Lo sviluppo di tecnologie legate all’intelligenza artificiale ha portato grandi cambiamenti nella nostra vita, e ancora più ne prospetta nei prossimi anni. C’è tuttavia un aspetto su cui alcuni studiosi hanno cominciato a metterci in guardia da qualche tempo, e riguarda la possibilità che i sistemi basati sull’intelligenza artificiale divengano un giorno più intelligenti di noi, acquisendo anche una loro autonomia di scelta e di decisione. Da quel momento in poi essi potrebbero sfuggire al nostro controllo e agire in modo (...) da danneggiarci. In questo scritto vengono prese in esame le tesi di Nick Bostrom, considerato da più parti una delle massime autorità in questo specifico campo. Le argomentazioni presentate da Bostrom sono numerose e ben dettagliate; tuttavia, al loro interno si cercherebbero invano autentici fondamenti teorici ed empirici per le fantastiche capacità delle superintelligenze che vengono prospettate, come pure per i pericoli che esse potrebbero rappresentare per l’uomo. Si direbbe piuttosto che tali tesi siano state costruite semplicemente trasponendo le caratteristiche cognitive degli esseri umani al campo dell’intelligenza artificiale, dando per scontato che non esistano differenze di rilievo tra i due domini. La concezione che si coltiva dell’intelligenza artificiale ha delle notevoli ricadute su come ci rappresentiamo i vari aspetti della società futura: essa riguarda soprattutto i cambiamenti che interesseranno il mondo del lavoro, il posto occupato dalle macchine intelligenti nella nostra vita, ma anche il tipo di istruzione da impartire alle giovani generazioni. Per questo è necessario riflettere a lungo e con attenzione prima di diffondere idee che potrebbero rivelarsi profondamente errate. (shrink)

For English-speaking readers, this book serves as an introduction to an important French intellectual whose work, especially on the issues of antisemitism and anti-Zionism, runs counter to the hostility shown toward Jews by some representatives of contemporary critical theory. It presents for the first time in English five essays by Éric Marty, previously published in France, with a new preface by the author addressed to his American readers. The focus of these essays is the debate in France and elsewhere in (...) Europe concerning the "Jew." The first essay on Jean Genet, one of postwar France’s most important literary figures, investigates the nature of Genet’s virulent antisemitism and hatred of Israel and its significance for an understanding of contemporary phenomena. The curious reappearance of St. Paul in theological and political discourse is discussed in another essay, which describes and analyses the interest that secular writers of the far left have shown in Paul’s "universalism" placed over and against Jewish or Israeli particularism. The remaining essays are more polemical in nature and confront the anti-Israeli attacks by Alain Badiou and Gilles Deleuze. (shrink)

Ainda que possa ser visto como clichê sob diversos aspectos, o filme “O Céu da Meia-Noite” (dirigido e protagonizado por George Clooney para a Netflix) traz temas reflexivos na perspectiva existencial. Lançado em dezembro de um ano doloroso para a humanidade, ele teve as suas gravações encerradas pouco antes do início da pandemia, ainda que traga uma atmosfera tão soturna quanto a deste momento histórico.

Contributed research papers presented as National Seminar on Vedic Astro Sciences, organized by S.V. Vedic University on 7th and 8th June, 2008 in association with the Centre for Theoritical Studies and Research, Birbhum, West Bengal).

Joel Marks discusses the philosophical aspects of a question recently in the news: is Pluto a planet, or not?

v. 1. God, religion, and philosophy; a historical retrospect. 2d ed. 1971.--v. 2. Purushka and prakrita (God and nature). 1st ed. 1968.--v. 3. God and man (nara and Narayan). 1st ed. 1974.--v. 4. Thought; gems in verse: sayings of great saints and thinkers of India. 1st ed. 1975.--v. 5. Truths stranger than fiction. 1st ed.

