Virtual Heritage is the use of electronic media to recreate or interpret culture and cultural artifacts as they are today or as they might have been in the past. By definition, VH applications employ some kind of three dimensional representation; the means used to display it range from still photos to immersive Virtual Reality. Virtual Heritage is a very active area of research and development in both the academic and the commercial realms.. Most VH applications (...) are intended forsome kind of educational use. While the main activity of virtual heritage is to create ancient artifacts, the real goal is to understand ancient cultures.Most VH applications are architectural reconstructions, centered on a reconstructed building or monument. However, in the same way that archaeologists and historians study the artifacts because they are the primary cultural evidence we have, VH uses architecture as a frame for recreating ancient cultures. The larger goal of VH is to recreate ancient cultures, not as dead simulations, but as living museums where students/users can enter and understand a culture that is different from their own. The closest analog is the real-world living museums, where actors in period dress occupy a life-size historical setting and interact with the visitors. Ultimately, we would like to see the users themselves creating activities in the virtual space as a way of exploring different cultural viewpoints. For example, students who know about the Virtual Egyptian Temple and the supporting material may attempt to recreate activities there. In doing so, they would learn about what is and is not possible in the architectural and cultural space.In this paper we will begin by reviewing the issues and tradeoffs around building the architectural models for VH applications. These models are crucial in themselves and many of the issues involved in designing and creating them also apply to the dynamic and interactive aspects of VR. Then, we will touch on issues of how to bring culture to life in VR, the strengths and limitations for VR technology for VH applications. Finally, we will present the Virtual Egyptian Temple, our current project, as a working example. (shrink)

This book provides an accessible but concise edited coverage of the main topics, tools and issues in virtual heritage.

Virtual Heritage (VH) is the use of electronic media to recreate or interpret culture and cultural artifacts as they are today or as they might have been in the past (Moltenbrey, 2001; Roehl, 1997). By definition, VH applications employ some kind of three dimensional representation; the means used to display it range from still photos to immersive Virtual Reality. Virtual Heritage is a very active area of research and development in both the academic and the (...) commercial realms. (Roehl, 1997; Mitchell and Economou, 2000; Addison, 2000; Stone and Ojika, 2002; Champion, 2004b; Champion and Sekiguichi, 2004; Levy, 2004). Most VH applications are intended forsome kind of educational use. While the main activity of virtual heritage is to create ancient artifacts, the real goal is to understand ancient cultures.Most VH applications are architectural reconstructions, centered on a reconstructed building or monument. However, in the same way that archaeologists and historians study the artifacts because they are the primary cultural evidence we have, VH uses architecture as a frame for recreating ancient cultures. The larger goal of VH is to recreate ancient cultures, not as dead simulations, but as living museums where students/users can enter and understand a culture that is different from their own. The closest analog is the real-world living museums, where actors in period dress occupy a life-size historical setting and interact with the visitors. Ultimately, we would like to see the users themselves creating activities in the virtual space as a way of exploring different cultural viewpoints. For example, students who know about the Virtual Egyptian Temple (Jacobson and Holden, 2005) and the supporting material may attempt to recreate activities there. In doing so, they would learn about what is and is not possible in the architectural and cultural space.In this paper we will begin by reviewing the issues and tradeoffs around building the architectural models for VH applications. These models are crucial in themselves and many of the issues involved in designing and creating them also apply to the dynamic and interactive aspects of VR. Then, we will touch on issues of how to bring culture to life in VR, the strengths and limitations for VR technology for VH applications. Finally, we will present the Virtual Egyptian Temple, our current project, as a working example. (shrink)

Virtual Heritage (VH) is the use of electronic media to recreate or interpret culture and cultural artifacts as they are today or as they might have been in the past (Moltenbrey, 2001; Roehl, 1997). By definition, VH applications employ some kind of three dimensional representation; the means used to display it range from still photos to immersive Virtual Reality. Virtual Heritage is a very active area of research and development in both the academic and the (...) commercial realms. (Roehl, 1997; Mitchell and Economou, 2000; Addison, 2000; Stone and Ojika, 2002; Champion, 2004b; Champion and Sekiguichi, 2004; Levy, 2004). Most VH applications are intended forsome kind of educational use. While the main activity of virtual heritage is to create ancient artifacts, the real goal is to understand ancient cultures.Most VH applications are architectural reconstructions, centered on a reconstructed building or monument. However, in the same way that archaeologists and historians study the artifacts because they are the primary cultural evidence we have, VH uses architecture as a frame for recreating ancient cultures. The larger goal of VH is to recreate ancient cultures, not as dead simulations, but as living museums where students/users can enter and understand a culture that is different from their own. The closest analog is the real-world living museums, where actors in period dress occupy a life-size historical setting and interact with the visitors. Ultimately, we would like to see the users themselves creating activities in the virtual space as a way of exploring different cultural viewpoints. For example, students who know about the Virtual Egyptian Temple (Jacobson and Holden, 2005) and the supporting material may attempt to recreate activities there. In doing so, they would learn about what is and is not possible in the architectural and cultural space.In this paper we will begin by reviewing the issues and tradeoffs around building the architectural models for VH applications. These models are crucial in themselves and many of the issues involved in designing and creating them also apply to the dynamic and interactive aspects of VR. Then, we will touch on issues of how to bring culture to life in VR, the strengths and limitations for VR technology for VH applications. Finally, we will present the Virtual Egyptian Temple, our current project, as a working example. (shrink)

Virtual heritage has been explained as virtual reality applied to cultural heritage, but this definition only scratches the surface of the fascinating applications, tools and challenges of this fast-changing interdisciplinary field. This book provides an accessible but concise edited coverage of the main topics, tools and issues in virtual heritage. -/- Leading international scholars have provided chapters to explain current issues in accuracy and precision; challenges in adopting advanced animation techniques; shows how archaeological learning (...) can be developed in Minecraft; they propose mixed reality is conceptual rather than just technical; they explore how useful Linked Open Data can be for art history; explain how accessible photogrammetry can be but also ethical and practical issues for applying at scale; provide insight into how to provide interaction in museums involving the wider public; and describe issues in evaluating virtual heritage projects not often addressed even in scholarly papers. -/- The book will be of particular interest to students and scholars in museum studies, digital archaeology, heritage studies, architectural history and modelling, virtual environments. (shrink)

Continuing from Part A, in which we discuss the semiotic foundation for designing a virtual museum of Byzantine art, Part B presents an applied methodology for the representation of cultural artifacts through virtual technologies and semiotic techniques. We discuss how our semiotic model, case study semiosphere, contributes to design and evaluation research of such unique art-form representation and why the approach contributes as a whole to the field of Virtual Heritage. Theorizing further the design implications integrating (...) the overall approach including the evaluation experiment of three VH applications with the participation of young users and its semiotic analysis, we formulate design guidelines that can be applied also to other types of cultural heritage and art. (shrink)

This paper presents an integrated framework applied towards the design and evaluation of a virtual museum of Byzantine art that combines the theorized fields of semiotics, virtual heritage, and Byzantine art. A devised semiotic model, the case study semiosphere, synthesizes important principles from the theoretical background justifying the overall design and evaluation methodology. The approach presented has theoretical extensions to the understanding of the role technology plays in promoting a consummatory aesthetic experience for Byzantine art in (...) class='Hi'>virtual environments, complementing the experience received from traditional Byzantine art media. Part A of the work presents the development of the semiotic foundation of the study prior to presenting the applied potential of the approach in design and evaluation of VH for Byzantine art, which appears in Part B. The final task of the proposed approach aims to support a meaningful interpretation, assisting in the promotion of the significance of the virtual museum to potential interpreters/visitors. (shrink)

This paper presents an integrated framework applied towards the design and evaluation of a virtual museum of Byzantine art that combines the theorized fields of semiotics, virtual heritage (VH), and Byzantine art. A devised semiotic model, the case study semiosphere, synthesizes important principles from the theoretical background justifying the overall design and evaluation methodology. The approach presented has theoretical extensions to the understanding of the role technology plays in promoting a consummatory aesthetic experience for Byzantine art in (...) virtual environments, complementing the experience received from traditional Byzantine art media. Part A of the work presents the development of the semiotic foundation of the study prior to presenting the applied potential of the approach in design and evaluation of VH for Byzantine art, which appears in Part B. The final task of the proposed approach aims to support a meaningful interpretation, assisting in the promotion of the significance (value) of the virtual museum to potential interpreters/visitors. (shrink)

Critical Gaming: Interactive History and Virtual Heritage can be seen as a collection of chapters designed to provoke thought and discussion, or it can be seen and used as separate chapters that may help class debate in courses dealing with the digital humanities, game studies (especially in the areas of serious games and game-based learning) or aspects of virtual heritage. While there are very few books in this intersecting area, the range of topics that could be (...) investigated and debated is huge. So instead I have concentrated on questions in areas that appear to be central to the intersection of these three areas, have not currently been debated to any great extent or are topics that would suit either individual reflection or classroom discussion and debate. (shrink)

Continuing from Part A (2016), in which we discuss the semiotic foundation for designing a virtual museum of Byzantine art, Part B presents an applied methodology for the representation of cultural artifacts through virtual technologies and semiotic techniques. We discuss how our semiotic model, case study semiosphere, contributes to design and evaluation research of such unique art-form representation and why the approach contributes as a whole to the field of Virtual Heritage (VH). Theorizing further the design (...) implications integrating the overall approach including the evaluation experiment of three VH applications with the participation of young users and its semiotic analysis, we formulate design guidelines that can be applied also to other types of cultural heritage and art. (shrink)

London-based company ScanLab Projects is a multi-disciplinary commercial collaboration between architect, artist, coders and designers who utilize technologies surrounding 3D laser scanning in their practice. Inherent in the manner their projects are pitched is through reference to the photographic as technological process. Central to their engagement with the light detection and ranging (LiDAR) scanning apparatus is a consideration of the relationality between virtual or digital object and what could be determined as extrinsic or ‘real’ terrain. In Post-lenticular Landscapes, 2017, (...) ScanLab created a series of LiDAR scans of Yosemite National Park. The landscape, presented as a stereoscopic film work where the spectator flies through an ephemeral black and white point cloud, is contextualized relationally to a certain photo-historical context and lineage: As Yosemite is synonymous with the advent of photographic process through the work of Muybridge, Watkins, Woods and Adams, the work revisits an archetypal image of the American sublime. In this text, I unpack ScanLab’s usage and conceptualization of LiDAR scans referentially to an understanding of the photographic. By considering how ScanLab frames our understanding of the project through the technological apparatus, the text attempts to problematize the scans by reading them through a particular art historic heritage. In this context, I posit alternate ways of reading the work, specifically through reference to the image of Yosemite that has proliferated across the desktops of Apple computers since 2014. Furthermore, through a reading of metonymy in the writing of Eelco Runia, the eerie as understood by Mark Fisher and in relation to Lev Manovich’s description of photorealism, I propose that the future of the mediation and understandings of machinic vision are to be thought with a reconsidered notion of the photographic. (shrink)

In _Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd v Voller_ (‘_Voller_’) the Australian High Court held that media companies maintaining Facebook comment pages could be liable for the defamatory posts of commenters on those sites. The decision focussed entirely on whether, by maintaining the Facebook page, the companies had ‘published’ the statements of commenters. Hearings on other aspects of the tort litigation continue. This paper considers the implications of the tort of defamation on public participation on political will formation where, as is (...) increasingly the case, the participation occurs virtually. Australian law has already tackled the law of defamation as a threat to freedom of political communication; _Voller_ continues the jurisprudence by considering whether hosting an online forum for debate amounts to publication. The more recent High Court judgment in _Google LLC v Defteros_ demonstrated the necessity of the law to align the ‘acts’ necessary to found legal action with the new environment of automated search engines. The troubled intersection of dematerialised practices of political and cultural discourse and jurisdictionally bound laws of defamation challenges participatory governance as tribes form and dissolve and shift between geographical interests. Defamation in Australia is a tort of strict liability; and, absenting applicable defences, any participation in communication is sufficient to make that participant a publisher and a party to the defamation. The online environment stretches words across geographical and jurisdictional boundaries, but it also stretches and contorts concepts of fault and responsibility. Participatory digital cultural practices integrating users in the creation of cultural heritage simultaneously draw participants into transgressions, both cultural and legal, which are amplified by the medium. Questions of collective guilt, ‘shades’ of moral responsibility and disproportionality between blameworthiness and legal liability challenge laws formulated for the printing press but now deployed in the online environment. In this way the digitized participatory environment presents deep challenges to law and legal systems, which are chained to geography. This paper considers the concept of innocent publication in the context of the digitized participatory environment and the way in which the virtual experience is dissolving concepts of geographically defined jurisdictions. (shrink)

