It is curious why a secular pragmatist like Richard Rorty would capitalize on the religiously-laden concept of redemption in his recent writings. But more than being an intriguing idea in his later work, this essay argues that redemption plays a key role in the historical development of Rorty’s thought. It begins by exploring the paradoxical status of redemption in Rorty’s oeuvre. It then investigates an overlooked debate between Rorty, Dreyfus and Taylor that first endorses the (...) class='Hi'>concept. It then contrasts Rorty’s notions of essentialism and edification to link redemption to self-transformation. After providing a historical legitimation to the idea of redemption, the essay reconstructs Rorty’s modern version of the concept. Redemption for Rorty centers on human relationships and not religion or philosophy; it is also pluralist and liberal in character. Finally, it concludes that Rorty uses redemption—a primary component of religious language—to capture the salvific force of religion. This power is redirected toward the protection of secular, democratic hopes, which are demanding and fragile by nature. (shrink)

It is curious why a secular pragmatist like Richard Rorty would capitalize on the religiously-laden concept of redemption in his recent writings. But more than being an intriguing idea in his later work, this essay argues that redemption plays a key role in the historical development of Rorty’s thought. It begins by exploring the paradoxical status of redemption in Rorty’s oeuvre. It then investigates an overlooked debate between Rorty, Dreyfus and Taylor that first endorses the (...) class='Hi'>concept. It then contrasts Rorty’s notions of essentialism and edification to link redemption to self-transformation. After providing a historical legitimation to the idea of redemption, the essay reconstructs Rorty’s modern version of the concept. Redemption for Rorty centers on human relationships and not religion or philosophy; it is also pluralist and liberal in character. Finally, it concludes that Rorty uses redemption—a primary component of religious language—to capture the salvific force of religion. This power is redirected toward the protection of secular, democratic hopes, which are demanding and fragile by nature. (shrink)

This article presents Franz Rosenzweig’s concept of redemption as a vehicle for raising some important questions for confronting the contemporary movement of Transhumanism. The upshot of our discussion is located in the existential questions asked, following a philosophical comparison of Rosenzweig’s religious and philosophical commitment to human life in its most robust form, with Transhumanism’s scientistic vision. To do so, the article first discusses some techno-scientistic assumptions of Transhumanism, showing that it presumes what was once a core principle (...) of German Idealism, the identity of reason and being, against which Rosenzweig rebelled. Then, the article turns to examine Rosenzweig’s humanistic redemptive vision and its emphasis on the corporeal, the temporal, and the worldly. The conclusion makes explicit the ways in which Rosenzweig’s redemptive vision provides a contrasting model to the one set forth by Transhumanism. (shrink)

The theme of this dissertation is to trace a development of defining freedom in the western tradition. It projects to have Luther and Kierkegaard as the central figures to delineate an understanding of freedom, called the Platonic-Augustinean-Lutheran-Kierkegaadian concept of freedom. The author penetrates into these two fundamental elements in this tradition: man by nature pursues good and good must be attributed to God's grace . Logically, these two elements by appearance are not compatible. However, historically, in Augustine's thought, they (...) entered into and then are able to coexist in one system. Their incompatibility and coexistence created a dynamic underlying the development of defining freedom. Influenced by Augustine, Luther followed this dynamic and found that he must deny human freedom . He then resorted to God's grace in promise and claimed that faith endorses righteousness and that a Christian is possessed of freedom in grace. Propelled by this same dynamic, Kierkegaard challenged the modern concept of freedom as self-determination in rationality and provided a profound analysis of human existence in the light of redemption. Kierkegaard's analysis reveals an existential paradox in which man freely chooses unfreedom. Logically, his existential analysis starts with the concept of eternal possibility and infers that freedom is to hold fast to possibility through possibility's giving out itself . The dynamic constituted of the Platonic principle and the concept of redemption allows Kierkegaard to define a powerful concept of freedom and to deconstruct the modern concept of freedom. ;There are two tasks in this dissertation. The first one is to offer a historical and philosophical demonstration of the dynamic, in which the Platonic principle and the concept of redemption proceed from the confrontation, through the combination and the separation, and at last to the unification. The other task is to defend a position that freedom understood in terms of possibility requires possibility's giving out itself In this defense, the essay treats the concept of redemption as a philosophical meditation, rather than a theological reflection. (shrink)

