A distinguished Scandinavian scholar has undertaken a fresh study of themes he examined in earlier writings. Meaning and Method contains the results of Nygren's lifetime of thought, addressed to the most fundamental concerns of philosophy and theology. In this book Anders Nygren delves into these and other questions: What is the meaning of meaning? What are we to do when one person declares meaningless what another finds supremely meaningful? Is there any way of knowing which is right? (...) Can we arrive at a common understanding of what is meaningful? The author contends that contemporary philosophy does point to such a common understanding. Philosophy, as put forth by Nygren, involves a recognition of diverse contexts of meaning. Through philosophy we can also develop a method by which the validity of these contexts may be scientifically tested. Nygren shows that the debate about the meaningfulness of religious language is not insoluble. He further establishes the scientific status of the two disciplines concerned with religious language--theology and the philosophy of religion. The author's approach calls for drastic revision in these disciplines, and he indicates many new directions for future work in them. Students and specialists will be fascinated by Nygren's own account of the philosophical ideas undergirding his theological work. This book also makes a major contribution to today's questions in both philosophy and theology. (shrink)

Anders Nygren’s and Hannah Arendt’s critical reading of Augustine’s concept of love had its point of departure in a fundamental skepticism towards the possibility of knowing oneself. Nygren defended the need to give up the search for the ego in order to enter a fellowship with God, whereas Arendt’s turn toward the world necessitated a critical evaluation of self-love and the search for inner motivations for action in a unified self. Arendt’s solution in particular suggests that the (...) fate of the tradition of gnothi seauton was to surrender to the new discourse on identity that effectively turned Augustine’s question of himself from a puzzle solved by inwardness into a question of performance and encounters with others. (shrink)

Anders Nygren has for years been recognized as a leading con­temporary theologian. His major work, _Agape and Eros_,_ _has become a classic of theological research. And though he has been comparatively little known in this country, these critical essays which scrutinize Professor Nygren’s philosophical and theological theses on such subjects as motif research, meanings of love, systematic theology, and philosophy of religion attest to the importance given to his work by scholars and theolo­gians throughout the world. The (...) illumination given Nygren’s thought by this close examination is further enhanced by his “Intellectual Autobiography” and by his “Reply to Interpreters and Critics,” a commentary and defense in response to the essays, written by Professor Nygren for this volume. In addition, the vol­ume includes a complete bibliography of Nygren’s publications, covering his entire career and listing all translations of his works. (shrink)

Anders Nygren is widely known among English-speaking readers for his subtle and scholarly analysis of the forms of love, Agape and Eros, first published in 1930. Important facets of his far-ranging thought, however, have remained largely inaccessible to those who do not read Swedish. The present volume is a significant step in reducing that inaccessibility. Nygren's work is treated by seventeen different contributors in essays grouped under the following headings: Philosophy of Religion, Motif Research, The Meanings of (...) Love, Systematic Theology, Ethics, and Cultural and Ecumenical Concerns. Yet the book is more than merely a Festschrift. Over ten years in preparation, it aims at criticism as well as interpretation; and it includes an introductory "intellectual autobiography" by Nygren himself, a concluding response by Nygren to each of his critics, and a complete bibliography chronicling the 372 items published by Nygren from 1918 through 1970. Nygren's investigations fall on both sides of the line between philosophy and theology. The interest which unifies these inquiries is the philosophy of religion. "It is above all in the philosophy of religion that the great decisions are finally made." Nygren's earliest work was an attempt to establish the philosophy of religion on a purely scientific basis. It was in this regard that he developed his characteristic method of "motif research." Just as the supreme theoretical, aesthetic, and ethical categories are the true, the beautiful, and the good, respectively, so the supreme religious category is the eternal. All these categories are merely formal, however, and one must turn to the particular for content. Now, content in the theoretical domain consists of factual relationships; but content in the remaining three, "atheoretical," domains consists of the values or "fundamental motifs" which have been chosen from among a limited number of basic alternatives by a given historical group. The scholar forms a hypothesis regarding the fundamental motifs of the group in question; and if this hypothesis is verified by historical research, it then serves as a principle for organizing additional data concerning the group. Thus, the philosopher-historian of religion studies groups in an effort to determine their answers to the question, "What is the eternal?" It is chiefly in this domain that Nygren has applied his method, concluding, for example, that "agape" and "eros" are the characteristic Christian and Greek answers, respectively, to the fundamental religious question. Nygren maintains that this approach provides the means for treating the religious question systematically while simultaneously respecting the vast historical diversity of specific religious content. Just as the method of motif research is central to Nygren's work, so the discussion of that method and its applications constitutes, in effect, the central matter of this book. The project is carried off well. Nygren's final commentary is especially welcome, confirming or correcting positions presented by the contributors as his, and accepting or rejecting positions advanced by the contributors as their own.--J. M. V. (shrink)

