An essential challenge of Aristotle’s Politics arises from the juxtaposition of contrasting and competing arguments in favour of virtuous monarchy, on the one hand, and the collective superiority of “the many”, on the other. This paper examines the purely theoretical reception of this contrast in the writings of some late medieval Aristotelians by focusing on a key section in Politics Γ (1280a8–1284b34). After reviewing Aristotle’s problematic position, the paper discusses its interpretation in the commentaries of Albert the Great, Thomas Aquinas/Peter (...) of Auvergne and Walter Burley, as well as its use in the works of Giles of Rome, John of Paris and Marsilius of Padua. On that basis, finally, the paper outlines some general trends with regard to how medieval scholars dealt with Aristotle’s idea of the rule of the many as opposed to that of one or few virtuous persons. (shrink)

Avantgarde in Halle: The Invention of Aesthetics and the Aestheticization of Christianity. The foundation of scholarly aesthetics by the Halle philosopher Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten and Georg Friedrich Meier in the middle of the 18th century took place within a milieu that was shaped by both pietism and the Enlightenment. Martin Fritz demonstrates that aesthetics in Halle itself can be considered a synthesis of pietism and Enlightenment ideas. The sensualization of basic Christian concepts is of eminent relevance for these aesthetics, (...) in order to reinvent the pietistic striving for intensive religious experiences through such „aestheticization.“ The romantic idea of „Kunstreligion“, which continues to be significant in cultural life today, is also based on this programmatic notion of aestheticization. Building on this historical background, this article’s concluding systematic considerations argue for a theological revaluation of pertinent contemporary cultural phenomena. (shrink)

In this article, I aim at problematizing the implied idea of causality in cognitive evaluations of horizontal justice events. I will draw on theories about retrospective sensemaking and its cognitive foundation in counterfactual belief formation. Issues related to horizontal or intraunit unfairness emerge in situations in which the actions of one employee influence the outcome of another due to relational interdependence. The authors of theories about horizontal unfairness have continued the traditional distinction between the three facets of justice, procedural, distributive, (...) and interactional. However, might employee A blame employee B because she (B) obtained qualitative (e.g., non-monetary appraisal) or quantitative (e.g., monetary compensation) recognition even though the latter did not, directly at least, bring about the event. The problem here is one of causality which asks the question, Can A be blamed by B for bringing about the event of outcome difference? While blame in evaluations of vertical justice certainly presumes causal agency, it might be questioned whether the same goes for horizontal unfairness. Counterfactual belief formation enables a step into the cognitive and retrospective nature of evaluations of horizontal justice events centered on the counterfactual belief “had the unfavorable event X not occurred, another and more favorable event X1 would have occurred.” This is related to the distance between the actual X and the potential event state X), in the sense that the closer the two appear, the more convincing becomes A’s belief to himself. The underlying causality of rewarding processes, however, states that some third party introduces the recognition, for example, a manager, and, therefore, B did not bring about the reward event, the third party did. It seems, then, that to understand this, we should take into consideration: 1) the formation of counterfactual beliefs and 2) the causality of blame. The article concludes that, due to the underlying causality of rewarding processes, one might solely consider one facet of horizontal justice, interactional horizontal justice. However, tapping into the phenomenological dimension of morality might allow one also to address the moral nature of distributive and procedural facets of horizontal justice as the experience of the psychosocial fabric of social reality related with feeling either “as if” one is being treated unfairly or “as if” one is treating others unfairly. (shrink)

Le déploiement exponentiel de l’usage scientifique et politique du mot « territoire » interroge. Il date du début des années 1980 et s’explique par la mondialisation, ses basculements, les luttes qu’ils génèrent, la quête d’une nouvelle intelligibilité du monde réagencé en ses différentes échelles. Mais cela n’exonère pas de la clairvoyance sur les usages politiques qui en sont faits désormais. Contre une idéologie territoriale de plus en plus « locale-populiste », l’auteur rappelle deux conditions pour construire les sociétés par les (...) territoires sans les y enfermer. (shrink)

Kant urteilt: 'Wolffii Logic ist die beste, die man antrifft'. Und in der Kritik schreibt er: 'Im zukünftigen System der Metaphysik müssen wir dereinst der strengen Methode des berühmten Wolff, des grössten unter allen dogmatischen Philosophen, folgen'. Logik und Metaphysik bedingen einander. Ausgewählte, begriffslogische Wegmarken zur Kritik können den Lektüreweg folglich erleichtern. Texte der damaligen Schullogik (Gottsched, Marquardt etc.) verdeutlichen Kants Terminologie und erleichtern den Zugang zu seinen Gedanken. Kontrastierend wird eine Abgrenzung zur Logik der Idealisten vorgenommen.

Presents a penetrating study of Eliot's Four Quartets. Begins with an account of the intellectual and personal context for Eliot's mature work, explaining how his influences shaped his mind, then discusses Eliot's own personal circumstances and the contemporary relevance of his work a half century after it appeared, offering comparisons with Samuel Beckett. A central motif of analysis of "Burnt Norton" is Augustine's discussion of time in relation to subjective memory. Other literary references brought to bear on the Four Quartets (...) include work by Yeats, Milton, and St. John of the Cross, as well as the Bible and the Bhagavad-Gita. Warner is a senior lecturer in philosophy at the University of Warwick, UK. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article takes up questions regarding the interrelation of the given and the undetermined in Augustine’s understanding of the self. As a critical point, it argues that debate regarding the Augustinian self has been marked by an emphasis on given structures that has constricted conceptions of human becoming. This emphasis emerges by way of competing narratives of discovery: Augustine is presented as a discoverer either of a constitutive space of the self, or of a determinative temporality. It results in (...) accounts of formation that occlude the spiritual significance of the full sweep of Christ’s history, from incarnation through ascension. As a constructive point, this article argues that Augustine positions himself to develop a Christological vision of Christian becoming, rooted in attention to all aspects of Christ’s life and work, by understanding space and time not as structures that fix the bounds of human becoming, but rather as realities that take on different forms in accordance with differing modes of love. (shrink)

