Drawing from field theory, Gestalt therapy conceives psychological suffering and psychotherapy as two intentional field phenomena, where unprocessed and chaotic experiences seek the opportunity to emerge and be assimilated through the contact between the patient and the therapist (i.e., the intentionality of contacting). This therapeutic approach is based on the therapist’s aesthetic experience of his/her embodied presence in the flow of the healing process because (1) the perception of beauty can provide the therapist with feedback on the assimilation of unprocessed (...) experiences; (2) the therapist’s attentional focus on intrinsic aesthetic diagnostic criteria can facilitate the modification of rigid psychopathological fields by supporting the openness to novel experiences. The aim of the present manuscript is to review recent evidence from psychophysiology, neuroaesthetic research, and neurocomputational models of cognition, such as the free energy principle (FEP), which support the notion of the therapeutic potential of aesthetic sensibility in Gestalt psychotherapy. Drawing from neuroimaging data, psychophysiology and recent neurocognitive accounts of aesthetic perception, we propose a novel interpretation of the sense of beauty as a self-generated reward motivating us to assimilate an ever-greater spectrum of sensory and affective states in our predictive representation of ourselves and the world and supporting the intentionality of contact. Expecting beauty, in the psychotherapeutic encounter, can help therapists tolerate uncertainty avoiding impulsive behaviours and to stay tuned to the process of change. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.2 (2002) 405-414 [Access article in PDF] Nihilism in Seamus Heaney Irene Gilsenan Nordin I WISH TO BEGIN WITH THE WORDS of Nietzsche's madman as he makes his famous appearance, running into the crowded marketplace in the bright morning with his lit lantern in his hand, crying out his proclamation of the death of God: "'Where has God gone?' he [cries]. 'I shall tell you. (...) We have killed him—you and I. We are all his murderers.'" He calls out in despair to the bemused and indifferent crowd his rhetorical questions: How were we able to drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained the earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying as through an infinite nothing? 1These words of the madman express the abyss of despair experienced on the realization that God is dead, the state of desolation which articulates what Nietzsche himself understood to be the consequences of the triumph of the Enlightenment. But these words of despair sum up more than that; they sum up the underlying problems of Nietzsche's age, and indeed our age: the basic mistrust of all previously held systems of value; the collapse of all ordering principle; and the erosion of the authority of tradition. In other words, reason has revealed the inadequacy of tradition, and has itself lost the ability to provide us with [End Page 405] any reliable means of evaluation—since any such evaluation must be based on the very principles which are themselves under attack.This stark realization of the absence of all sense of meaning in values previously held to be true leads to the condition that Nietzsche calls "nihilism," (Latin nihil, "nothing"), the condition that he considered to be the central problem of Modernity. This condition, Nietzsche believed, is brought about by the realization of three factors: first, the loss of faith in what he calls a "'meaning' in all events," a loss which contributes to an experience of aimlessness; second, the realization that there is no inherent pattern to the world or to history that can lend universal coherence; and third, the loss of faith in the existence of a stable world of being which can be evaluated according to steadfast, enduring principles. The rejection of these three categories, which Nietzsche terms "aim," "unity," and "being," leads to an experience of a world that appears "valueless," in other words, the experience of nihilism. 2Nietzsche, whose thought was considered by Heidegger to be the "final thought of Western metaphysics," 3 is seen as a heralding voice of postmodernism. 4 In this respect, Nietzsche's "death of God" can be seen to be about the death of modernist philosophical presuppositions, the death of the logocentric metaphysics of presence. But, parallel with the notion of crisis that Nietzsche's announcement of the death of God expresses and the ensuing critique of "metanarratives" which his thought has helped to give rise to, 5 Nietzsche's declaration of crisis can also be seen as a statement of faith. His interpretation of the problems of our age, while on the one hand "negatively" proclaiming the death of God and denying the possibility of shared meaning—or in Lyotard's terms "the consensus of a taste which would make it possible to share collectively the nostalgia for the unattainable" (p. 81), can, on the other hand, be viewed in a more "positive" light. The term "nihilism" itself, as Nietzsche has shown us, is ambiguous, comprising both the concepts of what he termed "active nihilism" and "passive nihilism," which involves a complex interplay between the dual forces of affirmation and negation (WP, p. 22).As the Italian philosopher, Gianni Vattimo, points out, the most general distinction between these forces can be seen in terms of "strength of spirit," where nihilism is considered as both "a sign (Zeichen) of the strengthened power... (shrink)

