Lewis Richard Farnell's five-volume The Cults of the Greek States, first published between 1896 and 1909, disentangles classical Greek mythology and religion, since the latter had often been overlooked by nineteenth-century English scholars. Farnell describes the cults of the most significant Greek gods in order to establish their zones of influence, and outlines the personality, monuments, and ideal types associated with each deity. He also resolutely avoids the question of divine origins and focuses instead on the culture surrounding each (...) class='Hi'>cult, a position which initially drew some criticism, but which allowed him more space to analyse the religious practices themselves. Written to facilitate a comparative approach to Greek gods, his work is still regularly cited today for its impressive collection of data about the worship of the most popular deities. Volume 5 focuses on the cults of Hermes, Dionysos, Hestia, Hephaistos, Ares and several minor figures. (shrink)

Lewis Richard Farnell's five-volume The Cults of the Greek States, first published between 1896 and 1909, disentangles classical Greek mythology and religion, since the latter had often been overlooked by nineteenth-century English scholars. Farnell describes the cults of the most significant Greek gods in order to establish their zones of influence, and outlines the personality, monuments, and ideal types associated with each deity. He also resolutely avoids the question of divine origins and focuses instead on the culture surrounding each (...) class='Hi'>cult, a position which initially drew some criticism, but which allowed him more space to analyse the religious practices themselves. Written to facilitate a comparative approach to Greek gods, his work is still regularly cited today for its impressive collection of data about the worship of the most popular deities. Volume 1 covers the Aniconic age, the Iconic age, and the cults of Cronos, Zeus, Hera and Athena. (shrink)

Lewis Richard Farnell's five-volume The Cults of the Greek States, first published between 1896 and 1909, disentangles classical Greek mythology and religion, since the latter had often been overlooked by nineteenth-century English scholars. Farnell describes the cults of the most significant Greek gods in order to establish their zones of influence, and outlines the personality, monuments, and ideal types associated with each deity. He also resolutely avoids the question of divine origins and focuses instead on the culture surrounding each (...) class='Hi'>cult, a position which initially drew some criticism, but which allowed him more space to analyse the religious practices themselves. Written to facilitate a comparative approach to Greek gods, his work is still regularly cited today for its impressive collection of data about the worship of the most popular deities. (shrink)

Lewis Richard Farnell's five-volume The Cults of the Greek States, first published between 1896 and 1909, disentangles classical Greek mythology and religion, since the latter had often been overlooked by nineteenth-century English scholars. Farnell describes the cults of the most significant Greek gods in order to establish their zones of influence, and outlines the personality, monuments, and ideal types associated with each deity. He also resolutely avoids the question of divine origins and focuses instead on the culture surrounding each (...) class='Hi'>cult, a position which initially drew some criticism, but which allowed him more space to analyse the religious practices themselves. Written to facilitate a comparative approach to Greek gods, his work is still regularly cited today for its impressive collection of data about the worship of the most popular deities. Volume 1 covers the Aniconic age, the Iconic age, and the cults of Cronos, Zeus, Hera and Athena. (shrink)

Lewis Richard Farnell's five-volume The Cults of the Greek States, first published between 1896 and 1909, disentangles classical Greek mythology and religion, since the latter had often been overlooked by nineteenth-century English scholars. Farnell describes the cults of the most significant Greek gods in order to establish their zones of influence, and outlines the personality, monuments, and ideal types associated with each deity. He also resolutely avoids the question of divine origins and focuses instead on the culture surrounding each (...) class='Hi'>cult, a position which initially drew some criticism, but which allowed him more space to analyse the religious practices themselves. Written to facilitate a comparative approach to Greek gods, his work is still regularly cited today for its impressive collection of data about the worship of the most popular deities. Volume 2 focuses on the cults of Artemis, Adrasteia, Hekate, Eileithyia, and Aphrodite. (shrink)

Lewis Richard Farnell's five-volume The Cults of the Greek States, first published between 1896 and 1909, disentangles classical Greek mythology and religion, since the latter had often been overlooked by nineteenth-century English scholars. Farnell describes the cults of the most significant Greek gods in order to establish their zones of influence, and outlines the personality, monuments, and ideal types associated with each deity. He also resolutely avoids the question of divine origins and focuses instead on the culture surrounding each (...) class='Hi'>cult, a position which initially drew some criticism, but which allowed him more space to analyse the religious practices themselves. Written to facilitate a comparative approach to Greek gods, his work is still regularly cited today for its impressive collection of data about the worship of the most popular deities. Volume 3 focuses on the cults of Ge, Demeter, Hades, and Rhea. (shrink)

Lewis Richard Farnell's five-volume The Cults of the Greek States, first published between 1896 and 1909, disentangles classical Greek mythology and religion, since the latter had often been overlooked by nineteenth-century English scholars. Farnell describes the cults of the most significant Greek gods in order to establish their zones of influence, and outlines the personality, monuments, and ideal types associated with each deity. He also resolutely avoids the question of divine origins and focuses instead on the culture surrounding each (...) class='Hi'>cult, a position which initially drew some criticism, but which allowed him more space to analyse the religious practices themselves. Written to facilitate a comparative approach to Greek gods, his work is still regularly cited today for its impressive collection of data about the worship of the most popular deities. Volume 4 focuses on the cults of Poseidon and Apollo. (shrink)

Purpose. The research is based on the analysis of the cult of Dionysus: the introspection of the irrational content of the "Dionysian states", in the symbolism of which an alternative scenario of gender relations is codified, based on autonomy and non-destructive interdependence. The achievement of this goal involves, firstly, the "archeology" of telestic madness and orgasm as the liberating states the comprehension of their semantic potential for the outlook of the Dionysian neophyte, and secondly, to identify the features that (...) are likened to the cult community of Dionysus to an autonomous gender and, thirdly, to characterize the metamorphosis of the Dionysian imagery in the postmodern consciousness. Theoretical basis. The study of the symbolism of Dionysus and its Genesis in the processes of the mass consciousness is important to clarify trends in gender distancing as in antiquity and in the modern era. Specific sensory and mental qualities encoded in the images of Dionysian madness, vakhtnag of violence and the eternal alien, the awareness of which is determined by the Dionysian thematizes in the cultural consciousness of post-modernism, the research literature presented in fragments. The phenomenological dimension "exempt States" Dionysian elements, activated the process of social distancing up to the formation of Autonomous gender, are poorly known and basically are reduced to manifestations of marginality and asocial. However, the specifics of the cult of Dionysus, the authors see the origins of ideas about a purely female and male and the dynamics of the transmutations of his imagery is proposed to understand how the successive stages of their formation, not the symptoms of the cultural crisis and deviant behavior. Originality. The article examines the phenomenology of the practice of personality transformation as the psycho-psychological basis of ideas about gender identity. Conclusions. The article highlights the socio-cultural and intrapsychic dimension of the study of the cult of Dionysus. It was established that the perception of a cult alien to ancient consciousness occurred during the crisis of the transition from matriarchy to patriarchy, since its meaning associated with the idea of liberation through personality transformation corresponded to the mental state generated by social isolation of women and had a therapeutic effect. (shrink)

