A travers les faits et manifestations considérés comme irrationnels par l'entendement scientiste et positiviste, on décèle du point de vue de la philosophie de l'esprit une rationalité poétique qui est à l'oeuvre dans tout esprit humain. Ce super-rationalisme qui intègre en même temps le sensible et le rationnel obéit à une logique du symbolisme qu'on retrouve dans l'ontologie africaine. L'africanisme ontologique induit une philosophie de l'invisible où la connaissance intuitive libère l'esprit du dogmatisme rationaliste. Il permet d'appréhender l'Etre dans sa (...) totalité en examinant la question du rapport à soi, et du rapport à l'autre à travers la figure du sage africain. Aujourd'hui, la rencontre des cultures et des civilisations permet un croisement des rationalités et une pluralité de valeurs qui fondent le nouvel humanisme dont nous nous réclamons. Un humanisme spirituel basé sur le respect et la compréhension de l'autre par la différence de sa pensée et de ses attributs socio-psychologiques. (shrink)

Die vor allem unter der Bezeichnung Gestalt-Psychologie bekanntgewordeneGestalttheorie der Berliner Schule war lange Zeit vielen zu Unrecht nur für ihreBeiträge zur Wahrnehmungspsychologie ein Begriff. In letzter Zeit werden jedochdiesseits und jenseits des Atlantiks zunehmend die frühen gestalttheoretischenAnsätze für eine psychotherapierelevante Lehre des gesunden und gestörtenmenschlichen Erlebens und Verhaltens wiederentdeckt und neu aufgegriffen. Dervorliegende Sammelband stellt drei exemplarische frühe Beiträge zurPsychopathologie vor, die noch vom Begründer der Gestalttheorie MaxWertheimer geprägt wurden. Anhand der Analyse der paranoischenEigenbeziehung und Wahnbildung, der Manie und der (...) schizophrenen Denkstörungdemonstrieren sie eindrucksvoll die spezifische Herangehensweise undFruchtbarkeit des ganzheitlichen systemtheoretischen Ansatzes der Gestalttheorieauf dem Gebiet psychischer Störungen. Im Anschluß diskutierenPsychotherapeuten und Psychiater aus Deutschland, Österreich und den USA dieAktualität und Relevanz dieser Ansätze für die psychotherapeutischeKrankheitslehre und Praxis. (shrink)

El budismo. Peter Harvey. Cambridge University Press, Madrid 1998. 468 pp. Ptas 2,995. ISBN 84-8323-014-3.

How do we judge whether we should be willing to follow the views of experts or whether we ought to try to come to our own, independent views? This book seeks the answer in medieval philosophical thought. In this engaging study into the history of philosophy and epistemology, Peter Adamson provides an answer to a question as relevant today as it was in the medieval period: how and when should we turn to the authoritative expertise of other people in (...) forming our own beliefs? He challenges us to reconsider our approach to this question through a constructive recovery of the intellectual and cultural traditions of the Islamic world, the Byzantine Empire, and Latin Christendom. Adamson begins by foregrounding the distinction in Islamic philosophy between taqlid, or the uncritical acceptance of authority, and ijtihad, or judgment based on independent effort, the latter of which was particularly prized in Islamic law, theology, and philosophy during the medieval period. He then demonstrates how the Islamic tradition paves the way for the development of what he calls a "justified taqlid," according to which one develops the skills necessary to critically and selectively follow an authority based on their reliability. The book proceeds to reconfigure our understanding of the relation between authority and independent thought in the medieval world by illuminating how women found spaces to assert their own intellectual authority, how medieval writers evaluated the authoritative status of Plato and Aristotle, and how independent reasoning was deployed to defend one Abrahamic faith against the other. This clear and eloquently written book will interest scholars in and enthusiasts of medieval philosophy, Islamic studies, Byzantine studies, and the history of thought"-- Back cover. (shrink)

