Ancient people envisaged a strong link between what was deemed transgressive religious activities and objectionable sexual practices. Moreover, sexual behaviour considered aberrant was deemed to upset political boundaries which should protect civic and national stability, especially when this behaviour was suspected of effeminacy. Such thinking appears to inform both Romans 1:18–32 and Wisdom of Solomon 14:12–14. Focussing on two passages from these documents, the links between religion, sexual behaviour and politics in the context of the 1st-century Roman Empire are investigated, (...) tracing underlying ideological intersections, connections and divergences. (shrink)

The underlying claim of this essay is that we live in a multiverse, that is a universe of many universes that occupy the same space and time, not as an exotic excursion into the realms of science fiction, but as an everyday necessity that affects our social and economic interchange. Faced with such instability, the convenient way that this was managed was through an arbitrary division of labour that assigned the rational to the ‘real’ and the irrational to the ‘imagined’. (...) Recent speculation in cosmology and the science of consciousness studies has obliged us to reconsider the concept of reality as an ‘absolute given’ from which all laws can be verified. In string theory in particular, the dispute now hinges on the existence of ten or eleven dimensions in rippling membranes that discharge energy at the point of contact. In consciousness studies, similar models have appeared in order to embrace what might be understood as an apparent moment of enchantment essential to turn consciousness into awareness. The inevitable realization in scientific circles that the reality of the imagined has as an equivalent epistemological significance to the reality of the material, raises fascinating questions as it invites a sceptical reconsideration of the essential basis of knowledge and a revision of procedures. While the radical shift in scientific thought provides the moment of profound satisfaction for those artists, designers and scientists who have long argued for a transdisciplinary world-view, it also provides a moment of great challenge as we begin to consider how knowledge might be extended, codified and distributed in a multiverse, and begin to reflect on the relationships between text and world when any given world is only defined by the temporary consensus dependent on an arbitrary episteme. (shrink)

Through analogy this paper draws attention to hypercapitalism, that is, the profitability of the processes of economic recirculation that are independent of a materialist reality. Since neither materialist ideology nor perception are any longer at stake in hypercapitalism this opens the way for other realities to be revisited. In particular, this paper suggests that this radical shift in the logic of the economy resonates with the values of the Mediaeval period. The paper concludes by suggesting that the study of human (...) consciousness may benefit from a new relationship with reason, particularly as we consider such terms as artificial and intelligent. (shrink)

This article considers intersections between cultural studies and New Testament studies. It ponders and focuses on possible approaches to the bearing of the 'cultural turn' on biblical studies. Following a brief consideration of cultural studies and its potential value for New Testament studies, four promising developments in cultural studies approaches to the New Testament are noted.

Descartes' works were not allowed to be read at Leiden University, even his name could not be pronounced. Read the compelling story about how his pupil Johannes de Raey has had the opportunity to preach Descartes fully in philosophy, but also in medicine, in a hostile anti-Cartesian climate during 20 years (1647-1668). This book is not only meant for philosophers and medical historians, but for all who want to take a look at the extensive menu of Cartesian cuisine. The 17th-century (...) philosopher René Descartes turned established science upside down by doubting all certainties. His critical mind rejected statements that could not be proven by the Ratio. The Ratio was the metaphor for the roots, the physics for the trunk and the medicine for the branches and leaves of the Cartesian tree. This premise was directly opposed to the established aristotelian theory in which observation formed the basis of knowledge. De Raey, who once called Descartes his best student, synthesized a hybrid model of the old Aristotelian and the new Cartesian concept. From 1658 to 1662 he gave private lessons in medicine at Leiden University and tried to use his model as a basis for explaining human physiology. Until now, nothing was known about the content of these lectures. The author recently found a dispute. It is a new dish on the Cartesian menu. (shrink)

