Knowledge brokers are among the main channels of communication between scientists and the public and a key element to establishing a relation of trust between the two. But translating knowledge from the scientific community to a wider audience presents several difficulties, which can be accentuated in times of crisis. In this paper we study some of the problems that knowledge brokers face when communicating in times of crisis. During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, we collected interviews (...) with Italian experts that played a major role as knowledge brokers in the local media. We asked them questions about five main topics: the features and role of science communicators; the use of language in communicating science; the importance of the relation of trust with the public; the peculiarity of communicating in a context of emergency; the problem of disagreement among experts, and its public perception and communication. The goal of this paper is to understand, through the words of knowledge brokers themselves, what they consider as best practices (and obstacles) to create trust between scientists and the public. Our empirical work can inform normative accounts of what knowledge brokering should be about. (shrink)

An exchange of letters among proper names and natural-kind terms, dealing with various identity and individuation problems (rigid designation, use-mention ambiguities, translation) from their point of view.

ABSTRACTIn recent years, with Europe witnessing its worst refugee crisis since the Second World War, the process of applying for asylum in a foreign country has become the focus of numerous studies and research programs. The aim of the present article is to explore the subject through a case study of the issues and complexities surrounding the interpreting and translation services offered by the Spanish Asylum and Refugee Office. The data is based on two surveys: the first focused (...) on the professionals’ views of the role of translators and interpreters, and the second on translators and interpreters working in the field of international protection. The findings obtained from these studies may prove useful for improving the various interpreting and translation training programs and services that are crucial for managing the refugee crisis and the multiple problems associated with it. (shrink)

In European culture the sacred and the secular have existed in a dialectical relationship. Prodi sees the fifteenth-century crisis of Christianity as opening up three paths that eroded this dualism and tended towards modernity: civic-republican religion, sacred monarchy, and the territorial churches. Important counter-forces, which sought to maintain dualism, included the Roman-Tridentine Compromise, and those forms of Radical Christianity which rejected confessionalisation outright. During the Eighteenth Century, all these phenomena tended to contribute to one of two tendencies: towards civic (...) religion, or towards political religion. The former preserved a distinction between conscience and law; the latter comprised a state religion which sought to perfect all of human nature. It was civic religion which become embodied in the early USA, alienating God from worldly power, but leaving him as the guarantor of agreements between humans. Back in Europe, Prodi tracks the relationship between the Catholic Church and the new national states. He then turns to the political religions of the Twentieth Century. Prodi concludes by emphasising that this dualism of sacred and secular power lay at the centre of Western modernity, and expresses his fears about the collapse of civic religion into political religion, especially in the USA. (shrink)

This article attempts a reinterpretation of Aeschylus’ Persians as primarily a warning about the instability of democracy following a major military victory against an overpowering totalitarian enemy. It discusses the historical and our contemporary ideas of the democratic principles of government versus the constant tendency towards a strongman regime. I argue that the play’s underlying philosophy is based on the Heraclitan idea of constant flux, which predates our modern ideas of the relativity of time and space, and the core concept (...) underpinning any democracy that the only constant thing about it is continuous change. A short retrospective of modern productions of The Persians reveals the relationship between history and current events that can or cannot be associated with the play. By treating the thorny issue of translations and adaptations and the temptations of simplistic patriotic or antiwar interpretations of the play, the article also addresses the challenging task of determining what constitutes a just war and why a democracy is necessarily engaged in a continuous defensive battle against the forces of totalitarianism. (shrink)

The word “emotion” has named a psychological category and a subject for systematic enquiry only since the 19th century. Before then, relevant mental states were categorised variously as “appetites,” “passions,” “affections,” or “sentiments.” The word “emotion” has existed in English since the 17th century, originating as a translation of the French émotion, meaning a physical disturbance. It came into much wider use in 18th-century English, often to refer to mental experiences, becoming a fully fledged theoretical term in the following (...) century, especially through the influence of two Scottish philosopher-physicians, Thomas Brown and Charles Bell. This article relates this intellectual and semantic history to contemporary debates about the usefulness and meaning of “emotion” as a scientific term. (shrink)

SUMMARYMachine Translation is now ubiquitous in discussions of translation. The roots of this phenomenon — first publicly unveiled in the so-called ‘Georgetown-IBM Experiment’ on 9 January 1954 — displayed not only the technological utopianism still associated with dreams of a universal computer translator, but was deeply enmeshed in the political pressures of the Cold War and a dominating conception of scientific writing as both the goal of machine translation as well as its method. Machine translation was (...) created, in part, as a solution to a perceived crisis sparked by the massive expansion of Soviet science. Scientific prose was also perceived as linguistically simpler, and so served as the model for how to turn a language into a series of algorithms. This paper follows the rise of the Georgetown program — the largest single program in the world — from 1954 to the collapse of MT in 1964. (shrink)

For the theorists of crisis, the revolutionary state comes into existence through violence, and due to its inability to provide an authoritative katechon (restrainer) against internal and external violence, it perpetuates violence until it self-destructs. Writing during extreme economic depression and growing social and political violence, the crisis theorists––Joseph de Maistre, Juan Donoso Cortés, and Carl Schmitt––each sought to blame the chaos of their time upon the Janus-faced postrevolutionary ideals of liberalism and socialism by urging a return to (...) pre-revolutionary moral and religious values. They are united by three counterrevolutionary principles, all of which are purported to remedy revolutionary violence: traditional constitutional fidelity, the philosophy of the decision, and opposition to bourgeois liberalism. This essay is followed by the first complete English translation and publication of Donoso’s letter of October 24, 1851, which contains Donoso’s only reference to the “discussing class,” a political entity later popularized by Schmitt in his 1922 work Political Theology. (shrink)

Reinhart Koselleck is among the most original German theorists of history and historiography. His international reputation is due in part to his contributions as theorist and editor of the remarkable lexicon Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe (GG). The GG is an exceptional reference work that goes far towards realizing Koselleck's program and distinctive version of Begriffsgeschichte (the history of concepts, conceptual history). What is presented here is a translation in full of Koselleck's own entry on Krise (crisis). Few articles in the (...) GG demonstrate more successfully Koselleck's theoretical concerns, his method, and innovative use of sources. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:COVID-19 revealed health-care systems in crisis. Intersecting crises of stress, overwork, and poor working conditions have led to workforce strain, under-staffing, and high rates of job turnover. Bioethics researchers have responded to these conditions by investigating the ethical challenges of pandemic response for individuals, institutions, and health systems. This essay draws on pandemic findings to explore how empirical bioethics can inform post-pandemic translational bioethics. Borrowing from the concept of translational science in medicine, this essay proposes that translational bioethics should (...) communicate knowledge about ethical challenges in health-care work to support health systems change. The authors draw from their experience with the Study to Examine Physicians' Pandemic Stress (STEPPS), an interdisciplinary research project that investigates physicians' experiences at the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using STEPPS as an example of empirical bioethics with potential for translation, the authors review their research and discuss the ongoing process for translating their findings, focusing on how bioethics research and practice can contribute to supporting the health-care workforce. (shrink)

This article focuses on the translation that Guy Debord made of the poem Coplas a la muerte de su padre, a work by fifteenth-century Castilian court poet Jorge Manrique. Despite the apparent distance between translator and translated, Debord’s interest is a product of his fascination with moments of historical crisis and their transformative possibilities. The Debordian way of confronting such moments and of considering Manrique’s work as a product of one of them is framed within a historical model (...) that collapses the synchronic and the diachronic through textual montage, juxtaposing fragments in an associative way. Debord develops this form of montage in his best-known works, such as The Society of the Spectacle. In dialogue with this peculiar philosophy of history, the article argues that the translation is part of a moment of interest in Spanish culture post-May ’68 in Debord’s work and should be read as a part of the Champ Libre publishing project, financed by Debord’s film impresario, patron, and friend Gerard Lebovici. The ultimate reason for his interest in Spanish culture is the idealization of the political possibilities of a society that, between the seventies and the early eighties when Debord translates Manrique, is in the midst of the transition from dictatorship to democracy. (shrink)

At a time when ideas of crisis and critique are at the forefront of public discourse, this article seeks to understand moments of crisis vis-à-vis critique as a key feature of critical social theory. It addresses Jürgen Habermas’s strong claim that this relationship accounts for a ‘model of analysis’ concerned with grasping the ‘diremptions’ of social life. To elaborate this reading, the article pays attention to the main problems Habermas identifies in conventional ways of understanding the concepts of (...) ‘crisis’ and ‘critique’ in social theory. The aim is to examine the mode in which he reconsiders each of these terms and then reasserts the dialectical link between them. I reconstruct this relationship by taking as cases two of his most substantive works of social theorizing: The Theory of Communicative Action, and Between Facts and Norms. Based on this interpretation, I suggest that though Habermas contributes to resituating the practice of critique as a communicative translation of objective crisis, he does not adequately account for another key movement: when critique actually initiates, enacts and furthers the moment of crisis. (shrink)

This article examines how British philosophers of the 1930s grappled with the relationship between reason, emotion, and democratic citizenship in the context of a perceived “crisis of democracy” in Europe. Focusing especially on Bertrand Russell, Susan Stebbing, and John Macmurray, it argues that philosophers working from diverse philosophical perspectives shared a sense that the crisis of democracy was simultaneously a crisis of reason and one of emotion. They tended to frame this crisis in terms of three (...) interrelated concerns: first, as a problem of balancing or integrating reason and emotion; second, as a problem of the relationship between emotions and democratic citizenship; and third, as a problem of how to properly train or educate the emotions. Significantly, British philosophers addressed these issues most directly in writings for a non-professional audience, as they sought to translate their professional expertise into popular works that might rejuvenate democratic citizenship. This historical episode is a reminder of how philosophers were deeply engaged in the cultural politics of the interwar period and is a telling example of how personalist concerns were central to philosophy even as the “analytic revolution” was gathering steam. (shrink)

Reinhart Koselleck is among the most original German theorists of history and historiography. His international reputation is due in part to his contributions as theorist and editor of the remarkable lexicon Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe (GG). The GG is an exceptional reference work that goes far towards realizing Koselleck's program and distinctive version of Begriffsgeschichte (the history of concepts, conceptual history). What is presented here is a translation in full of Koselleck's own entry on Krise (crisis). Few articles in the (...) GG demonstrate more successfully Koselleck's theoretical concerns, his method, and innovative use of sources. (shrink)

