David Clough’s two-volume work On Animals claims to be the first systematic Christian theological reflection on the place of nonhuman animals within creation which also provides an ethical reflection on what that might mean for our relationship with nonhuman animals in contemporary society. In this extended review, we provide a summary of the cumulative arguments across both volumes of On Animals before offering our reflections. While we agree with many though not all of Clough’s theological conclusions, we ultimately conclude that (...) Clough’s ethical solutions are too radical in places, and too optimistic without economic and systemic changes as to how humans relate to the nonhuman world. (shrink)

One antidote to moral distress is stronger moral agency—that is, an enhanced ability to act to bring about change. The Clinical Ethics Residency for Nurses, an educational program developed and run in two large northeastern academic medical centers with funding from the Health Resources and Services Administration, intended to strengthen nurses’ moral agency. Drawing on Improving Competencies in Clinical Ethics Consultation: An Education Guide, by the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities, and on the goals of the nursing profession, CERN (...) sought to change attitudes, increase knowledge, and develop skills to act on one's knowledge. One of the key insights the faculty members brought to the design of this program is that knowledge of clinical ethics is not enough to develop moral agency. In addition to lecture‐style classes, CERN employed a variety of methods based in adult learning theory, such as active application of ethics knowledge to patient scenarios in classroom discussion, simulation, and the clinical practicum. Overwhelmingly, the feedback from the participants (sixty‐seven over three years of the program) indicated that CERN achieved transformative learning. (shrink)

It is a mistake to oppose law and grace, for God's grace makes way for a radically transformed social and moral order. The law of Christ enables a new way of life that is obedient to God.

"The book’s contribution to feminist philosophy of religion is substantial and original.... It brings the continental and Anglo-American traditions into substantive and productive conversation with each other." —Ellen Armour To what extent has the emergence of the study of religion in Western culture been gendered? In this exciting book, Grace Jantzen proposes a new philosophy of religion from a feminist perspective. Hers is a vital and significant contribution which will be essential reading in the study of religion.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Pictorial World of the ChildEllen Handler SpitzThe Pictorial World of the Child, by Maureen Cox. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, 357 pp., paper.Scholarly, informative, and impartial are adjectives that spring to mind with respect to Maureen Cox's book, The Pictorial World of the Child, a text principally but not exclusively devoted to the subject of children's drawings and to ways in which children seem to understand pictorial (...) representations as well as create them. Because of its clarity and comprehensiveness, this book seems well-suited for classroom use. Effectively organized into a cogent selection of significant subtopics, it summarizes and presents a vast array of contributions by colleagues whose work Cox surely respects and treats in an admirably evenhanded way. Since, as she states at the beginning of her book, a serious scholarly interest in children's pictures has been with us for over a century, her task is prodigious, and she accomplishes it with grace and precision. It is perhaps to her credit that Cox does not argue passionately on one side or another of a host of thorny issues in her field about which many scholars, teachers, and theorists seem to exhibit strong one-sided views. How should art be taught to young children, for example? Should they be given total freedom or required to perform an ordered set of tasks? In every case, Cox offers her readers a panoply of perspectives and invites them to entertain the spectrum of opinion and then decide for themselves or not.The book is written, therefore, as far as I can tell, to promulgate no particular thesis of any kind. It simply is what it purports to be, namely, an overview of the field by someone who has a deep knowledge of it. It informs and educates through its systematic citation of experimental situations, test results, evaluations, neurological research, art historical material, and the like, and, while acknowledging disagreements right and left, it does not enter into philosophical debate. If one were inclined to fault the book at all, one might criticize it for this—that is, for lacking sufficient skepticism and deep questioning. But surely that would be niggardly, for nowhere does Cox state philosophizing to be her purpose in these pages. I would argue, in fact, to the contrary—that Cox underestimates herself when she states as her principal aim merely the furthering of interest in and appreciation of children's drawings (7). To my mind, she goes far beyond that modest goal to enlighten and educate her readers.Let me give some examples of Cox's treatment of controversial topics. It is arguable, for example, as to whether or not young children understand representational duality and can tell the difference between a pictured representation and the object pictured. A broad spectrum of research, claims, and beliefs are citable on both sides here, with the most up-to-date [End Page 110] scholars being persuaded that young children are far more sophisticated than we had previously thought. But conjure up, if you will, on the other side that well-known photograph in which a baby holds a picture of a clock to his ear and tries to hear it ticking. (This image, subtitled "How they read it," was printed on the jacket of Mary Calderone and Edward Steichen's The First Picture Book of 1930, which was reissued by the Frances Mulhall Achilles Library at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, in 1991.) After citing numerous sources and experiments, Cox equivocates as follows: "It seems that young children may know the difference between a picture and the real object it represents, but their behaviour is often confusing" (25); to me, this seems exactly right. We simply cannot accept a blanket statement meant to cover all cases, and, as with many or even most of the topics under consideration in this book, there are no definitive answers. Thus, the fact that Cox chooses to present intriguing research but leave the conclusions open seems preferable to joining sides in a spurious debate and one, perforce, with huge cultural and historical contingencies, contingencies to which indeed she pays heed from time to time... (shrink)

Introduction -- Introducing phenomenology: Husserl and Heidegger -- Imagining the possible: hermeneutical phenomenology -- Experiencing transcendence: the "theological turn" of French phenomenology -- Letting be: the gelassenheit of the Annunciation -- Conclusion: Being-in-life: reading the Annunciation as theopoesis.

Though 2023 marks the sixtieth anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, my reflections on the theme of the 2023 annual meeting of the Society of Christian Ethics, “Vision, Imagination, and Dreams in the Work of Ethics,” are inspired by King’s lesser known “Beyond Vietnam” speech. I connect my hopes for the future of Christian ethics to King’s still unrealized vision of social transformation. It is one where the US (and other empires) would (...) affirm—not subvert—each people’s right to self-determination and we scholar-activists would continue to search for connections between and among social issues even if others insist upon their discreteness. (shrink)

Christmas gives us that 'sweet little Jesus Boy' and Lent follows that with the 'gentle Jesus, meek and mild.' He was neither of those. In point of fact, he was the 'tough guy from Nazareth.' He was consistently abrasive, if not abusive, to his mother (Lk 2:49; Jn 2:4; Mt 12:48) and aggressively hard on males, particularly those in authority. In Mark 8 he cursed and damned Peter for failing to get Jesus' esoteric definition of Messiah correct. Nobody else understood (...) it either. Jesus had made it up himself and not adequately explained it to anybody until then. He called the religious authorities snakes, corrupt tombs, filthy chinaware, fakes, and Mosaic legalists who had forgotten God's real revelation of universal grace and salvation in the Abraham Covenant. He tore up the temple in the middle of a worship service and cursed those present for turning God's house of prayer into a den of thieves, when actually they were kind, helping out-of-town tourists obtain the proper sacrifices for the liturgical rituals. Jesus was persistently aggressive, often angry and not infrequently irrational, killing an innocent fig tree with his curse, for example. He constantly attacked the Pharisees and their proposals for renewing the spiritual vitality of the Jewish Community. He abused numerous people by healing them on the Sabbath just to make his political point against the religious leaders. He could just as well have healed them on Tuesday, if he really wanted to heal them. By healing the blind man in John 9 on the Sabbath, for example, he caused the man to be driven out of his synagogue, his family, and his community of faith; isolated and abandoned as if he were a leper. Even when he said surprising things about children, his focus was not on the children but on his disciples, using the children as tools for making an assertive teaching point. Jesus' life was one of perpetually aggressive claims for his vision of God's reign. He constantly and intentionally provoked conflict and disruption of the status quo, spiritually and politically. He refused to negotiate, compromise, palliate, or mollify his insistence upon keeping his elbow perpetually in the eye of the people in power. In all this he would not back down. The principle by which Jesus operated was absolute and that is why he did not back down, even though they killed him for this very reason. His principle was simply that the renewal of Jewish spirituality could only come from a return to the Abrahamic Covenant, which declared (Gn 12; Rm 8) that God is gracious and universally forgiving towards all humankind, unconditional to our conduct and behaviour, and radically in that it removes all fear, guilt, and shame from the equation of our relationship with God (Mi 7:18-20). He saw that the Pharisees and Scribes were absolutely wrong in assuming that the Mosaic legal system would renew the Jewish relationship with God. He was not the gentle Jesus, meek and mild. He was that tough guy from Nazareth! He had good reason and he was willing to go the distance for what he stood for, even to death on the cross. (shrink)

From the opening of trade with Britain in the 1850s, Japan occupied a unique and contradictory place in the Victorian imagination, regarded as both a rival empire and a cradle of exquisite beauty. Quaint, Exquisite explores the enduring impact of this dramatic encounter, showing how the rise of Japan led to a major transformation of Western aesthetics at the dawn of globalization. Drawing on philosophy, psychoanalysis, queer theory, textual criticism, and a wealth of in-depth archival research, Grace Lavery provides (...) a radical new genealogy of aesthetic experience in modernity. She argues that the global popularity of Japanese art in the late nineteenth century reflected an imagined universal standard of taste that Kant described as the "subjective universal" condition of aesthetic judgment. The book features illuminating cultural histories of Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado, English derivations of the haiku, and retellings of the Madame Butterfly story, and sheds critical light on lesser-known figures such as Winnifred Eaton, an Anglo-Chinese novelist who wrote under the Japanese pseudonym Onoto Watanna, and Mikimoto Ryuzo, a Japanese enthusiast of the Victorian art critic John Ruskin. Lavery also explains the importance and symbolic power of such material objects as W. B. Yeats's prized katana sword and the "Japanese vellum" luxury editions of Oscar Wilde. Quaint, Exquisite provides essential insights into the modern understanding of beauty as a vehicle for both intimacy and violence, and the lasting influence of Japanese forms today on writers and artists such as Quentin Tarantino. (shrink)

