Thousands of texts, written over a period of three thousand years on papyri and potsherds, in Egyptian, Greek, Latin, Aramaic, Hebrew, Persian, and other languages, have transformed our knowledge of many aspects of life in the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds. The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology provides an introduction to the world of these ancient documents and literary texts, ranging from the raw materials of writing to the languages used, from the history of papyrology to its future, and from practical help in reading papyri to frank opinions about the nature of the work of papyrologists. This volume, the first major reference work on papyrology written in English, takes account of the important changes experienced by the discipline within especially the last thirty years. Including new work by twenty-seven international experts and more than one hundred illustrations, The Oxford Handbook of Papyrology will serve as an invaluable guide to the subject.

Hoe leefden vrouwen toen, wat was hun plaats in de maatschappij, met welke gebruiken rond gezondheid en huwelijk hadden ze te maken?
De maatschappij van het oude Mesopotamië heeft onze godsdienst en cultuur diepgravend beïnvloed. Dat geldt ook voor de positie van de vrouwen. Vrouwen van Babylon geeft tal van doorkijkjes naar de actualiteit en de wereld van de Bijbel. Met tientallen illustraties.

The books of Joshua and Judges provide religious perspective on Israel`s successes and failures from the time that Joshua begins to lead the Israelites after Moses` death until the rise of the monarchy. The stories of these two books show the God of Srael still guiding the life of his people. During the span of the 150 years covered in Judges, considerable improtance is attached to the religious and political development of the tribal life of the Israelites. This is well before the time of national unity; in Judges, the people are bound togehter solely by their faith in YHWH. In this rich and insight-filled commentary, Roland Faley draws out the Deuteronomistic thesis in Joshua and Judges: a people of faith, even if they wander, cannot fail.

An introduction to and overview of the Christology of the Synoptic Gospels.

The fascinus, or phallus, was at the heart of classical Roman art and life. No god was more represented in ancient Rome than the phallic deity Priapus, and the fescennine verses, one of the earliest forms of Roman poetry, accompanied the celebrations of Priapus, the harvest, and fertility. But with this emphasis on virility also came an emphasis on power and ideas of possession and protection. In "Sex and Terror", Pascal Quignard looks closely at this delicate interplay of celebration and terror. In startling and original readings of myths, satires, memoirs, and works of ancient philosophy and visual art, Quignard locates moments of both playful, aesthetic commemoration and outward cruelty. Through these examples, he describes a colossal cultural shift within Western civilization that occurred two millennia ago, as Augustus shaped the Roman world into an empire and the joyous, precise eroticism of the Greeks turned into a terror-stricken melancholy. The details of this revolution in thinking are revealed through Quignard's astute analysis of classical literary sources and Roman art. This powerful transformation from celebration to fear is a change whose consequences, Quignard argues, we are still dealing with today, making "Sex and Terror" an intriguing reconsideration of ancient Rome that transcends its history.

Although Apollonius of Rhodes' extraordinary epic poem on the Argonauts' quest for the Golden Fleece has begun to get the attention it deserves, it still is not well known to many readers and scholars. This book explores the poem's relation to the conditions of its writing in third century BCE Alexandria, where a multicultural environment transformed the Greeks' understanding of themselves and the world. Apollonius uses the resources of the imagination - the myth of the Argonauts' voyage and their encounters with other peoples - to probe the expanded possibilities and the anxieties opened up when definitions of Hellenism and boundaries between Greeks and others were exposed to question. Central to this concern with definitions is the poem's representation of space. Thalmann uses spatial theories from cultural geography and anthropology to argue that the Argo's itinerary defines space from a Greek perspective that is at the same time qualified. Its limits are exposed, and the signs with which the Argonauts mark space by their passage preserve the stories of their complex interactions with non-Greeks. The book closely considers many episodes in the narrative with regard to the Argonauts' redefinition of space and the implications of their actions for the Greeks' situation in Egypt, and it ends by considering Alexandria itself as a space that accommodated both Greek and Egyptian cultures.

Dark Mirrors is a wide-ranging study of two central figures in early Jewish demonology—the fallen angels Azazel and Satanael. Andrei A. Orlov explores the mediating role of these paradigmatic celestial rebels in the development of Jewish demonological traditions from Second Temple apocalypticism to later Jewish mysticism, such as that of the Hekhalot and Shi‘ur Qomah materials. Throughout, Orlov makes use of Jewish pseudepigraphical materials in Slavonic that are not widely known.

Orlov traces the origins of Azazel and Satanael to different and competing mythologies of evil, one to the Fall in the Garden of Eden, the other to the revolt of angels in the antediluvian period. Although Azazel and Satanael are initially representatives of rival etiologies of corruption, in later Jewish and Christian demonological lore each is able to enter the other’s stories in new conceptual capacities. Dark Mirrors also examines the symmetrical patterns of early Jewish demonology that are often manifested in these fallen angels’ imitation of the attributes of various heavenly beings, including principal angels and even God himself.

During the Middle Ages the act of reading was experienced intensively in the monastic exercise of `lectio divina` - the prayerful scrutiny of passages of Scripture, `savored` in meditation, memorized, recited, and rediscovered in the readers`s own religious life. The rich leterary tradition that arose from this culture includes theoretical writings from the Conference of John Cassian (fifth century) through the twelfth-century treatises of Hugh of St. Victor and the Carthusian Guigo II: it also includes compilations, literary meditations, and scriptural commentary, notably on the Song of Songs. This study brings medievalist research together with modern theoretical reflections on the act of reading in a consolidation of historical scholarship, spirituality, and literary criticism.

In this book a MacArthur Award-winning scholar argues for a radically new interpretation of the conversion of Scandinavia from paganism to Christianity in the early Middle Ages. Overturning the received narrative of Europe's military and religious conquest and colonization of the region, Anders Winroth contends that rather than acting as passive recipients, Scandinavians converted to Christianity because it was in individual chieftains' political, economic, and cultural interests to do so. Through a painstaking analysis and historical reconstruction of both archaeological and literary sources, and drawing on scholarly work that has been unavailable in English, Winroth opens up new avenues for studying European ascendency and the expansion of Christianity in the medieval period. Anders Winroth, professor of history at Yale, is the author of The Making of Gratian's Decretum, for which he was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2003.

In this volume, specialists in literature, theology, liturgy, manuscript studies, and history introduce the medieval culture of the Bible in Western Christianity. Emphasizing the living quality of the text and the unique literary traditions that arose from it, they show the many ways in which the Bible was read, performed, recorded, and interpreted by various groups in medieval Europe. An initial orientation introduces the origins, components, and organization of medieval Bibles. Subsequent chapters address the use of the Bible in teaching and preaching, the production and purpose of Biblical manuscripts in religious life, early vernacular versions of the Bible, its influence on medieval historical accounts, the relationship between the Bible and monasticism, and instances of privileged and practical use, as well as the various forms the text took in different parts of Europe. The dedicated merging of disciplines, both within each chapter and overall in the book, enable readers to encounter the Bible in much the same way as it was once experienced: on multiple levels and registers, through different lenses and screens, and always personally and intimately.

For some historians, medieval Iberian society was one marked by peaceful coexistence and cross-cultural fertilization; others have sketched a harsher picture of Muslims and Christians engaged in an ongoing contest for political, religious, and economic advantage culminating in the fall of Muslim Granada and the expulsion of the Jews in the late fifteenth century. The reality that emerges in Medieval Iberia is more nuanced than either of these scenarios can comprehend. Now in an expanded, second edition, this monumental collection offers unparalleled access to the multicultural complexity of the lands that would become modern Portugal and Spain. The documents collected in Medieval Iberia date mostly from the eighth through the fifteenth centuries and have been translated from Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, Judeo-Arabic, Castilian, Catalan, and Portuguese by many of the most eminent scholars in the field of Iberian studies. Nearly one quarter of this edition is new, including visual materials and increased coverage of Jewish and Muslim affairs, as well as more sources pertaining to women, social and economic history, and domestic life. This primary source material ranges widely across historical chronicles, poetry, and legal and religious sources, and each is accompanied by a brief introduction placing the text in its historical and cultural setting. Arranged chronologically, the documents are also keyed so as to be accessible to readers interested in specific topics such as urban life, the politics of the royal courts, interfaith relations, or women, marriage, and the family.

