Die Bibliotheca Teubneriana, gegr ndet 1849, ist die weltweit lteste, traditionsreichste und umfangreichste Editionsreihe griechischer und lateinischer Literatur von der Antike bis zur Neuzeit. Pro Jahr erscheinen 4-5 neue Editionen. S mtliche Ausgaben werden durch eine lateinische Praefatio erg nzt. Die wissenschaftliche Betreuung der Reihe obliegt einem Team anerkannter Philologen: Gian Biagio Conte (Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa) James Diggle (University of Cambridge) Donald J. Mastronarde (University of California, Berkeley) Franco Montanari (Universit di Genova) Heinz-G nther Nesselrath (Georg-August-Universit t G (...) ttingen) Dirk Obbink (University of Oxford) Oliver Primavesi (Ludwig-Maximilians Universit t M nchen) Michael D. Reeve (University of Cambridge) Richard J. Tarrant (Harvard University) Vergriffene Titel werden als Print-on-Demand-Nachdrucke wieder verf gbar gemacht. Zudem werden alle Neuerscheinungen der Bibliotheca Teubneriana parallel zur gedruckten Ausgabe auch als eBook angeboten. Die lteren B nde werden sukzessive ebenfalls als eBook bereitgestellt. Falls Sie einen vergriffenen Titel bestellen m chten, der noch nicht als Print-on-Demand angeboten wird, schreiben Sie uns an: [email protected] S mtliche in der Bibliotheca Teubneriana erschienenen Editionen lateinischer Texte sind in der Datenbank BTL Online elektronisch verf gbar. (shrink)

Cicero kämpfte sein Leben lang für die Erhaltung der römischen Republik (res publica), die ungehinderte Herrschaft des Senats und die Abwehr der Mächte, die Recht und Gerechtigkeit sowie die freie politische Auseinandersetzung im Senat und vor der Volksversammlung gefährdeten. Seine vierzehn Philippischen Reden sind so ein Angriff auf den Konsul Antonius und dessen zweifelhafte Amtsführung. Allerdings konnte er noch nicht ahnen, dass Antonius zum Urgroßvater der berüchtigten römischen Kaiser Caligula und Nero wurde. Auch die skandalöse Verbindung mit der (...) ägyptischen Königin Kleopatra erlebte er nicht mehr; er hätte diese Liaison sicherlich für seine Polemik gegen den Erzfeind zu nutzen gewusst, den er als ein kriminelles Element darstellt, das es nur auf Zerstörung und Untergang abgesehen hat und daher zu beseitigen ist. Die Ziele und Methoden der Akteure auf der politischen Bühne misst Cicero an den traditionellen römischen Wertvorstellungen. Darin stimmen die Reden gegen Antonius mit dem Werk „Über die Pflichten“ überein, mit dem Cicero auf die Gefahren eines hemmungslosen, egoistischen und skrupellosen Machtstrebens aufmerksam machen wollte. Wie er in seinen philosophischen Schriften den Kampf gegen Caesar geführt hatte, so setzt er ihn in den Reden gegen Antonius mit den Waffen des Geistes fort. Cicero war davon überzeugt, dass Philosophie und Redekunst eine Einheit bilden und dass Theorie und Praxis, Ethik und Politik, Denken und Sprechen, Bildung und öffentliche Rede nicht voneinander zu trennen sind. In den Reden gegen Antonius thematisiert Cicero das Leitbild des gebildeten, rhetorisch kompetenten und moralisch gefestigten Politikers, der alle seine Fähigkeiten in den Dienst der res publica stellt, zum letzten Mal, um ihm konsequent wie nie zuvor zu folgen. Die vorliegende Übersetzung wurde 1990 von der Deutschen Akademie für Sprache und Dichtung, Darmstadt, ausgezeichnet. (shrink)

Pliny's celebration of Cicero's consular achievements contains a striking anomaly, namely the assertion that Cicero proscribed Marcus Antonius(HN7.117). That statement turns Cicero, the victim of Antonius’ murderous vendetta, into the one who wielded the executioner's axe, and it abruptly shifts the focus of the passage from 63 to 43b.c.Two slight corrections to the Latin text can eliminate the intrusion of the proscriptions by substituting a reference to the control Cicero exercised in 63 over Gaius Antonius, his (...) consular colleague and an old ally of Catiline. In hisIn Pisonem(§5), Cicero takes credit for combatting the threat posed by his colleague, and it is highly probable thatHN7.117 mentioned Gaius (not Marcus) Antonius as well, since Pliny's summary of Cicero's consular deeds and honours is nearly identical to the one found inPis. 4–6. The beauty of the emended text is that it restores both historical fact and a logical progression to the overall structure of Pliny's encomium. (shrink)

