Today’s world is one of quick civilization changes, influencing the development of human thought and the understanding of many basic values. Particularly the last decades have posed a concrete question about freedom and its limitations. The value of freedom is still today being reborn and restructured, once suspicious as a source of sin, now a challenge and a responsible task for the human. Similar questions have also arisen as to the ideas of human dignity and mutual respect, as inherent parts (...) of the human condition.The contemporary world, despite being a new era in human history, does not, in fact, differ much from the Europe of the Middle Ages—divided and united by Christianity, paradoxical in that we strive to build solidarity and closeness and at the same time feel lost and helpless against the evil of the world. With that knowledge we may avoid unnecessary tragedies, learning from St. Francis times, where there was everything in that world—wars, fears, diseases on the one hand, asceticism and self-denial on the other—but no joy. A question may arise whether the voice of St. Francis would still be heard and listened to today. Whether his example would teach love, ecumenism and evangelical joy.The word «ecumenism» is and has been widely used, but often without any deeper reflection on its rich history and variety of meanings. Against the divisions and hatred of contemporary world, the idea of ecumenism increases its importance, becoming one of the main areas of Christian concern. Vatican II brought about a new era of ecumenical thinking, not only defining the theological basis for dialogue, but most importantly, showing its value and encouraging active participation of the faithful. Such participation requires, however, a man’s inner change–which cannot occur without appropriate formation and everyday practice of ecumenism. That presupposes respect for the other, pursuance of mutual trust, openness to widely understood cooperation and elimination of prejudice and fears. Such formation and change must encompass everyone without any difference, laymen and clergy, the faithful and the searching, so that the actions show true concern for the human as such. In that sense, ecumenism is an “inner conversion” (as says A. Skowronek), a new attitude towards the other—religion, human, culture.Against the above mentioned background, one can say that St. Francis exceeded whole centuries of ecumenical dialogue. However, to analyze his phenomenon, one must concentrate on the historical picture, leaving aside any strictly legendarymythological images.St. Francis’s popularity seems to be—almost irrationally—growing with the passage of time, despite not offering anything new or revealing. As a matter of fact, St. Francis reappears in all centuries, teaching the Christian message and teaching to love. His humanism is realized in kindness, solidarity, authentic respect and pure love of God and the human. The human is central in St. Francis’s thinking—great, beautiful and dramatic, full of dignity, and full of the conflict of his inborn goodness and threatening evil. The key to understanding him is only love, assuring freedom and spiritual richness. Yet St. Francis claims: Love is not loved. Re-reading the Gospel anew is a way to meet that Love, and oneself.The human always needed love. Love is inextricably connected with goodness and hence a positive relation towards the other. Those qualities, together with respect, acceptance and search for the truth, are also fundamental to ecumenism. Love appears to be the answer. St. Francis loved not only God, not only the human, but he loved and praised the beauty of all of God’s creation, his love being “the most literal realization of the message contained in the Gospel” (K. Starczewska). But as the first step to love and respect is for the human to respect his own dignity in himself. In that way, he shall also discovers his right to freedom and the truth about himself.The conclusion is the following: Undoubtedly, the character of St. Francis is a universal one. He spoke of his love of God—and human—in concrete deeds of love, never in abstract concepts. Tradition and legend have partly made St. Francis to a cheerful, carefree troubadour of love; however, he knew well the modern world, with its disagreements, hatred and half-truths. A simple tool in God’s hand, he made others overcome the prejudice in them and shake hands in reconciliation, practicing good deeds. Whether that still happens today, and the world adopts St. Francis’s humanistic attitude, depends also on us. (shrink)

