The Elder Pliny On The Human Animal

Download or read book The Elder Pliny on the Human Animal written by and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2005-03-17 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As a detailed study of the human animal, described by its author as the raison d'etre of nature, Book Seven of the elder Pliny's Natural History is crucial to the understanding of the work as a whole. In addition, however, it provides a valuable insight into the extraordinary complex of ideas and beliefs current in Pliny's era, many of which have resonances for other eras and cultures. The present study includes a substantial introduction examining the background to Pliny's life, thought, and writing, together with a modern English translation, and a detailed commentary which emphasizes the importance of Book Seven as possibly the most fascinating cultural record surviving from early imperial Rome.

Download or read book Pliny the Elder: The Natural History Book VII (with Book VIII 1-34) written by Pliny the Elder and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-05-21 with total page 369 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pliny the Elder's Natural History is a vast encyclopaedia, surveying natural phenomena from cosmology to biology, medicine to magic. Direct observation, informed speculation and common knowledge are combined to present a key snapshot of ancient thought and the Romans' perspective on the world around them. Book VII of The Natural History provides a detailed examination of the human animal and is crucial to understanding the work as a whole. In Pliny's eyes, mankind 'for whose sake nature was created', represents the basis for which the natural world was founded and structured. As a result, the book provides valuable insight into the extraordinary complex of ideas and beliefs that were current in Pliny's era. One of the most interesting transitions of subject in The Natural History is that from man to animals (between Books VII and VIII) and for this reason the section on elephants at the beginning of Book VIII is included here, to show how Pliny moves on to his account of the animal he considers 'nearest to the human disposition'. This edition provides the full Latin text accompanied by commentary notes that provide linguistic help and explanations, plus vocabulary lists of Latin terms and an index of proper names. The in-depth introduction provides valuable details about the work's historical, scientific and literary context, as well as an overview of the work's legacy and reception.

Download or read book Animals in Greek and Roman Thought written by Stephen T. Newmyer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-11-09 with total page 285 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although reasoned discourse on human-animal relations is often considered a late twentieth-century phenomenon, ethical debate over animals and how humans should treat them can be traced back to the philosophers and literati of the classical world. From Stoic assertions that humans owe nothing to animals that are intellectually foreign to them, to Plutarch's impassioned arguments for animals as sentient and rational beings, it is clear that modern debate owes much to Greco-Roman thought. Animals in Greek and Roman Thought brings together new translations of classical passages which contributed to ancient debate on the nature of animals and their relationship to human beings. The selections chosen come primarily from philosophical and natural historical works, as well as religious, poetic and biographical works. The questions discussed include: Do animals differ from humans intellectually? Were animals created for the use of humankind? Should animals be used for food, sport, or sacrifice? Can animals be our friends? The selections are arranged thematically and, within themes, chronologically. A commentary precedes each excerpt, transliterations of Greek and Latin technical terms are provided, and each entry includes bibliographic suggestions for further reading.

Download or read book The Animal and the Human in Ancient and Modern Thought written by Stephen T. Newmyer and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-01 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ancient Greeks endeavored to define the human being vis-à-vis other animal species by isolating capacities and endowments which they considered to be unique to humans. This approach toward defining the human being still appears with surprising frequency, in modern philosophical treatises, in modern animal behavioral studies, and in animal rights literature, to argue both for and against the position that human beings are special and unique because of one or another attribute or skill that they are believed to possess. Some of the claims of man’s unique endowments have in recent years become the subject of intensive investigation by cognitive ethologists carried out in non-laboratory contexts. The debate is as lively now as in classical times, and, what is of particular note, the examples and methods of argumentation used to prove one or another position on any issue relating to the unique status of human beings that one encounters in contemporary philosophical or ethological literature frequently recall ancient precedents. This is the first book-length study of the ‘man alone of animals’ topos in classical literature, not restricting its analysis to Greco-Roman claims of man’s intellectual uniqueness, but including classical assertions of man’s physiological and emotional uniqueness. It supplements this analysis of ancient manifestations with an examination of how the commonplace survives and has been restated, transformed, and extended in contemporary ethological literature and in the literature of the animal rights and animal welfare movements. Author Stephen T. Newmyer demonstrates that the anthropocentrism detected in Greek applications of the ‘man alone of animals’ topos is not only alive and well in many facets of the current debate on human-animal relations, but that combating its negative effects is a stated aim of some modern philosophers and activists.

Download or read book Looking at Animals in Human History written by Linda Kalof and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2007-08-15 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking in a wide range of visual and textual materials, Linda Kalof in Looking at Animals in Human History unearths many surprising and revealing examples of our depictions of animals.

Download or read book The Elder Pliny on the Human Animal written by Pliny (the Elder.) and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2005-03-17 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher description

Download or read book Birds, Beasts and Burials: A study of the human-animal relationship in Romano-British St. Albans written by Brittany Elayne Hill and published by Archaeopress Publishing Ltd. This book was released on 2017-04-30 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Birds, Beasts and Burials examines human-animal relationships as found in the mortuary record within the area of Verulamium that is now situated in the modern town of St. Albans.