This note adduces three passages in Seneca the Elder to reinforce a demonstration in CQ 69, 793–8001 that the text of Plin. HN 7.117 has suffered corruption in one of its clauses and requires emendation to restore Pliny's intent. This additional evidence concerns a trope employed by declaimers which could have predisposed a scribe to alter Pliny's text to state that Cicero proscribed Mark Antony. Such a statement has no place in a list of achievements that otherwise all belong to (...) Cicero's consulship twenty years earlier in 63 b.c. (shrink)

Philosophy in Minutes distils 200 of the most important philosophical ideas into easily digestible, bite-sized sections. The core information for every topic - including debates such as the role of philosophy in science and religion, key thinkers from Aristotle to Marx, and introductions to morality and ethics - is explained in straightforward language, using illustrations to make the concepts easy to understand and remember. Whether you are perplexed by existentialism or pondering the notion of free will, this accessible small-format book (...) will help any reader to quickly grasp the basics of this highly nuanced subject. Chapters include: Truth and logic, Marxism, Communism and Socialism, Ontology, Philosophy and literature, Existence of God, Feminist theory, Consciousness, The future of philosophy. (shrink)

The name “Phoebe” probably is not too familiar in the study of the New Testament before 90’s. However, in the recent study of the role of woman in the Bible in connection with the patronage system in the Greco-Roman society, Phoebe has an important role because she helps Paul in his preparation for the mission to Rome. Paul calls her as a sister, deacon, and patron. This research argues that Phoebe has a role as a benefactor and deacon within the (...) patron-client system in the Roman society. Paul asks her to carry his letter to Rome in order that Christian community in Rome may help him for the future mission to bring the Gospel to Spain. Keywords: Phoebe, patronage, deacon, benefactor, and reciprocity. Abstrak: Nama “Febe” mungkin tidak begitu familiar dalam studi Perjanjian Baru sebelum tahun 90-an. Namun, dalam studi belakangan ini tentang peran perempuaan dalam Alkitab dalam kaitannya dengan sistem patronasi dalam masyarakat Yunani-Romawi, Febe memiliki peran penting karena dia membantu Paulus dalam persiapan misinya ke Roma. Paul menyebutnya sebagai saudari, diakon, dan pelindung. Penelitian ini hendak menunjukkan bahwa Phoebe memiliki peran sebagai donatur dan diakon dalam sistem patron-klien dalam masyarakat Romawi. Paulus memintanya untuk membawa suratnya ke Roma agar komunitas Kristen di Roma dapat menolongnya berkenaan dengan misi di masa depan yaitu mewartakan Injil ke Spanyol. Kata-kata kunci: Phoebe, patronage, deacon, donatur, dan timbal balik. (shrink)

Quick, accessible, compact guide to understanding key political concepts. Contents include: Liberty, Justice, Equality, Human rights, Social contract, Democracy, Monarchy, Anarchism, Capitalism, Socialism, Nationalism and Globalisation.

The struggle against liberalism in the totalitarian view of the state.--The concept of essence.--The affirmative character of culture.--Philosophy and critical theory.--On hedonism.--Industrialization and capitalism in the work of Max Weber.--Love mystified; a critique of Norman O. Brown and a reply to Herbert Marcuse by Norman O. Brown.--Aggressiveness in advanced industrial society.

Marcus Giaquinto tells the compelling story of one of the great intellectual adventures of the modern era: the attempt to find firm foundations for mathematics. From the late nineteenth century to the present day, this project has stimulated some of the most original and influential work in logic and philosophy.

En collaboration avec Marie-France Bazzo, Maka Kotto et plusieurs autres, voici un ouvrage qui traite de la liberté d’expression (que ce soit à propos du mot en n, ou de la pièce de théâtre SLAV), des débats sur le genre, ainsi que d’autres questions sociales fortement médiatisées qui ont provoqué un certain malaise dans la société.

