In this essay, the author examines the problem of the composition of spiritual substances in Thierry of Chartres and Gundissalinus. While Thierry is reticent to admit a hylomorphism in spiritual creatures, Gundissalinus develops Thierry’s thought on the matter through al-Ghazālī’s and Ibn Daud’s treatment of the composition in spiritual substances. Gundissalinus concludes that spiritual creatures are composed of matter and form, a conclusion that would be unacceptable to his main philosophical authorities.

This book uncovers the lost history of Christianity's encounters with Pythagorean ideas before the Renaissance. David Albertson skillfully examines ancient and medieval theologians, particularly Thierry of Chartres and Nicholas of Cusa, who successfully reconceived the Trinity and the Incarnation within the framework of Greek number theory. David Albertson challenges modern assumptions about the complex relationship between religion and science.

Abstract An anonymous manuscript from the fourteenth or early fifteenth century, recently discovered, apparently transmitted Thierry of Chartres's philosophical theology to Nicholas of Cusa around 1440. Yet the author of the treatise is not endorsing Thierry's views, as both Cusanus and modern readers have assumed, but in fact is writing in order to refute them. Curiously the author never mentions Thierry's best known triad of unitas, aequalitas and conexio . But a careful comparison of the structure (...) of the author's argument to Thierry's extant works shows that the author was nevertheless quite familiar with the Breton master's writings. The reatise's author offers an incisive critique of Thierry's theory of “four modes of being“ and rejects two of the modes in particular. From this new perspective, the manuscript can be valued as the first known evidence of Thierry of Chartres's late medieval reception. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to identify the theological comprehension of the Word as Creator in the action of the Trinity, which Thierry of Chartres offers in his Tractatus de sex dierum operibus. In his brief and synthetic explanation, he makes coincide the findings of human reason with biblical notions, such as Figure and splendor, Wisdom, Truth, Word, not as a mere sequence but in their deep and relational meaning. Thierry’s rational method is deductive-mathematical, whereas the (...) philosophical premise is the rerum universitas articulated in levels of necessity and possibility. All this allows creation to be considered as explication of the complicatio—or multiplicity produced by unity— which is typical of the chartrian neoplatonism, with the characteristic seal of Thierry. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: History Bernard of Chartres William of Conches and Thierry of Chartres Gilbert of Poitiers Conclusion.

Boethius and Alcuin of York -- Boethius and Amalrius Symphosius Metensis -- Boethius and Charles II "the Bald" -- Boethius and Iohannes Scottus Eriugena -- Boethius and the cognitive process (De musica I, 1) -- Boethius and Aurelianus Reomensis -- Boethius and Hucbaldus Elnonensis -- Boethii Consolatio Philosophiae -- Boethius and Hrotsvitha Gandersheimensis -- Boethius and Gerbertus Aureliacensis, Boethius and Abbo Floriacensis, Boethius and Notker Labeo seu Teutonicus -- Boethius and Fulbertus Carnotensis -- Boethius and Theodoricus Carnotensis.

This paper focuses on the exegetical proposal of the Tractatus de sex dierum operibus by Thierry of Chartres and it is tasked with analyzing the twofold interpretative framework adopted by the Cancelor: first, the accordance between the narration of Genesis and the heuristic models of physical and cosmological causality; second, the mathematical theology, which revises the work of creation according to an arithmological approach. The study is divided into two parts which follow the structure of the Tractatus. In (...) the first part, I analyse the physical plausibility of Christian cosmogony and subsequently the conception of matter with regard to both William of Conches’ inordinatum and the hermetic locus mundi. In the second part, I examine how the numerical discourse interprets the creatural unfolding and dependence on God, as well as the creation per verbum and the individuality of each created being. My purpose is threefold: first, to test the inner philosophical coherence of the Tractatus; second, to interpret specific theoretical points at the light of Thierry’s commentaries on Boethius’ De Trinitate, and finally, to relate the arithmetical issues of the Tractatus to Thierry's Commentum super Arithmeticam Boethii. (shrink)

This essay attempts to provide more evidence for the notions that there actually is a Latin (as opposed to a Greek) Neoplatonic tradition in late antiquity, that this tradition includes a systematic theory of first principles, and that this tradition and theory are influential in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. The method of the essay is intended to be novel in that, instead of examining authors or works in a chronological sequence and attempting to isolate doctrines in the traditional (...) manner, it proceeds by identifying certain philosophemes (a concept borrowed from structuralist and post-structuralist thought and here signifying certain minimal units from which philosophical “systems“ can be constructed), and then studying the combination and re-combination of these philosophemes consciously and unconsciously by a selection of important medieval writers. These philosophemes occur in Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram ; Augustine, De Trinitate ; Augustine, De Vera Religione ; Augustine, De Musica ; Macrobius, Commentarius in Somnium Scipionis ; and Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae . The sampling of medieval authors who use these philosophemes includes Eriugena, William of Conches, Thierry of Chartres, and Nicholas of Cusa. (shrink)