Central to the message of Christianity is the doctrine of suffering as redemptive; therefore, this doctrine must continue to occupy a central place in the discourse about human suffering. Narrative—like suffering itself—has a unique epistemic value and the power to exert a humanizing influence in this discourse. This presentation, though neither strictly systematic nor exhaustive, illustrates narrative’s illuminative capacity in relation to the concepts and propositions that have been part of the discussion of redemptive suffering. Beginning with the present context, (...) it provides justification for the use of narrative, discusses narrative’s place in the Catholic tradition, and then offers three narrative portraits accompanied by brief reflections on the various propositions that each narrative elucidates. (shrink)

Adorno and Benjamin offer us an aesthetic concept, that of aura. The analysis of this has tended to circumnavigate the concept, that is, it has examined the historical dimension to aura, or turned to the texts of Adorno and Benjamin with a view to finding discrepancies between their theses. However, the important conceptual detail has not been explored with suf ficient rigour. My question is a simple one: what is aura? How do we piece together its various features (...) such as 'a feeling of distance', 'pointing beyond a work's givenness' and 'a capacity to look back'? I provide a more in-depth and thoroughgoing analysis of these qualities and their interrelation than has so far been offered. I also argue for the relevance of aura to modernity. (shrink)

"Because she is mute, fallen nature mourns [trauert]. Yet the converse of this statement leads still deeper into the essence of nature: her mournfulness [Traurigkeit] makes her mute." "Walter Benjamin, The Origin of German Trauerspiel"Adorno once wrote that “[p]hilosophy has perceived the chasm opened by the separation [of sign and image ] as the relation between intuition [Anschauung] and concept [Begriff] and repeatedly but vainly attempted to close it; indeed, philosophy is defined by that attempt.”1 Contrary to the common (...) narrative about the difference between Adorno and Benjamin—one likely propagated by Arendt's introduction to…. (shrink)

This work offers a critical approach to Franz Rosenzweig’s conception of community in The Star of Redemption based on Helmuth Plessner’s political anthropology. First, it presents Plessner’s critique of social radicalism and of the apoliticism of the German spirit, and its parallelism with the Jewish spirit. Second, it delves into the passage from Hegel und der Staat to The Star in a communitarian key. Third, it dwells on the difference between community of blood and community of faith in Rosenzweig, (...) together with his theological-political translation into the distinction between the eternal people and the peoples of the world. Last, as a conclusion, it makes manifest the apoliticism of the Rosenzweigian proposal, and therefore, its incapacity to give an answer to the political problem in Weimar, of which its catastrophic consequences Rosenzweig did not know. (shrink)

Adorno and Benjamin offer us an aesthetic concept, that of aura. The analysis of this has tended to circumnavigate the concept, that is, it has examined the historical dimension to aura, or turned to the texts of Adorno and Benjamin with a view to finding discrepancies between their theses. However, the important conceptual detail has not been explored with suf ficient rigour. My question is a simple one: what is aura? How do we piece together its various features (...) such as 'a feeling of distance', 'pointing beyond a work's givenness' and 'a capacity to look back'? I provide a more in-depth and thoroughgoing analysis of these qualities and their interrelation than has so far been offered. I also argue for the relevance of aura to modernity. Key Words: Adorno • . aesthetic • . aura • . Benjamin • . indeterminacy • . modernity. (shrink)

In his “The Star of Redemption”, Rosenzweig engages not only in an argument with philosophy, but also with theology. Next to Augustine and Friedrich Schleiermacher Martin Luther was a counterpart in whose face he developed his dialogical “new thinking”. The essay takes up the traces of this dispute in the letters to focus here on Rosenzweig's reading of Ricarda Huch's “Luther’s Faith”. This literary picture is then related in a sketch to Luther's Reformation theology as it emerges from contemporary (...) research. In a next step, the “Star” is interpreted as a book that, on the one hand, owes much to a previous reception of Luther, but on the other hand, also shows the Reformator's thinking in a new light. Finally, the late writings on the problem of translation come into view in order to justify Rosenzweig’s “Verdeutschung” of the Hebrew Bible, undertaken together with Buber, to Luther’s “German Bible”. (shrink)