Tomás de Aquino comienza su síntesis teológica definitiva preguntándose por la legitimidad y necesidad de la teología. Inmediatamente después se plantea la pregunta por sus contenidos: ¿de qué trata la ciencia teológica? Si la teología es la ciencia de la Revelación y su fundamento está en la revelación que Dios en Cristo hace de sí mismo, parece que su contenido tiene que ser Dios mismo. Un contenido que solo es cognoscible si Dios se da a conocer, porque el ser humano, (...) con sus fuerzas, con su sola razón, solo puede alcanzarle de forma limitada y parcial, en suma, solo puede saber de su existencia, pero no de sus designios, de sus intenciones y mucho menos de su naturaleza.Para Sto. Tomás es claro que Dios es el sujeto, el contenido de la Teología. Esta ciencia es un “tratado sobre Dios”. Ahora bien, Tomás de Aquino es consciente de una dificultad: si el fundamento de la Teología es la Sagrada Escritura, que es el lugar en el que se contiene la Revelación de Dios, resulta que “en la Sagrada Escritura se trata de muchas cosas además de Dios, como son las criaturas y los actos humanos”. Tomás de Aquino resuelve la dificultad argumentando que Dios es el sujeto de la teología no exactamente por ser su único contenido o por ser el único sujeto del que trata esta ciencia, sino porque todo lo que ella trata “lo hace teniendo como punto de mira a Dios, bien porque se trata de Dios mismo, bien porque se trata de algo referido a él como principio y como fin”.Thomas Aquinas begins his definitive theological synthesis asking for legitimacy and need of theology. Immediately he asks for the contents: what is theological science about? If theology is the science of Revelation, and its foundation is the revelation that God makes of himself in Christ, it seems that its content must be God himself1. A content that can only be known, if God shows himself, because a human being, with its strength and its sole mind, only can get him in a limited and partial way, in short, it can only know of his existence, but not his plans, his intentions, and even less, his nature.For St Thomas it is clear that God is the subject, the content of theology. This science is a “treatise about God”. However, Thomas Aquinas is conscious of a difficulty: If Sacred Scripture that is the place where God’s revelation is contained, is the foundation of theology, “it turns out that Sacred Scripture deals with many more things besides God, that is, creatures and human acts”. Thomas Aquinas will solve this difficulty arguing that God is the subject of theology not because he is exactly the only content or subject of this science, but because all it deals with, “is done with reference to God himself either because it is about God or about something referred to God as beginning and end”. (shrink)

In reply to the question whether articles of faith can be demonstrated, William of Ockham articulated a peculiar thesis: Even though it is impossible to prove articles of faith in this life, the blessed in heaven could demonstrate our creditive propositions. In contrast to traditional views, William held that both conclusions drawn in heaven and conclusions drawn in this life are subject to the same criteria. This assumption led to a controversy between William's contemporaries, namely, Walter Chatton and Adam Wodeham, (...) who discussed whether theories of propositions are applicable to articles of faith. This essay tries to explain why the problem of demonstrating creditive propositions arose and in what way William's answer gave a new meaning to the dispute. (shrink)

Das dritte Bruno Snell-Symposion stellt die interdisziplinären Beiträge zur Aktualisierung von Antike unter den Leitbegriff der Inszenierung. Über den Bereich der Bühne hinaus steht dieser für die Präsentation von Antike in jeweils unterschiedlichen historischen und kulturellen Kontexten und Darstellungsmedien. Ausgehend vom griechischen Theater spannen die zehn Beiträge des Bandes aus den Bereichen Klassische Philologie, Archäologie, Anglistik und Romanistik einen weiten Bogen bis in die Gegenwart.

There are two rival theories of time: static and dynamic. The Special Theory of Relativity is one of the strongest arguments for static time. However, the defenders of dynamic time claim that their approach is also possible in a relativistic setting. This debate supported the third theory: the hybrid theory of time. The aim of this paper, however, is to argue that the hybrid theory is against the nature of the Special Theory of Relativity. The argument is motivated by H. (...) Stein’s attempt to separate definite past from indefinite future by timelike and lightlike relations in and on the past pointing light cone. The paper shows that this approach leads to restricted and extremely unintuitive notion of co-presence. This is considered as a serious objection against the animation of static time in a relativistic setting. (shrink)

Dieses Buch gewahrt Einblick in Schellings politisches Denken der letzten Lebensjahre. Seine Tagebuchnotizen zeigen Schelling als einen genauen Beobachter der politischen und gesellschaftlichen Bewegungen. Ausgehend von fast taglichen Notizen stellt diese Untersuchung einerseits die Zusammenhange mit den revolutionaren Ereignissen selbst her, andererseits setzt sie diese in Beziehung zu den daraus erwachsenden allgemeinen politischen Reflexionen und zur wenige Jahre spater entwickelten politischen Philosophie. Schraven weist nach, dass die meisten Reflexionen Schellings zu den Ereignissen des Jahres 1848 durch intensive Zeitungslekture angeregt wurden. (...) Dem Band ist ein ausfuhrlicher Anhang beigegeben, in dem das gedruckte, zum Teil sehr schwer zugangliche Material dokumentiert ist, auf das Schelling ausdrucklich Bezug nimmt. (shrink)