In the face of the dichotomy of biblical exegesis and theology, one of the main postulates of Biblical Thomism is the integration of both activities. In this sense, it is understandable why there are philosophical threads in exegesis, and why we find many scripture references in sacra doctrina. The article, first presenting modern attempts to separate exegesis from theology, analyzes the three aspects of studying Sacred Scripture in practicing theology according to Aquinas. For him, exegesis is (...) the alphabet of theology, but the requirement is that the extraction of the meanings of Scripture should be complemented by theological activity. (shrink)

In 2004, Robert Nelson noted in creative, practice-led research degrees that the exegesis had been reconceptualised as a cultural contribution to scholarship. He suggested that the challenge this posed was the need for writing to interface effectively with the nature and calibre of the creative work. A decade on from his observation, this article employs a case study to discuss emerging approaches to the exegesis in the work of graphic design doctoral candidates at AUT University in New Zealand. (...) Accepting the multi-perspectival and multi-voiced nature of the practice-led exegesis writer, it discusses approaches to both structure and presentation. In so doing, it also considers specific issues, including negotiated relationships between the role and the nature of the designer’s voice, systems of narration, and issues impacting upon both digital and print formats. (shrink)

This essay examines the biblical discourse on animals in Job 38-41, as interpreted by Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas in their 13th-century biblical commentaries. In God’s first reply to Job twelve species of animals are introduced and realistically described, including accurate details of their behavior. Subsequently, chapters 40 and 41 introduce two more complex animals, Behemoth and Leviathan, in which realistic and symbolic features intertwine. This peculiarity of the book of Job – long sequences dedicated to descriptions of animals (...) – allows to investigate to what extent and how the availability of Aristotelian zoology, whose study was prescribed in the Dominican program promoted and practiced by Albert himself, became an instrument for a renewed biblical exegesis, different from the allegorical and theological moralizing hitherto prevailing in the Christian tradition of commentaries on Job. (shrink)

SummaryDogmatic debates in early Christianity shaped philosophical discourse just as Greek philosophy offered the conceptual tools to engage and, accordingly to crystalize early Christian practice, into a formal system of belief. Thus, in the recently-published The Rise of Christian Theology and the End of Ancient Metaphysics, Johannes Zachhuber notes that “Patristic thought as a whole can be identified as a Christian philosophy.” Following suit – though not without nuance – this paper suggests treating Patristic scriptural exegesis as an exercise (...) of speculative philosophy, as evidenced in Augustine’s interpretation of the figure of the cross at Eph 3.18, where the cross progressively becomes a simple yet compelling paradigm of divine manifestation. This paradigm can be framed according to Augustine’s mature articulation of the ‘ontological principle’ of manifestation in s. 165: “From the depth which you cannot see rises everything that you can see.” By engaging in scriptural exegesis, within a gestalt where Wisdom, sacred and profane alike, merge in the incarnate God manifest in Christ, Augustine articulates unprecedented philosophical principles. (shrink)

This work of intellectual and cultural history seeks to understand the recurring connection of teaching with contradiction in some major texts of the European Middle Ages. It moves comfortably between patristic and monastic exegesis, the Paris schools of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and late medieval Spain; between Latin and vernacular, between religious and secular. It assimilates the methodologies of religious and erotic texts, thereby displaying the investment of each in the sensuality and analytical power of language. The book (...) begins by exploring Christian exegesis, in which biblical contradiction is the textual incarnation of a Truth that is at once and paradoxically singular and multiple. Exegesis teaches us of the possibility of maintaining the truth in one biblical proposition and, equally and simultaneously, in its apparent opposite. Under the aegis of dialectic and the Aristotelian rule of non-contradiction, however, we are next taught to read either/or, and to resolve contradiction not through suspension and multiplicity, as in exegesis, but rather through a judgment that favors either one proposition or the other. The writers studied here are John of Salisbury, whose Metalogicon is an ostensibly moderating critique of the intellectual extremism of the School of Paris logicians, and Peter Abelard, in whose life and writing the forces of contradiction work with maiming and illuminating violence. The book then considers the teaching-textuality of two great secular works of the Middle Ages, formed under the double instruction of the master disciplines of monastic exegesis and dialectic and under the tutelage of Ovid. Calling simultaneously on the both-and of exegesis and the either/or of dialectic, the teaching of these two texts is both biblical and worldly—impossibly, both at once, always in motion. The De Amore of Andreas Capellanus teaches two opposite propositions and commands that either one or the other must be chosen, yet in practice shows each proposition to be deeply embedded in the other. The concluding chapter turns from the Latin to the vernacular tradition to study one of the lesser-known examples of contradictory teaching, the fourteenth-century Libro de Buen Amor of Juan Ruiz, whose titular "good love" conflates the contrary things of spiritual and carnal love, while reminding readers that the difference between the two is urgently consequential. (shrink)

