Critical Edition Research Articles

Radical Democracy, Critical Theory, and the Conditions of Popular Self-Expression

ABSTRACT In the paper I attempt to close the gap between the tradition of contemporary radical democracy and that of the ideology critique of Critical Theory which is opened by Larry Alan Busk in his Democracy in Spite of the Demos. I argue that, on the one hand, it is not necessarily the case that the affirmation of the two ontological hypotheses Busk identifies as essential to radical democracy – that of the autonomy of the political and that of the universality of doxa – need generate the ambiguities that his text critiques. On the other hand, I show how Adorno and Marcuse themselves remain committed to democracy, seeing socialization in the practice of the latter as fundamental to the development of critical-reflective consciousness. In the final instance, both radical democracy and Critical Theory can be seen to as committed to the same ideal of human autonomy, and equally useful resources for emancipatory thinking.

Wojtyla, Karol. The Lublin Lectures and Works on Max Scheler. The English Critical Edition of the Works of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. (Book Review)

Wojtyla, Karol. The Lublin Lectures and Works on Max Scheler. The English Critical Edition of the Works of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II. (Book Review)

Макробий в англоязычных исследованиях

The article examines the principal English-language studies of the last century focused on exploring the personality of Macrobius (5th century) and his works — Saturnalia (Saturnalia [ed. Willis, 1963]), Commentary on the 'Dream of Scipio' (Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis [ed. Willis, 1963]), and On the differences and similarities of Greek and Latin verbs (De verborum graeci et latini differentiis vel societatibus excerpta [ed. De Paolis, 1990]), written for educational purposes and representing a compendium of Greek knowledge. Interest in Macrobius's creative legacy notably intensified towards the end of the 19th century, a trend linked to the release of critical editions of Macrobian texts and their subsequent translations into French. In particular, the study analyzes the research of Thomas Whittaker (Macrobius; or philosophy, science and letters in the year 400; published in 1923), William Harris Stahl (Macrobius, Commentary on the ‘Dream of Scipio’, published in 1952), Alan Cameron (The date and identity of Macrobius [published in 1966] and Macrobius, Avienus, and Avianus [published in 1967]), Herman De Ley (Macrobius and Numenius. A study of Macrobius, ‘In Somn.’ I, c. 12; published in 1972), Stephen Gersh (Middle platonism and neoplatonism, the Latin tradition; published in 1986), Roger A. Pack (A medieval critic of Macrobius’ cosmometrics; published in 1981), Alison Peden (Science and philosophy in Wales at the time of the Norman conquest: a Macrobius manuscript from Llabadarn; published in 1981), among others. It highlights the primary issues that researchers have focused on when studying Macrobius's literary legacy, identifies the challenges in analyzing his works, and acknowledges the contribution of English-speaking scholars to the global historiography.

Career guidance to lessen inequalities in education: internal evidence from OECD–PISA 2018 data

ABSTRACT The students’ socioeconomic background effect on the educational outcomes makes it more difficult to find real equality of opportunity within the educational system. In this paper, we analyse the relationship of career guidance at school with cognitive skills, and also with expectations and motivation for a sample of more than 188,000 15-year-old students in 29 different countries, using the OECD PISA 2018 data. We apply a propensity score matching procedure with a novel multilevel second stage. We provide novel evidence of the positive influence of career guidance on the variables of interest, but only for disadvantaged students.

Unveiling the Meaning of Love אהב: Between Politics and Romance in the Story of David and Jonathan

This study investigates the evolving interpretation of the relationship between David and Jonathan in the book of Samuel. Recent scholarship has sparked controversy by suggesting a possible homosexual connection between the two figures. This research challenges such interpretations by revisiting the concept of love (אהב) within ancient Near Eastern and biblical covenants, drawing on the foundational work of William Moran. Employing textual criticism and exegesis, the analysis focuses on the Hebrew terms חפץ and נעם used in 1 Samuel 19:1 and 2 Samuel 1:23, 26. By examining these terms alongside supporting evidence from the Hebrew Bible and ancient Aramaic texts, the study argues that these words carry primarily political connotations, signifying "delight" or "pleasantness" (חפץ) and "loveliness" or "beauty" (נעם), rather than romantic love. This novel interpretation reframes the understanding of David and Jonathan's bond, emphasizing its political significance within the broader narrative.