The development of time which becoming more modern, exposes married couples to various opportunities and challenges to build Christian family life. The development of the modern world which is marked by very rapid progress in the fields of science and technology not only has a very positive impact but also has a very negative impact on the realization of Christian family life. The magnitude of the negative impact that has occurred has resulted in many Christian families, especially Christian husbands and (...) wives, experiencing difficulties in realizing their essence as a communion of love. Responding to situations like this, the Church is required to continuously proclaim and awaken Christian families, especially married couples, about the love of God as the basis, power, direction and goal of Christian family life. Pope Francis through the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia invites married couples as main actors in building a Christian family to always cultivate their love as the foundation of Christian family life. Because the strength of the Christian family lies in the ability of married couples to experience and manifest and teach God's love in Christian family life. That means, God's love which is manifested in the love of husband and wife becomes the determining foundation in building the Christian family as a communion of love. (shrink)

This paper develops a non-relativist version of contextualism about knowledge. It is argued that a plausible contextualism must take into account three features of our practice of attributing knowledge: (1) knowledge-attributions follow a default-and-challenge pattern; (2) there are preconditions for a belief's enjoying the status of being justified by default (e.g. being orthodox); and (3) for an error-possibility to be a serious challenge, there has to be positive evidence that the possibility might be realized in the given situation. It is (...) argued that standard "semantic" versions of contextualism (e.g. those of Lewis, Cohen, DeRose) fail to take these features into account, which makes them overly hospitable to the sceptic, and that Williams' version of contextualism, although incorporating (1), fails to do justice to (2) and (3). According to the contextualism developed here, although epistemic standards vary with the context, the truth-value of particular knowledge-attributions does not. Contexts here are understood as being constituted by two elements: an epistemic practice (a rule-governed social practice such as a scientific discipline, the law, a craft etc., in which knowledge-claims are evaluated according to specific standards) and the "facts of the matter" (i.e. those facts which, together with the epistemic standards in question, determine which error-possibilities are relevant and thus have to be eliminated for a knowledge-claim to be true). If there are several epistemic practices, and thus several contexts, in which a knowledge-claim can be evaluated, it is the "strictest" practice that counts. In this way, the counterintuitive consequence of other versions of contextualism that the same knowledge-claim can be true in one context, but false in another, can be avoided. At the same time, scepticism can be resisted since even in the "strictest" epistemic practices, error-possibilities become relevant only when backed by positive evidence that they might in fact obtain. (shrink)

In its first part, this paper deals with some passages of the Eneads in which the notions of consciousness and unconsciousness may be found. In spite of not having terms that correspond exactly to these in Greek, it is clear that Plotinus had very refined notions related to them, going up to indicate that consciousness might not be the epistemological function that defines humans. The multiple aspects of the phyché hyposthesis in Plotinus enables this separation between consciousness and the essence (...) of men. In its second part, this paper describes cosmological elements of the notions of consciousness and unconsciousness in Plotinus, since the celestial bodies are admitted as living beings. This paper indicates, finally, some problems related to astrology in Plotinus concerned with the notion of consciousness of the stars. (shrink)

Free-riding in global climate-change mitigation is a serious problem both from moral and instrumental points of view. It goes against the principle of reciprocity and has a damaging impact on the global effort to combat climate change. This problem can be resolved within the scheme of discourse-theoretic democracy by exploiting the domestic political public sphere to channel the green voice pushing for the making of environmental laws and poli­cies, to raise public awareness of the damaging impacts of climate change, and (...) to exercise social control of the climate-change inducing practices in a democratic country. These potentials of discourse-theoretic democracy should not, nevertheless, be exaggerated since their realizations depend immensely on what many nation-states lack, namely, the existence of an ecological culture and ecocitizens. (shrink)

The acclaimed American sociologist and cultural philosopher Philip Rieff gained great academic prestige with his thesis on the emergence of 'Psychological Man' in western culture and with his classic book, Freud: The Mind of the Moralist, published in 1959. In this work and the later The Triumph of the Therapeutic (1966) he not only offered a highly original interpretation of the work of Sigmund Freud, but critically evaluated the enormous influence of psychotherapeutic thinking on Western culture. However, Rieff's later work (...) on the theory of culture did not garner the same attention, and his most recent writings have received very little critical engagement. In Sociology and the Sacred, Antonius A.W. Zondervan sets out to remedy this neglect, arguing that Rieff's work is ripe for intellectual reconsideration. (shrink)

A personal account of a great Roman Emperor's life lessons.

