Tal como Étienne Gilson señaló, el siglo XII asiste a lo que denominó “socratismo cristiano”: una revalorización teórica y práctica de la sentencia délfica “Nosce te ipsum”. Uno de los filósofos que suele ser incluido en esta corriente es Pedro Abelardo, autor de una obra llamada Scito te ipsum (Conócete a ti mismo). Rainer Ilgner, sin embargo, guiado por un espíritu primordialmente filológico, ha denunciado que el maestro palatino no hizo más que “usurpar” la máxima a partir (...) de la cual pensadores como Hugo de San Víctor o Bernardo de Claraval sí edificaron sus respectivas propuestas morales. Nuestro objetivo principal, pues, es contrastar su tesis desde un punto de vista filosófico. Para ello, hemos dividido este artículo en dos grandes momentos: en el primero, explicaremos en qué consiste el socratismo cristiano y cuál es la relación que, según diferentes autores, guardaría con él la teoría ética de Abelardo; en un segundo momento, realizaremos un análisis filosófico de las principales premisas de la teoría ética abelardiana de modo tal que nos permita corroborar o refutar la acusación de Ilgner. (shrink)

In dieser zwischen 1135 und 1139 verfaßten Schrift, der er zwei Titel gab: Ethica oder Scito te ipsum, erörtert Abaelard die Frage nach dem Guten und dem Bösen, vor allem aber erstmals die Bedeutung des Gewissens für die Selbstbestimmung des Menschen. Er unterscheidet zwischen der Schwäche des Menschen, die durch Selbstbeherrschung überwunden werden kann, und der Sünde, die darin besteht, sich den eigenen Schwächen zu unterwerfen. Seine These, das Gewissen sei die oberste Instanz der Moral und die Moralität (...) oder Verwerflichkeit einer Handlung bestimme sich daher aus der Gesinnung des Handelnden, führte ihn zu der Folgerung, daß derjenige, der böse handelt, ohne es doch selbst zu wissen, dadurch noch nicht schuldig wird - sondern erst dann, wenn er entgegen besserer Einsicht, die ihm aufgegeben und möglich ist, das Böse wählt. Diese Behauptung stieß bei den Zeitgenossen und der Kirche auf Kritik und führte zur Verurteilung Abaelards auf dem Konzil von Sens ; wirkungsgeschichtlich gewann sie gleichwohl große Kraft und Bedeutung, da durch diesen Gedanken die überkommene Doxa, allein der Verstoß gegen moralisch geltende Regeln gebe den Maßstab dafür ab, ein Individuum der Sünde zu bezichtigen, dahingehend zu relativieren, daß nur der sich schuldig macht, der auch wußte, daß er eine Verfehlung begeht. Aus diesem Grund zählt die Schrift zu den bedeutendsten Werken der Weltliteratur. Die Ausgabe präsentiert sie erstmalig in einer vollständigen deutschen Übersetzung. Beigegeben sind der lateinische Text und eine kompetente Einleitung, die die besondere Stellung dieser Schrift im Gesamtwerk Abaelards prägnant vor Augen führt. (shrink)

In this paper we introduce the great innovation that takes place in the XIIth century in relation to individual responsibility; this novelty is analyzed in contraposition to what happened in previous centuries of the Early Middle Ages. The main source used are the Penitential Books, specially the one by Alan of Lille.