In the history of philosophy, few topics are so relevant to today's cultural and political landscape as philosophy in the Islamic world. Yet, this remains one of the lesser-known philosophical traditions. In this Very Short Introduction, Peter Adamson explores the history of philosophy among Muslims, Jews, and Christians living in Islamic lands, from its historical background to thinkers in the twentieth century.Introducing the main philosophical themes of the Islamic world, Adamson integrates ideas from the Islamic and Abrahamic faiths to (...) consider the broad philosophical questions that continue to invite debate: What is the relationship between reason and religious belief? What is the possibility of proving God's existence? What is the nature of knowledge? Drawing on the most recent research in the field, this book challenges the assumption of the cultural decline of philosophy and science in the Islamic world by demonstrating its rich heritage and overlap with other faiths and philosophies. (shrink)

abstract Ethicists such as Peter Singer argue that consciousness and self‐consciousness are the principal considerations in discussing the use of animals by humans, such as in medical experiments. This paper raises an additional consideration to factor into this ethical discussion. Ethics deal with the intentional impact of subjects on each other. This assumes a meta‐representational ability of subjects to represent states of mind of others, which may be termed other‐consciousness. The moral weight of other‐consciousness is manifest in the notion (...) of responsibility, where humans lacking in other‐consciousness (such as individuals with autism) may not be held responsible for their harmful actions towards others. As responsibility implies not only duties but also rights and more generally high moral status, it follows that other‐consciousness grants high moral status, other things being equal — recognizing that other factors grant moral status too. Other‐consciousness also increases the capacity for suffering, both due to increased freedom (and consequently increased possibility of restriction of freedom) and to increased empathy (with suffering of others). Hence, the more an animal is other‐conscious, the more it deserves high moral status and the more it can suffer, other things being equal, and consequently, the less it should be used for human purposes. Further study is required to elucidate to what extent animals used by humans, such as in medical experiments, particularly primates and other highly evolved mammals, are other‐conscious. (shrink)

There is an historical element throughout philosophy. As Edel notes, this is always in the context of problems, so emphasis will fall on the major objective of reflective analysis of ideas. The major objective of Edel's analysis in The Theory and Practice of Philosophy is the fundamental interrelatedness of problems of method, metaphysics, and value. Each part is an integral whole, complete in itself. That philosophy has this central role in human practice indicates that it should be neither discarded nor (...) deified. This is the explicit premise of the book. Students are likely to be faced increasingly with a demand for clarification on the fundamental issues of life and value. The expectation that philosophy will provide ready-made answers to these kinds of questions is as naive as the demand for any panacea, but this task cannot be turned over to any other department of human knowledge or any other branch of social activity. By placing emphasis on the importance of theory in matters of practice, the need for clear and systematic understanding of the world and man within it, and on the constant role of reflection in the management of human affairs, Edel seeks to shed light on the larger questions of philosophy by examining them in a systematic way. The result is a great text and tool for students and teachers that deals directly with the fundamental issues of our civilization. (shrink)

Peter Homans offers a new understanding of the origins of psychoanalysis and relates the psychoanalytic project as a whole to the sweep of Western culture, past and present. He argues that Freud's fundamental goal was the interpretation of culture and that, therefore, psychoanalysis is fundamentally a humanistic social science. To establish this claim, Homans looks back at Freud's self-analysis in light of the crucial years from 1906 to 1914 when the psychoanalytic movement was formed and shows how these experiences (...) culminated in Freud's cultural texts. By exploring the "culture of psychoanalysis," Homans seeks a better understanding of what a "psychoanalysis of culture" might be. Psychoanalysis, Homans shows, originated as a creative response to the withering away of traditional communities and their symbols in the aftermath of the industrial revolution. The loss of these attachments played a crucial role in the lives of the founders of psychoanalysis, especially Sigmund Freud but also Karl Abraham, Carl Jung, Otto Rank, and Ernest Jones. The personal, political, and religious losses that these figures experienced, the introspection that followed, and the psychological discovery that resulted are what Homans calls "the ability to mourn." Homans expands this historical analysis to construct a general model of psychological discovery: the loss of shared ideals and symbols can produce a deeper sense of self (psychological structure-building, or individuation) and can then lead to the creation of new forms of meaning and self-understanding. He shows how Freud, Jung, and other psychoanalysts began to extend their introspection outward, reinterpreting the meanings of Western art, history, and religion. In conclusion, Homans evaluates Freud's theory of culture and discusses the role that psychoanalysis might play in social and cultural criticism. Throughout the book, Homans makes use of the many histories, biographies, and psychobiographies that have been written about the origins of psychoanalysis, drawing them into a comprehensive sociocultural model. Rich in insights and highly original in approach, this work will interest psychoanalysts and students of Freud, sociologists concerned with modernity and psychoanalysis, and cultural critics in the fields of religion, anthropology, political science, and social history. (shrink)

