ABSTRACTThe role of the image in the third part of Practice in Christianity suggests that Kierkegaard was inspired by Meister Eckhart’s and Johann Tauler’s account of detachment. I argue that Kierkegaard was not only indirectly influenced by Tauler through the works of the Pietistic writers, but also directly inspired by Tauler’s sermons. Particularly striking are similarities to a sermon that was included in the Tauler edition owned by Kierkegaard: the second sermon on the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross. (...) A comparison of the texts shows how both Tauler and Kierkegaard criticize the mental images their contemporaries hold of Jesus Christ. Both stress the importance of existential kenosis, which they describe as Entbildung of the intellect and the will, and which is an essential part of following Christ in his abasement. Furthermore, they analyze inadequate attempts to imitate Christ in a similar manner. Even though Kierkegaard and Tauler differ with regard to the ontological implications of Entbildung, the ethical implications are the same: one should not retreat from the world, but rather turn to it with a selfless attitude. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Unspoken Word: Negative Theology in Meister Eckhart's German SermonsOliver DaviesBruce Milem. The Unspoken Word: Negative Theology in Meister Eckhart's German Sermons. Washington, D. C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2002. Pp. ix + 192. Cloth, $44.95.Questions of meaning in Meister Eckhart's German sermons have prompted a series of recent studies by scholars interested in the dynamics of language and piety as they emerged in (...) vernacular texts written in Northern Europe in the late Middle Ages. Bruce Milem's book sits within this school of reflection and is to be distinguished by his decision to frame the discussion within the context of a theory of the image, as developed by Eckhart across a number of works. It is this hermeneutic which gives coherence to The Unspoken Word and which allows the author to build an understanding of the role of language in Eckhart's sermons that draws upon Brecht's theory of the Verfremdungseffekt. According to this, alienation of language, or the disruption of its ordinary meanings, acts as its objectification in such a way that the audience is prompted to reflect upon their own situatedness with respect to the meanings which are disclosed within it. Language, or narrative, of this kind acts as a hermeneutic of self-critique and enhanced self-understanding.Milem bases his argument concerning the image on a close reading of just four sermons: 52 (Beati pauperes spiritu), Sermon 2 (Intravit Iesus in quoddam castellum), Sermon 16B (Quasi vas auri solidum) and Sermon 6 (Iusti vivent in aeternum). In these texts, expressed in different ways, he discerns firstly a theoretical outworking of the image as something that is defined by virtue of its relation to its source. The classic discussion of this comes in Sermon 16B with its discourse on a reflection in a mirror, whereby the image is "at one" with its source. But Milem rightly extends this theory to mean that in so far as all created things are images, they can be defined with respect to their relation to their source in God, rather than that of which they are images. But created images can also be defined in terms of their dissimilarity to their source: their incompleteness and temporality. The particular place of the sermon is given with its capacity to enact this condition of the image in ways that make it explicit.Milem argues for the German sermon as "an event" which is at the same time a mode of self-knowing, whereby the self comes to a deeper realisation of its dependence upon the divine at every moment of its being and action. Being ourselves constituted as "image," we are conditioned by the dialectic of likeness and distinction which characterises the relation of all images to the Creator. In our case however this is a state which can be realised in an existential act of reflection as a possibility which is opened up for us by our entry into the very particular, disruptive linguistic world of the sermon. This is an advancement on Walter Haug's notion of the language of the sermon as "transformational" but it adds to it a nice distinction of the status of the human creature as "image" and therefore conditioned by dissimilarity as much as likeness.In The Unspoken Word, Bruce Milem offers us a careful and intelligent analysis of the four sermons as exemplifying a kind of linguistic alienation which serves the end of self-illumination, as we come into a new possession of ourselves as being both intensively "like" God and utterly distinct from Him. This is not merely a cognitive change in us but also an existential one, as Milem's analysis of the theme of justice and human action in Sermon 6 shows. To this extent, his use of the hermeneutic of the image as signaling both likeness and distinction at an existential level usefully opens up new avenues of understanding. To some extent however this trajectory would have been strengthened by taking into account the two areas of inquiry with which Milem chooses not to engage (15-18), namely the relation between the German and Latin works and the question of whether... (shrink)