Deeply rooted in the Vedic tradition, animal sacrifice is a controversial issue associated with a larger discourse of violence and non-violence in South Asia. Most existent studies on Vedic killing focus on the polemics of ritual violence in six schools of Indian philosophy. However, insufficient attention has been paid to killing in Dharmaśāstric literature, the killing that is an indispensable element of a Vedic householder’s life. To fill in the gap, this paper analyzes the animal sacrifice in the Manubhāṣya of (...) Medhātithi, perhaps the most influential exegesis of the Mānavadharmaśāstra. As an important but understudied Dharmaśāstric exegesis, the Manubhāṣya provides insights on how dharmaśāstrins as protagonists of Vedic tradition understand ritual killing while dialoguing with other traditions in the complex religious landscape of the ninth century Kashmir. By investigating Medhātithi’s commentary on Mānavadharmaśāstra 5.22–56, this paper interrogates how Medhatithi interprets sacrificial killing, and how his interpretation assists to buttress the authority of the Vedic tradition represented by the root text. I argue that Medhātithi’s exegesis of killing serves as apologetics that re-establishes the Vedic sacrificial tradition, which is challenged by popular non-Vedic practices. This study intends to contribute to a better understanding of animal sacrifice situated at the intersection of Vedic, Purānic and Tantric strands, and the way in which Dharmaśāstric exegesis as apologetics engages in the negotiation of violence. (shrink)

What contribution can visual art practice bring to interdisciplinary research? And how to give an account of practice-led research that acknowledges the need for interdisciplinary intelligibility? I consider these two questions by reflecting on the methodology--which I call "critical practical analogy" (CPA)--that I have developed while investigating the metaethical implications of French philosopher Simone Weil's notion of attention, during my practice-led PhD. In order to address the first question, I consider as a case study a research art project that (...) employs CPA, and I explain how CPA proved instrumental in overcoming the impasse that I reached by purely theoretical investigation of Weil's discourse on attention and how it opened a distinctly artistic way forward in my research. In order to address the second question, I consider a problem posed by the interdisciplinary nature of my research (covering art and philosophy). I show how, through the application of CPA to the case study, I articulated an exegesis of my research that was intelligible across these two heterogeneous fields of investigation. In conclusion, I give some reasons for my hope that CPA may possess some heuristic and exegetical applicability in practice-led interdisciplinary research beyond my own research. (shrink)

Analytical commentary -- Fruits upon one tree -- The continuation of the early draft into philosophy of mathematics -- Hidden isomorphism -- A common methodology -- The flatness of philosophical grammar -- Following a rule 185-242 -- Introduction to the exegesis -- Rules and grammar -- The tractatus and rules of logical syntax -- From logical syntax to philosophical grammar -- Rules and rule-formulations -- Philosophy and grammar -- The scope of grammar -- Some morals -- Exegesis 185-8 (...) -- Accord with a rule -- Initial compass bearings -- Accord and the harmony between language and reality -- Rules of inference and logical machinery -- Formulations and explanations of rules by examples -- Interpretations, fitting and grammar -- Further misunderstandings -- Exegesis 189-202 -- Following rules, mastery of techniques and practices -- Following a rule -- Practices and techniques -- Doing the right thing and doing the same thing -- Privacy and the community view -- On not digging below bedrock -- Private linguists and private linguists : Robinson Crusoe sails again -- Is a language necessarily shared with a community of speakers? -- Innate knowledge of a language -- Robinson Crusoe sails again -- Solitary cavemen and monolinguists -- Private languages and private languages -- Exegesis 203-37 -- Agreement in definitions, judgements, and form of life -- The scaffolding of facts -- The role of our nature -- Forms of life -- Agreement : consensus of human beings and their actions -- Exegesis 238-42 -- Grammar and necessity -- Setting the stage -- Leitmotifs -- External guidelines -- Necessary propositions and norms of representation -- Concerning the truth and falsehood of necessary propositions -- What necessary truths are about illusions of correspondence : ideal objects, kinds of reality, and ultra-physics -- The psychology of the A priori -- Knowledge -- Belief -- Certainty -- Surprise -- Discoveries and conjectures -- Compulsion -- Propositions of logic and laws of thought -- Alternative forms of representation -- The arbitrariness of grammar -- A kinship to the non-arbitrary -- Proof in mathematics -- Conventionalism. (shrink)