Scholars in the past have signalled the almost complete absence of Paul - as a cypher for the Pauline letters and tradition(s) - in Africa. The apparent lack of use or deliberate ignoring of Paul in Black, African and Liberation Theologies on the continent in all its pluralist variety and richness is generally taken as testimony to the perceived strangeness of the apostle in Africa. However, even if Paul's strangeness does not equate with his absence, at least not altogether, Paul's (...) profiles in Africa include dimensions such as Paul as a stranger, as an unwelcome guest, as a conquering traveller and as a victim of tradition. I argue that Paul's absence from as well as strangeness in Africa may be more apparent than real, and that hermeneutical patterns and practices more than epistolary content may have played a stronger role in the construal of Paul in Africa. CONTRIBUTION: Evaluating a range of entrenched interpretive profiles of Paul in Africa exposed certain hermeneutical tendencies that offer the potential for reinterpretation and reassessment of the use of Pauline materials on the continent and elsewhere. (shrink)

In 1969 Jasia Reichardt curated an exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in London called Play Orbit. Although it has not achieved the landmark status of Reichardt's Cybernetic Serendipity, which was presented in London a year earlier, it caught the intellectual and artistic mood of a newly emergent constituency of (largely British) artists who had benefited from a post-war revision of art education and a de-centring of intellectual energy away from the economic capitals. It may be that Play Orbit (...) will eventually be regarded in much the same way as Cybernetic Serendipity that is, as a significant footnote in the history of contemporary art. By turning artists' attention to toys through this project, the categories of painting and sculpture dissolved and the Modernist imperative of the enduring observation that had informed the arts and letters in a centred intellectual regime was seen for what it was: a colonial anachronism. The unapologetic relativism of play and the provisional truths of games coalesced in Play Orbit as confrontations to the essentialist materialism of the prevailing orthodoxy. In this sense Play Orbit, and its extensive catalogue of images and essays, foreshadowed not only the critical style that followed the influence of Continental Theory in the mid 1970s but also anticipated the agenda of virtually all that has been written about games in the last decade. For all its apparent whimsy and reification of idiosyncrasy, Play Orbit can now be seen as, above all, a constructively political intervention levered through the arts. For example, one of the more enduring and least contested impacts of the intellectual revisions of the last thirty years that Play Orbit foreshadowed is evident in the practice of history not least the practice of history as a game to be played. This paper elaborates on these assertions and asks how games and games theory might be connected with their own political and intellectual history, and how contemporary artists who choose to benefit from the licence that play endows might situate their work within what might be called Art Ludistory: a political play on the history of play. (shrink)

This contribution explores the potential value of a postcolonial approach for teaching Mark’s gospel. Investigating a number of texts from the gospel, it asks to what extent a postcolonial optic implies a different approach to the gospel, what it adds and where challenges exist. Teaching with a postcolonial optic entails framing the gospel in its 1st-century imperial context and focusing on the ambivalence and ambiguity of imperial rule, investigating texts with attention to hybridity and mimicry in particular. Teaching the Gospel (...) of Mark through a postcolonial optic opens up new possibilities for interpretation and contextualisation, but at the same time poses certain challenges, pedagogically and otherwise. (shrink)

This special issue of AVANT is all about Cognitive Innovation. It is not about CogNovo, the interdisciplinary and international doctoral training programme that produced three different Off the Lip events. It is not about Off the Lip 2017, the novel symposium format we developed to collaboratively create a publication resulting in this special issue of AVANT. It is not about the seemingly heterogeneous collection of papers that follow this preface. Collaborative Approaches to Cognitive Innovation required something else, something we are (...) starting to capture in the four GIFT principles. While this special issue is not solely about CogNovo, Off the Lip events, or the content of the following submissions, all these aforementioned elements were necessary to shape our current understanding of Cognitive Innovation, the very process which led to numerous publications, exhibitions, and events during the past three years. In a sense, all of our previous endeavours have culminated in this collection of 26 distinct pieces of work, yet we hope and believe that this special issue also marks a beginning. Let us explain. [...]. (shrink)

Article Punt, Jozef: Die Idee der Menschenrechte. Ihre geschichtliche Entwicklung und ihre Rezeption durch die moderne katholische Sozialverkündigung Böckenförde, Ernst, Wolfgang und Spaemann, Robert (Hg.): Menschenrechte und Menschenwürde. Historische Voraussetzungen - säkulare Gestalt - christliches Verständnis was published on February 1, 1989 in the journal Zeitschrift für Evangelische Ethik (volume 33, issue 1).

