In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 43-49 [Access article in PDF] Double Religious Belonging:Aspects and Questions Catherine Cornille College of Holy Cross at Worcester, Massachusetts The idea of double or multiple religious belonging seems to have become an integral feature of the religious culture of our times. It is no longer surprising to hear people refer to themselves as partly or fully Christian and Buddhist, and the hybridizing of Jewish and (...) Buddhist religious identities has even led to a new terminology (Jubu). While this phenomenon has been part of Asian religious cultures for centuries, it is relatively new to the West, where a combination of political and religious forces have shaped religious identities around comparatively rigid and exclusive boundaries. With the gradual dissolution of traditional geographical and spiritual monopolies by particular religions, the religious field has become wide open and religious belonging increasingly a matter of choice and degree. The phenomenon of multiple religious belonging may be found in any combination of any number of religions. There are the Jews for Jesus; Christians who have become deeply involved in Muslim (mostly Sufi) religious practices; and Hindus who also consider themselves partly Christian or—more often—vice versa. But by far the most common phenomenon in the West is that of Christians or Jews who also profess to be Buddhist, hence the importance of discussing this phenomenon in this meeting on Buddhist-Christian dialogue.In this paper, I wish to outline the different contexts in which double or multiple religious belonging seems to manifest itself so as to reflect on the possibilities and limits of the very concept or category. While different religions may have various ways of defining or circumscribing the issue of religious identity and generally allow for different degrees of belonging, I will discuss the possibility of double religious belonging on the basis of a strong—and for most religions, ideal—understanding of religious belonging. Double Religious Belonging and New Age One of the contexts in which the phenomenon of double or multiple religious belonging may seem to present itself most readily is that of the late modern or postmodern form of religiosity called "New Age." Whereas New Age religion is essentially elusive, one of the most prominent scholars of New Age, Wouter Hanegraaf, defines it as a "popular Western culture criticism expressed in terms of a secularized [End Page 43] esotericism" and refers to general characteristics such as this-worldliness, holism, evolutionism, psychologizing of religion and spiritualizing of psychology, and, of course, the belief in the advent of a New Age. 1 In addition to these characteristics, one of the most noted features of New Age religiosity is its openness toward all religious traditions and the freedom with which it combines beliefs and practices from mainly the Asian religions, the mystical strands of the monotheistic traditions, and various forms of Shamanism. This has led to the image of New Age as a form of religious bricolage or a religion of the supermarket. Often underlying New Age religiosity is the belief that all religions derive from or meet in the same ultimate religious experience, and that one may thus belong to all religions at the same time.While New Age religion may therefore be regarded as a form of multiple religious belonging, it might be more appropriate to speak here of a complete absence of religious belonging. As scholars of religion such as Joachim Wach have pointed out, religious belonging is taken to involve a "total response of the total being (feeling, will and intellect) to Ultimate Reality." 2 It involves abandonment to a transcendent reality mediated through the concrete symbols and rituals of a particular religion. Surrender is thus not to the ultimate as such, but through—and in the end—to the teachings and practices embedded in a concrete religious tradition. Religious belonging in this strong sense of the term implies the acceptance, on faith, of a particular truth revealed and transmitted outside of the immediate experience of the individual and expressed in a particular body of teachings and practices. It also generally has a certain social dimension in which individuals celebrate... (shrink)