In the twentieth century, celebrations of historical anniversaries abounded. There was the bicentennial of the French Revolution, the 150th anniversary of photography, Bach's 300th anniversary, and the 200th anniversary of the American Constitution, to name just a few. Every year hundreds of anniversaries still attract media attention and government investment in ever greater degrees. Deploying an astonishing array of insights, Celebrations explores the causes and consequences of this major phenomenon of our time. As Johnston shows, anniversaries fulfill a number of (...) needs. They provide the kind of experience of regularity across a lifetime that the weekly cycle supplies in daily life. The use of anniversaries for political ends emerged during the French Revolution and expanded to promote nationalism during the nineteenth century, although there are differences in how they are used. Europeans tend to celebrate cultural heroes, while Americans tend to celebrate events. Entire nations exploit anniversaries of founding events in order to promote national identity. Commercially, there are whole industries built around commemoration, and they provide intellectuals an opportunity to take center stage. Using methods of cultural history, sociology, and religious studies, Johnston shows how the cult of anniversaries reflects postmodern concerns. It fills a void left by the disappearance of ideologies and avant-gardes. In an era when there is little consensus about styles or methods, anniversaries allow intellectuals, businesses, and governments to acknowledge and celebrate every nuance of opinion. By suggesting ways to use anniversaries more creatively, this book offers a broad range of insights. (shrink)

The Cults of the Greek States. By L. R. Farnell, D. Litt. Vol. V. Pp. xii+496, with 19 collotypes and 41 other illustrations. Price 18s. 6d. net. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1909.

The Cults of the Greek States. By L. R. Farnell, D. Litt. Vol. V. Pp. xii+496, with 19 collotypes and 41 other illustrations. Price 18s. 6d. net. Clarendon Press, Oxford. 1909.

Within educational philosophies that utilise the Heideggerian idea of ‘authenticity’ there can be distinguished at least two readings that correspond with the categories of ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ utopianism. ‘Strong-utopianism’ is the nostalgia for some lost Edenic paradise to be restored at some future time. Here it is the ‘world’ that needs to be transcended for it is the source of our inauthenticity, where we are the puppets of modernist-capitalist ideologies. ‘Authenticity’ here is a value-judgment, understood as something that makes you (...) a better person. The ‘inauthentic’ person is simply deceived. ‘Weak-utopianism’ is recognising the forces for change in the ‘everyday-immanent’ where we do not look to overcome the world but own it as ‘heritage’. ‘Authenticity’ here is an ontological choice, a modification of inauthenticity, not its opposite. The ‘cult of the authentic’ relates to the ‘strong utopianism’ where ‘authenticity’ has become fetishized, harking back to a purer, pre-modern state, untainted by the ideals of the Enlightenment and ethos of capitalism. ‘Authentic education’ is the overcoming of our environments and socio-historical contexts, opening up new horizons of meaning. The radical notion of freedom that this implies, where one is free from rather than free in the realisation of constraint, may also be another dividing line between the ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ readings, which lend themselves to a Messianic narrative. It will be argued that if ‘authentic education’ is understood through a ‘strong utopianism’ it actually re-enforces those very same dystopian ideals they look to overcome as characterised by ‘enframing’. (shrink)

During the Second World War, two new government bodies were established in the Soviet Union to deal with religious communities: on September 14, 1943, the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church was formed, and on May 19, 1944, the Council for Religious Cults. Their formation was linked to the liberalization of Stalin's policy on the church, which supported the state in its fight against fascism. The creation of two independent structures was also due to the fact (...) that the communist regime paid special attention to cooperation with the leadership of the Orthodox Church, whose leaders not only raised funds for the needs of the front, but also were leaders of Stalin's political line, both within the state and in the its borders. In order to coordinate these activities more effectively, a Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church was set up, headed by intelligence officers. In recent years, a large number of ground works have been published, which analyze the issues of interaction between the Orthodox Church and the state during the years of Soviet power. N.Hordienko, Yu.Katunin, M.Korzun, V.Paschenko, D.Pospelovsky, V.Tsipin and many other Ukrainian and foreign authors dealt with these issues. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of double-voicedness and James Scott’s theory of public and hidden transcripts, this essay investigates the colonial context of Romans 13:1–7 with particular attention to the Roman imperial cult. It is my contention that Paul attempts to persuade the audience to resist the imperial cult, whilst negotiating colonial power and authority. It is assumed that colonial discourse is, by nature, a double-voiced discourse in that the public transcript of the dominant and the hidden transcript (...) of the suppressed coexist in a continued state of internal tension and conflict. Seen in this light, Paul as a colonised subject parodies the public transcript of the elites in his own hidden transcript. However, Paul’s doubled-voiced discourse finally turns out to be subversive against the dominant culture by suggesting that ultimate honour, fear, and authority should not be due to the rulers of the Roman Empire but to God. (shrink)

In the context of modern world religious processes, in recent years Ukraine has become a field of active attention from various non-traditional and up-to-date religious movements. According to the State Committee of Ukraine for Religious Affairs, as of January 1, 1995, there were registered 147 non-Christian communities, 52 communities of Orientalist orientation, 23 communities of the Russian Federation, etc., registered in Ukraine. And although in the confessional environment of Ukraine, the fate of such currents is negligible, but their activities (...) can not be ignored in state-church policy in solving the tasks of building a democratic society. (shrink)

In the context of the Union of Greater Romania, a problem specific to the development of the Romanian society and of the re-united national state was the regulation of the status or the varied religious cults. It is well known that under the Older Romanian Kingdom, the Orthodoxy was a state religion. The other cults – Lutheran, Catholic, Mosaic, and Moslem – represented small numbers of believers and had not been regulated under the law; they were tolerated. Following (...) the Union of 1918, the Romanian State came to accommodate not just one, but several denominations. Consequently, it had to clarify its relations with the cults in the Romanian provinces of Bucovina, Basarabia, Banat, and Transylvania. These cults which had not existed in the Older Kingdom functioned according to the legislative systems they had belonged to before 1918. Thus came the necessity of establishing the unitary status for the minority cults, which, given the diversity of their religious doctrines, rituals and interests, posed new problems to be settled for the government policy. This also should be the focus of the debates surrounding the forthcoming law of the cults in Romania. (shrink)

