The article discusses education as a phenomenon of European culture. The author argues that education becomes inalienable component of European culture and largely determines its development trends. Thus, education traditionally was an important component of religious culture, despite that the methodological rationalism of scholasticism came into conflict with the postulation of the fundamental non-objectivity of God. Teaching theology as an academic discipline considered as a form of the comprehension of God. Since education turns out to be one of the basic (...) elements of European culture, that form of education, which dominates in a particular period of history, plays a determinative role in the development of various cultural phenomena. This is demonstrated by the example of ethics and morality. Thus, the interpretation of education as studying leads to the formation of deductive thinking, which, when applied to the sphere of morality, presupposes the submission of specific situations under the learned universal rules of standardized moral code. In contrast, modern moral consciousness understands moral choice as creative modeling of behavior in specific situations, idiographically understood as unique. This is possible only on the basis of the reception of deep general human values, which means the connection between the modern type of morality and education. Therefore, education should include not only studying but also cultivation of personality, and the latter should be in focus. (shrink)

This is the last in a series of three papers on the history of the Lenz–Ising model from 1920 to the early 1970s. In the first paper, I studied the invention of the model in the 1920s, while in the second paper, I documented a quite sudden change in the perception of the model in the early 1960s when it was realized that the Lenz–Ising model is actually relevant for the understanding of phase transitions. In this article, which is (...) self-contained, I study how this realization affected attempts to understand critical phenomena, which can be understood as limiting cases of (first-order) phase transitions, in the epoch from circa 1965 to 1970, where these phenomena were recognized as a research field in its own right. I focus on two questions: What kinds of insight into critical phenomena was the employment of the Lenz–Ising model thought to give? And how could a crude model, which the Lenz–Ising model was thought to be, provide this understanding? I document that the model played several roles: At first, it played a role analogous to experimental data: hypotheses about real systems, in particular relations between critical exponents and what is now called the hypothesis of scaling, which was advanced by Benjamin Widom and others, were confronted with numerical results for the model, in particular the model’s so-called critical exponents. A positive result of a confrontation was seen as positive evidence for this hypothesis. The model was also used to gain insight into specific aspects of critical phenomena, for example that diverse physical systems exhibit similar behavior close to a critical point. Later, a more systematic program of understanding critical phenomena emerged that involved an explicit formulation of what it means to understand critical phenomena, namely, the elucidation of what features of the Hamiltonian of models lead to what kinds of behavior close to critical points. Attempts to accomplish this program culminated with the so-called hypothesis of universality, put forward independently by Robert B. Griffiths and Leo P. Kadanoff in 1970. They divided critical phenomena into classes with similar critical behavior. I also study the crucial role of the Lenz–Ising model in the development and justification of these ideas. (shrink)

Considered one of Jung's most controversial works, Answer to Job also stands as Jung's most extensive commentary on a biblical text. Here, he confronts the story of the man who challenged God, the man who experienced hell on earth and still did not reject his faith. Job's journey parallels Jung's own experience--as reported in The Red Book: Liber Novus--of descending into the depths of his own unconscious, confronting and reconciling the rejected aspects of his soul. This paperback edition of Jung's (...) classic work includes a new foreword by Sonu Shamdasani, Philemon Professor of Jung History at University College London. Described by Shamdasani as "the theology behind The Red Book," Answer to Job examines the symbolic role that theological concepts play in an individual's psychic life. (shrink)

In this book, controversial and world-renowned theologian, Stanley Hauerwas, tackles the issue of theology being sidelined as a necessary discipline in the modern university. It is an attempt to reclaim the knowledge of God as just that – knowledge. Questions why theology is no longer considered a necessary subject in the modern university, and explores the role it should play in the development of our “knowledge” Considers how theology is often excluded from the knowledges of the modern university because (...) these are constituted by an understanding of time necessary to make economic and state realities seem inevitable Argues that it is precisely this difference that makes Christian theology an essential resource for the university to achieve its task - that is, to form people who are able to imagine a different world through critical and disciplined reflection Challenges the domesticated character of much recent theology by suggesting how prayer and the love of the poor are essential practices that should shape the theological task Converses with figures as diverse as Luigi Giussani, David Burrell, Stanley Fish, Wendell Berry, Jeff Stout, Rowan Williams and Sheldon Wolin Published in the new and prestigious Illuminations series. (shrink)

If we appeal to God when our technology (including medicine) fails, we assume a “ God of the gaps.” It is religiously preferable to appreciate technological competence. Our successes challenge, however, religious convictions. Modifying words and images is not enough, as technology affects theology more deeply. This is illustrated by the history of chemistry. Chemistry has been perceived as wanting to transform and purify reality rather than to understand the created order. Thus, unlike biology and physics, chemistry did not (...) provide a fertile basis for natural theologies. It is argued that an active, transformative role of humans is appropriate in biblically inspired religions and called for in the light of imperfections and evil in the world. When the expression “playing God” is used dismissively, as if we trespass upon God–given territory, a theologically problematical association of God and the given order is assumed. A different view of the human calling can be articulated by drawing upon the Christian heritage and by developing an antinatural religious naturalism. (shrink)

In 1937 Joseph Grinnell founded the University of California’s first biological field station, the Hastings Natural History Reservation. Hastings became a center for field biology on the West Coast, and by 1960 it was serving as a model for the creation of additional U.C. reserves. Today, the U.C. Natural Reserve System is the largest and most diverse network of university-based biological field stations in the world, with 36 sites covering more than 135,000 acres. This essay examines the founding of (...) the Hastings Reservation, and asks how it managed to grow and develop, in the 1940s and 1950s, during a time of declining support for natural history research. It shows how faculty and staff courted the support of key institutional allies, presented themselves as the guardians of a venerable tradition in nature study, and emphasized the station’s capacity to document ecological change and inform environmental policy and management. In the years since, Hastings and other U.C. reserves have played crucial roles in California environmental politics. Biological field stations in the post-war era deserve more attention not only from historians of biology, but also from environmental historians and other scholars interested in the role of science in society. (shrink)

We discuss a new theory of the universe in which the vacuum energy is of classical origin and dominates the energy content of the universe. As usual, the Einstein equations determine the metric of the universe. However, the scale factor is controlled by total energy conservation in contrast to the practice in the Robertson–Walker formulation. This theory naturally leads to an explanation for the Big Bang and is not plagued by the horizon and cosmological constant problem. It (...) naturally accommodates the notion of dark energy and proposes a possible explanation for dark matter. It leads to a dual description of the universe, which is reminiscent of the dual theory proposed by Milne in 1937. On the one hand one can describe the universe in terms of the original Einstein coordinates in which the universe is expanding, on the other hand one can describe it in terms of co-moving coordinates which feature in measurements. In the latter representation the universe looks stationary and the age of the universe appears constant. The paper describes the evolution of this universe. It starts out in a classical state with perfect symmetry and zero entropy. Due to the vacuum metric the effective energy density is infinite at the beginning, but diminishes rapidly. Once it reaches the Planck energy density of elementary particles, the formation of particles can commence. Because of the quantum nature of creation and annihilation processes spatial and temporal inhomogeneities appear in the matter distributions, resulting in residual proton (neutron) and electron densities. Hence, quantum uncertainty plays an essential role in the creation of a diversified complex universe with increasing entropy. It thus seems that quantum fluctuations play a role in cosmology similar to that of random mutations in biology. Other analogies to biological principles, such as recapitulation, are also discussed. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: * The Universe We Know * Theories of Creation * Why This Universe? * The Multiverse and Fine-Tuning * Accounting for the World * God as a Theory * Note * References * Further Reading.

If the theme of this special edition can be reformulated as a question (what was and is the current use of the Bible in theology?), it would be challenging and very difficult to answer the question because of a diverse usage of the Bible throughout history and today, stretching in a continuum of both vertical and horizontal probabilities: vertically, theism vs. atheism and horizontally, worldliness vs. holiness. The objective of this essay is to argue for the incorporation of the (...) ‘spiritualities’ of divine immanence and divine transcendence in the composition of theologies, facilitated by a comprehensive and multidimensional reading of the Bible and the acknowledgement of contributions from the sciences. In this research, the reasoning will address the following relevant aspects: (1) taking into account the epistemology of the ‘Bible’ and ‘Theology’; (2) the consideration of postmodernity, post-secularism and spirituality and (3) the composition of neo-theologies. Contribution: This article pleads that biblical analyses should play a more comprehensive and determinative role in the composition and formulation of theology, pointing more explicitly to the transcendence and immanence of God. The reading of such theologies then must create different lived experiences of the immanence and transcendence of God. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.3 (2002) 521-537 [Access article in PDF] Two Routes "to Concreteness" in the Work of the Bakhtin Circle Craig Brandist In 1918 the young Georg Lukács published an obituary of the last major Baden School neo-Kantian Emil Lask in which the latter's varied work was commended for being "underlain by an essential common drive [Drang]: the drive to concreteness." 1 This "drive" (...) was especially problematic, however, in the work of thinkers overtly committed to neo-Kantianism, a doctrine that was in its own time a byword for abstruseness and academic abstraction. Just how concrete could a neo-Kantian idealism become without abandoning its core insistence that the world is "produced" by indwelling categories of mind? Lask pursued this problem with a thoroughness unmatched by any other German neo-Kantian, and in doing so he became an important influence on, among others, Lukács, Max Weber, and Martin Heidegger. This article discusses the prevalence of the same "drive" in the varied work of those Russian champions of neo-Kantianism, the Bakhtin Circle, where "concreteness" is invoked so frequently that it almost begins to take on the character of a mantra. The case of the Bakhtin Circle is especially illustrative because the "drive to concreteness," which all members of the Circle shared, resulted in a significant difference of opinion about the extent to which the central theses of neo-Kantianism can be salvaged. Like Lask, Bakhtin was particularly keen to maintain the core of neo-Kantian ideas, while Voloshinov and, following behind him, Medvedev, were much less averse to breaking with the central project of German idealism itself. In each case the Brentanian notion of intentionality, the doctrine that consciousness is always consciousness of something, plays a central role. Consciousness exists in acts directed towards objects, existent or otherwise, that are given to consciousness. Brentano and his followers were invariably anti-Kantian, and they were extremely hostile to the central tenet of neo-Kantian idealism, that objects of consciousness are "produced" from categories dwelling in a transcendental [End Page 521] "consciousness in general" (Bewusstsein überhaupt). While it is far from certain that Brentanian and Kantian principles are incompatible at every level, there is no doubt that any attempt to integrate the notion of intentionality into neo-Kantianism was going to threaten the basis of neo-Kantianism as such. 2 As Gabriel Motzkin notes, Lask's attempt to carry such a project through to its logical conclusion ultimately led to "the destruction of the neo-Kantian empire from within." 3 The Bakhtinian project led in precisely this direction, and this article examines the way in which the work of the Circle shows distinct and ultimately incompatible responses to the crisis of the "empire." Revising neo-Kantianism: Ernst Cassirer and Emil Lask The abstract, or what Bakhtin terms the "theoretist," character of neo-Kantianism derived from two fundamental and interrelated features. The first was a principled opposition to all distinctions between cognition and perception, and the second was an identification of subjectivity with the system of objectifying functions that have their true being in cultural documents. According to neo-Kantian principles, nothing is "given" and everything is posited in an act of subjective spontaneity: objects are constituted from transcendental categories dwelling in "pure consciousness." Summing up the philosophical project of Hermann Cohen, the leader of the Marburg School, Ernst Cassirer noted that "any appeal to a merely given should fall aside; in place of every supposed foundation in things there should enter the pure foundations of thinking, of willing, of artistic and religious consciousness." 4Though seeking to broaden his own enquiry beyond the "trichotomy of the Kantian Critiques," Cassirer, the last major Marburg neo-Kantian, remained wedded to the neo-Kantian project of deriving the transcendental preconditions of the "formations" in which the "objective spirit... consists and exists" and dealt only with a universal subject devoid of practical limitations. 5 Cassirer drew close to phenomenology in the 1920s, when he embarked on his great project The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms, presenting... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:God’s Knowledge of the World: Medieval Theories of Divine Ideas from Bonaventure to Ockham by Carl A. VaterBenjamin R. DeSpainVATER, Carl A. God’s Knowledge of the World: Medieval Theories of Divine Ideas from Bonaventure to Ockham. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022. xi + 294 pp. Cloth, $75.00Carl Vater skillfully blends historical and constructive concerns in his study of medieval theories of the divine ideas. (...) The book, first, makes a significant contribution to the body of scholarly resources on medieval philosophy by systematically mapping out the complex intellectual history of the divine ideas between the years 1250 and 1325. Throughout the work Vater displays a staggering command of the relevant literature, figures, and ideas from this period of philosophical development. Second, he provides a robust defense and promotion of John Duns Scotus’s theory of the divine ideas, which he regularly insists is the best theory. Through careful analysis of the often subtle differences in medieval articulations of the divine ideas to answer the questions of how God knows and produces creatures, Vater makes the case that Scotus avoided certain pitfalls in earlier theories that rely on a flawed understanding of relations influenced, principally, by Avicenna’s notion of essence.The book itself is divided into five parts with each systematically detailing a particular theory, beginning with the “imitability theory” represented by Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, and Bonaventure—the one figure, in Vater’s narrative, capable of escaping Scotus’s subsequent critiques. According to Vater, the imitability theory is defined by several notable characteristics, including that the divine ideas are “secondary objects of the divine intellect when it knows the divine essence,” that they perform both cognitive and causal roles, that they are relations, and that there are many of them. The “infinite intellect theory” critiques the imitability theory for depending on a notion of relations that is mistaken for supposing that relations can be known before the terms of the relation are themselves known. In this section, Vater examines the works of Peter John Olivi and his student Petrus de Trabibus. The third part considers what Vater calls the “objectum cognitum theory” developed by James of Viterbo. Here, according to Vater, we encounter the first signs, following Olivi and de Trabibus’s critique of the imitability theory, of the shift away from identifying the divine ideas with relations to defining them as creatures themselves. This shift culminates in the “creatura intellecta theory” introduced by Richard of Mediavilla, but it is not properly developed until Scotus, who concludes that “God knows relations because he knows possible creatures.” The section ends with an analysis of Scotus’s influence on the theories of early Thomists and Scotists, including John of Paris, Thomas of Sutton, and Henry of Harclary. In the fifth part, Vater turns to the “nominalist theory” of Peter Auriol and [End Page 373] William of Ockham. Although both Auriol and Ockham offer accounts of the divine ideas, these are, as Vater says, little more than nods to the Augustinian tradition that ultimately amount to a rejection of the divine ideas.Vater’s approach to these medieval theories has many strengths. By not only classifying the prominent theories during this period but also systematically organizing his interpretation of each respective author, he is able to create a comparative framework for assessing the central issues at play in the divine ideas, such as their status, definition, cognitive and causal roles, plurality and unity, exemplarity, and the question of nonexistent possibles, and he traces variations in each area to identify where change, development, and critique are actually occurring within this seventy-five years of intellectual history. He also is attentive to figures often overlooked in larger narrations of medieval philosophy, and he locates their contributions to the varied development of the divine ideas. More importantly, however, Vater is able to maintain coherence in his evaluation of these complex, intertwining layers of medieval philosophical reflection by constantly returning to the overarching theme of relations in the movement from identifying the divine ideas with relations to approaching them as creatures themselves. Vater is correct when he notes that the divine ideas form a... (shrink)

