In 2017, Carson and Flood outlined a general duty to be vaccinated, arguing from Catholic social teaching on justice, love, solidarity and the common good. This necessarily relied on assumptions about the typical nature of vaccination, assumptions which do not always hold true in concrete situations. I identify twelve criteria that, where they hold, strengthen the particular duty to be vaccinated, and, if not met, weaken or reverse it. These pertain to the biological agent which vaccination aims to protect against, (...) the vaccine and its supply, the costs and benefits of vaccination to the individual and society, and the alternative courses of action. The two-way relationship between the moral duty to be vaccinated and vaccine mandates is discussed. Individuals and policy-makers need to know these criteria – and be provided the necessary information to evaluate vaccination against them – in order to make a truly rational judgement. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Buddhist CarolPaul M. KeelingI will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future! The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me.—Scrooge on Christmas DayTo the Buddhas of the past, present and all future time... I will prostrate and bow.—ŚāntidēvaCharles Dickens's A Christmas Carol is one of the greatest tales of human redemption known in the Western world. As a child I heard it read aloud every (...) Christmas, and there was always a thrilling magic to rehearing the story of Scrooge's moving spiritual transformation. Yet, the story raises an important spiritual question: Scrooge is a new man on Christmas day, but what about after that? We often vow to be better people and fail. Why is this? A Christmas Carol is, of course, pure fantasy—a deeply heartwarming fantasy that bears repeated hearings—but it nonetheless does raise a real question about how spiritual enlightenment is actually achieved.I still appreciate A Christmas Carol as much as I did when I was a child, but as I have grown older, and after having encountered Buddhist philosophy, I have also begun to contemplate the story of Scrooge's spiritual transformation in a new light. The Buddhist notion of karma entails that, even if we are deeply moved now to change our ways for the better, the unexamined patterns of thought that underpinned our past actions retain a latent force in our mind stream that can influence us unexpectedly. If we are not observant of these patterns of thought, we are likely to repeat the kinds of actions we have performed in the past. Because the force of karma can be very strong, "overnight" spiritual and moral transformations are comparatively rare. On a Buddhist reading, the end of A Christmas Carol is where the spiritual journey for Scrooge actually begins.This underestimation of the force of karma on Dickens's part was, of course, a necessary case of artistic license, but is somewhat conspicuous given that a realization of the law of karma plays a critical (albeit unnamed) role in the story of Scrooge's putative enlightenment. Scrooge's transformation begins with a visit from the ghost [End Page 25] of his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley, a man who was as miserly and selfish as Scrooge himself. Marley's ghost is weighed down by a heavy chain, which represents his regret for having lived such a greedy and shortsighted life. "I wear the chain I forged in life. I made it link by link, yard by yard: I girded it on my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it."1 He warns that Scrooge will be visited by three spirits whose lessons he must heed in order to redeem himself. "Without their visits," Marley declares, "you cannot hope to shun the path I tread."2 Upon Marley's departure we are then treated to a Dickensian image of the Buddhist "lower realms." Scrooge looks out the window into the cold night air and sees a swarm of unfortunate ghostly forms, suffering and encumbered by heavy chains of remorse: "The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went.... The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost this power for ever."3 Later, Scrooge's nephew Fred makes this pithy karmic observation: "Scrooge's offences carry their own punishment.... Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself, always."4Throughout the remainder of the night Scrooge is visited sequentially by the three spirits representing the Christmases past, present, and future, who, like helpful bodhisattvas, show him scenes from his life in order to awaken him to a realization of the law of karma. By the Ghost of Christmas Past Scrooge is presented with painful images of his childhood suffering as well as the kindness shown to him by others in the past, and learns how the present direction of his life has been shaped by these experiences. The Ghost of Christmas Present reminds Scrooge of the precious opportunities all around him to do good by his fellow... (shrink)

PREFACE. THE Author of this very practical treatise on Scotch Loch - Fishing desires clearly that it may be of use to all who had it. He does not pretend to have written anything new, but to have attempted to put what he has to say in as readable a form as possible. Everything in the way of the history and habits of fish has been studiously avoided, and technicalities have been used as sparingly as possible. The writing of this (...) book has afforded him pleasure in his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This section is interleaved with blank shects for the readers notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the case of the publishers, will meet with consideration in a future edition. We do not pretend to write or enlarge upon a new subject. Much has been said and written-and well said and written too on the art of fishing but loch-fishing has been rather looked upon as a second-rate performance, and to dispel this idea is one of the objects for which this present treatise has been written. Far be it from us to say anything against fishing, lawfully practised in any form but many pent up in our large towns will bear us out when me say that, on the whole, a days loch-fishing is the most convenient. One great matter is, that the loch-fisher is depend- ent on nothing but enough wind to curl the water, -and on a large loch it is very seldom that a dead calm prevails all day, -and can make his arrangements for a day, weeks beforehand whereas the stream- fisher is dependent for a good take on the state of the water and however pleasant and easy it may be for one living near the banks of a good trout stream or river, it is quite another matter to arrange for a days river-fishing, if one is looking forward to a holiday at a date some weeks ahead. Providence may favour the expectant angler with a good day, and the water in order but experience has taught most of us that the good days are in the minority, and that, as is the case with our rapid running streams, -such as many of our northern streams are, -the water is either too large or too small, unless, as previously remarked, you live near at hand, and can catch it at its best. A common belief in regard to loch-fishing is, that the tyro and the experienced angler have nearly the same chance in fishing, -the one from the stern and the other from the bow of the same boat. Of all the absurd beliefs as to loch-fishing, this is one of the most absurd. Try it. Give the tyro either end of the boat he likes give him a cast of ally flies he may fancy, or even a cast similar to those which a crack may be using and if he catches one for every three the other has, he may consider himself very lucky. Of course there are lochs where the fish are not abundant, and a beginner may come across as many as an older fisher but we speak of lochs where there are fish to be caught, and where each has a fair chance. Again, it is said that the boatman has as much to do with catching trout in a loch as the angler. Well, we dont deny that. In an untried loch it is necessary to have the guidance of a good boatman but the same argument holds good as to stream-fishing... (shrink)

PREFACE. THE Author of this very practical treatise on Scotch Loch - Fishing desires clearly that it may be of use to all who had it. He does not pretend to have written anything new, but to have attempted to put what he has to say in as readable a form as possible. Everything in the way of the history and habits of fish has been studiously avoided, and technicalities have been used as sparingly as possible. The writing of this (...) book has afforded him pleasure in his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This section is interleaved with blank shects for the readers notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the case of the publishers, will meet with consideration in a future edition. We do not pretend to write or enlarge upon a new subject. Much has been said and written-and well said and written too on the art of fishing but loch-fishing has been rather looked upon as a second-rate performance, and to dispel this idea is one of the objects for which this present treatise has been written. Far be it from us to say anything against fishing, lawfully practised in any form but many pent up in our large towns will bear us out when me say that, on the whole, a days loch-fishing is the most convenient. One great matter is, that the loch-fisher is depend- ent on nothing but enough wind to curl the water, -and on a large loch it is very seldom that a dead calm prevails all day, -and can make his arrangements for a day, weeks beforehand whereas the stream- fisher is dependent for a good take on the state of the water and however pleasant and easy it may be for one living near the banks of a good trout stream or river, it is quite another matter to arrange for a days river-fishing, if one is looking forward to a holiday at a date some weeks ahead. Providence may favour the expectant angler with a good day, and the water in order but experience has taught most of us that the good days are in the minority, and that, as is the case with our rapid running streams, -such as many of our northern streams are, -the water is either too large or too small, unless, as previously remarked, you live near at hand, and can catch it at its best. A common belief in regard to loch-fishing is, that the tyro and the experienced angler have nearly the same chance in fishing, -the one from the stern and the other from the bow of the same boat. Of all the absurd beliefs as to loch-fishing, this is one of the most absurd. Try it. Give the tyro either end of the boat he likes give him a cast of ally flies he may fancy, or even a cast similar to those which a crack may be using and if he catches one for every three the other has, he may consider himself very lucky. Of course there are lochs where the fish are not abundant, and a beginner may come across as many as an older fisher but we speak of lochs where there are fish to be caught, and where each has a fair chance. Again, it is said that the boatman has as much to do with catching trout in a loch as the angler. Well, we dont deny that. In an untried loch it is necessary to have the guidance of a good boatman but the same argument holds good as to stream-fishing... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:“First the Bow is Bent in Study …” Dominican Education before 1350 by M. Michèle MulchaheyJohn InglisM. Michèle Mulchahey. “First the Bow is Bent in Study …” Dominican Education before 1350. Studies and Texts, vol. 132. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1998. Pp. xxi + 618. Cloth, $110.00.In his The Setting of the Summa theologiae of Saint Thomas, Leonard Boyle represents one of the more interesting directions (...) in the recent historiography of Latin medieval philosophy (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1982). His claim is that if we are to understand Aquinas, we need to pay closer attention to the Dominican intellectual context. With a focus on the moral component of Aquinas’s Summa theologiae, Boyle establishes that Aquinas did not converse alone with Aristotle and Averroes in some philosophical ivory tower as historians often imply, but that he wrote and disputed in light of Dominican goals. This point helps to clarify the context of Aquinas’s texts—a type of historical context not found in the standard philosophical accounts. In the book under review, the first detailed history of Dominican medieval education, M. Michèle Mulchahey supplies a more extended treatment of this intellectual context.Commonly, intellectuals in the high middle ages are presented as spending their lives at universities studying philosophy, conducting disputations, and lecturing on the Sentences of Peter the Lombard. Anthony Kenny and Jan Pinborg present such a picture in their helpful contribution to The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy ([Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982], 11–42). Mulchahey argues that this sort of picture is rather simplistic when applied to the Dominican intellectual life. From the early years of the order, there was to be a “doctor” in each and every local Dominican house (132). One of Mulchahey’s more interesting conclusions is that the schools associated with these local houses were more advanced than has often been thought. For example, each house was to include lectures on the Sentences of Peter the Lombard and on Scripture, that is, on the very texts which historians commonly associate only with the universities (134–136). Furthermore, disputations were conducted frequently at local houses (134, 167) and by the middle of the thirteenth century, the works of Aristotle were often taught (220). Her point is that if we are to understand the intellectual world in which a Dominican like Aquinas spent his life, then we need to be clear about this context and not just about that of the universities.Even at the university, Dominicans studied and lectured at Dominican houses and not at institutions of the secular clergy. For instance, even when Aquinas was a Bachelor of the Sentences and a Master of the Sacred Page at the University of Paris, he lived and taught at the Dominican convent according to the distinct traditions and practices [End Page 361] of the order. Furthermore, select Dominican schools of higher learning, including those associated with universities, produced teachers for local Dominican communities. Mulchahey argues convincingly that the structures of Dominican education came to exist from the bottom up within a Dominican context and not as an extension of the statutes of the universities (351–378).This Dominican context helps to provide a response to an objection that John Jenkins raises to Boyle’s view of the audience of Aquinas’s Summa theologiae—an issue that has important implications for how to read this work. Boyle argued that the Summa arose out of the pastoral needs of ordinary Dominicans and reflects this institutional purpose. Jenkins “rejects” this claim, arguing that Aquinas’s text is so dense and conceptually difficult that it could only have been written for those who were prepared to study the Sentences of Peter the Lombard at the University of Paris. (See John I. Jenkins, Knowledge and faith in Thomas Aquinas [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997], 81, 89–90.) Mulchahey provides important support for Boyle’s view by establishing that it was the policy of the order to prepare ordinary Dominicans to study the Sentences of Peter the Lombard at the local houses. At a time when there were few universities, the Dominicans established hundreds of sites of higher education at... (shrink)

