Article
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The right of life and death in war in De iure belli libri tres (1598) by Alberico Gentili (1552-1608)
Giuliano MARCHETTO
Original title: Il diritto di vita e di morte in guerra nel De iure belli libri tres (1598) di Alberico Gentili (1552-1608)
Published in The World of Tradition
Keywords: Death, Law, Life, Power, War.
In war, there are situations in which one side is given the power of life or death over the other. The medieval legal tradition tries to bring this power back into law and to limit it. The Italian jurist Alberico Gentili in his work De jure belli libri tres (1598) represents, in the modern age, the attempt to offer an interpretation of war as an instrument of justice and therefore regulated in every aspect by the law. Gentili’s theory is the opposite of a different tradition, ancient but always resurfacing in history, which instead sees war as a place from which law is absent, is silent and only violence, which includes an unlimited vitae necisque potestas, thus becomes the origin of law and of every new power and order.
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When everything would appear to man as it is – infinite, from Kant to Viola (1781-1983)
Waldir BARRETO
Original title: Quando tudo pareceria ao homem tal como é – infinito, de Kant a Viola (1781-1983)
Published in The World of Tradition
Keywords: Art, Bergson, Infinite, Kant, Sublime, Video, Viola.
This essay proposes a theoretical consideration about the possibility of a transcendental analysis of the aesthetic experience with art according to Kantian criticism and the temporal dimension of Bill Viola’s work, taken from the Bergsonian concept of duration.
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Ancient Medicine and the body’s perception in Hippocrates (c. 460-370 BC)
Hélio Angotti Neto
Original title: A Medicina Antiga e a percepção do corpo em Hipócrates (c. 460-370 a. C.)
Published in Rhythms, expressions and representations of the body
Keywords: Galen, Hippocrates, History of Medicine, Human Body, Nature of Man.
Hippocratic medicine addresses the human body and its phenomena based on principles like the complexity and the balance of its components among themselves and its relations towards the nature. By means of logical formulations based on the composition of the human body by humors (blood, phlegm, yellow bile and dark bile) and, consequently, principles (heat, cold, dry and humid), the Hippocratic author seeks an explanation of phenomena such as epidemic diseases and nutritional disorders. Although the text is anachronistic, according to the current scientific perspective, there are epistemological principles obtained through contemplative science and empiricism that still have some value in relation to medical epistemology concerning human body comprehension.
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The World of Dionysus. Visions of bodies in fun in Classical Greece
Manuel ÁLVAREZ JUNCO
Original title: El mundo de Dioniso. Visiones de los cuerpos en diversión en la Grecia Clásica
Published in Rhythms, expressions and representations of the body
Keywords: Dionysus, Festivities, Satyrs, Symposiums, Visual insight.
The figure of the mythical Greek god Dionysus presided over the most playful aspects of classical Hellenic society, whether they were parties, banquets, comedies, or celebrations in general. The visualizations of the scenes of the divinity of wine and orgy, accompanied by his crazy cohort of satyrs and maenads, show the burlesque, critical and comic sense of a culture that laid the foundations of the West. Something as contemporary as today’s graphic humor finds images of its remote origins through the splendid figurative ceramics of the classical Greek period dedicated to this god. This article shows and analyzes some examples of that visual world where the festive, the comic and the conceptually ingenious provide the unveiling of the transgressive universe of Greek society.
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Music and continence in St. Augustin’s (354-430) Confessions
Luiz Cláudio Luciano França GONÇALVES
Original title: Música e continência em Confissões, de Santo Agostinho (354-430)
Published in Rhythms, expressions and representations of the body
Keywords: Confessions, Continence, Sacred Song, Saint Augustine.
The experience of singing in the church of Bishop Ambrose in Milan prompted Augustine to reflect not only on the beautiful specific musical practice he had witnessed, but also on the moral component associated with it. Later, such impressions were reported in Confessions (Confessiones, 397-401). At the time, Augustine expressed concern for the “pleasures of the ear” (voluptates aurium), which, although they could be employed in the sense of spiritual elevation, occasionally provoked unruly emotions and thus harmful to equilibrium and soul unity. Reflecting on the merit of avoiding the soul dispersion by the tempting musical beauty and expanding his meditation to the domain of bodily pleasures in general, Augustine highlights, in this scenario, the continence (continentia) – essential part of the Christian moral virtue of temperance (temperantia) –, whose intervention can reorder emotions.
