Betrifft die Handschrift Cod. 136 der Burgerbibliothek Bern.

Members of the Baha'i Faith have been subject to persecution in Iran since the mid‐nineteenth century. Our investigation considers how collective identity among a Pacific Northwest Community has been constructed through the contexts of continued persecution in Iran and the development of religious texts, which helped to define the religious community. The texts found within the Baha'i Faith utilize metaphors of the body to construct religious identity. Many anthropologists have theorized on the usefulness of the body as a unit of (...) study; in addition, recent attention by scholars has illustrated the intersection of the body and religion. A model is developed linking identity, consciousness, the body and experience that explains how collective identity is constructed. When considering the situation of the Baha'i community, this model has proven particularly useful in understanding how geographically disassociated people manage to construct social kinship within the context of religious persecution. In particular, American Baha'is describe the persecution of Baha'is in Iran as a collective experience, especially since the direct experience of persecution is far removed from their everyday living. Preliminary analysis of interviews with an American Baha'i, and an ex‐patriot Iranian Baha'i reveal differences in constructions of identity. (shrink)

Leibniz was writing his "Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese" as the Leibniz-Clarke Controversy developed. Both were terminated by his death. These two fronts show interesting doctrinal correlations. The first is Leibniz' concern for the "decadence of natural religion." The dispute with Clarke began with it, and the Discourse is a defense of Chinese natural religion in order to show its agreement with Christian natural religion. The Controversy can be summed up as "clockmaker God versus idle God." Leibniz (...) wants to escape from the perverse consequences that all criticism of divine voluntarism seems to cause. Thus, his elaboration is directed at a distinct concept of a God that rules without interposing, a supramundane intelligence. And the Leibnizian interpretation of the natural theology of the Chinese can be viewed the same way: it emphasizes a First Principle, Li, which rules without interposing. (shrink)

: Leibniz was writing his Discourse on the Natural Theology of the Chinese as the Leibniz-Clarke Controversy developed. Both were terminated by his death. These two fronts show interesting doctrinal correlations. The first is Leibniz' concern for the ''decadence of natural religion.'' The dispute with Clarke began with it, and the Discourse is a defense of Chinese natural religion in order to show its agreement with Christian natural religion. The Controversy can be summed up as ''clockmaker God versus idle God.'' (...) Leibniz wants to escape from the perverse consequences that all criticism of divine voluntarism seems to cause. Thus, his elaboration is directed at a distinct concept of a God that rules without interposing, a supramundane intelligence. And the Leibnizian interpretation of the natural theology of the Chinese can be viewed the same way: it emphasizes a First Principle, Li, which rules without interposing. (shrink)

