Este artigo contém um estudo sobre a Ciência a partir do ponto de vista bíblico, por meio da fé na revelação divinamente inspirada. A Bíblia revela a origem e a plenitude da Ciência no ato da criação do Universo e a apresenta como uma dádiva especial de Deus aos homens. As Escrituras também demonstram que a Ciência genuína existe para glorificar a Deus, sendo a sua instrumentalidade uma forma excelente de comunicação divina.

En las últimas décadas, un grupo de científicos y teólogos ha abierto camino a la renovación de la Teología de la Creación. En este artículo se defiende la necesidad de introducir modelos teológicos que resistan el diálogo con la ciencia y se apuntan algunas líneas de trabajo abiertas por dichos autores; la causalidad descendente como modelo de acción creadora continua, la posibilidad o no de acciones particulares de Dios, la relación de Dios con la creación a través del tiempo. Encontramos (...) en estos campos un ejemplo de cómo desarrollar el futuro de la Teología de la Creación, constituyendo en sí mismos campos de estudio que necesitan mayor profundidad. (shrink)

É possível viver no mundo sem Deus? É possível viver no mundo sem religião? O autor deste texto apresenta uma resposta afirmativa a essas indagações, fundamentando-a com as ideias de Bertrand Russell. Para o autor, quando a noção de viver bem é fundamentada na verdade provisória da ciência e contrária à vida proposta pela religião, os fiéis e os representantes eclesiásticos utilizam argumentos emocionais e falaciosos para postular a verdade da fé. Ele parte do pressuposto de que entre religião e (...) ciência há conflitos, e não diálogos. Os conflitos se instauram na medida em que se percebe que a verdade humana é de processos, erros e acertos, não de certezas. A certeza da existência de Deus e do plano divino se justifica a partir de argumentos emocionais, que no mais das vezes levam a atos de crueldade e violência, como mostra a história. Para melhor compreender de que maneira os argumentos emocionais dos fiéis são legitimados, o autor recorre ao caso pessoal de Russell, quando o filósofo se viu impedido de lecionar na Faculdade de Filosofia Municipal de Nova York, nos anos 40 do século XX, devido a seu pensamento contrário à religião. Palavras-chave : Ateísmo; Religião; Ciência; Fundamentalismo religioso.Is it possible to live without God? Is it possible to live without religion in the midst of faithful? Starting from the premise of conflict, not dialogue, between religion and science, the author uses the ideas of Bertrand Russell to support affirmative answers to these questions. When the notion of the good life is based on the provisional truth of science, rather than on religion, the faithful and the ecclesiastic representatives postulate the truth of faith using emotional and fallacious arguments. The conflict between religion and science arises with the perception that human truth is based on processes, errors and successes, not on certainties. The conviction of the existence of God and of a divine plan is justified by emotional arguments, in general accompanied by acts of cruelty and violence, as we know from history. In order to improve our understanding of how the faithful attempt to justify their emotional arguments, the author cites Russell's case, when the philosopher was prevented from teaching at the College of the City of New York (CCNY), in the 1940s due to his anti-religious ideas. Key words : Atheism; Religion; Science; Religious fundamentalism. (shrink)

In a document penned under the direction of its then-president Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican’s International Theological Commission observed that many neo-Darwinian materialists and their Christian critics share a misunderstanding of the nature of divine causality. This article explores the thought of Joseph Ratzinger in view of proposing the features of a path that seeks to eschew these faulty understandings of how God causes evolutionary change within our world, thus providing an alternative to the Intelligent Design movement’s approach to (...) creation.. Ratzinger has a deep respect for the integrity of nature, rejecting the notion that God is a “craftsman” who “tinkers” with the world. According to Ratzinger, evolutionary change occurs “precisely in the processes of a living being” even as human beings are “not the mere product of development.” Finally, the emeritus pontiff insists that creation is an ever-present act that unfolds “in the manner in which thought is creative,” a dynamic that he describes variously as a story, drama, melody, and symphony. Wedding these and other key insights, this article submits that Ratzinger’s thought on evolution should lead us to conceive of creation less along the lines of an intelligently designed machine and more as a masterpiece story that is continually being told as its plot unfolds naturally over the course of time. (shrink)

Resumen La cuestión de la relación entre ciencia y fe ha adquirido nuevo vigor en los comienzos del siglo, cuando, tras años de especialización y separación fragmentaria de los saberes, que conducían a la esquizofrenia cultural del cognoscente, se empieza a percibir de manera cada vez más nítida la necesidad de su integración para dar cuenta de la multidimensionalidad de lo real. Tras poner de manifiesto la aparente tensión entre cultura y trascendencia como realidades que conviven en el ser humano, (...) se rastrea la posibilidad que Panikkar propone de una ciencia que, sin eliminarse a sí misma, sin cancelar la mediación que ella misma constituye ni despojarse de sus maneras y métodos propios, sin siquiera abandonar el plano de la pura inmanencia, reconoce en él lo divino: la infinita trascendencia del cuerpo -su carácter siempre abierto al misterio- y su infinita inmanencia -su profundidad insondable-. Esto tiene lugar en la forma concreta que el autor propone de una teofisica, de modo que con ella no ocurre algo semejante a lo que Wittgenstein indica respecto a la escalera de la que, una vez arriba -lograda la significación de lo Absoluto- puedo desprenderme, sino que, en ella, la escalera -la dimensión física- se conserva y se supera.The issue of the relationship between science and faith has acquired greater relevance since the beginning of the century, time in which, after years of specialization and fragmentation of human knowledge, which have led to a cultural schizophrenia of the knower, there is a growing awareness of the need to integrate both to account for a multidimensional reality. After noticing the apparent tension between culture and the divine as realities that coexist in human beings, it is examined Panikkar’s proposal of a science that, without eliminating itself, without cancelling the mediation that it constitutes, nor divesting itself from its own methods, not even without abandoning immanence, recognizes in itself the divine: the infinite transcendence of the body -its character always open to mystery- and its infinite immanence -its unfathomable depth-. This corresponds to the author’s theophysics, so that, in it, it does not happen something similar to what Wittgenstein indicates about the ladder of which one can get rid once up -when the significance of the divine has been attained-, but in it the ladder -the physical dimension- is preserved and surpassed. (shrink)

Juventude e religiosidade: Cartografia dos processos de subjetivação de jovens católicos em uma comunidade de fé (Youth and religiousness: mapping the subjectivation processes of the catholic youth in a community of faith). DOI: 10.5752/P.2175-5841.2012.v10n26p476. Este estudo apresenta os resultados de uma pesquisa motivada pela constatação de que muitas subjetividades juvenis católicas do Brasil vivem uma situação de fragmentação que faz emergir distintos grupos identitários e em graves conflitos no seio das comunidades de fé. Por meio da realização de uma pesquisa-intervenção (...) numa paróquia católica na região metropolitana de Curitiba, procedeu-se uma cartografia dos processos de subjetivação (criação de modos de existência) da juventude católica nesta comunidade. Pretendeu-se com a cartografia, colocar em evidência tanto o modo como tais processos de subjetivação são forjados, quanto as linhas de fuga presentes nesses processos. A utilização da pesquisa-intervenção como tática para a realização da cartografia nos permitiu constatar que, mesmo no interior dos grupos identitários, há brechas no instituído por onde se pode fazer passar outras intensidades com vistas à promoção de modos de existência menos fechados e mais afirmadores de uma unidade que não abre mão da pluralidade e da diferença. Palavras-chave : Processos de subjetivação. Cartografia. Juventude. Grupo-dispositivo. Pesquisa-intervenção: The present study results from a research motivated by the fact that many Catholic youth in Brazil live a fragmented situation that brings out distinct identity groups and serious conflicts within communities of faith. By conducting a research intervention in a Catholic parish in the metropolitan region of Curitiba, we proceeded to mapping the subjectivation processes (creation of modes of existence) of Catholic youth in this community. It was intended to make a cartography to highlight both how such subjectivation processes are forged, as the lines of flight present in these processes. The utilization of intervention research as a tactics to perform the mapping allowed us to observe that even within the identity group there are gaps in the set where other intensities can go through in order to promote modes of existence less closed and more affirming the unit without losing plurality and difference. Key words: Subjectivation processes. Cartography. Youth. Device group. Intervention research. (shrink)

RESUMO Este artigo pretende mostrar o fundamento geométrico-matemático que permitiu a Giambattista Vico estabelecer um vínculo entre a criação humana e a criação divina. A pesquisa centrou-se no uso formal que o autor fez das ciências matemáticas para compreender o mundo. Considerando o pitagorismo presente na filosofía viquiana até 1710, o esforço busca mostrar a sobrevivência deste nos trabalhos posteriores do autor. Para isso, destacamos o novo papel que a geometria cumpriu inteligentemente na storia ideale eterna da Providência na (...) "Scienza Nuova". ABSTRACT The aim of this article is to show the geometric-mathematical basis that allowed Giambattista Vico to establish a bond between human and divine creation, focusing on the formal use of mathematical sciences in his comprehension of the world. Considering the Pythagorean character of his philosophy, up to year 1710, this study reveals its survival in Vico's later works by stressing the role of geometry in the witty understanding of Providence's storia ideale eterna in the "Scienza Nuova". (shrink)

Resumo O presente artigo defende que a ciência moderna não é a única ou a melhor forma de explicação possível da realidade. A religião, especificamente, pode ser uma protagonista na construção de um novo paradigma de conhecimento em uma sociedade secularizada. A filosofia de Heschel busca na tradição judaica uma luz para o homem moderno. Esta tradição afirma que o mundo descansa sobre três pilares: estudar para participar da sabedoria divina, cultuar o criador e ter compaixão pelo nosso próximo. (...) Nossa civilização subverteu esses pilares fazendo do estudo uma forma de alcançar o poder, da caridade um instrumento de relações públicas e do culto uma forma de adorar nosso próprio ego. Esta crise extrema exige uma reorientação radical: estudo, culto e caridade são fins, não meios. Os insights de Heschel podem ser fundamentais para compreensão da condição humana em sua historicidade e do mundo como lugar de realização da humanidade. Palavras chave: Heschel; ciência; religião.The article argues that modern science is not the only or best explanation of reality. Religion, specifically, can be a protagonist in the construction of a new paradigm of knowledge in a secularized society. The philosophy of Heschel seeks guidance in Jewish tradition for the modern man. This tradition states that the world rests on three pillars: to study in order to participate in the divine wisdom; to worship the creator; and to have compassion for our neighbor. The philosopher states that our civilization has subverted these pillars making the study a way to achieve power, charity a public relations tool and cult a form of worshipping our own ego. This extreme crisis requires a radical reorientation: study, worship and charity are ends, not means. The insights of Heschel may be fundamental to understand the human condition in its historicity and the world as a place of humanity's fulfillment. Keywords: Heschel; science; religion. (shrink)

Scientific truth, the unity of knowledge, scientism, and scientific progress , are topics that occupy a central place in the dialogue between science and faith. Fides et ratio illuminates them in the light of the present-day circumstances, and provides new philosophical and theological insights.

The theology’s statute as a science is very controversial. For several years, it has been asked about its task and how a study can be considered scientific, starting from a revealed fact and, therefore, a dogmatic one. The Christian theology bases its discourse upon the biblical writings and upon the interpretations of those who are known as the Church Fathers. As Saint Augustine is one of the greatest names on the Latin Patristic period, this study will focuses on the task (...) of the theology, according to his thought, specially about faith and reason relations. The first source for this essay is the proem of his most popular work, Confessions, where the confessional act will be exposed as the theological method of Saint Augustine, wishful for the Truth, which, ultimately, is God itself. Finally, the light of the patristic thought will be reflected over the contemporary need to postulate the theology epistemic statute as a divine science. (shrink)

O presente artigo apresenta uma reflexão sobre as interfaces entre teologia e espiritualidade. Sabe-se que a teologia escolástica se tornou muito especulativa e racional, relegando a espiritualidade à piedade popular e suas devoções. Teólogos modernos redescobrem a dimensão existencial da teologia, uma vez que, enquanto ciência da revelação, ela busca uma linguagem racional coerente para a experiência cristã de Deus. A teologia conjuga fé e razão; a experiência de fé, no entanto, é anterior à reflexão racional que, em última instância, (...) está a serviço da experiência, para iluminá-la e torná-la mais fiel à experiência fundamental da revelação de Jesus Cristo, que se encontra nas Escrituras. Nesse sentido, a espiritualidade emerge como aspecto intrínseco à teologia. A teologia, se permanecer fiel à sua missão, se expressará existencialmente como sapientia fidei. Este artigo trata, portanto, da relação evidente, mas muitas vezes esquecida, entre teologia (discurso racional) e espiritualidade (experiência cristã de Deus), mostrando que a teologia só cumpre o seu papel de serviço à Igreja se conduz o crente à experiência do mistério indizível de Deus que se aproximou de nós em Jesus Cristo. Palavras-chave: Teologia. Experiência de Deus. Espiritualidade. Trindade. Oração.The present article presents a reflection on the connection between theology and spirituality. It is known that scholastic theology became very speculative and rational reducing spirituality to popular piety and its devotions. Modern theologians have rediscovered the existential dimension of theology, once that, being the science of revelation, it seeks a rational language coherent with the Christian experience of God. Theology joins faith and reason – the experience of faith, nonetheless, comes before the rational reflection, which, in last instance, is in benefit of the experience in order to illuminate it and make it more faithful to the fundamental experience of revelation in Jesus Christ, found in the Scriptures. In this sense, spirituality emerges as an intrinsic aspect to theology. Theology, if it is to remain faithful to its mission, expresses itself existentially as sapientia fidei (the wisdom of faith). This article treats, therefore, of the evident relationship, many times forgotten, between theology (rational discourse) and spirituality (Christian experience of God) showing that theology only fulfills its role in service to the Church if it leads the believer to an experience of the undivided mystery of God in the person of Jesus Christ. Keywords: Theology. Experience of God. Spirituality. Trinity. Prayer. (shrink)

En este artículo intento mostrar cómo en el pensamiento de Santo Tomás de Aquino la creación expresa o manifiesta a la divinidad, posibilitando así nuestro conocimiento de Dios sin recurrir a la fe. El Aquinate insiste en que la creación de todas las cosas es por el Verbo o el Logos, cuyo ser luminoso hace que todo sea inteligible y participe en la luz del Verbo. Esta luz divina es además la fuente de la luz del conocimiento natural –luz (...) en la que participan todos los hombres–. Dada esta participación en el hombre, la razón natural no sólo es capax entis, sino también capax Dei. In this article I seek to show how in the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas creation expresses or manifests the divine, making possible our knowledge of God without recourse to faith. Aquinas insists that the creation of all things is through the Word or Logos, whose luminous being makes everything intelligible and renders all a participant in the light of the Word. This divine light is also the source of the light of natural knowledge participated in by all men. Given this participation in man, natural reason is not only capax entis but also capax Dei. (shrink)

General preface -- Preface to the second edition -- What is philosophy of religion? -- Philosophy of religion and other disciplines -- Philosophy of religion and philosophy -- Can thinking about religion be neutral? -- Fideism -- Neutralism -- Critical dialogue -- The theistic God : the project of natural theology -- Concepts of God -- The theistic concept of God -- A case study : divine foreknowledge and human freedom -- The problem of religious language -- Natural theology (...) -- Proofs of God's existence -- Classical arguments for God's existence -- Ontological arguments -- Cosmological arguments -- Teleological arguments -- Moral arguments -- Conclusions: The value of theistic argument -- Religious experience -- Types of religious experience -- Models for understanding experience -- Experience of God as direct and mediated -- Are religious experiences veridical? -- Checking experiential claims -- Special acts of God : revelation and miracles -- Special acts -- Theories of revelation -- Is the traditional view defensible? -- What is a miracle? -- Is it reasonable to believe in miracles? -- Can a revelation have special authority? -- Religion, modernity, and science -- Modernity and religious belief -- Naturalism -- Do the natural sciences undermine religious belief? -- Objections from the social sciences -- Religious uses of modern atheism -- The problem of evil -- Types of evil, versions of the problem, and types of response -- The logical form of the problem -- The evidential form of the problem -- Horrendous evils and the problem of hell -- Divine hiddenness -- Faith(s) and reason -- Faith : subjectivity in religious arguments -- The evidentialist challenge to religious belief -- Reformed epistemology -- The place of subjectivity in forming beliefs -- Interpretive judgments and the nature of a cumulative case -- Can faith be certain? -- Faith and doubt : can religious faith be tested? -- What is faith? -- Could one religion be true? (shrink)

O enorme sucesso da ciência moderna do século XVII, enraizada nos critérios de univocidade, matematização, homogeneidade ê mecanização, e a sua pretensão em explicar todos os acontecimentos do Cosmos, em termos de causas eficientes quantificáveis e da formalização dos processos naturais, em leis da natureza, levou a ver a noção clássica de acção divina, como "violação" dessas leis, estabelecendo-a, por isso, como racionalmente problemática. Como resposta, o presente artigo, depois de proceder a uma análise das propostas de Nancey Murphy (...) e de John Polkinghorne relativas ao conceito de acção divina, propostas essas baseadas na Mecânica Quântica e na Teoria do Caos, sugere como, nomeadamente a partir de vários dados da ciência contemporânea, se pode proceder quer a uma ampliação da noção de causalidade quer a uma recuperação das categorias causais da tradição aristotélico-tomista em ordem a se poder fazer sentido da noção de Acção Divina. /// The article shows in the first place how the remarkable success of modern science of the seventeenth-century, rooted in the criteria of univocity, mathematization, homogeneity and mechanization, and its claim of explaining all empirical events in terms of efficient causality by formalizing and quantifying the regularities as laws of nature, led the notion of divine action to be seen as a "violation" of those laws, and, therefore, rationally problematic. Hence, after an analysis of the recent proposals by Nancey Murphy and John Polkinghorne for the concept of divine action, based on Quantum Mechanics and the Theory of Chaos, the article suggests how, from several data of contemporary science, an enlargement of the notion of causality and the retrieving of the causal categories of the AristoteHan-Thomistic tradition, becomes possible and meaningful. (shrink)