The process of determining a topic for comparison or a tertium comparationis forms one of the most crucial steps in the disciplines of comparative religion (Religionswissenschaft) and comparative theology. Though the two disciplines have much in common in terms of their methodologies, they differ in terms of their ultimate goals. While comparative religion is oriented toward advancing the understanding of religion and religious phenomena, comparative theology aims at deepening and advancing religious truth. This affects the ways in which each discipline (...) addresses critical questions of idiosyncrasy and hegemony in selecting the tertium comparationis. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 165-167 [Access article in PDF] Christianity in the Crucible of East-West Dialogue: A Critical Lookat Catholic Participation; And God, Zen, and the Intuition Of Being. By James Arraj. Chiloquin, Ore: Inner Growth Books, 2001. 335 pp. This book combines an original book-length essay, Critical Look at the Catholic Participation in the East-West Dialogue, and a new edition of the 1988 work God, Zen, and the (...) Intuition of Being. In the first part of the volume, Arraj discusses the approaches of a large variety of individuals and institutions who have been involved in the Christian dialogue with Buddhism (Habito, Enomiya-Lasalle, Jaeger, MacInnes, Hawk, Kennedy, Corless, etc.) and in the dialogue with Hinduism (Abhishiktananda, Grant, de Mello, Griffiths, Teasdale, etc.). The main perspective from which he discusses each of these authors is that of their conception of the relationship between Christian contemplation and enlightenment or realization. Arraj finds most of the existing approaches to the East-West dialogue wanting insofar as they all consider the Christian experience of contemplation from the perspective of the Hindu or Buddhist view of nonduality. As he puts it: "But what does this kind of nondualist imperialism do to Christianity? It eliminates its distinctive nature. Let me be clear about this. Used in this way, Zen awakening, which could be a wonderful gift for Christians, becomes destructive of Christianity" (31). Arraj sees this as but one expression of what he calls reactionary theology or "theology without a net," which has been developing since the Second Vatican Council. As opposed to this form of dialogue, which compromises the essence of Christian faith, Arraj discusses the approaches of Jacques Dupuis and the document Dominus Iesus, which he understands as two different versions of a proper Catholic position. After discussing a number of unsatisfactory approaches to the question of religious pluralism, he introduces the distinction between an existentialist approach, which focuses on the universality of the salvific will of God, and an essentialist approach, which emphasizes the uniqueness of Jesus as the mediator of salvation. This distinction between existence and essence forms one of the dominant themes of the book.Arraj offers an overview and critique of most of the existing approaches to the East-West dialogue, and then moves on to offering alternative proposals for the dialogue. While many are in the process of "overcoming" the metaphysical tradition of Christianity, Arraj sees precisely in this tradition a promising starting point for the dialogue with Zen Buddhism. After analyzing the particularly Thomistic manner of distinguishing essence and existence and some study of references to the experiences of loss of self in the ultimate realization, Arraj comes to the conclusion that what Thomistic metaphysics thinks of as "intuition of being" and what Asian traditions describe as the experience of Enlightenment "are both deeply metaphysical experiences of the same reality, but by different paths, and so they express themselves in different ways" (206). This, then, provides the necessary basis for the two traditions [End Page 165] to retain their respective identities while nonetheless learning from the other. In God, Zen, and the Intuition of Being Arraj offers some thoughts on how this might proceed. The clearest of these thoughts appear to lie on the side of what a discussion with Zen might do for Christianity. This is a matter, first of all, of rekindling an interest in Thomistic metaphysics through an introduction of categories and spiritual techniques that are part of the Zen tradition. At minimum, this would open a way beyond, or perhaps behind, the scholasticism of the manuals that have covered the true profundity of Christian Thomistic metaphysics. Whatever the philosophical stakes of this recovery, Arraj is especially interested in its spiritual promise, in the possibility of inviting certain aspects of Zen meditation—the use of koans, increased attention to nature—to help Christianity in developing a new form of acquired contemplation. Arraj has somewhat less to say about what or how much this sort of dialogue might offer Zen... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Converging Ways? Conversion and Belonging in Buddhism and ChrisitanityCatherine CornilleConverging Ways? Conversion and Belonging in Buddhism and Chrisitanity. By John D’Arcy May. Sankt Ottilien: EOS Klosterverlag, 2007. 207 pp.In the course of the past seven years, the European Network of Buddhist-Christian Studies has established itself as a locus of serious dialogue and creative religious reflection. This volume, which emerged out of the sixth conference (in 2005) at the (...) Benedictine Abbey of St. Ottilien in Germany, combines a diversity of contributions on various issues relating to conversion, religious belonging, and multiple religious belonging. At the heart of the volume are two responses (by Christian theologian Perry Schmidt-Leukel and Buddhist theologian José Cabezón) to the highly publicized conversion of Paul Williams from Tantric Buddhism to Roman Catholicism, followed by a reply by Williams himself. These three articles represent a powerful demonstration of religious apologetics at its best. Each offers their critique of the other from a clearly defined religious position, displaying a clear understanding of the views of the other, but arguing unabashedly for the validity or superiority of their own position or theological convictions. Somewhat missing in the reading is an account of Williams’s conversion story, which he developed in An Unexpected Way. But each of the discussants offers a clear enough account of the other so that even those who have not read the book are able to reconstruct the main points of Williams’s narrative and arguments. Against Williams, who juxtaposes Buddhist atheism with Christian theism, Schmidt-Leukel proposes a conception of the absolute which he believes is amenable to both, but which—as Williams later argues—may be representative of neither. Cabezón, for his part, focuses not only on Williams’s theological arguments, but also on his ethical arguments for the superiority of Christianity, objecting