Introduction It is increasingly considered important that people make an autonomous and informed decision concerning colorectal cancer screening. However, the realisation of autonomy within the concept of informed decision-making might be interpreted too narrowly. Additionally, relatively little is known about what the eligible population believes to be a 'good' screening decision. Therefore, we aimed to explore how the concepts of autonomous and informed decision-making relate to how the eligible CRC screening population makes their decision and when they believe to have (...) made a 'good' screening decision. Methods We conducted 27 semi-structured interviews with the eligible CRC screening population. The general topics discussed concerned how people made their CRC screening decision, how they experienced making this decision and when they considered they had made a 'good' decision. Results Most interviewees viewed a 'good' CRC screening decision as one based on both reasoning and feeling/intuition, and that is made freely. However, many CRC screening non-participants experienced a certain social pressure to participate. All CRC screening non-participants viewed making an informed decision as essential. This appeared to be the case to a lesser extent for CRC screening participants. For most, experiences and values were involved in their decision-making. Conclusion Our sample of the eligible CRC screening population viewed aspects related to the concepts of autonomous and informed decision-making as important for making a 'good' CRC screening decision. However, in particular the existence of a social norm may be affecting a true autonomous decision-making process. Additionally, the present concept of informed decision-making with its strong emphasis on making a fully informed and well-considered decision does not appear to be entirely reflective of the process in practice. More efforts could be made to attune to the diverse values and factors that are involved in deciding about CRC screening participation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 38.4 (2004) 113-120 [Access article in PDF] Wonders, Witches, Wolves, and Wisdom Ellen Handler Spitz Honors College Professor of Visual Arts University of Maryland The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, ed. Maria Tatar, New York: W.W. Norton, 2002, Paperback: 394 pp., $16.95. We persist in hearkening to fairy tales. Along with ancient myths, the parables of scripture, the secular legends and sacred texts of (...) many lands, a stable canon of these magical tales still provides, even in the twenty-first century, an ongoing source of inspiration to artists, composers, choreographers, filmmakers, poets, and, above all, to the writers and illustrators and readers of children's books. They are of abiding interest as well to all of us who, in our various ways, concern ourselves with the aesthetic education of children. Why is this so? One preeminent authority in the field is Maria Tatar, John L. Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures at Harvard University, an author who, with wisdom, tenderness, and erudition, has traced and researched these tales. Having devoted two decades to the phenomenon, Tatar's works include The Hard Facts of the Grimms' Fairy Tales, Off with their Heads! Fairy Tales and the Culture of Childhood, and The Classic Fairy Tales: A Norton Critical Edition.1 She has recently come out with a new book, an edited collection of twenty-six tales all illustrated, marginally annotated, and a number of them retranslated for the occasion, the result being The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales, a painstakingly produced, lavishly decorated volume that would grace any library.In addition to commenting, in the volume's elegantly wide margins, on each of the included tales, Tatar has arranged to have this new compilation ornamented with small colored reproductions of both rare and famous images associated with the tales by distinguished illustrators of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries — artists such as Gustave Doré, Edmund Dulac, Walter Crane, Maxfield Parrish, and Arthur Rackham. While small in size and often not quite as clear as one might ideally wish (I found myself longing for some sorcery that would blow them up to full size so as to be able to feast my eyes on their wealth of detail and imaginative splendor), these images grace the text and greatly enhance its pleasures. Their presence, in fact, is one of the factors that makes this book unique. I know of no other extant work where a comparable effort has been made to join the fairy tales with a multiplicity of their most celebrated illustrations. The effect is astonishing. Readers are either transported directly back into their own early childhoods or newly acquainted with a brilliant visual canon parallel to that of the fairy [End Page 113] tales themselves. I predict it will be a rare reader who, after seeing this book, will not be desirous of learning more about the artists whose works are reproduced here. To further that end and to begin to satisfy the desire she must have known she would create, Tatar has supplied her readers with a section of mini-biographies and bibliographies not only of the authors and collectors of the fairy tales themselves (most notably, Charles Perrault, the brothers Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm, and Hans Christian Andersen) but of the illustrators. For this felicitous marriage — of word and image, of story and picture — her endeavor deserves our gratitude.Rather than take this tasteful treasure trove as a culmination of Tatar's pre-existing work, which, in a certain sense, it is, I prefer to see it as a lure that entices readers to revisit her earlier volumes which, while of recognized scholarly import and interpretive richness, all tackle questions pertinent not only to folklorists and to historians of literature but to all of us who, in the wake of recent history, have come to wonder ever more anxiously what sort of tales we ought to be telling children and ourselves and how and why. This question, incidentally, returns us to Book II of Plato's Republic, where Socrates poses this question directly to... (shrink)

Advocacy is an important concept in nursing practice; it is frequently used to describe th nurse-client relationship. The term advocacy, however, is subject to ambiguity of interpretation. Such ambiguity was evidenced recently in criticisms levelled at the nursing profession by hospital ethicist Ellen Bernal. She reproached nursing for using 'patient rights advocate' as a viable role for nurses. We maintain that, for nursing, patient advocacy may encompass, but is not limited to, patient rights advocacy. Patient advocacy is not merely (...) the defence of infringements of patient rights. Advocacy for nursing stems from a philosophy of nursing in which nursing practice is the support of an individual to promote his or her own well-being, as understood by that individual. It is an ethic of practice. La défense des malades joue un grand rôle dans la pratique des infirmiers/ères. Le terme est souvent utilisé pour définir les rapports entre malades et soignants. Le mot 'defénse' pourtant, peut être mal compris. Une ambiguïté était évidente récemment dans la critique de la profession infirmière faite par la philosophe éthique Ellen Bernal. Elle reproche à la profession d'utiliser le terme 'avocat des droits des malades' pour désigner le rôle primordial des infirmiers/ères. Nous croyons que pour les soignants, la défense des malades peut comprendre le rôle 'd'avocat des droits des malades' mais elle ne s'y borne pas. La défense n'est pas limitée à la défense des infractions des droits des malades. La défense dans la profession infirmière est basée sur une philosophie où la pratique infirmière est le soutien des malades dans leur quête de promouvoir leur propre bien-être. Die Fürsprache spielt eine wichtige Rolle in der Krankenpflege. Sie wird oft als kennzeichnend für die Beziehung zwischen Patient und Pflegepersonal beschrieben. Der Ausdruck 'Fürsprache' kann aber auch mehrdeutig interpretiert werden. Das wurde letzthin in der Kritik der Ethikerin Ellen Bernal an der Krankenpflege sichtbar. Sie machte den Pflegenden den Vorwurf, dass sie sich die Rolle des 'Rechts-Advokat des Patienten' aneignen. Wir sind der Meinung, dass es die Aufgabe des Pflegepersonals ist, auch die Rechte der Patienten zu vertreten, aber dass das nur ein Teil der Fürsprache ist. Sie ist nicht nur Verteidignung von verletzten Patientenrechten. Die Fürsprache in der Krankenpflege stammt von einer Philosophie, deren Ausübung die Unterstützung der Patienten für ihr Wohlergehen zum Ziel hat, so wie die Patienten selbst ihr Wohlergehen verstehen. Sie ist eine Ethik der Tat. (shrink)

This book is the first volume featuring the work of American women philosophers in the first half of the twentieth century. It provides selected papers authored by Mary Whiton Calkins, Grace Andrus de Laguna, Grace Neal Dolson, Marjorie Glicksman Grene, Marjorie Silliman Harris, Thelma Zemo Lavine, Marie Collins Swabey, Ellen Bliss Talbot, Dorothy Walsh and Margaret Floy Washburn. The book also provides the historical and philosophical background to their work. The papers focus on the nature of philosophy, (...) knowledge, the philosophy of science, the mind-matter nexus, the nature of time, and the question of freedom and the individual. The material is suitable for scholars, researchers and advanced philosophy students interested in (history of) philosophy; theories of knowledge; philosophy of science; mind, and reality. (shrink)

The purpose of __Aquinas's Ethics__ is to place Thomas Aquinas's moral theory in its full philosophical and theological context and to do so in a way that makes Aquinas readily accessible to students and interested general readers, including those encountering Aquinas for the first time. Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, Colleen McCluskey, and Christina Van Dyke begin by explaining Aquinas's theories of the human person and human action, since these ground his moral theory. In their interpretation, Aquinas's theological commitments crucially shape his (...) account of the human person, human capacities for action, and human flourishing. The authors develop a comprehensive picture of Aquinas's thought, which is designed to help students understand how his concept of happiness and the good life are part of a coherent, theologically-informed worldview. Many studies of Aquinas naturally focus on certain areas of his thought and tend to assume a general knowledge of the whole. __Aquinas's Ethics_ _takes the opposite approach: it intentionally links his metaphysics and anthropology to his action theory and ethics to illuminate how the moral theory is built on foundations laid elsewhere. The authors emphasize the integration of concepts of virtue, natural law, and divine grace within Aquinas's ethics, rather than treating such topics in isolation or opposition. Their approach, presented in clear and deliberately non-specialist language, reveals the coherent nature of Aquinas's account of the moral life and of what fulfills us as human beings. The result is a rich and engaging framework for further investigation of Aquinas's thought and its applications. _"___Aquinas’s Ethics_ _is a perfect introduction to one of the most sophisticated and influential ethical systems in Western thought. DeYoung, McCluskey, and Van Dyke capture the brilliant clarity of Aquinas’s moral vision, offering an illuminating perspective true to both the theoretical depth and practical richness of Aquinas’s writings. Those new to Aquinas’s ideas will find this book eminently readable. Everyone—students and scholars alike—will appreciate its direct, distinctive voice and clear philosophical intelligence." —_Scott MacDonald, Norma K. Regan Professor in Christian Studies, Cornell University_ "__Aquinas's Ethics_ _is an excellent contribution to the literature on Aquinas and ethics, providing an integrated and robust account of the relationship between a metaphysics of human nature, natural law theory, and virtue theory. Showing these inextricable connections, it is very much like the work of St. Thomas himself, and suggests why so many lesser theories of ethics are unsatisfying for their lack of depth and comprehensive reach." —_John Kavanaugh, S.J., Saint Louis University_ “DeYoung, McCluskey, and Van Dyke have written the ideal introduction to Aquinas’s ethics, situating it in the broader context of his thinking about human nature and action. Although Aquinas cared more about—and wrote more about—ethics than about any other philosophical topic, it remains the most unjustly neglected aspect of his thought. I know of no better guide to that territory than this book.” —_Robert Pasnau, University of Colorado at Boulder_. (shrink)