In the last number of years scholars have discovered many new “parallels”2 to Francis of Assisi’s Admonitions.3 In this article I will provide more new parallels that I have uncovered not only in ecclesiastical contexts, but also in non-ecclesiastical ones.4 While almost all students of Francis’ Admonitions are acquainted with the general ecclesiastical contexts, most are unfamiliar with the non-ecclesiastical contexts evidenced by Cato’s Distichs, Daniel of Beccles’ Urbanus Magnus, Egbert of Liège’s The Well-Laden Ship, the Facetus, (...) and a fourteen-volume collection of medieval proverbs. From these parallels I will argue that the Admonitions of Francis of Assisi belong to the literary genre of Conduct Literature... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Three Probes into St. Francis of Assisi's Second Letter to the Faithful1Robert J. Karris, OFMFrancis' Second Letter to the Faithful2 is so rich that it would take a lengthy book to probe most of its treasures. My goal is to make three probes: 1) from a literary analysis of this letter of exhortation, 2) from the results of a more thorough search for the biblical sources behind (...) its eighty-eight lines, and 3) from the insights achieved through literary and theological parallels to its contents.3 I accomplish my goals by going systematically through this letter, which I contend has introduction, positive exhortations, conclusion to positive exhortations and bridge to second part of the letter, negative exhortations, aka polemic, the example story of the unrepentant rich man, and ending.4 At the very beginning, I remind myself and my readers of something that we might take for granted: The dominant figure of this letter is "our Lord Jesus Christ," an expression and reality that pulses through its eighty-eight lines. Take, as [End Page 79] an example, n. 49–50, which are staggering in scope: "And they (who persevere in penance) will be children of the heavenly Father, whose works they are doing. And they are spouses, brothers, and mothers of our Lord Jesus Christ."Methodology: Search for Literary and Theological ParallelsEarly on in my doctoral studies, I learned the importance and value of investigating New Testament texts by means of their literary parallels.5 For example, there were significant interpretive payoffs to be gained by comparing St. Paul's use of polemic in the Pastoral Epistles (1–2 Timothy and Titus) to that employed by the Stoics.6 Paul probably never met a Stoic philosopher in his life, but their means of no-holds-barred polemic was "in the air" he breathed. Daniel J. Harrington expresses well this common methodology in New Testament Studies: "In literature a parallel involves some point or points of similarity between two texts where literary dependence is unlikely or not proved. Parallels to New Testament texts can be taken from any body of literature and from any period of history…"7So what parallels do I suggest as background for the interpretation of Francis' 2LtF? There may be many, since Francis' letter is dealing with fundamental human and Christian realities: sin and virtue. I have selected what I call The Big Three:In his De Virtutibus et Vitiis Liber,8 Alcuin of York (d. 800) wrote a letter to Count Guy, who is engaged in martial activities. Alcuin has followed Guy's request for paternal admonition and prays that his writing may help Guy to perpetual salvation (n. 6). Alcuin writes briefly about 35 topics: wisdom, faith, charity, hope, zeal of reading, peace, mercy, remission, patience, humility, compunction of the heart, confession, repentance, not delaying conversion to God, fear of God, fasting, almsgiving, chastity, avoiding fraud, judges, false witnesses, envy, pride, proneness to anger, not seeking human praise, perseverance in good works, eight principal vices, greed, fornication, avarice, anger, [End Page 80] weariness (acedia), sorrow, cenodoxia (vainglory), and the four virtues.9 It is abundantly clear that Francis does not engage in 35 topics, but his exhortations do overlap with a number of Alcuin's, e.g., almsgiving, judges, perseverance in good works.In his Liber exhortationis,10 Archbishop St. Paulinus of Aquileia (d. 802) wrote to Count or Duke Henry of Fruilli. His treatise has 66 chapters and covers virtually all spiritual and moral topics. Of singular interest is Chapter 8, "On Friendship with God and Keeping God's Commandments." His final chapter is a long prayer to resist the wiles of the devil and to persevere in virtue. Saints Paulinus of Aquileia and Francis of Assisi's 2LtF have numerous points in common.11Archbishop Hincmar of Reims (d. 882) wrote a very polished and regarded letter, De cavendis vitiis et virtutibus exercendis to King Charles the Bald.12 It has ten chapters. The first seven deal chiefly with vices such as avarice, pride, voluptuousness, gluttony, envy, anger, and jealousy. They also encourage virtuous deeds such as almsgiving, works of mercy, fidelity, and prayer. Chapters 8... (shrink)

As a discipline of its own, the philosophy of science can be traced back to the founding of its academic journals, some of which go back to the first half of the twentieth century. While the discipline has been the object of many historical studies, notably focusing on specific schools or major figures of the field, little work has focused on the journals themselves. Here, we investigate contemporary philosophy of science by means of computational text-mining approaches: we apply topic-modeling algorithms (...) to eight major philosophy of science journals, from the 1930s up until 2017. Based on the full-text content of some 15,897 articles, we identified 25 research themes and 8 thematic clusters that show how the research agenda of the philosophy of science has changed in its content over the course of the last eight decades, up to the philosophy of science we now know. We also show how each one of the journals contributed in its own way to this thematic evolution. (shrink)