SUMMARYAnders Nygren's antithetical juxtaposition of eros and agape became enormously influential in twentieth-century Protestant theology. Among other interconnected tenets, Nygren promulgated the idea that eros is eudæmonistic, i.e. always seeking the happiness of the lover. In The Four Loves , C. S. Lewis vehemently denies this. Lewis's use of the word ‘happiness’ in The Four Loves is so close to Nygren's eudæmonism that Risto Saarinen has called it ‘a conscious showdown’. In this article I evaluate this engagement. (...) After presenting and deconstructing it, I challenge Lewis's argument. I argue that eros does, as Nygren claims it does, seek happiness – although not only this. Perhaps surprisingly, Lewis, despite all appearances, may actually be compelled to agree with Nygren on this point. But not on every point. The final analysis reveals what I take to be Lewis's true concern. Contrary to what Nygren thought, for Lewis, the pursuit of happiness is not morally culpable and even eros has an agapistic opening. While getting these points across, Lewis was driven to exaggeration in denying eros's happiness-seeking character altogether. This exaggeration is corrected by the overall argument of his last, posthumously published essay, ‘We Have No “Right to Happiness”’. (shrink)

This article offers a critique of Anders Nygrens influential theory of love, which radically distinguishes among ^ros, agape, and philm. By contrast, a defense is offered of Thomas Jay Oord's view, which I label "kenotically donated love" or "full-Oorded" love. Comparisons are developed of related biological relationships like mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism.

This chapter treats in roughly chronological order ten Lutheran theologians other than Rudolf Bultmann and Paul Tillich, who were examined in the previous chapter. All of these figures can be discussed in relation to their reception of Søren Kierkegaard's writings, even though the level of appropriation of Kierkegaard varies significantly. They include German national Lutheran theologians Karl Holl, Friedrich Gogarten, Paul Althaus, and Emanuel Hirsch, Scandinavian Lutheran theologians Anders Nygren, Knud Løgstrup, Regin Prenter, and Gustaf Wingren, and contemporary (...) German Lutheran theologians Wolfhart Pannenberg and Eberhard Jüngel. The chapter attempts to identify distinctive characteristics of each thinker and their connections to Kierkegaard. (shrink)

Although Anders Nygren deserves a lot of the credit for launching the debate about the Christian understanding of love, his insistence on the distinctiveness of agape has been severely challenged by advocates for the sensuousness of eros and the mutuality of philia. The most serious challenge, however, may come from defenses of agape where the altruistic distinctiveness of the theological thrust is qualified by the claims of an ethical horizon. In spite of his disservice to eros and his (...) neglect of philia, Nygren deserves to be heard in his insistence that agape is a unique concept, and that this uniqueness is due particularly to its theological source and reference. (shrink)