A careful reading of Heloise's letters reveals both her contribution to Abelard's ethical thought and the differences between her ethical concerns and his. In her letters, Heloise focuses on the innate moral qualities of the inner person or animus. Hypocrisy—the misrepresentation of the inner person through false outer appearance, exemplified by the potentially deceitful religious habit or habitus—is a matter of great moral concern to her. When Abelard responds to Heloise's ideas, first in his letters to her and later in (...) his Collationes and Scito te ipsum, he turns the discussion away from her original interests. He transforms her metaphor of the habitus as false appearance into a discussion of another type of habitus, the habitual process of acquiring virtue, and integrates her focus on the animus into his developing ideas about sin as intention. Examining the differences between Heloise's ethical thought and Abelard's allows us to appreciate the distinct contributions of both. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo es explicar la interpretación política que Vico ofrece del precepto apolíneo “nosce te ipsum”. El artículo comienza con el problema del conocimiento de sí mismo en la primera Oración Inaugural y en el De Antiquissima. Luego, ese problema es puesto en relación con el origen de la autoconciencia en la Scienza nuova, con Solón y Esopo como universales fantásticos de la plebe y con el origen civil de la filosofía. La conclusión es que hay (...) una conexión entre el conocimiento de sí mismo, aconsejado por dicho precepto, y la reflexión filosófica que sostiene la base epistemológica de la ciencia viquiana.Palabras clave: Vico, autoconocimiento, autoconciencia, reflexión filosófica, política.The aim of this paper is to explain Vico’s political interpretation of the Apollonian prescription “nosce te ipsum”. The paper begins with the problem of the self-knowledge in the first Oration and in De Antiquissima. After that, this problem is related with the historical origin of self-consciousness in the Scienza nuova, with Solon and Aesop as imaginative universals of the plebs and with the civil origin of philosophy. The conclusion is that there is a connection between the self-knowledge advised for this prescription and the philosophical reflection that support the epistemological basis of Vico’s science.Keywords: self-knowledge, self-consciousness, philosophical reflection, politics. (shrink)

Este ensayo propone un diálogo entre antiguos y modernos. En este caso se trata de Immanuel Kant y la sabiduría popular de la Grecia arcaica. A partir de algunos indicios encontrados en la obra póstuma del filósofo de Königsberg, se desarrolla una reflexión acerca del papel que podría desempeñar en la filosofía crítica, especialmente en la difícil doctrina del autoconocimiento, la antigua y reconocida sentencia délfica gnôthi seautón/nosce te ipsum.

The present Festschrift was born as a tribute to the scientific production of Rémi Brague. This study collects the interventions of several thinkers, with different scientific profiles, who, fond of reality, have reflected on, and been in dialogue with his thought. Brague has explored many spheres: anthropology, metaphysics, religion, history of religions, aesthetics, ethics, politics, and cosmology – where he recalled those anchors in the sky where mankind throws its roots. We have decided to entitle this collection Europa cura te (...) ipsam! inspired by on the admonition of the famous Medice cura te ipsum. As Brague has repeatedly obser- ved, and recently with no little pessimism, it is now up to Europeans to recover their history and look to their future. We hope that the present work can be a stimulus for today’s thinkers and for generations to come, certain that the search for truth is an endless inquiry where harmony and cooperation among thinkers constitute progress. -/- Contributors: Leonardo Allodi, Rafael Alvira, Jean Baechler, Damiano Bondi, Thomas Buchheim, Virgil Ciomos, Rocio Daga Portillo, Marco Damonte, Chantal Delsol, Phil Devine, Thérèse-Anne Druart, Travis Dumsday, David C. Flatto, Michal Gierycz, Elisa Grimi, John F. X. Knasas, Hans Maier, Sante Maletta, Fr Antonio Malo, Fr Giulio Maspero, Ilaria Vigorelli, Fr Piotr Mazurkiewicz, Isabelle Moulin, José Ignacio Gómez Murillo, Maurits Potappel, John M. Rist, H. Em. Card. Angelo Scola, Hans Seitschek, Wilhelm Vossenkuhl. (shrink)