al-Qurṭubī (d. 671/1273) was a scholar of tafsīr, ḥadīth and fiqh. He experienced both Western and Eastern civilizations in the geography of Andalusia and Egypt, respectively. In his famous Tafsīr called al-Jâmi li-Aḥkâm al-Qur’ān, al-Qurṭubī comparatively explained and interpreted all legal verses. Also, in addition to exploring the spesific legal rulings denoted in the Qur’ān and the Sunnah, al-Qurṭubī has largely interpreted the legal norms regarding the issues of jurisprudence. By doing this, al-Qurṭubī contributed to the formation and development of (...) a civil codification activity under a kazuistic format. The casuistic structure of the legal exegesis of the Qur’ān is anlaysed in terms of the form and content in the sample of al-Jâmi. Therefore, neither the similarity or similarity of the schools of the legal exegesis of Qur’ān and of the legal schools nor the disciplines of positive law, but their kazuistic structures, which systems they built and which interpretation methods and techniques they operated on this basis, were evaluated in terms of their original structure. In this direction, the article emphasizes that the casuistic structure of the legal exegesis of Qur’ān is established on and by the Prophet’s sayings and practices. Although, it has been observed that it is a unique tradition, both as form and content, and that the interpretation means are identified with its own unique structure, it has been concluded that the casuistic method is not one of the fundamental elements of both this tradition and Islamic legal thought. This means that the casuistic method is always a tool that can be changed and transformed according to the conditions of time and space.Summary: As it is stated in al-Isrāʾ 17/106: “And (it is) a Qur’ān which we have separated (by intervals) that you might recite it to the people over a prolonged period. And we have sent it down progressive.”, the Qur’ān is revelaed in about twenty-three years by taking into consideration the sociocultural positions of its interlocutors. The Prophet Muḥammad explained the Qur’ān by the virtue of the ayah: “(We sent them) with clear proofs and written ordinances. And We revealed to you the message (i.e. that you may make clear to the people what was sent down to them and that they might give thought.” (an-Naḥl 16/44). Of course, there is no subject integrity in this Qurānic chronology-which also reflects life. As a matter of fact, the issues related to individual and society have been independently analyzed by a casuistic/case-based method and ruled in accordance with the intention of Allāh. It can be seen that the ayahs “They ask you about wine and gambling. Say, ‘In them is great sin and (yet, some) benefit for people. But their sin is greater than their benefit.’ And they ask you what they should spend. Say, ‘The excess (beyond needs).’ Thus Allāh makes clear to you the verses (of revelation) that you might give thought.” (al-Baqara 2/219) and other ayahs such as (al-Baqara 2/186; al-Nisāʾ 4/176; al-Anfāl 8/1) reflect the casuistic method in terms of form and content. This can also be exemplified by the Sunna. For example, when the question “Is it permissible to perform ablutions with sea water?” was posed to Messenger of Allāh. He said that “It’s water is clean and his dead (fish) are lawful “(Abū Dāwūd, “Ṭaḥāra”, 41). By this answer, the Prophet Muḥammad indeed ruled and established a general rule.It can be said that this early example table formed the basis of the legal exegesis of the Qur’ān in terms of origin, source and application, and that its shape and content are often immanent in the examples it contains. In this article, based on the prophetic period, the legal exegesis of the Qur’ān and casuistic structure has been studied with an analytical and critical approach. Again, because the casuistic method is one of the universal concepts of east-west science and cultural life, an interdisciplinary approach was exhibited in this study. The roots of the casuistic method date back to 5000 BC and the legal systems of the society and states of antiquity are examined from this method. This method is chosen and used in the legal exegesis of the Qur’ān. However, this study does not analyse the sameness or the similarity of the legal exegesis of the Qur’ān and the legal schools nor the positive law disciplines, but the casuistic structures used by these, the systems they have built on this basis and the interpretation methods and techniques they have been used and analyzed in terms of their originality.In effect, the article embodies the Qur’ānic exegesis called al-Jâmi li-Aḥkâm al-Qur’ān by al-Qurṭubī (d. 671/1273), a scholar of tafsīr, ḥadīth and fiqh. In addition to the works of the aḥkām al-Qur’āns, which deal with the interpretation of the ayahs related to the subjects of ʿibādāt, muʿāmalāt ve ʿuḳūbāt, many other works have been used in parallel with the development of the legal exegesis of the Qur’ān. al-Qurṭubī, who comparingly explained the legal verses in his tafsīr, investigated the aspects of the Qur’ān and Sunna that indicate the aḥkām, generally interpreted the existing legal norms within the framework of evidence and introduced his own opinions and etasblished his ijtihād. Thus, he benefited from the tafsīr accumulation and contributed to the formation and development of a civil legalization activity with casuistic format. As a matter of fact, the casuistic/case-based method has been used as a codification/tadwīn technique by Western and Eastern legal disciplines and systems. The casuistic method covers both concrete event and abstract ruling methods. In the casuistic method, which is fact-based event, the laws are organized according to all possible events that can be experienced. On the other hand, the abstract method, which is defined as the abstract ruling method, aims to organize the laws in a general and abstract framework. In the article, it is stated that the legal exegesis of the Qur’ān contains both concrete and abstract dimensions in its own way. It has been emphasized that the legal exegesis of the Qur’ān is based on divine revelation (waḥy) and that it is separated from human law as its origin and source, and that this feature is its most faithful characteristic. On this basis, the legal exegesis of the Qur’ān is a separate scholarly tradition and has its own definition, subject and purpose. Its original structure and function have been noted. As a matter of fact, the subject and purpose of the legal exegesis of the Qur’ān always require the tafsīr and taʾwīl of the legal verses having regard to the Qur’ān and Sunna. It is also necessary for the purpose of investigating the ways in which nuṣūṣ (an explicit statement upon which a ruling is based) can refer to the provisions and to resolve the issues related to individuals and society. As a matter of fact, the legal verses function as a guide for humanity until the day of judgment as the inspiration for religious-legal matters; they contain the content and provisions that offer happiness in the two worlds. (shrink)

In Christ Meets Me Everywhere, Michael Cameron argues that Augustine wanted to train readers of Scripture to transpose themselves into the texts in the same way he did, by the same process of figuration that he found at its core. Tracking Augustine's developing practice of self-transposition into the figures of the biblical texts over the course of his entire career, Cameron shows that this practice is the key to Augustine's hermeneutics.