Bernard Itier (1163-1225) was head librarian of the monastery of Saint-Martial at Limoges. As such he had free access to the books and made notations in many of them. The largest collection of these notes comprises his chronicle: a history of the world from Creation until his own time which, in part to conserve parchment, Bernard entered in the margins of two earlier codices he had appropriated for the purpose. The work includes a 'retrospective' section, relative to the past, and a 'contemporaneous' section, similar to a journal, in which Bernard recorded current or recent events which struck his interest. His record is highly idiosyncratic, reflecting the priorities of a monk who viewed the world from, and largely in relation to, his monastery. Accordingly, despite what modern historians consider to have been momentous changes in the kingdoms and the church at the time, what most interested Bernard were the affairs of his abbey, local events, miracles or other prodigies, and instances of atypical violence. In his outlook, the kings and pope were outsiders, and sometimes threatening. He does not mention the conquests of Philip Augustus, and records with almost palpable relief the death of Innocent III, who he had feared would impose an unwelcome choice of abbot on his monastery. Andrew Lewis provides, in Bernard's Latin and in English translation, the only complete text of Bernard's chronicle ever published, and the fullest edition of his historical notes from other manuscripts which complement the chronicle.

ith "The Lucretian Renaissance", Gerard Passannante offers a radical rethinking of a familiar narrative: the rise of materialism in early modern Europe. Passannante begins by taking up the ancient philosophical notion that the world is composed of two fundamental opposites: atoms, as the philosopher Epicurus theorized, intrinsically unchangeable and moving about the void; and, the void itself, or nothingness. Passannante considers the fact that this strain of ancient Greek philosophy survived and was transmitted to the Renaissance primarily by means of a poem that had seemingly been lost - a poem insisting that the letters of the alphabet are like the atoms that make up the universe. By tracing this elemental analogy through the fortunes of Lucretius' "On the Nature of Things", Passannante argues that the philosophy of atoms and the void reemerged in the Renaissance as a story about reading and letters - a story that materialized in texts, in their physical recomposition, and in their scattering. From the works of Virgil and Macrobius to those of Petrarch, Montaigne, Bacon, Spenser, and Newton, "The Lucretian Renaissance" recovers a forgotten history of materialism in humanist thought and scholarly practice and asks us to reconsider one of the most enduring questions of the period: what does it mean for a text, a poem, and philosophy to be "reborn"?

In spite of the Orthodox liturgy's reputation for resistance to change, Byzantine liturgical dress underwent a period of extraordinary elaboration from the end of the eleventh century onwards. As part of this development, embroideries depicting holy figures and scenes began to appear on the vestments of the clergy. Examining the surviving Byzantine vestments in conjunction with contemporary visual and textual evidence, Woodfin relates their embroidered imagery both to the program of images used in churches, and to the hierarchical code of dress prevailing in the imperial court. Both sets of visual cross-references serve to enforce a reading of the clergy as living icons of Christ. Finally, the book explores the competing configurations of the hierarchy of heaven as articulated in imperial and ecclesiastical art. It shows how the juxtaposition of real embroidered vestments with vestments depicted in paintings, allowed the Orthodox hierarchy to represent itself as a direct extension of the hierarchy of heaven. Drawing on the best of recent scholarship in Byzantine liturgy, monumental painting, and textile studies, Woodfin's volume is the first major illustrated study of Byzantine embroidered vestments to appear in over forty years.

In a work that is as much about the present as the past, Brad Gregory identifies the unintended consequences of the Protestant Reformation and traces the way it shaped the modern condition over the course of the following five centuries. A hyperpluralism of religious and secular beliefs, an absence of any substantive common good, the triumph of capitalism and its driver, consumerism--all these, Gregory argues, were long-term effects of a movement that marked the end of more than a millennium during which Christianity provided a framework for shared intellectual, social, and moral life in the West. Before the Protestant Reformation, Western Christianity was an institutionalized worldview laden with expectations of security for earthly societies and hopes of eternal salvation for individuals. The Reformation's protagonists sought to advance the realization of this vision, not disrupt it. But a complex web of rejections, retentions, and transformations of medieval Christianity gradually replaced the religious fabric that bound societies together in the West. Today, what we are left with are fragments: intellectual disagreements that splinter into ever finer fractals of specialized discourse; a notion that modern science--as the source of all truth--necessarily undermines religious belief; a pervasive resort to a therapeutic vision of religion; a set of smuggled moral values with which we try to fertilize a sterile liberalism; and the institutionalized assumption that only secular universities can pursue knowledge. The Unintended Reformation asks what propelled the West into this trajectory of pluralism and polarization, and finds answers deep in our medieval Christian past.

This compelling book retells and revises the story of the German Renaissance and Reformation through the lives of two controversial men of the sixteenth century: the Saxon court painter Lucas Cranach (the Serpent) and the Wittenberg monk-turned-reformer Martin Luther (the Lamb). Contemporaries and friends (each was godfather to the other's children), Cranach and Luther were very different Germans, yet their collaborative successes merged art and religion into a revolutionary force that became the Protestant Reformation. Steven Ozment, an internationally recognized historian of the Reformation era, reprises the lives and works of Cranach (1472-1553) and Luther (1483-1546) in this generously illustrated book. He contends that Cranach's new art and Luther's oratory released a barrage of criticism upon the Vatican, the force of which secured a new freedom of faith and pluralism of religion in the Western world. Between Luther's pulpit praise of the sex drive within the divine estate of marriage and Cranach's parade of strong, lithe women, a new romantic, familial consciousness was born. The "Cranach woman" and the "Lutheran household" - both products of the merged Renaissance and Reformation worlds - evoked a new organization of society and foretold a new direction for Germany.

Like its companion From Tagus to the Ganges, this book deploys the concept of 'connected histories' to shed important light on aspects of the history of early modern Eurasia. It reflects on two and a half centuries of Mughal-European relations, beginning with the early years of the Mughals in India, and ending with the eighteenth century. The volume demonstrates that the interface and balance of power between the Mughals and the Europeans are an integral part of a wider system of international political alliances. Sanjay Subrahmanyam introduces the idea of 'contained conflict', which is used as a paradigm to study political and commercial relations in the period. He also questions the lines of political and cultural division that traditional history writing has accepted. This will interest students and scholars of Indian and South Asian history, medieval history, early modern India, as well as politics.

Like its companion volume Mughals and Franks, this book deploys the concept of 'connected histories' to shed important light on aspects of the history of early modern Eurasia. While the main focus is on relations between Europeans and South Asia, other parts of the world have also been discussed in detail. In this volume Sanjay Subrahmanyam critically analyses the archival data to challenge certain enduring beliefs regarding temporal and geographical frontiers in the task of history writing. He questions old debates and examines hitherto neglected aspects of South and Southeast Asian history. This will interest students and scholars of Indian and South Asian history, medieval history, early modern India, as well as politics.

This book is a long-awaited major statement by a pre-eminent analytic philosopher, Alvin Plantinga, on one of our biggest debates -- the compatibility of science and religion. The last twenty years has seen a cottage industry of books on this divide, but with little consensus emerging. Plantinga, as a top philosopher but also a proponent of the rationality of religious belief, has a unique contribution to make. His theme in this short book is that the conflict between science and theistic religion is actually superficial, and that at a deeper level they are in concord. Plantinga examines where this conflict is supposed to exist -- evolution, evolutionary psychology, analysis of scripture, scientific study of religion -- as well as claims by Dan Dennett, Richard Dawkins, and Philip Kitcher that evolution and theistic belief cannot co-exist. Plantinga makes a case that their arguments are not only inconclusive but that the supposed conflicts themselves are superficial, due to the methodological naturalism used by science. On the other hand, science can actually offer support to theistic doctrines, and Plantinga uses the notion of biological and cosmological "fine-tuning" in support of this idea. Plantinga argues that we might think about arguments in science and religion in a new way -- as different forms of discourse that try to persuade people to look at questions from a perspective such that they can see that something is true. In this way, there is a deep and massive consonance between theism and the scientific enterprise.

