Setting out to understand the effects of positive moral emotions in leadership, this research examines the consequences of leaders’ expressions of gratitude and pride for their followers. In two experimental vignette studies and a field study, leaders’ gratitude expressions showed a positive effect and leaders’ pride expressions showed a negative effect on followers’ ascriptions of leader selfishness. Thereby, leaders’ gratitude expression indirectly led to higher follower satisfaction with and OCB towards the leader, while leaders’ pride expressions indirectly reduced satisfaction with (...) and OCB towards the leader. Furthermore, leaders’ expressions of gratitude indirectly reduced followers’ intentions to leave the leader, while leaders’ expressions of pride indirectly fuelled them. Although ascriptions of selfishness consistently influenced these leader outcomes more strongly than comparable organizational outcomes, results on organizational outcomes were mixed. While leaders’ expressions of gratitude led, as expected, to higher job satisfaction and lower turnover intentions, leaders’ expressions of pride showed positive relations with both OCB towards the organization and intentions to leave the organization. We discuss the theoretical implications of leaders’ expressions of positive moral emotions as signals of outcome attributions, as well as leaders’ selfishness and practical implications that help leaders build followers’ satisfaction and positive leader–follower relationships. (shrink)

Based on a field study, this paper explores the differential role that perceived top management trustworthiness has on female and male employees’ negative emotions and turnover intentions in organizations. A theoretical model is established that explicates a negative indirect effect of perceived top management trustworthiness on employee turnover intentions through employee negative emotions. The results reveal that there is a negative relationship between perceived top management trustworthiness and employee negative emotions and resulting turnover intentions and that this effect is stronger (...) for female employees than for male employees. These results demonstrate the pivotal role played by top management trustworthiness, provide an explanation for the turnover gender gap, and highlight the subjectivity in reactions to trustworthiness perceptions. The implications for organizations are discussed in line with the need for top management to positively influence employees and particularly women, to retain them in their workforce. (shrink)

Článek představuje renesanční pohled na původ vědění. Renesanční doba totiž oživila starou představu pocházející z antiky, že pravda byla zjevena na počátku lidských dějin bohem či bohy. Tato idea dávné moudrosti (prisca sap.) přetrvávala během středověku, ale novou brizanci získala po koncilu ve Ferraře a Florencii. Tam se totiž objevil byzantský filosof Pléthón, který se domníval, že nejstarším mudrcem byl Zoroaster. Další genealogie mudrců najdeme u největších představitelů renesančního platonismu – M. Ficina a Pica della Mirandola. Ficino preferoval nejdříve (...) posloupnost, v níž byl prvním Hermés, pak se přiklonil k variantě, kde byl první Zoroaster. Podobné úvahy se objevují i u Pica a dalších autorů. Vždy jde ale o to, že současný stav společnosti a vědění je špatný a pro pravou pravdu je nutné obrátit se do dávné minulosti lidského rodu. (shrink)

This case study of a 2016 Florida constitutional amendment analyses the semiotic devices and mechanisms of shaping public opinion on solar energy and beliefs about energy distribution. After a nationwide rise in rooftop solar installations between 2014 and 2015, utilities in several US states were faced with challenges to their business models. Anticipating similar problems in Florida, utilities and energy corporations promoted constitutional amendments. This semiotic analysis follows the voter from the billboards and flyers to the text on the ballot. (...) Starting from Peirce’s phenomenological categories, this critical analysis of the campaign reveals how the goals of the amendment were shrouded in positive environmental and consumer protection narratives. Lakoff ’s cognitive linguistics and Stibbe’s ecolinguistics support a deeper analysis of the ballot text. This study shows that by leaving key concepts (especially net metering) out of the discourse, the ballot text successfully framed an anti-solar amendment as a pro-consumer measure, while hiding the direct legal implications concerning alternative energy distribution. In particular, this study explains the opposition to the sharing of surplus in the context of neoclassical economics as a key factor in shaping beliefs about alternative energy distribution. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to describe some parallels and theoretical affinities between biosemiotics and biolinguistics. In particular, this paper examines the importance of Uexküll's Umwelt and Peircean abduction as foundational concepts for Sebeok's biosemiotics and Chomsky's biolinguistic program. Other affinities touched upon in this paper include references to concepts articulated by Immanuel Kant, Konrad Lorenz, Marcel Florkin, François Jacob, C.H. Waddington, D'Arcy Thomson and Ernst Haeckel. While both programs share theoretical influences and historiographical parallels in their mid-century origins (...) continuing throughout the late twentieth century, recent articulations of biosemiotics and biolinguistics privilege different intellectual styles and methods of inquiry that define their future objectives as intellectual movements. The goal of this paper is to show that, in spite of the different scholarly agendas of biosemiotics and biolinguistics, both movements share a theoretical and philosophical core in Peirce and Uexküll. (shrink)

