Jan Van Ruusbroec (12931327) is the most prominent exponent. 1 To date however, an in-depth study of the influence of Meister Eckharts thought has not been published. 2 In this paper I want to compare their central ideas concerning the relation between God and his creation (in particular man). More specifically, I hope to make clear that the vocabulary they occasionally share (Birth of the Son in the soul, the spark of the soul, the ground of the soul, the soul (...) as Image, and so on) actually veils two very different theologies. (shrink)

This handbook offers an in depth and comprehensive state of the art survey of the linguistic domains of modality and mood. An international team of experts in the field examine the full range of methodological and theoretical approaches to the many facets of the phenomena involved. Following an opening section that provides an introduction and historical background to the topic, the volume is divided into five parts. Parts 1 and 2 present the basic linguistic facts about the systems of modality (...) and mood in the languages of the world, covering the semantics and the expression of different subtypes of modality and mood respectively. The authors also examine the interaction of modality and mood, mutually and with other semantic categories such as aspect, time, negation, and evidentiality. In Part 3, authors discuss the features of the modality and mood systems in five typologically different language groups, while chapters in Part 4 deal with wider perspectives on modality and mood: diachrony, areality, first language acquisition, and sign language. Finally, Part 5 looks at how modality and mood are handled in different theoretical approaches: formal syntax, functional linguistics, cognitive linguistics and construction grammar, and formal semantics. (shrink)

Traditional studies of literature have developed approaches ranging from historical, hermeneutic, critical, close reading and author studies perspectives. The present volume shows that there is much, much more to analysing literary texts, their readers, the literary system, movies, their structure and their effects. These diverse new ways of looking at literature are exemplified in this volume. The volume shows how these various approaches can be carried out in concrete projects in the area of literary studies. Twenty-three chapters encompass research on (...) literary studies from perspectives of psychology, linguistics, anthroplogy, history, sociology, computer science. The contributors demonstrate in non-technical language the amplitude of detail and insight that can be gained from such a wider perspective on the study of literary texts. The interdisciplinary diversity of the study of literature may launch itself as a New Beginnings in Literary Studies indeed. (shrink)

This essay had its beginnings in my desire to reexamine the Arnolfini portrait from the perspective of Giovanna Cenami, the demure young woman who stands beside the cloaked and hated man on the fifteenth-century panel in London. Even though she shares the formal prominence with the man in Jan van Eyck’s unprecedented composition, she has been paid scant attention in the literature on the painting. I anticipated, as I began my work that inspection of the female subject of the panel (...) would, of necessity, amend the authoritative count of the Arnolfini portrait that Panofsky first published in 1934. That narrative, which focused on the event portrayed, had been recited to me by my teachers as an example of interpretive truth; I had committed it to memory as a model of our discipline’s search for meaning. I never dreamed back then that it might be “wrong.” Yet, the material I encountered as I pursued my inquiry into Giovanna’s life contradicted Panofsky’s assumptions on several key points; amendment alone would not do. It seemed necessary for me to challenge the venerable interpretation others were starting to question,4 even though two generations of students, including my own, had learned from it all they thought there was to know about “Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait.” 4. See, for example, Peter H. Schabacker, “De Matrimonio ad Morganaticam Conracto: Jan van Eyck’s ‘Arnolfini’ Portrait Reconsidered,” Art Quarterly 35 : 375-98, hereafter abbreviated “DM”; Lucy Freeman Sandler, “The Handclasp in the Arnolfini Wedding: A Manuscript Precedent,” Art Bulletin 66 : 488-91, hereafter abbreviated “H”; and Jan Baptist Bedaux, “The Reality of Symbols: The Question of Disguised Symbolism in Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait,” Simiolus 16 : 5-28, hereafter abbreviated “RS.” Linda Seidel, associate professor in the department of art at the University of Chicago, is the author of Songs of Glory , a study of twelfth-century French architectural sculpture. She is currently completing a work on medieval doorway design as an art of entry and pursuing a collaborative project with Michael Camille and Robert Nelson, Medieval Art and Its Audiences. (shrink)

Review of Jan van der Stoep's published PhD dissertation on the work of Pierre Bourdieu.en de politieke filosofie van het multiculturalisme Kok Kampen 2005. My review is in English. van der Stoep's book is in Dutch with an English summary.