Bacchylide's Epinician 3

In this article I propose an exegetical and philological commentary on Bacchylides’ Epinician 3 accompanied by a poetic translation that incorporates the results into the target text in Brazilian Portuguese. My intention with this commentary is not only to draw the reader’s attention to the sophistication and complexity that underlies the apparent simplicity of Bacchylides’ poetry, but also to present new critical results regarding the poem’s exegesis. In the commentary, therefore, I explain my reasons for changing the textus receptus of Kenyon (1897) and Maehler (2003) at certain points, to reflect the advances made by textual criticism in recent years, as well as my own interpretation of certain passages. In this commentary, I also explain my translation choices whenever they diverge from more traditional ones.

Notas sobre la representación del espacio dramático en la comedia de Aristófanes

In this article I propose an exegetical and philological commentary on Bacchylides’ Epinician 3 accompanied by a poetic translation that incorporates the results into the target text in Brazilian Portuguese. My intention with this commentary is not only to draw the reader’s attention to the sophistication and complexity that underlies the apparent simplicity of Bacchylides’ poetry, but also to present new critical results regarding the poem’s exegesis. In the commentary, therefore, I explain my reasons for changing the textus receptus of Kenyon (1897) and Maehler (2003) at certain points, to reflect the advances made by textual criticism in recent years, as well as my own interpretation of certain passages. In this commentary, I also explain my translation choices whenever they diverge from more traditional ones.

The Longer Theology of Aristotle, Book X.14–17a: a Critical Edition and Translation

Abstract The Longer Theology of Aristotle (LThA) is an interpolated version of the Theology of Aristotle (the latter being an Arabic adaptation of Plotinus’ Enneads IV–VI). LThA is preserved mainly in Judeo-Arabic manuscripts and a sixteenth-century Latin translation. Its importance lies in the fact that some non-Plotinian interpolations contained therein may be witnesses to lost Arabic philosophical sources (such as “Ibn Ḥasdāy’s Neoplatonist” postulated by Stern). The present study offers a critical edition and translation of LThA, Book X.14–17a. This passage contains several significant non-Plotinian interpolations. In particular, it exhibits a unique “Logos theology,” i.e., the idea that the divine “Logos” or “Word” (in Arabic: al-Kalima) constitutes an intermediary hypostasis between the Creator and His first creation, the Intellect. LThA shares this Logos theology with several Ismāʿīlī thinkers, notably the tenth-century Ismāʿīlī theologian Abū Yaʿqūb al-Sijistānī; in fact, the passage edited and translated herein (as well as the immediately preceding section: LThA, X.6–13) contains nearly-verbatim parallels to al-Sijistānī’s Kitāb al-Maqālīd. These parallels are presented in the Appendix.

Investigating the internal structure of multiple mini interviews-A perspective from Pakistan.