Known throughout East Asia as Mengzi, or "Master Meng," Mencius was a Chinese philosopher of the late Zhou dynasty, an instrumental figure in the spread of the Confucian tradition, and a brilliant illuminator of its ideas. Mencius was active during the Warring States Period, in which competing powers sought to control the declining Zhou empire. Like Confucius, Mencius journeyed to one feudal court after another, searching for a proper lord who could put his teachings into practice. Only a leader who (...) possessed the moral qualities of a true king could unify China, Mencius believed, and in his defense of Zhou rule and Confucian philosophy, he developed an innovative and highly nuanced approach to understanding politics, self-cultivation, and human nature, profoundly influencing the course of Confucian thought and East Asian culture. _Mencius_ is a record of the philosopher's conversations with warring lords, disciples, and adversaries of the Way, as well as a collection of pronouncements on government, human nature, and a variety of other philosophical and political subjects. Mencius is largely concerned with the motivations of human actors and their capacity for mutual respect. He builds on the Confucian idea of _ren_, or humaneness, and places it alongside the complementary principle of _yi_, or rightness, advancing a complex notion of what is right for certain individuals as they perform distinct roles in specific situations. Consequently, Mencius's impact was felt not only in the thought of the intellectual and social elite but also in the value and belief systems of all Chinese people. (shrink)

Impossible antecedents entered the scene of medieval logic around the 1120s and soon started to dominate this scene, becoming one of the most debated issues from the second half of the twelfth century onwards. This article focuses on theories of counterpossibles from this period and aims to offer an overview of the different responses offered by twelfth-century logicians on whether everything, something, or nothing follows from an impossible statement. Rather than trying to historically reconstruct the positions of the different authors (...) – an operation that may be premature given the insufficient notions we still have of the authorship and dating of sources – I aim to provide a provisional map of the main arguments that were advanced in favour of or against the ex impossibili quodlibet principle. The article also aims to show that the strategies developed by twelfth-century logical schools in their approach to counterpossibles survive in logical discussions of the same topic during the thirteenth and the early fourteenth century, especially in the syncategoremata and sophistaria traditions. (shrink)

Ren-xing can be aptly translated as "human nature," representing as it does the Mencian conviction of and sympathy for a common humanity. The enterprise of comparative philosophy is furthered by drawing attention to the large and important conceptual sphere within which Mencius was working, to his concern for the most fundamental realities of human life, and to his translatability across time and cultures.

During the 13th century, several logicians in the Latin medieval tradition showed a special interest in the nature of impossibility, and in the different kinds or ‘degrees’ of impossibility that could be distinguished. This discussion resulted in an analysis of the modal concept with a fineness of grain unprecedented in earlier modal accounts. Of the several divisions of the term ‘impossible’ that were offered, one became particularly relevant in connection with the debate on ars obligatoria and positio impossibilis: the distinction (...) between ‘intelligible’ and ‘unintelligible’ impossibilities. In this article, I consider some 13th-century tracts on obligations that provide an account of the relation between impossibility and intelligibility and discuss the inferential principles that are permissible when we reason from an impossible – but intelligible – premise. I also explore the way in which the 13th-century reflection on this topic survives, in a revised form, in some early 14th-century accounts of positio, namely, those of William of Ockham, Roger Swineshead and Thomas Bradwardine. (shrink)

The identification of two possible readings – de re and de dicto – of modal claims is considered one of the greatest achievements of Abelard’s logic. In the Dialectica and the Logica “Ingredientibus,” Abelard uses this distinction as a basis for his modal semantics and theory of modalities. Rather than focusing on Abelard’s own theory, the aim of this article is to pay attention to a number of sources that – like Abelard’s logical works – are datable to the first (...) decades of the twelfth century, to investigate whether the de re–de dicto distinction was already adopted and debated in them. It argues that, even if there is no systematic theorization of the distinction in these sources, Abelard’s contemporaries put forward a number of questions concerning the syntax and the signification of modal claims that contributed to set the stage for the distinction’s identification and later development. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to investigate the problem of existential import in Abelard's modal logic, and to ask whether the system of logical relationships that he proposes for modal propositions ma...