This newly edited version of John Henry Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua sheds new light on Newman's celebrated account of his passage from the Church of England to the Roman Catholic Church and repositions his narrative within the context of transformative religious journeys of other Victorian intellectuals. Frank M. Turner is the first historian of Victorian thought, religion, and culture to edit Newman's classic autobiographical narrative. Drawing on extensive research in contemporary printed materials and archives, Turner's powerfully revisionist Introduction reevaluates and challenges the historical adequacy of previous interpretations of Newman's life and of the Apologia itself. He further presents Newman's volume as a response to ultramontane assertions of papal authority in the l860s. In addition to numerous explanatory textual annotations, the volume includes an Appendix featuring six important Anglican sermons that providesignificant insights into Newman's thought during the years recounted in the Apologia.

tb, een schets van een amerikaanse orthodox-christelijke familie van Nederlandse afkomst

The Moravians, a Protestant sect founded in 1727 by Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf and based in Germany, were key players in the rise of international evangelicalism. In 1741, after planting communities on the frontiers of empires throughout the Atlantic world, they settled the communitarian enclave of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in order to spread the Gospel to thousands of nearby colonists and Native Americans. In time, the Moravians became some of early America's most successful missionaries. Such vast projects demanded vast sums. Bethlehem's Moravians supported their work through financial savvy and an efficient brand of communalism. Moravian commercial networks, stretching from the Pennsylvania backcountry to Europe's financial capitals, also facilitated their efforts. Missionary outreach and commerce went hand in hand for this group, making it impossible to understand the Moravians' religious work without appreciating their sophisticated economic practices as well. Of course, making money in a manner that be fitted a Christian organization required considerable effort, but it was a balancing act that Moravian leaders embraced with vigor. Religion and Profit traces the Moravians' evolving mission projects, their strategies for supporting those missions, and their gradual integration into the society of eighteenth-century North America. Katherine Carte Engel demonstrates the complex influence Moravian religious life had on the group's economic practices, and argues that the imperial conflict between Euro-Americans and Native Americans, and not the growth of capitalism or a process of secularization, ultimately reconfigured the circumstances of missionary work for the Moravians, altering their religious lives and economic practices.

Revised Edition

Een ingrijpend verlies zet je leven op losse schroeven, en dus ook je tijd voor ontspanning en de feestdagen. Hoe kun je ze op een nieuwe manier beleven? Daarvoor reikt Marinus van den Berg teksten en rituelen aan. Als je een dierbare verliest, door de dood of door een definitieve scheiding, kom je in een terra incognita terecht: een landschap van verdriet en rouw. Niets spreekt meer vanzelf. Je moet je opnieuw verhouden tot mensen en verschijnselen. Dat geldt ook voor de gelegenheden die vroeger zo ongecompliceerd feestelijk waren, zoals verjaardagen, de decemberfeesten, familiefeesten, moeder- en vaderdag, bruiloften, buurtfeesten. Het lijkt wel of verdriet en feest elkaar uitsluiten. Marinus van den Berg laat echter zien dat verdriet het feest kan insluiten. Met zijn verhalen, gedichten, beschouwingen en rituelen helpt hij verdrietige mensen een nieuwe houding te ontdekken ten opzichte van hun vrije tijd en de feestelijke momenten die onherroepelijk op hun weg komen.

‘Soms kan de mens niet anders dan de regie in eigen hand houden, tot en met de grens van de dood. Er zullen situaties zijn waarin het onoverkomelijk is, dat een mens geholpen wordt om te sterven. Er zullen ook situaties zijn waarin het onbegrijpelijk blijft dat een mens het eigen einde regisseert. Meestal hebben we hier in concrete situaties wel een oordeel over, bewust of onbewust. Het lijkt mij vooral van belang dat we beseffen hoezeer de keuze om het eigen einde in de hand te nemen of los te laten verstrengeld is met het geleefde leven tot nu toe.’

In haar boek Iedereen gaat dood denkt Leonie van Straaten na over dood en eindigheid vanuit de christelijke traditie. Ze geeft concrete aanwijzingen over hoe we met de dood als deel van ons leven kunnen omgaan. En ze neemt een standpunt in in het gesprek over actuele ontwikkelingen rondom het levenseinde. Iedereen gaat dood is een rijk boek dat tot denken aanzet.

Bij dit boek houdt de auteur een website bij met actuele artikelen, documentaires enz. Zie www.iedereen-gaat-dood.nl

Een aantal jongeren vormt samen een werk- en praatgroep om hun gevoelens van verdriet en rouw een plaats te geven. Ze vertellen elkaar hoe ze ermee omgaan, leren van elkaar en krijgen steun en begrip van elkaar. Ze willen graag hun lotgenoten en de mensen om hen heen tot steun zijn.

'Het lijkt wel een slachtoffer van de Volendamse cafébrand', roept vader Edwin als zijn dochter Bente in 2001 wordt geboren. Er blijkt iets grondig mis te zijn: grote open wonden, het vel van de beentjes gestroopt. Het ziekenhuis constateert al snel dat Bente lijdt aan Epidermolysis Bullosa, blarenziekte in de volksmond. 'Dit willen we niet', weten haar ouders meteen en ze vragen om euthanasie. Omdat een pasgeborene wilsonbekwaam is, zou dat echter moord betekenen. Maar de ouders laten het er niet bij zitten. In het ziekenhuis wordt intussen verder gediscussieerd. Artsen, ethici, de officier van justitie, allemaal buigen zij zich over de vraag: wat als de dood de beste van alle slechte opties is? De zaak-Bente kreeg destijds internationale aandacht. In 'Ik wens je het onmogelijke' gaat Roos Schlikker jaren later op bezoek bij de ouders en spreekt met artsen en betrokkenen

Kerken en kerkelijke instellingen beheren vaak aanzienlijke vermogens. Hoe kunnen zij hier verantwoord mee omgaan? Alles wat de lezer wil weten over duurzaam en verantwoord beleggen door kerkelijke instellingen komt aan bod. Van de positie van kerken en christelijke organisaties tot goede adviezen voor een verantwoord predikantenpensioen en duurzaam beheer van kerkelijk grondbezit. Van duurzaam bankieren bij de kerkelijke bank tot beheer bij de twee duurzame commerciële banken die Nederland rijk is. Het boek besluit met een aantal aandachtspunten om de discussie over duurzaam beleggen te voeren in kerkenraden,colleges van kerkrentmeesters en colleges van diakenen.

Binnen de rooms-katholieke kerk in West-Europa ontstaat door samenwerking en samenvoeging een nieuw type parochie. Daarin is de vraag naar de kwaliteit van de gemeenschap opnieuw actueel. De opkomst van kleine geloofsgroepen lijkt een antwoord te bieden op de behoefte aan een doorleefd geloof en aan nabijheid in het pastoraat. Het boek Kleine geloofsgroepen biedt achtergronden bij deze nieuwe ontwikkeling en laat zien waarom en hoe heel concreet aan kleine geloofsgroepen gebouwd kan worden.

In dit boek vindt u bijdragen van: mgr. J. van Burgsteden, mgr. E. de Jong, Fred van Iersel, Ad Verest, Kees van Vliet, René Hornikx, Wilfried Hagemann en Kees Slijkerman.

Geloof, hoop en liefde vormen samen met de vier kardinale deugden uit de Oudheid (verstandigheid, rechtvaardigheid, matigheid en standvastigheid) de zeven christelijke deugden. Deze zeven deugden lopen als een rode draad door dit boek. Bij elke deugd is een bijbels figuur gekozen met wie de betekenis ervan wordt verkend.

In 49 overdenkingen wordt het leven van Jezus op aarde gevolgd. Zijn Godheid en mensheid, Zijn wonderen, Zijn gelijkenissen, Zijn onderwijs worden onder de aandacht gebracht. Maar ook hoe een christen Hem als pelgrim dient na te volgen.

