Vernon Lee was the pseudonym of the British writer Violet Paget (1856-1935). She is known mostly for her supernatural fiction. She also wrote essays and poetry. She contributed to The Yellow Book and was a follower of Walter Pater. Her literary works explored the themes of haunting and possession. She was responsible for introducing the concept of empathy into the English language. Empathy was a key concept in Lee's psychological aesthetics which she developed on the basis of prior work by (...) Theodor Lipps. Her response to aesthetics interpreted art as a mental and corporeal experience. This was a significant contribution to the philosophy of art which has been largely neglected. Additionally she wrote, along with her friend and colleague Henry James, critically about the relationship between the writer and his/her audience pioneering the concept of criticism and expanding the idea of critical assessment among all the arts as relating to an audience's (or her personal) response. She was a strong proponent of the Aesthetic movement. Among her famous works are: A Phantom Lover (1890), Hauntings (1890) and Art and Life (1896). (shrink)

The words I wish to delete in 48-9 spoil a ‘tricolon crescendo’ whose three members are clearly marked and whose verbs are perhaps deliberately varied in person and tense. The parataxis by means of hic is awkward, and the words seem to be a versified gloss. The Scholiast says : id est: to nobilis tantum et imperitus. nam de plebe, id est de humili familia, eloquentes exeunt, qui nobilium imperitorum causas defendunt; but that could be a paraphrase based on the (...) text as it stands in our manuscripts. (shrink)

These are the working notes/handouts given to the resident philosophers and scholars for the de Nobili Endowment Lecture held at Chennai, on 27th October, 2022. These have been printed and circulated among the attendees before the lecture. The lecture itself will be published in a book form. The de Nobili Endowment Lecture was given by the author at Satya Nilayam International Jesuit Centre for Philosophical Excellence affiliated to the University of Madras and which is part of Loyola (Autonomous) (...) College, Chennai on 27th October, 2022 at 6.20 pm in an offline event. The main contention of the paper is that Dr. Edith Stein through her work on Empathy resolves problems of Empathy encountered in Advaita Vedanta. (shrink)

Seabed mining, the extraction of minerals from the deep-sea floor, is hotly contested. Policymakers have agreed on the need for a regulatory framework. However, traditional ethical theories and principles are not well equipped for the ethics of the alien deep sea. Engaging with the sea means engaging with something abstract that we can only access indirectly. We argue that this invisibility and alienness of the sea and its inhabitants can give new insights into how ethics are done. Rather than getting (...) even more grip on what is already directly known, considering what is outside our usual moral view may be just as valuable. To do so, art can help us think with these unknown and invisible parts of the ecosystem. For that, we describe three cases. The scientist and artist Eugen Ransonnet engaged with the underwater world in the late 19th century. The Victorian flower painter Marianne North's unruly approach greatly influenced the botanic discourse until today. And finally, Christina Stadlbauer's Institute for the Relocation of Biodiversity and her work with the mollusk Pinna Nobilis in Mar Menor, Spain. We describe the Pinna Nobilis video project and the ethical and political opportunities it opens. We propose that engaging with the arts can pave the way towards including the unknown in ethical reflection and, at the same time, how it can rephrase questions that can help us reconsider what is outside of our moral view. (shrink)

In this paper I provide an analysis of an anonymous text which appeared at Sondershausen and Mühlhausen in 1687: Initiatio philosophi sive Dubitatio Cartesiana, ad indubiam philosophiam viam monstrans, iuxta mentem Renati des Cartes, Nobilis Galli, utraque methodo explicata, titled after Johannes Clauberg’s homonymous 1655 treatise. It consisted of (1) an abridgement of his Paraphrasis in Renati Des Cartes Meditationes (1658), and (2) a demonstration more geometrico of the necessity of methodical doubt as the beginning of philosophy, partially based on (...) Clauberg’s own 1655 Initiatio. I place the publication of the 1687 text in the context of the attacks on Cartesianism taking place in German areas especially after 1677 and the appearance of Spinoza’s texts, focusing on the ways in which Clauberg’s philosophy was adapted to the rebuking of such attacks and to the re-establishment of a Cartesian presence in Germany. (shrink)