Some of the human needs are more important than others in order to be inevitable. One of these needs which cannot be avoided is the need for belonging to any authority. Whatever the name, religion, nation, homeland, flag etc. all these concepts are the reflections of the sense of belonging that comes with human existence. This article will discuss how Kuwaiti novelist Saud Alsanousi reflects the crisis of a child who is born from a secret relationship with a Filipino (...) woman's son who came to Kuwait as a housekeeper in Kuwait. When he returned to Kuwait, where he carried his passport and felt himself unfamiliar in the Philippines because of his physical structure and the Arabs, he was again excluded by his relatives because of his Filipino mother. The novel tries to draw attention to the socio-economic problems of workers coming from South East Asia to the Gulf countries, especially from the character of Jose, who has a nauseous mood due to the uncertainty between Philippine-Kuwait and Christian-Muslim affiliations. The introduction of foreign workers who constitute more than half of the population in the Gulf countries will be reviewed. Afterwards, a short summary of the novel will be given and the main theme of the lack of disability will be analyzed. Summary: In 1973, Syria and Egypt started a air strike against Israel in order to recover their lost territory in the previous wars and their reputation in the international area. Some Western countries -especially the United States- have shown all kinds of military aid to Israel in the face of this attack. Thanks to these aids the Syrian and Egyptian armies have not achieved their intended goals. This attitude of Western countries to Israel has attracted the reaction of other Gulf countries -especially the Saudi administration- which has a large amount of oil reserves. Gulf countries -which have not gotten a strong military option- tried to use the oil in their hands for the first time as a political trump card. These oil-exporting countries have reduced oil production in response. As a result, the economies of Western countries which were industrialized and dependent on oil have been negatively affected by this decision. In contrast, Gulf States have gained a sudden and massive fortune due to oil prices rising three or four times. The Gulf States, which have led this wealth to development in many areas like education, health, urbanism, etc. The need for qualified staff in these fields was supplied by other Arab countries such as Egypt, Syria, and Sudan. However, as the years passed oil prices decreased and so oil revenues decreased. This reduction led the Gulf States -which have only oil-based economies- to look for cheaper labor. While the foreign employment provided from the Arab countries previously later this need has begun to supply from far East Asian countries which are economically very weak. Vast number of employees emigrated to the Gulf countries to work in the labor service sector with very low wages especially from the Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh, and Malaysia. This segment -which has employed with very low wages- has been subjected to injustice and discrimination. The injustices faced by the Far East Asian foreign labor force deprived of social rights have been the subject of many painful stories over time. The modern novel -which aims to reflect the life and the human being with all its details- has reflected the stories of the victims of that employers. Saq al-Bamboo (Bamboo Bar) is one of these novels which has published by Kuwaiti writer Saud Alsanousi in 2012. Within a short time after the publication of the work the novel was interested in the Arab world and in 2013 he was awarded the International Arabic Novelist Prize. The novel is consisting of five chapters and each chapter is divided into three sections 1,2,3... The author conveys the crisis of unetnicity from Jose’s chracter who was born from a Filipino mother and a Kuwaiti father. A translator named Ibrahim Selâm -which is a translation of the souvenirs and diaries belonging to Jose from the Philippine language to Arabic is intended to increase the realism of the work. Josephine -who came to Kuwait to work from the Philippines- was settled in 1985 in one of the country's most reputable families. The old woman who owns the house has a son named Rasheed. Rasheed was interested in Josephine who worked as a servant in their house and he married her with a secret marriage. Because the marriage of a Kuwaiti man and a foreign woman who was working as a housekeeper in Kuwait is accepted as a great shame that will cast a shadow on the dignity and honor of the family the marriage which was concealed by the couple inside and outside of the house, which could only come together with privacy has appeared after months. Rasheed -who was expelled from the house with Josephine- has temporarily found another house. Rasheed and his wife, who thought that his mother's attitude would change as their children were born have disappointed. Rasheed after realizing that his mother would never be satisfied, finally lost his ability to resist this crisis and sent his wife back to. With this development the problem of-identity crisis of Jose’s chracter is dealt with in a multi-faceted way. Jose, who left his age with his mother from Kuwait, had suffered from familial negativities that had passed through Kuwait years later in his twenties, and “familial negativities through his return to Kuwait and depressions caused by the sense of belonging. In an interesting coincidence when he met Gassân, one of the closest friends of Jose’s father in the Philippines, he returned to his dream Paradise ’Kuwait”. The journey from Jesus who has known as “Arabo to “Jesus” started with great hope because he was born from a Kuwaiti father in his own near the Philippines and likened to Arabs alike. But perhaps more of the crisis in the Philippines is waiting for him in Kuwait. Because his father was killed during the years when the Iraqi army occupied Kuwait. Although his father's mother welcomed Jose at first, exclusionary attitude towards foreigners in Kuwait caused her to take a negative attitude towards here grandson. The work is a continuation of the tradition of novels of criticism of the Arab society that has been going on for almost a century. The fact that novel was able to make deep psychological analyzes with his comprehensible language and simple style without being ambiguous and to keep the tension alive by leaving the problems at the end of the episodes and thus to provide immersion in this way reinforced the fictional soundness of the work. The novel also presents fictional material within the Arab society for the researchers in the field of religion psychology and sociology of religion, in order to show how a non-Muslim feels amoung the Muslim society. (shrink)

Translated by Ciaran Cronin. In the midst of the current crisis that is threatening to derail the historical project of European unification, Jürgen Habermas has been one of the most perceptive critics of the ineffectual and evasive responses to the global financial crisis, especially by the German political class. This extended essay on the constitution for Europe represents Habermas’s constructive engagement with the European project at a time when the crisis of the eurozone is threatening the very (...) existence of the European Union. There is a growing realization that the European treaty needs to be revised in order to deal with the structural defects of monetary union, but a clear perspective for the future is missing. Drawing on his analysis of European unification as a process in which international treaties have progressively taken on features of a democratic constitution, Habermas explains why the current proposals to transform the system of European governance into one of executive federalism is a mistake. His central argument is that the European project must realize its democratic potential by evolving from an international into a cosmopolitan community. The opening essay on the role played by the concept of human dignity in the genealogy of human rights in the modern era throws further important light on the philosophical foundations of Habermas’s theory of how democratic political institutions can be extended beyond the level of nation-states. Now that the question of Europe and its future is once again at the centre of public debate, this important intervention by one of the greatest thinkers of our time will be of interest to a wide readership. (shrink)

Translated by Ciaran Cronin. In the midst of the current crisis that is threatening to derail the historical project of European unification, Jürgen Habermas has been one of the most perceptive critics of the ineffectual and evasive responses to the global financial crisis, especially by the German political class. This extended essay on the constitution for Europe represents Habermas’s constructive engagement with the European project at a time when the crisis of the eurozone is threatening the very (...) existence of the European Union. There is a growing realization that the European treaty needs to be revised in order to deal with the structural defects of monetary union, but a clear perspective for the future is missing. Drawing on his analysis of European unification as a process in which international treaties have progressively taken on features of a democratic constitution, Habermas explains why the current proposals to transform the system of European governance into one of executive federalism is a mistake. His central argument is that the European project must realize its democratic potential by evolving from an international into a cosmopolitan community. The opening essay on the role played by the concept of human dignity in the genealogy of human rights in the modern era throws further important light on the philosophical foundations of Habermas’s theory of how democratic political institutions can be extended beyond the level of nation-states. Now that the question of Europe and its future is once again at the centre of public debate, this important intervention by one of the greatest thinkers of our time will be of interest to a wide readership. (shrink)

