The 'Vocabulary for the study of religion' is an interdisciplinary endeavor that offers a unique overview of critical terms in the study of religion. This is the first dictionary in English to cover such a broad spectrum of theoretical topics used in the academic study of religion, including those from adjacent disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, historiography, theology, philology, literary studies, psychology, philosophy, cultural studies, and political sciences. The Vocabulary contains over 400 entries written by experts with a background in (...) a variety of disciplines. (shrink)

At least three major questions can be asked of myth: what is its subject matter? What is its origin? What is its function? Theories of myth may differ in the answers they give to any of these questions, but more basically they may also differ on which of the questions they ask. C.G. Jung's theory is one of the few that purports to answer fully all three questions. This volume collects and organizes the key passages on myth by Jung himself (...) and by some of the most prominent Jungian writers after him: Erich Neumann, Marie-Louise von Franz and James Hillman. The book synthesizes the discovery of myth as a way of thinking, where it becomes a therapeutic tool providing an entrance to the unconscious. (shrink)

Andrews, Robert M A way of dealing with historical episodes, the consequences of which continue to challenge us, is to ask a counterfactual-a 'what if?' question. Martin Luther's life, his critique of the Catholic Church, his challenge to the social and political hegemony of European Catholicism, the resultant splintering of an ecclesial unity assumed by the medieval mind to be practically impenetrable, is one such historical episode. My counterfactual is as follows: What would have been the consequences to European (...) Catholicism had Luther not rebelled against the church? As this article will later discuss, Luther famously spent many hours in the confessional during his time as an Augustinian friar. Luther's superior, spiritual guide, and confessor, Johann von Staupitz -whose motto was 'I am yours, save me'-often assured Luther that his sins were forgiven, that Christ's work had been done, and that he consequently had no need to despair of the mercy of God. It was advice that Luther ultimately found unsatisfactory. 'I did not love, no, rather I hated the just God who punishes sinners', Luther famously said in 1545, reflecting on his time as a monk, articulating a conscience that found solace only outside of Roman communion. (shrink)

To the extent that Mircea Eliade is concerned with millenarianism he is concerned with it as only an instance of religious phenomena generally and is concerned with its meaning rather than its cause. Yet presupposed in the meaning he finds is a theory of its cause, and that theory is worth examining both because it elucidates Eliade's approach to religion as a whole and because as an explanation of millenarianism it is atypical and even unique.

One-third of all adults under the age of thirty in the United States of America are ‘nones’. Nones include atheists, agnostics, and those who answer “nothing in particular” to religious survey questions. In this article the authors examine the rise of the nones, drawing upon the work of Mary Eberstadt, Charles Taylor, and Joseph Bottum. We classify the nones into three groups: naturalists, transcendent spiritualists, and non-transcendent spiritualists. After discussing various challenges for evangelization among the nones, we propose some ideas (...) to address these challenges. Here we draw upon the work of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Jacques Maritain, and Mariano Artigas. Finally, we discuss some cultural concerns and problems that would probably result if the rise of the nones is left unaddressed. (shrink)

Scholars in religious studies, or “religionists,” often mischaracterize the social‐scientific study of religion. They assume that a social‐scientific analysis of the origin, function, meaning, or truth of religion either opposes or disregards the believer's analysis, which religionists profess to present and defend. I do not argue that the social sciences analyze religion from the believer's point of view. I argue instead that a social scientific analysis is more akin and germane to the believer's point of view than religionists assume. I (...) single out seven mischaracterizations of the social sciences typically held by religionists. (shrink)

. On the one hand Jungian John Sanford criticizes Carl Jung for underestimating the importance granted evil by at least some strains of Christianity. On the other hand Sanford follows Jung in assuming that psychology is entitled to criticize Christianity whenever it fails to grant evil its due. Like Jung, Sanford contends that he is faulting Christianity on only psychological grounds: for failing to cope with evil in man–the shadow archetype. In fact, Sanford, like perhaps Jung as well, is also (...) criticizing Christianity on metaphysical grounds: for failing to acknowledge not just psychological but also ontological evil. Whether Sanford is thereby using psychology to assess Christian metaphysics is the issue. (shrink)

Like Clifford Geertz and Mary Douglas, Victor Turner considers religion the key to culture and ritual the key to religion. Like them as well, he interprets religion the way believers purportedly do: as beliefs, as beliefs about the cosmos, yet as cosmic beliefs compatible with modern science. Ritual serves to express those cosmic beliefs–not for the scientific purpose of explaining or controlling the cosmos but for the existential purpose of giving human beings a place in it. Ritual serves simultaneously to (...) express beliefs about society–not only for the functionalist purpose of keeping human beings in their social place but also for the existential purpose of giving them a social place. (shrink)