The term “contemplation” has played a significant role in the history of Christian spirituality. Regardless of the tradition, whether Roman Catholic, Orthodox, or Protestant, contemplation has been valued. Recently, however, some Evangelicals have raised various concerns about contemplation, including its Roman Catholic origin, the tendency to devalue Jesus Christ and his atonement, the marginalization of Scripture, and the assertion that a person who seeks to grow in the contemplative life will no longer be active to witness to the (...) gospel in the world. This article while recognizing the potential for possible theological distortions argues that there is a biblical and theologically accurate manifestation of contemplation. In particular, this essay seeks to examine the presence of contemplation within the Evangelical church. To that end, the writings of four Americans representative of the beginning of eighteenth-century Evangelicalism are examined to discern whether they display a biblical and orthodox expression of contemplation. In all cases, whether male or female, Calvinist or Wesleyan, this quartet of spiritual leaders reveal and challenge contemporary Christians of all traditions to be more intentional about cultivating a loving and grateful gazing on God and desire to delight in and enjoy God more fully. (shrink)

The story of one of the most important—and incendiary—books in Western history When it appeared in 1670, Baruch Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise was denounced as the most dangerous book ever published—"godless," "full of abominations," "a book forged in hell... by the devil himself." Religious and secular authorities saw it as a threat to faith, social and political harmony, and everyday morality, and its author was almost universally regarded as a religious subversive and political radical who sought to spread atheism throughout (...) Europe. Yet Spinoza's book has contributed as much as the Declaration of Independence or Thomas Paine's Common Sense to modern liberal, secular, and democratic thinking. In A Book Forged in Hell, Steven Nadler tells the fascinating story of this extraordinary book: its radical claims and their background in the philosophical, religious, and political tensions of the Dutch Golden Age, as well as the vitriolic reaction these ideas inspired. It is not hard to see why Spinoza's Treatise was so important or so controversial, or why the uproar it caused is one of the most significant events in European intellectual history. In the book, Spinoza became the first to argue that the Bible is not literally the word of God but rather a work of human literature; that true religion has nothing to do with theology, liturgical ceremonies, or sectarian dogma; and that religious authorities should have no role in governing a modern state. He also denied the reality of miracles and divine providence, reinterpreted the nature of prophecy, and made an eloquent plea for toleration and democracy. A vivid story of incendiary ideas and vicious backlash, A Book Forged in Hell will interest anyone who is curious about the origin of some of our most cherished modern beliefs. (shrink)

The history of the sublime within aesthetics has tended to focus on the natural world. Within this history, the sublime has been a category reserved for awe-inspiring and overwhelming experiences, in which the finite subject is dwarfed by a more expansive force. Despite subjectivity being foremost in this topic, what has been overlooked, is the role the body plays in being the centre of aesthetic experience. In this paper, I will turn the tide on this omission and (...) thematize the role of the body within the experience of the sublime. My plan for reconsidering this movement is to unite Werner Herzog’s Aguirre, Wrath of God with the late thought of Merleau-Ponty, especially his enigmatic notion of "flesh". In both Herzog and Merleau-Ponty, a philosophy of nature exists which challenges the dichotomy between the autonomous self encountering the objective realm of wilderness. In each case, an ambiguity undercuts the idea of wilderness existing "there" while human subjectivity remains placed "here." I will "read" the film as an instant of the chiasmatic relation between nature and humanity. Doing so, I will suggest that the reversibility between the body and the environment can be seen as an amplification of Merleau-Ponty’s notion of "wild being". (shrink)

This article is a first step in a project to study the influence of the Rasāʾil Ikhwān al-Ṣafāʾ in the Ottoman world. We argue that, at least from the end of the fourteenth century until well into the second half of the sixteenth, the knowledge presented in the encyclopedic Rasāʾil was a conspicuous scholarly source for the Ottoman cultural milieu, especially at the dynastic court, and played a significant role in forming their epistemological perspective. This argument is developed with (...) reference to three universal histories: (1) in Turkish, the İskendernāme (Book of Alexander) of Taceddin İbrahim İbn Hızır Ahmedi (d. 1413) written between the last quarter of the fourteenth century and the first quarter of the fifteenth; (2) in Arabic, the Naẓm al-sulūk fī musāmarat al-mulūk (The ordering of ways for the conversation of kings) by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Bisṭāmī (d. 1454), a prominent intellectual and expert in occult sciences, protégé of Sultan Murad II (r. 1421–44, 1446–51); (3) in Persian, the first volume of Shāhnāmā-yi Āl-i ʿUsmān (Book of kings of the house of ʿUsmān) by the Sufi intellectual and litterateur Fethullah Çelebi (d. 1561/62), better known by his pen-name ʿArif. The choice of these three histories enables us to mark the time period for the influence of the Rasāʾil, stretching it (in both directions) further than is accepted in present scholarship. These histories enable us also to draw attention to the proximity to the Ottoman dynasty of the cultural milieu attuned to the Rasāʾil, and highlight the relationship between history and knowledge that is central both for the texts under study here and the Rasāʾil. (shrink)

In order for the philosophy of history to be a really necessary methodological science in relation to theoretical and epistemological problems of history, it is quite necessary to get away from the practice of general discourse and from attempts to find universal solutions suitable for all times. On the contrary, it is desirable to focus on a search for principles and for methods of applying them to the problems of different levels, which, by no means predetermining the results (...) of concrete research, would play the role of a convenient and capacious form of concentration of materials; an effective tool of cognition; and a "compass" preserving a scientists efforts in search of a true solution. For this it is necessary while building up theories, first, to try to combine distinct partially true approaches; secondly, to define clearly the boundaries of applicability of arguments; and thirdly, to formulate laws not in the form of absolute conclusions but according to the rules admitted in other sciences. The possibility of realizing these goals is illustrated by the example of the present theme, "on the role of personality in history," wherein the author introduces the notion of a "factor of a situation," which makes it possible to unify various points correlating personality roles and diverse states of society, and gives the typology of "roles," personalities, etc. (shrink)