that the black-and-white picture presented in a conversion narrative often entails a distortion or oversimplification of the tradition left behind, and pointing to the importance of interconnection and love in Buddhist texts and traditions. While conceding the latter, Williams, in his retort, passionately and eloquently reiterates his arguments for the plausibility of the Christian conception of God, countering one by one the points raised by his respondents. In this, he draws almost exclusively on Thomas Aquinas, which gives power and focus to his arguments but also seems to ignore the presence of other theological voices within the Christian and Roman Catholic tradition. This exercise in apologetics is interesting, not only because of the contents of the arguments, but also because of the tone. While Williams pays heed to Cabezón, [End Page 161] who approaches his conversion from a clearly defined Buddhist perspective, he seems less respectful of the position of Schmidt-Leukel, who attempts to reconcile Buddhist and Christian views of God. The reasons why such reconciliations are unappealing for someone who has converted from the one religion to the other may be many. But it certainly points to the tensions between clear commitment and belonging to a particular religious and theological tradition and the rhetoric of multiple religious belonging.This brings us to some of the other articles collected in this volume. Some focus on the lived reality of multiple belonging in Korea (Thomas Timpte) or in Sweden (Kajsa Ahlstrand) while others focus on personal experience (Thomas Josef Gotz and Ruben Habito) or on the religious or theological grounds for multiple religious belonging (Jorgen Skov Sorensen and Michael von Bruck). All of these contributions point to the reality or the ideality of belonging to more than one religious tradition. It would appear that in the context of religious diversity, such multiple belonging is all but unavoidable. While some point to the false construction of religious boundaries, others dismiss all notions of religious and theological superiority as well as the centrality of truth in religion. In contrast with this, the robust theological debate on matters of truth and difference at the heart of this volume offers a healthy counterbalance and a welcome reminder of the categorical and at times conflicting claims to truth in religion. If religions are taken seriously, multiple religious identity is less evident than sociological data... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 130-132 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Faith Among Faiths: Christian Theology and Non-Christian Religions Faith Among Faiths: Christian Theology and Non-Christian Religions. By James L. Fredericks. Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1999. 188 pp. "The time has come to recognize that the debate between exclusivists, inclusivists, and pluralists has reached an impasse."This is the starting point and refrain of Faith Among Faiths. While James (...) Fredericks discerns questions and problems relating to all three models for Christian theological attitudes toward religious pluralism, it is predominantly the pluralist approach that he takes to task. In the first part of this slender volume, he offers a summary of some of the main proponents of the pluralist theology of religion. The ideas of John Hick and Paul Knitter are given separate treatment in a chapter on each, with two "other pluralist voices"--Wilfred Cantwell Smith and Stanley Samartha--also discussed at some length. In order to assess the adequacy of these theologies, Fredericks tests them against two important criteria: [End Page 130] responsibility to the Christian tradition as it has articulated itself, and ability to respond creatively to the challenges and opportunities posed by religious plurality today. Regarding the first criterion, most pluralist theologies are shown to fall short of recognizing the full humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ and hence in some measure to break from continuity with Christian faith. In a useful reminder, Fredericks rightly points to the similarities between pluralist Christologies and the nineteenth-century liberal Protestant views of Jesus, and then joins Pannenberg in criticizing this theocentric understanding of Jesus as unbiblical. At the same time, Fredericks attempts to head off the possible charge that he moves toward biblicism or traditionalism by stating that "the traditional teaching about the divinity and the humanity of Jesus is traditional because of the spiritual and ethical implications that flow from it" (p. 124). The evident importance of this assertion makes it regrettable that he does not elaborate or explain it further.Most of Fredericks's criticism of the pluralist approach is based on his second criterion, i.e., the need to take seriously the manifest similarities and differences between religions and, in turn, promote a genuinely fruitful dialogue. From this perspective, the problem with pluralism would be its "domestication of differences" between the religions. When a pluralist such as John Hick proposes that all religions are reflections of the same ultimate reality and that all religious paths lead to the same ultimate goal, Fredericks thus sees a tendency to undermine the importance of religious differences and of the self-understanding of other religions. While this may indeed be a danger lurking in an abstract conception of the pluralist position, I do not believe that it is a necessary or inherent consequence of it. The basic distinction that most pluralists make between the "ultimate reality" itself, which is absolutely transcendent, and the historical manifestations of this "ultimate reality" does not necessarily reduce the different religions to equally adequate or inadequate manifestations of that ultimate reality. On the plane of phenomenal reality, there is still room for a hierarchy of truths and, inter alia, the possibility of growing in one's understanding of truth through dialogue with other religions. There is, moreover, ample evidence of this in the fact that some of the aforementioned pluralists have also written very detailed works on other religions (e.g., Cantwell Smith on Islam) or on particular aspects of other religions (Hick on conceptions of death and the afterlife in world religions). As we have seen in the case with the Buddhist notion of upaya,he recognition of the relative nature of all conditioned reality does not necessarily lead to a relativism in which all differences become insignificant.After criticizing the different pluralist approaches to the theology of religions, Fredericks proposes a shift to comparative theology. He seems to see comparative theology not so much as a new paradigm or orientation within the theology of religions but as a radical alternative to the whole enterprise of the theology of religions... (shrink)

