: Three unpublished ayyubid letters are presented here. They are addressed to ascetics, fuqarāʾ and ṣūfī, residing in the great mosque of Damascus, and devoted to reading the Qurʾān and praying at the tomb of prophet Zakariyyāʾ. This veneered shrine or ziyāra had been ignored until now, although it was known and it is common knowledge nowadays, that some rituals took place around the location where the head of John the Baptist, known in the lands of Islamic world as Yaḥyā (...) b. Zakariyyāʾ, was kept. Our research seeks to present aspects of the rituals held in the tomb of Zakariyāʾ, arguing that it was initially established with an impetus from Saladin, then thrived under his ayyubid successors, to start dwindling until it was abandoned by the end of the mamluk era. (shrink)

"Dans l'Espagne du XVe au XVIIe siècle, avec les grands voyages et les explorations de mondes inconnus, l'art de bâtir des palais ou des jardins, d'écrire un voyage expérimental ou une quête mystique, de peindre des paysages et des gloires célestes témoigne d'un renouvellement du regard - philosophique, alchimique, théologique, politique. Habiter le monde s'inscrit dans une perspective géométrique et mystique de l'infini et de l'éternité. Il y aurait peut-être là la marque d'une spécificité hispanique. L'ouvrage s'articule autour de quatre (...) parties consacrées aux palais, jardins et demeures spirituelles, aux merveilles de l'univers de Séville à Mexico, à la mystique des paysages et à la magie naturelle, à la représentation de l'infini" --. (shrink)

Au xvie siècle, l’autobiographie et le récit de voyage étaient étroitement liés et suivirent pendant quelques décennies une évolution parallèle. Thomas Platter l’aîné essaya de fournir dans sesMémoires la description d’une vie exemplaire retraçant ses expériences multiples sur les routes d’Europe. Son fils Felix nous laissa un ouvrage disparate (un mélange de journal, de récit de voyage et de mémoires) où l’auteur paraît omniprésent. Sa conception de l’écriture autobiographique rappelle celle de Montaigne. Le jeune frère Thomas suivit rigoureusement les règles (...) émises par les théoriciens du voyage, condamnant toute opinion subjective. Les ouvrages des Platter nous donnent le meilleur exemple de l’évolution du genre (auto-)biographique entre la Renaissance classique et le Baroque dit sauvage. (shrink)

To advance the philosophical debate of advertising's role in society, in this article I situate the natural tendencies of individuals that manifest themselves in economic relationships within the broader context of natural-law theory. I propose that a natural tendency to exchange goods underscores the classical liberal economic model. As a result, individuals have a natural inclination toward the use of persuasive rhetoric. In addition, as animale symbolicum, individuals have a natural tendency toward symbol use and creation, which in turn affects (...) the production and consumption of persuasive discourse. In light of these particular natural inclinations, I suggest that natural law can justify the institution of advertising. (shrink)

This interview ranges across a number of topics relevant to Dominique Lestel's thought: the history and philosophy of ethology; animal culture; realist-Cartesian and bi-constructivist ethology; biosemiotics; philo- sophical anthropology; animal studies; the other-than-human; veganism; and technology. It touches on thinkers including Bruno Latour, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Paul Shepard, and Donna Haraway.

Observers, including the Catholic Church, have consistently demonstrated a keen ability to identify instances of rhetoric, such as advertising, that are distasteful or offensive. Although they have not necessarily characterized such endeavors as immoral, I submit that a developing notion of “natural rhetoric” may permit such criticism by contextualizing rhetoric as natural, unnatural or even perverse. Following this approach I assert that natural rhetoric, in service to reason, makes possible the apprehension of the basic good of societas. Consequently, rhetoric of (...) the unnatural variety undermines this teleological purpose; when conceived as a perversion it might not only undermine the mission of natural rhetoric, but it might do so in such a way that it harms one or more individuals. After articulating and testing this exploratory thesis with two exemplars, I offer implications for Thomistic natural law and for those who formulate the Catholic Church’s positions on social communications. (shrink)

Although rhetoric might be thought of as nothing more than an archaic art of manipulation, its ability to bring about action—particularly as the intellect and will engage in acts of persuasion amid the operations of the practical intellect—is a possibility that has gone largely unnoticed among philosophers of human nature. In this paper I explore the possibility that natural rhetoric, much as it serves the practical intellect in precipitating action, serves the speculative intellect as it stimulates acts of cognizing and (...) understanding, thus leading to the acquisition of knowledge. (shrink)

This article places the concept of "right to know," which is normally associated with law, in a moral framework. It outlines multiple meanings of the concept, emphasizing the institutional nature of "right to know." Then the article imbeds this understanding in moral thinking, including a discussion of the moral elements of rights, and applies that understanding in specific journalistic situations.

. Although the pages of Journal of Business Ethics have hosted an ongoing dialogue on the ethics of rhetoric and persuasion, the debates have been unable to account for the underlying morality of the human propensity to engage in rhetorical discourse as a part of living in society. In this paper, I offer natural-law ethical theory as a moral paradigm in which to examine rhetoric. In this context, I assert that rhetoric services reason, which in turn services our dispositions or (...) inclinations that are one ideological foundation of natural-law theory. As rhetoric affects the apprehension of these dispositions it subsumes a related morality in which rhetorical endeavors can be seen as “natural”. So endowed, I believe that this conception of rhetoric offers a number of philosophical and practical implications, one of which is a new way to assess the morality of commercial manifestations of rhetoric such as spin and the use of puffery in advertising. (shrink)

Jeffrey J. Maciejewski’s Thomas Aquinas on Persuasion: Action, Ends, and Natural Rhetoric reveals why human nature is dependent on an internally constituted form of persuasive discourse to bring about human action. This book puts forth that use of rhetorical discourse is natural to the human person and makes possible the fullest apprehension of human goods.

L’époque carolingienne est qualifiée de renaissance car il y eut alors une forte volonté de retourner aux textes antiques. Dans le présent article, après avoir précisé les conditions matérielles qui ont commandé la copie des écrits patristiques puis leur circulation dans le monde carolingien, on tente de mettre en lumière la fréquentation des Pères par les différents auteurs carolingiens. Mais, et c’est là le cœur de la question, les œuvres des Pères ne sont-elles pas employées par les clercs du ix (...) e siècle comme autant d’arguments dans les différentes polémiques qui les mettent aux prises? C’est ce qui justifierait leur copie. (shrink)

A few months ago, I was busy scrolling through one of my favorite automotive Web sites, reading about a concept carintroduced at an international auto show, when a hyperlink embedded in the text of...