Nothing is more common in moral debates than to invoke the names of great thinkers from the past. Business ethics is no exception. Yet insofar as business ethicists have tended to simply mine abstract formulas from the past, they have missed out on the potential intellectual gains in meticulously exploring the philosophic tradition. This paper seeks to rectify this shortcoming by advocating a close reading of the so-called “great books,” beginning the process by focusing on Aristotle. The Nichomachean Ethics and (...) The Politics points to Aristotle’s emphasis on tying business morality to a universal conception of the good life. This conception defines personal happiness to chiefly consist in practicing the virtues, a life in which both desire and the pursuit of wealth is kept under check. According to Aristotle, virtue reaches its height with the exercise of the intellectual virtues of prudence and wisdom – the first manifest in the leadership of organizations, and the second in the philosophic search for truth. From an Aristotelian point of view, therefore, the greatest ethical imperative for business is to give individuals opportunities to thoughtfully participate in the management of company affairs and to contemplate the ultimate meaning of things. (shrink)

When a series of corporate scandals erupted soon after the collapse of the 1990s bull market in equities, policy makers and reformers chiefly responded by augmenting and refining the checks and balances surrounding publicly traded corporations. Through measures such as the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, securities regulations were intensified and corporate governance was tightened. In essence, reformers followed the tradition of modern political philosophy, developed in the 17th and 18th centuries, in its insistence that pro-social outcomes are best produced through (...) institutional mechanisms that harness self-interest. The empirical evidence, however, suggests the institutional approach will do little to prevent future ethical breakdowns. To corroborate this finding, we survey the literature on board composition, auditor consulting practices, shareholder activism, and executive compensation. Consequently, we look to another stream of political philosophy, the ancient tradition comprising Plato and Aristotle, which argues that social groupings, such as corporations, work best when led by individuals of good character. Applying the ancient view to modern commercial realities, the paper concludes that Benjamin Franklin's attempt to connect virtuous character with enlightened self-interest offers a compelling ethic for corporate leaders. (shrink)

Smith's famous invocation of the invisible hand -according to which self-interest promotes the greater good — has popularly been seen as a fundamental challenge to business ethics, a field committed to the opposite premise that the public interest cannot be advanced unless economic egoism is restrained by a more socially conscious mindset, one that takes into account the legitimate needs of stakeholders and the reciprocity inherent in networked relationships. Adam Smith has been brought into the discipline to show that his (...) authority cannot be summoned to fully support the free market sceptics of business ethics. Little has been done, however, to illustrate that Smith's moral writings actually contain the fundamentals of a business ethics teaching for managers who necessarily work within a variety of networks. This article analyses his moral thought to infer a Smithean framework of business ethics for managers. Smith believes that self-interest should be subordinated to moral imperatives, even in the business world. However, Smith rejects the principles of corporate social responsibility on the argument that benevolent impulses cannot be expected to prevail in the commercial arena. Instead of consciously trying to advance the social good, Smith's ideal manager will endeavour to personally live up to the standards enforced by an impartial spectator of his conduct, a theoretical entity reflecting the ethical requirements posed by the manager's social networks and stakeholder relationships. While this internalized onlooker expects a limited degree of benevolence, the overriding demand is for the manager to abide by the dictums of justice and prudence. (shrink)

It is a common lament that people, the young especially, are increasingly shyingaway from books and instead turning for intellectual sustenance to video games, film, andtelevision - that is, images are displacing words, with the result that the culture isbecoming less tolerant of cognitive complexity .1Instead of vainly tryingto reform, or negate the influence of, popular entertainments, it might be better toembrace them, making selective use of them to cultivate an interest in philosophic topicsamong young minds. Perhaps we can lead (...) them to the words of the great philosophic textsby showing them how some of the actions and dialogues portrayed in the images theyavidly consume exemplify and explore themes, concepts, and arguments otherwise dealtwith by the likes of Plato, Descartes, and Hume. Guided by this pedagogical hope, thispaper aims to plumb the philosophic significance of Memento. (shrink)

