Church planting is an essential instrument in God’s hand to redeem humanity through the power of the gospel. Several church planters and locations have utilised several church planting methods at different eras. The aim of this article is to find out how it was done during the apostolic period and its significance to the body of Christ. The historical-analytical method was used to discover the scriptural foundations of church planting, patterns of church planting in the book of Acts, (...) the challenges accompanying the pattern and its implications for the contemporary church. Contribution: Therefore, the researcher believes that all Christian missionaries, missions agencies, church planters, missiologists and pastors will have a better understanding of how best to go about the business of Church planting in contemporary times as the article concludes that the church planting pattern in the book of Acts is fundamental and strategic in propagating the gospel in the world today. (shrink)

This article introduces the neologism ‘odegeology’ to encompass theological discussion concerning divine guidance, a significant issue for spiritual formation and discipleship in the church. Jesus’ promise of power and his commission to be witnesses in Acts 1:8 establish the theme for the book called Praxeis in the Greek text. Acts is replete with examples of guidance for completing that mission, particularly in the ministries of Peter and Paul. Can Paul’s experiences with guidance, whether natural or supernatural, be (...) considered a matter of praxis for Christians today? In answering that question, this study will use Paul’s missionary journeys in Acts as a heuristic model for decision-making. The article will discuss the place of divine guidance in publications by Pentecostal/charismatic publishers and whether it is a subject addressed in the faculties of practical theology in their theological schools. The article closes with a discussion whether odegeology as practised in Acts should be normative for Christians today. (shrink)

When a community has risked its life by confessing its faith, when the cumulative pressures of existence in the world have made faith that dubious, an internal dialogue develops which can be called a dialogue between credulity and skepticism.

According to scholars of masculinity studies, manhood is won or lost through the performance of gender-based expectations. In any given culture, masculinities exist in hierarchal relationships. The author of the book of Acts shows Peter demonstrating elite masculine performances in the narrative of Acts. Through Peter’s self-control, and the lack of self-control on the part of those who oppose him, his persuasive, public speech and his ability to control others in the text, Peter exhibits a masculinity that (...) contradicts early portraits of Peter found in 1 Corinthians and the gospels of Matthew, Mark and John. Peter is not overcome by other people in Acts, and he demonstrates a masculinity that is complicit with the types of masculinities prized by the Romans and often considered out of the reach of foreigners. (shrink)

The nascent church in Jerusalem represented in Acts 6 verses 1–3 was promptly challenged by the problem of inequity and lack of fair play among the various stakeholders and such disaffection reached a situation of murmur and open agitation. This challenge to the apostles was a threat to the consolidation of the already established Christian community in Jerusalem and its spread to the whole world. Something must be done to arrest the situation or the Church runs the risk of (...) disintegration. Having some moral lessons drawn from the pericope at the back of the mind, one notices that recently there has been a clamour by the different geopolitical groups in Nigeria to restructure the Nigerian political system. The clamour is based on the failed position of post-war federalism to give all parts of Nigeria’s pluralistic society a fair and equal representation which hitherto was meant to stop Nigeria from another civil war or the cry for cessation by one region or another. The church, as an impartial umpire in the art of politics, should, in the midst of the turmoil, serve as the conscience of the masses, pressing hard to the actualisation of the demands of the masses. The study, through historical-critical method of biblical scholarship with Form criticism, analysed that situation of agitation to inequality and gross misrepresentation in the book of Acts 6:1–3, pressing to offer vital lessons to Nigeria in her quest for political restructuring. It concluded by finding out that Nigeria’s pluralistic nature, when restructured, should be a catalyst for global vision attainment and sustainable development. (shrink)

What makes Book Lambda the most important book of Metaphysics is to mention the fundamental substance of being. Therefore, Book Lambda is a book that has been regarded as valuable and has been studied extensively. Arabic translations of this book were in high demand in the Islamic world. We have also considered Arabic metaphysical translations, especially the translation of Book Lambda. The translation you will read is a commentary of the ninth chapter of (...) class='Hi'>Book Lambda by Themistius. The Greek original commentary of Lambda was lost, and after the Arabic translation, it was transferred to Latin and Hebrew. However, later parts of the Arabic text were also lost. In this chapter, Themistius comments on the part in which Aristotle discusses the difficulties on the nature of divine intellect and tries to prove that the object of reason, the act of thinking and the object of thinking are the same things. (shrink)

