In Judaism Straight Up, Moshe Koppel explores the central differences between traditional societies--including traditional Judaism--and contemporary cosmopolitan ones. He explains everything you always wanted to know about the subtleties of Jewish morality, tradition, and belief, and how these have unfolded to beat cosmopolitanism at its own game: advancing cooperation, fairness, and freedom. Written with incisiveness and droll wit--and a scientific sensibility that draws on economics, game theory, and other disciplines--Judaism Straight Up reveals the secret of Jewish traditionalism's (...) endurance."--Page [4] of cover. (shrink)

Grappling with the place of Jewish philosophy at the margin of religious studies, Robert Erlewine examines the work of five Jewish philosophers—Hermann Cohen, Martin Buber, Franz Rosenzweig, Abraham Joshua Heschel, and Joseph Soloveitchik—to bring them into dialogue within the discipline. Emphasizing the tenuous place of Jews in European, and particularly German, culture, Erlewine unapologetically contextualizes Jewish philosophy as part of the West. He teases out the antagonistic and overlapping attempts of Jewish thinkers to elucidate the philosophical and cultural meaning of (...) Judaism when others sought to deny and even expel Jewish influences. By reading the canon of Jewish philosophy in this new light, Erlewine offers insight into how Jewish thinkers used religion to assert their individuality and modernity. (shrink)

Salomon Munk (1803-1867) belonged to a group of German-Jewish scholars who pioneered the systematic study of Arabic, Judeo-Arabic and Islamic philosophy in Western Europe in the nineteenth century, as part of a movement that came to be known as the Science of Judaism. The Science of Judaism applied the tools of modern science (in particular philology) to the study of Judaism, seeking to shed light on its manifold aspects and historical contexts--an undertaking which eventually led to the (...) birth of Jewish studies as an academic discipline. Munk's ground-breaking studies of Arabic and Judeo-Arabic sources were to play a central role in this process, exerting a major influence on nineteenth century German and French Oriental studies as well as on modern philosophical historiography, and paving the way for the scientific study of the relationship between medieval Jewish, Islamic, and Christian thought. This book is an attempt to restore this extraordinary representative of German Jewry to the pantheon of the Science of Judaism, and in the process, to illustrate the fascinating origins of the academic field of Jewish and Islamic Studies. (shrink)

The aim of this study is twofold. Firstly, it intends to highlight the value of constructivist insights for religious studies by showing that various forms of approach to issues related to religion are mere constructs. In contrast to this viewpoint, the discipline of religious studies had traditionally sought a higher degree of objectivity in the scientific reflection of religious topics, but that has been a fraught path. Secondly, the example it refers to is worthy in itself. The reception of (...) class='Hi'>Judaism in contemporary China is not only an under-investigated topic endowed with a great potential to reveal to what extent the Chinese ordinary man as well as the academic succeed to understand Western thought and to differentiate among the varied cultural traditions generally subsumed by them under the notion Western, but it also shows that the constructivist approaches preserve their validity in non-European contexts as well. Judaism’s reception in contemporary China will be pursued on four different levels: popular literature, fake books, articles in the Christian Chinese media and academic productions. The four categories of texts represent four different degrees of comprehension of the object of study, primarily offering information about the worldviews of the authors of the texts. The process of reception of thought is regarded as a form of encounter where the active part is striving to get out of its own mindset and move towards the other. (shrink)

The novelty in Rosenzweig’s new ways of thinking lies in the fact that, unlike the traditional view, in his thought philosophy is the discipline containing a subjective element, whereas religion is more objective since it is founded on revelation. These complementary differences help the philosopher rethink Judaism and Jewish identity in the context of the spiritual crisis of the secularized Judaism of his time. Starting with the analysis of this reconstruction of philosophy, this text attempts to present a (...) balanced perspective on Rosenzweig’s vision of the relation between Judaism and Christianity. We will not single out the common elements or those that separate these two monotheist religions; setting Judaism and Christianity on the same level is considered to be a compensatory gesture towards Judaism and Jewish tradition. There is in Rosenzweig a significant moment of approach toward Christianity, especially to a Christianity without Christ, but Rosenzweig opts for a different solution, that of building a new philosophy based on Judaism. Moshe Idel’s analysis suggests that it is the Kabbalistic mysticism that Rosenzweig redefines in order to propose a new way of thought based on both philosophy and religion. Thus, Rosenzweig gives new meaning to the balance of divine and human in the field of religion. (shrink)

Cross-cultural encounters often happen through cross-border journeys. Neela Bhattacharya Saxena, an English professor, takes the reader through such travel in Absent Mother God of the West. This is a work that stands at the intersection of many disciplines, such as women's and gender studies, anthropology, religious studies, cultural history, and environmental studies. Best of all, it is an engaging read. In the author's words, in "this book a personal journey takes the shape of a public discourse". This volume is a (...) reflection of the understanding of the echoes of personal devotion to the Divine Feminine in some of the world's major religions.Saxena brings to mind the multi-layered deeply philosophical... (shrink)

An integrated overview of history The volume in this series are arranged topically to cover biography, literature, doctrines, practices, institutions, worship, missions, and daily life. Archaeology and art as well as writings are drawn on to illuminate the Christian movement in its early centuries. Ample attention is also given to the relation of Christianity to pagan thought and life, to the Roman state, to Judaism, and to doctrines and practices that came to be judged as heretical or schismatic. Introductions (...) to each volume tie the articles together for an integrated understanding of the history. Offers insights and understanding The aim of the collection is to give balanced and comprehensive coverage, selected on the basis of the following criteria: original and excellent research and writing; subject matter of use to teachers and students; groundbreaking importance for the history of research; background information for issues and opinions. Understanding the development of early Christianity and its impact on Western history and thought offers valuable insights into the modern world and the present state of Christiantiy. It also provides perspective on comparable developments in other periods of history and reveals human nature in its religious dimension. (shrink)

Conventional wisdom holds that Judaism is indifferent or even suspiciously hostile to the visual arts due to the Second Commandment's prohibition on creating "graven images," the dictates of monotheism, and historical happenstance. This intellectual history of medieval and modern Jewish attitudes toward art and representation overturns the modern assumption of Jewish iconophobia that denies to Jewish culture a visual dimension. Kalman Bland synthesizes evidence from medieval Jewish philosophy, mysticism, poetry, biblical commentaries, travelogues, and law, concluding that premodern Jewish intellectuals (...) held a positive, liberal understanding of the Second Commandment and did, in fact, articulate a certain Jewish aesthetic. He draws on this insight to consider modern ideas of Jewish art, revealing how they are inextricably linked to diverse notions about modern Jewish identity that are themselves entwined with arguments over Zionism, integration, and anti-Semitism. Through its use of the past to illuminate the present and its analysis of how the present informs our readings of the past, this book establishes a new assessment of Jewish aesthetic theory rooted in historical analysis. Authoritative and original in its identification of authentic Jewish traditions of painting, sculpture, and architecture, this volume will ripple the waters of several disciplines, including Jewish studies, art history, medieval and modern history, and philosophy. (shrink)

Jewish by birth, though from a secular family, Alan Morinis took a deep journey into Hinduism and Buddhism as a young man. He received a doctorate for his study of Hindu pilgrimage, learned yoga in India with B. K. S. Iyengar, and attended his first Buddhist meditation course in the Himalayas in 1974. But in 1997, when his film career went off track and he reached for some spiritual oxygen, he felt inspired to explore his Jewish heritage. In his reading (...) he happened upon a Jewish tradition of spiritual practice called Mussar. Gradually he realized he had stumbled on an insightful discipline for self-development, complete with meditative, contemplative, and other well-developed transformative practices designed to penetrate the deepest roots of the inner life. Eventually reaching the limits of what he could learn on his own, he decided to seek out a Mussar teacher. That was not easily achieved, since almost the entire world of the Mussar tradition had been wiped out in the Holocaust. In time, he did find an accomplished master who stood in an unbroken line of transmission of the Mussar tradition, and who lived at the center of a community of Orthodox Jews on Long Island. This book tells the story of Morinis’s journey to meet his teacher and what he learned from him, and reveals the central teachings and practices that are the spiritual treasury and legacy of Mussar. Alan Morinis has written this book because the wisdom and practices that helped him so much have not penetrated the world beyond the confines of Orthodox Judaism, and may not be fully appreciated even there at this time. His hope is that Jews and non-Jews alike will find in Mussar a time-tested path of spiritual practice that will help them discover the hidden radiance within. (shrink)

Revelation and the God of Israel explores the concept of revelation as it emerges from the Hebrew Scriptures and is interpreted in Jewish philosophy and theology. The first part is a study in intellectual history that attempts to answer the question, what is the best possible understanding of revelation. The second part is a study in constructive theology and attempts to answer the question, is it reasonable to affirm belief in revelation. Here Norbert M. Samuelson focuses on the challenges given (...) from a variety of contemporary academic disciplines, including evolutionary psychology, political ethics, analytic philosophy of religion, and source critical studies of the Bible. This important book offers a unique approach to theological questions and fresh solutions to them and will appeal to those interested in the history of philosophy, religious thought, and Judaism. (shrink)

This is a book about writing and thinking about bioethics of a particular sort, a feminism of a particular sort, and a Jewish philosophy of a particular sort. It is about all of these things-feminist thought, Judaism, and the practice of bioethics-as I have written about them in a distinctive moment in the field and from the moral location from which I worked, which was as an academic in the disciplines of Jewish Studies and moral philosophy who also worked (...) as a clinical ethicist in a large public hospital. These are cases of children and families facing illness and death within the clinical world, a world of scarcity, desperation, and grace, and the choices they make within that world. It explores the meaning of these choices and reflects on why the dilemmas are so important in our society. The book considers the moral gesture that is medicine and the role of the ethicist as she comes to learn her practice. This is a book about the memory and meaning, re-evaluated and considered in light of the traditional texts of Jewish thought. (shrink)

The study brings to light three of Polqar's main purposes; (1) seeking to defend Judaism as a true religion against Christianity; (2) similarly to his fellow Jewish Averroists, Polqar wishes to defend the discipline of philosophy. By philosophy, Polqar means Averroes' interpretation of Aristotle. As a consequence, he offers an Averroistic interpretation of Judaism and becomes one of the main representatives of Jewish Averroism; (3) defending his philosophical interpretation of Judaism."-- Back cover.

Judaism and Christianity, the religious traditions most influential on Western civilization, taught that the universe was created by the Word and that human beings were distinguished from all other animals by their use of words. What characterizes our age is a growing reliance on images as our words are being desymbolized. This desymbolization of experience, language, and culture results primarily from what Jacques Ellul has called technique, which has been built up with discipline-based approaches to knowing and doing. It (...) has helped create a new human nature as well as new social forms called mass societies, in which integration propaganda is required to make up the deficits of our highly desymbolized cultures. As a result, life in a mass society defers to science for knowing and to technique for doing, thereby creating a cult of efficiency that is at the root of our economic, social, and environmental crises. How far this desymbolization can go may well turn out to be the decisive issue of the 21st century. (shrink)

The volume is dedicated to the work of Chajim H. Steinthal (1823-1899), who in the second half of the nineteenth century was a prominent philosophical linguist and also an eminent teacher of the "Science of Judaism." Together with Moritz Lazarus he founded the discipline of "Voelkerpsychologie" ("psychology of nations").