This essay discusses criminal law theories in late Imperial Russia. It argues that, although the political climate of Reform and Counter Reform effectively undermined attempts to implement new legislation premised on the idea of the 'rights-enabled person' (pravovaya lichnosf), paradoxically, it fostered the growth of juridical scholarship. Russian criminal law theorists engaged critically with Western juridical science, which, beginning in the 1870s, witnessed a shift away from absolutist theories inspired by the classics of philosophical idealism towards various strains of positivism (...) arguing for the restoration of the person as a concrete, physiological being. However, while Russian scholars were drawn to these new trends of criminal anthropology and the sociology of crime, they were also obliged to take stock of an indigenous legal culture that scarcely differentiated between pravo and zakon, together with a long tradition of customary practices that equated crime and punishment with sin and redemption. (shrink)

This essay discusses criminal law theories in late Imperial Russia. It argues that, although the political climate of Reform and Counter Reform effectively undermined attempts to implement new legislation premised on the idea of the 'rights-enabled person', paradoxically, it fostered the growth of juridical scholarship. Russian criminal law theorists engaged critically with Western juridical science, which, beginning in the 1870s, witnessed a shift away from absolutist theories inspired by the classics of philosophical idealism towards various strains of positivism arguing for (...) the restoration of the person as a concrete, physiological being. However, while Russian scholars were drawn to these new trends of criminal anthropology and the sociology of crime, they were also obliged to take stock of an indigenous legal culture that scarcely differentiated between pravo and zakon, together with a long tradition of customary practices that equated crime and punishment with sin and redemption. (shrink)

This work offers a critical approach to Franz Rosenzweig?s conception of community in The Star of Redemption based on Helmuth Plessner?s political anthropology. First, it presents Plessner?s critique of social radicalism and of the apoliticism of the German spirit, and its parallelism with the Jewish spirit. Second, it delves into the passage from Hegel und der Staat to The Star in a communitarian key. Third, it dwells on the difference between community of blood and community of faith in Rosenzweig, (...) together with his theological-political translation into the distinction between the eternal people and the peoples of the world. Last, as a conclusion, it makes manifest the apoliticism of the Rosenzweigian proposal, and therefore, its incapacity to give an answer to the political problem in Weimar, of which its catastrophic consequences Rosenzweig did not know. (shrink)

This article uses Ronald Dworkin's argument for the unity of value to explore the redemptive core of modern legal order. Dworkin establishes a formal unity: all legal claims reside within a linked framework of moral justification. However, Jean-Francois Lyotard's concept of the differend exposes a lingering gap. Arguments within a moral universe do inevitably converge, but such unity is only possible due to the formative violence enactedbysuch orders. Dworkin hopes to provide the definitive statement against moral subjectivity, but in (...) its purest form, he proves precisely the opposite. The lesson to draw from Dworkin's work is that ‘justice’ is ultimately only the means by which political orders categorize and thereby sustain their own formative acts of exclusion under the guise of offering their redemption. (shrink)

This volume addresses relations between macroscopic and microscopic description; essential roles of visualization and representation in chemical understanding; historical questions involving chemical concepts; the impacts of chemical ideas on wider cultural concerns; and relationships between contemporary chemistry and other sciences. The authors demonstrate, assert, or tacitly assume that chemical explanation is functionally autonomous. This volume should he of interest not only to professional chemists and philosophers, but also to workers in medicine, psychology, and other fields in which relationships between explanations (...) based on diverse levels of description and investigation are important. (Listed on Google books). (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that Augustine's conception of God as substance (substantia) has misleadingly been evoked by Martin Heidegger's deconstruction of onto-theological and substantialist variants of metaphysics as they mistook entities (Seienden, entia, beings) f r their very Being (Sein, ens, esse) which cannot be conceptualized or objectified by human thinking, but makes both their thought and reality possible. Even though Augustine sought somehow to reconcile a Neoplatonic, essentialist cosmology with a Judeo-Christian worldview of historical redemption, Heidegger not (...) only failed to properly recognize his indebtedness to Augustinian existential anthropology, but also the latter's contention that the actuality of beings and contingent history ultimately determines ontological concepts in their basic difference from their ontical counterparts, compromising thus Heidegger's intuitive criticisms against the confusion between God and Being (Sein). (shrink)