La història del pensament occidental travessa ara per ara un punt d'inflexió, un instant de vacil·lació, de dubte i de recerca. El fil conductor de la Modernitat s'ha exhaurit i l'esperit desencisat cerca noves formes de pensar i noves cosmovisions. Les idees rectores de la Modernitat han caigut de l'escambell i la corba del pensament travessa un moment delicat, un instant que cal meditar pausadament. Aquest moment inestable i fugisser és la postmodernitat. S'acosta una nova era de l'esperit, però (...) encara no ha pres forma. Manca creativitat, manquen idees, manca passió per la veritat. En aquest assaig recollim algunes idees de Kierkegaard que poden il·luminar el panorama gris i enrarit de la filosofia actual. (shrink)

Resum: En el seu dia, vàrem imaginar aquesta activitat partint de la metàfora, espacial i musical, del «punt de fuga». M’agradaria començar aquesta intervenció estirant aquesta metàfora o, millor dit, aquesta manera de representar-nos la mort humana. Part de: Comunicació a: Conferència VilaPensa -Festival del Pensament del Penedès 2023 12 d’abril de 2023.

Seafaring Expeditions to Punt in the Middle Kingdom: Excavations at Mersa/Wadi Gawasis, Egypt. By Kathryn A. Bard and Rodolfo Fattovich. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East, vol. 96. Leiden: Brill, 2018. Pp. xvi + 233. $156.

Het punt dat René Munnik in zijn reactie aan de orde stelt is van fundamentele betekenis. Is het wijsgerig geoorloofd geloof en filosofie zo met elkaar te verbinden als ik dat doe in ‘Kennis in reformatorisch wijsgerig perspectief’, mijn bijdrage aan de OU-cursus ‘Cultuurfilosofie vanuit levensbeschouwelijke perspectieven’? Is het niet beter de argumentatie ‘strikt wijsgerig’ te houden en de filosofie te beperken tot de ‘natuurlijke’ kennis in plaats van een op openbaring gebaseerd geloofsperspectief als uitgangspunt te nemen?1 Ik wil (...) hierover graag enkele opmerkingen maken, in de hoop dat daarmee ook mijn erkentelijkheid voor zijn kritische notities tot uitdrukking komt. (shrink)

This is the first of two papers that use off-training set (OTS) error to investigate the assumption-free relationship between learning algorithms. This first paper discusses the senses in which there are no a priori distinctions between learning algorithms. (The second paper discusses the senses in which there are such distinctions.) In this first paper it is shown, loosely speaking, that for any two algorithms A and B, there are “as many” targets (or priors over targets) for which A has lower (...) expected OTS error than B as vice versa, for loss functions like zero-one loss. In particular, this is true if A is cross-validation and B is “anti-cross-validation” (choose the learning algorithm with largest cross-validation error). This paper ends with a discussion of the implications of these results for computational learning theory. It is shown that one cannot say: if empirical misclassification rate is low, the Vapnik-Chervonenkis dimension of your generalizer is small, and the training set is large, then with high probability your OTS error is small. Other implications for “membership queries” algorithms and “punting” algorithms are also discussed. (shrink)