This book describes how medieval Jewish Bible scholars sought to answer the question of what is meant by the Angel’s message from God to Abraham: ‘Now I Know’, as written in Genesis 22 verse 12. It examines these scholars’ comments on the nineteen verses in Genesis that tell the story of Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice his own son Isaac, the Aqedat Yiṣḥaq. It explores the answers they found to the question of what, indeed, this story is trying to tell us. (...) Is it a drastic way to condemn the practice of child sacrifice? Does it call for replacing human sacrifices with animal sacrifices? Is it a trial by which the Almighty tests the fidelity of one of His followers? Or is it His way to show the world the nature of true belief? The book starts with an introduction to familiarize readers with the many and varied manifestations of the Aqedah theme in Jewish culture and with the developments of medieval Jewish Bible exegesis in general. Next, it offers translations and analyses of the classical medieval Jewish Bible commentaries that deal with the exegesis of Genesis 22, exploring the many angles from which the Aqedah story has been understood. No less than five centuries of medieval Aqedah exegesis are reviewed, from Saadya to Isaac Abrabanel. These texts from the commentaries are combined with hermeneutical key passages by Moses Maimonides, Joseph Ibn Kaspi, Ḥasdai Crescas, and others, which were familiar to the minds of the exegetes, or which, conversely, reflect the impact of biblical Aqedah exegesis on religious thought. Together, the passages discussed illustrate the growth and development of Jewish Bible exegesis in dialogue with the rabbinic sources and with the various trends of thought and theology of their times. The consistent focus on the Aqedah constitutes a unifying theme, while the insights presented here greatly advance our understanding of the various developments in medieval Jewish Bible exegesis. (shrink)

Evidence‐based practice (EBP) first appeared on the healthcare horizon just over a decade ago. In 2003 its presence has intensified and extended beyond its initial relation to medicine embracing as it does now, nursing and the allied health disciplines. In this paper, I contend that its appearance and subsequent growth and development are the effects of potent ‘regimes of truth’, four of which bear the names: positivism, empiricism, pragmatism and economic rationalism. My aim is to show how EBP generates the (...) controversy it does because its nature and methods are inextricably interwoven with the way it has become politicised and professionalised. This exegesis is an attempt to outline how the combined effects of the four forms of rationality mentioned above allow for both the methods and objectives of EBP to be constructed as they are, while at the same moment producing the particular effects of knowledge and power in terms of who sells and who buys the idea of EBP in the culture of contemporary healthcare. (shrink)

An interpretation is offered of the Aristotelian concept of “practical truth” in the wake of Anscombe’s very interesting exegesis. Her own interpretation is considered and its merits noted, but a question is raised as to its plausibility as an account of what Aristotle himself intended in speaking of “truth that is practical”.

In this article, Paul's use of the Old Testament in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4 comes under scrutiny. In contrast with the theory of some modern scholars that Paul uses, 'fanciful analogies', 'startling figurative claims' and metaphors that 'should not he pressed', in reaching his conclusion that 'the rock was Christ', in 1 Corinthians 10:4c, it is indicated that Paul is indeed taking the original text, the Old Testament's interpretation of the text, and the Jewish tradition of the interpretation of the text, (...) seriously, in the light of the Christ-event. To prove this claim, research of the text, that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, is followed by research of the 'world in front of that text'.CONTRIBUTION: The conclusion that is reached indicates that Paul established within the context of contemporary Jewish practices, a true dialogical relationship between an intertextual handling of the text, and his interpretation thereof in the light of the relevance of the Christ-event for the conflict in the Church of Corinth. (shrink)

The debate over the authorship of the allegorical interpretation of Heliodorus’ novel extant in codex Marc. Gr. 410 bequeathed to subsequent scholarship the assumption that the text belongs to the Neoplatonic allegorical tradition of reading Homer. This essay aims to revisit this philosophical attribution and argue that the terms and philosophical categories alluded in this allegory are characteristic of a long tradition of Patristic analysis, and more specifically of Gregory of Nyssa and Maximus Confessor’s exegesis. Setting forth new textual (...) evidence, it argues that the exegetical practice displayed in the allegory reflects Maximus Confessor’s anagogical exegesis and Gregory of Nyssa’s pedagogy of desire and doctrine of spiritual progress as set forth in the Homilies on the Song of Songs and The Life of Moses. (shrink)

In this article, Paul's use of the Old Testament in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4 comes under scrutiny. In contrast with the theory of some modern scholars that Paul uses, 'fanciful analogies', 'startling figurative claims' and metaphors that 'should not he pressed', in reaching his conclusion that 'the rock was Christ', in 1 Corinthians 10:4c, it is indicated that Paul is indeed taking the original text, the Old Testament's interpretation of the text, and the Jewish tradition of the interpretation of the text, (...) seriously, in the light of the Christ-event. To prove this claim, research of the text, that Paul uses in 1 Corinthians 10:1-4, is followed by research of the 'world in front of that text'.CONTRIBUTION: The conclusion that is reached indicates that Paul established within the context of contemporary Jewish practices, a true dialogical relationship between an intertextual handling of the text, and his interpretation thereof in the light of the relevance of the Christ-event for the conflict in the Church of Corinth. (shrink)

This paper explores the reasons why the notion of 'evidence-based' practice has gained prominence in educational research. The ascendancy of 'evidence-based' practice is attributed to a crisis of legitimation in educational research. The paper offers a critical exegesis of a systematic review conducted under the auspices of the Effective Practice and Organisation of Care (EPOC) subgroup of the Cochrane Collaboration.

