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)

Die MISCELLANEA MEDIAEVALIA präsentieren seit ihrer Gründung durch Paul Wilpert im Jahre 1962 Arbeiten des Thomas-Instituts der Universität zu Köln. Das Kernstück der Publikationsreihe bilden die Akten der im zweijährigen Rhythmus stattfindenden Kölner Mediaevistentagungen, die vor über 50 Jahren von Josef Koch, dem Gründungsdirektor des Instituts, ins Leben gerufen wurden. Der interdisziplinäre Charakter dieser Kongresse prägt auch die Tagungsakten: Die MISCELLANEA MEDIAEVALIA versammeln Beiträge aus allen mediävistischen Disziplinen - die mittelalterliche Geschichte, die Philosophie, die Theologie sowie die Kunst- und Literaturwissenschaften (...) sind Teile einer Gesamtbetrachtung des Mittelalters. (shrink)

Historical research is always in danger of being made use of for explaining and illustrating instead of testing one’s theoretical conceptions. Since Marxist historical research has certainly not been exempt from this temptation, one has to start any debate about Marxist historiography with the demand to accord empirical research the chance to shake even the cornerstones of one’s own theoretical conceptions. In a paper that has triggered off a new discussion on ‘Political Marxism’, Samuel Knafo and Benno Teschke insist on (...) such a practice. In what follows I try to position the ongoing discussion in the wider context of theoretical concepts of Marxist historiography. (shrink)

Helmets from Delphi Among the votive offerings which were found in Delphi, helmets play an essential part : There are about 90 specimen kept in the museum, approximately half of which are from one of the two sanctuaries for certain, it is likely that the other helmets are from there, as well. They were made between the 8th and the second half of the 5th century. The number of helmet-consecrations, however, already decreased in the middle of the 6th century. Only (...) few helmets give us a clue on the exhibition practices: By means of the fixing holes it is to be recognized that they were once exhibited in form of a "tropaeum". Some repaired examples clearly show that used helmets were consecrated. As it also happened in other sanctuaries, a lot of examples were damaged on purpose, others were cannibalized for their material. (shrink)

Die MISCELLANEA MEDIAEVALIA präsentieren seit ihrer Gründung durch Paul Wilpert im Jahre 1962 Arbeiten des Thomas-Instituts der Universität zu Köln. Das Kernstück der Publikationsreihe bilden die Akten der im zweijährigen Rhythmus stattfindenden Kölner Mediaevistentagungen, die vor über 50 Jahren von Josef Koch, dem Gründungsdirektor des Instituts, ins Leben gerufen wurden. Der interdisziplinäre Charakter dieser Kongresse prägt auch die Tagungsakten: Die MISCELLANEA MEDIAEVALIA versammeln Beiträge aus allen mediävistischen Disziplinen - die mittelalterliche Geschichte, die Philosophie, die Theologie sowie die Kunst- und Literaturwissenschaften (...) sind Teile einer Gesamtbetrachtung des Mittelalters. (shrink)

In recent decades, there has been a proliferation of alternative food networks which promote an agenda of reconnection, allegedly linking consumers and producers to the socio-ecological origins of food. Rarely, however, does the AFN literature address “origins” of food in terms of animals, as in the case of meat. This article takes a relational approach to the reconnection agenda between humans and animals by discussing how the phenomenon of animal welfare and “happy” meat are enacted by producers and consumers in (...) mundane, embodied, and nuanced ways. Utilizing hybrid conceptualizations of human–animal relations through “natureculture” and “being alongside”, we demonstrate that consumers and producers of AFNs perform natureculture entanglements daily, often considering humans and animals as part of one another and the ecological system. Nonetheless, we also point to how participants in AFNs set boundaries to distance themselves from moments of animal life and death, explaining away uncomfortable affective naturecultures through commodification logics. Drawing on qualitative data from consumers and producers of food networks in Austria, we introduce the concept of “human–animal magnetism” to illustrate that the draw for humans to care about other animal lives exists within a spectrum of attraction and disassociation, engendered through specific human–animal interactions. Ultimately, we offer a cautiously hopeful version of alterity in AFNs of meat in which more caring human–animal relations are possible. (shrink)

The book series Linguistische Arbeiten (LA) publishes high-quality work in linguistics that addresses current issues in synchrony and diachrony, theoretically or empirically oriented.