E l auto r , a pa r ti r de l análisi s d e un a seri e d e ejemplo s d e ponderació n judicial , trat a de contesta r la s cuestione s centrale s de l debat e enta b lad o e n l a teorí a de l derech o contemporánea entr e pa r tidario s y crítico s d e est e pa r ticula r procedimient o a r (...) gumentat i vo qu e po r l o demás e s d e u n us o frecuent e e n nuestro s tribunales , especialment e e n lo s tribunale s supremos y constitucionales . E n prime r luga r , tomand o com o punt o d e pa r tid a la s apo r tacione s de Al e x y , trat a d e responde r a la s cuestione s d e e n qu é consist e l a ponderación , cuále s son su s característica s y e n qu é s e diferenci a d e l a subsunción . E n s e gund o luga r , abord a el pro b lem a d e cuánd o h a y qu e pondera r y cuánd o est á justi f icad o hacerlo . F inalmente , trata d e responde r a l a cuestió n d e s i l a ponderació n e s u n procedimient o raciona l y e n qu é consist e es a racionalida d , mostrand o frent e a su s crítico s cóm o lo s criterio s d e l a ponderación utilizado s e n la s decisione s d e lo s tribunales , y e n concret o de l T ribuna l Constitucional, puede n se r considerado s u n bue n ejempl o d e cóm o pued e opera r l a racionalida d práctica e n e l ámbit o de l derecho. (shrink)

In zijn verhelderende opstel over De eigen aard van het geloof in de wijsgerige theologie van Vincent Brümmer, gaat Henk Geertsema vooral in op ‘de aard van de geloofskennis zoals die in de Utrechtse school [en met name in mijn geschriften] wordt gezien’ . De centrale vraag voor Geertsema is ‘of de wijze waarop Brümmer de kennis die eigen is aan het geloof, opvat recht doet aan het eigen aard van het bijbelse geloof als bepaald door de levende omgang met (...) God’ . Twee gezichtspunten zijn hier vooral van belang:’ de verbinding van geloofskennis met de praktische levenshouding, die kenmerkend wordt geacht voor het “verfijnd theologisch realisme” van de Utrechtse school; de typering van de wijsgerige theologie als “grammatica van het geloof”‘ . In mijn antwoord zal ik vooral ingaan op Geerstema’s bespreking van het ‘verfijnd theologisch realisme’. Ten aanzien van ‘het grammatica van het geloof’ zal ik volstaan met een opmerking over Geertsema’s onderscheiding tussen ‘de taal van de wijsgerige theologie’ en ‘die van het concrete geloven of van de Bijbel’ . Ik kan hier kort zijn omdat Marcel Sarot in zijn bijdrage uitvoerig op dit punt ingaat. (shrink)

Cuand o l a edició n d e est e númer o d e lo s Anale s d e l a Cáted r a F r ancisc o Suá r e z estab a a punt o d e ce r rars e no s so r prendi ó e l f allecimient o d e fo r m a repentina e inesperad a d e Nicolá s Lópe z Calera , Directo r d e est a pu (...) b licació n durant e más d e cuarent a años . P ar a tod o e l equip o editoria l qu e fo r mamo s pa r t e d e lo s A CFS s u mue r t e h a signi f icad o un a pérdid a i r repara b l e po r l a huell a imbo r ra b l e qu e su labo r académic a y dedicació n un i v ersitari a h a dejad o entr e todo s nosotros. (shrink)

Is het nog de moeite waard om het op te nemen voor de transcendentale kritiek van Dooyeweerd? Deze vraag suggereert dat de transcendentale kritiek wanneer zij aan zichzelf overgelaten zou worden, niet meer te redden is. Dat is misschien wat overdreven, maar één ding is duidelijk: de transcendentale kritiek is niet onomstreden, zelfs niet onder de meest trouwe volgelingen van Dooyeweerd. En daarin zit iets paradoxaals: het was hem er immers om te doen met zijn transcendentale kritiek ‘de denkgemeenschap in (...) het avondland’ te herstellen, maar het lukt hem niet eens om de denkgemeenschap onder gelijkgezinden op dit punt te bewaren. Intentie en werkelijkheid lopen hier dus ver uiteen. Daar zijn verschillende redenen voor. In de eerste plaats lijkt de transcendentale kritiek geplaagd te worden door een tweetal tegenstrijdige uitgangspunten. Kort gezegd komen deze uitgangspunten hierop neer: 1) de transcendentale kritiek poogt aan te tonen dat ieder theoretisch denken uitgaat van religieuze uitgangspunten; het theoretische denken is dus niet neutraal, zelfgenoegzaam of autonoom; 2) het onder punt 1 genoemde kan worden aangetoond door een stringente analyse van de aard van het theoretische denken zelf, zoals het door ieder die zich bezighoudt met wetenschap en wijsbegeerte beoefend wordt. De vraag is nu of het eerste punt niet impliceert, dat het tweede onmogelijk is. (shrink)

