Current theological thought across various fields emphasizes the synthetic and holistic nature of Christ’s saving work. For example, consider the use of the term “Paschal Mystery” by the second Vatican Council1 and the language of “the Christ event” in Biblical studies.2 Even Heideggarian theologians who use the language of “symbolic recognition” see the sacraments as moments when Christians recognize and affirm their connectedness to the whole mystery of Christ.3 Conversely, ulta-traditionalist authors combat the idea of Paschal mystery, charging that the (...) connection of the resurrection to the sacraments undercuts Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice.4 While Albert the Great does not, of course, speak directly to... (shrink)

The figure of Alexander inevitably dominates the history of his reign. Our extant sources are centrally focussed upon the king himself. Accordingly it is his own military actions which receive the fullest documentation. Appointments to satrapies and satrapal armies are carefully noted because he made them, but the achievements of the appointees are passed over in silence. The great victories of Antigonus which secured Asia Minor in 323 BC are only known from two casual references in Curtius Rufus, and (...) in general all the multifarious activities in the empire disappear from recorded history except in so far as they impinge upon court life in the shape of reports to Alexander and administrative decisions made by him. Moreover, the sources we possess originate either from high officers of Alexander's court, such as Ptolemy and Nearchus, or from Greek historians like Callisthenes and Cleitarchus, whose aims were literary or propagandist and whose interests were firmly anchored in court life. Inevitably Alexander bestrides that narrow world like a colossus and monopolises the historical picture. But even the figure of Alexander is far from fully fleshed. No contemporary history survives, and for continuous narratives of the reign we are dependent upon late derivative writers who saw Alexander through the filter of centuries of rhetoric and philosophy. The king had long been a stock example of many contradictory traits; he was at once the conqueror and the civiliser, the tyrant and the enlightened king. Cicero and Seneca saw him as the type of unbridled license, Arrian as the paradigm of moderation. The result is that the sources present a series of irreconcilable caricatures of Alexander but no uniform or coherent picture. (shrink)

When Albert Hunt joined the staff of the Regional College of Art, Bradford, in 1965, he found himself working mostly with ‘non-academic’ students on a fascinating range of games, projects and theatre events outside the main stream of exam-oriented education. In this title, first published in 1976, Albert Hunt describes this experience, and explains how he himself evolved from a conventional grammar school teacher to a radical and experimental educator. In particular, Hunt describes the evolution of new working (...) relationships between teachers and students, which in turn highlight an alternative way of viewing society. _Hopes for Great Happenings_ is not only a vividly interesting account of Albert Hunt’s teaching methods, but is of practical value to anybody involved in the study of liberal arts, theatre studies or in community arts work. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Evolution of Pragmatism in India: Ambedkar, Dewey, and the Rhetoric of Reconstruction by Scott R. StroudAlbert R. SpencerBy Scott R. StroudThe Evolution of Pragmatism in India: Ambedkar, Dewey, and the Rhetoric of Reconstruction Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2023. 302 pp., incl. indexMore scholarly attention needs to be paid to the mutual influences between Asian and American thought, especially with regards to the development, (...) legacy, and future of pragmatism. Fortunately, there have been several notable attempts. Throughout his works, Richard Shusterman frequently incorporates the perspectives of various East Asian philosophies into his articulation of somaesthetics. Multiple scholars have explored John Dewey’s lectures in China and their political and educational impact, such as Jessica Ching-Sze Wang’s John Dewey in China or The Democracy of the Dead by Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall. Still others have highlighted the influence of Indian thought on pragmatism’s forerunners, such as American Philosophy Before Pragmatism (Goodman 2015), American Pragmatism: An Introduction (Spencer 2020), and The Ethics of Oneness (Engles 2021). Perhaps the most interesting inquiries into this influence can be found in a special volume of The Journal of Aesthetic Education (Vol. 43, No. 1) where multiple scholars discuss pragmatism’s connections and comparisons to The Bhagavad Gita, Confucianism, and Taoism. Among these scholars is Scott Stroud whose most recent publication The Evolution of Pragmatism in India (2023) represents the culmination of nearly two decades of research on the subject with special attention to the continuities between pragmatism and Indian thought. In it, he meticulously explores the influence of John Dewey on one of his students, Bhimrao Ambedkar (1891–1956), who was a transformative figure in the founding of the nascent Republic of India. The result is a work of scholarship that shows the global relevance of pragmatism in the 20th Century, [End Page 456] introduces the fascinating philosophy of Ambedkar to a non-Indian audience, and provides an entry for further scholarship on this profound thinker and activist.Bhimrao Ambedkar was a critical figure in the birth of modern India. Born an “untouchable” due to the rigid caste system, he tirelessly advocated for the right of Dalits (“crushed” or “untouchables”). By the mid-20th century, he had greatly influenced Indian politics, safeguarded the interests of the oppressed, and played a key role in drafting the Indian Constitution. Separate to his role as a statesman, Ambedkar promoted Buddhism in the 1950s as an escape from caste oppression, culminating in his publication, The Buddha and His Dhamma (1957). While his name is less familiar outside of India, he was voted the “Greatest Indian” in a 2012 poll due to his profound impact on the nation’s post-independence development. These accomplishments were supported by an extensive education, but unlike most subjects of the British Empire, Ambedkar also studied in the United States. Stroud initiates his study by focusing on this formative period, specifically his time at Columbia University and the influence of the philosopher and psychologist John Dewey. While their relationship has been acknowledged, Stroud is the first to explore this relationship in depth and he not only reconstructs the influence of Dewey on Ambedkar’s Navayana Pragmatism but illuminates the ways that Ambedkar integrated, modified, and even resisted Dewey’s pragmatism.Stroud masterfully builds his reconstruction of this synergy between Dewey’s pragmatism and Ambedkar’s philosophy not out of ephemeral conjecture or pithy textual evidence, but through painstaking, detailed, and exhaustive scholarship. He draws on comparative evidence in their major and minor works, their private correspondence, interviews of Ambedekar’s cohort at Columbia, Dewey’s voluminous lecture notes, and even the marginalia and notecards found between the pages of Ambedkar’s pragmatism bookshelf. Indeed, I often found myself pleasantly distracted as I imagined Stroud’s academic pilgrimage throughout India, Columbia University, and the Center for Dewey Studies to find every scrap of relevant information. In our age of instant information and digital archives, it is refreshing and inspiring to encounter a scholar still willing to trek across the globe for answers to his inquiries. Despite his passion to uncover the influence of Dewey on Ambedekar, Stroud never reduces the... (shrink)

