Today there is a fruitful dispute between secularists and those who argue the compatibility between Christianity, with its religious precepts and intrinsic system of ethical values, and the liberal democracy. The second group is however hopelessly wrong, as much as the first. This endeavor is epistemologically wrong and the argument is pretty simple. The institutions of divine right, such as the Church or family, shall be subject to the single principle or hierarchy of being, that goes beyond the narrow human (...) consciousness and action. From this perspective, these institutions may be called undemocratic or they do not respect the ideology of inalienable human rights, as formulated at the present time. (shrink)

Starting with the Reformation, as a social and religious mass movement, the institution of the “state” became synonymous with authority, and until the Enlightenment, the mundane absolute order deployed varied patterns. Beginning with Calvinism, which legitimized the expansion of state institutions, the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries marked a shift to modernization. Puritan authoritarianism, based on “saintly” discipline and on quasi-marginal freedom, developed a new, impersonal and voluntary political doctrine. While one generally associates Anglo-American Puritanism with political freedom, democracy or capitalism, (...) we argue for a very different perspective, namely that the Puritans were both partisans of a medievalist paradigm as well as genuine enemies of democratic, liberal and secular values. Moreover, we emphasize that the Anglo-American radical Puritanism was only tempered by the Enlightenment. The enlightened philosophes were the defense advocates of liberal and pluralist ideas, and came out victorious of the competiton of ideas with their Puritan rivals. (shrink)

For many reasons, it is true that the Protestant Reformation unleashed the forces that lay behind the emergence of capitalism. Such a system was compatible with the emancipation of individuals, their mentalities, due to specific societal reforms and transformations. Therefore, it gave birth, in an unprecedented way, to a “new form of capitalism”. But the main idea I want to stress in this article is that the capitalist ethos was present before the Reformation, many centuries ago, in what is called (...) now the “Christian spirit”. In this direction, I emphasize many theories which disagree with the Weber’s well-known thesis about the relation between capitalism and religion, especially when it comes to generalize a particular result that is both theologically vague and empirically disprovable. (shrink)

Even though there are several studies showing a clear connection between religious coping and distress, only few of them illustrate models of mediation between religious coping and its psychological effects. In this paper we investigate the mediation effect that response expectancies have in the relation between religious coping and non-volitional responses . The study was made on 38 females diagnosed with breast cancer and which were following a treatment with radiotherapy sessions. The results confirmed the presence of a mediation effect (...) in the case of negative religious coping. When the mediator was present we registered significant indirect effects ranging from 37% to 47% of the Total effect that negative religious coping had on its outcomes. Our results suggested that religious coping could act like a placebo, the appearance of its effects being mediated by response expectancies. Due to its significant prediction effect upon non-volitional responses, we propose the introduction of the concept of religious response expectancies. (shrink)

Philosophers investigating questions of animal ethics tend to draw on animal cognition research while subscribing to strong positions regarding animal minds, and philosophers pursuing the question of animal minds frequently draw conclusions from the arguments of ethical philosophers. Despite this exchange, animal mind and animal ethics research have developed in fundamentally different directions. One reason for this divison lies in the institutional distinction between theoretical and practical philosophy. This anthology brings these fields and their philosophical approaches closer together, mapping their (...) surprising ideological and methodological overlap. (shrink)

In the present study we will direct our attention to the particular instances in which God appears as the subject of the verb נחם in the Pentateuch, where the context describes the reaction of ‘regretting’ or ‘repenting’ over a previous decision. In addition, in order to find out whether the Aramaic translators were consistent when trying to avoid anthropomorphisms, we will look at several of the occurrences of the verb in situations where it appears with a human, not a divine (...) subject. This comparative approach will allow us to locate the different dimensions of the semantic field in which a given verb functions. Hopefully the wider the picture of this field, the better the chances are that we will understand the motivations and beliefs that informed the particular choices the translators made. (shrink)