There is now an increasing body of knowledge on creative practice-based doctorates especially in Australia and the United Kingdom. A particular focus in recent years has been on the written examinable component or exegesis, and a number of studies have provided important information about change and stability in the form and nature of the exegesis and its relationship to the creative project. However, we still know relatively little about the pedagogical practices that supervisors use to support these students’ (...) development as scholarly writers, nor of how supervisors view ‘writing’ in relation to the creative practice components of the degree endeavour. This paper draws on data from a recent study of supervision in creative practice higher research degrees and it highlights the transformative nature of writing for the development of creative practice research scholars in the context of competing discourses on research writing. In contrast to institutional silencing of writing, the study relates numerous examples of effective writing-rich supervisory pedagogies illustrating how successful supervisors work with their students to bring their creative projects into articulation. (shrink)

John Paul II is often misread as more of a philosopher than a theologian. But his Theology of the Body, rightly read, is in its entirety an exercise in exegesis. By focusing on the Bible, he gives a more fully theological account of his topic, one focused on the mystery of redemption by grace, rather than on merely human efforts.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Thinking with Heidegger:Rethinking Environmental Theory and PracticeKevin Michael DeLuca (bio)Environmentalism is tired. It is a movement both institutionalized and insipid. The vast majority of Americans claim to be environmentalists while buying ever more SUVs, leaf-blowers, and uncountable plastic consumer goods. Indeed, environmentalism itself has become just another practice of consumerism, a matter of buying Audubon memberships, Ansel Adams calendars, and 'biodegradable' plastic bags with one's Sierra Club credit card. (...) As a practice of everyday life, environmentalism has devolved into another lifestyle choice.On the political front, carbon-copy blow-dried presidential candidates proclaim their allegiance to the environment, an allegiance that is more a sign of fealty to opinion polls than a concern with environmental issues. In the world of real-politic, environmental regulations are gutted as corporations write legislation for the politicians they have bought. Outspent and outmaneuvered, mainstream environmental groups preach at the altar of broken promises about the potential of lobbying and insider access while awaiting the blandishments of the next candidate. As [End Page 67] a political practice, mainstream environmentalism has degenerated into a marginal special-interest group.On the intellectual front, a confusing array of reform environmentalists, deep ecologists, social ecologists, ecofeminists, wilderness advocates, social justice activists, social constructionists, and Christian ecologists offer a cacophony of competing paradigms and programs while exchanging charges and countercharges of wrong-headedness and infidelity. If on the level of practice an exhausted environmentalism has achieved both institutionalism and irrelevance, intellectually environmentalism has reached several stasis points. This is crucial, for at a level that is unusual for social movements, environmentalism has always highlighted the importance of how we think about the environment, that ideas of nature are powerful because practices follow from ideas. In other words, how we think about nature guides how we act toward nature. In the midst of this melee I want to suggest we reconsider the work of Martin Heidegger.I want to think Heidegger in distress: in the distress of machination; in the distress of the technological enframing of the earth; in the distress of the environmental crisis. In rejecting a Heideggerian hermeneutics, a piety to textual exegesis, I hope to stress Heidegger in order to stress environmental theory. With few exceptions,1 two insufficient responses typify the reception of Heidegger in environmental thinking. One is to champion Heidegger as some proto-environmentalist. Certainly, quotes from such works as Being and Time, Contributions to Philosophy: From Enowning, "The Question Concerning Technology," "Building Dwelling Thinking," and "The Age of the World Picture" inspire such a reading. Such readings, however, present a simplified Heidegger. For example, a poor reading of an essay such as "The Question Concerning Technology" produces the conclusion that Heidegger was anti-technology.2 These misreadings are not merely accidental but a result of the goal of the citation. The challenge of Heidegger is not engaged to develop environmental theory; rather, Heidegger is cited to lend some borrowed legitimacy to the fledgling enterprise. The most prominent example of this move occurs in Devall and Sessions' Deep Ecology, wherein Heidegger joins a potpourri of thinkers, including Dogen, Job, St. Francis of Assisi, Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, Thoreau, Chief Seattle, Herman Melville, John Muir, Aldous Huxley, Gandhi, Rainer Maria Rilke, Aldo Leopold, Robinson Jeffers, Mary Austin, Rachel Carson, Barry Commoner, Stanley Diamond, and [End Page 68] David Brower from a host of traditions, including Taoism, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, Christianity, Native American thought, Romanticism, and ecological science (1985, 79–108). The result is confusion, at best.On the other hand, in a second response Heidegger serves as a kind of bogeyman, a Nazi used to tar the more radical environmental groups. The syllogism is simple and simplistic: Deep Ecologists are bio/ecocentric; Deep Ecologists quote Heidegger; Heidegger was a Nazi; Therefore, Deep Ecologists are Nazis/fascists. (To push this thinking to its logical extreme, then, all nonanthropocentric thinking is fascist.) Both responses may be useful for polemics but serve to prevent a possibly productive exploration of Heidegger for the engagement of the difficult problems that have stumped environmentalism on multiple levels.Violating HeideggerAs a prefatory word, even a cursory glance at Heidegger's work reveals him to be a thinker who... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Thinking with Heidegger:Rethinking Environmental Theory and PracticeKevin Michael DeLuca (bio)Environmentalism is tired. It is a movement both institutionalized and insipid. The vast majority of Americans claim to be environmentalists while buying ever more SUVs, leaf-blowers, and uncountable plastic consumer goods. Indeed, environmentalism itself has become just another practice of consumerism, a matter of buying Audubon memberships, Ansel Adams calendars, and 'biodegradable' plastic bags with one's Sierra Club credit card. (...) As a practice of everyday life, environmentalism has devolved into another lifestyle choice.On the political front, carbon-copy blow-dried presidential candidates proclaim their allegiance to the environment, an allegiance that is more a sign of fealty to opinion polls than a concern with environmental issues. In the world of real-politic, environmental regulations are gutted as corporations write legislation for the politicians they have bought. Outspent and outmaneuvered, mainstream environmental groups preach at the altar of broken promises about the potential of lobbying and insider access while awaiting the blandishments of the next candidate. As [End Page 67] a political practice, mainstream environmentalism has degenerated into a marginal special-interest group.On the intellectual front, a confusing array of reform environmentalists, deep ecologists, social ecologists, ecofeminists, wilderness advocates, social justice activists, social constructionists, and Christian ecologists offer a cacophony of competing paradigms and programs while exchanging charges and countercharges of wrong-headedness and infidelity. If on the level of practice an exhausted environmentalism has achieved both institutionalism and irrelevance, intellectually environmentalism has reached several stasis points. This is crucial, for at a level that is unusual for social movements, environmentalism has always highlighted the importance of how we think about the environment, that ideas of nature are powerful because practices follow from ideas. In other words, how we think about nature guides how we act toward nature. In the midst of this melee I want to suggest we reconsider the work of Martin Heidegger.I want to think Heidegger in distress: in the distress of machination; in the distress of the technological enframing of the earth; in the distress of the environmental crisis. In rejecting a Heideggerian hermeneutics, a piety to textual exegesis, I hope to stress Heidegger in order to stress environmental theory. With few exceptions,1 two insufficient responses typify the reception of Heidegger in environmental thinking. One is to champion Heidegger as some proto-environmentalist. Certainly, quotes from such works as Being and Time, Contributions to Philosophy: From Enowning, "The Question Concerning Technology," "Building Dwelling Thinking," and "The Age of the World Picture" inspire such a reading. Such readings, however, present a simplified Heidegger. For example, a poor reading of an essay such as "The Question Concerning Technology" produces the conclusion that Heidegger was anti-technology.2 These misreadings are not merely accidental but a result of the goal of the citation. The challenge of Heidegger is not engaged to develop environmental theory; rather, Heidegger is cited to lend some borrowed legitimacy to the fledgling enterprise. The most prominent example of this move occurs in Devall and Sessions' Deep Ecology, wherein Heidegger joins a potpourri of thinkers, including Dogen, Job, St. Francis of Assisi, Giordano Bruno, Spinoza, Thoreau, Chief Seattle, Herman Melville, John Muir, Aldous Huxley, Gandhi, Rainer Maria Rilke, Aldo Leopold, Robinson Jeffers, Mary Austin, Rachel Carson, Barry Commoner, Stanley Diamond, and [End Page 68] David Brower from a host of traditions, including Taoism, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, Christianity, Native American thought, Romanticism, and ecological science (1985, 79–108). The result is confusion, at best.On the other hand, in a second response Heidegger serves as a kind of bogeyman, a Nazi used to tar the more radical environmental groups. The syllogism is simple and simplistic: Deep Ecologists are bio/ecocentric; Deep Ecologists quote Heidegger; Heidegger was a Nazi; Therefore, Deep Ecologists are Nazis/fascists. (To push this thinking to its logical extreme, then, all nonanthropocentric thinking is fascist.) Both responses may be useful for polemics but serve to prevent a possibly productive exploration of Heidegger for the engagement of the difficult problems that have stumped environmentalism on multiple levels.Violating HeideggerAs a prefatory word, even a cursory glance at Heidegger's work reveals him to be a thinker who... (shrink)