Love lies at the very heart of the Christian faith and its conception of both God and the human being. Nevertheless, the growing field of theological anthropology has yet to fully avail itself of philosophy’s and theology’s renewed attention to the theme of love. The Introduction to this special issue proposes the phrase ‘in the image of Love’ as an invitation to examine the relation between theological anthropology and love throughout the history of Christian thought. Guided by this motif, the (...) issue’s contributors consider ten historical thinkers on love and the human in relation to their philosophical conversation partners at the time. The volume thus has a genealogical dimension, delving into often forgotten layers beneath our current, late modern view of the human/love. It thereby assists future theological anthropological discussions in the much-needed task of both integrating the crucial theme of love and formulating more historically grounded perspectives. This special issue also reveals the ways in which theologians have attempted to respond to the challenge posed by the modern subject while retaining the idea that the human creature is called by Love and called to Love, and provides an alternative to Nygren’s opposition of agape and eros. (shrink)

Scholars of religion and science have generated remarkable scholarship in recent years in their explorations of love. Exactly how scholars involved in this budding field believe that love and science should relate and/or be integrated varies greatly. What they share in common is the belief that issues of love are of paramount importance and that the various scientific disciplines—whether natural, social, or religious—must be brought to bear upon how best to understand love. I briefly introduce the emergence of the love‐and‐science (...) research program and note that scholars have not done well defining what they mean by love. I suggest that the present surge in love scholarship will fail to produce the positive results that it otherwise might if love is not defined well. I provide and defend a definition of love adequate for those doing love‐and‐science research: To love is to act intentionally, in sympathetic response to others (including God), to promote well‐being. To explain better what this simple definition entails, I explore its three main phrases. Love is said to have many forms, but agape is the form to which the love‐and‐science literature most commonly refers. I comment briefly on the debates about how to best understand agape, noting sixteen different definitions proposed by major scholars. I identify weaknesses in many of them and then offer what I argue is a more adequate definition of agape as intentional response to promote well‐being when confronted by that which generates ill‐being. In short, agape repays evil with good. While research on love and science requires much more than adequate definitions, I believe that the definitions I proffer can prove useful in furthering the love‐and‐science research program. (shrink)

Levinas is a thinker for the future, concerned with the future. He inverts the priority of the declaration of the French Revolution "Freedom, Equality, Brotherhood", by designating "brotherhood" first among modern European society's most cherished values. Levinas sees brotherhood as the fundamental condition of our shared humanity and as the foundation of freedom and equality. Thus, he presents himself as a Western thinker who sets modern thought on its head and at the same time enriches it. His radical view of (...) the other, responsibility, subjectivity and the Infinite remains a challenge, today more than ever. Calling out to both religious and secular seekers alike, Levinas asks for an alert and critical dialogue of the ethical and metaphysical meaning of our inter-human and social relationships. In this work, a new generation of philosophers, ethicists and theologians embark on a conversation with Levians, with due appreciation for his genius and uninhibitedness in their questioning. The intermediaries in this provocative dialogue are: Hannah Arendt, Henri Bergson, Anders Nygren, Paul Ricoeur and Hans Urs von Balthasar. The following themes are thus treated: - ethics as liberation and redemption beyond the self - time, duration and alterity - freedom, society and politics - desire between eros and agape - 'good enough' parenting and family ethics - conversational processes and pastoral counselling - asymmetry and reciprocity between the self and the other - modern humanism vs. post-modern anti-humanism as an inspiration for a renewed secular humanism - suffering, death and euthanasia - perspectives and boundaries of interreligious dialogue - the (im)possibility of a Christian interpretation of Levinas' Jewish-inspired thought - a new Christian theology of Trinitarian praxis. This volume likewise includes contributions by: Roger Burggraeve, W. Wolf Diedrich, Annemie Dillen, Thomas Folens, Glen Morrison, Marianne Moyaert, Marina Riemslagh, Anya Topolski, Emilie Van Daele, Jean Vanheessen, Sophie Veulemans and Torben Wolfs. In this book Levinas is presented as an 'extra-ordinary' other who awakes into vigilance the conscience of not only the contributors, but the readers as well: one speaks and the other responds differently. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn this article, the intention is twofold. To introduce and substantiate Søren Kierkegaard’s notion of love and to put this notion in relation to the Romantics. The article is divided into six sections. I first offer a brief description of Kierkegaard’s view on the Romantics, his affections and his disagreements. Secondly, I will introduce Kierkegaard’s own notion of love that rest partly on Plato’s view on eros as passion, partly on the biblical definitions of love in 1 John and Matthew. (...) Thirdly, I will present Kierkegaard’s notion of love as a double urge to love and to be love and contrast this double-bound urge with Anders Nygren’s notion of eros and agape and C. S. Lewis’ differentiation between Need-Love and Gift-Love. In the fourth section, I will discuss the relation between human and divine love. In the fifth section, I will introduce Kierkegaard’s notion of being in love as preferential love. And finally, in the sixth paragraph, I will address Kierkegaard’s view on neighbor love. (shrink)