Dr. Stephen Hawking was the most renowned scientist since Einstein, known both for his groundbreaking work in physics and cosmology and for his mischievous sense of humor. He educated millions of readers about the origins of the universe and the nature of black holes, and inspired millions more by defying a terrifying early prognosis of ALS, which originally gave him only two years to live. In later life he could communicate only by using a few facial muscles, but he (...) continued to advance his field and serve as a revered voice on social and humanitarian issues. Hawking not only unraveled some of the universe's greatest mysteries but also believed science plays a critical role in fixing problems here on Earth. Now he turns his attention to the most urgent issues facing us. Will humanity survive? Should we colonize space? Does God exist? These are just a few of the questions Hawking addresses in this wide-ranging, passionately argued final book from one of the greatest minds in history. Featuring a foreword by Eddie Redmayne, who won an Oscar playing Stephen Hawking, an introduction by Nobel Laureate Kip Thorne, and an afterword from Hawking's daughter, Lucy. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 147 The Godly Image: Christ and Salvation in Catholic Thought from Anselm to Aquinas. By ROMANUS CESSARIO, O.P. Studies in historical theology. v. 6. Petersham, Mass.: St. Bede's Publications, 1990. Pp. xxiv + 214. $14.95 (paper). The Godly Image presents a retouched version of the author's dissertation, first published in 1982 as Christian Satisfaction in Aquinas: Towards a Personalist Understanding (Washington, DC: University Press of America). Seeking (...) a broader audience, the author has dropped the dissertation's numerous Latin footnotes, shortened and enlivened the chapter titles, and streamlined some of his arguments (e.g., pp. 9395 ). He has as well corrected (e.g., on Pannenberg, p. xxii; on Anselm, p. 157) or toned down (e.g., the description of monastic theology, p. 1) earlier statements. Reference to the possibility that Aquinas suffered a nervous breakdown disappears (p. 18). Still, the work remains substantially the same, reproducing even some typos (e.g., William of St. Armour [sic], p. 3) from the original. The new subtitle, Christ and Salvation in Catholic Thought from Anselm to Aquinas, is unfortunate. First, it leads one to expect a survey of the major soteriological positions articulated in the period between the two, hut such is not forthcoming. The work remains what the original title indicated, a study in the thought of Aquinas. Second, in that work Anselm plays hut a perfunctory role, serving as the foil from whose mercantile model (p. 73) or juridical mentality (p. 91) Thomas can advance to a more appropriately interpersonal grasp of the mode of our salvation. This reading of Anselm, however, leaves him in the hands of liberal Protestant historians of doctrine of the nineteenth century, and, as the bibliography indicates, it ignores more recent literature which rightly stresses the metaphysical and religious depth of Anselm's key concept of iustitia. For a precise rendering of the relation between Anselm and Aquinas, one may wish to place greater emphasis on ST III, q.14, a.I, ad 1. In that text Aquinas accomplishes two things. First, he integrates Anselm's concept of satis· faction with the traditional religious insight that, in some sense, Christ suffered what sinners deserve to suffer. At the same time he deepens the concept by rendering explicit the place of love and obedience as the formal element in satisfaction and thus rejoins Anselm in rejecting any strict notion of penal substitution. These reservations aside, the author's thorough, comprehensive, and competent investigation into Aquinas fills a lacuna in the history of soteriology, a lacuna, one regrets to say, still left open by the work of his immediate predecessor, B. Catao. At the same time the scope 148 BOOK REVIEWS of the author's work offers a further and important contribution. By researching Thomas's thought on satisfaction in the context of penance as well as soteriology, the author manages to suggest, and explicitly, that the generative matrix for Thomas's theoretic work in both areas lies in the cruciform dynamics of Christian conversion, the life of grace. With this insight he opens a door from historical theology to a contemporary systematics. Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. WILLIAM P. LOEWE Free Will and the Christian Faith. By W. S. ANGLIN. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990. Pp. vii + 218. $55.00 (cloth). W. S. Anglin, a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Mathematics at McGill University, has produced a highly compact and compelling volume which attempts in just 218 pages to prove God's existence, to argue for personal immortality, to defend the coherence of theism against the problem of evil, to provide cogent analyses of both omnipotence and omniscience, and to examine criteria for distinguishing divine revelation from other forms of communication. The thread holding these rather motley swatches of cloth together is the author's concentration on libertarian freedom which weaves throughout the above issues in one way or another. It shows up in the expected places (e.g., in the so-called 'free will defense' of the problem of evil) but also in places hitherto unexpected (Anglin nicely argues that if humans are truly free in the libertarian sense, then it is appropriate and necessary that the Scriptures take the... (shrink)