It is the purpose of this paper to carry out a partial syntactical analysis of imperatives. Imperatives form a large body of linguistic expressions, appearing, e.g. in mathematical proofs be a continuous function!”), laws, moral injunctions, instruction, etc. For analytical purposes we distinguish between two forms of imperatives, the fiat and the directive. By a directive we mean an imperative which includes an indication of the agent who is to carry it out. For example, “Henry, don't forget to stop at (...) the grocery!” is a directive. By a fiat we mean an imperative which includes no reference to an agent who is to carry it out. For example, “Let there be light!” is a fiat. This is a distinction made in terms of meaning. If, however, proper symbolic devices were introduced for the formalization of imperatives, it could be made in a syntactical manner. Thus we could distinguish between imperatives which possess a certain operator—the directive operator formed by putting a name within square brackets—as “[Henry]!”, and imperatives which do not possess this operator, e.g. “Let it be the case that Henry does not forget to stop at the grocery!” In the following we pay attention only to fiats. This, of course, involves a great limitation of subject matter and excludes topics of great interest. (shrink)

: As the fifth national bioethics commission has concluded its work and a sixth is currently underway, it is time to step back and consider appropriate measures of success. This paper argues that standard measures of commissions' influence fail to fully assess their role as public forums. From the perspective of democratic theory, a critical dimension of this role is public engagement: the ability of a commission to address the concerns of the general public, to learn how average citizens resolve (...) moral issues in healthcare, and to monitor public opinion on the topics addressed in the commission. Such a public forum role is supported by the critical literature within bioethics, which has deemed some commissions successful, supported more generally by the history of bioethics as a reform discourse that has brought socially important values into the medical domain, and supported more generally still by the example of the great social issues commissions of the 1960s. (shrink)

Aristotelian Philosophy, as far as its subject matter is Being, conceives of it as “ousia,” substance. This actual, self-sufficient Being contrasts with the dependent Being of the “symbekóta,” accidents, nonsubstantial attributes. Real Being, existence was of no interest for Antique Philosophy. It was as late as in Scholastic Philosophy that the concept of “existere” gained interest in connection with the problem of universals and the proofs of God’s existence. Albert the Great uses this concept in connection with the (...) concept of a person. (shrink)

Some 2300 years ago, Hellenic Philosophy had already produced some rather sophisticated theories of human psychological functioning as well as most of the broad theoretical controversies which characterize the contemporary psychological stage. Democritus, for example, had put forth a theory of thinking and action which emphasized the physiological components of the person and looked to immediate environmental antecedents as explanations for what we did. Plato, by contrast, insisted upon the formal rule-governed characteristics of human thinking as basic to intellect and (...) denied the possibility that these could be acquired piecemeal through experience with environmental events. Nor would he accept the relevance of physiological descriptions for answering psychological questions. The following centuries have witnessed both the intensification of these controversies and their proliferation into new scientific and societal spheres, as intellectual fashions have favored now one and then another theoretic orientation. A resolution to many such controversies was proposed by Aristotle in the course of formulating his developmental and teleological doctrine of Man, and the logic of this mode of resolution still has great relevance today for the evaluation of psychological theories. In Aristotle's account, a new approach to the concept of causality evolved, an approach that paid special attention to how the term "causes" should be applied to biological events. Moreover, this approach to causality was highly successful in integrating biological phenomena with an understanding of the nature of causes for psychological phenomena. The explication of this account demonstrated that "why" explanations and "how" explanations of action could and should be used concurrently and also demonstrated that many psychological controversies were based on pseudo-issues. This approach, and particularly its relevance to developmental psychology, will be outlined here. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

In recent years, there has been an increase in the adoption of Shari’a in Europe and North America as an arbitration protocol for the resolution of potential contractual disputes. In a largely secular Western business environment, this reality raises corporate policy implications for business organizations. In particular, questions are raised about whether Shari’a is by nature too unpredictable—and too dismissive of women’s rights—to be properly and ethically permitted by Western companies as a possible dispute resolution alternative. This article examines the (...) dynamics and factors that are involved as corporate managers decide whether Shari’a arbitration ought to be banned entirely from contractual negotiations. Arguments for and against the inclusion of a Shari’a arbitration clauses in commercial contracts and contract negotiations are presented. The article concludes that while managers should exercise great prudence and consider the moral implications of negotiating arbitration clauses, an organizational ban of the use of faith-informed arbitration generally, or Shari’a in particular, would be neither morally required nor optimally serve the interests of the organization or its stakeholders. (shrink)

The main purpose of this article is to underline the crucial significance of laughter, a hitherto neglected matter in the study of the Zhuangzi. It aims to show that focusing on laughter is beneficial in order to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of some of the most philosophically relevant problems in the Zhuangzi since a careful analysis of the role of laughter may reveal a great deal of debate concerning such issues as life, death, friendship, social relations, and ritual (...) in this text. This article discusses then the positive role that laughter plays in the Zhuangzi in contexts traditionally governed by the rules of seriousness, formality, and circumspection, from both an anthropological and a philosophical perspective. (shrink)

Excerpt from The Problem of Life I must here relate that I had many obstacles to contend with in publishing this book. I lost one entire Chapter of the Manuscript, The Social Economy, it accidentally being burned, and not feeling well and energetic at the time I had to finish up the book without this last Chapter, but the Pamphlet accompanying each Problem of Life book, practically contains the same theories and principles that the Social Economy held. A few years (...) ago I Visited Florida, and in my wanderings in that romantic Country I met with a Farmer, who wasalso a printer in a small way, who undertook to print my book on his small hand press, one page at a'time, when not occupied with his duties on the farm. So you see it was a big undertaking, and not a very easy job to print 500 Copies, - but he did gt Thus the publishing of this little book was quite a problem in itself. But my publisher has solved his part of the work well. Thus, although this book was written in a great Northern City, midst its noises and bustle of commerce and industry, and midst a sea. Of humanity in all its phases of human nature it was print ed far away in the South, in a beautiful Ideal hammock home, midst Magnolias and Palms swaying and murmur ing love to breezes scented with Jessamine. Where the song of the Mocking Bird, the cricket, and the whip-poor-will soothe the Soul. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

Introduction: the age of Paine -- Portrait of a failure -- The great American cause -- The peculiar honor of France -- The Age of Reason -- An honest and useful life.