The Epistle to the Hebrews contains one of the most unique Greek lexicology and syntax of all the New Testament writings. Behind syntax, however, there lies a very profound theological vision on topics such as Christ, Temple, holiness, perseverance and salvation. Studying Hebrews against the background of Graeco-Roman culture, the source that most contemporary scholars mention as being closest to the world of Hebrews in this context is Philo of Alexandria. Not only on philological grounds, but also in matters of (...) methods of interpreting the Old Testament cult and in theology, Hebrews and Philo share a very common background. Analyzing the Epistle to the Hebrews comparatively, we are bound to ask whether or not comparsions such as these are warranted. In the following study we will state the state of the problem and then will examine the two sources that seem to have served as a source of inspiration for the author of Hebrews: the Old Testament and Philo of Alexandria. We will focus exclusively on the issues of the method of allegory and the spiritualization/reinterpretation of Old Testament cultic entities, since both Philo and Hebrews are characterized by these concerns. In essence, we will want to know who or what served as the most plausible source of inspiration for the author of Hebrews in the particular area of the reinterpretation of the Old Testament cult. (shrink)

The book Ecclesiastes has been regarded as one of the most profound pieces of ‘wisdom’ literature in the ancient Orient. It rivals in depth and the courage to challenge the institutional status quo with the literature from Mesopotamia and Egypt. It has puzzled readers in the last three millennia with its unparalleled courage to ask uncomfortable questions about faith, Gods and humanity. Ironically, many of the questions that Ecclesiastes asked have found reverberations in the hearts of post-modern men and women (...) today. On the one hand, the author affirms his belief that one can discern the ‘hand of God’ dispensing justice even in the most tragic of circumstances. On the other hand, Ecclesiastes confesses that, even though he applied his heart ‘to know wisdom and to know madness and folly,’ in the end he perceived ‘that this also is but a striving after wind.’ His conclusion? ‘Vanity of vanities: all is vanity!’ Statements like these have compelled us to approach Ecclesiastes in order to find the equilibrium in his vision between ‘despair’ and ‘hope.’ To do so, we will select a number of divine attributes that offer clarity not only to the vision of God in Ecclesiastes, but also to the sensitive issues of the meaning of life, suffering, justice, death and eternity. In the course of our analysis we will examine the views of contempoerary scholars who have written on this subject. We will show how Ecclesiastes’ vision takes into account human suffering and despair, without sacrificing the integrity of hope. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to examine those areas of agricultural and religious life that intersected with each and influenced the way people thought of God. We will start with the premise that in the Ancient Near East religion was intrinsically connected to agriculture and fertility, though not entirely defined by them. It is also plausible that people shared a concept of God that at times was shaped by their interaction with natural phenomena like rain, drought, storms, flooding, and (...) animal and crop plagues. In this sense, scholars have noted the connection between “fertility” and religious life, even though some remain caution of pushing this connection too far. To evaluate the strength of this idea we will examine a number of cultic texts that appear to have presumed the link between weather, agriculture and religion. In particular, we will focus on references to weather/ storm/ fertility gods. In the later part of our study, we will ask to what extent Biblical men and women were influenced by Ancient Near Eastern religious thought. We will also explore the concept of the link between agriculture, weather and religion in Greek religious texts. (shrink)

One of the most important paradigm shifts in the history of Greek philosophy was the ‘rediscovery’ of transcendence in the movement of Intermediate Platonism. Less than a century before the birth of Hellenism, Plato had advocated an intentional preoccupation with the life of the mind / soul, encouraging the individual to avoid being entrapped in the material limitations of life and instead discover its transcendental dimension. The conquest of Athens by the Macedonians, followed by the invasion of the Orient by (...) Alexander the Great, set in motion sociological and cultural changes that challenged the relevance of Platonic philosophy. The transcendental vision of Platonism left the individual still struggling to find happiness in the world created by Alexander the Great. This was the context in which the schools the of Cynicism, Stoicism, Epicureanism and Skepticism challenged Platonism with their call to happiness in this world and by means of the Hellenistic dominance and the rise of Roman supremacy stirred a renewed spiritual and philosophical effort to rediscover the world beyond; that is, the transcendental world of Plato. This was Middle Platonism and the Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria was one of its most prolific writers. In this paper, we will examine the concept of the soul in the writings of Philo, with an emphasis on the role that the soul plays in the act of approaching God through the means of the external / material cult. Philo offers a complex vision of the soul, one that remains critically relevant to understanding the Greek, Jewish, and Christian thought that emerged after Philo. (shrink)

