This book contains programmatic essays that focus on broad-ranging proposals for re-envisioning a discipline of comparative philosophy of religions. It also contains a number of case studies focussing on the interpretation of particular religio-historical data from comparatively oriented philosophical perspectives.

Steven Shapin argues that science, for all its immense authority and power, is and always has been a human endeavor, subject to human capacities and limits.

The history of philosophy.--Socrates, the founder of moral science.--Aristotle.--Jacob Boehme, the German philosopher.--Descartes.--Kant.

In A Historical Study of Anselm's Proslogion, Toivo J. Holopainen offers a new overall interpretation of Anselm's Proslogion by providing a historical explanation for the distinctive combination of argument and devotion that this treatise exhibits. Part 1 clarifies Anselm's outlook on the central arguments in the treatise by offering a careful analysis of the 'single argument', the discovery of which Anselm announces in the preface. Part 2 reassesses the conflicting views about faith and reason in the immediate background (...) of the Proslogion (the Eucharistic controversy, the publication of the Monologion). Part 3 examines the Proslogion from a rhetorical perspective and argues that applying the 'single argument' in a devotional setting constitutes a subtle attempt to affect the audience's ideas about method in theology. (shrink)

Organized thematically, this important five-volume set brings together key essays from the field of historical studies. Including an extensive general introduction by the editor in the first volume, as well as shorter individual introductions in each of the following volumes, this set is essential reading for scholars and students alike. Coverage includes: 1. Foundations - The Classic Tradition - The Old Cultural History - Economic History 2: Society - Social History - Marxism - Annales - History of Mentalities (...) 3: Ideas - History of Ideas/ Intellectual History - History of Science - History of the Arts - History of Religion - History of Sexuality. 4: Culture - History and Anthropology - Microhistory - New Cultural History - History and Memory - The Poetics of History - Narrativity. Postmodernist Historiography and its Critics 5: Politics - Political History - Imperialism and Postcolonial History - World History - World-Systems Analysis. (shrink)

This paper develops the arguments in a previous paper on periodisation in comparative historical contexts by the same author in BJES (vol.42, no.3, September 1994, pp. 261-272).

Dōgen: Textual and Historical Studies is an impressive volume that marks a significant leap forward in the study of Zen Master Eihei Dōgen, founder of the Japanese Sōtō School. Dōgen’s life and thought are closely examined in light of the wider historical and religious contexts of Song dynasty China and the Kamakura era in Japan. This collection offers a careful consideration of Dōgen’s rich literary legacy by examining his significance situated as he was at the historical (...) crossroads between the Chinese Chan tradition and the birth of Japanese Zen. In particular, the volume contemplates the manner in which Dōgen’s historical — perhaps mythological — figure has been endorsed and cultivated by the Sōtō.. (shrink)

Discussions about abstraction are so important and so profound that this topic can hardly be neglected. It has inevitably cropped up again in various periods of philosophical enquiry. Despite these ancient roots and after the great debate that characterised the empirical and rationalistic tradition, interest in the problem has unfortunately been absent in large measure from the mainstream of mathematical logic and analytic philosophy. It seems that there is a gap between the epistemological theorization, in which it is difficult to (...) find new insights on the problem of abstraction, and the historical studies concerning the development of philosophical thought. Such studies, however, present a more fertile ground for such insights. Here the reader will find presented for the first time a collection of papers about the topic, considered from an historical point of view together with an awareness of the need for building a bridge between historical research and theoretical speculation. Accordingly the volume consists of both general overviews which sketch the signifcance and the fortunes of abstraction in science, philosophy and logic (the first part) and historical case studies which focus on abstraction in particular thinkers (the second part). This volume is of interest for both general philosophers and historians of philosophy. (shrink)

오늘날 주자학은 여전히 이기·심성론을 위주로 진행되고 있고, 이는 서양철학의 형이 상학, 존재론, 인식론의 틀에 맞추어 동양철학의 존재를 증명하고자 했던 현대 신유가의 노력의 연장선이라 할 수 있다. 전통시대 사상가들의 개념과 명제를 형이상학과 인식론으 로 구성하는 철학적 작업은 그들이 처했던 역사적 맥락에 대한 이해를 바탕으로 할 때 단 장취의와 오독의 가능성을 낮출 수 있다. 지성사와 예학 등 주자학에서의 역사적 연구는 개념과 명제를 통해 제시했던 표면적인 의미 뿐 아니라 여기에 함축된 문제의식과 지향점 을 확인하는 것에 기여할 수 있다. 국내 지성사 연구들은 정주학의 출현을 (...) 요청했던 사대부들의 정치·사회·문화적 정 체성과 “학문”의 관계를 중심으로 전개되었다. 이들은 여러 주자학 연구들이 간과하고 있는 “누가, 왜(무슨 문제로 인해, 무엇을 하기 위해)”라는 문제를 돌아볼 기회를 제공하고 있다. 주자 예학은 주자학적 이상의 실현방법과 공부론의 현실적 적용이라는 측면에서 가치 를 가진다. 주자 예학에 대한 연구는 『가례家禮』와 『의례경전통해儀禮經傳通解』를 중심으 로 이루어졌다. 『가례』와 관련해서는 주희의 친작 여부, 명청왕조와 조선에서의 전파 및 해석의 역사에 관한 연구가 다수 진행되었다. 『가례』는 일상적 의례 실천에 관한 지침서의 성격이 있지만, 보편적 도덕원칙인 리는 구체적 의례행위로 실현된다는 점에서 『가례』 전승 및 주석에 대한 연구는 주자학적 가치와 이상을 현실에 실현하려는 노력을 반영한다. 『의례경전통해』에 대한 심층적 연구는 아직 충분히 진행되지 못한 상태로, 정현정의 박사 논문에서 편찬 의도, 여조겸 등 학자들과의 토론과정, 목차와 구성, 편찬 과정 및 이 과정 에서 참고한 경전 등에 대해 비교적 상세한 논의를 진행한 것 이외에는 『가례』와의 비교 연구가 주를 이루고 있다. (shrink)

This study aimed to examine the meanings that nurses attached to the ‘treatments’ administered to cure ‘sexual deviation’ (SD) in the UK, 1935–1974. In the UK, homosexuality was considered a classifiable mental illness that could be ‘cured’ until 1992. Nurses were involved in administering painful and distressing treatments. The study is based on oral history interviews with fifteen nurses who had administered treatments to cure individuals of their SD. The interviews were transcribed for historical interpretation. Some nurses believed that (...) their role was to passively follow any orders they had been given. Other nurses limited their culpability concerning administering these treatments by adopting dehumanising and objectifying language and by focussing on administrative tasks, rather than the human beings in need of their care. Meanwhile, some nurses genuinely believed that they were acting beneficently by administering these distinctly unpleasant treatments. It is envisaged that this study might act to reiterate the need for nurses to ensure their interventions have a sound evidence base and that they constantly reflect on the moral and value base of their practice and the influence that science and societal norms can have on changing views of what is considered ‘acceptable practice’. (shrink)

Bruns lucidly depicts the distinctions and convergences between these two lines of thought by examining the works of Mallarme, Flaubert, Joyce, Beckett, and ...