This paper explains Viktor von Weizsäcker’s Gestaltkreis model as a reinterpretation of Jakob von Uexküll’s Funktionskreis. Also derived from the Funktionskreis is Thure von Uexküll’s Situationskreis model. Both Weizsäcker’s Gestaltkreis and Thure von Uexküll’s Situationskreis have evolved in the context of integrated medicine in Germany throughout the twentieth century. Focusing on the role of language in health and medicine, this paper addresses important concepts associated with the project of integrated medicine in Germany, especially the biographical approach practiced by Viktor von (...) Weizsäcker and developed by Thure von Uexküll through the concept of the biographical organ. While their efforts to reform the practice of medicine and the training of physicians were unsuccessful, recent research in the psychology of language and health and recommendations for more patient-centered communication resonate with the principles underlying Viktor von Weizsäcker’s and Thure von Uexküll’s integrated medicine. (shrink)

Thomas Sebeok attributed it to what he called the ‘wretched’ translation of Uexküll’s Theoretische Biologie (1920) that the notion of Umwelt did not reachthe Anglo-American intellectual community much earlier. There is no doubt that making more of Uexküll’s Umweltlehre available in English will not only furtherthe biosemiotic movement, but also fill a gap in the foundational theoretical canon of semiotics in general. The purpose of this paper is to address issues of terminology and theory translation between Uexküll’s Umweltlehre and current (...) biosemiotics. (shrink)

In his Ecolinguistics, Stibbe (2020) declares the story of economic growth (the continuous increase in production and consumption) as the ‘master narrative’ that is at the same time the most harmful story we live by. This paper explains where this story of growth comes from and describes how it supplants or suppresses alternatives, such as stories of thrift and sharing. By connecting the biosemiotic model of Funktionskreis (e.g. Uexküll, 1920) as “the primary mechanism of meaning making” (Kull 2020) to cognitive (...) linguistics (e.g. Lakoff, 2009) and critical discourse analysis (e.g. van Leeuwen, 2018), this paper explores how stories of thrift and sharing can be turned into activism that seeks to reframe waste as surplus that can be shared; but they can also hide the old business models of the master narrative. Stories of sharing are often erased to protect corporate interests. Narratives of sharing can be duplicitous, especially in the context of the ‘sharing economy’. Attempts at reframing resources and energy as common wealth owned by everyone are squelched by the master narrative in contexts like resource and energy distribution. Can the new story of shrinking and degrowth become a new alternative to the master narrative and promote new decelerated semiotic habits (Maran, 2023) for a more fulfilling life with less (e.g. Herrmann 2022)? (shrink)

Gianluca De Fazio’s book Avversità e margini di gioco. Studio sulla soggettività in Merleau-Ponty presents precise and original research along several nodes of great importance in Merleau-Ponty’s philosophical production, such as subjectivity, expression, passivity, nature, history. By focusing on, without limiting himself to, the 1950’s period, the author declares that he aims at a denaturalization of nature and a dehistoricization of history: an overcoming of dichotomies which, though faithfully following the Merleau-Pontian path, does not fail to have a Deleuzian overtones. (...) The issues of the book are also, and above all, political, shown in the considerations of the task of philosophy. (shrink)

