René Guénon (1886-1951) is undoubtedly one of the luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of recent philosophies. His oeuvre of 26 volumes is providential for the modern seeker: pointing ceaselessly to the perennial wisdom found in past cultures ranging from the Shamanistic to the Indian and Chinese, the Hellenic and Judaic, the Christian and Islamic, and including also Alchemy, Hermeticism, and other esoteric currents, at the same time it (...) directs the reader to the deepest level of religious praxis, emphasizing the need for affiliation with a revealed tradition even while acknowledging the final identity of all spiritual paths as they approach the summit of spiritual realization. The present volume, first published in 1958 by Guénon's friend and collaborator Paul Chacornac, whose bookstore, journal (first called Le Voile d'Isis, later changed to Études Traditionnelles), and publishing venture-Éditions Traditionnelles-were so instrumental in furthering Guénon's work, was the first full-length biography of this extraordinary man to appear, and has served as the foundation for the many later biographies that have appeared in French, as well as the lone biography in English, René Guénon and the Future of the West, by Robin Waterfield. Its translation and publication in conjunction with The Collected Works of René Guénon represents an important step in the effort to bring Guénon's oeuvre before a wider public. (shrink)

Hegel makes claims about the relation of philosophy to religion that might raise concerns for those who want to locate his philosophy generally within the modern enlightenment tradition. For example, at the outset of his Lectures on Aesthetics he claims that philosophy “has no other object but God and so is essentially rational theology”.1 What might seem to placate worries here is that Hegel of course differentiates between the forms of religious and philosophical cognition in which such a content is (...) presented: while religion grasps this content in the form of imagistic or figurative representations [Vorstellungen], philosophy grasps it within conceptual thought, an attitude which might seem to align him with that found within the German enlightenment, for example, that found in Lessing and Kant. However, it seems undeniable that, in comparison to Kant, for example, Hegel employs forms of expression for the presentation of his own philosophical thought that are redolent with the type of imagistic and figurative locutions supposedly at home in religion. Moreover, the actual imagery employed seems to refer to the type of trinitarian version of Christianity that can seem antithetical to those forms of Christian thought that lent themselves to the sort of “demythologization” characteristic of the enlightenment attitude to religious doctrine. Such factors as these make it easy to portray Hegel’s philosophy as a type of irrationalist mysticism,2 or at least as a disguised theology with a content from revealed religion, and thus aligning him more to the spirit of the Counter-Enlightenment than the Enlightenment. (shrink)

Like Plato, Protagoras held that young children learn virtue from fine examples in poetry. Unlike Plato, Protagoras taught adults by correcting the diction of poets. In this paper I ask what his standard of correctness might be, and what benefit he intended his students to take from exercises in correction. If his standard of correctness is truth, then he may intend his students to learn by questioning the content of poems; that would be suggestive of Plato’s program in Republic III. (...) But his standard is more likely to be the accurate use of language; in that case he would intend his students to learn to express their thoughts clearly enough that their audience would understand what they were saying. That standard would be independent of the truth of what they are saying; and that would be a precursor to modern techniques by which we try to teach speaking and writing. Truth is not so easy to escape, however, and we shall see that Protagoras’ exercise must assume that the poet is trying to tell the truth. (shrink)

The Garden of Leaders explores two related questions: What is leadership? And what sort of education could prepare young people to be leaders? Paul Woodruff argues that higher education--particularly but not exclusively in the liberal arts--should set its main focus on cultivating leadership in students. Woodruff advances a new view of liberal arts education that places leadership at the root of everything it does, so that students will be prepared to lead in their lives and careers--and not necessarily in (...) management roles. Woodruff views the contemporary university as sorely lacking an emphasis on leadership, and presents three core sets of recommendations for how they can and should foster it. First, Woodruff posits co-curricular groups, activities, and projects as essential activities for students to gain confidence and leadership skills. Administrations should encourage students to engage in activities outside the classroom, convert coached sports teams into student-led clubs as far as possible, and discourage social organizations that are segregated by race or sex. Second, Woodruff advocates for a different curriculum for all undergraduates, no matter their major-arguing that they need to be taught leadership in the forms of key skills including communication, as well as exposure to key material in history literature, social science, and ethics. Students should be asked to consider the hardest ethical dilemmas that leaders face, toggling between Machiavelli and great ethical thinkers such as Confucius and Socrates. Third, Woodruff calls for the teaching methods used by instructors to re-orient themselves around the question of leadership, particularly by emphasizing teamwork. Professors should respect their students' independence, avoid tyrannical teaching, and remember that all teachers teach ethics simply by the examples they set in dealing with students. Whether in engineering, music, or classics, The Garden of Leaders advances leadership as a core value that should be at the heart of the educational enterprise-contending that while a college campus can be many things, it should at the very least be a ground upon which new leaders can grow. (shrink)