The volume is dedicated to the work of Chajim H. Steinthal (1823-1899), who in the second half of the nineteenth century was a prominent philosophical linguist and also an eminent teacher of the "Science of Judaism." Together with Moritz Lazarus he founded the discipline of "Voelkerpsychologie" ("psychology of nations").

In the ninth century BCE, the peoples of four distinct regions of the civilized world created the religious and philosophical traditions that have continued to nourish humanity to the present day: Confucianism and Daoism in China, Hinduism and Buddhism in India, monotheism in Israel, and philosophical rationalism in Greece. Later generations further developed these initial insights, but we have never grown beyond them. Rabbinic Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, for example, were all secondary flowerings of the original Israelite vision. Now, (...) in The Great Transformation , Karen Armstrong reveals how the sages of this pivotal “Axial Age” can speak clearly and helpfully to the violence and desperation that we experience in our own times. Armstrong traces the development of the Axial Age chronologically, examining the contributions of such figures as the Buddha, Socrates, Confucius, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, the mystics of the Upanishads, Mencius, and Euripides. All of the Axial Age faiths began in principled and visceral recoil from the unprecedented violence of their time. Despite some differences of emphasis, there was a remarkable consensus in their call for an abandonment of selfishness and a spirituality of compassion. With regard to dealing with fear, despair, hatred, rage, and violence, the Axial sages gave their people and give us, Armstrong says, two important pieces of advice: first there must be personal responsibility and self-criticism, and it must be followed by practical, effective action. In her introduction and concluding chapter, Armstrong urges us to consider how these spiritualities challenge the way we are religious today. In our various institutions, we sometimes seem to be attempting to create exactly the kind of religion that Axial sages and prophets had hoped to eliminate. We often equate faith with doctrinal conformity, but the traditions of the Axial Age were not about dogma. All insisted on the primacy of compassion even in the midst of suffering. In each Axial Age case, a disciplined revulsion from violence and hatred proved to be the major catalyst of spiritual change. (shrink)

_A Communion of Subjects_ is the first comparative and interdisciplinary study of the conceptualization of animals in world religions. Scholars from a wide range of disciplines, including Thomas Berry (cultural history), Wendy Doniger (study of myth), Elizabeth Lawrence (veterinary medicine, ritual studies), Marc Bekoff (cognitive ethology), Marc Hauser (behavioral science), Steven Wise (animals and law), Peter Singer (animals and ethics), and Jane Goodall (primatology) consider how major religious traditions have incorporated animals into their belief systems, myths, rituals, and art. Their (...) findings offer profound insights into humans' relationships with animals and a deeper understanding of the social and ecological web in which we all live. Contributors examine Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Daoism, Confucianism, African religions, traditions from ancient Egypt and early China, and Native American, indigenous Tibetan, and Australian Aboriginal traditions, among others. They explore issues such as animal consciousness, suffering, sacrifice, and stewardship in innovative methodological ways. They also address contemporary challenges relating to law, biotechnology, social justice, and the environment. By grappling with the nature and ideological features of various religious views, the contributors cast religious teachings and practices in a new light. They reveal how we either intentionally or inadvertently marginalize "others," whether they are human or otherwise, reflecting on the ways in which we assign value to living beings. Though it is an ancient concern, the topic of "Religion and Animals" has yet to be systematically studied by modern scholars. This groundbreaking collection takes the first steps toward a meaningful analysis. (shrink)

İsrā’iliyyat which is the narration material passed on to Islam from other religions and cultures, primarily Judaism and Christianity has been one of the topics discussed especially within the frame of tafsir discipline throughout the fourteen centuries of Islamic history. While these narrations were used as one of the sources of information without being subjected to a normative evaluation in the early day tafsirs, they have been started to be criticized emphasizing mainly on the weakness of their imputation in (...) the classical tafsirs. When it was reached to the modern era, with the effect of movements of thoughts such as Western originated positivism, rationalism, and historical criticism, and orientalist allegations. İsrā’iliyyat has been criticized rather content-wise, reviewed as unreal, imaginary, mythological story-type narrations mixed with superstitions. As a result of these criticisms, both a distance has been kept from İsrā’iliyyat and also alternatives to it have been pursued. Although in the modern-day tafsirs, it has been consulted to the Bible as the strongest alternative to İsrā’iliyyat, this situation has made way for many debates, and it has dwelled on other alternatives than that. These points mentioned are valid for Tunisian scholar Tāhir İbn ʿĀshūr’s (1879-1973) tafsir named al-Tahrīr wa’t-Tanwīr, too. An important feature of this tafsir is that although it has been looked kindly upon İsrā’ili narrations within the frame of certain criteria, it has been criticized in general. The writer has developed alternatives to İsrā’ili narrations without complimenting them as much as possible. Among these alternatives, while he prioritized the Bible narrations, he didn’t settle for this and he headed for other alternatives, too. In this study, it has been emphasized on methods of text-centered commentary, socio-psychologic commentary, and foresight-based commentary, which İbn ʿĀshūr used as an alternative to İsrā’iliyyat from time to time. It has been seen that the writer developed stronger and farther-from-a-debate-ground methods compared to İsrā’iliyyat and used these methods successfully in this way. It has come to the conclusion that in the case of these methods being used in Qura’ân parables accurately, they can be an important alternative to İsrā’iliyyat. (shrink)

The collected volume Jewish Veganism and Vegetarianism: Studies and New Directions aspires to explore the growing phenomenon of Jews adopting a meat-free way of life from different perspectives and disciplines. Despite a number of standout contributions, it does little to advance scholarship in the field. The present review first discusses the various articles included in the volume and then reflects on the problematic editorial approach that hinders its enormous scholarly potential.

Salvation is the objective of every religious tradition. Christian tradition claims Jesus as the particular redeemer, as he is viewed as the only one who reveals God, truly and fully. Thus, Jesus can be seen as the only way to Salvation. The question then arises, what about other people who do not follow Jesus, instead they follow prophet Muhammad or some other religious figures whom they believe that God has sent to save them? How then, the relationship between Christianity and (...) other religions? By the study on Isaiah, this article is an interreligious conversation on the problem of salvation both in Christianity and Islam. One of the theological points of Isaiah is salvation, and it is also the Christian message. Isaiah is analysed from a hermeneutical approach and then the Qur’anic perspective is presented in conversation with Isaiah. Contribution: This article speaks for multidiscipline, inter-discipline and transdisciplinary approaches of religious studies in the global theological field. From a multidisciplinary theological perspective, it reflects on the textual and hermeneutical studies within the Abrahamic religions as revealed in the Judaistic scriptures, the Old and New Testament, and the Qur’an. (shrink)

This article traces the beginnings of critical Qur'anic Studies to the nineteenth-century scholars of the so-called Science of Judaism school. Until the 1930s, when the rise of the Nazis violently suppressed Jewish scholarly activities in Germany and elsewhere, generations of scholars such as Abraham Geiger, who is better known as an early leader of the Jewish Reform Movement, dedicated their lives to the study of the Qur'an and established a new discipline: Qur'anic Studies. These scholars, in many ways pioneers (...) in their fields, authored a series of significant studies that contextualized the foundational documents of Islam with Rabbinic literature and were the first to undertake an unbiased study of early Islamic writings. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Why Philosophy Matters for the Study of Religion—and Vice Versa by Thomas A. LewisAndrew ForsythWhy Philosophy Matters for the Study of Religion—and Vice Versa Thomas A. Lewis OXFORD: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2015. 177 PP. $34.95Thomas Lewis's emphasis in Why Philosophy Matters for the Study of Religion—and Vice Versa is chiefly the "Vice Versa" of his book's title. Philosophy of religion (untenably tied to Christianity and Judaism, he (...) claims, and unduly limited to well-worn questions of theism's rationality and the like) must learn from the field of religious studies, and most particularly from its pluralism and twenty-first-century attention to the historical and cultural construction of the category of "religion." Philosophers of religion fail today if they treat as self-evident the building blocks of their discipline.In a series of essays, Lewis diagnoses the malaise, ably sketches "promising signs" of a different paradigm, and prods the discipline to "belong more clearly in religious studies" (vii). More specifically, he treats normativity in religious studies; the place of history (and the history of "religion") in philosophy of religion; the centrality of comparison in religious ethics and philosophy of religion; and the proper—self-conscious—use of categories in the study of religion. Taken one by one, Lewis's essays are elegant and thought-provoking. "On the Role of Normativity in Religious Studies," for example, merits inclusion in any Theories and Methods syllabus, teasing out, as it does, problematic presuppositions that only theology makes normative claims, and that "faith" is juxtaposed with "reason."Taken as a whole, however, Lewis's book will trouble Christian ethicists committed to conversation with religious studies. To begin, philosophy of religion most often "matters," in Lewis's telling, when it clarifies current trajectories of scholarship in religious studies. As a result, the organizing disciplinary presuppositions of religious studies go mostly unchallenged. Second, in Lewis's telling, religious studies becomes a surprisingly narrow enterprise. While the whole sweep of "religious thought, people, movements, practices, materials, etc." (7) is the apparent purview of religious studies, the golden thread running through Lewis's various essay interventions is scholarship on "religion" as a constructed, nonnatural category. This has been a generative pursuit for two decades, but scholarly concern for "religion" risks becoming tediously in-house, despite Lewis's fine articulation of the negative public policy ramifications of simplistic alternatives. No doubt Lewis uses the category of "religion" as just one example of potential work in religious studies, but the example's ubiquity in [End Page 209] the book flows from Lewis's vision of the field: religious studies shares the same kinds of evidence as those used throughout the humanities and social sciences, and excludes work reliant on unassailable authorities (scriptures, traditions) or private forms of justification (experience). Neither tracking a particular natural phenomenon, then, nor employing its own particular methods, discourse on the use of the category of "religion" becomes ever more central.Finally, the relationship between what might be called Lewis's "broader" and "narrower" visions of philosophy of religion is left somewhat unclear. Lewis's broader position is inclusive of positions he does not hold but that are not excluded by his understanding of the boundaries of the field. His narrower position is a take on Hegel, its details outlined in the concluding essay. Hegel's thought, Lewis tells us, offers the greatest potential for "simultaneously acknowledging the historical situatedness of our own viewpoint, exposing the hidden operation of power, and providing a rational justification for our normative commitments" (159–60). While Lewis's impulse throughout Why Philosophy Matters is for wider, broader work in philosophy of religion, his narrower Hegelian vision of the field, it turns out, has no place for "extra-conceptual grounding, whether in empiricist or transcendent accounts" (156). Are only Hegelian and pragmatist accounts sufficient? Philosophers must make a case for what they think is true, of course, but there is still some irony that a work that helpfully seeks to expand philosophy of religion beyond the "parochial" (23, 28) ends by excluding so much.Andrew ForsythYale UniversityCopyright © 2017 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