Clarifying the concept of emotions is an essential task of 21st century societies. We cannot continue living if we ignore the importance they have in our everyday thinking and acting. Emotions are fundamental both to the private and the public sphere It is becoming increasingly important to learn to identify what we feel and what those around us feel, how we express these feelings and understand their consequences, in order to enable us to transform harmful emotions into others more favorable (...) to the well-being of our personal relationships and our relationship with the environment. With this objective in mind, my text proposes a form of emotional education in the framework of peace education, initiated in early childhood, which acts to develop the emotional capacity required for the realization of a form of critical, ethical and creative global citizenship. This work recovers the methodology of the school of philosophy with children, which gives a great sense of philosophical praxis to the text, by putting it in dialogue, also, with studies in philosophy for peace. Thus, it is essential to vindicate empathy and moral imagination from the time we are children. Through thinking based on care, fthe cultivation of an emotional education will stimulate to wonder about other emotional alternatives, escaping from our own limits and exploring the perspectives of others until we come to merge with their horizons. (shrink)

1. Justice, social contracts, and democracy -- 2. The democratic social contract -- 3. Economic justice and the democratic contract -- 4. The theory of democratic social contracts -- 5.The great transformation -- 6. Political democracy in the great society -- 7. Just returns in the great society -- 8. The sense of democratic justice.

Strive for peace with everyone? Hebrews 12:14 in perspective. What sounds like a simple exhortation in Hebrews 12:14 has caused a great deal of discussion amongst biblical scholars. Does the writer of Hebrews command his hearers to strive for peace with everyone everywhere, or is he exhorting them to strive for peace with all the members of their faith ommunity? Both interpretations have arguments for and against. The main arguments of both interpretations are the interpretation of the place of (...) this exhortation in Hebrews, the meaning of the preposition μετά + genitive and the nuance of εἰρήνη within this context. This article tries to determine to whom the writer of Hebrews is referring with πάντων in 12:14 by doing thorough exegesis of this verse, and by so doing evaluating biblical scholar’s interpretation of πάντων. From this analysis certain implications are drawn for the first hearersand believers today. (shrink)

One can sympathize with [Leo] Strauss' ultimate aim—to protect the validity of moral judgment against that form of relativism which would assess the value of great philosophic works simply in terms of how they satisfied the needs of the times for which they were written. But in believing that "historicism " meant "relativism," and that all attention to the temporal relevance of great doctrines in the history of ideas was somehow perverse, Strauss was profoundly mistaken. Hermeneutics is not (...) axiology. Questions of truth and validity are fundamental, but they are dependent upon a prior solution of the problem of meaning. And for the establishment of meaning, contextual analysis is crucial. For it is not as if ideas were the ghostly inhabitants of another world, logically cut off from human purposes and intentions. All three things exist: ideas, agents, and social contexts, and the best history of ideas is, I believe, constituted by the careful consideration of the multiple interrelationships between them. It is false to believe that texts exhaust their own meaning. For there is always an historical grounding and a web of person and social events that give them wider and deeper significance. And this is precisely why we must ask such questions as: What sort of society was the author writing for and trying to persuade? What were the conventions of communication and the literary forms of discourse current at the time? What was the author's class affiliation, his place in the social hierarchy of his age? And perhaps above all: What were his moral commitments, the structure of his ideals? Albert William Levi, David May Distinguished University Professor of the Humanities at Washington University, Saint Louis, is the author of Philosophy and the Modern World; Literature, Philosophy and the Imagination; Humanism and Politics; and Philosophy as Social Expression, and The Idea of Culture. His "Culture: A Guess at the Riddle" appeared in Critical Inquiry, Winter 1977. (shrink)

An homage to the men and women of science, and an exposition of Einstein's place in scientific history In this fascinating collection of articles and speeches, Albert Einstein reflects not only on the scientific method at work in his own theoretical discoveries, but also eloquently expresses a great appreciation for his scientific contemporaries and forefathers, including Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton, James Clerk Maxwell, Max Planck, and Niels Bohr. While Einstein is renowned as one of the foremost innovators of (...) modern science, his discoveries uniquely his own, through his own words it becomes clear that he viewed himself as only the most recent in a long line of scientists driven to create new ways of understanding the world and to prove their scientific theories. Einstein's thoughtful examinations explain the "how" of scientific innovations both in his own theoretical work and in the scientific method established by those who came before him. This authorized Philosophical Library book features a new introduction by Neil Berger, PhD, and an illustrated biography of Albert Einstein, which includes rare photos and never-before-seen documents from the Albert Einstein Archives at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. "What place does the theoretical physicist's picture of the world occupy among all these possible pictures? It demands the highest possible standard of rigorous precision in the description of relations, such as only the use of mathematical language can give" -Albert Einstein, "Principles of Research" Albert Einstein (1879-1955) was born in Germany and became an American citizen in 1934. A world-famous theoretical physicist, he was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize for Physics and is renowned for his Theory of Relativity. In addition to his scientific work, Einstein was an influential humanist who spoke widely about politics, ethics, and social causes. After leaving Europe, Einstein taught at Princeton University. His theories were instrumental in shaping the atomic age. Neil Berger, an associate professor emeritus of mathematics, taught at the University of Illinois at Chicago in the Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science department from 1968 until his retirement in 2001. He was the recipient of the first Monroe H. Martin Prize (1975), which is now awarded by the University of Maryland every five years for a singly authored outstanding applied mathematics research paper. He has published numerous papers and reviews in his fields of expertise, which include elasticity, tensor analysis, scattering theory, and fluid mechanics. (shrink)

Cet article présente une grille théorique qui associe les grandes représentations rituelles contemporaines à un jeu de cadres mêlant le sérieux et le jeu et pouvant se déployer sous des formes différentes : spectacle, fête, compétition, cérémonie. Quelques exemples, comme les voyages du pape, les fêtes folkloriques, les matches de football et l'expérience de la convivialité, tentent d'illustrer la fécondité possible de cette analyse.This paper presents a theoretical framework that combines great contemporary ritual performances in a frameset combining seriousness (...) and play and can be deployed in different forms: show, party, event, ceremony. Some examples, such as the Pope's travels, folk festivals, football matches and experience the friendliness, attempting to illustrate the possible fertility of this analysis. (shrink)