Writing, the exigency of writing: no longer the writing that has always (through a necessity in no way avoidable) been in the service of the speech or thought that is called idealist (that is to say, moralizing), but rather the writing that through its own slowly liberated force (the aleatory force of absence) seems to devote itself solely to itself as something that remains without identity, and little by little brings forth possibilities that are entirely other: an anonymous, distracted, deferred, (...) and dispersed way of being in relation, by which everything is brought into question – and first of all the idea of God, of the Self, of the Subject, then of Truth and the One, then finally the idea of the Book and the Work so that this writing (understood in its enigmatic rigor), far from having the Book as its goal rather signals its end: a writing that could be said to be outside discourse, outside language. – Maurice Blanchot ( The Infinite Conversation , xi) The Compendium * Beginning with the idea and practice of writing, and moving to the subject or self, then to truth and the One, and arriving at the Book and the Work, Blanchot’s words reflect the trajectory of the following work of writing. True to the embeddedness of the subject in the work of writing, the term “Compendium” has been a metonym for me over the past few years as I have thought about the concept of totality alongside its expression in figures such as the One, the Whole, or the All. In the following I aim to share some of the content of this metonym, and to enrich it by making some distinctions. 1 Here the term “Compendium” will refer to a concept of totality that is ontological (pertaining to being, and the copula) and also textual (pertaining to the symbolic, and the signifier-signified relationship). The Compendium is a figure for thinking the world as a Book, in the broadest sense—an approach to reality that is by no means new, but one that is due for renewal. 2 In partial answer to the question of the Compendium we will say that the word ‘Compendium’ stands in for expressions which seek to totalize, or concepts which seek to approach the concept of ‘everything,’ particularly when these expressions are bound up in the question of the Book (both the book as a physical object and the Book as a metaphysical figure: a way of thinking about the work in and of writing). The question of the Compendium is strongly associated with the physical and metaphysical form of the Book, like the mysterious and symbolic books which are opened in the Biblical book of Revelation, the book of life and the book of death, which together constitute an important couplet. 3 Parataxis & Hypotaxis There are two helpful distinctions that will bring us closer to an answer to the question “What is a Compendium?” The first distinction is between two figures in and for writing: parataxis and hypotaxis . Typically paired in contrast to one another as literary techniques, with parataxis indicating a side-by-side placement of textual elements and hypotaxis referring to subordinate arrangements of textual elements, the two figures can be understood as having a philosophical significance in addition to their practical function as devices for writers. For us these two terms will remain between philosophical theory and writing practice, and serve as a perspective for our writing and creation of texts. Here I take texts to refer to anything from the concrete written words in a book, to the ontological text of the world that we experience. Parataxis , as a figural way of thinking about the ontological structure of texts, refers to texts which are tightly woven and interdependent – texts within which each sentence bears the weight of the entire work. Parataxis often involves repetition, great density, and fragility. One of the best examples of this sort of text is Theodor Adorno’s posthumous magnum opus , Aesthetic Theory . In addition to the text itself, the translation history of the book may also help us to better understand parataxis and its relation to hypotaxis . The final published version of Aesthetic Theory , in German, was a text that Adorno intended to revise and rewrite, but this intention was never realized because of his untimely death. Where the German text of Aesthetic Theory certainly exemplifies the concept of parataxis , the first English edition took this densely woven text and carved Adorno’s lengthy paragraphs and lengthy sentences into manageable ‘bite-sized’ pieces of English text. The first translator took further liberty and inserted headings and new paragraph breaks where there were none in the original. Aesthetic Theory was eventually retranslated by Robert Hullot-Kentor and is now available in a form that is much more faithful to the original work. 4 The pertinent idea that this translation history points to is the distinction between parataxis and hypotaxis . Where parataxis describes texts which are repetitive, densely woven, and often fragile, hypotaxis describes texts which are hierarchical and in which the primary relation is linear – the latter of which is very similar to the first English translation of Aesthetic Theory . On the other hand, the original German text that Adorno wrote was very dense, often repetitive, and contained long sections of text unbroken by paragraphs or headings. This example of parataxis was then turned towards hypotaxis through the initial translation which took a text that was, in many ways, nonhierarchical and nonlinear, and artificially subjected it to a hierarchy that was not its own (and here I take the word of Fredric Jameson who comments on the two translations in a note at the beginning of his book Late Marxism ). 5 The point here is not about translation, but rather the distinction between parataxis and hypotaxis precisely as they are figures for discourse, written or otherwise. The concept of parataxis looks far more postmodern and rhizomic than the concept of hypotaxis which remains very modern and arborescent. This is a more figural way of talking about the distinction. However, if we wanted to take a more precise and analytical approach we could say that on the level of form parataxis involves a relationship between sentences and paragraphs in which each part bears an equally crushing responsibility to present the whole content of the text. As well, on the level of content, parataxis requires that each concept in a work take on the full conceptual weight of the total work. Continuing the analysis, we could say that parataxis describes texts in which there is no (or very little) linear or causal move from antecedent to consequent, whether in content or form. Instead, parataxis describes texts which weave together concepts via conjugations or associations. The concept of hypotaxis , on the other hand, requires that texts submit themselves to hierarchy, one example of which is logical argumentation. The contingency of the conclusion upon premises in hypotaxis is certainly distinct from the repetition, re-presentation, and conjugation of concepts in parataxis , and I think that this is evident in the difference between the writing styles prevalent in contemporary Analytic philosophy and Continental philosophy. It is not the case that the distinction between parataxis and hypotaxis absolutely corresponds with the writing styles of Continental and Analytic philosophy (respectively). There are thinkers who take exception to this pattern, such as Badiou’s more formal approach in the discourse of Continental philosophy to give one example. However, when Analytic philosophy takes its writing lessons from the sciences, and seeks to do philosophy via the clean linear move from antecedent to consequent, then I think that Analytic philosophy writes with hypotaxis in mind. On the other hand, when Continental (particularly German and French) philosophy takes its writing lessons from narrative or poetry then Continental philosophy writes with parataxis in mind. It is not fair to say that all those writing Continental philosophy are looking to narrative and poetry for stylistic direction, just as it is not the case that all those writing Analytic philosophy have mathematics and science as their writing format, however there are some striking ways in which the differing epistemologies of Continental and Analytic philosophy encourage writing with parataxis and hypotaxis in mind (respectively). For some, writing with parataxis or hypotaxis in mind is a conscious decision and a product of stylistic self-consciousness, and for others it is an unconscious discursive and epistemic requirement that must be met in order to be involved in a particular discourse. Before moving on to our second distinction, and then an examination of the question of the Book, it is important to point out that both totality and figurations like the One, the Whole, and the All, come out of very human desires to totalize or to actualize our being-towards-totality. The relationship between identity and totality then can be construed, with Heidegger in mind, as striving toward wholeness, completion, or fulfillment, each of which is a quality of compendia. 6 Compilation & Selection The first distinction between parataxis and hypotaxis pertains to both form and content, and to both the mechanics of writing and the ideas to which writing refers. The second distinction pertains to both as well. In the process of writing and in the process of perception as well, there is a tension between compilation and selection . To begin with, in the work of theory-writing there is compilation, and this is because writing theory requires a broad perspective and certain measure of totalization. On the other hand, writing theory requires that the writer select an idea or a combination of ideas to individuate out of a radical and infinite multiplicity of identities and combinations. The concern here is not primarily for the writing of a theory about a specific idea, like a secondary work or a reference text. But rather the concern is with the writing of grand theories: Marx and Marxism, Derrida and Deconstruction, Husserl and Phenomenology, Sartre and Existentialism, Saussure and Structuralism —each of which strives along a trajectory towards being all-encompassing, whether it intends to or not. Today, we could even say that Speculative Realism has embarked on this journey, and perhaps now we could say that the discourse of Speculative Realism has reached the inevitable point after which a grand theory leaves the hands of its writer or writers and becomes a possession of the collective consciousness of the academy, or (perhaps now) the mass consciousness of the blogosphere—and this is a true pharmakon , a poison and a cure, a blessing and a curse. 7 When we write theory, whether the scope is that of a grand theory or a particular theory, we write in the tension between compilation (making good on the desire to be all encompassing) and selection (being required to decide and discern and to judge what is included in the work and what is deleted or appended or abridged or given over to ellipses). Generally speaking, the work of theory-writing often comes out of a desire to totalize, that is, to develop a theory of everything that is able to apprehend new experiences and ideas while still remaining whole. I grant that this is not a universal desire, and that not everyone who sits down to write a work (or book) of theory does so because of their will-to-totality, but it remains that this drive to totalize does condition a great many writers of theory (especially those who seek to develop grand theories like those mentioned previously). At the beginning of his book of interviews, Between Existentialism and Marxism , Sartre is quoted as saying, after completing the first volume of his Critique of Dialectical Reason : “I no longer feel the need to make long digressions in my books, as if I were forever chasing after my own philosophy. It will now be deposited in little coffins, and I will feel completely emptied and at peace—as I felt after Being and Nothingness . A feeling of emptiness: a writer is fortunate if he can attain such a state. For when one has nothing to say, one can say everything .” 8 This is where our two initial distinctions come to bear on the being-towards-totality as it is expressed in the concrete practice of writing: the first being between parataxis and hypotaxis , and the second being between compilation and selection. Where this second distinction is concerned there is a certain paradox at play given that selection is inescapable, and compilation is unachievable. Selection is inescapable (with the figure of the Compendium in mind) because, even when the imperative to compile is followed to excruciating lengths, selection still has the last word. This is why the Compendium is a figure rather than some material thing that can actually be accomplished or actualized. No matter how far one goes along with the will-to-archive and the will-to-compile, it is only ever a question of minimizing selection and never eliminating it. This leads to the second point, which is that total compilation is unachievable. The closest thing to total compilation that we have before us is the ontological and textual fabric of the world. Even in the case of the world, compilation cannot be enacted in a total fashion because of the need to include both the sphere of the actual and the sphere of the possible or potential. This as another way in which compilation is always-already selection, and further evidence that total compilation is practically impossible. Discursive Figuration and Total Writing Rather than figuration referring to a figure of speech or an image, here the term points to a way in which to think about the work of writing, both the work put into writing, and the work that is the result of writing: the finished yet incomplete final piece. As figures or figurations, the Book and the Compendium are ways of thinking about the work of writing and the human desire for the wholeness, completion, and fulfillment that are made manifest in the completed form of the book (whether a published or printed or saved document put to rest by the author). These two figures bear more strongly upon works that seek to be all-encompassing, and works that strive towards expressions of totality such as the One, the Whole, or the All. Moving on to the topic of the subtitle, and on a more prescriptive note, I would say that there is more hope for theory-writing to be found in parataxis than hypotaxis . Part of the reason for this claim is the poststructuralist critique of hierarchies, and yet another part is the compelling line of thinking called “weak thought” (in theology by John D. Caputo, and in philosophy by Gianni Vattimo, among others). 9 The consequences of these two convictions are such that if one is to strongly assert the truth of a grand theory without leaving the realm of hierarchy-critique and weak thought, then one must write paradoxically with parataxis in mind, and in so doing write weakly and non-hierarchically. This does not mean avoiding a sort of topography or topology when writing theory, rather it means avoiding both subjugation and oppression in thought by pursuing a nonviolent sort of ontology. In order to do this, theory writing does not present itself as an exercise in logical analysis where one mechanically moves from a set of premises (via contingency) to the inevitable conclusion (via necessity). Instead, theory approaches the idea of a Compendium. Given that the figural Compendium places parataxis and compilation above hypotaxis and selection, then the question becomes: is placing one part of a binary term before another not just another way of selecting, or another expression of hypotaxis ? Counter to the urge to resign oneself to the reign of selection, with some qualification one can nonetheless write without deciding whether selection and hypotaxis should be subservient to compilation and parataxis (which is to say that writing-without-decision is somewhere between and beyond possibility and impossibility). This dilemma can be disarmed by stating that theory writing is not about primacy, and not about having-decided-beforehand, both stylistically and also where content is concerned. This is the paradox of writing: always striving along a trajectory ( telos ) towards totality via parataxis and compilation, but always being drawn back to finitude and making selections, and placing one idea before another with hypotaxis in mind. In light of this paradox, the question of the Compendium as a figure for discourse and a figural Book has resonance with Jacques Derrida’s essay on Edmund Jabès’ Book of Questions , found in his Writing and Difference . The Question of the Book “Little by little the book will finish me.” 10 Derrida quotes Jabès, and proceeds to outline the reflexive relationship between the author of the book and the book itself, each of which are subjected to the other through a sort of chiasmus, both ontological and textual (not that the two are entirely separable). The Book, for Derrida like Blanchot in the introductory quotation, “infinitely reflects itself” and “develops as a painful questioning of its own possibility”, and in light of this we can draw an association with the painful tension between the practical reality of selection and the ideal trajectory of compilation. 11 This tension in writing, between the will to total compilation and the necessity of abridgment, is an ontological tension between part and whole just as it is a textual tension between signifier and signified. The ontological tension in writing that Derrida expresses in his essay on Jabès is between everything and nothing – a contradiction which Derrida finds in Jabès’ Book of Questions and also in the divine, in God. When one writes between compilation and selection one writes towards totality, and here we can follow Derrida who states that the lapse in signification, presumably in the signifier-signified discrepancy, is a “ rupture with totality itself” and furthermore that this lapse cannot be rectified through deductive reason or even philosophical discourse. 12 This rupture with totality, found in the troubled relation between signifier and signified, can also tell us a lot about the Book and about writing. Given an understanding of writing as an ontological act that strives towards (but never accomplishes) totality, we can see the written book as the manifested and given body of that striving. Perhaps in other disciplines or even other schools of philosophy there is a cultural climate within which the article is prized above the book, but I am fairly confident, especially when referring to the grand theories of Continental thought, that there is a respect for the book as a uniquely meaningful object capable of apprehending totality. Derrida writes, Between the too warm flesh of the literal event and the cold skin of the concept runs meaning. This is how it enters into the book. Everything enters into, transpires in the book. This is why the book is never finite. It always remains suffering and vigilant. 13 Here the vitality of the literal event is compromised by the deadening weight of the concept, and the figure of the Book assists in this lapse of meaning. The Book is a totalizing object, much like the figure of the Compendium, and yet this totalization lacks its final object of completed totality both because the figural Book is necessarily incomplete, and because the physical book is always-already a product of selection. Instead of achieving its end of being a place where everything takes place, it suffers from the lapse of writing, the discrepancy between event and concept. Derrida continues his exposition on Jabès by bringing to light yet another reflexive relation, a reversal of the relationship between the Book and the world. Derrida writes that, for Jabès, “the book is not in the world, but the world is in the book.” 14 In addition to what was stated before, I take figuration to mean that the concepts employed, such as the Book or the Compendium, are not subject to the supposed rigor of analysis that is so prized by Enlightenment or Capitalist realisms. The figure of the Book and the figure of the Compendium cannot be held accountable to standards imported from scientific method, given an understanding that these standards require a concept to be replicable, consistent, falsifiable, measurable, and so on… This is an important point to make, especially in the present atmosphere within which theory must justify itself under conditions that are not its own. Instead of being held to these standards, figuration serves as a way in which to think about writing that leaves thought open to idealistic speculation, imperfect analogies, and most importantly the ever-present gain and loss that occur in the relationship between thought and being. By extension the figural way of addressing writing indulges in enough generalization to accommodate the excess/lack relationship between the ideal form of the Book or the Compendium, and the manifested and given body of a text (as it is practically completed and closed). Here we speak against the hostile atmosphere which would have theory submit itself to hierarchical rigor, rather than Blanchot’s “enigmatic rigor”, by being explicit about the discursive conditions and epistemic conditions under which theory operates. To write with parataxis in mind is, to a certain degree, to write with weakness as one’s methodology (with weak thought being in opposition to hypotaxis and hierarchy as much as weak thought can be in opposition to anything). Rather than asserting the strength of hierarchical theory, and rather than employing antagonistic argumentation with the goal of refutation different discursive and epistemic conditions for theory writing must be cultivated (and these are by no means new). First the critical and theoretical spirit reveals itself as being concerned with the task of complication—especially the complication and critique of binaries, dichotomies, dualities, polarities, paradoxes, parallaxes, hybridities, and especially antinomies. Second, theory positions itself as a sort of showing or revealing, rather than being ultimately focused on coming to full agreement or disagreement. This is where figuration can help theory-writing, both by placing emphasis on teleologies and trajectories (like parataxis and compilation), and by shifting focus away from pure primacy, power, or absolute origin. Figuration then, assists theory writing by placing the concern of theory outside of the concerns of the hard or soft sciences, and into the realm of thought or the idea. To speak of ‘the’ Compendium or ‘the’ Book, here, is to generalize not regarding the perfect form of the Compendium or Book, but to engage speculatively with an abstract idea which remains singular and yet complicated by multiplicity. The question of the Book that Derrida asks through Jabès is a question of everything and nothing, totality and nonbeing, and this question is a concern for writing and a concern for the figure of the Compendium so defined by the tension between compilation and selection, and parataxis and hypotaxis . On the note of nonbeing, we can look to the final page of Derrida’s first essay on Jabès in Writing and Difference and notice the introduction of his neologism, différance (with an ‘a’). Derrida writes: Life negates itself in literature only so that it may survive better. So that it may be better. It does not negate itself any more than it affirms itself: it differs from itself, defers itself, and writes itself as différance . Books are always books of life (the archetype would be the Book of Life kept by the God of the Jews) or of afterlife (the archetype would be the Books of the Dead kept by the Egyptians). 15 This introduction of différance into the equation of the Book, alongside ontological affirmation and negation, hearkens back to the discussion of the symbolic lapse earlier in his essay. Differing and deferring, the Book is always a Book of Life and a figure for the intersection of the vital (life) and the total in writing. In a way, the writer of the Book may be someone who lives life, and in another way the writer of the book-as-object may be someone who engages in the act of writing, both practically (by inscribing words on paper, or typing script on a computer) and ontologically or symbolically (by investing their existence and inexistence into a work worthy of the figural Book). In addition to the writer as writer, the writer also serves as an editor, and the editorial role alongside the idea of the Compendium shows the editor to be one who collects and compiles, while being restrained by eventual selection and decision. Beyond this the editor of works and texts, in both the Book and the world, is engaged in a process of inscribing notation—of annotating (on) the Compendium. Eternal commentary is a feature of the textual Compendium, just as open-ended totality describes the ontological Compendium. The writer as writer does not simply write texts, but rather engages in a profoundly ontological act of inscribing their existence into the world, and the writer as editor does not merely annotate or alter texts as they are, but rather comments upon the text of the world. In/Conclusion So as we create texts, and as we write and create theory, let us be and remain attentive to the figure of the Compendium and the figure of the Book. These two concurrent metonymies are essential for total writing (grand theories, etc.), and may be forgettable for those concerned with fragmentary or hierarchical writing (which are valid in their own right). From the ontological and symbolic text of the world and phenomenological experience, to concrete texts such as books or mixed media, the figure of the Compendium and the figure of the Book are important for the actualization of the human will to be all-encompassing. The figure of the Compendium teaches writers of theory that the repetition, density, and fragility of parataxis offers a strong sort of weakness which does not become yet another variety of oppressive and hegemonic thought. Rather than write with hypotaxis in mind, subjugating one thought to another via cause and effect or antecedent and consequent, I would hope that theory-writing could guiltlessly indulge in the dialectical and contradictory conjugation of ideas, and take this as a legitimate methodology. Rather than being ashamed of showing resonances or giving way to abridgment or ellipses, it is my own authorial (but not authoritative) conviction that one need not give up on totalizing and constructing grand theories because of the fact that complete totalization is impossible, and one need not give up on totalizing and constructing grand theories because of the worry of violence, for the Book and the Compendium lack their completed object and are ever incomplete trajectories. NOTES * UPDATED 7/19/13: we've updated the HTML version to reflect the (correct) PDF version. Our apologies to the author—eds. 1. I would like extend thanks to Dr. Peter Schwenger of the University of Western Ontario for his comments on this paper and his hospitality as it was presented as a Theory Session at the Centre for Theory and Criticism on October 26th 2012. I would also like to thank Andrew Weiss for conversation and critique. 2. I should clarify my use of the term ‘figure’ at the outset. Given the use of the term by Jean-Francois Lyotard in Discourse, Figure (and also Gilles Deleuze in Francis Bacon ), I should state clearly that my use of the term will not correspond to the term ‘figure’ understood as the representation of an object. Instead, my use of the term ‘figure’ and its variations (‘figural’, ‘figurative’, ‘figuration’) will refer to the illustrative or metaphorical use of the Compendium or the Book as models or ways of thinking about writing and discourse. 3. Cf. Revelations 20:12-15. 4. Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory , Trans. Robert Hullot-Kentor (London & New York: Continuum Press, 1997). 5. Fredric Jameson, Late Marxism: Adorno, or the Persistence of the Dialectic (London & New York: Verso, 1990), ix-x. 6. I have written about this concept of being-towards-totality elsewhere in two pieces of writing: the first is called Notes on the Compendium (an unfinished draft) which addresses some very wide theoretical concerns, being structured as a sort of itinerary or archive, and the second is Dialectics Unbound (Punctum Books, 2013) which outlines a concept of totality without the violence of totalization. While these works are more concerned with ontological totality, here I would like to focus on the idea of the Compendium as a textual totality. 7. Cf. Louis Morelle, “Speculative Realism: After Finitude and Beyond, A vade mecum” in Speculations: Journal of Speculative Realism . Issue 3 (Brooklyn, New York: Punctum Books, 2012), 241-272. 8. Jean-Paul Sartre, Between Existentialism and Marxism . Trans. John Matthews (London & New York: Verso, 1974), 9. 9. Cf. John D. Caputo, The Weakness of God (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2006). 10. Jacques Derrida, “Edmond Jabès and the Question of the Book” in Writing and Difference . Trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 65. 11. Ibid, 65. 12. Ibid, 71. 13. Ibid, 75. 14. Ibid, 76. 15. Ibid, 78. (shrink)