'The Philosophy of Forgiveness, Volume III: Forgiveness in World Religions' is a collection of essays that explores the philosophy of forgiveness in different religions, including Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism. Each chapter scours one of these religions for insights on the concept of forgiveness, asking questions such as whether forgiveness is a virtue, whether it is conditional, whether God has standing to forgive, and whether it is permissible not to forgive some extreme wrongs. In some of the (...) chapters, the concept of forgiveness in one religion is compared with that in another. In other chapters, the ideas of different traditions within a religion are compared and contrasted. Also, some chapters compare a religious concept to the views of a philosophical figure, such as Aristotle, Kant, or Derrida. The contributors to the volume come from various cultural and religious backgrounds and from different disciplines, such as philosophy, religious studies, and psychology. The collection is written for scholars, graduate students, and upper-division undergraduate students interested in forgiveness or comparative religious philosophy. (shrink)

Hasidism is a religious-mystical trend in Judaism that arose in the first half of the eighteenth century. among the Jewish population of Volyn, Podillya and Galicia. The emergence of a new movement in the Orthodox Jewish religion was driven by changes in the socio-economic and political status of Ukrainian Jews during that period. Cossack uprising under the leadership of B. Khmelnitsky 1648 - 1654, Gaidamachchyna and other national disturbances of the XVII - XVIII centuries. greatly undermined the well-being of (...) the Jewish population, led to a deepening of property and social stratification within communities, a weakening of intra-community discipline, a decline in the authority of religion and the prestige of rabbinic science. In Volyn, Podillya and Galicia, most affected by hostilities, the overall cultural level of the people is significantly reduced, Talmudic science is declining, and schools are being closed. (shrink)