En este artículo recorro algunas de las páginas de la obra kantiana que introducen la problemática de los otros seres racionales, me centro para ello en Historia universal de la naturaleza y Teoría del cielo, la Fundamentación de la metafísica de las costumbres y la Antropología en sentido pragmático. Mi propuesta es que la hipótesis de la existencia de otras formas de racionalidad, que en algunos textos Kant sitúa en otros planetas, nos proporciona una perspectiva necesaria para poder dar alguna (...) respuesta a la cuestión ¿qué es el ser humano? Si bien Kant aborda en textos muy relevantes la forma de tener por verdad la existencia de tales seres, lo realmente importante es el ser capaces de asumir esa perspectiva para reflexionar en torno a nuestra racionalidad. (shrink)

What is astro-culture? In The Babylonian Planet it is unfolded as an aesthetic, an idea, a field of study, a position, and a practice. It helps to engineer the shift from a world view that is segregated to one that is integrated - from global to planetary; from distance to intimacy and where closeness and cosmic distance live side-by-side. In this tour de force, Sonja Neef takes her cue from Edouard Glissant's vision of multilingualism and reignites the myth of (...) the Tower of Babel to anticipate new forms of cultural encounter. For her, Babel is an organic construction site at which she fuses theoretical analysis and case studies of artists, writers and thinkers like William Kentridge, Orhan Pamuk and Immanuel Kant. Her skilful interrogations then allow her to paint a portrait of art and culture that abolishes the horizon as a barrier to vision and reclaims it as a place of contact and relation. By combining the Babylonian concept of the encounter and the planetary concept of the whole-earth, Neef creates a space - an astro-culture - in which she can examine topics as varied as language, translation, media, modernity, migration and the moon. In doing so, she instigates a renewed cultural understanding receptive to the kinder forms of cultural encounter and globalisation she hopes will come. (shrink)

This article discusses Xenophanes' “cloud astro-physics”. It analyses and explains all heavenly and meteorological phenomena in terms of clouds. It provides a view of this newer Xenophanes, who is now being recognized as an important philosopher-scientist in his own right and a crucial figure in the development of critical thought about human knowledge and its objects in the next generation of Presocratic thinkers. Xenophanes' account has been preserved in Aëtius, the doxographic compendium reconstructed by Hermann Diels late in the (...) nineteenth century mainly from two sources that show extensive parallelism: pseudo-Plutarch Placita Philosophorum or Epitome of Physical Opinions ; and Ioannes Stobaeus' Eclogae Physicae or Physical Extracts. In the Stobaeus version, which is also the one printed in the standard edition of the Pre-socratics. (shrink)

Deux nécropoles ont été mises au jour, au cours de fouilles d'urgence, à Helléniko (site présumé de l'ancienne Eua de Thyréatide), à quelques kilomètres d'Astros, sur la route Astros-Tripolis. Fouillées par le Service archéologique grec, 41 tombes ont livré un matériel abondant : tandis que quelques tombes romaines du IIe s. après J.-C. contenaient surtout des objets en verre, la plus grande partie des trouvailles de céramique date du ive s. avant J.-C. et du début du ine s. Or, par (...) leur pâte, par le caractère très particulier de leur forme et de leur décoration, ces vases paraissent en général être une production régionale, très proche de la production argienne ; de plus, leur chronologie peut souvent être précisée grâce aux contextes très restreints fournis par les tombes. Ainsi, ces découvertes contribuent-elles à mieux définir- ce que furent les fabrications du Nord-Est du Péloponnèse au ive s. et surtout à mettre en lumière leur importance dans l'approvisionnement régional dès la fin de l'époque classique. (shrink)

O estabelecimento moderno do texto do poema de Parmênides, ao apresentá-lo em uma certa ordem de fragmentos, induziu os intérpretes à divisão de sua doutrina em “Verdade“ e “Opinião”. Lançando dúvidas quanto a essa ordenação e questionando a leitura do poema em duas “partes”, o autor procura desvincular os testemunhos que tratam dos astros de qualquer suposta doutrina parmenídica das doxai.