The history of East Timor has gone through several moments of transformation due to human actions that have the presence of Portuguese, Japanese, Indonesians and different social groups and local kingdoms. With this, one can note the trend of the evolution of thinking, arising from education in philosophy and its contribution to the changes that were seen as necessary, were initial instruments for Timor to become a republic, not explored, but as an autonomous people. Thus, the aim of this (...) article is to present a reflection on the role of philosophy in the history of the Timorese society. Thus, philosophy should not be understood only with a mere sense of individualistic self-construction, or even an incorporation of circumstantial urgencies, but rather with regard to a content that must be taught and learned, given that there are languages and methods and that, with due importance, understanding is built, also developing more doubts and, thus, the philosophical character of national thought. However, it is necessary to recognize the assumption that philosophical themes were established according to universal terms, with Universal approaches and incorporated with the urgencies of each place. Thus, even the themes with a challenging nature, there was still Timorese philosophical expression of clear importance for the development of a national idea, so that philosophy is present and is still discussed in all periods that make up the National History. In that regard, this article will offer in the first part an introduction, second philosophy, third history, fourth nation building, fifth the history of struggle for national liberation and will be end with final consideration. (shrink)

"Every culture needs to appropriate the universal truth of human suffering," says Fernando Escalante, ". . . to give its own meaning to this suffering, so that human existence is bearable." Originally published in Spanish as La mirada de Dios: Estudios sobre la cultura del sufrimiento, this book is a remarkable study of the evolution of the culture of suffering and the different elements that constitute it, beginning with a reading of Rousseau and ending with the appearance of the Shoah (...) in the Western consciousness--"The memory endures, and this constitutes a fundamental transition for the Western conscience: we have witnessed." Drawing on writings from the Greeks to Cervantes, Voltaire to Nietzsche, and Freud to William James, Escalante combines his considerable knowledge of politics and political theory with a vast array of literary examples to arrive at an intellectual understanding of the history and meaning of suffering. His investigation encompasses the rise of popular politics, the role of messianism in modern nationalism, and the contemporary implications of the Shoah. This book will appeal to a wide audience: students of political theory, humanism, and philosophy, as well as the general reader interested in a glimpse into the mind of a highly original Latin American thinker. (shrink)

The Marxist history of science has played an enormous role in the development of the history of science. Whether through the appreciation of its insights or the construction of a political fortress to prevent infusion, its presence is felt. From 1931 the work of Marxists played an integral part in the international development of the history of science, though rarely have the connections between them or their own biographies been explored. These networks convey a distinct (...) class='Hi'>history, alongside political, methodological and personal implications, impressing on us a greater understanding of the possibilities that were present and were lost in the most turbulent of decades. Two of the most notable were Boris Hessen, a founder of Marxist history of science, and J. G. Crowther, one of its most prolific exponents. My examination explores aspects of the dialogue between these controversial figures, starting with brief biographical sketches. Their lives became briefly entwined following the Second International Congress of the History of Science and Technology in 1931, demonstrated with reference to the meeting and the correspondence between them until Hessen's death. In doing so, some new facts and old controversies surface, though most importantly the nature of the correspondence carries implications for the Marxist history of science and for the wider movement of which it is part. The Russian delegation to the congress declared that science was at a crossroads. The history of science was at a similar crossroads in the 1930s. (shrink)

An extraordinary history of humanity's changing vision of the universe. In this masterly synthesis, Arthur Koestler cuts through the sterile distinction between 'sciences' and 'humanities' to bring to life the whole history of cosmology from the Babylonians to Newton. He shows how the tragic split between science and religion arose and how, in particular, the modern world-view replaced the medieval world-view in the scientific revolution of the seventeenth century. He also provides vivid and judicious pen-portraits of a (...) string of great scientists and makes clear the role that political bias and unconscious prejudice played in their creativity. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis paper argues that the development of the history of science as a discipline should be seen in the context of the bitter nineteenth-century conflict between religion and secular culture in Catholic countries. In this context, neo-Thomist theologians were interested in formulating a Catholic strategy of accommodation to modern science and to modern social systems that would also permit rejection of both modern social theory and the positivist theory of science. While theologians such as Cornoldi and Mercier worked (...) with the positivist image of science common in their day, Duhem opted to reformulate the conception of scientific theory. His religiously motivated assignment of a central place to the history of science – as the only way of hinting at the prospective rapprochement between the conventionalist sphere of scientific theory and the metaphysics of the real world – played a formative role in its development. Duhem's conception of the function of the history of science directed the attention of scholars in the field to medieval science as a point of origin for modern science. (shrink)

Alasdair MacIntyre has written a selective history of the Catholic philosophical tradition, designed to show how belief in God informed and informs philosophical enquiry in different historical and social settings.

This paper investigates the role that universities play in supporting social entrepreneurs (SEs) across their ecosystem. Adopting the resource-based view (RBV) approach, we argue that universities attract, mobilize, and deploy multiple resources that benefit SEs through four main mechanisms (i.e., teaching, research, outreach, and the development of partnerships). We use a qualitative approach of 62 semi-structured interviews and 8 focus groups in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Colombia. Our contribution shows that employing different resources and engaging in supportive activities of universities (...) towards SEs facilitate the development of university capabilities, such as an increased reputation, development of leadership skills for students and staff, and wider access to ecosystem resources that support other university activities related to teaching, research, and community outreach. The role that partnerships play in the development of these capabilities is fundamental, thanks to the different strategic alliances and mobilization of resources between universities and other actors while supporting SEs. This study contributes to our understanding of the role universities can play to intensify the nature of supportive ecosystems for SEs. This contribution is relevant not only to academics but also to practitioners, as this will shed light on the building, development, and scaling of a supportive ecosystem for SEs. (shrink)

This article seeks to provide a historically well-informed analysis of an important post-Newtonian area of research in experimental physics between 1798 and 1898, namely the determination of the mean density of the earth and, by the end of the nineteenth century, the gravitational constant. Traditionally, research on these matters is seen as a case of “puzzle solving.” In this article, the author shows that such focus does not do justice to the evidential significance of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century experimental research on (...) the mean density of the earth and the gravitational constant. As Newton’s theory of universal gravitation was mainly based on astronomical observation, it remained to be shown that Newton’s law of universal gravitation did not break down at terrestrial distances. In this context, Cavendish’ experiment and related nineteenth-century experiments played a decisive role, for they provided converging and increasingly stronger evidence for the universality of Newton’s theory of gravitation. More precisely, the author shall argue that, as the accuracy and precision of the experimental apparatuses and the procedures to eliminate external disturbances involved increasingly improved, the empirical support for the universality of Newton’s theory of gravitation improved correspondingly. (shrink)

State‐of‐the‐art surveys such as John H. Zammito has produced are usually read prior to engaging seriously upon some course of study. Yet his book will be even more helpful, perhaps, to those who can look retrospectively upon the field of science studies in order to consider how the field has changed and whether postmodernism remains the threat that Zammito thinks it. By explicitly including the history of the development of the philosophy of language in a history of science (...) studies, he makes an original, provocative claim that goes beyond the wealth of information on Quine and Kuhn’s supposed refutation of the Vienna Circle’s positivism, the creation of the Edinburgh School’s sociology of scientific knowledge (SSK), and the debates that followed in the wake of each. Analytic philosophers from Quine to Rorty and Continental philosophers from Derrida to the postmoderns thus play a central role in the development of science studies, despite the fact that they focus on language in general rather than on science. (shrink)

The methodology of this paper is documentary, compiling textbooks and scientific articles related to Argentine scientific history, mainly referring to CONICET. The purpose is to show that a complete epistemological study cannot be done without giving an account of its sociological and historical context, in this case, specifically referred to the management of science. The perspective of this paper is more philosophical than historical, doing discourse analysis and interpretation. Management, a sociological element, has a close relationship with science, and (...) its study is part of epistemology. So, first, we must be careful to use the classification of basic and applied science in order to prioritize the latter with funding. Secondly, science should be autonomous but not independent from society and the market in which it is embedded, and the private sector should be harmonized with the public sector as regards scientific production. Third, betting on scientific production by Argentina helps demystify the classification of developed and underdeveloped countries, or the first and the third world. Fourth, in the management of science, university plays a key role, so management of university and the centralized management of the scientific bodies should be harmonized. Fifth, regarding the strengthening of the human component, subsidies offering should be balanced with the professionalization of research based on dedication. La metodología de este ensayo es documental, recopilando libros y artículos científicos que hacen referencia a la historia científica argentina, principalmente referida al CONICET. El propósito es mostrar que no puede realizarse un completo estudio epistemológico sin dar cuenta de su contexto sociológico e histórico, en este caso, precisamente referido a la gestión de la ciencia. La perspectiva del trabajo es más filosófica que histórica, realizando análisis del discurso e interpretación. La gestión, elemento sociológico, tiene una relación estrecha con la ciencia, y su estudio forma parte de la epistemología. Por lo que, en primer lugar, hay que cuidarse de utilizar la clasificación de ciencia básica y aplicada para priorizar con financiamiento a la última. En segundo lugar, hay que autonomizar pero no independizar la ciencia de la sociedad y el mercado en los que está inmersa, así como armonizar la iniciativa privada con la pública en el ámbito de la producción científica. En tercer lugar, apostar a la producción científica por Argentina contribuye a desmitificar la clasificación entre países desarrollados y subdesarrollados, o del primer o tercer mundo. En cuarto lugar, en la gestión de la ciencia, juega un papel clave la universidad, por lo que habría que armonizar la gestión de la universidad y de los organismos centralizados en la administración de la producción científica. En quinto lugar, en relación al fortalecimiento del componente humano, debería equilibrarse el ofrecimiento de subsidios con la profesionalización de la investigación en función de la dedicación. (shrink)

From antiquity to the present, humans have debated whether intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe. This presentation will survey this debate, examining the roles played in it by science, religion, philosophy, and other areas of human learning. One thesis that will be developed is that whether or not extraterrestrials exist, ideas about them have strongly influenced Western thought.