The first English translation of three essays on contemporary drama penned by Kierkegaard in the mid-1840's. The most substantial essay, "The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress," takes as its point of departure Johanna Luise Heiberg's performance as Juliet in a production staged at the Royal Theatre on January 23, 1847. Some 19 years earlier Fru Heiberg had played the same role on the same stage as a girl of fifteen, and Kierkegaard's essay (...) considers some of the ironies and tensions of this juxtaposition. The 56 page introduction by Stephen Crites is perceptive and consistently illuminating as a portrait of the life situation out of which the essays grew. The translation is readable while preserving a thoroughly Kierkegaardian flavor, and the notes are revealing and to the point. Altogether, this volume might be taken as a model of how to present Kierkegaard's minor works in English.—J. T. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Translation, (Self-)Transformation, and the Power of the MiddleAngelica NuzzoThe etymologies of the word translation—the real and the imaginary ones—are many and varied across languages and traditions. I want to frame my present remarks by appealing to the well-known derivation of the Latin traducere from trans-ducere, the verb that designates the movement of carrying across, of bringing over across and between heterogeneous and apparently incompatible terms—different languages, different (...) places and times, and more generally different identities and cultures. I propose to indicate with translation the dynamic space of the action that takes place in-between, in the middle between two extremes—whatever these extremes may be. And I propose to dwell in this in-between space—not in order to get anywhere, but to stay there and learn how to appreciate the powerful condition of the middle. My suggestion will be that translation is the intermediate and intermediary space of transformation that precedes that which it transforms as well as that into which it transforms; that translation is the middle that comes before the extremes between which it lies and which it connects, and makes them possible for the first time. The logic of translation, I submit, is the logic of immanent self-transformation that is based on the power of the middle. This is a logic that may help us advance beyond the binary static logic in which everything is instead dictated by the predetermined, fixed identity of the extremes, and by the exclusive choice of either one or the other—the logic that Virginia Woolf aptly describes in this way: “Either we are men, or we are women. Either we are cold, or we are sentimental. Either we are young, or growing old” (Woolf 1990, ch. 5). While this may sound logically indisputable it is also—to [End Page 19] Woolf at least—existentially unacceptable and cognitively faulty when at issue is the understanding of the movement of our lives. Thus, in what follows, I am interested in exploring the meaning—the existential, historical, linguistic meaning—of the predicament of being-in-the-middle, of being-in-transition or in-translation—of being neither one extreme nor the other but both of them at the same time and also neither of them. I want to dwell, in particular, on the cipher of movement proper to this condition, on the idea of transformation that translation constitutively entails—the self-transformation that is proper to translation as such an in-between dynamic activity. But to push this point further, I also want to suggest that the movement of translation is essential for an understanding of how processes move on and advance precisely as processes; of how change and something truly new are achieved beyond the present standpoint and beyond the standpoint of the present; of how, more concretely, the individual and collective self is reconstituted and immanently transformed after a crisis and through it. For translation, in this sense, is the powerful, destabilizing moment of crisis and open possibility that invests individuals and societies alike (but also texts and languages); it is also, at the same time, a strategy of survival and a fundamental tool of advancement and progress.Let me begin with a famous philosophical scene. Plato’s Symposium opens with the intriguing account of Socrates’s unusual habits in a speech delivered by Aristodemus, and culminates with Alcibiades’s story regarding Socrates’s strange behavior during the campaign of Potidaea. Upon meeting Socrates all dressed up1 on his way to Agathon’s banquet, Aristodemus is asked to come along to Agathon’s house. He accepts, a bit embarrassed at the thought of showing up uninvited. On the way to Agathon’s, however, Socrates becomes absorbed in his thoughts and falls behind his companion. Aristodemus repeatedly waits for him, but Socrates encourages him to go on ahead alone. This puts Aristodemus in a “ridiculous position” when he arrives, all by himself, at Agathon’s house. He shows up, indeed uninvited, as there is still no sign of Socrates. Now everybody at Agathon’s is waiting and looking for him. This perplexing situation goes on until a servant discovers Socrates calmly standing... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HUMAN NATURE AND POLITICS: A MIMETIC READING OF CRISIS AND CONFLICT IN THE WORK OF NICCOLÒ MACHIAVELLI 1 Harald Wydra Universität Regensberg Perhaps more than any other political philosopher2, Machiavelli's writings have given rise to extremely controversial and emotionally charged interpretations.3 Ifone were to pinpoint the guiding lines ofdispute in Machiavelli scholarship, one could argue that his "foes" are convinced of his amorality and the tyrannical bias, while (...) his "friends" stress the liberal and republican basis ofhis teaching. This debate between good and the evil in Machiavelli's teaching has accompanied the conflict on the tyrannical and the republican character of his work ever since.4 While the essence of his prescriptions continues to be contested, most interpreters concur on Machiavelli 's realism or political pragmatism defined in The Prince 25 as effectual 1 I am grateful to Anthony J. Parel, Arpad Szakolczai, and AdolfTrägler for comments on an earlier draft of this essay. 2Perhaps with the exception of Marx who shares with Machiavelli the heritage of an inflationary and contentious scholarship. Despite this resemblance, there are fundamental differences when it comes to declare oneself a follower of Machiavelli or follower of Marx. See Aron (256-259). 3In his extensive overview, Berlin estimates the totality of the bibliography at more than 3,000 titles. Needless to say that is has considerably increased since then. The recent wave of new translations into English (Mansfield and Tarcov, or Codevilla) and several new approaches provide for the richness of debate. This debate sometimes acquires a heated intensity, such as in the exchange on Strauss's Machiavelli between Mansfield and Pocock in Political Theory, 3:4 (1975), 372-405. 4See for a recent update the introduction to a new translation ofthe Discourses in Mansfield and Tarcov. Harald Wydra37 truth (verità ejfetuale). In this stress on factual reality as opposed to imagination many have seen the sources of Machiavelli's advocacy of technicity, rationality and reason of state. Such a viewpoint is supported by Machiavelli's pure and emotionless style ofwriting. Machiavelli's effectual truth is essentially about the mastery over conflict and contingency in politics. Yet, there are hardly systematic studies on the status and role ofpolitical conflict and its consequences for political order in Machiavelli's work.5 Most classical studies include analysis of conflict (Pocock; Lefort; Sasso), but they do so by sticking to the natural textual division ofhis major works. This article sets out to elaborate some guidelines ofa Machiavellian theory ofconflict by linking it to René Girard's theory of mimetic conflict. It aims to achieve two things: first, to analyze the nature of political conflict in Machiavelli's work. Second, to reexamine some widespread assumption on the autonomy of politics. The Affinity of Machiavelli and Girard: Crisis and Conflict Methodologically, a reading ofMachiavelli through Girard has a status different from that of orthodox comparisons oftwo thinkers.6 This can be illustrated by considering Raymond Aron's comparison between Machiavelli and Marx. On the one hand, Machiavelli's political philosophy is marked by a stress on cyclical repetition and permanent instability. His realism maintains that the more things change the more they remain the same. On the other hand, Marx's economic philosophy of history envisages long-term progress and as such reflects upon change by its confidence in Providence. Yet, essentially both works are concerned with the contingent modalities of collective conflict over time. While for Machiavelli the struggle for power unfolds between political groups such as nobles and the people, Marx suggests the social and economic roots ofconflicts in social formations. Against this background, a reading of Machiavelli through Girard diverges from conventional comparisons. Machiavelli's work emanates from his experience as a practitioner ofpolitics who aims to be the counsellor of Princes. A trained historian and literary critic, Girard analyzes fundamental 5To my knowledge, by far the most balanced and detailed treatment is given by Sasso. For a thematic treatment of civil discord, see also Bock. 60ne can mention Raymond Aron's two fine essays "La comparaison de Machiavel et Pareto" (Aron 86-109) and "Machiavel et Marx" published in Italian in the first edition of Machiavelli's Principe (1975) and again in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Translation of Levinas’s Review of Lev Shestov’s Kierkegaard and the Existential PhilosophyJames McLachlan (bio)In 1937, Emmanuel Levinas published a review of Lev Shestov’s Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy.1 In one of the first studies in English on Levinas, Edith Wyschogrod claims: “What Levinas writes of Shestov’s analysis of Kierkegaard might well be taken as a program for his own future work.”2 The review of Shestov’s Kierkegaard book shows (...) Levinas sympathy with Shestov’s rebellion against rationalism and totalism, his complaint that the individual and all her concerns, desires, and suffering were crushed by the world and ignored by philosophy. But his review of Shestov’s book also shows Levinas’s concern the rebellion could end in “the vanity of personal protest” and substitute subjective imprisonment for the imprisonment of history.3 Such irrationalism could lead to its own forms of violence, which in 1937 were becoming apparent.Like Levinas, Shestov helped introduce Husserl in France, although in Shestov’s case as an adversary to Husserl with whom he developed a friendship.4 The exchange between Shestov and Levinas’s Strasbourg teacher Jean Hering helped publicize Husserl in France.5 As an [End Page 237] exile in Europe, Shestov published his most powerful works Potestas Clavium, In Job’s Balances, Athens and Jerusalem, and Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy. Shestov sought, through a continued hammering, to escape the trap of Being toward radical freedom.6 The form of Shestov’s escape attempt can be situated between Levinas and Kierkegaard. He shares with Levinas the desire to escape ontology but, like Kierkegaard, Shestov’s version of the escape is into a radically individual relation with God through a violent repudiation of the universal; thus, both Levinas’s disagreement with and attraction to Shestov in his 1937 review of Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy prefigure his rejection of Kierkegaard.One must be wary of reading Shestov as a kind of introduction to any thinker he engages, and thus the inclusion for many years of Shestov’s book on short bibliographies on Kierkegaard was extremely misleading. The book was quite influential when it appeared in 1936 around the same time as Jean Wahl’s Études Kierkegaardiennes. Shestov’s work is filled with hyperbole, exaggeration, and polemic. All of his writings are more literary essays than works of scholarship. And it is this mesmerizing writing that Russian literary critic D. S. Mirsky called “the tidiest, the most elegant, the most concentrated... in short, the most classical prose in the whole of modern Russian Literature.”7 A more perceptive reader than many Kierkegaardians who have read Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy, Levinas wrote in 1937 that “the philosophical project of M. Shestov often takes on the allure of brilliant literary essay. It is a ‘poem’ rather than a ‘work.’ The author is more present therein than his subject.”8Here Levinas notes several important points about Shestov’s Kierkegaard book. Perhaps the most important is that it is not primarily about Kierkegaard that “the author is more present therein than his subject.” Levinas sees Shestov had indeed seized on one of the central aspects of Kierkegaard’s thought but “what affects us more deeply still, and this is not its smallest attraction, the ideas of M. Shestov.”9 This is true of all of Shestov’s work. It is a “vast symposium” around the problems that agitated Shestov. [End Page 238]________Emmanuel Levinas, review of Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy (Vox clamantis in deserto), by Leon Chestov, trans. T. Rageot and B. de Schloezer, Revue des Études Juives 101, nos. 1–2 (1937): 139–41.The thought of Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher, dead in 1855, has known for some time a rare good fortune. Jaspers and Heidegger in German, Jean Wahl and Gabriel Marcel in France, are some of the names that permit us to measure the quality of the influence, which, in a very solid manner, he has also exercised on the only modern philosopher of Judaism worthy of the name, Franz Rosenzweig. This good fortune is not just a mode. The moral crisis opened by the War of 1914 has given men a... (shrink)

This dissertation addresses the roots of fundamental changes in twentieth-century art in China by addressing how the cultural exchange between Europe and China transformed critical conceptions and artistic practices in the field of art. The translation of German aesthetic theories and the French academic training of Chinese artists engendered the conceptual and technical transformation of Chinese art in the early twentieth century. While the notions of pure nudity, artistic salvation, and archaeology of art were introduced from German philosophy into (...) Chinese art, the traditional ideas of art versus craft and artist as moral exemplars were converted. Chinese intellectuals analogized crisis-ridden China in the early 20th century to Germany being occupied by the Napoleon army in 1806. They believed that the superior academic culture, instead of its political and military strengths, was the foundation of the unification of Germany in 1871. The doctrines of German scholars were therefore introduced to China through German-trained Chinese intellectuals, aiming at achieving the modern transition of Chinese society. The implementation of aesthetic education based on German philosophical theories endowed modern artists and their works with the social mission to shape the citizens’ personalities and improve their tastes to establish a liberal and civilized modern Chinese society. Moreover, due to the establishment of the Institut Franco-Chinois in Lyon, more Chinese art students acquired the opportunity to study in Paris, the most important center for new artistic ideas and practices during the early twentieth century. Thus, the conceptual shift in the field of aesthetics was expressed through artists with a French academic training background. This study focuses on examining how the translation of German aesthetic doctrines and the introduction of French (sometimes Italian) artistic techniques contributed to the modern transition of Chinese art. How were German aesthetics translated and disseminated to young Chinese artists in the early twentieth century? How were the German scholars’ theories appropriated to establish new standards for evaluating artists and their works? What were the mechanisms, obstacles and cultural clashes encountered by European-trained Chinese artists in their training and creation processes? How did European-trained Chinese artists respond to these new modern aesthetic doctrines? Each of the five chapters of my dissertation centers on the introduction or transformation of an artistic concept: art versus craft, pure nudity, artistic salvation, and archaeology of art, discussing how these concepts were theoretically and practically formulated in Chinese art. (shrink)

This paper discusses whether the roots of our ecological crisis and materialistic world views are derived from the Biblical view of the role of human beings in nature or whether these are derived from English language translations of Genesis 1:28 and Western philosophy. We suggest that the Hebrew word RADAH no longer be translated as dominion over nature, rather take over is a better interpretation. Eastern and Western views of nature are discussed.