Nu eens niet de bekende Bijbelverhalen over Noach of de geboorte van Jezus, maar tien van de mooiste gelijkenissen die Jezus ons vertelde. De verloren zoon, De zaaier, De rijke dwaas, De arbeiders in de wijngaard: bekende en minder bekende gelijkenissen komen aan bod in dit rijk geïllustreerde boek. Net als de Twee minuten Bijbel kleurrijk geïllustreerd door Nicola Smee.

The teachings of the 12th century Andalusian mystic philosopher, Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi, reached throughout the Muslim world from Spain through China and Indonesia, providing inspiration for a diverse range of intellectual, creative and artistic forms throughout these regions. His ideas are centred on a common spiritual Reality and metaphysical Unity underlying religious and cultural diversity, and they became widely influential following his death in 1240 CE. In the past century, these same universal spiritual aspects of his thought have increasingly inspired Western scholars, artists, creative thinkers and other interested parties from a range of religious and cultural standpoints. This work outlines one key aspect of his influence, through the study of a representative group of people who have been active in promoting his ideas in the English speaking world in the past thirty years by means of the educational activities of the Beshara Trust and the more academic Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society. Through interviews, discussions, participant observation and the study of published and unpublished documentation, the study investigates how the Beshara School has used Ibn 'Arabi's teachings in assisting a wide range of students from around the world towards personal, spiritual development. It also shows how the Muhyiddin Ibn 'Arabi Society has evolved into an international organisation with increasing influence not only in English speaking countries, but increasingly in the Muslim world from Bosnia to Indonesia. Closely paralleling their earlier historical influences, the works of Ibn 'Arabi are having a rapidly expanding global influence at the present time in many different domains. The powerful cross-cultural, inter-religious appeal of his teachings provides a crucial positive contribution to the growing dialogue between adherents of the world's diverse religious faiths.

`The Emancipation of Europe`s Muslims` traces how governments across Western Europe have responded to the growing presence of Muslim immigrants in their countries over the past fifty years. Drawing on hundreds of in-depth interviews with government officials and religious leaders in France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Morocco, and Turkey, Jonathan Laurence challenges the widespread notion that Europe`s Muslim minorities represent a threat to liberal democracy. He documents how European governments in the 1970s and 1980s excluded Islam from domestic institutions, instead inviting foreign powers like Saudi Arabia, Algeria, and Turkey to oversee the practice of Islam among immigrants in European host societies. But since the 1990s, amid rising integration problems and fears about terrorism, governments have aggressively stepped up efforts to reach out to their Muslim communities and incorporate them into the institutional, political, and cultural fabrics of European democracy. This book places these efforts - particularly the government-led creation of Islamic councils - within a broader theoretical context and gleans insights from government interactions with groups such as trade unions and Jewish communities at previous critical junctures in European state-building. By examining how state-mosque relations in Europe are linked to the ongoing struggle for religious and political authority in the Muslim-majority world, Laurence sheds light on the geopolitical implications of a religious minority's transition from outsiders to citizens. This book offers a much-needed reassessment that foresees the continuing integration of Muslims into European civil society and politics in the coming decades.

Despite the West's growing involvement in Muslim societies, conflicts, and cultures, its inability to understand or analyze the Islamic world threatens any prospect for East--West rapprochement. Impelled by one thousand years of anti-Muslim ideas and images, the West has failed to engage in any meaningful or productive way with the world of Islam. Formulated in the medieval halls of the Roman Curia and courts of the European Crusaders and perfected in the newsrooms of Fox News and CNN, this anti-Islamic discourse determines what can and cannot be said about Muslims and their religion, trapping the West in a dangerous, dead-end politics that it cannot afford. In Islam Through Western Eyes, Jonathan Lyons unpacks Western habits of thinking and writing about Islam, conducting a careful analysis of the West's grand totalizing narrative across one thousand years of history. He observes the discourse's corrosive effects on the social sciences, including sociology, politics, philosophy, theology, international relations, security studies, and human rights scholarship. He follows its influence on research, speeches, political strategy, and government policy, preventing the West from responding effectively to its most significant twenty-first-century challenges: the rise of Islamic power, the emergence of religious violence, and the growing tension between established social values and multicultural rights among Muslim immigrant populations. Through the intellectual "archaeology" of Michel Foucault, Lyons reveals the workings of this discourse and its underlying impact on our social, intellectual, and political lives. He then addresses issues of deep concern to Western readers -- Islam and modernity, Islam and violence, and Islam and women -- and proposes new ways of thinking about the Western relationship to the Islamic world.

The oldest Islamic biography of Muhammad, written in the mid-eighth century, relates that the prophet died at Medina in 632, while earlier and more numerous Jewish, Christian, Samaritan, and even Islamic sources indicate that Muhammad survived to lead the conquest of Palestine, beginning in 634-35. Although this discrepancy has been known for several decades, Stephen J. Shoemaker here writes the first systematic study of the various traditions. Using methods and perspectives borrowed from biblical studies, Shoemaker concludes that these reports of Muhammad's leadership during the Palestinian invasion likely preserve an early Islamic tradition that was later revised to meet the needs of a changing Islamic self-identity. Muhammad and his followers appear to have expected the world to end in the immediate future, perhaps even in their own lifetimes, Shoemaker contends. When the eschatological Hour failed to arrive on schedule and continued to be deferred to an ever more distant point, the meaning of Muhammad's message and the faith that he established needed to be fundamentally rethought by his early followers. The larger purpose of The Death of a Prophet exceeds the mere possibility of adjusting the date of Muhammad's death by a few years; far more important to Shoemaker are questions about the manner in which Islamic origins should be studied. The difference in the early sources affords an important opening through which to explore the nature of primitive Islam more broadly. Arguing for greater methodological unity between the study of Christian and Islamic origins, Shoemaker emphasizes the potential value of non-Islamic sources for reconstructing the history of formative Islam.

Vijfde herziene editie.
'Joods Leven, thuis en in de synagoge' maakt in drie helder beschreven stappen wegwijs in het jodendom. Zoals elke godsdienst zoekt ook het jodendom naar antwoorden op de grote levensvragen. Juist de joodse feesten drukken die belangrijke menselijke thema's uit: het verlangen naar vrijheid en verlossing (Pesach), het besef van kwetsbaarheid en de behoefte aan bescherming (Loofhuttenfeest), de behoefte aan inkeer en vernieuwing (Nieuwjaar en Grote Verzoendag), maar ook aan licht in de donkerste dagen (Chanoeka) en uitbundigheid tijdens het carnavaleske Poeriem.
De plaats om samen te komen voor studie en gebed is de synagoge: die neemt in het jodendom een centrale plaats in. Maar hoe is een synagoge ingericht en hoe verloopt de eredienst? En welke gebeden en liederen staan centraal bij de wekelijkse viering van de sabbat?
Voor een groot gedeelte speelt het joodse leven zich thuis af: bij voorbeeld met het naleven van de spijswetten (koosjer). Allerlei uiterlijke kenmerken zoals de mezoeza, het kokertje naast de deuropening, herinneren aan de geboden. Het persoonlijke leven wordt gemarkeerd door overgangsrituelen, zoals bij de geboorte van een kind, het moment van volwassen worden (bar of bat mitswa), de huwelijksceremonie en rouwrituelen.
De joodse kalender, een verklarende woordenlijst en een literatuurlijst maken deze uitgave compleet, en zeer geschikt als eerste kennismaking en praktisch naslagwerk.

Edward van Voolen, rabbijn en kunsthistoricus, is conservator bij het Joods Historisch Museum in Amsterdam en doceert aan het Abraham Geiger College in Berlijn, een opleiding voor rabbijnen.