The Danish author Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855) is one the best-known theologians in the intellectual history of modernity since the nineteenth century. His influence is comprehensive: it is to be detected, amongst others, in theological, philosophical, literary, psychological and aesthetic discourses across the globe in many contexts. As such this publication will provide welcome input in further reflection on Kierkegaard's role in the interpretation of Scripture in modernity. Huls's book is a refreshing addition to Kierkegaardian studies, which will (...) pave the way for further research on one of the great thinkers of our time. It is also a useful contribution to the debate in contemporary hermeneutics about the legacy of the Enlightenment and the nature of biblical interpretation as a hermeneutical enterprise. Scripture aims to bring us back to our being-seen-in-God. By being alone with it, we realize that in it we are looking in the mirror of Him who loves us from our origin. In reading Scripture, we can, consequently, not be allowed to flee in all sorts of human fabrications about Scripture, as if only the knowledge of theologians could expose the true meaning of Scripture. Every person, whether well-schooled or not, whether he has much or little knowledge, knows Scripture, because before all else Scripture lives in us. Scripture merely reminds us of the Word that is spoken in us immediately and that constitutes our subjectivity. As long as the Word has not truly made us fall silent and we ourselves still think we have a say, the Word does not yet have us in its grasp. Only when we truly fall silent, in the realization that our human logic shrinks into insignificance compared to the wisdom of Him who loves us from our origin, can this Word become directive in our existence. Because there is truly only one eternal object of wonder -- that is God -- and only one possible hindrance to wonder -- and that is a person when he himself wants to be something. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 349 Wittgenstein: From Mysticism to Ordinary Language: A Study of Viennese Positivism and the Thought of Ludwig Wittgenstein. By RUSSELL NIELI. SUNY Series in Philosophy. Albany; State University of New York Press, 1987. Pp. xvi + 261. $39.50 (cloth) ; $12.95 (paper). In his original and thought-provoking hook, Russell Nieli offers a well-documented interpretation of Wittgenstein's philosophical development from mysticism, which supposedly dominated the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1921), (...) to ordinary language philosophy, as expressed, for instance, in the posthumously published Philosophical Investigations (1953). According to Nieli, Wittgenstein's rejection of traditional metaphysics and theology in the Tractatus was grossly misunderstood by the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle, who missed the main point, namely Wittgenstein's emphasis on the mystical ascent toward higher reality (God) which "lay outside and beyond the world" (p. xi). Metaphysics was rejected by Wittgenstein-Nieli claims-because it leads to " God-debasing profanation or impropriety " (p. 83); it attempts to say what cannot he said hut only shown. The logical system of the Tractatus is then " a precise delineation of the profane world which is left behind in the transcendental encounter with the Sacred" (p. 98). Allegedly, such mystical, ekstatic experience cannot he articulated by any however perfected linguistic medium, which hopelessly remains an " inner-worldly " phenomenon. Of course, this application of via negativa must have been totally alien to the Humean-empiricist philosophy of Wittgenstein's teacher, B. Russell, as well as to any positivistically oriented philosophers operating in the tradition of the Enlightenment. Nieli supports his claims and comparisons by very rich documentary material drawn from the history of mystical experiences and doctrines, just as from the recent philosophical and psychological sources: from St. Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, St. John of Cross, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, W. James, R. Carnap, Heidegger, Sartre, R. D. Laing, and many others. In addition, he follows closely Wittgenstein's personal and intellectual history, as it has been revealed by various relevant memoirs, notebooks, and recollections. As expected, Wittgenstein's alleged mystico-religious experiences are given prominent coverage. Wittgenstein's puzzling transition from the Tractarian logical atomism and picture theory of language to the ordinary language philosophy is treated by Nieli through the analogy of the prophet turning into a rabbi (this is already suggested by the title of his Preface). According to this characterization, the early Wittgenstein-the prophet- " has descended the mountain to join the priests and rabbis below, as 850 BOOK REVIEWS the immediate pastoral needs of society have come to overshadow the former concern with maintaining the truth and purity of mystic theophany " (p. 183). Nieli draws an interesting comparison between the development of Wittgenstein's later philosophy and the actions of the Jewish council of Jamnia in 90 A. D. which declared the end of the age of prophecy and canonized sacred writings of the past as models for the prescribed way of living. Regarded as an accumulation and expression of life-experiences and life-attitudes of common people, ordinary language acquired for Wittgenstein a new status as scripture. After the devastating experiences of the First World War Wittgenstein made remarkable steps in an attempt to help common people as a teacher in small Austrian villages. He gave away his fortune and even thought about joining a monastery. Nieli persuasively reports on Wittgenstein 's affinities to L. N. Tolstoy as well as on Wittgenstein's deeply troubled soul, for which hard physical work and communication with plain folks were cherished means for escaping the threat of mental insanity. The late Wittgenstein's concern with language-games, rule following, his quasi-behaviorism and emphatic rejection of the so-called private language-all of this is then explicable, Nieli believes, by Wittgenstein's search for and endorsement of the normal, sane, standard, commonsensical. Is it possible that Wittgenstein's struggle with the " dark side " of his tormented soul, reflecting almost a Manichean-Gnostic position, played such a decisive role in his production of a highly influential therapeutic linguistic philosophy? Nieli's affirmative answer seems plausible, yet it would need further elaboration, in particular with respect to Freud and depth-psychology. Nieli's sympathetic treatment of Wittgenstein's philosophy comes to a rather abrupt... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Crisis of Meaning in Sartor Resartus—Thomas Carlyle's Pioneering Work in Articulating and Addressing the Existential ConfrontationFrank Martelawhat i call an "existential confrontation" is the encounter with the possibility that human life is absurd: created for no purpose and devoid of any lasting value or meaning. It is "the hour of terror at the world's vast meaningless grinding" that William James (Will to Believe 173) examines, described by Todd May (...) (xi) as "the confrontation of our need for meaning with the unwillingness of the Universe to yield it to us." This confrontation with the existential void and the potential absurdity of human existence is often not just an intellectual dilemma, but felt as a deep personal crisis accompanied by melancholia, angst, nausea, or even suicidal thoughts. Young William James confessed in a letter to a friend that "all last winter" he "was on the continual verge of suicide" (quoted in Gunnarsson), writing later that "too much questioning" leads "to the edge of the slope" wherein lies "nightmare or suicidal view of life" (James, "Is Life Worth Living?" 6). Similarly, Leo Tolstoy (54) reports how his inability to identify a lasting meaning of life drove him to a "state of lunacy" where "the best I could do was to hang myself."Despite a few earlier allusions—most famously the Book of Ecclesiastes proclaiming that "all is vanity and a striving after wind," and Shakespeare's Macbeth lamenting that life is "a tale told by an idiot … signifying nothing"—the existential confrontation is predominantly a modern phenomenon (Martela, A Wonderful Life). The modern history of descriptions of existential confrontations start at the turn of the nineteenth century, and includes Søren Kierkegaard's Sickness Unto Death, Leo Tolstoy's A Confession, Fyodor Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, Camus's Outsider, Sartre's Nausea, and T. S.Eliot's The Waste Land.There are many responses that the confrontation with the existential void has generated. Sartre embraced the lack of values imposed from outside and [End Page 80] emphasized human freedom. Human beings are "cast into this world … condemned to be free" without any "luminous realm of values" providing "justification or excuse," as Sartre famously summarized in "Existentialism Is a Humanism" (29). Other responses range from Søren Kierkegaard's leap of faith and William James's will to believe to Albert Camus's happiness from absurdity.While some of the responses end up finding a new way of connecting with God and faith, and others are explicitly atheistic, embracing the "death of God," a common thread in most responses is an acknowledgment of the situatedness of human experience and an emphasis placed on human subjectivity and the opportunity to live one's life more authentically. While existentialism, broadly conceived, is often seen as the central philosophical tradition dealing with the existential void, the confrontation was very much alive in the United States as well, visible in both literature and philosophy. As already alluded, William James had an existential confrontation in his youth, writing about the topic in "Is Life Worth Living" and other essays in Will to Believe. There has also been much back-and-forth between Europe and the United States around these themes, with the influences crossing the Atlantic on many occasions. For example, William James cites Thomas Carlyle in Will to Believe, while Sartre cites William James in Nausea, when discussing themes related to the existential confrontation. Similarly, Emerson inspired Nietzsche who inspired Josiah Royce. Typically, the histories tracing the early encounters with the existential confrontation acknowledge Friedrich Nietzsche, Søren Kierkegaard, and Fyodor Dostoevsky as key nineteenth-century predecessors to Existentialism, as all faced directly the question of the meaning of life and the dreadful possibility that life might not have any meaning or value to it.However, there is a key author usually not mentioned in these histories, despite the fact that he played a pivotal role in introducing existentialist themes to the English-speaking audience, coining the phrase "meaning of life" in the English language. Thus, in writing the prehistory of Existentialism, we need to examine Thomas Carlyle and his Sartor Resartus, which has been described by literary historians as "one of... (shrink)

An important figure in the natural law tradition and in the Scottish Enlightenment, Gershom Carmichael defended a strong theory of rights and drew attention to Grotius, Pufendorf, and Locke. Gershom Carmichael was a teacher and writer who played an important role in the Scottish Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. His philosophy focused on the natural rights of individuals--the natural right to defend oneself, to own the property on which one has labored, and to services contracted for with others. Carmichael (...) argued that slavery is incompatible with the rights of men and citizens, and he believed that subjects have the right to resist rulers who exceed the limits of their powers. Although he appealed to the authority of Grotius and Locke, the grounds on which he defended natural rights were distinctively his own. He drew upon the Reformed or Presbyterian theology to propose that, in respecting the natural rights of individuals, one shows one’s reverence for God’s creation. Inasmuch as all of mankind longs for lasting happiness, which can be found only in worship of or reverence for God, such reverence is the natural law which obliges all to respect the rights of all. Natural Rights includes Supplements and Observations on Pufendorf (1724), Natural Theology (1729), Logic (1722), two theses, and a manuscript on teaching, all in English for the first time. Gershom Carmichael (1672-1729) was the first professor of moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow, preceding Hutcheson, Smith, and Reid. James Moore is Professor of Political Science at Concordia University in Montreal. Michael Silverthorne is Honorary University Fellow in the School of Classics at the University of Exeter. Knud Haakonssen is Professor of Intellectual History and Director of the Centre for Intellectual History at the University of Sussex, England. (shrink)

The beatific vision plays a prominent role in the history of Christian ethics. Reformed ethics has an ambiguous relationship to this history, on two counts. First, it offers some qualified critiques of the role of vision in ordering ethical understanding, and second, on some accounts, Reformed ethics shares some responsibility for the loss of transcendence in the modern world, and the narrowing of the ethical field that has resulted from this loss. This essay argues that the (...) vision of God in John Calvin’s understanding of the Christian life offers resources to defend a Reformed ethics from some recent detractors. Further, it provides a constructive contrast with the role of eschatology in a prominent strand of 20th century ethics. This argument is sustained through a close reading of Calvin’s biblical commentaries on the role of theophanies and the promise of the vision of God, and of Book III, chapters 6-10 of the Institutes. (shrink)

