In these papers Duclow views the thought of Eriugena, Eckhart and Cusanus through the lens of contemporary philosophical hermeneutics. He highlights the interplay of creativity, symbolic expression and language, interpretation and silence as they comment on the mind's work in naming God. This work itself becomes mystical theology when negation opens into a silent awareness of God's presence, from which the Word once again 'speaks' within the mind. Comparative studies with Gregory of Nyssa, Pseudo-Dionysius, Anselm and Hadewijch suggest the book's (...) wider implications for medieval philosophy and theology. (shrink)

Beginning with an examination of the Homeric world and continuing with a discussion of the political ideas of the lyric poets from Hesiod to Pindar, the author moves on to a political analysis of the pre-Socratic philosophers, the tragedians, Herdotus, Thucydides, the Sophists, Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Epicureans. Finally, the writings of Polybius are examined as a key to understanding the assimilation of Greek political thought into the mainstream of Roman thought.

Engaging Eriugena, Eckhart and Cusanus contains two new essays and nine others published between 2005 and 2019. The essays explore Eriugena, Eckhart and Cusanus as bold thinkers deeply engaged with their times and culture. John Scottus Eriugena, Meister Eckhart and Nicholas of Cusa are key figures in the medieval Christian Neoplatonic tradition. This book focuses on their engagement with practical, experiential issues and controversies. Eriugena revises Genesis' Adam and Eve narrative and makes sexual difference and overcoming it central to his (...) Periphyseon. Eckhart's Annunciation sermons urge his hearers to give birth to God's son within their lives, and he develops a distinctive approach to pain and suffering. His radical preaching on the Eucharist and mystical union was judged heretical, but was later taken up by Nicholas of Cusa. Coins and banking became key symbols in Cusanus' exploration of humanity as created in God's image, and he used mechanical clocks in reflecting on time and eternity. 'Engagement' also describes these thinkers' reception of their predecessors and how later readers appropriated their works. Eriugena struggled with the legacy of Augustine and the Greek Fathers. Eckhart's theology of suffering provoked varied responses from his students Henry Suso and Johannes Tauler, and the twentieth-century therapist Ursula Fleming. Cusanus provides the volume's lynchpin as two articles analyse his reading of Eriugena and Eckhart, and a third discusses how he deftly countered Johannes Wenck's accusations of heresy. The book will be of interest to students of Medieval Philosophy, Theology, Spirituality and their place within Cultural History. (shrink)

This paper explores the tension between Aristotle’s definition of the citizen and his conception of good and bad political regimes. Aristotle’s definition of the citizen as one with a share in the offices of the city produces the paradoxical result that in a monarchy, only one person, the monarch, is a citizen. The paper argues that this reveals a serious problem for Aristotle’s theory. Seven solutions are offered to repair this problem, though revisions that involve broadening Aristotle’s notion of the (...) citizen fail on multiple grounds. What Aristotle should have put forward is a theory of degrees of citizenship on which one can satisfy the conditions of citizenship to varying degrees depending on one’s participation in the life of one's city. (shrink)

Ethical problems of nuclear warfare, by D. M. MacKinnon.-Ethical problems of sex, by H. Root.-Personal relations before marriage, by H. Montefiore.-Conduct and faith, by J. Burnaby.

Building on a philosophy that a future world will depend on recognition of the interdependence of all life forms and lifestyles of moderation, a volume of essays collected by a prominent Buddhist scholar outlines solutions to contemporary challenges in areas ranging from economic inequality and global health to religion and environmental stability. Original.

This is a collection of 13 essays which focus on a theme to which Crossett dedicated much of his highly interdisciplinary research. Six essays concern Hamartia in Greek works by Herodotus, Plato, Euripides, and others; two deal with the concept of error in the Christian theology of Boethius and Aquinas; and five examine Hamartia in 14th-19th-century English works by Chaucer, Shakespeare, Coleridge, and George Eliot.

After my review of his work appeared on quant-ph, Henry Stapp posted a reply on his web site . I reproduced that reply, quoting the points to which he had replied and giving my subsequent responses to him. Following correspondence, and with some editing from us both, this has now developed into the multi-stage debate which is presented here. Some discussion of my 1999 paper is included.

In his long 1957 paper, “The Theory of the Universal Wave Function”, Hugh Everett III made some significant preliminary steps towards the application and generalization of Shannon’s information theory to quantum mechanics. In the course of doing so, he conjectured that, for a given wavefunction on a compound space, the Schmidt decomposition maximises the correlation between subsystem bases. This is proved here.

It has been suggested, on the one hand, that quantum states are just states of knowledge; and, on the other, that quantum theory is merely a theory of correlations. These suggestions are confronted with problems about the nature of psycho-physical parallelism and about how we could define probabilities for our individual future observations given our individual present and previous observations. The complexity of the problems is underlined by arguments that unpredictability in ordinary everyday neural functioning, ultimately stemming from small-scale uncertainties (...) in molecular motions, may overwhelm, by many orders of magnitude, many conventionally recognized sources of observed ``quantum'' uncertainty. Some possible ways of avoiding the problems are considered but found wanting. It is proposed that a complete understanding of the relationship between subjective experience and its physical correlates requires the introduction of mathematical definitions and indeed of new physical laws. (shrink)

This article concerns primarily the concepts of God in process theism, especially as they appear in the later writings of A. N. Whitehead and in the works of Charles Hartshorne. The article concludes with a brief discussion of arguments for God's existence in process thought and a note on the historical influences on, and anticipations of, process theism.

Devetnaesti vek za Rusku i Tursku carevinu predstavlja period donosenja reformskih zakona sa ciljem da se drzave modernizuju i, koliko mogu, odgovore duhu vremena. Premda su u Rusiji reforme kocene rezimom arakcejevstine i reakcionarnom politikom Nikolaja I, drzava je nacinila ozbiljan korak u borbi protiv sistemske korupcije donosenjem Krivicnog zakonika 1845. godine. Sa druge strane, Turska je bila pod nesumnjivo vecim stranim pritiskom kada je proces modernizacije bio u pitanju. Period tanzimata oznacava krupno razdoblje u kome se Turska, izmedju ostalog, (...) suocila sa sveprisutnom korupcijom. Krunu turskog reformatorskog rada na ovom polju predstavlja donosenje Krivicnog zakonika 1856. godine. U radu se analiziraju konkretni zakoni kojima je korupcija sankcionisana u ove dve carevine. (shrink)

The text "Truth and Meaning" is translated here from Donald Davidson's book: Donald Davidson - Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation (Philosophical Essays of Donald Davidson) (1984), pp. 17-37.

According to Douglas Walton, the concept of presumption relates to both logical and dialogical components. Logically, a presumption is the conclusion of a presumptive defeasible inference. Dialogically, the function of a presumptions to shift the burden of proof to the respondent in order to move the dialogue forward when the proponent, due to an objective lack of evidence, cannot present a sufficiently persuasive proposition. Presumptive status, assigned only at the argumentation stage of dialogue, is provisional: a particular presumption stands until (...) further counter-indications are found. This paper points out some possible difficulties pertaining to Walton’s dialogical model of presumption. Firstly, once a presumption's typical practical function is made precise, Walton’s idea of presumption starts to lose its conceptual cohesion, thereby becoming applicable in the opening stage of dialogue, as well. Secondly, cohesion is lost also in practical contexts, since Walton's "seat belts" example might indicate that presumptions are not evidentially defeasible if the practical stakes are raised high enough. Most importantly, contextual evaluation may reveal that presumptions do not shift the burden of proof in any specific or genuine way. (shrink)