Este trabajo aborda la comprensión que A. Ardao desarrolla sobre el espacio y su primacía con respecto al tiempo. En otros términos, el tiempo como subsidiario del espacio, así como la razón en cuanto subsidiaria de la inteligencia. Esta misma inversión categorial fundamenta la ocupación que nuestro autor asigna al ejercicio del filosofar latinoamericano como una tarea afincada en una geografía concreta, delimitada por parámetros culturales y protagonizada por un sujeto que no es una sustancia racional, sino un ente biofísico (...) en quien se clausura la historia como geo-historia y se da paso al desarrollo de una astro-historia a partir de la conquista del espacio exterior. (shrink)

Back cover: Clemente de Alejandría es unos de los intelectuales más significativos de los primeros siglos de la cristiandad. Su legado es un claro ejemplo de un verdadero y auténtico diálogo intercultural entre el cristianismo naciente y la herencia clásica disponible de su momento. Este filósofo alejandrino se dio a la tarea de leer los textos judeocristianos y los de los autores clásicos por igual. A lo largo de gran parte de su obra hay una búsqueda incesante de las huellas (...) de un único logos que se ha revelado en los diferentes horizontes culturales de la humanidad. De esta manera, sin importar el lugar de procedencia de dicha revelación, Clemente emprende un esfuerzo exegético de textos cristianos y clásicos con el firme propósito de rastrear, recuperar y compartir ese logos con los demás. El presente volumen es resultado de esa interculturalidad subyacente a la obra del alejandrino. A través del estudio exegético y filológico de las citas que utiliza Clemente del Pentateuco en sus escritos, se puede apreciar ese diálogo creativo entre la cultura cristiana y clásica. El uso de la Septuaginta (la traducción griega del Antiguo Testamento) le ofrece al alejandrino ese puente, puesto que le permite leer la "historia sagrada" en clave helenística. Por consiguiente, Clemente no muestra inconveniente en prolongar la tarea realizada por el judeohelenismo y hacer parte de la tradición cristiana la herencia grecorromana de su época. Así pues, es capaz de unir y definir figuras bíblicas del Antiguo Testamento con personajes y acciones del ambiente cultural helenizado: Abraham es un "astrónomo" que usa el saber encíclico, Jacob es puesto en paralelo con Odiseo, Moisés es comparado con los legisladores que dieron origen a las ciudades griegas. De esta forma, termina integrando tres horizontes culturales: el judío, el helenístico y el cristiano. Finalmente, la tarea de Clemente es una muestra de ese intenso diálogo intercultural que debería existir hoy en día en el ámbito religioso. (shrink)

Franz Anton Mesmer’s 1766 thesis on the influence of the planets on the human body, in which he first publicly presented his account of the harmonic forces at work in the microcosm, was substantially copied from the London physician Richard Mead’s early eighteenth-century tract on solar and lunar effects on the body. The relation between the two texts poses intriguing problems for the historiography of medical astrology: Mesmer’s use of Mead has been taken as a sign of the Vienna physician’s (...) enlightened modernity while Mead’s use of astro meteorology has been seen as evidence of the survival of antiquated astral medicine in the eighteenth century. Two aspects of this problem are discussed. First, French critics of mesmerism in the 1780s found precedents for animal magnetism in the work of Paracelsus, Fludd and other early modern writers; in so doing, they began to develop a sophisticated history for astrology and astrometeorology. Second, the close relations between astrometeorology and Mead’s project illustrate how the environmental medical programmes emerged. The making of a history for astrology accompanied the construction of various models of the relation between occult knowledge and its contexts in the enlightenment. (shrink)

Paul Scheerbart (1863–1915) is rarely referred to as a philosopher. He is known as the author of Glasarchitektur (1914), and of numerous books, essays, and stories of “fantasy” and anti-militarism. As a follower of Berkeley’s skepticism, he proposed an aesthetic of the fantastic, an art program in contrast to current realism and impressionism. Studying technical and scientific progress, he developed alternative ideas, in a unique blend of fiction and science. His “astro-” or “cosmopsychology” is a variant of ancient panpsychism (...) or, as Jan Assmann calls it, cosmotheism, which was suppressed by the “Mosaic distinction,” the introduction of true and false in things religious. Exponents of this dualism are the supporters of the “Great chain of being” (Lovejoy): Plato, Nicholas of Cusa, and Kant in his refutation of hylozoism. The late Kant, however, comes close to Scheerbart in calling planet Earth an “organic,” though not “living” body. Fechner and, after him, Scheerbart overcome such hesitation. In Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, scrutinized by Bruno Latour, the old intuition of a non-dualistic eco-holism takes on its actual form. (shrink)