Discusses the complexities and paradoxes of love as represented in the history of Western philosophy and Christianity. In The Asymptote of Love, James Kellenberger develops a theory of religious love that resists essentialist definitions of the term and brings into conversation historical debates on love in Western philosophy and Christian theology. He argues that if love can be likened to a mathematical asymptote, which is a straight line that infinitely approaches a curve but never quite reaches it, then the asymptote (...) of love reaches toward the infinite endpoint of love at its uttermost, namely, God’s love. Drawing upon a broad range of thinkers who have put forth classic debates on love—such as St. Augustine of Hippo, Anders Nygren, and St. Thomas Aquinas, as well as some lesser known figures in the debate, such as Leo Tolstoy and Albert Schweitzer—Kellenberger explains the profound connection between human agape and God’s infinite love in its capacity to offer both directive guidance and to exist beyond human conception. James Kellenberger is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Northridge and the author of God’s Goodness and God’s Evil. (shrink)

Was ist Religion in der Religionsphilosophie von Heinrich Scholz? / Theodor Mahlmann -- Husserls phänomenologischer Zugangsweg zu den Problemen der Religion / Ludwig Landgrebe -- Religion, Religionsphilosophie und Theologie bei Geradus van der Leeuw / Hubertus G. Hubbeling -- Anders Nygrens Religionsbegriff / Hampus Lyttkens -- Charles S. Peirce's Religionsphilosophie als Metaphysik der Evolution / Hermann Deuser -- Die theoretische Theologie der Prozessphilosophie Whiteheads / Ingolf U. Dalferth -- Metaphysik und Religion im Spätwerk Knud Logstrups / Svend Andersen.

Despite petitions from friends and critics through much of his career, Paul Ramsey adamantly refused to revise his first book, Basic Christian Ethics. Yet, several pieces of Ramsey’s private correspondence indicate specific changes to Basic Christian Ethics that he felt were necessary. These include a desire to distance his use of agape from associations with Anders Nygren’s Agape and Eros, an added emphasis on the importance of the doctrine of creation for his understanding of agape, covenant, and natural (...) law, and a shift from eschatology to Christology as the foundational doctrine for political ethics. Drawing upon personal letters and other disparate comments throughout Ramsey’s published work, this paper explores the impact such proposed revisions might have on contemporary interest (or lack thereof) in Basic Christian Ethics. In so doing it also highlights Ramsey’s ability to rethink central theological concepts in his work and draw his readers’ attention to fundamental questions in the field of moral theology. (shrink)

Augustine believes that loving God is the proper end of human life. But what does it mean to love God? Following Anders Nygren’s influential critique, the common interpretation is that the central thrust of Augustine’s account of love for God is Platonic eros. However, I will argue that the main element of human love for God is not eros but philia, the desire for friendship with the beloved. Understanding Platonic eros as one element among others of human love (...) for God allows us to reconcile the erotic aspects of Augustine’s account with the many texts in which he speaks of human love for God in self-forgetful, agapeistic terms. I will argue that we need to understand the erotic and agapeistic elements of Augustine’s position as essential but subservient to the major focus of our love for God, the desire for friendship with God. (shrink)

