1. Matter and form -- 2. Maimonides' theory of the parable -- 3. The parable of adamic perfection -- 4. Physical matter and its limitations on intellects -- 5. Maimonidean skepticism I -- 6. Maimonidean skepticism II -- 7. In the inner chamber of the ruler's palace: the critique of the theory of separate intellects -- 8. The embodied life of an intellect -- 9. Excrement and exegesis, or shame over matter.

This paper examines the place of metaphorical interpretation in the current Contextualist-Literalist controversy over the role of context in the determination of truth-conditions in general. Although there has been considerable discussion of 'non-literal' language by both sides of this dispute, the language analyzed involves either so-called implicit indexicality, loose or loosened use, enriched interpretations, or semantic transfer, not metaphor itself. In the first half of the paper, I critically evaluate Recanati's (2004) recent Contextualist account and show that it cannot account (...) for the metaphorical-literal dependence characteristic of metaphor. I then turn to Carston's (2002), and Bezuidenhout's (2001) Contextualist accounts and show that they place no constraints on metaphorical interpretations. In the second half of the paper I sketch a Literalist theory of metaphor elaborated in Stern (2000) and respond to two kinds of Contextualist criticisms of that account by Camp (2005) and Stanley (2005). (shrink)

This article wants to answer three questions: first, why is not only sensibility but visibility important for modern democracy? Second, why is art or aesthetic experience important for both democracy and visibility? And third, how is it possible that aesthetic experience generates effects that conduce to democracy? Answering these questions aims at highlighting an inner connection between democracy, feelings and aesthetics. For a democratic community, on the one hand, cannot exclude feelings from political discourse, but, on the other hand, cannot (...) accept them in their immediate and absolute form. Feelings need ‘transformation’, and the best popular medium for this is aesthetic experience. (shrink)

In an enlightening dialogue with Descartes, Kant, Husserl and Gadamer, Professor Seifert argues that the original inspiration of phenomenology was nothing other than the primordial insight of philosophy itself, the foundation of philosophia perennis . His radical rethinking of the phenomenological method results in a universal, objectivist philosophy in direct continuity with Plato, Aristotle and Augustine. In order to validate the classical claim to know autonomous being, the author defends Husserl's methodological principle "Back to things themselves" from empiricist and idealist (...) critics, including the later Husserl, and replies to the arguments of Kant which attempt to discredit the knowability of things in themselves. Originally published in 1982, this book culminates in a phenomenological and critical unfolding of the Augustinian cogito , as giving access to immutable truth about necessary essences and the real existence of personal being. (shrink)

A notion of resource‐bounded Baire category is developed for the classPC[0,1]of all polynomial‐time computable real‐valued functions on the unit interval. The meager subsets ofPC[0,1]are characterized in terms of resource‐bounded Banach‐Mazur games. This characterization is used to prove that, in the sense of Baire category, almost every function inPC[0,1]is nowhere differentiable. This is a complexity‐theoretic extension of the analogous classical result that Banach proved for the classC[0, 1] in 1931. (© 2004 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim).

L'érudition de Kilian McDonnell. o.s.b., un moine/prêtre bénédictin, a eu une grande influence sur le Pentecostalisme au niveau international et sur le renouveau charismatique dans les grandes Eglises grâce à l'attention anthropologique, psychologique et théologique que McDonnell apporte à sa recherche pentecostale, à sa direction dans le Dialogue International Classique Pentecostiste - Catholique-Romain, et à son rôle comme rédacteur de documents nationaux et internationaux. Il comprend les forces socio-culturelles à l'oeuvre dans le développement du Pentecostalisme, et contribua à déraciner une (...) image psychologique publique négative des Pentecostalistes. En théologie McDonnell fait justice à la densité christologique de la pneumatologie et en même temps insiste, en vertu d'une dynamique trinitaire, que l'Esprit n'est pas un partenaire mineur, mais égal au Fils, et aussi important que le Fils dans le plan de la rédemption. Par ses propositions trinitaires à la Société des Etudes Pentecostalistes il contribue à la réconciliation des Pentecostalistes Trinitaires et «de l'Unité», une division majeure dans le Pentecostalisme classique. Sa Confession des péchés de Mars 2000 apporte la guérison de vieilles blessures nécessaire pour le développement d'une compréhension oecuménique. Cette Confession des péchés peut marquer une phase nouvelle dans les rapports entre Pentecistalistes et catholiques. La force de McDonnell est essentiellement celle. (shrink)