Clarembald of Arras, a twelfth-century ecclesiastical official and schoolmaster, composed glosses on two of the Boethian Opuscula Sacra and a commentary on the hexameron. While he acknowledged his study of Boethius under his masters Thierry of Chartres and Hugh of St. Victor, his dependence on the former is significant: he borrowed heavily from Thierry, following not only his basic doctrinal interpretation of the Boethian treatises but also repeating entire passages from Thierry's glosses. ;The question arises then: (...) is Clarembald to be considered as nothing more than an imitator of the thought of Thierry? Is he to be understood simply as a "typical Chartrian"? Is his interest in the Boethian opuscula confined to restatements of Thierry's interpretations and entirely lacking in any other purposes or qualities that are peculiarly his own? ;A careful reading of the Clarembaldian corpus does indeed present a strong case for the dependence of Clarembald upon Thierry in thought and expression. Yet he composed his De Trinitate gloss at the request of others, even though Thierry's was available, indicating something of Clarembald's standing in the academic community. Further there is substantial evidence in his writings of a distinct measure of independence from Thierry. This is to be found in part in Clarembald's careful contextualization of each work and again in his utilization of sources unknown to Thierry. The most prominent feature of independence is found in Clarembald's intention or purpose in writing his own glosses and the hexameron: Clarembald's works have a certain polemical and apologetic orientation, particularly in regard to Gilbert of Poitiers, Peter Abelard and the Cathars, an orientation not found as such in Thierry's works. ;A careful examination of the texts shows Clarembald to be indeed a scholar of some merit in his research and in the expression of his thought. His intentions and purposes in writing go beyond an imitation of Thierry: he used the glosses to confront dogmatic issues of the day, giving him his own unique place in the tradition of Boethian commentators and in the intellectual history of the middle ages. (shrink)

This book presents a study of twelfth-century humanism seen as an all-embracing discourse in which the human and the divine interact on equal terms. The book focuses on a number of twelfth-century intellectuals, especially Thierry of Chartres, Peter Abelard, William of Conches, Bernard Silvestris, and Alan of Lille. Defining characteristic of their texts is the fact that God, nature and humanity enter into a trialogue of sorts involving many disparate subjects and aiming to bring out the archetypal relatedness (...) of all kinds of knowledge with respect to human nature. As the authors studied here engage the divine and the universe in a joint conversation, the book ultimately concentrates on trying both to understand its appeal and to explain its subsequent demise. (shrink)

Clarembald of Arras is recognized primarily as a capable but uncreative alumnus of the school of Chartres, and not without some reason, as George and Fortin note in the opening of their introduction. Clarembald was a student of Thierry of Chartres and Hugh of St. Victor in a rather thoroughgoing sense—his written work often relies heavily on his teachers and focuses exclusively on topics on which Thierry had already written. Nonetheless, George and Fortin suggest that a (...) closer reading of Clarembald’s texts will reveal him to be a more careful and important thinker than is presently appreciated. (shrink)

This is an English translation of my essay: Alfred Gierer Wissenschaft, Religion und die deutungsoffenen Grundfragen der Biologie. Mpi for the History of Science, preprint 388, 1-21, also in philpapers. Range and limits of science are given by the universal validity of physical laws, and by intrinsic limitations, especially in self-referential contexts. In particular, neurobiology should not be expected to provide a full understanding of consciousness and the mind. Science cannot provide, by itself, an unambiguous interpretation of the natural order (...) at the philosophical, cultural and religious level. The diversity of interpretations, however appears as a positive factor of cultural dynamics. Historically, the revival of the philosophy of nature in the middle ages included remarkable biological thoughts such as those of Eriugena and Thierry of Chartres. In this essay, emphasis is placed on basic issues of modern biology – the distinction of man and animal, the evolution of human mental capabilities, the physics of the universe as precondition for biological evolution, and the intricasies of the brain-mind-relation. They are open to agnostic as well as religious interpretations, the individual choice being mainly a matter of wisdom and not just of knowledge. -/-. (shrink)

Pauchant's book emerges from a forum on International Management, Ethics, and Spirituality, the first of its kind to be held at an internationally recognized business school, and represents the thinking of six CEOs and six scholars of ethics and spirituality from Australia, Canada, the United States, and Switzerland.

