Summary Since its definition at the council of Nicea the date of Easter had been calculated on a cyclical basis. The Easter formula publicized by C. F. Gauss in 1800 has neither achieved recognition with the chronologists nor with the officials of the papal curia, responsible for the fixing of Easter. In the paper being presented here the elements of medieval computus are transformed on an arithmetical basis and from this a formula for the fixing of Easter is developed. With (...) the help of these two components it is possible to calculate the Julian as well as the Gregorian dates of Easter and, in addition the calendar of any given year. The formula for the date of Easter being submitted here can be traced back exclusively to the elements of the medieval computus and can be ratified by the chronologists. Thus it renders possible the fixing of every Easter date with the help of a pocket calculator or the use of two small tables. This demonstrates that the history of methodology contains tools in order to develop a ‘new’ solution of a systematical problem. (shrink)

The Jalālī (or Malikī) Calendar is well known to Iranian and Western researchers. It was established by the order of Sulṭān Jalāl al-Dīn Malikshāh-i Saljūqī in the 5th c. A.H. (The dates which are designated with A.H. indicate the Hijrī Calendar.)/11th c. A.D. in Isfahan. After the death of Yazdigird III (the last king of the Sassanid dynasty), the Yazdigirdī Calendar, as a solar one, gradually lost its position, and the Hijrī Calendar replaced it. After the (...) rise of Islam, nonetheless, Iranians preferred various solar calendars to the Hijrī one. The Jalālī Calendar must be considered the culmination of such efforts. The present article deals with the riddle of the radix date (epoch) of the Jalālī Calendar. The author examines the problem through a historical approach and provides a novel solution to the question. (shrink)

Human biological memory systems have adapted to use technological artifacts to overcome some of the limitations of these systems. For example, when performing a difficult calculation, we use pen and paper to create and store external number symbols; when remembering our appointments, we use a calendar; when remembering what to buy, we use a shopping list. This chapter looks at the history of memory artifacts, describing the evolution from cave paintings to virtual reality. It first characterizes memory artifacts, (...) memory systems, and the two main functions such artifacts have, which are to aid individual users in completing memory tasks and as a cultural inheritance channel (section 2). It then outlines some of our first symbolic practices such as making cave paintings and figurines, and then moves on to outline several key developments in external representational systems and the artifacts that support these such as written language, numeral systems and counting devices, diagrams and maps, measuring devices, libraries and archives, photographs, analogue and digital computational artifacts, the World Wide Web, virtual reality, and smartphones (section 3). After that, it makes some brief points about the cumulative nature of the cultural evolution of memory artifacts and speculates about the possible future of memory artifacts, arguing that it is very difficult to look beyond an epistemological horizon of more than five years (section 4). (shrink)

Although numerous disciplines recognize multiple ways of conceptualizing time, Stefan Tanaka argues that scholars still overwhelmingly operate on chronological and linear Newtonian or classical time that emerged during the Enlightenment. This short, approachable book implores the humanities and humanistic social sciences to actively embrace the richness of different times that are evident in non-modern societies and have become common in several scientific fields throughout the twentieth century. Tanaka first offers a history of chronology by showing how the social structures (...) built on clocks and calendars gained material expression. Tanaka then proposes that we can move away from this chronology by considering how contemporary scientific understandings of time might be adapted to reconceive the present and pasts. This opens up a conversation that allows for the possibility of other ways to know about and re-present pasts. A multiplicity of times will help us broaden the historical horizon by embracing the heterogeneity of our lives and world via rethinking the complex interaction between stability, repetition, and change. This history without chronology also allows for incorporating the affordances of digital media. (shrink)

This paper is the second part of an investigation into Babylonian non-mathematical astronomical texts and the relationships between Babylonian observational and predicted astronomical data. Part I (Gray and Steele 2008) showed that the predictions found in the Almanacs and Normal Star Almanacs were almost certainly made by applying Goal-Year periods to observations recorded in the Goal-Year Texts. The paper showed that the differences in dates of records between the Goal-Year Texts and the Almanacs or Normal Star Almanacs were consistent with (...) the date corrections of a few days which, according to theoretical calculations, should be added to allow for the inexactness of Goal-Year periods. The current paper follows on from our earlier study to consider the effect of the Babylonian calendar on Goal-Year methods of prediction. Due to the fact that the Babylonian calendar year can contain either 12 or 13 months, a Goal-Year period can occasionally be month longer or shorter than usual. This suggests that there should in theory be certain points in the Metonic intercalation cycle where a predicted event occurs one Babylonian month earlier or later than the corresponding event a Goal-Year period later. By comparing dates of lunar and planetary records in the Astronomical Diaries, Goal-Year Texts, Almanacs and Normal Star Almanacs, we show that these month differences between the observational records and the predictions occur in the expected years. This lends further support to the theory that the Almanacs’ and Normal Star Almanacs’ predictions originated from records in the Goal-Year Texts, and clarifies how the Goal-Year periods were used in practice. (shrink)