Ṣūfī poetry or dīvān poetry, both of our poems have a universal appeal and a classical value just as the poetry of many nations’. Poets of both groups enhanced the consciousness level of every people one by one and created a virtuous society by taking power from the potential that existed in Turkish society already. If it is needed to mention a difference between those two poetries, it could be that dīvān poetry is a static one and sūfī poetry is (...) more dynamic than the dīvān poetry. While dīvān poetry has a unique World of poetry, sūfī poetry has a feeling of universe shaped by different meanings and concepts. Although dīvān poetry is based on intelligence and pleasure, there is intuitive inspiration and wāridāt in ṣūfī poetry. These become poetic sometimes thanks to similes (tashbīḥ), metaphors (majāz) and allusions (talmīḥ), become verse and gradually turns into a poetic theme (mażmūn). Until today, since the first that comes to mind, when it is said poetic themes (mażmūn), is dīvān poetry, poetic themes of ṣūfī poetry were overshadowed. However, ṣūfī poetry is quite interesting and rich in terms of its poetic themes. Although they are called as just terms, each of the terms of ṣūfī literature is a mystical state (ḥāl), mystical station (maqām) or experience. For this reason, many concepts of ṣūfī poetry, which we call term, could be a poetic theme by taking part in a reference (talmīḥ), simile (tashbīḥ) and metaphor (majāz). The aim of this article, which we can sample under three titles and with the couplets of our three ṣūfī poets, is to draw attention to the existence of a rich mażmūn staff independent of the dīvān poetry of Turkish ṣūfī poetry. The subject of mażmūns belonging to Turkish ṣūfī poetry should be considered important since it has not been mentioned much until today. Summary: The poet designs and presents it to his readers on behalf of his readers that he cannot even express what he has imagined but sometimes cannot imagine. Each poem has a specific interlocutor and addresses the emotions of its interlocutor. Each poem is adorned with thought and imagination; yet poems can be understood by annotation accompanied by rhetoric. Ṣūfī poetry and dīvān poetry, both poems have universal appeal and classical value like many poems of many nations. Ṣūfī poet and dīvān poet are the architects of an indestructible art existence that ruled for centuries and their works are masterpieces of their own fields. Both types of poetry, along with literary heritage, are a guide ship that leads the whole cultural heritage to the next generations, leading art branches. Both poets of both groups have strengthened from the potential that existed in Turkish society and raised the level of consciousness of each individual separately and created a virtuous society.Dīvān poetry is as beautiful as the aesthetics of genius; ṣūfī poetry is so beautiful with the sincere sincerity of heathat born to the heart. Without making use of the rich mażmūn staff of the lodge poetry, it would be an exclusivism and a status quo to make the mażmūn exclusive only to dīvān poetry or to search for the mażmūns of dīvān poetry in the lodge poetry and to interpret these mażmūns with the interpretation habits of dīvān poetry.The most obvious difference between ṣūfī poetry and dīvān poetry corresponds to the fact that the terms of Sufism are composed of similes (tashbīḥ), metaphors (majāz); sūfī poetry is a composition of poet’s personally experienced feelings or situations such as waḥdat, ḥalvet, manifest and observant concepts. While the depictions of the dīvān poet, spring and winter depictions, arouse enthusiasm for the reader for a while, the indifference of the ṣūfī poet to this world, the constant heartbeat of Jamāl and the heart beating with the excitement of vuslat (meeting) infiltrates the reader to the eternal world.If there is a difference between the two poems, it is that the poetry of the dīvān is static and the ṣūfī poetry is more dynamic than the poetry of the dīvān. As well as dīvān poetry has a unique world of poetry; ṣūfī poetry has a universe of emotions shaped by different meanings and notions. Even if the beauty they depict is materially and morally different, the poet of both groups wishes to go beyond the beauty that they mean and find themselves there. They do this sometimes with similes (tashbīḥ) and metaphors (majāz) and istiʿāre, succeed with various kinds of poetic themes. In dīvān poetry, there is pleasure and imagination based on intelligence, and inspiration and success based on intuition in ṣūfī poetry. These become poetic sometimes thanks to similes (tashbīḥ), metaphors (majāz) and allusions (talmīḥ), become verse and gradually turns into a poetic theme. Dīvān poetry is an endless effort of abstract imagination, while ṣūfī poetry is an inexhaustible enthusiasm for concrete ecstasy. Although both have found what they are looking for outside of daily life, dīvān poet finds pleasure, yet sūfī poet finds inspire.When it comes to mażmūn, the first thing that comes to mind is Divan literature and it’s figure of beautiful woman’s length (cypress), hair (zulf), eye (daffodil), eyebrow (bow), eyelash (arrow) and skin (silver) and these mażmūns are stereotyped and widespread though each of them is known only to artisans. On the other hand, ṣūfī poetry has many other poetic themes such as Jamāl (grace), Jalāl (distress), ār and nāmūs (mālāmat), gūy (rıza), chevgān (ḳażā) and istignā (reluctant).To date, the first thing that comes to mind when it is said to be mażmūn is dīvān poetry, it has left behind the maẓmūns specific to ṣūfī poetry. However, ṣūfī poetry is also quite rich in terms of its mażmūns. Although they are called as just terms, each of the terms of ṣūfī literature is a mystical state (ḥāl), mystical station (maqām) or experience. For this reason, many concepts of ṣūfī poetry, which we call term, could be a poetic theme by taking part in a reference (talmīḥ), simile (tashbīḥ) and metaphor (majāz).The fact that the dīvān poets used the mażmūn as a word and the use of the term started with the Tanzimat made it inevitable that different definitions of the mażmūn emerged in time. For this reason, many researchers now understand and define the term of mażmūn differently. However, all the academics who researched or wrote about the mażmūn brought to mind only the poem of the dīvān poem, and they selected the examples of the mażmūn from the couplets of the poem of the dīvān poem. In our opinion, the missing part of the subject of mażmūn is here. Nevertheless, our main aim in this article is not to discuss what is or is not a mażmūn, but to try to express that the ṣūfī poem is as rich as the dīvān poem. Whereas the mażmūn has no single generally accepted definition; if so, we can say that ṣūfī poetry may have its own unique mażmūn, we can exemplify it with couplets of ṣūfī poetry. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 46, no. 1. © 2020 by Abby Minor 103 JUMP ROPE CHANT: A CURE FOR ALL KINDS OF STOMACH ACHES, ca. 2000 BCE–ca. 2000 CE Abby Minor Happy are those who stand in a field at night and hear the double rainbows land, or clap the gaps that RHYTHM makes, or shout to the beat of grasses; They are like trees planted by streams of water, which (...) yield their fruit in its season, & their leaps & their leaves & their feet do not wither, they leap up in the morning singing, in all that they do they chant, and jump, and are singing: “Blood root, hair pin, lupine, clover, watermints and cinnamon, a pencil, myrrh, poplar, juniper, copper water, whiskey, cotton root, snake root, savin, wire,  Clap your hands, all you peoples. —Psalm 47.1 104 Abby Minor wallflower, gunpowder, emeralds, myrtle, tonic of geranium, lace seeds, soap, bone stay, coltsfoot, catheters, quinine, a hoop bound with oil-silk, a hat pin, oak—” I chant a long time I chant from within a hollow place I chant all colors of cohosh Instantly as dawn clips green & white, I chant to dissolve separate parts I jump backwards and I chant So that you may bathe your feet in blood, it was in the Psalms, it’s what God does it might be a rain dance it will come to you like a beautiful cigar filled with fine leaves like the fine feet of a deer cleft in gold leaves Like rhythm a hair pin, rhythm a hat pin, rhythm a knitting hook, rhythm a nail RHYTHM makes my feet like the feet of a deer. I chant rosemary so assiduous I chant pennyroyal forever most poisonous I chant intransigence and double rainbows pop on the sidewalks of the cosmos, double Abby Minor 105 Dutch ropes spin like twin rivers, there I am planted like a tree by the water, like an outrider dropping fire into the ropes: I will kick up my heels seven times there will be a noise and the seed will fall out on the ground shouting, “Date palms, dancing, anise, trillium, turpentine, scissors, silphium, rum, cundums, pomegranate, pearlash, iron, foot baths, borax, birthwort, rue, wormwood, fern root, fig leaf, sneezing, a small ball of sheep’s wool, smart weed, brass, blackberries, goldbeaters, button hooks, hawthorn, womb veil, vinegar, saffron, glass—” If you try our hearts, RHYTHM, if you visit us by night; if I forget which is my left hand and which is your right— just let it be me; psalmist, you, a trace of blood. Me, muscle, 106 Abby Minor you, myrrh. Or you jumping, me rope. Me mirrorstep, you leave your dark prints on the light. Me ambush, you flood. Me bloodthirsty, you a smaller blood. You bloodthirsty, me myrrh. Me fortress, you a tent for the sun. Me splendor, you go on and on. Me hat pin, me flood. You poetry, me a clapping tree, or me poetry and you nothing at all. I say to RHYTHM, “You are my Rhythm, I have no song apart from you and I could never tell just where the sole leaves the sidewalk and turns into the smallest lit pause popped, suspended above shoe shadow; I could never say whether I’m the jumper picking up her knees or the turner planted so still save for her hands— and what pilots her hands, pilot, if not you, if not her hands? If not the offbeat, the bows of light we pattern, Rhythm which is both the rivet and what’s held: like rhythm a hair pin, rhythm a hat pin, rhythm a knitting hook, rhythm a nail Abby Minor 107 RHYTHM makes my feet like the feet of a deer. Now I chant the bitter melon fruit who lights up darkness and my feet do not grow weary writing RHYTHM on the sidewalk lighting incense in the bathtub filled with gin in which I lay chanting like the singers in front, like the musicians last, like the girls between them playing tambourines: Rhythm make a riot Rhythm eat a bee Rhythm use a chicken feather & make a joyful noise Praise Rhythm with mint & astringents with spearmints & syringes with pipes, pen handles, mercury... (shrink)

Grown up as versatile people, Ottoman intellectuals had holistic views towards science, art and literature, and wrote in a variety of disciplines. It was not uncommon for a mathematician to write in philosophy, for a ḥadīth (report of the words and deeds of the Prophet) scholar to write history books, for a statesman to be busy with calligraphy or for a Shaykh al-Islām (the highest ranking Islamic legal authority) to have a “Dīwān” (a collection of poems). However, possibly due to (...) specialization-based scientific understanding of modern researchers, one side of these people generally came to the fore and some capabilities of them remained unknown. Grown up in Istanbul, capital town of Ottoman Empire, in late 16th and early 17th centuries, Okchuzāde Mehmed Shāhī was also one of these personalities called “hezār-fan” (polymath). Mehmed Shāhī served in top level offices of the State, was busy with art and literature, and became known for inshāʾ (composition) kind of works written with elaborate prose. Mehmed Shāhī earned a deserved fame with these capabilities and he was also a poet. Indeed, due to poems he wrote in his early ages, he was noticed by some biography writers about poets and his poems were mentioned in some anthologies. In addition to poetry anthologies, he had some classical works, and some couplets, quatrains and verses included in his prose works. In the present study, a collection and evaluation of poems by Mehmed Shāhī were presented.Summary: Ottoman statesman Okchuzāde Mehmed Shāhī was born in 1562 AD (970 AH) in Istanbul. He was son of Okchuzāde Mehmed Pasha (d. 995 AH/1587 AD) and served as Kātib (scribe), Defterdār (treasurer), Reīs-ul-kuttāb (chief of the scribes), Governor General of Cyprus and Aleppo. His real name was Mehmed, but he was mentioned in different sources by names such as Mehmed Bey, Mehmed Shāh, Mehmed Shāhī, Mir Mehmed Shāhī and Okchuzāde Mehmed Shāhī. Starting at a young age, he was well educated in madrasah (college). With his vibrant character and superior genius, he came to the forefront among his peers. He was educated under the supervision of Māʿlūlzāde Nakīb Efendi (d. 993 AH/1585 AD) and graduated in 988 AH/1580 AD at the age of 18. When Nakīb Efendi became Shaykh al-Islām in the same year, he started his official duty as Dīwān-ı Humāyūn (imperial council) secretary. With the duty of Executive Assistant, he became the secretary of Damad İbrahim Pasha who started to his office in 1004 AH/1596 AD. He worked under the patronage of the Pasha until Pasha’s death in 1010 AH/1601 AD. Mehmed Shāhī succeeded Musa Chelebi as Reīs-ul-kuttāb and Basdefterdar (chief treasurer) in 1005 AH/1596 AD, and was appointed as title deed and cadastre director in 1006 AH/1597 AD. However, he was dismissed from this duty and was included among the officials to join military campaign. He was prosecuted and tried for imprisonment for the accusation of coming to Istanbul without permission. He succeeded Hamza Pasha as Nishanci (high-ranking bureaucrat) in 1007 AH/1599 AD and was assigned to military campaign. Mehmed Shāhī was dismissed from his duty in 1008 AH/1600 AD. Although he was reappointed to his duty in the same year, he was dismissed again in 1010 AH/1601 AD. While Hamza Pasha was reappointed to his office, Mehmed Shāhī was not assigned to any duty. He succeeded Murad Efendi as the Defterdar of Egypt in 1013 AH/1605 AD. After this duty, one of the vassal Sanjak (administrative district) Beyliks (principalities) in Egypt was given to him. When vassal Sanjak Beyliks were abolished by Kara Mehmed Pasha, Beylerbeyi (governor) of Egypt, in 1016 AH/1608 AD, he returned to Istanbul. He was not appointed to an office for a long time. In 1029 AH/1620 AD, he was appointed as title deed and cadastre director in 1029 AH/1620 AD, and became Nishanci again in 1030 AH/1621 AD. He served in military campaign to Poland, but was dismissed from this duty during the campaign. He was appointed as Nishanci for the fifth time during the second reign of Sultan Mustafa (1622-1623). He was dismissed in 1033 AH/1624 AD and retired. In early 1039 AH/1630 AD, he died at the age of 69 in Istanbul. His tomb is near Ekmekchioghlu tomb in the vicinity of Sunbul Efendi.What is known about his family is limited to his son named Vakʿi Ahmed Efendi (d. 1060 AH/1650 AD). Ahmet Efendi learned Naskh, Thuluth and tevkīʿi types of calligraphy styles from his father. He served as anthology writer for Shaykh al-Islām Bahāī Efendi. He died in 1060 AH/1650 AD when he was serving as teacher in Sulaymaniyah Madrasah. His tomb is around Shaykh Vefa tomb.In addition to his administrative duties, Mehmed Shāhī