On the basis of reports that Jan van Eyck visited England, this essay speculates freely on what the diplomat and painter actually did in and around London for three weeks in 1428. The essay claims, for example, that van Eyck went to the village of Foots Cray to buy watercresses to use as models when painting greenery on the Ghent Altarpiece of the Mystic Lamb. The recently erected gateway to the palace at Greenwich is said likewise to be the model (...) for a towered gateway depicted on the altarpiece. After providing local detail about relevant parts of England in 1428, the essay closes with speculation about the origin of a harp, of a purportedly Welsh variety, appearing on the altarpiece in the hands of an angel. The author argues that it was the instrument of an itinerant Breton musician whom van Eyck had heard in recital at the Poor Clares convent of the Holy Trinity at the Minories in Aldgate. The harpist subsequently murdered his Stepney landlady and was himself killed by enraged local housewives. Van Eyck is said to have purchased the man's harp when his worldly goods were posthumously sold. (shrink)

This is a review of Quantifiers, Logic, and Language, edited by Jaap van der Does and Jan van Eijk, published by CSLI (Center for the Study of Language and Information) Publications, Stanford, CA, in 1996.

The Handbook of Economics and Ethics is a unique collection of 75 original entries on the intersections between economics and ethics.

Logical frameworks for analysing the dynamics ofinformation processing abound [4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 14, 20, 22]. Some of these frameworks focus on the dynamics of the interpretation process, some on the dynamics of the process of drawing inferences, and some do both of these. Formalisms galore, so it is felt that some conceptual streamlining would pay off. This paper is part of a larger scale enterprise to pursue the obvious parallel between information processing and imperative programming. We demonstrate that (...) logical tools from theoretical computer science are relevant for the logic of information flow. More specifically, we show that the perspective of bare logic [13, 18] can fruitfully be applied to the conceptual simplification of information flow logics. Part one of this program consisted of the analysis of 'dynamic interpretation' in this way, using the example of dynamic predicate logic [10]; the results were published in [7]. The present paper constitutes the second part of the program, the analysis of 'dynamic inference'. Here we focus on Veltman’s update logic [22]. Update logic is an example of a logical framework which takes the dynamics of drawing inferences into account by modelling information growth as discarding of possibilities. This paper shows how information logics like update logic can fruitfully be studied by linking their dynamic principles to static 'correctness descriptions'. Our theme is exemplified by providing a sound and complete HoarelPratt style deduction system for update logic. The Hoare/Pratt correctness statements use modal propositional dynamic logic as assertion language and connect update logic to the modal propositional logic S5. The connection with S5 provides a clear link between the dynamic and the static semantics of update logic. The fact that update logic is decidable was noted already in [2]; the connection with S5 provides an alternative proof. The S5 connection can also be used for rephrasing the validity notions of update logic and for performing consistency checks. In conclusion, it is argued that interpreting the dynamic statements of information logics as dynamic modal operators has much wider applicability. In fact, the method can be used to axiomatize quite a wide range of information logics. (shrink)

Anlässlich des Jubiläumsjahres 2008 werden Strukturanalogien zwischen der Musik des französischen Komponisten Olivier Messiaen und der Mystik des Flamen Jan van Ruusbroec anhand des X. Satzes aus den „Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus" aufgezeigt, der dem „Blick des Geistes der Freude" gewidmet ist. Wie in Ruusbroecs „Zierde der geistlichen Hochzeit" finden sich in der Musik pneumatologische Bildmetaphern wie die des Tanzes, der Jagd, aber auch Übereinstimmung im Ausdruck der Freude und der Einigkeit des Geistes mit dem Vater und dem Sohn. Über (...) seine charakteristischen Farbklänge ist es Messiaen gelungen, sogar die ruusbroecsche Rede vom Minnebrand des Geistes in der Seele musikalisch umzusetzen und dem Geist der Weisheit und der Wahrheit musikalisch Ausdruck zu verleihen. Auf diese Weise trägt zeitgenössische Musik bei, das Geheimnis des Heiligen Geistes tiefer zu erfassen.On the occasion of the Messiaen jubilee 2008, this article shows analogue structures between the Music of the French composer Olivier Messiaen and the mysticism of the Flemish theologian Jan van Ruusbroec . My examination is based on the X. movement of Messiaen's "Vingt Regards sur l'Enfant-Jésus", which is dedicated to the "Vision of the Spirit of Joy". Like Ruusbroec's "Adornment of the Spiritual Marriage", the music of Messiaen contains pneumatological metaphors like the dance and the hunt, but is also accords with Ruusbroec's work in expressing the joy and unity of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son. Through his characteristic sound-colours, Messiaen even succeeds in musically expressing what Ruusbroec describes as the Spirit's "firebrand of love" within the soul and in giving the Spirit of wisdom and truth a musical form. This demonstrates how contemporaneous music can contribute to a deeper understanding of the mystery of the Holy Spirit. (shrink)