El liberalisme polític és la ideologia o tradició política dominant de les nostres democràcies occidentals. Ho és tant des del punt de vista històric, pel que fa a les seves conquestes institucionals, com des del punt de vista del pensament, pel.

Drawn from the contributions to the 9th international “Consciousness Reframed” research conference held at University of Applied Arts Vienna in 2008, this publication aims for a timely re-definition of contemporary syncretic inquiries into the fields of art, science, technology and society through theory and practice alike, reframing the concept of innovation in its relationship to progress and change within the context of perception and its transformation. It comprises a wide range of outstanding expertise and insights of artists, architects, performers, musicians, (...) writers, scientists, and scholars. Among the authors from at least 20 countries are most prominently Roy Ascott, Gerald Bast, Jim Gimzewski, Pierre Lévy, Ryohei Nakatsu, Michael Punt, Ruth Schnell, Barbara Maria Stafford, Alfred Vendl, Victoria Vesna and Peter Weibel. The publication includes full papers and a DVD, edited by Ruth Schnell, with short video extracts of the event and accompanying visual reference. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Selected Letters by William, Henry JamesWilliam James EarleWilliam and Henry James. Selected Letters. Edited by Ignas K. Skrupskelis and Elizabeth M. Berkeley. Introduction by John J. McDermott. Charlottesville VA: University Press of Virginia, 1997. Pp. xxxi + 570. $ 39.95.Almost fifty years of letters to and from the very diversely brilliant James brothers: in this volume a generous, and probably ample, selection of 216 from a total of (...) 740 surviving letters or postcards, from an original total, according to the present editors, of twice as many. This volume of correspondence reflects the deep, unquestioned, unshakable familial (and virtually statutory) closeness of William and Henry who happened, as adults, to be seldom in the same place. There is, it must be said, very little explicit philosophy, narrowly or broadly defined, in these letters, but the philosophical reader will—or ought to—find much raw material for philosophical reflection. For example, a reasonable historicist thesis of how brotherhood, or family connection generally, plays itself out is supported by these documents. The nineteenth century is not the same as the twentieth. For example, here is William’s comment on the will of his sister, Alice, who left more to her companion and care-giver, Katherine Loring, a [End Page 479] women of extraordinary virtue and burden, than to her brother Robertson: “I can well sympathize with Alice’s desire to leave her something handsome; but I must say that her own consent (being apparently privy to the will) strikes me as tant soit peu lacking in delicacy. Surely no one of us would like to be in such a position in her family or any other” (271). This would be, in 1998, a rather unenlightened and ungenerous attitude, but is natural enough in 1892, even if not quite inevitable, not being shared by Alice herself. There is, incidentally, much discussion of wills and bequests, for the Jameses were of the genteel class, people with small family money and modest private incomes for whom the wherewithal to maintain homes with servants and to provide themselves with country houses and recuperative European vacations was always a faintly embarrassing, and occasionally a pressing, problem.It is probably also true that the much-discussed question of Henry’s homosexuality has, somehow, to be recast in historically relative terms. Here is an early report—1869—of Henry’s from Oxford: “As I walked along the river I saw hundreds of the mighty lads of England, clad in white flannel & blue, immense, fair-haired, magnificent in their youth, lounging down the stream in their punts or pulling in straining crews & rejoicing in their godlike strength” (41). This could not, the point is, be said by anyone, gay or straight, in 1998. Yet Henry is neither generally naive nor uncritically anglophile. He says of the Warwickshire scenery, which in a way he likes, that it is “too monotonously sweet & smooth—too comfortable, too ovine, too bovine, too English in a word.” And he adds, a little surprisingly: “It seems like a vast show region kept up at the expense of the poor” (41). This is only one of many appealing comments not sparsely scattered, but unpredictably, in letters of more ordinary news. Here’s one I liked occasioned by seeing theater in Paris: “We talk about it & write about it & criticize & dogmatize & analyse to the end of time: but those brave players stand forth & exemplify it & act—create—produce!” (66).Of course the “wit and wisdom” are not the monopoly of Henry. Here is William being wise: “We all learn sooner or later that we must gather ourselves up and more or less arbitrarily concentrate our interests, throw much overboard to save any” (55–56). Again: “It is a sweet world, in the interstices of its bedevilment & brutality” (321). And William being funny: “Boils are surely the most slowly evolving things in nature—Christian doctrine is nothing to them” (393). He is talking about his own boils and was subject, at every period, to ailments and infirmities: “Since writing to you, I have been swimming in deep seas of influenza, gout and Erysipelas of the face” (443). Or as he, in 1900, sums it up: “My... (shrink)