was also interested in poetry, prose, calligraphy, mysticism, ḥadīth and tafsīr (exegesis). Possibly also due to his dismissal of duties many times in his life, he produced many works. Among them are Aḥsan al-ḥadīth, an-Naẓm al-mubīn fī āyāt al-erbaʿīn, al-Maqām al-Maḥmūd, Tarjuma-i Tuḥfa as-ṣalavāt, Jāmiʿ al-ghāyāt, Mukhtār al-akhyār, Qānūn-i Jadīd-i Arāḍi, Munsheat ve Dīwān. Famed for his prose works, the author was also a poet. With his couplets which he wrote under pseudonym of Zaynī, he managed to get on the anthology of Kınalızāde at his twenties. He was celebrated with the expression of “Arrow of word from his bow of soul has reached the target of approval from masters; he is at a young age (at his twenties)”. Subsequently adopting pseudonym of Shāhī, the poet had some poems published within the works of Beyānī, Nevʿizāde and Mustaqimzāde as well as within his own prose works. Mustaqimzāde even mentioned that Mehmed Shāhī had a dīwān. Nevertheless, this work of him has not been found yet. A total of 30 poetry works of Mehmed Shāhī were found in various sources, except for his translations of 40 ḥadīth and 40 Qur’ān verses written in poetry. Of his 30 poetry works, 26 were written in Turkish and 4 in Persian. Various sections of ʿarūḍ (meter) were used in these works written as couplets, quatrains and verses. It could be stated that his poems rich in Persian and Arabic words had a rich rhyme frame. In his poetry works in which religious, literary, historical, legendary and mysticism themes were worked, concepts and figures such as Allah, the Lord, Messiah, Messenger, Risālet (messengership), intercession, Kāfūr al-Ikhshīdī (966-968), Mustaʿsim (d. 656 AH/1258 AD), Ibn Alkamī (d. 656 AH/1258 AD), Naṣīr-i Tūsī (d. 672 AH/1274 AD), Jamshīd, Keyumars, Uftade, Hudāyī, Majūsī, Kizilbash, Bayramī and muftī (jurist capable of giving a formal legal opinion). His poems were about intercession demand from the Messenger (PBUH), sin of serving to Persian, importance of an invention, praise of Uftade Sultan (d. 988 AH/1580 AD), effect of prayer, fate of administrator favoring his relatives, futility of envying the rich, importance of fighting with Zoroastrian, benefits of exhibition of sorrow, value of skillful people, resembling of the world to a bride with a thousand grooms, beauty of eloquence, ignominy of leaving chastity for lust, asking for forgiveness for sins, talent of understanding the words, not giving quarter to enemies, praise of Hz.ʿUmar, humbleness, value of lack of worldly things, sufferance due to the beauty of the beautiful, needing not to wonder why the beloved one is far away, evil of protecting the snot, richness of Arabic language, deeds of Anatolian fāḍils (virtuous), importance of endeavor in succeeding the closeness to God and respectability of ʿAzīz Maḥmūd Hudāyī (d. 1038 AH/1628 AD). Okchuzāde Mehmed Shāhī was an Ottoman statesman who also earned a well-deserved fame for his works written in inshāʾ (composition) genre of elaborate prose. In addition, he also had poetry works. Praised for the poems which he wrote in his early ages by anthology writers who included his poems in their anthologies, the poet also had some couplets and quatrains scattered among his own prose works. His poems in the form of couplets and quatrains within abovementioned works mostly were about religious, literary, legendary, historical and mysticism themes.Mehmed Shāhī was knowledgeable in tafsīr, ḥadīth, mysticism and calligraphy, and had good levels of Arabic and Persian. Writing poems in Persian, Mehmed Shāhī was decorated his prose works with Arabic expressions such as Qur’ān verses, ḥadīths and proverbs. It could be stated that such decorations made the language of his poems more difficult. Nevertheless, his poems are plainer and easier compared to his prose works. The poet who also had lyrical poems generally preferred ḥikamī (sapiential) style and wrote genres such as munacaat (prayer to God), shafaatnāme (intercession epistles), historical quatrain, medhiye (panegyric) and hicviye (epigram). His poems in anthologies were lyrical, those in Aḥsan al-ḥadīth and an-Naẓm al-mubīn were didactical and those in Munsheat were epic. Based on an evaluation of these poems, it could be stated that he was a poet with a style, though not a poet of first class. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION BY NANCY FUMERO What is a translation that stalls comprehension? That, when read, parsed, obfuscates comprehension through any language – English, Portuguese. It is inevitable that readers expect fidelity from translations. That language mirror with a sort of precision that enables the reader to become of another location, condition, to grasp in English in a similar vein as readers of Portuguese might from João Guimarães Rosa’s GRANDE SERTÃO: VEREDAS. There is the expectation that translations enable mobility. That what was (...) written in one language be accessible in another. And that a translator is to serve as a mediator, acting ultimately in service to ideas within the source text. To disperse them. However, this notion of translation is partly antithetical to the ideas in Rosa’s work. Or, alternately, to convey the despair of terrain slipping beneath one’s feet, and to encounter the heightened suspense of magic, the translation, as part of its strategy, cannot devotedly rely on its original language, not as its source text. The work undertaken by Felipe W.Martinez is a new form of translation that risks everything in order to encounter the same treacherous knowing Rosa had traversed. And it takes its risks by not taking risks: by being, almost word for word, a literal translation. This is an approach that reductively converts, as opposed to translates. The idiomatic differences between English and Portuguese are not accented. The syntax is not finessed. Liberties are not assumed on account of improving readability. What stands, resoundingly amid such absences, is the awakened challenge of reading. The genuine peril of not knowing. That is, this translation, one that purports to know nothing, creates access into the guileful world Rosa had created in Portuguese. But not by translating. If anything, GRANDE SERTÃO: VEREDAS is speaking a cosmic language through a linguistic one. And W.Martinez does us the service of recognizing this, as what configures the shapes of words and sentences is not as simple as neologisms, portmanteaus, and digressions, but as terrifying as the path the fool traverses: all paths. As such, this translation doesn’t speak English, just as the original does not speak Portuguese. It is the assemblage of paradox as a new logic that can be navigated, if only one could suspend the comfort of readability, of expectation. If one could descend a mountain in the pitch dark of night, each step shocking the body, unable to acclimate to the unleveled heights. Without a doubt, the translation is incongruous to the Portuguese. Taking a small excerpt to compare: Eh, well, thereafter, the rest the Sir provide: comes the bread, comes the hand, comes the god, comes the dog. What is striking is the interplay between “god” and “dog”. To most English speakers, this anagram is a familiar one. But in Portuguese the words god (“deus”) and dog (“cão”) are not so closely linked. In fact, there is no direct mention of “deus” in Rosa’s text: Eh, pois, empós, o resto o senhor prove: vem o pão, vem a mão, vem o são, vem o cão. Both are fascinating. In Rosa’s excerpt, the rhythm is unmistakable and precise, despite, of course, the indices of hesitation: the commas, the Eh, the uncomfortable way of searching through prolongation and wait. This is the sort of paradox Rosa can engage within a sentence. W.Martinez’s does this as well, at a scale that reverberates beyond the sentence, and with one noticeable addition: deus. What may appear to be an overstep, to add such a weighted word that draws out wordplay but is, nevertheless, not in the source text, is exemplary of risk. The translation buzzes because of it. This is because throughout the text we encounter dogs frequently, as some primal beast on par with humans. The dog is one that masters and can be mastered. A creature that is at times its face, and at others a mask. It is a powerful presence. For the translator to be attuned to the reverent undercurrent attributed to this animal, and create within the translation such charged play in English from what was only an implication in Portuguese, is in tribute to the grand beauty within dissonance. What aberrant modes of writing and translation can teach us most assuredly, is that things, words, are not in states of rightness or wrongness, but of oscillation. This isn’t so different from what Rosa says himself: The Sir look…see: the most important and beautiful, of the world, is this: that the people are not always same, still were not completed — but that they go always shifting. They tune or detune. We find this so readily in W.Martinez’s translation, this tuning and detuning. Nancy Fumero Los Angeles GRAND SERTÃO: VEREDAS BY JOÃO GUIMARÃES ROSA TRANSLATED FROM THE PORTUGUESE BY FELIPE W.MARTINEZ Nonothing. Shots that the Sir heard were man brawling not, God be. Bleach white sights on the tree in the backyard, down in the river. By my right. I do this every day, I like; from the bad of boyhood. Thereof they came to call on me. Case of a calf: a white calf, errorful, eyes of to not be—saw selves—; and with a mask of a dog! They told me; I didn’t want to catch a sight. Same that, by the defects of birth, upturned lips, looked to be a laughing man. Folkface, dogface: they determined—it was the devil. Bananas. Killed it. Do not know who owned it. They came to borrow my guns. I caved. I’ve no power to impose. Oh, sir, you laugh certain laughs…Look: when it’s a true shot, first the dogs begin to bark, instantly—after, then, you see who’s handed death. Sir, endure, this is the Sertão. Some want that it is not: that situated Sertão is in and out of those general fields, they say, end of the road, highlands, the other Urucuia. Toleima. For those of Cortino and of Curvelo, then, isn’t here said Sertão? Ah! That there’s more! To place the Sertão it’s told: it’s where the pastures lack latches; where one can tear off ten, fifteen leagues without running into a houseinhabitant; where criminalousness lives out its christ jesus. Sifted out from the tightening grip of the law. The Urcuia comes from the western mountains. But today, its banks, give all—farmlands of farms, pastures of meadows of good yield, low tides, cultures that go kill for kill, until these virgins there are. The general fields run round. These general fields are without size. Ultimately, whichever one one approves, the Sir knows: bread or breads, it’s a question of heads…the Sertão is everywhere. Of the devi? No comment. Sir ask the dwellers. Falsely I fear they unspeak that name of his—only say: whatsitcalled. Volt! no… Whosoever over avoids it, lives with it. In the sentence of one Aristides—who exists in the first palm grove on the right hand side, called Vereda-of-Cow-Calm-of-Saint-Rita—everyone believes: he can't pass in three designated places: then can be heard the tiny cry, behind, a little voice warning:— "Here I come! Here I come!... "— that is the Capirote, the whatsitcalled... And one Jise Simplicio—who anyone from here will swear he keeps an imp in house, a little satanite, imprisoned and obliged to help in all greedful deeds; reason that Simplicio emprises en route to complete riches. As such, for this they say too that his beast bristles and refuses, denying his banner, unyielding, when he wishes to mount... Superstition. Jise Simplicio and Aristides, continue getting fatter, thence unheard or heard. Still the Sir study: right now, in these days of time, you have people purporting that the devil proper stopped, mid-passage, in Andrequice. A boy out of there, to whom'd appeared, and there lauded that, to get here—normally, by horse, a day-n-half—he was capable of such with only some twenty minutes enough... by coasting the River of Chico by the headwaters! Or, too, who knows—sans offense—will not have been, for example, even yourself the Sir who announced such, when you passed by there, for fun run funny? Thereof, not my given crime, I know that wasn't. And evil I wanted not. Only that one question, in hours, at times, brightens peaceful reason. But, the Sir understand: if such a boy, there was, he wanted to dupe. Because, hey, that, to cut the river off by the springs, would be the same thing as one redoubling in the internals of this our state of ours, costant of a journey of some three months... Then? Whatsitcalled? Dodo. The fantastication. And, the respect of giving him such these names of delicacy, is what it is for one to want to invoke that he form of form, with his presence! Not that is. I, personally, almost that have lost in him the creed, deserving to Deus; is the that to the Sir I say, to pure-secret. I know that it is well established, that it greases our Saintly-Gospels. On occasion, I conversed with a young seminarian, super suitable, conferring in the book of prayers and coated in vestments, with a stick of black-sage in hand—prosed that he went auxilitator to the father, to extract the Cujo, from the body living of an oldwoman, in Waterfalls-of-Bulls, he went with the vicar of Field-Round... I conceive. The Sir not is as I? I didn't believe a single thing. Compadre mine Quelemem describes that that which reveals effect are the low spirits meager, of third, adoing in the worst darkness and with anxieties of connecting selves with the livers—they give support. Compadre mine Quelemem is who much me consoles—Quelemem of Goias. But he has to live far from here, in Jijuja, Vereda of Buriti Dark... Ahrr, I leave myself there, that in enevildemonment or with support—the Sir too must have had known diverse, men, women. As not yes? For me, umpteen I've seen, that I've learned. Ma-Neigh, Blood-o'Other, or Legion-Lips, or Tear-em-Down, Cold-Cutter, or Sissy-Goat, one Treciziano, or Verdigris... or Hermogenes... o'them, pileload. If I could forget so many names... I'm not a man for calming horses! And, same, whom of yes of to be jagunço self enters, yea is for some competence entrant of demonion. Will it not? Will it? From first, I made and mixed, and to think not I thought. I didn't have the deadlines. I lived pulling difficult from difficult, fish alive on griddle: who lives asp'rously, no fantasies. But, now, fete of fate to me comes, and sans little disquietudes, I'm from creaky net. And myself invented in this like, of to speculate ideas. The devil exists and nonexists? I say the saying. Opennouncement. These melancholies. The Sir sees: exists waterfall; and since? But waterfall is gulch of ground, and water so pouring from it, retumbling; the Sir consume that water, or undo that bankment, remainder waterfall any? To live is negotiation much perilous. I explain to the Sir: the devil vigors inside of human, the wrinkles of human— or is the human ruin, or the human of adversess. I free, per se, citizen, is that not has devil notone. Notone!