The questions that occupied early Ionian philosophers are very general in nature, and are not linked to the various skills and crafts that surface early in Greek civilization. The awe and wonder fuelling these questions were directed towards large scale phenomena, and—according to the interpretation presented in this essay—called for more than mere re-descriptions or re-labellings of various features of reality. They called for explanations, but the notion of an intellectually adequate explanation took a long time to develop. Conceptions of (...) adequate explanation were changing throughout Pre-Socratic philosophy. It was left to Aristotle to attempt to capture the various models, and give them a unifying structure within an explicit theory. (shrink)

La pensée contemporaine est-elle accessible au concept biblique de fin de l'histoire ? Les sciences de l'univers et celles de la vie ont répandu, à l'aide de diverses notions de temps, des scénarios de fin du monde qui renvoient à la philosophie la question angoissante de l'avenir de l'humanité. Dans le passé, les gnoses avaient élaboré une représentation du temps brisé, que les philosophies modernes ont entrepris de démythologiser de bien des façons : morales purement rationalistes, qui tantôt acceptent tantôt (...) refusent l'idée d'une fin morale, morales utopiques, vision d'un cosmos régi par des lois mécaniques, vision d'une histoire dépourvue de sens et de finalité.Cependant, si la temporalité est inscrite au cœur du réel, la question de la fin ne peut pas être éludée. De nos jours, la pensée de la mort est le lieu d'une interrogation métaphysique sur l'être ; la philosophie de l'histoire pense la fin à la lumière d'une exigence de justice ; la pensée de l'altérité est la postulation d'un dépassement du temps ; dans l'éthique de l'action, la notion d'événement introduit à une destinée de liberté ouverte sur une transcendance ; l'analyse du langage symbolique dévoile la dimension eschatologique de la raison dans sa recherche du vrai : autant d'ouvertures philosophiques sur l'espérance théologale. Is contemporaneous thought accessible to the biblical concept of the end of history ? With the help of different notions of time, universe and life-sciences have spread scenarios of the world’s end that pass on to philosophy the anguishing question of the future of humanity. In the past, gnostics elaborated a representation of broken time, which modern philosophies went about demythologizing in diverse ways : purely rationalistic morals, which at one time accept and another time refuse the idea of a moral end, utopian morals, vision of a cosmos ruled by mechanical laws, and the vision of a history empty of meaning and finality.Nevertheless, if temporality is inscribed in the heart of the real, the question of the end cannot be avoided. In our time, thinking about death leads to a metaphysical interrogation about being ; the philosophy of history thinks about the end in light of a demand for justice ; the idea of alterity postulates the overcoming of time; in the ethics of action, the notion of event introduces a destiny of freedom open to transcendence ; the analysis of symbolic language unveils the eschatological dimension of reason in its search for the true, – these are some of the philosophical openings to theological hope. (shrink)

The latter part of the 20th century is known for a surge in the so-called ‘genitive theologies’. Usually, a genitive theology has an ulterior motive, aiming at the transformation of a society or the promotion of sound politics and economy. In recent years, this trend culminated in public theology. The issue of religion with an ulterior motive was raised by Van de Beek in a seminal article focusing on theology without gaining anything from it as an answer to the surging (...) genitive theologies of the latter part of the 20th century and the public theologies of today. Taking into account Van de Beek’s critique against ‘religion with an ulterior motive’, this article explores the concept of the church as a moral agent in dialogue with Van de Beek. The central theoretical argument of this investigation is that Van de Beek’s ecclesiology is valuable when defining the role of the church as a moral agent. However, the perspective of the Kingdom of God concerning the church can enrich one’s views and can add value to his valid critique on public theology. (shrink)

The goal of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit is to achieve absolute knowing. Minimally, knowing can be absolute only if it is unconditioned or unlimited; that is, only if it is not essentially contrasted with some other possible knowing—say, God's—or is not restricted such that it necessarily does not pertain to certain items—say, freedom of the will, the immortality of the soul, or God. Knowing can be absolute only if these items, appropriately interpreted, are within its scope. However, if it can (...) be shown that human knowing is not limited or restricted in either of these two ways, it would then follow that we cannot contrast our conceptual scheme—human knowing as such—with the world, and, hence, we cannot even notionally contrast human knowledge of appearances with things in themselves. Initially, it is in this quite narrow sense that Hegel's project in the Phenomenology is to transform Kant's subjective or limited idealism into objective or absolute idealism by showing that items Kant took to be necessarily extrinsic to human knowing are intrinsic and constitutive of it. Thus, if we were to translate Hegel's dictum that the ground of science in general is "pure self-recognition in absolute otherness" back into Kant's lexicon, it would state that we achieve full apperceptive self-awareness, full categorial selfawareness of ourselves as knowers, only in the thing in itself. Within Hegel's own system, achieving the standpoint of absolute knowing is a necessary condition for doing logical science, and, by implication, the first part of the system as a whole, because only by demonstrating that the necessary conditions of human knowing cannot, even notionally, be contrasted with the world in itself is it possible to then work out a system of logical categories that are simultaneously categories of thought and categories of being. (shrink)

Présentation d’une quinzaine de publications récentes sur les psaumes et le Psautier. On passe en revue des introductions et ouvrages généraux, la traduction d’H. Meschonnic, trois commentaires , des monographies sur l’histoire et la réception du texte, des travaux abordant la méthode exégétique, des études de structures, et la thèse de D. Scaiola sur les psaumes apparentés.

Gold & Stoljar 's attempt to disentangle the body-mind problem in time for the end of the decade of the brain deserves praise for its diligence and courage in moving onto the treacherous ground of interdisciplinary discourse. In making their point, they should not have stopped half-way: a more clearly defined experimental paradigm seems necessary to solve this exciting and substantial problem.