This article presents three brief case studies of the way Romans talked about and expressed contempt. It examines aspects of discourses about contempt that are characteristic both of Roman literature and of modern concepts. The focus is on the relationship of hierarchy, recognition, and (active and passive) contempt in the Latin vocabulary and in two literary motifs taken from invective and historiography, two genres in which expressions of contempt are particularly frequent and prominent.

Essays on Aristotle's Sea-Battle, Lazy Argument, Argument Reaper, Diodorus' Master Argument -/- The book is devoted to the ancient logical theories, reconstruction of their semantic proprieties and possibilities of their interpretation by modern logical tools. The Ancient arguments are frequently misunderstood in modern interpretations since authors usually have tendency to ignore their historical proprieties and theoretical background what usually leads to a quite inappropriate picture of the argument’s original form and mission. Author’s primary intention was to draw attention to the (...) complexity of some historical arguments and to the theoretical context in which arguments were created, circulated, developed, and finally tuned. Four well-known ancient arguments – with a common central subject related to the future contingencies problem – are reconstructed from available historical sources: “The Sea Battle”, which is drawn from Aristotle’s treatise De Interpretatione; two arguments, usually ascribed to the Stoics, “The Lazy Argument” and “The Reaper”; “The Master Argument” of the Megarian philosopher Diodorus. Arguments are linguistically and semantically detaily analyzed, formally presented by reflecting some relevant corresponding hypotheses based on physical or logical theories of their ancient authors, and finally covered by appropriate logical tools familiar to a modern reader. Two appendices are added at the closing part of the book. One covering some assumptions relevant for understanding of rival streams in ancient theories of meaning related to the nature of names and naming; the other is devoted to the ancient understanding of logical proposition and attempts to find an adequate Latin translation of the Greek delicate philosophical term “ἀξίωμα”. (shrink)

In book one of the Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius is portrayed as a man who suffers because he forgot philosophy. Scholars have underestimated the significance of this portrayal and considered it a literary device the goal of which is simply to introduce the discussion that follows. In this paper, I show that this view is mistaken since it overlooks that this portrayal of Boethius is the key for the understanding of the whole text. The philosophical therapy that constitutes the core (...) of the ?Consolation? can in fact be properly evaluated only if we recognize the condition it is designed to cure. Through the portrayal of Boethius's forgetfulness, the ?Consolation? illustrates that it is the very nature of philosophical knowledge that makes it susceptible to being forgotten. Philosophical knowledge can (i) turn into misology, when it appears unable to solve certain problems, and (ii) be overrun by strong emotions. The therapy offered in the ?Consolation? is designed to make Boethius aware of the ?fragility? of philosophical knowledge and show him how to ?strengthen? it. He is taught how to more fully embody philosophy's precepts and that philosophy's inability to solve certain problems reveals not its failures but its limits. (shrink)

While many take Newton's argument for absolute space to be an inference to the best explanation, some argue that Newton is primarily concerned with the proper definition of true motion, rather than with independent existence of spatial points. To an extent the latter interpretation is correct. However, all prior interpretations are mistaken in thinking that 'absolute motion' is defined as motion with respect to absolute space. Newton is also using this notion to refer to the quantity of motion (momentum). This (...) reading reveals a misunderstood argument for absolute space, according to which absolute space is necessary for a workable definition of momentum. (shrink)

This article argues that Machiavelli’s chapters on the Decemvirate ( D 1.35, 1.40-45) advance an internal critique of the juridical discourse of sovereignty. I first contextualize these chapters in relation to several of Machiavelli’s potential sources, including Livy’s Ab urbe condita, Dionysius of Halicarnassus’s Roman Antiquities, and the antiquarian writings of Andrea Fiocchi and Giulio Pomponio Leto. I then analyze Machiavelli’s claim that the decemvirs held “absolute authority” ( autorità assoluta)—an authority that was unconstrained by either laws or countervailing magistrates. (...) I proceed to argue that Machiavelli’s account of the decemvirs’ election contains a web of allusions to the lex regia, the “royal law” by which the Roman people were thought to have conveyed their sovereign power to an emperor. By modeling the decemvirs’ election on the lex regia, Machiavelli reveals the political limitations of the doctrine of popular sovereignty; moreover, he illustrates that even free and fair elections can easily give rise to tyranny. (shrink)