If one accepts the social hierarchy that this taste structure masks, it is easy to accept the validity of the particular criteria which serve as the working test of excellence. In fact, the high value placed on rationality, complexity, irony, reflexivity, linguistic innovation, and the “disinterested” contemplation of the well-wrought artifact makes sense within cultural institutions devoted to the improvement of the individuality, autonomy, and productive competence of the already privileged individuals who come to them for instruction and advice.8 Appreciation (...) for the technical fine points of aesthetic achievement is also understandable among people whose daily work centers on the business of discrimination. But it is worth keeping in mind that the critical dismissal of literary works and institutions that do not embody these values as failures is an exercise of power which rules out the possibility of recognizing that such works and institutions might be valuable to others because they perform functions more in keeping with their own somewhat different social position, its material constraints, and ideological concerns. The essay critical dismissal of the Club and other “popularizers” is an act of exclusion that banishes those who might mount even the most minimal of challenges to the culture and role of the contemporary intellectual by proclaiming their own right to create, use, and value books for different purposes.My preoccupation with the Book-of-the-Month Club arises, then, out of a prior interest in the way books are variously written, produced, marketed, read, and evaluated in contemporary American culture. My subjects might best be described as ways of writing rather than Literature, ways of reading rather than texts.9 I have begun to examine the Club’s editorial operation with the intention of eventually comparing the manner, purpose, and substance of the editors’ choice of books with the choices of actual Book-of-the-Month Club members. Such a comparison seems potentially interesting for a variety of reasons. 8. For a discussion of the connections between the social position and role of literary academics and the values they promote through the process of canonization, see Jane Tompkins, Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction, 1790-1860 , esp. pp. 186-201.9. See, for instance, my earlier effort to specify how a group of women actually read and evaluate individual books in the much-maligned romance genre, Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Culture . I am indebted to Mary Pratt’s discussion of the concept of “literariness” and the way it disciplines ideologically this particular way of describing my own interests. Janice Radway is an associate professor of American civilization at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of Reading the Romance: Women, Patriarchy, and Popular Literature and is a former editor of American Quarterly. This article is part of a larger study, the working title of which is “The Book-of-the-Month Club and the General Reader: The Transformation of Literary Production in the Twentieth Century.”. (shrink)

It is the task of theology in every age to discover formulations of belief which are both traditionally and genuinely meaningful. The Book of Acts presents Jesus Christ, absent since his ascension, yet powerfully present in a complex of ways, which may be catalytically provocative for the thinking of faith today.

The problem of act individuation is a debate about the identity conditions of human acts. The fundamental question about act individuation is: how do we distinguish between actions? Three views of act individuation have dominated the literature. First, Donald Davidson and G.E.M. Anscombe have argued that a number of different descriptions refer to a single act. Second, Alvin Goldman and Jaegwon Kim have argued that each description designates a distinct act. Finally, Irving Thalberg and Judith Jarvis Thomson have averred (...) that some acts are sequences of causally related events, which include both a primitive bodily action and some of its effects. All of these accounts have assumed that a simple invariantist account of act individuation captures how ordinary people distinguish between acts. For my dissertation, I devised an experiment to test the action theorists' assumptions. My data show that people's intuitions seem to depend on the valence of the consequences of the action under consideration. So, an invariantist account is not possible. In light of the empirical results, I argue that if we seek a folk account of act individuation, then that account should be able to explain the variability that seems to be present in people's intuitions about different cases. (shrink)

Human beings act together in characteristic ways that matter to us a great deal. This book explores the conceptual, metaphysical and normative foundations of such sociality. It argues that appeal to the planning structures involved in our individual, temporally extended agency provides substantial resources for understanding these foundations of our sociality.