The biocentric outlook on nature affirms our fellowship with other living creatures and portrays human beings as members of the Earth’s community who have equal moral standing with other living members of the community. A comparison of Paul Taylor’s biocentric theory of environmental ethics and the life and writings of St. Francis of Assisi reveals that Francis maintained a biocentric environmental ethic. This individualistc environmental ethic is grounded in biology and is unaffected by the paradigm shift in (...) ecology in which nature is regarded as in flux rather than tending toward equilibrium. A holistic environmental ethic that accords moral standing to holistic entities is more vulnerable to these changes in ecology than an environmental ethic that accords moral standing to individuals. Another strength of biocentrism is its potential to provide a unified front across religious and scientific lines. (shrink)

Perjumpaan Fransiskus Assisi dengan Sultan al-Kamil di tengah ko- baran perang salib akhir-akhir ini mendapat banyak perhatian dari pel- bagai macam peneliti (Hoeberichts 1997; Warren 2003, Tolan 2007, Moses 2009). Yang terakhir, Paul Moses—seorang Guru Besar Jurnalistik di Brooklyn College, New York— melakukan investigasinya sendiri dan menulis suatu buku yang sangat menarik dan aktual, seperti yang boleh diharapkan dari seorang pakar komunikasi. Landasan penting penelitian Moses adalah evaluasinya yang kritis terhadap sumber-sumber. Ia mengemukakan bahwa sumber-sumber tertua tentang peristiwa ini (...) (Jacques de Vitry, dan sebuah kronik yang anonim, keduanya saksi mata perang salib kelima itu) memberi gambaran lebih damai tentang perjumpaan ini ketimbang riwayat-riwayat hidup Fransiskus yang kemudian (Celano, Bonaventura, dll.) yang menggambarkannya sebagai misi yang konfrontatif, berusaha mempertobatkan Sultan untuk mencari kemartiran. Adalah Konsili Lateran IV (1215) dan Paus Innocentius III (1198-1216) serta penggantinya, Paus Honorius III, yang pada masa itu membangkitkan semangat untuk perang salib kelima guna merebut kembali Yerusalem yang belasan tahun sebelumnya direbut dari tangan penguasa Kristen oleh Salah ad-Din (Saladin), paman Sultan Malik al- Kamil. Kendati keluarga Sultan sudah memberitahukan bahwa Sultan bersedia menyerahkan kembali Yerusalem demi persetujuan damai, pihak Paus dan raja-raja Barat tetap mengobarkan semangat perang dan mengumpulkan pasukan. Menurut Moses, Fransiskus, dan saudara- saudaranya diharapkan oleh Gereja ikut mewartakan perang suci, tetapi ia memilih membawakan Injil ke seluruh Eropa, tidak terkecuali juga ke wilayah-wilayah Muslim. Serangan pasukan salib ke Kesultanan Mesir dimulai dari kota pela- buhan Damietta di delta Sungai Nil. Tawaran damai Malik al-Kamil, Sultan Mesir yang dikenal bijaksana dan juga moderat terhadap umat Kristiani di Mesir, kembali ditolak oleh Kardinal Pelagius, utusan Paus dalam perang salib kelima ini. Fransiskus datang ke camp crusaders pada Agustus 1219 dan memberi peringatan kepada para crusaders bahwa serangan mereka akan gagal, tetapi ia ditertawakan. Lalu pada September 1219 ia memutuskan untuk mencari jalan lain dengan menyeberangi lini permusuhan dan mendatangi Sultan al-Malik, tidak sebagai utusan tetapi hanya dengan pengetahuan Kardinal Pelagius menggambarkan Sultan al-Kamil sebagai binatang buas. Sebagai anak zamannya, Fransiskus ingin menciptakan damai dengan mewartakan Injil kepada Sultan. Hal itu tampaknya dilakukannya dengan cara yang khas, sebab dalam sumber tertua dikatakan bahwa Sultan mendengarkannya dengan penuh perhatian, dan memperlakukan Fransiskus sebagai tamu terhormat selama beberapa hari. Menurut Moses, Sultan mungkin terharu bahwa ada orang Kristiani yang berbeda dengan para agresor rakus yang ia kenal dari perang salib. Al-Kamil yang dikenal terbuka untuk Sufisme mungkin juga suka mendengarkan Fransiskus, karena Fransiskus terkesan mirip dengan seorang Sufi. Di lain pihak, Fransiskus juga terkesan dengan apa yang ia lihat, misalnya cara pasukan Muslim menjawab panggilan untuk berdoa............................................................... Kenyataan asli menurut Tolan ialah bahwa Fransiskus ingin menjalankan hidup rasuli sampai dengan mahkotanya, kemartiran, yang dapat ia peroleh dengan pergi mewartakan Injil kepada Sultan. Ini memang gam- baran yang jelas ada dalam biografi-biografi Celano dan Bonaventura, te- tapi tidak muncul dalam kronik-kronik lebih tua dan konteks hidup Fran- siskus sendiri. Kelemahan karya Tolan ialah bahwa ia kurang kembali kepada tulisan-tulisan Fransiskus sendiri dan riwayat hidupnya, seperti yang dilakukan secara mengesankan oleh Moses yang berhasil memper- lihatkan dalam konteks hidup Fransiskus suatu penolakan terhadap pe- rang, pewartaan damai, penghargaan