The Epistle to the Hebrews contains one of the most unique Greek lexicology and syntax of all the New Testament writings. Behind syntax, however, there lies a very profound theological vision on topics such as Christ, Temple, holiness, perseverance and salvation. Studying Hebrews against the background of Graeco-Roman culture, the source that most contemporary scholars mention as being closest to the world of Hebrews in this context is Philo of Alexandria. Not only on philological grounds, but also in matters of (...) methods of interpreting the Old Testament cult and in theology, Hebrews and Philo share a very common background. Analyzing the Epistle to the Hebrews comparatively, we are bound to ask whether or not comparsions such as these are warranted. In the following study we will state the state of the problem and then will examine the two sources that seem to have served as a source of inspiration for the author of Hebrews: the Old Testament and Philo of Alexandria. We will focus exclusively on the issues of the method of allegory and the spiritualization/reinterpretation of Old Testament cultic entities, since both Philo and Hebrews are characterized by these concerns. In essence, we will want to know who or what served as the most plausible source of inspiration for the author of Hebrews in the particular area of the reinterpretation of the Old Testament cult. (shrink)

This paper proposes that living Seleucid kings were recognized as divine by the royal court before the reign of Antiochus III despite lacking an established centralized ruler cult like their fellow kings, the Ptolemies. Owing to the nature of the surviving evidence, we are forced to rely heavily on numismatics to construct a view of Seleucid royal ideology. Regrettably, it seems that up until now much of the numismatic evidence for the divinity of living Seleucid rulers has not been (...) fully considered. I argue that the evidence from silver coinage produced in the name of the Seleucid kings presents a version of the official image of the reigning king and that images which portray the king as divine reflect central acceptance of the king's divinity. This is clear from the epithets on the coinage of Antiochus IV and his successors, but I will argue that the same principle holds for all earlier Seleucid kings. Thus coinage with divine images of Seleucid kings provided one of the mechanisms through which the royal court transmitted the divine nature of the kings to the population. As we will see, in the case of Antiochus Hierax, local considerations also influenced the numismatic representation of the king. This blurring of boundaries between the local veneration of the king, which has long been accepted as normal civic practice in the Greek city-states and in non-Greek temples, and the royal images of the divine king calls into question the strict division between civic and centralized ruler cults. The reflection of local cults within royal ideology can be seen as a manifestation of a negotiating model of Seleucid power that relied heavily on a dialogue with a wide range of interested groups. This article argues that the inconsistencies in the development of an iconography of divine kingship before the reign of Antiochus IV is a manifestation of the same phenomenon. (shrink)

Since time immemorial, Lord Jagannātha has been regarded as the principal deity of Odisha. The land of Odisha (former Kaliṅga) was a meeting place of the Hindus, Buddhists and Jainas. The Buddhists, Jainas, Vaiṣṇavas, the worshippers of Gaṇpati and others came to Purī and found the presence of their own lord in Jagannātha. However, of all religious creeds, Buddhism played an important role in the socio-cultural history of Odisha. During the period of emperor Aśoka, the Śabaras (a tribal people) of (...) Odisha were converted to Buddhism. Buddhist pillars were built in Purī, and Buddhist symbols were carved into it. Later on, the Śabaras started worshipping the Triratna as the three principal deities of the Jagannātha temple. In course of time, the three deities of the temple, viz. Jagannātha, Baḷabhadra and Subhadrā, have been accepted by the people of Odisha as the symbols of Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, respectively. As stated by Donaldson (Iconography of the Buddhist sculpture of Orissa, Abhinav Publications, Buldana, 2001), the eighteenth century Buddhist works such as “Jñānasidhi” and “Prajñodaya-Viniścaya-Siddhi,” the Buddha was named as Lord Jagannātha. By the twelfth century A.D., there had already developed a new culture in Odisha with Jagannātha as the center and the Lord came to be conceived as Ādi Buddha and Buddha as the ninth incarnation of Viṣṇu-Jagannātha. The place of Purī has been regarded as a place of Tāntric worship and Jagannātha as the Lord of the Tāntric cult. The Gundichā temple (where the Lord resided for 10 days during the Car festival) has been regarded as a Buddha Vihāra. The Buddhist principle of nonviolence and universal brotherhood found its best expression in the Jagannātha cult. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Volcanus: Recherches comparatistes sur les origines du culte de VulcainJ. LinderskiGérard Capdeville. Volcanus: Recherches comparatistes sur les origines du culte de Vulcain. Rome: Ecole Française de Rome, Palais Farnèse, 1995. viii 1 521 pp. Cloth, no price stated. (Bibliothèque des Ecoles Françaises d’Athènes et de Rome, fasc. 288)In the last twenty years the French School has published every two years one book on Roman religion: monographs dealing with (...) Fortuna, Mercurius, Ops, Penates, Providentia Deorum, Fratres Arvales, l’Association Dionysiaque (cf. JRS 78 [1988] 207–8), the Bacchanalia, religious architecture (Aurea templa), La vie religieuse des matrones, Le délit religieux (cf. CP 79 [1984] 174–77). Now we have a book about Volcanus. First let us remark on what this book is not: it is not a study of the cult of Volcanus, an encyclopedia that would systematically list and discuss all the literary, iconographic, and epigraphical evidence in Rome, Italy, and the provinces. It would be very pleasing to have such a book; perhaps pedestrian, but useful. For information we still have to turn to Georg Wissowa, to his ageless Religion und Kultus der Römer (2d ed. Munich 1912, 229–32); also informative is W. Eisenhut, “Volcanus,” RE Suppl. 14 (1974) 948–62. A rather balanced account of the origines appears in G. Camassa, “Sull’origine [End Page 644] e le funzioni del culto di Volcanus a Roma,” RSI 96 (1984) 811–54. Capdeville’s book we have for speculations, a paradise for those eager to delve into murky origins, and those who are transposed by the dazzling and uncertain art of comparativistic pleading. If bibliography (fifty-one pages, 425–75) stands for learning, it is a learned monograph; it ranges from Rome through Etruria to Crete and Cyprus. Surprisingly we find no Hittites or Turks (the relevance of the latter the reader will see revealed at the end of this piece).The book opens with an evocation of Georges Dumézil. Where do his manes lead the author? They lead to the fish. The monograph “est né... d’une interrogation sur les pisciculi des Volcanalia” (1), a subject which intrigued Dumézil himself (REL 36 [1959] 121–30). At the feast of Volcanalia on 23 August (see the references in A. Degrassi, Fasti anni Numani et Iuliani (5 Inscr. It. XIII.2 [Rome 1963] 500–502), populus pro se in ignem animalia mittit (Varr. LL 6.20). On 7 June (cf. Degrassi 466) the Ludi Piscatorii were celebrated a praetore urbano pro piscatoribus Tiberinis, quorum quaestus non in macellum pervenit, sed fere in aream Volkani, quod id genus pisciculorum vivorum datur ei deo pro animis humanis (Festus 274–76 L); but at the Ludi Piscatorii the offering was not pro animis but rather pro quaestu piscantium (Festus 232 L); cf. J. Le Gall, Recherches sur le culte du Tibre (Paris 1953) 48–50; J. Linderski, Ktema 17 ([1992] 1996) 58. Agni, the Indian god of fire, hated water and fish; this explains the Roman ritual (so Dumézil). Most scholars tacitly assume that pisciculi vivi were offered also on the Volcanalia, but Varro speaks generally of animalia: if he wanted to say pisces he would have said so. Volcanus was a god of destructive fire (so Wissowa, Dumézil, and many other scholars); it makes sense that to propitiate him not only fish, a symbol of water, were burnt, but also other animals (perhaps as a substitute offering; cf., on that sort of sacrifices, G. Capdeville, MEFRA 83 [1971] 283–323). In the context of incendia arcenda an inscription of the Domitianic time (ILS 4914) records an offering on the Volcanalia of vitulus robeus and verres r(obeus). This calls to mind the sacrifice of the rutilae canes to protect the crops from the burning sun (Festus 358 L).Of all of this Capdeville, surprisingly, does not write at all: after their debut on page 1 the pisciculi and the Volcanalia feebly reappear at the very end of the book (420–23), only to be disregarded. Capdeville claims that Volcanus was not at all, and never, a god of “feu destructeur.” But Dumézil too... (shrink)