In this paper inter-denominational cooperation is treated as part of the church-state relation because the propensity for inter-denominational cooperation is influenced by the legislative framework that regulates church-state relations. Although inter-denominational cooperation is hard to achieve, the author argues that some policy solutions are accessible to the government to encourage churches to cooperate at the level of church-based NGOs. The model is similar in some aspects to the faith-based and community initiatives developed in the United States. The author also attempts (...) to uncover the possible problems that arise when dealing with the potential for inter- denominational cooperation. (shrink)

Political moderation is the touchstone of democracy, which could not function without compromise and bargaining, yet it is one of the most understudied concepts in political theory. How can we explain this striking paradox? Why do we often underestimate the virtue of moderation? Seeking to answer these questions, A Virtue for Courageous Minds examines moderation in modern French political thought and sheds light on the French Revolution and its legacy. Aurelian Craiutu begins with classical thinkers who extolled the virtues (...) of a moderate approach to politics, such as Aristotle and Cicero. He then shows how Montesquieu inaugurated the modern rebirth of this tradition by laying the intellectual foundations for moderate government. Craiutu looks at important figures such as Jacques Necker, Madame de Staël, and Benjamin Constant, not only in the context of revolutionary France but throughout Europe. He traces how moderation evolves from an individual moral virtue into a set of institutional arrangements calculated to protect individual liberty, and he explores the deep affinity between political moderation and constitutional complexity. Craiutu demonstrates how moderation navigates between political extremes, and he challenges the common notion that moderation is an essentially conservative virtue, stressing instead its eclectic nature. Drawing on a broad range of writings in political theory, the history of political thought, philosophy, and law, A Virtue for Courageous Minds reveals how the virtue of political moderation can address the profound complexities of the world today. (shrink)

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Genese und Analyse" verfügbar.

Aristotle listed moderation as one of the moral virtues. He also defined virtue as the mean between extremes, implying that moderation plays a vital role in all forms of moral excellence. But moderation's protean character—its vague and ill-defined omnipresence in judgment and action—makes it exceedingly difficult to grasp theoretically. At the same time, moderation seems to be the foundation of many contemporary democratic political regimes, because the competition between parties cannot properly function without compromise and bargaining. The success of representative (...) government and its institutions depends to a great extent on the virtue of moderation, yet the latter persists in being absent from both the conceptual discourse of many political philosophers and the campaign speeches of politicians fearful of losing elections if they are perceived as moderates. Aurelian Craiutu aims to resolve this paradox. Examining the writings of prominent twentieth-century thinkers such as Raymond Aron, Isaiah Berlin, Norberto Bobbio, Michael Oakeshott, and Adam Michnik, he addresses the following questions: What does it mean to be a moderate voice in political and public life? What are the virtues and limits of moderation? Can moderation be the foundation for a successful platform or party? Though critics maintain that moderation is merely a matter of background and personal temperament, Craiutu finds several basic norms that have consistently appeared in different national and political contexts. The authors studied in this book defended pluralism, of ideas, interests, and social forces, and sought to achieve a sound balance between them through political trimming. They shared a preoccupation with political evil and human dignity, but refused to see the world in Manichaean terms that divide it neatly into the forces of light and those of darkness. Faces of Moderation argues that moderation remains crucial for today's encounters with new forms of extremism and fundamentalism across the world. (shrink)

In this book, linguists and philosophers combine to offer a unique insight not only into Grice's contribution to philosophy of language, but on his theories of natural and non-natural meaning, implicatures and the semantic-pragmatic distinction.