This article compares the strategies between nine museums in Ecuador, Spain and Peru to address the educommunication activities developed as a result of the 2020 pandemic. Focused on content analysis, the research takes into account the activity of their web pages and the interaction on their social networks. The results show that in Spain informative and informative actions prevailed, while Ecuador and Peru focused on cultural and educational ones. The most relevant contents were oriented to the teaching-learning of heritage, (...) mainly through the development of webinars and online conferences. (shrink)

Problems and questions originally raised by Robert Nozick in his famous thought experiment ‘The Experience Machine’ are frequently invoked in the current discourse concerning virtual worlds. Having conceptualized his Gedankenexperiment in the early seventies, Nozick could not fully anticipate the numerous and profound ways in which the diffusion of computer simulations and video games came to affect the Western world. -/- This article does not articulate whether or not the virtual worlds of video games, digital simulations, and (...) class='Hi'>virtual technologies currently actualize (or will actualize) Nozick’s thought experiment. Instead, it proposes a philosophical reflection that focuses on human experiences in the upcoming age of their ‘technical reproducibility’. -/- In pursuing that objective, this article integrates and supplements some of the interrogatives proposed in Robert Nozick’s thought experiment. More specifically, through the lenses of existentialism and philosophy of technology, this article tackles the technical and cultural heritage of virtual reality, and unpacks its potential to function as a tool for self-discovery and self-construction. Ultimately, it provides an interpretation of virtual technologies as novel existential domains. Virtual worlds will not be understood as the contexts where human beings can find completion and satisfaction, but rather as instruments that enable us to embrace ourselves and negotiate with various aspects of our (individual as well as collective) existence in previously-unexperienced guises. (shrink)

The article deals with the philosophical component of the legacy of theprominent early Middle Ages, the first encyclopedic Isidore of Seville (560-637).By analyzing the works of foreign medical scholars and writings of Isidore, the author spans the evolution of views on the legacy of the Seville Bishop. Particular importance is given to quotations from ancient literature in the writings of Isidore, the transformation of the meaning of the quotation, which was due to a change in the context, and often the (...) very text, the agreement of these quotation among themselves and the general conclusions of the author. The second book Differentials and the three books of Senencius of Isidore are defined as the original “theological works” that corresponded to the cultural and ideological demands of the European society of the early Middle Ages, formed the foundations of European education, the idea of the appointment of the royal (state) power.The presentation of the doctrine and related problems is carried out in the three books of Senentius, which contain a number of thematic and meaningful parallels with the second book Differentials. The genius of Senentius is reinterpreted by Isidore: this is not just a thematic selection of aphoristic statements; quotations from various works and Isidor’s own maxims are designed in a clear structure), which explains a certain position and “policy” of the author, a strictly defined set of interconnected concepts. In the three books of Senentia, dogmatic, ascetic themes, what is called the “political theology” are considered.Thus, the second book “Differentials” and the three books “Sentence”,marked by us as “theological works”, are expected to contain a wealth of material for historical and philosophical analysis and, above all, philosophical concepts perceived by Isidor through the inheritance of the Fathers of the Church. However, if he can be blamed in a certain way in the reception of philosophy, then a large number of quotations from ancient literature is not simply a reference to the works of predecessors. They represent the consistency of Isidor’s thoughts with his predecessors, as well as his own conclusions. Given that the Sevillian Bishop was extremely lucky and virtually all his works were preserved, it is not surprising that they caused such controversy in the scientific community of the Medievists and not only the Medievists. The analysis of works on revealing their philosophical component continues to this day and the “supporters” of Isidore-philosopher are becoming more and more. Evolution in a positive direction in foreign historiography regarding the value of the Isidor Sevillian heritage is the basis of its new research by representatives of all branches of science. (shrink)

Esta investigación tiene como objetivo principal reflexionar sobre la efectividad de las aplicaciones de arqueología virtual en públicos escolares para la comprensión y el aprendizaje del patrimonio arqueológico con el fin de aprehender de qué manera las tecnologías, como la Realidad Aumentada y la Realidad Virtual, pueden aportar un valor añadido a las propuestas educativas realizadas por museos y sitios arqueológicos que no cuentan con esta inclusión. El análisis exploratorio del caso se realiza en el Museo del Mar (...) de Santa Pola (España) que ha desarrollado este tipo de aplicaciones en el yacimiento arqueológico romano que gestiona, el Portus Ilicitanus. (shrink)

The analysis of Leibniz’s heritage and phenomenology of virtuality in the title of this conference do not exhaust the whole variety of topics, but rather are the poles between which the discussion has been developing. Monadology of Leibniz became the place of concurrence of absolute identity and unique ecstatic that gave rise to a specific discourse of virtuality.

Extensive scientific, philosophical and artistic activities were carried out in the Islamic World’s various science and civilization centers during the early Middle Ages. In these centers, noteworthy works of mathematics, astronomy, geography, medicine, pharmacology, optics, botany, chemistry and other fields of science, which would later determine improvement paths for these fields, were created. Abu al-Izz Ismail ibn al-Razzaz al-Jazari (12th-13th centuries), was a magnificent Muslim scientist known for his work named The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (Kitab fi (...) ma‘rifati’l-hiyal al-handasiyya) and he was born in geography where many scientists were trained. He contributed to the development of science and civilization, the joint legacy of humanity and demonstrated his true capability and success in the field of ilm al-hiyal (the scientific field which addresses the information and practices regarding mechanical technology and engineering in Islamic science history). From this perspective, it is evident that al-Jazari had a wide field of interest, made his mark in the age he lived in with his brave and innovative ideas, and was a wise engineer. al-Jazari’s detailed descriptions and explanations of water clocks, oil lamp clocks and water pumping machines, as well as their construction, were astounding. In addition, al-Jazari’s studies on metal casting techniques, cone valves, wheel balance and the real-world use of aspiration tubes are important in contemporary engineering studies. When all these are considered, it becomes clear that his designation as the “Leonardo da Vinci of the Islamic World” is not a coincidence. Many studies on al-Jazari’s scientific legacy have been conducted in various parts of the world. There are various manuscripts of his aforementioned book. Based on these manuscripts, the work has been -fully or partially- translated into many languages, including Turkish. The German and English translations served as a basis for studies on al-Jazari in other languages. In recent years, studies conducted on al-Jazari in Türkiye (books, articles, domestic and international symposiums, congresses etc.) have demonstrated his brilliance and competence as a scientist. Furthermore, studies on al-Jazari are still ongoing in Türkiye. As for Russia, the scientific legacy of the scientists raised in the Islamic World such as Avicenna, al-Farabi, Abu Bakr al-Razi, Abu Rayhan al-Biruni, Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, al-Battani, al-Kashi, Abd al-Rahman al-Khazini, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi was researched within the scope of a special plan and program. Depending on the relevant studies, al-Jazari and his work drew attention as well. A small portion of the aforementioned Russian studies is known in Türkiye. It is safe to assume that al-Jazari studies in Russia are virtually unknown in Türkiye. The present study primarily aims to contribute to the literature on the scientific legacy of al-Jazari, a Middle Age Islamic scientist best known for his famous work in the mechanical field. More specifically, the present study aims to: 1) to identify the studies on al-Jazari in Russia, and in the former USSR countries, where academic studies are still in Russian after the Soviet Union period, to create a chronological biography and to set forth their compilation; in other words, to create a bibliography which includes Russian studies on al-Jazari; 2) to provide information on the structure and content of the studies in question, to detect the methodological issues encountered in these works, and make solution recommendations to solve these issues; 3) to contribute to continuing and future studies in Türkiye on al-Jazari in terms of source and material index. In conclusion, it should be stated that comparative reading was conducted centered on The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices (Kitab fi ma‘rifati’l-hiyal al-handasiyya). It should also be noted that Russian popular internet publications (which are not based on academic research and are created/reproduced for commercial and personal purposes) were excluded from the assessment. (shrink)

How can we increase awareness and understanding of other cultures using interactive digital visualizations of past civilizations? In order to answer the above question, this book first examines the needs and requirements of virtual travelers and virtual tourists. Is there a market for virtual travel? Erik Champion examines the overall success of current virtual environments, especially the phenomenon of computer gaming. Why are computer games and simulations so much more successful than other types of virtual (...) environments? Arguments that virtual environments are impeded by technological constraints or by a paucity of evaluation studies can only be partially correct, for computer games and simulations are also virtual environments. Many of the underlying issues are caused by a lack of engagement with the philosophical underpinnings of culture, presence and inhabitation, and there are few exemplars that engage the public with history and heritage using interactive media in a meaningful and relevant manner. The intention of Playing With the Past is to help designers and critics understand the issues involved in creating virtual environments that promote and disseminate historical learning and cultural heritage through a close study of the interactive design principles at work behind both real and virtual places. Topics discussed include the design of virtual environments, and especially virtual heritage environments, virtual place-making, cultural presence, the pros and cons of game-style interaction, augmented reality projects, and appropriate evaluation methods. Virtual heritage environments discussed in the book include projects from Antarctica, Australia, Mexico, Malta, Egypt, Babylon, the Netherlands, Cambodia, and India. (shrink)

This research attempts to describe the identity development of students/teachers who used a virtual social network –Facebook to work with historical mathematics and mathematicians in the frame of a second degree course. Fifteen participants aged from 24 to 53 years old participated in the course in which they were required to attend mathematical Facebook sites involved with math history. The research findings arrived at using the grounded theory approach indicate that working with historical mathematicians and talking and discussing their (...) work in virtual social networks, students/ teachers developed their identity in four aspects: the educational aspect, the cultural aspect, the personality aspect, and the ethnic aspect. These identity aspects were developed due to the different conditions of the learning environment, together with the actions/ interactions of the participants. Specifically, working with the history of mathematics in virtual social networks made the participants aware of the advantages of integrating technology in learning and teaching, the advantages of integrating history in the learning and teaching of mathematics and science, and the possibility to move their culture to one that is involved more in science and mathematics. In addition, working with the history of mathematics in virtual social networks made the participants proud of their heritage and as a result they increased their self esteem. (shrink)

La Cátedra de Historia Naval, impulsada por la Armada Española y la Universidad de Murcia, tiene entre sus objetivos investigar y difundir la Historia y el Patrimonio Naval y Marítimo. Con objeto acercar el conocimiento científico y la información divulgativa versada en esta materia al usuario, nuestra institución no se limita a utilizar los canales clásicos de comunicación como pueden ser los artículos y las monografías, entre otros, sino que, en su apuesta por las Humanidades Digitales, hace un uso pro-activo (...) de un blog y de unos perfiles en las redes sociales que, aparentemente, nos hacen contactar con el lector virtual de manera eficaz. Con el objetivo de seguir mejorando, a través del presente trabajo se analizan qué temas han suscitado un mayor interés entre los lectores de nuestras herramientas sociales, a través del estudio de las publicaciones de nuestra bitácora 2.0 y del reflejo de éstas en nuestra página en Facebook. La respuesta nos ayudará a conocer mejor los intereses y necesidades de información de los usuarios y, consecuentemente, podremos seguir perfeccionando los puentes digitales que hemos tendido entre ellos y la Historia y del Patrimonio Naval y Marítimo. (shrink)

While many papers may claim that virtual environments have much to gain from architectural and urban planning theory, few seem to specify in any verifiable or falsifiable way, how notions of place and interaction are best combined and developed for specific needs. The following is an attempt to summarize a theory of place for virtual environments and explain both the shortcomings and the advantages of this theory.