The history of the modern study of myth can be divided into two main categories: that which sees myth as the primitive counterpart to natural science, itself considered overwhelmingly modern, and that which sees myth as almost anything but the primitive counterpart to natural science. The first category constitutes the nineteenth-century approach to myth. The second category constitutes the twentieth-century approach. Tylor and Frazer epitomize the nineteenth-century view. Malinowski, Eliade, Bultmann, Jonas, Camus, Freud, and Jung epitomize the twentieth-century approach. The (...) question for the twenty-first century is whether myth can be brought back to the physical world, but in a way compatible with science. The case of the myth of Gaia will be considered as a possible way of doing so. (shrink)

Abstract. The topic of the March 2011 symposium in Zygon is “The Mythic Reality of the Autonomous Individual.” Yet few of the contributors even discuss “mythic reality.” Of the ones who do, most cavalierly use “myth” dismissively, as simply a false belief. Rather than reconciling myth with reality, they oppose myth to reality. Their view of myth is by no means unfamiliar or unwarranted, but they need to recognize other views of myth and to defend their own. Above all, they (...) need to appreciate the grip that any belief aptly labelled myth has—a grip that holds at least as much for a false belief as for a true one. (shrink)

Accession Number: ATLA0001712201; Hosting Book Page Citation: p 311-327.; Language(s): English; General Note: Bibliography: p 326-327.; Issued by ATLA: 20130825; Publication Type: Essay.

Li Zehou is perhaps best known among Western audiences for his work on aesthetics. This is mainly due to the fact that translations of his writings available in English are mostly limited to his aesthetics.1 The content of A Response to Michael Sandel and Other Matters differs greatly from these previous translations. Published in Chinese in 2014, it is one of Li’s most recent books, and in it he discusses several main points of the systematic philosophical outlook he has developed (...) over recent decades, and places them in relation to Western liberalism. A Response thus aims far beyond responding to Michael Sandel’s views on justice and morality as presented in the... (shrink)

Michael Peters, Sonja Arndt & Marek TesarThis is a collective writing experiment of PESA members, including its Executive Committee, asking questions of the Philosophy of Education in a New Key. Co...

Matteo Ricci (1552-1610) was an Italian Jesuit and one of the first Christian missionaries to China in the modern era. He was a genuine polymath—a translator, cartographer, mathematician, astronomer, and musician. Above all, Ricci was a missionary for the gospel. As we briefly examine his 1603 seminal work, The True Meaning of the Lord of Heaven, our hope is that we, as evangelical educators, will perceive some of the deeper principles necessary for our own missionary work among unreached people.

Nanomedicine is yielding new and improved treatments and diagnostics for a range of diseases and disorders. Nanomedicine applications incorporate materials and components with nanoscale dimensions where novel physiochemical properties emerge as a result of size-dependent phenomena and high surface-to-mass ratio. Nanotherapeutics and in vivo nanodiagnostics are a subset of nanomedicine products that enter the human body. These include drugs, biological products, implantable medical devices, and combination products that are designed to function in the body in ways unachievable at larger scales. (...) Nanotherapeutics andin vivonanodiagnostics incorporate materials that are engineered at the nanoscale to express novel properties that are medicinally useful. These nanomedicine applications can also contain nanomaterials that are biologically active, producing interactions that depend on biological triggers. Examples include nanoscale formulations of insoluble drugs to improve bioavailability and pharmacokinetics, drugs encapsulated in hollow nanoparticles with the ability to target and cross cellular and tissue membranes and to release their payload at a specific time or location, imaging agents that demonstrate novel optical properties to aid in locating micrometastases, and antimicrobial and drug-eluting components or coatings of implantable medical devices such as stents. (shrink)

We report on the small-scale (0.5 13 h - 1M, a large-scale bias of ~2.0 and a satellite fraction of 12 ± 2 per cent. Thus, these galaxies occupy haloes with average masses in between those of the higher redshift BOSS CMASS sample and the original SDSS I/II luminous red galaxy sample © 2012 The Authors Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society © doi:10.1093/mnras/sts314.