O artigo se confronta com a problemática da relação entre teologia e ciências sociais. Sua pretensão é formular adequadamente os termos dessa relação, explicitando a importância, a função e o lugar das ciências sociais na elaboração do discurso teológico e no produto teológico. Começa apresentando o debate sobre a relação entre teologia e ciências sociais na América Latina nas últimas décadas através de seus principais interlocutores: Gustavo Gutiérrez e Clodovis Boff; Juan Luis Segundo e Ignácio Ellacuría. E conclui, esboçando, de (...) modo sistemático, ainda que em forma de tese, a estrutura teórica fundamental dessa relação. Ela tem a ver com o conhecimento da realidade na qual se vive a fé e que deve ser pensada teologicamente; com a dimensão social do reinado de Deus, assunto da teologia cristã; com o caráter social da teologia, enquanto teoria; e com a suspeita ideológica e o processe de des-ideologização e libertação da teologia. Palavras-chave: Social. Teologia. Ciências sociais. Mediação.This article presents the issue of the relationship between theology and the social sciences. For this purpose, the author seeks to formulate the terms of the relationship of these two areas of Knowledge, highlighting the importance, the role and the place of the social sciences in the development of the theological discourse and of the theological product. At the beginning of the text the author presents a discussion on the relationship between theology and the social sciences in Latin America in recent decades through its main representatives: Gustavo Gutierrez and Clodovis Boff, Juan Luis Segundo and Ignacio Ellacuria. The paper also presents a systematic outline of the fundamental theoretical framework of the relationship between theology and the social sciences, showing that this relationship binds to the knowledge of the reality in which faith is placed. In conclusion, the texts highlights that faith must be considered theologically on three levels: with the social dimension of the Kingdom of God, which is an issue of Christian Theology; with the social character of theology as a theory; with the ideological suspicion and with the process of liberation of theology. Key-words : Social. Theology. Social Sciences. Mediation. (shrink)

The article presents the relationship between religious faith and natural sciences within a historical perspective. Three great periods are distinguished: classical, enjoying a substantial harmony between science and belief in God; modern period, characterized by a radical rationalism that can be seen as the root of the structural conflict between science and religion; contemporary phase, with the collapse of rationalism, notwithstanding the great prestige of natural science, often perceived within a secularist framework. It is argued that no objective reasons oppose (...) today scientific knowledge to theology and religion. The present state of natural sciences is favourable for a new complementarity between secular/rational views and theological/religious faith. (shrink)

Las relaciones entre la fe y la razón afectan a realidades que son esenciales para el ser humano: la existencia de Dios, el origen y fin de las personas, la vida en el más allá, la realidad del mal, el significado de la ciencia, etc. Por eso, el vínculo entre fe y razón se presenta como una encrucijada de la que depende la orientación de la propia vida. De ahí la importancia de dilucidar esas relaciones, que es el objetivo de (...) este libro; en primer lugar, mostrando que quienes se apoyan en la ciencia, o en otros ámbitos de la razón, para refutar la fe, no se basan en la razón humana, ni en la ciencia como tal, sino en el cientificismo o en un error racional. Pero también, evidenciando la complementariedad entre fe y razón, como señalaba el Card. Ratzinger: La razón no se salvará sin la fe, pero la fe sin la razón no será humana (Sobre la situación actual de la Fe y la teología). (shrink)

Analising the relationship betwen religion and communication, many options open whole range of possibilities of reflection about the theme. In this case, the relationship proposed is betwen virtual media and the religion, specifically groups and religion moviments of the Catholic Church. We live a reality that, in virtual world, we have the oportunity to be receptors and, mainly, contents producers. In this dynamism, is very important to know and to understand how this communication process happens. It is commum find in (...) various digital social medias, in religion context, groups and moviments marked for a way that keep the teachings and doctrines. For this specific public, the Christian teaching practise is more important than the biblic formation or the faith deepening. It is present in cyberspace like a unique way to arrive to holiness. The virtual communication medias become a ideal space in holiness ideology condution proposed by many groups and conservative moviments, become the so important communication relation process in a bit dialogical ambient between the many and diferent opinions. This way, for the first explanation about research thematic, we show a historic about the communiction process, the communication media evolution and the so known ambient in contemporaneity: the virtual ambient. We approach the ciberculture, the space where was created a culture from the virtual communicative actions and how this reality dialogues with the religion. Then, we show a brief schedule about the Opus Dei, the special facts in development of this conservative institution of the Catholic Church and your presence in virtual communication media. Finnaly, we point the challenges that can be found in contemporaneity, for exist a dialogical process in groups and conservative moviments of the Catholic Church, in virtual ambient, once this is the space where the most moviments and groups are presents, transmitting your messages. In support of the research, either in Religion Science or in Social Communication, we use the bibliographic consultation method whose sources are books, thesis and publications. (shrink)

Although modern societies have come to recognize diversity in human sexuality as simply part of nature, many Christian communities and thinkers still have considerable difficulties with related developments in politics, legislation, and science. In fact, homosexuality is a recurrent topic in the transdisciplinary encounter between Christianity and the sciences, an encounter that is otherwise rather “asexual.” I propose that the recent emergence of “Christianity and Science” as an academic field in its own right is an important part of the larger (...) context of the difficulties related to attempts to reconcile Christianity and a recognition of diversity in human sexuality as a norm. Through a critical discussion of arguments which are upheld most disturbingly on a global scale by the Roman Catholic Church and supported with much sophistry by important stakeholders of an influential stream in analytic philosophy of religion, this paper aims to contextualize and defend the legitimacy of the question why God would create homosexuals as such if it is true that every homosexual act is prohibited by God. While recently advanced nonheterosexist scientific models of sexuality in nature inform the discussion, I reject the simplistic view that religions suppress and the sciences liberate in matters sexual. (shrink)

Special divine action is an integral part of the Christian worldview. In fact, the plausibility of the Christian worldview depends on and is grounded in the putative reality, and therefore possibility, of special divine action. Without special divine action, Scripture does not make sense, and without Scripture, Christianity neither. However, the possibility of special divine action is highly contested in almost every field of human enquiry. In what follows, I briefly suggest a minimal definition of special (...) divine action and show its indispensability for the internal plausibility of Christian faith. I then argue against the very possibility of special divine action. I end by way of identifying ways in which Christian theologians can respond to the arguments in order to justify the possibility of special divine action. It turns out that special divine action neither contradicts science nor metaphysics. (shrink)

A Divina Comédia, de Dante Alighieri, é uma obra influenciadora, já que, no decorrer do tempo, continua sendo relida, revisitada e reproduzida de diferentes maneiras: filmes, pinturas, best-sellers, teatros entre outros modos. Graças à vastidão de seu sentido, muitos estudiosos dela se valem para criar outras obras, a exemplo do filósofo Giorgio Agamben, que se valeu de aspectos a ela subjacentes para retomá-la e efetuar estudos filosóficos. Por ser continuamente lida, relida, retomada, ser influência para inúmeros autores e instigante (...) para muitos estudos a seu respeito, ela continua viva no tempo, o que a faz uma obra canônica. E disso também advém o seu caráter rizomático, como é vista por muitos autores. Palavras-chave : Divina Comédia. Giorgio Agamben. Literatura. Relações de poder. ABSTRACT The Divine Comedy, written by Dante Alighieri, is an influential work, since over time, it continues to be reread, revisited and reproduced in different ways, such as: movies, paintings, bestsellers, theaters among other manners. Due to the expanse of its meaning, many scholars make use of it to create other works, as an example the philosopher Giorgio Agamben, who drew upon its underlying aspects to retake it and make philosophical studies. For being continuously read, reread, retaken, influencing many writers and thought-provoking for many studies about it, it is still alive in time, what makes it a canonical work. And it also accrues its rhizomatic character, as it is seen by many authors. Keywords : The Divine Comedy. Giorgio Agamben. Literature. (shrink)

While written by a prominent and active scientist, this book is based on personal experience and biblical theology. It doesn't try to derive God s existence from science and it's critical of scientific inferences on the notion of God (Natural Theology). Cosmic fine-tuning and other coincidences are no proof of God, but are amazing, astounding and will never be fully explained. Amazement is the appropriate emotional perception of reality. The objective world is not a matter of course and may well (...) not exist at all; thus reality, at times, is experienced to be very special. Human life, the beauty of nature, the habitability of planet Earth can be considered undeserved gifts. In the light of these gifts, the universe is metaphorically interpreted and existentially believed as a divine Creation. Science cannot create such faith but can foster it. Is God necessary to explain the universe? Is the idea of a Creator excluded by modern science? Why continue speaking of a Creator and to believe (trust and hope) in His continuing creation when God cannot be demonstrated in scientific data? Arnold Benz, a renowned astrophysicist and Christian, insists that human perception reaches further than science and demonstrates this in various examples, personal, biblical, and literary.". (shrink)

RESUMO Tendo por base a ligeiramente controversa idéia de que a caracterização de sophía como a “ciência das causas primeiras ou princípios” seja a formulação cardeal de ciência suprema na “Metafísica” de Aristóteles, neste artigo examinamos Metaph. A2, o capítulo que contém tal caracterização. Em primeiro lugar, seguimos a análise aristotélica dos pontos de vista ordinários acerca da sophía e do sophós, análise que culmina na referida descrição de sophía. Em seguida, examinamos como a concepção de sophía como ciência de (...) causas absolutamente primeiras leva o filósofo a considerá-la como uma ciência que pode ser descrita apropriadamente como divina, sendo também o tipo mais elevado de conhecimento ao qual a filosofia pode aspirar. ABSTRACT Based on the somewhat controversial idea that the characterization of sophía as the “science of first causes or principles” is the pivotal formulation of the supreme science in the Aristotle’s “Metaphysics”, in this paper we scrutinize Metaph. A2, the chapter which contains such a characterization. Firstly, we follow the Aristotelian analysis of the commonly held views on sophía and the sophós, an analysis which culminates in the aforementioned description of sophía. Then we examine how the conception of sophía as the science of absolutely first causes leads the philosopher to regard it as a science that can be properly described as divine, being also the highest kind of knowledge which philosophy can aspire to. (shrink)

The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences and the Vatican Observatory have jointly sponsored a series of conferences exploring the overarching question: How can we conceive a personal God creating and active within the universe described by the natural sciences? The volumes include significant contributions to the field, although I highlight two important weaknesses: (1) theology is not adequately respected as an active conversation partner capable of advancing the agenda under discussion; and (2) insufficient attention is paid to the (...) many scientific and philosophical uncertainties that plague the overall project. (shrink)

Interpreting John Paul II's message to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in the context of the new scientific discoveries concerning the mitochondrial DNA, one can argue that the human species emerged in Africa some 200,000 years ago. The very problem of the emergence of the human soul in the process of biological evolution represents a subject outside the cognitive competence of science. Attempts can be undertaken to explain this issue in the epistemological perspective of philosophy and theology. In traditional versions (...) of evolutionary theism, God* s interaction in nature was interpreted in causal categories when deterministic dependences were stressed in the process of evolutionary growth. In new proposals, God's presence in an evolving nature has been explained in categories of potentialities and propensities built by God into an evolving Nature. Consequently, in this approach God could be conceived not as a Paleyan designer but rather as a composer unfolding the possibilities hidden in His creation. The future of the evolutionary process depends not only on cosmic physical determinants; it depends to a large extent on the quality of cooperation of human actions with the influence of the Divine Creator. Accordingly, the shape of human culture, as well as the state of moral consciousness of Homo sapiens, should be taken into consideration to discuss the future evolution of the human species. /// Interpretando a mensagem do Papa João Paulo II à Academia Pontifícia das Ciências no contexto das novas descobertas científicas referentes ao DNA mitocondrial, o autor do artigo considera ser possível defender que a espécie humana surgiu em África há cerca de 200 000 anos. Mas o problema da emergência da alma humana no contexto do processo da evolução biológica representa um assunto que está fora da competência cognitiva da ciência. Contudo é possível realizar tentativas no sentido de explicar esta questão na perspectiva epistemológica da filosofia e da teologia. Nas versões tradicionais do teísmo evolutivo, a interacção de Deus com a natureza era interpretada segundo categorias causais quando as dependências deterministicas eram sublinhadas no processo do desenvolvimento evolutivo. No contexto de novas propostas interpretativas, a presença de Deus na ordem evolutiva tem sido explicada em termos das potencialidades e das propensidades induzidas por Deus na Natureza em evolução. Consequentemente, segundo esta abordagem Deus poderia ser concebido não como sábio projectista de que fala William Paley, mas antes como um compositor fazendo vir ao de cima as possibilidades escondidas na sua própria criação. O futuro do processo evolutivo depende não apenas das determinantes físicas do cosmos; ele depende em larga medida da qualidade da cooperação das acções humanas com a influência do Criador. Neste sentido, o artigo defende que a forma da cultura humana, bem como o estado da consciência moral do homo sapiens deve ser tido em consideração em ordem a se poder discutir a evolução futura da espécie humana. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The philosophical tradition approaches to morals have their grounds predominantly on metaphysical and theological concepts and theories. Among the traditional ethics concepts, the most prominent is the Divine Command Theory (DCT). As per the DCT, God gives moral foundations to the humankind by its creation and through Revelation. Morality and Divinity are inseparable since the most remote civilization. These concepts submerge in a theological framework and are largely accepted by most followers of the three Abrahamic traditions: Judaism, Christianity, (...) and Islam: the greatest part of the human population. Holding faith and Revelation for its grounds, the Divine Command Theories are not strictly subject to the demonstration. The opponents to the Divine Command conception of morals, grounded in the impossibility of demonstration of its metaphysical and religious assumptions, have tried for many centuries (albeit unsuccessfully) to devalue its importance. They held the argument that it does not show material evidence and logical coherence and, for this reason, cannot be taken into account for scientific nor philosophical purposes. It is just a belief and, as so, should be understood. Besides these extreme oppositions, many other concepts contravene the Divine Command theories, in one or another way, in part or in full. Many philosophers and social scientists, from the classic Greek philosophy up to the present date, for instance, sustain that morality is only a construct, and thus culturally relative and culturally determined. However, this brings many other discussions and imposes the challenge to determine what is the meaning of culture, which elements of culture are morally determinant, and finally, what are the boundaries of such relativity. Moral determinists claim that everything related to human behavior, including morality, is determined, once free will does not exist. More recently, modern thinkers argued that there is a strict science of morality. However, the scientific method alone, despite explaining several facts and evidence, cannot enlighten the entire content and full meaning of ethics. Morals’ understanding requires a broader perception, and an agreement among philosophers, which they have never achieved. All of these questions have many different configurations depending on each philosophical strand, and start complex analysis and endless debates, as long as many of them are reciprocally conflictive. The universe and the atmosphere involving this thesis are the dominions of all these conceptual conflicts, observed from an objective and evolutionary standpoint. Irrespective of this circumstance and its intrinsic importance, however, these questions are far distant from the methodological approach of an analytical discussion on objective morals, what is, indeed, the aim and scope of this work. We should briefly revisit these prominent traditional theories because this thesis shelters a comparative study, and its assumptions at least differ profoundly from all traditional theories. Therefore, it becomes necessary offering direct and specific elements of comparison to the reader, for the right criticism, dispensing interruptive researches. However, even revisiting the traditional theories, for this comparative and critical exposure purpose, they will be kept by the side of our main concerns, as “aliena materia.” Irrespective of the validity of any or all of the elements of this discussion, and their meaning as the philosophical universe of this thesis, the purpose of this work is demonstrating and justifying the existence and meaning of prehistoric moral archetypes arisen directly from the very first social needs and efforts for survival. These archetypes are the definition of the essential foundation of ethics, its aggregation to the collective unconscious and corresponding logic organization and transmission to evolutionary stages of the human genome and different relations space-time, irrespective of any contemporary experience of the individuals. The system defined by these archetypes composes an evolutionary human social model. Is this a metaethical position? Yes, it is. Moreover, as in any metaethical reasoning, we should look carefully for the best and coherent routes, as the Analytical Philosophy offers them. Thus, this work should reasonably demonstrate that morals are not a cultural product of the civilized men or modern societies and that despite being subject to several cultural relative aggregations and subtractions, its essential foundations are archetypal and have never structurally changed. This reasoning induces that morality is an original attribute of the “homo sapiens”; it is not a property and nor an accident: it integrates the human essence and belongs to the realm of the ontological human identity. The human phenomena is a continuing process, playing its role between random determination and free will, and we need to question how morality began and how did it come to us in the present. (shrink)