The issue of gender and agriculture has been on the research agendas of civil society organisations, governments, and academia since the 1970s. Starting from the role of women in agriculture, research has mainly focused on the gendered division of work and the normative constitution of the farm as masculine. Although the gendered division of work has been questioned, the idea of binary gender has mostly been taken as a given. This explorative research shifts the attention from the production of (traditional) (...) gender roles to the making and unmaking of binary gender. An ethnographic study of four farms in Switzerland is drawn on to explore queer farming practices and investigate how queer farmers navigate gender normativity and what this tells us about gender in agriculture more broadly. After considering the mechanisms through which queer farmers are discouraged from farming as a livelihood on the basis of their sex, gender or sexuality, this article argues that queer farmers de- and re-construct gender and farming identities differently, which has research and policy implications for a more diverse and resilient rurality. (shrink)

Il saggio muove da una ricostruzione storico-concettuale dell’interpretazione merleau-pontyana del manoscritto di Husserl Rovesciamento della dottrina copernicana nell’interpretazione della corrente visione del mondo, con cui Merleau-Ponty è in dialogo sin dalla Fenomenologia della percezione, per ripercorrere gli sviluppi del tema della Terra nell’avanzare della riflessione merleau-pontyana sul corpo-proprio, sull’organismo vivente, sulla dimensione carnale dell’essere. La proposta di un ritorno alla Terra, intesa come Boden irriducibile dell’esperienza, trova infatti il suo risvolto ontologico nell’idea di Spielraum, che già Husserl definiva come “ambito (...) di possibilità”, e che in Merleau-Ponty assume il senso di un margine di gioco sempre aperto nella carne. Boden e Spielraum, non a caso tematizzati da Merleau-Ponty in due corsi paralleli tenuti al Collège de France nell’anno 1959-1960, permettono una rivalutazione del vivente secondo un modello che, contro il riduzionismo meccanicista, privilegi la spontaneità e la contingenza, e aprono allo sviluppo dell’ontologia porosa che il filosofo andrà proponendo negli ultimi anni. Ricostruendo la funzione della riflessione sulla corporeità e sul rapporto del vivente al mondo-ambiente in questa maturazione, si argomenterà che la critica che Merleau-Ponty muove al dualismo empirismo-idealismo trovi nell’idea di Terra un momento chiave, che contribuisce ad orientarla in direzione di una filosofia della carne. Questo passaggio riconfigura la Natura stessa, pensata non già come un originario, ma in quanto ambito di possibilità processuale e transindividuale, come quel quasi-oggetto, come lo definiva, ancora, Husserl, che presenta un’irriducibile resistenza ad un pensiero di sorvolo, proprio in quanto è condizione del pensiero stesso e ancoraggio della vita tutta.This essay begins with a historico-conceptual reconstruction of the Merleau-Pontian interpretation of Husserl’s manuscript, “Foundational Investigations of the Phenomenological Origin of the Spatiality of Nature,” with which Merleau-Ponty is in dialogue from Phenomenology of Perception onward, and revisits the development of the theme of the Earth in the progression of Merleau-Ponty’s reflection on le corps propre, the living organism, and the carnal dimension of being. The proposal for a return to the Earth, taken as irreducible Boden of experience, indeed finds its ontological reverse side in the idea of Spielraum, which Husserl already defined as a “milieu of possibilities,” and which in Merleau-Ponty takes on the sense of a margin of play always open in the flesh. Boden and Spielraum, two notions that Merleau-Ponty does not thematize by chance in the two parallel courses given at the Collège de France over the years 1959-1960, enable a reassessment of the living being according to a model that, against mechanistic reductionism, privileges spontaneity and contingency, and opens to the development of the porous ontology that the philosopher would propose in his final years. Reconstructing the function of reflection on corporeality, and on the relationship of the living being with its milieu in the process, it will be argued that the criticism directed by Merleau-Ponty against the dualism of empiricism-idealism finds in the idea of the Earth a key moment that contributes to orienting him in the direction of a philosophy of the flesh. This passage reconfigures Nature itself, no longer conceived of as an originating, but as a milieu of processual and transindividual possibilities, like that quasi-object, as Husserl again defined it, that presents an irreducible resistance against high-altitude thinking, precisely as the condition of thought itself and the anchorage of all life.Cet essai commence avec une reconstruction historico-conceptuelle de l’interprétation merleau-pontienne du manuscrit de Husserl, Renversement de la doctrine copernicienne, avec lequel Merleau-Ponty est en dialogue depuis la Phénoménologie de la perception, et revisite les développement du thème de la Terre dans la progression de la réflexion merleau-pontienne sur le corps propre, sur l’organisme vivant, sur la dimension charnelle de l’être. La proposition d’un retour à la Terre, prise comme Boden irréductible de l’expérience, trouve en effet son envers ontologique dans l’idée de Spielraum, que Husserl déjà définissait comme « milieu de possibilités » et qui chez Merleau-Ponty prend le sens d’une marge de jeu toujours ouverte dans la chair. Boden et Spielraum, deux notions que Merleau-Ponty ne thématise pas par hasard dans les deux cours parallèles donnés au Collège de France au cours de l’année 1959-1960, permettent une réévaluation du vivant selon un modèle qui, contre le réductionnisme mécaniste, privilégie la spontanéité et la contingence, et ouvrent au développement de l’ontologie poreuse que le philosophe allait proposer dans les dernières années. Reconstruisant la fonction de la réflexion sur la corporéité et sur le rapport du vivant avec son milieu dans ce processus, on argumentera que la critique dirigée par Merleau-Ponty contre le dualisme empirisme-idéalisme trouve dans l’idée de la Terre un moment clé qui contribue à l’orienter en direction d’une philosophie de la chair. Ce passage reconfigure la Nature elle-même, pensée non pas déjà comme un originaire, mais en tant que milieu de possibilités processuelles et transindividuelles, en tant que quasi-objet, comme le définissait, encore, Husserl qui offrait une résistance irréductible contre une pensée de survol, précisément en tant que condition de la pensée elle-même et ancrage de toute la vie. (shrink)