Aunque política y ciencia constituyen hoy en día ramas casi antagónicas del conocimiento humano -acaso combinables en ámbitos ficcionales como el cine y la literatura-, la relación entre filosofía política y astronomía es una constante histórica que alcanza especial fuerza en el pensamiento emancipatorio del siglo xix. El presente artículo sitúa en ese marco La eternidad por los astros y, asimismo, somete a contraste la peculiaridad retórica e ideológica de esta obra, en donde Louis-Auguste Blanqui propone una contigüidad entre orbe (...) celeste y sociedades humanas, basada en su análogo funcionamiento y su común atavismo. (shrink)

In the course of the twentieth century natural sciences became an integral part not only of the industrial production but also of the semiotics of audio-visual and literary cultures. In the absence of legitimating traditions the techno-scientific models and relations appear to be a readily available habitual source of creative dynamics. Yet this domination contains a paradox. The application of analogy in, for example, visual culture does not work the same way as in mathematics. In the latter when a relation (...) between two points is known it is always possible to assign to a third point its counterpart exactly. In the former it is only the potentiality of the fourth point that analogy can offer. To make the analogy work an onto-poetic step is needed. Repeated applications of such steps detach the model from the original source. The model re-emerges as pata-physics, in its new re-coded art form and territory of application. Models of, for example, atoms, rainbows, meteors, automatons, radiation, entropy, quantum effects, astro-catastrophic singularity, fractals, etc. find their way into literature and arts. This results in new divisions of space and time that in turn determine the shape of archetypal icons through which contemporary meanings are communicated and actualized. (shrink)

From 30 May to 1 June Cornell University hosted a small conference on the nature of time, organised by the originally Viennese astro-physicists Hermann Bondi and Thomas Gold. Kurt Gödel did not attend, although roughly 15 years earlier the famous mathematician had made a significant contribution to this field.

Discutindo acerca das centenas de detecções de planetas extrassolares, que supostamente aconteceram desde 1989 e que ele considera (incorretamente) como instâncias de observações, Peter Kosso disse, justamente, que segundo os parâmetros de Bas van Fraassen esses objetos celestes seriam observáveis. Ora, tais astros poderiam sem dúvida ser observados diretamente (sem a necessidade de instrumentos), nas condições apropriadas. Mas, acrescenta Kosso, “esse tipo de epistemologia externalista, que permite que a justificação se baseie em informação que não temos a disposição (nós não (...) estamos em condição de ver planetas extrassolares a olho nu [atualmente]), não ajuda a decidir quais particulares afirmações científicas garantem a crença” (Kosso 2006, 225, nota 1). Van Fraassen provavelmente incorre em uma petição de princípio não muito diferente daquelas que ele muitas vezes desmascarou em textos de autores realistas, quando apela para o fato de o objeto detectado ser observável, para atribuir o estatuto de ‘observação’ a uma certa detecção. O ponto é, mais uma vez, entender o que vale como observação, particularmente quando isso envolve o uso de algum instrumento. Endossar aquilo que Otávio Bueno chama de ‘padrão internalista’ parece garantir solidez à qualificação de determinadas ações como observações. Uma das principais consequências dessa adoção é que tal critério, não operando nenhuma distinção relevante entre detecções ‘diretas’ e detecções mediadas por instrumentos, permite que a linha que separa observáveis e inobserváveis seja traçada de maneira diferente de como van Fraassen acredita que deveria ser, abarcando, entre os observáveis, mais (tipos de) entidades do que esse parece estar disposto a admitir. (shrink)

La lectura plotiniana de la sincronicidad entre astros y hechos humanos en vez de la lectura causa-efecto de la astrología judiciaria tradicional fue la visión más seguida por el humanismo. Las estrellas no representan poderes en sí mismos sino como símbolos o signos. El hombre sabio, y así lo entendieron también los humanistas neoplatónicos, es aquél que sabe interpretar los símbolos desentrañando el sentido de la simpatía o analogía universales. El poder simbólico, por basarse en una inspiración abierta más que (...) en el raciocinio lógico, entronca con otros lenguajes simbólicos, incluido el de la literatura, al que presta numerosos recursos. (shrink)