The book reconstructs the history of Western ethics. The approach chosen focuses the endless dialectic of moral codes, or different kinds of ethos, moral doctrines that are preached in order to bring about a reform of existing ethos, and ethical theories that have taken shape in the context of controversies about the ethos and moral doctrines as means of justifying or reforming moral doctrines. Such dialectic is what is meant here by the phrase ‘moral traditions’, taken as a name for (...) threads of moral discourse, made in turn of other interwoven threads, including transmission of shared codes, appeals to reform of prevailing custom, rational argument about the justification of some precept on the basis of some shared general teaching or principle, and rational argument about the ultimate basis for principles and justification of authoritative teaching. That is, the approach adopted to the reading of ethical texts depends on a firm belief in the fact that philosophers hardly created any ethical doctrine out of nothing. The main point this book tries to highlight is how different philosophical theories emerged and followed each other as a result of attempts at accounting for what was going on in the world of moral traditions. Changes were propelled by controversies between different schools, and highly abstract arguments were the unintended effects of moves made by controversialists forced to transform (and occasionally to turn upside down) their own doctrines in order to face the challenge posed by other arguments. This is the reason why the book examines not only texts that already enjoy pride of place in the history of philosophy (Aristotle, Kant, Hegel), but also other texts usually treated in the histories of religions (the Bible, the Talmud, the Quran), and others considered to be much less philosophical (Plutarchus, Pufendorf). -/- 1. Plato and a response to ethical scepticism. Two different traditions of morality in VI-V century Greece are described. The birth of philosophical questioning of traditional morality and temporal and spatial variation of custom is described within the context of the v century crisis, the demise of traditional aristocratic and tyrannical rule and the birth of democracy. Two conflicting answers to the challenge are reconstructed, namely conventionalist or immoralist theories formulated by the Sophists and the eudemonist and intellectualist Socratic theory. Plato’s own reformulation of Socrates answer to the Sophists is reconstructed. His psychological views, his classification of the four cardinal virtues and his political theory are described as parts of a unitary system, culminating in an extremely realist moral ontology identifying the idea of the good with the essence of the (moral and extra-moral) world itself. -/- 2. Aristotle and the invention of practical philosophy. Aristotle’s invention of practical philosophy as a field separated from first philosophy is shown to be an implication of his break with Plato moral ultra-realism. Aristotle’s agenda in his moral works is arguably dependent on a polemical intention, namely dismantling Socratic intellectualism. The semi-inductive or virtuously circular method of practical philosophy is illustrated, starting with the received opinions of the better and wiser individuals and trying dialectically to sift what is left of mistake and inconsistence in such opinions, finally trying to correct mistakes and make the overall practical science more consistent. The chapter illustrates then the relationship of individual ethics, or ‘monastics’, with the art and the science of the pater familias, or ‘economics’, and the science of the ruler and citizen, or politics. The nature of virtues, or better, excellences of character, is discussed, highlighting the basic role of hexis, or ‘disposition’. Prudence, or better practical wisdom, is the focus of the chapter. Its relationship with bouleusis or deliberation is examined, and its autonomous status vis-à-vis theoretical knowledge is stressed. -/- 3. Diogenes and philosophy as a way of life. The chapter provides an overview of Hellenistic ethics, which almost amounts to Hellenistic schools of philosophy, in so far as ‘philosophy’ became in these centuries primarily the name for a way of life. The typical character of the Cynical movement is highlighted, that of a school of life, not a school aimed at providing any kind of intellectual training was to be provided. -/- 4. Epicurus and ethics as self-care. The peculiar character of the Epicurean school is described, a combination of a science of well-being aiming, more than at pleasure as in the popular view, at reduction of useless suffering, of unnecessary needs, and at a balanced selection of pleasures of the best and most durable kind. -/- 5. Epictetus and ethics as therapy of the passions. The various phases of Stoicism are described, and the shifting place given to ethics in the Stoic system of idea, culminating in the paradoxical view of ethics, its impossibility in principle notwithstanding, as the only truly significant and necessary part of philosophy. Cicero is treated, showing how his own synthesis of various Hellenistic trends is as a truly philosophical enterprise, deserving serious consideration after one or two centuries when he was confined to the role of literate. Epictetus is chosen as the best example of what the Stoic tradition could yield, an art of living based on sophisticated introspection, in turn aimed at making a kind of cognitive therapy possible, dismantling obnoxious passions at their root by systematically correcting false representations. -/- 6. Philo and the reconciliation of Torah and Platonism. A reconstruction of basic ideas from a few books of the Hebrew Bible is provided, starting with the Prophetic tradition and the focus on God’s mercy as the source of motivation and standard for human behaviour. Then a comparative analysis is undertaken of a parallel tradition, namely the three codifications of the Torā (Law or, better, Instruction), highlighting how a core of moral ideas may be recognized as a basis and preamble of codification of civil law, cultural practice, and regulation of ritual purity. The importance of Leviticus is stressed as the turning point when emphasis mercy, typical of the Prophetic tradition, is combined with the legal tradition, yielding the change in sensibility of the Second Temple time. Philo of Alexandria is described as one of the three leading figures – together with Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Yeshua – at the apex the emergence of the mentioned new sensibility, gradually including mercy as an essential part of justice and establishing the starting point of both the Rabbinic and the Christian tradition. This consists precisely in the precept of one’s neighbour’s love or of the golden rule, two eventually identical precepts whose meaning is arguably more sober and sensible than the long-lasting Christian tradition deriving from John and Augustine has made us believe and no novelty vis-à-vis so-called Ancient-Testament teachings. -/- 7. Augustine and Christianity as Neo-Platonism. The first section examines the moral doctrines of so-called 'ethical Treaties' from the Talmud, a group of treaties, among which the best known is Pirqé Avot, that were left out of the six "orders" of the canon as they did not fit in any of the six groups of issues ritual or legal on which the division was based. According to Maimonides, their peculiar theme is provided by the Deòt, 'opinions', i.e., mental dispositions, that is, the translation of the Greek term hexeis and Arab akhlak (in turn providing in this language the name for ethics as such). The three topics I reconstruct are: i) the notion of Torah: The Torah is understood as the world order itself, or as the ‘Wisdom’ that existed even before creation and was ‘the tool by which the world was built’; however, the Torah is an earthly and human entity, as it was "received" by humans, and from that very moment belongs to them; ii) the relationship between love of God and love of neighbour; the treaties require us to study and practice the Torah ‘for its own sake’, that is, require us to act out of love, not out of fear or hope of reward; iii) the idea of sanctification of daily life: having disappeared with the destruction of the Temple the possibility of any conflict between liturgical service and everyday life, the latter is assumed to be in itself divine service: to give food to the poor has the same value as sacrifices in the Temple, and as an implication, the insistence become recurrent on the goodness of created things in themselves along with a polemic against ascetic currents. The conclusions drawn are: i) the moral teachings of the Talmud and those of Yeshua are, rather than similar, virtually identical; one may safely say that the precept of love and the golden rule are central ones for all Talmudic rabbis, that mercy plays an indispensable role alongside with justice, and the latter is not a different thing from one’s neighbour’s love; ii) a peculiarity of Talmud rabbis facing Yeshua is the idea of study as worship, and knowledge as a source of justice; but this is an idea of Judaism after the Temple's destruction that cannot be attributed to the Pharisees of Yeshua’s time; iii) the relation of study and practice in the Talmud parallels that between faith and deeds in Paul's epistles, that is, respectively faith or learning are a necessary and sufficient condition to be recognized as righteous , but deeds are the inevitable effect of either faith or learning. The sayings ascribed to Yeshua are examined first, yielding the conclusion that a close equivalent may be found for every saying in Talmudic literature and yet the whole is ascribed to one rabbi, with rather consistent stress on God’s mercy and unconditional forgiving as the mark of true imitation of God. Thus, Yeshua’s teaching is pure Judaism. The third section describes briefly the galaxy of Gnostic currents and Manichaeism, trying to sketch the profile of moral teachings resulting from an encounter of Asian spiritual traditions, Hellenistic lore and sparks of teachings from apocalyptic Jewish currents. The last section summarizes the turbulent history of several encounters between Christian currents and Hellenistic philosophical schools. The first one was with late Cynicism. Recent, rather controversial, literature discovered the jargon and a few topics from the Stoic-Cynical popular philosophy in a few books from the New Testament itself. This, far from proving that Rabbi Yeshua had been influenced by cynic preachers, is a proof of the necessity felt by Christian preachers to translate the original ‘Christian’ teaching into a Greek lexicon deeply impregnated with cynic terminology. The second was with Platonism, yielding the mild and temperate moral teaching of Clemens of Alexandria, teaching the sanctity of nature and the human body, the joy of moderate fruition of ‘natural’ kinds of pleasures, and the beauty of the marital life – in short, the opposite of the standard picture of Medieval Christianity. Ambrose of Milan brings about a different kind of synthesis, namely with Middle Platonism, where Stoic themes prevail. The most shocking case is Augustine, where an early Manichean education is overcome in a former phase by a synthesis of Plotinian Neo-Platonism and Christian preaching, yielding a sustained polemic with the Manicheans and rather optimistic views on life and Creation, the body and sexuality, and Hebrew-Judaic tradition not far from Clemens of Alexandria. In a later phase, occasioned by controversy on the opposite front, with such Christian currents as the Pelagians and Donatists, Augustine comes back to heavily anti-Judaic and world-denying ascetic attitudes where is earlier Manichean upbringing seems to emerge again. The tragedy of medieval Christianity will be the later Augustine’s overwhelming influence. A final section is dedicated to the monastic tradition where a curious mixture of world-denying asceticism with an astonishingly penetrating ‘science’ of introspection emerges. -/- 8. Al Farabi and the reconciliation of Islam and Platonism. The Qurān and the qadit, that is, collections of sayings ascribed to the prophet Muhammad contain a wealth of precepts and catalogues of virtues mirroring moral contents from the Jewish and the Christian traditions, among them the basic notion of imitation of the Deity, where mercy is assumed to be its basic trait. An important tradition within Islam, namely Sufism, stressed to the utmost degree the role of mercy, turning Islam into a mystic doctrine centred on retreat from the world, abandonment to God’s will, and a peaceful and fraternal attitude to our fellow-beings. A secular literary tradition originating in the Sassanid Empire, the literature of advice to the Prince had for a time a widespread influence in the newly constituted Arabic-Islamic commonwealth. In a later phase, the legacy of Hellenic philosophy made its way into the intellectual elite of the Islamic world. The first important legacy was Platonic, and the Republic became the main text for Islamic Platonism. Al-Farabi wrote an enjoyable remake of the Platonic Republic, arguing that the citizen’s virtues were the basis on which the political building needs to rest. The secular lawgiver is enlightened by the light of reason in his everyday practice of governance, but room is made for the Prophet as the voice of revealed truth that confirms and completes the rational truth that philosophy may afford. In a second phase also Aristotelian and Stoic influence were assimilated. Miskawayh’s treatise was the masterwork at the time Arabic philosophy reached its Zenith. It is a treatment of the soul’s diseases and their remedies, combining the Aristotelian doctrine of the golden mean with the Stoic doctrine of the passions and elements of Galenic medicine. Towards the eleventh-twelve centuries a war raged among theologians and philosophers, finally won by the former with disappearance of philosophy as such. The newly established mainstream, yet, was no kind of intolerant fanaticism. It drew from the work of mystic theologian Al-Ghazālī, the best heir of Sufism, teaching a tolerant and peaceful attitude to our fellow-beings and a passive attitude to destiny as an expression of the Divine will. -/- 9. Moshe ben Maimon and the reconciliation of Torah and Aristotelian ethics. The encounter between the Talmudic tradition and Hellenic philosophy had taken place a first time in Alexandria at the time of Philo but the two traditions had parted way again. In fact, the kind of Platonic Judaism founded by Philo survived only within Christianity, in the fourth Gospel and then in writings by Clemens of Alexandria. The Talmudic literature had absorbed just less striking traits from the Hellenic Philosophy, namely an idea of ethics as care of the self and a role for the education of character as propaedeutic to theoretical knowledge. In the Arabic-Islamic world, a second round started when Jewish authors writing in Arabic undertook the task to prove the full compatibility of the tradition deriving from Torah and Platonic philosophy. The culmination of this attempt is provided by Moshe ben Maimon who tried to use Aristotelian ethics as a language into which the teaching from the Pirké Avot could be translated. -/- 10. Thomas Aquinas and the reconciliation of Christian morality and Aristotelian ethics. In the first section the fresh start is described of philosophical ethics in Latin Europe at the turn of the Millennium. In a first phase, Anselm and Peter Abelard built on a Platonic and Augustinian legacy. In this phase. remarkable innovations are introduced, including Abelard’s claim of the obliging character of erring consciousness. In a second phase, the rediscovery of Nicomachean Ethics thanks to Latin translation of Arabic versions gives birth to a new wave of ethical studies, recovering the very idea of Aristotelian practical philosophy, with the potential implication of full legitimization of natural morality, i.e. ethics without Revelation. Aquinas’s ethics is a theological ethics out of which it would be vain to try to extract a self-contained philosophical ethics. His treatment of topics in philosophical ethics, yet, does not boil down to repetition of Aristotelian arguments but is rather a creative reshaping of such arguments. For example, he introduces also in the practical philosophy a first principle parallel to the principle of non-contradiction; and he also carries out a synthesis of Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and neo-Platonism. Even though it is essentially moral theology, Aquinas’s doctrine - unlike Augustine – grants full citizenship to "natural" morality, firstly by rejecting the claim that the corruption of human nature due to the original sin is so radical as to leave "pure nature" incapable of moral goodness. The doctrine is presented in a more sophisticated formulation in a few of the Quaestiones, such as De Malo and De Veritate, in the Summa contra Gentes and in the commentaries to Aristotle than in the famous Summa Theologica, but the latter work includes the only or the largest exposition of some decisive part of the theory. Thus, the Summa Theologica should be read for what it is more than criticized for not being what it was not meant to be. It was not meant to be the brilliant synthesis of all that Reason he had been able to produce with what Revelation had added about which the Neo-Thomists used to dream, but rather a manual for the training of preachers and confessors, where theoretical claims are not too demanding and a few serious tensions are left. Besides a jump between the Prima Secundae and the Secunda Secundae, being the former an essay in virtue theory and the latter a handbook for confessors, the most serious tension is perhaps the one between the ethics of right reason presented in most of Ia-IIae and the eudemonistic ethics developed in quaestiones 1-5 of the same part; the alternative ethical theory which also may be found in Augustine, the Stoic view of a cosmic reason eventually coincident with the moral law, was believed by Anselm (followed by John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham) to be incompatible with eudemonism. It is questionable whether Thomas could reduce the tension proving that it is just an apparent tension, in so far as the right reason and bliss derived from knowledge of God tend to coincide, but this is just a conjecture. Thomas’s ethics is a virtue ethic, not a law-based one, and moral judgment focuses on the virtues, particularly charity, not on the commandments and even less on absolute prohibitions; Thomas, however, would not have considered a drastic alternative between law and the virtues such as the one which has been advanced in late twentieth-century philosophy to be justified. Nonetheless, when it discusses ‘special’ virtues, it ceases to be an ethics of virtue and becomes a disappointing and often contradictory discussion of legal and illegal acts. Such a discussion takes most of the time ‘reasonable’ middle positions on controversial issues but not the alternative approach that Aristotelianism would have made possible; even when some occasional Aristotelian claim shows up, such as money’s barrenness as a reason against usury, this seems to be made by an author who apparently ignores the Aristotelian Thomas of the Prima Secundae. It is an ethic of human autonomy which recognizes the binding character of the individual conscience and, potentially, even a duty to disobey unjust laws. It is true that what Thomas writes in his discussion of death penalty and persecution of heretics is simply disgusting, and yet we should blame Thomas the man, not Thomist ethical theory. Finally, Thomas’s ethics is not ethical ‘absolutism’, as both traditionalist Catholic theologians and secularist enemies of dogmatic morality tend to believe. It is instead an ethic of prudential judgment. Exceptions to this approach – or better results of logical fallacies – are such claims as the absolute character of negative precepts and of the existence of "intrinsically evil acts", claims that simply cease to make sense in the light of Thomas’s own distinction between human act and natural act, carrying consequences Thomas did not live long enough to draw or was not consistent enough to dare to draw. -/- 11. Francisco de Vitoria and casuistry. The first topic illustrated is the discussion about the notion of pura natura, namely the human condition after the original sin and before divine revelation. The core notion was already there in Aquinas but was later developed by Caietanus (Thomas de Vio) with a number of interesting implications: firstly a view of human nature as such much more positive than Augustine’s and his followers’ view, including both Calvinists and Jansenists; secondly, the implication that the philosopher’s morality, as opposed to the Christian’s morality, is a quite respectable kind of morality; thirdly, that theocracy and prosecution of the