"Williams's masterful translation satisfies (at last!) a long-standing need. There are lots of good translations of Augustine's great work, but until now we have been forced to choose between those that strive to replicate in English something of the majesty and beauty of Augustine's Latin style and those that opt instead to convey the careful precision of his philosophical terminology and argumentation. Finally, Williams has succeeded in capturing both sides of Augustine's mind in a richly evocative, impeccably reliable, elegantly readable (...) presentation of one of the most impressive achievements in Western thought--Augustine's Confessions." --Scott MacDonald, Professor of Philosophy and Norma K. Regan Professor in Christian Studies, Cornell University. (shrink)

In the criminal legal system, confessions have long been considered the ‘gold standard’ in evidence. An immediate problem arises for this gold standard, however, when the prevalence of false confessions is taken into account. In this paper, I take a close look at false confessions in connection with the phenomenon of testimonial injustice. I show that false confessions provide a unique and compelling challenge to the current conceptual tools used to understand this epistemic wrong. In particular, I argue that we (...) cannot make sense of the unjust ways in which false confessions function in our criminal legal system by focusing exclusively on speakers getting less credibility than they deserve. I conclude that the way we conceive of testimonial injustice requires a significant expansion to include what I call agential testimonial injustice – where an unwarranted credibility excess is afforded to speakers when their epistemic agency has been denied or subverted in the obtaining of their testimony. (shrink)

In his Confessions Jean-Jacques Rousseau tells the story of his life, from the formative experience of his humble childhood in Geneva, through the achievement of international fame as novelist and philosopher in Paris, to his wanderings as an exile, persecuted by governments and alienated from the world of modern civilization. In trying to explain who he was and how he came to be the object of others' admiration and abuse, Rousseau analyses with unique insight the relationship between an elusive but (...) essential inner self and the variety of social identities he was led to adopt. The book vividly illustrates the mixture of moods and motives that underlie the writing of autobiography: defiance and vulnerability, self-exploration and denial, passion, puzzlement, and detachment. Above all, Confessions is Rousseau's search, through every resource of language, to convey what he despairs of putting into words: the personal quality of one's own existence. (shrink)

Recent work on blameworthiness has prominently featured discussions of guilt. The philosophers who develop guilt-based views of blameworthiness do an excellent job of attending to the evaluative and affective features of feeling guilty. However, these philosophers have been less attentive to guilt’s characteristic action tendencies and the role admissions of guilt play in our blaming practices. This paper focuses on the nature of guilty confession and argues that it illuminates an important function of blame that has been overlooked in (...) the recent work on guilt as it relates to blameworthiness: Blame can communicate respect. (shrink)

This article traces the evolution of auricular confession from its origins in the spiritual diakresis in the early desert tradition and argues that through the Celtic churches of Northern Europe the practice is introduced into the Western Church culminating in the decrees of the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215. By developing the desert tradition of diakresis it will be argued that the Celtic system triumphed because of its stronger psychological verisimilitude compared to the Southern Mediterranean traditions of public one-off (...) penance. (shrink)

Confessions of the Flesh was first published in France in 2018 as Les Aveux de la Chair. It is the fourth volume of The History of Sexuality, the collection of works by Michel Foucault...

Dostoevskij’s underground parody of confession paradoxically recovers an Orthodox morality by constructing an unorthodox model of authority and authorship. The authenticity and authority of underground discourse are both contingent on self-conscious parody, which also mediates Orthodox community or sobornost’. This essay critically reconsiders ethical, aesthetic and cultural dimensions of the self-conscious interpolation of literary and religious discourses in Dostoevskij’s Notes from Underground. Arguing with and against Bakhtinian readings, it re-examines the underground narrator’s secularized, Romanticized sensibilities, cynical critique of humanism, (...) sacrilegious modes of laughter, usurpation of authority, internalization of dialogue, literary stylization and parody, aesthetic and moral self-critique, and, finally, insistence on “a new word.”. (shrink)