A Significant distinction can be noticed in Cicero&s contemporary references to the anti-revolutionary parties in the first two Civil Wars. For both he claims superior dignitas: Rosc. Am. 136 quis enim erat qui non videret humilitatem cum dignitate de amplitudine contendere? , Lig. 19 principum dignitas erat paene par, non par fortasse eorum qui sequebantur. But in the Pro Roscio dignitas and nobilitas go together. Sulla's cause is causa nobilitatis , his party is the nobility , his triumph victoria nobilium (...) . Such expressions, frequent and casual, evidently belonged to current usage and may be assumed to have fitted the facts. Marian nobiles are indeed not lacking; but the records are meagre, and presumably they were a small minority in their class. An ironical hit at Verres tells the same tale ten years later: ut possit aliquis suspicari C. Verrem, quod ferre novos homines non potuerit, ad nobilitatem, hoc est adsuos transisse —for a nobilis, as such, Sulla was the only leader. Verres' true motive for changing sides, discreditable of course, is explained later on ; eo Sullanus repente foetus est, non ut honos et dignitas nobilitati restitueretur. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Monopoly on Salvation? A Feminist Approach to Religious PluralismRita M. GrossMonopoly on Salvation? A Feminist Approach to Religious Pluralism. By Jeannine Hill Fletcher. New York: Continuum, 2005. 155 pp.Given that most practitioners of Western feminist theology, whether Christian or some variety of post-Christian, display remarkably little interest in issues of religious diversity and interreligious dialogue, I was both curious about this book and delighted to see someone combining (...) the words “feminism” and “religious pluralism” in a book title. However, I was also curious as to what this author might construe as a “feminist” approach to religious diversity. These days it is fairly common for a book written by a woman to contain the word “feminism” in the title, even though there may be little specifically feminist content in the book. Additionally, I have been [End Page 205] somewhat skeptical that there is a specifically feminist approach to issues of religious diversity. My issue with many other feminist theologians is not especially their lack of a specifically feminist approach to issues of religious diversity but their lack of knowledge about and interest in any religion other than Christianity and its near relatives.What I found is a good addition to the rather considerable library of theologies of religious pluralism written by Christian theologians. And there is a specifically feminist angle to the arguments made in this book, or at least an angle on issues of religious diversity that I have not seen utilized by others, the vast majority of whom are men, who have written such books.The five chapters of this book follow a predictable outline. The first chapter is devoted to framing the contours of the Christian theology, which will be the basis for Fletcher’s entire approach to religious pluralism. An informative chapter on the history of the encounters of some Christians with members of other religions follows this. The third chapter, predictably, reviews and critiques the by now familiar Christian theologies of religious diversity—exclusivist, inclusivist, pluralist, and particularist. These chapters of review and critique are followed by two constructive chapters, one of which offers Fletcher’s specifically feminist suggestions and the other of which discusses how a Christian could honor both specific loyalty to Christianity and the ethical requirements imposed when one recognizes the theological legitimacy of religious diversity.The approach to Christian theology outlined in the first chapter frames Fletcher’s inquiry throughout the entire book. Given that the author is a Christian, it is not surprising that her theology of religious pluralism turns on her understanding of the terms “God” and “Jesus of Nazareth.” According to her, Christian theology revolves around two poles. The first of these is that God is an “incomprehensible mystery” (p. 9), which, for her, opens the possibility that people who are not Christians might have valuable insights into that which Christians call “God.” The other pole of Christian theology is the distinctively “Christian affirmations about what is known of God through Jesus” (p. 16). Balancing the incomprehensibility of God and the specific affirmations about God is the difficult task of someone seeking to construct a Christian theology of religious pluralism. According to Fletcher, a third component is also needed in a theology of religious pluralism. Theologians must also take account of the “complex nexus of personal, social, political, and religious contexts” (p. 21) in which their work occurs.The second chapter of this book contains an interesting account of some historical encounters between Christians and members of other religions. Much of the information contained in this chapter would be unknown to many readers of this book. One of the encounters supplied the title for the author. In 1609, a Hindu debater challenged Roberto de Nobili (1577–1656), a Jesuit missionary to Southern India who lived the lifestyle of a Hindu saṅnyāsi (mendicant). The debater said of de Nobili’s theological claims: “Does this man alone know God? Does he alone have a monopoly on salvation?” (p. 51). Though Fletcher speculates that early Christian encounters with people of other religions may have involved a measure of mutuality and equal interchange, by the time Christianity had become well established in Europe and [End... (shrink)