The stereotype of slave-run latifundia being turned into serf-worked estates is no longer credible as a model of the transition from antiquity to the middle ages, but Chris Wickham’s anomalous characterisation of the Roman Empire as ‘feudal’ is scarcely a viable alternative to that. If a fully-articulated feudal economy only emerged in the later middle ages, what do we make of the preceding centuries? By postulating a ‘general dominance of tenant production’ throughout the period covered by his book, Wickham fails (...) to offer any basis for a closer characterisation of the post-Roman rural labour-force and exaggerates the degree of control that peasants enjoyed in the late Empire and post-Roman world. A substantial part of the rural labour-force of the sixth to eighth centuries comprised groups who, like Rosamond Faith’s inland-workers in Anglo-Saxon England, were more proletarian than peasant-like. The paper suggests the likely ways in which that situation reflected Roman traditions of direct management and the subordination of labour, and outlines what a Marxist theory of the so-called colonate might look like. After discussing Wickham’s handling of the colonate and slavery, and looking briefly at the nature of estates and the fate of the Roman aristocracy, I conclude by criticising the way Wickham uses the category of ‘mode of production’. (shrink)

Two pillars of medieval English literature, Chaucer and Malory, stand accused by posterity as criminals, yet scholars remain perplexed about the nature of their crimes over five centuries later. Some convict them of the heinous offense of sexually assaulting a woman against her will, while others believe them guilty of no more than seduction or consensual sex. The allegation against Malory has even been reframed to portray him as a knight in shining armor rescuing a damsel in distress; thus instead (...) of seizing a woman in order to rape her, this author of Arthurian legends “stole” Joan Smith away from her abusive husband when Joan departed with Malory consensually. Keen to illuminate the personal lives of the authors whose Canterbury Tales, Morte Darthur, and other works opened up the world of the Middle Ages for posterity, contemporary researchers have seized upon medieval English legal sources to clarify these authors' own stories. The crime in which Chaucer and Malory have been implicated, of seizing a woman, confounds those historians and literary scholars seeking to explore these authors' late-medieval milieu because the word most frequently employed to record the misdeed is one of the most ambiguous legal terms in medieval England, and indeed Europe. When an individual seized a woman or stood accused of her seizure , the term's multivalent connotations mean that the offense might conform to either or both of our modern legal categories of rape and abduction. (shrink)

This paper wants to shed light on the way the philosophical school of Stoicsm in Greco-Roman antiquity has dealt with the relationship of men and nature by pointing out to some of the key texts in which these issues are mentioned. Although the modern concept of sustainability or environmental protection did not really exist in antiquity, the Stoa was convinced that individual decisions had a direct impact on this world. Following the concept of environmental humanities, the ancient texts and authors (...) are collected as historical ideas of the multifaceted interactions between nature and men that can be fruitfully mirrored with the arguments of the current Anthropocene discourse and its focus on (post)industrialism. By doing so we might come across helpful approaches deeply rooted in our cultural heritage that we could possibly adopt and find practical answers for our age in terms of individual behaviour as well as management decisions to face the ecological and social challenges ahead. (shrink)

Our manuscripts of Cicero contain dozens of Greek words that are presented in some passages in Greek letters, and in others are transliterated into Latin. In a recent paper I collected the evidence for this phenomenon in connection with common nouns and adjectives, surveyed scholarship to date and posited an interpretative framework which is assumed in this study also. Key components of this framework are the use of mixed alphabets in surviving ancient documents and an awareness of the frequency with (...) which modern editors change the alphabets in the manuscripts when dealing with Greek words—hence the importance of using the apparatus critici, not just the printed text, of our editions. The earlier paper was also strict in its exclusion of words in continuous passages, and even short phrases, of Greek, since that context excludes the option of transliteration for the author. The major contention of that earlier study was that a coherent pattern of use in the manuscripts can only really be a reflection of Cicero's own considered choice of alphabets: consistently inexplicable choice may indicate that Cicero himself was indifferent to which alphabet he used for single Greek words, or that our copyists paid no attention to this aspect of their exemplars, or both. (shrink)

Este trabajo se propone examinar algunas características de la máscara del coquus en el corpus plautino. En primer término, se estudia el modo en que este personaje, a partir de las referencias al castigo físico y a la pasividad sexual, es construido como un cuerpo subordinado al servicio de otros. Luego, se consideran sus apariciones como ladrón y como proveedor de placeres corporales. Proponemos que la forma en que los cocineros son representados en la palliata de Plauto pone en evidencia (...) el vínculo que la axiología republicana establece entre actores sociales subalternos, corporalidad y amenaza a los mores maiorum. This paper examines some characteristics of the coquus mask in the plautine corpus. First, we study how this character, from references to physical punishment and sexual passivity, is built as a subordinate body to the service of others. Then, we consider his appearances as a thief and a provider of bodily pleasures. We propose that the way cooks are represented in Plautus' palliata shows us the link established by Republican axiology between subaltern social actors, body and threat to mores maiorum. (shrink)