Robotics and artificial intelligence are beginning to fundamentally change the relative profitability and productivity of investments in capital versus human labor; creating technological unemployment at all levels of the workforce; from the North to the developing world. As robotics and expert systems become cheaper and more capable the percentage of the population that can find employment will also fall; stressing economies already trying to curtail "entitlements" and adopt austerity. Two additional technology-driven trends will exacerbate the structural unemployment crisis in (...) the coming decades; desktop manufacturing and anti-aging medicine. Desktop manufacturing threatens to disintermediate the half of all workers involved in translating ideas into products in the hands of consumers; while anti-aging therapies will increase the old age dependency ratio of retirees to tax-paying workers. Policies that are being proposed to protect or create employment will have only a temporary moderating effect on job loss. Over time these policies; which will impose raise costs; lower the quality of goods and services; and lower competitiveness; will become fiscally impossible and lose political support. In order to enjoy the benefits of technological innovation and longer; healthier lives we will need to combine policies that control the pace of replacing paid human labor with a universal basic income guarantee provided through taxation and the public ownership of wealth. The intensifying debate over the reform of "entitlements" will be the strategic opening for a campaign for BIG to replace disability and unemployment insurance; Social Security; and other elements of the welfare state. (shrink)

The article presents the advantages and limitations of adaptive clinical trials for assessing the effectiveness of medical interventions and specifies the conditions that contributed to their development and implementation in clinical practice. I advance two arguments by discussing different cases of adaptive trials. The normative argument is that responsible adaptation should be taken seriously as a new way of doing clinical research insofar as a valid justification, sufficient understanding, and adequate operational conditions are provided. The second argument is historical. The (...) development of adaptive trials can be related to lessons learned from research in cases of urgency and to the decades-long efforts to end the productivity crisis of pharmaceutical research, which led to the emergence of translational, personalized, and, recently, precision medicine movements. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:86 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY lamblichi Chalcidensis ex Coele-Syria de vita Pythagorica liber, lamblichos, Pythagoras. Legende--Lehre---Lebensgestaltung. Griechisch und Deutsch, herausgegeben, iibersetzt und eingeleitet von Michael yon Albrecht. (Ziirich & Stuttgart: Artemis, 1963. Pp. 280. = Die Bibliothek der Alten Welt, Reihe Antike und Christentum.) The present edition and translation again makes available one of the texts most valuable for the understanding of the world of late antiquity. The earlier (...) editions, especially that of L. Deubner (1937), are out of print. The fact that this document has been translated into German for the first time is also very helpful, since Iamblichos is sometimes difficult to understand. A brief but nevertheless informative introduction rightly emphasizes that Iamblichos intended to present an introduction and initiation into the Pythagorean way of life rather than a biography of Pythagoras based upon historically trustworthy materials. Although the biography of Pythagoras is certainly a part of the book, it serves only as the ideal example of the Pythagorean way of life, as Iaznblichos sees it. However, more than merely a work of Iamblichos, it ought to be recognized as a "fundamental document of the image of man in later antiquity" (p. 11). The text is based upon L. Deubner's edition, but occasionally it takes up older conjectures or returns to the tradition (for a more detailed discussion cf. W. Burkert, Gnomon 37, 1965, 24ff.). The index and the explanatory notes are also helpful, although the latter prove to be too brief and do not adequately call the reader's attention to the problems of sources, tradition, and composition. One can only agree with von Albrecht that we still need a modem commentary (p. I1). H. D. BETZ Claremont, CaliIornia Agrippa and the Crisis o] Renaissance Thought. By Charles G. Nauert, Jr. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965. Pp. vi W 374. $8.00.) One of the most influential and widely read thinkers of the early sixteenth century was the German Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettisheim (1486-1535). His many works were reprinted often, as well as being translated into several vernacular languages. The De incertitudine et vanitate omnium scientiarum et atrium of 1526, for example, went through at least 16 printings before 1700 and appeared in Italian (1547), English (1569), French (1582), and Dutch (1651) translations, which were themselves often reprinted. Although interest in Agrippa has waned somewhat since the seventeenth century, there is still a significant amount of scholarly debate regarding his importance and the meaning of his writings. Professor Nauert's monograph is the fruit of many years' study of Agrippa's life, thought, and milieu. In it he clearly places Agrippa in his historical context, accurately sketching his background and influence. After a brief introduction (pp. 1-7), the study is essentially divided into two parts: The first (pp. 8-115) traces Agrippa's life and intellectual development, the second (pp. 116-334) discusses in some detail a number of the key themes developed in his writings. There is also a substantial bibliography (pp. 335-,355) and a quite complete and accurate index (pp. 357-374). Although the mass of material which Nanert brings to our attention indicates the opposite, one sometimes gets the impression that the author tends to underestimate the importance of his subject. For example, he says, "Agrippa von Nettisheim is now a forgotten figure in the intellectual history of the West" (p. 322), but this does not seem to be the case. Although much work remains to be done, at least five books have been devoted to Agrippa in the past half century and, indeed, at least seven articles have appeared in the past ten years on one or another aspect of his life and thought. The very fact that Nanert can argue with so much vigor against the views of contemporary scholars like Lynn Thomdike and Paola Zambelli indicates that it is anything but a dead issue. As it is, Nauert's book clearly and accurately describes Agrippa's place in the intellectual ambiance of the sixteenth century. It gives the first detailed analysis of Agrippa's life and thought in English in recent BOOK REVIEWS 87 times and is the first full*scale attempt to exhaustively treat... (shrink)

Pt. 1. The individual and his creator. The fear of God in our time -- Natural morality -- In-depth Torah study -- Levels of mitzvot -- The personal element in serving God -- Religious experience -- Naturalness in the worship of God -- The significance of Torah values -- Tension vs. tranquility in the worship of God -- Pt. 2. The individual and society. Fundamentals of prayer -- Derekh eretz, being a mensch -- "I dwell among my people" -- The (...) obligation to sanctify God's name -- Attending to the needs of the community -- The message beyond mere words -- How to relate to one who has lost his faith -- Pt. 3. The individual and his life. Humanity -- Dealing with crisis -- Adhering to values -- Independent decision-making. (shrink)

Described both as "the Hobbes of our age" and as "the philosophical godfather of Nazism," Carl Schmitt was a brilliant and controversial political theorist whose doctrine of political leadership and critique of liberal democratic ideals distinguish him as one of the most original contributors to modern political theory.The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy offers a powerful criticism of the inconsistencies of representative democracy. First published in 1923, it has often been viewed as an attempt to destroy parliamentarism; in fact, it (...) was Schmitt's attempt to defend the Weimar constitution. The introduction to this new translation places the book in proper historical context and provides a useful guide to several aspects of Weimar political culture.The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy is included in the series Studies in Contemporary German Social Thought, edited by Thomas McCarthy. (shrink)

This doctoral thesis examines the phenomenon of Filipinization, specifically understood as the ideological construction of a “Filipino identity” or ‘Filipino subject-consciousness” within the highly determinate context provided by the Filipino ilustrado nationalists such as José Rizal, Marcelo H. del Pilar and their fellow propagandists inasmuch as it leads to the nineteenth (19th) century construction of the modern Philippine nation. Utilizing Jacques Derrida’s deconstructive thinking, this study undertakes a genealogical critique engaged on the concrete historical examination of what is meant by (...) the term “Filipino” across a select historical timeline (1864-1898) and the various notions of Filipino identity implied by the different contexts within which the term “Filipino” has been employed. More specifically, it undertakes a selective philosophical excavation of three seminal texts in the history of Filipinization, viz.: 1) the Manifiesto of Padre Jose Burgos; 2) the writings of the Filipino ilustrados in La Solidaridad; and 3) Jose Rizal’s Annotations on Dr. Antonio de Morga’s Sucesos de las Islas Filipinas. -/- The philosophical claim of this work is the idea that Filipinization, taken as the differential construction of Filipino identity, is the effective translation of the colonial epistemic violence of Eurocentric racism and its consequent “horror of absolutism” into the homo-hegemony of Filipino nationalisms. By fetishizing the notion of a carefully constructed and essential “Filipino-identity,” Filipinization and the current nationalist discourses that utilize them, unwittingly, stands complicit with the same colonial violence and hegemony that they wish to combat. This happens precisely when the very structures of colonial oppression, on the ideological and practical levels, are transmogrified into nationalist ideals that assume legal and political power unto themselves in a self-referential and self-legitimating fashion. -/- Three processes will demonstrate the above thesis: first, by examining historical texts and setting itself against established nationalist historiographies, a genealogical analysis of the term “Filipino” reveals it as a pliable signifier whose semantics have evolved through time. From its originary referent in the Spanish criollo (creole), it has come to refer to people who would have been otherwise entirely alien to this class, viz., the mestizos (both Spanish and Chinese), the principalia (native elite), and eventually, the lowland Catholicized natives themselves. The historical hermeneutic of this identity-discourse in Padre José Burgos’ Manifiesto yields the fact that what gives the term “Filipino” its semantic consistency as a class concept is its essential constitution as a Hispanic and Catholic identity. -/- Second, from this semantic identification of the term “Filipino” as a Hispano-Catholic identity, we proceed to clarify the meaning of Filipinization in terms of the nationalist propaganda carried out by the Filipino ilustrados in the fortnightly periodical La Solidaridad. Here, the specific ilustrado construction of Filipino identity as a Spanish citizen (ciudadano Español) is revealed precisely as a political and legal construct that served as the basis for their own politics of social inclusion/exclusion. Filipinization can only be applied to those who have been hispanized and Christianized and never to those tribes who have resisted and remained outside Spanish colonial authority. Filipinization is thus revealed as a process of Hispanization and Christianization whereby the recipients of Spanish colonial hegemony are transformed into the religiously docile bodies of the Spanish Empire. -/- From this highly determinate context, the study proceeds to examine Rizal’s ontological grounding of collective Filipino-ness in the mythological construction of the pre-hispanic past as the source of a unique Filipino ancestrality. In his work on de Morga’s Sucesos, what is revealed is a mythologization that grounds a native, essential Filipino identity within a past unscathed by the Spanish colonial experience. Such mythologization, however, can only be possible through an anachronistic nationalist interpretation of historical data. Here, Filipinization is revealed as an exclusive prerogative, a nationalist program by which Rizal and the ilustrado class can combat the evils and excesses of the Spanish colonial enterprise. Ironically, though, this same struggle for emancipation also became an instrument by which the ilustrado class can retain their unjustified position of power over those who belonged to the colonial underside, thus, securing the possibility of perpetuating their own ilustrado bourgeois class interests. -/- Such discursive complicity is the essence of the myth of Filipinization: it presents nationalist identity discourse as an anti-colonial enterprise while being underlined by an economy of motives designed to cater primarily to the exclusive interests of the elite and ilustrado class. Thus, instead of securing the genuine, inclusive emancipation of all colonial subjects and a more humane existence for the poor and suffering majority, ilustrado nationalism has, ironically, merely reinforced those operative structures of colonial discrimination and oppression when the ilustrados: 1) grounded their racial theory upon the very same discourse of Eurocentric superiority that they are precisely supposed to question and 2) claimed a patrimony over Filipinas as their exclusive sovereign inheritance. These two factors illustrate how the manifest transfer of power from the Spanish Empire to the Philippine sovereign nation (and later as a nation-state) illustrate how Filipinization merely has transmogrified the face of Spanish colonialism into its new, subtle, and worse form in Filipino nationalism. -/- In this vein, the existence of the 19th century modern Philippine nation merely masked and deferred the crisis that was supposed to transfer power from the Spanish Empire to the multitude of the poor and suffering native indio majority. This crisis became all the more difficult to address be-cause of the duplicitous character of the discourse of Filipinization itself. It has not only effectively transferred power into the hands of the nationalist elite but also captured authentic emancipatory discourse within the identity-trap against which it can only hope to get out. This study concludes with the claim about the impossibility of ever escaping and overcoming the epistemic and practical violence necessarily contained within the historical discourse of colonialism. Or simply, we have no language or discourse that would enable us to overcome the complicity of Filipinization with the very (epistemic) violence against which it has set itself. (shrink)