terhadap praktik doa Islam, dan cara misi baru; yang semuanya harus dijadikan patokan untuk interpretasi per- jumpaan Fransiskus dengan Sultan. Tolan gagal melihat tema damai dalam riwayat hidup dan tulisan-tulisan Fransiskus itu, dan dengan demikian juga tidak mengakui adanya sesuatu yang inspiratif dalam peristiwa perjumpaan itu untuk hubungan Muslim–Kristiani masa sekarang. Sebaliknya, ia agak keras menolak interpretasi sejumlah peneliti dan gerakan damai sejak akhir abad ke-20 yang melihat misi Fransiskus sebagai misi damai dan menemukan dalam Fransiskus suatu model untuk menolak kekerasan perang dan mencari pendekatan baru, khususnya dalam hal ketegangan antaragama. Kelemahan karya Tolan ini sangat tampak justru dalam perbandingan dengan karya Moses, yang tidak mendiskusikan Tolan sebab terlambat menerimanya. Buku ketiga, St. Francis and the Conversion of the Muslims, karya Frank M. Rega, amat berbeda dengan kedua studi ilmiah di atas. Dengan tidak kritis sedikit pun, Rega menggabungkan semua yang bagus-bagus dalam pelbagai versi—dari kronik-kronik paling awal sampai ke legenda- legenda yang sangat kemudian—tentang perjumpaan Fransiskus dengan Sultan itu. Tanpa membedakan pelbagai versi dan bertanya tentang latarbelakang dan tujuan masing-masing, seperti dilakukan Tolan, Rega menciptakan suatu versi gabungan yang agaknya akan disukai oleh pembaca Katolik yang saleh dan konservatif (yang memang dilayani oleh penerbit Tan Books), tetapi tidak bernilai bagi seorang peneliti yang ingin menyingkapkan maksud Fransiskus sendiri dan sumber-sumber masing-masing; dan sangat mengecewakan pembaca kritis sekarang yang mencari ilham dalam adegan ini bagi masalah-masalah dunia sekarang. Cerita legendaris Rega yang penuh triumfantalisme yang hampir-hampir yakin bahwa Sultan bertobat dan dibaptis menjelang kematiannya, tentu lebih mengganggu hubungan Kristen dan Muslim sekarang daripada membantu menemukan suatu pendekatan baru. (Martin Harun, Program Studi Ilmu Teologi, Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat Driyarkara, Jakarta). (shrink)

Excerpt from The Philosophical Works of Francis Bacon, Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and Lord High-Chancellor of England, Vol. 3 of 3: Methodized, and Made English, From the Originals; With Occasional Notes, to Explain What Is Obscure; And Shew How Far the Several Plans of the Author, for the Advancement of All the Parts of Knowledge, Have Been Executed to the Present Time Ibe Nores occafionally added, we bope, will more fully open tbe De fign and Scope of (...) tbe P: ece', jo as to render it generally intelligible, and lead to its fart/oer Advancement. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Prolegomena to a Comparative Reading of The Major Life of St. Francis and The Life of MilarepaMassimo A. RondolinoDifferent religious traditions in different cultures have recorded and transmitted the lives of individuals recognized as “perfected.” The particular doctrinal framework within which each of such figures is identified as “perfected” is certainly specific to the religious tradition that tells their life stories. Similarly, the social processes by which these (...) religious life writings are written, received, and circulated are appropriate to the historical and geographical contexts of their composition. Yet, narrative parallels can be detected across traditions, and the question arises whether these apparent similarities in the creation of such religious life stories across cultures, space, and time reflect actually similar doctrinal and political agendas. Could there be an underlying hagiographic process common to all these literary traditions, regardless of their compositional contexts? In other words, is the writing of spiritual lives a phenomenon that is contextual to a specific religious tradition, or is it rather a particular human response to given social and historical circumstances?I want to offer here a preliminary assessment of a study in comparative hagiology. To this end, I focus on two specific narrative traditions that pertain to two distinct religious, historical, and geographical contexts: the hagiographic writings on the medieval Christian St. Francis of Assisi (1182–1226) and the namthars on the Tibetan Buddhist Milarepa (Mi la ras pa; ca. 1052–1135). In particular, here I make some considerations on a comparative reading of the “standard versions” of their life stories: The Major Life of St. Francis (Legenda Maior Sancti Francisci) by Bonaventure of Bagnoregio (1221–1274), and The Life of Milarepa (Mi la ras pa’i rnam thar) by Tsangnyön Heruka, the “madman” of Tsang (gTsang smyon Heruka; 1452–1507).1The composition and reception of religious life writings is famously characteristic of early and medieval Christianity, with its complex and extensively studied production of hagiographic texts. Similarly, the compilation and distribution of life narratives in a religious context also plays a crucial role in the historical and cultural development of Tibetan Buddhism, with its extensive production of namthars (rnam thar, literally “great