Ao considerar o diálogo inter-religioso como a única alternativa construtiva em face da atitude tradicional de rivalidade religiosa, a autora destaca neste texto a importância da humildade para que ele aconteça em um ambiente de verdadeiras reciprocidade e mutualidade. De fato, a virtude da humildade desempenha um papel central na maioria das tradições religiosas e, nas religiões monoteístas, a atitude da humildade define uma determinada relação com Deus, que uma vez concebido como um Deus Criador, fonte de toda bondade e (...) verdade, o que torna vãs todas as tentativas humanas para autoglorificação e orgulho. A partir dessa perspectiva, segue um percurso que tem início com os primeiros místicos cristãos até chegar ao atual pensamento teológico. Ao longo deste são apresentados os conceitos de humildade como virtude e seus impactos e importância tanto para a doutrina cristã, em particular para a Igreja Católica, quanto para o diálogo inter-religioso. Como contraponto, a autora coloca os conceitos e as práticas de humildade adotados pelo Budismo, ensejando, enfim, pistas para um autêntico diálogo entre religiões cristãs e não cristãs. (shrink)

In the midst of the ongoing debate over the uniqueness of Christ and of Christianity, Stanislas Breton’s work Unicité et monothéisme offers new categories of reflection which may come to bridge the fundamental theological differences between pluralist and inclusivist perspectives. While his notions of méontology and of the Cross as the symbol of self-effacement create a radical openness to the distinctive truth of other religious traditions, this openness is itself firmly grounded within Christian self-understanding. Breton also reminds us that the (...) ultimate Christian basis for salvation lies not so much in assent to particular doctrines, but in the act of total self-givenness to others, in particular to “the least of these my brethren” (Matt. 25). (shrink)

Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, his main work of theoretical philosophy, frequently uses metaphors from law. In this first book-length study in English of Kant's legal metaphors and their role in the first Critique, Sofie Møller shows that they are central to Kant's account of reason. Through an analysis of the legal metaphors in their entirety, she demonstrates that Kant conceives of reason as having a structure mirroring that of a legal system in a natural right framework. Her study shows (...) that Kant's aim is to make cognisers become similar to authorized judges within such a system, by proving the legitimacy of the laws and the conditions under which valid judgments can be pronounced. These elements consolidate her conclusion that reason's systematicity is legal systematicity. (shrink)

Çin, son dönemlerde Körfez Bölgesine yönelik izlediği aktif politika, Çin Devlet Başkanı Xi Jipping’in (Şi Cinping), 7-9 Aralık 2022 tarihinde Körfez’e gerçekleştirdiği kapsamlı ziyaretle birlikte daha fazla dinamizm kazanmıştır. Bu ziyareti takiben yapılan analizler Çin’in, Körfez açılımını ABD’nin bölgesel hegemonyasını zayıflatmaya yönelik bir girişim olarak değerlendirmektedirler. Aynı ziyaret sırasında Pekin ve Riyad yönetimleri arasında imzalanan kapsamlı anlaşmalar ise ABD’nin Körfezdeki uzun erimli güvenlik partneri Suudi Arabistan’a ilişkin “eksen kayması” tartışmalarını başlattı. Bu çalışma güncelliğini koruyan iki tartışmanın kapsamlı bir muhakemesini yapmayı (...) hedeflemektedir. Bu amaçla uluslararası ilişkiler disiplinin son dönem fenomen teorisi olan hiyerarşinin ilgili argümanları kullanılmaktadır. Bu teorik çerçeveden hareketle, çalışmada ilk olarak Çin’in Körfez siyasetini şekillendiren stratejilerin fiyat arttırma (oubidding) ve negatif dengeleme (negative balancing) olduğu ve bu stratejilerin Körfez Bölgesi ülkeleri açısından yeni imkânlar yarattığı tespitinde bulunulmaktadır. Bunun yanı sıra Suudi Arabistan’ın, Çin ile gelişen ikili ilişkilerini hâlihazırda ABD ile sürdürmekte olduğu ilişkisine bir alternatif olarak görmediği, aksine Çin’in bahsi geçen stratejilerinden maksimum kazanım elde ederek otonomisini arttırmaya çalıştığı ayrıca belirtiliyor. (shrink)