The questions of forgiveness and political justice have recently become intertwined with the “transitional justice” project, the aim of which is the coming to terms with past human rights violations. This article demonstrates that “transitional justice” is less concerned with providing justice than with achieving historical closure, moral redemption, and a “new beginning.” It proposes that justice requires a profound reflection of a political nature by introducing and discussing Jean Améry's concept of resentment. Central to Améry's view of (...) resentment is the restoration of the victim's social status and dignity, the validation of the experience of victimhood; his view therefore contrasts with the Nietzschean derogative view of ressentiment. On the basis of Améry's conceptualizations and with reference to Derrida's notions of “hiatus” and “forgiveness as impossibility,” the article problematizes the relation of ethics and politics—which the “transitional justice” project takes as given. It suggests that to theorize on justice, one needs to parenthesize the moral imagery of forgiveness and bring thirdness to the fore as the space where the identities of “victims” and “perpetrators” are established and played out. (shrink)

The concurrence of different languages is one of the tenets of Rosenzweig Sprachdenken and of his translation activity which finds its main theoretical explication in the afterword to his ‘Zweiundneunzig Hymnen und Gedichte des Yehuda Halevi’ (Konstanz, Wöhrle, 1924). In the afterword to the translation of ha-Levi’s lyrical corpus, Rosenzweig outlines a translation model which, trying to convey all the morphological, syntactic and lexical traits of the source language into the target language, gives way to a real linguistic fusion which (...) defies the limits and boundaries of expression and opens onto a redemptive perspective. On the basis of this concluding note and of some passages from ‘The Star of Redemption’, the article tries to analyse Rosenzweig’s idea of language and of its nexus with the idea of redemption with reference to Walter Benjamin’s famous essay ‘The Task of the Translator’ and, as a point of convergence, with Paul Celan’s conception of poetic language. (shrink)

In retrospect of a century, the philosophical and theological concepts of Franz Rosenzweig’s New Thinking, as developed in the Star of Redemption, are in many aspects a milestone in modernity, reflecting the crisis of the modern Jew and Judaism both historically and politically. The notion of redemption serves here in fact as a paradigm for modernity itself, where the individual attempts to position himself in the tension between religion and secularism, tradition and modernity. This contribution analyses Rosenzweig’s “Jewish (...) journey of redemption”, not only from the perspective of Jewish Messianism, but in the context of modern Jewish thought as a cultural critique (Kulturkritik) in Western tradition, in its philosophical, theological, historical and political aspects. (shrink)

The Anglo-American reception of Adorno has secularized his thought and thus missed its normative basis. In this article, the 'constella-tion', a central feature of Adorno's philosophy, is traced to Hermann Cohen's anti-immanentist notion of 'Korrelation' and to Benjamin's attempt to discover a radically Kantian and adamantly Jewish ontology and concept of the truth. Adorno's works are shown to limn a critical measure for being and for reason, based on a very un-Hegelian refusal of immanence and on a commitment to (...) a regulative, if not constative, principle of redemption. Key Words: Theodor W. Adorno • Walter Benjamin • Hermann Cohen • critical theory • neo-Kantianism • ontology • redemption • truth. (shrink)

The beatific vision is widely perceived as a Roman Catholic doctrine. Many continue to view deification as a distinctively Eastern Orthodox doctrine incompatible with the Western theological tradition, especially its Protestant expressions. This essay will demonstrate that several Reformers of the first and second generation promoted a vision of redemption that culminates with deification and beatific vision. They affirmed these concepts without apology in confessional statements, dogmatic works, biblical commentaries, and polemical treatises. Attention will focus on figures in the (...) Reformed tradition though one could produce similar surveys for the Lutheran and Anglican branches of the Reformation as well. John Calvin will receive extended treatment because some scholars dispute whether he affirmed deification. This essay presents important evidence thus far overlooked which should settle the question. (shrink)