Este artículo explora el rol literario de la estrella de Belén del Evangelio de Mateo en cuatro textos apócrifos. Algunos aspectos literarios de los textos apócrifos son examinados. Este examen inicialmente determina las relaciones editoriales que existen entre estos y el texto canónico de Mateo. El estudio comienza con el Protoevangelio de Santiago, el cual edita y emplea con creatividad el Mateo canónico en lo tocante al relato de los magos y la estrella. Seguidamente, el artículo examina la actividad editorial (...) que tres apócrifos realizan del Protoevangelio, en relación al astro. Estos son el Evangelio Árabe de la Infancia, el Evangelio Armenio de la Infancia, y el Evangelio de Seudo-Mateo. Un examen comparativo de los cuatro, permite concluir que, si bien existen elementos editoriales, el motivo de la estrella comprende un cuadro semejante presentado por el Mateo canónico, delineando su actuar en términos de movimiento. (shrink)

In one of his last published interviews before his death in 2001, Pedro Laín Entralgo expressed his admiration of Zubiri for his expertise in the latest philosophy and science without sacrificing his religious faith.1 Faith and cognition harmonize in Zubiri’s posthumously published course Estructura dinámica de la realidad,2 a work valuable for understanding his evolution as a whole. EDR incorporates much doctrinal material employed previously, as well as ideas to be developed in subsequent works. It belongs to the period of (...) Sobre la esencia ,3 yet points in the direction of Inteligencia sentiente.4 Having translated EDR to English, tried to paraphrase its less transparent passages, and annotated all its references to proper names, I have unexpectedly come into possession of unexplored keys to Zubiri’s cognitive insights. Further, in the learning process, I have found palpable errors in transcription from the oral to the written version of the work. However, these mistakes come as no surrprise in view of the great difficulties that Zubiri’s text obviously presented to its first editor, Diego Gracia Guillén, and has continued to present to me, as its second; for Zubiri’s course spans a dauntingly wide variety of fields: ontology, classical physics, topology,special and general relativity, quantum mechanics, astro-physics, embryology, paleoanthropology, philosophy of society, and philosophy of history. He joins Aristotle, Leibniz, Locke, Kant, and Hegel in commanding multiple disciplines of his times. Stimulated by criticism of Sobre la esencia as excessively static in its approach to being,5 Zubiri elaborates a philosophy of becoming in EDR, and the theme in itself requires cross-disciplinary study. The conceptual tools he has at hand come to him via two main sources: his background in philosophy and theology, acquired at the Madrid Seminary where he studied between 1915 and 1919, as well as his philosophy studies in Louvain and Rome; and his acquaintance as of 1919 with Ortega y Gasset,6 who unlocked to him contemporary Germanic philosophy and science. I shall discuss in order [1.] Zubiri’s debt to Scholasticism in EDR, [2.] contributions of Ortega to EDR, and [3.] the consequent Aristotelianism of EDR in nearly all its parts: Aristotle guides Zubiri in directions enabling him to correct the Stagirite with the latest philosophy and material science available to him so as to elaborate his own metaphysics of dynamism. (shrink)

There is a sort of scepticism, or, at least, epistemological pessimism, that is generated by appealing to Darwin's theory of evolution. The argument is that nature, that is the selective pressures of evolution, has clearly fitted us for certain sorts of learning and mundane understanding, directly beneficial in point of individual survival and chances for reproduction. Very likely then, it is argued, nature has not fitted us for arcane intellectual accomplishments remote from, or quite disconnected from, those ends. So, it (...) is suggested, perhaps we cannot understand, perhaps never will understand, because we are not made to understand, such matters as consciousness, its nature and causes, the origins of life, the beginning of the universe, or astro-physics in its more finalist pretensions. Sometimes, taken with the claim that manifestly we do understand some of these things, the argument becomes a reductio, and its exponents claim that consequently Darwinism must be false, or of only limited application. More commonly, however, in ‘naturalized epistemology’, it is made the vehicle of a claim about the limits of science, limits imposed by the evolutionarily derived frailty of human understanding. Popper, the late Popper, is one of the progenitors of naturalized epistemology. I want to ask what Popper's response would be, or ought to be, to this epistemological nihilism conjured out of Darwinism. (shrink)