This article inquires firstly into the descriptive and affective function of images as examples and exemplars in both Cassirer’s and Husserl’s conceptions of perception and aesthetics in order to disclose their respective relationship to reality, that is, mimesis. In view of the correlation between symbolic comportment and symbolic forms at Cassirer, it will secondly show that the ensuing hermeneutical circle can be overcome by taking recourse on Husserl’s genetic analyses on passive sense constitution. It will thus set the basis for (...) a “hermeneutics of expression” that should, thirdly, shed light on the possibility of establishing an aesthetical knowledge. For this purpose, it will disclose an excess of sensuous expression that is determined by a pre-categorial limit-concept within the process of sense-formation. This inquiry shows that, while images as examples are characterized by their ideal arbitrariness, aesthetic images as singular and categorially determined exemplars can be understood as the affective expression of reality. (shrink)

This paper deals with the problem of the origin of sense and meaning. For Husserl, the determination of the ideal identity of something new can only take place retroactively in the totality of the preceding series by stepping back towards the original foundation of sense. In this regard, J. Derrida questions the ideality of the same as presence and the possibility of retrieving any arché of sense in his writings Speech and Phenomena and Edmund Husserl’s Origin of Geometry. Phenomenology is (...) not oblivious to these difficulties, as results from a closer reading of the correlation between idealities and sensory experience: It will show that there are at least four interrelated gaps in the Husserlian phenomenology which testify the difficulty in grasping a retraceable arché of sense. First, the gap between the ideality of sense and its representation. Second, the gap between sensory and categorial intuitions, whereby both exceed one another. Third, the gap between the ideality of sense and the sense which exceeds our expectations. Fourth, the gap between the experience of the new that overcomes us and its apprehension by consciousness. Hence, there is a fundamental gap between the conceptual idealities and the essential indeterminacy of our phenomenological sensory experience, which is correlative to an excess of one in respect to the other. In this sense, Derrida’s concepts of « différance » and “invention” allow us to conceive of this self-givenness of sense as the expression of its constant self-renewal. This expression takes the form of a trace, which, neither present nor absent, suspends meaning and full presence, leaving the narrative “open” for the reinvention of sense. (shrink)

In this essay, I consider some logical treatises and commentaries from the first decades of the 12th century (many of which are still unedited) which contain a discussion on modalities and modal logic. After presenting a short catalogue of these sources and a description of their common features, I shall focus on some definitions of the modal term “necessarium” which are provided in them. As we will see, Abelard and logicians of his time advanced three different characterizations of this term: (...) necessity was either defined in terms of unavoidability (ineuitabilitas), or in terms of immutability and omnitemporality (impermutabilitas, sempiternitas), or again in terms of absolute necessity as opposed to conditioned one (necessitas absoluta vs. determinata). I argue that the temporal understanding of necessity in terms of omnitemporality, inherited from ancient sources and extensively used by Abelard and others in the first years of the twelfth-century, started to disappear in texts datable from around the 1120, perhaps due to several difficulties that were related to this definition when applied in logical contexts. I also discuss how the notion of necessitas determinata was used by Abelard’s contemporaries to qualify the modal status of present and past events, which were generally believed to be necessary only in a “weak” and harmless sense that did not prevent them from being contingent. -/- . (shrink)

This essay examines the way in which the modal concept of necessity was discussed and analyzed in some eleventh- and early twelfth-century sources, such as Peter Damian’s De divina omnipotentia, Anselm of Canterbury’s Cur deus homo and several anonymous commentaries on Aristotle’s De interpretatione that were presumably composed in the first two decades of the twelfth century by logicians connected to William of Champeaux’s and Peter Abelard’s milieu. My aim is to offer a comparison of these different sources with respect (...) to their use of the Boethian distinction between two types or kinds of necessity, namely, the “absolute” or “simple” necessity that is involved in statements like “God is necessarily immortal” or “it is necessary for humans to be animals”, and the “conditional” or “temporal” necessity that is at stake when we say, for instance, that someone necessarily walks when he is walking. (shrink)

