Revista Archai

The tyrant that lives within us in light of Republic VIII and IX

2024-03-06T11:56:08+00:00

Hereby we intend to examine the way by which tyranny and the tyrant are presented in Republic, a Platonic dialogue around which we will circumscribe the present study. Our interest emerges from the resurgence, in the 21st century, of democratically elected regimes that, however, flirt with authoritarianism. Socrates’ thesis, presented in Republic VIII (562b-563e), according to which tyranny arises from within democracy, highlights the contradictions inherent in this government regime since its beginnings, helping us to rethink it today. For the purposes of this study we follow the emergence of the issue of tyranny from the first book of the dialogue, until we reach the proper examination of this regime in books VIII and IX, up to which we are faced with the surprising argument that inside each one of us inhabits a sleeping tyrant (Rep.IX, 576b4-6). The city-soul analogy proposed in Republic II, as well as the composite soul thesis in Republic IV work as guiding conceptions of our investigation.

Homology, Collective and Cultural Memory: Augustus’ Portraiture and Augustan Poetry

2025-04-06T15:36:53+01:00

This paper aims to establish a homology between two forms of art: the portraits of Octavian Augustus and Augustan poetry, particularly the works of Horace, Ovid, Propertius, and Virgil. The theoretical frameworks of Nora (1989), Assmann (1995 and 2011), Halbwachs (1968), and Galinsky (2014-2016) are mobilized to support the argument that both artistic expressions can be interpreted as vehicles of collective memory and cultural memory, serving the perpetuation of power and art.

Soul as Explanatory Cause of Life in Aristotle: Scientific Knowledge simpliciter (ἁπλῶς) through Coextensive Universal Demonstrations and Context Restriction as a Solution to a Core-Dependent Homonymy from DA II.1-4

2024-03-07T17:41:58+00:00

The main purpose of this paper is to show, based on Aristotle’s theory of scientific demonstration, how soul plays the role of explanatory cause of life in De Anima (DA) II.1-4. Firstly, I evaluate how, in APo I.2 and II.16, Aristotle requires that universal demonstrations must satisfy a coextensional criterion between a given explanandum (A-term) and its most appropriate explanans (B-term), and that this criterion does not entail a causal symmetry between both those terms. I argue, following Angioni (2014a) and Zuppolini (2018), that, whenever one is before apparent ‘multiple causes’ scenario cases, in which there seems to be more than one possible cause to the same explanandum, one shall still find a unified and fully appropriate explanation of that explanandum. In the second part of this paper, I examine an example from DA II.1-4 in light of APo II.16-17. I argue that soul might be pointed out as the explanatory principle (B) that explains why life (A) belongs to a living body (C). In addition to that, I argue that, although there is a core-dependent homonymy taking place between plants (γ₁), animals (γ₂) and the nutritive capacity (α₁), the nutritive soul (β₁) plays the role of an incidental factor (συμβεβηκός) in the context of a scientific demonstration that has by explananda whatsoever attributes (α_n) that belong to animals (γ₂) qua living beings endowed with a perceptive soul (β₁) that explains why attributes (α_n) belong to them.

Review of CONTE, Bruno Loureiro. A doxa no poema de Parmênides. Uma investigação a partir dos testemunhos antigos. São Paulo: Loyola, 2023, 274pp., ISBN 9786555042597

2025-04-29T21:23:06+01:00

Review of CONTE, Bruno Loureiro. A doxa no poema de Parmênides. Uma investigação a partir dos testemunhos antigos. São Paulo: Loyola, 2023, 274pp., ISBN 9786555042597

Lessons of love in Achilles Tatius: commentary, translation and notes by Leucippe and Clitophon I.7-15

2024-10-17T19:34:16+01:00

We presente the trnaslation of a specific passage from the novel Leucippe and Clitophon, by Achilles Tatius: the scene in which the main character goes to meet his cousin Clinias and receives from him valuable teachings on seduction. This passage draws our attention because it dialogues with Roman erotic elegy, especially Ovid's Ars Amatoria, and because of its concise, unitary structure, which resonates like a short story within the novel. We have sought to recreate in our translation aesthetic and literary elements that resonate with these elements, especially the dynamism of the narrative, without losing the lyrical - or elegiac - nuances of the text.