"Based on the reading of the only twelfth-century manuscript of the Enigma extant, Charleville MS. 114, and an examination of the fifteenth-century manuscript Uppsala C. 79." Revision of the editor's thesis, Catholic University of America, 1971, presented under title: The enigma fidei of William of Saint Thierry, a translation and commentary. Bibliography: p. 119-120.

Thierry Meynard examines how the Jesuits in China came to understand the Confucian tradition, and how they offered the first complete translation of the Lunyu in the West, in the Confucius Sinarum Philosophus.

Semantical arguments, based on the completeness theorem for first-order logic, give elegant proofs of purely syntactical results. For instance, for proving a conservativity theorem between two theories, one shows instead that any model of one theory can be extended to a model of the other theory. This method of proof, because of its use of the completeness theorem, is a priori not valid constructively. We show here how to give similar arguments, valid constructively, by using Boolean models. These models are (...) a slight variation of ordinary first-order models, where truth values are now regular ideals of a given Boolean algebra. Two examples are presented: a simple conservativity result and Herbrand's theorem. (shrink)

Valorising the biocultural heritage of common goods could enable peasant farmers to achieve socially and economically inclusive sustainability. Increasingly appreciated by consumers, peasant heritage products offer small farmers promising opportunities for economic, social and territorial development. Identifying the obstacles and levers of this complex, multi-scale and multi-stakeholder objective requires an integrative framework. We applied the panarchy conceptual framework to two cases of participatory research with small quinoa producers: a local fair in Chile and quinoa export production in Bolivia. In both (...) cases, the “commoning” process was crucial both to bring stakeholders together inside their communities and to gain outside recognition for their production and thus achieve social and economic inclusion. Despite the differences in scale, the local fair and the export market shared a similar marketing strategy based on short value chains promoting quality products with high identity value. In these dynamics of biocultural heritage valorisation, the panarchical approach revealed the central place as well as the vulnerability of the community territory. As a place of both anchoring and opening, the community territory is the privileged space where autonomous and consensual control over the governance of common biocultural resources can be exercised. (shrink)

The importance of drug‐metabolizing enzymes in developing mammals has been recently reevaluated in view of the activities and potential inducibilities of these enzymes. The role of endogenous factors raises the question of whether there is a positive regulation of the expression of drug‐metabolizing enzymes by hormones. In humans, among the different isoenzymes of cytochrome P‐450 described in adult liver, only one is absent in 20‐week‐old fetuses. Epoxide hydrolase and glutathione S‐transferases are active while UDP‐glucuronidation develops postnatally. The consequence of this (...) asynchronous rise of activities is briefly discussed. (shrink)

Jesuits in China adopted key Confucian terms to express Christian notions; for example, Tian 天 or Shangdi 上帝 was considered an equivalent for God, and guishen 鬼神 for angels. A Terms controversy started among the Jesuits and other missionaries and developed into the famous Rites Controversy. However, all the missionaries agreed in rejecting the Neo-Confucian concept of Taiji 太極, which was believed to be materialistic, pantheistic, or atheistic. The Flemish Jesuit François Noël, after a careful study of Neo-Confucian texts, interpreted (...) Taiji with the Western concept of nature, and even claimed that it held theistic meaning. We shall analyze and evaluate here this early Western attempt in giving a positive meaning to Taiji. (shrink)

This article uses the translation approach to analyze the Green Revolution in Bali, Indonesia. The translation approach reopens the controversy about a classical topic in development studies: the failure or success of the Green Revolution. The translation method helps us to understand how the previous explanations of the failure or success of the Green Revolution in Bali were socially constructed and how the presence and the identity of social groups involved in agriculture on Bali were negotiated during the controversy. J. (...) Stephen Lansing's recent computer model of Balinese agriculture is examined as a new component of the Green Revolution technological package. The analysis shows that the success of Lansing's model is better understood as a result of his communication strategy than as a scientific achievement. (shrink)

Creationism is an important feature of Christianity but seems very foreign to Chinese philosophy. This paper examines an early attempt at introducing a metaphysical account of creationism in Huanyou quan (1628) by the Portuguese Jesuit, Francisco Furtado, and the Chinese scholar, Li Zhizao. It investigates the sources drawn from the works of Thomas Aquinas and reconstructs the choices made by the two authors in their translation. Finally, it suggests that Thomistic creationism bears similarities with Chinese philosophy.