The ancient abbey of St. Antonin in Rouergue was located in the valley of the Aveyron, from which came the name Nobilis Vallis, or Noble Val, by which the site has been known since at least the thirteenth century. During the thousand years or more from its reputed foundation in the eighth century until its dissolution at the time of the French Revolution, the abbey went through two major crises. The first, with which this article is largely concerned, was its (...) transfer in the late eleventh century from a house of monks into a chapter of regular canons. The second was during the Wars of Religion in the sixteenth century, when the town of Saint-Antonin was a center of the Protestant reform movement. In 1570 the church and the collegiate buildings were destroyed and the canons expelled. When they returned in the seventeenth century, and in 1661 joined the reformed Congregation of France at Ste. Geneviève, they occupied a new building in the center of the town, and the old site on the river was used as a garden and more recently for a thermal establishment and an old people’s home. (shrink)

The famous eastern tour of inspection undertaken by Scipio Aemilianus, L. Metellus Calvus and Sp. Mummius is now generally dated 140/39 b.c., where Diodorus seems to put it. The accepted view, however, involves discounting an explicit statement by Cicero. It also presents historical difficulties. In 140 b.c. there was no need for such a high-powered Roman initiative, and scholars can discover only very minor political results. Sherwin-White indeed criticised the envoys severely, especially Scipio; they were culpably blind to the new (...) menace of Parthia, which was steadily dismembering the Seleucid Empire east of the Euphrates. This is fair criticism only on the 140/39 b.c. dating. Did Scipio and his colleagues fail to see what is patent to us today? It is time to reexamine rigorously the underlying assumption. In Acad. prior. 2.5 Cicero defends a Roman noble's love of Greek learning in the following terms: ego autem cum Graecas litteras M. Catonem in senectute didicisse acceperim, P. autem Africani historiae loquantur in legatione illa nobili, quam ante censuram obiit, Panaetium unum omnino comitem fuisse, nec litterarum Graecarum nee philosophiae iam ullum auctorem requiro. The date of the embassy must be 144/3 b.c., if we follow the logic of this passage. Scipio was censor with L. Mummius in 142/1 b.c. and their public quarrel was hardly less notable than the embassy, in which L. Mummius' brother shared. Another Ciceronian passage – written some six years earlier – seems to contradict the dating offered in 45 b.c. In de republica 6.11 the elder Africanus prophesies his grandson's future greatness in the famous dream. (shrink)

U tekstu se polazi od uvida da Nikola Kuzanski i Frane Petrić pripadaju onim renesansnim misliocima koji zastupaju stav o beskonačnosti svemira. S obzirom na to zajedničko polazište, zanimljivo je njihovo neslaganje i štoviše oprečnost stavova vezanih uz položaj Zemlje u svemiru i njeno vrednovanje. Dok je za Kuzanskog ona »stella nobilis«, tj. plemenita zvijezda, za Petrića je »faex omnium rerum«, izmet sviju stvari. U tekstu se pokušava istražiti što je razlog tog razmimoilaženja u stavovima oko Zemlje dvojice renesansnih mislilaca.