Increase in popularity of games like "Second Life" has contributed not only to significant changes in the development of the electronic entertainment industry. Promoting Games 2.0, the new trend of video game production that are assumed to be the virtual worlds that contain user-generated content makes both measured with a specific technological innovation, as well as a serious change in the organization of socio-cultural heritage. The article presents problems of the existing difficulties of terminology, the implications of the (...) availability of Games 2.0 for social life, the concept of leisure as work in the new economy and creative non-material and the characteristics of "Generation C". Work stresses the need for discussion on trends in the development of video games - defined as a choice between the projects’ of "socio-cultural ideology of perpetual motion" and "utopia of universal creativity". These approaches allow to identify the methodological basis for analysis of relations between the operators and users of Games 2.0, taking into account the wider social environment. ** Wzrost popularności gier typu „Second Life” przyczynił siȩ nie tylko do znacznych przemian w rozwoju branży rozrywki elektronicznej. Upowszechnianie Games 2.0, nowego nurtu produkcji gier wideo które z założenia maj¸a} stanowić wirtualne światy zawieraj¸a}ce treści tworzone przez użytkowników sprawia, że mierzymy siȩ zarówno z określon¸a} innowacj¸a} technologiczn¸a}, jak też z poważn¸a} zmian¸a} organizacji życia społeczno-kulturowego. Artykuł przedstawia problematykȩ istniej¸acych trudności terminologicznych, konsekwencje dostȩpności Games 2.0 dla życia społecznego, pojȩcie rozrywki jako pracy w nowej gospodarce niematerialnej i twórczej oraz charakterystykȩ „generacji C”. Praca podkreśla potrzebȩ dyskusji nad kierunkami rozwoju gier wideo - określanymi jako wybór miȩdzy projektami „ideologii społeczno-kulturowego perpetuum mobile” i „utopii powszechnej twórczości”. Podejścia te pozwalaj¸a na wskazanie podstaw metodologicznych do prowadzenia analiz relacji miȩdzy operatorami, a użytkownikami Games 2.0 przy uwzglȩdnieniu szerszego otoczenia społecznego. (shrink)

In this imaginative and comprehensive study, Edward Casey, one of the most incisive interpreters of the Continental philosophical tradition, offers a philosophical history of the evolving conceptualizations of place and space in Western thought. Not merely a presentation of the ideas of other philosophers, _The Fate of Place_ is acutely sensitive to silences, absences, and missed opportunities in the complex history of philosophical approaches to space and place. A central theme is the increasing neglect of place in favor of space (...) from the seventh century A.D. onward, amounting to the virtual exclusion of place by the end of the eighteenth century. Casey begins with mythological and religious creation stories and the theories of Plato and Aristotle and then explores the heritage of Neoplatonic, medieval, and Renaissance speculations about space. He presents an impressive history of the birth of modern spatial conceptions in the writings of Newton, Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant and delineates the evolution of twentieth-century phenomenological approaches in the work of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Bachelard, and Heidegger. In the book's final section, Casey explores the postmodern theories of Foucault, Derrida, Tschumi, Deleuze and Guattari, and Irigaray. (shrink)

The history of ‘virtual’ museums is linked in the museological model of fruition to the history of the traditional museum, from the musas to the Louvre, from the wunderkammer to the intangible heritage museums, passing by Science Centers and Museums of Modern Art, from websites to augmented reality, from audioguides to video games, passing by QR Code. This history is traced by the visitor experience, from a free observation/browsing, to the guided observation, studying the types of interaction that (...) the visitor engages in, to the object ‘information’ that he or she acquires or handles in the visit, and also considering the essence of the museum as a ‘sacred place’. Do the most advanced models of virtual museums offer the same innovation in the fruition of the information? (shrink)

This extensive work explores the changing world of religions, faiths and practices. It discusses a broad range of issues and phenomena that are related to religion, including nature, ethics, secularization, gender and identity. Broadening the context, it studies the interrelation between religion and other fields, including education, business, economics and law. The book presents a vast array of examples to illustrate the changes that have taken place and have led to a new world map of religions. Beginning with an introduction (...) of the concept of the "changing world religion map", the book first focuses on nature, ethics and the environment. It examines humankind's eternal search for the sacred, and discusses the emergence of "green" religion as a theme that cuts across many faiths. Next, the book turns to the theme of the pilgrimage, illustrated by many examples from all parts of the world. In its discussion of the interrelation between religion and education, it looks at the role of missionary movements. It explains the relationship between religion, business, economics and law by means of a discussion of legal and moral frameworks, and the financial and business issues of religious organizations. The next part of the book explores the many "new faces" that are part of the religious landscape and culture of the Global North (Europe, Russia, Australia and New Zealand, the U.S. and Canada) and the Global South (Latin America, Africa and Asia). It does so by looking at specific population movements, diasporas, and the impact of globalization. The volume next turns to secularization as both a phenomenon occurring in the Global religious North, and as an emerging and distinguishing feature in the metropolitan, cosmopolitan and gateway cities and regions in the Global South. The final part of the book explores the changing world of religion in regards to gender and identity issues, the political/religious nexus, and the new worlds associated with the virtual technologies and visual media. (shrink)

In this imaginative and comprehensive study, Edward Casey, one of the most incisive interpreters of the Continental philosophical tradition, offers a philosophical history of the evolving conceptualizations of place and space in Western thought. Not merely a presentation of the ideas of other philosophers, _The Fate of Place_ is acutely sensitive to silences, absences, and missed opportunities in the complex history of philosophical approaches to space and place. A central theme is the increasing neglect of place in favor of space (...) from the seventh century A.D. onward, amounting to the virtual exclusion of place by the end of the eighteenth century. Casey begins with mythological and religious creation stories and the theories of Plato and Aristotle and then explores the heritage of Neoplatonic, medieval, and Renaissance speculations about space. He presents an impressive history of the birth of modern spatial conceptions in the writings of Newton, Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant and delineates the evolution of twentieth-century phenomenological approaches in the work of Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Bachelard, and Heidegger. In the book's final section, Casey explores the postmodern theories of Foucault, Derrida, Tschumi, Deleuze and Guattari, and Irigaray. (shrink)

In Africa, the human person is the supreme force, the most powerful and dominant among all created beings. While this decreed power makes the lower beings subservient to humanity, it is only intended to be a source of harmony in the advancement of the hospitality and the joy of the human species. Today, however, the traditional lifestyles of Africans are threatened with virtual extinction by insensitive development over which the indigenous peoples have no participation. Africa has not only acquiesced (...) a scientific technology that has developed its own laws far removed from the known system of nature, it has no self-limiting principle in terms of size, speed and violence to nature and humanity. Consequent upon this incongruity, the machine has replaced the human person thus degrading the ecology and resources necessary for harmonious living. This chapter argues that, African endogenous knowledge is strategic heritage resource to salvage the technologically abused environment for sustainable agro-ecological living. The chapter argues further that African endogenous knowledge system encodes environmental management and policies for resource development in Africa’s complex and ageing ecological system. In doing this, we engage in conversation about current and potential land sovereignty work in African Indigenous communities. This will achieve food security and improved nutrition, promote sustainable agriculture and improved economic status of the African indigenous farmer. We conclude that, in seeking the whole from the units of the earth resources through cultivation of the soil, the African derives high credit balance of spiritual good, virtuous life, self-reliance, courage and moral integrity. (shrink)

This article concerns the conflict between copyright and museums’ digitisation and online sharing of collections. This issue has recently become particularly important in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic. The authors outline the concept of a virtual museum and present the most important copyright provisions in EU law that may create obstacles for cultural institutions in realising virtual counterparts. To perceive copyright as the main obstacle in the process of digitisation and online sharing of collections is not unusual. Hence, (...) the article briefly presents legal framework of the European copyright applicable to such situations. The authors argue that although copyright offers a range of possibilities for museums interested in digitising their collections, at the same time it is responsible for a _chilling effect_, resulting in fear of potential infringement and liability. The authors conclude that the EU’s development of new legislation, coinciding with the need for digitisation and online sharing of cultural heritage caused by the pandemic, has favoured public interest at the expense of creators’ rights, but still lacks satisfactory legal tools for effectively allowing cultural institutions to digitise and share their collections. (shrink)

This polemical work presents to the English-speaking world one of the most original philosophical thinkers to have emerged within post-war Europe. Sebastiano Timpanaro is an Italian classical philologist by training, an author of scholarly studies on the nineteenth-century poet Leopardi, and a Marxist by conviction. With great force and wit, On Materialism sets itself against what it sees as the virtually universal tendency within western Marxism since the war, to dissociate historical materialism from biological or physical materialism. Whereas the philosophical (...) legacy of the later Engels has been decried by most prominent Marxists since the 1920s, Timpanaro eloquently defends its essential purpose and relevance, by unfashionably re-emphasising the permanent weight of nature within history. In doing so, he returns to the heritage of Lucretius and Leopardi, and argues for a more consistent materialism that is at once more pessimistic and more hedonistic than any other contemporary version of Marxism. Timpanaro emphasises the insuperable limits of frailty and mortality as unalterable conditions of society whose transformation is the goal of revolutionary socialism. Timpanaro vigorously attacks what he regards as the widespread entente between a diluted Marxism and a fashionable idealism in the west, whether in the form of an “existentialist” or a “structuralist” union of the two. The aversion of the former to the work of Darwin and Engels receives a spirited refutation, no less than the indulgence of the latter towards the work of Saussure or Levi-Strauss. A special introduction written for this English edition deals with the phenomenon of the recent revival of “vulgar materialism” in the Anglo-Saxon world, in the fields of psychology and anthropology, and its relationship to racism. On Materialism will be one of the central focuses of cultural and intellectual controversy within and beyond Marxism in the next decade. (shrink)

The term “mental illness” implies that persons with such illnesses are more likely to be dangerous to themselves and/or others than are persons without such illnesses. This is the source of the psychiatrist’s traditional social obligation to control “harm to self and/or others,” that is, suicide and crime. The ethical dilemmas of psychiatry cannot be resolved as long as the contradictory functions of healing persons and protecting society are united in a single discipline.Life is full of dangers. Our highly developed (...) consciousness makes us, of all living forms in the universe, the most keenly aware of, and the most adept at protecting ourselves from, dangers. Magic and religion are mankind’s earliest warning systems. Science arrived on the scene only about 400 years ago, and scientific medicine only 200 years ago. Some time ago I suggested that “formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic”.1We flatter and deceive ourselves if we believe that we have outgrown the apotropaic use of language .Many people derive comfort from magical objects , and virtually everyone finds reassurance in magical words . The classic example of an apotropaic is the word “abracadabra,” which The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines as “a magical charm or incantation having the power to ward off disease or disaster”. In the ancient world, abracadabra was a magic word, the letters of which were arranged in an inverted pyramid and worn as an amulet around the neck to protect the wearer against disease or trouble. One fewer letter appeared in each line of the pyramid, until only the letter “a” remained to form the vertex of the triangle. As …. (shrink)