In diesem Artikel wird skizziert, wie sich mithilfe der Kuhn-Sneedschen Wissenschaftstheorie literaturwissenschaftliche Theorien ihrer logischen Struktur nach analysieren und systematisch darstellen lassen. Die systematische Darstellung läßt sich von den zentralen theoretischen Prämissen bis zu den einzelnen Verwendungen einer Literaturtheorie durchführen, wobei an das mengentheoretische Verfahren Sneeds das satzanalytische Poppers angeschlossen wird. Dabei werden zwei Fragen andeutungsweise geklärt: Erstens wird das Verhältnis von Literaturtheorie und Hypothesenbildung der literaturwissenschaftlichen Einzeluntersuchungen näher bestimmt, zweitens das Abhängigkeitsverhältnis der Hypothesen, des Gegenstandsbereichs und der Methodiken von (...) der Literaturtheorie genauer untersucht. (shrink)

There are many things we cannot see but know are there: the sun at night, the flower in the seed, birds inside their eggs--and so it is with God's presence.

Im ersten Teil des Papiers wird der Begriff des wissenschaftlichen Fortschritts definiert. Ausgangspunkt ist die kritische Darstellung des Fortschrittshegriffs von Th. S. Kuhn. Die Ambivalenz seines Begriffs veranlaßte verschiedene Wissenschaftstheoretiker, nach genauen Kriterien für das Vorliegen von wissenschaftlichem Fortschritt zu suchen. Von diesen wird hier J.D. Sneeds Begriff der Theorienreduktion vorgestellt, der ein präzises Entscheidungskriterium liefert. Im zweiten Teil wird gezeigt, daß sich die Sneedsche Reduktionsrelation unter bestimmten Bedingungen auch auf geisteswissenschaften anwenden läßt.

In diesem Artikel wird skizziert, wie sich mithilfe der Kuhn-Sneedschen Wissenschaftstheorie literaturwissenschaftliche Theorien ihrer logischen Struktur nach analysieren und systematisch darstellen lassen. Die systematische Darstellung läßt sich von den zentralen theoretischen Prämissen bis zu den einzelnen Verwendungen einer Literaturtheorie durchführen, wobei an das mengentheoretische Verfahren Sneeds das satzanalytische Poppers angeschlossen wird. Dabei werden zwei Fragen andeutungsweise geklärt: Erstens wird das Verhältnis von Literaturtheorie und Hypothesenbildung der literaturwissenschaftlichen Einzeluntersuchungen näher bestimmt, zweitens das Abhängigkeitsverhältnis der Hypothesen, des Gegenstandsbereichs und der Methodiken von (...) der Literaturtheorie genauer untersucht. (shrink)

Kant’s published arguments for the non-spatiotemporality of things in themselves have not been well received. I argue that Kant has available to himself an argument for the non-spatiotemporality of things in themselves that is premised upon a disparity between the compositional structure of the intelligible world and the structure of space and time. I argue that Kant was unwaveringly committed to the premises of this argument throughout his career and that he was aware of their idealistic implications. I also argue (...) that this argument is consistent with Kant’s restrictive mature epistemology. If my argument is successful, then even if Kant’s published arguments for transcendental idealism fail, we need not regard his ambitious metaphysical project as a failure. (shrink)

Kant rejects the ontological argument on the grounds that the ontological argument inescapably must assume that existence is a “determination” or “real predicate,” which it is not. Most understand Kant’s argument for this claim to be premised upon his distinctive proto-Fregean theory of existence. But this leaves Kant dialectically vulnerable: the defender of the ontological argument can easily reject this as question-begging. I show that Kant relies upon two distinct arguments, both of which contend that the claim that existence is (...) a determination is inconsistent with bedrock ontological set pieces assumed by rationalist defenders of the ontological argument. (shrink)

Defining quality of life is a difficult task as it is a subjective and personal experience. However, for the elderly, this definition is necessary for making complicated healthcare-related decisions. Commonly these decisions compare independence against safety or longevity against comfort. These choices are often not made in isolation, but with the help of a healthcare team. When the patient’s concept of quality of life is miscommunicated, there is a risk of harm to the patient whose best interests are not well (...) understood. In order to bridge this gap in understanding and unite seniors with their caretakers as a cohesive team, we need to establish a definition of quality of life. In this paper, my personal experiences with the elderly will be analysed along with five essays on the topic of ageing. These sources provide clear evidence that quality of life for seniors is majorly determined by the ability to preserve one’s lifelong identity. When making difficult decisions in geriatric healthcare, this greater understanding of the determinants of life quality will allow treatments to best serve the elderly. Defining quality of life allows healthcare providers to shift the focus from minimising disability toward maximising ability. I believe this shift would provide seniors with better health outcomes and properly enhance the quality of their years. (shrink)

