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Books > Humanities > Philosophy > Topics in philosophy > Logic
The story of Sosipatra of Pergamum (4th century C.E.) as told by
her biographer, Eunapius of Sardis in his Lives of the Philosophers
and Sophists, is a remarkable tale. It is the story of an elite
young girl from the area of Ephesus, who was educated by traveling
oracles (daemons), and who grew up to lead her own philosophy
school on the west coast of Asia Minor. She was also a prophet of
sorts, channeling divine messages to her students, family, and
friends, and foretelling the future. Sosipatra of Pergamum is the
first sustained, book length attempt to tell the story of this
mysterious woman. It presents a rich contextualization of the brief
and highly fictionalized portrait provided by Eunapius. In doing
so, the book explores the cultural and political landscape of late
ancient Asia Minor, especially the areas around Ephesus, Pergamum,
Sardis, and Smyrna. It also discusses moments in Sosipatra's life
for what they reveal more generally about women's lives in Late
Antiquity in the areas of childhood, education, family, household,
motherhood, widowhood, and professional life. Her career sheds
light on late Roman Platonism, its engagement with religion,
ritual, and "magic," and the role of women in this movement. By
thoroughly examining the ancient evidence, Heidi Marx recovers a
hidden yet important figure from the rich intellectual traditions
of the Roman Near East.
This book was designed primarily as a textbook; though the author
hopes that it will prove to be of interests to others beside logic
students. Part I of this book covers the fundamentals of the
subject the propositional calculus and the theory of
quantification. Part II deals with the traditional formal logic and
with the developments which have taken that as their
starting-point. Part III deals with modal, three-valued, and
extensional systems.
The book sets out a new logic of rules, developed to demonstrate how such a logic can contribute to the clarification of historical questions about social rules. The authors illustrate applications of this new logic in their extensive treatments of a variety of accounts of social changes, analysing in these examples the content of particular social rules and the course of changes in them.
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