Published in the Series Encyclopedia of Indian Religions, this volume is devoted to Christianity in India, where it has had a long presence, going back to the time of the apostles of Jesus Christ. Divided into two parts, this volume focuses on the history, origin, organizations and local engagements, belief system, worship practices, Rites, Rituals, Christian life, Contributions, Spirituality and a few of the main doctrinal items. The Second Part covers the doctrinal and theological arena. It examines the earlier phase (...) of the history of Christianity starting with the traditional belief of the arrival of St. Thomas in AD 52, moving to the periods of its association with the Chaldean church, the Portuguese, the Dutch, English and so on. This volume highlights the missionary activities of persons like St. Francis Xavier, the creative contributions made to the inter-religious dialogue by such people as Roberto de Nobili (1577-1656) and Swami Abhishiktananda (1910-1973), the linguistic and educational contributions of some of the pioneers like the German Jesuit Johanne Ernst Hanxleden (known as Arnos Padiri) (1681-1732), Herman Gundert (1814-1893), St. Elias Kuriakos Chavara (1805-1871), and, a fortiori, the enormous contributions in the healthcare area throughout the country. Caring for and serving the socio-economically marginalized ones, the peripheralized people formed an integral part of the Christian activity In India, as it is done even today. This is highlighted very much in the volume. It, further, explores the contact India had with European Christianity, showing that European Christianity proved to have wider influence in the Norther part of India, unlike India’s early episodic encounters with Palestinian and Persian forms of Christianity, which had deep influence in the Southern part of India. The volume also highlights the inner struggle among the followers resulting even in its division originating at the Synod of Diamper in 1599 manifesting, by and large, the Church-state ‘love and hate’ relationships. In fine, in spite of the drawbacks of putting the herculean task of two thousand years of history in eight hundred pages or so, this volume gives a rather comprehensive view of Christianity in India especially to those who are unfamiliar with its life and dynamics in the Indian context. The wide range of photographs, especially of the churches revealing the architectural beauty and multiplicity along with the ensample of art and paintings and pilgrimage centers adds to the enrichment of the volume. (shrink)

This paper gives an ethical argument for temporarily waiving intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines. It examines two proposals under discussion at the World Trade Organization : the India/South Africa proposal and the WTO Director General proposal. Section I explains the background leading up to the WTO debate. Section II rebuts ethical arguments for retaining current IP protections, which appeal to benefiting society by spurring innovation and protecting rightful ownership. It sets forth positive ethical arguments for a temporary waiver that (...) appeal to standing in solidarity and holding companies accountable. After examining built-in exceptions to existing agreements and finding them inadequate, the paper replies to objections to a temporary waiver and concludes, in section III, that the ethical argument for temporarily waiving IP protection for COVID-19 vaccines is strong. There are no data in this work. (shrink)

Finley’s life during and just after World War II, although neglected by biographers and others interested in his career, was a formative period for him. A successful activist for Soviet-solidarity organizations, he learned lessons in public outreach that would affect his teaching and later public activity, and absorbed experiences that found their way into his first well-known book, The World of Odysseus. During this period he changed his name from Finkelstein to Finley, a shift emblematic of his adjustment to a (...) postwar situation that would prove professionally difficult for him, yet intellectually fruitful. (shrink)

Hannibal's trek through western Europe has fascinated ancient and modern historians alike. Although most attention has been focused on determining his route through the Alps, a less popular question, the site of his Rhône crossing, has been by no means neglected. Many scholars have offered differing solutions to this problem, but all agree on one point: that Hannibal transported his elephants across the Rhône by raft. No doubt this consensus stems from the fact that both Polybius and Livy, who give (...) almost identical versions of the crossing, agree on this mode of transport. But an analysis of their accounts will show that the use of rafts was neither necessary nor desirable and that a more likely method is contained in an alternative version that Livy records, then rejects in favour of Polybius' account. (shrink)

In Amartya Sen’s The Idea of Justice, democracy is necessary for the reconciliation of plural justice claims. Sen’s treatment of democracy is however incomplete and inadequate: democracy is under-specified, there are unrecognized difficulties in any context featuring deep moral disagreement or deep division and a conceptualization of public reason in the singular erodes his pluralism. These faults undermine Sen’s account of justice. Developments in the theory of deliberative democracy can be deployed to remedy these deficiencies. This deployment points to a (...) deliberative system encompassing those affected by collective decisions, with places for non-partisan forums and discursive representatives, conditionally open to multiple forms of communication, and geared to the production of workable agreements under normative and discursive meta-consensus. Democracy does not guarantee justice, but in a plural world it is essential to the pursuit of justice. (shrink)

Marking the 50th anniversary of one among this philosopher's most distinguished pieces, Blumenberg's Rhetoric proffers a decidedly dialogic and diversified interaction with the essay polyvalently entitled 'Anthropological Approach to the Actuality and Topicality (or Currency, Relevance) of Rhetoric' (Anthropologische Annäherung an die Aktualität der Rhetorik), first published in 1971. Following Blumenberg's lead, the contributors consider and tackle their topics rhetorically, 'in utramque partem vel in plures'--treating (inter alia) the variegated discourses of Phenomenology, the History of Philosophy, Anthropology, and the téchne (...) itself from a plurality of viewpoints. Quasi in actu--as a mise en abyme of this rhetorical method par excellence--said accent on approaching any matter polyperspectivally is reflected in the proceedings of the live(ly) discussions having taken place in preparation for the present volume. Along with the diachronically extensive, disciplinarily diverse essays, this publication of the actual academic interplay--notably in the current lingua franca--will facilitate, and is to conduce to, further scholarship with respect to Blumenberg and the art of rhetoric. (shrink)