INDIAN THOUGHT AND ITS DEVELOPMENT by ALBERT SCHWEITZER.Originally printed in 1936. PREFACE: I HAVE written this short account of Indian Thought and its Development in the hope that it may help people in Europe to become better ac quainted than they are at present with the ideas it stands for and the great personalities in whom these ideas are embodied. To gain an insight into Indian thought, and to analyse it and discuss our differences, must necessarily make European (...) thought clearer and richer. If we really want to understand the thought of India we must get clear about the problems it has to face and how it deals with them. What we have to do is to set forth and explain the process of develop ment it has passed through from the time of the Vedic hymns down to the present day. I am fully conscious of the difficulty of describing definite lines of development in a philosophy which possesses in so remarkable a degree the will and the ability not to perceive contrasts as such, and allows ideas of heterogeneous character to subsist side by side and even brings them into connection with each other. But I believe that we, the people of the West, shall only rightly comprehend what Indian thought really is and what is its significance for the thought of all mankind, if we succeed in gaining an insight into its processes. Like every European who studies Indian philo sophy, I am deeply indebted to the scholars who have published the texts and been responsible for the fundamental work of research. I am specially grateful to Professor Moriz Winternitz of Prague, not only for what I have learnt from his great work on Indian Literature, but also because he has allowed me a share in the wealth of his knowledge by giving me a fund of information in response to my questions. I have also found it a great advantage to have been able to discuss the problems of Indian thought with my friend Mr C. F. Andrews. I found Romain Hollands penetrating studies on Ramakrishna and Vivekananda very inspiring. And I have to thank my friend Mr A. B. Ashby for valuable help in connection with the English edition. Indian thought has greatly attracted me since in my youth I first became acquainted with it through reading the works of Arthur Schopenhauer. From the very beginning I was convinced that all thought is really concerned with the great problem of how man can attain to spiritual union with infinite Being. My attention was drawn to Indian thought because it is busied with this problem and because by its nature it is mysticism. What I liked about it also was that Indian ethics are concerned with the be haviour of man to all living beings and not merely with his attitude to his fellow-man and to human society. But the closer my acquaintance with the docu ments of Indian thought the more I was assailed by doubts as to whether the view made familiar to us Europeans by the works of Arthur Schopenhauer, Paul Deussen and others the view namely that Preface vii Indian thought is completely governed by the idea of world and life negation is right. I was compelled to admit the fact that world and life affirmation is present at the back of this thought from the very dawn of its history, and that the existence and inter fusion within it of world and life negation and world and life affirmation constitute its special character istic and determine its development. I am not merely describing the thought of India, but at the same time I am making a critical examina tion of it... (shrink)

An outstanding philosopher-logician, Gottlob Frege's work has received much attention in recent years. In the pursuit of Frege's main goal to solidify the foundations of mathematics and scientific work, Frege conceived a comprehensive philosophy of language and developed the main thesis of logicism, that mathematics is reducible to logic. This book contains essays covering a large range of issues related to Frege that will be of great interest to philosophers working on these issues. This volume represents an important addition (...) to the study of Frege. This book contains essays from some of the most important contemporary philosophers investigating Frege's ideas. Treating issues of contemporary interest, this book discusses topics either in a Fregean spirit or in dialogue with Frege's original views. The wide implications of Frege's views are evident in the variety of topics presented in this volume, from the Frege fundamentals to innovative interpretations that break new ground in the study of Frege. Key papers concern the ontological status of propositions and concepts, recent attempts to improve on the semantics of singular terms, the question of how to construe the content of concept-expressions, and other themes within the common grounds in which ontology and philosophical semantics intersect. (shrink)

Independent of his international renown as a humanitarian, Albert Schweitzer is well known as a great musicologist; a reputation that rests largely upon this book. Schweitzer's \"J. S. Bach\" is one of the great full-length studies of the composer, his life, and his work. Its influence on the subsequent performace of Bach's music was enormous, and there is scarcely a later work on Bach which does not acknowledge a deep debt to Schweitzer's. Grove's Dictionary says of the (...) book, \"Schweitzer has probably been more quoted than any authority since Spitta.\". (shrink)

As figurational sociologists and sociolinguists, we need to know that we currently find support from other fields in our efforts to construct a sociocultural science focused on interdependencies and processes, creating a multidimensional picture of human beings, one in which the brain and its mental and emotional processes are properly recognized. The paradigmatic revolutions in 20th-century physics, the contributions made by biology to our understanding of living beings, the conceptual constructions built around the theories of systems, self-organization and complexity, all (...) these implore that we reflect on social sciences paradigms in the light of the great changes in these other disciplines. The application of metaphors or theoretical images of complexity and figurational sociology in understanding language and socio-communication phenomena is of great use, since language is not an ‘object’, but a ‘complex’; it exists simultaneously in and among different domains. ‘Languaging’ and interaction are co-phenomena. The former exists within the latter, and the latter within the former. By visualizing, for instance, the different levels of linguistic structure not as separate entities but rather as united and integrated within the same theoretical frame, by seeing their functional interdependencies, by situating them in a greater multidimensionality that includes what for a long time was considered ‘external’ – the individual and his or her mind-brain, the sociocultural system, the physical world, etc. – and expanding in this way our classical view, we should be able to make important, if not essential, theoretical and practical advances. (shrink)

This book describes how medieval Jewish Bible scholars sought to answer the question of what is meant by the Angel’s message from God to Abraham: ‘Now I Know’, as written in Genesis 22 verse 12. It examines these scholars’ comments on the nineteen verses in Genesis that tell the story of Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his own son Isaac, the Aqedat Yiṣḥaq. It explores the answers they found to the question of what, indeed, this story is trying to tell us. (...) Is it a drastic way to condemn the practice of child sacrifice? Does it call for replacing human sacrifices with animal sacrifices? Is it a trial by which the Almighty tests the fidelity of one of His followers? Or is it His way to show the world the nature of true belief? The book starts with an introduction to familiarize readers with the many and varied manifestations of the Aqedah theme in Jewish culture and with the developments of medieval Jewish Bible exegesis in general. Next, it offers translations and analyses of the classical medieval Jewish Bible commentaries that deal with the exegesis of Genesis 22, exploring the many angles from which the Aqedah story has been understood. No less than five centuries of medieval Aqedah exegesis are reviewed, from Saadya to Isaac Abrabanel. These texts from the commentaries are combined with hermeneutical key passages by Moses Maimonides, Joseph Ibn Kaspi, Ḥasdai Crescas, and others, which were familiar to the minds of the exegetes, or which, conversely, reflect the impact of biblical Aqedah exegesis on religious thought. Together, the passages discussed illustrate the growth and development of Jewish Bible exegesis in dialogue with the rabbinic sources and with the various trends of thought and theology of their times. The consistent focus on the Aqedah constitutes a unifying theme, while the insights presented here greatly advance our understanding of the various developments in medieval Jewish Bible exegesis. (shrink)