This book offers a new account of what it is to act for a normative reason. The first part of the book examines the problems of causal accounts of acting for reasons and suggests to solve them by a dispositional approach. The author argues for a dispositional account which unites epistemic, volitional, and executional dispositions in a complex normative competence. This ‘Normative Competence Account’ allows for more and less reflective ways of acting for normative reasons. The second part (...) of the book clarifies the relation between the normative reason that an agent acts for and his or her motivating reasons. It refutes the widely held ‘identity view’ that acting for a normative reason requires the normative reason to be identical with a motivating reason. The author describes how normative reasons are related to motivating reasons by a relation of correspondence, and proposes a new understanding of how normative reasons explain those actions that are performed for them. Determined by Reasons engages with current debates from a wide range of different philosophical areas, including action theory, metaethics, moral psychology, epistemology, and ontology, to develop a new account of acting for normative reasons. (shrink)

In a phenomenology of acting, Phillip Zarrilliconsiders acting as a 'question' to be explored in the studio, and then reflected upon. This book is a vital response to Jerzy Grotowski's essential question: "How does the actor 'touch that which is untouchable?'" Phenomenology invites us to listen to "the things themselves", to be attentive to how we sensorially, kinaesthetically, and affectively engage with acting as a phenomenon and process. Using detailed first-person accounts of acting across a variety of dramaturgies and (...) performances from Beckett to newly co-created performances to realism, it provides an account of how we 'do' or practice phenomenology when training, performing, directing, or teaching. Zarrilli brings a wealth of international and intercultural experience as a director, performer, and teacher to this major new contribution both to the practices of acting, and how we can reflect in depth on those practices. An advanced study for actors, directors, and teachers of acting thatis ideal for both the training/rehearsal studio and research, a phenomenology of acting is an exciting move forward in the philosophical understanding of acting as an embodied practice. n reflect in depth on those practices. An advanced study for actors, directors, and teachers of acting thatis ideal for both the training/rehearsal studio and research, a phenomenology of acting is an exciting move forward in the philosophical understanding of acting as an embodied practice. (shrink)

In Shared Agency: A Planning Theory of Acting Together, Michael Bratman refines, systematizes, and defends his “planning theory” of shared agency, various elements of which were sketched in a series of earlier essays on the topic. The book is analytically rigorous and fairly technical at points, but organized and written with extraordinary clarity. It represents a valuable contribution to the literature on shared intention and joint activity, and is essential reading for philosophers working in that area.Bratman takes as his (...) central foils Margaret Gilbert and John Searle, both of whom argue that there is a fundamental discontinuity between individual agency and shared agency in that the resources needed to explain the latter extend beyond those that enable us to explain the former. According to those theorists, an adequate account of shared agency requires appeal to “some new and fundamentally different kind of practical element” : an irreducible “joint commitment” on Gilbert’s .. (shrink)

Do you wake up in the morning and still feel tired? Do your supposedly relaxing activities actually just feel like another thing to check off that to-do-list? Do you feel like you never really have time to recharge? It's time to rethink rest! Rest is no longer about just getting a good night's sleep or taking an evening to relax on the couch and watch TV. It's a radical act of self-care that asks you to take into account all the (...) different aspects of yourself that need to rest and take a break. And The Little Book of Rest has everything you need to get started. In this book, you'll find restful solutions that will impact each of every part of yourself. With insight into why resting-really resting-can benefit you and your community as a whole, this book is your guide to slowing down, letting go, and finding peace and healing within yourself. (shrink)

Recent work at the intersection of philosophy of action and aesthetics has unearthed rich territory. We are deepening our appreciation for and understanding of the role of pretense, imagination, and narrative (to name a few) in human action and moral psychology. Tzachi Zamir’s book investigates a relatively unexplored locus of overlap between philosophy of action and aesthetics via a multifaceted and conceptually rich study of the art, ethics, and moral psychology of acting — topics that have received scant philosophical (...) attention... (shrink)

This book consists of a series of essays that all turn around questions of the address of speech or writing. They argue and demonstrate that meaning is not just a matter of the active intention of a subject (for example, speaker, writer, or other signatory of a meaningful act) but also of its reception at another's address. The book's main concern is therefore with a theory of meaning and of action that is not centered on the intentional, self-conscious (...) subject. The fifteen chapters explore this problematic within three broad areas: love, jealousy, and sexual difference; fiction or literature; and political or public discourse. The book engages principally with contemporary French thought and includes important new readings of work by Jacques Derrida, He;lène Cixous, Maurice Blanchot, and Jean-Luc Nancy. (shrink)