Greco-Roman meteorology will be described in four overlapping developments. In the archaic period, astro-meteorological calendars were written down, and one appears in Hesiod’s Works and Days; such calendars or almanacs originated thousands of years earlier in Mesopotamia. In the second development, also in the archaic period, the pioneers of prose writing began writing speculative naturalistic explanations of meteorological phenomena: Anaximander, followed by Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and others. When Aristotle in the fourth century BCE mentions the ‘inquiry that all our predecessors (...) have been calling meteorology’ (338a26), he is referring to these writers. In the third development, the first two enterprises were combined: empirical data collection about meteorological phenomena began to be married to naturalistic theoretical explanation. This innovation was prompted by Democritus and synthesised in its most influential form by Aristotle. At this point more sophisticated techniques of both short-term weather forecasting and long-term speculation about global climate change were also developed. In the fourth development, the wider implications of the naturalistic explanation of meteorological phenomena were contested. The views of ‘meteorologists’ had been controversial since the archaic period because they were perceived, and sometimes intended, to displace the divine prerogatives and undermine traditional religion. These controversies intensified throughout the classical and Hellenistic periods. (shrink)

Anamniote animals, such as fish and amphibians, are able to regenerate damaged CNS nerves following injury, but regeneration in the mammalian CNS tracts, such as the optic nerve, does not occur. However, severed adult mammalian retinal axons can regenerate into peripheral nerve segments grafted into the brain and this finding has emphasized the importance of the environment in explaining regenerative failure in the adult mammalian CNS. Following lesions, regenerating axons encounter the glial cells, oligodendrocytes and astro‐cytes, and their derivatives, (...) respectively myelin and the astrocytic scar. Experiments to investigate the influence of these components on axon growth in culture have revealed cell‐surface and extracellular matrix molecules that inhibit axon extension and growth cone motility. Structural and functional characterization of these ligands and their receptors is underway, and may solve the interesting neurobiological conundrum posed by the failure of mammalian CNS regeneration. Simultaneously, this might allow new possibilities for treatment of the severe clinical disabilities resulting from injury to the brain and spinal cord. (shrink)