This essay builds on two questions: the relation of the child with the other and the child’s way of knowing, in which the resistance of the unreflected is not yet problematized. Through a reconstruction of Merleau-Ponty’s critique of Piaget’s idea of the child’s linear intellectual progression toward reflexive abstraction, I highlight the moment of unreflection by taking up the notion of ultra-thing, which Merleau-Ponty borrows from Henry Wallon. These ultra-things are entities with which the child entertains a vague relation and (...) which always remain at the horizon of her perception without yet being possessed in a representation or grasped in a concept. They include, for example, the sun, the sky, the Earth, the body as an object, existence before the birth of the child – uninhabitable dimensions or, to the contrary, ones that are necessarily inhabited. The concept of ultra-thing has not been sufficiently explored in Merleau-Pontian studies and its importance remains underappreciated. This essay thus formulates a hypothesis about the relation between ultra-things and hyper-reflection. (shrink)

The construct of ‘alexithymia,’ formulated in the late 1960s, described the inability to express one’s feelings as a deficit in the signifying-abilities of men and women. In this study, the profile of the alexithemic serves as a point of reference for a discussion concerning language and consciousness and the cognitive/neuroscientific turn in the past decades. The objectives of this paper are to show that the cognitive/neuroscientific turn profoundly affected the understanding of alexithymia in particular and the relationship between language and (...) consciousness in general. As the dominant cognitive/neuroscientific models of consciousness ignore the social embeddedness and the importance of the signifying abilities of human beings, this paper presents alternative models of consciousness and issues of intersubjectivity by proposing a variation on a model from René Thom’s ‘catastrophe theory’ and Uexküll’s theory of ‘autoambience.’ These models, predicated upon social embeddedness and semiotic ability, explain how certain circumstances, such as are often identified as ‘depression,’ can be catalysts of productive outcome. In particular, the notion of ‘play’ in René Thom’s catastrophe theory underscores the primacy of ‘language play’ as a combinatorial signifying activity with a restorative function that is exemplified in the notion of fiction in the work of David Lodge. (shrink)