Book Reviewed in this article: Israel's Prophetic Tradition: Essays in honour of Peter R. Ackroyd. Edited by Richard Coggins, Anthony Phillips and Michael Knibb, Pp.xxi, 272. Cambridge University Press, 1982, £21.00. Essays on John. By C.K. Barrett. Pp.viii, 167, London, SPCK, 1982, £10.50. The Letter to the Colossians. By Eduard Schweizer, translated by Andrew Chester. Pp.319, London, SPCK, 1982, £12.50. Foundational Theology: Jesus and the Church. By Francis Schüssler Fiorenza. Pp.xix, 326, New York Crossroad, 1984, $22.50. The Darkness of God: (...) Theology after Hiroshima. By Jim Garrison. Pp.x, 238, London, SCM Press, 1982, £5.95. Discerning the Mystery, An Essay on the Nature of neology. By Andrew Louth. Pp.xiv, 150, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1983, £12.50. The Tao and the Daimon: Segments of a Religious Inquiry. By Robert C. Neville. Pp.xv, 281, Albany, New York, State University of New York Press, 1982, $34.50 ), $11.95. Person and Myth: Maurice Leenhardt in the Melanesian World. By James Clifford. Pp.xi, 270, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1982, £21.50. Transcendence and the Sacred. Edited by A.M. Olson and L.S. Rouner. Pp.xv, 230, University of Notre Dame Press, 1981, £10.75. A History of Religious Ideas. Vol. 2: From Gautama Buddha to the Triumph of Christianity. By Mircea Eliade. Translated by William R. Trask. Pp.xi, 565, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1982, £17.50. Ordeal by Labyrinth: Conversations with Claude‐Henri Racquet. By Mircea Eliade. Translated by Derek Coltman. Pp.ix, 225, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1982, £12.55. Religious Philosophy of Prince‐Bishop Njegosh of Montenegro. By Zika Rad. Prvulovich. Pp.xviii, 273, Birmingham, The Author, 1984, £12.50, £10.50. The Home of Meaning: The Hermeneutics of the Subject of Paul Ricoeur. By John W. Van Dengel. Pp.xxi, 333, Washington, D.C., University Press of America, 1982, $24.50, $13.25. Life Forms and Meaning Stucture. By Alfred Schutz, translated, introduced and annotated by Helmut Wagner. Pp.vi, 217, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982, £11.95. The Shaping of Man: Philosophical Aspects of Sociobiology. By Roger Trigg. Pp.xx, 186. Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1982, £12.50, £5.95. Marx and Marxisms: Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture Series, 14. Edited by G.H.R. Parkinson. Pp.vi, 268, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £9.95. Marx and Justice: The Radical Critique of Liberalism. By Allen E. Buchanan. Pp.xiv, 206, London, Methuen, 1982, £12.95. Israel Satanter: Text, Structure, Idea. By Hillel Goldberg. Pp.xvii, 358, New York, Ktav, 1981, $17.50. Freud on Femininity and Faith. By Judith Van Herik. Pp.xiii, 216, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1982, £17.50. Women, Reason and Nature. By Carol McMillan. Pp.x, 165, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1982, £12.50. Supererogation: Its Status in Ethical Theory. By David Heyd. Pp.vii, 191, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £14.00. The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy. Edited by Norman Kretzmann, Anthony Kenny and Jan Finborg. Pp.xi, 1035, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £40.00. St Thomas Aquinas. By Ralph McInerny. Pp.197, Notre Dame, University of Notre Dame Press, 1982, £4.50. Yves de Vallone: The Making of an Esprit‐Fort. By James O'Higgins, S.J. Pp.viii, 248, The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1982, $35.00. Religion and National Identity. Edited by Stuart Mews. Pp.xvi, 618, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1982, £19.50. Mortmain Legislation and the English Church, 1279–1500. By Sandra Raban. Pp.xii, 215,, Cambridge University Press, 1982, £25.00. John XXIII, Pope of the Council. By Peter Hebblethwaite. Pp.viii, 550, London, Geoffrey Chapman, 1984, £14.95.iCompiled by J.F. Púglisi and S.J. Voicu. Pp.260, Rome, Centro Pro Unione, 1984, $20.00. Ireland: A Bibliography of Material held at St Deiniol's Library. Compiled by Helen C. Price. Pp.iv, 136, Hawarden, St Deiniol's, 1984, £2.50. The Later Poems, 1972–1982. By R.S. Thomas. Pp.224, London, Macmillan, 1984, £4.95. (shrink)

t. 1. A-D -- t. 2. E-M -- t. 3. N-S -- t.4. T-I︠A︡.

A Select Bibliography Michael McMahon Sheehan Jacqueline Murray. 16 Ritual and Iconography 134 12-14c Studies in Medieval Domestic Architecture ed M.J. Swanton (London 1975). [English aristocratic housing] 135 11-12c WEDZKI,...

Listening to someone from some distance in a crowded room you may experience the following phenomenon: when looking at them speak, you may both hear and see where the source of the sounds is; but when your eyes are turned elsewhere, you may no longer be able to detect exactly where the voice must be coming from. With your eyes again fixed on the speaker, and the movement of her lips a clear sense of the source of the sound will (...) return. This ‘ventriloquist’ effect reflects the ways in which visual cognition can dominate auditory perception. And this phenomenological observation is one what you can verify or disconfirm in your own case just by the slightest reflection on what it is like for you to listen to someone with or without visual contact with them. (shrink)

This volume offers the first-ever complete English translation of Leibniz’s Dissertatio De Arte Combinatoria together with a critical edition of the original Latin text on fa...

Our research is based on a rather large "library" of various works by M. Drahomanov, which contains his views on religion. Among them: Paradise and Progress, From the History of Relations Between Church and State in Western Europe, Faith and Public Affairs, Fight for Spiritual Power and Freedom of Conscience in the 16th - 17th Centuries,, "Church and State in the Roman Empire", "The Status and Tasks of the Science of Ancient History," "Evangelical Faith in Old England," "Populism and Popular (...) Progress in Austrian Rus, Austrian-Russian Remembrance," "Pious The Legend of the Bulgarians "," The Issues of Religious Freedom in Russia, "" On the Brotherhood of the Baptist or the Baptist in Ukraine, "" The Foreword, " Shevchenko, Ukrainianophiles and Socialism "," Wonderful thoughts about the Ukrainian national affair "," Zazdri gods "," Slavic variants of one Gospel legend "," Resurrection of Christ ", etc. (shrink)

Dünyada müxtəlif dillər mövcuddur. Hal-hazırda əlavə xarici dil öyrənməyə maraq artmaqdadır. Təbii ki bu hər bir şəxsin öz istəyinə və seçiminə bağlıdır. Yəni hər kəs, hər hansı bir dili öyrəndiyi zaman, qarşısında iki məqsəd dayanır; ya o dili sevir, ya da o dili öyrənmək onun üçün lazımdır. Hər bir vətəndaşın borcudur ki, əvvəlcə öz ana dilini mükəmməl şəkildə öyrənsin. Lakin elm və texnologiyanın yüksək inkişaf etdiyi bir zamanda yalnız ana dilini bilmək kifayət etmir. İnsanın hər bir sahədə inkişafı üçün bacardığı (...) qədər başqa dillərə də yiyələnməsi artıq zəruridir. Yeni dil öyrənmənin faydaları çoxdur, yaddaşın güclənməsinə, söz ehtiyatının artmasına, nitqin gözəlləşməsinə səbəb olur. Həmçinin yeni dil öyrənməklə, insanın özünə güvəni artır, ünsiyyət dairəsi genişlənir. Bununla insan yalnız yeni sözlər deyil, yeni mədəniyyətlərlə də tanış olur və nəticədə dünyagörüşü artır. (shrink)