As a sort of intellectual provocation and as a lateral thinking strategy for creativity, this chapter seeks to determine what the study of the dynamics of biodiversity can offer linguists. In recent years, the analogical equation "language = biological species" has become more widespread as a metaphorical source for conceptual renovation, and, at the same time, as a justification for the defense of language diversity. Language diversity would be protected in a way similar to the mobilization that has taken place (...) to protect endangered species. Nevertheless, one must be careful when uncritically transferring conceptualizations and theoretical frameworks from one field to another, since obviously, these two phenomena are quite different in the real world. The dialogue with bioecologists starts by asking about the formation of diversity, i.e., about specialization. Here, one can observe the similarity between the processes of linguistic and genetic fragmentation, in the sense that both phenomena have a (socio)geographical basis for dispersion and consequently, for the loss of their original compact nature and their intercommunication. The self-organizing and creative properties of human beings favor the development of specific varieties for each subset, varieties that continue to evolve constantly, through the unceasing "languaging" of humanity. Regarding the continuity of species or languages, one can also observe the decisive role of intragroup relations. The staying power of linguistic varieties will increase in direct proportion to the intensity of the relationship among the components of the subset. On the other hand, if exotic elements are introduced, especially if these elements are aggressive in nature, the alteration of the ecological niche may turn out to be fatal for the continuity of the previously existing forms. This suggests to us the need to make an in-depth study of what the minimal contextual conditions would be so that a set linguistic group could be assured a sustainable continuity within a framework of linguistic contact. What type of minimum (socio-)ecological niche would a language have to have if we wished to ensure its habitual reproduction? A proposal is made here to explore the ideas of "exclusive functions" and "non-hierarchical functional distribution" for codes in situations where there is high contact and a danger of disuse. As regards change, this phenomenon is seen as an inherent element in the tendency of life to create new developments, which may or not be accompanied by an adaptation to changing environmental conditions. It is pointed out that, similar to what happens in biology, much of linguistic innovation stems from a systemically reorganized mixture of solutions from different codes. An important research question would be, however, to determine why some of these innovations disappear and others survive and extend throughout the community. The big question mark, as Mufwene points out, is, then how to manage to understand how "the evolution of language proceeds by naturally selecting from among the competing alternatives available through the idiolects of individual speakers". Extinction, whether it be of languages or of species, is caused in most cases "by a combination of demographic processes and environmental changes", as Brown points out. Thus, the environment plays a fundamental role in the direction of evolution, since the "the survival of the fittest is, in actuality, the survival of those who fit into the context (Allen and Hoekstra)". This allows us to see the great degree of importance of political-economic contexts in the case of languages. In the same way, migratory movements are also one of the major variables determining the extinction of biodiversity and language diversity. Species and habitat form the basic unit of existence, and this is the major point of departure for understanding the problem of the preservation and recovery of species or languages. Given the increase in the degree of linguistic contact, the continuity of language diversity depends on determining, as exactly as possible, as Prigogine, the physicist, would say, what precise conditions of imbalance may prove to be stable. The great challenge is not so much avoiding contact but managing it. And "restorative ecology" can also be of help to us here. Being able to reach sustainable solutions for language diversity implies a profound knowledge of the dynamics for determining the ways in which language is used in contact situations. The general conclusion is that linguistics is still terminologically and conceptually ill prepared to deal with the dynamic character of human languages. The world and our objects must be conceived of as elements in a state of flux, as changing systems in an unstable equilibrium. With respect to language policy, it would be necessary to make an effort to manage to establish some general principles regarding the linguistic organization of the human species that would make it possible for local linguistic diversity and communication on a planetary scale, which must necessarily take place, to be compatible with each other. To succeed, it will be necessary to continue promoting an autonomous socio-ecological perspective devoted to the comprehension of language phenomena. Such a perspective would be based on a paradigm of complexity, and would, at the same time, place human beings at the center of its theoretical underpinnings. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Jacob Burckhardt, Religion, and the Historiography of “Crisis” and “Transition”Thomas Albert Howard*A great historical subject, the representation of which should be the high point of a historian’s life, must cohere sympathetically and mysteriously to the author’s innermost being.Jacob Burckhardt 1If you are to venture to interpret the past you can do so only out of the fullest exertion of the vigor of the present: only when you (...) can put forth your... qualities in all their strength will you divine what is worth knowing and preserving in the past.Friedrich Nietzsche 2The renowned nineteenth-century Swiss-German historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818–97) was a masterful historian of crises and transitional periods. Two of his major works, The Age of Constantine the Great (1852) and The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), bear out this claim. In his Constantine Burckhardt deals with the transition from late pagan antiquity to the early Christian Middle Ages, and in his more famous Renaissance he deals with the transition from the late Middle Ages to the beginnings of secular modernity. In the [End Page 149] latter, as is well known, he established one of the most compelling and creative theses in the history of modern historiography, virtually creating the “idea of the Renaissance” that has long influenced both scholarly and popular conceptions of that period. 3What elicited Burckhardt’s interest in crises and transitions in general and in these two periods of crisis and transition in particular? In this article, I shall argue that there is a strong relationship between Burckhardt’s own historical experience in the early and mid-nineteenth century and his choice of subject and mode of analysis in these two monumental works. In theoretical terms one observes a “dialectical” form of objectivity in the execution of Burckhardt’s historiographical tasks: a structural affinity or kinship between subject (Burckhardt, his historical experience) and object (late antiquity, Renaissance) predisposes Burckhardt to his theme/argument and thus provides a key to understanding the genesis and the character of insights that he offers in these two works. 4 To establish this point I shall focus on the category of religion, on Burckhardt’s own experience of questions of religious truth and skepticism in the nineteenth century, and on his treatment of religion in these two works.The Young Jacob Burckhardt and ReligionReligion is a crucial but often neglected aspect of Jacob Burckhardt’s thought. 5 Like a number of nineteenth-century German intellectuals, Burckhardt was a Pfarrersohn, a “pastor’s son.” 6 He grew up in a profoundly conservative Protestant environment in Basel, nicknamed “pious Basel” for its dogged resistance to the “ideas of 1789” and for its earlier heritage of Reformation and pietist religiosity. During Burckhardt’s youth in fact, his father was a children’s minister and head-deacon (Obersthelfer) before becoming in 1838 the city cathedral’s Antistes, the highest and most prestigious ecclesiastical office in Basel. In short, as his biographer Werner Kaegi has noted, Burckhardt’s early [End Page 150] upbringing and education were strongly shaped by the world of his father, a world of “old Protestant piety.” 7Following his father’s example, Burckhardt started out on the clerical track, studying theology at the University of Basel. However, during his Theologie-studium (1837–39) he experienced a profound crisis of faith brought on by an encounter with German historical biblical criticism and liberal theology represented in the person of W. M. L. de Wette (1780–1848). A radical theologian and biblical scholar, de Wette had wound up in Basel in 1822 after being dismissed from the University of Berlin for holding views considered heterodox and politically threatening by the conservative Prussian government. 8 In a letter to his friend Johannes Riggenbach written in August 1838 Burckhardt tells how de Wette’s critical theology had unseated his faith. “In my eyes,” Burckhardt wrote,de Wette’s system grows in stature every day; one simply must follow him, there is no alternative; but every day a part of our traditional church doctrine melts away under his hand. Today, finally, I realized that he regards the birth of Christ simply as a myth... (shrink)