Recent corporate scandals raise an old question anew: is capitalism fundamentally infected by immorality? A now almost forgotten answer to this question was advanced at the dawn of capitalism, an answer that students of business ethics would find profit in considering. In the early eighteenth century, Bernard Mandeville authored The Fable of the Bees, which became notorious in its day for arguing that capitalism created wealth while necessarily relying on vicious impulses. The fundamental dilemma is that morality requires self-denial while (...) capitalism runs on self-interest. As such, Mandeville claims that business and ethics are essentially separate.While this would appear to align him with skeptics of business ethics, Mandeville does suggest a role for moral theorists in dealing with the challenges of commercial societies. The Mandevillean business ethicist proceeds by separating the public and private spheres. In the former, where government policy toward business is at issue, the Mandevillean ethicist applies a market-friendly utilitarianism. In the latter, where individual conduct is at issue, the Mandevillean gently articulates a market-critical ethic predicated on self-restraint. (shrink)

Recent corporate scandals raise an old question anew: is capitalism fundamentally infected by immorality? A now almost forgotten answer to this question was advanced at the dawn of capitalism, an answer that students of business ethics would find profit in considering. In the early eighteenth century, Bernard Mandeville authored The Fable of the Bees, which became notorious in its day for arguing that capitalism created wealth while necessarily relying on vicious impulses. The fundamental dilemma is that morality requires self-denial while (...) capitalism runs on self-interest. As such, Mandeville claims that business and ethics are essentially separate.While this would appear to align him with skeptics of business ethics, Mandeville does suggest a role for moral theorists in dealing with the challenges of commercial societies. The Mandevillean business ethicist proceeds by separating the public and private spheres. In the former, where government policy toward business is at issue, the Mandevillean ethicist applies a market-friendly utilitarianism. In the latter, where individual conduct is at issue, the Mandevillean gently articulates a market-critical ethic predicated on self-restraint. (shrink)

The quest to foretell the future is omnipresent in human affairs. A potential solution to this epistemological conundrum has emerged through mass collaboration. Motored by the Internet, prediction markets allow a multitude of individuals to assume a stake in a security whose value is tied to a future event. The resulting prices offer a continuously updated probability estimate of the event actually taking place. This paper gives a survey of prediction markets, their history, mechanics, uses, and theoretical foundation. We also (...) review the literature surrounding their efficacy. Though there are shortcomings with prediction markets, as well as practical constraints, they hold out the prospect of improving the quality of organizational decisions and increasing the level of participation in the deliberative process. We also note that lessons can be drawn from these markets to guide the epistemological practices of disciplines and inquiries in which empirical methods are difficult to apply. (shrink)

This article attempts to uncover the relevance of Cicero’s thought to present-day management through an analysis of his last philosophical study, On Duties. Applying a methodology grounded in Socratic skepticism, Cicero synthesizes the Stoics and Aristotle to create his own moral theory. From this theory, we derive a Ciceronian set of recommended traits that make up a model business leader. Central to this model is the recognition that there are two lodestars in life, the beneficial and the honorable. The first (...) directs each of us to attend to our personal happiness, and the second to our moral worth. In Cicero’s view, the life of leading sizable associations is what best satisfies this dual imperative. The honor of a business leader is secured by the practice of four virtues: wisdom, justice, greatness of spirit, and seemliness. A leader properly seeks his/her own benefit by recognizing that success comes from the relationships he/she establishes and that he/she are more apt to cultivate these by being virtuous. Cicero is not so naïve as to fail to see that the beneficial and the honorable may come into tension, noting various examples from business to illustrate the dilemma. But he insists a businessperson can be ethical and prosper at the same time once he/she comprehends the social fellowship of humanity. (shrink)

This article attempts to uncover the relevance of Cicero's thought to present-day management through an analysis of his last philosophical study, On Duties. Applying a methodology grounded in Socratic skepticism, Cicero synthesizes the Stoics and Aristotle to create his own moral theory. From this theory, we derive a Ciceronian set of recommended traits that make up a model business leader. Central to this model is the recognition that there are two lodestars in life, the beneficial and the honorable. The first (...) directs each of us to attend to our personal happiness, and the second to our moral worth. In Cicero's view, the life of leading sizable associations is what best satisfies this dual imperative. The honor of a business leader is secured by the practice of four virtues: wisdom, justice, greatness of spirit, and seemliness. A leader properly seeks his/her own benefit by recognizing that success comes from the relationships he/she establishes and that he/she are more apt to cultivate these by being virtuous. Cicero is not so naïve as to fail to see that the beneficial and the honorable may come into tension, noting various examples from business to illustrate the dilemma. But he insists a businessperson can be ethical and prosper at the same time once he/she comprehends the social fellowship of humanity. (shrink)