This paper explains how recent changes in the ways we study other animals to better understand the human faculty of language are indicative of changing narratives concerning the intelligence of other animals. Uexküll’s concept of Umwelt as a species-specific model of the world is essential to understanding the semiotic abilities of all organisms, including humans. From this follows the view that human language is primarily a cognitive tool for making models of the world. This view is consistent with the basic (...) premises of cognitive linguistics. The rejection of behaviorism in linguistics represents a turning point in the history of animal studies. The resulting criticism of long-term studies with primates illustrates this shift concerning the study of wild animals within the language sciences and beyond. New insights in dog cognition and research on the processing of human language in canines are reflective of a change in focus away from anthropocentrism towards the species-specific semiotic abilities of animals in the twenty-first century. This new orientation away from comparing animal sign-systems to human language and the importance of studying intelligent wild animals in the wild instead of in captivity have lead to an important re-evaluation of our relationship with other animals and our views of their cognitive and semiotic profiles. This leads to questions such as what role non-human organisms can play in the language sciences, and what our limitations are of studying the sign systems of other animals. Recent research on the signifying abilities of wild dolphins, for instance, has identified a new set of characteristics by which to study intelligence in other species. (shrink)

Thomas Sebeok attributed it to what he called the ‘wretched’ translation of Uexküll’s Theoretische Biologie that the notion of Umwelt did not reach the Anglo-American intellectual community much earlier. There is no doubt that making more of Uexküll’s Umweltlehre available in English will not only further the biosemiotic movement, but also fill a gap in the foundational theoretical canon of semiotics in general. The purpose of this paper is to address issues of terminology and theory translation between Uexküll’s Umweltlehre and (...) current biosemiotics. (shrink)

This paper explains how we create concepts such as the forest or the backyard through language. Reflecting on Andreas Weber’s hope for a revolution of the life sciences and a re-evaluation of the role human beings play in nature, this paper adopts as a starting point Bruno Latour’s characterization of the distinctionbetween nature and culture as an illusion that came with Modernity. Theoretical notions from modelling systems theory and cognitive linguistics explain that whilelanguage plays a key role in constructing new (...) models of nature, new cognitive habits and changes of belief depend on face-to-face and non-verbal communication with other organisms, human and non-human. (shrink)

This paper examines the progenitors of the semiotic concepts in current Second Language Acquisition (SLA) theory as well as some concepts that could further inform recent trends in SLA theory and practice. Through the connections between recent ecology models of language learning (e.g., Kramsch 2002, 2006, 2010) or an “ecological-semiotic perspective” (e.g., van Lier 2002, 2004) and fundamental concepts in semiotic theory such as the signifying order (Danesi), multimodality, (Kress), modeling systems theory (Sebeok), and Umwelt theory (von Uexküll), this paper (...) also considers a recent draft of an ACTFL position statement on the Use of the Target Language in the Classroom. (shrink)

What to eat is a question of everyday life. What food to grow (and how) has become an important issue of political and scientific debate. Using Charles Sanders Peirce’s famous essay on The Fixation of Belief (1877), this paper examines what food habits we hold with tenacity, which beliefs about what to eat are imposed on us by authority, when our choices are based on a priori reasoning, and where we rely on scientific logic when we choose food. Based on (...) Peirce’s early pragmatist ideas, this paper analyzes current debates about veganism, clean meat, and small-scale pasture farming as alternatives to the current food system. While some patterns of opposing views can be explained by contrasting conservative and progressive modes of thought (Lakoff 2008), an ecolinguistic perspective (Stibbe 2015) explains, for instance, how animals are sometimes erased from food narratives. The familiar and possibly outdated model of the local and the global is augmented with a terrestrial point of view (Latour 2018) as more eaters consider the future of the planet. (shrink)

Adult neurogenesis is an exciting and rapidly advancing field of research. It addresses basic biological questions, such as the how and why of de novo neuronal production during adulthood, as well as medically relevant issues, including the potential link between adult neural stem cells and psychiatric disorders, or how stem cell manipulation might be used as a strategy for neuronal replacement. Current research mainly focuses on rodents, but we review here recent examination of non‐mammalian vertebrates, which demonstrates that bona fide (...) adult neural stem cells exist in these species. Importantly, especially in teleost fish, these cells can be abundant and located in various brain areas. Hence, non‐mammalian vertebrate species provide invaluable comparative material for extracting core mechanisms of adult neural stem cell maintenance and fate. BioEssays 29:745–757, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