I argue that Meister Eckhart's distinctive use of language in his German sermons deliberately reflects his theological view. Instead of being straightforward statements of doctrine, Eckhart's sermons use paradox, wordplay, and imagery to engage their interpreters dialectically and bring them to the perspective Eckhart hopes to instill. This perspective centers on God's simultaneous distinction and indistinction from creatures, including the soul. Knowing God requires becoming aware of one's own contingency as a creature in time, which exists only because it (...) receives its being from God with every moment. For Eckhart, Christian practice does not mean to achieve eternal salvation or mystical union with the divine. Rather, it confesses and proclaims the soul's recognition of its ontological dependence on God. Through close readings of four sermons, I show how Eckhart's language reveals his ontological and practical views, which in turn determine how he speaks. His sermons present complex verbal images of God, the soul, and their relationship. (shrink)

그리스도교철학자들은 대체로 사람은 누구나 궁극적으로 행복을 추구한다는 아리스토텔레스의 통찰을 수용하면서 행복의 실질적 내용을 ‘지복직관’에서 찾는다. 그런데 이러한 행복론은 중대한 문제를 내포하고 있다. 지복직관은 신의 본질에 대한 완전한 인식에서 성립하는 것이다. 그런데 신의 본질에 대한 인식은 신의 본질에 상응하는 인식의 방식으로 이루어져야만 완전할 수 있다. 그러나 신을 제외한 어떠한 존재자도 신을 그의 본질에 상응하는 방식으로 인식할 수 없다. 그런데 이 경우 지복직관은 신 자신의 자기 자신의 본질에 대한 인식에서 성립된다고 말해야만 한다. 그러나 이러한 행복을 인간의 행복이라고 말할 수는 없을 것이다. 이러한 (...) 문제 상황에서 아우구스티누스 그리고 특히 토마스는 인간의 행복이 신의 본질에 대한 직관에 있음을 인정하면서도 신의 본질에 대한 인간의 인식에 한계를 설정함으로써 인간의 지복을 신의 자기인식으로서의 지복직관과 구별하였다. 한편 이러한 지복은 엄밀한 의미의 지복에는 미치지 못한다는 비판에 직면할 수 있다. 이에 대해 디트리히는 지복직관을 엄밀한 의미에서 추구하여, 원리의 양태에 따라 원리를 인식하면서 자기 자신을 인식하는 능동지성을 통한 신의 본질의 인식으로 파악하였다. 더 나아가 에크하르트는 지복직관에서 인간과 신은 구분되지 않는 하나라는 주장으로까지 나아갔다. 그러나 이러한 지복직관론은 신의 본질을 통한 신의 본질의 직관이라는 정의에 충실하지만, 인간이 더 이상 인간이 아닐 때 인간의 지복이 있다는 역설적 상황에 직면하게 된다. (shrink)

First Eckhart says, "God is a word, an unspoken word." This sentence recalls the beginning of the Gospel of John, but it is curious that Eckhart alludes to its identification of the Word with God precisely here, right after he asserts God's ineffa- ...

In 1939, scholars associated with the pro-Nazi Thüringian German Christian movement founded a research institute dedicated to the task of removing the legacy of Judaism from Christianity. The mission of the Institute for the Study and Elimination of Jewish Influence on German Church Life was to render Christianity acceptable within the antisemitic and militarized climate of National Socialism. This task required purging Christian theology of Jewish influence, a feature evident in the Institute's version of the New Testament titled (...) The Message of God. This publication aimed to transform the religious experience of ordinary German believers and would eventually sell over 200,000 copies. This article examines material in this text as it relates to the Sermon on the Mount and concludes that, despite the apparent incongruity between Nazi ideology and New Testament ethics, the editors of the so-called ‘Nazi Bible’ believed their task to be guided by Christian ethical principles. (shrink)