Brillant geschriebenes und nobelpreisgekröntes Hauptwerk Bergsons, das weit über die Lebensphilosophie hinaus auf die Literatur und Ästhetik der Folgezeit wirkte und auf Autoren wie Proust, Gide, T. S. Eliot und Musil großen Einfluß ausübte. Mit seinem epochemachenden Hauptwerk "L'évolution créatrice", für das er 1927 den Nobelpreis für Literatur erhielt, greift Bergson unmittelbar in die Diskussion über zeitgenössische Evolutionstheorien ein, die die Biologie um die Jahrhundertwende beherrschten. Gegenüber mechanistischen Konzepten wie dem Neo-Darwinismus, die er - mit großer Sachkenntnis im Detail - (...) als unzureichend für das Verständnis der Komplexität evolutionärer Prozesse kritisiert, versucht Bergson für die Philosophie die Deutungshoheit über den Lebensbegriff zurückzugewinnen. Die Grundfrage des Werks lautet: Gibt es etwas, das alle Lebewesen in ihrer Entwicklung gemeinsam haben und das insofern ein bestimmendes Merkmal des Lebens selbst ist? Bergson findet die Antwort im titelgebenden Begriff der "schöpferischen Evolution". Nicht nur ist die Evolution als schöpferisch zu denken, sondern zugleich der schöpferische Akt als "evolutiv". Als treibende Kraft und Ursache aller Veränderungen macht Bergson dabei den ursprünglichen "élan vital" (Lebensimpuls) aus, der zu einem Zentralbegriff seiner Philosophie wurde. Die Kritik am Szientismus seiner Zeit führt Bergson darüber hinaus zu einem neuen Zugang zur Lebenswirklichkeit, den er in der (methodisch präzise bestimmten) "Intuition" entdeckt. So wird die Auseinandersetzung mit der Evolutionstheorie zugleich zu einer großangelegten Neubestimmung der philosophischen Methode. L'évolution créatrice wurde 1912 von Gertrud Kantorowicz zum ersten Mal ins Deutsche übertragen. Ihre in Sprache und Terminologie stark vom George-Kreis geprägte Übersetzung wurde für diese Neuausgabe vollständig überarbeitet und enthält jetzt auch die in der ersten deutschen Ausgabe fehlenden Anmerkungen und Nachweise Bergsons. (shrink)

C'est à l'époque moderne que l'homme en est arrivé à se dire le créateur de sa propre humanité. Autrefois, il se croyait l'oeuvre de la nature ou l'enfant de Dieu. Désormais, il entend conquérir l'une et s'affranchir de l'autre. Il veut rompre avec le passé, se donner souverainement sa loi, définir ce qui doit être, dominer. Telle est l'ambition vertigineuse que raconte cet ouvrage. Descartes rêvait d'un homme maître et possesseur de la nature ; deux siècles plus tard, Nietzsche allait (...) décréter que l'homme doit être dépassé, n'étant plus à la hauteur des attentes que lui-même avait définies. Rémi Brague interroge les origines de ce projet et retrouve les traits qui vont progressivement dessiner la nouvelle humanité dont nous sommes les héritiers. Pour reconstituer la longue trajectoire de l'homme moderne, ce livre convoque aussi bien la philosophie que la littérature ; il y découvre les espoirs et l'enthousiasme qui portent ses débuts, mais aussi, à l'épreuve de cette expérience impossible, l'angoisse et les désillusions qui en marquent l'échec. Le Règne de l'homme clôt une longue enquête sur la manière dont l'homme, de l'Antiquité à nos jours, a pensé successivement son rapport d'abord au monde, ensuite à Dieu et, pour finir, à soi-même. (shrink)