Este artículo pretende abrir una línea de trabajo en la que confluye el área de la restauración y la didáctica. Se muestra un proceso de restauración basado en la mínima intervención, en cuanto a pérdidas de policromía se refiere, pero se ofrece como una herramienta medio para la enseñanza. El proyecto posibilita que la tabla se exhiba como pieza modelo en una sala del Museo Arte Sacro de Teruel, que el público visualice y conozca el mecanismo técnico de creación de (...) una tabla del siglo XV y que, mediante la recreación virtual y la utilización de imágenes de la misma temática de otras obras de relevancia, se proponga cómo pudo ser la tabla de Olalla en origen. En definitiva, se plantea realizar una prueba piloto que pueda servir para otras obras con circunstancias similares. Palabras clave: pintura gótica, Aragón, siglo XV, restauración y conservación, nuevas tecnologías, educación patrimonial, didáctica de la pintura, musealización.. This project aims to be a new line of work where restoration and didactics fields converge. It shows a process of restoration based on the minimum intervention in terms of loss of polychromy. However, it is offered as a tool for teaching. In this specific case, this table is shown as a model piece through its exhibition in a room at Sacred Art Museum of Teruel. Following this project, it will be possible to visualize and learn the technical mechanism of creation of a 15th century panel reinforced with a virtual recreation using digital media to show how it could have been in origin, as well as using images of the same subject matter of other relevant works. The main focus of this project is to serve as a pilot test for other works with similar circumstances. Key words: gothic painting, Aragon, 15th century, restauration and conservation, new technologies, heritage education, painting education, musealization. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:"General Rules" in Hume's Treatise THOMAS K. HEARN, JR. IT COULDBE CONFIDENTLYASSERTED in 1925 that Hume was "no longer a living figure." x Stuart Hampshire records that when he began his philosophy studies in 1933, Hume's conclusions were regarded at Oxford as "extravagances of scepticism which no one could seriously accept." 2 That virtually no Anglo-American philosopher would now share such opinions about Hume testifies not only to the (...) general change in the philosophical climate but, in addition, it reflects a transformation which has occurred in the interpretation of Hume's philosophy. In eitecting this transformation.much credit is due to the work of Norman Kemp Smith. Kemp Smith argued that preoccupation with Hume's empiricist heritage and his scepticism had blinded scholars to the fundamentally constructive intent of his philosophy, and, indeed, that only from the perspective of his positive achievement was it possible to grasp the nature and significance of Humean scepticism. This paper, in keeping with the basic orientation of Kemp Smith, sets out a central feature in the attempt to describe and assess Hume's constructive, nonsceptical point of view: Hume attributes to general rules "a mighty influence on our actions and understanding..." (374).4 This paper examines the Treatise to show that this was not just a casual comment. To discuss the "influence" of general rules requires an examination of their character and the various aspects of "action and understanding " in which such rules function. The thesis to be developed can be stated briefly. In Book I Hume introduces two sorts of general rules which must be distinguished carefully. One type of rule describes a propensity of the imagination to extend the scope This research was supported by a grant from the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities. x Charles W. Hendcl, Studies in the Philosophy of David Hume (New York, 1963), p. 20. (First published in 1925.) For Professor Hendel's later comments on this statement, see pp. xxi ft. "Hume's Place in Philosophy" in David Hume, ed. D. F. Pears (London, 1963), p. 3. a Proper stress is due here to the phrase "basic orientation." There is much about Kemp Smith's understanding of Hume which is mistaken in my view. 9 The page references in parentheses refer to the Svlby-Bigge edition of A Treatise o/ Human Nature (Oxford, 1888). [4o5] 406 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY of judgments formed in one set of circumstances to other resembling but non-identical circumstances. The other type of general rule, the discussion of which largely occupies this paper, functions to correct certain natural propensities which result in erroneous belief or action if permitted to operate unchecked. The same pattern, a natural tendency requiring correction by general rules, is exhibited in all three books of the Treatise, and can be said to represent one of the basic ingredients in Hume's account of human nature and experience. It is somewhat surprising that in a book which patiently discusses almost evcxy theme in the Treatise, Kemp Smith's study contains no discussion at all of rules. This is the more puzzling as Kemp Smith clearly recognized that by reflection the understanding supplies principles which are normative for the interpretation of experience.5 Our aim in this study is to discuss what for Hume these principles are, and, as far as possible, how they fit into the Humean account of human nature. A fuller understanding of the nature and function of such reflective principles is required to spare Kemp Smith's interpretation from a seeming inconsistency. This apparent inconsistency arises because Kemp Smith takes the slavery of reason to the passions as the "key" to his understanding of Hume, but then develops the view that for Hume reason/s a passion, in Hume's words, "a wonderful and unintelligible instinct." (179)6 The inconsistency disappears when it is recognized that Kemp Smith's account of Hume requires a more subtle and complex understanding of the role of reason than that suggested by the emphasis on the "slavery of reason" especially in the early parts of the book. This study represents a way of supplying the broader and more const,ructive understanding of reason which... (shrink)

Which and how much of our current drives –individually and as a global community– are driven by ancestral, inherited traits or imprinted on our animal condition? An attempt to approximate this intriguing query is explored here. It pertains to our identity, social constructions, and our ecological interaction. The origin of our species has its roots in ancestral habits, behaviors and a survival drive, transformed from changing environmental conditions. We were not born in a mother-of-pearl cradle nor were protected by magical (...) agents. We grew on the thread of time within the complex nature of bio-ecological interactions. They carved our identity, our genetic expression and the possible origin of our beliefs, resulting in an arch of various behaviors and cultural phenotypes. The biological nature of our construction dragged through millennia through species trials with variable rates of survival times provided traces of inconstant and multiple evolutive chains. Our modern cultural contexts –norms, priorities, values– appear as newly born. Yet, socio-cultural ecology upon which our brain organization and behavioral constructs derive include shared basic behavioral drives with non-human primates. The emergence of humans with a sophisticated language allowed the development of complex virtual constructs based on symbolism and the instruments of culture. This has enhanced cognitive capacity and emotional interaction supported by processes anchored in neural networks distributed within cortical and subcortical levels. Basic, essential neural connectivities were preserved during the evolutionary development of the species. The biological matrix and inheritance are usually segregated from the social and cultural construction. Sophistication of our cultural development tends to set up a divisive fault from primitive foundations of non-human animal behavior (survival, territory, reproduction, prevalence, access to nutrients). These are basic templates and underlie essential individual and group basic drives, and cultural constructs. Humans have not ceased from being territorial (whether applied to virtual or material dimensions). Various forms of social inequities have been expressed in our time and through human history. On evolutive terms, the notion of individual social status within the social structure of a gregarious community generated the probability of an individual ascending or descending that hierarchy. Thus, becoming a potential figure of leadership, or the subordinate or the marginalized. Is there an evolutive antecedent for human social inequities? How do we construct a different future? Post-industrial societies became increasingly dependent on material consumerism and technological cultures, to the point of embraining them; conceptually becoming technological hybrids. Are these a developmental must, or an uncontrolled spin-off of human inventiveness affecting our future? Construction of supernatural agents played a significant role in the socialization/domestication processes. Agents’ intentionality flourished through altered states of conscience, or under fear of natural phenomena attributed to supposed inhabitants of the Natural Kingdom or virtual beings. This imaginary universe, reinforced by ritual behaviors, contributed to control personal/collective distress of various possible origins and conditioned our degrees of emotional and cognitive freedom. (shrink)

The article is devoted to the life and work of the first Even composer P.M. Starostin in the context of the development of national composition schools of the East. The purpose of the study is to review the life and work of the Even composer P.M. Starostin. The object of the study is the professional musical art of the Even people, the subject of the study is the creative heritage of the first Even composer. The research is based on (...) comparative and typological methods, taking into account the theoretical developments of Russian musicologists in the field of studying the patterns of development of young national composer schools. The main conclusions include the following. The formation of the first Even composer P.M. Starostin took place within the framework of the Yakut national School of composition. The main source of P.M. Starostin's creativity was the rich Even folklore: epic tales, ritual genres, song lyrics. The creative heritage of P.M. Starostin is distinguished by originality and genre originality: from large forms – operas and cantatas to chamber-vocal works and compositions for children. The geography of the spread of young national composer schools has advanced to the north-east of Russia, where the Yakut National Composer School is currently functioning quite actively. The Yakut National School of Composition is already becoming a new center itself, on the periphery of which the prerequisites for the formation of national composition schools of the small peoples of the North living in the Arctic zone are being formed. The experience of reviewing the work of the first Even composer P.M. Starostin, considered by us in the article, marks this process. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time data on the life and work of the Even composer P.M. Starostin are introduced into scientific circulation. Until now, his name has remained virtually unknown to musicology. Such a review is being conducted for the first time. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Pyrrhonian Revival in Montaigne and NietzscheJessica N. BerryMichel de Montaigne occupies a unique place in Nietzsche's history of ideas. He is one of a very few figures for whom Nietzsche expresses deep admiration and about whom he has virtually nothing critical to say. This is a rare enough mark of distinction; but contrary to what it might lead us to expect, the relationship between Montaigne and Nietzsche has (...) seldom been carefully examined. There has yet to be a book-length study devoted solely to Montaigne and Nietzsche,1 and article-length treatments of the relationship between their works and thought have been surprisingly scarce. What discussions there have been tend to locate the connections between Nietzsche and Montaigne mainly in matters of either literary or personal style,2 but studies that examine Montaigne's influence on Nietzsche with an eye toward philosophical rather than literary or stylistic issues have been almost non-existent.3 This dearth of treatments can be explained, at least in part, by the fact that, while Montaigne is rightly recognized for the literary merits of his work and for its subsequent influence on later prose stylists (and not only in French), his work on the whole has seldom been appreciated as having any philosophical value in its own right. Small wonder, then, that the connection between Montaigne and Nietzsche has [End Page 497] appeared more significant to commentators on Montaigne who are interested in tracing his influence on later thinkers than to scholars of Nietzsche—even those Nietzsche scholars who take an acute interest in his intellectual heritage. What I will argue here is that Montaigne makes a more concrete and philosophically more substantive contribution to Nietzsche's thought than has generally been appreciated; specifically, by giving impetus to the naturalism that develops in Human, All Too Human as an antidote to Schopenhauer's pessimistic metaphysics of will.In this essay, I present a two-fold thesis about Montaigne's influence on Nietzsche's early work. First, I will argue that the "naturalistic turn" in Human, All Too Human reflects Nietzsche's engagement with Montaigne during a crucial moment in the development of his thought. Second, I will demonstrate that the naturalism Nietzsche adopts from Montaigne has roots in the tradition of Pyrrhonian skepticism that Montaigne carries forward into the Renaissance. In the end, a better understanding of the skeptical ancestry of Nietzsche's naturalism should help us make better sense of Human, All Too Human and its immediate successors in Nietzsche's oeuvre, which cultivate what otherwise seems to be an uneasy partnership between naturalism and skepticism.I. It is by now widely accepted that Nietzsche's estimation of the value of the techniques and methods of the natural sciences undergoes radical revision in the period culminating in the first volume of Human, All Too Human (HAH),4 a book sometimes described as inaugurating a "positivist" phase in Nietzsche's work. From the first of its nine major sections, "Of First and Last Things," HAH narrates a struggle between science on the one hand and philosophy on the other. It is important to note the breadth of the extension of the term "science" (Wissenschaft), which includes not only what we think of as the "hard" or physical sciences (physics, chemistry, and the like) but also areas of inquiry we now consider "behavioral sciences" such as psychology and sociology—and, Nietzsche would say, philology as well. "Philosophy," by contrast is specified more narrowly. As Nietzsche uses the term throughout HAH, "philosophy" is usually shorthand for "metaphysical philosophy" and singles out for criticism the discourse of metaphysics that has dominated the philosophical landscape at least since Plato.In the sense in which Nietzsche worries about it "metaphysical philosophy" promotes speculation about such supra-sensible entities as Platonic forms, Descartes's "immaterial substances," and Kantian things-in-themselves. That its contributions include, for instance, theories about the existence and immortality of the soul accounts for Nietzsche's grouping "metaphysical philosophy" [End Page 498] together with religion and art as "arts of narcosis."5 Consciously or not they endeavor to comfort us by assuaging our fear of death, our existential anxieties about the purposelessness of... (shrink)

C.G. Jung's authentic notion of soul was only intuitive, implicit, not conceptually worked out, and he was not always true to what his own notion would have i required. His followers.forfeit his heritage, often turning psychology into pop psychology or reducing it to a scientific and clinical enterprise. Psychology is not one of the sciences and not a branch of medicine, but sublated science, sublated medicine. It is the merit of James Hillman's archetypal or imaginal psychology to have brought (...) back the question of soul to psychology. However, a critical analysis shows that a psychology based on the imagination cannot truly overcome the positivistic, personalistic prejudice that it set out to overcome. As polytheistic psychology it also succumbs to nostalgia and misses the real plight of today's soul. Because it has no notion of truth, its Gods are shown to be virtual-reality type gods. One has to go beyond imaginal psychology and advance to a notion of soul as logical life, logical movement. Only then can psychology be freed from its inherent positivism and cease being a subdivision of anthropology. The notion of soul is logically released from its attachment to the notion of the human being. (shrink)