The paper examines the definitions of the concept ‘philosophy’ resp. ‘the philosopher’ in Florentine renaissance Platonism, namely Marsilio Ficino and his scholar Francesco di Zanobi Cattani da Diacceto. Following Socrates and Pythagoras, Ficino distinguishes between mundane philosophy and divine sapientia. In contrast to his teacher, Diacceto’s Aristotelism rejects the Pythagoreanism and connects philosophy with sapientia. In order to show how the differences between Ficino and Diacceto emerge, three more contemporaries are taken into consideration: Christoforo Landino, Angelo Poliziano and Giovanni Pico (...) della Mirandola. As a result of this examination, it can be said that the definition of ‘philosophy’ in Florentine renaissance Platonism tends either to Pythagoreism or to Aristotelism or to both. Closely connected with the debate on philosophy are topics and maxims such as meditatio mortis, theologia negativa, docta ignorantia, scio ne scio, nosce te ipsum, ne quid nimis et al. (shrink)

The paper examines the definitions of the concept ›philosophy‹ resp. ›the philosopher‹ in Florentine renaissance Platonism, namely Marsilio Ficino and his scholar Francesco di Zanobi Cattani da Diacceto. Following Socrates and Pythagoras, Ficino distinguishes between mundane philosophy and divine sapientia. In contrast to his teacher, Diacceto's Aristotelism rejects the Pythagoreanism and connects philosophy with sapientia. In order to show how the differences between Ficino and Diacceto emerge, three more contemporaries are taken into consideration: Christoforo Landino, Angelo Poliziano and Giovanni Pico (...) della Mirandola. As a result of this examination, it can be said that the definition of ›philosophy‹ in Florentine renaissance Platonism tends either to Pythagoreism or to Aristotelism or to both. Closely connected with the debate on philosophy are topics and maxims such as meditatio mortis, theologia negativa, docta ignorantia, scio ne scio, nosce te ipsum, ne quid nimis et al. (shrink)

nos numerus sumus et frugis consumere nati,sponsi Penelopae nebulones Alcinoiquein cute curanda plus aequo operata iuuentus,cui pulchrum fuit in medios dormire dies et 30ad strepitum citharae cessatum ducere curam.ut iugulent hominem, surgunt de nocte latrones:ut te ipsum serues, non expergisceris?We are ciphers, born to eat bread, the worthless suitors of Penelope and the young men of Alcinous’ court, all too concerned with keeping their skin attractive, who thought it a fine thing to sleep till midday and * * * (...) To murder a man, thieves get up at night; to save yourself, won't you wake up? (shrink)

The following presentation has for object raise the problem of the human action and the technology. The human and instrumental. The human effort for trying to control (to (limit) the technology, is the Hybris against which the word of Apollo gets up in Delphi. The knowledge of the limits of the man, it is what claims the man and not to the claimed responsibility, with which he believes, there has been delivered him the mission to direct his own destination. The (...) Nosce te ipsum, of the temple of Apollo, is the philosophy, the wisdom that is in the recognition of the limits that mark the essence of the man and that it consists of thinking never trying to exceed them. What will be postulated here, is that the concept of precaution and his Principle, it continues being a determination of the technology, not only a consummation of the instrumental and anthropologic action, but a consummation of the ‘technical’ of the thought. (shrink)

A pergunta “O que sou, então, meu Deus?” (“Quid ergo sum, Deus meus?”, Conf. X, XVII, 26) – um dos motes da investigação agostiniana – remete de forma pungente e significativa ao tema da relação, de modo mais exato à questão da autorrelação e da alteridade. Com suas reflexões sobre a memória, Agostinho expressa o problema sempre atual da autorrelação em algumas das suas diversas matizes e aspectos a partir da própria experiência de si. Avançar na zona do desconhecido, nesse (...) contexto, significa aproximar-se das esferas ocultas do eu, e a memória - ou o inconsciente - é o portal de entrada a essa área. Procura-se enfatizar, neste artigo, o modo pelo qual o conhecimento/desconhecimento de si, resultante da autorrelação e da investigação de si mesmo, funciona como uma força de empuxo à própria saída-de-si. A resposta à pergunta “O que sou, então, meu Deus?” – etapa do cognosce te ipsum - remete à noção de relação passando pela ideia do descentramento do ego. Da autorrelação à relação com o outro, delineia-se em Agostinho uma abordagem relacional do eu, onde a memória apresenta-se como sede do divino. Encontramo-nos, portanto, longe da moderna noção de subjetividade, onde a visão de si envolve a ideia de autossuficiência. (shrink)

