The source of my interest in the study of heresiology originates in many years of research on the work and life of Meister Eckhart. It is therefore in an Eckhartian perspective, which presupposes a certain leniency, and even sympathy, towards the phenomenon of heresy, that I am going to give a survey of ‘the other side of Christianity’, from the Acts of Simon Magus, ‘father of heresy’, to the dawn of the second millennium, while exposing the medieval period in greater (...) depth. (shrink)

What is an image? An image, it might be said, is a kind of amity between the medium and the model it assumes. The purpose of this relationship is to reproduce the model and to become similar to it. Such a definition invites – perhaps in a purely playful way – some preliminary considerations.

The intervention of the divine in human history, more precisely the transition from fiction to incarnation that is peculiar to the origins of Christianity, marks a turning-point in our understanding of the genealogical principle. With a Son of Man who is also Son of God and his Mother's Father, there is no paternity and, more generally, no genealogy that is not reversible. To this questioning of elementary kinship structures we should add the contesting of the hitherto accepted distribution of genders (...) and sexes. The superimposition of the Holy Family and the Trinity created an uncertain sex whose effect is to uncouple sex from its functions, in particular procreation. Hence a circulation and instability of sex. It is from this viewpoint that we should see the notion of an androgynous Christ and the Church Fathers' thinking on the resurrected body. (shrink)

The respectably legitimate offspring of an age-old affair between writing and picture-making, the calligramme — that is, “a poem in which the typographical layout creates a picture, generally related to the ‘subject’ of the text” (Dictionnaire des littératures, Larousse) — is often seen as an esoteric minority art of dubious reputation. Starting from an exclusively Western approach to the history of the calligramme, my aim is to demonstrate that this artform may in fact represent something more than simply (here I (...) deliberately use a metaphor from the far east, as a counterargument to my theme) the “Kyogen of the No theatre” — i.e., more than a lightweight interlude between more literary, aesthetic, even metaphysical preoccupations — more elevated, more serious, or, in general terms, more extended. Apart from the play and the pleasure of an approach that is creative in terms of letters and language, it contains serious elements related to the actual exercise of writing in our media civilization. (shrink)

Résumé Ces notes de lecture constituent un compte rendu enrichi de réflexions personnelles, inspirées par la lecture du Voile d’Isis de Pierre Hadot. Les thèmes abordés sont les interprétations diverses d’un fragment d’Héraclite « la nature aime à se cacher », déposé il y a 2500 ans au temple d’Artémis, à Éphèse. La notion de secret de la nature. Exercice d’œcuménisme : la convertibilité des divinités antiques. En l’occurrence : le culte d’Isis-Artémis et autres personnifications de Notre Dame Nature. Différentes (...) approches de la notion de pudeur, où il est notamment montré que la nudité n’est pas forcément impudique, tandis que l’habit ou le voile peut être perçu comme une chose profane. Les malentendus concernant l’opposition entre « paganismes » et « monothésimes ». Exemple peu connu d’iconoclasme à l’encontre d’une statue de Diane-Artémis et déclin des anciennes religions de la nature. Néoplatonisme et apologie du « génie du paganisme » : dans l’Antiquité, les néoplatoniciens sont parmi les derniers à avoir défendu la religion traditionnelle, car ils étaient sincèrement convaincus que le culte des anciens dieux était lié à l’action de l’Âme du monde, conservatrice de l’univers. Appel en faveur de la tolérance religieuse. Approches orphique ou prométhéenne de dévoilement des secrets de la nature, avec référence à Roger Caillois, fondateur de la Revue Diogène. Bioéthique et genèse des technosciences modernes. (shrink)

This is a review enriched with personal thoughts. The topics covered are: the various interpretations of a fragment from Heraclitus ‘nature loves to conceal herself’, deposited 2500 years ago in the temple of Artemis at Ephesus; the idea of nature’s secret; ecumenism in practice: the convertibility of ancient deities; the case of the cult of Isis-Artemis and other personifications of Our Lady Nature; different approaches to the notion of modesty; the misunderstandings around the opposition between ‘paganisms’ and ‘monotheisms’; a little-known (...) example of iconoclasm against a statue of Diana-Artemis and the decline of the old nature religions; Neo-Platonism and an apology for the ‘genius of paganism’; an appeal for religious tolerance; Orphic or Promethean approaches to unveiling the secrets of nature, with a reference to Roger Caillois, founder of Diogenes; and bioethics and the genesis of the modern technosciences. (shrink)