The claims of Mt. 5:17—20 are often taken to provide the interpretive key to the ethical claims of the Sermon on the Mount as a whole. The theological issue at stake here is the determinative relation between Christ's person and work and his teaching. This article explores the vital role played by the identity of Christ as the `fulfiller of the law' and `bringer of the Kingdom' in the exegesis of the Sermon offered by Eduard Thurneysen and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in (...) their respective works Die Bergpredigt (1936) and Nachfolge (1937). Both readings assert that the force and nature of the claims of the Sermon cannot be understood aright apart from constant attention to the difference made by the fact that Christ is the preacher. Out of this shared conviction, both theologians advance a reading of the Sermon as `the gospel itself' in the light of the eschatological identity of Jesus. Such readings of the Sermon, arising amidst the German Kirchenkampf of the 1930s, represent substantial contributions to the `responsible interpretation' of the Barmen Declaration (1934) whose second article states that, `As Jesus Christ is God's assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so in the same way and with the same seriousness is he also God's mighty claim upon our whole life.'. (shrink)

The claims of Mt. 5:17—20 are often taken to provide the interpretive key to the ethical claims of the Sermon on the Mount as a whole. The theological issue at stake here is the determinative relation between Christ's person and work and his teaching. This article explores the vital role played by the identity of Christ as the `fulfiller of the law' and `bringer of the Kingdom' in the exegesis of the Sermon offered by Eduard Thurneysen and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in (...) their respective works Die Bergpredigt (1936) and Nachfolge (1937). Both readings assert that the force and nature of the claims of the Sermon cannot be understood aright apart from constant attention to the difference made by the fact that Christ is the preacher. Out of this shared conviction, both theologians advance a reading of the Sermon as `the gospel itself' in the light of the eschatological identity of Jesus. Such readings of the Sermon, arising amidst the German Kirchenkampf of the 1930s, represent substantial contributions to the `responsible interpretation' of the Barmen Declaration (1934) whose second article states that, `As Jesus Christ is God's assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so in the same way and with the same seriousness is he also God's mighty claim upon our whole life.'. (shrink)

This article explores the tension between Meister Eckhart's frequent claim that the human soul is an image of the divine and his equally frequent claim that God is beyond description and language. Through a reading of German Sermon 16b, I argue that Eckhart emphasizes the image's immediate ontological relationship to its source and downplays the image's similarity to this source. The soul as an image of God reveals God not through its nature as a soul but through the contingency (...) of its being. The same is true of the sermon as well. (shrink)

This essay wants to provide a preliminary introduction to, and initial contextualization of the sermons of the seventeenth-century Capuchin preacher Geminianus von Mainz. To my knowledge, his literary production has never been a subject of exhaustive scholarship, even though it has been portrayed by some as a typical example of Bavarian baroque preaching from the later seventeenth century.1 More recently, his metaphorical approach to marriage has been commented upon in passing by Ulrike Strasser and Merry Wiesner-Hanks,2 whereas several culinary remarks (...) in his sermons drew the attention of the late German gastrosopher Christoph Wagner, as can be read in the chapter on 'Barocke... (shrink)

An interactive collaborative drawing ‘machine’ designed on the concept of a neural network, allowing participants to experience a shared creative process, using the principles of open-source and social networked communication through an analogue string system. The underlying concept of the String Neural Network is to introduce participants to the idea of collaborative-shared drawing practice, as a dispersed collective that alludes to Roland Barthes The Death of the Author (1967) whereby each participant plays an equal role as both viewer and artist. (...) Played out like a surrealist Exquisite Corpse game of consequences or as a piece of Haiku poetry, the drawing participants contribute marks, signs and signifiers to an open-content drawing, akin to the development of open-source software. The string network consists of five drawing table ‘nodes’ within a room/studio space measuring eight by eight metres square. Each node is linked to the other four via pulleys and washing lines, making it possible to peg a sheet of A4 paper to a line and winch it across to any one of the other nodes. The network system uses ten string connections between the five drawing tables, creating a pentagram within a pentagon neural network design. Representing the interconnected synapses and neurons of the brain, the role of each participant is that of cause and effect. A single instruction initiates a series of consequences that unfold in drawings, marks and patterns that are created whilst being hoisted simultaneously across the room in quick succession. The Neural String Network project was first set up in March 2012 to coincide with ‘DecodeRecode’, a telematic art project undertaken by students at MediaCityUK Salford University, as part of the centenary celebration of Alan Turing. Each participating student was given a single word drawn from the Turing theme, such as machine, brain, code and apple that were interpreted and communicated as a drawing by a collective consciousness. (shrink)