Some twenty years after the Gregorian calendar reform, towards the end of his life, François Viète published his own calendar proposal. This treatise contains a sharp attack against the Jesuit scholar Clavius, the mathematical mind behind the reform. Understandably enough, Clavius prepared a negative reply. Viète heard of it and exploded in a fit of rage, ``I demonstrated that you are a false mathematician [... ], and a false theologian.'' Sadly, Clavius' rejection, added as a chapter to his (...) monumental apology of the Gregorian reform, appeared when Viète had already passed away.Viète seriously believed that the true aim of the Gregorian reform has been betrayed and he was furious about some logical inconsistencies which he claimed to have found in Clavius' calendar. Clavius apparently confused solar day and epactal day (or ``tithi''), the thirtieth part of a lunar month. This is the very core of Viète's attack against Clavius whom he accused of having introduced a false lunar period (``falsa periodus lunaris''). But his own work has some logical inconsistencies too. For instance, he reproaches Clavius for having introduced lunar months of 31 days which, indeed, are unrealistic. Grievously, his own rules can likewise give rise to lunations of unnatural lengths.In order to understand these subtle twists reader and author must work largely through both Clavius and Viète's methods of Easter reckoning. The fruit of all those efforts might be an insight into Viète's clear mathematical thinking. His calendar, however, was never considered. (shrink)

Nazariyat, Journal for the History of Islamic Philosophy and Sciences, issued twice a year in English and Turkish (Nazariyat İslam Felsefe ve Bilim Tarihi Araştırmaları Dergisi), is a refereed international journal. It publishes original studies, critical editions of classical texts and book reviews on Islamic philosophy, kalām, theoretical aspects of Sufism and the history of sciences. The goal of Nazariyat is to contribute to the discovery, examination and reinterpretation of the theoretical traditions in the history of Islamic (...) thought, by giving special attention to the post-classical period of it. **ISSN: 2148-8088 E-ISBN: 2547-9415**. (shrink)

The European community that is in the process of being created is still searching for its history. For a few years now, the publishing market, which has been attempting - under the heading of ‘European history’ - to construct a shared past for a present that we now have in common, has been mushrooming. This communal experience is indisputably gaining ground (though more slowly and controversially than some well-known optimists hoped): it is promoted by freedom of movement within (...) the European Union, by the effect of tourism, which some time ago ceased being reserved only for the elite, by the availability everywhere of products that, a few years back, typically represented a certain type of national styles of consumption, and finally by the unifying influence of the media. To the extent that closer relations between the inhabitants of the ‘old world’ run in parallel with the attempt to create institutions to regulate these common goods, and to protect against movements of people from other areas with their own sets of values, a combination of powerful ingredients is in place that leads one to anticipate a strengthening of ‘European’ identity. It is well known in research into identity that history plays an important part in its construction. And indeed historians from European countries have set themselves the task of jointly putting together a school textbook in which presentations that might otherwise focus on national character and be likely to offend neighbours will be harmonized. Others are looking at ways of celebrating memory (places of memory) that are intended to stimulate European rather than national memory. In addition, German and French historians met a while ago, in the little place of Genshagen near Berlin, with the intention of identifying events that would be suitable for European celebrations, in that they would not be connected with events that one of the participants might be ashamed of, or refer directly to a victory of one over another. But to anyone who studies the history of the two neighbours separated only by the Rhine, it quickly becomes clear that there is not a lot of space left in the calendar for activities that would found a common tradition. (shrink)

: In this paper I analyze early Heidegger’s concept of history. First, I argue that early Heidegger makes use of three distinct concepts or spheres of history, namely (1) history as intergenerational process, (2) history as personal or autobiographical development, and (3) history as the real center and origin of all intentional acts in the intentional self. Second, I argue that an essential motif in Heidegger’s discussion is the re-appropriation of what he considers the externalized (...) and expropriated historical reality in all three spheres. I suggest that this constitutes an objective parallelism to similar moves in Marx and neo-Marxist thought, especially Lukaìcs and the Frankfurt School. I show that Heidegger is on his way towards an ethics of time. First, in opposition to theoretical historicism and historical aestheticism or determinism of his time, early Heidegger advocates the active historical participation in history, the engagement in one’s historical situation or praxis. Second, in opposition to the publically regimented and reified time frames, calendars and interpretations, Heidegger argues for the self-reflexive, historical shaping of one’s very own and unique lifetime. Third, because Heidegger finds the origin of all history in the historical enactments of intentions in the intentional self, he ultimately argues for the self-reflexive acknowledgment of this ultimate historicity at the very heart of human intentionality, calling for the always renewed accentuation of this inevitable and ultimate historicity as a necessary condition for authentic temporality. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Time and History in Alois Riegl's Theory of PerceptionMichael GubserIn an early essay, the Austrian art historian Alois Riegl (1858–1905), a pioneer of the modern discipline of art history, linked the creation of the zodiac images in calendar art to the designation of constellations in the heavens.1 Ancient calendar artists observed the motion of stars across the night sky and attempted to map them into (...) recognizable patterns representing specific temporal periods. Their efforts inscribed the cyclical temporality of the heavens into the images of the ancient calendar. This inherent temporality came to characterize all art forms in Riegl's work; his choice of calendar art as his earliest research topic heralded a career-long interest in the connection between temporality and artistic form. Art objects, he believed, were temporal as well as spatial. Just as the light from constellations reflected a deep history, artworks illuminated the passage of time by visually re-presenting the perceptual world of past eras.Riegl's work has garnered attention in recent decades among art historians and non–art historians alike. This interest is due in part to the renewed concern for disciplinary origins that art history, like other fields, has experienced in the wake of poststructuralist critiques. Scholars outside of art history have taken note of his work because of its broad scope and relevance for the study of historiography and perception; Riegl's work provides models for linking the analysis of specific artworks with a history of perception, exploring the relationship between monuments and memory, and analyzing the nature of visual modernity. Interest in Riegl also stems from his acknowledged impact on such preeminent philosophers and historical theorists as Erwin Panofsky, Paul Feyerabend, Gilles Deleuze, Fèlix Guattari, and above all Walter [End Page 451] Benjamin.2 Figures as varied as Georg Lukács, Karl Mannheim, Walter Gropius, and Mikhail Bakhtin have cited his work favorably.3 Riegl is perhaps best known for his attempts to dismantle the hierarchy of high and low art, his attack on the preeminence of classical aesthetic ideals, and his effort to construct a universal history of style. The combination of these commitments led him to consider European and non-European craft genres that fell outside conventional definitions of art. In books such as Problems of Style, Late Roman Art Industry, and The Group Portraiture of Holland, Riegl examined the high arts, decorative arts, and manufactured artifacts alike, gleaning insights into the structure of an era's perception from close descriptive analyses of its artwork.4 In Problems of Style, Riegl traced the development of ancient vegetal decorative motifs toward their fulfillment in the naturalized tendrils and acanthus leaves of Greek ornament. A single, universal development encompassed seemingly distinct motivic forms, and creative innovation was driven by an inner formal logic. Similarly, Late Roman Art Industry, the [End Page 452] epoch-making work that Walter Benjamin described as a revolution in art historical method,5 traced the gradual development of space as an object of artistic concern in the late Roman Empire. In this volume, Riegl explored his controversial notion of the Kunstwollen, or artistic will, which asserted art's autonomy on the basis of a formal creative volition internal to artworks.6 Finally, The Group Portraiture of Holland documented the emergence and decline of a "typically Hollandish painting" emphasizing space and attention.7Riegl scholars have frequently attempted to situate his art history within a variety of philosophical traditions, an effort complicated by Riegl's limited citation of sources. Several scholars have linked Riegl's historical vision with the embattled tradition of Hegelian philosophy. Riegl's teleology; his stress on the unified, internal, and purposive development of art; his notion of art as mind overcoming material; and even his emphasis on the role of the viewer in art all have a distinctly Hegelian resonance. Wolfgang Kemp fits Riegl squarely within a late-nineteenth-century Hegelian revival,8 Michael Podro incorporates him within a Hegelian critical tradition of art history that spanned the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,9 and Michael Ann Holly posits a clear trajectory, linking Kant and Hegel with Riegl and Panofsky.10Others, however, just as firmly reject this... (shrink)