The article discusses the corruption of the state administration and clergy as one of the factors of persistence of paganism in Later Roman Empire. The spread of the practice of bribing state officials and clergymen by pagans, coming from different social strata of the Late Roman Society is demonstrated by various examples. It is suggested that this phenomenon was a result of the spread of suffragium.

Why were the Vestals virgins? An explanation drawing on anthropological studies of witchcraft and the work of Giovannini, Girard, and Douglas allows a partial solution to this and three other puzzles: 1) their unique legal status; 2) their murder at moments of political crisis; 3) the odd details of those murders. The untouched body of the Vestal Virgin is a metonymy for the untouched city of Rome. Her unique legal status frees her from all family ties so that she can (...) incarnate the collective. Thus, in times of crisis, she serves as a pharmakos/pharmakon. Equally, Roman society reveals a deep fear of witchcraft directed at its own matrons. Danger to the urbs is warded off by the punishment of women, both Vestals and wives, and the foundation of public cults of chastity with admonitory and apotropaic functions. A series of incidents over a thousand-year span reveals a world view deeply rooted in sympathetic magic, where the women embody the state and their inviolability is objectified as the inviolability of the community. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reciprocity and Ritual: Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-StateSheila MurnaghanSeaford, Richard. Reciprocity and Ritual: Homer and Tragedy in the Developing City-State. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994. xx + 455 pp. Cloth, $75.00.In his stellar commentary on Euripides’ Cyclops, and in a string of impressive and suggestive articles, Richard Seaford has already established himself as our era’s leading expert on a question that is both perennial and currently (...) pressing: what does tragedy have to do with Dionysus? Whatever that question meant to the ancients who first raised it in the form of the proverbial complaint “ouden pros ton Dionuson,” to us it expresses a felt need to contextualize tragedy, to overcome our habits of reading the surviving plays solely as self-contained literary texts. Our starting point for this inquiry must be the setting of tragedy’s original performance in the Great Dionysia, and a fully satisfying answer must address the character of the Dionysia as simultaneously religious and political, a ritual in honor of a god that was also a self-conscious expression of the Athenian polis. In a study that is explicitly framed as a historicist counter to the prevailing literary (or as Seaford has it “formalist”) approaches to tragedy, Seaford here excavates that junction of religion and politics, locating the origins—and thus the essence—of tragedy in a weaving together of several rituals, all of which promoted the emerging city-state.The core of Seaford’s argument, and the central contribution of his study, is in this resolutely ritualist theory of the origins of tragedy. Drawing on a deep and detailed knowledge of Greek religion, and building on his own previous demonstrations of the pervasiveness of ritual themes in the extant plays, Seaford argues that tragic drama was created through the making public of rites of initiation into the Dionysian mysteries; these rites were originally the secret practices of the all-female thiasos but were converted into tragedy through their public revelation and their enactment by male performers. The plots of tragedy dramatized the aetiological myths that grounded Dionysian cult, such as the myth of Pentheus, but also other rituals, especially hero-cult, that similarly fostered the creation of the polis.For Seaford, the defining feature of the polis is the transcendence of the autonomous household in the creation of a larger and cohesive civic identity. Dionysus is, above all, the deity who presides over that process, and this accounts for his central role in tragedy. Dionysus is a foreigner without internal allegiances; he traverses the space between the city’s margins and its center, thereby defining the city’s shared territory; and he draws women out of the household into his thiasos, thereby countering the possessiveness and exclusivity of the individual household. But the creation of trans-familial social cohesion is also key to the non-Dionysian myths and rituals incorporated into tragedy. Hero-cult, for [End Page 316] example, transforms the divisive private funeral into a unifying experience of general lamentation that leads to benefits for the whole community. Many of tragedy’s non-Dionysian myths, especially those of the Theban cycle, rehearse the destruction of the introverted royal family with positive results, usually through the foundation of a cult, for the community as a whole. This last point is among the most breathtaking in the book, and it helps to solve one of the main mysteries surrounding tragedy, which is why the polis would sponsor a form of art dedicated to representing terrifying, irremediable disasters.What makes this theory so compelling is the way Seaford manages to avoid a reductive identification of tragedy with any one ritual while finding a consistent thread among the many rituals that converge to shape the genre. He argues persuasively for seeing the suffering heroes of tragedy as reflecting simultaneously the cult hero, whose universal lamentation binds a community together; the scapegoat, whose expulsion also reinforces community; the initiate, whose isolation and confusion precede his reintegration into society; and the grasping monarch, whose downfall frees up the circulation of women and goods. He is able to find unforced connections between what have often seemed like irreconcilable clues to tragedy’s origins... (shrink)