Healthcare professionals require many personal attributes in addition to cognitive abilities and psychomotor skills for competent practice. Multiple Mini- Interviews are being employed globally to assess personality attributes of candidates for selection in health professions education at all level of entry; these attributes are namely, communication skills, critical thinking, honesty, responsibility, health advocacy, empathy and sanctity of life. Considering the high stakes involved for students, faculty, institutions and the society, rigorous quality assurance mechanisms similar to those used for student assessment must be employed for student selection, throughout the continuum of medical education. It is a difficult undertaking as these psychological constructs are difficult to define and measure. Though considered to yield reliable and valid scores, studies providing multiple evidences of internal structure especially dimensionality of Multiple Mini-Interviews are sparse giving rise to questions if they are measuring a single or multiple constructs and even if they are measuring what they are purported to be measuring. The main objective is to provide statistical support of the multi-dimensional nature of our Multiple Mini Interviews, hypothesized a-priori, through CFA. Another objective is to provide multiple evidences for the internal structure. Our study highlights the link between content and internal structure evidences of the constructs, thus establishing that our Multiple Mini Interviews measure what they were intended to measure. After securing permission from the Institutional review board, an a-priori seven factor-model was hypothesized based on the attributes considered most essential for the graduating student of the institution. After operationally defining the attributes through extensive literature search, scenarios were constructed to assess them. A 5-point rating scale was used to rate each item on the station. A total 259 students participated in the multiple mini interviews over a period of three days. A training workshop had been arranged for the participating faculty. The reliability coefficient using Cronbach's alpha were calculated (range from 0.73 to 0.94), Standard Error of Measurement (ranged from 0.80 to1.64), and item to station-total correlation ranged from 0.43-0.50 to 0.75-0.83. Inter-station correlation was also determined. Confirmatory factor analysis endorsed the results of Exploratory factor analysis in the study revealing a seven model fit with multiple indices of Goodness-of-fit statistics such as Root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) value 0.05, Standardized root mean square residual (SRMR) value with less than 0.08. All these indices showed that model fit is good. The Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the multi-dimensional nature of our MMIs and also confirmed that our stations measured the attributes that they were supposed to measure. This study adds to the validity evidence of Multiple Mini-Interviews, in selection of candidates, with required personality traits for healthcare profession. It provides the evidence for the multi-dimensional structure of Multiple Mini interviews administered with multiple evidences for its internal structure and demonstrates the independence of different constructs being measured.

Never-Ending Learning for Explainable Brain Computing.

Exploring the nature of human intelligence and behavior is a longstanding pursuit in cognitive neuroscience, driven by the accumulation of knowledge, information, and data across various studies. However, achieving a unified and transparent interpretation of findings presents formidable challenges. In response, an explainable brain computing framework is proposed that employs the never-ending learning paradigm, integrating evidence combination and fusion computing within a Knowledge-Information-Data (KID) architecture. The framework supports continuous brain cognition investigation, utilizing joint knowledge-driven forward inference and data-driven reverse inference, bolstered by the pre-trained language modeling techniques and the human-in-the-loop mechanisms. In particular, it incorporates internal evidence learning through multi-task functional neuroimaging analyses and external evidence learning via topic modeling of published neuroimaging studies, all of which involve human interactions at different stages. Based on two case studies, the intricate uncertainty surrounding brain localization in human reasoning is revealed. The present study also highlights the potential of systematization to advance explainable brain computing, offering a finer-grained understanding of brain activity patterns related to human intelligence.

Sentimental Genres: The “Old English Elegy” and the Poetics of Nostalgia

ABSTRACT This study interrogates the scholarly construct known as the “Old English elegy.” This artificially formulated genre, which combines elements from eighteenth-century Classical German Elegy and nineteenth-century English nationalist nostalgia, comprises an unstable textual canon bringing together a modern perception of shared emotional, psychological, and affective discourses. To demonstrate how the pervasive influence of Romantic poetics and ethnonationalist anxieties underlies the inception and development of the discourse of “Old English elegy,” this study traces their influence across anthologies and critical editions of Old English poetry from the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Close reading of a series of thematic and syntactic parallels across Old English texts further illustrates the arbitrary nature of the genre and evidences the need for a new critical terminology that acknowledges the horizontal intertextuality of Old English poetics.

The book of Matthew ‘On naval timber and arboriculture’. Its structure and development

ABSTRACT The book of Patrick Matthew (1790–1874) ‘On Naval Timber and Arboriculture’ has regularly thwarted readers’ attempts of interpretation. The problems seem to extend beyond analysing and interpreting its evolutionary passages. Building upon previous studies, this analysis presents evidence that the book’s structure itself may have contributed significantly to its reception by sundry readers as somehow either clear or obscure, consequently leading to a diversity of interpretations. First, the book does not have a consistent literary form. Second, it presents a miscellany of juxtaposed contents. Third, its readers approach it from different contexts. Internal evidence shows that Patrick Matthew added a lot of material, while the manuscript was already in the proof-reading or press stage. This explains why it provides no consistent literary form or integrated content that would have helped interpretation. Hence readers have been left to their own devices, and their interpretation depended more strongly than usual on their own contexts.