Cooper’s book criticizes the traditional "absolutist" Christian doctrine of God, as exemplified in Aquinas, and concludes with a constructive chapter on "Redemption and Process Theism." His critique is chiefly Hartshornean, not Whiteheadian in character. Cooper, adding nothing of substance to Hartshorne’s extant critique, instead scrutinizes the Thomistic texts to show just how and where the difficulties noted by Hartshorne arise. The final chapter, which leans heavily on Whitehead is chiefly a summary of the usual charges against process theism, together (...) with most of the standard process replies. The deepest difficulty, as the author sees it, lies in showing that Whitehead’s God can guarantee ultimate security or redemption in the face of ineradicable pain and evil; to show this requires reconceiving nature and redemption as well as God. Here Cooper is perhaps open to charges of occasional misinterpretation: For example, is it true that for Whitehead the fact of divine existence is "an ultimate irrationality,... an everlasting given"? And can actuality be separated from concreteness? (shrink)

Abstract Jürgen Habermas has proposed a tripartite classification of analytic philosophy of language into formal semantics, intentionalistic semantics, and use?theories of meaning. Here, I focus on the relationship between formal semantics and Habermas? own account of meaning and truth. I argue against his early ?consensus theory of truth?, according to which truth is defined as idealized warranted assertibility and explained by the ?discursive redemption? of validity claims. A claim is discursively redeemed if it commands rationally motivated consensus of all (...) discursive partners. I argue that this is not so much a theory of truth as of justification. As an account of truth, it is unsatisfactory because warrants can be lost in light of new arguments, and because consensus is seen as criterial for truth only if it is in principle defeasible ? hence there remains a gap between truth and even idealized warranted assertibility. In The Theory of Communicative Action, Habermas? views undergo a shift. Following Dummett, he cashes out meaning in terms of assertibility conditions. While Habermas continues to insist on an epistemically conditioned notion of truth, he no longer explicitly defines truth as idealized warranted assertibility; nor does his meaning?theoretic framework require him to do so. I argue that truth is an irreducible and ineliminable regulative idea. In particular, it can be explicated in terms of justification only indirectly. Contrary to some commentators, I do not believe that the regulative function of truth is merely negative. Fallibilism does not exhaust the meaning of truth. For we do not make truth claims provisionally, that is, with the understanding that they may turn out to be wrong. Rather, we gamble that we will not turn out to be wrong. Therefore, the concept of truth has not only a critical, but also a positive function in our discourse. (shrink)

Simone Weil’s supernaturalist interpretations of tragedy challenge not only the philosophical skepticism but also the religious rationalism characteristic of the modern age. This book boldly points out a supernaturalist alternative to contemporary, post-structuralist literary theory. This study of classical tragic drama offers a sacralizing impetus to secular discussions of literature. The book’s Platonic premises and its grounding in the transcendental outlook of the religious traditions furnish a sacred illumination. Religious mystery and the cross of Christ both overshadow and deepen philosophical (...) approaches to literary criticism, including theories of tragedy. Simone Weil’s conception of tragic art, rooted in a mystical Christian metaphysics, offers original insight into the nature of tragedy. In contradiction of the prevailing secular outlook, Weil regards classical tragedy as a sacred art form. Tragic masterpieces evoke not the chaotic or irrational, as modernist interpreters hold, but rather a good which is absolute. (shrink)

In pointing out the strange phenomenological structure of anxiety, Kierkegaard re-opens the door to reflection on “nothingness.” This tradition has been fruitful, but it has remained wedded to interpreting this nothingness in light of the distinction between anxiety and fear. Thus, anxiety is understood exclusively as the transcendence of this or that possibility towards an encounter with the freedom of possibility itself. Kierkegaard’s original formulation, however, states that anxiety is “altogether different than fear and similar concepts.” In this article I (...) take up Kierkegaard’s hint and argue that, interpreted in the light of guilt, his distinction is revelatory in ways that he himself did not anticipate. While we may be guilty for this or that sin, in anxiety we stand before our sinfulness itself. Anxiety ought to counsel us to be resolute in the face of possibility, but also to make a genealogical critique of our entanglement in the illusions of our past. (shrink)

This paper explores the structural similarities between Hegel’s conception of spirit and the Jewish medieval text, the Zohar’s, figuration of Shekhinah. The formal logic of spirit’s self-actualization is historically exemplified by Shekhinah in her existence as divinity’s indwelling presence in the world and her mythic embodiment of Jewish history. This study reads Shekhinah’s journey towards union with God as analogous to spirit’s passage towards absolute knowledge, a passage which concludes with what is often referred to as spirit’s ‘return to its (...) elf.’ Contrary to some popular interpretations of Hegel, spirit’s return is an iterative, tautological return to itself as differentiated in itself. The discussion concludes with the claim that Shekhinah’s eschatological journey towards harmonious reunion with God occurs through a proleptic movement in which biblical past and prophesied future, or the Jews’s historically first and theoretically final redemption from exile, coalesce in a here and now in a similarly iterative manner which precludes it from a determinate, apocalyptic end. (shrink)