Technical chronology establishes the structure of calendars and the dates of events; it is, as it were, the foundation of history, particularly ancient history. The chronologer must know enough philology to interpret texts and enough astronomy to compute the dates of celestial phenomena, above all eclipses, which alone provide absolute dates. Joseph Scaliger, so we are told, was the first to master and apply this range of technical skills: Of the mathematical principles on which the calculation of periods (...) rests, the philologians understood nothing. The astronomers, on their side, had not yet undertaken to apply their data to the records of ancient times. Scaliger was the first of the philologians who made use of the improved astronomy of the sixteenth century to get a scientific basis for historical chronology. So Mark Pattison. This verdict can be challenged on a number of grounds. The one relevant at present is simple: Scaliger himself claimed far less. He certainly said that technical chronology had been untouched in modern times — not an entirely fair judgement — but in antiquity it had been practised in exactly the manner he considered proper, or so he believed. In particular he singles out Censorinus, whose De die natali drew extensively on Varro's lost Antiquitates rerum humanarum, books 14–19, for information on chronology. Students of Varro have long appreciated the importance of Censorinus. His dry and compact treatise offers Varronian views on etymology, the human life-span, and the course of history itself, all couched in language so jejune as to suggest that he added little or nothing to what he read. (shrink)

Technical chronology establishes the structure of calendars and the dates of events; it is, as it were, the foundation of history, particularly ancient history. The chronologer must know enough philology to interpret texts and enough astronomy to compute the dates of celestial phenomena, above all eclipses, which alone provide absolute dates. Joseph Scaliger, so we are told, was the first to master and apply this range of technical skills: Of the mathematical principles on which the calculation of periods (...) rests, the philologians understood nothing. The astronomers, on their side, had not yet undertaken to apply their data to the records of ancient times. Scaliger was the first of the philologians who made use of the improved astronomy of the sixteenth century to get a scientific basis for historical chronology. So Mark Pattison. This verdict can be challenged on a number of grounds. The one relevant at present is simple: Scaliger himself claimed far less. He certainly said that technical chronology had been untouched in modern times — not an entirely fair judgement — but in antiquity it had been practised in exactly the manner he considered proper, or so he believed. In particular he singles out Censorinus, whose De die natali drew extensively on Varro's lost Antiquitates rerum humanarum, books 14–19, for information on chronology. Students of Varro have long appreciated the importance of Censorinus. His dry and compact treatise offers Varronian views on etymology, the human life-span, and the course of history itself, all couched in language so jejune as to suggest that he added little or nothing to what he read. (shrink)

