically revisits an ancient – and still actual – controversy surrounding the Roman trial of Jesus, and demonstrates that Pilate did sentence Jesus, pro tribunali, to death on a cross.

From Josef Lössl's review of The Space of Time: A Sensualist Interpretation of Time in Augustine, Confessions X to XII: "[A] highly erudite and enthusiastically written account … Although Lucretian influence has been observed in Augustine before, its extent and depth in Confessions have never been studied in this intensity … Augustine takes the material constitution of reality much more seriously than, for example, Neoplatonists of a more Alexandrian persuasion. Van Dusen has clearly demonstrated this for the concept of time in Confessions. … [A] fine new study on Augustine’s concept of time in Confessions, which should be heeded by all who take an interest in the philosophical study of time.”

In Confessions XI, Augustine tentatively defined ‘time’ (tempus) as a ‘dilation of the soul’ (distentio animi). But what did he mean? From Eugippius in the 6th century to Jean-Luc Marion in the 21st, commentators have sharply disagreed. The present article briefly sketches the reception history of Confessions XI, before restating the argument of a recent monograph on this topic, The Space of Time (Leiden and Boston, 2014). Unlike any previous interpretation of time in the Confessions: the ‘sensualist’ interpretation set out in that book coherently accounts for the time of beasts in Confessions X, the time of humans in Confessions XI, and the timelessness of Augustine’s ‘heaven of heaven’ (caelum caeli) in Confessions XII. It is then asked why Confessions XI has been read in light of Platonic, Peripatetic, Stoic, and Neoplatonic time-concepts – but never the Epicurean. To the precise extent that Augustine’s time-theory is ‘soulish’ (as D. A. Napier has put it), his time-theory is also ‘sensualist’; and there is only one ‘sensualist’ time-theory in antiquity: the Epicurean. It is finally suggested that the influence on Augustine of Lucretius’ Epicurean epic, De Rerum Natura, has gone unnoticed – and sheds new light on time in Confessions XI.

Nemesius of Emesa composed his De natura hominis shortly after John Chrysostom († 407) preached eight venomous sermons 'adversus Iudaeos' in Antioch, in the autumn months of 386 and 387. And in the middle of the 4th century, in Nemesius’ episcopal city, Eusebius of Emesa († c. 359) bitterly denounced the synagogues of Syria in his sermons as enclaves of unbelief.  But in Nemesius’ treatise, there is no trace of anti-Judaic rhetoric.

The Nat. hom. marks the genesis of Christian anthropology, and it is not a hostile or a vitriolic text. Nemesius writes and compiles the Nat. hom., not only for Christians, but for Hellenes and Jews. (‘Barbarian’ appears not to be a meaningful category for him.) His preeminent Hellenic authorities are Plato, Aristotle, and Galen; and his preeminent non-Hellenic authorities are ‘Moses’ and ‘the Hebrews.’ Nemesius numbers himself, as a Christian bishop, among “those who revere … the Hebrews,” and his inclusion of ‘Mosaic’ dicta and ‘Hebraic’ doctrines in the Nat. hom. reflects the high esteem in which he holds them.

In the Nat. hom., the non-Hellenic authority of Moses is made to harmonize with the highest and firmest conclusions of Hellenic authorities. Nemesius seems to have no appetite for allegory, and there is no tendency in the Nat. hom. to strip Mosaic authority of its prophetic specificity. But it is precisely because the Mosaic books are held to be divinely inspired, that Mosaic doctrines are believed to be in accordance with reason.

The non-canonical authority of the Hebrews complements that of Moses. Pace Werner Jaeger’s hypothesis, the function of the term Hebraioi in Nemesius’ text is not to encrypt citations of Philo, but to designate elements which Nemesius attributes to the most ancient and authentic interpreters of the Mosaic texts – i.e., to ‘the Hebrews.’ With one exception, all of these elements relate to his concept of ‘creation’ (ktisis), and thus, to the creation narrative of Genesis.