unfaithful lacked justification, with more far-fetching consequences than Aquinas himself had dared to draw. The second topic is casuistry, a new name for a comparatively older way of thinking, which was already there in late Stoicism and Cicero as well as in the Talmudic literature. This is an approach aimed at yielding probable enough solutions for doubtful cases even in absence of completely safe staring points. The genre developed from medieval reference books for confessors and became by the sixteenth-century a sophisticated tool-box for dealing with various fields of applied ethics. Francisco Vitoria, the main authority of Baroque Scholasticism, was a controversial figure, among the proponents of the new discipline of casuistry and a consistent proponent of more separation between the religious and the civil authority, stricter limits to the legitimacy of war, innate rights of non-Christian nations in the New World based on the notion of pura natura, providing a standard of ‘natural’ goodness, previous to revelation, on which the Indian nations were judged to live in a naturally good condition, provided with the institutions of family, justice, and religion had accordingly a right to full respect by Christian sovereigns. Bartolomé de Las Casas, arguing along similar lines, was the leader of a historical battle in defence of the rights of the Indios. -/- 12. Michel de Montaigne and the art of living. A short description of one of the Renaissance Phyrronism, one of the classical philosophies revived in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Montaigne combines the sceptical epistemology with an understanding of ethics – indeed of philosophy as a whole – in terms of an art of living inspired by two basic ideas, sagesse, that is, practical wisdom as the only kind of rationality available after theology, science, and tradition have declared bankrupt, and an aesthetic ideal of self-transformation through the art of writing and introspection. -/- 13. Pierre Nicole and neo-Augustinianism. The chapter illustrates first the vicissitudes of Augustinianism newly born after the late medieval triumph of Thomist Aristotelianism in the alternative Protestant and Catholic versions processed by the Calvinists and the Jansenists. Then it illustrates the doctrines of Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal’s best disciple, on the impossibility of introspection, on the ubiquity of self-deception, on the incurably evil character of the passion of love, and on the two moralities, the one of the man of the world, the morality of honesty which is indispensable for granting peace and order but devoid of any true value for eternal salvation, since the same external behaviour may be prompted by opposite motivations, and the morality of charity, the only true one but also useless to society. The third topic is Pierre Malebranche’s view of self-deception as a ubiquitous phenomenon accounting for human action and responsibility and his reformulated theory of self-love, no less ubiquitous than for Nicole and yet not as incurably evil, given the distinction between morally indifferent and even necessary amour de soi and vicious amour proper, a distinction on which the whole of Rousseau’s moral and political theory rests. -/- 14. Samuel von Pufendorf and the new science of morality. The chapter is dedicated to the discovery of the idea of a ‘new moral science’. Hugo Grotius is discussed first highlighting the real character of his project, much closer to the Thomist idea of a natural law accessible to non-corrupted human reason when human beings are living in a state of pura natura. Then Hobbes’s combination of scepticism, voluntarism, and conventionalism is described and both the continuity with Grotius’s new science, in the search for non-revealed rational morality, and the break with him, in the adoption of voluntarism and refusal of an intellectualist view of natural law, are illustrated. Pufendorf’s work is illustrated as a synthesis of the two previous attempts and the – up to Schneewind underestimated – paradigmatic example of the new science of morality. -/- 15. Richard Cumberland and consequentialist voluntarism. The chapter gives an overview of eighteenth-century Anglican ethics, noticing how the Cambridge tradition gave special weight to natural theology as opposed to positive or revealed theology – and how two Cambridge fellows, John Gay and Thomas Brown, elaborated on Cumberland’s (and Malebranche’s, as well as Leibniz’s) strategy for finding a third way between intellectualist view and voluntarist view of the laws of nature. The result of their elaboration was a kind of a rational-choice account of the origins of natural laws, where a law-giver God chooses among a number possible sets of laws on a maximizing criterion, and God’s maximandum is happiness for his creatures. The chapter notices also how such a solution aimed at solving at once the problem of evil and that of the foundation of moral obligation by proving how God’s choice was justified as far as it was the one minimising the amount of suffering in the world. 16. Richard Price and intuitionism. The chapter describes first the doctrines of the Cambridge Platonists, an example of hyper-rationalist reaction to Calvinism. Secondly it describes the sophisticated and universally ignored – from Sidgwick to Anscombe –version of what was later labelled ‘ethical intuitionism’ – showing how it escapes familiar objections and misrepresentations of intuitionism – from Mill to Rawls – in grounding its argument on transcendental arguments while carefully avoiding recourse to introspection and psychological evidence, which has been taken as a too easy target by critics of intuitionism. Thirdly, the chapter discusses Whewell’s ‘philosophy of morality’, as opposed to ‘systematic morality’, not unlike Kant’s distinction between a pure and an empirical moral philosophy. Whewell worked out a systematization of traditional normative ethics as a first step before its rational justification; he believed that the point in the philosophy of morality is justifying a few rational truths about the structure of morality such as to rule hedonism, eudemonism, and consequentialism; yet a system of positive morality cannot be derived solely from such rational truths but requires consideration of the ongoing dialectics between idea and fact in historically given moralities. Whewell’s intuitionism turns out closer to Kantian ethics than commentators have made us believe until now, and quite different from what Sidgwick meant by intuitionism. -/- 17. Adam Smith and the morality of role-switch. The chapter describes first, Hutcheson’s attempt at basing the ‘new science’ of natural law on different bedrock than Pufendorf and the English Platonists, namely a moral sense, a faculty whose existence is assumed to be proved on an empirical basis. The second step is a reconstruction of Hume’s rejoinder in terms of a new science of man including morality on an ‘experimental’ basis, that is, a ‘Newtonian’ hypothetical-deductive approach, distinguished from Hutcheson’s allegedly uncritical descriptive approach to human nature. The third step is a reconstruction of Adam Smith theory of morality understood as emerging from a spontaneous interplay of exchanges of situations (the most basic meaning of the word ‘sympathy’ as construed by this author). -/- 18. Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism. The bulk of the chapter is dedicated to the doctrines of Jeremy Bentham. The Enlightenment spirit that suggested the idea of a new morality, free from religion, is illustrated. The notion of utility is illustrated as well as the subsequent formulations of the principle of utility. The idea of felicific calculus is discussed, showing how its inner difficulties prompted several reformulations of the principle of utility in order to avoid undesirable implications of proposed formulations. The role of the thesis of spontaneous convergence between interest and duty is discussed, showing how it left numberless questions open, and the distinction between the virtues of prudence, justice and beneficence is described as a way out of the deadlocks of classical utilitarianism. After Bentham, Mill’s reformed utilitarianism is reconstructed, showing how it is a kind of mixed system – as closer to common sense as it gives up Bentham’s claims to consistency and simplicity – resulting as unintended consequences from the controversies in which Mill was too keen to engage. The hidden agenda of the controversy between Utilitarianism and Intuitionism, going beyond the image of the battle between Prejudice and Reason, is described, showing how both competing philosophical outlooks turn out to be more research programs than self-contained doctrinal bodies, and such programs appear to be implemented, and indeed radically transformed while in progress thanks to their enemies no less than to their supporters. -/- 19. Immanuel Kant, practical reason and judgment. The chapter argues that Kant took from Moses Mendelssohn the idea of a distinction between geometry of morals and a practical ethic. He was drastically misunderstood by his followers precisely on this point. He had learned from the sceptics and the Jansenists the lesson that men are prompted to act by deceptive ends, and he was aware that human actions are also empirical phenomena, where laws like the laws of Nature may be detected. His practical ethics made room for judgment as a holistic procedure for assessing the saliency of relevant moral qualities in one given situation; this procedure yields the same results as the geometry of morals does for abstract cases but does so immediately and without balancing conflicting duties with each other, since what makes for the salient quality of a situation is perceived from the very beginning. Kant's practical philosophy is richer than the received image, making room for an ‘empirical moral philosophy’ or moral anthropology including treatment of commerce, needs, value and price, happiness and well-being; the overall social theory and philosophy of history is less different from Adam Smith's than the received image makes believe; the paradox of happiness is central to Kant's philosophy; a distinction between happiness and well-being is clearly drawn; the distinction plays a basic role in establishing a link between the economic and the moral life. -/- 20. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the critique of abstract universalism. The chapter describes first the Romantic movement and the implications some of its concerns, rescuing passions, community, tradition, the individual as the bearer of a unique destiny, and the longing for organic unity between the individual, mankind and nature. Hegel’s contribution is discussed then, highlighting how, on the one hand, he shared a number of these concerns and on the other he had more rationalist leanings. The notion of morality is the pivotal point of the reconstruction, highlighting how Hegel construes this notion as a key to his own diagnosis of the malaise of modernity – the separation of individual and Gemeinschaft – and how his attack on Kant turns around this very idea. -/- 21. Friedrich Nietzsche against Christianity and the Enlightenment. The chapter illustrates first the idea of deconstruction of the back-world of values. Nietzsche claims to be legitimate heir of the French moralists, Leibniz, Kant and Hegel, in so far as he allegedly carries out to its deepest implications their discovery of what lies behind traditional naïve belief in the existence of an objective realm of values just waiting for description by the philosopher. The two exemplars form which genealogy draws inspiration are the classical philologist’s historical reconstructions of lost meanings and the chemist’s decomposition of elements. Then the genealogy of the notions of good and evil carried out in the first dissertation of Genealogy of morals is illustrated with its paradoxical conclusion that will to power is in fact the only ‘genuine’ kind of goodness. The third point illustrated is the dialectic of ascetism and self-realization with its ambiguous outcome. The suggested interpretation of such outcome is that Nietzsche’s normative ethics is a kind of virtue ethics taking an aesthetic ideal as a normative standard -/- 22. George Edward Moore and ideal utilitarianism. The chapter discusses the ideas of common sense and common-sense morality in Sidgwick. I argue that, far from aiming at overcoming common-sense morality, Sidgwick aimed purposely at grounding a consist code of morality by methods allegedly taken from the natural sciences to reach, also in ethics, the same kind of “mature” knowledge as in the natural sciences. His whole polemics with intuitionism was vitiated by the a priori assumption that the widespread ethos of the educated part of humankind, not the theories of the intuitionist philosophers, was what was worth considering as the expression of intuitionist ethics. In spite of a naïve positivist starting-point, Sidgwick was encouraged by his own approach in exploring the fruitfulness of coherentist methods for normative ethics. Thus, Sidgwick left an ambivalent legacy to twentieth-century ethics: the dogmatic idea of a “new” morality of a consequentialist kind, and the fruitful idea that we can argue rationally in normative ethics albeit without shared foundations. Then it reconstructs the background of ideas, concerns and intentions out of which Moore’s early essays, the preliminary version, and then the final version of Principia Ethica originated. I stress the role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. I argue that PE is more a patchwork of rather diverging contributions than a unitary work, not to say the paradigm of a new school in Ethics. I add a comparison with Rashdall’s almost contemporary ethical work, suggesting that the latter defends the same general claims in a different way, one that manages to pave decisive objections in a more plausible way. I end by suggesting that the emergence of Analytic Ethics was a more ambiguous phenomenon than the received view would make us believe, and that the wheat (or some other gluten-free grain) of this tradition, that is, what logic can do for philosophy, should be separated from the chaff, that is, the confused and mutually incompatible legacies of Utilitarianism and Idealism. -/- 23. Edmund Husserl and the a-priori of action. The chapter illustrates first the idea of phenomenology and the Husserl’s project of a phenomenological ethic as illustrated in his 1908-1914 lectures. The key idea is dismissing psychology and trying to ground a new science of the a priori of action, within which a more restricted field of inquiry will be the science of right actions. Then the chapter illustrates the criticism of modern moral philosophy carried out in the 1920 lectures, where the main target is naturalism, understood in the Kantian meaning of primacy of common sense. The third point illustrate is Adolph Reinach’s theory of social acts as a key the grounding of norms, a view that basically sketches the very ideas ‘discovered’ later by Clarence I. Lewis, John Searle, Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. A final section is dedicated to Nicolai Hartman, who always refused to define himself a phenomenologist and yet developed a more articulated and detailed theory of ‘values’ – with surprising affinities with George E. Moore - than philosophers such as Max Scheler who claimed to Husserl’s legitimate heirs. -/- 24. Bertrand Russell and non-cognitivism. The chapter reconstructs first the discussion after Moore. The naturalistic-fallacy argument was widely accepted but twisted to prove instead that the intuitive character of the definition of ‘good’, its non-cognitive meaning, in a first phase identified with ‘emotive’ meaning. Alfred Julius Ayer is indicated as a typical proponent of such non-cognitivist meta-ethics. More detailed discussion is dedicated to Bertrand Russell’s ethics, a more nuanced and sophisticated doctrine, arguing that non-cognitivism does not condemn morality to arbitrariness and that the project of a rational normative ethics is still possible, heading finally to the justification of a kind of non-hedonist utilitarianism. Stevenson’s theory, another moderate version of emotivism is discussed at some length, showing how the author comes close to the discovery of the role of a pragmatic dimension of language as a basis for ethical argument. Last of all, the discussion from the Forties about Hume’s law is described, mentioning Karl Popper’s argument and Richard Hare’s early non-cognitivist but non-emotivist doctrine named prescriptivism. -/- 25. Elizabeth Anscombe and the revival of virtue ethics. The chapter discusses the three theses defended by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. I argue that: a) her answer to the question "why should I be moral?" requires a solution of the problem of theodicy, and ignores any attempts to save the moral point of view without recourse to divine retribution; b) her notion of divine law is an odd one more neo-Augustinian than Biblical or Scholastic; c) her image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism is the impoverished image manufactured by consequentialist opponents for polemical purposes and that she seems strangely accept it; d) the difficulty of identifying the "relevant descriptions" of acts is not an argument in favour of an ethics of virtue and against consequentialism or Kantian ethics, and indeed the role of judgment in the latter is a response to the difficulties raised by the case of judgment concerning future action. A short look at further developments in the neo-naturalist current is given trough a reconstruction of Philippa Foot’s and Peter Geach’s critiques to the naturalist-fallacy argument and Alasdair MacIntyre’s grand reconstruction of the origins and allegedly unavoidable failure of the Enlightenment project of an autonomous ethic. -/- 26. Richard Hare and neo-Utilitarianism. The chapter addresses the issue of the complex process of self-transformation Utilitarianism underwent after Sidgwick’s and Moore’s fatal criticism and the unexpected Phoenix-like process of rebirth of a doctrine definitely refuted. A glimpse at this uproarious process is given through two examples. The first is Roy Harrod Wittgensteinian transformation of Utilitarianism in pure normative ethics depurated from hedonism as well as from whatsoever theory of the good. This results in preference utilitarianism combined with a ‘Kantian’ version of rule utilitarianism. The second is Richard Hare’s two-level preference utilitarianism where act utilitarianism plays the function of eventual rational justification of moral judgments and rule-utilitarianism that of action-guiding practical device. -/- 27. Hans-Georg Gadamer and rehabilitation of practical philosophy. The post-war rediscovery of ethics by many German thinkers and its culmination in the Sixties in the movement named ‘Rehabilitation of practical philosophy’ is described. Among the actors of such rehabilitation there were a few of Heidegger’s most brilliant disciples, and Hans-Georg Gadamer is chosen as a paradigmatic example. His reading of Aristotle’s lesson I reconstructed, starting with Heidegger’s lesson but then subtly subverting its outcome thanks to the recovery of the central role of the notion of phronesis. -/- 28. Karl-Otto Apel and the revival of Kantian ethics. Parallel to the neo-Aristotelian trend, there was in the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy a Kantian current. This started, instead than the rehabilitation of prudence, with the discovery of the pragmatic dimension of language carried out by Charles Peirce and the Oxford linguistic philosophy. On this basis, Karl-Otto Apel singled out as the decisive proponent of the linguistic and Kantian turn in German-speaking ethics, worked out the performative-contradiction argument while claiming that this was able to provide a new rational and universal basis for normative ethics. An examination of his argument is some detail is offered, followed by a more cursory reconstruction of Jürgen Habermas’s elaboration on Apel’s theory. -/- 29. John Rawls and public ethics as applied ethics. Rawls’s distinction between a “political” and a “metaphysical” approach to one central part of ethical theory, namely the theory of justice, is interpreted as a formulation of the same basic idea at the root of both the principles approach and neo-casuistry, both discussed in the following chapter, namely that it is possible to reach an agreement concerning positive moral judgments even though the discussion is still open – and in Rawls’ view never will be close – on the basic criteria for judgment. -/- 30. Beauchamp and Childress and bioethics as applied ethics. The chapter presents the revolution of applied ethics while stressing its methodological novelty, exemplified primarily by Beauchamp and Childress principles approach and then by Jonsen and Toulmin’s new casuistry. -/- . (shrink)