Alain Badiou offers a tour de force encounter with a lesser-known seventeenth-century philosopher and theologian, Nicolas Malebranche, a contemporary and peer of Spinoza and Leibniz. The seminar is at once a record of Badiou's thought at a key moment and a lively interrogation of Malebranche's key text, the Treatise on Nature and Grace.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Wuthering Heights: The Romantic AscentMartha NussbaumI“If I were in heaven, Nelly,” she said, “I should be extremely miserable.”“I dreamt, once, that I was there.... [H]eaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out, into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights, where I (...) woke sobbing for joy.” 1Cathy’s soul cannot live in the Christian heaven. For her soul, she explains, is the same as Heathcliff’s soul, and the heavenly soul of Linton is as different from theirs “as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire” (p. 95). Much later, as she lies on her deathbed, now the wife of Edgar Linton, thinking the Linton thought that what she wants is an escape into “that glorious world” of paradise and peace, Heathcliff watches her with burning eyes. At last she calls to him:In her eagerness she rose and supported herself on the arm of the chair. At that earnest appeal he turned to her, looking absolutely desperate. His eyes, wide and wet, at last flashed fiercely on her; his breast heaved convulsively. An instant they held asunder, and then how they met I hardly saw, but Catherine made a spring, and he caught her, and they were locked in an embrace from which I thought my mistress would never be released alive: in fact, to my eyes, she seemed directly insensible. He flung himself into the nearest seat, and on my approaching hurriedly to ascertain if she had fainted, he gnashed at me, and foamed like a mad dog, and gathered her to him with greedy jealousy. I did not feel as if I were in the company of a creature of my own species: it appeared that he would not understand, though I spoke to him; so I stood off, and held my tongue, in great perplexity.(pp. 188–89) [End Page 362]Brontë’s description alludes to the imagery of the Christian ascent tradition. As in Augustine and Dante, love is a flame that animates the eyes, a lightning bolt that pierces the fog of our obtuse daily condition; as in that tradition, love’s energy causes the lover to leap away from the petty egoism of the daily into an ecstatic and mutually loving embrace. But we know we are far from the world of the Christian ascent, even its erotic Augustinian form. Cathy’s spring is not an upward, but a horizontal movement—not toward heaven, but toward her beloved moors and winds, severed from which she would find heaven miserable; not toward God but toward Heathcliff, the lover of her soul. Nor is there redemption into heaven in this work; there is, if anything, a redemption from a world dominated by the imagination of heaven, into a world that the pious Ellen Dean can recognize only as an animal world, a world inhabited by creatures of a different species, who probably do not understand language, so thoroughly are they identified with the energy of the body. A few hours after Cathy’s death Heathcliff, as Ellen Dean tells us, in a sudden “paroxysm of ungovernable passion,” dashes his head against the knotted trunk of a tree, splashing the bark with blood, “and, lifting up his eyes, howled, not like a man, but like a savage beast being goaded to death with knives and spears” (p. 197). It is in his world alone, it would seem, that flame is truly found. As Cathy said to Edgar Linton, “Your cold blood cannot be worked into a fever: your veins are full of ice-water; but mine are boiling, and the sight of such chillness makes them dance.”Brontë’s novel situates itself within a long tradition of writing about love and its ascent or purification. This tradition, inaugurated by Socrates’ description of the ladder of love in Plato’s Symposium, is continued by later Platonists, and radically reformulated by Christian thinkers, who stress, against Plato, the soul’s receptivity and vulnerability to the inscrutable operations of grace. In both the Platonic and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Free Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy by Tobias HoffmannNicholas OgleFree Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy by Tobias Hoffmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), xiv + 292 pp.Modern readers are often perplexed by the frequency and rigor with which angels are discussed in medieval philosophical texts. To the untrained eye, it may seem as if debates concerning the various properties and abilities of (...) purely spiritual beings are the epitome of Scholastic extravagance, which can be safely disregarded—if not outright ridiculed—as a fanciful diversion from more essential philosophical concerns. The truth, of course, is that angelological reflection gave rise to some of the most original philosophical ideas of the Middle Ages, from Anselm's two affectiones of the will to Aquinas's "real distinction" between essence and existence. Far from being an idiosyncratic theological addendum to an already complete philosophical system, consideration of the angelic nature was in fact a central component of medieval philosophy, without which certain crucial metaphysical and psychological insights might not have occurred. This often-neglected truth is given detailed expression in Tobias Hoffmann's Free Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy, which explores how philosophical investigation into the fall of the angels—that is, the hypothesis of an evil choice made by rational beings under optimal psychological conditions—helped bring about significant advances in medieval debates about free will. Focusing on the century immediately following the reception of Aristotle's action theory in the Latin West (from roughly the 1220s to the 1320s), Hoffmann examines how theological claims regarding angelic sin influenced medieval thinkers as they sought to reconcile the intellectualism of Aristotelian moral psychology with their understanding of free will as the power to choose between alternatives.This period is particularly deserving of study, Hoffmann argues, because it was then that the existence of free will first began to be "investigated within a philosophical account of action," rather than merely asserted on theological grounds as a necessary corollary of the doctrines of grace and sin (1). Consequently, theological anthropology took what Hoffmann calls a "psychological turn," with theologians newly determined to explain rational agency in terms of the interaction between different powers of the soul. In Hoffmann's estimation, the subsequent debates over the respective roles of intellect and will in the process of decision-making, as well as the relation between faulty cognition and voluntary wrongdoing, gave rise to some of the most innovative theories of free will in the later Middle Ages—including not only those of celebrated thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus, but also those of lesser-known luminaries such as [End Page 388] John of Pouilly and Peter Auriol. Although the concerns that motivated these debates were primarily anthropological, having to do with specifically human psychological processes, Hoffmann's study foregrounds the role that the angels played in the unfolding of various controversies. Comparing medieval angelological discussion to the thought experiments commonly employed by contemporary philosophers, Hoffmann argues that angels proved significant because they provided a subject matter in which rational freedom could be considered in a pure and ideal form, abstracted from any material constraints (3). While the angelic nature was certainly regarded as worthy of study in its own right, it was also often viewed as an opportunity to explore the nature of cognition and volition simpliciter, in relation to which the distinctiveness of human psychology could be better understood.The book is divided into three parts, each of which traces the historical development of a distinct topic related to the free will debate. In the first part, Hoffmann presents a lucid account of the various ways that medieval thinkers employed Aristotelian ideas—including not only the essentials of his action theory, but also metaphysical doctrines such as the distinction between active and passive powers—as they sought to explain the psychological origins of free will. Comprising over half the text, these chapters provide a comprehensive overview of the free will debate from its origins in the writings of Anselm of Canterbury to its culmination in the proto-modern theorizing of William of Ockham, including a thorough discussion of the controversies... (shrink)