The issue of interpretation is one of the major themes in the study of law and legal practices. Nonetheless, while legal interpretation plays a crucial role in the study of law, scholars have yet to reach an agreement about its nature and status in the discipline. One of the most prolific legal philosophers who is deeply engaged in the discourse of this issue is Ronald Dworkin. This article will examine his views on law as an interpretation. The constructive interpretation model (...) that Dworkin develops has posed a serious challenge for analytical jurisprudence in general, and especially, for legal positivism. The challenge is substantive and methodological; substantive, in the sense that it seeks to radically criticize a sharp separation between law and morality as prevalent in legal positivism, and methodological in the sense that it seeks to put together the analysis of legal concepts with the interpretation of law as it is regarded from the perspective of particular legal cases. Through the concept of law as interpretation, Dworkin wishes to formulate his own understanding of law as a coherent system of legal principles. Keywords: Ronald Dworkin, constructive interpretation model, external and internal skepticism, theory of law, rights thesis, difficult cases. Abstrak: Persoalan interpretasi merupakan salah satu tema besar dalam studi hukum dan praktik hukum. Kendati demikian, sementara interpretasi hukum memainkan peran krusial dalam studi hukum, para pakar masih belum sepakat mengenai hakikat dan kedudukannya dalam disiplin ilmu tersebut. Salah seorang ahli filsafat hukum yang sangat produktif dan sangat serius menggeluti persoalan ini adalah Ronald Dworkin. Artikel ini akan mengkaji pandangan Dworkin tentang hukum sabagai sebuah interpretasi. Model interpretasi konstruktif yang dikembangkan oleh Dworkin merupakan tantangan yang sangat serius bagi yurisprudensi analitis pada umumnya, dan khususnya bagi positivisme hukum. Tantangan ini bersifat substantif dan metodologis. Bersifat substantif dalam arti bahwa Dworkin mengkritik secara radikal pemisahan yang begitu tajam antara hukum dan moralitas seperti lazim terjadi dalam positivisme hukum. Tantangan ini juga bersifat metodologis dalam arti bahwa tantangan tersebut berkehendak menyatukan analisis atas konsep hukum dengan interpretasi terhadapnya, dipandang dari perspektif kasus-kasus hukum partikular. Melalui konsep hukum sebagai interpretasi, Dworkin ingin memformulasikan pemahamannya tentang hukum sebagai sebuah sistem prinsip-prinsip hukum yang koheren. Kata-kata kunci: Ronald Dworkin, model interpretasi konstruktif, skeptisisme eksternal dan internal, teori hukum, tesis hak, kasus-kasus sulit. (shrink)

This article explores several key aspects of Tocqueville's "new science of politics". By focusing on its cross-disciplinary, comparative, normative, and political components, it highlights Tocqueville's conceptual and methodological sophistication as illustrated by his preparatory notes for Democracy in America and his voyage notes. The essay also defends Tocqueville against those critics who took him to task for working with an imprecise definition of democracy or with an ambiguous conception of equality.

A review essay of key works and trends in the political thought of Central and Eastern Europe, before and after 1989. The topics examined include the nature of the 1989 velvet revolutions in the region, debates on civil society, democratization, the relationship between politics, economics, and culture, nationalism, legal reform, feminism, and “illiberal democracy.” The review essay concludes with an assessment of the most recent trends in the region.