This selection of the major works of constitutional theory during the Weimar period reflects the reactions of legal scholars to a state in permanent crisis, a society in which all bets were off. Yet the Weimar Republic's brief experiment in constitutionalism laid the groundwork for the postwar Federal Republic, and today its lessons can be of use to states throughout the world. Weimar legal theory is a key to understanding the experience of nations turning from traditional, religious, or command-and-control (...) forms of legitimation to the rule of law. Only two of these authors, Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt, have been published to any extent in English, but they and the others whose writings are translated here played key roles in the political and constitutional struggles of the Weimar Republic. Critical introductions to all the theorists and commentaries on their works have been provided by experts from Austria, Canada, Germany, and the United States. In their general introduction, the editors place the Weimar debate in the context of the history and politics of the Weimar Republic and the struggle for constitutionalism in Germany. This critical scrutiny of the Weimar jurisprudence of crisis offers an invaluable overview of the perils and promise of constitutional development in states that lack an entrenched tradition of constitutionalism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Authenticity in Robert Musil’s Man Without QualitiesKelly CobleIHow is a man without qualities even possible? The question, also a translation of the title of a recent essay mining the philosophical sources of Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities, has been a perennial one. The Austrian novelist's portrayal of an existence without the density of particularity has been an object of interminable conjecture.1 In the search for an interpretive (...) foothold, the bulk of Musil's commentators has identified Ernst Mach's "doctrine of elements," with its implication of the anonymity of perception, as the chief inspiration of Musil's portrait of a dispossessed inner life.2 Against this view Cambridge philosopher G. H. von Wright has asserted that Mach's influence was "incidental and without deeper significance to the content of Musil's later thoughts."3 Von Wright notes that Musil rejected Mach's skeptical and phenomenalist theses in his 1908 dissertation on Mach's theories, defending instead a realist position in the philosophy of physics. Yet another commentator has adduced evidence of Musil's persistent engagement in the sort of act-object analysis of states of consciousness that one would expect from a follower of Franz Brentano.4In the following pages I will show that Musil's literary masterpiece rests on a synthesis of Machian and Brentanist motifs. But the main impetus of Musil's presentation of an interior with substitutable qualities was not one or another claim in the domain of modern epistemology, "realism" versus "idealism," "phenomenology" versus "phenomenalism," but a crisis in moral reflection ensuing from a commitment to the standpoint of value-neutral objectivity. This standpoint gains its [End Page 337] appeal when both of the known pathways to moral certainty—both the conservative-traditional one of allegiance to enduring practices and institutions and the liberal-enlightenment one of deference to the universal requirements of reason—appear as blind alleys, as they did to inhabitants of Central Europe after the turn of the century and especially in the aftermath of the Great War. To exist without qualities is to abandon oneself to the purely theoretical outlook, and so to be unable to construct a narrative rendering the episodes of one's life as parts of a process with cumulativeness and direction. To live "without qualities" is to live the loss of moral narrative. Accordingly, the intent of Musil's literary investigations is both to illuminate the conditions of this loss and to assay the conditions of ethical life regained.IIAccording to Mach's doctrine of elements, the isolable sensations that constitute the ultimate points of psychological analysis are the very elements with which the physical sciences also have to deal, albeit the physical sciences deal with these elements in abstraction from their relations to our sense physiology. The core thesis of the doctrine is thus that the "sensations" isolated in psychological analysis are not mental events, ontologically speaking, but rather points of perfect convergence of the domains of psychology and physics. What psychologists call "sensations," namely "colors, tones, warmths, pressures, spaces, times, and so on," constitute "the actually real elements of the world"—albeit before the world has been banished to a shadowy realm of pure substances beyond the limits of perception.5 The ultimate, irreducible constituents of reality are not unanalyzable substances and subjects but associations and complexes of elements that compose the luminous fabric of experience.Mach's doctrine of elements replaces substance dualism with a brand of monism that analytical philosophers have tagged "ontological phenomenalism." Mach believed that widespread subscription to phenomenalism would have a liberating effect on the sciences, enabling empirical researchers to get on with the business of subjecting relatively permanent, relatively stable complexes of perceptual elements to the mathematical formalism that is the goal of the exact natural sciences.There is a widespread assumption that Mach was a sense-datist—an epistemological "pointillist" who replaced substances with dots of pure sensation that, in their aggregation, compose our perceptions. The [End Page 338] assumption is false. In Mach's view the sensations of which we can possibly be conscious are irreducibly features of wholes: "The single sensation is neither conscious nor unconscious. It... (shrink)

This article tests the hypothesis that all pandemics are inherently translational. We argue that translation and translation theory can be fruitfully used to understand and manage epidemics, as they help us explore concepts of infectivity and immunity in terms of cultural and biological resistance. After examining the linkage between translation and coronavirus disease from three different yet interlinked perspectives—cultural, medical, and biocultural—we make a case for a translational medical humanities framework for tackling the multifactorial crisis brought (...) about by the SARS-CoV-2 infection. This innovative entanglement of perspectives has the merit of carving out a new space for translation research at the intersection of the sciences and the humanities, providing sustainable ways to conceptualize the production of science at times of crisis, and challenging conventional views of translation as a primarily linguistic and cultural phenomenon that traditionally does not engage with science. (shrink)

It is indisputable that Black Theology of Liberation intentionally un-thinks the West. BTL has its own independent conceptual and theoretical foundations and can hold without the West if it rejects the architecture of Western knowledge as a final norm for life. This, however, is a spiritual matter which the article argues. The historical arrest of the progression of liberative logic and its promises might be self-inflicted by rearticulating and reinterpreting liberation strong thought. At a time when neofascism, which is virtually (...) an open display of psychological and ideological confusion, racism, classism, sensibilities of integralism and gender violence, having become rife, liberal democracy is arguably in crisis today. BTL has to move beyond rethinking and repeating its tried and tested ways of response to black pain caused by racism and colonialism. Un-thinking the West is not only cognitive but also spiritual. Umoya, the spirit of life, the article argues, to un-think the West, constitutes inter alia, the rejection of Hellenocentric concepts as a starting point of knowledge. Umoya should reject the self-serving periodisation of history centred on Europe, dualistic obfuscating secularism and willingness by black to occlude their knowledge systems. Without this, the article argues, the lethargic sleep, the mocking laughter of the West at the self-wounding black African remains a syndrome that arrests the translation of liberation knowledge from history. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Rethinking Daoism as Activism:The Political Wisdom of Daoist Texts as a Response to the Contemporary Environmental CrisisLisa Indraccolo (bio)To propose a reading of Daoism as a form of social activism at first might sound almost paradoxical. This trend of thought is in fact well known for promoting, as a healthy, sustainable way of life for both the individual1 and the surrounding natural environment, what might actually seem the exact (...) opposite of social activism. The present discussion aims at showing that Daoism can actually be understood and practiced as a form of proactive social engagement, taking as a starting point Eric S. Nelson's recent work Daoism and Environmental Philosophy: Nourishing Life (2021), and in particular chapter 5, "Early Daoist biopolitics and a new Daoist political ecology" (pp. 100–118). As will be shown, it is a rather unique kind of social activism that differs from both science-based environmentalism and militant public activism. This article further problematizes certain reductionist tendencies that are still very much alive in the contemporary academic debate about and interpretations of early Daoism, and in particular of its political philosophy. This issue is particularly relevant when we proceed to address Daoist ecopolitics, and especially its applicability to the environmental crisis. From this perspective, Nelson convincingly persuades the reader of the potential and the contemporary relevance of certain pragmatic aspects, and in particular practices or "virtuous attitudes," theorized by early Daoist ecopolitical discourse in tackling environmental issues of global concern.Nelson's contribution addresses wuwei 無為, the well-known Daoist way of proactive non-action or "effortless action,"2 or, as Nelson persuasively interprets it, "attuned action,"3 "attuned responsiveness,"4 or "attuned, effortless, non-calculative unforced responsiveness,"5 thereby providing a substantial contribution to further refining the concept with an even more successful translation. Wuwei means acting without either being subjected to or exerting coercion, and in accordance or in "attunement" with the natural course of things. As Nelson suggests, such a way of acting and behaving could be systematically applied to radically rethink and revolutionize contemporary non-eco-friendly and eventually self-sabotaging, dysfunctional forms of human aggregation and interaction.In this most valuable enterprise, Nelson's book achieves two additional goals, touching upon two other critical and closely interconnected issues. First, Nelson draws attention to and provides substantial evidence to support the existence of a fairly coherent theoretical system as the basis of Daoist [End Page 781] political philosophy, with a focus on its political ecology, which has often been overlooked or neglected in favor of other apparently more appealing aspects of Daoist thinking. Nelson's analysis provides a fundamental contribution to a most necessary "demystification" of Daoist philosophy. By unveiling its substantially political underlying goals and agenda, his study thereby reconciles Daoist thought and brings it into a more coherent dialogue with the intellectual landscape of the Warring States period, during which we might assume that the two main received texts associated with this tradition, the Laozi 老子 and the Zhuangzi 莊子, started to assume the form in which they were eventually transmitted.Second, in doing so, Nelson's book contributes to the gradual ongoing process of "decolonization" of Chinese philosophy in a twofold way. It further invites considerations about certain latent "orientalistic" tendencies that are evidently still very much alive in the way in which Western scholarship approaches the study of early Chinese philosophy, and in preconceived ideas about certain texts and trends of thought and their imaginary conceptual boundaries, in which it still indulges at times. Moreover, Nelson proposes concrete ways in which ancient Daoist ideas and practices could be enacted in today's world to tackle the current ecological crisis by acting upon society in order to promote radical changes in people's attitude, not only toward the environment, but also toward each other, "therapeutically fostering a more appropriate ecological culture"6 and rethinking the very same concept of society and the principles that are its basis. Nelson shows the universality of the message of Daoist thought (and thereby, one might be tempted to say, contributes to substantiating the legitimacy of Chinese philosophy)7 and its relevance to the contemporary debate on climate and the environmental crisis. Such a... (shrink)