Die Phänomenologie Husserls ist nicht nur als ein metaphysikkritisches Unternehmen, sondern als eine kritische Wiederaufnahme aristotelischer Themen aufzufassen. Denn die Frage nach dem Sinn des Seins führt Husserl anfänglich dazu, eine transzendentale Phänomenologie als eidetische Wissenschaft zu entwerfen, welche die aristotelische Ontologie auf formale und materiale Regionen erweitert. Später aber führt sie Husserl nicht nur zu einer Revision der Beziehungen zwischen Phänomenologie und Metaphysik, sondern zu einer Erweiterung des phänomenologischen Bereiches auf Fragen der letzten absolut gegebenen Urtatsachen, die eine phänomenologische (...) Metaphysik ausmachen. Dabei unternimmt Husserl eine kritische Rehabilitierung der aristotelischen Ontologie, indem er die materiale Ontologie sowohl mit einem ‚Unterbau‘ als auch mit einer ‚Krönung‘ versieht: Sie gründet auf einer apodiktischen Urfaktizität, die eine affektive Lebendigkeit aufweist, und gipfelt in einer Gottesauffassung, welche die erste Philosophie Aristoteles in einer praktischen Wende wieder aufnimmt. Die anfängliche Trennung beider Disziplinen wird somit in Richtung einer Phänomenologie überwunden, die eine phänomenologische Metaphysik miteinschließt und dadurch ihre Spannbreite neu definiert. (shrink)

La confrontación entre Heidegger y Husserl que ha dominado hasta fecha reciente la interpretación filosófica debe ser revisada a la luz de las indagaciones de Husserl sobre la protofacticidad: Ella concierne a una ontología del mundo de la vida que es afín a la mundaneidad heideggeriana: Los protohechos constituyen un horizonte de sentido ya instaurado, que el yo debe reconfigurar en su praxis. Esta protofacticidad inmodalizable alberga un núcleo de protocontingencia que da cuenta no sólo de la contingencia fáctica de (...) las categorías experienciales, sino también la del mundo, del ego y de los entes finitos: En tanto procesos o sujetos a cambios cualitativos en sus características esenciales su modo de ser se caracteriza por una permanente apertura esencial. Ambos pensadores sostienen la contingencia esencial del mundo, de la que sólo puede dar cuenta la experiencia fáctica hic et nunc de un ego encarnado y mundano.The confrontation between Heidegger and Husserl, ever present in philosophical debates, should be reviewed in the light of Hus-serl’s late inquiries into protofacticity. Concerning the ontology of the lifeworld, it addresses some of the issues of Heidegger’s characterization of Dasein as being-in-the-world: Protofacts constitute an already given sense-horizon, which the ego must re-configurate in its praxis. This unmodalizable primal facts host a core of protocontingency that accounts for the factual contingency not only of the categories of experience, but of the world, the ego and of finite beings: Understood as processes or subjected to qualitative changes in their essential structures, their mode of being is characterized by an essential openness. Both thinkers sustain the contingency of the world, for which only the hic et nunc factual experience of a mundane, incarnated ego can account. (shrink)

In their address of structural racism in healthcare, Sabatello and colleagues provide both a remarkable review of the empirical literature regarding the disproportionate impacts of the COVID...

The notion of nature is central not only to Abelard’s theory of cognition and to his treatment of universals, but also to Abelard’s modal logic, to his discussion of future contingents and to his theory of conditionals. In this essay, I emphasize how the notion of nature—despite its pervasiveness in Abelard’s philosophy and despite the attention that has been paid to it—still raises puzzling questions to interpreters. One of these puzzles has to do with Abelard’s idea that different individuals may (...) be “of a same nature,” a claim that according to some is hardly compatible with the nominalist position he endorsed. Another interpretative issue is raised by Abelard’s claims in De Intellectibus that substances have more than one nature, and that we might consider things as being of a different nature depending on which of their properties we pay attention to. Given Abelard’s essentialist framework, his assertions on the multiplicity of natures associable to a single individual may sound perplexing. Other issues that I take into account are Abelard’s attribution of natures to non-existent things such as chimaeras or horned men, and his remarks concerning the accessibility of natures to our knowledge. (shrink)

In this paper, we aim to complement and extend Cécile Laborde’s argument against the Swiss minaret ban, which emphasizes the exclusion of Muslim citizens from equal national belonging. We argue that if we take seriously the normativity that is embedded in the Swiss direct democratic context (Carens 2004), especially in its ability to determine the substance of national belonging, then the symbolic exclusion of Muslims from political belonging is more relevant than the former with regard to democratic justice. Section 1 (...) defines basic notions and presents some arguments that were circulated in Swiss public political debate during the referendum campaign. Section 2 will present extant arguments in normative political philosophy about the ban. Section 3 expands our argument, which can be summarized as follows: the double absence of recognition of Muslims as (i) equal autonomous subjects and (ii) as political agents calls into question the legitimacy of the direct democratic process that led to the ban, making it unjust by the standards implicit within democratic practices in Switzerland. (shrink)