A comprehensive treatment of visionary experience in some of the main texts of Jewish mysticism, this book reveals the overwhelmingly visual nature of religious experience in Jewish spirituality from antiquity through the late Middle Ages. Using phenomenological and critical historical tools, Wolfson examines Jewish mystical texts from late antiquity, pre-kabbalistic sources from the tenth to the twelfth centuries, and twelfth- and thirteenth-century kabbalistic literature. His work demonstrates that the sense of sight assumes an epistemic priority in these writings, reflecting and building upon those scriptural passages that affirm the visual nature of revelatory experience. Moreover, the author reveals an androcentric eroticism in the scopic mentality of Jewish mystics, which placed the externalized and representable form, the phallus, at the center of the visual encounter. In the visionary experience, as Wolfson describes it, imagination serves a primary function, transmuting sensory data and rational concepts into symbols of those things beyond sense and reason. In this view, the experience of a vision is inseparable from the process of interpretation. Fundamentally challenging the conventional distinction between experience and exegesis, revelation and interpretation, Wolfson argues that for the mystics themselves, the study of texts occasioned a visual experience of the divine located in the imagination of the mystical interpreter. Thus, he shows how Jewish mystics preserved the invisible transcendence of God without doing away with the visual dimension of belief.

A comprehensive history of the Nazi persecution and murder of European Jews, paying detailed attention to an unrivalled range sources. Focusing clearly on the perpetrators and exploring closely the process of decision making, Longerich argues that anti-Semitism was not a mere by-product of the Nazis' political mobilization or an attempt to deflect the attention of the masses, but that anti-Jewish policy was a central tenet of the Nazi movement's attempts to implement, disseminate, and secure National Socialist rule - and one which crucially shaped Nazi policy decisions, from their earliest days in power through to the invasion of the Soviet Union and the Final Solution. As Longerich shows, the 'disappearance' of Jews was designed as a first step towards a racially homogeneous society - first within the 'Reich', later in the whole of a German-dominated Europe.

Without a uniform dietary code, Christians around the world used food in strikingly different ways, developing widely divergent practices that spread, nurtured, and strengthened their religious beliefs and communities. Featuring never-before published essays, this anthology follows the intersection of food and faith from the fourteenth to the twenty-first century, charting the complex relationship among religious eating habits and politics, culture, and social structure. Theoretically rich and full of engaging portraits, essays consider the rise of food buying and consumerism in the fourteenth century, the Reformation ideology of fasting and its resulting sanctions against sumptuous eating, the gender and racial politics of sacramental food production in colonial America, and the struggle to define "enlightened" Lenten dietary restrictions in early modern France. Essays on the nineteenth century explore the religious implications of wheat growing and breadmaking among New Zealand's Maori population and the revival of the Agape meal, or love feast, among American brethren in Christ Church. Twentieth-century topics include the metaphysical significance of vegetarianism, the function of diet in Greek Orthodoxy, American Christian weight loss programs, and the practice of silent eating rituals among English Benedictine monks. Two introductory essays detail the key themes tying these essays together and survey food's role in developing and disseminating the teachings of Christianity, not to mention providing a tangible experience of faith.

`Minder kerk, meer geloof`, op die manier is de verhouding tussen religie, samenleving en individu in het huidige Nederland al eens samengevat. Nadat het maatschappelijk leven vanaf de late negentiende eeuw steeds indringender op religieuze en levenbeschouwelijke basis was georganiseerd en gedisciplineerd, zou de in de jaren 1960 gestarte ontzuiling ervoor hebben gezorgd dat religie vooral een kwestie van persoonlijk geloof werd. In biografieën van personen uit het tijdvak 1880-1980 wordt echter zelden aandacht geschonken aan persoonlijk geloof als interpretatie voor publiek handelen van schrijvers, politici, ondernemers, onderzoekers of kunstenaars. Deze bundel belicht de relatie tussen biografie en religie in Nederland in de periode vanaf 1880 tot 1980. Met bijdragen van Erik Borgman, Doeko Bosscher, Han van Bree, Fia Dieteren, Jan Fontijn, Gert van Klinken, Jeroen Koch, Yme Kuiper, Herman Liagre Böhl, Elsbeth Locher-Scholten, Paul Luykx, Marit Monteiro, Hans Renders en Jan Willem Stutje.

Images of suffering male bodies permeate Western culture, from Francis Bacon's paintings and Robert Mapplethorpe's photographs to the battered heroes of action movies. Drawing on perspectives from a range of disciplines - including religious studies, gender and queer studies, psychoanalysis, art history, and film theory - "Ecce Homo" explores the complex, ambiguous meanings of the enduring figure of the male-body-in-pain. Acknowledging that representations of men confronting violence and pain can reinforce ideas of manly tenacity, Kent L. Brintnall also argues that they reveal the vulnerability of men's bodies and open them up to eroticization. Locating the roots of our cultural fascination with male pain in the crucifixion, he analyzes the way narratives of Christ's death and resurrection both support and subvert cultural fantasies of masculine power and privilege. Through stimulating readings of works by Georges Bataille, Kaja Silverman, and more, Brintnall delineates the redemptive power of representations of male suffering and violence.

This collection of essays presents groundbreaking work from an interdisciplinary group of leading theorists and scholars representing the fields of history, philosophy, political science, sociology, and anthropology. The volume will introduce readers to some of the most compelling new conceptual and theoretical understandings of secularism and the secular, while also examining socio-political trends involving the relationship between the religious and the secular from a variety of locations across the globe. In recent decades, the public has become increasingly aware of the important role religious commitments play in the cultural, social, and political dynamics of domestic and world affairs. This so called "resurgence" of religion in the public sphere has elicited a wide array of responses, including vehement opposition to the very idea that religious reasons should ever have a right to expression in public political debate. The current global landscape forces scholars to reconsider not only once predominant understandings of secularization, but also the definition and implications of secular assumptions and secularist positions. The notion that there is no singular secularism, but rather a range of multiple secularisms, is one of many emerging efforts to reconceptualize the meanings of religion and the secular. Rethinking Secularism surveys these efforts and helps to reframe discussions of religion in the social sciences by drawing attention to the central issue of how "the secular" is constituted and understood. It provides valuable insight into how new understandings of secularism and religion shape analytic perspectives in the social sciences, politics, and international affairs.

This collection of essays presents groundbreaking work from an interdisciplinary group of leading theorists and scholars representing the fields of history, philosophy, political science, sociology, and anthropology. The volume will introduce readers to some of the most compelling new conceptual and theoretical understandings of secularism and the secular, while also examining socio-political trends involving the relationship between the religious and the secular from a variety of locations across the globe. In recent decades, the public has become increasingly aware of the important role religious commitments play in the cultural, social, and political dynamics of domestic and world affairs. This so called "resurgence" of religion in the public sphere has elicited a wide array of responses, including vehement opposition to the very idea that religious reasons should ever have a right to expression in public political debate. The current global landscape forces scholars to reconsider not only once predominant understandings of secularization, but also the definition and implications of secular assumptions and secularist positions. The notion that there is no singular secularism, but rather a range of multiple secularisms, is one of many emerging efforts to reconceptualize the meanings of religion and the secular. Rethinking Secularism surveys these efforts and helps to reframe discussions of religion in the social sciences by drawing attention to the central issue of how "the secular" is constituted and understood. It provides valuable insight into how new understandings of secularism and religion shape analytic perspectives in the social sciences, politics, and international affairs.

Losing weight and changing your sexual orientation are both notoriously difficult to do successfully. Yet many faithful evangelical Christians believe that thinness and heterosexuality are godly ideals - and that God will provide reliable paths toward them for those who fall short. "Seeking the Straight and Narrow" is a fascinating account of the world of evangelical efforts to alter our strongest bodily desires. Drawing on fieldwork at First Place, a popular Christian weight-loss program, and Exodus International, a network of ex-gay ministries, Lynne Gerber explores why some Christians feel that being fat or gay offends God, what exactly they do to lose weight or go straight, and how they make sense of the program's results - or, frequently, their lack. Gerber notes the differences and striking parallels between the two programs, and, more broadly, she traces the ways that other social institutions have attempted to contain the excesses associated with fatness and homosexuality. Challenging narratives that place evangelicals in constant opposition to dominant American values, Gerber shows that these programs reflect the often overlooked connection between American cultural obsessions and Christian ones.

Tekst in verkorte vorm uitgesproken bij de aanvaarding van het ambt van bijzonder hoogleraar Nieuwe en vernieuwende vormen van christelijke gemeenschap in hun betekenis voor de Nederlandse samenleving vanwege de stichting Kerk en Wereld aan de Protestantse Theologische Universiteit op 16 december 2011.