“That the imagination should be both free and yet of itself conformable to law, that is, that it should carry autonomy with it, is a contradiction.” So Kant writes to express as a paradox the epistemological problem that the feeling on which an aesthetic judgment is based must be free of the constraint provided by determinate concepts, for otherwise there will be no reason why it should be pleasurable, yet must also be subject to some kind of rule, for otherwise (...) the claim of universal validity which this judgment asserts will be irrational. And so understood, the remark is entirely rhetorical, for it is the express purpose of Kant’s main argument in the Critique of Aesthetic Judgment to show that this conception of the judgment of taste is coherent rather than contradictory. But taken from its intended context, the remark need not be rhetorical, for it can be seen as an expression of competing demands for aesthetic integrity, or demands for individual freedom and social agreement in the creation and reception of art which, unlike the two epistemological constraints on aesthetic judgment, cannot be simultaneously satisfied but which instead introduce a permanent source of instability into the history of art and taste. Indeed, it is even fitting that Kant’s remark has to be taken out of context to be given this interpretation, for although Kant lays the theoretical basis for such a picture of art history he also tries to suppress its consequence and to avert the destruction of the eighteenth-century ideal of aesthetic stability which is its inevitable outcome. (shrink)

Unique in all of literature, the Confessions combines frank and profound psychological insight into Augustine's formative years along with sophisticated and beguiling reflections on some of the most important issues in philosophy and theology. The essays contained in this volume, by some of the most distinguished recent and contemporary thinkers in the field, insightfully explore Augustinian themes not only with an eye to historical accuracy but also to gauge the philosophical acumen of Augustine's reflections.

The Summa predicantium compiled in the second quarter of the fourteenth century by the English Dominican John Bromyard (d. ca. 1352), has a number of things to say about invention in art or archite...

Volume 1. The Anscombe-Lewis debate : from analogia entis to analogia fidei -- "God ... or a Bad, or Mad, Man" : C.S. Lewis's argument for Christ's divinity--a systematic theological, historical, and philosophical analysis of aut Deus aut malus homo -- Atonement : a unified model and event, the drama of redemption - understanding and rationalizing the tradition -- Scripture and the Christ, the Word of God : C.S. Lewis and Karl Barth--Convergence and Divergence -- The Pittenger-Lewis Debate : fundamentals (...) of an ontological Christology -- The question of multiple incarnations : imagination and paradox, reality and salvation. (shrink)

This article presents the case of a mother who is planning a home birth with a midwife with the shared knowledge that the fetus would have congenital anomalies of unknown severity. We discuss the right of women to choose home birth, the caregivers’ duty to the infant, and the careproviders’ dilemma about how to respond to this request. The ethical duties of concerned careproviders are explored and reframed as professional obligations to the mother, infant, and their profession at large. Recommendations (...) are offered based on this case in order to clarify the considerations surrounding not only home birth of a fetus with anticipated anomalies, but also to address the ethical obligations of caregivers who must navigate the unique tension between respecting the mother’s wishes and the duty of the careproviders to deliver optimal care. (shrink)

To step back: rethinking the question -- Where we stand: the contemporary question -- The road: rationality and worldviews -- At the crossroads of worldviews -- The crossroad we have passed: the project of Thomas Aquinas -- God at the crossroads: what the five ways do -- The fork: the emergence of modern atheism as a worldview -- To set out: arguing from the crossroads to God.