it may be debatable whether or not the passage on natural justice from the Nicomachean Ethics is a crucial component of Aristotle's account of justice and politics; nonetheless, its enormous influence on western ethical and juridical theory is unquestionable. This influence is largely due to the enthusiastic reception of that passage by medieval thinkers who paid somewhat exaggerated attention to this brief and obscure passage.The thirteenth-century philosophical scene has rightly been described as an 'Aristotelian crisis.' The general Christian view (...) of life and the universe, developed by theologians up to the end of the twelfth century, was deeply rooted in St. Augustine's thought. However, that... (shrink)

The two pieces translated here, "Philosophy as a Rigorous Science" and "Philosophy and the Crisis of European Man" represent one of the earliest and one of the latest presentations by Husserl of the discipline of phenomenology. The first essay sets up his phenomenological method over against naturalism, psychologism, historicism, and Weltanschauung philosophy as the only way to secure a rigorous scientific basis for philosophy. The second essay was a lecture which introduced the major ideas of his last work, Die (...) Krisis der europäischen Wissenschaften und die transzendentale Phänomenologie. In it he identifies the telos of European civilization as the infinity contained in the ideas of reason. Modern European man's current spiritual crisis stems from his having naturalized the spirit making it a function of or an extension from the physical world. Only by returning to a spirit-centered science with the infinite task of exploring the ideal world of spirit of which nature is but a part can European man harmonize himself with his telos and resolve his spiritual crisis. Lauer's introduction to the whole of Husserl's philosophy is helpful.—P. M. (shrink)

Cet article rappelle d’abord l’âge d’or de la civilisation arabo-islamique, la dynastie abbasside , pendant laquelle, la traduction joua un rôle capital pour la conservation des produits culturels de l’antiquité et leur transfert de l’Orient vers l’Occident. Puis il décrit la crise de la traduction aujourd’hui, à un moment où les pays arabes ne produisent plus de savoir scientifique et traduisent très peu. Pour illustrer cela, il est fait référence au rapport sur le développement humain dans le monde arabe publié (...) par le Programme des Nations Unies pour le Développement , lequel pointe des faiblesses considérables dans le domaine des sciences et de la technologie. Ce rapport montre que la crise de la traduction est due plutôt aux obstacles politiques qu’aux structures socio-économiques des pays arabes. Il y a un réel problème de gouvernance qui n’encourage pas à bâtir une société de la connaissance.In a first part, this article recalls the golden age of Arab Islamic civilisation, the Abasside dynasty , during which translation played a crucial role for conserving ancient culture and transferring it from East to West. Then, it describes the present-day crisis in translation, a time when the Arab countries no longer produce scientific knowledge and translate very little. To illustrate this, the article refers to the Human Development Report in the Arab World produced by the United Nations Development Programme , which points out considerable weaknesses in the areas of science and technology. It shows that the translation crisis is due more to political obstacles than to socio-economic structures of Arab countries. There is a real problem of governance that does not favour the construction of a knowledge society. (shrink)

Two recent publications have greatly increased the amount of Wyclif available in translation: the Trialogus, translated by Stephen Lahey, and an anthology translated by Stephen Penn. This review article documents the failings that make these translations worse than useless. A post mortem leads me to claim that the publication of these volumes, the first of which has already been warmly received, is a sign of a gathering crisis in medieval studies, and one that we should take steps to (...) avert. (shrink)

This study presents the Accra Confession as a theological response to the ecological crisis from a Reformed perspective while also addressing its critical weakness, namely the problem of universality in both Reformed ecclesiology and global approaches to ecological destruction. Because of a fragile universality, both Reformed churches and global institutions find it difficult to agree on a concrete plan to address climate change. Theologically, this difficulty arrives not primarily from disagreement with the existence or causes of climate change but (...) how Christian theological values translate concretely to acts of justice. This study proposes a way to ground these discussions on the concept of dangerous memory by resourcing the theology of Johann Baptist Metz. Dangerous memories allow stories of the suffering vanquished to be constitutive to the construction of caritas, which in turn serves as a suitable theological foundation for addressing differing approaches to engaging climate issues. Reading the Accra Confession as dangerous memory, then, provides a valuable resource to the Reformed community by allowing the testimonies of those affected adversely by climate change to substantially inform theological discourses on climate justice. (shrink)

This volume presents the first edition of the Arabic translation, by Hunayn ibn Ishaq, of Galen's Critical Days (De diebus decretoriis), together with the first translation of the text into a modern language. The substantial introduction contextualizes the treatise within the Greek and Arabic traditions. Galen's Critical Days was a founding text of astrological medicine. In febrile illnesses, the critical days are the days on which an especially severe pattern of symptoms, a crisis, was likely to occur. (...) The crisis was thought to expel the disease-producing substances from the body. If its precise timing were known, the physician could prepare the patient so that the crisis would be most beneficial. After identifying the critical days based on empirical data and showing how to use them in therapy, Galen explains the critical days via the moon's influence. In the historical introduction Glen Cooper discusses the translation of the Critical Days in Arabic, and adumbrates its possible significance in the intellectual debates and political rivalries among the 9th-century Baghdad elite. It is argued that Galen originally composed the Critical Days both to confound the Skeptics of his own day and to refute a purely mathematical, rationalist approach to science. These features made the text useful in the rivalries between Baghdad scholars. Al-Kindi (d.c. 866) famously propounded a mathematical approach to science akin to the latter. The scholar-bureaucrat responsible for funding this translation, Muhammad ibn Musa (d. 873), al-Kindi's nemesis, may have found the treatise useful in refuting that approach. The commentary and notes to the facing page translation address issues of translation, as well as important concepts. (shrink)

Translators’ Abstract: This is a translation of Hans-Georg Gadamer’s recently discovered 1952 Berlin speech. The speech includes several themes that reappear in Truth and Method, as well as in Gadamer’s later writings such as Reason in the Age of Science. For example, Gadamer criticizes positivism, modern philosophy’s orientation toward positivism, and Enlightenment narratives of progress, while presenting his view of philosophy’s tasks in an age of crisis. In addition, he discusses structural power, instrumental reason, the objectification of nature (...) and human beings, the reduction of both to mere means, and the colonization of scientific-technological ways of knowing and being—all of which continue to impact our social and political lives together and threaten the very existence of every living being. This speech is essential reading for Gadamer scholars interested in the social, political, and ethical dimensions of his thought and for those interested in bringing Gadamer into conversation with critical theory. (shrink)