Belum begitu lama dua buah berita menggoncangkan dunia (astro-fisika). Yang pertama, CERN, Pusat penelitian atom di Geneva, yang dalam dua eksperimen berturut-turut menemukan bahwa neutrino (bagian mikro paling kecil) bergerak dengan kecepatan sedikit melampaui kecepatan cahaya. Yang kedua, pada minggu kedua Januari yang lalu pengamatan astronomis mutakhir menengarai bahwa dalam Bimasakti kita rata-rata setiap dari 10 milyar bintangnya mempunyai sekurang-kurangnya satu planet yang mirip dengan planet kita, bumi. Berita pertama begitu dahsyat sehingga para ahli fisika yang membuat eksperimen itu (...) belum mau mempercayainya, karena kalau amatan mereka betul, salah satu pilar fisika modern—teori relativitas khusus Einstein— runtuh. Sebuah revolusi baru dalam fisika. Salah satu implikasinya: kemungkinan menjalin komunikasi dengan extraterrestrial intelligence (ETI)—kalau ada—bertambah besar. Berita kedua lebih dahsyat lagi implikasinya. Sampai sekarang banyak astronom berpendapat bahwa probabilitas terjadinya planet dengan ciri-ciri seperti bumi adalah sedemikian kecil sehingga tidak mustahil kalau manusia merupakan satu-satunya makhluk berakal-budi di alam raya. Tetapi kalau di Bimasakti kita saja—satu di antara (diperkirakan) 1011 Bimasakti di seluruh alam raya—terdapat 10 milyar planet mirip bumi, adanya makhluk berakal budi di luar bumi (aliens) merupakan kemungkinan kuat. Dua penemuan ini mengangkat salah satu tantangan paling serius bagi teologi Kristiani: kalau ada makhluk berakal budi di tempat lain di alam raya, apa implikasinya bagi inti iman Kristiani, peristiwa Yesus Kristus? Apakah mereka juga perlu ditebus dari dosa? Dan kalau perlu, apakah karya penebusan Yesus juga berlaku bagi mereka? Kalau penyelamatan ilahi di planet-planet tidak berkaitan dengan Yesus Kristus, apa Yesus Kristus masih mempunyai relevansi universal dalam rencana penyelamatan ilahi? Pertanyaan-pertanyaan ini bukanlah pertanyaan iseng-iseng, melainkan menyangkut hakikat iman Kristiani. Persis masalah inilah yang dibahas oleh Armin Kreiner—guru besar teologi fundamental pada Fakultas Teologi Katolik Universitas München—dalam bukunya (yang, sayang, baru tersedia dalam bahasa Jerman). Buku ini membahas tantangan bagi teologi Kristiani andaikata ternyata selain manusia ada makhluk berakal budi lain di alam raya......................................... Apakah Kreiner berhasil menjawab pertanyaan-pertanyaan teologis berat yang diajukannya sendiri? Inti masalahnya adalah bagaimana dua keyakinan berikut dapat dipersatukan. Pertama, bahwa kalau ada ETI di alam raya, mereka tidak kurang dicintai oleh Allah dari pada manusia bumi dan karena itu inkarnasi ilahi tidak mungkin merupakan kejadian hanya di planet bumi. Kedua, bahwa dalam manusia Yesus Allah mewahyukan diri sendiri secara unik dengan makna penyelamatan universal. Dan hal itu perlu dijawab tanpa jatuh ke dalam pluralisme relativistik àla Knitter, Hick dan Schmidt-Leukel di mana Yesus hanyalah salah satu dari pewahyuan diri Allah yang pada hakikatnya semua sama derajatnya. Kiranya Kreiner berhasil merumuskan tantangan. Ia menunjukkan arah pemecahannya, tetapi ia belum memecahkannya. Bisa diteliti apakah pemecahan dapat dicari ke arah pemikiran baru tentang Pan-en-teisme sebagai pola yang lebih cocok untuk memahami hubungan antara Sang Pencipta dan ciptaan, sebagaimana akhir-akhir ini diangkat oleh beberapa teolog (Herderkorrespondenz Spezial 2-2011). Yang jelas, kemungkinan adanya aliens menghadapkan teologi Kristiani dengan tantangannya yang barangkali paling berat, yang sampai sekarang pernah dihadapinya. Sebagai catatan penutup, tetap benar bahwa probabilitas adanya ETI, melawan segala tulisan populer dan ilmiah (sampai sekarang), tetap minim! Probabilitas matematis bahwa di sebuah planet dengan kondisi-kondisi seperti bumi kita terjadi evolusi sampai ke kehidupan intelektual adalah kurang dari satu di antara 10100 (bdk. Erbrich, 1988, dll.). Kalaupun dalam setiap dari seluruh 1011 Bimasakti terdapat 10.000 planet mirip bumi, maka jumlah planet di alam raya yang kondisi-kondisinya mirip bumi adalah 1015. Jadi probabilitas adanya ETI tetap teramat rendah. Kemungkinan besar kita tidak pernah akan mengetahui apakah ada ETI. Selama itu pertimbangan-pertimbangan dramatis di atas bisa saja hanyalah sebuah permainan teologis, namun dengan daya tantang yang memang tinggi. (Franz Magnis-Suseno, Program Pascasarjana, Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat Driyarkara, Jakarta). (shrink)