Dostoevsky is one of Russia's greatest novelists and a major influence in modern debates about religion, both in Russia and the West. This collection brings together Western and Russian perspectives on the issues raised by the religious element in his work. The aim of this collection is not to abstract Dostoevsky's religious 'teaching' from his literary works, but to explore the interaction between his Christian faith and his writing. The essays cover such topics as temptation, grace and law, Dostoevsky's (...) use of the gospels and hagiography, Trinitarianism, and the Russian tradition of the veneration of icons, as well as reading aloud, and dialogism. In addition to an exploration of the impact of the Christian tradition on Dostoevsky's major novels, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov, there are also discussions of lesser-known works such as The Landlady and A Little Boy at Christ's Christmas Tree. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Theology as Interdisciplinary Inquiry: Learning with and from the Natural and Human Sciences eds. by Robin W. Lovin and Joshua MauldinSara A. WilliamsTheology as Interdisciplinary Inquiry: Learning with and from the Natural and Human Sciences Edited by Robin W. Lovin and Joshua Mauldin grand rapids, mi: eerdmans, 2017. 202 pp. $32.00How can Christian theology engage in fruitful dialogue with fields of inquiry such as cognitive science, anthropology, and (...) law? Might discoveries in the natural and human sciences open creative possibilities for theology, and vice versa? Can Christian theology maintain its integrity while integrating insights from other disciplines? Theology as Interdisciplinary Inquiry takes up these questions as its central aim. This volume of six essays emerges from a three-year Templeton Foundation initiative that brought an interdisciplinary set of scholars together at the Center for Theological Inquiry to explore how their research might collaboratively push theology in new directions. These conversations centered on three themes: evolution and human nature, religious experience and moral identity, and law and religious freedom.In the first essay, Celia Deane-Drummond proposes an alternative approach to traditional readings of the Genesis creation account that looks to "resonances" between von Balthasar's notion of "theo-drama" and niche construction theory. Her argument allows for human agency while drawing theology into a complementary, rather than conflictual, relationship with evolutionary science. The next three essays take up the theme of religious experience and moral identity. Michael Spezio proposes that both theology and cognitive science look to moral exemplars as the phenomenological basis for more realistic and mutually informative moral theology and cognitive models of learning. Colleen Shantz draws on cognitive science to demonstrate how the material [End Page 192] and relational are constitutive of cognitive processes, arguing that it is precisely through "development and change" that we bear the imago Dei (66). Andrea Hollingsworth offers a rereading of Nicholas of Cusa's De visione Dei to demonstrate how a medieval mystical text echoes elements of contemporary neurocognitive processes of self-transformation. The final two essays center on law and religious freedom. John Burgess examines the privileging of religious freedom for canonizing martyrs in post-Soviet Russian Orthodoxy, arguing that this provides theological grounding for the legal right to religious freedom. Mary Ellen O'Connell proposes aesthetics as a more adequate modern grounding for legal authority than science. She argues that aesthetics takes us beyond the limits of self-interest, drawing us into concern for the good of others through the contemplation of beauty.What holds these essays together is the pursuit of "transdisciplinarity": "paying close attention to the other discipline(s) in a way that has a substantial and mutual impact, but at the same time retaining a clear sense of disciplinary integrity" (14–15). Lovin and Mauldin argue for humility and hope as virtues that enable us to navigate the tension between openness and integrity. While humility enables us to recognize the limits of disciplinary boundaries and assumptions, hope propels us forward, promising that however incomplete our knowledge remains, by the grace of God we will make advances in understanding our world and ourselves.Just as Christian Scharen and Aana Marie Vigen's Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics argues for the value of engagement with ethnography and its related disciplines to produce theology and ethics grounded in lived reality, this volume argues for the value of engagement with the natural and human sciences to produce "theological realism" that accounts for the complexity of "human personality and community" (xviii). It is unsurprising, then, that both volumes respond to objections from the neo-Radical Reformation and Radical Orthodoxy camps. In his conclusion, Douglas Ottati argues that these camps cannot account for the ways in which theological production inevitably interacts with natural and cultural processes. He argues further that insulating Christian theology is a form of cultural accommodation because it mirrors the formation of discrete modern disciplines, the very limitation these essays seek to transcend.This volume advances the live discussion in Christian ethics about the promise and risks of engaging natural and social sciences. It is a valuable resource on this topic, and its essays are suitable for use in seminary course discussions... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.1 (2003) 64-76 [Access article in PDF] The Sign System in Chinese Landscape Paintings Cliff G. Mcmahon Paintings emerge from a culture field and must be interpreted in relation to the net of culture. A given culture will be implicated by the sign system used by the painter. Everyone agrees that in Chinese landscape paintings, the most important cultural bond is to ancient Chinese (...) Taoism, and to a lesser degree, to Confucianism. Obviously, then, the key for these landscapes is an alert understanding of Taoism, and the primary source is the book the Tao Tê Ching.Some of the most crucial elements in Taoist beliefs are often ignored in the analysis of the Taoist landscapes, and this deserves more attention. The core of Taoism lies in a philosophic and religious guess, and the guess is made as an effort to reach a high-order explanatory theory of the origin of the universe, the structure of the universe, and the best path for human life. The guess of the ancient Chinese sages goes something like this: The universe is created by an Ultimate One whose nature remains mysterious, beyond the power of words, an Absolute pervaded by the spirit of motherhood, and thus moved to the acts of creation, using two agents of creation. These two agents are invisible but real forces that operate by the tension of polarity, the dynamic interplay of negative and positive energies, much like male and female forces. The female power is called Yin, the male power Yang. The female power is seen wherever there is fluidity, softness, openness, receiving, emptiness, or darkness. The male power is at work in hardness, assertiveness, force, and light. Everything that is made is a blending of the Yin and Yang polarities, and the dynamism and flux of reality is based on the tendency of Yin and Yang to advance and retreat, the tendency of one to become the other, just as summer changes into winter, and day changes into night. In order for a man to be complete, he must learn to put on the way of woman, to be receptive. This is a very intelligent principle. [End Page 64] When we take in all our impressions of nature, and take in all the books we have read, we are in the receptive mode. The Yin female principle of emptiness has a priority over Yang in that there must be an empty space before any concrete thing comes to occupy the space. The Yin female force is seen in the low and quiet valley, and in the fluid receptivity of water. Yang is in the bold assertive mountains and in the hardness of stone. Yin appears in the graceful and flexible bending of bamboo, while Yang is in the hardness and strength of bamboo. Since Yin is associated with water, all forms of cloud and mist are symbols of Yin. Yang is action, Yin is wisdom.One of the most important aspects of Taoism is the principle that the mysterious Absolute One has permeated all of reality and serves the good of all creatures in every passing minute, asking nothing in return and offering no favoritism to any age or any group. This is obviously a sophisticated and intelligent principle for a theology. On this point, Taoism is superior to Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Christianity might have taken a similar stand in that the gospel of John declares that the eternal logos dwells in all created things in a timeless manner, and was fully embedded in the world before the coming of the historical Jesus, but so far, Christians have almost totally ignored the opening lines of John.This philosophic core of Taoist belief compares to the great Western idea that Godhead creates by the use of cosmic agents. In the gospel of John, the logos is the agent. In chapter eight of Proverbs, Wisdom is the agent. In Plotinus, Nous is the agent. In Heraclitus, the polarities of love and hate are this agent. Sometimes the idea of cosmic agent is used to protect... (shrink)

The authors of these papers vary in age, nationality and professional background. They share a belief that all too often older people are not treated justly or fairly, and also a belief that this is particularly true with regard to a proper respect for their dignity as people and a proper allocation of medical and social resources. Their papers, in various ways, give evidence as to what is happening and arguments, based on philosophical ethics, as to why it is wrong. (...) The authors also have a range of proposals, backed by argument and evidence, and drawing on factual material as well as philosophical argument, as to what could be done to improve the situation. This is a book for anyone, whether themselves elderly, looking after an older person, professionally involved in working with older people, or simply realising that one day they will be old, who wants to learn about what is wrong with the present situation and how it might be made better. (shrink)

Abstractabstract:This article argues for an interpretation of doctrine 7 of universal faith in Spinoza's Theological-Political Treatise—that God pardons the sins of those who repent—that renders it true in the terms set by Spinoza's Ethics. Though categorized in the Ethics as a vice, repentance nevertheless has a positive political function as the lesser of two evils, supplanting the greater evils of unrepentant pride and shamelessness. The philosopher can understand God's pardon as the natural advantage conferred by repentance itself insofar as (...) it supplants those greater evils. This pardon arises through the laws of Nature (God's mercy and grace), which are equally responsible for that very repentance. The philosophical truth of the doctrines of universal faith ensures that freedom of philosophizing can be granted without harm to the peace or piety of the Republic and cannot be denied without destroying the same. (shrink)