"Confessions of a Frigid Man: A Philosopher’s Journey into the Hidden Layers of Men’s Sexuality" is the translation of a Japanese 2005 bestseller, "Kanjinai Otoko." Soon after the publication, this book stirred controversy over the nature of male sexuality, male “frigidity,” and its connection to the “Lolita complex.” Today, this work is considered a classic in Japanese men’s studies. The most striking feature of this book is that it was written from the author’s first-person perspective. The author is a professor (...) who teaches philosophy and ethics at a university in Japan, and in this book he talks about his own sexual fetishism, his feeling of emptiness after ejaculation, and his huge obsession with young girls and their developing female bodies. He undertakes a philosophical investigation of how and why sexuality took such a form within a person who had grown up as a “normal,” heterosexual man. This may be the first case in which a philosopher delves deep into his own sexuality and poses an ambitious hypothesis about the formation of male “frigid” sexuality, which might actually be shared by many “normal” men in our society in a hidden way. Reading this book, female readers will come to know, for the first time, some hidden aspects of male sexuality which men have skillfully submerged in a deep layer of their psyches. (shrink)

Exploring Augustine's Confessions as far more than autobiography, more than an elaboration and admission of guilt, more so than a chronicle and more precisely as the very act of coming into the truth in his heart, in front of God, in his confession, and in his public writings. His Confessions charts his becoming a witness to his self-witnessing, as his matter of testimony. Confession becomes an onto-existential practice. But, what is the mode or nature of the type of (...) confession at work when confession becomes ontological? Using Heidegger, the paper hinges on two poetic instances, one in Confessions, one in Being and Time, to develop an idea of ontology as testimony when being is a diligent witness to Being. It is confession as an admission of guilt insofar as being seeks absolution of its presumptions of being as a genus, as indefinable, and as the most self-evident concept, and being then acknowledges the question of Being. This acknowledgement of the obligation of the question is, then, a confession as a public declaration of faith, of the openness to question. The ontological project, for Heidegger, is then confession and testimony perhaps more fundamentally than Augustine’s Confessions, whose autobiographical detail and positing of the self as a relation to God must carefully elaborate itself so as not to be guilty of the offense of metaphysics. (shrink)

Fyodor Dostoevsky is renowned as one of the greatest psychologists in world literature, but what we know about the origins and the workings of the human mind has changed drasti­cally since the late nineteenth century. If Dostoevsky was such a sensitive reader of the human condition, do his insights hold up to modern research? To judge just by the issue of the psychology of confession, the answer appears to be: yes. The work of Michael Tomasel­lo indicates that the human (...) conscience evolved in order to make people obey group norms. From this I draw the proposition that confession should be best directed to the group as a whole, and not to an individual. Judging by Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment and an assortment of characters in The Brothers Karamazov, this appears to be exactly how confes­sion works in Dostoevsky’s novels: sin is against all, so forgiveness must be from all. (shrink)

In which a scientist searches for an empirical explanation for phenomenal experience, spurred by his instinctual belief that life is meaningful. What links conscious experience of pain, joy, color, and smell to bioelectrical activity in the brain? How can anything physical give rise to nonphysical, subjective, conscious states? Christof Koch has devoted much of his career to bridging the seemingly unbridgeable gap between the physics of the brain and phenomenal experience. This engaging book--part scientific overview, part memoir, part futurist speculation--describes (...) Koch's search for an empirical explanation for consciousness. Koch recounts not only the birth of the modern science of consciousness but also the subterranean motivation for his quest--his instinctual belief that life is meaningful. Koch describes his own groundbreaking work with Francis Crick in the 1990s and 2000s and the gradual emergence of consciousness as a legitimate topic for scientific investigation. Present at this paradigm shift were Koch and a handful of colleagues, including Ned Block, David Chalmers, Stanislas Dehaene, Giulio Tononi, Wolf Singer, and others. Aiding and abetting it were new techniques to listen in on the activity of individual nerve cells, clinical studies, and brain-imaging technologies that allowed safe and noninvasive study of the human brain in action. Koch gives us stories from the front lines of modern research into the neurobiology of consciousness as well as his own reflections on a variety of topics, including the distinction between attention and awareness, the unconscious, how neurons respond to Homer Simpson, the physics and biology of free will, dogs, Der Ring des Nibelungen, sentient machines, the loss of his belief in a personal God, and sadness. All of them are signposts in the pursuit of his life's work--to uncover the roots of consciousness. (shrink)