In this paper I will present some important ideas about the relation between religious experience and metaphysics in Alfred North Whitehead’s philosophy. This endeavor is significant for the topic from two points of view: firstly, Whitehead’s thinking is among the most comprehensive and widely extended from the 20th Century, the applications of his ‘speculative scheme’ covering issues from ecology, physics and the foundations of mathematics, to art and religion; secondly, the concept of ‘God’, with a meaning ascribed to it by (...) Whitehead in relation both with the history of philosophy and with his own ideas, plays a key-role in Process and Reality, his most important treatise. For Whitehead, religion is linked, broadly speaking, to the most intimate inner evolution of a human person. Although this assertion may seem trivial, in the context of his thinking, which defines terms such as ‘process’, ‘value’ or ‘satisfaction’ as essentially bounded with the evolution of any actual being, to associate a kind of experience, the religious one, to the fact itself of inner becoming conveys to this experience a fundamentally profound and inalienable metaphysical character. It is this character and ‘definiteness’ which I will describe and analyze. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Playing with Time. Ovid and the FastiSara MackNewlands, Carole E. Playing with Time. Ovid and the Fasti. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1995. Pp. xii 1 254.I learned a great deal from Carole Newlands’ Playing with Time about a poem with which I have always had difficulty. Newlands takes the Fasti seriously as a poem. She sees it as an artistically shaped creation, not a mishmash of (...) religious and mythological lore, and she regards its constantly shifting perspectives as intended and effective. I think she is right.The introduction, “The Problem of Ovid’s Fasti,” looks briefly at past assessments of the poem before setting out Newlands’ own thesis: The Fasti is “an exciting, experimental game with genre that offers a profound meditation on the changes and tensions in Roman society in the latter years of Augustus’ reign and the early years of Tiberius’” and that expresses “disenchantment with a political system that could guarantee neither the peace nor the freedom in which the elegiac [End Page 149] poet could flourish” (18). The rest of the chapter is devoted chiefly to outlining the argument of the remaining chapters.Chapter 1, “Stellar Connections,” examines the star myths of the Fasti. “Far from providing attractive digressions from Roman ritual, the myths interact with the Roman material, occasionally confirming but more often challenging or undermining the points of view encoded there” (31). Whether they in fact “contribute substantially to the dynamic tension in the poem between Ovid’s former erotic preoccupations and his new national themes,” it is certainly true, as she claims, that Ovid’s introduction of the astronomical theme at F. 1.295ff. has more to do with poetics than it does with astronomy. As always Ovid writes with an eye on his predecessors.In chapter 2, “Narrator and Interlocutors,” Newlands argues that “Ovid invites us to follow his development as a student and teacher of ‘sacra’ who discovers in the Roman past not an inspirational repository of noble heroes, but a patchwork of license and repression, nobility and violence, that is contingent on a variety of competing interests” (52). The narrator becomes increasingly reliant on sub-narrators for information as he becomes less confident in his own ability as narrator and in the feasibility of his project: an elegiac poem on Roman themes.In chapter 3 Newlands argues the need to look at the description of the temple of Mars Ultor in the context of the whole of book 5 and with an eye to the bias of its narrator in order to assess its presence in a poem that initially claims to oppose aras to arma. “The star myths of Chiron (379–414) and Orion (493–544), offer divergent perspectives upon the key concepts of war, Roman history, and revenge that are enshrined in the temple” (89). Mars, who takes over the narrative, has his own perspective on things. Furthermore, Mars has taken over the role of the Scorpion in Ovid’s rewrite of the catasterism myth of Orion and Scorpio “in a substitution that... gives a hint that the concept of revenge, glorified in the war god’s new Augustan temple, cannot be wholly refined of brutal elements” (114). I found this a very interesting chapter, although I was not convinced by some of the details, such as the contrast between Achilles’ and Romulus’ pietas. The analogy with the dream vision in the Aeneid is a bit misleading because the proper parallel is not Aeneas in tears vs. Romulus dry-eyed, as the argument suggests, but rather Aeneas in tears vs. the twins’ parents in tears.Chapter 4, “Priapus Revisited,” examines book 6 as “a negative mirroring of the themes of Book 1” (125). One of its major topics is Ovid’s treatment of Vesta. Newlands examines the Priapus-Vesta episode in book 6 which is usually read as a failed and expendable doublet of Priapus-Lotis in book 1. I think she is right that each has a spot in the poem and that part of the fun of the Vesta episode is that Vesta doesn’t fit into a world where nymphs may get raped while they sleep off the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Virtues of Animals in Seventeenth-Century ThoughtPeter HarrisonDiscussions about animals—their purpose, their minds or souls, their interior operations, our duties towards them—have always played a role in human self-understanding. At no time, however, except perhaps our own, have such concerns sparked the magnitude of debate which took place during the course of the seventeenth century. The agenda had been set in the late 1500s by Montaigne, who had (...) made the remarkable (if somewhat rhetorical) claim that animals were both moral and rational, and moreover, more moral and rational than humans. In the century which followed, Descartes, not to be outdone, put forward the even more contentious counter-proposal that animals were not only neither rational nor moral, but that they were not even conscious. The Cartesian hypothesis fueled a debate which continued until well into the eighteenth century. 1 While in recent years much attention has been given to issues of animal consciousness and cognition in seventeenth-century thought, the related question of the moral capabilities of animals has been by comparison neglected. In this paper I shall explore the converse side of the better known arguments about the rational capabilities of the beasts, focusing on seventeenth-century discussions concerning the behaviors and passions of the beasts and the extent to which animals were thought to participate in the moral universe of human beings.I. During the first sixteen hundred years of the common era, those thinkers who directed their attention to the natural world had tended to be preoccupied neither with questions of how animals came into being nor with the direct [End Page 463] causes of their various operations but rather with the question of why they existed at all. Almost without exception responses to this question were variations on a single theme: animals had been placed in the world to provide for the physical needs of human beings. 2 While this response proved to be satisfactory in general terms, there were acknowledged deficiencies. Many living things seemed to have been rather extravagantly designed for their putative purpose. Others seemed blatantly to contradict it. Why were our meat supplies, for example, not more conveniently presented, like the fabled Scythian lamb which grew on a tree? Why was it that a significant number of creatures appeared to be useless or even downright harmful to those whom they were designed to serve? And why, finally, were human beings created such that they were dependent upon lesser creatures for their survival?Responses to these difficulties generally took one of three forms, each of which was influential throughout the Middle Ages and beyond. First, it could be asserted that as a result of the Fall, human beings had forfeited their dominion over the creatures, many of which now served as instruments for their punishment and correction. Augustine observed that “there are many things, such as fire, frost, wild beasts and so forth, which do not suit but injure this thin-blooded and frail mortality of our flesh, which is at present under just punishment.” 3 In the seventeenth century this view still attracted many supporters. Thus Godfrey Goodman, in The Fall of Man (1616), wrote that “all the creatures, forsaking their first and naturall use, did serve for mans punishment, and rebelled against him.” 4Second, an appeal could be made to the Platonic principle of plenitude and the related idea of the chain of being. The principle of plenitude taught that more is better and that variety is preferable to uniformity. God, wrote the third-century Christian apologist Lactantius, “wished to display His providence and power by a wonderful variety of many things.” 5 It followed that all existing things could be ranged in a vast scale from non-existence to God himself, with each link in the chain separated from its neighbor by a small difference. Again, this view found many adherents in the early modern period. Thomas Robinson declared that “it was necessary that there shou’d be a variety of Natures, and [End Page 464] different Degrees of Life and Perfection.” Thus “every Creature even of the lowest Degree of Life, is Good and Perfect in its Kind.” 6 Important for our... (shrink)

Although healthcare workers play a crucial role in helping curb the hazardous health impact of coronavirus disease 2019, their lives and major functioning have been greatly affected by the pandemic. This study examined the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the quality of life of Malaysian healthcare workers and its predictive factors. An online sample of 389 university-based healthcare workers completed questionnaires on demographics, clinical features, COVID-19-related stressors, psychological experiences, and perceived social support after the movement lockdown was lifted. (...) All domains of QoL were within the norms of the general population except for social relationship QoL, which was lower than the norm. Multiple linear regression analysis indicated that COVID-19-related stressors and psychological sequelae predicted lower QoL. Conversely, greater perceived social support from friends and significant others predicted higher QoL. Clinical and demographic characteristics predicted QoL to a lesser extent: A history of pre-existing medical illness was associated only with lower physical health QoL, whereas older age and being single, divorced, or widowed were only predictive of higher environmental QoL. Efforts to enhance QoL among healthcare workers in response to the pandemic should focus on mitigating COVID-19-related stressors and psychological sequelae and facilitating social support. (shrink)

As portrayed in Andy Clark’s extended mind thesis, human minds are inherently disposed to expand their reach outwards, incorporating and feeding off an open-ended variety of tools and scaffolds to satisfy their hunger for cognitive expansion. According to Steve Fuller’s heterodox Christian vision of transhumanism, humans are deities in the making, destined to redeem their fallen state with the help of modern science and technology. In this chapter, I re-examine Clark’s EMT through the prism of Fuller’s transhumanism, with the aim (...) of unearthing a subterranean influence of theological tropes that are sweeping along beneath the naturalistic veneer of Clark’s thesis. Starting from four theological principles, which Fuller regards as foundational to his version of transhumanism, I review the philosophical narrative which, in Fuller’s view, provides the best philosophical motivation for the contemporary transhumanist project. On the basis of my reconstruction, I show how distant intellectual offshoots of the same principles mobilized by Fuller are also at play in Clark’s EMT – dressed up in secular garb, for sure, and in a materialistically inflected form, yet with a recognizably transhumanist bent. Undertaking this “archeology” of the EMT takes us surprisingly deep into the history of Western thought – to a point where Clark’s evocative “natural-born cyborg” image of humanity, with its emphasis on the radical openness of human nature to transcend itself, comes into view as a subtly blended continuation of certain historically consequential articulations of the Christian doctrine that humans are born “in the image and likeness” of God. (shrink)

The nihilists are right, admits philosopher Loyal Rue. The universe is blind and aimless, indifferent to us and void of meaning. There are no absolute truths and no objective values. There is no right or wrong way to live, only alternative ways. There is no correct reading of a text or a picture or a dance. God is dead, nihilism reigns. But, Rue adds, nihilism is a truth inconsistent with personal happiness and social coherence. What we need instead is (...) a new myth, a noble lie. Only a noble lie can save us from the psychological and social chaos now threatened by the spread of skepticism about the meaning of life and the universe. In By the Grace of Guile, Loyal Rue offers a wide ranging look at the importance of deception in nature and in human society, concluding with an argument for a noble lie to replace the religious beliefs rejected by modern thought. Most of the book is a provocative apology for deception, illuminating its role in the shaping of history, evolution, personality, and society. Ranging from the Bible and Greek philosophy, to Saint Augustine and Montaigne, to Galileo, Kirkegaard, and Freud, Rue shows that it may be more accurate to describe the history of our culture as a flight from deception than as a quest for truth. He turns then to the natural world to reveal how deception works at every level of life, ranging from plants that mimic dung, carrion, or prey to lure insects that then spread pollen, to a remarkable African insect (Acanthaspis petax) that bedecks itself with dead ants and enters the ant colony undetected to binge at will. Moreover, he points out that psychological research has shown that strategies of deception and self-deception are essential to our personal well-being, that we sometimes shore up our self-esteem by deceptive means, by leaving others in a state of ignorance, by manipulating others into a state of false belief, by suppressing information from consciousness, and by fabricating or distorting our own sense of reality. And he argues that social coherence is achievable only within certain optimal limits of deception--the social fabric would be threatened by an overabundance of lies and false promises, of course, but it would also collapse if everyone were perfectly honest all the time. Finally, he argues that society is caught up in a Kulturkampf with nihilists promoting intellectual and moral relativism and realists defending objective and universal truths. The noble lie, says Rue, would introduce a third voice, one which first agrees with the nihilists that universal myths are pretentious lies, but then insists, against the nihilists, that without such lies humanity cannot survive. The challenge, he concludes, is ultimately an aesthetic one: it remains for the artists, poets, novelists, musicians, filmmakers, and other masters of illusion to seduce us into an embrace with a noble lie. We need a new myth that tells us where we have come from, what our nature is, and how we should live together--a story with the courage and presumption to say how things really are and what really matters. (shrink)