Anselm’s Cur Deus homo [CDH hereafter] covers a number of topics related to the doctrine of redemption, but its main contribution to that doctrine is its account of how Christ’s death makes satisfaction for human sin. Anselm’s concept of satisfaction is correlated with his understanding of sin. According to Anselm, sin incurs a debt that one pays by making satisfaction. Anselm’s satisfaction theory of the Atonement came to dominate soteriology in the scholastic period. Despite numerous quotations from and (...) references to CDH among thirteenth- and fourteenth-century authors, we find that scholastics differ in how they interpret Anselm’s teaching on Christ’s satisfaction. This study will contribute to our .. (shrink)

Originally published in 1937, this book provides a detailed discussion of the nature of Christian faith and belief in its relationship with the concept of redemption.

This paper explores the relationship between the problem of evil and a kenotic view of the Atonement evidenced not just by feminist theologians, but by analytic philosophers of religion. I will argue that, although kenosis provides an interesting story about the ability of Christ to partake in human suffering, it faces debilitating problems for understanding divine concurrence with evil in the world. Most significantly, I will argue that the potential tensions between divine justice and divine love can be loosened by (...) looking at ‘redemptive accounts’ of theodicy in the scholarship of women writing in the early modern period in philosophy, particularly Mary Hays , and Catharine Macaulay . Their work collectively confirms the problem of concrete evil and yet offers a unique theodicy grounded in the saving power of the Atonement and restorative power of Christian service. Their arguments are all the more compelling for having been written in response to egregious civil rights abuses and rampant domestic violence of their day. If the Atonement is the divinely-ordained method for gaining insight into the redemptive power of divine grace, then rather than speculating about the metaphysical nature of the divine, this paper will question how we can understand divine perfection in light of evil in the world, especially if the Atonement of Christ involves kenosis. (shrink)

This book investigates humanities, social sciences and politics from the perspective of the concept of creation order. It is the second volume in a series that provides a unique and topical overview of attempts to assess the current health of the concept of creation order within Reformational philosophy when it is compared with other perspectives. Divided into a section on fundamental reflections and a section on normative practices, it discusses issues such as redemption, beauty, nature, love, justice, (...) morality, and ethics. It concludes with discussions on a practice-based theory to explain religion in international relations and a normative model for the practice of cooperation in development. This series reflects the role that the branch of Christian philosophy called ‘Reformational’ philosophy plays in the discussion on the status of laws of nature. Ever since its inception, almost a century ago, the concepts of order and law have been at the heart of this philosophy. One way to characterise this tradition is as a philosophy of creation order. Firmly rejecting both scholastic metaphysics and Deism, Reformational philosophers have maintained the notion of law as ‘holding’ for reality. Questions have arisen about the nature of such law: is it a religious or philosophical concept; does law just mean ‘orderliness’? How does it relate to laws of nature? Have they always existed or do they ‘emerge’ during the process of evolution? (shrink)

One's conception of the conditions and applicability of the principle of double effect derive from one's broader convictions about moral methodology. Developed in a Catholic context which presumed the existence of moral absolutes, the principle of double effect was originally a conceptual tool to aid priests in being skilled confessors. In recent decades, as the practice of moral theology has become less connected with its earlier ecclesial and sacramental context, the principle of double effect has fallen into an epistemological crisis. (...) Contemporary moral theological discussion of the principle of double effect usually operates in one of the following four contexts: interpretation of Aquinas; in relation to manualist casuistry; as understood within proportionalist methodology; as defended within the new natural law methodology. The essay argues that juridically-oriented methodologies do not adequately sustain the principle of double effect. To be sustained, it must be viewed as a theological achievement based upon the meaning of our redemption in Christ and the concomitant possibilities regarding our actions in pursuit of our true good and true end. (shrink)

