Archive

Proteus’ skill and the fictionality of myth

In Lucian’s dialogue On pantomime one of the characters, Lycinus, explains that Proteus, the mythical master of metamorphoses, was really just a very skilled dancer, a proto-typical pantomime-performer. This reinterpretation of Proteus’ metamorphoses as a form of artistic skill is quite remarkable and invites some further reflection on the relationship… Read more

‘Crafting Natures’

For Aristotle, living beings are complex composites of matter and form, where form is to be understood functionally, and not merely as shape, as a specific combination of soul-capacities that characterizes the kind of living being in question. It is a commonplace in Aristotelian scholarship that both these forms of… Read more

Theôría

The ancient Greek notion of theôría (θεωρία) is of unquestionable cultural importance. Not only does it speak immediately to the ancient Greek festival as a cultural institution; philosophers  seized on it as their preeminent metaphor for philosophical reflection. Most agree that it has to do with… Read more