Bafomé, a mais duradoura criação do escritor Éliphas Lévi, é um ícone do universo esotérico: é a imagem “satânica” mais conhecida da história. Na tentativa de desvendar a sua rica composição simbólica, uma exegese iconográfica será conduzida por intermédio da psicologia analítica, fundada pelo psiquiatra suíço Carl Gustav Jung. As origens de Bafomé na alquimia, na cabala e no gnosticismo serão perscrutadas e os conceitos Junguianos do inconsciente coletivo e dos arquétipos irão, em grande parte, balizar a interpretação proposta neste (...) trabalho. Tal análise será dividida em oito subáreas, entre elas: o significado do seu aspecto animalesco na escatologia cristã, o hermafroditismo na psicologia e nas ciências arcanas, as qualidades mágicas do pentagrama e a importância hermética do caduceu. Por fim, conclui-se que o Bafomé é um símbolo de self, o arquétipo da totalidade psíquica. Bafomé tem por finalidade ser uma alternativa à imagem primordial cristã de autorrealização, mais integradora e menos repressora que esta. Palavras-chave: Alquimia. Cristianismo. Magia. Psicologia junguiana. Religião e psicologia.Baphomet, the lasting creation of the French writer Éliphas Lévi, is an icon of the esoteric universe: it is the history’s best-known “satanic” image. In an attempt to unravel its rich symbolic composite, an iconographic exegesis will be conducted through the use of analytical psychology, founded by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Gustav Jung. The origins of Baphomet in alchemy, Kabbalah and Gnosticism will investigated mostly through the application of Jungian concepts such as the collective unconscious and the archetypes. Such analysis will be divided into eight sub-areas, including: the significance of his animal appearance in Christian eschatology, hermaphroditism in psychology and the arcane sciences, the magical qualities of the pentagram and the importance of the caduceus in hermetism. Finally, we conclude that Baphomet is a symbol of the self, the archetype of psychic wholeness. Baphomet aims to be an alternative to the Christian primordial image of self-realization, more inclusive and less repressive than the latter. Keywords: Alchemy. Christianity. Jungian psychology. Magic. Religion and psychology. (shrink)

If we arrange in chronological order the various statements Darwin made about God, creation, design, plan, law, and so forth, that I have discussed, there emerges a picture of a consistent development in Darwin's religious views from the orthodoxy of his youth to the agnosticism of his later years. Numerous sources attest that at the beginning of the Beagle voyage Darwin was more or less orthodox in religion and science alike.78 After he became a transmutationist early in 1837, he concluded (...) that the doctrine of secondary causes must be extented even to the history of life and that after the first forms of life were created, there was no further need for divine intervention, except where man was concerned. Man's body, he thought, was produced by the process of transmutation, but he believed for a time that man's soul was “superadded.” By mid-1838 he had become convinced that nothing, after the creation of life, was due to miracles. God works only through laws, which are capable of producing “every effect of evey kind which surrounds us.” The existence of man, the idea of God in man's mind, and the harmony of the whole system were in his eyes prearranged goals of deterministic laws imposed by God. Such a conception excludes the miracles on which Christianity depends; but it is not possible to say whether Darwin's loss of Christian faith, which occurred at about this same time, preceded and made possible his “materialism” or was rather caused or hastened by it.79 In the weeks after his reading of Malthus, Darwin's belief in a plan of creation gave way to the belief that God created matter and life and designed their laws, leaving the details, however, to the workings of chance. This remained his view until the 1860s.There is no exact parallel between this development of Darwin's religious views and the development of his ideas on evolution, but there is a general correspondence. When he believed in a plan of creation, Darwin's theory of transmutation did not depend on struggle or the selection of chance variations. Adaptation was, for him, an automatic response to environmental chance. From late 1838 to 1859 he believed in designed laws and chance, and this belief, too, has its parallel in his theory. The element of chance in natural selection meant that there could be no detailed plan,in which even man's idea of God would be a necessary outcome of nature's laws (man himself is not a necessary outcome of the working of natural selection).80 But Darwin still believed nature was programmed to achieve certain general ends. We might say that he believed in a general, though not a special, teleology. Natural selection was for him a law to maximize utility, creating useful organs, retaining vestiges for future use. For many years it was a law designed to produce organisms perfectly adapted to their environments. Only later did Darwin come to doubt even this sort of design in nature.81 One way of describing the development of Darwin's evolutionary thought is to say that it shows a gradual abandoning of his “theistic” assumptions, so that by the late 1860s his theory was informed to a slighter extent by notions of purpose and design than it was in 1838 or 1844 or 1859. (shrink)

A evolução cósmica e biológica é hoje um fato universalmente admitido pela comunidade científica. Muitos julgam que essa posição científica é incompatível com a aceitação de um Deus criador do mundo, seja que neguem a criação em nome da evolução, seja que rejeitem a evolução em nome da fé. O artigo pretende apontar a inconsistência do dilema “evolução ou criação”, mostrando, mediante uma reflexão filosófica, que ele deriva de uma falsa compreensão do método e do alcance tanto das ciências positivas (...) como da teologia. Defende, além disso, que compete aos cientistas verificar se o neodarwinismo da teoria sintética é ou não uma explicação científica satisfatória dos fenômenos. Afirma, porém, que também essa teoria seria compatível com uma ideia adequada de criação, mesmo que não recorra, para explicar a evolução, nem à intervenção de uma causa eficiente trans-empírica, nem a uma inteligência superior que oriente o processo evolutivo para determinados fins. Com efeito, a ação criadora de Deus que confere o ser e agir a toda a realidade natural e a orienta, de algum modo, para seus fins, tem um caráter transcendente, e, por princípio, não pode ser detectada pela investigação científica, mas, tão somente, pela reflexão filosófica. (shrink)

Cismando com o dualismo cartesiano e seus desdobramentos em práticas e estruturas escolares contemporâneas nas margens do capitalismo Resumo: Esse texto relaciona conceitos que, advindos de áreas do conhecimento diferentes, fundamentam estruturas de subordinação e controle, próprios de muitas práticas e hábitos da vida de diversos povos que habitam as margens do capitalismo moderno e colonialista. Ao articular os desdobramentos trazidos por cada um desses personagens conceituais, nota-se o quanto eles se interseccionam ao fundamentar muito da forma de viver da (...) modernidade, sobretudo em contextos da periferia do capitalismo. Essa articulação se dá por meio de uma investigação bibliográfica sem deixar de refletir sobre as práticas da vida. Para tanto, inicia-se com uma descrição dos fundamentos dualistas cartesianos da ciência e da sociedade ocidental moderna. A seguir, busca-se descrever como esses conceitos se enredam em uma teia que institucionaliza hábitos típicos da estrutura de escola que vigora no país. Por fim, encaminham-se possibilidades de alternativas conceituais que refletem e sustentam práticas educacionais em direção à emancipação e superação das condições impostas pela modernidade/ colonialidade/capitalismo. Encerra-se o artigo com dois apontamentos resultantes do curso da pesquisa: conhecimento é criação, cultivo, cuidado; emancipar-se envolve, necessariamente, a ação de narrar a própria história. Palavras-chave: Educação; Emancipação; Modernidade/colonialidade/capitalismo. Doubting about cartesian dualism and its consequences in contemporary school practices and structures on the margins of capitalism Abstract: This text relates concepts that, coming from different areas of knowledge, underlie structures of subordination and control, typical of many practices and habits of life of different peoples who inhabit the margins of modern and colonialist capitalism. By articulating the developments brought about by each of these conceptual characters, it is possible to notice how much they intersect in grounding much of the way of living of modernity, especially in contexts on the periphery of capitalism. This articulation goes through a bibliographic investigation, without ceasing to reflect on the practices of life. To do so, it begins with a description of the Cartesian dualist foundations of science and modern Western society. Next, we seek to describe how these concepts are entangled in a web that institutionalizes typical habits of the school structure in force in the country. Finally, possibilities of conceptual alternatives that reflect and sustain educational practices towards emancipation and overcoming the conditions imposed by modernity/coloniality/capitalism are presented. The article ends by pointing out two paths resulting from the course of the research so far, that knowledge is creation, cultivation, care, and that emancipating oneself necessarily involves the action of narrating one's own history. Key-words: Education; Emancipation; Modernity/coloniality/capitalism. Dudando del dualismo cartesiano y sus consecuencias en las prácticas y estructuras escolares contemporáneas al margen del capitalismo Resumen: Este texto relaciona conceptos que, provenientes de diferentes áreas del conocimiento, subyacen en estructuras de subordinación y control, propias de muchas prácticas y hábitos de vida de diferentes pueblos que habitan los márgenes del capitalismo moderno y colonialista. Al articular los desarrollos provocados por cada uno de estos personajes conceptuales, es posible notar cuánto se cruzan al fundamentar gran parte de la forma de vida de la modernidad, especialmente en contextos en la periferia del capitalismo. Esta articulación se produce a través de una investigación bibliográfica, sin dejar de reflexionar sobre las prácticas de la vida. Para hacerlo, comienza con una descripción de los fundamentos dualistas cartesianos de la ciencia y la sociedad occidental moderna. A continuación, buscamos describir cómo estos conceptos se enredan en la red que institucionaliza hábitos típicos de la estructura escolar vigente en el país. Finalmente, se presentan posibilidades de alternativas conceptuales que reflejan y sustentan las prácticas educativas hacia la emancipación y la superación de las condiciones impuestas por la modernidad/colonialidade/capitalismo. El artículo finaliza señalando dos caminos resultantes del curso de la investigación hasta el momento, que el conocimiento es creación, cultivo, cuidado, y que emanciparse implica necesariamente la acción de narrar la propia historia. Palabras-clave: Educación; Emancipación; Modernidad/colonialidade/capitalismo. Data de registro: 18/08/2021 Data de aceite: 20/10/2021. (shrink)