La Metaphysique d'Aristote culmine dans le livre Lambda (XII). Il resume les livres precedents, puis se lance dans une fantastique description de Dieu, Premier moteur immobile de l'univers et Penser se pensant soi-meme. Le premier a nous en avoir laisse un commentaire est Themistius, au IVe siecle. Entre lui et l'epoque d'Averroes, d'Albert le Grand, de Thomas d'Aquin, rien ne nous est reste sur Lambda. Themistius paraphrase le texte et y mele de tres importantes digressions. L'original grec est perdu. De (...) la traduction arabe, nous n'avons que des fragments. Mais elle avait ete integralement traduite en hebreu. C'est a partir de ces deux sources que Remi Brague propose ici une traduction litterale, avec une introduction et des notes explicatives. (shrink)

Global Economy, Global Justice explores a vital question that is suppressed in most economics texts: "what makes for a good economic outcome?" Neoclassical theory embraces the normative perspective of "welfarism" to assess economic outcomes. This volume demonstrates the fatal flaws of this perspective--flaws that stem from objectionable assumptions about human nature, society and science. Exposing these failures, the book obliterates the ethical foundations of global neoliberalism. George DeMartino probes heterodox economic traditions and philosophy in search of an ethically viable (...) alternative to welfarism. Drawing on the work of Amartya Sen, DeMartino proposes the egalitarian principle of the "global harmonization of capabilities" to guide economics. This principle provides a basis for resisting oppression the world over while nevertheless demanding respect for cultural diversity. DeMartino puts this principle to work adjudicating contemporary debates over global policy regimes, and completes thebook with a set of deeply egalitarian global policies for the year 2025. Global Economy, Global Justice 's engaging prose will appeal to those seeking to understand the intersection between economics and political philosophy. Its focus on the normative foundations of contemporary policy disputes makes it unique in the literature on globalization. (shrink)

Written in the 1960s, TRUTH AND METHOD is Gadamer's magnum opus.

George Berkeley (1685-1753) is the superstar of Irish Philosophy. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1700 and became a fellow in 1707. In 1724 he resigned his Fellowship to become Dean of Derry, and in 1734 he was made Bishop of Cloyne. He settled in Oxford in 1752 and died the following year. The work of George Berkeley is marked by its diversity and range. His writings take in such topics as mathematics, psychology, politics, health, economics, deism and (...) education, as well as that with which he is most associated - philosophy. Whatever topic he dealt with, his grasp of the subject matter was always impressive and his criticisms of his contemporaries often acute. Among the most noteable of the British Empiricists, he took his starting point from Locke's new 'way of ideas', but he rejected abstract ideas and the possibility of real existence outside perception. It is for this doctrine that he is most known - that there is no such thing as matter, and that things are collections of ideas which can exist only in our minds and only for so long as they are perceived. This philosophy, summed up in his phrase 'to be is to be perceived', he termed 'immaterialism'. A.C. Fraser's collection includes a series of what were previously unpublished notes by Berkeley on all the main topics of his philosophy. This, the 1901 edition, was the first complete edition of his works. (shrink)

A brilliant and comprehensive history of the creation of the modern Western mind. Soul Machine takes us back to the origins of modernity, a time when a crisis in religious authority and the scientific revolution led to searching questions about the nature of human inner life. This is the story of how a new concept—the mind—emerged as a potential solution, one that was part soul and part machine, but fully neither. In this groundbreaking work, award-winning historian George Makari shows (...) how writers, philosophers, physicians, and anatomists worked to construct notions of the mind as not an ethereal thing, but a natural one. From the ascent of Oliver Cromwell to the fall of Napoleon, seminal thinkers like Hobbes, Locke, Diderot, and Kant worked alongside often-forgotten brain specialists, physiologists, and alienists in the hopes of mapping the inner world. Conducted in a cauldron of political turmoil, these frequently shocking, always embattled efforts would give rise to psychiatry, mind sciences such as phrenology, and radically new visions of the self. Further, they would be crucial to the establishment of secular ethics and political liberalism. Boldly original, wide-ranging, and brilliantly synthetic, Soul Machine gives us a masterful, new account of the making of the modern Western mind. (shrink)

Throughout The Blessed and Boundless God, he proves his doctrine by demonstrating God's incomparableness in His being, attributes, works, and words. Swinnock is a pastor-theologian who views theology as the means by which we grow in acquaintance with God and, consequently, in godliness.