— is the that I say. The Sir approve? Me declares total, frank— is high merit that me make: and to beg might, increased. This case— by rashtravagance that me they see— is of mine certain importance. God grant not was... But, not say that the Sir, awised and instructed, that agrees in people of them?! Not? You I appreciate! Your high opinion composes my value. Yea I knew, waited for it— yea the field! Ah, a we, in oldness, we lack of to have plowing of rest. You I appreciate. Is devil notone. Nor esprit. Never I've seen. Someone ought to see, then was I myself, this your servant. Was I you to tell... Well, the devil regulate his state black, ins creatures, ins womens, ins humans. E'en: ins childrens— I declaim. Since not is said: "boy—trainee of the devil"? And ins thes uses, ins plants, ins waters, in terra, in wind... Manures. …The devil in the street, in the middle of the vortex... Hey? Hey? Ah. Figuration mine, of worse by back, the certain memories. Mal-make me! I suffer pain of to tell not…Meliorate, if chillingly: well, in a ground and with equal format of branches and leaves, not give to cassava-calm, that is eaten common, and the cassava-mad that kills? Now, the Sir yea saw a strangeness? A cassava-sweet can rapidly to turn agonizing— motives not I know, at times is said that is for replanted in the terrain always, with mutations then, of caules—go embittering, of s’much in s’much, of its self takes poisons. And, well look: the other, the cassava-mad, too is that at times can fix calm, the estimate, of is to eat sans notone mal. And what this is? Eh, the Sir yea saw, for to see, the ugliness of hate pleated, facetorqued, on the faces of one cobrarattlesnake? Observed the porker fat, capita day more felicity brute, capable of, could, snort and engulf for its own dirty coziness the world total? And sparrowhawk, blackbird, some, the features of they yea represent the need of cleave for before, rend and shred by beak, appears a knife much fine for ruin I desire. Total. Has even twisted races of stone, horrorous, venomous— that spoil mortal the aquas, if they are buried beneath of well; the devil inside of them sleeps: they are the devil. Is known? And the demon— that is only thus the significance of one mercury malign— have order of to follow the path of him, have license to brag?! Arr, he is variegated in all! What the what wastes, goes spending the devil of inside of the people, by itttybits, is the reasonable to suffer. And the delight of love—compadre mine Quelemem says. Family. Really? Is, and not is. The Sir think and not think. Total is and not is… Almost all more grave criminous ferocity, always is much good husband, good son, good father, and is good-friend-of-your-friends! I know of those. Solo that have the afters— and Deus, joined. I spy many nimbi. But, in veracity, son, too, softens. Look: one called Aleixo, resident a league from Step-of-Sour, in Of-Sand, was the man of major badness calm that yea you saw. Me agreed that near the house of his had a weir, amidst the palms, with traíras, for souls of enormous, desenormous, to the real, that received fame; the Aleixo gave of to eat to them, in hours just, they self accustomed to if assuch of lunacies, in order to gobble, seemed to be fishes instructed. One day, solo for grace rustic, he killed an oldman who by there passed, destitute begging alms. The Sir not doubt—have people, in this bored world, that kill solo in order to see someone make grimace… Eh, well, thereafter, the rest the Sir provide: comes the bread, comes the hand, comes the god, comes the dog. This Aleixo was man afamilied, had children small; they were the love of his, total, absurdity. Gave good, that not even a year there passed, of to killed the oldman poor, and the children of Aleixo there they asickened. Smallepidemic of measles, they said, but complex; they never heal. When, then, they healed. But the eyes of theirs vermillionized high in an inflame of spraining to rebellion; and nexthing— the that not I know is if they went of at once, or one later and later other and other— they remained blind. Blind, sans remission of one sweet of light of this Ours! The Sir imagine: stairset— three boys and one girl— all blind. Sans remediable. The Aleixo not lost the judgment, but he changed; ah, mutated complete— now lives of band of Deus, sweating to be good and charitous in all his hours of night and of day. Appears even that he fixed the felicity, that before not was. He himself says he was a man of luck, because Deus wanted to have pity of him, to transform for there the route of his soul. That I heard, and me it gave rage. Reason of the children. If being castigated, what culpa of the let-there-bes of Aleixo those little children had?! Compadre mine Quelemem reproved my uncertainties. That, for certain, inother life returnaound, the children too had been the most wicked, of the mass and part of the father, demons of the same kettle of place. Sir the what thinks? And the oldman, assassinated? — I know the Sir goes to discuss. Well, too. In order that he had a sin of crime, in the body, by to pay. If the people— conforming compadre mine Quelemem is who says— if the people turn to to incarnate renovated, I contemplate even that enemy of death can come as son of the enemy. Look see: if to myself I say, has a subject Pedro Pindo, neighbor of here more six leagues, man of good for all in all, he and the woman of his, always been good, of goodness. They have a son of some ten years called Valtei—name modern, is the that the population of here now appreciates, the Sir knows. Well this-little-thing, thislet, since that some understanding illuminated in him, deed demonstrated the that is: petition stepfather, acid burner, likeful of ruin of inside of the profundity of the species of its nature. In which that torments, to the slowly, of all beasts or raisinglings little that quarrel; one time he found a creole woman hooched foolish sleeping, he arranged a shard of bottle, lashed at three points on the stern of the legs of hers. The what this boy drooled seeing, is bleeding hen or to knife pig.— “I enjoy of to kill…”— one occasion he teeny me told. He opened in me a fright; because: birdy that self leans over— the flight yea is ready! Well the Sir oversee: the pa, Pedro Pindo, mode of to correct this, and the ma, they give in him, misery and mast—they cast the boy sans to eat, they tied to trees in the yard, he nude, unplumed, even in June cold, they tilled the bittybody of his with the trammel and with the goblet, after they cleansed the skin of the sanguine, with bottle gourd brine. The people know, spy, fix wasted. The boy yea relowered of thinness, the eyes entering, caress of bones, enskulled, and tuberculated, the time total hacking, coughness of the that draw parched pectorals. Arr, that now, visible, the Pindo and the woman self habituated of on him hit, of little bit in little they were creating in this a pleasure ugly of diversion— as they regulate the canings in hours certain comfortable, until they call people to see the example good. I think that boy not endure, yea there is in the ta-da, not arrive for the lent to come… Ooee-ooee, then?! Not being as compadre mine Quelemem to want, that explication is that the Sir bestowed? That boy had to be a man. He should, in swing, terrible perversities. Soul of his was in the pitch. Demonstrated. And, now, paid. Ah, but, happens, when he’s crying and paining, he suffers equal that as was as a boy good… Bird, I saw all, in this world! Yea I saw even horse with hiccups… —the that the thing most costous that is. Good, but the Sir may say, should of: and in the start— for offenses and arts, the people— as for that was that s’much amended was started? Ey, ey, ey all collided. Compadre mine Quelemem, too. Am solo a sertanite, in these high ideas I navigate mal. Am much poor poor-thing. Envy my pedigree and of ones conform the Sir, with total reading and doctoration. Not is that I be illiterate. I spelt, years and middle, midly speller, memory and palmer. I had master, Master Lucas, in the Curralinho, he memorized grammar, the operations, rule-of-three, even geography and study patria. On leaves great of paper, with caprice I traced handsome maps. Ah, not is for to speak: but, since of the start, me they thought sophisticated of side. And that I merited of to go to course latin, in Lesson Waterlily—that too they said. Time nostalgic! Going today, I appreciate a good book, despaced. On the farm The Lilittlelemon, of one mine friend Vito Soziano, so sign of this almanac thick, of logoglyphs and conundrums and other divided matters, all year come. In s’much, I place primacy is in the reading advantageous, life of saints, virtues and examples— missionary astute engambling the Indians, or Saint Francis of Assis, Saint Anthony, Saint Gerald… I like much of moral. To ratiocinate, exhort the others for the good way, to acounsel to just. Mine woman, that the Sir knows, vigils for me: much prayer. She is a blessable. Compadre mine Quelemem always says that I may to aquiet my fears on conscience, that being well-attended, terrible good-esprits me protect. Eep! With like… As is of saint effect, I help with mine to want to accredit. But not even always can I. The Sir knew: I total the mine life I thought for me, lining, I am born different. I am and I same. I divert of total the world… I almost that nothing not I know. But I disconfide of many things. The Sir, conceding, I say: in order to think long, I am dog master— the Sir loose in mine front an idea ease and I research that by profundity of total the backwoods, amen! Look: the should of to have, was of so reunited-selves the wise, politicos, constitutions graded, closed the definitive the notion— to proclaim for one time, art assemblies, that not have devil notone, not exists, not possible. Valor of law! Solo assuch, they gave tranquility good to the people. Because the government not cares?! Ah, I know that not is possible. Not me settled the Sir for philistine. One this is to place ideas arranged, other is to deal with country of people, of flesh and sanguine, of thousand-and-many miseries… S’many people—gives scare of to know—and notone so calms: All nascenting, crescendoing, so wedding, wanting collocation of employment, consumables, health, abundance, to be important, wanting rain and affairs good… Of luck that lacks of so to choose: or we t’weave of to live in the salacious common, or care solo of religion solo. I could to be: father clergyman, if not chief of jagunços; for other things not was I birthed. But mine oldness yea principaled I erred of total account. And the rheumatism… There as whom says: in the primers. Ahem. Hey? Hey? The that more I think, I testify and explain: all-the-world is mad. The Sir, I, we, the people all. For this is that so lacks principally of religion: in order to desendodorize, to disdodoate. Pray is that heals of lunacy. In the general. This is that is the salvation-of-the-soul…Much religion your servant! I here, not I lose occasion of religion. I profit of all. I drink water of all rivers… One solo, for me is little, maybe not me arrives. I pray christian, catholic, I burrow the certain; and I accept the prayers of compadre mine Quelemem, doctrine of he, of Kardec. But, when I can, I go in the Mindubim, where one Matias is believer, methodist: the people so accuse of sinner, reads high the bible, and why, singing hymns beautiful of his. Total me quiets, me suspends. Whatever small shade me refreshes. But is solo much provisory. I wanted to pray— the time total. Many people not me approve, they think that law of Deus is privileges, invariable. And I! Doof! I Detest! The what I am? — the what I do, that want, much curia. And in face of total I face, executed. I? —not I trammel. Look: I have a black girl, Maria Leoncia, long from here not she lives, the prayers of her afame much virtue of power. Well to her I pay, every month— ordering of to pray for me one third, every saint day, and, on the Sundays, a rosary. Value, so values. Mine woman not sees mal in this. And I am, yea mandated word for an other, of the voyage-voyage, a Izina Calanga, in order to come here, I heard of that prayer too with grand mermermerits, I go to effect with she treatment equal. I want handful of those, me defending in Deus, reunited of me in volta… Cuts of Christ! To live is much perilous… To want the good with too much force, of incertain way, can yea to be being so wanting the mal, per to initiate. These humans! All they pull the world for itself, for the to concert amended. But capita one solo sees and understands the things of one his world. Amountain, the most supro, most serious was Mediero Vaz. That one man ancient… his Joaozy Ben-Ben, the most brave of all, no-one never can decipher how he by inside consisted. Joca Ramiro— grand man prince!— was politico. Zé Bebelo wanted to be politico, but had and not had luck: fox that lingered. So Candelario so demonized, by to think that was with illness mal. Titao Passos was the by the appreciation of friends: solo per via of them, of his same amities, were that such high so ajagunçoed. Antonio Do— severe bandit. But by half, grand majority half that be. Andalecio, in the profound, a good man-of-good, being raving in his total justice. Ricardao, same, wanted was to be rich in peace: for this he warred. Solo the Hermogenes was that born formed tiger, and assassinite. And the “Ofidios White”? Ah, not me speak. Ah this… joyless mischeivious, that was— that was a poor boy of the destiny… So good, congruous. The Sir heard, I you told: the ruin with the ruin, they terminate by the spine-bushes so to crack— Deus awaits that spendance. Boy!: Deus is patience. The contrary, is the devil. So consumes. The Sir file knife on knife— and file— that so they scrape. Even the rocks of the profound, one of in the other, they go-so aroundabounding even, that the rivulet rolls. Per enquantity, that I think, total as hath, in this world, is because so merits and lacks. Afterly precise. Deus not so reports with rifle, not garrotes the regulation. For what? Quit: goof with goof—one day, some illumination and learn: smart. Solo that, at times, for most auxiliar, Deus begets, in the middle, a pinch of pepper… Therebe? Well, for example: some time, I went of train, there in Seven-Lagoons, for parts of to consult a medical, of name me indicated. He went vested well, and in car of first, by via of the doubts, not me they shadowed for jagunço ancient. It goes and happens, that, close same of me, enfront, he took aseat, returning from the wild North, a mac Jazevedao, delegate professionale. Came with a capanga of his, an undercover, and I well knew the two, of that s’much a was ruin, as the other ruin was. The veracity to say, first I had the strict of me to surpasss for one lonng, to mutate of my place. Judgement me told, meliorate stay. Well, looking, I looked. And— you I tell: never I saw face of man furnished of brutez or malady more, of the them in that. As that was ogre, trussed of thickset, relustered of crude in the eyes small, and armed a chin of stone, toweringbrow; not of mid nor forehead. Not laughed, not so laughed not even one time; but, speaking or silent, the people appeared always to him some teeth, prey pointed of canids. Arr, and blustered, an ittybit. Solo growled curt, low, the mid-words grizzled. He came relooking, historicizing the documents— one by one the leaves with portraits and with the blacks of the digits of jagunços, lifters of horses and criminouses of death. That application of work, in one thing of those, generated the ire in the people. The undercover, busybodyguard, total close, seated joined, attending, excelling of to be dog. Me made a dread, but solo in the goof of the corpus, not in the intern of the courages. One hour, one of those reports fell— and I bent quickly, I knew there precisely by why, not I wanted, not I thought— even today I raise shame of this— I