After the death of Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi (d.1273), the cult of Mevlevi continued its structuring. Rumi's son Sultan Veled (d.1312) and his grandson Ulu Arif Çelebi (d.1320) contributed greatly to this structuring. Sultan Veled tried to turn the lodge he took over from his father into a systematic sect around Rumi's mystical thought and Mevlevi disciples. Ulu Arif Çelebi, on the other hand, is a very effective name in organizing Mevleviism as a cult. With his systematic studies and (...) travels, he made Mevlevi's spread in lodges and madrasahs, and he made efforts to teach Masnavi, the work of his grandfather Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, in madrasahs. In addition, Ulu Arif Çelebi asked Ahmet Eflakî to write a book called Ariflerin Menkıbeleri about Rumi’s life, in order to keep his grandfather's memory alive. The entry of Mevlevi into the Ottoman State was through marriage. Mutahhare Hatun, daughter of Sultan Veled, was married to Süleyman Şah, the Germiyanoğulları leader. Süleyman Şah married the daughter of this marriage, Devlet Hatun, to Yıldırım Beyazıt, and left as a dowry Kütahya, Tavsanlı, Simav and Eğrigöz to Ottoman Empire. Yıldırım Bayezıd was appointed as the governor of Kütahya. Mehmet Çelebi was born from this marriage. The title of Çelebi is a title given to the descendants of Rumi, and Mehmet Çelebi, one of the sultans of the Fetret Period (A period of great depression), was one of the grandchildren of Rumi. The children of Mehmet Çelebi are remembered with the title of 'Çelebi'. Through this marriage, Mevlevi began to spread to the Ottoman Empire. Thus, Mevleviism would prevail in the Ottoman Empire, where Ahilik organization and Ahi culture prevailed, and Mevlevihane and Asitane would be established in many parts of the country with the support of the Ottoman State. Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi’nin (ö.1273) ölümünden sonra Mevlevilik bir tarikat olarak yapılanmasını sürdürmüştür. Mevlana’nın oğlu Sultan Veled’in (ö.1312) ve torunu Ulu Arif Çelebi’nin (ö.1320) bu yapılanmada katkısı oldukça büyüktür. Sultan Veled babasından devraldığı dergâhı, Mevlana’nın mistik düşüncesi çerçevesinde ve Mevlevi müritler etrafında sistemli bir tarikat haline getirmeye çalışmıştır. Ulu Arif Çelebi ise Mevleviliği bir tarikat olarak örgütlemede oldukça etkili bir isimdir. O sistematik olarak yaptığı çalışmalar ve seyahatlerle Mevleviliğin tekke, zaviye ve medreselerde yayılmasını sağladığı gibi dedesi Mevlana Celaleddin ’in eseri Mesnevi’nin medreselerde okutulması için de çaba sarf etmiştir. Ayrıca Ulu Arif Çelebi, dedesinin hatırasını canlı tutabilmek Ahmet Eflaki adındaki bir yazıcıya Mevlana’nın hayatını yazdırmıştır. (Ariflerin Menkıbeleri kitabı) Mevleviliğin Osmanlı Devleti’ne girişi evlilik yoluyla olmuştur. Sultan Veled’in kızı Mutahhare Hatun, Germiyanoğulları Beyi Süleyman Şah ile evlidir. Süleyman Şah bu evlilikten olan kızı Devlet Hatun’u Osmanlı Devleti’nin o dönem şehzadesi olan Yıldırım Beyazıt ile evlendirmiş ve çeyiz olarak Kütahya, Tavşanlı, Simav ve Eğrigöz dolaylarını Osmanlılara bırakmıştır. Yıldırım Bayezıd ise Kütahya valiliğine getirilmiştir. Bu evlilikten Mehmet Çelebi dünyaya gelmiştir. Çelebi unvanı Mevlana’nın soyundan gelenlere verilen bir unvandır ve Fetret Dönemi padişahlarından olan Mehmet Çelebi, Mevlana’nın torunlarındandır. Mehmet Çelebi’nin çocukları ‘çelebi’ unvanıyla anılmaktadır. Bu evlilik yoluyla Mevlevilik Osmanlı’da yayılmaya başlamıştır. Böylece daha önce Ahilik teşkilatı ve Ahi kültürünün hâkim olduğu Osmanlı Devleti’ne Mevlevilik hâkim olacak ve Osmanlı Devleti’nin desteğiyle ülkenin birçok yerinde Mevlevihane ve Asitane kurulacaktır. (shrink)

Winner of the 2015 Pierre-Antoine Bernheim Prize for the History of Religion by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-LettresAfter a century during which Confucianism was viewed by academics as a relic of the imperial past or, at best, a philosophical resource, its striking comeback in Chinese society today raises a number of questions about the role that this ancient tradition might play in a contemporary context. The Sage and the People is the first comprehensive enquiry into the "Confucian revival" that (...) began in China during the 2000s. Based on extensive anthropological fieldwork carried out over eight years in various parts of the country, it explores the re-appropriation and reinvention of popular practices in fields as diverse as education, self-cultivation, religion, ritual, and politics.The book analyzes the complexity of the "Confucian revival" within the broader context of emerging challenges to such categories as religion, philosophy, and science that prevailed in modernization narratives throughout the last century. Exploring state cults both in Mainland China and Taiwan, authors Sébastien Billioud and Joël Thoraval compare the interplay between politics and religion on the two shores of the Taiwan strait and attempt to shed light on possible future developments of Confucianism in Chinese society. (shrink)

Dio reports that, at the time Augustus was declared Divus, Livia, who was already called Julia and Augusta, was appointed his priestess. The term Dio uses is hiereia, which occurs in the same passage as his account of the priests and sacred rites that were assigned to Augustus on his deification. As Livia was also permitted to employ a lictor, an honour that Tiberius apparently restricted to her function as priestess, everything suggests that Livia played a part in the (...) class='Hi'>state cult. In contrast, the festival Livia established in honour of her deceased husband was certainly a private gathering: three days of scenic games to which were invited only persons of the highest station. To distinguish between the two is crucial to the precise title of Livia's office. Just as Mark Antony had been made flamen of Divus Iulius—to all appearances for life —so Germanicus was appointed life-long flamen Augustalis —a distinctive term of office compared with the single year accorded provincial flamines in the Latin West. The office of Livia ought correspondingly to have been that of flaminica, even if it was unprecedented for a woman to serve a god who in the light of his will was technically her father. A precise parallel to all this, it is important to note, exists in the case of Divus Claudius, whose cult Agrippina was appointed to tend and who in her capacity as priestess of Divus Claudius was granted in addition two lictors. Fortunately in this case the exact terminology of her office is given by Tacitus in his account of the honours bestowed by the Senate on Agrippina, who evidently was named flaminica : … decreti et a senatu duo lictores, flamonium Claudiale, simul Claudio censorium funus et mox consecratio. (shrink)

Over twenty years since the influential revisionist studies of Roussel and Bourriot, agreement on a satisfactory theory of the Attic genos seems as elusive as ever. Although they differed on details, these two scholars were agreed in their rejection of the old monolithic account of the genos as aristocratic family whose institutionalized control over state cults and phratry admissions in the historical period was a relic of a wider political dominance. Roussel and Bourriot instead proposed a tripartite model according (...) to which the formal genos-kome—a more or less localized community similar to the later deme, with hereditary but socio-economically diverse membership, and enjoying, as a tighter community well placed to regulate its own admissions, automatic access to the wider phratry—was distinguishable both from aristocratic families, such as the Peisistratidai or Alkmeonidai, and priestly houses, such as the Kerykes and Eumolpidai of Eleusis. Subsequent discussion has moved in several directions. My analysis of the relationship between phratry and genos followed a broadly revisionist line. I found no good evidence for gene controlling the access to phratries of persons who were not genos members and presented a new interpretation of the crucial Demotionidai decrees in which, contrary to prevailing theories, neither of the two groups mentioned in them—the Demotionidai and the House of the Dekeleieis—was a privileged subgroup dominating the whole. Rather, I suggested that the Demotionidai were a phratry in process of fission, the Dekelean House a product of this process. Others, however, have taken the debate in the other direction, as it were reprivileging the genos. (shrink)