The global Peter Lombard research continues, but the Master of the Sentences’ theology proper is still to be analyzed in detail. In particular, a more thorough exposition of the distinctions 45-48 of his Book of Sentences, which deal with the notion of God’s will and its relation to the human free will, has for some while remained a desideratum. The given article partly fills this lacuna and elucidates on the doctrine of the divine will as presented by the Lombard. The (...) doctrine ofvoluntas divina has to be put into the «Trinitarian essentialist» model, according to which the Triunity of God means that all three Persons of the Godhead share one simple essence. This essence has no parts, and therefore such things as knowledge, wisdom, or will are actually one and the same thing in God: they are one essence. Therefore God’s will is first of all God himself as willing. Any theological proposition which uses the verb «to will» intransitively is a statement of God’s essence qua willing. Yet, God’s nature is differently manifested in his outward actions which allow a theologian to speak of some distinct and distinguishable properties or aspects of this nature as it relates to what is outside the Godhead. Therefore a theological proposition which uses the verb «to will» transitively and adds an object of willing means a statement of the divine will as an outward act. In this case, God’s will should not be identified with God’s essence nor the objects or outcomes of this willing. In particular, it is shown that for him there exist two ways of speaking about God’s will: «simply and absolutely» and «not simply and absolutely» which may be identified with intransitive and transitive use of the verb «to will,» respectively. The will is primarily understood in terms of execution of one’s will (active willing) but its relation to one’s desires and inclinations (wanting) are downplayed or altogether omitted from the Lombardian doctrine of God. The divine will is by definition free and efficient but Lombard highlights that there is place for human free will, too. His explanation of the relationship between the divine and the human wills seems somewhat unconvincing but the unfolding of his theory on the basis of a few biblical texts should be acknowledged a peculiar theological exercise. (shrink)

El poema épico de Ovidio -una historia universal mítico-etiológica- se abre con un relato acerca del origen del mundo, seguido por la creación del hombre. La transformación del caos en cosmos es, por ende, la primera metamorfosis. El texto continúa con una descripción de las Edades decrecientes, puesto que la instauración de un orden armonioso siempre está seguida por su disolución (HOLZBERG 2002: 120). Este trabajo se propone estudiar la cosmogonía y antropogonía ovidianas a partir de las categorías específicas enunciadas (...) por W. BURKERT (1999: 87-106) y explorar las relaciones entre lo que se ha denominado carácter 'tecnomórfico' de dicha cosmogonía y la figura del poeta en cuanto tal. Ovid's epic poem, a mythical and etiologic world history, starts with a story about the origin of the world, followed by the creation of man. Thus, the first metamorphosis is the transformation of chaos into cosmos. The text continues with a description of the decreasing Ages, since the establishment of a harmonious order is always followed by its dissolution (HOLZBERG 2002: 120). This work intends to study ovidian cosmogony and anthropogony starting from specific categories set out by W. BURKERT (1999: 87-106) and explore the relationship between what has been termed technomorphic character of cosmogony and the figure of the poet itself. (shrink)

My project is a systematic inquiry into the problem of relevance, which has been identified as an enduring difficulty in, for example, informal logic and information science where it plays a fundamental role in argument and information searches, respectively. My first task involves determining exactly what the problem of relevance is. To achieve that, I collected problem statements from the literature but I also analysed literature on relevance to discover further problems. The key problem that I investigate concerns the question, (...) 'What is relevance?', which I take to concern the meaning and occurrence of relevance. Concerning the semantic question, I suggest that it demarcates a point of time prior to asking it. Subsequently, I identified and evaluated approaches to elucidating the notion of relevance, rejected intuitionism and stipulation as suitable approaches, and selected philosopher/physicist Mario Bunge's approach to scientific philosophy and his conceptual system to frame my study. I also assess potential information sources; rejected constructed examples that prove to be contrived or are used to illustrate a stipulated definition; and selected dictionary definitions, actual statements, and carefully constructed examples as information sources to complement my review of the literature on relevance. To elucidate relevance, I traced the concept back to its Greek roots, analysed statements, and concluded that the term 'relevance' since its inception in Scottish law in the early 1500's has been limited largely to relations of significance. Understanding relevance in terms of both connection and significance is crucial to construct, identify, or evaluate relevance statements and thereby develop a representative theory of relevance. It also provides a solution to many controversies such as degree of relevance and it helps elucidate notions such as strength and sufficiency of an argument. I suggest that as significance can vary in degree, so too can relevance but a connection between objects is presupposed in both cases. Strength is a measure of significance and sufficiency is the strength required to establish a conclusion. Finally, I offer a provisional and partial theory of relevance where I summarize my prior analyses and integrate/comment on published positions on relevance. (shrink)