All human activity including motion is construed mentally with reference to different objects and spatial relations that are relevant (Waliński 2014). Following the work of Talmy (1985, 2000) on categorization of languages on the basis of motion events into verb framed languages and satellite framed languages, this paper addresses the typology of the Tugen language regarding motion events. It takes into consideration the reclassification of the V-languages into equipollent frame and the doubling frame, (Slobin 2003; Croft et al. 2010). Further (...) it explores the hybrid system as expounded by Schröder (2016) on the categorization of V-languages so as to cater for languages that do not fit into the equipollent and the doubling frame. This paper analyses motion events in Tugen, a Kalenjin language belonging to the southern Nilotic cluster. In this analysis, Tugen is seen as both verb framed language and satellite framed as a result of prevalence of deictic directionals and the applicative. The language also bears an associated motion affix which relates simultaneous motion to non-motion events. The associated motion affix renders the motion events to be satellite framed. The occurrence of deictic directionals on motion events that are verb framed can also be taken to be instances of doubling frame. (shrink)

Special groups [M. Dickmann, F. Miraglia, Special Groups : Boolean-Theoretic Methods in the Theory of Quadratic Forms, Memoirs Amer. Math. Soc., vol. 689, Amer. Math. Soc., Providence, RI, 2000] are a first-order axiomatization of the theory of quadratic forms. In Section 2 we investigate reduced special groups which are a lattice under their natural representation partial order ; we show that this lattice property is preserved under most of the standard constructions on RSGs; in particular finite RSGs and RSGs of (...) finite chain length are lattice ordered. We prove that the lattice property fails for the RSGs of function fields of real algebraic varieties over a uniquely ordered field dense in its real closure, unless their stability index is 1 . We show that Open Problem 1 has a positive answer for the RSG of the field Q . In the final section we explore the meaning of Open Problem 1 for formally real fields, in terms of their orders and real valuations; we introduce the notion of “parameter-rank” of a positive-primitive first-order formula of the language for special groups. (shrink)

Quilts with "a black-and-white checked" pattern "for the NASCAR market" are stitched together by an Amish woman whose family uses an outdoor privy because church rules stipulate "no indoor plumbing"; an Amish man delivers cans of his milk to an Amish-owned neighborhood collection tank cooled by electricity because state laws require the refrigeration of milk. These are just a few of the images Karen Johnson-Weiner presents of the New York State Amish and their continuing effort to maintain a life disconnected (...) from the surrounding society upon which they are, to varying degrees, economically dependent. The Amish's struggle to preserve separate-from-the world communities and the diversity among the various Amish... (shrink)