The power of the word should be at its height when the spoken word is deemed authoritative, when speech is the master of discourse. This authority can be no greater than when the word derives from what the Greeks called “the more powerful (than us),” (hoi kreittones) or even, in monotheistic religions, from He who can be called – to use a term that avoids confusion – “the Almighty.” The mighty word is the divine word. The power of this word (...) is a result of its divine origin. (shrink)

When the ancient Greeks looked up into the heavens, they saw not just sun and moon, stars and planets, but a complete, coherent universe, a model of the Good that could serve as a guide to a better life. How this view of the world came to be, and how we lost it (or turned away from it) on the way to becoming modern, make for a fascinating story, told in a highly accessible manner by Remi Brague in this wide-ranging (...) cultural history. Before the Greeks, people thought human action was required to maintain the order of the universe and so conducted rituals and sacrifices to renew and restore it. But beginning with the Hellenic Age, the universe came to be seen as existing quite apart from human action and possessing, therefore, a kind of wisdom that humanity did not. Wearing his remarkable erudition lightly, Brague traces the many ways this universal wisdom has been interpreted over the centuries, from the time of ancient Egypt to the modern era. Socratic and Muslim philosophers, Christian theologians and Jewish Kabbalists all believed that questions about the workings of the world and the meaning of life were closely intertwined and that an understanding of cosmology was crucial to making sense of human ethics. Exploring the fate of this concept in the modern day, Brague shows how modernity stripped the universe of its sacred and philosophical wisdom, transforming it into an ethically indifferent entity that no longer serves as a model for human morality. Encyclopedic and yet intimate, The Wisdom of the World offers the best sort of history: broad, learned, and completely compelling. Brague opens a window onto systems of thought radically different from our own. (shrink)

Berkeley's idealism started a revolution in philosophy. As one of the great empiricist thinkers he not only influenced British philosophers from Hume to Russell and the logical positivists in the twentieth century, he also set the scene for the continental idealism of Hegel and even the philosophy of Marx. There has never been such a radical critique of common sense and perception as that given in Berkeley's Principles of Human Knowledge (1710). His views were met with disfavour, and his response (...) to his critics was the Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous. This edition of Berkeley's two key works has an introduction which examines and in part defends his arguments for idealism, as well as offering a detailed analytical contents list, extensive philosophical notes, and an index. (shrink)

"In association with the Eric Voegelin Society.".

A philosophy of nature is an urgent need if we want to avoid falling back into the Gnostic view of the world and of man’s place in it that modern science can’t help fostering. The medieval idea of the world as the creation of stable natures by a rational and benevolent God should provide us with useful guidelines. In particular, Aquinas gives us valuable hints about how our scientific knowledge of nature might help us to get a correct appreciation of (...) our own worth. (shrink)

I will assume that the plot of the Hayy ibn Yaqzan is already known: Ibn Tufayl supposes that his hero, a philosophical Robinson Crusoe, grew up alone on a desert island, which protected him from any possible corruption, but deprived him at the same time of the benefits of education. Without external help, and thanks to the force of his unaided raison, Hayy reaches the highest peaks of metaphysical insight. He first acquires a perfect knowledge of the physical world. He (...) then deduces from its structure that it was created, in time or together with time, by a Being whom or which he calls, in the wake of Avicenna, the “necessary Being” and that I will call, for the sake of brevity, by the name of God. Hayy discovers that he is called to imitate God, nay to assimilate himself to Him. Now, the last stage but one in Hayy’s progress implies an imitation of the heavenly bodies. (shrink)

Im vorliegenden Artikel bezwecke ich lediglich, die Hauptlinien eines vor kurzem erschienenen Buches vorzustellen1. Sein Titel entstammt dem ersten Korintherbrief. Dort fragt Paulus: «Hat nicht Gott die Weisheit der Welt als Torheit dargestellt?» . Der Sinn, den die Formel im Zusammenhang meiner Untersuchungen annimmt, hat mit dem paulinischen Anliegen nicht das Geringste zu tun. In letzter Instanz sind beide — die Untersuchung und das Anliegen des Paulus — doch von derselben Sorge geleitet.