O livro O que é filosofia? foi organizado por Maria Clara Dias, a partir de um ciclo de conferências realizadas em agosto de 1995 na Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto - UFOP. Traduzido pela organizadora, marca também esta edição um artigo inédito de Ernst Tugendhat, que corresponde às duas primeiras aulas do curso Vorlesungen über Methode der Philosophie, ministrado na Universidade Livre de Berlim em 1982. Direcionadas pela pergunta-título do livro, as conferências reunidas neste volume questionam a própria validade da (...) atividade filosófica, embora seja impossível proceder a esse questionamento sem filosofar e sem buscar lugar no interior da tradição filosófica. A característica central das respostas é a justificação, como se fosse impossível qualquer definição da filosofia que não partisse de: por que filosofia? A insistência na justificação indica mesmo uma incomum desconfiança, da qual estão livres todos os oficios, exceto a filosofia. Que a medicina cuide do corpo, ou que a astronomia estude a trajetória dos astros, é algo que se apresenta como um dado do oficio; mas a filosofia nunca está dada, e o primeiro passo do seu fazer põe-se como uma reivindicação de fundamento. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Discourses of Jewish Identity in Twentieth-Century FranceEllen S. FineDiscourses of Jewish Identity in Twentieth-Century France, edited by Alan Astro; Yale French Studies 265pp. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994, $17.00.Ever since France became the first European country to grant Jews equal rights as citizens with the enactment of the Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1791, the question of identity has been a central preoccupation of (...) French Jews. Their emancipation brought about assimilation to the universalist principles of the French Republic and led them to detach themselves from their own traditions, generating conflicting emotions about what it meant for a Jew to be French. The topic of French-Jewish identity has been reflected upon by writers ranging from Sartre, Memmi, and Misrahi to Levinas and Finkielkraut, none of whose discourses are included in this volume but whose ideas are discussed in Seth Wolitz’s pertinent article, “Imagining the Jew in France: From 1945 to the Present.”Divided into two main sections, “Literary Texts” and “Cultural Contexts,” this collection contains articles written by authors not familiar to English speaking readers. They are excellently translated, mainly by the editor, Alan Astro. In his introductory essay, Astro notes that his aim is to portray the cultural and ethnic diversity of French Jews of different origins and to show their part in the formation of Jewish identity. The focus is on how French Jews feel about their own identity, and not on how others see them.The first section, “Literary Texts,” represents a variety of genres, generally fiction. Over half of the thirteen texts date from the 1970s to the present, and are mostly personal narratives, anecdotal in nature. The tone often conveys “a certain humor or self-irony,” described by Rachel Ertel in her essay, “A Minority Literature” (in the second section) as identifiable traits of a Jewish work.With no logical sequence to the presentation of the texts, a multiplicity of perspectives is clearly the objective. For example, Bernard Frank, whose ancestors have lived in France since the Revolution, feels “as French as anyone else,” yet recognizes that Jews are different, “because they’ve been made to be different.” Wolf Wieviorka in 1936 exalts his “noble pedigree,” being a naturalized French citizen; he was later murdered by the Nazis.North African Jews who emigrated to Paris in the 1950s and early 1960s, studied sociologically by Michel Abitbol, are portrayed in Gil Ben Aych’s novel, The Chant of Being (Algerian), and in Paula Jacques’s novel, Aunt Carlotta’s Legacy (Egyptian). Jews of Eastern European descent are depicted in the short stories by Cyrille Fleischman, one of which recounts how a Sorbonne professor of sixteenth-century French literature renounces his eminent career and like his father, opens up a delicatessen in the Jewish quarter of the Marais, thus returning to his roots. Henri Raczymow returns imaginatively to a pre-war Poland in Tales of Exile and Forgetfulness, recreating in French the intonations of Yiddish, the language of his grandparents who died in the Holocaust. In an [End Page 378] outstanding essay, “Memory Shot Through With Holes,” Raczymow articulates urgent questions posed by the second generation: “By what right could I speak, I who was not a victim, survivor or witness?”If the first section is multicultural, the second, “Cultural Contexts,” is interdisciplinary. Annette Wieviorka (granddaughter of Wolf Wieviorka) studies accounts by survivors, revealing the impact of Vichy’s imposing a Jewish identity on its citizens. Wieviorka also evokes the importance of the Six-Day War which compelled assimilated French Jews to proclaim their Jewish allegiance, a pivotal event transforming their sense of identity.Other significant contributions are Gérard Haddad’s exploration of the importance of Judaism in the life and work of Jacques Lacan, an outsider who seemed more concerned with Jewish identity than his fellow psychoanalysts. Ora Avni analyzes Patrick Modiano’s repudiation of his Jewish patrimony in his seminal novel, La Place de l’étoile. Elizabeth de Fontenay comments on how the quant-à-soi (“keeping to oneself”), the reserve characteristic of the French, becomes the quant-à-nous (“ourselves”) for the French Jew who is linked to a community beyond the... (shrink)

The launching of this first full-length study of the films of Ingmar Bergman by the Director of the Institute of Astro-theology, should have put everyone into orbit. Instead, the book has left all who have read it on the launching pad, smarting under the pain of wooden and stilted summaries, incorrect grammatical constructions, and for everyone not acquainted with the vocabulary of Astro-theology, interpretative phrases which inhibit the light of reason and understanding. The prose, gutted with non sequiturs (...) and opaque jargon, may be operational in outer space where the air is thin but here, we earth readers, like Mother Nature, abhor a vacuum. This book is a minuscule step forward for Astro-theology and a giant step backwards for the study of Ingmar Bergman--J. B. L. (shrink)