The Fables of Reason

The Fables of Reason

Author: Roger Pearson

Publisher:

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13:

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This is the first comprehensive study in English of Voltaire's contes philosophiques--the philosophical tales for which he is best remembered and which include his masterpiece Candide. Pearson situates each story in its historical and intellectual context and offers new readings in light of modern critical thinking. He rejects the traditional view that Voltaire's contes were the private expression of his philosophical perplexity, and argues that it is narrative that is Voltaire's essential mode of thought. His book is a witty, lucid, and scholarly guide to the "fables of reason" through which Voltaire's skepticism undermined the contemporary religious and philosophical explanations of human experience.


Aesop's Fables

Aesop's Fables

Author: Aesop

Publisher: Wordsworth Editions

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 210

ISBN-13: 9781853261282

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A collection of animal fables told by the Greek slave Aesop.


The Fables of Phædrus

The Fables of Phædrus

Author: Phaedrus

Publisher: DigiCat

Published: 2022-08-15

Total Pages: 136

ISBN-13:

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DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "The Fables of Phædrus" (Literally translated into English prose with notes) by Phaedrus. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.


Fables of the Law

Fables of the Law

Author: Daniela Carpi

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2016-10-24

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 3110496682

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The latest development concerning the metaphorical use of the fairy tale is the legal perspective. The law had and has recourse to fairy tales in order to speak of the nomos and its subversion, of the politically correct and of the various means that have been used to enforce the law. Fairy tales are a fundamental tool to examine legal procedures and structures in their many failings and errors. Therefore, we have privileged the term "fables" of the law just to stress the ethical perspective: they are moral parables that often speak of justice miscarried and justice sought. Law and jurists are creators of "fables" on the view that law is born out of the facts (ex facto ius oritur) so that there is a need for narrative coherence both on the level of the case and the level of legislation (or turned the other way around: what does it mean if no such coherence is found?). This is especially of interest given the influx of all kinds of new technologies that are "fabulous" in themselves and hard to incorporate in traditional doctrinal schemes and thus in the construction of a new reality.


Plato's Fable

Plato's Fable

Author: Joshua Mitchell

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2009-01-10

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 1400827175

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This book is an exploration of Plato's Republic that bypasses arcane scholarly debates. Plato's Fable provides refreshing insight into what, in Plato's view, is the central problem of life: the mortal propensity to adopt defective ways of answering the question of how to live well. How, in light of these tendencies, can humankind be saved? Joshua Mitchell discusses the question in unprecedented depth by examining one of the great books of Western civilization. He draws us beyond the ancients/moderns debate, and beyond the notion that Plato's Republic is best understood as shedding light on the promise of discursive democracy. Instead, Mitchell argues, the question that ought to preoccupy us today is neither "reason" nor "discourse," but rather "imitation." To what extent is man first and foremost an "imitative" being? This, Mitchell asserts, is the subtext of the great political and foreign policy debates of our times. Plato's Fable is not simply a work of textual exegesis. It is an attempt to move debates within political theory beyond their current location. Mitchell recovers insights about the depth of the problem of mortal imitation from Plato's magnificent work, and seeks to explicate the meaning of Plato's central claim--that "only philosophy can save us."


Ethics in Aesop's Fables: The Augustana Collection

Ethics in Aesop's Fables: The Augustana Collection

Author: Christos A. Zafiropoulos

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2017-09-18

Total Pages: 218

ISBN-13: 9004351043

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Ethics in Aesop’s Fables: the Augustana Collection offers an original and innovative analysis of the Greek fable in the framework of Greek ethical thinking. The book starts with a brief account of the history and genre of the Greek fable. It then focuses on the Augustana collection of prose fables and analyses its ethical content in the larger context of Greek thought. A detailed comparison of Greek ethical thinking with the language of the fables shows the persistence of certain types of ethical reasoning and of certain key ethical norms. The author argues that although the fable was not 'philosophy', it was indeed 'philosophical' because it communicated normative messages about human behaviour, which reflected widespread views in Greek ethical thought. This book is of special interest to both students and scholars of Greek fable and of Greek philosophy.