v. 1. Dualism in the Archaic and Early Classical periods of Greek history -- v. 2. Dualism in the political and social history of Greece in the fifth and fourth century B.C. -- v. 3. Dualism in Greek literature and philosophy in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. -- v. 4. Dualism in the ancient Middle East -- v. 5. A cultural history of Dualism -- v. 6. Dualism in the Hellenistic world -- v. 7. Dualism in the Palestinian-Syrian region (...) during the first century A.D. until. ca. 140 -- v. 8. Gnostic dualism in Asia Minor during the first centuries A.D. (2 v.) -- v. 10. Dualism in Roman history: 1. Imperialistic dualism -- v. 11. Dualism in Roman history: 2. Dualism in interior politics and social life -- v. 12. Dualism in Roman history: 3. The Christian church in conflict with the Roman Empire and with Judaism -- v. 13. Dualism in Roman history: 4. The struggle between orthodoxy and heterodoxy in the early Christian church -- v. 14. Dualism in Roman history: 5. Enemies of the Roman Order -- v. 15. Imperialism in medieval history I : dualism in Byzantine history, 476-638 and dualism in Islam, 572-732 -- v. 16. Imperialism in medieval history II : dualism in German history I -- v. 17. Imperialism in medieval history III : dualism in German history II -- v. 18. The dualism of the Christian and Muslim worlds during the middle ages -- v. 20. Gnostic-dualistic tendencies in the history of medieval Europe -- v. 21. Dualism and non-dualism in medieval theology and philosophy. (shrink)

In Queer Marxism in Two Chinas Petrus Liu demonstrates how queer Marxist critics in China use queer theory as a non-liberal alternative to Western models of queer emancipation, and in doing so, he revises current understandings of what queer theory is, does, and can be.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 47, no. 2. © 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 341 Petrus Liu Thinking Gender in the Age of the Beijing Consensus Originally formulated to dispute biologically deterministic explanations of women’s subordination, the analytical distinction between sex and gender has developed in unexpected ways in transitions from one language to another. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from John Money’s sexological writings to Simone de Beauvoir’s dictum, (...) “One is not born a woman, but rather becomes one,” Anglophone feminists in the 1970s developed the distinction between sex (understood as anatomy) and gender (understood as social identity) to argue that a woman’s biological sex ought not dictate the kind of work she should do or the kind of life she should live.1 In her landmark 1975 essay, “The Traffic in Women,” Gayle Rubin coined the phrase “sex/gender system” to examine “the set of arrangements by which a society transforms biological sexuality into products of human activity, and in which these transformed sexual needs are satisfied.”2 In more recent years, however, the distinction 1. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (Paris: Gallimard, 1949; New York: Knopf, 1993), 281. Citations refer to the Knopf edition. For an account of feminist reformulations of John Money and Robert Stoller, see Jennifer Germon, Gender: A Genealogy of an Idea (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009). 2. Gayle S. Rubin, Deviations: A Gayle Rubin Reader (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011), 34. It is worth mentioning that sex in Rubin’s sex/gender system refers to sexual practice rather than the distinction between male and female. This understanding forms the basis of her theoretical disagreements with Judith Butler, who preserves the semantic ambiguity of sex (as 342 Petrus Liu between sex and gender has taken on an entirely different meaning as it comes to inform transgender movements and politics seeking to decouple a person’s sex assignment at birth from their future gender identity. At the same time, theories of intersectionality, women-of-color feminisms, and transnational feminisms have all developed their own theses of gender variability to contest the myth of the universal woman. The life of gender—in academic theory, politics, and social movements— has confounded the original intentions of its American theorists. It is clear that there is no singular or stable account of gender; rather, gender is always in a state of flux, incessantly rethought and reforged by the demands of an increasingly complex and asymmetric world.3 Gender is always a translation—from one discipline, context, or language to another—ineluctably intertwined with the geopolitical problems created by the violences of imperialism, colonialism, and transnational capitalism. The translation of gender into non-European languages, such as Chinese, raises questions about whether spaces previously resistant or exterior to world capitalism are now being assimilated and enfolded into the structure of neoliberal globalization defined by the Washington Consensus. Against this view, some critics maintain that China’s precipitous ascent presents an alternative model of development for the Global South called the Beijing Consensus. Considering how gender has entered different languages, including Chinese, to create new coinages that may at times appear as instruments of an imperial takeover, Judith Butler argues that the translation of gender actually offers a path of linguistic humility for English, a reminder that we cohabit a multilingual world in which no one ever owned the term.4 But how exactly do we describe that complex, multilingual world and how does gender both gender and sexuality) as the point of departure for a different kind of feminist inquiry. See Gayle Rubin with Judith Butler, “Interview: Sexual Traffic,” differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 6, nos. 2–3 (1994): 67. 3. See Heather Love, ed. “Rethinking Sex.” Special issue, GLQ 17, no. 2 (2011): 1–221. This collection of essays conveys a sense of how Rubin’s methodological distinction between sex and gender has given rise to new ways of thinking across different disciplines about sex radicalism, crip sexuality, Black feminism, and sex trafficking. 4. Judith Butler, “Gender in Translation: Beyond Monolingualism,” philoSOPHIA 9, no. 1 (Winter 2019). Petrus Liu 343 transform it? How is the translation of gender inflected by the material conditions... (shrink)