La genealogia de la moral de Nietzsche, resulta extremadament pertinent per una epistemologia del bé relativa a les incisions institucionals sobre part de la població del Raval. Primer, sobre Raval s’haurien dut a terme tot tipus d’abusos, com destruccions d’habitatges i de trama urbana, així com persecucions o expulsions de població, pel bé del barri o de la ciutat. Si això és així, es pot afirmar que les convergències institucionals en aquest punt es sustenten en una epistemologia interessada. Segon, (...) el pathos de la distància definit per Nietzsche, així com l’assumpció per part de les noves ideologies urbanístiques del primitiu paper de la “casta sacerdotal”, permetrien actualitzar la crítica envers “el civisme”, entès aquest, com l’expressió més recent i efectiva de les cultures de control. I tercer, aquesta epistemologia interessada, permetria reclamar la noció marxiana de lluita de classes per interpretar un crònic i generalitzat menyspreu sobre una part important de la població més irredempta d’un dels barris més convulsos d’Europa. (shrink)

El pensament català proposa un petit tast del que ha estat el pensament filosòfic a Catalunya i la seva àrea d’influència cultural —País Valencià i les Illes Balears—, des dels grans mestres medievals Ramon Llull i Ramon Martí fins als contemporanis Eugenio Trías i Josep Maria Terricabras tot passant per les grans figures del segle xix com Jaume Balmes i Josep Torras i Bages. Diem «pensador català» a tot el qui ha treballat amb les idees i que ho ha fet (...) en el català del Principat, o en el seu bessó el valencià, o en el bessó mallorquí, o també en castellà, o en el llunyà àrab o en el remot llatí… Però al capdavall, i sobretot, des d’un mateix punt d’origen geogràfic i cultural: la Mediterrània occidental. (shrink)

‘Wisten jullie dat je middeleeuwse privé-kapelletjes in grote kerken eigenlijk zou kunnen zien als de allereerste skyboxen? Niet alleen werden ze door rijke families gekocht om zo op de eerste rang te zitten tijdens missen, maar ze waren ook ideaal om na de dood nog lange tijd herinnerd te worden omdat je op zo'n voorname plaats lag,’ vertelt Wim Weijland. ‘Fascinerend. Maar dat zag je natuurlijk ook al in de opkomst van de portretkunst, dat mensen zichzelf wilden vastleggen voor het (...) nageslacht,’ stelt Hans Alma, ‘of in het beschrijven van heldendaden en de overlevering daarvan. Dat is eigenlijk het centrale punt in het belang dat we hechten aan overleven: dat we energie stoppen in overlevering om zo te kunnen overleven.’. (shrink)

Josep Maria Capdevila (1892-1972) és un dels intel·lectuals més destacats de la primera meitat del segle XX a Catalunya. L’autor n’ha resseguit el pensament, reconstruint-ne significativament la formació intel·lectual, el món ideològic i les idees estètiques, per acabar amb una digressió sobre el punt de partença de la filosofia.