Dār al-Funūn Theology founded in 1924 was a modern educational institution which adopted both traditional and modern approach to Islamic Sciences. The changes in the field of hadīth during the process of transition to the university caused a change in the definitions and the titles of the courses such as from hadīth al-sharīf and usul al-hadīth to hadīth and the history of hadīth and the time allocated to each course was gradually reduced. The preparation of the texts by the (...) teachers in the hadith history courses and their content will answer the question of whether there is a transformation in the field of hadīth in the early years of the Republic of Turkey. As a matter of fact, Izmirli İsmāʿīl Ḥaqqī’s History of Ḥadīth and Ḥuseyin ʿAvnīʿ Arapkīrli’s al-Buġya al-Hasîs fī Tārīh al-Hadīth which were written in this period, pioneered the studies based on the field of the history of hadīth in Turkish hadīth literature. In addition, these works are the main source in understanding the period. In this study, the mentioned works will be textually analysed through the induction method. Therefore, the subjects that would reflect the ideas of the teachers will be discussed. Thus, it will be tried to determine whether the courses of the history of hadīth are closer to tradition or modern ideas and, how the education of hadīth is practised.Summary: After the foundation of the Turkish Republic in 1923, the Faculty of Theology was opened at Istanbul University as a result of the abolition of madrasas issuing a law regarding to the Unification of Education announced in 1924. With the opening of this faculty, the education in the field of Religious Sciences continued its presence on a new foundation, which can be considered modern, until 1933. In this study, it was attempted to trace the courses of Ḥadīth and the History of Ḥadīth given in the Faculty of Theology at Istanbul University between 1924 and 1933. Firstly, a brief history of the courses will be given, and then it is among the purposes of this study to perform a textual analysis of the works written by the teachers of these courses. While doing this, Izmirli Ismail Hakkı's History of Ḥadīth, which was written as course notes and Huseyin Avni Arapkirli's al-Buġya al-Hasîs fī Tārīh al-Hadīth, which has not been known until discussed it this article for the first time, were focused on. These works are very important in terms of initiating the History of Ḥadīth literature. Furthermore, these are the first works in the field of hadīth in the Turkish Republic, and they are very important sources for revealing the ideological infrastructure of the period. To begin with, it is necessary to attract attention to the change in the course names and duration if there is a need to briefly mention the history of hadīth courses in University. In the universities founded before the opening of the Faculty of Theology, the courses were named as Ḥadīth al-sharīf and usul al-hadīth. Besides, these courses were included in the curriculum for four years, which constituted the duration of the education. In the university founded in 1924 after the proclamation of the Republic, the name was changed as Ḥadīth and the History of Ḥadīth. It is seen that the courses of Hadīth and the History of Hadīth were taught three hours a week for two years from the opening of the Faculty of Theology until 1931. From 1931 until 1933, when the faculty was closed, the courses continued to be given two hours a week. When the content of the works is viewed, it can be seen that Izmirli İsmāʿīl Ḥaqqī followed a historical system in his work History of Ḥadīth. Beginning the subject with the classification of sciences, Izmirli touches upon the topics such as the writing and codification of hadīths. Afterwards, he also deals with the methodology of in detail. He then mentions about the history of hadīth by Shiʿā and draws a general map of the history of hadīth as of the third century of the Islamic calendar. This work differs from the previous tradition of the education of hadīth in terms of including the Shiʿā’s the history of hadīth and especially of ahl al-raʾy’s understanding of the hadīth. In addition, the detailed discussion of hadīth practice in the work is significant in terms of showing that the content of the course did not only cover the history of hadīth.Moreover, it is observed that Izmirli touched upon controversial topics in his work such as the writing of hadīth, Bukhari's criticism and hadīth-history relation. However, Izmirli does not express his approach to these topics so clearly. In doing so, he hides his views between lines, using ambiguous statements related to the topics while trying to base the views on authority. For instance, he says that the hadīths were written on the special pages of the companions in the early periods when it comes to writing hadīths, which was one of the most important topics of the history of hadīth. Even though this gives an impression that the hadīths were written in the companion period, it is stated in the following explanations that the hadīths had not been gathered and written down in one place. Izmirli also says that they refer to the hadīths in the hearts of the companion. In another example, he mentions that there is no doubt about the accuracy of the narrations in Bukhārī's work. However, in the following pages, he states that there are narrators, who are not trustworthy, in Bukhārī's work and says Dāraqutnī's criticisms related to Bukhārī. When the aforementioned two examples are examined, it can be stated that Izmirli acted a bit more cautiously especially in controversial topics. When it comes to Ḥuseyin ʿAvnīʿ Arapkīrli, who starts his work with the classification of sciences as Izmirli does, it is seen that he discusses the part of practice much more briefly. Additionally, he gives more attention to Prophet Muhammad and companion period of the hadīth history. In his work, he also provides detailed information about the formation of the hadīth literature in the third century of the Islamic calendar and afterwards. When the issue is reviewed within the scope of the topics discussed by Ḥuseyin ʿAvnīʿ in his work, it is necessary to mention that the topics related to the history of hadīth were more dominant in the work. Unlike Izmir, he does not allocate much space to controversial topics in his work. However, it should also be noted that he partly touched upon some controversial topics such as hadīth -history relation and writing of hadīths. Ḥuseyin ʿAvnīʿ considers the history of hadīth as a sub-heading of history. Regarding the writing of hadīths, he states openly that the hadīths generally were not written down because of the possibility for them to be mixed up with the Qur’ān in the early periods, and this continued until the time of caliphate ʿÖmer bin ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. Thus, it can be said that both writers, who applied different methods in their works, looked for a new method. However, it should be remembered that these names were a part of the Ottoman educational system and included in a new system together with their background. Consequently, the fact that they were somewhere between old and new. (shrink)

Sein aus zwei Büchern bestehendes Hauptwerk ist hier erstmals in einer Edition zugänglich. Auf 36 Handschriften basierend enthält sie einen vollständigen kritischen Apparat. Die Abhängigkeiten zwischen den Handschriften werden mit aus der Biologie entlehnten kladistischen Methoden untersucht. Die Edition wird durch weitere Texte, die mit Gerlands Computus abgeschrieben wurden, sowie mit Übersetzung und Erläuterungen ergänzt. Der Anhang enthält ferner eine auf 19 Handschriften basierende Edition von Gerlands Abakus-Traktat und eine CD mit vollständigen Abschriften aus den einzelnen Handschriften sowie Wortkonkordanzen.