To preach morals is easy, to ground them difficult. I think this saying of Schopenhauer is quite true. In the writings of the moral theorists we meet with ample enthusiasm for the beauty and the loftiness of moral principles. But even the best moral sermons are certainly no substitute for philosophical reasoning. To-day more than ever before we need the soundest foundation for a truly fixed ethics. For, to-day there is not a single affirmation in morals, which is not contradicted (...) by its opposite. Eduard von Hartmann, for instance, could in the beginning of the twentieth century still maintain that the differences of opinion in ethics are concerned. (shrink)

En este artículo me propongo mostrar que el Péri Archôn de Damascio representa, más allá de las intenciones del autor, la implosión de la metafísica neoplatónica y, al mismo tiempo, el intento más riguroso pero también más desgarrador por mantenerla a flote y asegurar la fundamentación ordenada de la realidad. En este sentido, toda la obra está animada por un doble movimiento: por un lado, la postulación de un Absoluto incoordinado (lo Inefable); por el otro, la postulación en última instancia (...) de algún tipo de coordinación con el Todo. Sostendré, valiéndome de una comparación con algunas tesis de E. Lévinas, que el peligro que ha entrevisto Damascio, con una conciencia mucho más acentuada que sus predecesores, es que la postulación de lo Inefable, en tanto absolutamente incoordinado e irrelativo, conduce a la desfundamentación radical del Ser. Ante este peligro, Damascio se ha visto obligado a retroceder y a relativizar de algún modo a lo Inefable. (shrink)

With the publication of The Use of Bodies (2016) Agamben's multi-volume Homo Sacer project has come to an end, or to paraphrase Agamben, has been abandoned. We now have a new vantage point from which to reread Agamben's corpus; not only his method but his political and philosophical thought can been seen in a clearer light. This timely book both assesses and contributes to the debates on the Homo Sacer project in its entirety. Rethinking the notions of life and power (...) - two of the central themes in Agamben's work - through a reconstruction of his philosophical method and the examination of his critique of Western metaphysics, this book argues that Agamben's thought cannot be fully grasped if we do not account for the intertwining of politics and ontology. This book argues that it is only by revisiting Agamben's critique of signification and metaphysics and examining his reconstruction of the archaeological method that we can understand his notions of life and power. By bringing together the two parts of the Homo Sacer project, the archaeology of the signature of Sovereignty and the archaeology of governmentality, this book provides an analysis of the production of Agambenian 'bare life'. In this sense this project re-articulates Agamben's works on signification, language and ontology with his archaeology of power. Offering an original examination of Agamben's notion of resistance, this is essential reading for any thoughtful consideration of his philosophical legacy. (shrink)

The paper demonstrates the necessity of introducing innovative approaches in addressing social problems of development. It proves the significance of recruiting investment in the social sphere. The author looks into the usage of social business for handling economic development problems of countries. There are factors promoting social entrepreneurship identified. Spatial social inequality in Ukraine is analyzed, the role of social entrepreneurship in its overcoming demonstrated.

Este trabajo presenta lo que para la mayoría de los intérpretes de Aristóteles, que se ocupan del asunto del método en su obra, constituye el principal problema a resolver. Se trata del problema de determinar la relación existente entre la concepción aristotélica de ciencia demostrativa, consignada en los Analíticos Segundos, y la praxis investigativa de Aristóteles en sus diferentes tratados científicos, una praxis que los intérpretes dan frecuentemente en describir como dialéctica.

Si no es posible comprender el desarrollo de El Capital sin conocer la Ciencia de la lógica, se busca trazar los lineamientos generales para alcanzar dicha comprensión. En seis tesis se ponen de relieve algunos aspectos importantes del pensamiento de Marx que han sido poco tratados, y se dialoga con la tradición marxista para señalar ciertos equívocos y resaltar algunas interpretaciones. Esto permite ofrecer un nuevo cuadro para entender la actitud crítica que adopta el "último" Marx frente a la dialéctica (...) de su maestro. Because it is not possible to comprehend Capital without knowing the Science of Logic, this article aims to chart some general guidelines to reach such an understanding. In six thesis, I highlight some important aspects of Marx's thought that have been little treated and dialog with the Marxist tradition to indicate certain equivocations and highlight some interpretations. This offers a new framework to understand the critical attitude that the "mature" Marx adopted regarding his teacher's dialect. (shrink)