McNeilly presents an interesting if not altogether convincing analysis of Hobbes' Leviathan. He argues in introductory chapters that the different accounts of human nature given in The Elements of Law, De Corpore, and Leviathan reveal a development parallel to the development in the Hobbesian notion of science. More particularly, he claims that the theory of science presented in Leviathan is a conventionalist one, taking mathematics as its model. This is in contrast to the self-evidence theory of mathematics and the hypothetico-deductive (...) theory of physics found in De Corpore and it is like the conventionalism of Elements. Using the conventionalist model, Hobbes presents in Leviathan, a science of man which is a formal system of moral and political propositions definitionally true and not "purporting to state truths about human nature." The system of propositions remains true whatever the actual nature of human motivation. Applying his thesis to the various parts of the Leviathan, McNeilly finds Hobbes presenting there a generalized theory of the passions from which the egoism of the earlier works cannot be logically deduced, but is merely a "cautious empirical generalization added to the latter," and not necessary to it. He then shows that notions like power, glory, and felicity of the ethics, and the state of nature, natural law, and obligation of the politics, are reformulated in Leviathan as strictly formal concepts and are logically deduced from the theory of the passions. Material concepts, such as self-preservation, are seen to be expressions of Hobbes' private views and not essential to the system. McNeilly's analyses are lucid and perceptive throughout with the exception of his discussion of the nature of science. Here he imposes upon the writings of Hobbes the contemporary meanings and distinctions instead of working within the tradition of the seventeenth century where the distinctions have not yet been made. A good short English bibliography on Hobbes is appended.--M. M. H. (shrink)

The author's previous works on Descartes, Malebranche, and other rationalists, as well as her critical editions of the Méditations and De la Recherche de la Vérité have insured the rich documentation and the interpretative density of this little treatise. However, its main feature is not historical erudition because for this author, as for most contemporary first rank French commentators, Descartes is living still in contemporary work through the freshness and renewed relevance of many of his themes. The part of this (...) study devoted to Descartes is centered upon the Méditations though it offers frequent excursions into the methodical works. In many ways it is a scale model of the Méditations, showing the philosophical scope of this inexhaustible metaphysical masterpiece. The second part has chapters on Reason and Method, God, Man and World, and Human Freedom, with an enlightening parallel treatment of these topics in Spinoza, Malebranche, and Leibniz. A useful bibliography and a chronology of the principal works studied complete this compact volume.--A. M. (shrink)

The philosophy of Max Scheler is hardly of the type that can stand compendious presentation. Obsessed by such clear distinctions as the analytic vs. the synthetic, mind vs. matter, and metaphysics vs. science, Scheler proposed still further ontological distinctions which often presented more problems than the distinctions they were designed to replace. Moreover, having renounced any diagnostic use of scientific materials, Scheler had to resort to tedious descriptions that would allow him to bridge the gap between common sense and rational (...) consistency. When the presentation of his doctrine is simply outlined, as it is in this book, the play with alternative ontological distinctions becomes conspicuously irrelevant. The rich insight so frequently hiding in descriptive detail and suggesting a myriad of fertile directions, cannot be reduced to the outline's topic headings. One wonders if any critical examination of Scheler in these terms can be fair, or even if it is worthwhile to know only that much about Scheler.--A. M. (shrink)

The ontological argument continues to draw the attention of philosophers of different persuasions. This is one of the latest works on the subject. In it the Anselmian proof as developed in the Proslogion is submitted to careful analysis and placed in relation to Anselm’s approach to God in the Monologion. Thus the title of the book seems to be justified, inasmuch as it is Anselm’s notion of God that is investigated from a rational viewpoint rather than the ontological argument alone. (...) Vuillemin divides his work into four parts, which are followed by a conclusion and seven appendices. In the first two parts he contends that the ontological argument as stated in the Proslogion is a rational proof based on rational data, even though faith may support those data, and that the proof therefore involves an illegitimate transition from the concept of God in our mind to his actual existence, a criticism that the author shares with Kant. The third and fourth parts of the book are Vuillemin’s personal contribution to the understanding of the argument and purport to show the epistemological and mathematical antinomies that result from the "negative" concept of a being than which nothing greater can be thought which is at the basis of the Anselmian proof. It is the author’s contention that reason can prove both the impossibility of conceiving the being in question and the inability of the human mind to argue to the existence of a transcendent being from concepts derived by abstraction from the beings of our experience. Thus Vuillemin would rule out not only the so-called argument a priori of the Proslogion but also the arguments a posteriori presented in the Monologion. To understand Anselm’s ontological argument correctly, it is necessary to view it in the light of Anselm’s belief and in the context of the ideological realism which he shared with the entire Augustinian school. By neglecting such considerations, Vuillemin, like many other interpreters before him, does not seem to have done justice to what has been called "one of the boldest creations of man’s reason and a credit not only to his inventor, but to human reason itself.".—B. M. B. (shrink)