In dit boek blikt Joep de Hart terug op een aantal religieuze en maatschappelijke veranderingen vanaf de tweede helft van de vorige eeuw en vraagt hij zich af wat deze betekenen voor de toekomst van het christendom en de kerken in ons land. Onder de bevolking is een nieuwe opvatting van religie aan het ontstaan, die in veel opzichten een breuk betekent met de tot aan de jaren zestig van de vorige eeuw dominante visie. De ontkerkelijking zal op termijn waarschijnlijk belangrijke gevolgen hebben voor de rol van de kerken als scheppers van sociaal kapitaal en gemeenschapszin. De veranderingen die zich op kerkelijk godsdienstig terrein manifesteren, zijn maar ten dele terug te voeren op kerkelijke factoren; veelal gaat het om ontwikkelingen die zich op bredere schaal voordoen binnen de huidige samenleving. Als de kerken de ambitie hebben moderne Nederlanders aan te spreken dan zullen zij op een aantal punten tot een bijstelling van hun aanpak moeten komen.

Informed by a provocative exhibition at the Louvre curated by the author, The Severed Head unpacks artistic representations of severed heads from the Paleolithic period to the present. Surveying paintings, sculptures, and drawings, Julia Kristeva turns her famed critical eye to a study of the head as symbol and metaphor, as religious object and physical fact, further developing a critical theme in her work - the power of horro - and the potential for the face to provide an experience of the sacred. Kristeva considers the head as icon, artifact, and locus of thought, seeking a keener understanding of the violence and desire that drives us to sever, and in some cases keep, such a potent object. Her study stretches all the way back to 6,000 B.C.E., with humans' early decoration and worship of skulls, and follows with the Medusa myth; the mandylion of Laon (a holy relic in which the face of a saint appears on a piece of cloth); the biblical story of John the Baptist and his counterpart, Salome; tales of the guillotine; modern murder mysteries; and even the rhetoric surrounding the fight for and against capital punishment. Kristeva interprets these "capital visions" through the lens of psychoanalysis, drawing infinite connections between their manifestation and sacred experience and very much affirming the possibility of the sacred, even in an era of "faceless" interaction.

Ghosts. Railroads. Sing Sing. Sex machines. These are just a few of the phenomena that appear in John Lardas Modern's pioneering account of religion and society in nineteenth-century America. This book uncovers surprising connections between secular ideology and the rise of new technologies that opened up new ways of being religious. Exploring the eruptions of religion in New York's penny presses, the budding fields of anthropology and phrenology, and Moby-Dick, Modern challenges the strict separation between the religious and the secular that remains integral to discussions about religion today. Modern frames his study around the dread, wonder, paranoia, and manic confidence of being haunted, arguing that experiences and explanations of enchantment fueled secularism's emergence. The awareness of spectral energies coincided with attempts to tame the unruly fruits of secularism - in the cultivation of a spiritual self among Unitarians, for instance, or in John Murray Spear's erotic longings for a perpetual motion machine. Combining rigorous theoretical inquiry with beguiling historical arcana, Modern unsettles long-held views of religion and the methods of narrating its past.

In a study that challenges familiar Western modes of thought, Jacob K. Olupona focuses on one of the most important religious centers in Africa and in the world: the Yoruba city of Ile-Ife in southwest Nigeria. The spread of Yoruba traditions in the African diaspora has come to define the cultural identity of millions of black and white people in Brazil, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Trinidad, and the United States. Seen through the eyes of a native, this first comprehensive study of the spiritual and cultural center of the Yoruba religion tells how the city went from great prominence to near obliteration and then rose again as a contemporary city of gods. Throughout, Olupona corroborates the indispensable linkages between religion, cosmology, migration, and kinship as espoused in the power of royal lineages, hegemonic state structure, gender, and the Yoruba sense of place, offering the fullest portrait to date of this sacred African city.

This book provides a unique discussion of human evolution from a philosophical viewpoint, looking at the facts and interpretations since Charles Darwin's The Descent of Man. Michael Ruse explores such topics as the nature of scientific theories, the relationships between culture and biology, the problem of progress and the extent to which evolutionary issues pose problems for religious beliefs. He identifies these issues, highlighting the problems for morality in a world governed by natural selection. By taking a philosophical viewpoint, the full ethical and moral dimensions of human evolution are examined. This book engages the reader in a thorough discussion of the issues, appealing to students in philosophy, biology and anthropology.

De aanhoudende Eurocrisis en de vaak even halfslachtige als populistische reacties van de politiek daarop lijken het hele Europese project serieus te doen wankelen. In dit essay verdedigt Jürgen Habermas Europa tegen de zich uitbreidende scepsis. Hij stelt daar een nieuw overtuigend verhaal omtrent de geschiedenis en vooral de toekomst van de Europese Unie tegenover. Habermas doorbreekt bestaande denkblokkades met betrekking tot de realisering van een transnationale democratie. En op de politiek doet hij het uitdrukkelijke appèl om het tot dusver goeddeels achter gesloten deuren bedisselde Europese project nu eindelijk eens in de brede openbaarheid aan de orde te stellen en de publieke discussie volop aan te gaan. Naast zijn essay Over de Europese constitutie bevat dit boek nog een interview en twee artikelen die Habermas sinds het uitbreken van de financiële crisis heeft gepubliceerd.

Dit is de wetenschappelijke editie van 'Eigentijds idealisme. Een afrekening met het cynisme in Nederland' (9789089643650). Nederlanders zijn in de greep van toenemend egoïsme en verloedering - wordt vaak gezegd. Dit boek laat echter zien dat spirituele motieven, geestelijke waarden en morele beginselen nog altijd een voorname rol spelen. Veel professionals en gewone burgers streven hoge idealen na. Deze werken door in het maatschappelijk middenveld en in verwachtingen die we van de politiek hebben. Het probleem echter is dat politici en media een cynisch mensbeeld aanhangen, waardoor het bestaande idealisme wordt miskend en weggedrukt. 'De Lage Landen en het hogere: de betekenis van geestelijke beginselen in het moderne bestaan' onderzoekt hoe Nederlanders hun geestelijk engagement vorm geven. Een van de conclusies is dat ze, vergeleken met andere landen, in dezen juist voorop lopen. Daarmee schept het niet alleen een ander beeld dan gebruikelijk; het biedt ook hoop aan allen die het gangbare cynisme afwijzen. Verder verwerpen de auteurs de veelgehoorde theorie dat het moderniseren van de samenleving onvermijdelijk tot een vorm van secularisatie leidt. In het slothoofdstuk pleiten ze voor het opnieuw uitvinden van de civil society; daarmee sluiten ze aan bij een pleidooi dat internationaal wordt uitgedragen door denkers als Charles Taylor, Jeffrey Alexander en Philip Blond. - Gabriël van den Brink (red.) is hoogleraar maatschappelijke bestuurskunde aan de Universiteit van Tilburg en lector aan de Politieacademie.

Freemasonry is generally regarded a male phenomenon. Yet, both before 1723 and since 1744, women were initiated as well. This book is about the rituals, used for the initiation of women in the Adoption Lodges, since the middle of the 18th century. It describes their contents, roots and creation before reviewing and conceptualising their development in the past three centuries. It analyses the different families of rituals within the Adoption Rite, and gives an overview of specific developments, showing how the rituals were adapted to their changing contexts. Apart from its relevance for the history of Freemasonry in general and the Adoption Rite in particular, the book also writes a hitherto unknown chapter of women’s history. Of particular interest for the history of feminism is the chapter about the 20th century, which could only be written now that the documents concerning it, which had been moved to Moscow in 1945, had been returned in 2000.

Freemasonry is generally regarded a male phenomenon. Yet, both before 1723 and since 1744, women were initiated as well. This book is about the rituals, used for the initiation of women in the Adoption Lodges, since the middle of the 18th century. It describes their contents, roots and creation before reviewing and conceptualising their development in the past three centuries. It analyses the different families of rituals within the Adoption Rite, and gives an overview of specific developments, showing how the rituals were adapted to their changing contexts. Apart from its relevance for the history of Freemasonry in general and the Adoption Rite in particular, the book also writes a hitherto unknown chapter of women’s history. Of particular interest for the history of feminism is the chapter about the 20th century, which could only be written now that the documents concerning it, which had been moved to Moscow in 1945, had been returned in 2000.