Nachdem in Israels frühester Zeit JHWH zunächst als der eine Rettergott Israels verehrt worden war , Salomo aber dann die Verehrung der Götter anderer Völker in den israelitischen Staatskult eingeführt hatte, leitete das Efraimitische Geschichtswerk noch kurze Zeit vor Hosea die Rückbesinnung auf JHWH als den einen Rettergott Israels und damit den Kampf für die ausschließliche Verehrung JHWHs ein. Um 700 vC wurde diese JHWH-Monolatrie vom Ur-Deuteronomium und dem Hiskijanischen Geschichtswerk um die Forderung nach der – von Hiskija eingeführten – (...) Ausübung des Kultes ausschließlich an dem einen Ort ergänzt. Während in diesem hiskijanischen Anfangsstadium der Kultzentralisation der Kult außerhalb des Jerusalemer Tempels noch als jahwistisch galt, wurde er weitere 80 Jahre später im Zusammenhang mit der erneuten Kultzentralisationsmaßnahme Joschijas als idolatrisch gewertet.After the worship of YHWH as the one savior god of the Israelites in the earliest period of Israelite history, Salomo introduced the worship of gods of other peoples into the state cult of Israel. Shortly before the time of Hosea, the “Efraimite History” initiated the return to and reevaluation of YHWH as the only savior god of Israel and thereby the struggle for the exclusive worship of YHWH. Around 700 BCE, the demand for the YHWH-monolatry was expanded by the so-called Ur-Deuteronomy and the “Hezekianic History” to include the practicing of the cult only at the “one place” , a practise established by Hezekiah. In this early stage of cult centralization, the cult practised outside of the temple of Jerusalem was yet taken to be yahwistic, but 80 years later, in the context of the renewed cult centralization by Joschija, it was rejected as idolatric. (shrink)

Hobbes's interest in the power of the Image was programmatic, as suggested by his shifts from optics, to sensationalist psychology, to the strategic use of classical history, exemplified by Thucydides and Homer. It put a great resource at the disposal of the state-propaganda machine, with application to the question of state-management and crowd control.

With Xi Jinping’s consolidation of political power in China, a personality cult has increasingly emerged. In this article, we analyze online documents and state news media to argue that this phenomenon is driven in part by local government officials and traditional media but most significantly by individual Chinese ‘netizens’. The current personality cult phenomenon is thus primarily society-driven and bottom-up rather than state-driven and top-down. We argue that the rise of this personality cult around Xi (...) has its roots in national anxiety in an important transitional period in China. While some worry about a possible return to the politics of the Cultural Revolution by encouraging this personality cult, others are responding to economic anxieties and to the social anxieties created by social injustice greatly due to official corruption. We conclude that the possibility of society-driven personality cults will increase over time, as a paradoxical corollary of the potential of new media to allow for the democratization and opening up of politics and culture to new voices. (shrink)

It is my thesis that Renaissance classical translations and imitations were often works of political surrogacy in a literary environment characterized by harsh censorship. So, for instance, the works of Homer, Virgil, and Lucan were read as coded texts, that ranged across the political spectrum.

Dervish lodges and cults were among the important elements of the Ottoman social life and in those times, they had spread to nearly all city centers, towns and villages. Dervish lodges served as non-formal educational institutions for people from all ages and all segments of the society. In addition to education, these structures also played important roles in political, economic, social and military life of the Ottoman Empire. In general, wise people and scholars contributed to the development and dissemination of (...) Islamic sciences in general, and specifically, mystic thought. As a matter of fact, it was determined that there were a great number of Dervish lodges that were founded or supported by shaykh al-Islam (the chief justice), kādī (judge), scholars and mudarrisīn (teachers) in the history of sufism. One of them was Mullah Çelebi Dervish Lodge, which was founded in the 16th Century by Mehmed Vusuli Efendi, who belonged to the Ilmiya class (d. 998/1590). Until today no detailed studies have been conducted on lodges, which continued their existence until 1925. For this reason, this article will be the first study that deals with the dervish lodges in the light of archive sources. In this article, which was written to shed light on the course of our sufi cultural history, the prominent names, shaykhs and physical status of the Dervish lodges, especially Mehmed Vusuli Efendi, who was the founder of these lodges, will be dealt with.Summary: Our country, which hosts scientific moral centers like dervish lodges, school, madrasa and masjids, has a rich historical cultural treasure. As it is already known, the above-mentioned institutions had an important place in the life of Ottoman social life. Dervish lodges and madrassas were considered as science and wisdom centers because there is no distinction between zāhir (exterior) and bātin (interior) in our tradition. Under then-present conditions, the institutions that were needed most were supported. In this sense, the sultans and scholars cared about the dervish lodges, which were the places where sciences were studied contributing to the construction of these structures. One of these was Mullah Çelebi Dervish Lodge, which was founded in the center of Eyupsultan by the Ottoman man of letter, poet and scholar, Mehmed Vusuli Efendi (d. 998/1590).Mullah Çelebi Dervish Lodge is located in the Debbaghane/Tabakhane (Tannery) district in the center of Eyupsultan. As Suleyman Çelebi stated, “the valiant ones worked in the Tannery”. For this reason, it is possible to say that there were tanners among the disciples and followers of Mullah Çelebi Dervish Lodge.Mullah Çelebi Dervish Lodge was built by Mehmed Vusuli Efendi, who belonged to the scholar class in the Ottoman Empire. Mehmed Vusuli Efendi, who served as a professor in various madrasahs, served as a kādī in cities like Konya, Kutahya and Istanbul. Mehmed Vusuli Efendi was called “Mullah” because of his madrasah origin and “Çelebi” because of being a member of the scholar class. For this reason, dervish lodge in question was known as Mullah Çelebi Dervish Lodge in his honor. Sources mention the religious, knowledgeable and modest personality of Mehmed Vusuli Efendi. In this sense, the establishment of a dervish lodge by someone from the scholar class is important in terms of being a sign of the togetherness of dervish lodges and madrasahs in the Ottoman Empire. In addition to his scientific personality, Mehmed Vusuli Efendi was also an important figure who wrote works both as prose and as poetry, and made some translations into Turkish. In addition to the Dervish Lodges mentioned here, Mehmed Vusuli Efendi also established mosques and public baths in various places in Istanbul and was interested in charity works. Cemaleddin Server Revnakoglu stated that he was given the nickname “FındıklıÇelebi” because he had established a mosque in Fındıklı District.Mehmed Vusuli Efendi was the son-in-law of Aise Hubbi Hatun (d. 997/1589), who was one of the lady poets of the 16th century divan literature. Aise Hubbi Hatun was the granddaughter of Kanuni Sultan Suleyman’s foster brother Yahya Efendi from Beşiktaş. Aise Hubbi Hatun was also the wife of Semsi Çelebi, who was one of the grandchildren of Aksemseddin. In this sense, Aise Hubbi Hatun was a person who served in the palace during the reign of Selim II. According to the sources, Mullah Çelebi was appointed to a post that was as high as being the kādī of Istanbul with the help of Aise Hubbi Hatun, who was one of the prominent figures of the palace. For this reason, Mehmed Vusuli Efendi was also known as “Hubba/Hubbi Mullah”.In the present study of ours on Mullah Çelebi Dervish Lodge, one of the most prominent lady poets was Serife Zubeyde Fitnat Hanım (d. 1194/1780). In the sources, some authors discussed whether Fitnat Hanım’s tomb was in Mullah Çelebi Dervish Lodge. Since there is no inscription on it, the tomb of Mehmed Vusuli Efendi was assumed to belong to Fitnat Hanım. Actually, in the past, Istanbul Tombs and Museums Directorate hung a plate saying that the tomb in question belonged to Fitnat Hanim. However, Bilgin Turnalı revealed that the tomb of Fitnat Hanım was not in the Mullah Çelebi Dervish Lodge in his article with the title “The Tomb of the Poet Fitnat Hanım”.The archive sources, which we can examine on Mullah Çelebi Dervish Lodge, generally belong to the 18th century and onwards. For this reason, the information on the establishment years of the Dervish Lodge was not determined fully. However, some of the archive sources reported some revenues of Mullah Çelebi Dervish Lodge. For example, it was recorded in the archives that payments were made to this Dervish Lodge in Muharramiya activities. As it is known, ceremonies were held in the Ottoman Palace in the month of Muharram, which was the initial month of the Hijri calendar, and a number of people and institutions in Istanbul and its surroundings were paid by the Sultan under the name of “Muharramiyya”.In Mullah Çelebi Dervish Lodge, there were some prominent shaykhs like Mahmud Efendi and Nureddin Efendi. For example, since Mahmud Efendi had a lot of influence on the lodge, it was named after him for a period of time. Another prominent shaykh in the above-mentioned dervish lodge was Nureddin Efendi. As a matter of fact, he was closely interested in the maintenance and repair works of the dervish lodge and the activities related to the cults, and applied to Evkāf-i Humāyūn many times for repair works. Mehmed Esref Sabri Efendi, who was the shaykh before the last one in this dervish lodge, contributed to the training of many people of cult, especially Saadeddin Ceylan, who was the shaykh of Haki Baba Lodge. The last shaykh of Mullah Çelebi Dervish Lodge was Hafiz Hussein Kamil Efendi, who was the son-in-law of Mehmed Esref Sabri Efendi.When the physical condition of Mullah Çelebi Dervish Lodge is examined, it is understood that it was ruined in some periods in the history due to erosion; and for this reason, it had renovations. It was determined that Mullah Çelebi Dervish Lodge, which belonged to the Kadiriyye cult, remained until the last period of the Ottoman Empire; however, after the closure of the dervish lodges in 1925, it disappeared rapidly. In our present day, two tombs that belong to Mehmed Vusuli Efendi and Aise Hubbi Hatun and a graveyard where the members of the lodge were buried are left behind from this Dervish Lodge. As it is known, Dervish Lodges had an important place in the religious, scientific, political and economic life of the Ottoman society. In this article, which was planned to examine the Ottoman sufi culture, the historical course of Mullah Çelebi Dervish Lodge, its founder, shaykhs, physical location, etc. were discussed in the light of the archive sources. (shrink)