Writing, the exigency of writing: no longer the writing that has always (through a necessity in no way avoidable) been in the service of the speech or thought that is called idealist (that is to say, moralizing), but rather the writing that through its own slowly liberated force (the aleatory force of absence) seems to devote itself solely to itself as something that remains without identity, and little by little brings forth possibilities that are entirely other: an anonymous, distracted, deferred, (...) and dispersed way of being in relation, by which everything is brought into question – and first of all the idea of God, of the Self, of the Subject, then of Truth and the One, then finally the idea of the Book and the Work so that this writing (understood in its enigmatic rigor), far from having the Book as its goal rather signals its end: a writing that could be said to be outside discourse, outside language. – Maurice Blanchot ( The Infinite Conversation , xi) The Compendium * Beginning with the idea and practice of writing, and moving to the subject or self, then to truth and the One, and arriving at the Book and the Work, Blanchot’s words reflect the trajectory of the following work of writing. True to the embeddedness of the subject in the work of writing, the term “Compendium” has been a metonym for me over the past few years as I have thought about the concept of totality alongside its expression in figures such as the One, the Whole, or the All. In the following I aim to share some of the content of this metonym, and to enrich it by making some distinctions. 1 Here the term “Compendium” will refer to a concept of totality that is ontological (pertaining to being, and the copula) and also textual (pertaining to the symbolic, and the signifier-signified relationship). The Compendium is a figure for thinking the world as a Book, in the broadest sense—an approach to reality that is by no means new, but one that is due for renewal. 2 In partial answer to the question of the Compendium we will say that the word ‘Compendium’ stands in for expressions which seek to totalize, or concepts which seek to approach the concept of ‘everything,’ particularly when these expressions are bound up in the question of the Book (both the book as a physical object and the Book as a metaphysical figure: a way of thinking about the work in and of writing). The question of the Compendium is strongly associated with the physical and metaphysical form of the Book, like the mysterious and symbolic books which are opened in the Biblical book of Revelation, the book of life and the book of death, which together constitute an important couplet. 3 Parataxis & Hypotaxis There are two helpful distinctions that will bring us closer to an answer to the question “What is a Compendium?” The first distinction is between two figures in and for writing: parataxis and hypotaxis . Typically paired in contrast to one another as literary techniques, with parataxis indicating a side-by-side placement of textual elements and hypotaxis referring to subordinate arrangements of textual elements, the two figures can be understood as having a philosophical significance in addition to their practical function as devices for writers. For us these two terms will remain between philosophical theory and writing practice, and serve as a perspective for our writing and creation of texts. Here I take texts to refer to anything from the concrete written words in a book, to the ontological text of the world that we experience. Parataxis , as a figural way of thinking about the ontological structure of texts, refers to texts which are tightly woven and interdependent – texts within which each sentence bears the weight of the entire work. Parataxis often involves repetition, great density, and fragility. One of the best examples of this sort of text is Theodor Adorno’s posthumous magnum opus , Aesthetic Theory . In addition to the text itself, the translation history of the book may also help us to better understand parataxis and its relation to hypotaxis . The final published version of Aesthetic Theory , in German, was a text that Adorno intended to revise and rewrite, but this intention was never realized because of his untimely death. Where the German text of Aesthetic Theory certainly exemplifies the concept of parataxis , the first English edition took this densely woven text and carved Adorno’s lengthy paragraphs and lengthy sentences into manageable ‘bite-sized’ pieces of English text. The first translator took further liberty and inserted headings and new paragraph breaks where there were none in the original. Aesthetic Theory was eventually retranslated by Robert Hullot-Kentor and is now available in a form that is much more faithful to the original work. 4 The pertinent idea that this translation history points to is the distinction between parataxis and hypotaxis . Where parataxis describes texts which are repetitive, densely woven, and often fragile, hypotaxis describes texts which are hierarchical and in which the primary relation is linear – the latter of which is very similar to the first English translation of Aesthetic Theory . On the other hand, the original German text that Adorno wrote was very dense, often repetitive, and contained long sections of text unbroken by paragraphs or headings. This example of parataxis was then turned towards hypotaxis through the initial translation which took a text that was, in many ways, nonhierarchical and nonlinear, and artificially subjected it to a hierarchy that was not its own (and here I take the word of Fredric Jameson who comments on the two translations in a note at the beginning of his book Late Marxism ). 5 The point here is not about translation, but rather the distinction between parataxis and hypotaxis precisely as they are figures for discourse, written or otherwise. The concept of parataxis looks far more postmodern and rhizomic than the concept of hypotaxis which remains very modern and arborescent. This is a more figural way of talking about the distinction. However, if we wanted to take a more precise and analytical approach we could say that on the level of form parataxis involves a relationship between sentences and paragraphs in which each part bears an equally crushing responsibility to present the whole content of the text. As well, on the level of content, parataxis requires that each concept in a work take on the full conceptual weight of the total work. Continuing the analysis, we could say that parataxis describes texts in which there is no (or very little) linear or causal move from antecedent to consequent, whether in content or form. Instead, parataxis describes texts which weave together concepts via conjugations or associations. The concept of hypotaxis , on the other hand, requires that texts submit themselves to hierarchy, one example of which is logical argumentation. The contingency of the conclusion upon premises in hypotaxis is certainly distinct from the repetition, re-presentation, and conjugation of concepts in parataxis , and I think that this is evident in the difference between the writing styles prevalent in contemporary Analytic philosophy and Continental philosophy. It is not the case that the distinction between parataxis and hypotaxis absolutely corresponds with the writing styles of Continental and Analytic philosophy (respectively). There are thinkers who take exception to this pattern, such as Badiou’s more formal approach in the discourse of Continental philosophy to give one example. However, when Analytic philosophy takes its writing lessons from the sciences, and seeks to do philosophy via the clean linear move from antecedent to consequent, then I think that Analytic philosophy writes with hypotaxis in mind. On the other hand, when Continental (particularly German and French) philosophy takes its writing lessons from narrative or poetry then Continental philosophy writes with parataxis in mind. It is not fair to say that all those writing Continental philosophy are looking to narrative and poetry for stylistic direction, just as it is not the case that all those writing Analytic philosophy have mathematics and science as their writing format, however there are some striking ways in which the differing epistemologies of Continental and Analytic philosophy encourage writing with parataxis and hypotaxis in mind (respectively). For some, writing with parataxis or hypotaxis in mind is a conscious decision and a product of stylistic self-consciousness, and for others it is an unconscious discursive and epistemic requirement that must be met in order to be involved in a particular discourse. Before moving on to our second distinction, and then an examination of the question of the Book, it is important to point out that both totality and figurations like the One, the Whole, and the All, come out of very human desires to totalize or to actualize our being-towards-totality. The relationship between identity and totality then can be construed, with Heidegger in mind, as striving toward wholeness, completion, or fulfillment, each of which is a quality of compendia. 6 Compilation & Selection The first distinction between parataxis and hypotaxis pertains to both form and content, and to both the mechanics of writing and the ideas to which writing refers. The second distinction pertains to both as well. In the process of writing and in the process of perception as well, there is a tension between compilation and selection . To begin with, in the work of theory-writing there is compilation, and this is because writing theory requires a broad perspective and certain measure of totalization. On the other hand, writing theory requires that the writer select an idea or a combination of ideas to individuate out of a radical and infinite multiplicity of identities and combinations. The concern here is not primarily for the writing of a theory about a specific idea, like a secondary work or a reference text. But rather the concern is with the writing of grand theories: Marx and Marxism, Derrida and Deconstruction, Husserl and Phenomenology, Sartre and Existentialism, Saussure and Structuralism —each of which strives along a trajectory towards being all-encompassing, whether it intends to or not. Today, we could even say that Speculative Realism has embarked on this journey, and perhaps now we could say that the discourse of Speculative Realism has reached the inevitable point after which a grand theory leaves the hands of its writer or writers and becomes a possession of the collective consciousness of the academy, or (perhaps now) the mass consciousness of the blogosphere—and this is a true pharmakon , a poison and a cure, a blessing and a curse. 7 When we write theory, whether the scope is that of a grand theory or a particular theory, we write in the tension between compilation (making good on the desire to be all encompassing) and selection (being required to decide and discern and to judge what is included in the work and what is deleted or appended or abridged or given over to ellipses). Generally speaking, the work of theory-writing often comes out of a desire to totalize, that is, to develop a theory of everything that is able to apprehend new experiences and ideas while still remaining whole. I grant that this is not a universal desire, and that not everyone who sits down to write a work (or book) of theory does so because of their will-to-totality, but it remains that this drive to totalize does condition a great many writers of theory (especially those who seek to develop grand theories like those mentioned previously). At the beginning of his book of interviews, Between Existentialism and Marxism , Sartre is quoted as saying, after completing the first volume of his Critique of Dialectical Reason : “I no longer feel the need to make long digressions in my books, as if I were forever chasing after my own philosophy. It will now be deposited in little coffins, and I will feel completely emptied and at peace—as I felt after Being and Nothingness . A feeling of emptiness: a writer is fortunate if he can attain such a state. For when one has nothing to say, one can say everything .” 8 This is where our two initial distinctions come to bear on the being-towards-totality as it is expressed in the concrete practice of writing: the first being between parataxis and hypotaxis , and the second being between compilation and selection. Where this second distinction is concerned there is a certain paradox at play given that selection is inescapable, and compilation is unachievable. Selection is inescapable (with the figure of the Compendium in mind) because, even when the imperative to compile is followed to excruciating lengths, selection still has the last word. This is why the Compendium is a figure rather than some material thing that can actually be accomplished or actualized. No matter how far one goes along with the will-to-archive and the will-to-compile, it is only ever a question of minimizing selection and never eliminating it. This leads to the second point, which is that total compilation is unachievable. The closest thing to total compilation that we have before us is the ontological and textual fabric of the world. Even in the case of the world, compilation cannot be enacted in a total fashion because of the need to include both the sphere of the actual and the sphere of the possible or potential. This as another way in which compilation is always-already selection, and further evidence that total compilation is practically impossible. Discursive Figuration and Total Writing Rather than figuration referring to a figure of speech or an image, here the term points to a way in which to think about the work of writing, both the work put into writing, and the work that is the result of writing: the finished yet incomplete final piece. As figures or figurations, the Book and the Compendium are ways of thinking about the work of writing and the human desire for the wholeness, completion, and fulfillment that are made manifest in the completed form of the book (whether a published or printed or saved document put to rest by the author). These two figures bear more strongly upon works that seek to be all-encompassing, and works that strive towards expressions of totality such as the One, the Whole, or the All. Moving on to the topic of the subtitle, and on a more prescriptive note, I would say that there is more hope for theory-writing to be found in parataxis than hypotaxis . Part of the reason for this claim is the poststructuralist critique of hierarchies, and yet another part is the compelling line of thinking called “weak thought” (in theology by John D. Caputo, and in philosophy by Gianni Vattimo, among others). 9 The consequences of these two convictions are such that if one is to strongly assert the truth of a grand theory without leaving the realm of hierarchy-critique and weak thought, then one must write paradoxically with parataxis in mind, and in so doing write weakly and non-hierarchically. This does not mean avoiding a sort of topography or topology when writing theory, rather it means avoiding both subjugation and oppression in thought by pursuing a nonviolent sort of ontology. In order to do this, theory writing does not present itself as an exercise in logical analysis where one mechanically moves from a set of premises (via contingency) to the inevitable conclusion (via necessity). Instead, theory approaches the idea of a Compendium. Given that the figural Compendium places parataxis and compilation above hypotaxis and selection, then the question becomes: is placing one part of a binary term before another not just another way of selecting, or another expression of hypotaxis ? Counter to the urge to resign oneself to the reign of selection, with some qualification one can nonetheless write without deciding whether selection and hypotaxis should be subservient to compilation and parataxis (which is to say that writing-without-decision is somewhere between and beyond possibility and impossibility). This dilemma can be disarmed by stating that theory writing is not about primacy, and not about having-decided-beforehand, both stylistically and also where content is concerned. This is the paradox of writing: always striving along a trajectory ( telos ) towards totality via parataxis and compilation, but always being drawn back to finitude and making selections, and placing one idea before another with hypotaxis in mind. In light of this paradox, the question of the Compendium as a figure for discourse and a figural Book has resonance with Jacques Derrida’s essay on Edmund Jabès’ Book of Questions , found in his Writing and Difference . The Question of the Book “Little by little the book will finish me.” 10 Derrida quotes Jabès, and proceeds to outline the reflexive relationship between the author of the book and the book itself, each of which are subjected to the other through a sort of chiasmus, both ontological and textual (not that the two are entirely separable). The Book, for Derrida like Blanchot in the introductory quotation, “infinitely reflects itself” and “develops as a painful questioning of its own possibility”, and in light of this we can draw an association with the painful tension between the practical reality of selection and the ideal trajectory of compilation. 11 This tension in writing, between the will to total compilation and the necessity of abridgment, is an ontological tension between part and whole just as it is a textual tension between signifier and signified. The ontological tension in writing that Derrida expresses in his essay on Jabès is between everything and nothing – a contradiction which Derrida finds in Jabès’ Book of Questions and also in the divine, in God. When one writes between compilation and selection one writes towards totality, and here we can follow Derrida who states that the lapse in signification, presumably in the signifier-signified discrepancy, is a “ rupture with totality itself” and furthermore that this lapse cannot be rectified through deductive reason or even philosophical discourse. 12 This rupture with totality, found in the troubled relation between signifier and signified, can also tell us a lot about the Book and about writing. Given an understanding of writing as an ontological act that strives towards (but never accomplishes) totality, we can see the written book as the manifested and given body of that striving. Perhaps in other disciplines or even other schools of philosophy there is a cultural climate within which the article is prized above the book, but I am fairly confident, especially when referring to the grand theories of Continental thought, that there is a respect for the book as a uniquely meaningful object capable of apprehending totality. Derrida writes, Between the too warm flesh of the literal event and the cold skin of the concept runs meaning. This is how it enters into the book. Everything enters into, transpires in the book. This is why the book is never finite. It always remains suffering and vigilant. 13 Here the vitality of the literal event is compromised by the deadening weight of the concept, and the figure of the Book assists in this lapse of meaning. The Book is a totalizing object, much like the figure of the Compendium, and yet this totalization lacks its final object of completed totality both because the figural Book is necessarily incomplete, and because the physical book is always-already a product of selection. Instead of achieving its end of being a place where everything takes place, it suffers from the lapse of writing, the discrepancy between event and concept. Derrida continues his exposition on Jabès by bringing to light yet another reflexive relation, a reversal of the relationship between the Book and the world. Derrida writes that, for Jabès, “the book is not in the world, but the world is in the book.” 14 In addition to what was stated before, I take figuration to mean that the concepts employed, such as the Book or the Compendium, are not subject to the supposed rigor of analysis that is so prized by Enlightenment or Capitalist realisms. The figure of the Book and the figure of the Compendium cannot be held accountable to standards imported from scientific method, given an understanding that these standards require a concept to be replicable, consistent, falsifiable, measurable, and so on… This is an important point to make, especially in the present atmosphere within which theory must justify itself under conditions that are not its own. Instead of being held to these standards, figuration serves as a way in which to think about writing that leaves thought open to idealistic speculation, imperfect analogies, and most importantly the ever-present gain and loss that occur in the relationship between thought and being. By extension the figural way of addressing writing indulges in enough generalization to accommodate the excess/lack relationship between the ideal form of the Book or the Compendium, and the manifested and given body of a text (as it is practically completed and closed). Here we speak against the hostile atmosphere which would have theory submit itself to hierarchical rigor, rather than Blanchot’s “enigmatic rigor”, by being explicit about the discursive conditions and epistemic conditions under which theory operates. To write with parataxis in mind is, to a certain degree, to write with weakness as one’s methodology (with weak thought being in opposition to hypotaxis and hierarchy as much as weak thought can be in opposition to anything). Rather than asserting the strength of hierarchical theory, and rather than employing antagonistic argumentation with the goal of refutation different discursive and epistemic conditions for theory writing must be cultivated (and these are by no means new). First the critical and theoretical spirit reveals itself as being concerned with the task of complication—especially the complication and critique of binaries, dichotomies, dualities, polarities, paradoxes, parallaxes, hybridities, and especially antinomies. Second, theory positions itself as a sort of showing or revealing, rather than being ultimately focused on coming to full agreement or disagreement. This is where figuration can help theory-writing, both by placing emphasis on teleologies and trajectories (like parataxis and compilation), and by shifting focus away from pure primacy, power, or absolute origin. Figuration then, assists theory writing by placing the concern of theory outside of the concerns of the hard or soft sciences, and into the realm of thought or the idea. To speak of ‘the’ Compendium or ‘the’ Book, here, is to generalize not regarding the perfect form of the Compendium or Book, but to engage speculatively with an abstract idea which remains singular and yet complicated by multiplicity. The question of the Book that Derrida asks through Jabès is a question of everything and nothing, totality and nonbeing, and this question is a concern for writing and a concern for the figure of the Compendium so defined by the tension between compilation and selection, and parataxis and hypotaxis . On the note of nonbeing, we can look to the final page of Derrida’s first essay on Jabès in Writing and Difference and notice the introduction of his neologism, différance (with an ‘a’). Derrida writes: Life negates itself in literature only so that it may survive better. So that it may be better. It does not negate itself any more than it affirms itself: it differs from itself, defers itself, and writes itself as différance . Books are always books of life (the archetype would be the Book of Life kept by the God of the Jews) or of afterlife (the archetype would be the Books of the Dead kept by the Egyptians). 15 This introduction of différance into the equation of the Book, alongside ontological affirmation and negation, hearkens back to the discussion of the symbolic lapse earlier in his essay. Differing and deferring, the Book is always a Book of Life and a figure for the intersection of the vital (life) and the total in writing. In a way, the writer of the Book may be someone who lives life, and in another way the writer of the book-as-object may be someone who engages in the act of writing, both practically (by inscribing words on paper, or typing script on a computer) and ontologically or symbolically (by investing their existence and inexistence into a work worthy of the figural Book). In addition to the writer as writer, the writer also serves as an editor, and the editorial role alongside the idea of the Compendium shows the editor to be one who collects and compiles, while being restrained by eventual selection and decision. Beyond this the editor of works and texts, in both the Book and the world, is engaged in a process of inscribing notation—of annotating (on) the Compendium. Eternal commentary is a feature of the textual Compendium, just as open-ended totality describes the ontological Compendium. The writer as writer does not simply write texts, but rather engages in a profoundly ontological act of inscribing their existence into the world, and the writer as editor does not merely annotate or alter texts as they are, but rather comments upon the text of the world. In/Conclusion So as we create texts, and as we write and create theory, let us be and remain attentive to the figure of the Compendium and the figure of the Book. These two concurrent metonymies are essential for total writing (grand theories, etc.), and may be forgettable for those concerned with fragmentary or hierarchical writing (which are valid in their own right). From the ontological and symbolic text of the world and phenomenological experience, to concrete texts such as books or mixed media, the figure of the Compendium and the figure of the Book are important for the actualization of the human will to be all-encompassing. The figure of the Compendium teaches writers of theory that the repetition, density, and fragility of parataxis offers a strong sort of weakness which does not become yet another variety of oppressive and hegemonic thought. Rather than write with hypotaxis in mind, subjugating one thought to another via cause and effect or antecedent and consequent, I would hope that theory-writing could guiltlessly indulge in the dialectical and contradictory conjugation of ideas, and take this as a legitimate methodology. Rather than being ashamed of showing resonances or giving way to abridgment or ellipses, it is my own authorial (but not authoritative) conviction that one need not give up on totalizing and constructing grand theories because of the fact that complete totalization is impossible, and one need not give up on totalizing and constructing grand theories because of the worry of violence, for the Book and the Compendium lack their completed object and are ever incomplete trajectories. NOTES * UPDATED 7/19/13: we've updated the HTML version to reflect the (correct) PDF version. Our apologies to the author—eds. 1. I would like extend thanks to Dr. Peter Schwenger of the University of Western Ontario for his comments on this paper and his hospitality as it was presented as a Theory Session at the Centre for Theory and Criticism on October 26th 2012. I would also like to thank Andrew Weiss for conversation and critique. 2. I should clarify my use of the term ‘figure’ at the outset. Given the use of the term by Jean-Francois Lyotard in Discourse, Figure (and also Gilles Deleuze in Francis Bacon ), I should state clearly that my use of the term will not correspond to the term ‘figure’ understood as the representation of an object. Instead, my use of the term ‘figure’ and its variations (‘figural’, ‘figurative’, ‘figuration’) will refer to the illustrative or metaphorical use of the Compendium or the Book as models or ways of thinking about writing and discourse. 3. Cf. Revelations 20:12-15. 4. Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory , Trans. Robert Hullot-Kentor (London & New York: Continuum Press, 1997). 5. Fredric Jameson, Late Marxism: Adorno, or the Persistence of the Dialectic (London & New York: Verso, 1990), ix-x. 6. I have written about this concept of being-towards-totality elsewhere in two pieces of writing: the first is called Notes on the Compendium (an unfinished draft) which addresses some very wide theoretical concerns, being structured as a sort of itinerary or archive, and the second is Dialectics Unbound (Punctum Books, 2013) which outlines a concept of totality without the violence of totalization. While these works are more concerned with ontological totality, here I would like to focus on the idea of the Compendium as a textual totality. 7. Cf. Louis Morelle, “Speculative Realism: After Finitude and Beyond, A vade mecum” in Speculations: Journal of Speculative Realism . Issue 3 (Brooklyn, New York: Punctum Books, 2012), 241-272. 8. Jean-Paul Sartre, Between Existentialism and Marxism . Trans. John Matthews (London & New York: Verso, 1974), 9. 9. Cf. John D. Caputo, The Weakness of God (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2006). 10. Jacques Derrida, “Edmond Jabès and the Question of the Book” in Writing and Difference . Trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 65. 11. Ibid, 65. 12. Ibid, 71. 13. Ibid, 75. 14. Ibid, 76. 15. Ibid, 78. (shrink)

A semiótica de Peirce, por sua abrangência e rigor lógico, guarda possibilidades de aplicação que vão além da linguagem e dos processos comunicativos, estendendo-se à ciência como um todo, o que possibilita a organização de uma nova epistemologia. O presente artigo visa analisar as bases dessa proposta epistemológica, verificando seus pressupostos e seu impacto na constituição de uma ciência aberta e voltada para a complexidade.: Peirce's semiotics, in scope and logical rigor, guard application possibilities that go beyond the language and (...) communicative processes, extending to science as a whole, which enables the organization of a new epistemology. This article aims to analyze the basis of this epistemological proposal, checking their assumptions and their impact on the creation of an open and focused science to the complexity. Keywords: sign, science, paradigm. (shrink)

À primeira vista, parece óbvia a mensagem contida no episódio em que o profeta Elias, ao fugir para o deserto, alcança o monte Horeb. Há os que percebem na narrativa uma clara referência a uma jornada interior, empreendida pelo profeta, com vistas à renovação de seu chamado ou mesmo como um retorno às fontes da fé. No entanto, a análise das estratégias de construção da narrativa pode levar ao propósito da mensagem conforme engendrada pelo narrador. O presente artigo consiste em (...) uma leitura de 1 Reis 19,1-21. O objetivo é questionar o texto a partir do instrumental oferecido pelo método da análise narrativa, com vistas a explicitar as estratégias escolhidas pelo narrador e seus efeitos sobre o leitor implícito, procurando não perder de vista as particularidades da narrativa bíblica. Além disto, pretende-se identificar o caminho que está proposto ao leitor atual, destacando a catequese envolvida na perícope. O medo na vida do fiel pode conduzi-lo para fora do lugar da obediência. No entanto, a intervenção divina acena a possibilidade de correção da rota assumida por pensamentos distorcidos acerca de si, de sua missão e de Deus. Palavras-chave: Profeta Elias. Narrativa bíblica. Análise narrativa.At first glance, the message contained the episode in which the prophet Elijah flees to the desert and reaches the Mount Horeb seems to be obvious. There are some who face the narrative as a clear reference to an inner journey undertaken by the Prophet in order to renew his call or return to the sources of faith. However, the analysis of narrative strategies can lead to the message purpose as designed by its narrator. This article presents a reading of 1 Ki 19,1-21. It aims to question the text by using the tools offered by narrative analysis method in order to highlight chosen strategies and their impact on implied reader, considering the particularities of biblical narrative. The goal is also to identify the path or catechesis proposed to the current reader. The presence of fear in the believer’s life can lead him astray from obedience place. Divine intervention, however, indicates the possibility of getting back on track believer’s distorted thoughts about himself, his mission and God. Keywords: Prophet Elijah. Biblical narrative. Narrative analysis. (shrink)