On Vaulting: Heron’s Manuals and Their Role in Roman Dome Design

AbstractThe subject of domes in the Roman world is complex and can be studied from different perspectives. In this paper we focus on the relationship between Heron of Alexandria's manuals and the vaulting systems of the Hadrianic age. Our aim is to compare a selection of formulae from the critical edition by Johan Ludvig Heiberg with a series of buildings recently documented using photogrammetric and laser scanner technologies. The collection of writings Heronis Alexandrini opera quae supersunt omnia (mainly books IV and V) presents an interesting set of formulae for calculating vaults and domes: volumes and areas of niches, spherical segments, lunettes, as well as empirical strategies for calculating complex shapes. This approach, which integrates practical knowledge with Vitruvian graphic schemes, allows us to clarify the work of the ancient architect and consequently to investigate the architectural problem within the more general framework of archaeology with new conceptual tools.

The Unpublished ‘Mód Þrýþe Ne Wæg’ by C.S. Lewis: A Critical Edition

As the title of this edition indicates, it provides a critical apparatus for a holistic understanding of this alliterative epistolary poem by C.S. Lewis, which has never appeared in print before. With this in mind, all points requiring clarification are addressed: a description and history of the manuscript, Lewis's relationship with the addressee, the dating of the work, the Old English phrases and connection to Beowulf, and the poem's alliterative nature. It is the editor's hope that the edition provides a solid foundation for all further work on ‘Mód Þrýþe Ne Wæg', a poem which highlights once more that Lewis the scholar and Lewis the author often operated under the same guise.

‘Text Corruptions’ Corruption: Restoring C.S. Lewis's Critical Satire

This essay examines in detail a C.S. Lewis letter, published in The Times Literary Supplement that was, in fact, an example of ‘mock-criticism’ (as in ‘mock-epic’), being a satiric parody of an argument made by eminent Shakespeare scholar John Dover Wilson. Lewis published his ‘minor disagreement’ in March 1950, to which Dover Wilson responded with appreciation for Lewis's good humour but continued disagreement on the point of contention – that Shakespeare would ever include lines of verse in a section of his prose. By close analysis, the essay demonstrates how the editor of The Collected Letters inadvertently ‘corrupted’ Lewis's original by his formatting and editorial changes. Three versions of the letter are compared to show the specifics of the corruption. Further, Lewis's long critical encounter with Dover Wilson from the late 1920s onward as well as his little-known role as a textual criticism scholar at Oxford are demonstrated to provide the context for interpreting and appreciating the letter. Finally, two other Lewis letters, previously pointed out by Stephanie Derrick (neither published in The Collected Letters) are presented from the Dover Wilson archives as evidence of the cordial scholarly relationship that eventually developed between the two. The essay shows Lewis as a clever, thorough, combative, yet friendly scholar (though perhaps not always all at the same time) engaging in and, in fact, initiating important discussions with perhaps the most significant Shakespearean textual scholar of his time.

Towards a Theory of Oral Criticism for Early Buddhist Scripture

Abstract Because they were originally composed and passed down in oral form, the early Buddhist texts are not amenable to analysis through the tools of standard textual criticism. Taking Milman Parry’s oral theory as a starting point, this article suggests the possibility of an “oral criticism” that can be used with early Buddhist texts and proposes three basic principles to be used therein: (1) applying source criticism to themes rather than texts, (2) comparative analysis of formulas to determine how they changed over time, and (3) the principle of antiquity in diversity. Developing a system of oral criticism will allow for a more robust understanding of the early Buddhist oral tradition and avoid the pitfall of treating isolated examples of that tradition naively as a “received text” for use as historical evidence.