The case of Baby G raises some of the most difficult decisions confronting parents and health-care professionals. Given the context-specific nature of most medical decisions affecting children, the principles and standards of child rights and the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child will not clearly articulate the best interests of the child in every situation. A child rights–based approach will, however, provide the factors that must be considered, methods for their analysis, and the procedural safeguards that must surround (...) decision-making related to complex medical situations facing children, families, and providers. This approach can facilitate both.. (shrink)

In dem Beitrag wird der Frage nachgegangen, wie der Widerstreit zwischen mimesis und methexis eine – so die These – ›atopische Differenz‹ hervorbringt, die den Sinn des Gegenstandes zu einer fortwährenden Bildung zwingt, einen Sinn, der sich weder vollständig erhellen noch in bestehenden Begrifflichkeiten erfassen lässt, sondern sich eher in sinnlichen Erfahrung ausdrückt. Der Begriff der Atopie bedeutet nach Franco Rella , außerhalb unseres Platzes bzw. der Grenzen unserer wahrnehmungsmäßigen und kognitiven Gewohnheiten zu sein. Die hier vorgeschlagene atopische Differenz – (...) eine Differenz, die sich in keinem eigenen Ort bzw. topos idios im Sinne Aristoteles verankern lässt – wandert zwischen dem Abbild und dem Trugbild und entzieht sich unseren Gewohnheiten und übernommenen Begriffen. Um die Voraussetzungen der Repräsentation, wie sie von Platon benannt werden, aufzudecken, soll in einem ersten Schritt das Verhältnis zwischen Urbild und Abbild im Denken Platons vorgestellt werden. Anschließend wird auf Gilles Deleuze’ Schriften Differenz und Wiederholung und Logik des Sinns eingegangen, die die Grundbausteine für eine moderne Aufwertung der mimetischen Praktiken liefern. Der französische Philosoph hebt die Produktion von Trugbildern als eine »Umkehrung des Platonismus« hervor, denn diese reproduzieren nicht mehr das Urbild. In einem dritten Schritt werden die Eigenschaften der Trugbilder anhand der Gemälde des englischen Malers Francis Bacon näher bestimmt. Zum Schluss wird die ›atopische Differenz‹ in ihrer Entstehungsmöglichkeit und ihrer Tragweite näher beleuchtet. Es wird sich herausstellen, dass die Umkehrung des Platonismus nicht nur eine Produktion des Trugbildes ist, sondern auch einen sinnlichen Überschuss verursacht, der sich jeder wesentlichen Bestimmung widersetzt, unlokalisierbar bleibt und die Betrachter affiziert. (shrink)

In her article “Die Irrealität des Kunstwerkes,” first published in 1938, Hedwig Conrad-Martius delves into the question of the artistic representation of the real reality of the world, which basically concerns the classical distinction between art and nature. It is in this context that Conrad-Martius rejects idealism and the concomitant assumption that an artwork imitates the “living reality” of Nature. She clearly distinguishes between the task of phenomenology and that of art: while phenomenology should surpass the sphere of mere sensuous (...) appearances and inquire into the “real reality” (wirkliche Wirklichkeit) of the world, phenomenological aesthetics should conversely deal with the expressive character of appearances and assume their inherent “irreality” (Irrealität), such that phenomenological ontology and aesthetics involve distinctive ontological realms that vary according to the subject-matter. However, while she clearly distances herself from Husserl’s phenomenology in her search for the consciousness-independent facticity of the world, she concurs with him in her eidetic enquiries and in the assertion of the creative potential of art, which lies in the creation of a new, even “irreal,” world. For this purpose, I will explore confluences and divergences between their respective conceptions. (shrink)