En este artículo nos proponemos realizar una lectura de la sección «Anthropologie» de la Enzyklopädie hegeliana con el objetivo de mostrar la particular concepción de lo humano que, incluso a pesar de su autor, se desprende de ella. Para esto analizaremos algunos fenómenos (el niño en el vientre materno, el sonambulismo magnético, etc.) abordados por Hegel en dicha sección. Concluiremos que el «alma» (Seele), objeto específico de la «Anthropologie», cumple la misma función limítrofe (entre naturaleza y espíritu, sensibilidad y entendimiento, (...) etc.) que ha cumplido la imaginación a lo largo de la historia de la metafísica. (shrink)

El artículo busca clarifcar la noción de modelo involucrada en el enfoque semántico de las teorías (EST). Se muestra que en el contexto del EST el término ‘modelo’ tiene dos funciones: en un caso se presenta como una estructura que satisface una descripción y en el otro como una estructura matemática que representa aspectos de ciertos sistemas reales. Así, el término ‘modelo’ posee dos sentidos, pero la función relevante de los modelos para el EST es la de representación y no (...) la de satisfacción. Esto nos permitirá concluir, entre otras cosas, que los partidarios de la concepción estructuralista de las teorías, una de las versiones del EST, colocan el acento en forma inadecuada al concebir los modelos en el sentido de la semántica formal, en tanto que las versiones últimas de van Fraassen y Giere son más apropiadas al privilegiar los modelos como estructuras matemáticas, el primero, y como representaciones, el segundo. (shrink)

Resumen La globalización genera espacios multilingües de interacción donde existen conflictos en la interpretación de prácticas discursivas aceptables a nivel local, provocando una re-escalarización de lo local, nacional, regional y global. Este trabajo explora cómo en el fútbol internacional – en que interactúan jugadores, fanáticos y medios deportivos internacionales – se disputan estas prácticas discursivas y su significado. En un corpus de artículos periodísticos investigamos dos incidentes en los que enunciados en español fueron interpretados por hablantes de otras lenguas ­como (...) actos discriminatorios. Usando herramientas de análisis del discurso mostramos cómo se construyen comunidades axiológicas y posicionamientos ideológicos que legitiman marcos interpretativos regionales, relegando a un segundo plano la discusión sobre las prácticas discursivas discriminatorias a nivel local. Esta pugna por el derecho a la interpretación produce reflexiones metapragmáticas sobre la inestabilidad del significado a través de las diferentes escalas. Mostramos cómo lo que en una escala resulta inocuo, en otra es un índice de significados ideológicamente cargados que define a un individuo o grupo como racista u homofóbico. (shrink)

En este artículo trataré de discutir la tesis según la cual el «efecto Nietzsche» en el pensamiento francés ligado al Mayo del 68, aparte de inaugurar una funesta «hermenéutica de la inocencia», solo sirvió de trinchera ideológica en una «revolución pasiva» frente a las reivindicaciones políticas y económicas de la clase trabajadora. A la luz de esta intención, me gustaría explorar en qué medida el efecto intempestivo nietzscheano empieza a cobrar sentido en un nuevo escenario «histórico» que busca esclarecer otro (...) sentido de su «modernidad» y su sentido crítico de gobierno. Un movimiento aún crítico que, en esa medida, se caracteriza por una insurrección contra ese orden del tiempo que tiene sus coartadas teóricas en cierta lectura de Hegel y el historicismo del siglo XIX, y que termina reconociendo también los efectos peligrosos de su total distensión. (shrink)

En este artículo se busca comprender la naturaleza de la escritura académica y comprender también por qué a veces fracasa. Para ello se utiliza la distinción de Lonergan entre la inteligencia del sentido común y la de la teoría, sus ideas acerca de la dinámica inmanente del conocimiento y su noción de autenticidad. Utilizando estas ideas de Lonergan, se concibe a la escritura académica bajo dos aspectos, como proceso de aprendizaje y como proceso de enseñanza. Con esta idea de la (...) escritura académica se refutan cinco falacias comunes acerca de la naturaleza del trabajo académico. (shrink)