In this commentary I respond to the claims of Dimitris Vardoulakis that, following a mistake of Heidegger in his translation of Aristotle and the apparent loss of phronêsis, post-war continental philosophy has abandoned instrumental rationality and the calculation of utility, instead valorizing an ‘action without ends’ and instituting a ‘new Kantianism’ in its ethics, politics, and ontology. I do so by presenting the thought of Gilles Deleuze as one identified in this tradition who fails to be characterized by Vardoulakis’s claims, (...) and whose concepts already address these concerns. I first demonstrate how Deleuze’s ontology, as presented in Difference and Repetition, avoids relying on or constructing a meaningful, ontological outside, and so Vardoulakis’s characterization of a new Kantianism. And secondly, I respond to Vardoulakis’s critique of continental ethics by presenting the ethical notions in both The Logic of Sense and Capitalism and Schizophrenia as stemming from distinct ethical heritages (the former building on that of the Stoics, the latter primarily that of Spinoza), as well as both providing immanent direction to our actions, providing what can be read as the revisable, calculable reasoning Vardoulakis associates with phronêsis. In this way I show that his category of the ‘ineffectual’ cannot apply to all post-war continental philosophy as Vardoulakis so claims. (shrink)

Translated by Drew S. Burk and Anthony Paul Smith. Excerpted from Struggle and Utopia at the End Times of Philosophy , (Minneapolis: Univocal Publishing, 2012). THE END TIMES OF PHILOSOPHY The phrase “end times of philosophy” is not a new version of the “end of philosophy” or the “end of history,” themes which have become quite vulgar and nourish all hopes of revenge and powerlessness. Moreover, philosophy itself does not stop proclaiming its own death, admitting itself to be half dead (...) and doing nothing but providing ammunition for its adversaries. With our sights set on clearing up this nuance, we differentiate philosophy as an institutional entity, and the philosophizability of the World and History, of “thought-world,” which universalizes the narrow concept of philosophy and that of “capital.” We also give an eschatological and apocalyptical cause to this end, of “times” or “ages” rather than those of philosophical practice. Last but not least, it is the Future itself in the performativity of its ultimatum that determines this end times, reversing these times from the Identity the Future accorded to it, withdrawing the thought-world from the lie of its death. Why this style of axioms and oracles, these more or less subtle distinctions, old and debased, with an appeal to the ultimata , to end times and last words? We fight to give, parallel to the concept of Hell, its new theoretical position, for its philosophical return and its non-philosophical transformation. No more so than any other word, Hell is not a metaphor here, just the Principle of Sufficient World. Every man, no doubt, has his “hell” readily available, connivance, control, conformism, domestication, schooling, alienation, extermination, exploitation, oppression, anxiety, etc. We have our little list that the Contemporaries established in the previous century in the same way one used to construct lists of virtues and vices or honors and wealth. They invented it for us without knowing it, for us-the-Futures who have as our responsibility to invent its use. In the Christian and Gnostic tradition, the struggle of the End Times takes place “on earth.” The most sophisticated of believers have it taking place in Heaven as well, above all in Heaven. The various kinds of gnosis imagine infinite falls and vertiginous highs, the vertigo of salvation. On Earth as in Heaven, a hell is available. The Marxists have the law of profit and the control of production, the class struggle Capital imposes on man. The Nietzscheans, the dull grumble of the struggle in the foundations of World and History, the domestication of man, the society of control. The phenomenologists, the capture of being, the most superficial amongst them, the age of suspicion. But all of these “hells” are taken from World, History, Society, and Religion. What we call Hell is no longer of the order of these specific and total intra-worldly generalities, it is both more singular and more universal, no longer being at all of the same order, it is the determinant Identity of these small hells strung out through history but unified here in the name of the last Humaneity. It is even found within the French idiom for hell [ enfer ], en-fer literally means “in-irons.” We are as much “in-irons” as we are “alive” [ en-Vie ]. We believe in Hell but as non-philosophers and it is even because we are non-philosophers that we can believe in it outside of any sort of religion. Hell is less mythological than ideological, it combines philosophizability with universal capital. Under what form? A single term could work for them without being a metaphor or something they would participate in by analogy, a more innovative and conjectural term than control, more universal than profit. It would denote the growing and permanent extortion of a surplus-value of communication, of speed and of urgency in change, in productivity and in work, in the pressure of images and slogans. It would be worse than solicitation, more tenacious than capture, more active and persecutory than control, softer and more insidious than a frontal attack, just as perverse as questioning and accusation, less brutal and offensive than extermination, less ritualized than inquisition, it would be soft and dispersed, instantaneous and vicious, it would be a crime without declared violence. Collusion and conformism, it would be afraid to show itself. Related to rumor, from which it borrows its infinite and tortuous ways. It is harassment. As a modernized form of Hell, perhaps harassment has a long future in front of it, of innocent torture, slow assassination, in short the fall, but radical with no way of recovering and which tolerates only salvation. THE PHILOSOPHICAL PAST OF NON-PHILOSOPHY Non-philosophy is thus Man as the utopian identity of the philosophical form of the World, a utopia destined to transform it. We still have to understand these equations, in particular that of the being-uni-versed from Man, and this book adheres to this by re-exposing non-philosophy in a different way via one of its new possibilities. It uses this opportunity to once again take up formulations that lead to objections answering certain external critics, as well as revisiting diverging interpretations specific to non-philosophers. A portion of this book is devoted to going through these theories via a strict or “lengthy” presentation of non-philosophy, and its defense against more expeditious solutions. This work of rectification is the occasion, merely the occasion, for refocusing non-philosophy on Man (the “Man-in-person,” “Humaneity”), and in a more innovative manner, on its utopian vocation established since the book Future Christ . As for this “occasion,” it is quite obvious. A school of posture, not to say a school of thought, supposes a minimum of closure from the most liberating of knowledge, a heritage, its utilization, and its no less certain dispersal. Within its development, a variety of interpretations will no doubt appear, deviations that are as much normalizations, and a struggle against this multiplication of divergent tendencies. These are perhaps not inevitable evils, especially here, merely a normal development according to the twisting paths of history. But the problem is made worse by the fact that this school of non-philosophers is that of utopia. Not the former attempts devoted to commenting on the worst authoritarian and criminal forms of the past and the present, but utopia as the determinant principle for human life, or to put it another way, of the Future as an irreducible presupposition of (for) thinking the World and History. Non-philosophers are engaged in an aleatory navigation between the respect for the most rigorous utopia, whose rules are not that of the reproductive imagination but those from the Future determining imagination itself, as well as the temptations, diversions, and remorse of history. Little by little, we will begin to understand that the Future as we understand it no longer has any temporal consistency or positive content, without being an empty form or a nothingness, but that it is foreclosed to past and present History, just as it is foreclosed to the place of places, the World, and that it is the only method for establishing the practice of thinking in a non-imaginary instance. Because it is the World and History that are imaginary and have a terrible materiality, it is not necessarily utopia. We will overlap two objectives here: the defense of non-philosophy against the (non-) philosophers that we are, only occasionally, and the introduction of philosophy to a rigorous future. Together they set out to definitively render, without any possible return to philosophical conformism or towards the facilities of the past and present, the non-philosophical enterprise understood as utopia or uchronia. Imagination and speculation, left to themselves and thus undistinguished, are quite good for participating in the grand game of History but have little value or worse for the Future which is unimaginable and unintelligible and must be maintained as such. MAN-IN-PERSON AS SUSPENSION OF THE PHILOSOPHICAL CHORA The point where philosophical resistance is concentrated is without a doubt the invention of the Name-of-Man, first name, oracular as much as axiomatic, of the determining cause for the non-philosophical posture. And that which concentrates the differends is the style of non-philosophy as identity that possesses the dual aspect, of discipline and of the oeuvre, of the theorem and of the oracle. But the real difficulty in understanding the simplicity of non-philosophy is profoundly hidden in the depths of philosophy itself. Because philosophy, from Parmenides to Derrida, even Levinas, continues to be a divided gesture, without a veritable immanence, transforming its thematic contents of transcendence in also forgetting to transform the operative transcendence in the element from which the ontology of surface is established which we will call, in memory of Plato, the chorismos. The general effect of the chora literally gives place to philosophy, demanding binding and sutures to which we will once and for all “oppose” the Man-in-person, his power of cloning, and his future being. All philosophy contains a hinter-philosophy in which it deploys its operations and weaves its tradition like an understudy of a topographical nature and in the best of cases being itself topological. Philosophy as well consists of two levels, its pre-ontological operative conditions on the one hand, and its superficial theme on the other, it too has its presupposed, but is not aware of it or erases it within the unity of appearance named Logos. Rightly, the Logos, and its flash or lightning nature, possesses a “dark precursor,” the chora, which is as much a virtual image, and philosophy, dazzled by its own lightning flash, seems to completely forget about it at the same time it sets itself up within it. Non-philosophy risks taking this same path, of confusing what it believes to be the real with its phantom double, contenting itself to working on the thematic level of philosophy, not its surface objects and its idle chatter (we stopped talking about this a long time ago and in any case they are merely simple materials for inducing a work of transformation), but the transcendence-form of its objects. In the end it risks, through precipitation, taking back up the heritage of philosophy, a heritage of a misunderstood presupposed, even more profound than the play of transcendences. This is what the imperative of the radicality of immanence meant, to treat immanence in an immanent manner, not to make a new object out of it. And from here we get non- (philosophy) and its refusal of the Platonic chorismos , symbol of all abstraction, and thus all transcendental appearance. There are no illusions. The message will leave a heritage in tattered pieces and interpretations. But it was difficult not to dispute the differend to its core. There will be complete confusion of the multiple, possible, and necessary effectuations of non-philosophy with its interpretations. The non-philosophical or human freedom of philosophical effectuation and the philosophical freedom of interpretation. Effectuations demand non-philosophy to return to zero from the point of view of its philosophical material and thus also but within these limits the formulation of its axioms , but in no way providing from the outset divergent interpretations of the aforementioned axioms. They are divergent because they do not take into account the material from which these axioms are derived within non-philosophy, and because they do not see themselves as symptoms of another vision of the World. The utterances of non-philosophy are not mathematical theorems and pure axioms, they merely have a mathematical aspect . They are, by their extraction or origin, mathematical and transcendental. And by their determined function in-Real, within non-philosophy, they are identically in-the-last-Humaneity entities which have an aspect of an axiom and an aspect of interpretation (or an oracular aspect as we say) that attempts (sometimes it is ourselves who provide the occasion) to isolate and transform, in complete freedom of interpretation. There will be an opportunity to complain about the complex character of the language of non-philosophy, an idiom saturated with classical references, sophisticated in a contemporary way. Its freedom of decision up against the whole of philosophy demands these effects of “complication” and “privatization,” as the saying goes. But it also demands fighting against the drift [ dérive ] of the pedagogical-all and the mediatic-all that leads philosophy into the shallow depths of opinion, which is the site of its impossible death. The noble idealism of “pop-philosophy” has been consumed into a “philo-reality;” against this we propose philo-fiction. Parricide, which is at the bottom of these interpretations and which we can judge as being quite fertile, although it has informed tradition, only takes place once or within one lone meaning. In regards to Parmenides, it was possible; Plato introduced the Other as non-being and language, bringing into existence the philosophical system of the World, but is it possible to repeat it again with the same fecundity in regards to non-philosophy, this time in introducing (non) religion or (non) art, still mixing them without taking into account this mixture, alternatively as a philosophical or religious resentment? If philosophy begins via a crime, it is no doubt obliged to continue down similar pathways, to the effect that the crimes of philosophy, once the founding crime has been committed, are a reaction of self-defense. It is undoubtedly from this that we get Marx’s declaration that history begins by tragedy and repeats itself or ends in farce. The preservation of rigor and fecundity is, in every respect, a psychologically difficult task within a theory such as non-philosophy. Having posited an essential objective of liberation in regards to philosophy and its services, one has often understood this objective as an authorization of providing particular interpretations of its axioms and ends up obliterating their scope. This ends up confusing, on one hand, two kinds of freedoms in regards to non-philosophy, the freedom of its interpretations and the freedom of its effectuations. On the other hand, any defense of “principles” against precipitated interpretations is immediately taxed with a will to orthodoxy, a prohibitive objection when we are dealing with, as is the case here, a heretical theory of thought. Nevertheless, it is time to stop confusing heresy as the cause of thought with an ideology of heresies, which is certainly not at all our object, but rather a form of normalization. As for the “disciplinary” aspect, which is not the only aspect, it demands something other than philosophical “answers to objections,” a precision in the definition and use of its procedures in the formation of utterances, since non-philosophy is neither a supplementary doctrine interior to philosophy nor a vision of the world but one whose priority is a “vision of Man,” or rather Man as “vision” that implies a theory and a practice of philosophy. In the end, struggle is only one aspect of non-philosophy, not its whole or telos, struggle coming only from its materiality. In particular, if the discipline of non-philosophy is inseparable from struggle, it is not a question of reducing the monomaniacal obsession of its “marching orders.” This would reduce its complexity and kill its indivisibility, deploying it in a “long march” and a form of Maoization whose philosophical presuppositions no longer have any pertinence here, a case of the One and the Two, which are now cloned and no longer tied together. More generally, non-philosophy is a complex thought composed of a multitude of aspects, which is to say, unilateral interpretations, of a philosophical origin but reduced by their determination in-the-last-instance . The “liberalism” of non-philosophy is merely one of the aspects of which it is capable, not an essence. Similarly, it is only capable of having a “Maoist” aspect. Let us generalize. The weakness of non-philosophy is due to a specific cause, the determination-in-the-last-Humaneity of a subject for the World. Everything that has a right to the philosophical city can be said about it in turn and in a retaliatory mode since Man contributes nothing of himself that Man takes from the World. We can consider non-philosophy as being pretentious, absurd, idealistic, empty, materialistic, formalistic, contradictory, modern, post-modern, Zen, Buddhist, Marxist; it endures or tolerates, perhaps “appeals” to, or at least renders possible, sarcasms, ironies, and insults without even talking about the misunderstandings, partly for the same reason as psychoanalysis. All of this goes beyond simple “deviations.” They are its aspects, which is to say, its “unilateral” philosophical interpretations in both senses of the word, being either sufficient coming from the mouth of philosophers, or reduced to their absolute dimension of sufficiency and totality in the mouths of non-philosophers, and both times due to the weakness and strength of Man-in-person as their determination only in-the-last-instance. The non-philosopher is certainly not a Saint Paul fantasizing about a new Church. The non-philosopher is either a (Saint) Sebastian whose flesh is pierced with as many arrows as there are Churches, or a Christ persecuted by a Saint Paul. What is engaged in here is the practice of retaliation. A negative rule of the non-philosophical ethics of outlawed discussion by way of argumentation (the sufficient is you, the orthodox one is always you, you are the fashionable one, and when a master you are someone else) that is founded on the confusion of effectuations of non-philosophy and of its overall interpretations. Retaliation is the law but as with any too-human law, it must acquire a dimension that displaces it, or rather emplaces it and takes away its authority but not all of its effectiveness. If the non-philosopher is only authorized by himself, which is to say by philosophy but limited by the Real-of-the-last-instance, its critique of other non-philosophers can merely be retaliatory under the same conditions, only by the Real limited in-the last-instance. THE TREE OF PHILOSOPHICAL SAINTLINESS The thematic horizon or material of these debates is in the relationships between philosophy, religion as gnosis, and non-philosophy. It is inevitable, regarding non-philosophers in general (whether they are non-philosophers by name or simply its neighbors) that we often end up evoking Marx’s Holy Family and imagining, arranged on the neighboring branches of the tree of philosophy and annexed, sometimes abusively, to non-philosophy, authors who would quite evidently and quite rightly refuse this label. So it is that we find, for example, a Saint Michel, a Saint Alain, a Saint Gilles 1 without even mentioning the youngest who aspire as well to the freedom of “saintliness” and who make their muted voices heard here. If there is a Holy Family of non-philosophers, it extends completely beyond these three, provided that the sectarian spirit can save us. This book is organized in the following manner: To begin, in order to recall the essential part of the problematic, we have organized a Summary of Non-Philosophy , a vade-mecum of notions and basic problems, in a classical style. Secondly, there is Clarifications On the Three Axioms of Non-Philosophy , designed to posit their proper use as much as to elucidate their meaning. Thirdly, an analysis of Philosophizability and Practicity , both being extreme constituents of philosophical material or the contents of the third axiom. Fourthly, the heart of this work: Let us Make a Tabula Rasa of the Future or of Utopia as Method . Fifthly, we have a theoretical outline of a non-institutional utopia, The International Organization of Non-Philosophy, L’Organisation Non-Philosophique Internationale, (ONPHI) already created in practice but under the conditions of possibility and functioning from which here we put into question “de jure,” thus not without a perplexity concerning “facts,” in any case, without the capability of “getting to the bottom of things.” Sixthly, an essay characterizing The Right and the Left of Non-Philosophy , a brief topology of several philosophizing and normalizing positions of proponents or tenants of this problematic. Seventhly, Rebel in the Soul: A Theory of Future Struggle , a systematic discussion starting from a confrontation of non-philosophical gnosis and non-religious gnosis to the extent that they pose, posed or perhaps still will pose themselves as rivals to non-philosophy in a mixture of fidelity and infidelity. Despite the fact that it can also be read as putting non-philosophy into perspective: it pits against a standard Platonism two contemporary appropriations of Gnosticism. On the basis of the paradigm of Man who never ceases to come as the Future-in-person, each one of these moments strives to reestablish not the “true” non-philosophy and its orthodoxy, but the minimal conditions to respect in order to allow for its maximum fecundity. And in order to bring about one of the last possibilities of its development, making explicit Humaneity as a utopia-for-the-World. In introducing these considerations in the form of a “testament” and “ultimatum,” we want to indicate two things: First, that this is the last time we will intervene in order to caution non-philosophers against the temptation of returning and looking backwards towards philosophy. Only a disillusioned nostalgia for the former World and its traditions barely remain permissible to us.… Secondly, that non-philosophy is also a sort of ultimatum for considering one’s life and transforming one’s thought from the perspective of a uni-version rather than a conversion. Man as future is this ultimatum in action, not an impatient self-proclaimed genius, and philosophy is his testament. It is obviously the ultimatum that determines this testament as “old” with a view towards a life that is, itself, non-testamentary. In and of itself, the “old” can never bear a veritable eschaton. Thus, this book intersects according to the logic of this paradigm, under the sign of the ultimate or “last” as future, philosophy as testament and cautionary note for maintaining the non-philosophical oeuvre as “future” or “utopian.” We will see that between these two dimensions it cradles a theory of struggle. In the end, this book envisions non-philosophers in multiple ways. It inevitably sees them as subjects of knowledge, most often academics insofar as life in the world demands, but above all as close relatives of three great human types. The analyst and political militant are quite obvious, for non-philosophy is close to psychoanalysis and Marxism insofar as it transforms the subject in transforming philosophy. Here again, one must have a sense not of certain nuances but of aspects (of the interpretations, albeit unilateralized) and not in order to construct a simple proletarization or militarization of thought as theory. To be rigorous, rather than authoritarian or spiteful, is its task. And lastly, non-philosophy is a close relative of the spiritual but definitely not the spiritualist. Those who are spiritual are not at all spiritualists, for the spiritual oscillate between fury and tranquil rage, they are great destroyers of the forces of Philosophy and the State, which are united under the name of Conformism. They haunt the margins of philosophy, gnosis, mysticism, science fiction and even religions. Spiritual types are not only abstract mystics and quietists; they are heretics for the World. The task is to bring their heresy to the capacity of utopia, and their utopia to the capacity of the paradigm. NOTES We will recognize allusions, and sometimes references, to closely related or distant themes, but which are related, in the work of Michel Henry, Alain Badiou and via the representative of “non-religious” gnosis of a Platonic origin, in Gilles Grelet. It goes without saying that these discussions are current and local, neither concerning the ensemble of doctrines nor prejudging the eventual evolution of certain amongst them. This concerns defining certain proximities with non-philosophy (rather than adversaries which in some sense they are) and typological and emblematic differends (rather than conflicts with a certain author). (shrink)