Certain traits of the magnanimous man of the Nicomachean Ethics seem incompatible with gratitude and humility. Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas are the first commentators of the Latin West who had access to the integral portrayal of magnanimity in the Nicomachean Ethics. Surprisingly, they welcomed the Aristotelian ideal of magnanimity without reservations. The paper summarizes Aristotle’s account of magnanimity, discusses briefly the transformation of this notion in Stoicism and early scholasticism, and analyzes Albert’s and Thomas’s interpretation (...) of Aristotle. Thomas is found to be a more faithful and ingenious interpreter than Albert. He addresses and solves a number of philosophical problems of Aristotle’s account that still puzzle contemporary interpreters. (shrink)

Contemporary scholarship tends to view Albert Camus as a modern, but he himself was conscious of the past and called the transition from Hellenism to Christianity “the true and only turning point in history.” For Camus, modernity was not fully comprehensible without an examination of the aspirations that were first articulated in antiquity and that later received their clearest expression in Christianity. These aspirations amounted to a fundamental reorientation of human life in politics, religion, science, and philosophy. Understanding the (...) nature and achievement of that reorientation became the central task of _Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism_. Primarily known through its inclusion in a French omnibus edition, it_ _has remained one of Camus’ least-read works, yet it marks his first attempt to understand the relationship between Greek philosophy and Christianity as he charted the movement from the Gospels through Gnosticism and Plotinus to what he calls Augustine’s “second revelation” of the Christian faith. Ronald Srigley’s translation of this seminal document helps illuminate these aspects of Camus’ work. His freestanding English edition exposes readers to an important part of Camus’ thought that is often overlooked by those concerned primarily with the book’s literary value and supersedes the extant McBride translation by retaining a greater degree of literalness. Srigley has fully annotated _Christian Metaphysics_ to include nearly all of Camus’ original citations and has tracked down many poorly identified sources. When Camus cites an ancient primary source, whether in French translation or in the original language, Srigley substitutes a standard English translation in the interest of making his edition accessible to a wider range of readers. His introduction places the text in the context of Camus’ better-known later work, explicating its relationship to those mature writings and exploring how its themes were reworked in subsequent books. Arguing that Camus was one of the great critics of modernity through his attempt to disentangle the Greeks from the Christians, Srigley clearly demonstrates the place of _Christian Metaphysics_ in Camus’ oeuvre. As the only stand-alone English version of this important work—and a long-overdue critical edition—his fluent translation is an essential benchmark in our understanding of Camus and his place in modern thought. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss Albert the Great’s notion of univocal analogy, which he raised in his Commentary on Pseudo-Dionysius’s De divinis nominibus. While other scholars such as Francis Ruello and Alain de Libera have addressed “analogy” as it pertains to Albert, I intend to treat the “univocal” aspect of “univocal analogy” so as to explain (1) how it informs Albert’s teaching on analogy, and (2) how it remains opposed to any pantheistic reduction of God to (...) creature. While my own account remains close to that of Ruello and De Libera, I hope to show how primacy is to be accorded to univocity in such a manner that, in actual reality, for Albert, it is analogy that qualifies univocity rather than vice versa. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Dracula and Carmilla:Monsters and the MindBenson Saler and Charles A. ZieglerFollowing the publication of Bram Stoker's Dracula in 1897, vampire narratives proliferated in Britain and the United States.1 While many twentieth century short stories, novels, plays, and films in both countries depart from Dracula in various ways, it is our impression that that workand its close derivatives retain pride of place in the popular imagination. Yet Dracula was but (...) one of several well-known vampire stories published in English during the nineteenth century, and scholars deem certain of the other tales to be of literary merit.In noting that, we raise this question: What is it about the plot and the characterization of vampires in Dracula that make it the most famous example of vampires in English fiction? Why, in particular, has it been more influential than Le Fanu's Carmilla which preceded it in time and is of equal or perhaps greater literary distinction?2 We address that question, and by doing so we hope to gain some insight into the attraction and persistence of vampire tales across time and cultures.We begin by sketching our approach to conceptualizing the category "vampire." Nina Auerbach, a Professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania, writes that "There is no such creature as 'The Vampire'; there are only vampires."3 That declaration is in keeping with her demonstration that in nineteenth and twentieth century British and American vampire novels, short stories, plays, and films, vampires vary greatly in behavior, in apparent motivation, and in cultural significance. Different social orders and different culturally supported sensibilities [End Page 218] and sensitivities, she persuasively argues, find expression in different sorts of vampires.We deem Auerbach's literary nominalism preferable to an essentialism that would govern vampiric class inclusion by insisting on some conjunction of necessary features or conditions. At the same time, however, we think that there is a better way of allowing for differences in conceptualizing vampires and in understanding their multi-faceted significance in British and American imaginings of the last two centuries. That way combines the recognition of family resemblances with insights derived from prototype theory in the cognitive sciences.A family resemblance approach can be quite liberal in what it includes as instantiations of the category "vampire." It can encompass not only such familiar (albeit different) figures as Ruthven, Varney, Carmilla, Dracula, and Lestat, but also others, including so-called "psychic vampires," who flourish not by sucking blood but by draining vitality, will, and even experience from their victims. Some may ask, does this not create a category that is so promiscuous in what it includes as to render the category analytically useless? No, we reply, once you couple family resemblance with insights from prototype theory.Prototype theory, narrowly described, attempts to account for "prototype effects." These "effects" are differences in the judgments that people render about how well different instances of a category exemplify the category. Thus, for instance, some people may judge apples and oranges to be clearer or better exemplars of the category "fruit" than olives. Similarly, some may judge robins and sparrows to be clearer or better exemplars of the category "bird" than penguins. Judgments can be explicitly given, or they can be inferred from the order of examples that people give or from their responses to lists of examples furnished by others. Prototype theorists call the adjudged clearest or "best" examples of categories "prototypes" or "the most prototypical exemplars."4 This approach celebrates centrality and periphery rather than essence and boundary in conceptualizing categories.5 It allows that some instantiations of a category may be deemed more central to the category than others. Thus in the case of vampires, Dracula is more central to the category than, say, the shape-shifting space alien who extracts salt from victims in an episode of Star Trek, First Generation. Auerbach recognizes that centrality when she refers to "Dracula's dominance in our century" (p. 111). We contend, moreover, that while Sheridan Le Fanu's vampire Carmilla is more prototypical—that is, an adjudged better exemplar of the category—than vampiric space aliens [End Page 219] and legions of psychic vampires, she is less... (shrink)