The book reconstructs the history of Western ethics. The approach chosen focuses the endless dialectic of moral codes, or different kinds of ethos, moral doctrines that are preached in order to bring about a reform of existing ethos, and ethical theories that have taken shape in the context of controversies about the ethos and moral doctrines as means of justifying or reforming moral doctrines. Such dialectic is what is meant here by the phrase ‘moral traditions’, taken as a name for (...) threads of moral discourse, made in turn of other interwoven threads, including transmission of shared codes, appeals to reform of prevailing custom, rational argument about the justification of some precept on the basis of some shared general teaching or principle, and rational argument about the ultimate basis for principles and justification of authoritative teaching. That is, the approach adopted to the reading of ethical texts depends on a firm belief in the fact that philosophers hardly created any ethical doctrine out of nothing. The main point this book tries to highlight is how different philosophical theories emerged and followed each other as a result of attempts at accounting for what was going on in the world of moral traditions. Changes were propelled by controversies between different schools, and highly abstract arguments were the unintended effects of moves made by controversialists forced to transform (and occasionally to turn upside down) their own doctrines in order to face the challenge posed by other arguments. This is the reason why the book examines not only texts that already enjoy pride of place in the history of philosophy (Aristotle, Kant, Hegel), but also other texts usually treated in the histories of religions (the Bible, the Talmud, the Quran), and others considered to be much less philosophical (Plutarchus, Pufendorf). -/- 1. Plato and a response to ethical scepticism. Two different traditions of morality in VI-V century Greece are described. The birth of philosophical questioning of traditional morality and temporal and spatial variation of custom is described within the context of the v century crisis, the demise of traditional aristocratic and tyrannical rule and the birth of democracy. Two conflicting answers to the challenge are reconstructed, namely conventionalist or immoralist theories formulated by the Sophists and the eudemonist and intellectualist Socratic theory. Plato’s own reformulation of Socrates answer to the Sophists is reconstructed. His psychological views, his classification of the four cardinal virtues and his political theory are described as parts of a unitary system, culminating in an extremely realist moral ontology identifying the idea of the good with the essence of the (moral and extra-moral) world itself. -/- 2. Aristotle and the invention of practical philosophy. Aristotle’s invention of practical philosophy as a field separated from first philosophy is shown to be an implication of his break with Plato moral ultra-realism. Aristotle’s agenda in his moral works is arguably dependent on a polemical intention, namely dismantling Socratic intellectualism. The semi-inductive or virtuously circular method of practical philosophy is illustrated, starting with the received opinions of the better and wiser individuals and trying dialectically to sift what is left of mistake and inconsistence in such opinions, finally trying to correct mistakes and make the overall practical science more consistent. The chapter illustrates then the relationship of individual ethics, or ‘monastics’, with the art and the science of the pater familias, or ‘economics’, and the science of the ruler and citizen, or politics. The nature of virtues, or better, excellences of character, is discussed, highlighting the basic role of hexis, or ‘disposition’. Prudence, or better practical wisdom, is the focus of the chapter. Its relationship with bouleusis or deliberation is examined, and its autonomous status vis-à-vis theoretical knowledge is stressed. -/- 3. Diogenes and philosophy as a way of life. The chapter provides an overview of Hellenistic ethics, which almost amounts to Hellenistic schools of philosophy, in so far as ‘philosophy’ became in these centuries primarily the name for a way of life. The typical character of the Cynical movement is highlighted, that of a school of life, not a school aimed at providing any kind of intellectual training was to be provided. -/- 4. Epicurus and ethics as self-care. The peculiar character of the Epicurean school is described, a combination of a science of well-being aiming, more than at pleasure as in the popular view, at reduction of useless suffering, of unnecessary needs, and at a balanced selection of pleasures of the best and most durable kind. -/- 5. Epictetus and ethics as therapy of the passions. The various phases of Stoicism are described, and the shifting place given to ethics in the Stoic system of idea, culminating in the paradoxical view of ethics, its impossibility in principle notwithstanding, as the only truly significant and necessary part of philosophy. Cicero is treated, showing how his own synthesis of various Hellenistic trends is as a truly philosophical enterprise, deserving serious consideration after one or two centuries when he was confined to the role of literate. Epictetus is chosen as the best example of what the Stoic tradition could yield, an art of living based on sophisticated introspection, in turn aimed at making a kind of cognitive therapy possible, dismantling obnoxious passions at their root by systematically correcting false representations. -/- 6. Philo and the reconciliation of Torah and Platonism. A reconstruction of basic ideas from a few books of the Hebrew Bible is provided, starting with the Prophetic tradition and the focus on God’s mercy as the source of motivation and standard for human behaviour. Then a comparative analysis is undertaken of a parallel tradition, namely the three codifications of the Torā (Law or, better, Instruction), highlighting how a core of moral ideas may be recognized as a basis and preamble of codification of civil law, cultural practice, and regulation of ritual purity. The importance of Leviticus is stressed as the turning point when emphasis mercy, typical of the Prophetic tradition, is combined with the legal tradition, yielding the change in sensibility of the Second Temple time. Philo of Alexandria is described as one of the three leading figures – together with Rabbi Hillel and Rabbi Yeshua – at the apex the emergence of the mentioned new sensibility, gradually including mercy as an essential part of justice and establishing the starting point of both the Rabbinic and the Christian tradition. This consists precisely in the precept of one’s neighbour’s love or of the golden rule, two eventually identical precepts whose meaning is arguably more sober and sensible than the long-lasting Christian tradition deriving from John and Augustine has made us believe and no novelty vis-à-vis so-called Ancient-Testament teachings. -/- 7. Augustine and Christianity as Neo-Platonism. The first section examines the moral doctrines of so-called 'ethical Treaties' from the Talmud, a group of treaties, among which the best known is Pirqé Avot, that were left out of the six "orders" of the canon as they did not fit in any of the six groups of issues ritual or legal on which the division was based. According to Maimonides, their peculiar theme is provided by the Deòt, 'opinions', i.e., mental dispositions, that is, the translation of the Greek term hexeis and Arab akhlak (in turn providing in this language the name for ethics as such). The three topics I reconstruct are: i) the notion of Torah: The Torah is understood as the world order itself, or as the ‘Wisdom’ that existed even before creation and was ‘the tool by which the world was built’; however, the Torah is an earthly and human entity, as it was "received" by humans, and from that very moment belongs to them; ii) the relationship between love of God and love of neighbour; the treaties require us to study and practice the Torah ‘for its own sake’, that is, require us to act out of love, not out of fear or hope of reward; iii) the idea of sanctification of daily life: having disappeared with the destruction of the Temple the possibility of any conflict between liturgical service and everyday life, the latter is assumed to be in itself divine service: to give food to the poor has the same value as sacrifices in the Temple, and as an implication, the insistence become recurrent on the goodness of created things in themselves along with a polemic against ascetic currents. The conclusions drawn are: i) the moral teachings of the Talmud and those of Yeshua are, rather than similar, virtually identical; one may safely say that the precept of love and the golden rule are central ones for all Talmudic rabbis, that mercy plays an indispensable role alongside with justice, and the latter is not a different thing from one’s neighbour’s love; ii) a peculiarity of Talmud rabbis facing Yeshua is the idea of study as worship, and knowledge as a source of justice; but this is an idea of Judaism after the Temple's destruction that cannot be attributed to the Pharisees of Yeshua’s time; iii) the relation of study and practice in the Talmud parallels that between faith and deeds in Paul's epistles, that is, respectively faith or learning are a necessary and sufficient condition to be recognized as righteous , but deeds are the inevitable effect of either faith or learning. The sayings ascribed to Yeshua are examined first, yielding the conclusion that a close equivalent may be found for every saying in Talmudic literature and yet the whole is ascribed to one rabbi, with rather consistent stress on God’s mercy and unconditional forgiving as the mark of true imitation of God. Thus, Yeshua’s teaching is pure Judaism. The third section describes briefly the galaxy of Gnostic currents and Manichaeism, trying to sketch the profile of moral teachings resulting from an encounter of Asian spiritual traditions, Hellenistic lore and sparks of teachings from apocalyptic Jewish currents. The last section summarizes the turbulent history of several encounters between Christian currents and Hellenistic philosophical schools. The first one was with late Cynicism. Recent, rather controversial, literature discovered the jargon and a few topics from the Stoic-Cynical popular philosophy in a few books from the New Testament itself. This, far from proving that Rabbi Yeshua had been influenced by cynic preachers, is a proof of the necessity felt by Christian preachers to translate the original ‘Christian’ teaching into a Greek lexicon deeply impregnated with cynic terminology. The second was with Platonism, yielding the mild and temperate moral teaching of Clemens of Alexandria, teaching the sanctity of nature and the human body, the joy of moderate fruition of ‘natural’ kinds of pleasures, and the beauty of the marital life – in short, the opposite of the standard picture of Medieval Christianity. Ambrose of Milan brings about a different kind of synthesis, namely with Middle Platonism, where Stoic themes prevail. The most shocking case is Augustine, where an early Manichean education is overcome in a former phase by a synthesis of Plotinian Neo-Platonism and Christian preaching, yielding a sustained polemic with the Manicheans and rather optimistic views on life and Creation, the body and sexuality, and Hebrew-Judaic tradition not far from Clemens of Alexandria. In a later phase, occasioned by controversy on the opposite front, with such Christian currents as the Pelagians and Donatists, Augustine comes back to heavily anti-Judaic and world-denying ascetic attitudes where is earlier Manichean upbringing seems to emerge again. The tragedy of medieval Christianity will be the later Augustine’s overwhelming influence. A final section is dedicated to the monastic tradition where a curious mixture of world-denying asceticism with an astonishingly penetrating ‘science’ of introspection emerges. -/- 8. Al Farabi and the reconciliation of Islam and Platonism. The Qurān and the qadit, that is, collections of sayings ascribed to the prophet Muhammad contain a wealth of precepts and catalogues of virtues mirroring moral contents from the Jewish and the Christian traditions, among them the basic notion of imitation of the Deity, where mercy is assumed to be its basic trait. An important tradition within Islam, namely Sufism, stressed to the utmost degree the role of mercy, turning Islam into a mystic doctrine centred on retreat from the world, abandonment to God’s will, and a peaceful and fraternal attitude to our fellow-beings. A secular literary tradition originating in the Sassanid Empire, the literature of advice to the Prince had for a time a widespread influence in the newly constituted Arabic-Islamic commonwealth. In a later phase, the legacy of Hellenic philosophy made its way into the intellectual elite of the Islamic world. The first important legacy was Platonic, and the Republic became the main text for Islamic Platonism. Al-Farabi wrote an enjoyable remake of the Platonic Republic, arguing that the citizen’s virtues were the basis on which the political building needs to rest. The secular lawgiver is enlightened by the light of reason in his everyday practice of governance, but room is made for the Prophet as the voice of revealed truth that confirms and completes the rational truth that philosophy may afford. In a second phase also Aristotelian and Stoic influence were assimilated. Miskawayh’s treatise was the masterwork at the time Arabic philosophy reached its Zenith. It is a treatment of the soul’s diseases and their remedies, combining the Aristotelian doctrine of the golden mean with the Stoic doctrine of the passions and elements of Galenic medicine. Towards the eleventh-twelve centuries a war raged among theologians and philosophers, finally won by the former with disappearance of philosophy as such. The newly established mainstream, yet, was no kind of intolerant fanaticism. It drew from the work of mystic theologian Al-Ghazālī, the best heir of Sufism, teaching a tolerant and peaceful attitude to our fellow-beings and a passive attitude to destiny as an expression of the Divine will. -/- 9. Moshe ben Maimon and the reconciliation of Torah and Aristotelian ethics. The encounter between the Talmudic tradition and Hellenic philosophy had taken place a first time in Alexandria at the time of Philo but the two traditions had parted way again. In fact, the kind of Platonic Judaism founded by Philo survived only within Christianity, in the fourth Gospel and then in writings by Clemens of Alexandria. The Talmudic literature had absorbed just less striking traits from the Hellenic Philosophy, namely an idea of ethics as care of the self and a role for the education of character as propaedeutic to theoretical knowledge. In the Arabic-Islamic world, a second round started when Jewish authors writing in Arabic undertook the task to prove the full compatibility of the tradition deriving from Torah and Platonic philosophy. The culmination of this attempt is provided by Moshe ben Maimon who tried to use Aristotelian ethics as a language into which the teaching from the Pirké Avot could be translated. -/- 10. Thomas Aquinas and the reconciliation of Christian morality and Aristotelian ethics. In the first section the fresh start is described of philosophical ethics in Latin Europe at the turn of the Millennium. In a first phase, Anselm and Peter Abelard built on a Platonic and Augustinian legacy. In this phase. remarkable innovations are introduced, including Abelard’s claim of the obliging character of erring consciousness. In a second phase, the rediscovery of Nicomachean Ethics thanks to Latin translation of Arabic versions gives birth to a new wave of ethical studies, recovering the very idea of Aristotelian practical philosophy, with the potential implication of full legitimization of natural morality, i.e. ethics without Revelation. Aquinas’s ethics is a theological ethics out of which it would be vain to try to extract a self-contained philosophical ethics. His treatment of topics in philosophical ethics, yet, does not boil down to repetition of Aristotelian arguments but is rather a creative reshaping of such arguments. For example, he introduces also in the practical philosophy a first principle parallel to the principle of non-contradiction; and he also carries out a synthesis of Aristotelianism, Stoicism, and neo-Platonism. Even though it is essentially moral theology, Aquinas’s doctrine - unlike Augustine – grants full citizenship to "natural" morality, firstly by rejecting the claim that the corruption of human nature due to the original sin is so radical as to leave "pure nature" incapable of moral goodness. The doctrine is presented in a more sophisticated formulation in a few of the Quaestiones, such as De Malo and De Veritate, in the Summa contra Gentes and in the commentaries to Aristotle than in the famous Summa Theologica, but the latter work includes the only or the largest exposition of some decisive part of the theory. Thus, the Summa Theologica should be read for what it is more than criticized for not being what it was not meant to be. It was not meant to be the brilliant synthesis of all that Reason he had been able to produce with what Revelation had added about which the Neo-Thomists used to dream, but rather a manual for the training of preachers and confessors, where theoretical claims are not too demanding and a few serious tensions are left. Besides a jump between the Prima Secundae and the Secunda Secundae, being the former an essay in virtue theory and the latter a handbook for confessors, the most serious tension is perhaps the one between the ethics of right reason presented in most of Ia-IIae and the eudemonistic ethics developed in quaestiones 1-5 of the same part; the alternative ethical theory which also may be found in Augustine, the Stoic view of a cosmic reason eventually coincident with the moral law, was believed by Anselm (followed by John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham) to be incompatible with eudemonism. It is questionable whether Thomas could reduce the tension proving that it is just an apparent tension, in so far as the right reason and bliss derived from knowledge of God tend to coincide, but this is just a conjecture. Thomas’s ethics is a virtue ethic, not a law-based one, and moral judgment focuses on the virtues, particularly charity, not on the commandments and even less on absolute prohibitions; Thomas, however, would not have considered a drastic alternative between law and the virtues such as the one which has been advanced in late twentieth-century philosophy to be justified. Nonetheless, when it discusses ‘special’ virtues, it ceases to be an ethics of virtue and becomes a disappointing and often contradictory discussion of legal and illegal acts. Such a discussion takes most of the time ‘reasonable’ middle positions on controversial issues but not the alternative approach that Aristotelianism would have made possible; even when some occasional Aristotelian claim shows up, such as money’s barrenness as a reason against usury, this seems to be made by an author who apparently ignores the Aristotelian Thomas of the Prima Secundae. It is an ethic of human autonomy which recognizes the binding character of the individual conscience and, potentially, even a duty to disobey unjust laws. It is true that what Thomas writes in his discussion of death penalty and persecution of heretics is simply disgusting, and yet we should blame Thomas the man, not Thomist ethical theory. Finally, Thomas’s ethics is not ethical ‘absolutism’, as both traditionalist Catholic theologians and secularist enemies of dogmatic morality tend to believe. It is instead an ethic of prudential judgment. Exceptions to this approach – or better results of logical fallacies – are such claims as the absolute character of negative precepts and of the existence of "intrinsically evil acts", claims that simply cease to make sense in the light of Thomas’s own distinction between human act and natural act, carrying consequences Thomas did not live long enough to draw or was not consistent enough to dare to draw. -/- 11. Francisco de Vitoria and casuistry. The first topic illustrated is the discussion about the notion of pura natura, namely the human condition after the original sin and before divine revelation. The core notion was already there in Aquinas but was later developed by Caietanus (Thomas de Vio) with a number of interesting implications: firstly a view of human nature as such much more positive than Augustine’s and his followers’ view, including both Calvinists and Jansenists; secondly, the implication that the philosopher’s morality, as opposed to the Christian’s morality, is a quite respectable kind of morality; thirdly, that theocracy and prosecution of the unfaithful lacked justification, with more far-fetching consequences than Aquinas himself had dared to draw. The second topic is casuistry, a new name for a comparatively older way of thinking, which was already there in late Stoicism and Cicero as well as in the Talmudic literature. This is an approach aimed at yielding probable enough solutions for doubtful cases even in absence of completely safe staring points. The genre developed from medieval reference books for confessors and became by the sixteenth-century a sophisticated tool-box for dealing with various fields of applied ethics. Francisco Vitoria, the main authority of Baroque Scholasticism, was a controversial figure, among the proponents of the new discipline of casuistry and a consistent proponent of more separation between the religious and the civil authority, stricter limits to the legitimacy of war, innate rights of non-Christian nations in the New World based on the notion of pura natura, providing a standard of ‘natural’ goodness, previous to revelation, on which the Indian nations were judged to live in a naturally good condition, provided with the institutions of family, justice, and religion had accordingly a right to full respect by Christian sovereigns. Bartolomé de Las Casas, arguing along similar lines, was the leader of a historical battle in defence of the rights of the Indios. -/- 12. Michel de Montaigne and the art of living. A short description of one of the Renaissance Phyrronism, one of the classical philosophies revived in the fifteenth and sixteenth century. Montaigne combines the sceptical epistemology with an understanding of ethics – indeed of philosophy as a whole – in terms of an art of living inspired by two basic ideas, sagesse, that is, practical wisdom as the only kind of rationality available after theology, science, and tradition have declared bankrupt, and an aesthetic ideal of self-transformation through the art of writing and introspection. -/- 13. Pierre Nicole and neo-Augustinianism. The chapter illustrates first the vicissitudes of Augustinianism newly born after the late medieval triumph of Thomist Aristotelianism in the alternative Protestant and Catholic versions processed by the Calvinists and the Jansenists. Then it illustrates the doctrines of Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal’s best disciple, on the impossibility of introspection, on the ubiquity of self-deception, on the incurably evil character of the passion of love, and on the two moralities, the one of the man of the world, the morality of honesty which is indispensable for granting peace and order but devoid of any true value for eternal salvation, since the same external behaviour may be prompted by opposite motivations, and the morality of charity, the only true one but also useless to society. The third topic is Pierre Malebranche’s view of self-deception as a ubiquitous phenomenon accounting for human action and responsibility and his reformulated theory of self-love, no less ubiquitous than for Nicole and yet not as incurably evil, given the distinction between morally indifferent and even necessary amour de soi and vicious amour proper, a distinction on which the whole of Rousseau’s moral and political theory rests. -/- 14. Samuel von Pufendorf and the new science of morality. The chapter is dedicated to the discovery of the idea of a ‘new moral science’. Hugo Grotius is discussed first highlighting the real character of his project, much closer to the Thomist idea of a natural law accessible to non-corrupted human reason when human beings are living in a state of pura natura. Then Hobbes’s combination of scepticism, voluntarism, and conventionalism is described and both the continuity with Grotius’s new science, in the search for non-revealed rational morality, and the break with him, in the adoption of voluntarism and refusal of an intellectualist view of natural law, are illustrated. Pufendorf’s work is illustrated as a synthesis of the two previous attempts and the – up to Schneewind underestimated – paradigmatic example of the new science of morality. -/- 15. Richard Cumberland and consequentialist voluntarism. The chapter gives an overview of eighteenth-century Anglican ethics, noticing how the Cambridge tradition gave special weight to natural theology as opposed to positive or revealed theology – and how two Cambridge fellows, John Gay and Thomas Brown, elaborated on Cumberland’s (and Malebranche’s, as well as Leibniz’s) strategy for finding a third way between intellectualist view and voluntarist view of the laws of nature. The result of their elaboration was a kind of a rational-choice account of the origins of natural laws, where a law-giver God chooses among a number possible sets of laws on a maximizing criterion, and God’s maximandum is happiness for his creatures. The chapter notices also how such a solution aimed at solving at once the problem of evil and that of the foundation of moral obligation by proving how God’s choice was justified as far as it was the one minimising the amount of suffering in the world. 16. Richard Price and intuitionism. The chapter describes first the doctrines of the Cambridge Platonists, an example of hyper-rationalist reaction to Calvinism. Secondly it describes the sophisticated and universally ignored – from Sidgwick to Anscombe –version of what was later labelled ‘ethical intuitionism’ – showing how it escapes familiar objections and misrepresentations of intuitionism – from Mill to Rawls – in grounding its argument on transcendental arguments while carefully avoiding recourse to introspection and psychological evidence, which has been taken as a too easy target by critics of intuitionism. Thirdly, the chapter discusses Whewell’s ‘philosophy of morality’, as opposed to ‘systematic morality’, not unlike Kant’s distinction between a pure and an empirical moral philosophy. Whewell worked out a systematization of traditional normative ethics as a first step before its rational justification; he believed that the point in the philosophy of morality is justifying a few rational truths about the structure of morality such as to rule hedonism, eudemonism, and consequentialism; yet a system of positive morality cannot be derived solely from such rational truths but requires consideration of the ongoing dialectics between idea and fact in historically given moralities. Whewell’s intuitionism turns out closer to Kantian ethics than commentators have made us believe until now, and quite different from what Sidgwick meant by intuitionism. -/- 17. Adam Smith and the morality of role-switch. The chapter describes first, Hutcheson’s attempt at basing the ‘new science’ of natural law on different bedrock than Pufendorf and the English Platonists, namely a moral sense, a faculty whose existence is assumed to be proved on an empirical basis. The second step is a reconstruction of Hume’s rejoinder in terms of a new science of man including morality on an ‘experimental’ basis, that is, a ‘Newtonian’ hypothetical-deductive approach, distinguished from Hutcheson’s allegedly uncritical descriptive approach to human nature. The third step is a reconstruction of Adam Smith theory of morality understood as emerging from a spontaneous interplay of exchanges of situations (the most basic meaning of the word ‘sympathy’ as construed by this author). -/- 18. Jeremy Bentham and utilitarianism. The bulk of the chapter is dedicated to the doctrines of Jeremy Bentham. The Enlightenment spirit that suggested the idea of a new morality, free from religion, is illustrated. The notion of utility is illustrated as well as the subsequent formulations of the principle of utility. The idea of felicific calculus is discussed, showing how its inner difficulties prompted several reformulations of the principle of utility in order to avoid undesirable implications of proposed formulations. The role of the thesis of spontaneous convergence between interest and duty is discussed, showing how it left numberless questions open, and the distinction between the virtues of prudence, justice and beneficence is described as a way out of the deadlocks of classical utilitarianism. After Bentham, Mill’s reformed utilitarianism is reconstructed, showing how it is a kind of mixed system – as closer to common sense as it gives up Bentham’s claims to consistency and simplicity – resulting as unintended consequences from the controversies in which Mill was too keen to engage. The hidden agenda of the controversy between Utilitarianism and Intuitionism, going beyond the image of the battle between Prejudice and Reason, is described, showing how both competing philosophical outlooks turn out to be more research programs than self-contained doctrinal bodies, and such programs appear to be implemented, and indeed radically transformed while in progress thanks to their enemies no less than to their supporters. -/- 19. Immanuel Kant, practical reason and judgment. The chapter argues that Kant took from Moses Mendelssohn the idea of a distinction between geometry of morals and a practical ethic. He was drastically misunderstood by his followers precisely on this point. He had learned from the sceptics and the Jansenists the lesson that men are prompted to act by deceptive ends, and he was aware that human actions are also empirical phenomena, where laws like the laws of Nature may be detected. His practical ethics made room for judgment as a holistic procedure for assessing the saliency of relevant moral qualities in one given situation; this procedure yields the same results as the geometry of morals does for abstract cases but does so immediately and without balancing conflicting duties with each other, since what makes for the salient quality of a situation is perceived from the very beginning. Kant's practical philosophy is richer than the received image, making room for an ‘empirical moral philosophy’ or moral anthropology including treatment of commerce, needs, value and price, happiness and well-being; the overall social theory and philosophy of history is less different from Adam Smith's than the received image makes believe; the paradox of happiness is central to Kant's philosophy; a distinction between happiness and well-being is clearly drawn; the distinction plays a basic role in establishing a link between the economic and the moral life. -/- 20. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and the critique of abstract universalism. The chapter describes first the Romantic movement and the implications some of its concerns, rescuing passions, community, tradition, the individual as the bearer of a unique destiny, and the longing for organic unity between the individual, mankind and nature. Hegel’s contribution is discussed then, highlighting how, on the one hand, he shared a number of these concerns and on the other he had more rationalist leanings. The notion of morality is the pivotal point of the reconstruction, highlighting how Hegel construes this notion as a key to his own diagnosis of the malaise of modernity – the separation of individual and Gemeinschaft – and how his attack on Kant turns around this very idea. -/- 21. Friedrich Nietzsche against Christianity and the Enlightenment. The chapter illustrates first the idea of deconstruction of the back-world of values. Nietzsche claims to be legitimate heir of the French moralists, Leibniz, Kant and Hegel, in so far as he allegedly carries out to its deepest implications their discovery of what lies behind traditional naïve belief in the existence of an objective realm of values just waiting for description by the philosopher. The two exemplars form which genealogy draws inspiration are the classical philologist’s historical reconstructions of lost meanings and the chemist’s decomposition of elements. Then the genealogy of the notions of good and evil carried out in the first dissertation of Genealogy of morals is illustrated with its paradoxical conclusion that will to power is in fact the only ‘genuine’ kind of goodness. The third point illustrated is the dialectic of ascetism and self-realization with its ambiguous outcome. The suggested interpretation of such outcome is that Nietzsche’s normative ethics is a kind of virtue ethics taking an aesthetic ideal as a normative standard -/- 22. George Edward Moore and ideal utilitarianism. The chapter discusses the ideas of common sense and common-sense morality in Sidgwick. I argue that, far from aiming at overcoming common-sense morality, Sidgwick aimed purposely at grounding a consist code of morality by methods allegedly taken from the natural sciences to reach, also in ethics, the same kind of “mature” knowledge as in the natural sciences. His whole polemics with intuitionism was vitiated by the a priori assumption that the widespread ethos of the educated part of humankind, not the theories of the intuitionist philosophers, was what was worth considering as the expression of intuitionist ethics. In spite of a naïve positivist starting-point, Sidgwick was encouraged by his own approach in exploring the fruitfulness of coherentist methods for normative ethics. Thus, Sidgwick left an ambivalent legacy to twentieth-century ethics: the dogmatic idea of a “new” morality of a consequentialist kind, and the fruitful idea that we can argue rationally in normative ethics albeit without shared foundations. Then it reconstructs the background of ideas, concerns and intentions out of which Moore’s early essays, the preliminary version, and then the final version of Principia Ethica originated. I stress the role of religious concerns, as well as that of the Idealist legacy. I argue that PE is more a patchwork of rather diverging contributions than a unitary work, not to say the paradigm of a new school in Ethics. I add a comparison with Rashdall’s almost contemporary ethical work, suggesting that the latter defends the same general claims in a different way, one that manages to pave decisive objections in a more plausible way. I end by suggesting that the emergence of Analytic Ethics was a more ambiguous phenomenon than the received view would make us believe, and that the wheat (or some other gluten-free grain) of this tradition, that is, what logic can do for philosophy, should be separated from the chaff, that is, the confused and mutually incompatible legacies of Utilitarianism and Idealism. -/- 23. Edmund Husserl and the a-priori of action. The chapter illustrates first the idea of phenomenology and the Husserl’s project of a phenomenological ethic as illustrated in his 1908-1914 lectures. The key idea is dismissing psychology and trying to ground a new science of the a priori of action, within which a more restricted field of inquiry will be the science of right actions. Then the chapter illustrates the criticism of modern moral philosophy carried out in the 1920 lectures, where the main target is naturalism, understood in the Kantian meaning of primacy of common sense. The third point illustrate is Adolph Reinach’s theory of social acts as a key the grounding of norms, a view that basically sketches the very ideas ‘discovered’ later by Clarence I. Lewis, John Searle, Karl-Otto Apel and Jürgen Habermas. A final section is dedicated to Nicolai Hartman, who always refused to define himself a phenomenologist and yet developed a more articulated and detailed theory of ‘values’ – with surprising affinities with George E. Moore - than philosophers such as Max Scheler who claimed to Husserl’s legitimate heirs. -/- 24. Bertrand Russell and non-cognitivism. The chapter reconstructs first the discussion after Moore. The naturalistic-fallacy argument was widely accepted but twisted to prove instead that the intuitive character of the definition of ‘good’, its non-cognitive meaning, in a first phase identified with ‘emotive’ meaning. Alfred Julius Ayer is indicated as a typical proponent of such non-cognitivist meta-ethics. More detailed discussion is dedicated to Bertrand Russell’s ethics, a more nuanced and sophisticated doctrine, arguing that non-cognitivism does not condemn morality to arbitrariness and that the project of a rational normative ethics is still possible, heading finally to the justification of a kind of non-hedonist utilitarianism. Stevenson’s theory, another moderate version of emotivism is discussed at some length, showing how the author comes close to the discovery of the role of a pragmatic dimension of language as a basis for ethical argument. Last of all, the discussion from the Forties about Hume’s law is described, mentioning Karl Popper’s argument and Richard Hare’s early non-cognitivist but non-emotivist doctrine named prescriptivism. -/- 25. Elizabeth Anscombe and the revival of virtue ethics. The chapter discusses the three theses defended by Anscombe in 'Modern Moral Philosophy'. I argue that: a) her answer to the question "why should I be moral?" requires a solution of the problem of theodicy, and ignores any attempts to save the moral point of view without recourse to divine retribution; b) her notion of divine law is an odd one more neo-Augustinian than Biblical or Scholastic; c) her image of Kantian ethics and intuitionism is the impoverished image manufactured by consequentialist opponents for polemical purposes and that she seems strangely accept it; d) the difficulty of identifying the "relevant descriptions" of acts is not an argument in favour of an ethics of virtue and against consequentialism or Kantian ethics, and indeed the role of judgment in the latter is a response to the difficulties raised by the case of judgment concerning future action. A short look at further developments in the neo-naturalist current is given trough a reconstruction of Philippa Foot’s and Peter Geach’s critiques to the naturalist-fallacy argument and Alasdair MacIntyre’s grand reconstruction of the origins and allegedly unavoidable failure of the Enlightenment project of an autonomous ethic. -/- 26. Richard Hare and neo-Utilitarianism. The chapter addresses the issue of the complex process of self-transformation Utilitarianism underwent after Sidgwick’s and Moore’s fatal criticism and the unexpected Phoenix-like process of rebirth of a doctrine definitely refuted. A glimpse at this uproarious process is given through two examples. The first is Roy Harrod Wittgensteinian transformation of Utilitarianism in pure normative ethics depurated from hedonism as well as from whatsoever theory of the good. This results in preference utilitarianism combined with a ‘Kantian’ version of rule utilitarianism. The second is Richard Hare’s two-level preference utilitarianism where act utilitarianism plays the function of eventual rational justification of moral judgments and rule-utilitarianism that of action-guiding practical device. -/- 27. Hans-Georg Gadamer and rehabilitation of practical philosophy. The post-war rediscovery of ethics by many German thinkers and its culmination in the Sixties in the movement named ‘Rehabilitation of practical philosophy’ is described. Among the actors of such rehabilitation there were a few of Heidegger’s most brilliant disciples, and Hans-Georg Gadamer is chosen as a paradigmatic example. His reading of Aristotle’s lesson I reconstructed, starting with Heidegger’s lesson but then subtly subverting its outcome thanks to the recovery of the central role of the notion of phronesis. -/- 28. Karl-Otto Apel and the revival of Kantian ethics. Parallel to the neo-Aristotelian trend, there was in the Rehabilitation of practical philosophy a Kantian current. This started, instead than the rehabilitation of prudence, with the discovery of the pragmatic dimension of language carried out by Charles Peirce and the Oxford linguistic philosophy. On this basis, Karl-Otto Apel singled out as the decisive proponent of the linguistic and Kantian turn in German-speaking ethics, worked out the performative-contradiction argument while claiming that this was able to provide a new rational and universal basis for normative ethics. An examination of his argument is some detail is offered, followed by a more cursory reconstruction of Jürgen Habermas’s elaboration on Apel’s theory. -/- 29. John Rawls and public ethics as applied ethics. Rawls’s distinction between a “political” and a “metaphysical” approach to one central part of ethical theory, namely the theory of justice, is interpreted as a formulation of the same basic idea at the root of both the principles approach and neo-casuistry, both discussed in the following chapter, namely that it is possible to reach an agreement concerning positive moral judgments even though the discussion is still open – and in Rawls’ view never will be close – on the basic criteria for judgment. -/- 30. Beauchamp and Childress and bioethics as applied ethics. The chapter presents the revolution of applied ethics while stressing its methodological novelty, exemplified primarily by Beauchamp and Childress principles approach and then by Jonsen and Toulmin’s new casuistry. -/- . (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.2 (2000) 223-240 [Access article in PDF] The "Survival of the Fittest" and the Origins of Social Darwinism Gregory Claeys * In late September 1838 a young man, aged 29, a former medical student and amateur naturalist, who had spent several years in the South Pacific studying plant and animal life, but who remained puzzled as to why "favourable variants" of each species (...) survived while "unfavourable variants" were destroyed, sat perusing a book, as he later recalled, "for amusement." 1 The work which provoked Charles Darwin was T. R. Malthus's Essay on Population (1798), which he later claimed first suggested to him the idea that "on the whole the best fitted live." This idea Darwin would popularize through the notion of the "struggle for existence," a phrase which he famously claimed to use as a "metaphor" but which meant simply "the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms." 2 That application resulted in the publication [End Page 223] of the Origin of Species in 1859, an occasion hailed as "the greatest event of Queen Victoria's reign," 3 even "by far the most important... in the history of the modern West." 4 It is well known, too, that Darwin's appreciation of Malthus was not unique even among naturalists. The year before the Origin of Species appeared another young man, Alfred Russel Wallace, aged 25, encountered the very same book. "There suddenly," he later recalled, flashed upon him "the idea of the survival of the fittest." 5 We know Wallace today, thus, as the codiscoverer of theory of natural selection, who presented a paper jointly with Darwin at the Linnean Society on that momentous evening of 1 July 1858 to mark their brilliant achievement. 6This curious coincidence has often been noted, but its ramifications require further assessment. This article examines some crucial nineteenth-century sources of the idea of the "survival of the fittest," which came to underpin many of the social and political doctrines later associated with the theory of natural selection, and also what were regarded as some of the limits of this idea. 7 It contends that there was in fact far more than mere coincidence in the obviously provocative role played by Malthus's Essay for both Darwin and Wallace. 8 It argues, [End Page 224] therefore, against the presumption of tacit causality--logically implicit in the concept of "Social Darwinism" 9 --that much of the social and political theory which nominally invoked Darwin was fundamentally derived from, as opposed to being reinforced by, the principles of natural selection. It challenges the view that the logic of discovery in the natural sciences, in other words, induced parallel or derivative concepts in the social sciences and that the "survival of the fittest" emerged first as a natural, and then mutated into a social concept. Instead it suggests that what was specific about much of Social Darwinism resulted from several shifts in thought in mid-Victorian Britain to which Darwin himself also responded and which therefore also vitally influenced his own development.No doubt, of course, this assertion of causation contains some truth. Darwin was extraordinarily widely read and extraordinarily influential. We are all aware of the great theological debates associated with his name in late Victorian Britain, of the counter-attack against Darwin begun by Bishop Wilberforce in June 1860, and of the tenacious war of attrition conducted by "Darwin's bulldog," T. H. Huxley, who coined the term "agnostic" in 1869 to define the lack of scientific evidence for the existence of God. 10 Much has been written of the moral panic and growing loss of religious faith, paralleling the course of Darwin's own "reluctant agnosticism," which followed the conclusion that human beings had been levelled to the status of animals and deprived of a special Providential creation as well as any divine purpose in the perpetuation of their species. In history a tremendous impetus was given to the search for certain laws of social development. In social... (shrink)