In this article, the author explores one of the avenues through which the experiences of the European biblical studies were implemented in the Kyiv Theological Academy (КТА) in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries. For the first time, the critical bibliographic reviews of biblical research works written by foreign scholars are being examined as a genre. In the comments and reviews made by the KTA professors, we observe a critical analysis of the experiences related to rationalistic (...) and orthodox apologetic trends as represented in foreign biblical studies, as well as a quest for conceptual and methodological allies in support of the Orthodox biblical apologetic perspective. These critical reviews represent a valuable asset indicating that the Kyiv theological academic studies had been incorporated in the global dimension of academic biblical studies. The broad range of subjects addressed in the reviews as well as their regularity and frequency testify to intensive professional communication within the theological academic community. In addition, the texts demonstrate the degree the Kyiv academics perceived the global issues and trends, the responses of scholars to methodological and conceptual challenges, and their perception of various hermeneutical models. The article specifies the stages in which the genre of review evolved from 1860s to early 1900s. From the key structural elements of the entire body of reviews and critical articles, the author distinguishes reviews of the Old Testament and New Testament studies in such thematic areas as isagogics, theology, exegesis, historical criticism, textual criticism, study of biblical languages, geography, archeology, history, chronology, and comparative studies of religion and culture. The subject areas of the reviews and critical articles specifically indicate significant development in the European biblical studies. (shrink)

How can hope, love and faith stay alive when dementia enters a home? In this article I shall look especially at the spouse or partner who shares an abode with a person with dementia. Most of the authors in this field, also John Swinton who is perhaps the best known author whose books are written from a theological perspective, focus on care in institutions, that means care by professionals. A partner living with a dementia patient has two main roles: as (...) partner and caregiver. Night and day a partner is witness to the ongoing deterioration of her or his beloved partner, without being a professional. This article is founded not only on literature about dementia patients, but also on the experiences of several partners, as well as my own experiences as a partner. The question we all ask is: 'From where does our strength come?' I argue that what is said in the literature on the subject of dementia patients does not help the partners, because it lays a heavy burden on them, who are already suffering from feelings of grief and guilt. I do not agree with John Swinton's idea that God created dementia. Looking for different ways of thinking about God and faith to survive with hope and love, I turn to the exegesis of the creation stories by Ellen van Wolde. These give the opportunity to take the evil of the situation of the deterioration of the personality of a patient with dementia seriously, and at the same time grant the possibility to turn the grief and guilt feelings into strength to fight evil, together with a God whose empathy and love stays with a partner in her or his loneliness and grief. (shrink)