Barfield considers the light the studies of history, language, and literature shed upon each other. He focuses his attention on the development of a theory of the emergence of individual consciousness. Barfield disputes some prevalent ramifications of evolutionist theories which hold that in language, literature, and history, a period of "active subjectivity" preceded one of "passive subjectivity." This would mean, according to Barfield, that in language, literal meaning preceded figurative meaning, just as imagination was prior to inspiration in the creation (...) of literature, and individual mental activity prior to a period of social consciousness. Barfield is convinced that the opposite is true. Using semantics as a springboard into the study of history and literature, he contends that the basic assumptions of any age are contained in the meaning of its most common words, and that ideas change because "human consciousness itself—the elementary human experience about which the ideas are being formed—the whole relation between man and nature or between conscious man and unconscious man—has been in the process of change." In this sketchy development of his theory of subjectivity as a form of consciousness that has "contracted from the periphery into individual centers," Barfield draws on a wide range of background material to come up with some genuinely fresh insights. But he carries his arguments only so far and leaves the reader with the memory of a few briefly illuminated new paths. In the final analysis, the topic seems just too vast to receive anything but a schematic treatment in even the most distinguished of essays.—C. M. R. (shrink)

A brief survey of recent Protestant thought on the nature and meaning of revelation, touching on such topics as man's need of Divine self-disclosure, the historical nature of God's self-revelation, and the distinction between revelation conceived as a body of truths about God and as confrontation with God. The author offers some suggestions as to how we should conceive of the demanded response to revelation--faith--and also examines the claims for Scripture as the sole and infallible repository of revelation. A brief (...) historical essay serves as introductory chapter.--C. M. (shrink)

A simple exposition of Wittgenstein's two main works together with a brief discussion of Ryle, Strawson, Hart, and Urmson. This work does not enter into philosophically deep enough waters to interest the advanced student.--J. M.

This text is designed to introduce undergraduates to metaphysics, but the authors suggest that with supplementary readings, it can be adapted for higher level courses as well. As a method aiming at both academic objectivity and personal engagement, the authors confront the students with the problems of metaphysics as formulated by Heidegger, Marcel, and Camus, and then, accompanied by these contemporary spokesmen, set their readers to the task of historical "retrieve" of the problems and convictions of ages past. There are (...) three chapters and a long appendix. The first chapter identifies metaphysics as "man's search for the meaning of being," stressing that meaning will include both descriptive and evaluative elements. It deals with the role of freedom in human life and in the origin of metaphysics. The existentialist position contributes these points: the rejection of the simplistic dichotomizing of reality into subject and object, the incorporation of affective, nonintellectual elements into metaphysics, and a use of elements from phenomenology successfully blended with a sense of historicity and dialogue in man's achieving of truth. The second chapter, drawing on Heidegger, poses metaphysics' double problem, the search for a unifying value, and speculation about the nature of being. For the former we are offered an answer in terms of communicable personality, inviting one to authenticity through spiritual love. Chapter three brings in Marcel, beginning with his distinction between the notion of "problem" and the notion of "mystery." The problem approach has three characteristics: the model of the relationship between investigator and data is that of subject and object; the influence of the investigator is minimized and his role reduced to passive observer and annotator; the problem is to be overcome. A "mystery" on the other hand, "is a problem which encroaches upon its own data, invading them... and thereby transcending itself." Since metaphysics falls within the scope of mystery, no problem-solving technique would be appropriate. The authors recommend instead Marcel's reflective philosophizing, to which the remainder of the text is devoted. The appendix consists of excerpts from Jowett's Platonic dialogues, and sets of questions of two kinds: the first aims at eliciting accurate understanding and stimulating critical reflection on the thought of Plato. The second set gives an example of the process of reflective philosophizing.--M. B. M. (shrink)

A collection of 24 out of the 35 papers presented at the Fourth Scandinavian Logic Symposium and First Soviet-Finnish Logic Conference, which took place simultaneously in Finland in 1976. Topics covered are proof theory, set theory, model theory, recursion theory, infinitary languages, generalized quantifiers, truthlikeness, natural language, and "philosophical logic." There is a paper by George Kreisel which discusses an intriguing distinction between the theory of proofs and general proof theory, the latter being the study of the allegedly definitional or (...) essential property of proofs, the former being the study of structural features such as length of proofs and of relations between proofs and other things. There is a paper by Hintikka in which he applies his "game-theoretical semantics" developed elsewhere to quantifiers in natural languages, e.g., the analysis of sentences like "some novel by every novelist is mentioned by every critic". I found the most interesting paper to be the one by Bengt Hansson, which studies the nature of paradoxes by articulating an analogy with mathematical equations, the crucial property about the latter being that they do not always have solutions. Almost all papers are highly technical and thus aimed at experts of the specialties mentioned in the book’s title.—M.A.F. (shrink)