From the author of Quantum Mechanics and Experience, a hugely influential book that challenged key assertions by Niels Bohr and other founders of quantum mechanics, A Guess at the Riddle provides a major metaphysical overhaul of one of physics' most intractable problems-the quest to bridge quantum and classical physics in order to understand the nature of reality.

Abstract‘Critique’ means the questioning judgement of human actions, particularly with reference to a criterion of judgement that is inseparable from the judged state of affairs but is dependent on a decision of the person judging. Informative judgements of a state of affairs contain two relevant components, one concerned with recognition of the objects of judgment, the other concerned with their evaluation. This evaluation is not directly extractable from that state of affairs, but the quality of the evaluation does depend in (...) part upon the quality of its explanation. Thus, when the content-description is flawed, the evaluation is affected by the flawed description. The phrase ‘the domestication of critique’ refers to the successful attempts that have been made to cause critics to neglect the truth claims of the judgement in favour of normative dominant interests. Domesticated critique is not concerned with the testing but rather with the justification or interpretation of a state of affairs. Domesticated critique does not depend on the quality of the argument but rather on whether the critique succeeds in legitimating dominant interests and immunising them against undomesticated critique. The educational relevance of the domestication of critique lies in the fact that a critical education which is domesticated will alleviate the need for overt repression on the part of dominant interests in favour of a particular view of the world and replace it with the semblance of a critical attitude that in fact reinforces the existing order through apparently rational means. Education based on domesticated critique can have no radical implications. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to challenge the prevailing polemic between ‘necessary’ emanation and ‘free’ creation. I begin by arguing for the presence of freedom and volition in the emanationism of Plotinus. I then move on to explore the role of necessity in the creationism of Maximus. In both cases, I rely upon a twofold schematisation of freedom and necessity to dissolve the dichotomy between them effectively. Having levelled the playing field, so to speak, I conclude that, all things (...) being equal, one does find in Maximus (and Christian thinkers generally) a heightened sense of divine volition and relationality beyond that of the pagan Neoplatonists. This greater emphasis upon the freedom of the divine will, however, has little bearing on whether Maximus's doctrine of creation is ‘emanationist’ or ‘creationist’. Instead, it stems from a biblically inspired sense of the One God as intimately involved in His creation which, though derived from God, is crucially other than God. (shrink)

Wenmackers and Romeijn (2016) formalize ideas going back to Shimony (1970) and Putnam (1963) into an open-minded Bayesian inductive logic, that can dynamically incorporate statistical hypotheses proposed in the course of the learning process. In this paper, we show that Wenmackers and Romeijn’s proposal does not preserve the classical Bayesian consistency guarantee of merger with the true hypothesis. We diagnose the problem, and offer a forward-looking open-minded Bayesians that does preserve a version of this guarantee.

Much recent attention has been paid to Kant’s account of the unity of space in the Critique of Pure Reason, not least because of the significant implications of that view for other key critical-period doctrines. But far less attention has been paid to the development of Kant’s account of the unity of space. This paper aims to offer a systematic account of Kant’s pre-critical account of the unity of space. On the view presented herein, Kant’s early account of the unity (...) of space is deeply rooted in his pre-critical cosmological views. In particular, I argue that Kant sees the unity of space as grounded in the cosmological unity of the world of substances, which is itself rooted in the divine conservation of all substances in relations of mutual causal dependence. I contend that the seeds of this view are present in the late 1740s and 1750s, but that this view receives its fullest and most complete expression in the 1770 Inaugural Dissertation. The final section of the paper considers the fate of Kant’s pre-critical account of the unity of space. I contend that the theory is excluded from the Critique of Pure Reason in light of the strict epistemological strictures adopted in that text. But considerable textual evidence shows that Kant continues to aver the theory throughout the 1770s and 1780s in the looser epistemic context of his lectures. I contend, then, that this theory is not abandoned at all. Rather, like Kant’s 1763 proof of the existence of God, it is epistemically demoted: it is Kant’s preferred view, but one that falls short of the demanding epistemic standards of the critical philosophy. (shrink)