Irrational thinking, religious fundamentalism, cults, magical beliefs and esoteric themes increasingly dominate western public life and philosophical debates, while rationality and logical thinking is continuously and increasingly being vilified. This has led to a state of utmost helplessness, when dealing with claims of (religious) fundamentalism and illegitimate metaphysics of power, while conversely the day-to-day living environment remains highly technical and positivistic. Puzzled by this increasing division, this book tries to elucidate: The emergence of the concept “irrational”, after Kant’s Critique (...) of Pure Reason and the metamorphosis from its origins at the end of the 18th century into the 20th century. The methodical consequences of the Copernican revolution, which split off domains of the individual such as the body, nature, singularities, coincidence, will, life or the soul (which had been recognized as an organic compartment of the individual) as representations, converting them into new and dynamic elements for post-Kantian philosophies: body – Nietzsche, will – Schopenhauer, life – Lebensphilosophie, singularity/coincidence – existentialism, nature – romanticism, soul – early psychoanalysis etc. Finally, criteria for irrational philosophies are being presented. (shrink)

A groundbreaking new look at the story of America At the heart of the nation's spiritual history are audacious and often violent scenes. But the Puritans and the shining city on the hill give us just one way to understand the United States. Rather than recite American history from a Christian vantage point, Peter Manseau proves that what really happened is worth a close, fresh look. Thomas Jefferson himself collected books on all religions and required that the brand new Library (...) of Congress take his books, since Americans needed to consider the "twenty gods or no god" he famously noted were revered by his neighbors. Looking at the Americans who believed in these gods, Manseau fills in America's story of itself, from the persecuted "witches" at Salem and who they really were, to the persecuted Buddhists in WWII California, from spirituality and cults in the '60s to the recent presidential election where both candidates were for the first time non-traditional Christians. One Nation, Under Gods shows how much more there is to the history we tell ourselves, right back to the country's earliest days. Dazzling in its scope and sweep, it is an American history unlike any you've read. (shrink)