The article addresses the ‘messianic turn’ in contemporary continental philosophy, focusing on the concept of the katechon as the restraining force that delays the advent of the Antichrist in the Second Letter to the Thessalonians. While Carl Schmitt held the passage on the katechon to ground the Christian doctrine of state power, Giorgio Agamben’s reading of Pauline messianism rather posits the ‘removal’ of the katechon as the pathway for messianic redemption. In our argument, the significance of this text (...) goes beyond the persistence of a vestige of the theological in modern politics. On the contrary, the logic of the katechon only comes into its own under modern nihilism as the resolution of the problem of social order in the absence of the eschatological dimension. The article focuses on the lethal paradox of the logic of the katechon, whereby the function of protection and restraint is converted into violence and anomie, and global political order becomes indistinguishable from global civil war. We conclude by outlining the conditions for suspending the katechonic function in a critical engagement with Agamben’s messianic politics. (shrink)

The most common complaints against Kant by religious readers center around various challenges he poses to the way many people practice their religion or conceive of their theological commitments. Thinking Kant is out to destroy their most cherished beliefs, many readers remain unaware that he poses these challenges in the hope of leading us to a religiously healthy way of meeting these very challenges. Here I briefly mention three of Kant’s most important challenges and how he thought religious persons ought (...) to respond; I then devote more attention to explaining a fourth challenge in greater detail. (shrink)

If modernity involves a view through which it is possible to read the uninterrupted historical continuity of social utopia and the harmony of class and the progress of the 19th century, it is fundamental to explore what is the other face of this fantasy of progress that places the individual in modernity in a situation of depression and debt, inasmuch as those promises are never fully fulfilled. Walter Benjamin builds his idea of history rethinking this legacy. He imagines the way (...) in which the materialist historian must act, that is, the one who will articulate justice and redemption of the past as it is proposed on the thesis of On the concept of history, a text of 1940 on which he worked until the end of his life. In this text, we can find what Michael Löwy called a critical constellation, which links the past with the present. Regarding these considerations, we pursue two main objectives: on the one hand, to delineate what a theory of modernity could mean in the frame of Benjamin's work; on the other, to examine the relationship between the experience of modernity, linked to melancholy and loss, and the aesthetic experience, understood as a privileged device to make thinkable the human doing. (shrink)

The aim of this Swedish study was to develop the concept of moral sensitivity in health care practice. This process began with an overview of relevant theories and perspectives on ethics with a focus on moral sensitivity and related concepts, in order to generate a theoretical framework. The second step was to construct a questionnaire based on this framework by generating a list of items from the theoretical framework. Nine items were finally selected as most appropriate and consistent with (...) the research team’s understanding of the concept of moral sensitivity. The items were worded as assumptions related to patient care. The questionnaire was distributed to two groups of health care personnel on two separate occasions and a total of 278 completed questionnaires were returned. A factor analysis identified three factors: sense of moral burden, moral strength and moral responsibility. These seem to be conceptually interrelated yet indicate that moral sensitivity may involve more dimensions than simply a cognitive capacity, particularly, feelings, sentiments, moral knowledge and skills. (shrink)

Considering the case of Juan de Vilanova y Piera, often celebrated as the first scientist to accept the prehistoric antiquity of palaeolithic paintings, we explore some of the problems related to the concept of ‘precursor’ in the field of the history of science. In the first section, we propose a brief history of this notion focusing on those authors who have reflected critically on the meaning of predecessors. In the second section, the example of Vilanova illustrates the ways in (...) which historians of science have created precursors. From the vantage of modern science, precursors have traditionally been defined as those who first indicated or announced ideas or theories later accepted by the scientific community. As a result, they have been represented as ‘heroes’ struggling hard to defeat the ignorance of their time. As the case of Juan de Vilanova illustrates, this traditional view is unsatisfactory in many ways. For this reason we consider in the third section a number of methodological strategies to promote a more adequate approach to pioneers. In particular, we suggest that the best way to surmount hagiographical approaches to past scientists is to put them in their own intellectual and historical contexts. (shrink)

The author collates a Roman Catholic concept of justice with the general principles of law and justice. He explores the Church's stand on earthly justice and deals extensively with divine justice, moving to the criticism of its dogmas from original sin to redemption, ecclesiology and the sacraments to hell, purgatory and paradise and the problems these concepts entail. He concludes by focussing on a paradox in Catholic thinking and the new trend in Catholic theology.