Peter S. Fosl offers a radical interpretation of Hume as a thoroughgoing sceptic on epistemological, metaphysical and doxastic grounds. He first contextualises Hume's thought in the sceptical tradition and goes on to interpret the conceptual apparatus of his work - including the Treatise, Enquiries, Essays, History, Dialogues and letters.

No part ot Plato's writings has been more debated than the three similes in Books VI.-VII. of the Republic, and still there is a diversity of opinion about their meaning. I believe that most of these difficulties arise from certain assumptions about their purpose which need revision. The current view applies the Cave to the Line, as Plato seems to direct, and this application, which is itself attended by considerable difficulties, leads to an assimilation of the two figures till they (...) seem to have much the same content and purpose. Again, as this makes the lower line appear to be the phenomenal world, it is thought that the simile of the sun foreshadows the theme of the Line by hinting at a connexion between the intelligible and the sensible which is made more explicit in the Line. Thus the group of similes seem mainly intended to show the dependence of Becoming upon Being. This paper will argue that such a view depends upon the misrepresentation of the symbolism adopted by Plato, that two antithetical groups of symbols are confused with one another, and that symbols are even identified with antitypes. Owing to these misinterpretations the Form of the Good has been mistaken for a material cause; both the Line and the Cave have been thought to reveal Plato as embarrassed by a dualism between sense and intellect, and the purpose of the Cave in particular, since the error is cumulative, has been completely obscured. This paper will attempt to substitute for current accounts another interpretation which will relate the three similes closely with the political arguments of Book VI., and with the Platonic education which is set forth in close connexion with them. (shrink)

This review essay on R. Melvin Keiser's Roots of Relational Ethics: Responsibility in Origin and Maturity in H. Richard Niebuhr surveys selected works about Niebuhr, examines the strengths of Keiser's post-critical treatment of Niebuhr and raises questions about Keiser's views and about Niebuhr.

This article examines the variety of men's responses to feminism in late nineteenthand early twentieth-century United States through texts that addressed the claims raised by the turn-of-the-century women's movements. Antifeminist texts relied on traditional arguments, as well as Social Darwinist and natural law notions, to reassert the patriarchal family and to oppose women's suffrage and participation in the public sphere. Masculinist texts sought to combat the purported feminization of American manhood by proposing islands of masculinity, untainted by feminizing forces; proscribed (...) homosociality was also cast as an effective antidote to homosexuality. Profeminist texts openly embraced women's claims for changes in public participation and private and family life, both out of a sense of justice and the conviction that such changes would benefit men and challenge the emerging industrial capitalist order. Parallels to contemporary men's responses to the women's movement are suggested. (shrink)

In "mind-Body identity, Privacy and categories" richard rorty set forth a new form of the identity theory of the mind, (called the 'disappearance' version) in which he suggested that instead of identifying sensations with neural events, Sensations might be eliminated. Using an illustration of rorty's I show that 'pain' cannot come to refer to a brain process for neural events are neither pleasant nor unpleasant. For 'pain' to refer to something unpleasant, We would have to give 'brain process' the connotation (...) of unpleasantness. But to do this would be to identify the brain process with the sensation of pain--I.E., To return to the older identity theory. (shrink)

This article delineates the core concerns and motivations of the ontological work of Gilles Deleuze, and is intended as a programmatic statement for a general philosophical audience. The article consists of two main parts. In the first, two early writings by Deleuze are analysed in order to clarify his understanding of ontology broadly, and to specify the precise aim of his understanding of being in terms of difference. The second part of the article looks at the work of Heidegger and (...) Derrida in order to distinguish Deleuze's conceptions of ontology and difference from theirs. A final section clarifies Deleuze's efforts to undertake the construction of an ontology divergent from the dominant tradition and in contrast to the emphasis on the closure of metaphysics in the thought of Heidegger and Derrida. (shrink)