Dieses Buch entfaltet das christliche Menschenbild in seinen Umrissen. Die Frage nach dem Menschen verdient es nämlich, wieder neu gestellt zu werden, weil heute der ‚Humanismus‘ von einem zerstörerischen ‚Antihumanismus‘ bedroht ist. Warum besitzt der Mensch eine Würde und mithin Rechte? Die Antwort auf diese Frage fällt sehr unterschiedlich aus. Entsprechend unbestimmt, verschwommen und vieldeutig bleibt das Lippenbekenntnis zu Menschenwürde und Menschenrechten. Wer also ist jenes Lebewesen, das wir ‚Mensch‘ nennen? Jeder Versuch einer wissenschaftlichen ‚Definition‘ führt theoretisch und praktisch zu (...) unmenschlichen Folgen, wie zahllose Beispiele in der Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts auf erschreckende Weise zeigen. Das christliche Menschenbild verzichtet auf eine solche Definition und zeichnet jene Kontur eines Vorbildes, auf die hin der Mensch in Christus seine vollkommene, abgeschlossene Gestalt gefunden hat. Die anthropologischen, sozialen und politischen Folgen eines so geprägten Menschenbildes werden in diesem Buch erörtert: als Plädoyer für die Achtung der Natur des Menschen, die nicht der eigenen Verfügungsgewalt noch der Beherrschung durch Dritte in die Hand gelegt ist. (shrink)

George Herbert Mead (1863-1931) had a powerful influence on the development of American pragmatism in the twentieth century. He also had a strong impact on the social sciences. This classic book represents Mead's philosophy of experience, so central to his outlook. The present as unique experience is the focus of this deep analysis of the basic structure of temporality and consciousness. Mead emphasizes the novel character of both the present and the past. Though science is predicated on the assumption (...) that the present is predictable based on a thorough knowledge of the past, the experience of the present, says Mead, is an utterly unique moment comparable to no other, and when it is past the novel character of that unique experience is irrevocable. The emergence of novelty within the perceived rational order of reality is the crux of the problem that Mead explores. The present, in his words, is "the emergent event . . . something which is more than the processes that have led up to it and which by its change, continuance, or disappearance, adds to later passages a content they would not otherwise have possessed." The present as "the seat of reality" heavily conditions our retrospective view of the past as much as it helps to shape the future. The novelty of every present experience causes us to reconstruct our preceding experiences to make sense of the past, which is naturally assumed to be the main cause of what we presently experience. Our perspective on reality is thus relative to the conditioning of each new event and it changes continuously as the effects of the present shift our view of the past and future. This emphasis on the integrative, holistic nature of reality, in which everything past, present, and future is a condition of everything else, makes Mead's philosophy highly relevant to today's scientific picture of a quantum universe, where chance and probability play a role in the emergence of reality. Also of great interest is the way in which he extends his basic analysis of temporal-spatial reality to the emergence of mind and consciousness as a natural development of the evolutionary process. This stimulating and provocative work attests to John Dewey's praise of Mead as "the most original mind in philosophy in America" of his generation. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

touch 27 Thirrdly, the straining of the eye 28 The occasions which suggest distance have in their own nature no relation to it 29 A difficult case proposed by Dr. Barrow as repugnant to all the known theories 30 This case contradicts a ...

I will assume that the plot of the Hayy ibn Yaqzan is already known: Ibn Tufayl supposes that his hero, a philosophical Robinson Crusoe, grew up alone on a desert island, which protected him from any possible corruption, but deprived him at the same time of the benefits of education. Without external help, and thanks to the force of his unaided raison, Hayy reaches the highest peaks of metaphysical insight. He first acquires a perfect knowledge of the physical world. He (...) then deduces from its structure that it was created, in time or together with time, by a Being whom or which he calls, in the wake of Avicenna, the “necessary Being” and that I will call, for the sake of brevity, by the name of God. Hayy discovers that he is called to imitate God, nay to assimilate himself to Him. Now, the last stage but one in Hayy’s progress implies an imitation of the heavenly bodies. (shrink)