This paper presents Olympiodorus’ and Damascius’ explanations of the philosopher’s practice of dying in Plato’s Phaedo. It also includes a presentation of Ammonius’ exegesis of the practice of death. The Neoplatonic commentators discern two kinds of death, the bodily or physical death and the voluntary death. Olympiodorus suggests that bodily death is only an image of voluntary death and cannot be recognized as an original death, because original death presupposes the preparation for death and the constant effort for the (...) purification of the soul during the philosopher’s life-time. Only preparation for death and purification can ensure the complete separation of the soul from the body. Relative to this distinction is that between apothnēskein and tethnanai; these infinitives denote the dual meaning of death: death as an event or a process and death as a state. Our study examines thoroughly the subtle distinctions made by Olympiodorus and Damascius and offers a comparative analysis of the two definitions of death as well as that of purification. It reaches the conclusion that apothnēskein is a necessary condition of tethnanai, i.e. of a definitive release and parting of the soul from the body. On the other hand, the process of eventual purification, a notion which betrays the religious character of purification, can be identified with apothnēskein, which is the practice of dying by the true philosopher. Finally, our study also emphasizes and explains the difference between the voluntary philosophical death and the voluntary unphilosophical suicide; the latter guaranteeing only bodily or physical death. (shrink)

It is a popular view thatpractical deliberation excludes foreknowledge of one's choice. Wolfgang Spohn and Isaac Levi have argued that not even a purely probabilistic self-predictionis available to thedeliberator, if one takes subjective probabilities to be conceptually linked to betting rates. It makes no sense to have a betting rate for an option, for one's willingness to bet on the option depends on the net gain from the bet, in combination with the option's antecedent utility, rather than on the offered (...) odds. And even apart from this consideration, assigning probabilities to the options among which one is choosing is futile since such probabilities could be of no possible use in choice. The paper subjects these arguments to critical examination and suggests that, appearances notwithstanding, practical deliberation need not crowd outself-prediction. (shrink)

This volume presents a collection of refereed papers reflecting the state of the art in the area of over-constrained systems. Besides 11 revised full papers, selected from the 24 submissions to the OCS workshop held in conjunction with the First International Conference on Principles and Practice of Constraint Programming, CP '95, held in Marseilles in September 1995, the book includes three comprehensive background papers of central importance for the workshop papers and the whole field. Also included is an introduction by (...) one of the volume editors together with a bibliography listing 243 entries. All in all this is a very useful reference book relevant for all researchers and practitioners interested in hierarchical, partial, and over-constrained systems. (shrink)

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has again confirmed our obsession with, and misuse of, the Book of Revelation. Of course, this is definitely not the first time that Revelation’s themes and imagery have been pulled out and used to try and explain the current situation. In fact, the Book of Revelation is well-known as ‘the’ book of the New Testament where information about the present as well as the future can be found. Unfortunately, in situations like these, people simply (...) do not bother to draw from the reservoir of experiences on which the author of Revelation naturally expected his hearer or reader to draw. This phenomenon is made worse by the fact that the primary study of the text has moved into the academic institution and, by inference, away from the faith movement. This may make earnest scholarly biblical study of the Apocalypse seem irrelevant to the general concerns of the faith community and the world. But the Book of Revelation does provide an indispensable resource for helping Christians conceive of their place in the contemporary world and meditate on the role the church is to play in a modern, secular society. John’s Apocalypse is not a mere nostalgic trip down memory lane; it is a form of anamnesis or recollection – in recalling or performing the narrative, the past is made physically present. By way of a performative reading of the Book of Revelation, this article makes use of a more practical exegetical dimension. Contribution: This method brings the Apocalypse as New Testament text back into the life of the community of faith it belongs to and should be performed in, thus also increasing the usage and impact of the Book of Revelation in the faith community. (shrink)

This paper examines Augustine's exegetical theory and practice, with particular emphasis on the epistemology that undergirds his Biblical interpretation and the moral constraints on exegesis that Augustine sets forth on De doctrina christiana.

A pivotal focus of exegesis of Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārïkā (MMK) for the past half century has been the attempt to decipher the text's philosophy of language, and determine how this best aids us in characterizing Madhyamaka thought as a whole. In this vein, MMK 24:18 has been judged of particular weight insofar as it purportedly insists that the concepts pratītyasamutpāda (conditioned co-arising) and śūnyatā (emptiness), both indispensable to Buddhist praxis, are themselves only "nominal" or "conventional," that is, they are merely (...) labels that do not referentially signify anything that can be taken to be an ontologically ultimate reality. In various guises, as a result of this explication, Nāgārjuna's thought has been seen to embrace an overarching linguistic nominalism or conventionalism in which words, whether they are used for the purposes of theory or practice, though they serve as commonly accepted currency in the transactions of worldly business (vyavahāra), are in the end only ideas (prajñapti) or metaphysical fabrications (prapanca). This interpretation is largely due to tenaciously inaccurate translations and expositions of MMK 24:18 and their dependence on Candrakīrti's peculiar analysis of this verse in his Prasannapadā. This essay will attempt to correct both the diction of the major translations of MMK 24:18 and the fictions of nominalism and conventionalism that the consequent interpretations of this stanza have perpetuated. The argument that will be developed in the course of this essay is that Candrakīrti's reading of this verse proffers a strong form of linguistic nominalism that Nāgārjuna himself does not embrace. It will be shown, based on everything else found in the MMK, that Nāgārjuna, rather than advocating the mere nominal or conventional status of terms such as pratītyasamutpāda and sunyata, demands they be accepted as both pedagogically useful and even referentially accurate descriptions of the world as it is. (shrink)