In faith and practice, Pentecostals put emphasis on practical issues as well as spiritual experience in their theological understanding and doctrinal teachings. The Pentecostals take their doctrine from certain empirical events. One of the spiritual experiences often underlined is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In interpreting the Book of Acts, Pentecostals tend to emphasise the theological character of the narratives and seldom their historical uniqueness. That is why Pentecostals stress the normative theological intent of the historical record (...) for contemporary Christian experience. This article therefore examines critically Pentecostal paradigm of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, deriving examples from the Acts of the Apostles. It is concluded that the practice of the baptism of the Holy Spirit carried out by Christians today, arguably, has no biblical basis. This is because, there is nowhere the Bible commands people to seek baptism in the Holy Spirit. The observation is that, all the events or experiences of Christians baptised in the Holy Spirit in Acts are not necessarily universal normative for every Christian and for this reason, there is no need to be dogmatic.Contribution: This article challenges the practice of the baptism of the Holy Spirit in church today. This study supports the fact that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a universal experience for every Christians and there is no need to be dogmatised. (shrink)

Taste is a lyric meditation on one of our five senses, which we often take for granted. Structured as a series of “small bites,” the book considers the ways that we ingest the world, how we come to know ourselves and others through the daily act of tasting. Through flavorful explorations of the sweet, the sour, the salty, the bitter, and umami, Jehanne Dubrow reflects on the nature of taste. In a series of short, interdisciplinary essays, she blends personal (...) experience with analysis of poetry, fiction, music, and the visual arts, as well as religious and philosophical texts. Dubrow considers the science of taste and how taste transforms from a physical sensation into a metaphor for discernment. Taste is organized not so much as a linear dinner served in courses but as a meal consisting of meze, small plates of intensely flavored discourse. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedThe Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mullā Sadrā. By Christian Jambet. Brooklyn: Zone Books, 2006. Pp. 497. Hardcover $38.95.Analysis in Śaṅkara Vedānta: The Philosophy of Ganeswar Misra. Edited by Bijayananda Kar. New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 2006. Pp. xxv + 190. Hardcover Rs. 240.00.Bhakti and Philosophy. By R. Raj Singh. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2006. Pp. 112. Hardcover $65.00.Brahman and the Ethos of Organization. (...) By Leonard R. Silos. Paseo de Roxas: Asian Institute of Management, 2006. Pp. xix + 344. Price not given.Buddhist Inclusivism: Attitudes Towards Religious Others. By Kristin Beise Kiblinger. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005. Pp. viii + 145. Hardcover $89.95.Classical Northern Wu Style Tai Ji Quan: The Fighting Art of the Manchurian Palace Guard. By Tina Chunna Zhang and Frank Allen. Berkeley: Blue Snake Books, 2006. Pp. xiii + 203. Paper $21.95.Classical Sāṃkhya and Yoga: An Indian Metaphysics of Experience. By Mikel Burley. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. Pp. xiv + 226. Price not given.Comparative Philosophy and Religion in Times of Terror. Edited by Douglas Allen. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2006. Pp. xiv + 257. Hardcover $62.00. Paper $32.00.Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge. By B. Alan Wallace. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Pp. vii + 211. Hardcover $29.50, £19.00.Contexts and Dialogue: Yogācāra Buddhism and Modern Psychology on the Subliminal Mind. By Tao Jiang. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006. Pp. xi + 198. Paper $20.00.Dialogue Transcultural. Edited by Yue Diayun et al. Nanjing: Jiangsu Peoples Press, 2006. Pp. 335. Price not given.Dōgen on Meditation and Thinking: A Reflection on His View of Zen. By Hee-Jin Kim. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Pp. xiii + 169. Hardcover $65.50. Paper $21.95.The Garden of Loneliness: A Translation of Jayshankar Prasad's Āṅsū, "Tears." By Charles S. J. White. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2006. Pp. xv + 136. Hardcover Rs. 295. [End Page 608]The Happening of Tradition: Vallabha on Anumāna in Nyāyalīlāvatī. By Anna-Pya Sjödin. Stockholm: Elanders Gotab, 2006. Pp. 195. Price not given.Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood: Giving Away the Body in Indian Buddhist Literature. By Reiko Ohnuma. 2006. Pp. xvii + 372. Hardcover $45.00, £29.00.Hwa Yu T'ai Chi Ch'uan: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Five-Word Song. By Glenn D. Newth. Berkeley: Blue Snake Books, 2007. Pp. xiii + 160. U.S. $18.95. Can $24.95.A Jewish Philosopher of Baghdad: 'Izz al-Dawla Ibn Kammūna (d. 683/1284) and His Writings. By Reza Pourjavady and Sabine Schmidtke. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006. Pp. xii + 274. Hardcover $130.00, €100.Letting Be: Fred Dallmayr's Cosmopolitical Vision. Edited by Stephen F. Schneck. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. Pp. x + 382. Paper $35.00.Myth and the Existential Quest. By Vassilis Vitsaxis and translated by Deborah Brown Kazazis and Vassilis Vitsaxis. Boston: Somerset Hall Press, 2006. Pp. 301. Hardcover $49.95. Paper $39.95.Nietzsche-Buddha-Zarathustra: Eine West-Ost Konfiguration. By Michael Skowron. Daegu: Kyungpook National University Press, 2006. Pp. 293. Paper $18.00, Won 17,000.Popularizing Buddhism: Preaching as Performance in Sri Lanka. By Mahinda Deegalle. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Pp. xiii + 241. Hardcover $65.00. Paper $21.95.Ramana Maharashi: The Sage of Arunachala. By Arvind Sharma. New Delhi: Penquin Group, 2006. Pp. 215. Hardcover Rs. 295.Readings in Han Chinese Thought. Edited and translated by Mark Csikszentmihalyi. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2006. Pp. xxx + 220. Hardcover $39.95. Paper $14.95.Religions of Korea in Practice. Edited by Robert E. Buswell Jr. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007. Pp. xx + 542. Paper $24.95, £15.95.The Scripture on Great Peace: The Taiping jing and the Beginnings of Daoism. By Barbara Hendrischke. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Pp. x + 410. Hardcover $60.00, £38.95.The Self 's Awareness of Itself: Bhaṭṭa Rāmakantha's Arguments against the Buddhist Doctrine of No-Self. By Alex Watson. Vienna: Sammlung de Nobili, 2006. Pp. 433. Price not given... (shrink)