Prologue: The caretaker's trial -- Introduction: What would Judas do? -- The Word of God -- The betrayer, the betrayed, or the beloved? -- Abraham as the Father of Faith(ful betrayal) -- The biblical whole -- The being of God -- The name of God -- Eclipsing God -- Beyond God -- The event of God -- The intervention of God -- The miracle of Christian faith -- Forging faith communities without God -- Conclusion: Crossing out God for the (...) sake of God. (shrink)

Scholarly debate on the nature of the Hajj before Muhammad and radical questions of whether Mecca was a ritual site at all in pre-Islamic times are answerable from the large corpus of pre-Islamic poetry, which has been underutilised as a source for pre-Islamic history. This paper reveals the poetry to be both a reliable and valuable witness. It demonstrates that the Hajj was performed in the generation before Muhammad in substantially similar terms to subsequent Muslim practice. Some modifications and shifts (...) are discernible, but ritual continuity emerges as a major theme. The poetry also underscores the restricted ambit of the pre-Islamic Hajj: we uncover a highly-localised ritual followed primarily by groups living near Mecca – the expansion of the Hajj into a pan-Arabian phenomenon with an intimate role in informing communal identity and political power are new in the Islamic period. This paper closes with comparison of the poetry and hadith on the Hajj, which reveals a major Muslim-era reinterpretation of the pilgrimage as an Abrahamic rite. (shrink)

Scriptural Reasoning (SR) is a practice of philosophic theology that is offered as a rationally warranted albeit fallible response to the inadequacies of modern liberal and anti-liberal theologies whether they are adopted as academic projects or as dimensions of lived religious practice. In terms of everyday religious practice in the West today, SR may be characterized as an effort, at once, to help protect Abrahamic folk traditions (that is, of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam) from the cultural and theological effects of (...) residual western colonialism and to help protect religiously pluralist societies in the West from reactionary, anti-modern movements within these traditions. In the terms of recent academic discourse in theology, SR may be characterized as pragmatic, postliberal, scriptural, and inter-Abrahamic. SR may be labeled “pragmatic,” because it employs philosophic reasoning only to identify problems in its practitioners’ communities of everyday practice and in the institutions that are expected to repair them. SR may be labeled “postliberal,” because it emerges as a response to problems in the projects of modern, liberal theology, in particular this theology’s inadequate attention to problems in everyday practice. At the same time, SR is equally critical of anti-liberal theologies, or those that, rejecting the autonomy of human reason, argue for the opposite: grounding all projects of reasoning on a practice of “Christian reasoning” per se (or, comparably, of other confession-grounded reasonings). (shrink)

All major religions accept that organ donation is an individual choice and the same is true when it comes to donating one's whole body to medical science. While religious groups have ‘official’ views, it is common, given the various denominations and subgroups within a religion, to have deviation from the official message. This paper provides some insight into the views of religious leaders from one local community in the UK on the act of body donation. The paper also demonstrates the (...) importance that the Abrahamic religions place on providing opportunities for remembrance and thanksgiving for those who have died and how this is extended through the services of thanksgiving that are held by medical schools for those who have donated their bodies to medical science. (shrink)

A comprehensive survey of the attitude of Kierkegaard (1813-1855) toward Jews and Judaism as reflected in his writings. Argues that he became antisemitic over the years. The young Kierkegaard viewed the Wandering Jew as a mythical allegory for human despair, but for the older Kierkegaard the Jews represented obduracy, rage, and perdition. He increasingly interpreted Judaism as the absolute opposite of Christianity, and sanctioned what he saw as the fall of Judaism. His writings are overwhelmingly anti-Jewish and antisemitic, and include (...) only a few pro-Semitic or indifferent statements. Contends that Kierkegaard did not grow up in an antisemitic home - his father actively supported the integration of Jews into Danish society. The roots of the theologian's hostility toward the Jews must be sought in the Protestant tradition. Discusses his Jewish acquaintances, especially his relationship with Meïr Aron Goldschmidt, editor of the republican weekly "Corsaren". After satirical attacks against him appeared in "Corsaren" in 1846, Kierkegaard sharpened his antisemitic profile. Argues that his changed view of the Patriarch Abraham, from "the Father of Faith" to "a Jew", is indicative of his rejection of Judaism. Presents an overview of the situation of the Jews in Denmark and in Copenhagen during the first half of the 19th century, and discusses the views of Kierkegaard in the larger cultural context. (shrink)