Der Beitrag widmet sich der Entwicklung der Untersuchungen Husserls und Merleau-Pontys in Bezug auf die Wechselverhältnisse zwischen Welt, Raum und Leib. Die These besagt, dass die ›genetische‹ Einsicht, die leiblich aff ektive Erfahrung verleihe der Welt einen subjekt-relativen Sinn, anfänglich zu einer Umkehrung des Fundierungsverhältnisses und schließlich zur Ausarbeitung der Urhyle als sinnliches Prinzip bei Husserl geführt hat, während sie Merleau-Ponty dazu verleitet hat, die Unterscheidung ›Bewusstsein-Objekt‹ zu revidieren und eine Ontologie des Fleisches zu entwickeln. Aus dieser Initialthese wird sich (...) zeigen, dass die durch pathische Empfindungen, Gefühle und Stimmungen hervorgebrachte Verschränkung von Leib und Ort die existenzielle Dimension der Raumerfahrung, das ›Hier-in-einem-Ort-zu-sein‹, ausmacht. Der Begriff der Atmosphäre verbindet diese Einsichten mit der Architekturerfahrung: Insofern eine Atmosphäre alle unsere Sinne durch optische und haptische Empfindungen simultan ergreift, gleicht sie einer intensiven Gefühlskraft und stellt die Dauer und die affektive Dimension eines Seins-in-Situation hervor. Sie veranschaulicht somit das Erklärungspotential der genetischen Phänomenologie für die Architektur. (shrink)

Summary This paper deals with the development of Husserl’s and Merleau-Pontys analyses of the affective lived experience of body and space. Both the concept of „flesh“ (Merleau-Ponty) and „Hyle“ (Husserl) stand for a sensuous principle that underlies the original givenness and solidarity of body and world and I claim that this interaction and the concomitant intertwining of body and place make up the existential dimension of architecture, i.e. the, being-here-in-a-place’. In this connection, I argue that the fact that bodily affective (...) experience endows the world with sense has led to a double break: On the one hand with representation and on the other with perspectivity and compossibility of the realms of being in Husserl’s and Merleau-Ponty’s respective approaches. Finally, I will exemplify this break and the development of genetic insights – from an anthropocentric, organic and harmonious space conception to a topologic space made up of incompossibilities expressing an ambiguous sense – with paradigmatic works of architecture, so as to make evident the explanatory potential of phenomenology for architecture. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:When the Morally "Right" Thing to Do Is Difficult:Reflections on a True "Pastoral" Approach in John Paul II's Veritatis SplendorIrene AlexanderIn the moral life, there are situations in which it is difficult to know what is the right thing to do. On the other hand, there are types of moral actions in which no such intellectual difficulty exists, where the right thing to do is very clear, yet hesitation (...) or even rejection of the moral law arises because to persist in virtuous living seems too difficult. For example, as St. Augustine writes in his Confessions: "Lord, give me chastity, but not yet." Augustine is not unclear about what he ought to do, yet he perceives that there remains a real gap between the truth of the moral law and his own ability to live virtuously what love demands.Christian moral theology reveals that this "gap" is not at all unusual, nor even surprising. Given original sin and its effects on the human heart, man stands in genuine need of a redeemer. For this reason, the task of moral theology today cannot involve merely presenting the truth of the moral law, important as it is; it must empower the human heart to live it. I argue that, to inspire and transform hearts, moral theology must be presented within the biblical story of salvation and lead to a personal encounter with Christ. Indeed, this is precisely what the Second Vatican Council called for when it insisted that theologians take "special care" in the renewal of moral theology. The Council fathers insisted that, in its presentation, moral theology needs to be more deeply animated by Scripture, to integrate with dogmatic theology, and most of all, to find its place within the mystery of Christ.1 [End Page 333]In this paper, I would like to demonstrate how Pope John Paul II's insights in his 1993 encyclical Veritatis Splendor (VS) can aid in a pastoral approach to morally difficult situations.2 It is no secret that he wrote this encyclical to address the widespread dissent among Catholic moral theologians who dissented from the magisterium on difficult moral issues such as contraception, abortion, divorce, in vitro fertilization, and homosexuality by attempting to reinvent the foundational principles of morality, which led to a whole host of errors. Yet, even though one can prove demonstratively the truth of the moral law, there still remains the pastoral question: "But what am I to do, if remaining faithful is very difficult?" "What can I do when I cannot seem to rise to what love demands, or I am afraid of what love will cost me?" In this paper, I will share three key insights from his work that lead to an effective pastoral response: (1) to rediscover the purpose of living a moral life, (2) to recognize the missing human good in difficult circumstances, (3) to receive the fullness of sacramental grace. Whereas some theologians openly encourage dissent from the Church's moral teaching for "pastoral" reasons, John Paul II argues that there is nothing more "pastoral" than the power of sacramental grace.Rediscover Purpose: The Moral Life as a Call to Divine Intimacy and MissionIn his book Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, Simon Sinek has powerfully argued that all great leaders lead by answering the most important question: why does this organization or company or rule exist? Great leaders inspire with the purpose. Not surprisingly, when it comes to the question "why should I follow the moral law?," Jesus Christ, in Matt 19, also leads the rich young man with the "why."In the encounter, Christ acknowledges the young man's predicament when he approaches him with the question, "Teacher, what good must I do to have eternal life?" Merely remaining obedient to the law as though it were nothing more than a checklist is not enough to satisfy the deep [End Page 334] longings of the young man's heart. John Paul II comments that "the young man's question is not so much about rules to be followed, but about the full meaning of life. This is in fact the aspiration at the heart... (shrink)