In the book of Acts, the Apostle Paul provides examples of leadership and displays significant leadership skills. In the speech to church leaders from Ephesus in Acts 20, he is presented as giving an account of his approach, detailing all the challenges involved. This article analyses how the Paul of Acts understood his own leadership role, in particular, the need for integrity, emotional involvement in the process and ceaseless effort. The article also examines Paul’s emphasis on (...) the necessity for leaders to exemplify or embody in a perceptible way the values which they convey to others and demand of them. (shrink)

In this chapter I propose to understand the current paradigm shift in biology as the origination of a biology of subjects. A description of living beings as experiencing selves has the potential to transform the current mechanistic approach of biology into an embodied-hermeneutic one, culminating in a poetics of nature. We are at the right moment for that: The findings of complex systems research, autopoiesis theory, and evolutionary developmental biology are converging into a picture where the living can not longer (...) be described in terms of causal mechanisms (as is, e. g., the Watson-Crick “central dogma”). Instead, organisms bring forth themselves physically and thereby generate a hermeneutic standpoint, interpreting external and internal stimuli interfering with their auto-creation according to embodied values. This can be observed empirically during embryonic develoment, where genetic instructions do not act as orders, but rather as perturbations being interpreted by an auto-maintaining developmental centre. The notion of organic subjectivity opens the living realm to a hermeneutic perspective. Since any encounter has a meaning and is interpreted accordingly, it creates a perspective of innerness or self. This self experiences all external and internal stimuli as values. The innerness is coextensive with the material dimensions of biochemical processes as their other, or symbolic, side. By this process the subjective perspective of organisms is open to other’s experience. Meaning and value become visible, as they are generated in material, embodied form. Instead of being separate from nature as pure “mind” or “language”, man shares with any other being the same “conditio vitae” of experienced meaning and expressive feeling. (shrink)