I examine the citation patterns to a revolutionary scientific paper, Hess’ “History of Ocean Basins”, which played a significant role in the plate tectonics revolution in the geosciences. I test two predictions made by the geoscientist Menard (in Science: growth and change. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1971): (1) that the peak year of citations for Hess’ article will be 1968; and (2) that the rate of citations to the article will then reach some lower level, continuing on accumulating (...) citations at some regular but unimpressive rate. Drawing on data covering the period from 1962 to 2019, I show that Menard was close with respect to the first prediction. But I also show that things are less clear with respect to the second prediction. I explain why the data are less clear with respect to the second prediction. (shrink)

In the early modern period, botany still remained a relatively new arrival at the top table of knowledge. Much botanical work was not done in universities, colleges, academies, laboratories, or botanic gardens, but behind the walls of different kinds of gardens – of the royalty as well as of common people, of monasteries as well as public gardens. By following the circula­tion of oranges, especially taking into consideration the role of Portugal as a turn­table, this paper sheds light on (...) several of the unexpected ways in which the history of botany and horticulture and the history of gardens encountered in the early modern world. The history of oranges has often made reference to the acclimatization of this citrus fruit in Europe and its transplantation to the New World. However, very few works have addressed the dissemination of oranges from the Iberian Peninsula. In this paper, I argue for a change in perspective by stressing the role played by the Portuguese on acclimatization and dissemination of oranges from Asia to Portugal, and from this country to the Old and New Worlds. I also stress the role Portugal played in building and popularizing horticultural expertise for orange growth and its corresponding botanical knowledge. (shrink)

Presented as a retrospective speech by the president of the History of Science Society in 2038, this essay imagines a future for the profession of the history of science in the United States. Acknowledging that self-described historians of science do not fully control the subject, it considers the place of the history of science in a future university landscape in which interdisciplinary “studies” have supplanted disciplines as the fundamental organizing structure. It then situates this academic scene within (...) a broader professional landscape in which nonuniversity institutions play an expanded role in bringing the history of science directly to the public. Here the essay focuses on an imagined Science Heritage Center that blends commitments to innovative scholarly research, public history techniques of experiential learning, and updated technologies of virtual reality. It further suggests an unexpected direction for developing a collaborative “citizen history of science.”. (shrink)

In the historical progress of nations, economic wealth plays an important role as well as prosperity in social and cultural make-up. When the entire Turkish history is considered, we come across with the institution of Akhism that is both related to the regulation of sociocultural life as well as to the operation of business life within the framework of certain principles and rules. Even though Akhism has aspects in parallel with today’s management philosophies, history has not been (...) immutable and economical activities have changed since the thirteenth-century establishment of Akhism. This theoretical study intends to introduce Akhism that stands as a turning point in Ottoman history in social, cultural and economical aspects. Then the purposes of the institution, its principles and historical progress will be outlined. Furthermore, Akhi associations as well as conflicts with total quality management, social responsibility and corporate culture will be diagnosed. (shrink)

Historically, universities not only played an educational and research role, but also created culture. It was also expressed by the academic ethos. At the same time, along with the advancement of the globalisation of economic processes, there is a tendency to apply the market approach in their case, which results in the economisation and financialisation of science. The clash of these two worlds, i.e. the academic ethos embedded in academic values ​​and the economic approach to the functions of universities, (...) is manifested, for example, in their McDonaldisation. As a consequence, universities focus on those aspects of their activities that are economically effective, including, for example, providing specialised educational services for student – clients. This process may result in universities losing their character, and thus becoming centres of creative inspiration and scientific discourse between scientists. Therefore, the aim of this study is to try to answer the following research questions: first, what are the consequences for universities of their economisation and financialisation, and, second, how their McDonaldisation affects the academic ethos. The study uses the dogmatic, legal and comparative methods. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 62.1 (2001) 37-57 [Access article in PDF] Gersonides on Providence: A Jewish Chapter in the History of the General Will Steven Nadler The notion of the "general will" has proven to be one of the more influential and at the same time enduringly perplexing concepts in the history of ideas. Its most famous appearance is of course, in Rousseau's political (...) philosophy as the expression, ideally embodied in the sovereign's commands, of what is in the common or public interest. The general will (la volonté générale) is, Rousseau says, the will of "the body of the people," that is, "the will that one has a citizen" for the common good. It thus stands in contrast to the "particular will" (la volonté particulière), the expression of one's individual and particularistic preference.1 In this political context, what gives the general will its generality is the universality of interest it represents. Its scope extends to all citizens and it specifies what is in the best interest of the members of the body politic as a whole. Although the general will may or may not coincide with each and every individual's private interest, all citizens are, as a matter of fact, properly served by its fulfillment.In his book The General Will Before Rousseau, Patrick Riley demonstrates how this central idea of eighteenth-century political thought actually has its origins in seventeenth-century theological debates over divine, not human, justice. The mystery [of the origins of the general will] is solved when one realizes that the term volonté générale was well established in the seventeenth-century, though not primarily as a political idea. In fact, the notion of "general will" was originally a theological one, referring to the kind of will that God (supposedly) had in deciding who would be granted grace sufficient for salvation and who would be consigned to hell. The [End Page 37] question at issue was: if "God wills that all men be saved"--as St. Paul asserts in a letter to his disciple Timothy--does he have a general will that produces universal salvation? And if he does not, why does he will particularly that some men not be saved? 2Part of the problem to which the appeal to God's general will was thought by some to afford a solution was the apparent injustice in the distribution of grace. Grace seemed to fall abundantly upon those who were not deserving of it and unprepared to use it properly and insufficiently, and all too rarely upon those who, it was believed, were most worthy of it. Malebranche, for one, believed that God wills, with a general volition, that all people be saved; other factors, however, hinder that "simple" volition from being carried out. But this question about divine aid was simply one element in a larger body of questions--extending across the realms of both nature and grace--about evil in God's creation: why is there sin, suffering, and imperfection in the world if the world was created and is governed by a wise, just, and omnipotent God? As Riley shows--and as I shall briefly review--the notion of the general will was employed by some early modern theologians in an attempt at theodicy, that is, an explanation or justification of God's ways in the face of such a conundrum.My aim in this paper is to take Riley's project one step further. I show that the use of the generality of divine purpose and effect that one finds in seventeenth-century theological discussions of the problem of evil appears in a similar form in an even earlier theodicean context. In his account of divine providence and especially in his explanation of why in this lifetime righteous people suffer and wicked people prosper, the fourteenth-century rabbi and philosopher Levi ben Gershom--Gersonides (or, to use his Hebrew acronym, RaLBaG)--appeals to the generality of the ways of nature established by God much... (shrink)

It is argued in this paper that the valid argument forms coming under the general heading of Demonstrative Induction have played a highly significant role in the history of theoretical physics. This situation was thoroughly appreciated by several earlier philosophers of science and deserves to be more widely known and understood.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Gildersleeve Prize for the Best Article Published in the American Journal of Philology in 2014 Has Been Presented toWilliam Josiah Edwards Davis, University of Toronto Faculty of LawWilliam M. Breichnerfor his contribution to scholarship in “Terence Interrupted: Literary Biography and the Reception of the Terentian Canon,” AJP 135.3:387–409.Building on the serious and sophisticated attention that has been devoted to literary biography in recent years, Davis shows what can (...) be elicited from the conflicting ancient accounts of Terence’s death. As others have argued, ancient scholarship found biography to be a useful receptacle for literary history and criticism. In Davis’ reading, the mutually incompatible accounts of Terence’s death yield insights into critical debates about the role of literature in republican Rome and the scholarly practices that underpinned it.Terence’s prologues give us a lively sense of the literary debates of his own day, but his biographers, writing in the period when scripts became texts, asked a different set of questions. Did Terence die at sea, or in Arcadia, far from the sea? Was the destination of his final journey Greece, or Asia? Did he die in poverty and neglect, or was he returning to Rome with a literary treasure, a hundred and eight newly adapted Menandrian plays? And who wrote his plays, anyway? Davis analyses ancient responses to these and other questions, teasing out traces of the scholarly argument and cultural polemic surrounding Roman literature in the late second and first centuries BCE and thereby making sense of the questions themselves. Reading Terence’s biography against other literary biographies, for example, he shows how Terence’s fatal journey was exploited to establish a Terentian canon free of the authenticity problems that dogged the Plautine tradition. The story that Terence died in Ambracia, by contrast, pits him against another poet associated with Ambracia, Ennius, and stages their rivalry. Finally, Davis shows, in writing the death(s) of Terence, scholar-poets such as Porcius Licinus and Volcacius Sedigitus and others less well known now but cited by Suetonius or ancient scholiasts inscribed a role for the literary historian, too, as caretaker of the playwright’s literary legacy. By reading the contradictions in the biographical tradition against one another instead of trying to produce a historically plausible version by selection, Davis gives us access to the script, fragmentary but fascinating, of Terence’s earliest reception.Judges for The Johns Hopkins University PressCynthia Damon (Chair) Andrew Ford Sara MyersThe Twenty-seventh Annual Gildersleeve Prize of $1,000 will be awarded for the best article to appear in the Journal in 2015. The Press would like to thank the members of the committee for their time and effort.William M. Breichner Journals Publisher Johns Hopkins University Press [End Page 1]William M. BreichnerJournals Publisher Johns Hopkins University PressCopyright © 2015 Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, see the following excerpt: -/- Though his work has until now gone untranslated and been largely ignored in English scholarship, the historian of philosophy François Châtelet played a major role in the development of French thought that is on par with that of his more well-known contemporaries. Born in 1925, Châtelet was founding member of the University of Vincennes, Paris VIII’s experimental department of philosophy alongside Michel Foucault in the aftermath of the 1968 student (...) protests. In 1983, he would establish the Collège Internationale de Philosophie in Paris along with other prominent philosophers, an institution that in Alessandra Campana’s words, is at “the forefront of militant and engaged critical thinking,” in which it has sought to “relocate philosophy at the intersection of science, politics, psychoanalysis, art and literature, jurisprudence, and economy.” Châtelet’s association with radical educational institutions and the interdisciplinarity of research undertaken at the latter both point to what can be understood to be the essence of his philosophical project: that the history of philosophy is also a politics of philosophy. La Grèce Classique, La Raison, L’État, which was first published in 1978 and appears here in translation for the first time under the title Classical Greece, Reason, and the State, is exemplary in this regard, providing a powerful critique of the history of philosophy and its purported Greek origins. As Deleuze argues, Châtelet reveals that “Athens was not the advent of an eternal reason, but the singular event of a provisional rationalisation. In this view, the essence of classical philosophy cannot be extended to the contemporary era—neither in its original form, or in a revised form that has been modified and updated across the passage of time. Therefore, by politicising philosophy and its history, Châtelet’s work also shows philosophy to be indicative of a particular cultural moment, rather than as an the state, philosophy, and the tyranny of the logos · isolated discipline cut off from the influences of material life. He establishes a form of ‘rational empiricism’ for conducting a history of political philosophy that rejects universality for potentiality. Said otherwise, his work is indicative of what might be called the poststructuralist critique of historical narrative surrounding the canon of western thought, a critique that Michael Hardt rightfully argues “has problematised the foundations of philosophical and political thought.” However, Châtelet has made important contributions to the poststructuralist approach to theorising the western tradition that remain novel and insightful to a contemporary audience, rather than simply being one of many to problematise philosophy’s purported foundations. (shrink)