Augustine’s discussion of our memoria of the liberal arts in Confessions X poses a series of challenging questions which are best tackled in the broader context of his ideas on teaching, learning, understanding and the acquisition of knowledge. The contents of the liberal arts are stored in our memory (a non-physical and non-spatial receptacle often meta­phorically depicted through spatial imagery) by themselves, and not through images (like the objects of sense-perception) or ‘notions’ (like the affections of the soul). When we (...) learn the disciplinae liberales, actually we do not absorb new information from our teachers, but we are triggered by their words to retrieve from the most remote ‘caves’ of our memory contents already present in a latent form since birth (I address the question of what exactly these con­tents might be). In the Confessions, unlike in earlier writings, Augustine cautiously eschews expressions which might suggest full-blown Platonic recollection of things known in previous lives and subsequently forgotten, and thus presuppose the pre-existence and reincarnation of the soul (not even the claim that cogitare is, literally, ‘re-collecting’ involves recalling forgotten knowledge). I argue that for Augustine divine illumination (as presented, e.g., in the De magistro and the De Trinitate) and recollection are not two rival and incompatible theo­ries, but two different and yet consistent sets of metaphors meant to illustrate the same family of ideas and intuitions (sometimes underdetermined in their details); I also explain why the illumination metaphor ultimately appears more appropriate. (shrink)

La narración de la etiología del altar de Júpiter Pistor asume el surgimiento de ese sitio cultual como retribución al dios por ayudar a los romanos ante el asedio galo. Roma es presentada como vencida y la construcción de esta derrota se vincula estrechamente con el tratamiento del espacio a lo largo del relato. Asimismo, dicha configuración espacial muestra una singular inclusión de escenarios épicos. Demostraremos que, al alejarse de los elementos y tópicos propios de la epopeya y acercarse al (...) ámbito de la elegía, este relato ovidiano deja ver los mecanismos genéricos del mismo poema. (shrink)

Despite his major contributions to phenomenology, the writings on suggestion and hypnosis by Erwin Straus (1891–1975) have been underappreciated. In his German language publications of 1925 and 1927, Straus argues that we cannot elucidate the phenomenon of suggestion solely or even primarily through experimental design, a narrow natural scientific viewpoint, or an emphasis on abnormal or special states of dissociation. In contrast, a phenomenological study that begins with everyday experience demonstrates that suggestion is part of normal experience, and its understanding (...) must include the possibility both of acceptance and of rejection. Straus’s arguments in these essays are enhanced by his later books and articles developing the I-Allon relationship, the process of we-formation, and the distinction of pathic and gnostic moments of sensation and perception. By fully situating the phenomenon within theLebenswelt, Straus’s analysis of suggestion is a major contribution to phenomenology. (shrink)

The purpose of this study is to discover, present and analyze the key ideas of Anselm of Canterbury concerning the notions of knowledge, will and mode of divine-human relations in the context of this “knowledge-will” framework which is important due to (a) somewhat insufficient attention to the medieval insights on the issue and (b) the peculiarity that Anselm’s intuitions have. More specifically, the object of the given paper is Anselmian understanding of relations between God’s foreknowledge and will, on the one (...) side, and human free will, on the other side, as it is presented in the work entitled De Concordia. In this treatise Anselm of Canterbury partially uses and further elaborates some ideas of Augustine and Boethius, while integrating, updating and synthesizing them in a creative manner, and partially develops a number of thoughts of his own. As a result, there is a set of the well-formulated and comprehensive theses concerning (i) different types of (metaphysical) necessity, (ii) a proper definition of freedom of choice and will, (iii) the nature of will per se, and, finally, (iv) unique relation of “simultaneity” that exists between God’s knowledge, God’s will and the creature’s rational will. These ideas are presented and explicated in the article along with detailed exposition and analytical examination of the main line of argumentation found in the De Concordia. (shrink)

Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) never wrote any subtle disquisition on esteem (stima in Italian). Even so, this essay suggests that esteem played an important and hitherto largely unexplored role in Machiavelli’s political thought. Proceeding from an examination of Machiavelli’s use of the noun stima and the verb stimare in their literal and figurative senses, this article discusses Machiavelli’s ideas from three different perspectives. The first section discusses ways of attracting other people’s esteem through virtuous deeds. The second section, in turning to (...) Machiavelli’s notorious advice to princes, explores the ways in which stima may be generated by merely pretending to be virtuous. I argue that Machiavelli’s new prince exchanges the real esteem he must elicit from his subjects (if he wishes to stay in power) with a surrogate: in other words, a psychological economy of stima. It arrests, through a performative spectacle, the rational faculties of the prince’s subjects. The third section investigates Machiavelli’s ideas on esteem in relation to his own person. Even though Machiavelli never uses the phrase stima di se stesso (which would be a literal translation of self-esteem), some passages from his correspondence are highly pertinent to this topic. (shrink)

El presente artículo aborda las connotaciones y los fundamentos de la paráfrasis cum canere vellem en Serv. Ecl. 6. 3. El análisis del sentido del verbo volo en este contexto y la confrontación del pasaje con Serv. Ecl. 6. 5 revelan que Servio interpreta la frase cum canerem reges et proelia como referencia a un temprano empeño de Virgilio en componer poesía épica, del que pronto desistió. Esta interpretación está condicionada por la idea de que la secuencia cronológica Églogas - (...) Geórgicas - Eneida tiene un correlato jerárquico, idea que se funda en noticias biográficas y en la teoría de la tripertita varietas. This paper focuses on the connotations and grounds of the paraphrase cum canere vellem in Serv. Ecl. 6. 3. The analysis of the sense of verb volo within this context, as well as the confrontation between that passage and Serv. Ecl. 6. 5, show that Servius interprets the clause cum canerem reges et proelia as a reference to Virgil's early endeavor to compose an epic poem, from which he shortly desisted. This interpretation is conditioned by the idea that the chronological sequence Eclogues - Georgics - Aeneid has a hierarchical correlate, an idea which is founded on biographical information and the theory of tripertita varietas. (shrink)

This paper investigates the relation of language to the openness of the world in the context of Heidegger’s early thinking, especially in Being and Time. My main contention is that Heidegger’s view of language in the 1920s cannot be reduced completely to the one-sided, subjectivist enactment of speech-act or Rede. First, I analyse the original meaning of the word “articulation” as structured division and connection in Being and Time and link it to the Greek word ἄρθρον, which Plato uses in (...) describing the dialectical procedure. The second part discusses the concept of understanding with respect to the characterisation of Dasein as possibility. In the last part, I tackle the problematic of the tension between Nous and Logos by showing how Heidegger describes the phenomenological givenness of something as a unified whole. In conclusion, the role of the phenomenological Logos in the sense of articulation of understanding lies in evoking the latent potential of the structured world and responding to its horizontal openness of meaning. (shrink)

Este trabalho analisa a forma, a função e o significado do sufixo -il formador de adjetivos deverbais, e por vezes desubstantivais, no galego-português medieval, com a finalidade de observar a sua produtividade na formação de vozes sufixadas, e a sua comparança com o sufixo latino -ilis de que deriva (e proveniente de diferentes origens). Para levar a cabo este estudo partimos do Corpus do Galego-Portugués Antigo, que nos permitirá verificar o grau de produtividade ou de rentabilidade deste sufixo.

In one of his letters to Lucilius , Seneca discusses the effects of noise and silence on study and contemplation.In the opening sections of the letter, he reveals that his current lodging is located above a bathhouse whence issue continually all sorts of irritating sounds. Seneca insists that such noises, despite their persistence, present no real distraction to one who possesses inner peace and a clear, untroubled mind and whose thoughts are ‘good, steadfast, and sure’.