Modernism has been a celebration of the present. Why does it need a legacy ? Why should that which was born in the spirit of rebellion perpetuate itself as tomorrow’s past? Modernism has been profoundly reflective of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century cultural values. Is that not enough? It is not that modernism has forgotten the past—an art that rebels against its past must understand its adversary—but rather that it asks us not to forget the present. The revolt of modernism was (...) made possible, if not inevitable, by the rediscovery of the past. In earlier, eras, when the past was less readily accessible, artists worked for their present with little thought about their heritage. Renaissance composers, for example, generally knew little of music even two generations old; much medieval music theory and composition were based on misconceptions of Greek models. Yet by the nineteenth century, works from the past were available and understood. Virtually all composers agreed with Johannes Brahms, who reputedly said of Ludwig van Beethoven, “You have no idea how the likes of us feel when we hear the tramp of a giant like him behind us.” Historical consciousness had entered the arts, and artists were both threatened by competition with the past and seduced by the powerful idea that their works might outlive them. The Romantic artist became a genius speaking to posterity. Gustav Mahler was not the only Romanticist to pin his hopes on the future: “My time will yet come.” Small wonder that, once the future came to be, its artists rebelled against pronouncements from their past—the time rightfully belonged to them and no longer to Mahler’s generation. While many twentieth-century artists continued to create for their future, the most extreme modernists rejected not only their past but also the quest for immortality. They have written of their day and for their day. The real legacy of modernism is that it has no legacy. Jonathan D. Kramer is professor of music theory and composition at the College-Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati and also program annotator and new music advisor of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. He is currently working on Time and the Meanings of Music . His previous contribution to Critical Inquiry, “New Temporalities in Music,” appeared in Spring 1981. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Jacob Burckhardt, Religion, and the Historiography of “Crisis” and “Transition”Thomas Albert Howard*A great historical subject, the representation of which should be the high point of a historian’s life, must cohere sympathetically and mysteriously to the author’s innermost being.Jacob Burckhardt 1If you are to venture to interpret the past you can do so only out of the fullest exertion of the vigor of the present: only when you can put (...) forth your... qualities in all their strength will you divine what is worth knowing and preserving in the past.Friedrich Nietzsche 2The renowned nineteenth-century Swiss-German historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818–97) was a masterful historian of crises and transitional periods. Two of his major works, The Age of Constantine the Great (1852) and The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), bear out this claim. In his Constantine Burckhardt deals with the transition from late pagan antiquity to the early Christian Middle Ages, and in his more famous Renaissance he deals with the transition from the late Middle Ages to the beginnings of secular modernity. In the [End Page 149] latter, as is well known, he established one of the most compelling and creative theses in the history of modern historiography, virtually creating the “idea of the Renaissance” that has long influenced both scholarly and popular conceptions of that period. 3What elicited Burckhardt’s interest in crises and transitions in general and in these two periods of crisis and transition in particular? In this article, I shall argue that there is a strong relationship between Burckhardt’s own historical experience in the early and mid-nineteenth century and his choice of subject and mode of analysis in these two monumental works. In theoretical terms one observes a “dialectical” form of objectivity in the execution of Burckhardt’s historiographical tasks: a structural affinity or kinship between subject (Burckhardt, his historical experience) and object (late antiquity, Renaissance) predisposes Burckhardt to his theme/argument and thus provides a key to understanding the genesis and the character of insights that he offers in these two works. 4 To establish this point I shall focus on the category of religion, on Burckhardt’s own experience of questions of religious truth and skepticism in the nineteenth century, and on his treatment of religion in these two works.The Young Jacob Burckhardt and ReligionReligion is a crucial but often neglected aspect of Jacob Burckhardt’s thought. 5 Like a number of nineteenth-century German intellectuals, Burckhardt was a Pfarrersohn, a “pastor’s son.” 6 He grew up in a profoundly conservative Protestant environment in Basel, nicknamed “pious Basel” for its dogged resistance to the “ideas of 1789” and for its earlier heritage of Reformation and pietist religiosity. During Burckhardt’s youth in fact, his father was a children’s minister and head-deacon (Obersthelfer) before becoming in 1838 the city cathedral’s Antistes, the highest and most prestigious ecclesiastical office in Basel. In short, as his biographer Werner Kaegi has noted, Burckhardt’s early [End Page 150] upbringing and education were strongly shaped by the world of his father, a world of “old Protestant piety.” 7Following his father’s example, Burckhardt started out on the clerical track, studying theology at the University of Basel. However, during his Theologie-studium (1837–39) he experienced a profound crisis of faith brought on by an encounter with German historical biblical criticism and liberal theology represented in the person of W. M. L. de Wette (1780–1848). A radical theologian and biblical scholar, de Wette had wound up in Basel in 1822 after being dismissed from the University of Berlin for holding views considered heterodox and politically threatening by the conservative Prussian government. 8 In a letter to his friend Johannes Riggenbach written in August 1838 Burckhardt tells how de Wette’s critical theology had unseated his faith. “In my eyes,” Burckhardt wrote,de Wette’s system grows in stature every day; one simply must follow him, there is no alternative; but every day a part of our traditional church doctrine melts away under his hand. Today, finally, I realized that he regards the birth of Christ simply as a myth... (shrink)