This article explores how the shift from print to electronic calendars materializes and exacerbates a distinctively quantitative, “spreadsheet” orientation to time. Drawing on interviews with engineers, I argue that calendaring systems are emblematic of a larger design rationale in Silicon Valley to mechanize human thought and action in order to make them more efficient and reliable. The belief that technology can be profitably employed to control and manage time has a long history and continues to animate contemporary sociotechnical imaginaries (...) of what automation will deliver. In the current moment we live in the age of the algorithm and machine learning, so it is no wonder, then, that the contemporary design of digital calendars is driven by a vision of intelligent time management. As I go on to show in the second part of the article, this vision is increasingly realized in the form of intelligent digital assistants whose tracking capacities and behavioral algorithms aim to solve life’s existential problem—how best to organize the time of our lives. This article contributes to STS scholarship on the role of technological artifacts in generating new temporalities that shape people’s perception of time, how they act in the world, and how they understand themselves. (shrink)

Essays on Greek philosophy and literature from Homer and Hesiod to Aristotle. In Logoi and Muthoi, William Wians builds on his earlier volume Logos and Muthos, highlighting the richness and complexity of these terms that were once set firmly in opposition to one another as reason versus myth or rationality versus irrationality. It was once common to think of intellectual history representing a straightforward progression from mythology to rationality. These volumes, however, demonstrate the value of taking the two together, (...) opening up and analyzing a range of interactions, reactions, tensions, and ambiguities arising between literary and philosophical forms of discourse, including philosophical themes in works not ordinarily considered in the canon of Greek philosophical texts. This new volume considers such topics as the pre-philosophical origins of Anaximander’s calendar, the philosophical significance of public performance and claims of poetic inspiration, and the complex role of mythic figures (including perhaps Socrates) in Plato. Taken together, the essays offer new approaches to familiar texts and open up new possibilities for understanding the roles and relationships between muthos and logos in ancient Greek thought. “This is a stellar effort. The essays are all of extremely high quality and interest. The scholarship is rigorous and the content is innovative. The conception of the book is highly original, well-grounded, and well-thought-out. William Wians’s work as a scholar and as an editor has been consistently first-rate, and with this volume he has surpassed himself.” — Rose M. Cherubin, George Mason University. (shrink)

Helisaeus Roeslin’s manuscript Speculum et harmonia mundi, Das ist Wellt Spiegel Erster Theil was conceived as part of a broader project comprising a Speculum ecclesiae as well as a Speculum naturae. This project was connected with a Chronology aiming to establish the precise date of the most important events in history as well as to advance some conjectures about the approaching eschatological future. This article presents some recent discoveries that shed new light on Roeslin’s chronological work after 1579, most (...) importantly the incontrovertible attribution to Roeslin of the anonymous manuscript De potestatibus orbis Christiani, et politicis et ecclesiasticis, Discursus. Here Roeslin presented his discovery of the numerical proportions governing the numbers of spiritual and temporal potestates in the three historical periods, affirming that these numbers were now nearly fullfilled, along with their ensuing eschatological implications. We show how Roeslin published this discovery in his Kurtz Bedencken against the calendar reform and again in 1612 in a short tract on the occasion of the coronation of Emperor Matthias I. The article focuses in particular on the appended broadsheet Tabella des Welt Spiegels, which displayed the completion and culmination of history, according to the astronomical revolutions of the planets as well as the numbers of temporal and spiritual governors. (shrink)

A month ago, I bought an iPhone. The iPhone has already taken over some of the central functions of my brain. It has replaced part of my memory, storing phone numbers and addresses that I once would have taxed my brain with. It harbors my desires: I call up a memo with the names of my favorite dishes when I need to order at a local restaurant. I use it to calculate, when I need to figure out bills and tips. (...) It is a tremendous resource in an argument, with Google ever present to help settle disputes. I make plans with it, using its calendar to help determine what I can and can’t do in the coming months. I even daydream on the iPhone, idly calling up words and images when my concentration slips. Friends joke that I should get the iPhone implanted into my brain. But if Andy Clark is right, all this would do is speed up the processing, and free up my hands. The iPhone is part of my mind already. Clark is a connoisseur of the myriad ways in which the mind relies on the world to get its work done. The first part of this marvelous book explores some of these ways: the extension of our bodies, the extension of our senses, and crucially, the use of language as a tool to extend our thought. The second part of the book defends the thesis that in at least some of these cases, the world is not serving as a mere instrument for the mind. Rather, the relevant parts of the world have become parts of my mind. My iPhone is not my tool, or at least it is not wholly my tool. Parts of it have become parts of me. This is the thesis of the extended mind: when parts of the environment are coupled to the brain in the right way, they become parts of the mind. The thesis has a long history: I am told that there are hints of it in Dewey, Heidegger, and Wittgenstein. But no-one has done as much to give life to the idea as Andy Clark. In a series of important books and articles—Being There, Natural-Born Cyborgs, “Magic words: How language augments human computation”, and many others—he has explored the many ways in which the boundaries between mind and world are far more flexible than one might have thought.. (shrink)