The title of this essay describes its topic. I open by discussing the two-knowledges/one-object worry that Anscombe introduces through her famous example of the water-pumper. This sets the context for my main topic, viz., Anscombe’s remarks in _Intention_ on the similarities and differences between intentions and commands. These remarks play a key role in her argument’s shift from practical knowledge to the form of practical reasoning and in its subsequent shift back to practical knowledge. The remarks should (...) be seen as framing her account of practical reasoning’s distinctive logical form: they motivate the need for the account, and they then are then illuminated by the account in order to resolve the two-knowledges/one-object puzzle. I tackle these exegetical issues over the course of the essay, but my goals are not limited to exegesis. I think there are lessons both in the philosophy of mind and in ethics to be gleaned from a close study of these remarks on intentions and commands. Intentions, we discover, must not be understood as self-commands; once we see why, we can better understand Anscombe’s rather cryptic dismissal of Kantian ethics in "Modern Moral Philosophy ." The essay closes on this last point. (shrink)

The role of rules in our normative practices constitutes a relevant philosophical problema, mainly associated with Wittgenstein’s philosophy, but to which Michael Oakeshott has also attempted to answer. Not surprisingly, some scholars have found parallels between their conceptions of human practices and rule-following. Through an exegesis of the notion and uses of the rule in Oakeshott's works, this article aims to clarify the link between rule-following and normative authorization. In this way, it will be possible to to decide the (...) originality and specificity of Oakeshott’s contribution and settle the question of the differences with the Wittgensteinian problematization of rule-following. (shrink)

Of the practices John Cassian brings from Egyptian desert elders to southern Gallic monks, his scriptural hermeneutics best reflects the dynamic link between exegesis and askēsis, reflection and action, and authority and agency. His four-fold method reinforces the view that scripture is absolutely authoritative but incredibly obscure and therefore requires interpretation. Riddled with contradictions, acts of violence, and the plainly nonsensical, scripture provides foundations in early Christianity only through the complex interplay of interpretation, authority, and power. To read (...) class='Hi'>exegesis only as an intellectual exercise or assertion of power, however, neglects its relation to other forms of askēsis in Cassian’s Conferences and Institutes. For Cassian, scriptural interpretation renders lived practice and practical knowledge inseparable from contemplative knowledge. Cassian’s view of scriptural meditātiō is shaped in late antique Christian milieus where interpretive reading practices shape ascetic habits alongside practices of manual labor, fasting, and prayer. For Cassian and the Egyptian desert ascetics with whom he trained, scriptural interpretation does not lead to keen description or reflection alone, but must impact one’s practices, one’s tropos, one’s very way of life. Such a perspective allows us to see not only the relevance of Cassian’s ethics to Christian thought and practice, but also to approach Cassian’s texts with a critical eye for how they enable reflection on contemporary religious ethics beyond the particulars of Christian predicates. (shrink)

Polygamy, which was practiced without limitations in the past, had been restricted to four wives after the arrival of Islam in the Arabian Peninsula. However, some scholars have different views on this issue, supposedly influenced by the literal and cultural background of patriarchal tradition on treating women as the object of polygamy. This article attempts to examine the construction of patriarchal interpretation in a gender-biased interpretation, its factors and its implications. This study adopts a qualitative approach and employs a content (...) analysis approach. Interviews with relevant scholars are also used to explore in-depth information regarding this subject. The object of research is based on a full set (30 juz /chapters) of 11 books of tafsir written in Indonesia. These books are Tafsir Al-Furqan, Tafsir Quran, Adz-Dzikra: Terjemah dan Tafsir al-Quran, Al-Quran dan Terjemahnya, Tafsir Quran Karim, Tafsir al-Azhar, Tafsir Rahmat, Tafsir al-Quran al-Majid an-Nur, Tafsir al-Mishbah, Al-Quran and its Exegesis of the Department of Religion, and Tafsir al-Hijri. This study found that women have been exploited through polygamy practices. Our findings show that biased gender interpretation, especially because of the patriarchal mindset, brought a greater impact on the Quranic interpretation. This study suggested that reinterpretation towards Quranic verses particularly dealing with gender issues needs to be strengthened in accordance with justice and humanistic values. Contribution: This article offered two approaches for the study of the Quran in order to establish gender equality and justice in marriage practice. Firstly, the adaptive and humanistic interpretations of the Quran need to be strengthened and should raise common consciousness in Muslim society. Secondly, there is a need to study the Quran in an integrative, holistic and hermeneutical understanding of the Quranic text. This method can explore the deepest meaning of the Quran so it can rise gender-sensitive, humanist and moderate interpretations. (shrink)