After 1905, physics would never be the same. In those 12 months, Einstein shattered many cherished scientific beliefs with five great papers that would establish him as the world's leading physicist. On their 100th anniversary, this book brings those papers together in an accessible format.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:126 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY be used in a thousand different ways; it has been a misty halo which could be summoned to surround all revolution and every reaction. To the extent that the limitation upon man's right to consent to either tyranny or chaos was ignored or rejected in particular circumstances, it became associated with the dream of all the discontented and unfortunate. It has been a symbol which (...) might be invoked by all who have sought power with the support of the people. Popular sovereignty almost, but never quite, became the principle that work-a-day political justice is merely what the people want. The transition from historic popular sovereignty to Western democracy was a product of an age of confusion which began in the sixteenth century. On the one hand, there were specific things which it was considered that the power of the people should do, and therewith emerged the whole problem of what practical techniques the people might use. On the other hand, the basic divisions in modern theory of the function of public opinion appeared as the problem's philosophical counterpart (p. 12). Prof. Wilson traces the growing recognition and respect for "opinion" in politics from Plato, who had a low opinion of it, through the Medieval controversies to Marsilius of Padua, who, on Aristotelian premises formulated the "modern" principle that "the whole body of the citizens, or the weightier multitude thereof, which must be taken for the same thing, can better discern what must be elected and what rejected than any part of it taken separately" (p. 28). From this doctrine to the theory of popular sovereignty the way is fairly evident. But the story from the faith in popular sovereignty to a genuine theory of the legitimate and useful functions of public opinion and to a conception of institutionalized public opinion, which is central to modern democratic theories, is an intricate development. This story the author tells with great skill and with many references to the important literature. HERBERT W. SCHNEIDER Claremont, CaliJornia Rational Man: A Modern Interpretation of Aristotelian Ethics. By Henry Babcock Veatch. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962. Pp. 226. ~5.00.) Professor Veatch's book is an engaging one in its plea that philosophers be allowed to write (and that some should write) in "normative ethics" and not just in "recta-ethics." It is only less engaging in its exposition and advocacy of a Socratic-Aristotelian doctrine that the good life for man is an "examined life" and is a striving for the natural end of man as a rational animal. It is least engaging (and least accurate) in its counterattack, probably uncalled for in the thesis, on Moore's attack on the "naturalistic fallacy," which Mr. Veatch holds responsible, whatever may have been Moore's intention, for all the noncognitivists--emotivistor existentialist or popular. Moore's criticism of the naturalistic fallacy, right or wrong, has had the tribute of an extraordinary number of interpretations and criticisms in turn. Mr. Veatch's will not, I think, add to our understanding of the matter. Aristotle's opening "The good is that at which all things aim" is notoriously equivocal. Does it tell us what things aim at or what the good is? Mr. Veatch takes it as defining good but as needing, and having, the specification that the good is what a thing aims at "by nature," properly. I do not think this is Aristotle's basic doctrine. His very equivocality and circularity is perhaps his final sagacity in a subject not meant for scientific precision and he might better be taken on his word in the Rhetoric: The good is what would be chosen by the ablest man, with relevant knowledge, if the man is good. Virtue has happiness as its aim and happiness is a life in accordance with virtue. BOOK REVIEWS 127 And yet, with all his caviling, Aristotle does back up Socrates's examined life and his acceptance of arete as arete of someone and for something with the application of "know thyself" to the definition of man as a rational animal and with the advice that we try (some few) to reason and (all) to be... (shrink)

Slippery slope arguments have been important in the euthanasia debate for at least half a century. In 1957 the Cambridge legal scholar Glanville Williams wrote a controversial book, The Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law, in which he presented the decriminalizing of euthanasia as a modern liberal proposal taking its rightful place alongside proposals to decriminalize contraception, sterilization, abortion, and attempted suicide (all of which the book also advocated).1 Opposition to these reforms was in turn presented as exclusively religious (...) and particularly Roman Catholic. Thus Williams asserted that "euthanasia can be condemned only according to religious opinion" (1957, p. 312).The following year, in .. (shrink)

The British Parliament has recently approved regulations to allow techniques ‘to prevent the transmission of serious mitochondrial disease from a mother to her child’. The regulations term these techniques ‘mitochondrial donation’, but in the popular media, the issue has been discussed under the heading of ‘three parent’ babies or ‘three parent’ embryos. This paper examines the language of the debate, with particular reference to one of the techniques approved. It concludes that the terminology of ‘mitochondrial donation’ is scientifically inaccurate and (...) ethically misleading, while the popular media description of ‘three parent’ embryos is broadly accurate, at least for one technique. This latter phrase also has the great merit, from an ethical perspective, of drawing attention to the ‘other woman’, the egg donor. She takes risks with her health in order to provide the egg which supplies the body of the embryo. Without her, this embryo simply would not exist. (shrink)