Este texto parte de la idea de teóricos como Ulrich Beck y Peter Sloterdijk de que el mundo actual es compacto (esto es, que en el mismo la acción no escapa a consecuencias sistémicas globales) para argumentar por la necesidad de una ciudadanía global; esto es, de un activismo político civil que trascienda las fronteras nacionales. Teniendo en cuenta las barreras para tal tipo de ciudadanía que señala Orion Kriegman, se propone que la idea de yo ampliado, venida de la (...) ecología profunda de Arne Naess, puede proporcionar una base para sortear dichas barreras. (shrink)

Los metalenguajes —lenguajes que tratan de otros lenguajes— tienen algunas propiedades interesantes. En el esfuerzo de crear lenguajes de segundo orden —tales como lenguajes puente entre dos idiomas o dos disciplinas— se pone de relieve la manera particular que tiene un lenguaje de abordar el mundo, así como su materialidad e historicidad. Esta perspectiva facilita la comprensión de las dificultades que entrañan tanto la colaboración entre disciplinas científicas como la traducción literaria. Un aspecto importante del trabajo en humanidades es la (...) creación de metalenguajes, en el contexto de lo que Heidegger llama el “desocultar”; esto es, el constituir el mundo según cierta ontología —al tener esta constitución un peso ético, o sea, que impacta profundamente la forma de vida de la comunidad que desoculta de esta o esta otra manera—. Si se comprende lo que hacen las humanidades respecto a los lenguajes humanos, se comprende mejor su papel y su importancia en la educación, la forma en que facilitan el diálogo entre disciplinas y entre visiones de mundo, la forma en que empoderan a los individuos y las sociedades para articular nuevas formas de desocultar nuevas respuestas a la antiquísima pregunta filosófica: “¿cómo se debe vivir?”. (shrink)

El siguiente texto es una introducción a la ecocrítica. Se trata el tema de la pertinencia de la ecocrítica, el problema de la división entre ciencias duras y ciencias blandas, el del antropocentrismo en la cultura occidental, el de la representación de la naturaleza en la literatura, y, finalmente, se habla del haikú para ilustrar las diferentes maneras en que hombre y naturaleza se relacionan y cómo la literatura las puede reflejar.

This text shows how the Socratic activity can be seen as a game activity, and mostly as a boasting game, mainly based upon the Homo Ludens by Johann Huizinga’s text. In a second part, the text illustrates Socrates’ role in such a game activity by exploring what it may be revealed from the nature of philosophy when revising it sub specie ludi.

Es sabido que las obras de Marx, en sus distintas épocas, guardan siempre una relación conflictiva con Hegel. Pero, al mismo tiempo, esta relación se ve afectada continuamente por el propio desarrollo del pensamiento de Marx. Teniendo en cuenta este desarrollo, en el presente trabajo intentaremos brindar una interpretación marxiana del sistema hegeliano, tomando como punto de partida la frase juvenil de Marx que afirma que la Ciencia de la lógica de Hegel es "el dinero del espíritu". Sin embargo, bajo (...) la premisa de que Marx está mucho más próximo a Hegel en su período de madurez que en su juventud, daremos un nuevo sentido a aquella frase juvenil a partir del tratamiento del dinero en la primera sección de El capital. Esto nos proporcionará nuevas herramientas conceptuales para interpretar la filosofía de Hegel, justificando esta interpretación en los propios textos hegelianos. (shrink)

El objetivo de este artículo consiste en mostrar que no basta con cuestionar las opiniones establecidas y con argumentar dialécticamente para adoptar una actitud filosófica; es preciso además matar al Padre, es decir asumir un nombre propio, un lugar de enunciación que conlleva una colisión más o menos polémica con los pensadores con quienes dialogamos. Si Sócrates representa la figura del tábano que cuestiona y persuade, el Extranjero del Sofista representa la figura del parricida. Sostendré entonces que la actitud filosófica (...) solo puede explicarse en toda su amplitud y profundidad a partir de estas dos figuras. Asimismo, mostraré que la institución académica tiende a privilegiar la figura del tábano en detrimento de la figura del parricida. (shrink)