It is natural for us — living after the Darwinian Revolution and the neo-Darwinian synthesis — to consider the adoption of evolution by natural selection as unconditionally rational, because it now seems the best theory or explanation of many phenomena. Nonetheless, if we take historical inquiry seriously, as allowing us to probe into the ground of our knowledge, the roots of even this “rational” Darwinism might be unearthed. Darwinian doctrine betrays a deceptive desire for unity and simplicity of principle, and (...) belief that the mechanistic aspect of nature is of the highest significance. Such crucial but questionable presuppositions are more easily discerned historically, insofar as they chronologically preceded Darwin's particular theoretical conviction and were even set off as a metaphysics of divine law.We have seen how Darwin's teaching about nature emerged within that theistic metaphysics. It emerged in a prior metaphysical debate in his mind between the contemporary belief in special creations and the belief in a designed hierarchy of physical laws. One can hardly deny that Darwin favored the superior side in this contest; but the contest was a narrow one whose basic premises he never clearly criticized. On the one hand, of course, his conviction about a lawful genesis inspired him to take a broad view of things and to seek out important general phenomena. But, on the other hand, it ensured that his new empirical notions would be easily drawn into the preferred cosmology. Historically, this seems to have occurred in Darwin's adoption of Malthus' principle of population and his extension of it to the whole account of descent: Malthusianism was readily attached to an ultimate scheme of things. Consequently, the key concepts that Darwin developed out of his Malthusian views — “perfect adaptation” and “selection” — reflect his cosmological prepossession, his desire to express a total and teleological process of creation. Perhaps our most valuable, and most undervalued, token of Darwin's metaphysical orientation is his reliance on a human technique (selective breeding) to explain “Nature's” way. In sum, to understand Darwin's faith in his “grand view of life,” we should not ignore the metaphysics that preceded and structured it, the metaphysics that linked the principles of contemporary science to primordial creation. Nor should we fail to see that such a metaphysics leads natural philosophy into a shadowy realm, where system can come to look like science, and one insight like an absolute. (shrink)