liberation” and, therefore, “stories of great liberation”). Within these large narrative traditions, St. Francis of Assisi and Milarepa eminently stand [End Page 163] out, both within and outside their respective cultural contexts, as two among the most renowned spiritual figures in Christianity and Tibetan Buddhism, respectively.2 Furthermore, both figures and their related narrative traditions have been the object of scholarly studies for nearly a century.3Indeed, the spirituality embodied by St. Francis and Milarepa has been already the focus of attempted comparisons that have essentially and consistently focused on a direct assimilation of their respective extreme asceticism and teachings of poverty and renunciation, by drawing extensively on the literary accounts of their lives.4 Yet, it is important to note that the lives of these two exceptional individuals are also almost exclusively known through the dominating perspective of a single author’s works. In fact, although one of the best-known texts on St. Francis is the anonymous Little Flowers of St. Francis (Fioretti di San Francesco, late fourteenth century), the saint’s life and deeds are primarily known through their rendering by Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, general minister of the Franciscan order. Similarly, the acts and teachings of Milarepa as they are familiar to Tibetan (and Western) audiences result primarily from the work of the wandering yogin Tsangnyön Heruka.Reflecting on the apparent parallelisms between the lives and teachings of St. Francis and Milarepa, though, I wonder whether such similarities may not extend beyond the spirituality that the saint and the repa embody. In particular, I am curious as to whether the analogies between the two figures that have been already outlined by several scholars may not actually arise from similarities in the sources’ underlying compositional dynamics and, in particular, in the authors’ approaches to the interpretation and retelling of these individuals’ lives as embodiments of a particular form of spirituality. In fact, if religious life writings are a form of communication that can be found in communities that belong to different traditions, times... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Innova dies nostros, sicut a principio:Novelty and Nostalgia in Thomas of Celano's First and Second Lives of St. FrancisBarbara Newman (bio)IntroductionIn his sixth-century compendium of hagiography, Gregory of Tours argued that one should always speak of the vita patrum or vita sanctorum in the singular. According to Pliny, he noted, grammarians did not believe the noun vita had a plural. More to the point, although "there is a diversity (...) of merits and virtues among [the saints], … the one life of the body sustains them all in this world."1 Just as the Church, the body of Christ, is one, so too the saints. Their project of imitatio Christi re-presents the one and only life of Christ for each new generation. As a literary genre, hagiography fleshes out this insight, for no other genre is so steeped in self-citation. Every vita is such a tissue of biblical verses that, to edit a saint's Life before Google, one had to know Scripture by heart or spend endless hours with a concordance. After the Bible, quotations from a few classic vitae were constantly recycled: Athanasius' Life of St. Antony, Sulpicius Severus' Life of St. Martin, Gregory the Great's Life of St. Benedict. With the passage of time, newer classics joined older ones to produce one vast, self-referential monument, incarnate in the Acta Sanctorum: Gregory's vita sanctorum multiplied ad infinitum. So deep did this tendency run that, when an obscure saint needed a vita to justify a cult, shameless hagiographers would plagiarize whole paragraphs, plundering stories and miracles from earlier vitae to serve their turn.2 [End Page 169]It is small wonder, then, that the hagiographic genre is so often characterized as "traditional" or "conservative." It is nostalgic, too, in the sense that each saint's words and deeds bring a glorious Golden Age back to life—most often the apostolic age or the time of the Desert Fathers, but sometimes the graced beginnings of a religious order. Such memorials enabled later generations to idealize their glorious founders. This tendency to exalt the new as a renovation of the old has deep roots in Christianity; even the evangelist Matthew systematically represents Jesus as a new Moses. In the same vein, it is not unusual to find a saint identified as a new Jacob or a second David. On the other hand, many saints' Lives make an insistent claim to newness, renovatio. For the saints were, and are, extraordinary—not merely good men and women, but radical figures whose words and deeds shocked those around them, beginning with their parents. Like Jesus, they had not only admirers, but detractors in plenty. If their publicists held them up as exemplars of virtue, theirs was no ordinary kind, for the heroic virtue that gave saints their charisma could look much like madness. Despite the precedents of earlier vitae, their ascetic feats and