continent. 1.3 (2011): 201-207. “Poetry is experience, linked to a vital approach, to a movement which is accomplished in the serious, purposeful course of life. In order to write a single line, one must have exhausted life.” —Maurice Blanchot (1982, 89) Nikos Karouzos had a communist teacher for a father and an orthodox priest for a grandfather. From his four years up to his high school graduation he was incessantly educated, reading the entire private library of his granddad, comprising mainly (...) the Orthodox Church Fathers and the ancient classics. Later on in his life he sold the library for money, only to buy a little more time before he went broke again: “I carry sorrow like a cage/ I got no birds/ as I come back from her hair/ I see the profit emptied/ cool from terror.” (1993, Ι, 101) Nowadays—and ridiculously recently—we are more than apt to speak of a certain insouciance pertaining to the Greek form of expenditure: expenditure without any type of investment, sometimes not (even) symbolic. In the vaults of the European unconscious, this imprudent stance still conjures a “capital punishment” in the form of de-capitation, reflecting back the fear of excess and the terror of its consequences.1 Thus the Greek way of living is very close to what a stranger could have termed as “the Greek way of dying.” Yet, what is not often understood is that the Greek esprit , the same one that invented the maxim μηδ?ν ?γαν (“nothing in excess”), does not experience death solely as an imminent fear of bankruptcy. For it miraculously combines its unconditional acceptance with the promise of a resurrection that is always there in the scents of Spring, from Dionysus to the orthodox Christ: “Everyone resurrects himself through dying [….] Resurrection is the switching of mortalities.” (2002, 94) Hence, if an entire library was imprudently traded for a plate with seven olives, a sliced tomato and some fresh goat cheese, let us not be fooled: this is not the meal of the pauper, but that of “an aristocrat from God” (1993, II, 491) feeding his eloquent loudmouth, ridiculously cut open in an otherwise rock-solid caput . *** To speak of the Greek experience is to speak about a half-dead language that still utters in life what is seemingly excluded from it and thus forbidden to be talked about: death. Death as anything that is out of this world, as something that will never return . Still, along with an experience of death that recently waned as a worn-out academic fashion, the Greek experience is dead too. Nearly 2300 years of written words separating Homer from the fall of Byzantium equal 500 books on a library traded for money: “I am with the killed. Hence my deepest solitude. I do not feel this tremendous macho society, beyond from the fact that it is a ruthlessly consuming one. It is me who pays all the time .” (2002, 57) Let us do the math and see how much this dealing with the Greek experience is costing the poet and how much dealing with the Greek experience might cost us today. *** “I do not guarantee a single word.” (Karouzos, 1993, II, 454) Through its various dialects and forms, the Greek language speaks through an incessant historical dissemination. Anyone who is aware of this terrifying polymorphy and still calls himself a poet, must stand against a white sheet of paper, pen-in-hand, with a very particular duty: to be as fully inconsistent as possible. In the formally ironic uniqueness of the poem, the poet functions as “a band-aid for lesser and greater antinomies.” (1993, I, 251) Of course these antinomies are not exhausted in language—they are historical, political and, alas, existential. Yet, beyond appearances , it is language that ruthlessly encodes them through history, submitting the poet to the temptation of placing them one next to the other on a single white sheet. The closer their neighboring, the greater the scattering of the writer in the ironic uniqueness of the paper. In a work where poetic license is described as a “freedom-impasse” (2002, 51), this task is undertaken in full conscience of its personal consequences: “what I am interested in is to escape my individuality (envisioning the non-ego) […] Nevertheless, my dissociations never achieve duration.” (2002, 74-75) Hence, though poetry is the “deserted direction of will,” (1998, 62) the stance of the poet is not that of a Nietzschean “great man.”2 Whereas drunkenness provides a thread between the poem and the excess it both presupposes and infuses (“Poetry always enlarges. ‘Drunkenness’ is nothing more than that,” (2002, 85)), whereas language flashes in loudmouth spurts of déraison (“When I am alone I do something else. I utter words. For example, while having my ouzo and listening to music I am most likely capable of randomly shouting ‘Electricity!’” (2002, 138)), the poet never gives in to the double affirmation that would eventually risk the “element of pleasure in discourse.” (2002, 80)” It is exactly because the gap of the antinomies is so vast that poetry is not meant to be written with a hammer. Neither does writing consist in a reevaluation of those elements. In short, poetry is not an affirmation of difference, but the surprising beauty of chiming antinomies. We might never transcend them, but it is up to us to put them together. Yet again, this voisinage is not to be identified with the necessity of chance as an eternal return.4 On the contrary it is a return from that very return : Let us treat Yes as a No to No and No as a Yes […] And let us not forget that this pissed affirmation crumbled down Nietzsche’s intellect in the dark paths of this world. (2002, 88) This return from the “vicious circle” should in no way be taken as a form of artistic prudence. Rather it can be seen as a dribble of demonic inconsistency as Dionysus transforms himself into a Christ that is in turn de-theologized: “Who can forbid that? Every man is capable of his own theology, nothing can stop him.” (2002, 73-74) This is a turn towards an existential vision of the world, historically coinciding with a particular political defeat of the Left, to which the poet devoted all his life: after the defeat of the popular front I raised the question “why do we exist?” while others were asking “why we failed.” (2002, 57)5 But most of all it is a return to poetry that exceeds the existential question itself, going beyond the issue of faith. Poetry comes in as a question of return after a defeat that is confessed in full profanity. Though it accepts the necessity of the defeat, it does not affirm it. Though it negates it, the negation is not in the name of a promise to be delivered in the kingdom of heavens. Following a historical and existential defeat, poetry is born post mortem . It signals a return to Christ as “groundless religiousness in the surprise of the real as such” (2002, 72) which is at once a return to the refuge of childhood. It is not a question of endurance towards an eternal return. Rather it is a question on the possibility of an existential return. Returning in a world as someone who cannot enjoy any returns exactly because he is averse to guarantees. A return without returns. *** PHOTOCOPY OF HAPPINESS When I was young I used to pin down cicadas and step on ant nests. I used to stand there silent for hours. With threads I decapitated bees. Now I am a dead man breathing. (Karouzos, 1993, II, 336.) The return to the “paradise of childhood” (2002, 68) constitutes the devouring refuge of its own memory when defeat becomes the synonym of adulthood. The political struggles of a young communist in a country torn up by a civil war right after World War II fraught with incarcerations and exiles. Historically they resulted in the defeat of the communist movement in Greece and opened up a long turbulent road that would peak in the dictatorship of 1967. Existentially they led to a series of disillusionments: mental breakdown, divorce, abandonment of studies in law school. To the question “why do we exist” the answer was poetry. Still this exposé should not be read as a sweeping chronography of a man. For it actually happens to coincide with the historical fate of a nation that after its modern constitution never stopped dreaming of the glories of its past youth, in a present that was (and is) sweepingly disappointing. But isn’t this return to youth finally a way of compensating for a loss of youth that necessarily results in a losing adulthood? Will Greeks, the eternal children of Plato and Nietzsche, ever learn? How to return without dying, how to remember without wasting time? WE ARE IN THE OPEN MEANING Living the coldest mauve night right across Parthenon I went to take a piss on some foliage and I was enjoying the foliage as it was steaming. (Karouzos, 1993, II, 340) Beyond the historical tragedies of modern Greece and away from any personal disappointments, the relation that this land holds with language and history is mediated through the Greek light—whose omnipresence is the very condition of its transcendence. All historical contradictions from Dionysus to Christ took place under this light; all those disseminated dialects were spoken beneath its warmth. To paraphrase Lévinas,6 light is both the condition of the world and of our withdrawal from it—a withdrawal towards the invisibility of God, of the dead, of meta-physics, resulting from the temptation that all is still here, behind this light the visibility of which they once evaded: “birds, the allurement of God.” (1993, I, 17) Under that luminous sky, if Greeks can do anything at all, it is to envision a return that will never come. All they can do is write poetry—which is doing nothing; other than lending an ear to a disseminated language whispering a unity that cannot be promised, as an adulthood in defeat is ready to recognize. Trying “to trap the invisible in visibility” (1993, II, 483) they forget that they have grown up and one day they die—with the promise of return. Hence an additional meaning must be given to this return to childhood. It does not signal salvation but rather its promise. To the ears of an aged continent it means that the return to/of poetry is a losing game, a return without returns. “Europe, Europe… you are nothing more than the continuation of Barabbas.” (1993, I, 295) *** “Life is not there to verify theories.”7 The records show that Karouzos was finally given a second-class pension from the Greek government, at the time when he was being recognized by the literary press as one of Greece’s major contemporary poets. Being neither a bourgeois nor a nobelist, he proclaimed himself to be an anarcho-communist, unconditionally faithful to the utopia of a classless society. He also drank, heavily. “Capitalism made an animal out of man/ Marxism made an animal out of truth/ Shut up.” (1993, II, 369) Perhaps one of the most scandalous divides of our times has been the one between the living and the dead, the latent prohibition that the living should not be concerned with the dead based on the mere impossibility of the dead to be concerned with the living in the first place. What adds to this scandal is that this divide abuses anything that cannot return to us by subsuming it under the same futility. Hence death is no longer “loss” in the usual sense. It no more refers to the things we lost but to our “loss” (of time, money and well-being) as we insist to dwell on them. Death is a waste —of time. It is this waste that we find in the insouciance of Greek expenditure; the waste in dealing with a language that most of its historical part is no longer spoken (a dead language); the waste in translating a poet who is ex definitio untranslatable; the waste of his vision, his money, his life. The waste of dealing with anything that cannot return and that cannot bring in any returns . But it is also the waste of life that poetry itself presupposes, the waste of dealing with invisibility, with anything that is out of this world and thus invokes the fear of death that is in turn—and surprisingly— nowhere to be found. Instead of death, what is there, beyond the light, is the being without us (to recall the Lévinasian il y a ), the mumble of our own nothingness which constitutes the price to be paid for writing poetry under an evergreek light. To understand this to-and-fro, is to realize that poetry is something out of this world that nevertheless takes place in this world, by virtue of this world. But to ridiculously equate this to-and-fro with death as non-existence, is to exile poetry along with its own possibility from this same old world: I do not believe that poetry will ever disappear from this world. […] But I am also sure that it does not have many chances of playing, as you say, a redemptive role in our vertiginous technological future. Without being endangered as a creative need, it will be placed on the side of history. (2002, 32) It is mainly there that we would like to locate the meaning of Nikos Karouzos’s poetry today. If we are willing to include the Greek original it is because we consider that it will be both a waste of time for us to do so (since most of you cannot read Greek) and because it might induce you to the even larger waste of learning it. We would additionally be glad if this small introduction served as an equally wasteful, academically useless piece of reading, gesturing towards a taboo of investing in anything Greek—that is in anything dead among the living, in anything that will never come back and maybe was never here in the first place. This is the only way to reserve for ourselves the possibility of poetry and preserve the light of its promise. “To return: that is the miracle.” (1993, I, 17) Athens, Greece July 10, 2011 NOTES 1 “ Capitale (a Late Latin word based on caput “head”) emerged in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries in the sense of funds, stock of merchandise, sum of money or money carrying interest.