Essayism or essayism is one of the largest and most authoritative currents of pre-Christian Judaism. According to the texts of Flavius, the essays, after the Pharisees and Sadducees, were the third "philosophical school" or "sect" within Judaism at that time.73 to say something like a secret order. And what characterized the essays in general was their remoteness from the people, their conscious secrecy, the system of rigid admission to membership, and strict religious discipline. And while in the religious (...) literature the search for the origins of Christianity in the environment of the Pharisees, not to mention the Sadducees, is unpopular, then the Essenic version of the origin of the religion of Christ is quite common. The first who tended to such a point of view were the English deists and French encyclopedists. Later, this version was supported by German rationalists, especially Wachter and Steidlin. (shrink)

Active at the time when the social sciences were founded, Max Weber's social theory contributed significantly to a wide range of fields and disciplines. Considering his prominence, it makes sense to take stock of the Weberian heritage and to explore the ways in which Weber's work and ideas have contributed to our understanding of the modern world. Using his work as a point of departure, The Oxford Handbook of Max Weber investigates the Weberian legacy today, identifying the enduring problems and (...) themes associated with his thought that have contemporary significance: the nature of modern capitalism, neo-liberal global economic policy, nationalism, religion and secularization, threats to legality, the culture of modernity, bureaucratic rule and leadership, politics and ethics, the value of science, power and inequality. These problems are global in scope, and the Weberian approach has been used to address them in very different societies. Thus, the Handbook also features chapters on Europe, Turkey, Islam, Judaism, China, India, and international politics. The Handbook emphasizes the use and application of Weber's ideas. It offers a journey through the intellectual terrain that scholars continue to explore using the tools and perspectives of Weberian analysis. The essays explore how Weber's concepts, hypotheses, and perspectives have been applied in practice, and how they can be applied in the future in social inquiry, not only in Europe and North America, but globally. The volume is divided into six parts exploring, in turn: Capitalism in a Globalized World, Society and Social Structure, Politics and the State, Religion, Culture, and Science and Knowledge. (shrink)

What caused the eventual decline in later Jewish history of the vibrant historiographical tradition of the biblical period? In contrast to the plethora of historical writings composed during the biblical period, the rabbis of the early common era apparently were not interested in writing history, and when they did relate to historical events they often introduced mythical and unrealistic elements into their writings. Scholars have offered various explanations for this phenomenon; a central goal of this article is to locate these (...) explanations within both the immediate historical setting of Roman Palestine and the overarching cultural atmosphere of the Greco-Roman Near East. In particular, I suggest that the largely ahistorical approach of the rabbis functioned as a local Jewish counterpart to the widespread classicizing tendencies of a contemporary Greek intellectual movement, the Second Sophistic. In both cases, eastern communities, whose political aspirations were stifled under Roman rule, sought to express their cognitive and spiritual identities by focusing on a glorious and idealized past rather than on contemporary history. Interestingly, the apparent lack of rabbinic interest in historiography is not limited to the early rabbinic period. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance, Jews essentially did not write their political, diplomatic, or military history. Instead, Jews composed “traditional historiography” which included various types of literary genres among which the rabbinic “chain of transmission” was the most important. The chain of transmission reconstructs the links that connect later rabbinic sages with their predecessors. Robert Bonfil has noted the similarity between this rabbinic project and contemporary church histories. Adding a diachronic dimension to Bonfil’s comparison, I suggest that rabbinic chains of transmission and church histories are not similar though entirely independent phenomena, but rather their shared project actually derives from a common origin, the Hellenistic succession list. The succession list literary genre, which sketches the history of an intellectual discipline, apparently thrived during the Second Sophistic and diffused then into both rabbinic Judaism and early Christianity. Thus, even though historiography was not terribly important to the early rabbis or to most Second Sophistic intellectuals, the succession list schematic, or the history of an intellectual discipline, was evaluated differently. Rabbis and early Christians absorbed the succession list from Second Sophistic culture and then continued to employ this historiographical genre for many centuries to come. (shrink)

No other single author has so commanding a critical presence across so many disciplines within the arts and humanities, in so many national contexts, as Walter Benjamin (1892-1940). The belated reception of his work as a literary critic (dating from the late 1950s) has been followed by a rapid series of critical receptions in different contexts: Frankfurt Critical Theory and Marxism, Judaism, Film Theory, Post-structuralism, Philosophical Romanticism, and Cultural Studies. This collection brings together a selection of the most critically (...) important items in the literature, across the full range of Benjamin's cultural-theoretical interests, from all periods of the reception of his writings, but focusing upon the most recent, to produce a comprehensive overview of the best critical literature. (shrink)

Just as speech can be acquired, so can it be lost. Speakers can forget words, phrases, even entire languages they once knew; over the course of time peoples, too, let go of the tongues that were once theirs, as languages disappear and give way to the others that follow them. In Echolalias, Daniel Heller-Roazen reflects on the many forms of linguistic forgetfulness, offering a far-reaching philosophical investigation into the persistence and disappearance of speech. In twenty-one brief chapters, he moves among (...) classical, medieval, and modern culture, exploring the interrelations of speech, writing, memory, and oblivion.Drawing his examples from literature, philosophy, linguistics, theology, and psychoanalysis, Heller-Roazen examines the points at which the transience of speech has become a question in the arts, disciplines, and sciences in which language plays a prominent role. Whether the subject is Ovid, Dante, or modern fiction, classical Arabic literature or the birth of the French language, structuralist linguistics or Freud's writings on aphasia, Heller-Roazen considers with clarity, precision, and insight the forms, the effects, and the ultimate consequences of the forgetting of language. In speech, he argues, destruction and construction often prove inseparable. Among peoples, the disappearance of one language can mark the emergence of another; among individuals, the experience of the passing of speech can lie at the origin of literary, philosophical, and artistic creation.From the infant's prattle to the legacy of Babel, from the holy tongues of Judaism and Islam to the concept of the dead language and the political significance of exiled and endangered languages today, Echolalias traces an elegant, erudite, and original philosophical itinerary, inviting us to reflect in a new way on the nature of the speaking animal who forgets. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt to consider Jewish philosophy in opposition to the anti-ocularcentrism that defined the German Jewish philosophical tradition after Kant, namely the idea that Judaism—or at least its philosophical expression in Maimonidean philosophy—is aniconic and cognitively abstract. I do so by attempting to rethink the epistemic-veridical place of the imagination and visual experience in the Guide of the Perplexed . Once the imagination has been disciplined by reason, is there any cognitive status to an image or (...) sound that the eye or the ear perceives, and to that mental faculty that combines and recombines such impressions? Is the sight or sound of revelation a hallucination or just a mere figure of speech? Does it bear any relation to a spiritual reality external to the human mind and finite physical existence? To address these questions I explore the visual images, both iconic and aniconic-abstract, that distinguish the Guide . There is no getting past the visual imagination, although I am not sure Maimonides would have recognized it as such. Even when he leaves behind figurative visual cues such as the false image-work of the undisciplined imagination or the appearance of angels and images of God found in lower grades of prophecy, he turns to another visual register, namely the “abstract art“ of pure, dazzling light. In regard to these questions, Maimonides was more Greek than German, ascribing, cautiously, penultimate cognitive status to the visual imagination. (shrink)

Levinas's Talmudic readings have played an important role in defending the claim that the discipline of modern Jewish philosophy cannot be reduced to a list of assimilationist thinkers. This article argues that this claim is defendable, but only if the premise of the claim ceases to be the content of Levinas's Talmudic readings: "The Temptation of Temptation" wrongly takes its sugya as representative of Judaism as a whole, the differing mathematical calculations between Levinas and the sugya he treats in (...) "The Pact" suggest that the Talmud assumes a Rousseauian amour-propre , and "And God Created Woman" implies that Jewish ethics is not opposed to Jews' assimilation. I instead suggest that Levinas's Talmudic readings serve to promote the fecundity of Judaism; it is only through such "bad" readings that historical determinism can be conquered, and a messianic future becomes possible. (shrink)

Philosophy experienced a turning point at the time of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Likewise, religion (Judaism) encountered transformation during the time of the apostle Paul. Wittgenstein’s metaphor of the ‘River-bed’ that was later subsumed in the language-game theory is a concept that challenged the then status quo of philosophy known as rationalistic foundationalism. This philosophical predisposi­tion is analogous to the religious situation when Paul began his Christian ministry. Paul’s passionate emphasis on ‘justification by faith’ rather than legalistic or ritualistic observance of (...) the law, was a shockwave to the Judaist religious establishment. Wittgenstein and Paul could as well be regarded as ‘radicals’ or rebels in their respective disciplines. Wittgenstein introduced a paradigm shift into philosophy while Paul did it in the Christian religion. Their unconventional outlooks were, however, met with a lot of resistance especially from the diehard philosophers and/or religionists of the day. This paper, therefore, is a comparative work on Wittgenstein (Philosophy) and Paul (Religion) in order to demonstrate sustained revolutionary tendencies toward human innovations and the need to strive for excellence. (shrink)