In "The History of Sexuality", Foucault maintains that "Western man has become a confessing animal" (1990, 59), thus implying that "man" was not always such a creature. On a related point, Wittgenstein suggests that "man is a ceremonial animal" (1996, 67); here the suggestion is that human beings are, by their very nature, ritualistically inclined. In this paper I examine this crucial difference in emphasis, first by reconstructing Foucault's "genealogy" of confession, and subsequently by exploring relevant facets of Wittgenstein's (...) later thinking. While there are significant correlations between Foucault and Wittgenstein, an important disparity emerges in relation to the question of the "natural." By critically analyzing this, I show how Wittgenstein's minimal naturalism provides an important corrective to Foucault's more extravagant claims. By implication, we see why any radical relativist, historicist, and/or constructivist position becomes untenable on Wittgensteinian grounds, even though Wittgenstein himself is often read as promoting such views. (shrink)

Formulas designed to reduce the overweight body flourish in American culture, yet 98% of all weight loss efforts end in failure. Numerous experts note that women, more frequently than men, are overweight and have greater difficulty adhering to reducing diets. I analyze the discourse of weight loss by taking up Foucault's concepts of confession and surveillance. Specifically, I argue that reducing techniques weave the language of science, deviance, and theology to fuel the perpetuation of a wholly transparent female subject. (...) The weight conscious woman is divided within herself (mind versus body), and must, ironically, become and remain body conscious to alleviate body consciousness. Foucault's work, by describing the means by which bodies are inscribed in discursive practice, provides the diagnostic tools needed to assess the relation of dogma (reducing discourse) and individual (female body in need of alteration). (shrink)

In this landmark volume of contemporary communication theory, Ronald C. Arnett applies the metaphor of dialogic confession—which enables historical moments to be addressed from a confessed standpoint and through a communicative lens—to the works of German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who pointed to an era of postmodern difference with his notion of "a world come of age." Arnett’s interpretations of Bonhoeffer’s life and scholarship in contention with Nazi dominance offer implications for a dialogic confession that engages the complexity of (...) postmodern narrative contention. Rooted in classical theory, the field of communication ethics is abstract and arguably outmoded. In _Dialogic Confession: Bonhoeffer’s Rhetoric of Responsibility, _Arnett locates cross-cultural and comparative anchors that not only bring legitimacy and relevance to the field but also develop a conceptual framework that will advance and inspire future scholarship. (shrink)

"I confess — I took virtually every picture in this book with my compact camera!" Pros like Rick Sammon make their living with top-of-the-line dSLR cameras.

Lucas, Brian Review(s) of: Religious confession privilege and the common law, by Keith Thompson (Leiden: Matinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2011), pp.395, E135.00.

Augustine's Confessions is one of the most influential and most innovative works of Latin literature. Written in the author's early forties in the last years of the fourth century AD, they reflect on his life and on the activity of remembering and interpreting a life. Books I–IV are concerned with infancy and learning to talk, school days, sexual desire and adolescent rebellion, intense friendships and intellectual exploration. Augustine evolves and analyses his past with all the resources of the reading which (...) shaped his mind: Virgil and Cicero, Neoplatonism and the Bible. This edition, which aims to be usable by students who are new to Augustine, alerts readers to the verbal echoes and allusions of Augustine's brilliant and varied Latin, and explains his theological and philosophical questioning of what God is and what it is to be human. (shrink)

' Here is Tolstoy's religion; and non-violence is at its heart. Simon Parke, author of The Beautiful Life.

Despite the commonly held view that confessing to doping is morally right, few former elite athletes who have doped confess to doping. In this paper, I ask whether elite athletes who have d...

An introduction to Rousseau's Confessions.

994 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 34:2 APRIL i996 Gregory Schufreider. Confessions of a Rational Mystic: anselm's Early Writings. West Lafa- yette, IN: Purdue University Press, i993. Pp. 392. Cloth, $39.95- Paper, $15.95. In his Confessions ofa RationalMystic, Gregory Schufreider sets out to explain Anselm to a modern audience, while remaining loyal to the philosophical and theological outlook of his premodern author. Schufreider succeeds remarkably well in the first part of his task, as he explains Anselm's argument to an (...) audience unfamiliar with its historical context: medieval monastic life. To overcome the distance between Anselm and his modern audi- ence, Schufreider introduces four meaningful approaches to the interpretation of a text: the logical, the hermeneutical, the phenomenological and the deconstructive . Critical of the ahistorical rationality implicit in the logical approach to Anselm's "ontological" argument,.. (shrink)

In one of the first attempts at autobiography, Rousseau1s Confessions not only retells the facts of the author1s life, but reveals his innermost feelings & details the strengths & weaknesses of his character.

This chapter contains sections titled: Note.

These essays, along with several manuscripts published here for the first time, offer a more complete and highly defined picture than ever before of one of the ...