Mystical marriage - or hierogamy - is without a doubt a significant aspect of the theme of the androgyne in medieval literature. In this paper we consider these themes, taking as a guide the last eight chapters of the Life by Henry Suso (1295-1366). Introduced by an epigraph in Latin: Sicut aquila (Like an eagle), these eight chapters are a literary work in their own right, which can therefore be labelled Sicut aquila. Indeed this is no longer an autobiographical narrative (...) by the Servant of the Eternal Wisdom, but a romantic metaphysical flight written in the form of a lovers’ dialogue between Suso - sometimes called Frater Amandus - and his beloved spiritual daughter. (shrink)

We argue that Wittgenstein’s philosophical perspective on Gödel’s most famous theorem is even more radical than has commonly been assumed. Wittgenstein shows in detail that there is no way that the Gödelian construct of a string of signs could be assigned a useful function within (ordinary) mathematics. — The focus is on Appendix III to Part I of Remarks on the Foundations of Mathematics. The present reading highlights the exceptional importance of this particular set of remarks and, more specifically, emphasises (...) its refined composition and rigorous internal structure. (shrink)

The book demonstrates for the first time that transculturality – the mixed constitution of cultures – is by no means only a characteristic of the present, but has de facto determined the composition of cultures since time immemorial. This is demonstated using examples from the arts across all cultures and continents.

This book is about the interrelationship between nature, semiosis, metarepresentation and (self-)consciousness, and the role played by metarepresentation in ...

Concentrating upon applications that are most relevant to modern physics, this valuable book surveys variational principles and examines their relationship to dynamics and quantum theory. Stressing the history and theory of these mathematical concepts rather than the mechanics, the authors provide many insights into the development of quantum mechanics and present much hard-to-find material in a remarkably lucid, compact form. After summarizing the historical background from Pythagoras to Francis Bacon, Professors Yourgrau and Mandelstram cover Fermat's principle of least time, the (...) principle of least action of Maupertuis, development of this principle by Euler and Lagrange, and the equations of Lagrange and Hamilton. Equipped by this thorough preparation to treat variational principles in general, they proceed to derive Hamilton's principle, the Hamilton-Jacobi equation, and Hamilton's canonical equations. An investigation of electrodynamics in Hamiltonian form covers next, followed by a resume of variational principles in classical dynamics. The authors then launch into an analysis of their most significant topics: the relation between variational principles and wave mechanics, and the principles of Feynman and Schwinger in quantum mechanics. Two concluding chapters extend the discussion to hydrodynamics and natural philosophy. Professional physicists, mathematicians, and advanced students with a strong mathematical background will find this stimulating volume invaluable reading. Extremely popular in its hardcover edition, this volume will find even wider appreciation in its first fine inexpensive paperbound edition. (shrink)

We provide a finite axiomatization of the consequence , i.e. of the set of common sequential rules for and . Moreover, we show that has no proper non-trivial strengthenings other than and . A similar result is true for , but not, e.g., for +.

We provide a finite axiomatization of the consequence $\vdash ^{\wedge}\cap \vdash ^{\vee}$ , i.e. of the set of common sequential rules for $\wedge $ and $\vee $ . Moreover, we show that $\vdash ^{\wedge}\cap \vdash ^{\vee}$ has no proper non-trivial strengthenings other than $\vdash ^{\wedge}$ and $\vdash ^{\vee}$ . A similar result is true for $\vdash ^{\leftrightarrow}\cap \vdash ^{\rightarrow}$ , but not, e.g., for $\vdash ^{\leftrightarrow}\cap \vdash ^{+}$.

Aristotle's Categories can easily seem to be a statement of a naïve, pre-philosophical ontology, centered around ordinary items. Wolfgang-Rainer Mann argues that the treatise, in fact, presents a revolutionary metaphysical picture, one Aristotle arrives at by (implicitly) criticizing Plato and Plato's strange counterparts, the "Late-Learners" of the Sophist. As Mann shows, the Categories reflects Aristotle's discovery that ordinary items are things (objects with properties). Put most starkly, Mann contends that there were no things before Aristotle. The author's argument consists (...) of two main elements. First, a careful investigation of Plato which aims to make sense of the odd-sounding suggestion that things do not show up as things in his ontology. Secondly, an exposition of the theoretical apparatus Aristotle introduces in the Categories--an exposition which shows how Plato's and the Late-Learners' metaphysical pictures cannot help but seem inadequate in light of that apparatus. In doing so, Mann reveals that Aristotle's conception of things--now so engrained in Western thought as to seem a natural expression of common sense--was really a hard-won philosophical achievement. Clear, subtle, and rigorously argued, The Discovery of Things will reshape our understanding of some of Aristotle's--and Plato's--most basic ideas. (shrink)