In this accessible and comprehensive work, Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins cover the entire history of philosophy--ancient, medieval, and modern, from cultures both East and West--in its broader historical and cultural contexts. Major philosophers and movements are discussed along with less well-known but interesting figures. The authors examine the early Greek, Indic, and Chinese philosophers and the mythological traditions that preceded them, as well as the great religious philosophies, including Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, and Taoism. Easily understandable to students without (...) specialized knowledge of philosophy, A Short History of Philosophy demonstrates the relevance of philosophy to our times, illuminating the impact of the revolutions wrought by science, industry, colonialism, and sectarian warfare; the two world wars and the Holocaust; and the responses of philosophy in the schools of existentialism, postmodernism, feminism, and multiculturalism. In addition, the authors provide their own twists and interpretations of events, resulting in a broad view of the nature of philosophy as an intellectual discipline and its sometimes odd and dramatic consequences. (shrink)

Since the emergence of psychology, its relation with religion has been inconsistent. Their different sources and methodologies but common aims made them close or distanced. Today these disciplines acknowledged and learned to benefit from each other. The affect of religion/spirituality on human’s lives raised the attention of psychology and required the integration of these into psychotherapy. In order to approach the psychology-religion relation via the traces of religion within psychotherapy the paper deals with the necessity, the knowledge needed, the principles (...) when integrating religious/spiritual principles and practices into psychotherapy; finally the religious traces in psychotherapy. The paper comprises few Turkish examples together with the huge body of theoretical and practical examples on the topic. These theories and practices should be important examples for Turkey. By addressing the religious traces in psychotherapy the aim of the paper is to show that the cliff between psychology and religion is in fact not that deep.SummaryIt can be argued that psychology and religion have common interests relating the well-being of individuals. There is a huge body of research that emphasizes the implementation and necessity of cultural, religious, spiritual principles in professional psychology. The proprium of these models is to integrate the client’s religious/spiritual sources into therapy. Especially religious clients benefit from therapies that define their treatment goals around their religious views. However, it must be considered that if the disorder has a biological dimension and/or is severe psychopathologic pure religious interventions will not be sufficient. This paper traces the religious/spiritual principles within psychotherapies and shows that the cliff between religion and psychology is not that deep.At different places in the world therapy is done according to western standards. However, determining mental health or disorders according to western criteria might be problematic. In societies in which religious/spiritual life is an essential part of culture, religion plays a crucial role in people’s perception of disease and treatment. In mental health, spirituality is an important and primary source for coping. Empirical studies reveal the positive outcomes of religious practices such as personal prayer, repentance, meditation, and dhikir on mental and physical health. In light of this data it becomes clear that psychotherapies should be revised socio-culturally and culturally sensitive psychotherapies that cover belief and religious practices should be developed. Another need for the integration of religion, belief, and spirituality with psychotherapy is the significant effect of these experiences on individual’s lives. With regard to the broad impact of religion, psychological interventions solely might not be sufficient to fulfill human psychological needs. As studies show, religious clients expect religious practices in treatment as well as a therapist who is open and respectful to religious principles, ready to talk about own religious beliefs, willing to integrate religious matters into therapy. To fulfill these expectations therapists, need to be trained and educated in religious/spiritual matters. Additionally, the therapist must acknowledge and be conscious about her/his own worldview, religious commitment, and spiritual life. However, the therapist needs not to be religious him/herself or share the same religion as the client. It is sufficient that the therapist is open and receptive to the client’s beliefs so that these can be used as effective sources in therapy. Spiritual psychotherapy considers spirituality as one of the main sources of clients. Thus, it might be critical when the therapist has poor knowledge about religion when the client considers it as significant. This source might be helpful for the client in coping with his/her problems and limitations. Having knowledge about the client’s religion and culture might also be important to acknowledge his/her perceptions and beliefs. Because individuals’ understanding of disease, their beliefs about reasons for mental disorders, their expectations from the health system are important factors in seeking help and choosing therapy.Therapists who decide to integrate spiritual/religious principles into psychotherapy have to adhere to some ethical principles. The source and the degree of the psychological disorder are important, too. Even though the efficacy of religious rituals and spiritual interventions are extensive in each case it has to be investigated whether religiosity/spirituality is part of the problem or the solution. Certain aspects will guide the therapist in deciding whether to integrate religiosity/spirituality into the therapy process or not. Additionally, he/she has to gather information about the client’s religious/spiritual life (spiritual anamneses) in order to choose the most appropriate religious method and intervention. Today psychotherapy deals with coping, questions about the meaning, purpose, and way of life. Actually, these are issues with which religious traditions has dealt and proposed solutions for thousands of years ago. For example, ethical principles for mental health professionals correspond to those of religious teachings. The attitudes and the type of relationship recommended by the client-centered approach are also commended by religious teachings for all human relations. Beginning with the 1960’s an increasing interest in Buddhist teachings is observable among psychotherapists. Mental exercises (especially meditation) cause transformations in the self-perception and lead to enduring changes in consciousness. Religions such as Islam, Judaism, and Buddhism recommend meditation technics like contemplation, dhikr, and yoga. Confession in the Catholic Church has similarities with psychotherapeutic catharsis. Many cultures own one kind of forgiveness rituals of confessions. As studies report people benefit from these rituals. Forgiveness is a multifaceted issue with psychological and spiritual dimensions and involves cognitive, emotional, relational, and spiritual processes. Research indicates the religious and psychological functions of forgiveness. Many subjects such as personal prayer, hope, empathy, love, and tolerance are common issues of both, psychotherapy and religion/spirituality. Different psychotherapeutic approaches and especially positive psychology integrate these values that are valued by religion/spirituality into their theories and practices.In conclusion, the cliff between psychology and religion/spirituality is not that deep at it seems at first sight. They have many subjects in common. Individuals turn to religion and spirituality in times of crises. This makes it inevitable to include religion and spirituality into the therapeutic process. Because religions provide ways of coping, hope, and meaning in difficult times. This fact is recognized and accepted abroad and lead to the religious/spiritual psychotherapy movement, which will hopefully an inspiration for Turkish psychology as well. (shrink)

What, if anything remains of religion after the demise of traditional theism and the theologies based upon it? What are the consequences of so-called Post-theism for the modern scholarly study of religion (in Religionswissenschaft and philosophical theology or church dogmatics, in the philosophy of religion as well as in the more recent phenomenon of comparitive religious studies)? This volume collects some thirty articles written in honor of Professor Hendrik Johan Adriaanse whose intellectual trajectory, recounted here in extensive personal reflections, has (...) lead to an incisive inquiry into the possibilities of thinking and experiencing "After Theism" (the title of a fundamental article reprinted here). Post-theism : Refraiming the Judeo-Christian Tradition raises this question from three different perspectives : first, by spelling out the historical and intellectual backgrounds that have led to the supposed end of theism as it had been known through the ages; secondly, by discussing the systematic relationship between the disciplines of theology and competing concepts of rationality; and, thirdly, by sketching out the contours of a philosophical thought that ventures beyond the most tenacious classical and modern presuppositions of theism. Along the way, the contributors explore a variety of ways in which the concepts and arguments, imagery and rhetoric of the Judeo-Christian traditions are in need and in the process of being constantly displaced. Henri Krop, Arie L. Molendijk and Hent de Vries teach Philosophy, the history of Christianity, and Metaphysics, respectively, at the Erasmus University, The University of Groningen, and the University of Amsterdam. (shrink)

In this accessible and comprehensive work, Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins cover the entire history of philosophy--ancient, medieval, and modern, from cultures both East and West--in its broader historical and cultural contexts. Major philosophers and movements are discussed along with less well-known but interesting figures. The authors examine the early Greek, Indic, and Chinese philosophers and the mythological traditions that preceded them, as well as the great religious philosophies, including Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, and Taoism. Easily understandable to students without (...) specialized knowledge of philosophy, A Short History of Philosophy demonstrates the relevance of philosophy to our times, illuminating the impact of the revolutions wrought by science, industry, colonialism, and sectarian warfare; the two world wars and the Holocaust; and the responses of philosophy in the schools of existentialism, postmodernism, feminism, and multiculturalism. In addition, the authors provide their own twists and interpretations of events, resulting in a broad view of the nature of philosophy as an intellectual discipline and its sometimes odd and dramatic consequences. (shrink)

This volume gathers the proceedings of the Paris conference in Philonic studies (2017), consisting of 23 papers by contributors from 8 countries. Fifty years after the Lyon conference, it aimed at taking a retrospective look at the intellectual contexts and the academic fields in which Philonic studies have penetrated, as well as the ways in which they evolved. The work of the Alexandrian became of major importance in the history of philosophy. It has been studied as a source of cultured (...) Christianity, in connection with Second Temple Judaism and the Alexandrian Jewish community, but also in the context of research on rabbinic Judaism, New Testament and philosophy of the imperial era. Ce volume rassemble les actes du colloque de Paris (2017), qui réunit 23 intervenants de 8 nationalités. Cinquante ans après le colloque de Lyon, il s'agissait de réfléchir aux milieux intellectuels et aux disciplines universitaires dans lesquels les études philoniennes avaient pénétré le monde de la recherche, les bases sur lesquelles elles avaient évolué. L'œuvre de l'Alexandrin a pris une importance majeure dans l'histoire de la philosophie ; elle a été explorée comme source du christianisme lettré, en lien avec le judaïsme de l'Époque du Second Temple et la communauté juive d'Alexandrie, mais aussi dans le cadre des études sur le judaïsme rabbinique, dans le développement des études sur le Nouveau Testament et sur la philosophie de l'époque impériale. (shrink)

The Oxford Handbook of Religious Conversion offers a comprehensive exploration of the dynamics of religious conversion, which for centuries has profoundly shaped societies, cultures, and individuals throughout the world. Scholars from a wide array of religions and disciplines interpret both the varieties of conversion experiences and the processes that inform this personal and communal phenomenon.This volume examines the experiences of individuals and communities who change religions, those who experience an intensification of their religion of origin, and those who encounter new (...) religions through colonial intrusion, missionary work, and charismatic and revitalization movements. The thirty-two innovative essays provide overviews of the history of particular religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity, Judaism, indigenous religions, and new religious movements. The essays also offer a wide range of disciplinary perspectives-psychological, sociological, anthropological, legal, political, feminist, and geographical-on methods and theories deployed in understanding conversion, and insight into various forms of deconversion. (shrink)