Religious naturalism refers here to a view of reality, and it will be contrasted with versions of supernaturalism and of atheistic naturalism. Naturalistic religion refers to certain varieties of religion, especially some inspired by the universality of science and the need for a global ethics. In this essay I explicate why a religious naturalist need not advocate a naturalistic religion. Rather, a religious naturalist can build upon the heritage of religious traditions and be open to, but at the same (...) time be agnostic about, the idea of a nonnatural ground of reality. The religious naturalism I defend has been criticized from various directions: one reviewer in this journal considered it too much indebted to the traditions, and hence “reactionary” and supernaturalistic; another considered it too minimalist in its religion (“virtually nonexistent”) as a consequence of the preference for a too sober version of naturalism. My distinction between religious naturalism and naturalistic religion may answer some of these objections. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Biblical Economic Ethics: Sacred Scripture’s Teachings on Economic Life by Albino BarreraRaymond Kemp AndersonBiblical Economic Ethics: Sacred Scripture’s Teachings on Economic Life By Albino Barrera LANHAM, MD: LEXINGTON BOOKS, 2013. 353 PP. $89.65; KINDLE, $54.49You will not find much direct application of biblical theology to pressing economic issues in this book. Albino Barrera, a Dominican monk who teaches economics and theology at Providence College, gave us that in (...) well-received earlier works on market complicity, political economy, and the evils of scarcity. Keeping to this book’s title, he now gives us a remarkable collation of recent studies on the social and theological contexts of the Bible itself. He seems quite confident that given a comprehensive review, we will intuit modern implications for ourselves and be drawn closer together by our common heritage.Written for a wide audience, Barrera’s clear and readable book compiles fascinating snapshots of the diverse cultural situations and beliefs that unfold across the millennium-spanning canon. Even biblical scholars will enjoy this lively, up-to-date tour of their field.As a monastic, Barrera is careful to show that those New Testament texts that seem to call for divestment of property describe a situation-related special calling and do not make poverty an end in itself. Yet he stresses how the “preferential status of the poor” and the “devaluation of wealth” are prime norms that recur throughout both the Old Testament and New Testament and that he sees backed by both revelation and natural experience.One may find the book limited by the procrustean selectivity that seems inevitable when pre-formed notions (e.g., what is proper to our modern discipline of ethics or to the field of economics) shape our apperceptions of ancient [End Page 205] peoples’ concerns. From Barrera’s viewpoint, ethics has to do primarily with the promulgation and refinement of set norms. So his main goal is to uncover abstract principles and norms for behavior that recur insistently across scripture’s enormous diversity. This, he does beautifully. But in the process, he lets the recurrent trump the emergent.For example, Barrera seems to not fully appreciate the revolutionary impact where Jesus finally declares it impossible for people to bolster their personal stature by pursuing such norms (see, e.g., Mk 10:27). Little attention is given the apostles’ insistence (with Ps 14 and Ps 53) upon this same ethical impasse. For when they find the normative redefined by Christ’s excruciatingly holistic love command, they not only discover their own incapacity but also find themselves catapulted into the totally grace-dependent motivational dynamic described by Paul’s Christian freedom (Rom 3:12, 5, passim, 11:32; Gal 3:22; Jas 2:10).Evidently preoccupied by his quest for the normative, Barrera bypasses the historical priority of Paul and virtually ignores how his grace-responsive freedom pervades the later Gospels and Acts. (He relegates the Paul material to the tail end and accords it but a fraction of the space.)Freedom for Barrera is a social norm—freedom from oppression, slavery, poverty, hunger, and so forth (and he forcefully shows how this is a recurrent theme). But was not Paul, like Jesus before him, hounded and persecuted for his notorious freedom in the use of norms—even those of Mosaic law? Did not the Gospel reduce the normative to a minimum in favor of life-shaping, person-responsive love as the free gift or “fruit of the Spirit”? All of us—the rich and powerful, along with the poor and oppressed—discover our corporate brokenness exposed before God’s grace. Yet in our concomitant response to that same grace, we find our actions newly motivated and gradually reshaped—bonded into covenant community through his judgment of healing re-creation.Again, Barrera does well to stress Sabbath law’s normative force, as mandating times of rest. But one could wish to hear more on how the apostles parleyed this priestly provision into something new, in joyful direct response to a gracious Lord—a freely sabbatic, playfully creative ethic. [End Page 206]Raymond Kemp AndersonWilson CollegeCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Humankind is currently witnessing, and shaping, the most significant and rapid paradigm shift in human history - a paradigm shift of major demographic, economic, ecological, and geo-political dimensions. For the first time in human history - we are faced not with just one crisis - but a confluence of several crises; crises that are not related to a single tribe or community - a single nation -or a single region of the world - but are each global in scale. To (...) meet the challenges of these global crises will require an equally historic paradigm shift; a paradigm shift with a strong environmental ethic that restores ecological balance and integrity to our failing ecosystems, and that addresses the critical issue of climate change; a paradigm shift toward an economic system that brings about an end to poverty — and a paradigm that brings an end to war as a means to solving conflict, as it is only through a global family in harmony and peace with itself, that we can solve the unprecedented global issues facing our one common home, planet earth - and our one common future as a global family. The travel and tourism industry has, and will continue to play a vital and leading role toward this paradigm shift, and as the world's largest industry involving virtually every nation in the world — will be the central pillar of a Peace through Commerce movement. The dramatic growth of tourism in the past 60 years is one of the most remarkable economic and social phenomena of our time. The industry has grown from a total of 25 million international arrivals in 1950 to a projected 1 billion international arrivals in 2010, and a further projection to 1.6 billion by 2020. Beginning with the emergence of "Ecotourism" in the late 1980' s, there are an increasing number of tourism market segments which fall within a broad category that can be called "Peace Tourism," and classified within a framework that includes peace within ourselves, peace with others, peace with nature, peace with past generations, peace with future generations, and peace with our Creator. Since its birth in 1986, the International Institute for Peace through Tourism (IIPT) has been promoting these values of tourism together with its vision of Travel and Tourism as the world's first "Global Peace Industry" - an industry that promotes and supports the belief that every traveler is potentially an "Ambassador for Peace." This "higher purpose of tourism" includes the key role of tourism in promoting international understanding and collaboration among nations; environmental protection and preservation of biodiversity; enhancing cultures and valuing heritage; contributing to sustainable development and poverty reduction; and healing wounds of conflict. (shrink)

Mediteransko nasljeđe kulture, filozofije, povijesti i umjetnosti nepregledan je univerzum procesa, informacija, sinteza i imaginacija. Sam po sebi, Mediteran se predstavlja kao jedna opća imenica takvog opsega da predstavlja rod u kojem je velik dio opće europske kulture uvijek jedna od njegovih vrsta. No, ipak, riječ je o dojmu koji ne može težiti precizno utvrđenoj konstataciji već jednoj općoj opservaciji koja samo pokazuje da zamisao o zahvaćanju u smisao Mediterana kao nasljeđa ili suvremenosti predstavlja jedan ogroman, ali nikad dokraja dovršen (...) posao.Kao opće i široko obuhvatno ime, mediteranski prostor, onaj virtualni i onaj stvarni, otvorio je prostor mnogim iznimnim osobnostima. koje ukazuju na pojedinačni značaj svake od njih. Neizbježno, one ne mogu u kontekstu mediteranskog prostora predstavljati više od pojedinačnog slučaja koji nikad ne može obuhvatiti cjelokupni doseg pojma mediteranskog. Ali ono što mogu jest obznaniti one vlastite dosege koji ukazuju na vrijednost onoga što im je u mediteranskom prostoru otvoreno da misle, stvaraju i žive. U kontekstu Mediterana tu je uvijek prisutna jedna dimenzija napetosti između općeg i pojedinačnog, između napora da se izrazi duh vremena i nasljeđa, vlastito slaganje i neslaganje s njim, ali i promišljanje koje može probiti duh danog. Jedan od takvih filozofskih i umjetničkih osobnosti jest Albert Camus. Kao jedna od danas gotovo zaboravljenih figura mišljenja i umjetnosti, njegovo propitivanje humaniteta u djelima kao što su Mit o Sizifu i Pobunjeni čovjek svojevremeno su ostavili dubok trag iza sebe. Iako on nije napisao svoje pismo o humanizmu kao što je to učinio Heidegger , njegovo se djelo čini kao poseban slučaj jednog općeg govora o humanizmu suprotstavljen i zasigurno najpoznatijem intelektualcu svog doba, Jeanu Paulu Sartreu, intelektualnom hegemonu onoga doba. Postoji iskušenje da se Camusa u toj konstelaciji dovede u vezu s, recimo, stoicizmom, no time bismo promašili bit u odgovaranju na pitanje koliko bi njegov humanizam imao snage biti suvremeni humanizam, a koliko nova tehnika interpretiranja istog. Stoga mi je namjera propitati, suvremenu mogućnost tvorbi Camusovih promišljanja o povijesti, humanizmu, politici i umjetnosti, kao i danas uočljivi pomak u odnosu na prijašnje dosege u propitivanju etičnosti, politike i umjetnosti na mediteranskom prostoru.The cultural, philosophical, historical and artistic heritage of the Mediterranean is a measureless universe of processes, information, syntheses and imaginations. In itself, the Mediterranean portrays a general noun of such scope that it represents a kind in which a large part of general European culture is always but one of its sub varieties. However, this is but an impression, which cannot aspire to become a precisely verifiable or verified statement, or a general observation, which only demonstrates that the idea of penetrating the meaning of the Mediterranean as a heritage or contemporaneity represents an enormous yet never fully completed task.The Mediterranean space – both the virtual and actual – as a general and widely inclusive toponym has opened its doors to countless exceptional individuals, who point to the particular significance of each. Inevitably, within the context of the Mediterranean space they cannot exemplify more than a particular case that can never embrace the range of the Mediterranean concept as a whole. Yet, what they can do is disclose their own reaches that point to the value of that which is open to them in the Mediterranean realm to be thought, created and lived. A dimension of tension between the general and the particular, between the effort to express thespirit of time and heritage, one’s agreement and disagreement with it, as well as one’s reflections capable of penetrating the spirit of the given – are invariably present within the context of the Mediterranean. One such philosophical and artistic individual is Albert Camus. As one of the almost forgotten figures of thought and art today, his questioning humanity in The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel once left a profound trace. Although he never wrote a letter on humanism as Heidegger did , his work appears to be a special case of a general speech on humanism opposed to even surely the most famed intellectual of his time, Jean-Paul Sartre, the intellectual hegemon of his time. Within this constellation one can easily be tempted to compare Camus with, for example, Stoicism, but by doing so one would fail to answer the question of whether his humanism has the strength to be a contemporary humanism or just a novel interpretation technique of the same. This paper intends to examine the contemporary possibilities of constructing Camus’s reflections on history, humanism, politics and art, as well as the today distinct shift in relation to the earlier reaches of the studies into ethicality, politics and art within the space of the Mediterranean. (shrink)