Hearers of the Sermon on the Mount are called to become children of their heavenly father by loving as God loves. Surprisingly, though, God's love is depicted here as impersonal and indiscriminate, as similar to or even simply as a force of nature, even if a life-giving force: God `makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust' (Matthew 5:45). Anders Nygren used this verse as core support (...) for his dubious characterization of agape as `indifferent to value'. How should we hear it today? (shrink)

Colin Grant ranges widely in his attempt to retrieve Anders Nygren 's depiction of agape, but the claims I examine here are that agape is distinctive, we should offer a theocentric account of it, Nygren 's altruism should be endorsed, and secular defenses of impartiality are not other-regarding enough. I accept and, reject, and deny that is our only alternative to. Neighbor-love and self-love are like and unlike each other, and the unlikenesses are of more than one (...) kind. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Love of God above SelfJordan OlverIS THERE ANY LOVE that is not ultimately a form of self-love? Anders Nygren famously maintained that for Thomas Aquinas there is not. Nygren was led to this conclusion in large part by Aquinas’s claims that love is an act of the will and that the ultimate end of the will is happiness: if every act of love is on account (...) of happiness as an ultimate end, it seems to follow that all love of others is motivated by, and reducible to, love of self.1 Others have drawn this conclusion for similar reasons. Scott MacDonald, for example, interprets Aquinas as proposing “egoistic rationalism”; he believes that this ethical position follows from Aquinas’s claim that human beings, like all creatures, seek their perfection.2Texts, however, can be produced to show that Aquinas himself believes that nonegoistic love is possible.3 If he is an [End Page 97] egoist, he is not so intentionally; he can only be so in the sense that his principles, despite his wishes, necessitate such a position. While Nygren interpreted Aquinas as an unwilling egoist of this sort,4 most modern scholars of Aquinas’s thought on love have held that his principles do not necessitate egoism, and they have endeavored to explain how nonegoistic love is possible on Thomistic grounds. Modern attempts to solve the “problem of love in Thomas Aquinas” normally look back to Pierre Rousselot’s 1908 work Pour l’histoire du problème de l’amour au moyen âge.5 Rousselot identified the “problem of love” as whether a love that is not egoistic is possible and, if it is, what the relation might be between this love and the love of self which appears to be the foundation of natural tendencies.6 Rousselot believed that in the Middle Ages this problem was primarily dealt with through the consideration of the more particular problem of whether it is possible to love God above self apart from grace. This approach, he thought, offered significant advantages: it was simultaneously concrete and profound, and the object of love was both the last end and the author of all natural appetites.7 If genuine love for another is possible, that possibility would be discoverable in this case and through analysis of love of God above self it would seem that one could [End Page 98] arrive at the principles needed to make sense of other nonegoistic loves.8 Accordingly, when Rousselot presented Aquinas’s solution to the problem of love, he did so exclusively through an explanation of Aquinas’s teaching on love of God above self.9 The most notable feature of this account was its appeal to the part-whole relation: Rousselot proposed that for Aquinas our love for God above self is due to the fact that we relate to God as a part to a whole.Rousselot’s work inspired a scholarly discussion that has persisted now for over a century. This discussion may be roughly divided into three stages: the early twentieth century, the mid-twentieth century, and the late-twentieth century to the present. General agreement with Rousselot characterizes early twentieth-century scholarship. Scholars of this period, such as Charles-Vincent Héris, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, and H.-D. Simonin, may claim that Rousselot neglects or overemphasizes something, but they do not assert that he is substantially wrong.10 By contrast, rejection or neglect of the “part-whole” approach to love of God above self characterizes the scholarship of the mid-twentieth century. Étienne Gilson, in his 1932 work L’esprit de la philosophie médiévale, vigorously objects to Rousselot’s account, arguing that the part-whole relationship, as it functions in Aquinas’s arguments for love of God above self, should not be understood in “a distressingly literal way,” but simply as “a metaphor, the first moment in a manuductio.”11 [End Page 99] Louis-Bertrand Geiger also emphatically rejects Rousselot’s account, arguing that the real explanation of disinterested love is to be found in the will’s special, “objective” inclination to the “good in itself” as opposed to the “good for me”; we love God... (shrink)