This paper investigates the process of moral agency development as a community-supported process. Based on a multimethod qualitative inquiry, including diaries, focus groups, and documentary analysis, we analyze the experiences of middle managers in two Norwegian hospitals during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We find that moral agency is developed through a community-embedded value inquiry, emerging in three partially overlapping steps. The first step is marked by moral reflex, an intuitive, value-driven, pre-reflective response to a crisis situation. (...) In the second step, the managers involved the community in value calibration, a collective-ethical sensemaking. In the third step, they took active stances to translate values into actions, with an increased awareness of values and an ability to explain and justify their actions. We label the steps, respectively: value inquiry-in-action, value inquiry-on-action and reflective enactment of value. An analysis of the process reveals two aspects critical for moral agency development: it happens through confrontation with uncertainty, and it is relational, that is, embedded in a community. While uncertainty forces an intuitive moral response, dialogical reflection in the community develops value awareness and relationships of mutual care and support. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Authenticity in Robert Musil’s Man Without QualitiesKelly CobleIHow is a man without qualities even possible? The question, also a translation of the title of a recent essay mining the philosophical sources of Robert Musil's The Man Without Qualities, has been a perennial one. The Austrian novelist's portrayal of an existence without the density of particularity has been an object of interminable conjecture.1 In the search for an interpretive (...) foothold, the bulk of Musil's commentators has identified Ernst Mach's "doctrine of elements," with its implication of the anonymity of perception, as the chief inspiration of Musil's portrait of a dispossessed inner life.2 Against this view Cambridge philosopher G. H. von Wright has asserted that Mach's influence was "incidental and without deeper significance to the content of Musil's later thoughts."3 Von Wright notes that Musil rejected Mach's skeptical and phenomenalist theses in his 1908 dissertation on Mach's theories, defending instead a realist position in the philosophy of physics. Yet another commentator has adduced evidence of Musil's persistent engagement in the sort of act-object analysis of states of consciousness that one would expect from a follower of Franz Brentano.4In the following pages I will show that Musil's literary masterpiece rests on a synthesis of Machian and Brentanist motifs. But the main impetus of Musil's presentation of an interior with substitutable qualities was not one or another claim in the domain of modern epistemology, "realism" versus "idealism," "phenomenology" versus "phenomenalism," but a crisis in moral reflection ensuing from a commitment to the standpoint of value-neutral objectivity. This standpoint gains its [End Page 337] appeal when both of the known pathways to moral certainty—both the conservative-traditional one of allegiance to enduring practices and institutions and the liberal-enlightenment one of deference to the universal requirements of reason—appear as blind alleys, as they did to inhabitants of Central Europe after the turn of the century and especially in the aftermath of the Great War. To exist without qualities is to abandon oneself to the purely theoretical outlook, and so to be unable to construct a narrative rendering the episodes of one's life as parts of a process with cumulativeness and direction. To live "without qualities" is to live the loss of moral narrative. Accordingly, the intent of Musil's literary investigations is both to illuminate the conditions of this loss and to assay the conditions of ethical life regained.IIAccording to Mach's doctrine of elements, the isolable sensations that constitute the ultimate points of psychological analysis are the very elements with which the physical sciences also have to deal, albeit the physical sciences deal with these elements in abstraction from their relations to our sense physiology. The core thesis of the doctrine is thus that the "sensations" isolated in psychological analysis are not mental events, ontologically speaking, but rather points of perfect convergence of the domains of psychology and physics. What psychologists call "sensations," namely "colors, tones, warmths, pressures, spaces, times, and so on," constitute "the actually real elements of the world"—albeit before the world has been banished to a shadowy realm of pure substances beyond the limits of perception.5 The ultimate, irreducible constituents of reality are not unanalyzable substances and subjects but associations and complexes of elements that compose the luminous fabric of experience.Mach's doctrine of elements replaces substance dualism with a brand of monism that analytical philosophers have tagged "ontological phenomenalism." Mach believed that widespread subscription to phenomenalism would have a liberating effect on the sciences, enabling empirical researchers to get on with the business of subjecting relatively permanent, relatively stable complexes of perceptual elements to the mathematical formalism that is the goal of the exact natural sciences.There is a widespread assumption that Mach was a sense-datist—an epistemological "pointillist" who replaced substances with dots of pure sensation that, in their aggregation, compose our perceptions. The [End Page 338] assumption is false. In Mach's view the sensations of which we can possibly be conscious are irreducibly features of wholes: "The single sensation is neither conscious nor unconscious. It... (shrink)

J. N. (Jitendra Nath) Mohanty (1928–2023). -/- Professor J. N. Mohanty has characterized his life and philosophy as being both “inside” and “outside” East and West, i.e., inside and outside traditions of India and those of the West, living in both India and United States: geographically, culturally, and philosophically; while also traveling the world: Melbourne to Moscow. Most of his academic time was spent teaching at the University of Oklahoma, The New School Graduate Faculty, and finally Temple University. Yet his (...) preeminent work in Husserlian phenomenology developed alongside his eminent work in Indian philosophy: describing his interests as “a fusion of disparate horizons.” -/- J. N. Mohanty was born September 26, 1928, in Cuttack (Odisha, East India). After graduating from high school, he went on to study both Indian and Western philosophy in Calcutta, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees. There he read Whitehead and Kant’s First Critique; although he wanted to include mathematics in his curriculum, he was led instead to include Indian philosophy and Sanskrit. On the shelves of his teacher, Ras Vihar Das, he came upon a copy of the English translation (Ideas I, 1931) of Edmund Husserl’s classic Ideen I (1913), which presented Husserl’s ground-breaking conception of phenomenology. In 1952–1954 he left India for the first time, reaching Göttingen to study mathematics and philosophy, which earned him a doctorate in mathematics and “philosophy of mathematical sciences” (in his own words). In Göttingen, Mohanty found the powerful mathematical world that Husserl himself had earlier interacted with, where several Husserl students had formed the Göttingen school of phenomenology. During these years Mohanty studied primarily mathematics, alongside Kant and also Vedic Sanskrit. From his friend Günter Patzig, interpreter of Aristotle and Frege, Mohanty was drawn to Frege in relation to mathematical logic. He attended lectures of Heidegger, intrigued by his ontological thinking. Yet, despite the Husserlian legacy, Mohanty was completely self-taught in his studies of Husserl (as he has reported). With a doctorate in mathematics, and ideas from Kant and Frege in his philosophical background, Mohanty set about crafting his own conception of philosophy grounded in phenomenology, drawing on Husserl’s extensive work, critically sifting through Husserl’s texts and their emerging concepts of intentionality, meaning, subject, intersubjectivity, and world. In between he wrote his first book-length study: on phenomenological insights in Nicolai Hartmann and A. N. Whitehead (1958). -/- Over many decades Mohanty formulated and argued, in analytical detail, for a conception of phenomenology and its place in philosophy, later presented in a clear and concise book titled Transcendental Phenomenology: An Analytic Account (1989). Over these very decades the same scholar explored classical and recent Indian philosophy, thinking through kindred ideas of consciousness, self, and knowledge drawn from the Indian philosophical contexts. While writing on Nyāya theory of truth, he also pondered whether the world and finite individual are illusory or real, and whether Marx, Arendt, Gandhi (whom he heard speak in Calcutta), or Vinoba Bhave (with whom he marched across India for the land-grant movement) could best navigate post-Independent India’s social and svarāj or self-rule reforms. The two Mohantys, thinking through a vision of self and world, turned out to be “non-different” or “non-dual” as they each practiced critical phenomenology from both inside and outside the respective philosophical and cultural traditions. Numerous students, fellows, and colleagues or collaborators have benefited immensely from this infusion and unified approach to diversity in philosophical thought. In the 2000s, moving into retirement, Mohanty wrote two long books devoted to his understanding of Husserl and phenomenology and the calling of philosophy itself. This two-volume study shows Mohanty himself thinking through Husserl, critically, in The Philosophy of Edmund Husserl: A Historical Introduction (2008), and Edmund Husserl’s Freiburg Years: 1916–1938. As Mohanty worked on Husserl, he carefully indicated where he agreed and where he rejected or changed ideas, all part of his practice in phenomenology of “description and interpretation.” It was the same pattern he used in addressing the thought of Husserl vis-à-vis Kant or Frege or even Quine. -/- As Mohanty developed his understanding of phenomenology over the years, he wrote books on theory of meaning and the concept of intentionality, developing a model of ideal meaning and its foundation in intentionality, drawing on Husserl’s results. He followed these with the book Husserl and Frege (1982), linking the thought of those foundational figures for the “continental” and “analytic” traditions, respectively, in twentieth-century Western philosophy. Over his long career Mohanty addressed both traditions in his clear and accessible writing style. While developing his views on phenomenology, Mohanty regularly looked to “Husserl and his others,” evaluating views in Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Ricoeur, and then Derrida and others in the wake of Husserl. With his background in Kant, Mohanty also looked toward Heidegger and Hegel in relation to Husserl’s later work in the Crisis (1935–38). Similarly, he looked to contemporary analytic philosophers, adjudicating his own, oft-wise Husserlian views in relation to Frege, Nagel, and others. Amid his active scholarly career, Mohanty co-founded the journal Husserl Studies, and was editorial advisor to Philosophy & Phenomenological Research, Philosophy East & West, Journal of Indian Philosophy, Sophia, among others. -/- Yet all this while Mohanty was also thinking and writing about Indian philosophy and its relation to phenomenology. In his own retrospective, Indian philosophy is “the permanent background” of his Husserlian thinking, while Kant is the recurrent Western background of his Husserlian phenomenology. Mohanty’s form of “transcendental phenomenology” evolved, in his own perspective, against the background of his studies of Navya-Nyāya on logic and Vedānta on consciousness, in Indian philosophy, and against the background of Kant’s First Critique on the transcendental, in Western philosophy. Accordingly, Mohanty’s study of logical form and of the intentionality of consciousness seeks a fusion of East and West in the conception of transcendental phenomenology. (Cf. Mohanty’s apt response to critics in The Empirical and the Transcendental (2000).) Even in the context of North American Husserl scholarship, Mohanty has exercised an earnest fusion of East and West. For the so-called East Coast and West Coast interpretations of Husserl’s crucial notion of noema both find a sympathetic spirit in J. N. Mohanty’s careful and nuanced interpretation of Husserlian transcendental phenomenology. With Mohanty the two faces of the noema are the logical (Fregean) and the phenomenal (Kantian), and these views of intentional structure join in consciousness—in a way resonant with Indian thought. -/- - David Woodruff Smith (UC Irvine) and Purushottama Bilimoria (SFSU, San Francisco; University of Melbourne) -/- For photo of Prof Mohanty visit APA online memorial_minutes2023 Courtesy of APA Memorial Minutes (& Proceedings) 2023 . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 861 acter as to demand and thus warrant the sort of special explanation proposed by the theist. Along the way, we are treated to illuminating discussions of many fascinating and controversial issues, such as the need for a priori probability assignments in science and metaphysics. Chapter six offers a novel defense of Pascal's Wager arising out of the Anselmian concept of God endorsed at the beginning of (...) the hook. Thus a bond is forged between one of the most purely theoretical and one of the most pragmatic ideas in the history of philosophical reflection on religious belief. Schlesinger's defenses of the Wager against numer· ous criticisms are, characteristically, original, engaging, and philosoph· ically stimulating. The final chapter of this hook grapples with the issue of whether a world such as ours, in which individuals seem to he far from equal in religious insight and ability to respond to the divine, can he com· patible with God's being perfectly fair and just. Drawing on some elementary aspects of epistemic logic, Schlesinger first seeks to under· mine the position of the agnostic who claims to he well-informed, well· disposed to fair judgment, and to he in a state of rationally refraining to endorse either theism or atheism. In the course of the argument, he attempts to show how merely understanding theism can increase one's inclination to endorse it, and he traces out various entailments of the traditional idea of God for the issue of how clear evidence of God's existence must he in this world to one who is truly well-disposed toward seeing it. All in all, this is a highly original, provocative hook which should he read and grappled with by all who work in the field of its concern, the philosophy of religion. It should spark debate and enhance the level of reflection about its chosen topics for years to come. It will surely not command agreement at every point, hut it will inevitably stimulate further thought. The University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana THOMAS v. MORRIS God in History: Shapes of Freedom. By PETER C. HODGSON. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989. Pp. 287. $21.95 {cloth). Is it still possible in our postmodern age to speak intelligibly about God's presence and action in human history? Peter Hodgson's discus· sion of this " most difficult of modern theological questions " leads us over the " labyrinthine abyss " of Derrida's deconstructionism, through the " cognitive purgatory " of the postmodern crisis, to the affirmation 36~ BOOK REVIEWS that " God and history are conjoined at the point of... free, liberating, emancipatory, transfigurative praxis..." (147, 162-3, 191). After explaining the inadequacy of the classical model of salvation history (Chapter I), Hodgson develops his approach to the problem around the three central ideas of God (Chapter II), history (Chapter III), and freedom (Chapter IV). A concluding epilogue brings together Hodgson's understanding of the presence of God in history and of the eschatological presence of history in God. Throughout the hook there is a dialogue with and a critique of various postmodern thinkers who question the very notions of God, history, and freedom (162). In postmodern thought, history is a series of mere human constructions-figments of human imagination which need to he "deconstructed." Descriptions of God's action in history dissolve into a "self-referential interplay of signs-an endless milieu of significations that refers to nothing other than itself" {37). In response to postmodernism, Hodgson follows neither the way of " absolutism " by seeking to return to " orthodox doctrine and confessional tradition " nor the way of relativism by pretending that nothing can he " known, believed, or acted upon." He rather points the way to " revision," to "retrieving and rethinking the deconstructed tradition" (29). The thought of G. W. F. Hegel and Ernst Troeltsch are his consistent tools in this work of revision, and the many years he has spent in preparing a critical edition and translation of Hegel's Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion provide him with an admirable expertise in using these tools (8, 147). The revision involves a reconstruction or sublation (Aufhebung) of the traditional understanding of God's presence in salvation... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Academic Skepticism in Early Modern PhilosophyJosé R. Maia NetoAncient skepticism was more influential in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries than it had ever been before. Thanks to the groundwork of Charles B. Schmitt and Richard H. Popkin on the influence of ancient skepticism in early modern philosophy and to the extensive research that followed their lead, skepticism is now recognized as having played a major role in the rise (...) of modern thought. 1There were two ancient skeptical schools, Academic skepticism and Pyrrhon-ism. Were both equally influential? Until the sixteenth century, Pyrrhonism was scarcely known. Only a few copies of Sextus’s books (the only surviving primary source of ancient Pyrrhonism) have been discovered in medieval libraries. By contrast the main source of Academic skepticism, Cicero’s Aca-demica, was occasionally referred to by medieval authors and was the object of some commentaries and criticism in the Renaissance. 2 Academic skepticism was preserved from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance not only through Cicero’s Academica, but also through Lactantius’s Divinae Institutiones and [End Page 199] Augustine’s Contra Academicos. 3 This situation changed when Sextus’s works were translated to latin and published in 1562 and 1569. Sextus presents a much more complete and detailed account and defense of ancient skepticism than that of Cicero’s Academica. Sextus presents Pyrrhonism as a coherent form of skepticism and Academic skepticism as a kind of negative dogmatism. 4 It was thus natural that the ancient skepticism that fascinated some (and troubled so many) early modern thinkers was mostly Pyrrhonian. Because of the publication of Sextus’s works, according to Schmitt, the increasing influence of Cicero’s Academica in the Renaissance was halted. Sextus’s Hypotyposes and Adversus Mathematicos took the place of Cicero’s Academica and drastically increased the influence of ancient skepticism. 5 The skeptical crisis at the dawn of modern philosophy is called “pyrrhonienne” not “academicienne.”While the appearance of Sextus’s works in Latin turned him and Pyrrhonism into the main source and influence of ancient skepticism in early modern philosophy, further research on the history of skepticism in the period has shown that the role of Cicero’s Academica and of Academic skepticism in general continued to be considerable. First, Cicero’s works were important items in the university curricula. Although Cicero’s works of rhetoric and morals were those more read, the students could certainly learn about Academic skepticism through at least some of them. Second, many editions of De Natura Deorum, a work of Cicero’s in which Academic skepticism is quite central, were published during the seventeenth century. Third, features of Academic skepticism, exhibited above all in Cicero’s Academica, are basic to the skepticism revived in the late Renaissance by Montaigne and Charron; were related to the new science in the first half of the seventeenth century by Gassendi; were used in the anti-Cartesian reaction of the late seventeenth century by Rapin, Huet, Bayle, and above all Foucher; and were radicalized in the eighteenth century by Hume. Despite the Academic features of Montaigne’s, Charron’s, and Gassendi’s skepticisms, it does seem that from the publication of Sextus’s works to the mid-seventeenth century, Academic skepticism was secondary to Pyrrhonism. But the appearance of Descartes and the development of Cartesianism in the second half of the seventeenth century set conditions for a complete revamping of Academic skepticism, bringing about what Schmitt thought was precluded by the appearance of Sextus in the modern scene, namely, a “full flowering of the Academica as a work to inspire new directions of philosophical thought.” 6 [End Page 200]Montaigne’s Apologie pour Raimond Sebond is rightly considered the first major result of the revival of ancient Pyrrhonism in modern thought. 7 Montaigne never cites the name of Sextus nor acknowledges his source and, by contrast, fills his Apology with passages from Cicero on the Academic skeptics. It is clear, however, that Montaigne follows closely Sextus’s Outlines of Pyrrhonism in the central part of the Apology where he gives a detailed and sympathetic exposition of ancient skepticism.After dwelling on the evils and problems arising from knowledge and science, Montaigne... (shrink)