The music theory booklet Balliol 173A, fols. 74r–81v: scribal organisation of an early medieval theory miscellany

AbstractUsing evidence of the quality of vellum, fascicle structure, scribal hands and illustrations, this article argues that the first fascicle of the music portion of Oxford, Balliol College, 173A (fols. 74–81) is a self-standing booklet, perhaps created to teach a scribe the basics of music theory and how to arrange text while leaving space for illustrations or examples. A new fascicle structure of the gathering is proposed that accounts for a previously unrecognised missing folio. An analysis of the contents of the gathering demonstrates that the theory booklet is a compilatio, with portions of the Musica disciplina (or it sources) acting as a frame to start and end the booklet, with other works (Pseudo-Jerome, Isidore of Seville and Cassiodorus) inserted in between. The final folios are completed with a number of small tractatuli, including the brief dialogue Diapason quid est? The contents of both the booklet and the entire music codex are closely paralleled in one of the smaller manuscripts collected into Oxford, St John's College 188 and also Cambridge, Trinity College R.15.22. While it will be ever easier to study digital images of manuscripts and to create critical editions of well-defined texts, this article argues for the continuing importance of codicological study of manuscripts in situ to coordinate the placements of texts within the structure of codices.

A Neural Decision Signal during Internal Sampling from Working Memory in Humans.

How humans transform sensory information into decisions that steer purposeful behavior is a central question in psychology and neuroscience that is traditionally investigated during the sampling of external environmental signals. The decision-making framework of gradual information sampling toward a decision has also been proposed to apply when sampling internal sensory evidence from working memory. However, neural evidence for this proposal remains scarce. Here we show (using scalp EEG in male and female human volunteers) that sampling internal visual representations from working memory elicits a scalp EEG potential associated with gradual evidence accumulation-the central parietal positivity. Consistent with an evolving decision process, we show how this signal (1) scales with the time participants require to reach a decision about the cued memory content and (2) is amplified when having to decide among multiple contents in working memory. These results bring the electrophysiology of decision-making into the domain of working memory and suggest that variability in memory-guided behavior may be driven (at least in part) by variations in the sampling of our inner mental contents.

Talking about Oneself to Talk about Christ: The Autobiographical Text of Philippians 3:1–4.1 in Light of Ancient Rhetorical Heritage

In this contribution, we will proceed in three steps. First of all, we will investigate the rhetorical approach for studying the Pauline letters, considering different methodological options. In this context, we will propose the approach of the literary rhetoric as the most valid. Secondly, we will analyse the autobiographical text of Philippians 3:1–4:1, starting from its delimitation, textual criticism, and its arrangement, according to oral and discursive models. Then, we will proceed with genre and literary origins; here, we will discover the periautologia as the point of reference of the Pauline autobiography. This eulogy of self is a genre, well known in the rhetorical tradition, to which Plutarch dedicated the treatise On praising oneself. This discovery determines the following exegetical analysis of the text. Thirdly, we will conclude with a reflection about Paul’s way of speaking about himself in this passage. In light of ancient rhetorical heritage, he does not use his autobiography to praise himself but to praise Christ, who completely changed his life. Ultimately, Paul’s talk about himself is a way of talking about Christ for the benefit of the addressees who should creatively imitate the Apostle and his Christian life.

Edition of the Saptaguṇavarṇanā parikathā Based on a Newly Identified Sanskrit Manuscript with Special Reference to Its Tangut Translation

This paper focuses on a newly identified Sanskrit manuscript of the Saptaguṇavarṇanā parikathā (The Sermon Describing the Seven Qualities), which is currently preserved at the Drepung Monastery in Tibet. It presents the Sanskrit version of the text for the first time, provides a critical edition and translation, and offers a comparative analysis of the Tibetan translation and the Tangut manuscript, known as Инв. № 804. The paper addresses mistakes and omissions in the Sanskrit manuscript, Tibetan and Tangut translations, as well as related misreadings in the scholarship, thus advancing understanding of non-sūtra texts in Tangut Buddhism.