Grâce à l’analyse de manuels scolaires, qui, par leur caractère succinct, se manifestent comme des sources principales pour reconstituer des mentalités théologiques, nous cherchons dans cette étude à découvrir quel était le paradigme interreligieux qui prévalait dans les cercles catholiques du Canada français avant et pendant Vatican II. Nous avons essayé de mettre au point la relation entre le paradigme interreligieux et la représentation des religions non chrétiennes dans les manuels d’apologétique utilisés dans l’enseignement religieux catholique et francophone au Québec. (...) Cette recherche a donné des résultats surprenants : le paradigme interreligieux sous-jacent n’était pas exclusiviste mais inclusiviste. Dans le présent article, nous exposons en détail les éléments constitutifs de ce paradigme inclusiviste. Le cas échéant, nous signalons les continuités avec Vatican II. By examining religious school textbooks — which constitute a crucial source for the reconstruction of theological mentalities precisely because of their concise nature — this study attempts to gain insight into the inter-religious theological discourse that prevailed in French Canadian Catholic circles before and around the time of Vatican II. We have made a first attempt at a consistent definition of the relationship between the underlying Catholic inter-religious theological paradigm and the representation of non-Christian religions that is presented in French Canadian religion textbooks on apologetics in Catholic secondary religious education. This research provides some surprising results : the dominant inter-religious paradigm turned out not to be exclusivistic but inclusivistic in nature. In this article we will explore the details of this inclusivistic mindset. Whenever possible, we will focus on the continuity with Vatican II. (shrink)

Cette étude a été conçue comme une recherche interdisciplinaire historique, pédagogique, anthropologique et théologique, avec pour but d’examiner comment l’identité catholique a été forgée et maintenue au moyen de représentations de « soi-même » et de « l’autre » non chrétien, c’est-à-dire l’islam, dans le cadre narratif et discursif des manuels d’histoire de l’Église utilisés dans l’enseignement de la religion au primaire et au secondaire, au Canada francophone et en Belgique. Ces dernières années, de nombreuses recherches ont porté sur la (...) pédagogie historique traditionnelle, la recherche d’identité culturelle et la mentalité pédagogique, à partir de manuels scolaires. Mais, dans le domaine de la théologie et de la pédagogie religieuse, ce genre d’étude a pour ainsi dire été négligé. Nous ferons appel à un certain nombre de concepts, tels que « l’inclusivisme » et « l’exclusivisme », venant de la théologie qui se prêtent particulièrement bien à l’éclaircissement du processus de la formation de l’identité culturelle. This study is conceived as an interdisciplinary historical, theological, educational and anthropological research of the construction of a Catholic identity on the basis of the “self” and the non-Christian “other”, in this case Islam, in the narrative and discursive settings of Church history textbooks for primary and secondary religion education in French Canada and in Belgium. In recent years, a huge amount of studies, starting from the analysis of textbooks, on cultural identities and educational mentalities have been produced in the classical history of education. Nevertheless, such studies have almost been a blind spot in theology and religious education. In concrete, we will appeal to a number of theological concepts like “inclusivism” and “exclusivism”, who are particularly suited to shed a light on the process of constructing a cultural identity. (shrink)

This paper provides preliminary insights into the process of sense-making and developing meaning with regard to corporate social responsibility (CSR) within 18 Dutch companies. It is based upon a research project carried out within the framework of the Dutch National Research Programme on CSR. The paper questions how change agents promoting CSR within these companies made sense of the meaning of CSR. How did they use language (and other instruments) to stimulate and underpin the contextual essence of CSR? Why did (...) they do that in this particular way? What were the consequences of this approach for shaping the process of CSR in their company? Did their efforts contribute to a new way of thinking and acting or was it merely putting old wine in new barrels? A preliminary conclusion is that change agents use above all linguistic artefacts (words and notions) and carry out practical projects while constructing meaning. Still, the meaning of meaning itself remains highly intangible, situational and personality related. (shrink)

This study explored the relationship between both overall television viewing and romantic youth drama viewing, as well as of females’ concerns about boys’ attractiveness expectations on the one hand, and body image dissatisfaction on the other. Participants were 411 adolescent girls who completed self-report measures on body dissatisfaction, television viewing, and concerns about appearance expectations. Our results indicated that there was both a direct and indirect relationship between romantic youth drama viewing and body satisfaction. Girls who spent more time watching (...) romantic youth drama displayed lower levels of body satisfaction. In addition, romantic youth drama viewing had a significant positive impact on concerns about boys’ attractiveness expectations, which had an indirect effect on body satisfaction. (shrink)