Liberalism is often claimed to be at odds with feminism and critical race theory (CRT). This article argues, to the contrary, that Rawlsian liberalism supports the central commitments of both. Section 1 argues that Rawlsian liberalism supports intersectional feminism. Section 2 argues that the same is true of CRT. Section 3 then uses Young’s ‘Five Faces of Oppression’—a classic work widely utilized in feminism and CRT to understand and contest many varieties of oppression—to illustrate how Rawlsian liberalism supports diverse feminist (...) and CRT projects, and why it may be critical to achieve solidarity between feminism, CRT, and Rawlsian liberalism. Finally, Section 4 responds to five objections. (shrink)

Alex Byrne contends that women are (simply) adult human females, claiming that this thesis has considerably greater initial appeal than the justified true belief (JTB) theory of knowledge. This paper refutes Byrne’s thesis in the same way the JTB theory of knowledge is widely thought to have been refuted: through simple counterexamples. Lessons are drawn. One lesson is that women need not be human. A second lesson is that biology and physical phenotypes are both irrelevant to whether someone is a (...) woman, and indeed, female in a gendered sense. A third lesson is that trans women, cis women, alien women, and robot women are all women because to be a woman is to be an adult gendered female. This paper does not purport to settle complex normative questions of ethics or justice, including whether the ordinary meaning of “woman” ought to be retained or changed—though I do note plausible implications for these debates. This paper does purport to settle what the ordinary meaning of “woman” is, and in that regard contribute to important conceptual ground-clearing regarding what constitutes an ameliorative or revisionary definition of “woman.”. (shrink)

This article argues that existing approaches to programming ethical AI fail to resolve a serious moral-semantic trilemma, generating interpretations of ethical requirements that are either too semantically strict, too semantically flexible, or overly unpredictable. This paper then illustrates the trilemma utilizing a recently proposed ‘general ethical dilemma analyzer,’ GenEth. Finally, it uses empirical evidence to argue that human beings resolve the semantic trilemma using general cognitive and motivational processes involving ‘mental time-travel,’ whereby we simulate different possible pasts and futures. I (...) demonstrate how mental time-travel psychology leads us to resolve the semantic trilemma through a six-step process of interpersonal negotiation and renegotiation, and then conclude by showing how comparative advantages in processing power would plausibly cause AI to use similar processes to solve the semantic trilemma more reliably than we do, leading AI to make better moral-semantic choices than humans do by our very own lights. (shrink)

Analyse van historische, juridische en filosofische aspecten van de terdoodveroordeling van de Griekse wijsgeer.

In Epicurean Meteorology Frederik Bakker discusses the meteorology as laid out by Epicurus and Lucretius, offering an updated and qualified account of Epicurean meteorology.

Visual thinking -- visual imagination or perception of diagrams and symbol arrays, and mental operations on them -- is omnipresent in mathematics. Is this visual thinking merely a psychological aid, facilitating grasp of what is gathered by other means? Or does it also have epistemological functions, as a means of discovery, understanding, and even proof? By examining the many kinds of visual representation in mathematics and the diverse ways in which they are used, Marcus Giaquinto argues that visual thinking (...) in mathematics is rarely just a superfluous aid; it usually has epistemological value, often as a means of discovery. Drawing from philosophical work on the nature of concepts and from empirical studies of visual perception, mental imagery, and numerical cognition, Giaquinto explores a major source of our grasp of mathematics, using examples from basic geometry, arithmetic, algebra, and real analysis. He shows how we can discern abstract general truths by means of specific images, how synthetic a priori knowledge is possible, and how visual means can help us grasp abstract structures. Visual Thinking in Mathematics reopens the investigation of earlier thinkers from Plato to Kant into the nature and epistemology of an individual's basic mathematical beliefs and abilities, in the new light shed by the maturing cognitive sciences. Clear and concise throughout, it will appeal to scholars and students of philosophy, mathematics, and psychology, as well as anyone with an interest in mathematical thinking. (shrink)