picked the paper of the ground, and delivered to him. Thereof, I say: I had more rage, because I did that; but there yea it was done. The man not even me looked, not even said notone thankfulment. Event he soles of the shoes of his— solo looking— that soles rough thick, bent of enormous, appearing iron bronzed. Because I knew: This Jazevedao, when he apprehended someone, the primary quiet thing that proceeded was that he came entering, sans to have to to say, feigning some hurry, and go stepping on the top of the feet of the poorthings. And that on these occasions he gave laughters, gave… Well, geck! I delivered to him the leaf of paper, and went leaving of there, by to have hand on me of not to destroy by shots that subject. Meat that much they weigh… And umbilicated beginning of belly pot bellied, that me created will… With my lightness, joyful that I’d kill. But, the barbarities that this delegate made and happened, the Sir not even has callus in heart to be able me to hear. He achieved of many men and women to cry blood, for the simple universolo ours here. Sertão. The Sir knows: sertão is where mandates who is strong, with the guile. And bullet is a tidbit of metal… S’much, I say: Jazevedao— one assuch, should of to have, needed? Ah, need. Leather ruined is that calls goad of point. That there be that, after— business particular of he— in the life or in the other, each Jazevedao, accomplished the that he has, desclimbs in his time of pain, too, until to pay the that he gave— compadre mine Quelemem is there, in order to fiscalize. The Sir knows: the peril that is to live… But solo of the mode, of these, by ugly instrument, was that the jagunsaga so finished. Sir thinks that Antonio Do or Olivino Oliviano were going to fix goodies by pure spelling of itself, or by begging of the infelicitous, or by always to hear sermon of father? You I think! In the aims… Of jagunço comported active in order so to repent in the middle of his jagunsagas, solo I lay of one: called Joe Cazuzo— was in smashing of one shotshow, for on the summit of the place Sierra New, district of river rusted, on the stream Traçadal. We made mal minority small, and they closed in order summit of us the personnel of one Coronel Adalvino, forted politico, with many soldiers uniformed in the center, commanding of the Lieutenant Epiphany Helm, that after fixed captain. We lasted hour more hour, and yea gave almost of encircled. There, of misslip, that Joe Cazuzo— man much valiant— so kneeled turned on the ground of the thick, lifted the arms that not even shoots of Jatoba dry, and solo yell, howl clear and howl deaf:— “I saw the Virgin Ours, in the resplendor of the Heavens, with her children of angels!... ” He screamed not touched. — “I saw the Virgin!... ” He ensouled? We desequaled. Bolt for my horse—that I thought— I leaped in mal seat, noteven I knew in which rupture-time I unfastened the halter, of tied up it foot of timber. I flew, arrived. Bullet come. The pasture roared. In the brush, the fear of the people so goes to the whole, one fear intentional. I could to lash out, fated burro brute, giv-that, giv-that. Some two or three bullets so drovein the pad of the mine saddle, they perforated of to tear away almost much the kapok of the filling. Horse trembled in pro, in middle of gallop, I know: thinks in the owner. I not fit of to be more well shrunken. Bulleted came to the sack that I had on the back, with few mine things. And other, of fusil, in ricochet decreed, heated my thigh, sans me wound, the Sir see: bullet does the what to want—so pierced impressed, between in me and the harness! Times crazy… Burumbum!: the horse so kneeled in the fall, dead perhaps, and I yea falling for front, embraced in foliage full, branched and linias, that me swayed and skewered, done I was pendulating in web of spider… Whither? I traversed that life total… Of fear of anxiety, I ruptured to read with mine corpus that forest, I know there — and me fell world below, rolled for the hollow of a grotto closed of shrubs, always me grasped— rolled same assuch: after: after, when I saw mine hands, total on they that not was withdrawn sanguine, was smeared green, on the digits, of leaves living that I pulled and mashed… I landed on the sedge of the profound— and a beast dark gave a releap, with a sneeze, too mad of fright: that was a papa-mel, that I descried; in order to flee, this is solely. Bigger being I, me doused mine overcoat; I spigotted total. And of one bit of thought: if that beast irara lying there then there not had cobra. I took the place of his. Existed cobra notone. I could me to lose. I was solo spineless, softness, but that not deadened, inside, the collisions of the heart. I gasped. I conceived that they came, me kill. Not even did mal, me mattered not. Assuch, some moments, at least I guarded the license of term in order me to rest. Conforming I thought in Diadorim. Solo I thought was in he. One joão-congo sang. I wanted to die thinking in my friend Diadorim, hand-o-bro, who was on the Sierra of WoodO’Bow, almost on the border baiana, with our other half of the so-candelarios… With my friend Diadorim me embraced, sentiment my went-flew right for he… Ay, arr, but: that this mine mouth not has order notone. I am accounting outside, things divagated. In the Sir me confide? Til-that, til-that. Say the angel-of-the-guard… But, conforming I came: after so knew, that same the soldiers of the Lieutenant and the goats of Coronel Adalvino remitted of to respect the blast of that Joe Cazuzo. And that this ended being the man most pacificious of the world, fabricator of oil and sacristan, in the Saint Sundays White. Times! For total, cleaned revelation, I fix thinking. I like. Meliorate, for the idea if well to open, is travelling in train-of-iron. Could, lived to top and to bottom, inside of it. Information that I ask: same in the Heavens, end of end, how is that the soul wins so to forget s’much sufferments and maladies, in the received and in the given? The how? The Sir knows: are things of hideous ofmuch, have. Pain of corpus and pain of idea mark forted, that forted as the total love and rage of hate. Goes, sea… Of luck that, then, the Firmiano, by appellationed Louse-of-Snake, so leoprosized with the leg disconformed, thickening, of that disease that not so cures; and not discern almost more, constant the branchials in the eyes, of the cataracts. Of before, years, had to of so disarray of the jagunsaga. Well, one occasion, some was on the ranch of his, on the High Jeuitai, after accounted—that, turns time, comes subject, he would say: “Me give yearning is of to seize a soldier, and such, for one good flay, with knife blind… But, first, to castrate…” The Sir conceive? Who has more dose of demon in self is Indian, any race of brusque. Folk see nation ofthese, for there profound of the generals of Goias, theofwhere has vagarous grand rivers, of aquas always so clear pleasantly, running of down crystal rosed… Louse-of-Snake gave of sanguine of heathen. Sir me will say: but that he pronounced that out of mouth, manner of to represent that yet not was old decadent. Opus of to oppose, for fear of to be tame, and cause in order so to see respected. Total listened for such rule: palavered of ruins, for more so valued, because we to the environs is hard durability. The worst, but, is that they finish, through the same ford, given of one day to execute the declared, in the real. I saw s’much crudity! Pain not pays to account; if I go, I collide. And me dedrip, three that me sicken, this total. Me convokes that the personnel, today in day, is good of heart. This is, good in the trivial. Malices wildwants, and perversities, always have some, but scarcities. Generation mine, true, was not assuch. Ah, goes to turn a time, in which not is used more to kill people… I yea am old. Good, I was saying: question, this that me excavates… Ah, I formed that question, for compadre mine Quelemem. That me responded: that, for close to heaven, we so amplified so, that total the uglies past so exhaled of not to be—fated sans-modus from time of youngster, mal-arts. As we not lack of to have remorse of the which divulged in the pulsation of his nightmares of one night. Assuch that: fleeced-so, flourished-so! Ahem. For this said, is that the journey to the Heavens is delayed. I confide with compadre mine Quelemem, the Sir knows: reason of creed same that has—that, for total the mal, that so does, one day so repays, the exact. Subject assuch rises three times, in ante of to want to facilitate in any minutia reprehensible… Compadre mine Quelemem never speaks vacant, not subtreats. Solo that this to he not I go to expose. We never should have to declare that accept entire the alien—that is what is the rule of the king! The Sir look…see: the most important and beautiful, of the world, is this: that the people are not always same, still were not completed — but that they go always shifting. They tune or detune. Truth major. Is the that the life me taught. This that me animates, mound. And, other thing: the devil and the brutes; but Deus is treacherous! Ah, a beauty of treacherous— gives like! The force of his, when he wants— boy!— me gives the fear dread! Deus comes coming: no one not sees. He does in the law of gentle— assuch is the miracle. And Deus attacks beautiful, so amusing, so economizes. The well: one day in a tannery, the little knife mine I had dropped inside of a tank, solo soup of bark of tan, stryphnodendron adstringens, angico, there I know. —“Tomorrow I try…”— I said, withmyself. Because it was of night, light notone I not disputed. Ah, then, I found: on the other day, early, the knife, the iron of it, had been gnawed, almost by half, by that aqua dark, total quiet. I left, for more to see. Crack, fuse! Know the what was? Well, in that same of afternoon, there: of the little knife solo so found the handle… The handle, for not to be of cold metal, but of horn of deer. There is: Deus… Good, the Sir heard knows, the that knows me understands… We sum, not think that religion fractures. Sir think the contrary. Visible that, those other times, I painted—belief that the neoglaziovia variegata lifts the flower. Ah, good my joy… Boyhood. But boyhood is task for more later so to deny. Too, I of that of to think in vague in s’much, lost mine hand-of-man for the management hot, in the middle of all. But, today, that I ratiocinated, and think the endeavor, not nor for this not I give for low my competence, in a fire-and-iron. The to see. Would approach would come here with war on me, with bad parts, with other laws, or with excessive looks, and I even draw to ignite this zone, ay, if, if! Is in the mouth of the blunderbuss: is in the rete-te-tem… And lonelyonly not I am, there-of-the. For not this, I was I placed encircle my mine people. Look the Sir: here, close, vereda below, the Paspe — cropper my — is mine. More league, if that, have the Herpetotheres, and have the compadre Ciril, him and three children, I know that they serve. Band of that hand, the Alaripe: knew the Sir the that is that so boasts, in rifleation and by the knife, one cearense did this! After more: the João Innatal, the Quipes, Lophiosilurus-of-claws. And the Fafafa— this gave fights high, all side with me, in the combat old of the Anteater-such: we cleaned the wind of whom not had order of to respirate, and ante these we desencompassed… The Fafafa has a mass of mares. He raises horses good. Even a little more distant, on the ped-of-sierra, of band mine was the Sesfred, Jesualdo, the Nelson, and João Concliz. Some others. The Triol… And not I go valuing? I leave terra with them, of theirs the what is mine is, we close that we not even brothers. For what I want to gather richness? They are there, of arms aireated. Enemy to come, we cross called, gathering: is hour of one good shotshowerment in peace, they exp’riment to see. I say this to the Sir, of confidence. Too, not go to think in double. We want is to work, propose tranquility. Of me, person, I live for mine woman, that total mode-meliorate merits, and for the devotion. Well-to want of mine woman was that me assisted, prayers of hers, graces. Love comes of love. I say. In Diadorim, I think too— but Diadorim is the mine nebulina… Now, well: not I wanted to touch on this more— of the Tineaous; arrive. But has a nevertheless: I ask: the Sir believe, think trust of truth in that parlance, of with the demon so to able to deal with pact? No, no is no? I knew that not there. I spoke of favas. But I like of total good confirmation. To vend you proper soul… Inventionate false! And, soul, the what is? Soul of has to be thing internal supremed, much more of the of inside, and is solo, of the that one if thought: ah, soul sheer! Decision of to vend soul is fearless moll, fantasied of moment, has not the obedience legal. Can I to vend those good terras, thereof of between the Veredas-Four— that are of one Mr. Admiral, who resides in the capital federal? Can I some? Then, if one boy boy is, and for this not so authorizes of to negotiate… And we, this I know, at times is solo fated boy. Mal that in mine life I prepared, I was in a certain infancy in dreams — total runs and arrives so swift —; will be that if hath flame of responsibilities? If dream; yea so did… I gave rapadura to the chump! Ahem. Well. If his soul, and has, it is of Deus established, not even that the person want or not want. Not is vendible. The Sir not thinks? Me declare, frank, I beg. Ah, you I appreciate. You so see that the Sir knows much, in idea firm, beyond of to have letter of doctor. You I appreciate, for much. Your company me gives high pleasures. In terms, I liked that I would live here, or close, was a help. Here not so has conviviation that to instruct. Sertão. Knows the Sir: sertão is where the thought of the people so forms more forted of the than power of the place. To live is much perilous… Eh, that you so go? Yeayea? Is that not. Today, no. Tomorrow, no. Not I consense. The Sir me forgive, but in endeavor of mine friendship accept: the Sir stay. After fifth of-morning-early, the Sir wanting to go, then goes, same me leaves feeling your absence. But, today or tomorrow, no. Visit, here in house, with me, is for three days! But, the Sir really intends to trespass the field this sea of territotires, for sortment of to confer the what exists? You have your motives. Now— I say for me — the Sir comes, came late, Times were, the customs mutate. Almost that, of legitimate loyal, little surplus, not even no excess more nothing. The bands good of valientoughs they reparted their end; many who were jagunço, by ouch pain, beg alms. Same as the herdsmen they doubt of to come in the commerce vested of clothes entire of leather, they think that garb of jerkin is ugly and boor. And even the herd in the shrubbed pasture goes waning less mad, more educated: casted of zebu, dissee with the rest of corralers and captiveborns. Always, in the generals is to the poverty, to the sadness. A sadness that even gladdens. But, then, for a crop reasonable of bizzarancies, I recounsel of the Sir to entest journey more dilated. Not were my desmight, by acids and rheumatism, there I went. I guided the Sir till total. March 2013 San Diego, CA ORIGINAL TEXT NONADA. TIROS QUE O SENHOR ouviu foram de briga de homem não, Deus esteja. Alvejei mira em árvores no quintal, no baixo do córrego. Por meu acerto. Todo dia isso faço, gosto; desde mal em minha mocidade. Daí, vieram me chamar. Causa dumbezerro: um bezerro branco, erroso, os olhos de