In his book Welt und Unendlichkeit, László Tengelyi has enquired into the possibility of a phenomenological metaphysics. Among the many issues addressed in his book, he thematized a real necessity of a non-apriori kind at Aristotle and Husserl, a necessity which he called „a necessity of the fact“. His research settled the basis for the present enquiry, which will examine the relationship between the absolute and the conditional necessity of a fact as well as the contingent or accidental features involved (...) therein at Aristotle and Husserl, insofar as facticity is concerned. I intend to show that although both authors share the view that worldly beings are characterized by their contingency, they differ as to their necessity: Aristotle attributes a contingent necessity to the factual being i.e. to reality, a necessity characterized by its being temporarily conditioned by actuality and which can therefore be defined as the ,conditional necessity of a fact‘. As to Husserl, transcendental phenomenology must, upon the basis of the eidetic method, determine the possibilities out of which the ego constitutes the factual world. He states the necessity of the fact as an eidetic necessity, which has to be grounded on eidetic laws. Later on, enquiries into a „metaphysics in new sense“ lead to a revision of the meaning of „fact“ and to an inversion of the order of foundation as well: the original givenness of the world, the primal I, intersubjectivity and historicity as primal and absolute facts carry the eidetic necessities. Accidental causes, on the other hand, account not only for the contingency of the real but, at Husserl, for the ego‘s ,essential openness‘ and its core of primal contingency. In this context, I shall argue that facticity paired with the accidental allows for the irruption of something new that overwhelms us – an event as Ereignis. (shrink)

El artículo se centra en el filósofo argentino Eugenio Pucciarelli (1907-1995) y su recepción de la fenomenología, a la que confiere un sesgo humanista. Se procederá a una introducción a su contribución a la fenomenología en América Latina y se abordarán los siguientes temas: 1) la misión de la filosofía, las diversas vías de acceso a su esencia, en particular aquellas de Scheler, Dilthey y Husserl, 2) su recepción de Husserl en cuanto concierne a los ideales de ciencia y de (...) razón, 3) la crisis de la razón y de la evidencia, 4) su concepción pluralista de la razón, del tiempo y de la cultura, 5) humanismo y libertad. La tesis sostiene que su concepción de la filosofía, que enfatiza la dimensión personal y el compromiso social de la práctica filosófica, revela un profundo humanismo pluralista que no descuida su función militante y crítica, evidenciado así la actualidad de su mensaje. (shrink)

Roger Bacon’s De signis is a major contribution to the history of semantics. However, we know from the author's summary given in the Opus tertium that it has come down to us in an incomplete form. It belongs to the third part of Bacon’s Opus maius, devoted to the “knowledge of languages”. The three sections of the summary in the Opus tertium enable us to understand its organization. The first section presents various arguments in favor of knowledge of languages. The (...) major part of the second section of the summary is related to the “power of words”, which was originally present in the section on mathematics and magic. The third section is not present is the edition of Opus maius III: it was devoted to the study of signs and signification, which corresponds to the De signis, and circulated independently, and to its application to theology, a section that has not been found. Just as the late Compendium studii theologiae, the De signis offers an original treatment of semantic and linguistic questions which are fully embedded in the sophisticated debates that took place in the faculties of arts in Paris and Oxford during the second half of the 13th century. Bacon’s linguistic analysis can be equally relevant for the study of the Bible and theology. (shrink)

