Frank B. Ebersole died recently. Here I remind philosophers of the thinking of this reclusive philosopher who brought out the value of Wittgenstein's dictum that philosophers should "bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use." I illustrate Ebersole's singular thinking by focusing on his philosophical investigation of Wittgenstein's family resemblance metaphor.

Wittgenstein in his later writing often remarked on the negative influence of language on philosophy. Here, I call attention to a previously unnoticed but significant way that language has influenced philosophy: we use the very same vocabulary in two different ways, in philosophical talk and in our everyday interactive speaking-situations. Our propensity for using this double talk has prevented us from resolving most philosophical problems. Is our attraction to philosophical talk the result of our learning to use a phonetic alphabet, (...) so that words can be used outside of interactive situations? (shrink)

A college-level introductory text in Christian social ethics that combines theory, cases, and analysis.

Frederick Brenk is a specialist, but, as this third volume of his collected essays makes clear, a multiple specialist, as skilled in dealing with visual materials as with texts, with epigraphy as with prosopography, with Christian writers as with pagan, with Egypt as with Greece, with style and language as with philosophy and religion. Few scholars have such wide learning, and fewer still can use it to weave together insights from so many different ways of thinking, feeling, seeing, and (...) writing. (shrink)

The interplay of Greek and Roman motifs in the Marcellus eulogy at the end of the Sixth Book of the Aeneid presents a complicated study in literary history. The association of roses with the dead is more Roman than Greek, but perhaps not so much so as one might imagine. Roses are not entirely absent from the Greek milieu, and in fact Vergil apparently drew on Greek rose motifs for the eulogy. Archaeology reveals that roses were an important symbol on (...) tomb stelai, along with the epigraphical references to roses. In general the rose in Greek inscriptions was reserved for girls, but at least one is for a boy, and another for a youth of twenty-two. Moreover, Vergil may well have been alluding to Bion's Lament for Adonis, where the rose motif has striking importance. (shrink)

The interplay of Greek and Roman motifs in the Marcellus eulogy at the end of the Sixth Book of theAeneidpresents a complicated study in literary history. The association of roses with the dead is more Roman than Greek, but perhaps not so much so as one might imagine. Roses are not entirely absent from the Greek milieu, and in fact Vergil apparently drew on Greek rose motifs for the eulogy. Archaeology reveals that roses were an important symbol on tomb stelai, (...) along with the epigraphical references to roses. In general the rose in Greek inscriptions was reserved for girls, but at least one is for a boy, and another for a youth of twenty-two. Moreover, Vergil may well have been alluding to Bion's (?)Lament for Adonis, where the rose motif has striking importance. (shrink)

This collection contains many stimulating and important articles from the Plutarch renaissance, especially on the interaction between divine and human worlds, ...

In his treatise On Isis and Osiris, Plutarch tries to explain the meaning of a statue or image of Zeus in Crete, which had no ears. An Egyptian or Egyptianizing image with separate ears, perhaps on a stele, incomprehensible to Greeks, but common in Egypt, might have given rise to Plutarch’s bafflement and fantasy interpretation.Dans son traité De Iside et Osiride, Plutarque essaie d’expliquer la signification d’une statue ou d’une image de Zeus en Crète, qui n’avait aucune oreille. Une image (...) égyptienne ou « égyptianisante » avec des oreilles séparées, peut-être sur une stèle, incompréhensible aux Grecs mais commune en Égypte, pourrait avoir provoqué la perplexité de Plutarque et son interprétation fantaisiste. (shrink)