[…] The word and the reality it stood for appear in the sermons of St. Bernardino of Siena (1380-1444) ‘… quamdam seminalem rationem lucrosi quam communiter capitale vocamus ’, ‘that prolific cause of wealth that we commonly call capital’” (Braudel, 1992, 232-233). 2 “A great man – a man whom nature has constructed and invented in the grand style – what is he? First : there is a long logic in all of his activity, hard to survey because of its length, and consequently misleading; he has the ability to extend his will across great stretches of his life and to despise and reject everything petty about him, including even the fairest, ‘divinest’ things in the world.” (Nietzsche, 1968, 505, §962) 3 Cf. Deleuze, 1986, 186-9. 4 “Return is the being of becoming, the unity of multiplicity, the necessity of chance: the being of difference as such or the eternal return.” (Deleuze, 189)5 In this 1982 interview Karouzos refers to the defeat of the communist movement in Greece after the civil war of 1946-1949 between the Governmental Army and the Democratic Army of Greece, the military division of the Greek communist party. Karouzos’s father was a member of the communist National Liberation front (EAM) members of which formed the mainl resistance movement (ELAS) in Greece during WWII. The poet was a member of the United Panhellenic Organization of Youth (EPON), which was a youth division of EAM. After the end of the war, ELAS was called to disarmament in view of the formation of a National Army. The members of EAM resigned from the government of national unity and a series of protests led to a 3 year civil war between ELAS and the Government Army. After the defeat of ELAS the Communist party was outlawed and many communists were exiled in deserted Greek islands. Karouzos, who took action in the Greek resistance and was active during the Greek civil war, was exiled in Icaria on 1947 and in Makronisos on 1953 where he was called two years earlier to do his military service. 6 “Existence in the world qua light, which makes desire possible, is then, in the midst of being, the possibility of detaching oneself from being. To enter into being is to link up with objects; it is in effect a bond that is already tainted with nullity. It is already to escape anonymity. In this world where everything seems to affirm our solidarity with the totality of existence, where we are caught up in the gears of a universal mechanism, our first feeling, our ineradicable illusion, is a feeling or illusion of freedom. To be in the world is this hesitation, this interval in existing, which we have seen in the analyses of fatigue and the present.” (Lévinas, 1988,43-4) 7from a TV interview. THE POETRY OF NIKOS KAROUZOS From Redwriter [ Ερυθρογρ?φος ], in Collected Works, Vol . II, Athens: Ikaros. 1993, 463-4. [Athens: Apopeira, 1990, 9-10.] JESUS ANTI-OEDIPUS* Why were we once saving till the fifth day the Paschal lamb? The scriptures say: with this victim’s meat we ought to cleanse all of our senses. To give life to the whitest wave miraculous odors in the extension of the chest. Ideals to death. For us to witness the illustrious dawns of Absinthe and for the soul to be a deeply carved ornament on the fore we named will. Then many deer running amidst the evergreen growth with watery hymns, then, the unintended angels descending with heights spiraling in their momentum offer themselves to the luminous Adventure. Whence the need for speech and our sufferings covered with flags like the glorified dead. An incorporeal finger pointing at the flamboyant and fragrant holocausts within the tired horizons and the exhausted breadths with joys of the mistletoe on fire and shivering all of the green-leaved love. Something would have chirped again had we not driven it away— maybe the ewe’s grass. Something would have called us to the eternal resurrection— maybe the grace of spring. But now our heart is fiercely blinded, withdrawn to the appearances of Hades. Silence and ice incessantly cover the Infant Spirit in thatched times. While the cherry trees are dreaming faintly glowing in absolute darkness there’s nothing the Babylonians can contemplate in labs with automatic colored lights. How to rejoice now in the fifth day of the lamb? We have forked the stars. We’ve gradually become supposedly sublime with plucked chimeras in our hands. Avenged relentlessly by science. *Though the poem appears in a 1990 collection, it was actually written in 1968. Hence the reader must be aware in not associating Karouzos’ Anti-Oedipus with the famous 1972 work of Deleuze and Guattari, given that the former precedes the latter. ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΑΝΤΙ-ΟΙΔΙΠΟΥΣ Γιατ? κρατο?σαμε κ?ποτε ?ς την π?μπτη μ?ρα το πασχαλιν? πρ?βατο; Τα κε?μενα λ?νε: μ’ αυτο? του θ?ματος το κρ?ας ?πρεπε να καθαρ?σουμε ?λες τις αισθ?σεις. Για να δ?σουμε κ?μα στη ζω? λευκ?τατο θαυμ?σιες ευωδι?ς στην ?κταση του στ?θους. Ιδανικ? στο χ?ρο. Για να βλ?πουμε τα λαμπρ? χαρ?ματα του ?ψινθου και να ’ναι η ψυχ? στ?λισμα βαθυχ?ρακτο της πλ?ρης που την ε?παμε θ?ληση. Τ?τε πολλ?ς δορκ?δες τρ?χοντας αν?μεσα στην καταπρ?σινη φ?ση με τους υδ?τινους ?μνους, τ?τε, κατεβα?νοντας οι αθ?λητοι ?γγελοι με κυλινδο?μενο το ?ψος στην ορμ? τους χαρ?ζονται της αστραφτερ?ς Περιπ?τειας. ?θεν η μιλι? γι’ αυτ? χρει?ζεται και τα δειν? σκεπ?ζονται ωσ?ν τους τιμημ?νους νεκρο?ς με σημα?ες. Ασ?ματο δ?χτυλο δε?χνει τα φλογ?δη και μοσχοβ?λα ολοκαυτ?ματα στους κουρασμ?νους ορ?ζοντες στα εξουθενωμ?να πλ?τη καθ?ς αν?βουν οι χαρ?ς του νερα?δ?ξυλου και τρ?μει ολ?κληρη η πρασιν?φυλλη αγ?πη. Κ?τι θα κελαηδο?σε π?λι αν δεν το δι?χναμε— μπορε? της προβατ?νας το χορτ?ρι. Κ?τι θα μας καλο?σε στην απ?ραντη αν?σταση— μπορε? του ?αρος η χ?ρη. Μα η καρδι? μας ?γρια τυφλ?θηκε π?ρασε στα φαιν?μενα του ?δη. Σιγ? και π?γος αδι?κοπα σκεπ?ζει στους αχυρ?νιους καιρο?ς το Ν?πιο Πνε?μα. Την ?ρα που ονειρε?ονται οι βυσσινι?ς και λ?μπουν αμυδρ? μεσ’ στο απλ?τατο σκοτ?δι τ?ποτα δε στοχ?ζονται οι βαβυλ?νιοι στα εργαστ?ρια με τ’ αυτ?ματα χρωματιστ? φ?τα. Π?ς να χαρο?με πια την π?μπτη μ?ρα του προβ?του; Φουρκ?σαμε τ’ αστ?ρια. Γ?ναμε σιγ?-σιγ? δ?θεν υπ?ροχοι με μαδημ?νες χ?μαιρες στα χ?ρια. Μας ν?μεται σκληρ? η επιστ?μη. From: Redwriter [Ερυθρογρ?φος], in Collected Works, Vol. II, Athens: Ikaros. 1993, 472. [Athens: Apopeira, 1990, 18.] DIALECTΙCS OF SPRING Christ the straight angle; Christ the Pythagorean theorem. Christ the infinitesimal calculus from above the blessed Sets Christ. Christ the tessellation of massive particles Christ the zero mass. Hence we spray numbers and fields of lust. We are carabineers of diseased logic plus something— Observed means observer and Hekate The darkness luminous and light in the dark Astarte banqueters demons from today. ΔΙΑΛΕΚΤΙΚΗ ΤΟΥ ΕΑΡΟΣ Χριστ?ς η ορθ? γων?α· Χριστ?ς το πυθαγ?ριο θε?ρημα. Χριστ?ς ο απειροστικ?ς λογισμ?ς ?νωθεν ?λβια Χριστ?ς τα Σ?νολα. Χριστ?ς η ψηφιδογραφ?α στα μαζικ? σωμ?τια Χριστ?ς η μ?ζα μηδ?ν. ?ρα ψεκ?ζουμε αριθμο?ς και πεδ?α λαγνε?ας. Ε?μαστε τυφεκιοφ?ροι νοσο?σης λογικ?ς και κ?τι-- παρατηρο?μενο σημα?νει παρατηρητ?ς και Εκ?τη σκ?τος το π?μφωτο και φως εν τ? σκοτ?? η Αστ?ρτη συνδαιτημ?νες δα?μονες απ’ ?ρτι. From: Redwriter [Ερυθρογρ?φος], Athens: Apopeira, 1990, 18. [1993, II, 472]. CREDO (as we are used to say in Latin) Α I believe in one Poet expelled from heavens / fugitive from the god and vagabond, Empedocles / and here on earth / exile on the earth etc. of Baudelaire /. Β I believe in one Computer inside thunder and through matter. Γ Suffering undefiled / substantive / the Poet uplifts himself slow-burning suicidal implying lengthy sleeps. Δ Cutting down on prospective mistakes. Ε Of all things visible and invisible officiating the onion-peelings. Ζ The Poet has nothing / see the departed /. Η I believe in one Poet that says: madness I enjoy; he ridicules existence; let me light up from my mana. Θ Syntax he doesn’t care about when musicality commands him. Along with still more licenses, and Ts are played according to the concept sound anywhere. E.g. the winters here, he winters there; it will not come—I will not rest, etc. etc. Ι The Poet exercises thought until it’s stripped down. Κ And if he’s Greek he must always study the fineness of Attica, in light, mountains, fields and sea. For this fineness teaches language. Λ And if he’s deeply destined the Poet expresses the unexplainable of the explained; he happens to be a rightful heir to the scientist and his predecessor. Μ On the froth he does not last; the Poet blusters at the bottom of the pot. Ν Flamebred and never redeemed. Ξ The Poet must sometimes say: what a consumption of presence — be a bit lonely for a change! Ο The Poet is twilit. Π He is susceptible of deaths and resurrections. Ρ He looks from the corner of his eye and exists in a glance. Σ He follows behind the mother. Τ Eveningless when it comes to age. Υ I believe in one Poet who says: let the purities coincide. Until the Corinth of the Universe or even further. Φ In a higher despair. Χ In a brighter quintessence. Ψ In one sensation that lifts off. Ω Forgiving everyone. CREDO (ως ε?θισται να λ?με λατινιστ?) Α Πιστε?ω εις ?να Ποιητ?ν εκτ?ς ουρανο? / φυγ?ς θε?θεν και αλ?της, Εμπεδοκλ?ς / και επ? της γης / εξ?ριστος π?νω στη γη κ.λπ. του Βωδελα?ρου /. Β Πιστε?ω εις ?να Υπολογιστ?ν εντ?ς κεραυνο? και δια της ?λης. Γ Υποφ?ροντας ?χραντα / ουσιαστικ?ν / ο Ποιητ?ς ανατε?νεται βραδυφλεγ?ς αυτ?χειρας εξυπακο?οντας πολ?ωρους ?πνους. Δ Τα υποψ?φια λ?θη λιγοστε?οντας. Ε Ορατ?ν τε π?ντων και αορ?των ιερουργ?ντας την αποκρομμ?ωση. Ζ Ο Ποιτ?ς ?χει τ?ποτα / βλ?πε τους αναχωρ?σαντες /. Η Πιστε?ω εις ?να Ποιητ?ν που λ?ει: η τρ?λα μ’ αρ?σει· γελοιοποιε? την ?παρξη· ας αν?ψω απ’ τη μ?να μου. Θ Συνταχτικ? δεν το γνοι?ζεται στην προσταγ? της μουσικ?τητας. Μαζ? και μ’ ?λλες ακ?μη λευτερι?ς, και τα νυ πα?ζονται κατ? την ?ννοια ?χος οπουδ?ποτε. Π.χ. τον χειμ?να εδ?, το χειμ?να εκε?· δε θ? ’ρθει – δεν θα καταλαγι?σουμε, κ. λπ. κ.λπ. Ι Ο Ποιητ?ς γυμν?ζει τη σκ?ψη σε απογ?μνωση. Κ Κι αν ε?ναι ?λληνας οφε?λει να σπουδ?ζει π?ντοτε της Αττικ?ς τη λεπτ?τητα, σε φως, βουν?, χωρ?φια και θ?λασσα. Διδ?σκει γλ?σσα η λεπτ?τητα το?τη. Λ Κι αν ε?ναι βαθι? πεπρωμ?νος ο Ποιητ?ς εκφρ?ζει το ανεξ?γητο του εξηγητο?· τυγχ?νει ν?μιμος δι?δοχος του επιστ?μονα και προκ?τοχ?ς του. Μ Στον αφρ? δεν ?χει δι?ρκεια· στο πατοκ?ζανο μα?νεται ο Ποιητ?ς. Ν Φλογοδ?αιτος και ποτ? ξελυτρωμ?νος. Ξ Ο Ποιητ?ς κ?ποτε πρ?πει να λ?ει: μεγ?λη καταν?λωση παρουσ?ας – γενε?τε και λ?γο μοναξι?ρηδες! Ο Ο Ποιητ?ς ε?ναι αμφ?φλοξ. Π Επιδ?χεται θαν?τους και αναστ?σεις. Ρ Ακροθωρ?ζει και υπ?ρχει σε ξαφνοκο?ταγμα. Σ Ε?ναι ουραγ?ς της μητ?ρας. Τ Αν?σπερος απ? ηλικ?α. Υ Πιστε?ω εις ?να Ποιητ?ν που λ?ει: να συμπ?σουν οι αγν?τητες. Μ?χρι την Κ?ρινθο του Σ?μπαντος ? μακρ?τερα. Φ Σε αν?τερη απελπισ?α. Χ Σε φαειν?τερη πεμπτουσ?α. Ψ Σε μια α?σθηση που πτηνο?ται. Ω Συγχωρ?ντας τους π?ντες. From Large Sized Logic [ Λογικ? μεγ?λου σχ?ματος ], Athens: Erato, 1989, n.p. [1993, II, 521-3]. (shrink)