Michael Bratman’s work is established as one of the most important philosophical approaches to group agency so far, and Shared Agency, A Planning Theory of Acting Together confirms that impression. In this paper I attempt to challenge the book’s central claim that considerations of theoretical simplicity will favor Bratman’s theory of collective action over its main rivals. I do that, firstly, by questioning whether there must be a fundamental difference in kind between Searle style we-intentions and I-intentions within that (...) type of framework. If not, Searle’s type of theory need not be less qualitatively parsimonious than Bratman’s. This hangs on how we understand the notions of modes and contents of intentional states, and the relations between modes, contents, and categorizations of such states. Secondly, by questioning whether Bratman’s theory steers clear of debunking or dismissing collectivity. Elsewhere I have claimed that the manoeuvres Bratman suggested to avoid circularity in his conceptual analysis (in 1992 and 1997) undermine the strength of his resulting notion of collective action. Bratman responds in detail to this objection in his new book and I return to the issue towards the end of the paper. (shrink)

The Yijing has been used as a book of divination for more than three thousand years in China and still is by some people today. In this book the wisdom of leadership within the framework of the Yijing is used to indicate how a leader should act in different situations, be they good or bad. Critical analysis of the 64 hexagrams, the first of its kind, comes across with lucid explanations of the hexagram statements. Reinterpreted in a logical (...) and scientific manner, this Chinese classic provides modern leaders with food for thought. (shrink)

British Library MS Harley 7368 or The Book of Sir Thomas More presents a play by five hands in various states of revision. Scholars have identified Anthony Munday as the principal playwright and William Shakespeare as the author of three pages that portray Thomas More quelling a Mayday London riot against foreigners. Its manifold uncertainties notwithstanding, the playscript teaches us some things about Shakespeare and about Thomas More. It enables us to see the Bard in the act of creating (...) and revising, participating fully in the processes of collaboration typical in his time. Moreover, it presents More as a heroic wise man whom Protestants and Catholics can admire for his resolution, mirth and compassion, qualities that transcend confessional dispute. (shrink)

Lloyd Jones’s *The Book of Fame*, a novel about the stunningly successful 1905 British tour of the New Zealand rugby team, represents both skilled group action and the difficulty of capturing it in words. The novel’s form is as fluid and deceptive, as adaptable and integrated, as the sweetly shaped play of the team that became known during this tour for the first time as the All Blacks. It treats sport on its own terms as a rich world, a (...) set of bodily skills, and an honest profession in itself. A reading of *The Book of Fame* can contribute to the interdisciplinary study of literature and cognition, exemplifying two-way ‘exchange values’. On the one hand, we gain insights into the nature of skilful group agency, of distinct forms and at distinct timescales, by focussing on the precise forms taken by the All Blacks’ creation of space. Here, we treat The Book of Fame as a brilliant evocation of features of collective thought, movement, and emotion that both everyday and scientific inquiry can easily miss. On the other hand, we also read back into the novel a subtle, fascinated interrogation of the mechanisms by which small groups form, evolve, and act. In this more ambitious mode of analysis, we use independently motivated theoretical concerns to help us see real features of the literary work that might otherwise remain invisible. We focus on the relationship between skilful performance and collective action. These topics fall outside the ambit of much current work by literary theorists using cognitive research, who tend to focus on theory of mind and modularity, metaphor and blending, emotion and empathy, consciousness and concepts, representation and so on. But skilled performance and collective action comprise surprisingly lively research fields across the sciences, from neuropsychology to philosophy of mind and cognitive anthropology. These areas of inquiry may provide even more productive avenues for future work in the interfield of literary and cultural theory and the cognitive sciences. (shrink)

There are frequent claims that the regulation of international law is uncertain, vague, ambiguous, or indeterminate, which does not support the desired stability, transparency, or predictability of international legal relations. This monograph examines the framework of interpretation in international law based on the premise of the effectiveness and determinacy of international legal regulation, which is a necessary pre-requisite for international law to be viewed as law. This study examines this problem for the first time since these questions were introduced and (...) identified as the basic premises of the international legal analysis, in the works of JL Brierly and Sir Hersch Lauterpacht. Addressing different aspects of the effectiveness of legal regulation, this monograph examines the structural limits on, and threshold of, legal regulation, and the relationship between established legal regulation and non-law. Once the limits of legal regulation are ascertained, the analysis proceeds to examine the legal framework of interpretation that serves to maintain and preserve the object and aims of existing legal regulation. The final stage of analysis is the interpretation of those treaty provisions that embody the indeterminate conditions of non-law. Given that the generalist element of international legal doctrine has been virtually silent on the problem and implications of the effectiveness and determinacy of international legal regulation, this study examines the material accumulated in doctrine and practice for the past several decades, including the relevant jurisprudence of all major international tribunals. (shrink)