The leopoldistic version of the events before Berchtesgaden - politically the most important period in the Question Royale during the occupation - is from the start till the end historically not grounded. The known facts prove that the King was absolutely not passive in political matters. He doesn't reject the proposal for a meeting with Hitler. Already on May 31 he declares to agree in principle to meet the Führer. On June 26 he again expresses this willingness. In October he (...) sends his sister Marie-José, crownprincess of Italy, to Hitler, collecting the requested invitation for a meeting. The meeting Hitler-Leopold III at Berchtesgaden reveals not only a humanitarian, but also an indeniable political character.There is too great a difference between the leopoldistic version and the facts - as far as known at this moment and from limited sources. One is inclined to ask oneself if the editors of the Whitebook and of the report of the Servais-commission, had knowledge of all the facts, which normally should have been at their disposal. If the answer is no, than one has to assume «a secret of the King». (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Seeing Through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan BuddhismAlbert WelterSeeing Through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism. By John R. McRae. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 2003. Pp. xx + 204.The field of Chan and Zen studies has been in transformation in recent decades, as an increasing number of scholars have begun to challenge the accepted story of Chan's (...) rise and dissemination. In the process, a disjuncture has developed between how scholars have come to view Chan narrative as mythos rooted in the circumstances of Chan's development, and how it is still depicted in many textbooks and popular publications on Zen. Teachers aware of this gap have been at a loss when looking for new texts to supplant the old ones and give a more accurate view of Chan, its history, and its development. Aside from the compelling sway that Chan and Zen narratives have over the popular understanding, part of the difficulty is that the field is still in transformation. While scholars are altering, sometimes radically, perceptions and assumptions about how Chan developed, this process is ongoing. And while the picture is growing clearer, a full consensus has not yet emerged.Into the breach a new book has come along: Seeing Through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism, by John R. McRae. McRae's name will certainly be recognizable to all who work in the field of Chan and Zen studies. Along with Bernard Faure, Professor McRae pioneered the study of the previously maligned, so-called "Northern School" in the West (The Northern School and the Formation of Early Ch'an Buddhism), utilizing to full advantage the scholarship of the doyenne of twentieth-century Zen studies, Yanagida Seizan. [End Page 355] Through a series of articles, McRae has contributed greatly to emerging perspectives on Chan. The current volume under review may be taken as McRae's current observations on the subject of Chinese Chan, based on his own recent research and that of others.The chapters that constitute Seeing Through Zen were first prepared in Spanish translation for presentation at the Templo Zen Luz Serena in Valencia, Spain. The expected readership includes three groups: "Zen and other Buddhist practitioners; students and scholars of Chinese religions, Buddhist studies, and related fields; and a general audience interested in Asian religions and human culture" (p. xi). While some of the propositions in the book will, by design, provoke healthy debate among scholars, the primary purpose for this book as I see it is as a classroom text, either at universities or for temple instruction for practitioners interested in current scholarly assessments of their religion (according to the author, many of the chapters were the basis for presentations to various groups of Chan and Zen practitioners).Seeing Through Zen comprises six chapters: "Looking at Lineage: A Fresh Perspective on Chan Buddhism," "Beginnings: Differentiating/Connecting Bodhidharma and the East Mountain Teaching," "Metropolitan Chan: Imperial Patronage and the Chan Style," "The Riddle of Encounter Dialogue: Who, What, When, and Where?" "Zen and the Art of Fund-Raising: Religious Vitality and Institutional Dominance in the Song Dynasty," and "Climax Paradigm: Cultural Polarities and Patterns of Self-Cultivation in Song-Dynasty Chan." In addition to the back matter-"Notes," "Character Glossary," "Bibliography," and "Index"-the front matter includes a "Preface," "Conventions," and a section titled "McRae's Rules of Zen Studies." These "rules of Zen"-(1) It's not true, and therefore it's more important; (2) Lineage assertions are as wrong as they are strong; (3) Precision implies inaccuracy; and (4) Romanticism breeds cynicism (pp. xix-xx)-with accompanying explanations, provide an accessible orientation to McRae's approach and touchstones that are frequently returned to in the materials introduced in the following chapters.I have two reactions to Seeing Through Zen, one as a teacher and one as a scholar. For the teacher, Seeing Through Zen represents a welcome addition indeed! I look forward to using it in my classes, and I'm sure others will as well. Written in a lively, engaging style, it is sophisticated in its analysis and creative in drawing on analogies from research... (shrink)

In the paper the author provides a brief sketch of Albert the Great as a scientist. By quoting passages from his works he shows that Albert the Great had a well-elaborated understanding of science. It is argued that in some aspects Albert was not too far from modern criteria that science and its methodology should meet. Accepting Aristotelian model of science, Albert stressed the need for experience and repeated observation in scientific research. While valuing (...) authority, he examined carefully what it was stating and was not afraid to criticize even such an important authority as Aristotle, if his claims contradicted Albert’s observations. Although science was in close relation with theology, it wasn’t limited in its research and on the methodological level Albert was well aware of the need for their mutual independence. He was not afraid of providing science with freedom of inquiry, because he knew that in principle science and theology, if both sound, couldn’t contradict itself, because there is just one truth known from their different perspectives. The article also introduces Albert’s understading of and major contributions to mineralogy, astronomy, astrology, alchemy and other disciplines that were considered scientific in his time. (shrink)

Late ancient and early medieval narratives often depict dreaming as a vertical and hierarchical process of influence that has its starting point in a higher entity and ends with the human being. This model of explanation seems to take a more horizontal approach with the advent of a new natural philosophy and medical works from Arabic milieu that put the psychosomatic processes of the human being into perspective. The general purpose of this paper is to assess to which extent (...) class='Hi'>Albert the Great’s consideration of dreams can be taken as an example of this turning point. Specifically, it tries to show how his dream theory is articulated in De homine. The main hypothesis is that the Dominican friar advocated a materialistic account of dreams, in which the process of dream formation is explain as a flux of bodiness caused by a change in the thermal behavior of the body. (shrink)

Contributions to this omnibus volume from twenty-seven internationally renowned scholars will introduce students of philosophy, science, and theology to the current state of research and multiple perspectives on the work of Albert the Great.

Christian theology on the Eucharist, already since the Gospel of John refers to the scarcity and abundance of food, by linking this Sacrament to the hunger suffered by the Israelites in the desert and their further satiation with manna from heaven. Saint Albert the Great, in his reflection on the Eucharist, includes several ideas taken from his scientific knowledge, especially from Aristotle. These considerations build one of his personal contributions to theological understanding of the spiritualis manducatio that takes (...) place in the Holy Mass. These explanations will be explored in order to understand in which sense the Eucharist is true food and true drink. (shrink)

Although Aristotle's zoological works were known in antiquity and during the early medieval period, the scientific research program discussed and exemplified therein disappeared after Theophrastus. After some fifteen hundred years, it reappears in the work of Albert the Great who extensively explains Aristotle's conception of a scientific research program and extends Aristotle's zoological researches. Evidence of Albert's Aristotelian commentaries shows that he clearly understood animals to represent a self-contained subject-genus, that the study of this subject-genus constitutes theoretical (...) knowledge in an Aristotelian sense, that natural finality and suppositional necessity provide principles of zoological science, and that research into animals must be conducted according to a two-staged methodology of division and demonstration. (shrink)

Aristotle’s restriction of intellect to humans raised the problem of how animals are able to react to and learn from their environment if they lack the ability to recognize classes of objects, an ability supposedly conferred by intellect. Aristotle’s delineation of the internal senses into the common sense, imagination, and memory did not include a locus for the cleverness or prudence that he found animals to possess in varying degrees. Avicenna supplemented Aristotle’s internal senses by adding the estimative power, which (...) allowed animals to recognize the value of a perceived object in terms of its potential benefit or harm. Albert the Great, who showed more interest than most medieval philosophers in the problem of animal behavior, adopted the estimative power and began his inquiry by considering pygmies, which he judged to be the highest form of animal. This inquiry led Albert to weaken but in the end to retain the distinction based on intellectual abilities between animals and humans. (shrink)