The mystical and spiritual authors of the thirteenth to eighteenth centuries provided rich inspiration for Kierkegaard's religious thought. Kierkegaard owned numerous works by these authors, who are associated with the spiritual traditions of Rheno‐Flemish mysticism, Devotio Moderna, post‐Tridentine and Baroque Catholicism, and Reformed Pietism. The accurate spiritual diagnostics and the apt methods of spiritual formation found in (Pseudo‐)Tauler, Theologia Deutsch, Abraham a Sancta Clara, and François Fénelon deeply impressed Kierkegaard. He adopted and further developed motifs from the mystical and (...) spiritual authors in a variety of his writings, and his journals contain abundant reflections on themes from Thomas à Kempis, Ludovicus Blosius, and Gerhard Tersteegen, such as the imitation of Christ, spiritual guidance, or divine pedagogy. The best testimony to the importance of spiritual literature for Kierkegaard is the fact that he sought counsel in it in a personal crisis when he was deciding on the future of his religious authorship. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The 2007 Meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian StudiesSan Diego, California, November 16–17, 2007Peter A. HuffThe Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies sponsored two sessions in conjunction with the 2007 annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR). Each session highlighted themes related to the work of a major figure in Buddhist-Christian dialogue. The first session, addressing the topic “Homosexuality, the Church, and the Sangha,” was organized in honor of (...) Roger Corless (1938–2007), longtime member of the society, dual practitioner of Roman Catholicism and Vajrayana Buddhism, and a well-known voice for “queer sangha.” The second session, a panel discussion titled “The Thought and Legacy of Masao Abe,” focused on the career achievements of Abe (1915–2006), widely acknowledged as one of the most innovative and influential scholars in modern Zen studies, interreligious dialogue, and comparative philosophy.The first session, moderated by Harry Wells (Humboldt State University), featured three papers on issues of gender, sexual ethics, and religious identity. Robert Fastiggi, professor of systematic theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary (Detroit), presented the paper “The Catholic Church and Homosexuality.” Arguing that the Catholic tradition avoids an “either/or” approach to homosexuality, he outlined the church’s official distinction between morally neutral homoerotic identity and what Vatican documents call “intrinsically disordered” homosexual acts. He also noted that Catholic researchers differ significantly on the question of the genetic origins of same-sex attraction. The key to Catholic moral teaching on homosexuality, he explained, is a “theology of the body” that envisions male-female complementarity as the divinely ordained pattern of creation. Fastiggi suggested that further discussion of related ideas such as celibacy, chastity, desire, and concupiscence would enhance future Buddhist-Christian dialogue on homosexuality.Ilene Stanford, a ThD candidate in religion, gender, and culture at Harvard University, presented the next paper, “In or Out? Marriage as a Social Practice.” Describing marriage in the United States as a “site of contestation,” she explored the conflicting [End Page 137] models of sexual union that currently inform public debates in political and ecclesiastical contexts. Using William Johnson’s A Time to Embrace: Same-Gender Relationships in Religion, Law, and Politics (2006) as a point of departure, she argued that many contemporary examinations of sexual relationships, even some of the most inclusive, fail to reckon with the way in which the West’s Augustinian legacy continues to make heterosexual marriage the norm for all moral reflection on sexual identity and expression. The escalating controversy in the international Anglican community, she said, exposes the weaknesses of Johnson’s “deliberative democracy” model and other theoretical models that minimize the role of political and social power in the construction of sexual ideals.José Ignacio Cabezón, who holds the XIV Dalai Lama Chair in Tibetan Buddhism at the University of California, Santa Barbara, presented the final paper: “Is Homosexual Sex ‘Sexual Misconduct’? Critical Reflections on Some Classical Indo-Tibetan Sources.” Analyzing the changing portraits of sexual immorality in the Pali canon, Indian Sanskrit texts, and Tibetan scholastic treatises, Cabezón traced the evolution of monastic commentary on lay sexuality over the course of several centuries. What originated primarily as a simple prohibition against some forms of male adulterous activity, he explained, eventually became an unprecedented attempt to regulate intricate details of sexual behavior. Identifying Ansanga (fourth century ce) as the first Buddhist writer to proscribe same-sex activity between men, Cabezón suggested that changing social mores, intra-Buddhist debates, and the fertile monastic imagination contributed to the gradual elaboration of moral teaching in ancient and classical Buddhist literature.After the paper presentations, Richard Reilly, professor of philosophy at St. Bonaventure University, responded with provocative comments. He raised critical points about the significance of the distinction between sexual acts and erotic relationships, the strategic though limited value of “deliberative democracy” in multicultural faith communities, and the need for more rigorous comparative study of homophobic legislation in Buddhist and Abrahamic religious traditions. Sparking an engaging discussion among presenters and members of the audience, Reilly’s remarks underscored the importance of ongoing interdisciplinary investigations into homosexuality, the church, and the sangha.The society’s second session at the AAR provided a venue for former... (shrink)