A2759

This book is the first English translation of the classic philosophical treatise Kantadarsaner Tatparyya. Bhattacharyya combines the basic tenets of Kant to present it in terms of Indian philosophical traditions. The introduction discusses the need for the translation, the challenges involved, and the context of Bhattacharyya's interpretations and thought. The detailed notes and annotations to the translation guide the reader through a variety of concepts in Western and Indian philosophy, as well as comments on the Bengali text. This book will be of considerable interest to scholars, teachers, and students of Western and Indian philosophy.

William F. Bristow presents an original and illuminating study of Hegel's hugely influential but notoriously difficult Phenomenology of Spirit. Hegel describes the method of this work as a 'way of despair', meaning thereby that the reader who undertakes its inquiry must be open to the experience of self-loss through it. Whereas the existential dimension of Hegel's work has often been either ignored or regarded as romantic ornamentation, Bristow argues that it belongs centrally to Hegel's attempt to fulfil a demanding epistemological ambition. With his Critique of Pure Reason, Kant expressed a new epistemological demand with respect to rational knowledge and presented a new method for meeting this demand. Bristow reconstructs Hegel's objection to Kant's Critical Philosophy, according to which Kant's way of meeting the epistemological demand of philosophical critique presupposes subjectivism, that is, presupposes the restriction of our knowledge to things as they are merely for us. Whereas Hegel in his early Jena writings rejects Kant's critical project altogether on this basis, he comes to see that the epistemological demand expressed in Kant's project must be met. Bristow argues that Hegel's method in the Phenomenology of Spirit takes shape as his attempt to meet the epistemological demand of Kantian critique without presupposing subjectivism. The key to Hegel's transformation of Kant's critical procedure, by virtue of which subjectivism is to be avoided, is precisely the existential or self-transformational dimension of Hegel's criticism, the openness of the criticizing subject to being transformed through the epistemological procedure.

Walter Benjamin is often viewed as a cultural critic who produced a vast array of brilliant and idiosyncratic pieces of writing with little more to unify them than the feeling that they all bear the stamp of his "unclassifiable" genius. Eli Friedlander argues that Walter Benjamin's corpus of writings must be recognized as a unique configuration of philosophy with an overarching coherence and a deep-seated commitment to engage the philosophical tradition. Friedlander finds in Benjamin's early works initial formulations of the different dimensions of his philosophical thinking. He leads through them to Benjamin's views on the dialectical image, the nature of language, the relation of beauty and truth, embodiment, dream and historical awakening, myth and history, as well as the afterlife and realization of meaning. Those notions are articulated both in themselves and in relation to central figures of the philosophical tradition. They are further viewed as leading to and coming together in The Arcades Project. Friedlander takes that incomplete work to be the central theater where these earlier philosophical preoccupations were to be played out. Benjamin envisaged in it the possibility of the highest order of thought taking the form of writing whose contents are the concrete time-bound particularities of human experience. Addressing the question of the possibility of such a presentation of philosophical truth provides the guiding thread for constellating the disparate moments of Benjamin's writings.

tb. Verschijnt januari 2012

Recent Western thought has consistently emphasized the individualistic strand in our understanding of persons at the expense of the social strand. Thus, it is generally thought that persons are self-determining and autonomous, where these are understood to be capacities we exercise most fully on our own, apart from others, whose influence on us tends to undermine that autonomy. Love, Friendship, and the Self argues that we must reject a strongly individualistic conception of persons if we are to make sense of significant interpersonal relationships and the importance they can have in our lives. It presents a new account of love as intimate identification and of friendship as a kind of plural agency, in each case grounding and analyzing these notions in terms of interpersonal emotions. At the center of this account is an analysis of how our emotional connectedness with others is essential to our very capacities for autonomy and self-determination: we are rational and autonomous only because of and through our inherently social nature. By focusing on the role that relationships of love and friendship have both in the initial formation of our selves and in the on-going development and maturation of adult persons, Helm significantly alters our understanding of persons and the kind of psychology we persons have as moral and social beings.

In recent years, philosophical discussions of free will have focused largely on whether or not free will is compatible with determinism. In this challenging book, David Hodgson takes a fresh approach to the question of free will, contending that close consideration of human rationality and human consciousness shows that together they give us free will, in a robust and indeterministic sense. In particular, they give us the capacity to respond appositely to feature-rich gestalts of conscious experiences, in ways that are not wholly determined by laws of nature or computational rules. The author contends that this approach is consistent with what science tells us about the world; and he considers its implications for our responsibility for our own conduct, for the role of retribution in criminal punishment, and for the place of human beings in the wider scheme of things.

One day in 1938, John Dewey addressed a room of professional educators and urged them to take up the task of "finding out just what education is." Reading this lecture in the late 1940s, Philip W. Jackson took Dewey's charge to heart and spent the next sixty years contemplating his words. The stimulating result of a lifetime of thinking about educating, "What Is Education?" is a profound philosophical exploration of how we transmit knowledge in human society and how we think about accomplishing that vital task. Most contemporary approaches to education follow a strictly empirical track, aiming to discover pragmatic solutions for teachers and school administrators. Jackson argues that we need to learn not just how to improve on current practices but also how to think about what education means - in short, we need to answer Dewey by constantly rethinking education from the ground up. Guiding us through the many facets of Dewey's comments, Jackson also calls on Hegel, Kant, and Paul Tillich to shed light on how a society does, can, and should transmit truth and knowledge to successive generations. Teasing out the implications in these thinkers' works ultimately leads Jackson to the conclusion that education is at root a moral enterprise. At a time when schools increasingly serve as a battleground for ideological contests, "What Is Education?" is a stirring call to refocus our minds on what is for Jackson the fundamental goal of education: making students as well as teachers - and therefore everyone-better people.

Kunstzinnige verbeelding kan ons inzicht in het leven bieden, die overtuiging krijgt steeds meer vaste voet. Verschillende auteurs laten zien dat we de menselijke verbeeldingskracht nodig hebben om onze wereld te doorgronden.Kan kunst inzicht in de werkelijkheid verschaffen? Kunnen schilderijen, literatuur, film of bijvoorbeeld digitale games een antwoord geven op de vraag wie de mens is en wat zijn drijfveren bepaalt? Kan een kunstwerk de religieuze beleving van mensen beslissend beïnvloeden? Eeuwenlang was het antwoord op deze vragen ontkennend, maar het tij lijkt gekeerd. In deze bundel geven auteurs als Désanne van Brederode, Ger Groot en Matthias Smalbrugge een nieuwe kijk op de relatie tussen verbeelding en werkelijkheid.

Are there things we should value because they are, quite simply, good? If so, such things might be said to have "absolute goodness." They would be good simpliciter or full stop - not good for someone, not good of a kind, but nonetheless good (period). They might also be called "impersonal values." The reason why we ought to value such things, if there are any, would merely be the fact that they are, quite simply, good things. In the twentieth century, G. E. Moore was the great champion of absolute goodness, but he is not the only philosopher who posits the existence and importance of this property. Against these friend of absolute goodness, Richard Kraut here builds the argument he made in WHAT IS GOOD AND WHY, demonstrating that goodness is not a reason-giving property - in fact, there may be no such thing. It is, he holds, an insidious category of practical thought, because it can be and has been used to justify what is harmful and condemn what is beneficial. Impersonal value draws us away from what is good for persons. His strategy for opposing absolute goodness is to search for domains of practical reasoning in which it might be thought to be needed, and this leads him to an examination of a wide variety of moral phenomena: pleasure, knowledge, beauty, love, cruelty, suicide, future generations, bio-diversity, killing in self-defense, and the extinction of our species. Even persons, he proposes, should not be said to have absolute value. The special importance of human life rests instead on the great advantages that such lives normally offer.