During the already long history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, women from both sides of the Green Line have been highly visible participants in the often perilous enterprise of establishing dialogue, of maintaining links with the other side, and of thinking seriously about the conditions that will need to be brought together for the construction of a just and lasting peace. By their words, their often symbolic actions, and their activist strategies, they have durably contributed to the building of a (...) ‘clandestine’ peace often far removed from the calendars and issues of the major international negotiations. In these collective actions, choosing the path of non-violence has often been at the heart of their repertoire of militant activities and their discourses. This article proposes to examine certain examples of such activities and involvement since the first Intifada of 1987 up until the very recent past, showing that the choice of non-violent strategies has been a significantly marked tendency of the activism of women, and that this is always associated with the formulation of renewed forms of discourse around peace and reconciliation. (shrink)

continent. 2.1 (2012): 1. A year has passed and continent. has sedimented an annual strata into the geological record of the Internet. During the winter months we gratefully received donations from our readership and we've applied these funds to offset some of the costs of maintaining our tidy corner of the Web. Specifically, we've used these funds to renew our accounts at Flickr, Soundcloud, and Vimeo. We also bought a snippet of code. We continue to accept donations at our WePay (...) account so that we can upgrade our server space, which is currently being donated to us. For this, our fifth issue, we offer varve as our constellating theme. From the Swedish varv , whose semantic web includes notions of “revolution,” accretion “in layers,” and “circle,” a varve is that precise geologic formation referring to the whole of any annual sedimentary layer. We didn't need to rely on Einstein alone to relativize space and time; all of the build-up of matter accrued by the passage had already accomplished that—the spatialization of time. Scaling the term up, we recall ecologist Eugene F. Stoermer coined the term Anthropocene to refer to the extent to which human impact upon the Earth had come to constitute a new geological era. Today the time we take for reflection plumbs an unprecedented ecology and brings to consciousness undiscovered contingencies. As material and medium for making, remaking, archeologizing, and archiving thought, varves (and/as/or journals) are species of the broader category of rhythmites . Secret-ing the rhythms of deep time, every record, geologic or otherwise, is subject to all the effects of interpretation and rhetoric that the contemporary DJ has at their disposal—reverberated, delayed, stuttered, syncopated, beat-juggled, back-spun, cross-faded from one epoch to another. The record itself, however, is hyperspecific: referring to moments of passing contexts, communities, and histories. But as such, a record constitutes the possibility of a long view, chronicling changes in climates, movements of occupation, and the long counts of calendars. As always, continent. welcomes excavations transdisciplinary and media-agnostic in nature and scope. We look forward to accepting yours through May 15. (shrink)

The Fasti Antiates Ministrorum Domus Augustae, a large inscription associated with the imperial villa at Antium, is best known for its iteration of the Augustan calendar. In this article, I reassess the fasti in their entirety, focusing on their manner of display and social function. I place special emphasis on the section of the inscription, largely overlooked, that contains the annual records of magistrates who led the voluntary association that commissioned the inscription, a detailed record of two decades of (...) local history. The association revealed in these records worked to bestow honors on its members, offering them prestige within and beyond the household, and also acted to censure them. Because the fasti identify most magistrates by job title, they also provide invaluable information about the villa’s workforce, composed of enslaved people and freedmen; the document provides a valuable counterpoint to other testimonia for occupations, largely funerary. Manual laborers and domestics appear with greater frequency in the fasti than they do in occupational inscriptions from funerary contexts, while administrators, abundant in funerary contexts, form a minority. Importantly, the magistrates’ list reveals that the association was a group in which the “sub-clerical grades” of imperial slaves and freedmen could accrue prestige and wield authority as readily as their overseers. In the community reflected in the fasti, power derived not from job status within a workplace hierarchy, but from social standing among peers—acquired and maintained (or lost) over decades of service. (shrink)