Whether upheld as heroic or reviled as terrorism, people have been willing to lay down their lives for the sake of their groups throughout history. Why? Previous theories of extreme self-sacrifice have highlighted a range of seemingly disparate factors, such as collective identity, outgroup hostility, and kin psychology. In this paper, I attempt to integrate many of these factors into a single overarching theory based on several decades of collaborative research with a range of special populations, from tribes in Papua (...) New Guinea to Libyan insurgents and from Muslim fundamentalists in Indonesia to Brazilian football hooligans. These studies suggest that extreme self-sacrifice is motivated by identity fusion, a visceral sense of oneness with the group, resulting from intense collective experiences (e.g., painful rituals or the horrors of frontline combat) or from perceptions of shared biology. In ancient foraging societies, fusion would have enabled warlike bands to stand united despite strong temptations to scatter and flee. The fusion mechanism has often been exploited in cultural rituals, not only by tribal societies but also in specialized cells embedded in armies, cults, and terrorist organizations. With the rise of social complexity and the spread of states and empires, fusion has also been extended to much larger groups, including doctrinal religions, ethnicities, and ideological movements. Explaining extreme self-sacrifice is not only a scientific priority but also a practical challenge as we seek a collective response to suicide, terrorism, and other extreme expressions of outgroup hostility that continue to bedevil humanity today. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to give a brief survey the implications of the theories of modern physics for the doctrine of determinism. The survey will reveal a curious feature of determinism: in some respects it is fragile, requiring a number of enabling assumptions to give it a fighting chance; but in other respects it is quite robust and very difficult to kill. The survey will also aim to show that, apart from its own intrinsic interest, determinism is an (...) excellent device for probing the foundations of classical, relativistic, and quantum physics. The survey is conducted under three major presuppositions. First, I take a realistic attitude towards scientific theories in that I assume that to give an interpretation of a theory is, at a minimum, to specify what the world would have to be like in order for the theory to be true. But we will see that the demand for a deterministic interpretation of a theory can force us to abandon a naively realistic reading of the theory. Second, I reject the “no laws” view of science and assume that the field equations or laws of motion of the most fundamental theories of current physics represent science’s best guesses as to the form of the basic laws of nature. Third, I take determinism to be an ontological doctrine, a doctrine about the temporal evolution of the world. This ontological doctrine must not be confused with predictability, which is an epistemological doctrine, the failure of which need not entail a failure of determinism. From time to time I will comment on ways in which predictability can fail in a deterministic setting. Finally, my survey will concentrate on the Laplacian variety of determinism according to which the instantaneous state of the world at any time uniquely determines the state at any other time. The plan of the survey is as follows. Section 2 illustrates the fragility of determinism by means of a Zeno type example. Then sections 3 and 4 survey successively the fortunes of determinism in the Newtonian and the special relativistic settings.. (shrink)

The current orthodoxy on mental representation can be characterized in terms of three central ideas. The -rst is ontological, the second semantic, and the third methodological. The ontological tenet is that mental representation is a two-place relation holding between a representing state and a represented entity (object, event, state of a.airs). The semantic tenet is that the relation in question is probably information-theoretic at heart, perhaps augmented teleologically, functionally, or teleo-functionally to cope with di/cult cases. The methodological (...) tenet is that mental representations are posited solely on third-person explanatory grounds. In this paper, I argue that this picture of mental representation is satisfactory only as an account of mental representation at the sub-personal level. It is unsatisfactory, in a principled way, as an account of mental representation at the personal level. (shrink)

A molecular/cell biologist offers perspectives on the contributions that the scientific worldview might and might not make to religious though. It is argued that two essential features of institutionalized religions–their historical context and their supernatural orientation—are not addressed by the sciences, nor can the sciences contribute to the art and ritual that elicit states of faith and transcendence. The sciences have, however, important stories (myths) to offer, stories that have the potential to unify us, to tell us what is sacred, (...) what has meaning, and how we might best proceed. (shrink)

According to the traditional nomological-deductive methodology of physics and chemistry [Hempel and Oppenheim, 1948], explaining a phenomenon means subsuming it under a law. Logic becomes then the glue of explanation and laws the primary explainers. Thus, the scientific study of a system would consist in the development of a logically sound model of it, once the relevant observables (state variables) are identified and the general laws governing their change (expressed as differential equations, state transition rules, maximization/minimization principles,. . (...) . ) are well determined, together with the initial or boundary conditions for each particular case. Often this also involves making a set of assumptions about the elementary components of the system (e.g., their structural and dynamic properties) and modes of local interaction. In this framework, predictability becomes the main goal and that is why research is carried out through the construction of accurate mathematical models. Thus, physics and chemistry have made most progress so far by focusing on systems that, either due to their intrinsic properties or to the conditions in which they are investigated, allow for very strong simplifying assumptions, under which, nevertheless, those highly idealized models of reality are deemed to be in good correspondence with reality itself. Despite the enormous success that this methodology has had, the study of living and cognitive phenomena had to follow a very different road, because these phenomena are produced by systems whose underlying material structure and organization do not permit such crude approximations. Seen from the perspective of physics or chemistry, biological and cognitive systems are made of an enormous number of parts or elements interacting in non-linear and selective ways, which makes very difficult their tractability through mathematical models. In addition, many of those interacting elements are hierarchically organized, in a way that the “macroscopic” (observable) parts behave according to rules that cannot be, in practice, derived from simple principles at the level of their “microscopic” dynamics.. (shrink)

To defend the fatherland, to obey the laws and authorities, and to honour the State's cults are the principal points the Athenian citizen promised to fulfil in his oath of allegiance—called ephebic, because he took it as a recruit —at least since the second half of the fourth century B.C.. These duties are fundamental for the citizen's attachment to hispolis, so one will hardly assume that the content of the oath depends upon the existence of the Athenian institution of (...) cadet-training which is attested by inscriptions not earlier than 334/3 B.C. Some ambiguous passages in fifth- and fourth-century authors give no reliable clue to determine the form or origin of theephebeia.I shall consider sworn civic duties and the organisation of military training as different things, and shall treat the oath independently from the disputed question of when theephebeiacame into existence. My purpose is to draw attention to some fifth-century allusions to the oath which seem to have remained unnoticed so far.This oath is transmitted by Pollux, Stobaeus, and a fourth-century inscription from the Attic deme Acharnae. I give the epigraphic version, following G. Daux's text. I omit the first part of the whole inscription and the last part. (shrink)

I do not want to be misunderstood as saying that the cultural situation I describe here caused Reagan, or that it typifies Reaganism, or that everything about it can be ascribed or referred back to the personality of Ronald Reagan. What I argue is that a particular situation within the field we call "criticism" is not merely related to but is an integral part of the currents of thought and practice that play a role within the Reagan era. Moreover, I (...) think, "criticism" and the traditional academic humanities have gone through a series of developments over time whose beneficiary and culmination is Reaganism. Those are the gross claims that I make for my argument.A number of miscellaneous points need to be made here. I am fully aware that any effort to characterize the present cultural moment is very likely to seem quixotic at best, unprofessional at worst. But that, I submit, is an aspect of the present cultural moment, in which the social and historical setting of critical activity is a totality felt to be benign , uncharacterizable as a whole and somehow outside history. Thus it seems to me that one thing to be tried–out of sheer critical obstinacy–is precisely that kind of generalization, that kind of political portrayal, that kind of overview condemned by the present dominant culture to appear inappropriate and doomed from the start.It is my conviction that culture works very effectively to make invisible and even "impossible" the actual affiliations that exist between the world of ideas and scholarship on the one hand, and the world of brute politics, corporate and state power, and military force, on the other. The cult of expertise and professionalism, for example, has so restricted our scope of vision that a positive doctrine of noninterference among fields has set in. This doctrine has it that the general public is best left ignorant, and the most crucial policy questions affecting human existence are best left to "experts," specialists who talk about their specialty only, and–to use the word first given wide social approbation by Walter Lippman in Public Opinion and The Phantom Public–"insiders," people who are endowed with the special privilege of knowing how things really work and, more important, of being close to power1.1. See Ronald Steel, Walter Lippmann and the American Century , pp. 180-85 and 212-6. (shrink)