Measuring neuronal activity with electrophysiological methods may be useful in detecting neurological dysfunctions, such as mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI). This approach may be particularly valuable for rapid detection in at-risk populations including military service members and athletes. Electrophysiological methods, such as quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG) and recording event-related potentials (ERPs) may be promising; however, the field is nascent and significant controversy exists on the efficacy and accuracy of the approaches as diagnostic tools. For example, the specific measures derived from an (...) electroencephalogram (EEG) that are most suitable as markers of dysfunction have not been clearly established. A study was conducted to summarize and evaluate the statistical rigor of evidence on the overall utility of qEEG as an mTBI detection tool. The analysis evaluated qEEG measures/parameters that may be most suitable as fieldable diagnostic tools, identified other types of EEG measures and analysis methods of promise, recommended specific measures and analysis methods for further development as mTBI detection tools, identified research gaps in the field, and recommended future research and development thrust areas. The qEEG study group formed the following conclusions: 1. Individual qEEG measures provide limited diagnostic utility for mTBI. However, many measures can be important features of qEEG discriminant functions, which do show significant promise as mTBI detection tools. 2. ERPs offer utility in mTBI detection. In fact, evidence indicates that ERPs can identify abnormalities in cases where EEGs alone are nondisclosing. 3. The standard mathematical procedures used in the characterization of mTBI EEGs should be expanded to incorporate newer methods of analysis including nonlinear dynamical analysis, complexity measures, analysis of causal interactions, graph theory and information dynamics. 4. and 5. are too long to include here. (shrink)

Originally published in 1989 Liberal Neutrality approaches the recommendation of neutrality by confronting the abstract prescription (that we should be neutral) with the implications for particular people and institutions. This not only identifies what neutrality involves logically, but also exposes the practical difficulties that may be encountered in pursuing it. In some cases, such close examination shows that neutrality is not desirable, and in others that it is attainable only within certain limits. Although neutrality has become a fashionable term in (...) political theory, this is the only volume to subject the idea to systematic scrutiny. It will be useful not only to specialists in diverse disciplines - political scientists, philosophers, sociologists, lawyers and educationalists. (shrink)

The unbridled consumption of clothing threatens the environment. In fashion communities, a discussion is developing around the adoption of new materials and economic models to reduce the impacts of clothing production and use. We discuss these emergent technologies in the wider historical setting of the Anthropocene, a geologic term that denotes the global-scale environmental changes brought about by agricultural and industrial activity. The long history of human-environmental interactions is interwoven with the development of international garment economies that have shaped biological (...) and physical systems. This article provides an account of how changes in clothing manufacturing and consumption patterns have... (shrink)

The House We Live In explores the commonalities underlying three classical approaches to virtue ethics-Aristotelean, Buddhist, and Confucian-to develop a flourishing-based ethics capable of addressing the problems of liberal democracies. This book will appeal to scholars and to general readers.

Cet article est divisé en quatre parties. Dans la première je cherche à prouver que la distinction cartésienne entre l'âme et le corps repose sur une base strictement objective, à savoir sur la transparence du doute et la possibilité de représentation du corps. Dans la seconde partie, je tente de montrer comment le doute qui suffit à prouver mon existence selon Descartes, doit se transformer, en raison meme de sa soi-disant transparence, en un etat nécessaire de cette meme existence. Dans (...) la troisiéme partie la transparence du doute sera rejetée en depit de Descartes. Enf in dans la quatriéme, je recommande le dualisme aristotélicien méprisé par Descartes, et qui trouve son expression dans la phrase: „l'Phomme est un animal raisonnable.“ „Und sodann untersuchte ich aufmerksam, was ich denn bin, und sah, daß ich mir einbilden üann, dafl ich keinen Körper habe und daß es keine Welt noch einen Ort gibt, an dem ich mich befinde, daß ich mir deshalb aber nicht einbilden kann, daß ich nicht bin, ganz im Gegenteil sah ich, daß gerade daraus, daß ich mir bewuflt bin, an der Wahrheit der anderen Dinge zu zweifeln, ganz evident und gewifl folgt, daß ich bin, und daß ich auf der anderen Seite, wenn ich aufhoren würde zu denken, auch keinen Grund mehr fur die Uberzeugung hatte, dafi ich bin, selbst wenn alles iibrige, was ich mir jemals vorgestellt habe, wahr ware. Daraus erkannte ich, daß ich eine Substanz bin, deren ganzes Wesen und deren Natur nur darin besteht, zu denken, und die zu ihrem Sein keines Ortes bedarf noch von irgendeinem materiellen Ding abhängt, so daß dieses Ich, d. h. die Seele, durch die ich das bin, was ich bin, völlig verschieden ist vom Körper . . . und daß sie selbst, wenn er nicht ware, doch nicht aufhörte, alles das zu sein, was sie ist.“¹. (shrink)

Extended Essay Review of the 26 chapters in the collection Global Epistemologies and Philosophies of Science, Routledge, 2021.