In The Specter of Materialism Petrus Liu examines what "materialism" means for progressive queer theory and Marxist approaches to China's postsocialist economy. Liu recasts the history of queer theory in light of the Beijing Consensus, arguing that North American queer theory's inability to sustain a materialist analysis is the result of its positioning of the United States, rather than China, as the focal point of contemporary global capitalism. Analyzing relations of gender and sexuality that have been reconfigured by China's global (...) capitalist accumulation-such as dagongmei (female migrant laborers in China's export-oriented sunbelt) and money boys (rural-to-urban sex workers)-Liu argues for a materialist queer theory that positions China at the center. (shrink)

The Netherdutch Reformed Church finds itself in a precarious situation. It could be described as a watershed moment in the life of this denomination. The impasse developed due to various factors such as the loss of membership, the economic situation, ecumenical isolation and various other influences, which eventually resulted in a strong institutionalised organisation. Institutionalisation necessarily resulted in a shift of focus from the essence of being Church towards institutional continuation. As a result, the organic growth of the church suffered. (...) This article investigates the institutionalism of the Netherdutch Reformed Church from an open systems perspective, thereby identifying the dysfunctionality between form and function and ending with certain perspectives in respect of a change in focus by the church to realise the true essence of being Church of Jesus Christ. (shrink)

Duhem is commonly held to have founded his view of history of science as continuous on the ‘metaphsical assertion’ of natural classification. With the help of a strict distinction between formal and material characterization of natural classification I try to show that this imputation is problematic, if not simply incorrect. My analysis opens alternative perspectives on Duhem's talk of continuity, the ideal form of theories, and the rôle of ‘bon sens’; moreover it emphasizes some aspects of Duhem's realism that play (...) an important part in his philosophy of science. (shrink)

In nineteenth‐century Europe, democracy was not embraced with the same enthusiasm it now enjoys. Conservative critics questioned central democratic normative principles, while liberals tried to correct the limitations of actual democratic practice. While accepting the inevitability of democracy, nineteenth‐century liberals often resisted the idea that universal suffrage guaranteed the wisdom of the people's choices. Nothing better illustrates this difficult apprenticeship of democracy than the writings of François Guizot, whose political thought focuses on the relationship between liberalism and democracy.

This article argues that moderation is a difficult, complex, and elusive concept that challenges our political imagination. It has several faces—epistemological, moral, constitutional, political and religious—and forms a rich intellectual tradition that has yet to be explored in all its complexity. Moderation is “the silken string that runs through the pearl-chain of all virtues” (Joseph Hall). As such, it ought to be examined not only as a virtue but also as a social practice, an intellectual sensibility, a way of life, (...) a particular ethos, and a set of concrete institutions. Finally, moderation is best understood in relation with its synonyms (prudence, civility, compromise) and antonyms (extremism, fanaticism, zealotry). (shrink)