Le langage, la signification, la référence ont fait l’objet d’une grande attention au Moyen Âge, de la part des spécialistes des arts du langage. Pourtant, ils n’ont quasiment pas lu Augustin. Les théologiens, par contre, ont tiré grand profit des analyses augustiniennes. Henri de Gand a lu le De dialectica, en articulant autour de ce petit traité les autres textes d’Augustin portant sur le langage et les signes, afin d’élaborer une théorie du « langage vocal », préliminaire à toute réflexion (...) sur les noms divins, l’ineffabilité, l’analogie ou la propriété des noms. Ces textes forment également le socle des analyses élaborées par les théologiens sur le « parler des anges ». Par ailleurs, les chapitres sur les signes sacramentels doivent à la pensée augustinienne une analyse du signe, tirée du De doctrina christiana. Les théologiens insistent sur le caractère doublement relationnel du signe : signe de quelque chose, signe pour quelqu’un. Le caractère intentionnel de la prononciation de la formule du baptême ou du mariage est traité à partir des opuscules consacrés au mensonge ( De mendacio, Contra mendacium ). L’analyse de la causalité sacramentelle, et particulièrement celle de la causalité conventionnelle fondée sur le pacte, se construit sur la notion augustinienne de consensus, repensée dans le cadre d’une réflexion sur les signes magiques par Guillaume d’Auvergne, mais également sur la théorie de la relation telle qu’elle est élaborée dans le De Trinitate. Roger Bacon, qui fut maître ès arts avant de devenir franciscain, saura lire ces analyses des théologiens, et, en articulant les sources augustiniennes avec les sources logico-grammaticales utilisées par les Artistae, produire une théorie générale des signes. (shrink)

What is postmodern music and how does it differ from earlier styles, including modernist music? What roles have electronic technologies and sound production played in defining postmodern music? Has postmodern music blurred the lines between high and popular music? Addressing these and other questions, this ground-breaking collection gathers together for the first time essays on postmodernism and music written primarily by musicologists, covering a wide range of musical styles including concert music, jazz, film music, and popular music. Topics include: the (...) importance of technology and marketing in postmodern music; the appropriation and reworking of Western music by non-Western bands; postmodern characteristics in the music of Górecki, Rochberg, Zorn, and Bolcom, as well as Björk and Wu Tang Clan; issues of music and race in such films as The Bridges of Madison County, Batman, Bullworth, and He Got Game; and comparisons of postmodern architecture to postmodern music. Also includes nine musical examples. (shrink)

In this paper we analyze the relative effectiveness of the moment of contact between a brand and an individual consumer. The concept of effectiveness is made operational through the use of both attitude and awareness measures. The main research uses a 4x4 Latin square confounded within subjects factorial design with different touch points and brands. The appropriate stimuli were identified in a preliminary study. The results indicate that, overall, TV advertising and print advertisements – the traditional media channels – are (...) significantly more effective than the internet, a non-traditional media channel. (shrink)

The political discourse of Rafael Caldera and Carlos Andrés Pérez is here analyzed. Thess leaders share features in exercising power as presidents of Venezuela, and in their being members of the traditional political parties that ruled the country in the second half of the XXth century. A crit..

En esta entrevista el conocido sociólogo venezolano Rigoberto Lanz, nos presenta su interpretación, desde una postura postmoderna-crítica, de la realidad social y el desarrollo político de la democracia en la América Latina, en un contexto histórico donde la globalización y el pensamiento únic..

This book reassesses the role and impact of skepticism in early modern philosophy, revisiting and reinterpreting the positions of some of the main early modern philosophers in relation to this tradition and showing its relevance to others who have not previously been connected to skepticism.

La méthode adoptée dans le Vocabulaire européen des philosophies peut-elle être taxée de « relativiste » comme l’écrit Carlo Ginzburg, et plus précisément de mener au « relativisme sceptique »? L’on vise ici à répondre par la négative en montrant les proximités entre la démarche du VEP et certains travaux de l’auteur lui-même. Si le VEP n’est pas un dictionnaire d’« ethnophilologie », et se centre sur les traductions du vocabulaire philosophique, les enjeux politiques sont essentiels. Il s’agit, en prenant (...) de la distance par rapport à sa propre langue, de construire des comparables, en étant aussi bien contre l’universalisme abstrait que contre le culturalisme relativiste qui conduit à l’incommensurabilité. (shrink)