Odysseus’ Apologue, Books 9 to 12 of the “Odyssey”, is characterized by a substantial repetition of acts/scenes of eating/feasting. The following analysis serves, firstly, as a structural indication of the pervasiveness of eating acts to several episodes in Odysseus’ internal narrative, observing parallels between certain episodes which have not as yet been noticed. Secondly, I illustrate how acts of eating come to connote secondary associations in the Apologue, oscillating between the danger of destruction and of delay for (...) the Ithacan travellers. These connotations of eating ultimately respond both to Odysseus’ situation in Scheria and to the threat of the suitors in Ithaca. (shrink)

To those who know little about the Middle Ages, the copying of manuscripts of “the ancients” (whether classical, such as the Roman poet Horace, or Christian, such as Saints Jerome or Augustine) often seems either a laudable act of preserving the past or an unfortunate fixation on repeating the words of others rather than penning new and original compositions. Even scholars of the Middle Ages appear sometimes more interested in new types of works such as fabliaux or courtly romances written (...) in the vernacular; when they study the practice of copying, they often concentrate on identifying prototypes or legacies. Finding old wine in old bottles has been a fairly constant theme in medieval studies; sometimes, we must admit, medievalists have just thrown out the old bottles and moved on to something completely new. In this context, it may seem strange to find a work about medieval Latin manuscript commentaries titled “The Birth of the Author,” responding to Roland Barthes's well-known essay “The Death of the Author,” published in 1984 and cited repeatedly since. What can it mean to see new, self-conscious awareness of the act of personal creation in works that are copies by scribes of other works that themselves comment on yet earlier works, often of a certain age or canonicity? Yet in this intelligent, engaging, and beautifully produced book, art historian Jeffrey Hamburger not only shows how those who wrote commentaries came to suggest that anyone who composes a work (even the scribe who copies it) could be considered a creator of meaning but also that the images in commentaries themselves sometimes make statements—indeed, statements more radical than those in the text—about the author of the work being illustrated. Long known as one of the relatively rare historians of medieval art equipped with a wide knowledge of theology and hence of how images respond to and reflect text, Hamburger here shows himself possessed of a shrewd eye for the image itself. He studies illuminated prefaces to, among other texts, the prose and poetic works of Horace as used in the medieval classroom, copies of the major biblical commentary of the High Middle Ages, the Glossa ordinaria, and Rupert of Deutz's erotically charged commentary on the Song of Songs. Changing the lens through which scholars have usually viewed such texts, Hamburger argues that images of authors of commentaries sometimes go beyond anything in the text to assert the authority not only of the author of the text commented on and of the commentator but occasionally even of the scribe.The Birth of the Author is a work of complicated analysis, and its full power demands close attention. Understanding how images construct claims that go beyond the text involves a good deal of careful looking. Hamburger is a patient and clear guide, but the reader must be prepared to flip back and forth between the magnificent colored images the publisher provides and to follow what are often painstaking arguments from comparison of small visual differences or puzzling identifications of seemingly strange details. The result of doing so is, however, to gain not only the reward of Hamburger's ingenious conclusions but also a lesson in how to look. For example, in a discussion of Gilbert Universalis's commentary on the Lamentations of the Hebrew prophet Jeremiah, Hamburger shows how Gilbert not only identifies Jeremiah as a “divine rhetorician” but also assimilates his own act of authorship to Jeremiah's prophetic speech. In the only extant copy of Gilbert's text that has a program of illustrations, the artist constructs both Jeremiah's speech and Gilbert's interpretation as similar acts of creation by framing both authors in parallel architectural images that evoke the Old Testament temple and a Christian church. Or to give a final example of Hamburger's interpretive reach: the book concludes not with yet another medieval preface but with an example of the far less usual manuscript epilogue. Here not only commentator, scribe, and illustrator but even the medieval reader construct themselves. Reception becomes interpretation, illustration becomes construction. In a commentary by the Carolingian figure Sedulius Scotus (fl. 840–60) on the Roman grammarian Donatus (mid-fourth century), the illustrator depicts Donatus as author and scribe (thus assimilating author into copier and vice versa). On the same folio, a later medieval reader constructs himself as reader/author in a charming marginal doodle that seems to entrap Donatus in a sort of hangman's noose. Thus, a bit wryly perhaps, Hamburger—himself teacher, commentator, and consummate scholar—seems to suggest that even frustrated students can construct themselves as interpreters and, yes, authors. Behind the seeming repetition and backward glance of the images in medieval commentaries lies radical and forward-looking self-awareness of the acts of authoring, interpreting, reading, and imagining. In Hamburger's analysis, the most seemingly conventional of medieval genres—the preface to commentaries on the texts of others—is a locus of the birth in illustration of the self-conscious and self-expressive author and reader. (shrink)