The paper explicates the stages of the author’s philosophical evolution in the light of Kopnin’s ideas and heritage. Starting from Kopnin’s understanding of dialectical materialism, the author has stated that category transformations of physics has opened from conceptualization of immutability to mutability and then to interaction, evolvement and emergence. He has connected the problem of physical cognition universals with an elaboration of the specific system of tools and methods of identifying, individuating and distinguishing objects from a scientific theory domain. (...) The role of vacuum conception and the idea of existence (actual and potential, observable and nonobservable, virtual and hidden) types were analyzed. In collaboration with S.Crymski heuristic and regulative functions of categories of substance, world as a whole as well as postulates of relativity and absoluteness, and anthropic and self-development principles were singled out. Elaborating Kopnin’s view of scientific theories as a practically effective and relatively true mapping of their domains, the author in collaboration with M. Burgin have originated the unified structure-nominative reconstruction (model) of scientific theory as a knowledge system. According to it, every scientific knowledge system includes hierarchically organized and complex subsystems that partially and separately have been studied by standard, structuralist, operationalist, problem-solving, axiological and other directions of the current philosophy of science. 1) The logico-linguistic subsystem represents and normalizes by means of different, including mathematical, languages and normalizes and logical calculi the knowledge available on objects under study. 2) The model-representing subsystem comprises peculiar to the knowledge system ways of their modeling and understanding. 3) The pragmatic-procedural subsystem contains general and unique to the knowledge system operations, methods, procedures, algorithms and programs. 4) From the viewpoint of the problem-heuristic subsystem, the knowledge system is a unique way of setting and resolving questions, problems, puzzles and tasks of cognition of objects into question. It also includes various heuristics and estimations (truth, consistency, beauty, efficacy, adequacy, heuristicity etc) of components and structures of the knowledge system. 5) The subsystem of links fixes interrelations between above-mentioned components, structures and subsystems of the knowledge system. The structure-nominative reconstruction has been used in the philosophical and comparative case-studies of mathematical, physical, economic, legal, political, pedagogical, social, and sociological theories. It has enlarged the collection of knowledge structures, connected, for instance, with a multitude of theoreticity levels and with an application of numerous mathematical languages. It has deepened the comprehension of relations between the main directions of current philosophy of science. They are interpreted as dealing mainly with isolated subsystems of scientific theory. This reconstruction has disclosed a variety of undetected knowledge structures, associated also, for instance, with principles of symmetry and supersymmetry and with laws of various levels and degrees. In cooperation with the physicist Olexander Gabovich the modified structure-nominative reconstruction is in the processes of development and justification. Ideas and concepts were also in the center of Kopnin’s cognitive activity. The author has suggested and elaborated the triplet model of concepts. According to it, any scientific concept is a dependent on cognitive situation, dynamical, multifunctional state of scientist’s thinking, and available knowledge system. A concept is modeled as being consisted from three interrelated structures. 1) The concept base characterizes objects falling under a concept as well as their properties and relations. In terms of volume and content the logical modeling reveals partially only the concept base. 2) The concept representing part includes structures and means (names, statements, abstract properties, quantitative values of object properties and relations, mathematical equations and their systems, theoretical models etc.) of object representation in the appropriate knowledge system. 3) The linkage unites a structures and procedures that connect components from the abovementioned structures. The partial cases of the triplet model are logical, information, two-tired, standard, exemplar, prototype, knowledge-dependent and other concept models. It has introduced the triplet classification that comprises several hundreds of concept types. Different kinds of fuzziness are distinguished. Even the most precise and exact concepts are fuzzy in some triplet aspect. The notions of relations between real scientific concepts are essentially extended. For example, the definition and strict analysis of such relations between concepts as formalization, quantification, mathematization, generalization, fuzzification, and various kinds of identity are proposed. The concepts «PLANET» and «ELEMENTARY PARTICLE» and some of their metamorphoses were analyzed in triplet terms. The Kopnin’s methodology and epistemology of cognition was being used for creating conception of the philosophy of law as elaborating of understanding, justification, estimating and criticizing legal system. The basic information on the major directions in current Western philosophy of law (legal realism, feminism, criticism, postmodernism, economical analysis of law etc.) is firstly introduced to the Ukrainian audience. The classification of more than fifty directions in modern legal philosophy is suggested. Some results of historical, linguistic, scientometric and philosophic-legal studies of the present state of Ukrainian academic science are given. (shrink)

This article considers issues of authorship and textual development over the generations, focusing on the contributions of the erudite scholar/lama Dudjom Jigdral Yeshe Dorje, to the revelations of Bhutan’s national saint, Pema Lingpa, on the tantric deity Vajrak?laya. Dudjom Rinpoche compiled a number of ritual practice texts for this revelation cycle, also writing commentarial instructions on them. Here, two of his compilations are examined in detail, considering how they relate to the original revelation, what they add, and what they neglect, (...) reflecting on what they might tell us about Tibetan approaches to continuing textual production in revelatory traditions. Much of Dudjom Rinpoche’s ‘Ultra Secret Razor Lifeforce’ Framework text for the Major Practice session reproduces virtually unchanged his earlier Framework text for the Dudjom tradition ‘Meteoric Iron Razor’, which itself draws on Guru Chöwang’s ‘Ultra Secret Razor’, as presented by Terdak Lingpa, the founder of Mindroling Monastery in central Tibet. On the other hand, Dudjom Rinpoche’s main Ritual Manual for Pema Lingpa’s cycle is more clearly rooted in the Pema Lingpa cycle, but there has been considerable re-working of the phrasing and even of some key visualisations. Some of the significant modifications were already present in an earlier Ritual Manual of the third Sungtrul or Pema Lingpa reincarnation, Tsultrim Dorje, and Dudjom Rinpoche acknowledges this source. In assessing Dudjom Rinpoche’s two texts, various aspects of the productive process are highlighted, such as: the ‘blessings’ of a current generation high status lama connected with the tradition; the needs of the ritual community for familiar textual structures and liturgies; beautiful metrical verses for chanting; the integration of materials from the broader tantric heritage, but also the preservation of some highly individual elements of the revelation. (shrink)

Deleuze has left to with two texts, ‘Post-scriptum sur les sociétés de contrôle’ and L’immanence: une vie.., which constitute his heritage. These two essays seem to stand far apart from each other, because while the first talks about the risk that individuals today will be reduced to a number by the machines that control our societies, the second is concerned with proposing the concept of an immanent and impersonal life. The aim of this article, however, is to connect these (...) two texts, in order to show, firstly, that contemporary society has indeed become a system of control, governed by machines and statistical methods. The concept of ‘algorithmic governmentality’, proposed by Antoinette Rouvroy, will be used to examine how today the individual is forced into anonymity. On the other hand, however, the second aim of this article is to rethink the Deleuzian notion of the impersonal, which is always associated with a life. In fact, impersonality stands in opposition to the Cartesian subject, which possesses its own unity and identity, yet in no way does it correspond to any anonymity imposed by forms of power. An impersonal life is, instead, a virtual multiplicity: today this seems to be the only strategy of resistance possible, against the regime of quantitative, digital truth that has been developed by our societies. (shrink)

The rise of the sitar from a limited accompaniment instrument used in the regional courts of Northern India to an internationally recognized cultural icon underscores its importance both as an instrument and a cultural symbol—the sitar mirrors India’s social complexity. This story encapsulates the social, political and economic trauma resulting from the dismantling of Mughal empire to the partition of Pakistan, reflecting contesting social narratives and Hindu/Muslim cultural heritages through the distinctive musical styles modern India. A musical instrument and material (...) object of contested origins, the sitar extends from wood, gourd, wire, and ivory into complex social and cultural networks. I argue that the sitar, as object, cannot be reduced to either an empirical or phenomenological entity; it is a space of potentiality, the actualization of a virtual object. I examine the sitar as both byproduct and narrative, demonstrating how it defies attempts to limit its constantly rupturing borders with imposed cognitive frames, and how materiality and philosophical systems can inform ethnographic practice. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Biblical Economic Ethics: Sacred Scripture’s Teachings on Economic Life by Albino BarreraRaymond Kemp AndersonBiblical Economic Ethics: Sacred Scripture’s Teachings on Economic Life By Albino Barrera LANHAM, MD: LEXINGTON BOOKS, 2013. 353 PP. $89.65; KINDLE, $54.49You will not find much direct application of biblical theology to pressing economic issues in this book. Albino Barrera, a Dominican monk who teaches economics and theology at Providence College, gave us that in (...) well-received earlier works on market complicity, political economy, and the evils of scarcity. Keeping to this book’s title, he now gives us a remarkable collation of recent studies on the social and theological contexts of the Bible itself. He seems quite confident that given a comprehensive review, we will intuit modern implications for ourselves and be drawn closer together by our common heritage.Written for a wide audience, Barrera’s clear and readable book compiles fascinating snapshots of the diverse cultural situations and beliefs that unfold across the millennium-spanning canon. Even biblical scholars will enjoy this lively, up-to-date tour of their field.As a monastic, Barrera is careful to show that those New Testament texts that seem to call for divestment of property describe a situation-related special calling and do not make poverty an end in itself. Yet he stresses how the “preferential status of the poor” and the “devaluation of wealth” are prime norms that recur throughout both the Old Testament and New Testament and that he sees backed by both revelation and natural experience.One may find the book limited by the procrustean selectivity that seems inevitable when pre-formed notions (e.g., what is proper to our modern discipline of ethics or to the field of economics) shape our apperceptions of ancient [End Page 205] peoples’ concerns. From Barrera’s viewpoint, ethics has to do primarily with the promulgation and refinement of set norms. So his main goal is to uncover abstract principles and norms for behavior that recur insistently across scripture’s enormous diversity. This, he does beautifully. But in the process, he lets the recurrent trump the emergent.For example, Barrera seems to not fully appreciate the revolutionary impact where Jesus finally declares it impossible for people to bolster their personal stature by pursuing such norms (see, e.g., Mk 10:27). Little attention is given the apostles’ insistence (with Ps 14 and Ps 53) upon this same ethical impasse. For when they find the normative redefined by Christ’s excruciatingly holistic love command, they not only discover their own incapacity but also find themselves catapulted into the totally grace-dependent motivational dynamic described by Paul’s Christian freedom (Rom 3:12, 5, passim, 11:32; Gal 3:22; Jas 2:10).Evidently preoccupied by his quest for the normative, Barrera bypasses the historical priority of Paul and virtually ignores how his grace-responsive freedom pervades the later Gospels and Acts. (He relegates the Paul material to the tail end and accords it but a fraction of the space.)Freedom for Barrera is a social norm—freedom from oppression, slavery, poverty, hunger, and so forth (and he forcefully shows how this is a recurrent theme). But was not Paul, like Jesus before him, hounded and persecuted for his notorious freedom in the use of norms—even those of Mosaic law? Did not the Gospel reduce the normative to a minimum in favor of life-shaping, person-responsive love as the free gift or “fruit of the Spirit”? All of us—the rich and powerful, along with the poor and oppressed—discover our corporate brokenness exposed before God’s grace. Yet in our concomitant response to that same grace, we find our actions newly motivated and gradually reshaped—bonded into covenant community through his judgment of healing re-creation.Again, Barrera does well to stress Sabbath law’s normative force, as mandating times of rest. But one could wish to hear more on how the apostles parleyed this priestly provision into something new, in joyful direct response to a gracious Lord—a freely sabbatic, playfully creative ethic. [End Page 206]Raymond Kemp AndersonWilson CollegeCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)