Although she died cruelly at Auschwitz at the age of twenty-nine, Etty Hillesum left a lasting legacy of mystical thought in her letters and diaries. Hillesum was a complex and powerful witness to the openness of the human spirit to the call of God, even under the most harrowing circumstances. Her life was as much shaped by Hitler’s regime as was that of philosopher Eric Voegelin, and as Meins Coetsier reveals, her thought lends itself to interpretation from a uniquely Voegelinian (...) perspective. _Etty Hillesum and the Flow of Presence_ analyzes the life and writings of Hillesum from the standpoint of Voegelin’s views on consciousness—especially his philosophy of luminous participation in the transcendent ground of being. Through a careful reading of her letters and diaries, Coetsier reveals the inner development of Hillesum’s mystically grounded resistance to Nazism as he guides readers through the symbolism of her spiritual journey, making effective use of Voegelin’s analytics of experience and symbolization to trace her path to spiritual truth. Intertwining the lives, works, and visions of these two mystical thinkers, Coetsier demonstrates his mastery of both Voegelin’s philosophy and Hillesum’s Dutch-language materials. He shows how mystical attunement to the “flow of presence”—Voegelin’s designation for human responsiveness to the divine—is the key to the development of Hillesum’s life and writings. He displays a special affinity for the suffering and grace-filled transformation that she underwent as she approached the end of her life and gained insight into the ultimate purpose of each individual’s contribution to the well-being and maintenance of the human spirit. Retrieving one of the lesser-known but most compelling figures of the Holocaust, _Etty Hillesum and the Flow of Presence_ is an original contribution to both Voegelin and Hillesum scholarship that reflects these writers’ strong valuation of the human person. It presents Hillesum’s life and work in an original and provocative context, shedding new light on her experiences and their symbolizations while further broadening the application of Voegelin’s thought. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Acts of Askēsis, Scenes of PoiēsisThe Dramatic Phenomenology of Another Violence in a Muslim Painter-PoetNauman Naqvi (bio)[End Page 50]The Divinity is beautiful and loves beauty. Cultivate the ethos of the Divinity. Askēsis is my glory, and all askēsis is from me.— Hadith of the Prophet Muhammad, Sahih al-Bukhari>> Introduction: Presenting the Drama of the Gnostic Ontology of Violence in IslamIn current discourse on violence in Islam, the fundamental importance (...) of the Prophetic distinction—a distinction iterated in a number of hadith, or speech-events of the Prophet Muhammad—between the greater, inner jihad, against the ego (al-jihad al-akbar), and the lesser, outward jihad, against oppression and animosity (al-jihad al-asghar), has often been cited. Even so, an originary measure of the significance of this exemplary distinction—abyssal in its simplicity, disclosing as it does the divinity proper to the divinely ordained imperative of jihad (such disclosure of divinity being the very task and telos of the Prophetic speech-event, its very eventfulness (hadatha)—has hardly been taken or heeded.It has not, to begin with, been explored that both forms strikingly share the violent word, jihad: in Arabic, forceful effort or struggle. It is as if the reality and intensity of these two radically different forms of force are adequated a priori in the Prophetic speech-event—if anything, it is the former, the inner jihad, that has the greater reality, the more violent, imperative intensity. With their difference a matter of degree and quality, the two are at once intimately related and violently real, linguistically leaving us little space for the distinction between the metaphoric and the literal in this demanding economy, language, and ontology of violence.1The line that has been drawn between the two forms of violence in the Prophetic speech-event is not ontological per se—it is the axis of the stage of their dramatic encounter, the battle line of their distinction. This axis, this vertical battle line of distinction, is the strait, but upwardly infinite, dramaturgical space wherein is enacted the gnostic ontology of violence in Islam. It is the axial line of force emanating from Islam’s extraordinary emphasis on the radical purification of one’s intention, one’s very intentionality (i.e., the purification not just of the springing ground of one’s comportment, but of the anterior ground where one receives and apprehends the real as such), in a quest for the demanding Divinity that would hurl the Islamic subject both inside and outside itself in its own endless search and infinite encounter. It is the battle line of distinction that races through the world stage of Islam’s arts, knowledges, and practices—the auratic line of force pulsating through the fields of its charismatic inheritance of generous visions, discourses, and gestures. Indeed, it is the piercing erotic arrow of divine love and mercy that is the subtle motus animi continuus of Islam’s graceful works of poiēsis.For the violent task of askēsis assigned by the great imperative of inner jihad is closely related both to the imperative of beauty in Islam—where the effects of askēsis: virtue and virtuosity, are densely, passionately cathected and imbricated with the beautiful2 by [End Page 51] virtue of the latter’s manifestation of divinity—as well as to the imperative of knowledge, wherein theory and praxis are united in askēsis.3Beauty and its creation—the act of poiēsis —are also, then, violently real, as are knowledge and its effects, since together they all have a kenotically violent askēsis as the condition and telos of their possibility, as the very ground(s) of their emergence and potentiality. Thus, the significance of the greater jihad is (again) to be read potentially, in the entire range of the arts, gestures, habits, and letters of Islam, its artifacts and bodies, where generous, kenotic, sacrificial logics are on display, not just in the lesser archive of jihad (in acts of greater jihad on far bygone battlefields), but in the epic world-panorama of the acts and scenes of askēsis and poiēsis that are... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE DOMINICAN SCHOOL OF SALAMANCA AND THE SPANISH CONQUEST OF AMERICA: SOME BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES THOMAS F. O'MEARA. O.P. University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana SALAMANCA, northwest of Madrid and Avila and not far from Spain's border with Portugal, preserves the atmosphere of a medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque university even as it develops the schools and clinics of a contemporary center of studies. There are associations with Teresa of (...) Avila, who spent the night there just after her reform was approved by Rome, with the young Cervantes, with Luis de Leon and Ignatius Loyola, and with John of the Cross, who was a student there. A bridge from the time of Trajan spans the river Tormes, and the Romanesque cathedral still reserves a chapel for the Mozarabic rite. The University of Salamanca The city brings to mind sixteenth century Dominicans like Francisco de Vitoria, often called the founder of international law, and Domingo Bafiez, confessor to Teresa of Avila. The Order of Friars Preachers, however, came to Salamanca in 1222 at the same time that Dominic's missions were taking root in·Paris and Bologna; the friars founded a priory and soon a school under the patronage of St. Stephen (San Esteban). The " Dominican School of Salamanca " means formally the line of great theologians reaching from Diego de Deza at the end of the fifteenth century to Tomas de Lemos, a main protagonist in Rome in 1607 in the controversy over grace entitled De Auxiliis. Today, after seven and a half centuries of existence, the Salamancan SSS 556 THOMAS F. o'MEARA, O.P. Dominicans remain a vital community, active m teaching, research and publishing. My attention was directed to the Dominicans at Salamanca by two volumes of essays reporting on congresses concerning the "Dominicans and the Discovery of the New World." My interest was not church history but the history of theologies of how grace might exist outside of explicit faith and sacramental baptism. The following report is a bibliographical survey of recent research on a theological era and school. Focusing on the thought of the theologians stimulated by the experiences of the missionaries in the Indies, it treats the Dominicans during the first decades after the voyages of Columbus. In the 1480s, as it entered its golden age, the University of Salamanca had a hundred professors and almost 7000 students. University records begin late, but they show that in 1546/47, one hundred thirty-four Dominicans were studying at the university, and in 1598/99, eighty. J. L. Espinel has written. a historical guide to the Dominican buildings and institutions.1 The great period of the Dominican school at the University began with Diego de Deza ( 1480-1486), professor and archbishop of Seville, and Matias de Paz (1518-1519), a professor of Scripture. Francisco de Vitoria (1526-1546) and Domingo de Soto (15321549 ) were its most gifted thinkers, but the school's achievements continued with Melchior Cano (1546-1552), Juan de la Pefia (1561-1565) and Domingo Banez (1581-1604). These t San Esteban de Salamanca, Historia y Gufa, Siglos, XIII-XX (Salamanca: Editorial San Esteban, 1978); see also R. Hernandez, "Convento y estudio de San Esteban," La Universidad de Salamanca (Salamanca: Universidad, 1989), pp. 369ff.; A. Martin Melquiades, "La Escuela de teologia de Salamanca," Atti del Congresso internazionale, Tommaso d'Aquino nel suo settimo centenario, Tommaso d'Aquino nella storia del pensiero, 1 :2 (Naples: Edizione Domenicane Italiane, 1975), pp. 242ff. A Salamancan Dominican of the 1930s, Vicente Beltran de Heredia, pioneered research in the history of the university and in the writings of the Dominican speculative masters. His writings can be found in past issues of Ciencia Tomista (CT), and some of his books and several recent collections of his most important essays are available from Editorial San Esteban. Similarly initial research in the United States can be found in the writings of Lewis Hanke. SALAMANCA AND THE SPANISH CONQUEST 557 are joined by lesser figures like Pedro de Sotomayor (15601564 ), Mancia de Corpus Christi (1564-1576), and Bartolome de Medina (1576-1581). The occupants of the chair in theology of the liturgical hour of prime from Vitoria in 1526 to Bafiez's... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Journal of Aesthetic Education 37.1 (2003) 64-76 [Access article in PDF] The Sign System in Chinese Landscape Paintings Cliff G. Mcmahon Paintings emerge from a culture field and must be interpreted in relation to the net of culture. A given culture will be implicated by the sign system used by the painter. Everyone agrees that in Chinese landscape paintings, the most important cultural bond is to ancient Chinese (...) Taoism, and to a lesser degree, to Confucianism. Obviously, then, the key for these landscapes is an alert understanding of Taoism, and the primary source is the book the Tao Tê Ching.Some of the most crucial elements in Taoist beliefs are often ignored in the analysis of the Taoist landscapes, and this deserves more attention. The core of Taoism lies in a philosophic and religious guess, and the guess is made as an effort to reach a high-order explanatory theory of the origin of the universe, the structure of the universe, and the best path for human life. The guess of the ancient Chinese sages goes something like this: The universe is created by an Ultimate One whose nature remains mysterious, beyond the power of words, an Absolute pervaded by the spirit of motherhood, and thus moved to the acts of creation, using two agents of creation. These two agents are invisible but real forces that operate by the tension of polarity, the dynamic interplay of negative and positive energies, much like male and female forces. The female power is called Yin, the male power Yang. The female power is seen wherever there is fluidity, softness, openness, receiving, emptiness, or darkness. The male power is at work in hardness, assertiveness, force, and light. Everything that is made is a blending of the Yin and Yang polarities, and the dynamism and flux of reality is based on the tendency of Yin and Yang to advance and retreat, the tendency of one to become the other, just as summer changes into winter, and day changes into night. In order for a man to be complete, he must learn to put on the way of woman, to be receptive. This is a very intelligent principle. [End Page 64] When we take in all our impressions of nature, and take in all the books we have read, we are in the receptive mode. The Yin female principle of emptiness has a priority over Yang in that there must be an empty space before any concrete thing comes to occupy the space. The Yin female force is seen in the low and quiet valley, and in the fluid receptivity of water. Yang is in the bold assertive mountains and in the hardness of stone. Yin appears in the graceful and flexible bending of bamboo, while Yang is in the hardness and strength of bamboo. Since Yin is associated with water, all forms of cloud and mist are symbols of Yin. Yang is action, Yin is wisdom.One of the most important aspects of Taoism is the principle that the mysterious Absolute One has permeated all of reality and serves the good of all creatures in every passing minute, asking nothing in return and offering no favoritism to any age or any group. This is obviously a sophisticated and intelligent principle for a theology. On this point, Taoism is superior to Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. Christianity might have taken a similar stand in that the gospel of John declares that the eternal logos dwells in all created things in a timeless manner, and was fully embedded in the world before the coming of the historical Jesus, but so far, Christians have almost totally ignored the opening lines of John.This philosophic core of Taoist belief compares to the great Western idea that Godhead creates by the use of cosmic agents. In the gospel of John, the logos is the agent. In chapter eight of Proverbs, Wisdom is the agent. In Plotinus, Nous is the agent. In Heraclitus, the polarities of love and hate are this agent. Sometimes the idea of cosmic agent is used to protect... (shrink)