A critical examination of the religious theories of Axel Hägerström and Anders Nygren, their respective disciples, Martin Fries and Ragnar Bring, and the critical literature on the two main figures. Hemberg's study focuses on the questions: whether all reality must be referred to spatial-temporal experience; the status of metaphysics; and the nature of religious experience. The religious theories of Hägerström and Nygren are of considerable philosophical interest although, for primarily linguistic reasons, their influence outside Sweden has remained (...) slight. Despite the presence of a fifteen page English summary one suspects that interest in Hemberg's book will be similarly provincial, for similar reasons.—A. E. J. (shrink)

Le discrédit tenace dont souffre le Moyen Âge laisse apparaître dans son tissu les grandes trouées d'un intérêt presque exalté focalisé essentiellement sur une invention médiévale inouïe, celle de l'amour passion. Depuis la Seconde Guerre mondiale, plusieurs auteurs ont attiré l'attention sur cette question de l'amour dans la pensée médiévale, question qui avait pourtant jusqu'alors peu retenu les spécialistes de cette période. Les lectures depuis se multiplient. Il y a eu, entre autres, les trois grandes lectures de l'abbé Pierre Rousselot, (...) d'Anders Nygren et de Denis de Rougemont; il y a eu le Séminaire que Lacan a consacré à cette «affaire» médiévale de l'amour en 1973 et qui s'appuyait précisément sur les trois commentaires précédemment cités, et cela de préférence à des textes plus traditionnels tels que La Nouvelle Héloïse ou les Lettres de la religieuse portugaise; il y a eu aussi les commentaires de Georges Duby et d'Ivos Margoni; il y a, enfin, la belle et forte lecture de Charles Baladier dont il est ici rendu compte. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Denying Divinity: Apophasis in the Patristic Christian and Soto Zen Buddhist TraditionsJoseph S. O'LearyDenying Divinity: Apophasis in the Patristic Christian and Soto Zen Buddhist Traditions. By J. P. Williams. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. 249. $65.00.Janet Williams studied patristic theology at Oxford and Soto Zen in Tokyo, in the circle of Nishijima Zenji. In Denying Divinity: Apophasis in the Patristic Christian and Soto Zen Buddhist Traditions, her (...) excellent account of negation and silence in Pseudo-Dionysius and Maximus the Confessor (pp. 64-126) and in Dogen (pp. 126-179) is preceded by surveys of apophasis in earlier Christianity and Buddhism and followed by an eloquent defense of the importance of the twofold apophatic tradition for contemporary theology (pp. 180-228).The initial surveys show a sure-footed scholarly competence that may owe something to the author's experience as an investment banker. Her writing often exhibits a concentrated justesse, as in the two paragraphs on Origen (pp. 26-27). The temptation to forced comparisons between the two traditions is avoided until the concluding chapter, apart from a few unconvincing touches such as this remark: "How similar all this sounds to the 'unsupported thought' and the 'absence of thought-coverings' in the Prajñaparamita literature!"—in reference to Gregory of Nyssa on Abraham's faith, which was "unmixed and pure of any concept" (p. 29). Similarly, to speak of Plotinus' "recoil from—or transcendence of—ontological views" (p. 18) is inappropriately Nāgārjunian; Plotinus held firm, dogmatic views and entertained a host of speculative ones. (Incidentally, it is probably wrong to identify the experience recounted in Enneads IV.8—the relatively frequent ascent of the soul to contemplate the intelligible realm—with the union with the One, evoked in Porphyry, Life of Plotinus 23, a much rarer event [p. 21].)Gregory of Nyssa is nudged in the direction of Buddhism when Williams talks of "the inchoate undermining of the realist ontology he inherited from Plato and Aristotle" (pp. 32-33) and suggests that "the hesitation between ontology and 'disontology,' if it were a little more developed, would become the kind of recoil from [End Page 370] ontological views which we see as characteristic of apophasis" (p. 36). As a very kataphatic theologian in dogmatic debate, Gregory has no aversion to views; his apophasis applies only to certain views of the divine, especially heretical ones that he sees as hubristic. In Mādhyamaka Buddhism, one transcends "views" about anything, but in the Greek Fathers it is only views concerning God that are problematized. The Buddhist transcending of views is oriented to a nondual experience of everyday reality, but in the Fathers it concerns only the divine simplicity, infinity, and transcendence and the mysteries of the eternal generation of the Son and the Incarnation. It is untrue that "there is no explicit apophasis in Gregory" (p. 35): there is plenty of it in Contra Eunomium II, albeit of a simple kind. Nonetheless, Gregory's ontology remains realistic even at the level of divine being. One might query the view expressed by Rowan Williams that, for Gregory, the divine essence becomes "an abstraction and, in a sense, a fantasy" (p. 34).Dionysius is presented as a mobile and open-ended thinker who has been underestimated. He "negates both affirmation and negation, but by offering no third alternative, in a sense affirms them too as the only usable theological resources" (p. 121). Maximus accords with this, although attaining "a finer balance of incarnational christo-centrism over Neoplatonism" (p. 124). The claim that Dionysius "is at pains to distance himself from the Neoplatonist tradition of making transcendence prior or superior to immanence" (p. 216) is overstated, and it misses the degree to which Proclus had already seen the cosmos as pervaded by divine eros (as pointed out long ago by Anders Nygren).The emphasis on a nonduality of transcendence and immanence brings Dionysius into a rapprochement with more of the this-worldly Zen vision. Similarly, the stress on a "shocking activity of emptiness" (p. 141) in Dogen hints at a parallel with the divine ekstasis in Dionysius. But the latter is merely a variant of the Neoplatonic... (shrink)