challenging behavior often struck observers as new and unheard-of. In hagiography, therefore, claims of novelty play a key role that balances the familiar topoi. Sometimes the newness of a saint's charism is cause for joyful celebration. Jesus, after all, had declared ecce nova facio omnia (Rev 21:5). But "novelties" also had to be handled with care, for they could easily be condemned as heresies or extreme practices deviating from the tradition of the elders.This tension between novelty and nostalgia emerges most clearly in the vitae of saints who founded genuinely new forms of religious life. In this paper I will explore the way it plays out in two early Lives of Francis of Assisi, perhaps the most popular saint of all time. After his death in 1226, Francis set a speed record for canonization—one that would be surpassed in the Middle Ages only by his disciple, St. Anthony of Padua, and by the Dominican martyr Peter of Verona.3 Aside from his charisma and the exponential growth of the Franciscan Order, the fast-track canonization is due to Pope Gregory IX, who as Cardinal Hugolino had been personally close to Francis and supported his movement. For the ceremony in July 1228, less than two years after the... (shrink)

Outstanding among the social problems facing urban centers of the world in general and Nigeria is the problem of crime. The increasing rate of criminal activities has become a major concern across the globe. Today, lives and properties are no longer safe for both the rich and the poor. All seem to live one day at a time. Content Analysis is used as the method of data analysis. The method adopted was more of an exposition, critical analysis and evaluation. More (...) specifically, this paper gave a general background about violence, urban violence and the question of self-defense. Furthermore, a philosophical answer was given in the light of the medieval thinker St. Thomas Aquinas. It was concluded that there is a need for social living. A good citizen is one who has an unselfish love for the common good of his state; a love issuing forth in an efficacious desire to see that good is procured and furthered. Thus, a good citizen realizes that he is part of a social and political society. Thus, his personal goodness, and the goodness of his actions contributes to the good of all. KEYWORDS: Sociology, Urban Violence, Self-defense, Thomas Aquinas, Qualitative Research,Nigeria. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:470 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY of fundamental notions (e.g.,"creator" and "demiurge") are omnipresent. Sometimes even a confusion happens of Anaxagoras with Democritus when the "atom" is ascribed to Anaxagoras (p. 48). And the author does not seem to feel the fatal inadequacy of merely second-hand knowledge. While he in longura et latum argues with Aristotelian presentations and misrepresentations of Anaxagorean tenets, there is good reason for the suspicion that he (...) might never have read even one authentic sentence written by Anaxagoras himself. For those interested in general cultural history, this book, the religious diatribe of a modem Zoroastrian believer, is very worthwhile reading. For the historian of philosophy, itis of rather modest value. P-~LIX M. CLEVE New School for Social Research New York City The Esthetics of the Middle Ages. By Edgar De Bruyne. Trans. Eileen B. Hennessy. (New York: Frederick Uugar, 1969. Pp. viii+232. $6.50) This book has a very complex character. It is the English translation of a French work, L'Esth~tique du moyen dge,I which, in turn, is a one-volume abridged version by Edgar De Bruyne of his own original three-volume work, I~tudes d'Esth~tique M~di~vale.2 Thus, one may evaluate this book either as a translation or, presupposing the faithfulness and correctness of the translation itself,as a relatively short work by E. De Bruyne, or else in its relation to or as compared with the original three-volume work. I will confine myself here to the lattertwo considerations.3 First, considering this book in comparison with the three-volume original work, one of the principal writings of De Bruyne and one of the most significant contemporary contributions to the history of medieval aesthetics, we can find both quantitative and qualitative differences between the original work and its abridged version. The quantitative difference is considerable. While the abridged work, at least in its English translation, is less than a quarter of a thousand pages in length, the original work includes altogether 1,224 pages 4 and is thus more than five times longer than thc translated abridged version of it. The qualitative or methodological difference is at least equally great. In the original work, each of the three volumes deals primarily with the various medieval authors of aesthetic works and doctrines in a chronological order.5 In contrast, the contents of the translated abridged version follow a topical arrangement with chronology playing only a subordinate role, if any at all, within Louvain. L'InstitutSupdrieur de Philosophic, 1947. Brugge: De Tempel, 1946. s I have had no access to the abridged French original. 