nem ser – se viu –; e com máscara de cachorro. Me disseram; eu não quis avistar. Mesmo que, por defeito como nasceu, arrebitado de beiços, esse figurava rindo feito pessoa. Cara de gente, cara de cão: determinaram – era o demo. Povo prascóvio. Mataram. Dono dele nem sei quem for. Vieram emprestar minhas armas, cedi. Não tenho abusões. O senhor ri certas risadas... Olhe: quando é tiro de verdade, primeiro a cachorrada pega a latir, instantaneamente – depois, então, se vai ver se deu mortos. O senhor tolere, isto é o sertão. Uns querem que não seja: que situado sertão é por os campos-gerais a fora a dentro, eles dizem, fim de rumo, terras altas, demais do Urucuia. Toleima. Para os de Corinto e do Curvelo, então, o aqui não é dito sertão? Ah, que tem maior! Lugar sertão se divulga: é onde os pastos carecem de fechos; onde um pode torar dez, quinze léguas, sem topar com casa de morador; e onde criminoso vive seu cristo-jesus, arredado do arrocho de autoridade. O Urucuia vem dos montões oestes. Mas, hoje, que na beira dele, tudo dá – fazendões de fazendas, almargem de vargens de bom render, as vazantes; culturas que vão de mata em mata, madeiras de grossura, até ainda virgens dessas lá há. O gerais corre em volta. Esses gerais são sem tamanho. Enfim, cada um o que quer aprova, o senhor sabe: pão ou pães, é questão de opiniães... O sertão está em toda a parte. Do demo? Não gloso. Senhor pergunte aos moradores. Em falso receio, desfalam no nome dele – dizem só: o Que-Diga. Vote! não... Quem muito se evita, se convive. Sentença num Aristides – o que existe no buritizal primeiro desta minha mão direita, chamado a Vereda-da-Vaca-Mansa-deSanta-Rita – todo o mundo crê: ele não pode passar em três lugares, designados: porque então a gente escuta um chorinho, atrás, e uma vozinha que avisando: – “Eu já vou! Eu já vou!...” – que é o capiroto, o que-diga... E um José Simpilício – quem qualquer daqui jura ele tem um capeta em casa, miúdo satanazim, preso obrigado a ajudar em toda ganância que executa; razão que o Simpilício se empresa em vias de completar de rico. Apre, por isso dizem também que a besta pra ele rupeia, nega de banda, não deixando, quando ele quer amontar... Superstição. José Simpilício e Aristides, mesmo estão se engordando, de assim nãoouvir ou ouvir. Ainda o senhor estude: agora mesmo, nestes dias de época, tem gente porfalando que o Diabo próprio parou, de passagem, no Andrequicé. Um Moço de fora, teria aparecido, e lá se louvou que, para aqui vir – normal, a cavalo, dum dia-e-meio – ele era capaz que só com uns vinte minutos bastava... porque costeava o Rio do Chico pelas cabeceiras! Ou, também, quem sabe – sem ofensas – não terá sido, por um exemplo, até mesmo o senhor quem se anunciou assim, quando passou por lá, por prazido divertimento engraçado? Há-de, não me dê crime, sei que não foi. E mal eu não quis. Só que uma pergunta, em hora, às vezes, clareia razão de paz. Mas, o senhor entenda: o tal moço, se há, quis mangar. Pois, hem, que, despontar o Rio pelas nascentes, será a mesma coisa que um se redobrar nos internos deste nosso Estado nosso, custante viagem de uns três meses... Então? Que-Diga? Doideira. A fantasiação. E, o respeito de dar a ele assim esses nomes de rebuço, é que é mesmo um querer invocar que ele forme forma, com as presenças! Não seja. Eu, pessoalmente, quase que já perdi nele a crença, mercês a Deus; é o que ao senhor lhe digo, à puridade. Sei que é bem estabelecido, que grassa nos Santos- Evangelhos. Em ocasião, conversei com um rapaz seminarista, muito condizente, conferindo no livro de rezas e revestido de paramenta, com uma vara de maria-preta na mão – proseou que ia adjutorar o padre, para extraírem o Cujo, do corpo vivo de uma velha, na Cachoeira-dos-Bois, ele ia com o vigário do Campo-Redondo... Me concebo. O senhor não é como eu? Não acreditei patavim. Compadre meu Quelemém descreve que o que revela efeito são os baixos espíritos descarnados, de terceira, fuzuando nas piores trevas e com ânsias de se travarem com os viventes – dão encosto. Compadre meu Quelemém é quem muito me consola – Quelemém de Góis. Mas ele tem de morar longe daqui, na Jijujã, Vereda do Buriti Pardo... Arres, me deixe lá, que – em endemoninhamento ou com encosto – o senhor mesmo deverá de ter conhecido diversos, homens, mulheres. Pois não sim? Por mim, tantos vi, que aprendi. Rincha- Mãe, Sangued’Outro, o Muitos-Beiços, o Rasgaem-Baixo, Faca-Fria, o Fancho-Bode, um Treciziano, o Azinhavre... o Hermógenes... Deles, punhadão. Se eu pudesse esquecer tantos nomes... Não sou amansador de cavalos! E, mesmo, quem de si de ser jagunço se entrete, já é por alguma competência entrante do demônio. Será não? Será? De primeiro, eu fazia e mexia, e pensar não pensava. Não possuía os prazos. Vivi puxando difícil de dificel, peixe vivo no moquém: quem mói no asp’ro, não fantaseia. Mas, agora, feita a folga que me vem, e sem pequenos dessossegos, estou de range rede. E me inventei neste gosto, de especular idéia. O diabo existe e não existe? Dou o dito. Abrenúncio. Essas melancolias. O senhor vê: existe cachoeira; e pois? Mas cachoeira é barranco de chão, e água se caindo por ele, retombando; o senhor consome essa água, ou desfaz o barranco, sobra cachoeira alguma? Viver é negócio muito perigoso... Explico ao senhor: o diabo vige dentro do homem, os crespos do homem – ou é o homem arruinado, ou o homem dos avessos. Solto, por si, cidadão, é que não tem diabo nenhum. Nenhum! – é o que digo. O senhor aprova? Me declare tudo, franco – é alta mercê que me faz: e pedir posso, encarecido. Este caso – por estúrdio que me vejam – é de minha certa importância. Tomara não fosse... Mas, não diga que o senhor, assisado e instruído, que acredita na pessoa dele?! Não? Lhe agradeço! Sua alta opinião compõe minha valia. Já sabia, esperava por ela-já o campo! Ah, a gente, na velhice, carece de ter sua aragem de descanso. Lhe agradeço. Tem diabo nenhum. Nem espírito. Nunca vi. Alguém devia de ver, então era eu mesmo, este vosso servidor. Fosse lhe contar... Bem, o diabo regula seu estado preto, nas criaturas, nas mulheres, nos homens. Até: nas crianças – eu digo. Pois não é ditado: “menino – trem do diabo”? E nos usos, nas plantas, nas águas, na terra, no vento... Estrumes. ... O diabo na rua, no meio do redemunho... Hem? Hem? Ah. Figuração minha, de pior pra trás, as certas lembranças. Mal hajame! Sofro pena de contar não... Melhor, se arrepare: pois, num chão, e com igual formato de ramos e folhas, não dá a mandioca mansa, que se come comum, e a mandioca-brava, que mata? Agora, o senhor já viu uma estranhez? A mandioca-doce pode de repente virar azangada – motivos não sei; às vezes se diz que é por replantada no terreno sempre, com mudas seguidas, de manaíbas – vai em amargando, de tanto em tanto, de si mesma toma peçonhas. E, ora veja: a outra, a mandiocabrava, também é que às vezes pode ficar mansa, a esmo, de se comer sem nenhum mal. E que isso é? Eh, o senhor já viu, por ver, a feiúra de ódio franzido, carantonho, nas faces duma cobra cascavel? Observou o porco gordo, cada dia mais feliz bruto, capaz de, pudesse, roncar e engolir por sua suja comodidade o mundo todo? E gavião, corvo, alguns, as feições deles já representam a precisão de talhar para adiante, rasgar e estraçalhar a bico, parece uma quicé muito afiada por ruim desejo. Tudo. Tem até tortas raças de pedras, horrorosas, venenosas – que estragam mortal a água, se estão jazendo em fundo de poço; o diabo dentro delas dorme: são o demo. Se sabe? E o demo – que é só assim o significado dum azougue maligno – tem ordem de seguir o caminho dele, tem licença para campear?! Arre, ele está misturado em tudo. Que o que gasta, vai gastando o diabo de dentro da gente, aos pouquinhos, é o razoável sofrer. E a alegria de amor – compadre meu Quelemém, diz. Família. Deveras? É, e não é. O senhor ache e não ache. Tudo é e não é... Quase todo mais grave criminoso feroz, sempre é muito bom marido, bom filho, bom pai, e é bom amigo-de-seus-amigos! Sei desses. Só que tem os depois – e Deus, junto. Vi muitas nuvens. Mas, em verdade, filho, também, abranda. Olhe: um chamado Aleixo, residente a légua do Passo do Pubo, no da-Areia, era o homem de maiores ruindades calmas que já se viu. Me agradou que perto da casa dele tinha um açudinho, entre as palmeiras, com traíras, pra-almas de enormes, desenormes, ao real, que receberam fama; o Aleixo dava de comer a elas, em horas justas, elas se acostumaram a se assim das locas, para papar, semelhavam ser peixes ensinados. Um dia, só por graça rústica, ele matou um velhinho que por lá passou, desvalido rogando esmola. O senhor não duvide – tem gente, neste aborrecido mundo, que matam só para ver alguém fazer careta... Eh, pois, empós, o resto o senhor prove: vem o pão, vem a mão, vem o são, vem o cão. Esse Aleixo era homem afamilhado, tinha filhos pequenos; aqueles eram o amor dele, todo, despropósito. Dê bem, que não nem um ano estava passado, de se matar o velhinho pobre, e os meninos do Aleixo aí adoeceram. Andaço de sarampão, se disse, mas complicado; eles nunca saravam. Quando, então, sararam. Mas os olhos deles vermelhavam altos, numa inflama de sapiranga à rebelde; e susseguinte – o que não sei é se foram todos duma vez, ou um logo e logo outro e outro – eles restaram cegos. Cegos, sem remissão dum favinho de luz dessa nossa! O senhor imagine: uma escadinha – três meninos e uma menina – todos cegados. Sem remediável. O Aleixo não perdeu o juizo; mas mudou: ah, demudou completo – agora vive da banda de Deus, suando para ser bom e caridoso em todas suas horas da noite e do dia. Parece até que ficou o feliz, que antes não era. Ele mesmo diz que foi um homem de sorte, porque Deus quis ter pena dele, transformar para lá o rumo de sua alma. Isso eu ouvi, e me deu raiva. Razão das crianças. Se sendo castigo, que culpa das hajas do Aleixo aqueles meninozinhos tinham?! Compadre meu Quelemém reprovou minhas incertezas. Que, por certo, noutra vida revirada, os meninos também tinham sido os mais malvados, da massa e peça do pai, demônios do mesmo caldeirão de lugar. Senhor o que acha? E o velhinho assassinado? – eu sei que o senhor vai discutir. Pois, também. Em ordem que ele tinha um pecado de crime, no corpo, por pagar. Se a gente – conforme compadre meu Quelemém é quem diz – se a gente torna a encarnar renovado, eu cismo até que inimigo de morte pode vir como filho do inimigo. Mire veja: se me digo, tem um sujeito Pedro Pindó, vizinho daqui mais seis léguas, homem de bem por tudo em tudo, ele e a mulher dele, sempre sidos bons, de bem. Eles têm um filho duns dez anos, chamado Valtei – nome moderno, é o que o povo daqui agora apreceia, o senhor sabe. Pois essezinho, essezim, desde que algum entendimento alumiou nele, feito mostrou o que é: pedido madrasto, azedo queimador, gostoso de ruim de dentro do fundo das espécies de sua natureza. Em qual que judia, ao devagar, de todo bicho ou criaçãozinha pequena que pega; uma vez, encontrou uma crioula bentabêbada dormindo, arranjou um caco de garrafa, lanhou em três pontos a popa da perna dela. O que esse menino babeja vendo, é sangrarem galinha ou esfaquear porco. – “Eu gosto de matar...” – uma ocasião ele pequenino me disse. Abriu em mim um susto; porque: passarinho que se debruça – o vôo já está pronto! Pois, o senhor vigie: o pai, Pedro Pindó, modo de corrigir isso, e a mãe, dão nele, de miséria e mastro – botam o menino sem comer, amarram em árvores no terreiro, ele nu nuelo, mesmo em junho frio, lavram o corpinho dele na peia e na taca, depois limpam a pele do sangue, com cuia de salmoura. A gente sabe, espia, fica gasturado. O menino já rebaixou de magreza, os olhos entrando, carinha de ossos, encaveirada, e entisicou, o tempo todo tosse, tossura da que puxa secos peitos. Arre, que agora, visível, o Pindó e a mulher se habituaram de nele bater, de pouquinho em pouquim foram criando nisso um prazer feio de diversão – como regulam as sovas em horas certas confortáveis, até chamam gente para ver o exemplo bom. Acho que esse menino não dura, já está no blimbilim, não chega para a quaresma que vem... Uê-uê, então?!Não sendo como compadre meu Quelemém quer, que explicação é que o senhor dava? Aquele menino tinha sido homem. Devia, em balanço, terríveis perversidades. Alma dele estava no breu. Mostrava. E, agora, pagava. Ah, mas, acontece, quando está chorando e penando, ele sofre igual que se fosse um menino bonzinho... Ave, vi de tudo, neste mundo! lá vi até cavalo com soluço... – o que é a coisa mais custosa que há. Bem, mas o senhor dirá, deve de: e no começo – para pecados e artes, as pessoas – como por que foi que tanto emendado se começou? Ei, ei, aí todos esbarram. Compadre meu Quelemém, também. Sou só um sertanejo, nessas altas idéias navego mal. Sou muito pobre coitado. Inveja minha pura é de uns conforme o senhor, com toda leitura e suma doutoração. Não é que eu esteja analfabeto. Soletrei, anos e meio, meante cartilha, memória e palmatória. Tive mestre, Mestre Lucas, no Curralinho, decorei gramática, as operações, regra-de-três, até geografia e estudo pátrio. Em folhas grandes de papel, com capricho tracei bonitos mapas. Ah, não é por falar: mas, desde o começo, me achavam sofismado de ladino. E que eu merecia de ir para cursar latim, em Aula Régia – que também diziam. Tempo saudoso! Inda hoje, apreceio um bom livro, despaçado. Na fazenda O Limãozinho, de um meu amigo Vito Soziano, se assina desse almanaque grosso, de logogrifos e charadas e outras divididas matérias, todo ano vem. Em tanto, ponho primazia é na leitura proveitosa, vida de santo, virtudes e exemplos – missionário esperto engambelando os índios, ou São Francisco de Assis, Santo Antônio, São Geraldo... Eu gosto muito de moral. Raciocinar, exortar os outros para o bom caminho, aconselhar a justo. Minha mulher, que o senhor sabe, zela por mim: muito reza. Ela é uma abençoável. Compadre meu Quelemém sempre diz que eu posso aquietar meu temer de consciência, que sendo bem-assistido, terríveis bons-espíritos me protegem. Ipe! Com gosto... Como é de são efeito, ajudo com meu querer acreditar. Mas nem sempre posso. O senhor saiba: eu toda a minha vida pensei por mim, forro, sou nascido diferente. Eu sou é eu mesmo. Diverjo de todo o mundo... Eu quase que nada não sei. Mas desconfio de muita coisa. O senhor concedendo, eu digo: para pensar longe, sou cão mestre – o senhor solte em minha frente uma idéia ligeira, e eu rastreio essa por fundo de todos os matos, amém! Olhe: o que devia de haver, era de se reunirem-se os sábios, políticos, constituições gradas, fecharem o definitivo a noção – proclamar por uma vez, artes assembléias, que não tem diabo nenhum, não existe, não pode. Valor de lei! Só assim, davam tranqüilidade boa à gente. Por que o Governo não cuida?! Ah, eu sei que não é possível. Não me assente o senhor por beócio. Uma coisa é pôr idéias arranjadas, outra é lidar com país de pessoas, de carne e sangue, de mil-e-tantas misérias... Tanta gente – dá susto de saber – e nenhum se sossega: todos nascendo, crescendo, se casando, querendo colocação de emprego, comida, saúde, riqueza, ser importante, querendo chuva e negócios bons... De sorte que carece de se escolher: ou a gente se tece de viver no safado comum, ou cuida só de religião só. Eu podia ser: padre sacerdote, se não chefe de jagunços; para outras coisas não fui parido. Mas minha velhice já principiou, errei de toda conta. E o reumatismo... Lá como quem diz: nas escorvas. Ahã. Hem? Hem? O que mais penso, testo e explico: todo-omundo é louco. O senhor, eu, nós, as pessoas todas. Por isso é que se carece principalmente de religião: para se desendoidecer, desdoidar. Reza é que sara da loucura. No geral. Isso é que é a salvaçãoda- alma... Muita religião, seu moço! Eu cá, não perco ocasião de religião. Aproveito de todas. Bebo água de todo rio... Uma só, para mim é pouca, talvez não me chegue. Rezo cristão, católico, embrenho a certo; e aceito as preces de compadre meu Quelemém, doutrina dele, de Cardéque. Mas, quando posso, vou no Mindubim, onde um Matias é crente, metodista: a gente se acusa de pecador, lê alto a Bíblia, e ora, cantando hinos belos deles. Tudo me quieta, me suspende. Qualquer sombrinha me refresca. Mas é só muito provisório. Eu queria rezar – o tempo todo. Muita gente não me aprova, acham que lei de Deus é privilégios, invariável. E eu! Bofe! Detesto! O que sou? – o que faço, que quero, muito curial. E em cara de todos faço, executado. Eu não tresmalho! Olhe: tem uma preta, Maria Leôncia, longe daqui não mora, as rezas dela afamam muita virtude de poder. Pois a ela pago, todo mês – encomenda de rezar por mim um terço, todo santo dia, e, nos domingos, um rosário. Vale, se vale. Minha mulher não vê mal nisso. E estou, já mandei recado para uma outra, do Vau-Vau, uma Izina Calanga, para vir aqui, ouvi de que reza também com grandes meremerências, vou efetuar com ela trato igual. Quero punhado dessas, me defendendo em Deus, reunidas de mim em volta... Chagas de Cristo! Viver é muito perigoso... Querer o bem com demais força, de incerto jeito, pode já estar sendo se querendo o mal, por principiar. Esses homens! Todos puxavam o mundo para si, para o concertar consertado. Mas cada um só vê e entende as coisas dum seu modo. Montante, o mais supro, mais sério – foi Medeiro Vaz. Que um homem antigo... Seu Joãozinho Bem-Bem, o mais bravo de todos, ninguém nunca pôde decifrar como ele por dentro consistia. Joca Ramiro – grande homem príncipe! – era político. Zé- Bebelo quis ser político. (shrink)