This is a dictionary of the key terms and concepts in Husserl's philosophy, his major works and philosophical influences. "The Husserl Dictionary" is a guide to the world of Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. Meticulously researched and extensively cross-referenced, this unique book covers all his major works, ideas and influences and provides a firm grounding in the central themes of Husserl's thought. Students will discover a wealth of useful information, analysis and criticism. A-Z entries include clear definitions of all the key terms used in Husserl's writings and detailed synopses of his key works. The Dictionary also includes entries on Husserl's major philosophical influences, including Brentano, Hume, Dilthey, Frege, and Kant, and those he influenced, such as Gadamer, Heidegger, Levinas, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty. It covers everything that is essential to a sound understanding of Husserl's phenomenology, offering clear and accessible explanations of often complex terminology. "The Husserl Dictionary" is the ideal resource for anyone reading or studying Husserl, Phenomenology or Modern European Philosophy more generally. The "Continuum Philosophy Dictionaries" offer clear and accessible guides to the work of some of the more challenging thinkers in the history of philosophy. A-Z entries provide clear definitions of key terminology, synopses of key works, and details of each thinker's major themes, ideas and philosophical influences. The Dictionaries are the ideal resource for anyone reading or studying these key philosophers.

Emotions, Values, and the Law brings together ten of John Deigh's essays written over the past fifteen years. In the first five essays, Deigh ask questions about the nature of emotions and the relation of evaluative judgment to the intentionality of emotions, and critically examines the cognitivist theories of emotion that have dominated philosophy and psychology over the past thirty years. A central criticism of these theories is that they do not satisfactorily account for the emotions of babies or animals other than human beings. Drawing on this criticism, Deigh develops an alternative theory of the intentionality of emotions on which the education of emotions explains how human emotions, which innately contain no evaluative thought, come to have evaluative judgments as their principal cognitive component. The second group of five essays challenge the idea of the voluntary as essential to understanding moral responsibility, moral commitment, political obligation, and other moral and political phenomena that have traditionally been thought to depend on people's will. Each of these studies focuses on a different aspect of our common moral and political life and shows, contrary to conventional opinion, that it does not depend on voluntary action or the exercise of a will constituted solely by rational thought. Together, the essays in this collection represent an effort to shift our understanding of the phenomena traditionally studied in moral and political philosophy from that of their being products of reason and will, operating independently of feeling and sentiment to that of their being manifestations of the work of emotion.

Spinoza was one of the most influential figures of the Enlightenment, but his often obscure metaphysics makes it difficult to understand the ultimate message of his philosophy. Although he regarded freedom as the fundamental goal of his ethics and politics, his theory of freedom has not received sustained, comprehensive treatment. Spinoza holds that we attain freedom by governing ourselves according to practical principles, which express many of our deepest moral commitments. Matthew J. Kisner focuses on this theory and presents an alternative picture of the ethical project driving Spinoza's philosophical system. His study of the neglected practical philosophy provides an accessible and concrete picture of what it means to live as Spinoza's ethics envisioned.

`The Flame of Eternity` provides a reexamination and new interpretation of Nietzsche's philosophy and the central role that the concepts of eternity and time, as he understood them, played in it. According to Krzysztof Michalski, Nietzsche's reflections on human life are inextricably linked to time, which in turn cannot be conceived of without eternity. Eternity is a measure of time, but also, Michalski argues, something Nietzsche viewed, first and foremost, as a physiological concept having to do with the body. The body ages and decays, involving us in a confrontation with our eventual death. It is in relation to this brute fact that we come to understand eternity and the finitude of time. Nietzsche argues that humanity has long regarded the impermanence of our life as an illness in need of curing. It is this `pathology` that Nietzsche called nihilism. Arguing that this insight lies at the core of Nietzsche's philosophy as a whole, Michalski seeks to explain and reinterpret Nietzsche's thought in light of it. Michalski maintains that many of Nietzsche's main ideas - including his views on love, morality (beyond good and evil), the will to power, overcoming, the suprahuman (or the `overman`, as it is infamously referred to), the Death of God, and the myth of the eternal return - take on new meaning and significance when viewed through the prism of eternity.

Schmidtz's central question -- what counts as a life well lived?' -- is as near as may be the same as Plato's: 'for our inquiry is not about some chance matter but about how we should live our lives' (Republic 344e). Here, then, is a prime example of how to continue 'the conversation that Plato began'...an altogether satisfying, rewarding, and above all, challenging read." - Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "Part of what ties the essays together and makes the whole more than the sum of its parts is the fact that almost all of the pieces, in one way or another, address the question of what counts as a well-lived human life. Perhaps more important, they are united by a distinctive and attractive methodological approach, one that combines the high degree of analytical clarity and rigor that one would expect from a first-rate philosopher with a kind of commonsense wisdom that is not always so common, an attention to empirical detail that goes well beyond the use of examples as mere illustrations, and a refreshingly humanistic concern with life as it is lived by people as they actually are.

In diesem Buch wird das Leben und Wirken von Uriel da Costa, einem Religionskritiker des 17. Jahrhunderts, dargestellt, der zu Beginn der Aufklärung die europäische Religionsphilosophie revolutionierte. Durch seine rational-kritischen Einwände legte Da Costa den Grundstein für die Säkularisierung des Abendlandes und beeinflusste durch sein Auftreten die Ethik Spinozas. Obwohl sich das literarische und geistige Schaffen dieses Denkers, auf wenige Schriften konzentriert, beschäftigten sich im Laufe der Zeit sowohl Philosophen, als auch Theologen, Literaten und Historiker gleichermaßen damit. Im Zentrum der Aufmerksamkeit lagen dabei seine autobiographische Schrift, Exemplar humanae vitae, sowie seine theologische Hauptschrift, Exame das tradicoes pharisaes. Neue Entdeckungen und Veröffentlichungen in spanischer, französischer, sowie englischer Sprache haben in den letzten drei Jahrzehnten ein völlig neues Licht auf den Fall Da Costa geworfen. Der Autor Schwarz behandelt diese im vorliegenden Buch zum ersten Mal für die deutsche Sprache, u. a. erhalten wir dadurch auch die aktuellste wissenschaftlich fundierte Biographie des Uriel Da Costas.

Most people think that the difficulty of balancing career and personal/family relationships is the fault of present-day society or is due to their own inadequacies. But in this major new book, eminent moral philosopher Michael Slote argues that the difficulty runs much deeper, that it is due to the essential nature of the divergent goods involved in this kind of choice. He shows more generally that perfect human happiness and perfect virtue are impossible in principle, a view originally enunciated by Isaiah Berlin, but much more thoroughly and synoptically defended here than ever before. Ancient Greek and modern-day Enlightenment thought typically assumed that perfection was possible, and this is also true of Romanticism and of most recent ethical theory. But if, as Slote maintains, imperfection is inevitable, then our inherited categories of virtue and personal good are far too limited and unqualified to allow us to understand and cope with the richer and more complex life that characterizes today's world. And The Impossibility of Perfection argues in particular that we need some new notions, new distinctions, and even new philosophical methods in order to distill some of the ethical insights of recent feminist thought and arrive at a fuller and more realistic picture of ethical phenomena.

In a world where natural selection has shaped adaptations of astonishing ingenuity, what is the scope and unique power of rational thinking? In this short but wide-ranging book, philosopher Ronald de Sousa looks at the twin set of issues surrounding the power of natural selection to mimic rational design, and rational thinking as itself a product of natural selection. While we commonly deem ourselves superior to other species, the logic of natural selection should not lead us to expect that nature does everything for the best. Similarly, rational action does not always promote the best possible outcomes. So what is the difference? Is the pursuit of rationality actually an effective strategy? Part of the answer lies in language, including mathematics and science. Language is the most striking device by which we have made ourselves smarter than our nearest primate cousins. Sometimes the purely instinctual responses we share with other animals put explicit reasoning to shame: the movements of a trained athlete are faster and more accurate than anything she could explicitly calculate. Language, however, with its power to abstract from concrete experience and to range over all aspects of nature, enables breathtakingly precise calculations, which have taken us to the moon and beyond. Most importantly, however, language enables us to formulate an endless multiplicity of values, in potential conflict with one another as well as with instinctual imperatives.

vertaald en toegelicht door Paul Claes