9 Vol. I, xiv+370; II, x-{-420; III,x-F400. 9 VoL I: Boethius to Erigena; II. "L'l~poque Romane," from the Carolingian period to the schools of Chartres and St. Victor; and Ill:the thirteenthcentury, from St. Bernard to Duns Scotus. BOOK REVIEWS 471 each topic. The six chapters are entitled, "'The Sources," "The Fundamental Principles," "Various Esthetic Systems," "The Esthetic Experience," "Art," and "The Fine Arts." To this may be added a third difference that is the result of the first two differences. There is virtually neither any direct quotation from any author on any topic, nor a~y direct reference to texts in the works of medieval authors mentioned or discussed. While the quantitative difference in itself is understandable, since only a scholar specializing in this field would read over 1,200 pages on medieval aesthetics, and while the qualitative difference is perfectly justified in terms of an intelligent summary, the absence especially of direct references to discussed texts is, as will be shown below, deeply regxettable. So much for the relative consideration of this translated abridged work. Let us next consider the abridged work in itself in the form of a positive and a negative evaluation. Second, despite the relative brevity of the work, one finds this book extremely valuable both in terms of the quantity and the quality of the data it contains. As to quantity, De Bruyne manages to compress an enormous amount of information about medieval aesthetic thought into this book. The significance of this, to confine ourselves at this point only... (shrink)

Scholars have recently noted the interest of Guibert of Tournai’s sermons on Francis of Assisi. Nicole Bériou partially edited Guibert’s sermon Surrexit Helyas, focusing on the theme of prophecy, in 1994,1 and Sean Field edited two more, Inflammatum est cor meum and Veni columba mea, highlighting the theme of Francis as a perfected soul through annihilation, in 1999.2 The two yet unexamined works in Guibert’s corpus of sermons discussing Francis hold their own interest, as they discuss (...) an important topos in Franciscan literature of the mid-thirteenth century. The present article edits and analyzes these two previously unedited sermons for the first time.3 This topos is the Biblical quotation Vidi .. (shrink)

Neoliberalism advocates for the construction of free markets, which are to be used for solutions to economic and social problems rather than state solutions to those problems. Though Neoliberal reforms in Japan have affected its science and technology, STS literature has not focused on responses to neoliberalism through the lens of a country. Japan has a discrete STS history and Japan makes a good case study to the influence of neoliberalism on STS. In August 2010, at Tokyo’s Social Studies of (...) Science (4S) meetings, there were several sessions on neoliberalism and STS. At these sessions, Kunio Goto, Yasumoto Fujita, Hidetoshi Kihara, Hideto Nakajima, Steve Fuller, David Hess, Francis Remedios presented different responses to neoliberalism and STS. This special issue explores two themes. The first theme is Goto's and Fujita's call for a revitalization of Marxist STS as an alternative to the influence of neoliberalism on STS in Japan. The second theme is Kihara's and Nakajima's call for a revitalization of a critical function of STS in Japan. Hess examines STS as a field and its response to neoliberalism in Europe and Anglophone countries. (shrink)

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This book examines Fuller’s pioneering vision of social epistemology. It focuses specifically on his work post-2000, which is founded in the changing conception of humanity and project into a ‘post-‘ or ‘trans-‘ human future. Chapters treat especially Fuller’s provocative response to the changing boundary conditions of the knower due to anticipated changes in humanity coming from the nanosciences, neuroscience, synthetic biology and computer technology and end on an interview with Fuller himself. While Fuller’s turn in this direction has invited at (...) least as much criticism as his earlier work, to him the result is an extended sense of the knower, or ‘humanity 2.0’, which Fuller himself identifies with transhumanism. The authors assess Fuller’s work on the following issues: Science and Technology Studies (STS), the university and intellectual life, neo-liberal political economy, intelligent design, Cosmism, Gnosticism, agent-oriented epistemology, proactionary vs precautionary principles and Welfare State 2.0. (shrink)