The history of twentieth-century American psychology is often depicted as a history of the rise and fall of behaviorism. Although historians disagree about the theoretical and social factors that have contributed to the development of experimental psychology, there is widespread consensus about the growing and declining influence of behaviorism between approximately 1920 and 1970. Since such wide-scope claims about the development of American psychology are typically based on small and unrepresentative samples of historical data, however, the question rises to what (...) extent the received view is justified. This paper aims to answer this question in two ways. First, we use advanced scientometric tools to quantitatively analyze the metadata of 119.278 papers published in American journals between 1920 and 1970. We reconstruct the development and structure of American psychology using co-citation and co-occurrence networks and argue that the standard story needs reappraising. Second, we argue that the question whether behaviorism was the ‘dominant’ school of American psychology is historically misleading to begin with. Using the results of our bibliometric analyses, we argue that questions about the development of American psychology deserve more fine-grained answers. (shrink)

This study investigates the negative reactions of Dutch viewers to the content of television programs. The results show that a vast majority is sometimes irritated by TV programs, that a somewhat smaller majority is sometimes shocked by the programs, and that one fifth of the viewing population consider certain programs to be intolerable. The most frequently mentioned genres are games, shows, and related entertainment programs, while reality TV, news and current affairs, and sex are primarily evaluated as irritating. It appears (...) that violent and frightening material creates by far the largest category of negative responses. Intimidating behavior worries the viewers most, immediately followed by the violation of privacy. This article also discusses the consequences of these results for broadcasting policy in the Netherlands. (shrink)

In this paper, the process for firms to decide whether or not to invest in corporate social responsibility is treated from a real option perspective. We extend the Husted framework with an important extra parameter that allows us to understand the timing of CSR investment and explain why some companies drag their feet over CSR investments. Our model explicitly allows for the impact of the opportunity cost of delaying the CSR investment decision, providing firms with tools to determine the optimal (...) moment of exercising the CSR investment option. We illustrate our timing model through a case study and analyze governmental support strategies for CSR from a real options perspective. (shrink)

Following Manne (1966, Insider Trading and the Stock Market (New York, Free Press)) we introduce a distinction between insider trading and market manipulation on the one hand and corporate insiders versus misappropriators on the other hand. This gives rise to four types of alleged inside transactions. We argue that the literature on insider trading has often targeted inside transactions type II, III and IV but that these arguments do not necessarily hold for type I transactions. We look for consequentionalist as (...) well as non-consequentionalist arguments against type I transactions and demonstrate that these are hard to find. Throughout the article we refer extensively to the economic literature on insider trading in order to overcome a relative divide between the economic, legal, and philosophical discussion on insider trading. (shrink)

Dynamic logic, broadly conceived, is the logic that analyses change by decomposing actions into their basic building blocks and by describing the results of performing actions in given states of the world. The actions studied by dynamic logic can be of various kinds: actions on the memory state of a computer, actions of a moving robot in a closed world, interactions between cognitive agents performing given communication protocols, actions that change the common ground between speaker and hearer in a conversation, (...) actions that change the contextually available referents in a conversation, and so on. (shrink)

After more than 15 years of study, the 1/f noise or complex-systems approach to cognitive science has delivered promises of progress, colorful verbiage, and statistical analyses of phenomena whose relevance for cognition remains unclear. What the complex-systems approach has arguably failed to deliver are concrete insights about how people perceive, think, decide, and act. Without formal models that implement the proposed abstract concepts, the complex-systems approach to cognitive science runs the danger of becoming a philosophical exercise in futility. The complex-systems (...) approach can be informative and innovative, but only if it is implemented as a formal model that allows concrete prediction, falsification, and comparison against more traditional approaches. (shrink)

We investigate topological properties of subsets S of the real plane, expressed by first-order logic sentences in the language of the reals augmented with a binary relation symbol for S. Two sets are called topologically elementary equivalent if they have the same such first-order topological properties. The contribution of this paper is a natural and effective characterization of topological elementary equivalence of closed semi-algebraic sets.

Cancers often express hundreds of genes otherwise specific to germ cells, the germline/cancer (GC) genes. Here, we present and discuss the hypothesis that activation of a “germline program” promotes cancer cell malignancy. We do so by proposing four hallmark processes of the germline: meiosis, epigenetic plasticity, migration, and metabolic plasticity. Together, these hallmarks enable replicative immortality of germ cells as well as cancer cells. Especially meiotic genes are frequently expressed in cancer, implying that genes unique to meiosis may play a (...) role in oncogenesis. Because GC genes are not expressed in healthy somatic tissues, they form an appealing source of specific treatment targets with limited side effects besides infertility. Although it is still unclear why germ cell specific genes are so abundantly expressed in cancer, from our hypothesis it follows that the germline's reproductive program is intrinsic to cancer development. (shrink)