In this new translation the brilliant and impassioned descriptions of Augustine's colourful early life are conveyed to the English reader with accuracy and art. Augustine tells of his wrestlings to master his sexual drive, his rare ascent from a humble Algerian farm to the edge of the corridors of high power at the imperial court of Milan, and his renunciation of secular ambition and marriage as he recovered the faith that his mother had taught him. It was in a Milan (...) garden that Augustine finally achieved the act of will to Christian conversion, which he compared to a lazy man in bed finally deciding it is time to get up and face the day. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. (shrink)

Delivered at the Collège de France between January and March 1980, the lectures entitled On the Government of the Living (Du gouvernement des vivants) seem to be the missing piece in the Foucauldian puzzle. Still unpublished, those eleven lectures were intended to set the theoretical foundation for the book announced as the fourth and last volume of the History of Sexuality, under the title Confessions of the Flesh (Les aveux de la chair). This book, however, was never published, despite the (...) fact that his editor described it as the keystone for the entire History of Sexuality.1 The value of Michel…. (shrink)

This important new book examines in some detail the law relating to confessions, unlawful evidence, and the 'right to silence' in the police station. The author also looks at the principles which lie behind this branch of the law. As well as his close examination of the English position, the author also looks at alternative approaches taken by Scottish, Irish, Australian, Canadian, and American legal systems. There is no other book written in English which gives such systematic treatment to this (...) subject. (shrink)

Confessions of Love: The Ambiguities of Greek Eros and Latin Caritas, edited by Craig J. N. de Paulo, Senior Editor, et al. American University Studies Series, vol. 7: Theology and Religion. New York: Peter Lang Publishers, 2011. Details: Collection of scholarly essays on love. Distinguished contributors include Roland Teske, S.J., Phillip Cary, Leonid Rudntyzky, Bernhardt Blumenthal, et al.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s account of a transnational “confessing” church, developed with allusion to W.E.B. Du Bois, offers critical potential for addressing the problem of the global color line. To make this case, I first trace the ways in which Du Bois’s and Bonhoeffer’s German–American exchange studies contribute to their critical standpoints. Bonhoeffer’s “Protestantism without Reformation” is then examined to show that its view of American denominations is not mere German paternalism but a critique of how atomized churches can mask racial segregation, (...) even as it takes seriously America’s founding as a “nation of refugees.” Finally, Bonhoeffer’s references to intercultural encounter, particularly with respect to the Jewish diaspora in his later Ethics, provide for the extension of his ecclesiology beyond Germany and the “West.” Specifically, Du Bois’s own creedal language and pan-Africanism require that a truly global confession of the “form of Christ” must attend to unrecognized histories from the “Black Atlantic.”. (shrink)

Starting from a recent discussion in the Netherlands about the application of the Pontifical Council for Social Communication for the Internet extension ‘.catholic,’ the author inquires into the meaning of confessing the catholicity of the church. He shows that ‘catholic’ is a title phrase, a descriptive term that often functions as a proper name. It is important to distinguish between both functions ; in the PCSC application ‘catholic’ functions, contrary to what its critics assume, as a proper name. In ecumenical (...) discussions, the main problem with catholicity is the Roman Catholic Church's alleged all-or-nothing approach to catholicity, in which it asserts its own catholicity while rejecting the claim that other churches are catholic. This approach, however, has been abandoned for a degrees of catholicity approach which allows the Roman Catholic Church to recognise the catholicity of Protestant churches. Finally, the author argues that confessing the catholicity of the church is rather like pledging ourselves to furthering this catholicity than like asserting that this catholicity has been achieved. (shrink)

In this inspirational book Bryan Magee tells the story of his discovery of philosophy, and in doing so introduces the subject to his reader. Experiences of everyday life provide discussion of philosophers and explain why certain philosophical questions persistently exercise our minds. With great fluency Magee untangles philosophy, making it seem part of everyone's life. Intensely personal and brimming with infectious enthusiasm, this is a wonderful introduction to philosophy by one of the most elegant and accessible writers on the subject.