The problem of names of illnesses is both a problem of words and values that should address not only the classification of disorders, but also a fundamental question both for medical sciences and humanities: can psychiatric nosology and classifications fit with the ontological constitution of human beings? This paper aims to discuss the so-called “psychiatric object” and its language and it intends to provide a hermeneutical-phenomenological account to mental health. In doing so, the paper will firstly examine the “psychiatric object” (...) and its language; secondly, it will show the difference between taxonomy and ontology, both of interest for the psychiatric object; third, it will insist on the critique of the epistemological status of psychiatry conceived from a natural point of view following three main paths: a metaphysical one (Heidegger, Jaspers), a social one (Szasz, Foucault, Basaglia), and an ethical one (Laing). Finally, it will clarify why phenomenology and in particular hermeneutical-phenomenology can illuminate the understanding of the psychiatric object and its implications in a cultural context, in order to achieve a more humanistic psychiatry. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 65.1 (2004) 1-13 [Access article in PDF] Ambiguities of the Prisca Sapientia in Late Renaissance Humanism Martin Mulsow University of Munich The wisdom of the ancients, says Marsilio Ficino, was a pious philosophy.1 Born among the Egyptians with Hermes Trismegistus—and, according to Ficino's later writings, concurrently among the Persians with Zoroaster—it was raised by the Thracians under Orpheus and Aglaophemus. It later (...) matured under Pythagoras among the Greeks and Italians and culminated in Plato. As is well known, this genealogy was not merely a historical thesis for Ficino and his followers but also a program for revival, a utopia achieved through restoration. For the assertion of a concordance between these early philosophies and their accordance with Christianity—in the sense of a Christian Platonism—implied the synthesis of fragementary philosophemes into a fully developed doctrine in the service of a uniform and timely philosophia pia.This program was formulated in a variety of ways during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries with differing protagonists and with diverse aims. Thus one could supplement the genealogy in a cabalist vein, introduce biblical characters such as Solomon or Moses, or (as was done by Bruno) use it to contest Christian doctrine. The genealogy could be read as culminating in various notable modern figures such as for example, Paracelsus. Aristotle could be included or excluded from it, depending on whether one wanted to assimilate the Aristotelian tradition or to distance oneself from it; and one could leave the end [End Page 1] of this genealogical lineage open in order to exhort the necessity of a scientific and moral reform.Here, however, we shall be occupied with the question of what became of this program during the late Renaissance, when two developments took place simultaneously: on the one hand, the utopia of the prisca sapientia set about to conquer the field formerly reserved to the Aristotelians, namely, natural philosophy; on the other hand, the first doubts arose about the overall validity of the historical-philological foundation of the program, especially the dating of the works of Hermes Trismegistus. The latter began with the publication of the first part of Patrizi's Discussiones peripateticae in 1571,which aimed to rehabilitate, contrary to Aristotle's critique, old presocratic natural philosophies, and in so doing it cleared the way for interpreting the latest advancements in non-Aristotelian natural sciences as resumptions of these very philosophies.2 This initiated a period of complex interaction between late humanist philology, innovative natural science, and speculative metaphysics.This phase, however, not only entailed the grand synthesizing endeavors that one finds in Patrizi's Nova de universis philosophia;it also introduced historical critique—no doubt provoked by Patrizi—of the Hermetic prisca sapientia, understood in Frances Yates's sense, which was performed in careful detail long before Casaubon at the end of the Renaissance.3 Further, it was a phase characterized by an attempt to reevaluate Aristotelian philosophy against its opponents, which paradoxically was also motivated by Patrizi yet which managed to keep the venture open to "esoteric" depths. All of these developments were intertwined, and each effected the articulation of encyclopedic projects at the beginning of the seventeenth century. On the basis of manuscripts, letters, and some neglected texts, I want to introduce two such countercurrents, which illustrate how the migration of arguments from one cultural context to another can lead to wholly divergent and unexpected results. Moreover, these results show the diverse consequences that a prisca sapientia-utopia could have for different visions of encyclopedic scholarship.I. In the bookshop of Paolo Meietti in Padua, Teodoro Angelucci and Antonio Persio met accidentally on an autumn day in 1558. Meietti was the publisher of Angelucci's medical textbook as well as of texts by Patrizi and his [End Page 2] colleague Giannini, and it is possible that Persio was out to discuss publishing possibilities for his forthcoming manuscript De natura ignis. In any case, they were there for business-related matters, so it was quite natural for Persio to... (shrink)

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)

THESIS ABSTRACT The life of Catholic reformer Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples, 1455- 1536, spanned the threshold between Medieval and Renaissance eras. Like other humanists, Lefèvre synthesized philosophical, theological and scientific theories and practices — of such is his unpublished treatise De Magia naturali, On Natural Magic. I elucidate Lefèvre’s focus on universal mystical metaphors of divine union, in order to offer a simpler view into the evolution of his writings. Engaging historic-intellectual background in critical analysis of Book II, I address the (...) conflicting political, religious, and academic opinions of natural magic, demonstrating that current Academia is poised to expand the historical, “theoretical” treatment of natural magic to engage it as a phenomenological, “practical” human experience. In De Magia naturali Book II, Lefèvre decloaks mythology, philosophy, astrology, literature and religion to a scientific theory, practice and experience of number as Idea. He reveals how the limit of metaphorical imagery is duality, the binary Coincidence of Opposites, symbolized by the number 2. The magic in Lefèvre’s number mysticism is human experience of numerical ascension from man to God, achieved through the number 3, the love-nexus re-uniting 2 into One, duality into unity. Renaissance humanists conceived of this prisca theologia, pristine or ancient theology, as embodied in the Christian Trinity through the Spirit of Christ. Current Academia is responsible to teach this wisdom tradition from a multicultural, interdisciplinary worldview, as I posit the humanists intended. (shrink)