This article reads Fear and Trembling constructively as a theological work. Abraham's faith is a lived movement irreducible to either ontology or epistemology. Faith is an action that waits upon what it alone could never accomplish. This is absolute action. In Abraham's case, he offers up Isaac to death with the absurd expectancy that Isaac will be returned. This double movement is a doxological abandonment of oneself and one's world to God that waits expectantly to receive them back (...) as gifts. It is these dynamics of faith that show God to be hidden, precisely within the intimate drawing near of God. The article concludes with a constructive gesture toward an “apophaticism of action.”. (shrink)

One hundred years ago, Abraham Flexner pulled no punches. He tore the fabric of medical education in the existing medical schools and initiated a revolution that lives on to this day. Among the factors driving the 1910 Carnegie Foundation's Flexner Report was the recognition that "the requirements of medical education have enormously increased and the fundamental sciences upon which medicine depends have been greatly extended" (p. viii). This familiar mantra, enhanced by several log orders, resonates strongly in our own (...) times. Certainly another major factor—if not the predominant one—leading to the Flexner Report was the ineffectual medical educational process employed in most of the 155 commercial and private .. (shrink)

Ausgehend von empirischen Befunden und theoretischen Konzepten der Gegenwart stellt die vorliegende Untersuchung die Frage nach den historischen Wurzeln einer Theorie traumatisch verursachter Psychosen in Freuds Schriften. Den Hintergrund bildet der alte Vorwurf, Freud habe zugunsten der Entwicklung seiner Trieblehre reale Grenzverletzungen ungenügend berücksichtigt. Für nicht-psychotische Störungen wurde dies inzwischen eindeutig widerlegt. Der Beitrag zeigt auf, dass Freud auch für Psychosen über die verschiedenen Phasen seiner Theoriebildung hinweg traumatische Erlebnisse ätiologisch berücksichtigte. Als missverständlich und aus heutiger Sicht problematisch erscheint jedoch, (...) dass er weniger komplexen Erwägungen seiner Schüler, etwa Karl Abrahams, öffentliche Zustimmung zollte. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Seductiveness of Virtue: Abraham Joshua Heschel and John Paul II on Morality and Personal Fulfillment by John J. FitzgeraldMatthew R. PetrusekThe Seductiveness of Virtue: Abraham Joshua Heschel and John Paul II on Morality and Personal Fulfillment John J. Fitzgerald new york: bloomsbury t&t clark, 2017. 240 pp. $114The Seductiveness of Virtue offers a close study of the twentieth-century Polish-American rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, and (...) the first Polish pope, St. John Paul II, on the relationship between being good and being happy. Overall the book advances the conversation on the meaning and continued relevance of virtue in contemporary ethics, though its eagerness to build bridges across competing religious and philosophical traditions opens the argument to both methodological and substantive criticisms. [End Page 206]Fitzgerald divides the book into an introduction and four chapters. Chapter 1, "The Meaning of Our Question," establishes the definitions of concepts that Fitzgerald addresses throughout the rest his argument, including "happiness," "meaning," "freedom," "personal fulfillment," "good and evil," and "doing." Fitzgerald locates each term within the theologies of Heschel and John Paul II and provides his own definitions. Chapter 2, "Heschel and the 'Joys of Mitsvah,'" enters more deeply into Heschel's theology, arguing that, despite some ambiguity about whether morality will always lead to personal fulfillment, Heschel establishes a firm theological and practical connection between following the law (mitzvah) and being happy. Chapter 3, "John Paul II and the Good We Must Do to Have Eternal Life," engages in a similar analysis of John Paul's thought (including his writings before becoming pope) and, despite using different theological categories (chief among them "Christ"), arrives at a similar conclusion: there is a necessary connection between being good and being happy. Chapter 4, which also functions as a conclusion, places the comparison between Heschel and John Paul into a wider comparative context, examining how their respective conclusions on morality and the good relate to insights from other contemporary perspectives, including the Dalai Lama, Peter Singer, and present-day "positive psychology." Fitzgerald concludes by offering five reasons why it is important to continue, in his words, an "interworldview" and "interdisciplinary" dialogue on how virtue relates to happiness.The book is richly sourced—containing 199 footnotes, bibliography, and detailed index—and serves as a good addition to the libraries of those working on John Paul II, Abraham Heschel, virtue theory, or comparative ethics more broadly. Yet its breadth on the comparative front also highlights its vulnerabilities, particularly on the question of what defines the relationship between virtue and happiness from a normative perspective. While providing lucid descriptive accounts of different conceptions of God and the good, for example, Fitzgerald acknowledges near the book's conclusion, "whether one finds [any] author persuasive will depend in large part on one's prior conclusions about the existence and nature of God and the afterlife" (184) and notes that this topic "cannot be resolved or even explored here" (185). However, these "prior conclusions" themselves are ultimately most meaningful for answering the book's central question.This reticence to engage in meta-ethical questions also leads the text to a problematic epistemological and ethical equalizing of each perspective, one that allows Fitzgerald to claim, for example, "while there is much common ground between Heschel, John Paul II, and [Peter] Singer on the relationship between morality and fulfillment, there are also key differences" (174). Here Fitzgerald understates the contrast: one of the "key" differences between Singer's utilitarian materialism and John Paul II's gospel of life is that Singer's position could serve as a paradigmatic representation of the "culture of death" [End Page 207] that John Paul spent his papacy resisting. Thus, while providing an excellent analysis of each thinker individually, the book's argument would benefit from establishing a firmer and more transparent standard for evaluating ethical claims across traditions.Matthew R. PetrusekLoyola Marymount UniversityCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Peter Sloterdijk's 'In the Shadow of Mt. Sinai' and Alain Badiou's 'Our Wounds Are Not So Recent' represent distinctly different attempts to come to grips with the conflict between the West (the US, the UK, France) and the Muslim world after the September 11th attacks. Although Sloterdijk finds the source of conflict in the religious zealotry of the Abrahamic religions, while Badiou blames the multinational capitalist system for drating a disaffected underclass, the two complementary perspectives work together to make (...) this ongoing conflict intelligible, if not, finally, to stop the war on terrorism. (shrink)