In his Confessions Jean-Jacques Rousseau tells the story of his life, from the formative experience of his humble childhood in Geneva, through the achievement of international fame as novelist and philosopher in Paris, to his wanderings as an exile, persecuted by governments and alienated from the world of modern civilization. In trying to explain who he was and how he came to be the object of others' admiration and abuse, Rousseau analyses with unique insight the relationship between an elusive but (...) essential inner self and the variety of social identities he was led to adopt. The book vividly illustrates the mixture of moods and motives that underlie the writing of autobiography: defiance and vulnerability, self-exploration and denial, passion, puzzlement, and detachment. Above all, Confessions is Rousseau's search, through every resource of language, to convey what he despairs of putting into words: the personal quality of one's own existence. (shrink)

The government of Rwanda has pursued reconciliation with great determination in the belief that it is the only moral alternative to post-genocide social challenges. In Rwanda, communities must be mobilised and reshaped for social, political and economic reconstruction. This creates a rather delicate situation. Among other strategies, the state has turned to the concepts of confession and forgiveness which have deep religious roots, and systematised them both at the individual and community or state level in order to bring about (...) reconciliation, justice, social cohesion and ultimately economic development. In view of these strategies and challenges, some of the important questions are: Does forgiveness restore victims and empower them to heal their communities? What empirical evidence exists that religiously inspired justice and reconciliation processes after mass political violence make a difference? In what areas might the understanding of religious thought and activity towards transitional justice be deepened? These questions provide the backdrop against which I examine the case of post-genocide Rwanda in this article. A hermeneutic interpretative analysis is used to situate the phenomena of forgiveness, confession and social transformation within the specific context of post-conflict societies. (shrink)

The ability of the Society of Jesus to engage in a broad and enduring tradition of scientific activity is here addressed in terms of its programmatic commitment to the consolidation and extension of the Catholic confession and its mastery of the administrative apparatus necessary to operate long-distance networks. The Society's early move into two major apostolates, one in education and the other in the overseas missions, brought Jesuits into regular contact with the educated elites of Europe and at the (...) same time placed the Society's missionaries in remote parts of the natural world. The modes of organization of travel and communication required by the Society's long-distance networks not only facilitated scientific communication and collaboration within the order, it also provided Jesuits with the resources they needed to engage successfully in 'ministries among the learned'. Evidence of a sustained attempt by Jesuit authors to assume the role of Kulturträger is found in the several genres of scientific publications that dominate the Society's scientific corpus. Thus the Society's early recognition of the "apostolic value" of scientific publications in recruiting friends and allies among Europe's intellectual elites, I argue, allowed a robust interest in natural knowledge to emerge as a legitimate part of the Jesuit vocation. (shrink)

As mainline Protestantism increasingly accommodates to contemporary cultural forms, the confessing movement of the United Methodist Church (and other traditions) has a key role to play, lifting high the rich canonical heritage of the church universal.

Drawing on Austin’s speech act theory and on related theories of performativity and positioning, this article analyses the public confessions during the 1990s by three prominent state actors in Turkey about their direct involvement in state crimes against Kurds and left-wing political opponents. All three cases received significant media attention at the time. The aim of the article is not only to shed new light on those specific confessions by the perpetrators within the Turkish context, but also to develop further (...) theoretical insights into the phenomenon of public confessions as such. Whilst confessions of this kind are often welcomed and portrayed as truth-statements that are cathartic and enable society to move forward, this analysis demonstrates that the reality is often more complex as the confessions in question tend to go hand in hand with a disavowal of individual responsibility by the perpetrators involved. (shrink)

Lyotard approaches his subject by returning to his earliest phenomenological training, rearticulating Augustine's sensory universe from a vantage point imaginarily inside the confessant's world, a vantage point that reveals the intense point of conjuncture between the sensual and the spiritual, the erotic world and the mystical, being and appearance, sin and salvation. Lyotard reveals the very origins of phenomenology in Augustine's narrative, and in so doing also shows the origins of semiotics to lie there.

ABSTRACT Natural language semantics is heir to two formalisms. There is the extensional machinery of explicit variables traditionally used to model reference to individuals, and the intensional machinery of implicit index parameters traditionally used to model reference to worlds and times. I propose instead a simple and unified extensional formalism – explicit semantics – on which all sentences include explicit individual, world and time variables. No implicit index parameters are needed.