The idea that certain troubadours may have anthologized their own songs into compilations and even books has tantalized scholars ever since Gustav Gröber published his bold monograph on the question in 1877. Gröber's hypothesis about the prevalence of such compilations and books is now often put in doubt. It remains plausible, though uncertain, that several troubadours did put together collections of their own works — among them, Peire Vidal , Ponç de la Guardia , and Cerveri de Girona . There (...) is, however, one highly convincing case of a troubadour who acted as his own anthologist, and that is Guiraut Riquier. (shrink)

David Errington brings the Book of Proverbs into discussion with two significant accounts of the nature and foundation of practical reason in Christian ethics: Thomas Aquinas and Oliver O'Donovan. Aiming to set out a coherent account of the structure of Christian moral reasoning, this book provides the first scholarly engagement with Oliver O'Donovan's moral theology. Errington argues that the way the Book of Proverbs conceives of wisdom presents an important challenge to the way practical reason has been (...) understood in the Western theological and philosophical tradition, and that instead a perfection of speculative knowledge, wisdom in the Book of Proverbs is a practical knowledge of how to act well, grounded in the reality of the world God has made. (shrink)

This book is the result of a collective research effort performed during many years in both Sweden and Spain. It is the result of attempting to develop a new field of research that could we denominate «human act informatics.» The goal has been to use the technologies of information to the study of the human act in general, including embodied acts and disembodied acts. The book presents a theory of the quantification of the informational value of (...) human acts as order, opposing the living order against entropy. We present acting as a set of decisions and choices aimed to create order and to impose Modernity. Karl Popper’s frequency theory of probability is applied to characterize human acts regarding their degree of freedom and to set up a scale of order in human decisions. The traditional theory of economics and social science characterize the human act as rational, utilitarian and ethical. Our results emphasize that the unique significance of an act lies in its capacity to generate order. An adequate methodology is then presented to defend such hypothesis according to which, the rationality respective irrationality of acting, is in fact only a function of the act’s organizational capacity. From this perspective, it has been necessary to define «order» respective «disorder» as operative concepts that allowed the comparison of the organizational differences generated by each kind of act. According to the presented conclusions, the spontaneity of living, as unconscious thinking, dreaming, loving, etc. and the mainstream of the human acts, are utilitarian, but in an irrational way; they are rooted in unconscious drifts and therefore must be considered irrational-utility acts. (shrink)

This article forms part of a larger project on the apocryphal Book of Judith. It explores the performative nature of turmoil, trauma and tenacity as found in the second half of the book (9–16). The impetus for this investigation is the work done by same author on chapters 1–8 of Judith while focusing on a similar theme. The present article suggests that the exploration of the turmoil, trauma and tenacity to be found in chapters 1–8 does not comprehensively (...) represent all aspects that this topic has to offer to the reader of Judith. The contention here is that the theme of turmoil, trauma and the resultant tenacity in the second half of Judith needs further scholarly exploration as it reveals contrasting developments regarding two rivalling camps, that is, the Israelites and the Assyrians. From a speech act interpretive angle, the article asserts that turmoil, trauma and tenacity are intentionally utilised as a literary tool for indicating honour (Israelites) and shame (Assyrians). This has the potential to persuade the reader to make choices and/or decisions as they read the story.Contribution: The article is a continuation of my work on the first part of Judith (chapters 1–8), as indicated. Its main contribution rests on its unique approach to investigating the performative nature of trauma, turmoil and tenacity in the second part of the book, namely, chapters 9–16. The study of the theme of trauma, turmoil and tenacity in Judith is insightful and thought-provoking and does advance research around this fascinating book. (shrink)