One of the most resolute dichotomies in the modern and contemporary study of religion is that between good/bad religions. The bases for making such judgments are fluid, but the outcome is generally recognizable; “good” religions and good religious practitioners adhere to the expectations and norms of the bourgeois modern. The reasons for the endurance of the good/bad religion dichotomy are historical, rooted in the rise of the study of religion as an academic discipline, globally and in the United States; economic, (...) reflecting recent trends in giving to higher education; and ideological. But in Meir Kahane, Shaul Magid upends the good/bad distinction, using a “bad” religious actor, in this case, a virulent anti‐Black racist, demagogue, and violent street fighter as a lens through which to explore recent Jewish history in the US and Israel. Magid's steadfast refusal to render Kahane safely other to this broader religious story is a powerful challenge to scholars of religion. (shrink)

"Disenchantment" is a key term in the self-understanding of modernity. But what exactly do we mean when we use this concept? What was its original meaning when Max Weber introduced it? And can the conventional meaning or Max Weber's view really be defended, given the present state of knowledge about the history of religion? This book is an attempt to divest this concept of its enduring enchantment. The first chapters of the book deal with the three empirical disciplines history, psychology (...) and sociology of religion to develop an understanding of religion that then lays the groundwork for what is presented in chapter 4, namely the most thorough study of Weber's views on disenchantment that has ever been undertaken. It turns out that Weber's use was highly ambiguous and that his grand narrative leading from the prophets of ancient Judaism to the crisis of meaning on the eve of the First World War collapses when we recognize this ambiguity. This makes it possible to construct an alternative that takes into account the dynamics of ever new sacralizations, their normative evaluation in the light of the values of a universalist morality and the dangers of the misuse of religion in connection with the formation of power. This book constitutes a challenge - for believers and non-believers alike. (shrink)

Did Jesus ever do anything wrong? Judging by the vast majority of books on New Testament ethics, the answer is a resounding No. Writers on New Testament ethics generally view Jesus as the paradigm of human standards and behaviour. But since the historical Jesus was a human being, must he not have had flaws, like everyone else? The notion of a flawless human Jesus is a paradoxical oddity in New Testament ethics. According to Avalos, it shows that New Testament ethics (...) is still primarily an apologetic enterprise despite its claim to rest on critical and historical scholarship. The Bad Jesus is a powerful and challenging study, presenting detailed case studies of fundamental ethical principles enunciated or practised by Jesus but antithetical to what would be widely deemed 'acceptable' or 'good' today. Such topics include Jesus' supposedly innovative teachings on love, along with his views on hate, violence, imperialism, animal rights, environmental ethics, Judaism, women, disabled persons and biblical hermeneutics. After closely examining arguments offered by those unwilling to find any fault with the Jesus depicted in the Gospels, Avalos concludes that current treatments of New Testament ethics are permeated by a religiocentric, ethnocentric and imperialistic orientation. But if it is to be a credible historical and critical discipline in modern academia, New Testament ethics needs to discover both a Good and a Bad Jesus. (shrink)

An outstanding reference source to the full span of Murdoch's work, comprising 37 specially commissioned chapters written by an international team of leading scholars. This is the first volume to do justice to the incredibly rich and wide-ranging nature of her work. Divided into five parts, the volume covers the following areas: -/- - A guide to Murdoch's key philosophical texts, including The Sovereignty of Good and Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals. - Core themes and concepts in Murdoch's philosophy, (...) such as love, moral vision, and attention. - Murdoch's engagement with the history of philosophy, including Plato, Kant, Hegel, Simone Weil, and Wittgenstein. - Interdisciplinary connections with art, literature, and religion, including Judaism, Buddhism, and Christianity. - Murdoch and contemporary philosophical debates, including feminism, virtue ethics, and metaethics. - The application of Murdoch’s thought to applied ethics, including animal ethics, psychiatric ethics, and the environment. -/- Although recent years have seen a blossoming of interest in Murdoch’s philosophy, The Murdochian Mind is the first volume to do justice to the incredibly rich and wide-ranging nature of her work. As such it will be of great interest to students of philosophy, especially ethics and aesthetics, as well as those in related disciplines such as literature, religion, and gender studies. (shrink)

This collection of essays by Jewish, Christian and Muslim scholars underscores the significance of sustained and serious ethical, interreligious and interdisciplinary reflection on children. Essays in the first half of the volume discuss fundamental beliefs and practices within the religious traditions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam regarding children, adult obligations to them, and a child's own obligations to others. The second half of the volume focuses on selected contemporary challenges regarding children and faithful responses to them. Marcia J. Bunge (...) brings together scholars from various disciplines and diverse strands within these three religious traditions, representing several views on essential questions about the nature and status of children and adult-child relationships and responsibilities. The volume not only contributes to intellectual inquiry regarding children in the specific areas of ethics, religious studies, children's rights and childhood studies, but also provides resources for child advocates, religious leaders and those engaged in interreligious dialogue. (shrink)

This article uses Kalman P. Bland’s The Artless Jew as a way to think about the recent history of the study of Judaism. The discipline’s preoccupation with disembodied texts has led to a way to conceptualize and situate Jews and Judaism that leaves certain blind spots and lacunae within our dominant narratives. To illumine some of these, the article focuses on ritual and what we can learn about the study of ritual in Judaism – and the study (...) of Judaism more generally – by connecting it not to the particularities of Jewishness, but to the ostensible universalism of larger fields of study, such as the academic study of religion. (shrink)

This book presents a broad philosophical study of the nature of spirituality and its relationship to human well-being, addressing an area of contemporary philosophy that has been largely underexplored. David McPherson brings together a team of scholars to examine the importance of specific spiritual practices and spiritually informed virtues for 'the good life'. This volume also considers and exemplifies how philosophy itself, when undertaken as a humanistic rather than scientistic enterprise, can be a spiritual exercise and part of a spiritual (...) way of life. Clarifying key concepts, and engaging with major religious traditions such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Confucianism, this book will appeal to students and scholars from various disciplines, including theology, sociology, and psychology, as well as to philosophers, ethicists, and other readers who are interested in modern spiritual life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 489 universe enjoys as an ordered whole. What happens if the model does not present a universal order, as seems to have been the case for the last three centuries? Should we then remove the corresponding perfection from our idea of universe's perfection? Or is there some metaphysical reason for asserting that the universe is an ordered whole, regardless of any particular model? If the latter, it (...) would be interesting to have at least a sketch of how we would arrive at this position. On the whole, certainly, the book provides an invaluable overview of the Thomistic universe for anyone working on Aquinas's cosmology, metaphysics, or even ethics. Blanchette is to be commended for his clear and orderly presentation of the material, especially the many subdivisions within the chapters. The quotations of Thomistic texts are almost all in English, well translated by Banchette himself. The placing of key phrases in Latin within parentheses helps in some measure to overcome the lack of the original text in the footnotes. Finally, the book's selected bibliography as well as its indices (index of names, analytical index, and index of citations) render the book an even more useful tool. The Catholic University ofAmerica Washington, D.C. DAVID M. GALLAGHER Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions. By DAVID B. BURRELL, C.S.C. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993. Pp. xi + 225. $29.95 (cloth). According to the author, this book, Freedom and Creation in Three Traditions, is a comparative work designed "to illustrate the worth of explicitly tradition-directed inquiry, as well as the fruitfulness of comparative inquires in philosophical theory" (6). In addition, among other things, the author contends that, "because the pressure of comparative perspectives demands that we mine hitherto unsuspected reaches of what we have thought we know," not only the author but also the "traditional disciplines of philosophy and theology may each be enriched by the forays of such inquiry" (6). Specifically, the three traditions to which Burrell is referring are the Jewish, Islamic, and Christian; and, as the title of this book suggests, the central topics of consideration used as the basis for a comparison among these traditions are the respective notions of freedom and creation. In order to achieve his goals, Burrell places his discussion within the general context of the notion of creation, which, as he rightly observes, "is notoriously difficult to classify" (7). In so doing, he divides the work into nine chapters; which he entitles as follows: 1) "The Context: Creation"; 2) "On 490 BOOK REVIEWS Characterizing the Creator"; 3) "On Characterizing Creation"; 4) "On Characterizing the Relation: Jewish, Christian, Muslim"; 5) "God's Acting in the World God Creates"; 6) "Creatures Acting in a Created World"; 7) "On the Relations between the Two Actors"; 8) "Sin and Redemption"; 9) "The God Realized in Renewed Creation." Having placed his discussion within the general context of the notion of creation, Burrell begins his analysis by comparing and contrasting this notion in St. Thomas and Moses Maimonides vis-a-vis the necessitarianism of Aristotle as interpreted by lbn Sina. In so doing, Burrell stresses that what predominates in both Maimonides and Aquinas is a notion of God as a "free originator" of all creation not in relation to an "exegesis of the opening chapters of Genesis" but in relation "to the rest of the Bible and the subsequent tradition of Judaism and Christianity" (12). This "distillation" having been noted, Burrell then examines the distinctive features of the notion of creation as this is influenced by the "faith assertion " of the three respective religious traditions-Jewish, Christian, and Islamic. Within Judaism Burrell finds emphasis placed upon the need to interpret creation against the background of the "covenant" with Israel (19). In Aquinas and Barth he understands this activity to be interpreted against the background of the relation of the Father to His Eternal Word (19-21); and within Islam he finds the regulating theme in the conviction of God's absolute sovereignty vis-a-vis the created order. In chapter 2, Burrell goes into more precise detail regarding the specific ways in which God is characterized as a creator within the... (shrink)

Atheism has been on the rise in the West for several decades, but its roots, including those belonging to secularism, agnosticism, and freethought, run deep in Western history, philosophy, and thought. Drawing on a multitude of sources from a number of disciplines, S. T. Joshi outlines the natural origins of religious belief in primitive times and charts the slow development of secular accounts of natural phenomena in the Greco-Roman world. Adopting the " Christ myth" theory, he surveys the emergence of (...) a new faith- Christianity- that grew out of Judaism and explores its evolution through the medieval period. He then examines the increasing schisms within the church and conflicts between religious and political entities that caused a fracturing of the monolith of Christianity and the birth of the Renaissance, which not only brought to light the literary glories of the Greco-Roman world but also led to a scientific resurgence and the development of a secular view of the cosmos. By the end of the sixteenth century, as he concludes, the stage was set for the emergence of a worldview free of religion. (shrink)

Mussar Yoga is a spiritual practice that engages the whole self in the process of spiritual transformation. It bridges the Jewish spiritual practice of self-study, and the cultivation and discipline of ethical behavior known as Mussar ("instruction" in Hebrew) with the Eight Limbs of Yoga, the ancient Indian eight-fold path for creating union between mind, body and spirit. Mussar provides the structure and focus of the journey of self-inquiry, while yoga offers a means for embodying it. In this clear and (...) structured introduction to Mussar Yoga, you will learn how to explore the physical dimension of soul traits--ethical behaviors and attitudes--such as humility, generosity, enthusiasm and gratitude through yoga poses and the yogic practice of breath work. Intended for the novice as well as the yoga expert, each exercise is accompanied by step-by-step instructions, helpful photographs, mantras and journaling exercises. With practice, Mussar Yoga can help free you from established negative patterns of being, increase your capacity for compassion and acts of goodness, and help you develop a more fulfilling, meaningful life. (shrink)