College cheating is prevalent, with rates ranging widely from 9 to 95%. Research has been exclusively conducted with enrolled college students. This study examined the prevalence of cheating in a sample of college alumni, who risk less in disclosing academic dishonesty than current students. A total of 273 alumni reported on their prevalence and perceived severity of 19 cheating behaviors. The vast majority of participants report having engaged in some form of cheating during their undergraduate career. The most common forms (...) of cheating were “copying from another student's assignment” and “allowing others to copy from your assignment.” More students reported cheating in classes for their major than other classes. Males and females cheated at the same rates in classes for their major, and males reported higher rates of cheating than females in nonmajor classes. Respondents reported that their top reasons for cheating were “lack of time” and “to help a friend.”. (shrink)

(1993). Confessions of a Modest Bayesian. Canadian Journal of Philosophy: Vol. 23, Supplementary Volume 19: New Essays on Metaphilosophy, pp. 315-337.

The Confessions recounts Augustine 's successful search for God. But Augustine worries that one cannot search for God if one does not already know God. That version of the paradox of inquiry dominates and structures Confessions 1–10. I draw connections between the dramatic opening lines of book 1 and the climactic discussion in book 10.26–38 and argue that the latter discussion contains Augustine 's resolution of the paradox of inquiry as it applies to the special case of searching for God. (...) I claim that he develops a model, relying on the universal human experience of joy and truth, that identifies a starting point that is common to all human beings, is sufficient for guiding a successful search for God, and avoids commitment to recollection of experiences prior to birth. The model is crucial to Augustine 's rejection of traditional Platonist views about recollection. (shrink)

In this paper I will take into account the historical, religious and philosophical aspects of the examination of conscience, penance and satisfaction, as well as ritual confession and cure, in Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. I will also take into account the difficulties that baptized Chinese Christians met in sacramental Catholic confession. Human history proves that in every culture and religion, man has always had a need to be cleansed from evil and experience mutual forgiveness. What ritual models were (...) used by Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism? To what degree did these models prove to be true? What are the connections between a real experience of evil, ritual confession, forgiveness and cure in Chinese religions and philosophies? (shrink)

In this paper I will take into account the historical, religious and philosophical aspects of the examination of conscience, penance and satisfaction, as well as ritual confession and cure, in Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. I will also take into account the difficulties that baptized Chinese Christians met in sacramental Catholic confession. Human history proves that in every culture and religion, man has always had a need to be cleansed from evil and experience mutual forgiveness. What ritual models were (...) used by Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism? To what degree did these models prove to be true? What are the connections between a real experience of evil, ritual confession, forgiveness and cure in Chinese religions and philosophies? (shrink)

Jean Richard | Résumé : Cet article se présente comme une réflexion sur un écrit de Paul Ricoeur concernant l’herméneutique du témoignage chrétien. À la simple confession de foi, « Jésus est le Christ », le témoignage ajoute un noyau narratif, comme on voit dans les évangiles. Il ajoute aussi la dimension existentielle de l’expérience personnelle. Car le témoignage de foi est plus qu’un simple reportage. Il exprime l’engagement du témoin dans la cause pour laquelle il témoigne. Le témoignage (...) devient ainsi profession de la foi personnelle, où le témoin s’identifie avec la cause de celui pour lequel il témoigne. Ricoeur peut parler alors du « témoignage absolu de l’absolu ». |: This article is a reflection on a paper by Paul Ricoeur on the Christian testimony. A testimony is more than a bare confession of faith. It includes a narrative, as we see in the gospels. But it is also more than a bare report. It comprises an existential layer of personal experience. It voices the whole commitment of the witness to the cause to which he bears witness. Thus, the testimony becomes a personal profession of faith, whereby the witness identifies himself with the cause and with the person he bears witness to. Hence Ricoeur’s word : “the absolute testimony about the absolute”. (shrink)

This book probes the ethical structure of contemporary medicine in an argument accessible to lay readers, healthcare professionals, and ethicists alike.

The article studies Foucault’s treatment of religious culture and some theological responses to his approach. Foucault examined some modern practices as exhibiting a ‘Christianization-in-depth’, as, for example, in the extension of confession as a continuing practice in recent and current political culture. Confessions of faith characterize both fascism and communism and the confessional form of the latter showed extensive debt to the legacy of eastern Christian practices. The Soviet hermeneutics of the self contrasted with the western form because the (...) self-knowledge of the former is not a western confession of desires and movements of the soul but, rather, coming to a clarity in grasping how one is regarded in the eyes of others. The continuing vitality of religious forms in contemporary experience shows itself in American apocalyptic creeds. Foucault’s critical analysis aids a self-understanding in three areas of religious activism: self-denial; the envisioning of sexuality; the aspirations toward community and friendship. (shrink)