Sejak Immanuel Kant, moral sering diartikan sebagai kewajiban yang berat. Dalam bukunya Doing & Allowing Harm ini, Fiona Woollard tampaknya ingin menolak pemahaman yang rigor. Ia tidak ingin buruburu menilai orang yang tidak menjalankan kewajiban sebagai teledor atau lalai, sebab dalam situasi konkrit, ada berbagai konteks berbeda, yang dalam etika Kant kurang diperhitungkan. Dalam hal ini Woollard membedakan disposisi antara melakukan (doing) dan membiarkan (allowing) terjadinya pencederaan (harming). Woollard hanya menyatakan bahwa melakukan pencederaan lebih sulit untuk dibenarkan daripada hanya membiarkan (...) terjadinya pencederaan (hlm. 5). Artinya kedua tindakan itu tidak diposisikan secara berlawanan (hitam-putih) dalam suatu kerangka kewajiban moral, melainkan hanya gradual saja, khususnya dalam peristiwa yang mengakibatkan kerugian (harm) yang sering menjadi pertimbangan moral. Moral memang berkaitan dengan soal tindakan atau pun sikap, tetapi tindakan atau sikap ini bisa berarti aktif melakukan, mau pun pasif membiarkan. [] Dalam keseluruhan, Woollard, yang mengolah gagasannya dari Philippa Foot, Jonathan Bennett, Warren Quinn, Frances Kamm dan Jeff McMahan (hlm. 206), tidak bermaksud menghilangkan kewajiban moral dari kehidupan, tetapi mau memperlihatkan bahwa banyak situasi yang harus diperhitungkan untuk sampai pada suatu pemaksaan (imposition) yang dianggap wajar sebagai alasan moral. Perbedaan situasi-situasi ini juga membedakan disposisi setiap orang, sehingga tidak dimungkinkan kewajiban yang kiranya berlaku sama untuk semua. Woollard yakin ajaran melakukan dan membiarkan mencegah pemaksaan/ pembebanan yang tidak adil dan campur tangan pihak lain terhadap otonomi tubuh, tetapi tetap menjaga agar orang tidak membiarkan yang lain dicederai. Hal ini dapat membantu memberi pertimbangan konkrit dalam praktek moral. Hal lain yang menjadi pertimbangan adalah kepentingan khusus dari tubuh kita yang merupakan dakuan kepunyaan yang tak terbantahkan, sehingga setiap prinsip moral atau kode etik yang tidak mengakui tubuhku sebagai kepunyaanku tidak menghormati dan menghancurkan pandanganku mengenai diriku sendiri dan hubunganku dengan yang lain (hlm. 192). Namun tetap menjadi soal juga, apakah dalam hal ini tubuh bukannya lebih dari sekedar kepunyaan; apakah pertimbangan tubuh sebagai bagian dari diriku sebagai pelakusepenuhnya (full-fledged agency) justru tidak mengundang pertimbangan serius sebagai otoritas prima facie agar dalam mengambil keputusan mengenai apa yang terjadi atas tubuhku, juga lebih dari sekedar demi kepentingan dan kinginan-ku? Suatu hal yang masih kontroversial dalam pertimbangan moral. (A. Sudiarja, Fakultas Teologi, Universitas Sanata Dharma, Yogyakarta). (shrink)

The thesis of this paper is that Platonic Forms are angels. I make this identification by claiming that Platonic Forms have the characteristics of angels, in particular, that Platonic Forms are alive. I offer four arguments for this claim. First, it seems that engaging in self-directed action is a sufficient condition for being alive. The Forms are, as teleological activities, self-directed actions. Second, bodies receive their being from their Forms, and some bodies are essentially alive. Third, in the Good, all (...) the types of goodness, including life, are identical. The Forms are appearances of the Good. Fourth, since the Good imparts as much goodness as it can, the Forms are alive unless there is some bar to their being alive. There are good reasons to think that there is no such bar. I then show that ethical vices do not give body to human form, but give body to other forms—those that are evil angels. Lastly, I provide a survey of the relationships that various religious traditions posit between ethical vice and the demonic. (shrink)