Roughly characterized, solipsism is the skeptical thesis that there is no reason to think that anything exists other than oneself and one’s present experience. Since its inception in the reflections of Descartes, the thesis has taken three broad and sometimes overlapping forms: Internal World Solipsism that arises from an account of perception in terms of representations of an external world; Observed World Solipsism that arises from doubts as to the existence of what is not actually present sensuously in experience; Unreal (...) World Solipsism that arises from doubts as to the reality of the perceived world. This book attempts to give a rationally warranted refutation of all three forms. Over time, a vast number of putative rebuttals of solipsism have been proposed. The first half of the book clears the terrain for more productive investigation by showing in detail how each of these various responses fails. Among the simpler of such responses is the claim to have knowledge and certainty about everyday matters (Moore, Austin, Quinton, Pollock). Another is to appeal to pragmatic considerations dictated by the fact of one’s living in the world (Wittgenstein, Rescher, Ayer, Will, Strawson). Yet another is to undermine the skeptical thesis by applying it to itself (Plato, Hume, Russell, Johnson). All of these simpler approaches are found to be inadequate or irrelevant (Chapters 2 and 3). Other responses are more complex in that they presuppose certain basic positions with regard to the nature of cognition, meaning, language, or thought. Consequently, showing how they fail often involves showing the falsity of their underlying views. One such approach maintains that any empirical enquiry presupposes the existence of material objects (Neurath, Wittgenstein, Sellars, Quine, Gurwitsch, Williams, Rorty, BonJour), and that consequently solipsism is a problem peculiar to a mistaken foundationalist epistemology that purports to derive all warranted belief about the world from sensuous data. However, on examination, the various lines of reasoning advanced are found to be fallacious (Chapter 4). A closely-related approach is to claim that any empirical enquiry presupposes background truths, and that consequently solipsism is parasitic in the sense that it is based on truths that it purports to deny (Heidegger, Wittgenstein, Sellars, Quine). Such a self-contradictory situation is shown to obtain for only one form of solipsism, representational solipsism with its classical external world problem dating back to Descartes (Chapter 5). Another approach is to appeal to linguistic considerations in order to level charges of meaninglessness against solipsism (Wittgenstein, Austin, Ryle, Putnam, Clarke, Stroud). However, the charges are easily shown to be unwarranted (Chapter 6), a conclusion subsequently corroborated by a briefly sketched first-person account of meaning (Chapter 7). A further approach is to claim that all philosophical thinking must involve linguistic concepts, that language is intersubjective and tied to objects, and hence that solipsism is conceptually parasitic, and hence calls into question a conceptual scheme that it presupposes (Kant, Strawson, Wittgenstein, Sellars, Quine, Rorty). However, it may be shown that language is not incorrigibly wedded to objects, and in revised form it may be used to state solipsistic theses (Chapter 8). This conclusion is further supported by a refutation of various arguments against the possibility of private language (Wittgenstein, Sellars, Goodman, Rorty, Gadamer), as well as by the empirical evidence of everyday thinking that commonly takes place without reliance on the structures of public language (Chapter 9). The final chapters are more directly constructive. Following foundationalist procedure, a survey is undertaken of the sensuous data of first-person experience in its various modalities and their interrelationships (Chapter 10). An account is given of the bodily nature of the experiencing subject or self that feels, that wills, and that thinks, as well as of the spontaneity of the self or its capacity for free choice (Chapter 11). Rational warrant is then provided for thinking that items randomly perceived through a subject’s spontaneity or free will, continue to exist when unperceived, thus refuting forms of Observed World Solipsism that deny the existence of unperceived objects (Chapter 12). Finally, it is argued with regard to Unreal World Solipsism that while the scenarios it proposes cannot be dismissed as impossible, the absence of any supporting evidence whatever in their favor makes the espousal of any of them both arbitrary and an irrational leap (Chapter 13). (shrink)

In An Ethic of Trust: Mutual Autonomy and the Common Will to Live, W. Royce Clark uses the work of theologians and philosophers Albert Schweitzer, Friedrich Nietzsche, and John Rawls to create an inclusive ethic in which both the religious and non-religious will have equal freedom and stability.

M. Tulli Ciceronis Ovationes pro P. Quinctio, pro Q. Roscio Comoedo, pro A. Caecina, de lege agraria contra Rullum, pro C. Rabirio perduellionis reo, pro L. Flacco, in L. Pisonem, pro C. Rabirio Postumo, recognovit brevique adnotatione critica instruxit Albertus Curtis Clark. Oxonii, e typographeo Clarendoniano. - Volume 24 Issue 8.

Die MISCELLANEA MEDIAEVALIA präsentieren seit ihrer Gründung durch Paul Wilpert im Jahre 1962 Arbeiten des Thomas-Instituts der Universität zu Köln. Das Kernstück der Publikationsreihe bilden die Akten der im zweijährigen Rhythmus stattfindenden Kölner Mediaevistentagungen, die vor über 50 Jahren von Josef Koch, dem Gründungsdirektor des Instituts, ins Leben gerufen wurden. Der interdisziplinäre Charakter dieser Kongresse prägt auch die Tagungsakten: Die MISCELLANEA MEDIAEVALIA versammeln Beiträge aus allen mediävistischen Disziplinen - die mittelalterliche Geschichte, die Philosophie, die Theologie sowie die Kunst- und Literaturwissenschaften (...) sind Teile einer Gesamtbetrachtung des Mittelalters. (shrink)

All these specialist aspects of one life are different facets of the intellectual diamond which scintillates in the huge quarry of The Bertrand Russell Archives at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario. This is the quintessential man, the bundle of contradictions passionately dedicated to intellect, at times carrying the rational argument to irrational extremes; the natural-born emotional adventurer forever hampered by orphaned youth and too-early marriage. This Russell in the round is greater than the sum of his constituent parts, a man of (...) epic proportions, struggling through a lifetime beset with frustration and near-disaster; in youth the constitutional sceptic, in old age the sometimes splendid figure with "courage never to submit or yield.". (shrink)