This article aims to show that the so-called ‘Ockhamist’ solution to the determinist challenge was a commonplace among Parisian scholastics around 1200. On the ‘Ockhamist’ view, some propositions about the past do not fall under the necessity of the past, since their truth-value depends on the future. The paper focuses on two puzzles involving Abraham’s belief in the future Incarnation. The author discusses the ‘Ockhamist’ strategies adopted by theologians of the period, including Simon of Tournai, Peter of Poitiers, (...) Praepositinus of Cremona, Stephen Langton, Geoffrey of Poitiers, and William of Auxerre. Langton draws an analogy between Abraham’s faith and Christ’s statement “Thou shalt deny me thrice” and suggests that past movements of faith are counterfactually flexible with regard to content. In order to interpret Langton’s statements, the author sketches a model of empty slots in the supernatural layer of the past, retrospectively infused with grace. (shrink)

The ArgumentIt is well known that theTractatusof Peter of Spain (later Pope John XXI) was one of the most popular logic textbooks in the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. Less known is theTractatus'sconsiderable reputation and diffusion among the Jews, as evidenced by five translations, two commentaries, and what appears to be anabbreviatio— if not of theTractatusitself, then of a similar work. The present article attempts to understand the phenomenon of theTractatus'spopularity and offers an analysis of the three translations whose (...) authors are known — those by Shemaryah ha-Ikriti (Greece, early to mid-fourteenth century), Abraham Abigdor (late fourteenth century), and Judah b. Samuel Shalom (either Italy or Spain, mid-fifteenth century) — and their subsequent fate. The more popular versions of Abraham Abidgor and Judah Shalom provided Jewish students, many of whom would likely become physicians, with a grounding in logic comparable to that of their Christian counterparts. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A World for All? Global Civil Society in Political Theology and Trinitarian Theology ed. by William Storrar, Peter Casarella, and Paul Louis Metzger, and: Public Theology for a Global Society: Essays in Honor of Max L. Stackhouse ed. by Deirdre King Hainsworth and Scott PaethJonathan RothchildA World for All? Global Civil Society in Political Theology and Trinitarian Theology Edited by William Storrar, Peter Casarella, and Paul (...) Louis Metzger Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2011. 346 pp. $35.00Public Theology for a Global Society: Essays in Honor of Max L. Stackhouse Edited by Deirdre King Hainsworth and Scott Paeth Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2010. 264 pp. $45.00The intersections of globalization, civil society, and public theological reflection remain fluid, contested, and complicated. Two edited volumes that have shared connections to Princeton’s Center of Theological Inquiry celebrate the contributions of Max Stackhouse (Public Theology for Global Society as a festschrift and A World for All? as a dedication) toward these intersections. Public Theology for a Global Society attends to neo-Calvinist debates about public theology and its applicability to family, finance, and technology, while A World For All? explores religious beliefs and practices in their contexts, the meanings of the Trinity, and the prospects for cultural, political, and religious dialogue within civil society.In Public Theology for a Global Society, the contributors engage Stackhouse’s work in terms of its “global reach and its ecclesial concern” (ix). The essays consider five overarching themes: covenant, natural law, and human rights; social pluralism and social justice; Christian