The recent piece ‘When Does Catholic Social Teaching Imply a Duty to be Vaccinated for the Common Good?’ by Stephen M.A. Bow (29 [4], 304–321) provides 12 criteria for the duty to vaccinate in acco...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In MemoriamForest HansenKingsley Blake Price, Professor of Philosophy at The Johns Hopkins University for more than three decades, died in Baltimore on October 27, 2009, at the age of 92. He had long served as an editorial consultant for PMER and participated in numerous PME international symposia. His personal and academic life drew admiration from his colleagues, students, and friends (overlapping classes).Kingsley was born in Salem, Indiana, where his (...) father was a Baptist minister. The family moved from there to California, and Kingsley grew up in Berkeley. He earned his B.A. with highest honors from University of California, Berkeley (1938) and went on there for his M.A. (1942) and Ph.D. (1946). His dissertation was on Locke’s theory of knowledge. Kingsley taught first at the University of Washington, then at the University of Nevada and Sarah Lawrence College (where he became a good friend of Susanne Langer) before becoming an assistant professor of philosophy and education at Hopkins in 1953. He retired from Hopkins in 1986. In the meantime he published books and articles, presented invited papers, and traveled extensively, especially to England, France, Italy, and Greece. In 1973–74 he was president of the Philosophy of Education Society.What is especially remarkable about this is that Kingsley became blind at the age of four, as a result of undiagnosed scarlet fever. For the rest of his life he was dependent upon others to read to him (he was never keen on taped readings, and was a consultant to the Library of Congress concerning recordings for the blind). He also needed others to help him with daily practical tasks. Yet he remained fiercely independent and lived alone until his death. He did not use a seeing-eye dog and only rarely a white cane.Besides his two books, Education and Philosophical Thought (1962) and On [End Page 194] Criticizing Music (1982), Kingsley published numerous articles and reviews in the Journal of Philosophy, the Review of Metaphysics, the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Educational Theory, the British Journal of Aesthetics, the Philosophy of Music Education Review, and others. His publications were mostly on topics of art (especially music) and education. He had long been working on a manuscript of reflections upon the alleged emotional qualities of music. Kingsley criticized other theories as having inconsistent of otherwise insupportable claims. Some of his former students hope to bring this work to fruition as a book.Kingsley took piano lessons as a youngster and, typically, excelled. As a teenager he placed second in a Major Bowes Amateur Hour radio competition and considered a career as a concert pianist. When one former student asked why he had not pursued that, Kingsley replied that philosophy was more in need of an excellent philosopher than music was of an only good pianist.A February memorial for Kingsley was postponed because of a blizzard in the Baltimore area. On April 25, 2010, former graduate students, readers, colleagues, and friends—some from as far away as California, Wyoming, Hawaii, and Florida—gathered in Baltimore to honor Kingsley and share their remembrances. Besides their expressions of admiration for his philosophical acumen and his rigorous teaching, people noted Kingsley’s high moral principles, his wide range of interests in the humanities, his commitment to efforts promoting world peace, and his connoisseurship in gardening and antique furniture. Many graduate students rode with him on his tandem bicycle, and later invited him to give papers at their colleges. He was a meticulous dresser and was proud of his bow ties, his four-in-hands, and his beret. Besides such personal testimonies by those present, letters by family members, friends abroad, former graduate students, and other friends were read. Photographs were on display, and recordings of some of Kingsley’s favorites by Bach, Schubert, and Vaughan Williams were played.Above all, Kingsley was that rare professor who maintained friendship with many of his students. He is survived by an older brother, two sisters, and numerous nephews, nieces, and their offspring. And by his many friends for whom his life has made a lasting impact. [End Page 195]Forest HansenEaston, Maryland Professor Emeritus, Lake Forest College forestval2... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Pierre Jurieu's Contribution to Bayle's Dktionnaire KARL C. SANDBERG PIERRE BAYLE'S VIEWSon faith and reason1as they appear throughout his Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697) may be reduced to two basic points. First, the doctrines of Christian theology are vulnerable to a great number of rational objections which would seem to destroy them. Second, reason itself is not a reliable guide in areas of speculative knowledge and should be made (...) to bow to the authority of revelation. This position in its essence is neither irreligious nor antireligious. On the contrary, it is closely related to the general stream of seventeenth-century fideism,~ and is only the logical extension of views which Bayle had expressed as a Protestant controversialist in his early writings2 Moreover, recent studies of Bayle in his milieu have presented compelling evidence that Bayle himself lived, wrote, and died as some kind of believing member of the Reformed Church. 4 It is not less certain, however, that Bayle's Dictionnaire was one of the most powerful antireligious influences of the Enlightenment, s for the eighteenth-century rationalists found in it such a tone of polemics coupled with such an abundant display of the rational insufficiencies of Christianity, that they could not take Bayle's ostensible fideism seriously. This paradox leads one to wonder why Bayle as a believer should so insist upon the disparity he found between faith and reason if he did not intend to lead an attack upon religion in general. What would account for the presence of the penetrating rational critique of Christian doctrines except a desire to discredit them? A partial answer might be suggested by Bayle's method of exposition and disputa1By faith is meant the belief in the speculative doctrines of Calvinist Protestantism, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Providence, and in the authority of revelation. By reason is meant essentially the Cartesian method, whose criterium of truth is incontrovertible evidence. See Richard Popkin, "Pierre Bayle's Place in 17th-century Scepticism," in Pierre Bayle, le philosophe de Rotterdam, ed. Paul Dibon (Amsterdam: 1959). 8During his participation in the Protestant-Catholic controversies of 1682-1687, Bayle became keenly aware that no Christian dogma was susceptible of rational proof. See his Commentaire Philosophique (1686)in his Oeuvres diverses (The Hague: 1737), II, 438. He had, however, previouslybeen convinced of the frailty of reason as a guide in speculative areas (but not in practical matters of morality). See his NouveUes de la Republique des Lettres, September, 1684, in Oeuvres diverses, I, 132-133. These works will hereafter be abbreviated CP, OD, and NRL, respectively. Other abbreviations to be used are DHC, Dictionnaire historique el critique; LFam, Lettres de M. Bayle ~ sa famille; SCP, Supplement du Commentaire philosophique (1687); PDC, Pens~es diverses sur la eomOte (1682); CC, La Cabale ehimdrique (1691). All of these works except the Dictionnaire are found in the Oeuvres diverses. The fourth edition of the Dictionnaire (1730) is the one cited here. 4See Paul Dibon, ed., Pierre Bayle, le philosophe de Rotterdam (Amsterdam: 1959), and Elizabeth Labrousse, Pierre Bayle, Vol. I, "Du Pays de Foix i~la cit~ d'Erasme" (La Haye: 1963). 6Paul Hazard, La Pens~e europ$enne au XVIII~me si~cle de Montesquieu (~ Lessing (Paris [1946], I, 44. [59] 60 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY tion, for in examining any question he felt intellectually obligated to set forth the strong and weak points of both sides. One can never boast of having proved a point, he said, without having stated and answered the strongest objections of one's opponent. ~ What subsequent readers found heterodox was possibly only Bayle's statement of his opponent's position. This answer is insufficient, however, because as Bayle had previously become aware of irreconcilable differences between faith and reason in the course of his early thought and writings, he had been extremely reluctant to voice the implications of his disquieting discoveries (1682-1687).7 Ten years later in the Dictionnaire, on the other hand, he seemed to go out of his way to state them with all possible clarity and vigor. It was this change in emphasis in the expression of his thought which was responsible for the great antireligious... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Pierre Jurieu's Contribution to Bayle's Dktionnaire KARL C. SANDBERG PIERRE BAYLE'S VIEWSon faith and reason1as they appear throughout his Dictionnaire historique et critique (1697) may be reduced to two basic points. First, the doctrines of Christian theology are vulnerable to a great number of rational objections which would seem to destroy them. Second, reason itself is not a reliable guide in areas of speculative knowledge and should be made (...) to bow to the authority of revelation. This position in its essence is neither irreligious nor antireligious. On the contrary, it is closely related to the general stream of seventeenth-century fideism,~ and is only the logical extension of views which Bayle had expressed as a Protestant controversialist in his early writings2 Moreover, recent studies of Bayle in his milieu have presented compelling evidence that Bayle himself lived, wrote, and died as some kind of believing member of the Reformed Church. 4 It is not less certain, however, that Bayle's Dictionnaire was one of the most powerful antireligious influences of the Enlightenment, s for the eighteenth-century rationalists found in it such a tone of polemics coupled with such an abundant display of the rational insufficiencies of Christianity, that they could not take Bayle's ostensible fideism seriously. This paradox leads one to wonder why Bayle as a believer should so insist upon the disparity he found between faith and reason if he did not intend to lead an attack upon religion in general. What would account for the presence of the penetrating rational critique of Christian doctrines except a desire to discredit them? A partial answer might be suggested by Bayle's method of exposition and disputa1By faith is meant the belief in the speculative doctrines of Calvinist Protestantism, such as the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Providence, and in the authority of revelation. By reason is meant essentially the Cartesian method, whose criterium of truth is incontrovertible evidence. See Richard Popkin, "Pierre Bayle's Place in 17th-century Scepticism," in Pierre Bayle, le philosophe de Rotterdam, ed. Paul Dibon (Amsterdam: 1959). 8During his participation in the Protestant-Catholic controversies of 1682-1687, Bayle became keenly aware that no Christian dogma was susceptible of rational proof. See his Commentaire Philosophique (1686)in his Oeuvres diverses (The Hague: 1737), II, 438. He had, however, previouslybeen convinced of the frailty of reason as a guide in speculative areas (but not in practical matters of morality). See his NouveUes de la Republique des Lettres, September, 1684, in Oeuvres diverses, I, 132-133. These works will hereafter be abbreviated CP, OD, and NRL, respectively. Other abbreviations to be used are DHC, Dictionnaire historique el critique; LFam, Lettres de M. Bayle ~ sa famille; SCP, Supplement du Commentaire philosophique (1687); PDC, Pens~es diverses sur la eomOte (1682); CC, La Cabale ehimdrique (1691). All of these works except the Dictionnaire are found in the Oeuvres diverses. The fourth edition of the Dictionnaire (1730) is the one cited here. 4See Paul Dibon, ed., Pierre Bayle, le philosophe de Rotterdam (Amsterdam: 1959), and Elizabeth Labrousse, Pierre Bayle, Vol. I, "Du Pays de Foix i~la cit~ d'Erasme" (La Haye: 1963). 6Paul Hazard, La Pens~e europ$enne au XVIII~me si~cle de Montesquieu (~ Lessing (Paris [1946], I, 44. [59] 60 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY tion, for in examining any question he felt intellectually obligated to set forth the strong and weak points of both sides. One can never boast of having proved a point, he said, without having stated and answered the strongest objections of one's opponent. ~ What subsequent readers found heterodox was possibly only Bayle's statement of his opponent's position. This answer is insufficient, however, because as Bayle had previously become aware of irreconcilable differences between faith and reason in the course of his early thought and writings, he had been extremely reluctant to voice the implications of his disquieting discoveries (1682-1687).7 Ten years later in the Dictionnaire, on the other hand, he seemed to go out of his way to state them with all possible clarity and vigor. It was this change in emphasis in the expression of his thought which was responsible for the great antireligious... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Removing the Mask: Hopeless Isolation to Intersex AdvocacyAlexandra von KlanStrangers undoubtedly perceive me as female, but I identify as an intersex woman. My karyotype is 46,XY, a typically defined marker of male biological sex, and I was born with undeveloped, non–functioning gonads. As an intersex person, I know firsthand the negative consequences of pathologizing intersex people’s lived experience by categorizing otherwise healthy, functioning organs and bodies as abnormal. The (...) following narrative recounts conversations and interactions with medical providers during my diagnosis and subsequent treatment of pure XY gonadal dys-genesis, sometimes referred to as Swyer Syndrome. I hope to elaborate upon emotionally significant actions and inactions of medical care providers to expose consequential effects on my emotional processing, physical health, and self–actualization.In December 1988, I was born with “typical” female genitalia. No one knew I was an intersex woman with 46,XY karyotype. Thus, there was no hesitation in the announcement of the birth of a girl in the delivery room or later, on my birth certificate. My parents raised me as a girl and dressed their firstborn in culturally normative feminine garments and accessories: lace frilly frocks, oversized bows, white stockings, and black patent leather Mary Jane’s. I embraced femininity and expressed this gender identity throughout my childhood and adolescence. I’m the eldest of six children split between two households.In January 2005, a month after my sixteenth birthday, delayed puberty and absent menstruation prompted an appointment to a local women’s health center. Nurses collected blood samples and administered an MRI scan on my pelvic region. A week later, my father received a perplexing phone call. An inexperienced doctor told him “there must be something wrong” with me, because lab results revealed I was “chromosomally male.” My father recalls the information presented like, based on the evidence, “your daughter may not be completely female,” and that is that. His impression was that she knew little about the subject and was a bit clueless. She did not mention Swyer Syndrome, or any diagnosis for that matter.Up to this point, I was unaware that a member of my extended family also had Swyer Syndrome. Born in the 1950s, secrecy engulfed her medical treatment and doctors warned her parents against revealing her true chromosomal sex in order to prevent the hysterical panic and depression they [End Page E14] thought the truth would bring. Years later, she sought her medical records and unearthed the truth. Shortly after my father received that dubious phone call, my relative’s endocrinologist provided a referral to his mentor, “Doctor A,” a clinical reproductive endocrinologist.Under Doctor A’s care, I experienced the first of many pelvic exams. Much to my discomfort, Doctor A inspected my semi–clothed body with a male resident in the room. As a people–pleasing teen, I granted permission for his presence; I didn’t voice my preference for a female alternative. Doctor A’s cold hands pressed around each undeveloped breast, pulled a gown away from my hips to inspect a sparse patch of pubic hair, and conducted an examination of my vaginal canal.Shortly after the examination, Doctor A charted Swyer Syndrome as the official diagnosis. Speaking to my father and me, he described my condition as an extremely rare genetic mutation. He told us that Swyer Syndrome was an intersex condition, a group of congenital disorders impacting a person’s internal or external reproductive systems, including endocrine function and genitalia. He explained I had atypical streak gonads instead of ovaries and that, despite having typical male sex chromosomes, I was still very much a girl. He disclosed that my vaginal canal was moderate in length, perhaps further evidence—or consolation—that my body possessed normative female reproductive attributes after all.Next, Doctor A identified a pressing medical concern—golf–ball–sized benign tumors had developed on each streak gonad; if allowed to remain, they would pose an increasing risk of malignancy. We scheduled an appointment for laparoscopic gonadectomy six months later. I left his office with a 3–month prescription for estrogen and progesterone oral tablets. On the way home, we drove to an electronics store where my father... (shrink)

Twentieth century philosophers introduced the distinction between “objective rightness” and “subjective rightness” to achieve two primary goals. The first goal is to reduce the paradoxical tension between our judgments of what is best for an agent to do in light of the actual circumstances in which she acts and what is wisest for her to do in light of her mistaken or uncertain beliefs about her circumstances. The second goal is to provide moral guidance to an agent who may be (...) uncertain about the circumstances in which she acts, and hence is unable to use her standard moral principle directly in deciding what to do. This paper distinguishes two important senses of “moral guidance”; proposes criteria of adequacy for accounts of subjective rightness; canvasses existing definitions for “subjective rightness”; finds them all deficient; and proposes a new and more successful account. It argues that each comprehensive moral theory must include multiple principles of subjective rightness to address the epistemic situations of the full range of moral decision-makers, and shows that accounts of subjective rightness formulated in terms of what it would reasonable for the agent to believe cannot provide that guidance. (shrink)

In this paper I will argue that a false assumption drives the attraction of philosophers to a divine command theory of morality. Specifically, I suggest the idea that anything not created by God is independent of God is a misconception. The idea misleads us into thinking that our only choice in offering a theistic ground for morality is between making God bow to a standard independent of his will or God creating morality in revealing his will. Yet what is God (...) is hardly independent of him, and in coupling a perfect being theology with the doctrine of divine simplicity we discover that God’s “reason” is God. Accordingly, obeying the truths of goodness that we humans speak of as contained in the divine wisdom hardly impugns the divine sovereignty. By modifying divine command ethics to give primacy to God’s love or justice, thinkers such as Robert M. Adams, Philip L. Quinn, and Edward J. Wierenga admit the repugnance of this picture in spite of their verbal allegiance to divine command ethics. Accordingly, they implicitly concede that basing morality on God’s sheer power should not be the preferred option for the Christian theist. (shrink)

This article will rework the classical question ‘Can a machine think?’ into a more specific problem: ‘Can a machine think anything new?’ It will consider traditional computational tasks such as prediction and decision-making, so as to investigate whether the instrumentality of these operations can be understood in terms of the creation of novel thought. By addressing philosophical and technoscientific attempts to mechanise thought on the one hand, and the philosophical and cultural critique of these attempts on the other, I will (...) argue that computation’s epistemic productions should be assessed vis-à-vis the logico-mathematical specificity of formal axiomatic systems. Such an assessment requires us to conceive automated modes of thought in such a way as to supersede the hope that machines might replicate human cognitive faculties, and to thereby acknowledge a form of onto-epistemological autonomy in automated ‘thinking’ processes. This involves moving beyond the view that machines might merely simulate humans. Machine thought should be seen as dramatically alien to human thought, and to the dimension of lived experience upon which the latter is predicated. Having stepped outside the simulative paradigm, the question ‘Can a machine think anything new?’ can then be reformulated. One should ask whether novel behaviour in computing might come not from the breaking of mechanical rules, but from following them: from doing what computers do already, and not what we might think they should be doing if we wanted them to imitate us. (shrink)

"Neuroscience and Philosophy" begins with an excerpt from "Philosophical Foundations of Neuroscience," in which Maxwell Bennett and Peter Hacker question the ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:'kvieuJs SELECTED· LETTERS KATHARINE TAIT Carn Voel Porthcurno,- Cornwall TRI9 6LN, England Nicholas Griffin. The Selected Letters ofBertrand Russel~ Vol. I: The Private Years, I884-I9I4. London: Allen Lane the Penguin PreSs, 1992. Pp. xxi, 553.£25.00; C$47.99; US$35·00. Nicholas Griffin has done an admirable job of selecting and explaining the letters in this first volume. It is amazingly to his credit that he 'manages to be so well acquainted with (...) and to understand so well a world so remote from his own. In the whole volume, I found only two small points on which to augment his knowledge. If he had looked up Shakespeare's poem about greasy Joan, which we all know in part, he would have solved for himself the mystery of Marian's nose, referred to on page 93. It was red and raw from the cold, as Russell's always was from sunburn in the summer-and usually peeling besides. And on page 217, perhaps a more esoteric mystery: Milligan is a game of patience played with two packs of cards, which I have seen him playing with a special small set capable of being spread out on a small table. My only other quibble is that I think perhaps Griffin is a trifle too hard on Grandmother Russell, who may have been less calculating and more sentimental than he supposes. That she was not above emotional blackmail is clear from Russell's letter to Alys of 17 August 1894: I went to· my Grandmother, and found her on the sofa in her sitting-room. We embraced in silence for some time and then I looked at her sadly with tears in my eyes and she said "Well I'm worse than you thought I was": not with an air of triumph, but of mild reproof for my heartlessness in having felt so little anxiery. She besought me to consent to an absence; she says everybody who comes thinks it strange I should not be here when she is so ill, and that both thee and I are suffering in reputation in consequence. She gave repeated assurances (which I didn't need) of her absolute unselfishness in urging my home-duties; she really does care only about my moral welfare, which she feels to be imperilled by such neglect. (P. 98) Awful stuff, yet I think she may have rather been seizing any weapon that came to hand than laying deeply cunning schemes; but this is only opinion and I would bow to Griffin's greater knowledge of the facts. His analysis of Evelyn Whitehead's "attacks",their effect on Russell and his relations with russell: me Journal of me Bemand Russell Archives McMaster University Libraty Pr... n.s. I> (winter 1992-9~): 211-24 ISSN OO~6-O1631. 212 Reviews her, on the other hand, I found enlightening and quite the best thing I have read on the subject. Some other fine items must be singled out for special mention. First, the generous tribute to Russell's integrity over Frege on page 245. Russell had spent five years working in almost complete isolation on the Principles only to find, when it had gone to press, that much of what was best and most original in it had been anticipated by Frege. Yet, even in his private correspondence, he never gave so much as a hint of any concern about his loss of priority, but only his delight at having found a thinker with similar ideas. It required an integrity beyond the call of duty to add to the Principles an appendix drawing attention to Frege's work and generally to do what he could to make it better known. Griffin's editorial work is for the most part adlJIirably dispassionate, always informative, sometimes speculative, occasionally critical; but when the occasion warrants (usually over professional matters), he is unstinting in his praise. Russell's comments about The Principles ofMathematics in his letters seem absurdly modest. The book was undoubtedly a wotk of genius; in some ways, the greatest thing he ever wrote.... (I]r offered not merely a new philosophy ofmathematics bur a new way of doing philosophy. Yet Russell... (shrink)

There is a perplexing transition in Dr. Reza Davari's thought, when he problematizes the relation between Iranian and Western history/cultures, on which this paper is focusing. The interperative objective is to clarify this transition on the basis of the implicit relation between the two most fundamental concepts in his earlier and later thought respectively westernization and underdevelopment. Although, by this transition, the level of discussion transits from an ontologico-philosophical to an intellectualist one. So, there are two different levels of problematization (...) in his thought which differ deeply. Therefore, we are not just dealing with the substitution of fundamental concepts, but with different problematizations and different levels of discussion. Obviously, there will be new problems arising which are not just concerning with the justification of the transition but with the problematization of westernization itself. Finally, it's been concluded that in order to clarify these new problems, we should step back to the level of philosophical discussion, and first of all to the clarification of the I-not-I relation which has been neglected thoroughly in the whole project. (shrink)

The wish to extend the human lifespan has a long tradition in many cultures. Optimistic views of the possibility of achieving this goal through the latest developments in medicine feature increasingly in serious scientific and philosophical discussion. The authors of this paper argue that research with the explicit aim of extending the human lifespan is both undesirable and morally unacceptable. They present three serious objections, relating to justice, the community and the meaning of life.

Scholars who deal with Heidegger’s philosophy often remark the scarcity of his references to phenomenological reduction as a means to grant access to the point of view of the being-in-the-world of the Dasein, the central theme of his early philosophy. Also the role of phenomenological reduction in Heidegger’s philosophy makes problem, as he criticizes Husserl for making of reduction a mere tool to reveal a pure, timeless and extra-worldly conscience – an untenable claim, according to Heidegger, for Dasein’s being-in-the-world, as (...) his most original way of being, can never be put out of play by any reduction. The role of transcendental reduction in Heidegger’s phenomenology is the theme of the present paper. (shrink)

AN inquiry into the use of paradeigma in theIliadmust begin with Niobe. At 24. 602 Achilles introduces Niobe in order to encourage Priam to have some food. The dead body of the best of Priam's sons has now been placed on the wagon ready for its journey back to Troy. Achilles says, ‘Now let us eat. For even Niobe ate food, and she had losttwelvechildren. Apollo and Artemis killed them all; they lay nine days in their blood and there was (...) no one to bury them, because Zeus had turned the people into stone. On the tenth day the gods buried them. But she managed to eat some food, when she was tired of weeping. And now among the mountains, although turned into stone, she still broods over her sorrows. But come, let us also eat. You can weep for your son again later’. (shrink)