The present book is a reprint of the great Danish historian's fundamental study. Though the immense œuvre of Grönbech spreads over a wide variety of fields—mystics of India and Europe, Blake, Goethe, Dostoyevski, Jesus and the first Christian community, Greek religion and culture, and the philosophy of language—the two volumes of the culture and religion of the Germans belong to his most important achievements. The first part treats the great "ideas" of the early Germans: peace, honor, the soul, death, and (...) immortality. The second part is devoted to the institutions which have normative value in all societies and especially in archaic ones: war, the temple, the feast, the sacrifice, the play, etc. Grönbech attempts a total synthesis which goes beyond the temporal and tribal differences of this culture, which spread from Byzantium to Greenland. The whole work is organized around the Icelandic saga, perhaps the greatest gift the early Germans gave the world. At the end the assiduous reader is rewarded by a long and fascinating "excursus" on the cultic drama.—M. J. V. (shrink)

This small book of the "Que sais-je?" series, is concerned with the question of after-life. The first half of the book is an excellent historical review of the various beliefs on this subject as held in different ages, in different parts of the world and in different religions. These surveys, though brief, are clear, and the material is tied together by an introduction and conclusion which raise the book somewhat above the "college outline" level.--M. B.

This collection contains such a wealth of topics that it deserves the attention of anyone seriously interested in what its title denotes, namely the philosophy of the history of philosophy. The content of the various essays, along with their translated titles, can be described as follows. "The New Aspects of the Philosophy of the History of Philosophy" claims to be, but is not, an introduction to the other essays; it abounds in obscurities and does not even make the effort of (...) integrating the various contributions into some common themes. "Meta-philosophy and History of Philosophy" is partly a methodological discussion of the connections among philosophy, metaphilosophy, and history of philosophy, and partly a discussion from a psychological-psychoanalytical and cultural anthropological point of view of questions like the following: whether anything like progress exists in the history of philosophy, what is the meaning of the whole philosophical history, and what are its prospects for the future. "Heidegger, Schelling, and German Idealism" discusses the relations between the history of philosophy and the philosophy of existence, using primarily Heidegger’s lectures on Schelling as a case study. "Hermeneutic Experience and Philosophical Historiography" is a discussion primarily of the theory of historical interpretation in Gadamer’s Wahrheit und Methode, and secondarily of some of its consequences for the study of the history of philosophy; it is highly informative, but one cannot fail to lament the fact that the author reports Gadamer’s critiques of historicism without any explicit indication that, besides Dilthey’s version, there exists Croce’s brand of historicism, which in my judgment is very similar to Gadamer’s hermeneutics as reported in this essay. "History of Art as History of Philosophy?" is a thoughtful and provocative brief discussion of the divergence between the histories of art and of philosophy; it also suggests that, nevertheless, data and facts from art-history can be used by the historian of philosophy for the reconstruction of the philosophical concepts of epochs and cultures whose available historical records abound in the field of art but are lacking in the area of philosophy. "The Hegelian Left and the History of Philosophy" is an analysis of some of the historiography of the 19th century Hegelian Left. "-Philosophy and the Theology of Secularization discusses the interconnections among philosophy, history of philosophy, the contemporary historical situation, and political philosophy, developing a Gentilean critique of the theology of secularization; it argues that Gentile’s critique refutes some presuppositions of this theology, namely, the idea of the progressive character of contemporary history and that of the irreversible process of secularization. "Philosophy of Religion and History of Philosophy," though terminologically and stylistically obscure, is a very stimulating justification of the thesis that an adequate philosophy of religion is to be grounded on a philosophy of history, which in turn is to be grounded on an all-encompassing history of philosophy; independently of the adequacy of this justification, the author makes a number of very suggestive comparisons between the history and historiography of philosophy and the history and historiography of the Church, such as the following: the analogy of the relationships between theology and Church history and between philosophy and philosophical history, the analogy between the "history of ideas" and ecumenical Church history, the analogy between the position of Hegel in philosophical history and that of Jesus in Church history, and the analogy between the visible/ invisible Church distinction in religious studies and the history/theory distinction in philosophical inquiry. "Beyond the Historical Disease" discusses to what extent philosophical hermeneutics solves Nietzsche’s problem that there is a conflict between historiographical awareness and the capacity to make history; it answers that, in spite of its insights, hermeneutics fails, and that the solution lies in the direction of certain suggestions found in Sartre’s Question of Méthode. "Interpretation and Translatability of Philosophical Texts" discusses certain problems in the theory of meaning from the point of view of analytical philosophy, and in relation to the meaning of philosophical passages. "Epistemology, Hermeneutics, and Analytical-Philosophical Historiography" is an interesting mixture of a critique of the view that contemporary analytical philosophy is ahistorical, a discussion of the similarities between Popper’s epistemology and Gadamer’s hermeneutics, and a study of the interplay between Popper’s epistemology and his interpretation of Plato in The Open Society and its Enemies. "Information Theory and Philosophy" studies the relation between science and the history of philosophy by comparing and contrasting certain philosophical ideas of Leibniz and Kant with recent results in information theory. A final essay deals with "The Myth of Faust in Kierkegaard."—M.A.F. (shrink)