responsibility for society; economic and political realism; and Christian ethics in a global era. One of the book’s strengths is that it ambitiously probes—as Stackhouse’s own work does—the substantive interrelationships of these themes. Harold Breitenberg’s opening essay clarifies the meanings of public theology, but it does not account for recent developments, including comparative interventions that reconstruct modes of public theology.In the second section on key issues in public theology, John Witte speculates on whether Stackhouse would accept sixteenth-century Calvinist thinker Johannes Althusius’s “‘different and ‘even dangerous’” (36) theory of natural law. [End Page 205] Witte’s query, which begs comparisons vis-à-vis Catholic models of public theology frequently neglected in the book, is critically addressed by Don Browning’s essay. Browning’s theology of covenant includes a subordinate theory of natural law because “the concept of covenant cannot stand alone” (49). Other essays include reflections on covenant by Hak Joon Lee (which reconstructs Abraham Kuyper’s theory of sphere sovereignty) and Richard Mouw (which analyzes neo-Calvinist conceptions of law, covenant, and common morality). Similar to Browning’s caution to Stackhouse, Mouw censures a complete rejection of natural law (104); pace Browning’s critique, Mouw applauds Stackhouse’s insistence on the prominence of covenant in neo-Calvinist ethical and social theory. Interrogation of these disagreements by either the editors or the contributors would have strengthened the book.The book’s third section examines public theology in a global context. Differing from Stackhouse, William Schweiker charts the basic anthropological and existential components of a cosmopolitan conscience to overcome the universalist and particularist difficulties within public theology (134–38). Other thinkers appropriate interreligious dialogue as constructive models. Mark Heim contends that, in the face of massive global suffering, interreligious dialogue must promote human flourishing. Scott Paeth similarly sees dialogue as a mechanism for overcoming religiously motivated violence (166). Peter Paris, Shirley Roels, and Deirdre King Hainsworth all point to various features of technology as pathways to new articulations of public theology. In the concluding section, the contributors fittingly focus on the legacy of Stackhouse, namely, his long-standing interests in justification, justice, congregational life, and a “sobered version of Reformed theology vis-à-vis institutional responsibility and the retrieval of its theological substance” (Gabriel Fackre, 247).A World for All?, borne out of a 2005 conference in Edinburgh, approaches globalization within the modern ecumenical movement as illustrated by the affiliations of its three editors: William Storrar (ecumenical Protestant), Peter Casarella (Catholic), and Paul Metzger (Evangelical). The book examines the broader trajectories of globalization in conversation with “examples of churches around the world... playing a vital part... (shrink)

In this paper I argue that medical education must remain attuned to the interests that physicians have in their own self-development despite ongoing calls for ethics education aimed at ensuring physicians maintain focus on the interests of the patient and society. In particular, I argue that medical education should advance criteria defining what counts as an educationally worthwhile activity from the perspective of the medical student understood as a learner. I offer a preliminary account and justification of such criteria, arguing (...) that such criteria warrant a process of ethical formation that better serves the interests of medical students, their patients and society. (shrink)