As of January 1, 2008, over 98,000 people are waiting for organ transplants in the United States of America. Of those, nearly 75,000 are waiting for a kidney. In this calendar year, fewer than 15,000 will receive a kidney transplant from a deceased donor. The average waiting time for a deceased donor kidney now exceeds five years in virtually all metropolitan areas. Sadly, nearly as many people die waiting as there are deceased donors each year, despite monumental efforts by (...) the entire transplant community to increase both the number of organ donors and the number of organs recovered from each donor. The imbalance between demand and supply has led to considerable efforts to expand the criteria for what is considered an acceptable organ donor by the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network, thereby hoping somewhat to assuage the shortfall of donor organs. So-called Expanded Criteria Donors may be older than 50, have history of hypertension, or have died from intracerebral hemorrhage and/or have impaired renal function. ECDs now make up nearly 40% of the donor population. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dr. Ambedkar and Untouchability: Fighting the Indian Caste SystemChristopher S. QueenDr. Ambedkar and Untouchability: Fighting the Indian Caste System. By Christophe Jaffrelot. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. xiii + 205 pp.Outside of India, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar remains virtually unknown. Everyone knows that Mahatma Gandhi led the fight for Indian independence and that his nonviolent marches inspired Dr. King and the American civil rights movement. Most educated men (...) and women have heard of Nehru and some of the political and literary figures that India has produced in modern times. But few know of the first Untouchable to attend college, who went on to earn advanced degrees in the social sciences and law at Columbia University, the London School of Economics, and Grays Inn, who returned to India in the 1920s to launch a civil rights movement for Untouchables, [End Page 168] who drafted the constitution for the Republic of India as its first law minister, and who led a mass conversion to Buddhism weeks before this death.Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956) is venerated by millions of Buddhist and low-caste followers in India today, and at the same time feared by politicians determined to preserve the Hindu caste system he vowed to destroy. Admirers call him Babasaheb Ambedkar or simply Baba, using a traditional term of respect for a guiding elder, and many use the greeting Jai Bhim (“Victory to Bhimrao”) within the Untouchable communities. Ambedkar is portrayed on ubiquitous wall calendars, public statues, and home altars alongside that of the Buddha, wearing a Western suit and tie, with the horn-rimmed glasses and pocket pens of a scholar and diplomat. Although widely regarded as a bodhisattva or Buddhist saint, he is never pictured in the robes of a holy man or entreated in prayer by his devotees. And while most of his campaigns for Untouchable human rights were driven back by the Hindu nationalists, many of the provisions of his path-breaking legislation were eventually adopted after his death. In the intervening decades, amid deepening polarization over his legacy, the state government of Maharashtra has published eighteen volumes of Ambedkar’s collected works and the government of India has bestowed on him its highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna.Given the dearth of Western scholarship on Ambedkar’s place in the history of modern India and the emergence of socially engaged Buddhism, I welcome Chris-tophe Jaffrelot’s Dr. Ambedkar and Untouchability: Fighting the Indian Caste System. As a social scientist and director of the Centre d’Études et de Recherches Internatio-nales (CERI) who has published more than a dozen books on South Asian politics, Jaffrelot is well qualified to assess Ambedkar’s life and thought. Drawing on a wide range of materials on the social reform movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and Ambedkar’s contributions to sociology and politics, the author aims to redress Ambedkar’s neglect by Indian scholars before the 1990s, when the low-caste movement began finally to gain traction. However, he does not address the anomaly of Ambedkar’s neglect by all but a small circle of Western authors.1The strength of Dr. Ambedkar and Untouchability is its concise analysis of the geographical, political, and social context of Ambedkar’s career. Jaffrelot shows how British recruitment of the Mahars, members of Ambedkar’s lowly but numerous caste, for service in the colonial army resulted in disproportionate levels of literacy. Ambedkar was the fourteenth child in such a military family, whose father held the rank of major and served as a school master for the barracks. Both parents and all of Bhimrao’s uncles could read and write, compared to less than one percent of Mahars in village life. Moreover, in spite of his brilliance and determination, Ambedkar could not have continued his education without the financial support of Maratha maharajahs who opposed the Brahmins’ monopoly in education. “Ambedkar was the heir to a regional tradition; his struggle harked back to the anti-Brahmin movements which emerged in western Maharashtra from the mid-nineteenth century onward, a precocity that only the Dravidian South—the other key area of anti-Brahmin mobilization—could match.”Jaffrelot presents... (shrink)

We are ruled by judges whom we know, we enjoy the benefits | Of peace and war, as if the warrior Quirinus, | As if peaceful Numa were governing.With these words the poet Claudian lauds the Emperor Honorius on the occasion of his fourth consulship in 398 by comparing him to Rome's deified founder, Romulus-Quirinus, and to Numa Pompilius, its second king, who was proverbial for wisdom and piety. Claudian's panegyric stands in a long literary tradition in which the legendary (...) Roman kings were depicted as models of statesmanship. This exemplary tradition left its mark on a broad array of late antique works, including historical compendia such as the pseudo-AurelianDe uiris illustribus, which narrates the kings’ deeds as soldiers and statesmen, and the writings of antiquarians such as Macrobius and Servius, who collected information on the kings’ invention of cults and calendars. Servius’ interest in the kings implies that they featured in the teaching provided by other late antiquegrammaticias well, and thus that most literate Latin-speakers would have had some knowledge of their deeds. Advanced education in rhetoric likewise drew on Virgil and other school texts for historicalexemplaincluding Romulus and Numa, who appear in panegyrics and in brief histories, such as Eutropius’Breviary, that probably served as reference texts for the political elite. The kings thus loomed large in Roman perceptions of the founding of their empire, which began with the heroic Romulus, was strengthened by Numa's establishment of the Roman cultic system, and was secured by the later kings’ political and military successes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Montaigne on Witches and the Authority of Religion in the Public SphereBrian RibeiroThe pleasure in reading Michel de Montaigne, the French Counter-Reformer and fideistic skeptic, is due in no small part to the ways in which he so frequently defeats our expectations. The surprises occur at several levels, beginning with the very titles of his essays, which frequently have little to do with the topics he actually discusses. Who, (...) for example, would expect an essay titled "Of Three Good Women" (II.35) to praise the three women for their variously successful attempts at committing suicide—and little else? Or who would expect an essay with the innocent title "On Some Verses of Virgil" (II.5) to be richly confessional, as well as very explicitly sexual? Or, as one final example, who would expect an essay "Of Cripples" (II.11) to either (a) discuss the witch trials or (b) discuss cripples principally in terms of whether the lame make better sexual partners?The surprises are not confined to the formal features of Montaigne's text, but also appear in the views he articulates. We would not expect an early modern Frenchman to write so sympathetically and even admiringly about the cannibals of the New World (I.31). Nor would we expect an early modern French Catholic to write in opposition to the witch trials. Montaigne does both—with incredible finesse. But despite the attractively progressive attitude seemingly manifested in these two stances, Montaigne's overall view is in fact far more conservative and quietistic than we might expect, were we judging based only on these few cases. And so he surprises us yet again: We are surprised to find him opposing the witch trials, and we are surprised a second time to find that his opposition does not signal any deeper tendency toward progressive or politically liberal views. In short, there is good reason [End Page 235] to see Montaigne's general stance as firmly traditional. While he sometimes expresses apparently progressive views, he does so in a way that has no stable basis in his overall conceptual scheme, as I will argue. Of course, merely observing this tension in Montaigne's work is nothing new. Hugo Friedrich, writing in 1949, and discussing II.11, claimed that "Montaigne bravely takes a position against the delusion of the masses and against clerical fanaticism."1 But in the same passage (and elsewhere) Friedrich shows himself to be well-aware that this apparent radicalism is balanced by Montaigne's conservatism.2 That tension—in a nutshell—encapsulates the debate.3 However, "Of Cripples" presents this tension in its most perplexing form, making a detailed analysis of II.11 our best hope of making progress on the debate.4To support these claims I propose to offer a careful textual analysis of Montaigne's discussion of the witch trials in "Of Cripples."5 After considering several philosophical interpretations of his key Augustinian principle, I will argue that Montaigne's critique of the witch trials is primarily driven by problems internal to the religious perspective, and so does not represent an attempt to circumscribe the authority of religion in the public sphere more generally.6 Such a position, then, is both traditional and quietistic—another of Montaigne's surprises for his readers. If this is correct, then one of the principal texts used for promoting a "liberal" Montaigne—namely, II.11—can be be reappropriated by the defenders of a "quietistic" Montaigne. Nonetheless, even on my reading, there remain some incompletely resolved tensions. That, perhaps, is no less than we should expect from history's only self-proclaimed "accidental philosopher."7IMontaigne opens "Of Cripples" by discussing the Gregorian reform of the calendar, which had been adopted in France in 1582. Yet as odd as this opening is, it serves to quickly introduce a familiar theme in the Essays: Even so basic a matter as the calendar is subject to "[s] o much uncertainty"—just like everything else—that "we are every day in doubt" about how to "keep a record of past events" (F, pp. 784–85). These thoughts are then quickly transformed into a skeptical reflection on human reason itself... (shrink)