Public education is not just a way to organise and fund education. It is also the expression of a particular ideal about education and of a particular way to conceive of the relationship between education and society. The ideal of public education sees education as an important dimension of the common good and as an important institution in securing the common good. The common good is never what individuals or particular groups want or desire, but always reaches beyond such particular (...) desires towards that which societies as a whole should consider as desirable. This does, of course, put the common good in tension with the desires of individuals and groups. Neo-liberal modes of governance have, over the past decades, put this particular educational set up under pressure and have, according to some, eroded the very idea of the common good. This set of contributions reflects on this state of affairs, partly through an exploration of the idea of publicness itself – how it can be rearticulated and regained – and partly through reflections on the current state of education in the ‘north’ and the ‘south.’. (shrink)

We claim that if a complete philosophy of evidence-based practice is intended, then attention to the nature of causation in health science is necessary. We identify how health science currently conceptualises causation by the way it prioritises some research methods over others. We then show how the current understanding of what causation is serves to constrain scientific progress. An alternative account of causation is offered. This is one of dispositionalism. We claim that by understanding causation from a dispositionalist stance, many (...) of the processes within an evidence-based practice framework are better accounted for. Further, some of the problems associated with the health research, e.g. external validity of causal findings, dissolve. (shrink)

This paper introduces deontic logic based on inquisitive semantics. A semantics for action formulas is introduced where each action formula is associated with a set of alternatives. Deontic operators are then interpreted as quantifying over all alternatives associated with the action formulas within their scope. It is shown how this construction provides solutions to problems related to free choice permissions and obligations, including issues concerning Hurford disjunctions. The main technical result is a complete axiomatization of the logic.