Ο συγγραφέας σχολιάζει τις πληροφορίες που αφορούν την ιστορία της ελληνιστικής Ανατολής από τη βασιλεία του Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου μέχρι και αυτή του Αντίοχου Α'. Περιλαμβάνονται στον πρώτο τόμο του corpus των βαβυλωνιακών αστρονομικών εφημερίδων που δημοσίευσαν πρόσφατα οι Α. J. Sachs et Η. Hunger (1988) : 1. Η μάχη των Γαυγαμήλων. Ο Paul Bernard αποδεικνύει ότι η εκλογή του πεδίου της μάχης, όπου ήρθαν αντιμέτωπες οι στρατιές των Μακεδόνων και των Περσών, δεν ήταν αποτέλεσμα αυτοσχεδιασμού εκ μέρους του επιτελείου (...) του Δαρείου Γ', αλλά η σύλληψη ενός στρατηγικού σχεδίου μετά από ώριμη σκέψη, του οποίου τις αρετές είχαν αποκρύψει οι κλασικοί ιστορικοί. 2. Η χρονολογία του θανάτου του Μ. Αλεξάνδρου. 3. Η επανάσταση των Ελλήνων αποίκων στις άνω σατραπείες το 323-322 π.Χ. 4. Ο αγώνας μεταξύ Αντιγόνου και Σέλευκου στην Μεσοποταμία-Βαβυλωνία. 5. Ο πρώτος συριακός πόλεμος (274-271 π.Χ.). 6. Η μεταφορά αποίκων από τη Βαβυλωνία στη Σελεύκεια του Τίγρη το 274 π.Χ. 7. Η κρίση της Βαβυλωνίας στα τέλη της βασιλείας του Αντίοχου Α'. (shrink)

Eliot Porter: In the Realm of Nature contains 110 images from the collections of Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser; the Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth, Texas; and of the J. Paul Getty Museum, along with an essay by Paul Martineau that ...

Psychoanalysis and Wisdom applies psychoanalytic insights to one of the great examples of wisdom literature, the Ethics of the Fathers, an ethical tractate of the Talmud. Paul Marcus quotes key passages from the Ethics of the Fathers, providing a psychoanalytic commentary to enlarge and deepen our understanding of its contents and focusing primarily on what constitutes a flourishing life. Marcus then considers what psychoanalysis can provide in its engagement with this classic of the wisdom teachings, such as illuminating aspects (...) of the Ethics that are overlooked or underappreciated, and how "pearls of wisdom" from the Ethics can be incorporated into psychoanalytic theory and practice. The book contains clinical material as well as the insights of philosophers like Martin Buber, Gabriel Marcel, and Emmanuel Levinas. Psychoanalysis and Wisdom will appeal to readers interested in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy and to academics and students of psychoanalytic studies, religious studies, Judaic studies, and philosophy. (shrink)

Dans la ligne tracée par les travaux de Paul Ricœur, familier aux exégètes, l’herméneutique biblique doit se préoccuper du lien de la pensée hmaine avec la vie de l’univers., du rapport de l’écriture à la loi ou à l’éthique, de la consonance profonde de la pensée religieuse avec le langage symbolique. L’écriture est, en effet, l’une des techniques par lesquelles l’être humain, dès ses origines, assure sa maîtrise sur l’univers ; l’écrit lui sert à codifier la vie en société (...) et le fonctionnement de l’autorité. La comparaison des diverses cultures religieuses entre elles permet de discerner le travail original de la foi d’un peuple sur les symbolismes dont il a hérité.In the line traced by the works of Paul Ricœur, familiar to exegetes, biblical hermeneutics should be preoccupied with the connection between human thought and the life of the universe, the rapport of scripture to law and ethics, and the profound harmony of religious thought with symbolic language. Scripture is, indeed, one of the techniques by which human beings, since their origin, assure their control over the universe. Writing serves to codify life in society and the functioning of authority. The comparison of diverse religious cultures allows us to discern the original work of the faith of a people on their inherited symbolisms. (shrink)

Paul Thom argues that opera is a set of practices framed by the concepts of work, interpretation, performance, and art. His argument is that operatic works have the potential to be art, but so do operatic productions, independently of their value as interpretations of the works they stage.

Schelling's Philosophy of History Paul Collins HAYNER. CHAPTER TWO THE ROLE OF HISTORY IN SCHELLING'S PHILOSOPHY TO 1809 I. SCHELLING AS DlSCIPLE OF FlCHTE The earliest philosophical expressions of Friedrich Wilhelm ...

Calvin has a strong dualist view of the human person. His understanding of the immortality of the soul is considered. The main sections of the Chapter are involved in considering three contemporary misunderstandings of Calvin's view of the soul. These concern various ways in which the Fall has affected its workings.