Das historische Buch konnen zahlreiche Rechtschreibfehler, fehlende Texte, Bilder, oder einen Index. Kaufer konnen eine kostenlose gescannte Kopie des Originals durch den Verlag. 1890. Nicht dargestellt. Auszug:... sicherere Prognose stellen konnte, schon drei Wochen vor dem Tode des Philosophen an Leibniz'): D. B. de S. vereor, ut brevi nos derelicturus sit, cum phtisis in dies ingravescere videatur. Funf Tage nach dem Tode Spinoza's ubermittelt Schuller diese schmerzliche Nachricht Leibniz und macht ihm dabei gleichzeitig das merkwurdige Anerbieten, er moge das dem (...) Nachlass entnommene, von Spinoza's Hand herruhrende Exemplar der Ethik fur 150 Gulden fur die Bibliothek des Herzogs von Hannover ankaufen: Caeterum te minime celare debui, clarissimum et acutissimum virum Spinozam maxima atrophia conflictatum 21./H-Februar. vitam suam cum morte commutasse. Videtur autem quod inexpectata mortis debilitate praeventus sit, quoniam sine testamento, ultimae voluntatis indice, a nobis discessit. Ethica, quam penes ipsum vidisti, in autogra-cp penes amicum asservatur2) venalisque habetur, si pretio opere tanto condigno persolvatur, ad quod nulli melius, quam Tibi significandum censui, utpote qui operis conscius principis animum dirigere poteris, ut suis sumtibus coematur3). Gegen eine solche unehrerbietige und geschaftsmassige Ausbeutung der litterarischen Hinterlassenschaft Spinoza's mussen die edler veranlagten Junger des Meisters, an ihrer Spitze wol Ludwig Meyer, entschiedene Einsprache erhoben haben. Denn im folgenden Briefe widerruft Schuller in angstlichem Tone sein unpassendes Angebot, und man merkt es den Zeilen an, dass die heftige Erregung, die uber den Nachlass im Amsterdamer Schuler ') Brief II, datirt: 6. Februar 1677. Dass das Luugenubel in seiner Familie hereditar war, ist ubrigens ein Novum. 2) Die... (shrink)

This paper examines critically Kretzmann's reconstruction of the project of natural theology as exemplified by Aquinas's Summa Contra Gentiles. It is argued that the notion of natural theology, as understood and advocated by Kretzmann, is particularly indebted to the epistemologically biased natural theology of modernity with its focus on rational justification of theistic belief. As a consequence, Kretzmann's view of the arguments for the existence of God and their place within Aquinas's theological project is insufficiently sensitive to the ontological conception (...) of truth and intelligibility which underlies the argumentation. From his epistemological point of view Kretzmann differs from Aquinas in two aspects. First, he contends that it is not necessary to establish the existence of God with absolute certainty at the outset; one may begin with the hypothesis that there is a God. Second, the arguments do not yet conclude to the existence of God in the specific theistic sense; they show at most the existence of a primary explanatory entity, which may be identified with God later on. Both claims are criticized in the light of a discussion of Aquinas's theological method. (shrink)

Engagement with stakeholders and civil society is increasingly important for new scientific and technological developments. Preparation of such engagements sets the stage for engagement activities and thus contributes to their outcomes. Preparation is a demanding task, particularly if the facilitating agent aims for timely engagement related to emerging technologies. Requirements for such preparation include understanding of the emerging science & technology and its dynamics. Multi-level analysis and socio-technical scenarios are two complementary tools for constructing productive engagement. Examination of the emergence (...) of nanotechnologies in the food packaging sector demonstrates how these tools work. In light of recent policy demands for responsible innovation, but also more generally, the role of organizers of engagement activities is one that deserves reflection insofar as it can extend beyond that of preparation and facilitation. (shrink)