It is not without a certain emotion that one opens this book devoted to the memory of a great scholar of medieval thought who worked and lived in the certainty that there cannot be a conflict between the Christian faith and science. In a significant essay, Benedict M. Ashley defends the idea of the philosophy of nature as continuous or identical with natural science. Ashley does allow, however, for so many divergences between philosophy of nature and natural science due to (...) later developments in science that this identification must be qualified. Steven E. Baldner points out some of the contradictions of Hartshorne's atomism: Hartshorne denies change and real causality. Anthony J. Celano recalls that Robert Kilwardby was very much aware that happiness as described by Aristotle is quite different from the beatitude promised by the Christian faith. The order of the divine entitative attributes in the Summa theologiae I, qq. 3-11 has baffled many a commentator. Lawrence Dewan connects it with some texts of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Jeremiah Hackett studies Roger Bacon's Moralis philosophia. Dealing with Luther's attitude toward St. Thomas, Denis R. Tanz accepts Erasmus's verdict that the weight given to Thomas in theology was an important factor in propelling Luther out of the Roman Catholic orbit. This opinion, however, confounds appearances with the real reason for leaving, namely, estrangement from several central positions of Catholic doctrine. It is a tribute to the Catholicity of Thomas that after 1519 Luther came to identify the Pope, the Church and all scholastic doctors with the Thomists and said that the Church had become the synagogue of the papists and the Thomists: Thomas had been made the arbiter of heresy. Mark F. Johnson stresses the sapiential character of the sacra doctrina. Mark D. Jordan wrestles with the question why Thomas wrote his Aristotelian commentaries. Arguing in the line of Owens's interpretation he reduces their importance with regard to Thomas's own positions. Jordan seems to think that Thomas's philosophy cannot be formulated without his theology, an explanation which is hardly satisfactory. Armand Maurer submits some reflections on St. Thomas's notion of presence. The question to what extent Albert the Great contributed to Aquinas's treatises of the morality of human acts and of natural law is examined by Ernest J. McCullough. Walter H. Principe points out how, according to Aquinas, food is assimilated into the veritas humanae naturae. Eric A. Reitan retraces Weisheipl's analysis of Aristotle's Physics and of St. Thomas' Commentary: the axiom, "whatever is moved, is moved by another" can be understood only within the context of the general science of nature. In his Liber de causis et processu universitatis Albert came to hold the same position as Thomas on the demonstrability of creation and of its beginning in time. Two final articles concern the difficulties underlying Aristotle's arguments in Physics 7 and 8, and Aquinas and Newton on causality: William Wallace connects Newton's universal gravitation with the axiom that nothing acts on itself. (shrink)

It is not without a certain emotion that one opens this book devoted to the memory of a great scholar of medieval thought who worked and lived in the certainty that there cannot be a conflict between the Christian faith and science. In a significant essay, Benedict M. Ashley defends the idea of the philosophy of nature as continuous or identical with natural science. Ashley does allow, however, for so many divergences between philosophy of nature and natural science due to (...) later developments in science that this identification must be qualified. Steven E. Baldner points out some of the contradictions of Hartshorne's atomism: Hartshorne denies change and real causality. Anthony J. Celano recalls that Robert Kilwardby was very much aware that happiness as described by Aristotle is quite different from the beatitude promised by the Christian faith. The order of the divine entitative attributes in the Summa theologiae I, qq. 3-11 has baffled many a commentator. Lawrence Dewan connects it with some texts of Aristotle's Metaphysics. Jeremiah Hackett studies Roger Bacon's Moralis philosophia. Dealing with Luther's attitude toward St. Thomas, Denis R. Tanz accepts Erasmus's verdict that the weight given to Thomas in theology was an important factor in propelling Luther out of the Roman Catholic orbit. This opinion, however, confounds appearances with the real reason for leaving, namely, estrangement from several central positions of Catholic doctrine. It is a tribute to the Catholicity of Thomas that after 1519 Luther came to identify the Pope, the Church and all scholastic doctors with the Thomists and said that the Church had become the synagogue of the papists and the Thomists: Thomas had been made the arbiter of heresy. Mark F. Johnson stresses the sapiential character of the sacra doctrina. Mark D. Jordan wrestles with the question why Thomas wrote his Aristotelian commentaries. Arguing in the line of Owens's interpretation he reduces their importance with regard to Thomas's own positions. Jordan seems to think that Thomas's philosophy cannot be formulated without his theology, an explanation which is hardly satisfactory. Armand Maurer submits some reflections on St. Thomas's notion of presence. The question to what extent Albert the Great contributed to Aquinas's treatises of the morality of human acts and of natural law is examined by Ernest J. McCullough. Walter H. Principe points out how, according to Aquinas, food is assimilated into the veritas humanae naturae. Eric A. Reitan retraces Weisheipl's analysis of Aristotle's Physics and of St. Thomas' Commentary: the axiom, "whatever is moved, is moved by another" can be understood only within the context of the general science of nature. In his Liber de causis et processu universitatis Albert came to hold the same position as Thomas on the demonstrability of creation and of its beginning in time. Two final articles concern the difficulties underlying Aristotle's arguments in Physics 7 and 8, and Aquinas and Newton on causality: William Wallace connects Newton's universal gravitation with the axiom that nothing acts on itself. (shrink)

O presente estudo busca compreender a aderência de jovens a um instituto católico – Toca de Assis – que se caracteriza por adotar um estilo de vida configurado por radical pobreza, renúncia a bens e estudos formais, e dependência exclusiva da providência divina, além de desenvolvimento de trabalho com pessoas em situação de rua. Busca entender a opção juvenil por um estilo de vida religiosa rigoroso a partir de propostas de vida contrastivas com a sociedade contemporânea e, de certo (...) modo, com a própria Igreja, visando identidades alternativas e fortes. Assim, o artigo desenvolve o tema Juventude; Toca de Assis, renúncia, pobreza; tem como objetivo verificar as relações entre juventude, comportamento e adesão a estilos de vida radicais; usa, principalmente, da metodologia das ciências sociais; tem por conclusão provisória a compreensão de que os jovens que aderem à Toca de Assis, ao renunciar a bens materiais, estudo, e ao assumirem uma vida de pobreza e solidariedade com os pobres, estão em um movimento de contrastividade e contestação social motivadas por uma identificação com o Cristo sofredor. Palavras-chave : Toca de Assis. Renúncia. Pobreza. Jovens.: The present study aims to understand the adherence of youth people to a Catholic institute called Toca de Assis. This group adopts a lifestyle of radical poverty, wich calls for renunciation of material goods and also to formal studies. Participants in this group also claim rely solely on state of divine providence for their material survival. Young people in this group perform a work of assistance to people marginalized by society and to those who live at risk on the streets. The article seeks to understand the reasons for the choice of young people for a religious lifestyle so strict that contrasts with the lifestyle of contemporary society and in a sense, the Church itself, aiming at the formation of alternate identities. Thus, the article develops the theme “youth”, “Toca de Assis”, “resignation”, and “poverty”. The study aims, in short, to examine relationships between youth behavior and adherence to radical lifestyles; For this purpose, a methodology of social science is used. As in interim conclusion, this discussion indicates the following: youth people who adhere to Toca de Assis, renouncing material possessions, study, and assuming a life of poverty and solidarity with the poor, are in a movement of social protest and are motivated by an identification with the suffering Christ. Keywords : Toca de Assis. Renunciation. Poverty. Youth. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.2 (2003) 271-272 [Access article in PDF] Lenn E. Goodman. Jewish and Islamic Philosophy: Crosspollinations in the Classic Age. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999. Pp. xv + 256. Cloth, $55.00. This book is a bold if not audacious survey of select themes in Jewish and Islamic philosophy. The "crosspollinations" to which the subtitle refers carry the author back to classical Greece, (...) and forward to Spinoza, Kant, Bergson, Darwin, and beyond. Medieval Jewish and Islamic philosophers are placed as the centerpieces of a humanistic tradition rooted in the past and still resonating in the present.This is a view of medieval philosophy to which many a medievalist would like to subscribe, but which few would dare describe with such brio and eloquent assurance as Lenn Goodman, who is both a historian of philosophy and a philosopher. This confidence waylays Goodman, though, in that he regularly substitutes pronouncements for patient explanation and argument. The reader who is not already familiar with the issues discussed and positions advanced will have a hard time following him. More informed readers may well question many of his summary judgments and piquant observations.The ideal reader of this work is one who has read Goodman's other studies, to which the notes frequently refer. The arguments adumbrated here are presumably laid out in detail in these earlier essays and books. The text before us is thus for the most part more a statement of faith, the author's summary credo, than a reasoned exposition of Jewish and Islamic philosophy. To Goodman, "the approach is synthetic rather than descriptive" (ix).The book deals with "issues of abiding philosophical interest: freedom and determinism, the nature and meaning of history, the basis of ethical values, the foundations and social implications of friendship, the viability and relevance of the idea of God." These admirable themes are pursued in separate yet complementing chapters that compare the tenth-century free-thinker and physician Muhammad ibn Zakariyâ al-Râzî and Epicurus; the tenth-century pietist Bahya ibn Paquda and Kant; and the fourteenth-century Maghribi historian Ibn Khaldûn and Thucydides. Three other chapters compare, respectively, Maimonides and such major Islamic philosophers as Avicenna, Al-Ghazâlî, and Ibn Bâjjah; Maimonides, Al-Ghazâlî, and the Persian ethicist Miskawayh (tenth/eleventh centuries); and Maimonides, Aristotle, and Spinoza.It is at once obvious that Maimonides (twelfth century) is at the heart of this work, reflecting Goodman's longstanding interest in this towering figure of medieval Jewish philosophy. Less obvious is Goodman's contention that Maimonides is to be seen not only in relation to Avicenna, Al-Ghazâlî, and Ibn Bâjjah, but also to Râzî, Bahya, and Miskawayh. Goodman has constructed a narrative of persons and ideas, abstracting from their contexts common concerns and purposes. While there is much to admire in these constructions—patently erudite and challenging as they are—the direct filiations Goodman assumes are often conjectural at best.Take, for example, Goodman's chapter on "Maimonides and the Philosophers of Islam," with its subtitles of "Creation" and "Theophany." These terms are shorthand for Maimonides' treatment of the science of physics and metaphysics, both in their normative and extraordinary appearances. Goodman correctly notes that Maimonides is deeply indebted to Muslim philosophers (and their Greek predecessors) for his knowledge of these fields, though he does stretch matters in singling out the importance of Al-Kindî and Râzî as influences upon Maimonides' thought.Goodman does this in part because he believes Maimonides shared, in varying degrees, a creationist position with them. Goodman accepts at face value Maimonides' assertion that only a creationist thesis allows for voluntarism, a (theologically) meaningful Divine Will. "Only voluntarism," Goodman asserts in the name of Maimonides, "can break the stranglehold of necessity, making emanation itself possible, allowing change, and crucially, allowing change in the natures of things, that is, evolution, as a means of bringing creation to 'maturity'"(98). This statement, besides its anachronistic introduction of evolution into medieval notions of change, misinterprets Maimonides' view... (shrink)