According to the standard interpretation of Einstein’s field equations, gravity consists of mass-energy curving spacetime, and an additional physical force or entity—denoted by Λ (the ‘cosmological constant’)—is responsible for the Universe’s metric-expansion. Although General Relativity’s direct predictions have been systematically confirmed, the dominant cosmological model thought to follow from it—the ΛCDM (Lambda cold dark matter) model of the Universe’s history and composition—faces considerable challenges, including various observational anomalies and experimental failures to detect dark matter, dark energy, or inflation-field candidates. This (...) paper shows that Einstein’s Equivalence Principle entails two possible physical interpretations of General Relativity’s field equations. Although the field equations facially appear to support the standard interpretation—that gravity consists of mass-energy curving spacetime—the field equations can be equivalently understood as holding that gravitational effects instead result from mass-energy accelerating the metric-expansion of a second-order spacetime fabric superimposed upon an absolute, first-order Euclidean space, resulting in the observational appearance of spacetime curvature. This alternative interpretation of relativity is shown to be empirically equivalent to the standard interpretation of relativity, albeit with a changing value for Λ (which is similar to how Λ is understood in the conception of Λ as ‘quintessence’, but in this case takes Λ to be gravity). The reconceptualization is then shown to potentially resolve major observational anomalies for the ΛCDM model, including recent observations conflicting with ΛCDM predictions, as well as failures to directly detect dark matter, dark energy, and inflation field/particle candidates. (shrink)

Abstrak: John Langshaw Austin menjadi terkenal sebagai filosof Lingkaran Oxford yang menekankan pentingnya tuturan performatif. Namun dalam artikelnya “Truth” (1950) ia menggunakan teori korespondensi dalam memahami masalah kebenaran. Austin mengkritik Strawson yang menggunakan teori deflasioner tentang kebenaran berdasarkan analisis mengenai pentingnya tuturan performatif. Dalam tulisan ini akan dijelaskan mengapa Austin lebih memilih teori korespondensi dari pada teori deflasioner dalam memahami kebenaran. Juga akan ditunjukkan sumbangan khas Austin yang membarui teori korespondensi umum yang menggunakan metafora “cermin” dan “peta” realitas dengan menekankan (...) sifat konvensional ide korespondensi. Menurut penulis, hal ini merupakan suatu usaha yang serius dan berguna dalam mengartikulasikan cara kita menggunakan simbol-simbol bahasa yang ditentukan secara sewenang-wenang untuk merepresentasikan realitas dunia. Kata-kata Kunci: Kebenaran, teori korespondensi, teori koherensi, teori deflasioner, teori tindak-tutur, aspek ilokusioner bahasa, tuturan deskriptif, tuturan performatif, konvensi deskriptif, konvensi demonstratif. Abstract: John Langshaw Austin is an “Ordinary Language Philosopher” of Oxford, who is famous for emphasizing the importance of performative statements. In his article, “Truth” (1950), however, he used correspondence theory for understanding the problem of truth. Austin criticized Strawson, who uses the deflationary theory of truth that is compatible with the analysis of performative utterances. This article will explain why Austin chooses the correspondence theory of truth rather than deflationary one. It will also elaborate Austin’s specific contribution in changing the version of the correspondence theory, which uses the metaphor of “mirroring” or “mapping”’ the world, to a conventional correspondence theory. It is, in my opinion, a serious and notable attempt to articulate our use of arbitrary symbols in the representation of brute reality. Keywords: Truth, correspondence theory, coherence theory, deflationary theory, speech-act theory, the illocutionary aspect of language, descriptive utterance, performative utterance, descriptive convention, demonstrative convention. (shrink)

Is there a language of transcendence which does not fall under the well-worn categories of monism, theism, pantheism, biblical or pagan monotheism, personal or tripersonal God, or an impersonal absolute, conceived as immanent and/or transcendent? The present set of studies from different fields of research centers on the question whether it is possible to speak at all of transcendence or a divinity, and if it is, under what limitations does such speech proceed. In current discussion in theology and in philosophy (...) of religion, there is a pervasive awareness that the inherited terms and alternatives, developed in the western tradition, no longer facilitate an adequate understanding of the divine. Increasing familiarity with the languages of 'immanence' and 'transcendence' (under erasure) in Hindu and Buddhist thought has further jumbled our coordinates, while holding out the promise of a more subtle and vital engagement with the matter itself of religious inquiry. A further long-established distinction, between 'personal' and 'impersonal, ' also takes on rich new hues in Asian contexts, where the very notion of 'person' may undergo unsettling critiques. Transgressing the categories of 'personal' and 'impersonal' points to the mystical depth of religious traditions, emphasizes their openness and reintegrates essential elements of both perspectives. Advancing with curiosity and caution, all the contributors take seriously the diversity of historical religious traditions, while nevertheless searching for a fresh language that may connect these traditions and provide a common ground of understanding. (shrink)