We report on an experiment examining whether individuals can solve a simple signal extraction problem of the type found in models with imperfect information. In one treatment, subjects must form point predictions based on observing both public and private signals, while in another they receive the same information but must decide on the weight to attach to each signal, which then determines their point prediction. We find that, at the aggregate level, signal extraction provides a good characterization of subjects’ behavior (...) in both treatments, but at the individual level, there is considerable heterogeneity in subjects’ ability to perform signal extraction. (shrink)

Expectations in the form of promises and concerns contribute to the sense-making and valuation of emerging nanotechnologies. They add up to what we call ‘de facto assessments’ of novel socio-technical options. We explore how de facto assessments of nanotechnologies differ in the application domains of water and food by examining promises and concerns, and their relations in scientific discourse. We suggest that domain characteristics such as prior experiences with emerging technologies, specific discursive repertoires and user-producer relationships, play a key role (...) in framing expectations of nanotechnology-enabled options. The article concludes by suggesting that domain-specific discourses may lead to undesirable lock-ins into specific de facto assessments pre-structuring anticipatory strategies of actors. (shrink)

Explaining the emergence of stochastic irreversible macroscopic dynamics from time-reversible deterministic microscopic dynamics is one of the key problems in philosophy of physics. The Mori-Zwanzig projection operator formalism, which is one of the most important methods of modern nonequilibrium statistical mechanics, allows for a systematic derivation of irreversible transport equations from reversible microdynamics and thus provides a useful framework for understanding this issue. However, discussions of the MZ formalism in philosophy of physics tend to focus on simple variants rather than (...) on the more sophisticated ones used in modern physical research. In this work, I will close this gap by studying the problems of probability and irreversibility using the example of Grabert’s time-dependent projection operator formalism. This allows to better understand how general proposals for understanding probability in statistical mechanics, namely quantum approaches and almost-objective probabilities, can be accomodated in the MZ formalism. Moreover, I will provide a detailed physical analysis, based on the MZ formalism, of various proposals from the philosophical literature, such as Robertson’s theory of justifying coarse-graining via autonomous macrodynamics, Myrvold’s problem of explaining autonomous macrodynamics, and Wallace’s simple dynamical conjecture. (shrink)

The results of an empirical study intoperceptions of the treatment of farm animals inthe Netherlands are presented. A qualitativeapproach, based on in-depth interviews withmeat livestock farmers and consumers was chosenin order to assess motivations behindperceptions and to gain insight into the waypeople deal with possible discrepancies betweentheir perceptions and their daily practices.Perceptions are analyzed with the help of aframe of reference, which consists ofvalues, norms, convictions, interests, andknowledge.

This text describes a single engraving of the picture encyclopediaBilder-Akademie für die Jugend published from 1780 to 1784. It consisted of 52 picture tableaus, each with nine images that were connected through the biblical topic. The particular image under examination, the “Table 38”, shows the healing wonders of Christ, the electrifying maschine, a healing physician and the structure of ear and eye. Goal of this text will be to describe the different connections and meanings of these depicted scenes, as in (...) the same time I will argue, that pictures can not only be interpreted by understanding how people looked at them, but also to take into question what people did with them. (shrink)

This article describes the feasibility of researchinto the relation between values of farmers andsustainability for the Dutch Ministry of Agricultureand the Dutch Federation of Agricultural andHorticultural Organisations.Firstly, a theoretical framework describes differentlevels of motivation behind conduct and choices. Itenables exploration and analysis of individualinterviews with small groups of conventional andecological farmers. The aim is to find out what theirbasic convictions regarding nature and sustainabilityare, and to analyze the relation between theseconvictions and the actual choices they make in theirfarming practice. The (...) research shows that for somefarmers, differences in farming practice go back to themotivation level of moral convictions about what is`good farming'. For others, the motivations for aspecific farming practice are more pragmatic or`superficial'. This knowledge can be of significancefor the process of policy making. (shrink)