The Liber de causis, a monotheistic reworking of Proclus' Elements of Theology, was translated from Arabic into Latin in the twelfth century, with an attribution to Aristotle. Considering this Neoplatonic text a product of Aristotle's school and even the completion of Aristotle's Metaphysics, Albert the Great concluded his series of Aristotelian paraphrases by commenting on it. To do so was to invite controversy, since accidents of translation had made many readers think that the Liber de causis taught that God made (...) only the first creature, which in turn created the diverse multitude of lesser things. Thus, Albert's contemporaries in the Christian West took the text to uphold the supposedly Aristotelian doctrine that from the One only one thing can emanate--a doctrine they rejected, believing as they did that God freely determined the number and kinds of creatures. Albert, however, defended the philosophers against the theologians of his day, denying that the thesis "from the One only one proceeds" removed God's causality from the diversity and multiplicity of our world. This Albert did by appealing to a greater theologian, Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, and equating the being that is the subject of metaphysics with the procession of Being from God's intellect, a procession Dionysius described in On the Divine Names. Creation as Emanation examines Albert's reading of the Liber de causis with an eye toward two questions: First, how does Albert view the relation between faith and reason, so that he can identify creation from nothing with emanation from God? And second, how does he understand Platonism and Aristotelianism, so that he can avoid the misreadings of his fellow theologians by finding in a late-fifth-century Neoplatonist the key to Aristotle's meaning? (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:484 BOOK REVIEWS faith. Yet faith-knowledge alone is insufficient to account for Jesus' extraordinary gifts as a teacher: for this we must appeal to a special charism along the lines of an infused knowledge. According to Torrell this knowledge is best understood by reference to Aquinas's mature teaching on prophecy: God equipped the prophets with an infused light (but not infused ideas) enabling them to communicate divine truths (...) to others. Likewise, God conferred on Jesus an infused light akin to that of the prophets, but with this qualitative difference: in him the lumen is a permanent feature of his cognitive life (a habitus), while it is given to the prophets only intermittently (per modum actus). The foregoing i;ummary will have served its purpose if it has conveyed to the reader some sense of the very rich historical, philosophical, and theological reflections that comprise this volume. The editorial team of the Revue thomiste is to be commended for the high caliber of this and the other special publications it has produced in recent years: the 1992 commemorative volume on the theological achievement of M.-M. Labourdette; th~ 1993 centenary index ("tables generales 1893-1992"); the Gilson issue of 1994; and most recently an issue devoted to Thomas Aquinas and the onto-theo-logy debate (1995). This reviewer eagerly waits for more. Fordham University Bronx, New York GREGORY M. REICHBERG The Divine Initiative: Grace, World-Order, and Human Freedom in the Early Writings of Bernard Lonergan. By J. MICHAEL STEBBINS. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. Pp. xxii + 399. $65.00 (cloth). Aquinas insists that the creator's primary intent is the "order of the universe," and Bernard Lonergan's dissertation on "operating grace" in Aquinas's writings managed to move beyond the stalemated discussion of "sufficient" and "efficacious" grace precisely because he displayed how any discourse about grace had to be connected with larger theorems of the creator's operation in creation. What speaking of the divine action called "grace" requires is a set of metaphysical skills adequate to speaking of the "order of the universe" as created. A tall order, whose scope the published edition of his dissertation-Grace and Freedom-so understated that its implications have been missed by many philosophers and theologians fascinated with such questions. Stebbins's careful reconstruction of that text reminds us of its daunting scope. And part of the reason it can do so is that he illustrates both the method and conclusions of Grace and Freedom through a later text which Lonergan had composed (in Latin) for a course on grace offered from 1947 to 1960: De ente supernaturali (which will appear in volume 16 [Early Latin Theology] of the Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, published by BOOK REVIEWS 485 University of Toronto Press). The significance of this collateral source is that it can profit from and respond to Henri de Lubac's epochal Surnaturel (1946). For those not familiar with Grace and Freedom, as well as some who thought they were, a list of Stebbins's chapters manages to convey the scope of Lonergan's achievement: 1. The Role of Understanding in Theological Speculation; 2. The Principal Instance of Supernatural Being: The Created Communication of the Divine Nature; 3. Thirteenth-Century Breakthrough (The "Theorem" of the Supernatural); 4. Supernatural Transformation of Human Activity; 5. Obediential Potency and the Natural Desire to See God; 6. Molinist and Bannezian Systems; 7. Theoretical Perspective on Divine Concourse; 8. Contingence, Sin and Divine Efficacy. As always, Lonergan must actively reflect on method while executing a theological inquiry, so Stebbins rightly begins with his insistence that such inquiry must be more than "just a networks of concepts; it is primarily an act of understanding" (xix)-Chapter 1. Then, following the expository order of De ente supematurali, he shows how Lonergan roots the supernatural in the theorems developed to speak of the natural: of creation itself. ("Theorem," as we shall see, is a favorite word of Lonergan's, intimating what it takes to move beyond our imaginations to a set of propositions able to articulate the metaphysical issues at stake.) Following the analogy of nature, we can see how the "two operations by which creatures... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 717 the work of Arthur Danto. Here the stimulus to reflection is those elements in modern art which " make a farce of traditional art and art theories hy giving us artworks indiscernible from objects found on grocery shelves or in lavatories." If, as Danto suggests, whatever is to count as art is simply what an " artworld " decrees, then the distinction between artefact and artwork (...) can disappear completely (except in terms of somebody's bank balance). The trouble with the remaining essays in this collection is that their authors have not appropriated a truth given lapidary expression in Woods' essay on Kant: "Attention to the works of genius throughout the ages cultivates the sensus communis and establishes a community involved in the beautiful." Thus, while Ted Cohen is right to consider television a possible artistic medium, the objects of televisual appreciation he considers usually witness to a breakdown of a community involved in the beautiful, while the frequently nugatory objects discussed in John Brough's "Who's Afraid of Marcel Duchamp? " testify to the disintegration of the sensus communis concerned. Finally, if Paul Weiss is right in his "Creativity and Beauty" not only to designate beauty " the excellence pertinent to the creation of a work of art," but also to house it together with the quartet of truth, goodness, glory, and justice, then we can get a sense of how wisdom in both philosophy and artistic practice might he restored: through a re· discovery of the interdependence of the transcendentals. But perhaps only the Judaeo-Christian revelation now holds the key to this possibility. AIDAN NICHOLS, O.P. Blackfriars Cambridge, England Through the Tempest: Theological Voyages in a Pluralistic Culture. By LANGDON GILKEY. Ed. Jeff B. Pool. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991. Pp. xx + 252. Langdon Gilkey: Theologian for a Culture in Decline. By BRIAN J. WALSH. Lanham, MD: University Press of America/Institute for Christian Studies, 1991. Pp. xii + 324. $47.50 (cloth); $22.50 (paper). With the exception of two mid-1970s papers, Through the Tempest is a collection of some of the addresses and essays written in the 1980s hy Langdon Gilkey, Shailer Mathews Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Title and subtitle are meant to re· 718 BOOK REVIEWS fleet three elements of Gilkey's temper. First, the tempest corresponds to his dramatic vision of the twentieth-century world, with its wars, up· heavals, and destructive forces. Second, the preposition through expresses the sober hope that for all the darkness that surrounds our century, we are actually moving toward a destination beyond the turmoil. And third, his explorations and assessments of the many facets of contemporary culture are theological voyages. In these pages readers will find many of the themes Gilkey has tackled over the years, such as God, Jesus, Creation, Providence, spirituality, the function of symbols, ethics, suffering and death, Christianity and other religions, faith and science, church and public policy. Among the most original pieces are, to my mind, Ch. 10, on the different attitudes to ethics in Christianity and Buddhism, and Ch. 14, which clarifies many aspects of suffering. The general readership made up of those interested in religion will probably enjoy these lectures, while specialists in theology or human studies are likely to find them merely impressionistic and too vague both in their cultural analyses and in their conceptual discussions. Further, there is a discrepancy between Gilkey's assessment of the human predicament and :the theological solutions he puts forward. On the one hand, the mood and the content of his assessment is neo· orthodox (inspired by his master Reinhold Niebuhr). For instance, chapters 11 and 13, on evil and sin, are typical of an acute awareness of the dark side of human conduct. As he follows this vein, Gilkey raises pertinent, profound, and difficult questions. On :the other hand, his prescriptions do not match the depth of his diagnoses. Despite his efforts at overcoming theological liberalism, he often remains confined within the limits of the Western Enlightenment. For example, like most eighteenth-century thinkers, he rejects "a level of grace beyond nature " (54). What he repudiates is in all likeliness the modern separation between nature and supernature, and... (shrink)

This theological argument job has three sections, each of them dealing with one of its aspects. In the first, on the creation, there are the data as presented in the Holy Scriptures, the development of creationist theology and confirmation that science and theology can illuminate each other since respecting each others' differences. In the second, on the incarnation, it is confirmed that God is not unfamiliar to his work because, after creating it, continued veiling about to send his Son to (...) bring it to fullness. The Word became flesh, became man in the womb of Mary, so that human being could take part in the divine life. In the third, on the mercy, it is the divine attention to the most vulnerable human beings, and as such attention becomes central to the plan of salvation for those who knew Jesus Christ and want to be part of his kingdom. (shrink)

Resumen Olegario González de Cardedal es precursor y pionero de la Nueva Apologética en España, y, aparte de analizar la credibilidad de la revelación por el signo fundamental Jesucristo, en necesario comprobar si la fe es razonable para el hombre del siglo XXI y sí los argumentos que la explican no son contrarios a la lógica. Entre los distintos pasos para indagarlo se parte de que la fe es significativa para el hombre, objetivo fundamental de este artículo. Las fuentes de (...) estudio empleadas han sido cuarenta artículos del teólogo publicados en distintos medios de comunicación, principalmente en los periódicos ABC y El País. En este estudio, siempre desde la visión del autor, se aclarará algunas características antropológicas señaladas por el autor, basadas en las ciencias humanas; la relación del hombre con lo sagrado; los rasgos más característicos de su Antropología Teológica; y por último se dará respuesta a la pregunta: ¿La fe es significativa para el hombre actual? Se termina con algunas consideraciones sobre el tema.Olegario González de Cardedal is recognized as a Theologian pioneer of the New Apologetic in Spain, and, besides analjzing the credibility of the revelation by the fundamental sign jesús Christ, it is needed to verify whether the Faith remains reasonable for the man on the XXI century, and whether the argu-ments that explain it are not in opposition to the logic. Among the different steps on such a quest, an starting point is that the Faith provides meaning to the man, which is the main pupose of this article. The sources for this study were forty anieles of the theologian in different means, especially on the Spanish newspapers: ABC and El País. Along this study, some anthropologic characteristics pointed out by the Theologian are claúfied, like those based on the human sciences, the relationship between man and the sacred, the most fundamental aspeas of its Theological anthropology, and an answer will be provided to the question: Is Faith significant for the man today? (shrink)

Resumen Olegario González de Cardedal es precursor y pionero de la Nueva Apologética en España, y, aparte de analizar la credibilidad de la revelación por el signo fundamental Jesucristo, en necesario comprobar si la fe es razonable para el hombre del siglo XXI y sí los argumentos que la explican no son contrarios a la lógica. Entre los distintos pasos para indagarlo se parte de que la fe es significativa para el hombre, objetivo fundamental de este artículo. Las fuentes de (...) estudio empleadas han sido cuarenta artículos del teólogo publicados en distintos medios de comunicación, principalmente en los periódicos ABC y El País. En este estudio, siempre desde la visión del autor, se aclarará algunas características antropológicas señaladas por el autor, basadas en las ciencias humanas; la relación del hombre con lo sagrado; los rasgos más característicos de su Antropología Teológica; y por último se dará respuesta a la pregunta: ¿La fe es significativa para el hombre actual? Se termina con algunas consideraciones sobre el tema.Olegario González de Cardedal is recognized as a Theologian pioneer of the New Apologetic in Spain, and, besides analjzing the credibility of the revelation by the fundamental sign jesús Christ, it is needed to verify whether the Faith remains reasonable for the man on the XXI century, and whether the argu-ments that explain it are not in opposition to the logic. Among the different steps on such a quest, an starting point is that the Faith provides meaning to the man, which is the main pupose of this article. The sources for this study were forty anieles of the theologian in different means, especially on the Spanish newspapers: ABC and El País. Along this study, some anthropologic characteristics pointed out by the Theologian are claúfied, like those based on the human sciences, the relationship between man and the sacred, the most fundamental aspeas of its Theological anthropology, and an answer will be provided to the question: Is Faith significant for the man today? (shrink)

The French Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote provocatively about world civilization from his dual expertise as paleontologist and Catholic priest. This paper will extract from his many writings references to civilizational process in terms of his concept of the noosphere, that is, the transhuman accumulation of knowledge. Basing himself on the notion of a geogenetic process that he described in his important publication, Le Phenomenene Humain (1955), de Chardin considered the evolution of humankind to involve not merely the change (...) of individual members of the species, but in the development of the capacity to shape the earth and its forces by the invention of technology. He foresaw the human creation of a new level of understanding (some would say this is the cyberspace of the Internet) that would be the achievement of a unifying human civilization. The impulse to contribute to and benefit from this wealth of shared knowledge constituted for the Jesuit a quasi-magnetic force that brought together disparate human experiences. Borne in part by his religious faith, de Chardin described in a second masterpiece, Le Milieu Divin (1957) this unifying force as “love”. When a new world civilization learned to harness this kind of love in common purpose, said de Chardin, “for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire”. Possibly because of his religiously tinted language and mystical orientation, Teilhard has not always been viewed a contributor to the field. This paper will offer suggestions for ways to incorporate the French Jesuit among the sources for civilizational analysis. (shrink)

The French Jesuit, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote provocatively about world civilization from his dual expertise as paleontologist and Catholic priest. This paper will extract from his many writings references to civilizational process in terms of his concept of the noosphere, that is, the transhuman accumulation of knowledge. Basing himself on the notion of a geogenetic process that he described in his important publication, Le Phenomenene Humain (1955), de Chardin considered the evolution of humankind to involve not merely the change (...) of individual members of the species, but in the development of the capacity to shape the earth and its forces by the invention of technology. He foresaw the human creation of a new level of understanding (some would say this is the cyberspace of the Internet) that would be the achievement of a unifying human civilization. The impulse to contribute to and benefit from this wealth of shared knowledge constituted for the Jesuit a quasi-magnetic force that brought together disparate human experiences. Borne in part by his religious faith, de Chardin described in a second masterpiece, Le Milieu Divin (1957) this unifying force as “love”. When a new world civilization learned to harness this kind of love in common purpose, said de Chardin, “for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire”. Possibly because of his religiously tinted language and mystical orientation, Teilhard has not always been viewed a contributor to the field. This paper will offer suggestions for ways to incorporate the French Jesuit among the sources for civilizational analysis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 497 Both theologians and philosophers need to see a completely integrated treatment of both rational and faith aspects of Aquinas's theology of creation. To this end, more work on theology as science also would be helpful. Emery's treatment of the end and subject of a science is not quite neoplatonic enough. His presentation of the subject of theology forces God, its subject in the Summa theologiae, on (...) earlier texts of Albert (49) and Aquinas (302). In I Sent. Aquinas says the subject is ens divinum, "being as related to the divine," which is much wider than God, who is the end but not subject oftheology. His model is Avicenna's ens commune as the subject of a metaphysics with God as its end. More work also must be done on the articles of faith, part of the subject of theology for Albert; but theology's proper principles for Aquinas. How primordial the articles are, and the interplay of reason and faith in knowing them, are still unresolved issues. In sum, one hopes this fine book by Fr. Emery will be the first of many helping give Thomism the new look it deserves. Centerfor Tlwmistic Studies Houston, TX R. E. HOUSER Relation als Vergleich: Die Relationstheorie des Johannes Buridan im Kontext seines Denkens und der Scholastik. By ROLF SCHONBERGER. Studien und Texte zur Geistesgeschichte des Mittelalters, Band 43. Leiden/New York/Koln: E. J. Brill, 1994. Pp. 489. $108.75 (cloth). This book is a revised version of the author's 1990 Habilitationsschrift at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat in Munich. It aims to articulate the theory of relations developed by the noted Parisian philosopher, John Buridan (ca. 1295-1358), "in connection with the extensive scholastic discussion of this problem," and, in particular, to show how the same arguments were advanced or refuted by different philosophers from "fundamentally different starting points" (ix, 59). This stems from the author's working hypothesis that the medieval debate on the nature of relations proceeded dialectically, and that Buridan's contribution to it can be better understood by taking its argumentative context into consideration. The scope of the book is wide-ranging, to say the least. Readers expecting a book about Buridan's theory of relations will find the title somewhat misleading, however, since background material and a survey of the "scholastic context" of Buridan's theory fill up the first 372 pages, with the author's presentation and discussion of the theory itself limited to the final 498 BOOK REVIEWS 75. Furthermore, the author seems to regard the relevance of the former discussion to the latter as self-evident. This is fine where the connections are fairly uncontroversial, as in the case of William of Ockham, but where they are less so, as in the cases 0f Giles of Rome, Henry of Ghent, Meister Eckhart, Durand of St. Pour~ain, and Peter John Olivi, one is left in the dark about why separate chapters are devoted to each. Giles and Olivi are not even mentioned in the chapters on Buridan. Henry and Durand make one appearance each, both in the course of the trivial observation that unlike in their theories, "consideration of the doctrine of the Trinity plays no role in Buridan's theory of relations" (399). Eckhart is mentioned a few times, but in terms so speculative as to be useless for the general reader. For example, the author finds Jan Pinborg's characterization of Buridan as a someone who "took the arbitrariness of language seriously" to be "of course... too microscopic " (393). The reason is that Pinborg allegedly failed to see the radicalization of conventionality in the fourteenth century in terms of an "epochal shift" from "the symbolic and quasi-naturalistic conception of language in the early Middle Ages," a conception that, the author parenthetically notes, "is perhaps still to be found (or further strengthened) in Bonaventure or Meister Eckhart" (ibid.). But even bracketing the question of how this description fits the latter authors, the Buridan story is more complex than this. Buridan does emphasize that spoken and written expressions signify conventionally, but he never abandons the Aristotelian/Boethian tripartite conception of language, according to which concepts are said to... (shrink)

O presente artigo mostra, antes de mais, como nas últimas décadas surgiu no panorama editorial uma grande profusão de obras no âmbito da Teologia Fundamental e da Teologia da Criação. Mostra-se também de que modo as primeiras se ressentem de uma apropriação mais adequada das ciências naturais, enquanto as segundas carecem por vezes de reflexividade, auto-crítica e rigor epistemológico. Por outro lado, o artigo chama a atenção para o facto de a literatura existente evidenciar uma busca sequiosa de alternativas, traduzida (...) no recurso a "novos paradigmas", holismos, tendências pôs-modernas e outras, que se posicionam tanto contra a teologia referendada pelo magistério quanto a uma ciência mecanicista e supostamente desumanizante. Uma descrição destes movimentos é exemplificada pela recente contenda, no mundo de língua portuguesa, entre António M. Baptista e Boaventura S. Santos, mostrando-se algumas das fraquezas da posição deste último. Como forma de lidar com as consequentes aporias ontológicas e epistemológicas, o autor do artigo sugere algumas formas de apropriação de desenvolvimentos das ciências naturais e da epistemologia, que possibilitem uma teologia fundamental sólida, realista e relevante para o século XXI. /// In the last decades a host of materials at the levels of fundamental theology and theology of Creation have emerged. The first lack a suitable use of the natural sciences, whereas the latter lack reflexivity, self-criticism and epistemological rigor. The author also sees a hasty search for alternatives, which resort to "new paradigms", holisms, post-modern tendencies and others, over against a theology backed by the magisterium and a mechanistic and purportedly dehumanizing science. A description of such movements is exemplified by a recent struggle, in the Portuguese world, between Antdnio M. Baptista and Boaventura S. Santos, showing some shortcomings of the latter. As a way of dealing with these ontological and epistemological aporias, the author suggests some ways of resorting to the developments of the natural sciences and epistemology, which may enable a solid and realistic natural theology, relevant for the xxi century. (shrink)