Ang, Daniel The Australian Catholic Church confronts serious challenges now and in the immediate years ahead. Chief among these are the recovery of institutional trust, confidence and credibility in the wake of a sexual abuse crisis; the steady decline in religious practice that will reshape the organisation and vitality of parishes markedly in the next decade, and the related and urgent demand of self-reflection; and pastoral and administrative reform, if it is to live its evangelising mission with renewed integrity (...) and vigour into the future. However, this way of conversion is pressed upon the church not only by challenges past and present but also by receptivity to the Spirit of God, who calls the church onward to engage with the work yet to be done, 'God who awaits us in our action, in the work of the moment, and God whose two hands stretch across us in our struggles, in ways more active and penetrating than the diminishments we undergo'. As ever the Australian church at this time must meet the task of living the faith that it professes, to translate theology into practice and hope into action, drawing on the resources of tradition and the Spirit-given gifts of its people, all the while sensitive to the conditions that pertain to a twenty-first-century mission. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Academic Skepticism in Early Modern PhilosophyJosé R. Maia NetoAncient skepticism was more influential in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries than it had ever been before. Thanks to the groundwork of Charles B. Schmitt and Richard H. Popkin on the influence of ancient skepticism in early modern philosophy and to the extensive research that followed their lead, skepticism is now recognized as having played a major role in the rise (...) of modern thought. 1There were two ancient skeptical schools, Academic skepticism and Pyrrhon-ism. Were both equally influential? Until the sixteenth century, Pyrrhonism was scarcely known. Only a few copies of Sextus’s books (the only surviving primary source of ancient Pyrrhonism) have been discovered in medieval libraries. By contrast the main source of Academic skepticism, Cicero’s Aca-demica, was occasionally referred to by medieval authors and was the object of some commentaries and criticism in the Renaissance. 2 Academic skepticism was preserved from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance not only through Cicero’s Academica, but also through Lactantius’s Divinae Institutiones and [End Page 199] Augustine’s Contra Academicos. 3 This situation changed when Sextus’s works were translated to latin and published in 1562 and 1569. Sextus presents a much more complete and detailed account and defense of ancient skepticism than that of Cicero’s Academica. Sextus presents Pyrrhonism as a coherent form of skepticism and Academic skepticism as a kind of negative dogmatism. 4 It was thus natural that the ancient skepticism that fascinated some (and troubled so many) early modern thinkers was mostly Pyrrhonian. Because of the publication of Sextus’s works, according to Schmitt, the increasing influence of Cicero’s Academica in the Renaissance was halted. Sextus’s Hypotyposes and Adversus Mathematicos took the place of Cicero’s Academica and drastically increased the influence of ancient skepticism. 5 The skeptical crisis at the dawn of modern philosophy is called “pyrrhonienne” not “academicienne.”While the appearance of Sextus’s works in Latin turned him and Pyrrhonism into the main source and influence of ancient skepticism in early modern philosophy, further research on the history of skepticism in the period has shown that the role of Cicero’s Academica and of Academic skepticism in general continued to be considerable. First, Cicero’s works were important items in the university curricula. Although Cicero’s works of rhetoric and morals were those more read, the students could certainly learn about Academic skepticism through at least some of them. Second, many editions of De Natura Deorum, a work of Cicero’s in which Academic skepticism is quite central, were published during the seventeenth century. Third, features of Academic skepticism, exhibited above all in Cicero’s Academica, are basic to the skepticism revived in the late Renaissance by Montaigne and Charron; were related to the new science in the first half of the seventeenth century by Gassendi; were used in the anti-Cartesian reaction of the late seventeenth century by Rapin, Huet, Bayle, and above all Foucher; and were radicalized in the eighteenth century by Hume. Despite the Academic features of Montaigne’s, Charron’s, and Gassendi’s skepticisms, it does seem that from the publication of Sextus’s works to the mid-seventeenth century, Academic skepticism was secondary to Pyrrhonism. But the appearance of Descartes and the development of Cartesianism in the second half of the seventeenth century set conditions for a complete revamping of Academic skepticism, bringing about what Schmitt thought was precluded by the appearance of Sextus in the modern scene, namely, a “full flowering of the Academica as a work to inspire new directions of philosophical thought.” 6 [End Page 200]Montaigne’s Apologie pour Raimond Sebond is rightly considered the first major result of the revival of ancient Pyrrhonism in modern thought. 7 Montaigne never cites the name of Sextus nor acknowledges his source and, by contrast, fills his Apology with passages from Cicero on the Academic skeptics. It is clear, however, that Montaigne follows closely Sextus’s Outlines of Pyrrhonism in the central part of the Apology where he gives a detailed and sympathetic exposition of ancient skepticism.After dwelling on the evils and problems arising from knowledge and science, Montaigne... (shrink)