In the second edition of theOxford Latin Dictionary(2012) an otherwise laudable attempt to be more forthright in defining obscene terms seems to have introduced an error. The wordirrumowas defined in the first edition of the dictionary as ‘to practiseirrumatioon’, which is correct but unilluminating, especially sinceirrumatiowas defined as ‘the action of anirrumator’.Irrumatorwas then defined as ‘one who submits tofellatio’, which is technically correct, though it suggests a passivity in the action that is not found in the lines from Catullus given (...) as an example of its usage:praesertim quibus esset irrumator | praetor, nec faceret pili cohortem(‘not least when said praetor was a fuckface| anddidn't give a shit for his poor staffers’, Catull. 10.11–12). In this poem Catullus is using the wordirrumatoras a term of abuse, suggesting that hispraetor(in Bithynia) took advantage of his staff members rather than taking care that they too should reap some rewards from the province. Although the literal meaning is secondary to a more metaphorical use here, the charge is repeated with more direct reference to its sexual usage in Catull. 28.9–10:o Memmi, bene me ac diu supinum | tota ista trabe lentus irrumasti(‘Memmius, man, you really reamed me over,|force-fed me slowly with that giant whanger!’). In both cases it is clear that Catullus is an unwilling recipient of the praetor's attentions, and the action is aggressive and demonstrates the latter's ability to dominate his victim. It would not therefore be correct to say that Memmius is ‘submitting tofellatio’ at the hands, or rather mouth, of Catullus, even metaphorically. The termfellatio, by the way, was not defined in the originalOLDat all, and the verbfellohad, as its second sense, only ‘transf., as a sexual perversion’. The definitions as given therefore seem deliberately obscure, as well as misleading about the roles and intent of the people involved. (shrink)

The metaphor “ARGUMENT IS WAR” looms large in the conceptualist and experientialist approach of CitationLakoff and Johnson (1980). Despite extensive discussion of this metaphor by critics and supporters of Lakoff and Johnson, it has so far escaped serious scrutiny on several key points. English-speakers can identify verbal exchanges as arguments without resort to metaphorical comparisons or transfers, and speakers' use of war metaphors to characterize verbal dispute depends on conventional understandings rather than personal experience of war or of other kinds (...) of physical struggle. Much of the evidence for Lakoff and Johnson's claims—a culture that metaphorizes argument as dance; the historical and personal priority of force over verbal dispute; the influence of metaphor on action; even the experience supposedly shaping source domains—depends on supposition and ungrounded assertion. In making sense of how people use this metaphor, the discourse-based program elaborated by Naomi CitationQuinn (1991, Citation1997) carries analysis further than a purely conceptualist approach. (shrink)

In his Res Gestae, the historian Ammianus Marcellinus describes the Egyptian city of Thebes and the obelisks that can be found there. There is an unusual passage in which he describes hieroglyphic writings. He goes on to show, through two examples, how hieroglyphs might seem bizarre, but in fact contain their own logic which can be explained : non enim ut nunc litterarum numerus praestitutus et facilis exprimit quicquid humana mens concipere potest, ita prisci quoque scriptitarunt Aegyptii, sed singulae litterae (...) singulis nominibus seruiebant et uerbis; non numquam significabant integros sensus. cuius rei scientiam his inseram duobus exemplis. per uulturem naturae uocabulum pandunt, quia mares nullos posse inter has alites inueniri rationes memorant physicae, perque speciem apis mella conficientis indicant regem moderatori cum iucunditate aculeos quoque innasci debere his signis ostendentes. et similia plurima.For the ancient Egyptians did not write as nowadays, when a prescribed and easy series of letters expresses whatever the human mind can imagine; but individual characters served as individual nouns and verbs; and sometimes they signified whole ideas. I will show the knowledge of this with these two examples. They represent the word for ‘nature’ by a vulture, because no males can be found among these birds, as natural history records; and by the figure of the bee making honey they indicate ‘a king’, showing by these signs that in a ruler stings also ought to arise from sweetness. And there are many similar instances. (shrink)

This paper investigates Vācaspati Miśra’s remarkably complex argumentative architecture in support of non-difference by means of a microsimulation model, the classical gold-crown case. A full range of positions, including instantaneism, transformative continuum, indeterminate common basis reference, difference and non-difference coordination, etc., is put under the scrutiny of the Vācaspati Miśra’s dialectic effort. The possibility of coexistence of multiple properties with a single referent is then formally explored. The analysis is carried out in compliance with the ‘Navya-Nyāya Formal Language’ extensional set-based (...) approach and its non-predicative, and variables free, relational syntax. Repeatable modules and structures of reasoning are identified and designed in the form of hypothesis frameworks, axioms and theorems to allow more accurate inferences, in particular regarding transformation and permanence, together with possible or impossible plexuses of properties. Identity and difference qua mutual absence are thoroughly defined with the aid of these formal tools, which conjointly might cast new light on the heuristic and expressive power of Navya-Nyāya logic, as well as on the theoretical potentialities of the non-dualistic account. (shrink)