One of the areas of study of tafsīr is the stories in the Qur’ān. In the stories of the Qur’ān, generally creation, man, the nature of man and different societies that lived in history are mentioned. Although the main theme in the stories is belief and disbelief, social structures and cultural features are explicitly and indirectly mentioned as well. But the mufassirs approached the stories mainly from the point of view of belief and disbelief. They did not declare an (...) opinion on cultural studies. Positive science applies the culture, science and technology that humanity has, only to the will and labour of man. However, when we look at the sacred texts, humanity has not only realized its development in the field of culture, science and technology, but also evolved by the presence of divine grace as well as the mind. In this evolution, the prophets were given a special task. This study covers the prophets and some inventions and professions attributed to them. The examination of the influence of divine grace and the Prophet’s fatānah (outstanding reasoning power) in the development of culture, science and technology is among the importance of the study. Because when scientific determinations are examined, it is seen that the first cultural events and civil developments occurred in the geography of the Prophets. Again, it can be seen that the explanation of culture and cultural developments with a positivist perspective and an empirical paradigm has some shortcomings. For this reason, the article aims to explain how cultural developments are formed based on sacred information data. In the study, the qualitative method was selected and the document examination technique was applied. Along with cultural activities, the prophets and their works were discussed; classical and modern tafsīr sources, as well as historical books, akhīlik (a guild system) works and futuwwatnāmas (rules and regulations of the guild) were addressed. Man was created by Almighty Allah with different and superior equipment than other beings. He has been taught all names. Names mean having the ability to recognize-classify-name the creature, to reason, to transform the nature and to transfer the culture. The meaning of the verse “he taught him all the names” is to teach the Prophet Adam the knowledge of things and the general knowledge of civilized life. The general knowledge was developed by people and various and different objects were produced; science and technique were constantly developed. Especially the prophets made a great contribution to these scientific and technological developments. Thus, the prophets guided people in the spiritual sphere such as faith, worship and morality, as well as in the scientific and material sphere. Throughout the history, the prophets have shed light on scientific developments directly or indirectly, showing the limits of the level of science that humanity can reach through their miracles. According to Islāmic Sciences, the process of domesticating seeds and taming animals began during the reign of the Prophet Adam. He produced dresses for himself and his wife. As a prophet, a religion and belief system was formed during his time. Along with Prophet Idrīs, more beautiful dresses began to be knitted and sewn, writing with pencil. In the era of Prophet Noah, besides agriculture, art was also developed; sculptures and ships were made. During Prophet Hoad period, there was progress in agriculture as well as urbanization activities, and villages and towns began to form. During the reign of Ṣāleḥ, cities were founded in a serious sense. For this reason, in Prophet Ṣāleḥ’s stories, emphasis is placed on the words dār and diyār, which means house or houses, and in particular the word medīna (city) is used. The inscription, which began to be mentioned with Prophet Idris in Islāmic Sciences, also began to be used in the Qur’ān along with Prophet Abraham/Ibrāhīm, and during the reign of Prophet Moses/Mūsā, it was referred to as the book. During the reign of Prophet Joseph, money was invented and the clock and calendar were used. Again, Islāmic sources also contain the information that Prophet Joseph/Yūsuf invented paper for the first time. During the period of Prophet Shu‘ayb, the knowledge of account, measurement and weighing were developed, and they began to be used extensively in trade. During the reign of Prophet David/Dāwūd, iron was very widely used, and Prophet David, made household items out of iron, as well as war tools and equipment. Prophet Solomon/Sulaymān, on the other hand, expanded the processing of iron further, making it widely in all areas of life. During the reign of Prophet Jesus/ʿĪsā and Luqmān, medicine also made progress; Prophet Jesus developed and treated methods of treatment for crippled patients. Along with Islām, this information has been included and developed in the most detailed way in the Qur’ān, the personality of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and the Hadīth. (shrink)