This paper seeks to defuse two claims. On the one hand, I confront the Hildebrandian claim that Thomism, by placing the principium of love in the needs and desires of the lover rather than in the beloved, denies the possibility of transcendent love; on the other, I seek to refute the Thomistic objection that Hildebrand lacks a sufficient understanding of nature and its inherent teleology. In order to accomplish this, a distinction must be made between different kinds of principium or (...) “for-its-own-sakeness.” Using St. Thomas’ theory of friendship-love, I show how every affective movement in fact has two fundamentally different principia: an “end-desired,” and an “end-for-whom” the former is desired. I next note that “value” and “bonum honestum” each encompass both of these types of “worthiness,” and that the failure to distinguish between these two has led to much of the misunderstanding between Thomists and Hildebrandians: for while the latter sometimes seem to include inanimate objects like sunsets under the higher “worthiness” (as “ends-for-whom”), the former often tend to classify even the beloved under the lower “worthiness” (as a mere “end-desired”), which are both untenable positions. It is shown, however, that for St. Thomas it is the higher, more ultimate sense of “worthiness” that is the foundation of friendship-love, and that thus love remains a truly “transcendent” or “ecstatic” phenomenon. Two objections are then addressed: 1) St. Thomas’ claim that substantial unity is the greatest cause of love, and 2) his claim that man’s primary end is Vision. In both these respects I argue that Aquinas’ position needs correction; still I maintain that neither claim should be taken to imply that, for Aquinas, man is his own center, his own chief “end-for-whom.” Finally, while Hildebrand emphatically denies that natural teleology can explain man’s transcendence (a Thomistic position), this denial seems to flow simply from confusing two ways in which “nature” can be invoked as an explanation: where he sees it invoked as the final cause, Thomists actually invoke it as simply the formal cause of our love for our true Final Cause. (shrink)

Prologue 1. To begin with, the first principle from Whom all illumination descends as from the Father of Light, by Whom are given all the best and perfect gifts, the eternal Father do I call upon through His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, that by the intercession of the most holy Virgin Mary, mother of God Himself and of our Lord, Jesus Christ, and of the blessed Francis, our father and leader, He may enlighten the eyes of our mind (...) to guide our feet into the way of that peace "which surpasses all understanding", which peace our Lord Jesus Christ has announced and given to us; which lesson our father Francis always taught, in all of whose preaching was the annunciation of peace both in the beginning and in the end, wishing for peace in every greeting, yearning for ecstatic peace in every moment of contemplation, as a citizen of that Jerusalem of which that man of peace said, with those that hated peace he was peaceable, "Pray ye for the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem". For he knew that the throne of Solomon was nowise save in peace, since it is written, "His place is in peace and His abode in Sion". 2. Since, then, following the example of the most blessed father Francis, I breathlessly sought this peace, I, a sinner, who have succeeded to the place of that most blessed father after his death, the seventh Minister General of the brothers, though in all ways unworthy--it happened that by the divine will in the thirty-third year after the death of that blessed man I ascended to Mount Alverna as to a quiet place, with the desire of seeking spiritual peace; and staying there, while I meditated on the ascent of the mind to God, amongst other things there occurred that miracle which happened in the same place to the blessed Francis himself, the vision namely of the winged Seraph in the likeness of the Crucified. While looking upon this vision, I immediately saw that it signified the suspension of our father himself in contemplation and the way by which he came to it. 3. For by those six wings are rightly to be understood the six stages of illumination by which the soul, as if by steps or progressive movements, was disposed to pass into peace by ecstatic elevations of Christian wisdom. The way, however, is only through the most burning love of the Crucified, Who so transformed Paul, "caught up into the third heaven", into Christ, that he said, "With Christ I am nailed to the cross, yet I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me" ; who therefore so absorbed the mind of Francis that his soul was manifest in his flesh and he bore the most holy stigmata of the Passion in his body for two years before his death. Therefore the symbol of the six-winged Seraph signifies the six stages of illumination, which begin with God's creatures and lead up to God, to Whom no one can enter properly save through the Crucified. For he who does not enter by the door but otherwise, he is a thief and a robber. But if anyone does enter by this door, he shall go in and go out and shall find pastures. Because of this John says in his Apocalypse, "Blessed are they that wash their robes in the blood of the Lamb, that they may have a right to the Tree of Life and may enter in by the gates into the City"; as if he were to say that one cannot enter into the heavenly Jerusalem through contemplation unless one enter through the blood of the Lamb as through a gate. (shrink)