This article challenges the widely held view that mysticism is essentially characterized by intense, ineffable, subjective experiences. Instead, I show that mysticism has undergone a series of social constructions, which were never innocent of gendered struggles for power. When philosophers of religion and popular writers on mysticism ignore these gendered constructions, as they regularly do, they are in turn perpetuating a post-Jamesian understanding of mysticism which removes mysticism and women from involvement with political and social justice.

This study is the first examination of the works and lives of the women of the St. Louis philosophical movement and Concord School of Philosophy , two branches of the same idealist movement in America that introduced German thinkers to the American reading public, particularly G. W. F. Hegel. The St. Louis branch of the movement focused primarily on education as a civilizing force in society. The concepts of "self-activity" and self-estrangement were seen as integral to the educative process and (...) therefore became predominant themes of the movement. ;Many of the women in this study were contributors to The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, America's first philosophy journal, edited by William Torrey Harris, the recognized leader of the St. Louis and Concord circles. Figures studied include Susan Elizabeth Blow , kindergarten education theorist; Anna Callender Brackett , proponent of higher education for women; Grace C. Bibb , feminist and educator, Ellen M. Mitchell , feminist and Concord School lecturer; and Marietta Kies , a political theorist who posited altruism as a valid ethical principle for use in public life. A number of less prominent women educators and thinkers of the St. Louis movement and Concord School are also discussed. ;All the women in this study were associates of Harris or his colleagues: Thomas Davidson , John Dewey , George H. Howison , George S. Morris , Denton J. Snider , and Louis Soldan. (shrink)

The American idealist movement started in St. Louis, Missouri in 1858, becoming more influential as women joined and influenced its development. Susan Elizabeth Blow was well known as an educator and pedagogical theorist who founded the first public kindergarten program in America (1873-1884). Anna C. Brackett was a feminist and pedagogical theorist and the first female principal of a secondary school (St. Louis Normal School, 1863-72). Grace C. Bibb was a feminist literary critic and the first female dean at (...) the University of Missouri, Columbia (1878-84). American idealism took on a new form in the 1880s with the founding of the Concord School of Philosophy in Massachusetts. Ellen M. Mitchell participated in the movement in both St. Louis and Concord. She was one of the first women to teach philosophy at a co-educational college (University of Denver, 1890-92). Lucia Ames Mead, Marietta Kies, and Eliza Sunderland joined the movement in Concord. Lucia Ames Mead became a chief pacifist theorist in the early twentieth century. Kies and Sunderland were among the first women to earn the Ph.D. in philosophy (University of Michigan, 1891, 1892). Kies wrote on political altruism and shared with Mitchell the distinction of teaching at a coeducational institution (Butler College, 1896-99). These were the first American women as a group to plunge into philosophy proper, bridging those years between the amateur, paraprofessional and professional academic philosopher. Dorothy Rogers's new book at last gives them the attention they deserve. America's First Women Philosophers is indexed in H.W. Wilson's Essay and General Literature Index. (shrink)

Teaching ethics is crucial to health sciences education. Doing it well requires a willingness to engage contentious social issues. Those issues introduce conflict and risk, but avoiding them ignores moral diversity and renders the work of ethics education irrelevant. Therefore, when (not if) contentious issues and moral differences arise, they must be acknowledged and can be addressed with humility, collegiality, and openness to support learning. Faculty must risk moments when not everyone will “feel safe,” so the candor implied in psychological (...) safety can emerge. The deliberative and social work of ethics education involves generous listening, wading into difference, and wondering together if our beliefs and arguments are as sound as we once thought. By forecasting the need for candid engagement with contentious issues and moral difference, establishing ground rules, and bolstering due process structures for faculty and students, a riskier and more relevant ethics pedagogy can emerge. Doing so will prepare everyone for the moral diversity they can expect in our common life and in practice. (shrink)

Kathryn Gines's book details Hannah Arendt 's racial and conceptual biases against Black people in the US and post-colonial Africa. Gines makes original and significant contributions to feminist philosophy by applying various feminist and anticolonial strategies, including standpoint theory and multidirectionality, to Arendt 's political essays and concepts. Feminist critiques of Arendt in general and racial critiques of "Reflections on Little Rock" in particular are not new; however, Hannah Arendt and the Negro Question offers a novel and comprehensive racial critique (...) of Arendt 's major writings. Gines offers a "sustained analysis of Arendt 's treatment of the Black experience in the United States", as well as racial violence within the contexts of the American, French, and Haitian Revolutions, and French and British imperialism and colonialism. In this review I will offer an overview of the book as a whole, before evaluating the extent of Gines's critique as it pertains to Arendt 's misguided judgments and her theory of judgment. (shrink)

There is a widespread policy assumption that school leaders such as headteachers and governors need to have 'training courses' which are constituted by a growing corpus of Education Management Studies (EMS) if they are to achieve successfully current schooling goals of 'effectiveness', 'quality', 'excellence' and 'value for money'. Another body of work which attempts to address these issues in a wider cultural framework and which may be called Critical Leadership Studies (CLS) is regarded as interesting for those studying for higher (...) graduate qualifications but hardly relevant for everyday school busyness. While EMS is constructed as 'practical' and therefore a necessary constituent of the National Professional Qualification for Headteachers and other training courses for school leaders, CLS is constructed as 'academic' and more suitable for the EdD seminar. It will be argued here that both cultural analysis and recent research shows this to be a simplistic and reductionist view with dangerous policy consequences. Critical scholarship in education has much to offer to those meeting the everyday challenges of school leadership. In particular, feminist critical scholarship offers oppositional models to both traditional and market forms of patriarchal school leadership. (shrink)

While not a monolithic movement, ecofeminists are united in their conviction that there are important connections between the exploitation of both women and nature. They are internally divided, however, on the propriety of applying their theoretical claims and activist strategies across social contexts. This paper explores three debates within ecofeminism that largely turn on this universalist versus particularist tension: whether ecofeminist theorizing can adequately account for cultural variation; whether its common usage of essentialist rhetoric is productive or troubling; and whether (...) resources for social activism could legitimately be culled from an assembly of heterogeneous and foreign sources. I conclude that the universalism of the women–nature connection can indeed be justified if perceived in multivalent ways, that “earthcare” or “ecomaternalist” discourse can be helpful in some contexts but harmful in others, and that selective retrieval of other cultures for the purposes of advocacy should not be ruled out as necessarily imperialistic or otherwise inappropriate. (shrink)

The purpose of our study is to demonstrate through an array of three themes that the role of the thought of Epicurus is central throughout the works of Friedrich Nietzsche. In doing so, we are going to study several themes among which the duality between the Apollonian and the Dionysian, the Übermensch and finally décadence (as the word is used in French by Nietzsche) and which Nietzsche associates to Epicurus in his last period. Our theoretical proposal consists of saying that (...) there is a common thread of the Epicurean thought in the Nietzschean works that makes it an important source of inspiration throughout his works in order to build some of his main concepts. (shrink)

Courts and legal commentators have been notoriously unsuccessful in articulating a rule to differentiate between uncompensated police power regulations of land by govemment and situations in which the govemment can only interfere with property rights if it provides compensation to those owners who suffer losses. Noticeably absent from most discussions of this “takings” issue is any foundational underpinning in a theory of justice with respect to property holdings. Can two of the most influential contemporary theories ofjustice-that of John Rawls and (...) Robert Nozick -provide such needed support for the analysis of the “takings” issue? By employing the vehicle of three hypothetical exampIes I investigate this question and reach some conclusions conceming the applicability of such abstract theories of justice to the real world. (shrink)