The last doctrine of the Hebrews in the Nat. hom. – touching the “true method of divination” – is of particular interest, since there is a sense in which Judaic authority, here, ceases to be Judaic. This is because it concerns a matter which is purely natural. One of Nemesius’ first principles is that “things that are natural are the same for all,” and oneiric divination is a natural form of human cognition, in the Nat. hom. This ‘true method of divination’ is thus not only recognized by the Hebrews, but by the Pythagoreans. It is a form of diffuse revelation – common to Hellenes, Jews, and Christians.

Written by an English politician living in Antwerp, and first printed in Louvain in 1516, Thomas More's Utopia is a dream of hard-won and unrepentant insulation. Of course, the English word ‘insulate’ is derived from the Latin insula – ‘island.’ As we will see, More is at pains to make his ‘Utopian Republic’ an island polity.

More’s Utopia is the first modern text that describes a harmonious place which is ‘no place’ (in Latin Nusquama, and in Greek Ou-topos). The purpose of More’s literary device is to distance us from our own inharmonious place, from the clanging imperfections of a social order that we have both inherited and constructed. There is therefore reason for us to engage with a ‘utopian’ critique of free movement – of the late-modern ideal of borderlessness – in a tense and grating, contemporary context. It is possible that the utopian genre could help us to understand the present state of the EU – and indeed, its many critics.

More’s report on ‘the new island of Utopia’, and Francis Bacon’s fable of a New Atlantis, are of special interest. Both were produced by English philosopher-statesmen of the first rank. What is more, both were systematically anticipated by the dialogues of Plato – most notably, his Republic, Critias, and Laws. It will not be possible to deal here with the pre-modern influences on Utopia and New Atlantis, but a sketch of the border-themes and border-regimes in these political fictions should be suggestive.

Plato’s corpus is not systematic, but dramatic. This chapter introduces the drama of legal critique in his dialogues. Following a brief introduction to Plato and his chronology, with a glance at Platonism in the longue durée, the motif of legal critique is then traced up the dialogues that concern us in later chapters. Plato’s dramatization of the trial and death of Socrates (Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Phaedo); his sustained critique of legal positivism and his first law-code (Gorgias and Republic); and his formal critique of law and second law-code (Politicus and Laws) are introduced in concise, original résumés. This chapter therefore retraces the chronological arc of Plato’s dialogues – from the Apology to the Laws. It is proposed, in conclusion, that Laws XII ends with a dark coda. Socrates’ trial is chillingly reprised in the last pages that Plato ever penned.

It is not contentious to suggest that ours is an intensive moment of what I will call, in this essay, the flux of law. The word ‘flux’ has been chosen precisely because it is capacious. Its imprecision is intended. It contains a suggestion of chaos and disorder, and any fundamental legal theory must take account of these phenomena. Plato’s does. ‘I was on the verge of saying that no human whatever legislates (oudeis ouden nomothetei)’, he writes in Laws IV, ‘but that chance … legislates all things for us.’ Plato is certain that legal flux occurs. And he is certain that legal flux will necessarily occur, in the longue durée, regardless of our legal doctrines and designs. ‘For either it is a war that violently overturns regimes and changes the laws (metebale nomous)’, he clarifies in Laws IV, ‘or the stress of harsh poverty does it.’

What the contemporary literature tends to call ‘legal change’ is often forced, stochastic, and destructive. As Laws IV reminds us, legal change is often not a legal process. The term ‘flux’ is preferred over ‘change’, in this essay, because it carries something of the negative inflection – the undertone of dispersal, instability, and loss – that the shifting of the laws tends to have in Plato’s corpus, even when it is Plato himself who is shifting the laws. This duplicity is perhaps the core point of Platonic Legislations, and marks its inevitably complex relevance to the contemporary practice and philosophy of law. ...

Ours is a century and a culture of unprecedented legal innovation. In Randall Lesaffer’s phrase, the global north and west seem to be caught up in a sort of ‘legislative frenzy’. It could be useful for us, then, to reckon with Plato’s wariness. There is an intrinsic threat that legal revision can undermine the legal regime – national, or international – that it is meant to perfect.