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Dumb beasts and dead philosophers : humanity and the humane in ancient philosophy and literature / Catherine Osborne.

Oxford Scholarship Online: Philosophy Available online

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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Rowett, Catherine, author.
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Animal welfare--Philosophy--History.
Animal welfare.
Philosophy, Ancient.
Animals in literature.
Literature, Ancient--History and criticism.
Literature, Ancient.
Animals and civilization.
Physical Description:
1 online resource (xi, 262 pages)
Other Title:
Humanity and the humane in ancient philosophy and literature
Place of Publication:
Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2007.
Language Note:
English
Summary:
This unusual philosophy book asks the reader to reconsider the received view that animal rights have no place in ancient thought. Catherine Osborne argues that by reflecting on the work of the ancient philosophers and poets, we can see when and how we lost touch with the natural intelligence of dumb animals.
Contents:
Introduction: on William Blake, nature, and mortality
On nature and providence: readings in Herodotus, Protagoras, and Democritus
On the transmigration of souls: reincarnation into animal bodies in Pythagoras, Empedocles, and Plato
On language, concepts, and automata: rational and irrational animals in Aristotle and Descartes
On the disadvantages of being a complex organism: Aristotle and the scala naturae
On the vice of sentimentality: Androcles and the lion and some extraordinary adventures in the desert fathers
On the notion of natural rights: defending the voiceless and oppressed in the tragedies of Sophocles
On self-defence and utilitarian calculations: Democritus of Abdera and Hermarchus of Mytilene
On eating animals: Porphyry's dietary rules for philosophers.
Notes:
Description based upon print version of record.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [243]-248) and indexes.
Description based on print version record.
Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.
ISBN:
0-19-956827-8
1-281-15395-8
9786611153953
0-19-151570-1
1-4294-7096-8
OCLC:
138720819

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