The paper reviews methods, and their difficulties, in the measurement of the daily energy expenditure of rural women under field conditions in developing countries. Since all methods need to be validated against a reference method which is usually based on indirect calorimetry, examples of the use of this technique are given. The energy costs of most agricultural and daily tasks of rural women in developing countries have been measured. Large intra- and inter-individual variations in the cost of a single activity (...) occur, so repeated measurements are needed to obtain a valid mean energy cost for a specific activity for a homogeneous group of individuals.Much work remains to be done on the assessment of the duration and the intensity of the physical activity of the rural adolescent and adult female population. Studies indicate that the workload of most rural women in developing countries is excessive and frequently associated with acute poverty. (shrink)

In his study of the conversion of Westerners to Islam, a Turkish sociologist revealed in 1996 that it happened that a significant proportion of the converts had adopted that religion under the influence of Islamic mysticism, or Sufism. Now Sufism, located at the meeting-point of the written and oral traditions of Islam, offers an original commentary on the Quran and a spiritual practice based on psychosomatic exercises close to yoga. Interest in Sufism among Westerners was revealed at the end of (...) the nineteenth century and became considerable from the 1930s onwards, resulting in the foundation in Europe of Sufi groups directed by converts who very quickly became shaykhs (shaikh). These first groups, to which new ones were added, are still active today, although somewhat bruised by numerous divisions. The reasons for conversion to Sufism among Europeans, for the most part from intellectual milieux, rest on concerns of a spiritual dimension linked to the climate of religious crisis which the modern West has experienced since the end of the nineteenth century. To which should be added in recent decades the fashionable exoticism fostered by the development of means of transport and communication which have brought East and West closer. (shrink)

Ivo of Chartres (1040–1115) offers a case study about how objects – ivories in particular – knitted together social relations and established kinship networks across medieval France. An active reformer amidst the Investiture Controversy, Ivo is best known today for his lively and compelling correspondence. This article, however, argues that Ivo should also be remembered for the carved ivories in his possession. At least three ivories from the late eleventh century (although two are now lost) can be associated with (...) Ivo: a comb, a set of tablets (probably a diptych), and his crosier, which is now in Florence’s Bargello Museum. Interweaving Ivo’s written reflections on the role of ivory objects in his life as reformer, bishop, politician, and friend, the essay further traces the history of Ivo’s crosier as it was passed to following generations of reform-minded canons. (shrink)

In order to implement cost-benefit analysis of protective actions to reduce radiological exposures, one needs to attribute a monetary value to the avoided exposure. Recently, the International Commission on Radiological Protection has stressed the need to take into consideration not only the collective exposure to ionising radiation but also its dispersion in the population. In this paper, by using some well known and some recent results in the economics of uncertainty, we discuss how to integrate these recommendations in the valuation (...) of the benefit of protection. (shrink)

Based on large, representative Australian household panel, this study investigates to what extent the Big Five personality variables influence self-employment survival and differentiates between successful or unsuccessful exit. In addition, the influence of two moderating variables, tertiary education and the motivation to become self-employed, are considered. Contrary to expectations, we found no impact of the Big Fives variable on self-employment survival in general. In the case of unsuccessful exit, we found that entrepreneurs with a higher level of Conscientiousness tend to (...) stay self-employed although they may not be satisfied with their job. Similarly, entrepreneurs with a tertiary education prolong unsuccessfully self-employment stints, particularly if they exhibit higher level of Emotional Stability. Necessity-driven entrepreneurs exit unsuccessful stints earlier, especially if they exhibit a lower level of conscientiousness. (shrink)

In the wake of recent attempts at alternate history (Bowler 2013), this paper suggests several avenues for a pluralistic approach to Charles Darwin and his role in the history of evolutionary theory. We examine in what sense Darwin could be described as a major driver of theoretical change in the history of biology. First, this paper examines how Darwin influenced the future of biological science: not merely by stating the fact of evolution or by bringing evidence for it; but by (...) discovering natural selection, and giving it pre-eminence over any other mechanism for evolution; and also by proposing a masterful and quite unique synthesis of many scientific fields. Contrasting Darwin’s views with those of A.R. Wallace, I conclude that “natural selection” is clearly an original contribution, that it had no forerunners or co-discoverers, and could barely have appeared after Darwin conceived of it. This specificity of Darwin’s contribution is an invitation to be strongly presentist (Loison 2016) and to adopt only weak counter-factuals. In contrast, there are possible ways to use strong counter-factuals as attempts to “pluralize” the history of biological theory: i.e. imagine new possible avenues for the development of evolutionary biology. The idea that evolution was a theory “in the air” suggests that evolutionary theory could have developed in a world without Darwin, especially if we accept to delete not only “Darwin” but “England”. France and Germany are examined as possible countries where evolutionary ideas would have thrived even with no contribution from the English scientists. Finally, the paper suggests another counter-factual hypothesis: deleting not Darwin and his Origin but the Darwin Industry itself. This may allow us to read the Origin of Species with fresh eyes and to discover Darwin’s life-long interest in variation and its laws, as many of his early readers did. (shrink)