Volker Kessler argues two points to Rudolf Bohren’s list of four areas where God becomes beautiful should be extended with a fifth one: mathematics and mathematics can be argued as a place where God becomes beautiful. In this response, we would like to argue that the extension of Bohren’s list that Kessler argues in favour of is superfluous and that Kessler makes a number of questionable assumptions about mathematics. By arguing against Kessler, we intend to make an interdisciplinary contribution to (...) the discussion about the relationship between mathematics and theology by pushing the debate into direction of a more careful consideration of mathematics as an area in which God’s beauty may become apparent.Contribution: Contributing to the interdisciplinary exploration of theology in HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies, this article further develops the consideration of the fundamental theological topic of God, the beautiful and mathematics as it was proposed in this journal by Volker Kessler, by discussing it from a systematic theological and mathematical perspective. (shrink)

Die Vita und die Sentenzen des Neopythagoreers Secundus wurden im Mittelalter in zahlreiche Sprachen ubersetzt und teilweise sehr frei bearbeitet. Eine kritische Edition der arabischen und der athiopischen Versionen blieb jedoch lange ein Desiderat der Forschung. Im Anschluss an die mehr als 120 Jahre alte Forschungsarbeit des Orientalisten Paulus Johannes Bachmann (1862-1894) schliesst Martin Heide nun diese Lucke unter Berucksichtigung samtlicher Handschriften. Die ausfuhrliche Einleitung widmet sich der Komposition des gesamten Buches in den verschiedenen Versionen, besonders aber der Frage (...) nach der Ubersetzungsvorlage der orientalischen Texte. Der kritischen Edition der arabischen, der athiopischen und der syrischen Versionen folgt eine deutsche Ubersetzung, die in zahlreichen Anmerkungen auf die jeweiligen Beziehungen zu ihren Vorlagen verweist. In dem erganzenden Beitrag von Stefan Weninger zur Ubersetzungssprache wird aufgezeigt, wie der athiopische Ubersetzer trotz enger Bindung an seine arabische Vorlage einen freien Ubersetzungsstil wahlte. Die besondere Sprache dieser Version liefert zudem neue Belege fur das athiopische Lexikon. Die hier vorgelegten Versionen des Secundus Taciturnus belegen einmal mehr die grosse Bedeutung und Langlebigkeit von popularphilosophischen Werken der Spatantike sowie die Flexibilitat der syrischen, der arabischen und der athiopischen Sprachen in der Wiedergabe ihrer Vorlagen. (shrink)

Erasmus und die Reformation -- Erasmus und die Heilige Schrift -- Der erste gedruckte Text des griechischen NT -- Der kritische Text -- Erasmus' textkritische Methoden und die Qualität des textus receptus -- Die Sonderlesarten des textus receptus (Joh 1,k28 - 1Joh 5,7) -- Der textus receptus in der Offenbarung -- Vom Mehrheitstext und vom kritischen Text -- Von wörtlichen und von fliessenden Übersetzungen -- Exkurs I: Einige Daten zur Hs Hoskier 141 (Greg 2049) -- Exkurs II: Erasmus' latein. Übersetzung (...) in Offb 22,16d-21 -- Exkurs III: Erasmus' griech. Text in Offb 22,16c-21 -- Exkurs IV: Typische Lesarten des Mehrheitstextes, demonstriert an den Katholischen Briefen -- Exkurs V: Kritischer-, Mehrheitstext und TR im 1. Timotheusbrief -- Exkurs VI: Die lukanische LXX und die LXX-Zitate im NT -- Exkurs VII: Die alten lateinischen Bibeldrucke aus der Zeit des Erasmus. (shrink)

In this commentary we describe findings in normal human subjects and in patients with visual hemineglect that support the importance of higher-level influences on saccade generation during visual exploration. As the duration of fixations increases with increases in the cognitive demand of the task, the timing of exploratory saccades is controlled more by centers of cognitive and perceptual processing at levels 4 and 5 than by reflex-like automatic processes at level 3. In line with this, unilateral frontal eye field lesions (...) impair systematic, intentional saccadic exploration of visual scenes, causing prolonged fixations and contralesional hemineglect, but leave visually triggered reflexive saccades largely intact. (shrink)