Cécile Fabre
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199289998
- eISBN:
- 9780191603556
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199289999.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
In the prevailing liberal ethos, if there is one thing that is beyond the reach of others, it is our body in particular, and our person in general. Our legal and political tradition is such that we ...
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In the prevailing liberal ethos, if there is one thing that is beyond the reach of others, it is our body in particular, and our person in general. Our legal and political tradition is such that we have the right to deny others access to our person and body, even though doing so would harm those who need personal services or body parts from us. However, we lack the right to use ourselves as we wish in order to raise income, even though we do not necessarily harm others by doing so — even though we might in fact benefit them by doing so. This book aims to show that according to the principles of distributive justice which inform most liberal democracies — both in practice and in theory — it should be exactly the other way around. If it is true that we lack the right to withhold access to material resources from those who need them, we also lack the right to withhold access to our body from those who need it; but we do, under some circumstances, have the right to decide how to use it in order to raise income. The book argues in favour of the confiscation of body parts and personal services, as well as the commercialization of organs, sex, and reproductive capacities.Less
In the prevailing liberal ethos, if there is one thing that is beyond the reach of others, it is our body in particular, and our person in general. Our legal and political tradition is such that we have the right to deny others access to our person and body, even though doing so would harm those who need personal services or body parts from us. However, we lack the right to use ourselves as we wish in order to raise income, even though we do not necessarily harm others by doing so — even though we might in fact benefit them by doing so. This book aims to show that according to the principles of distributive justice which inform most liberal democracies — both in practice and in theory — it should be exactly the other way around. If it is true that we lack the right to withhold access to material resources from those who need them, we also lack the right to withhold access to our body from those who need it; but we do, under some circumstances, have the right to decide how to use it in order to raise income. The book argues in favour of the confiscation of body parts and personal services, as well as the commercialization of organs, sex, and reproductive capacities.
Beth Felker Jones
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195309812
- eISBN:
- 9780199785353
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195309812.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
This book articulates a Christian theology of the body in light of both the doctrine of the resurrection of the body and the ethical concerns of feminism. In conversation with Augustine and Calvin, ...
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This book articulates a Christian theology of the body in light of both the doctrine of the resurrection of the body and the ethical concerns of feminism. In conversation with Augustine and Calvin, the book assesses the strengths and weaknesses of their theologies of the body and shows how the Christian tradition contains resources for conceptualizing a theology of the body as it coheres with resurrection doctrine. Beginning with eschatology, rather than creation, allows the book to address the disorder of bodies under the condition of sin while offering a constructive proposal for understanding the redeemed body through Christology. The book proposes a grammar in which human psychosomatic unity becomes the conceptual basis for sanctification. Using gender as an illustration, it interrogates the difference resurrection doctrine makes for holiness. The last part of the book suggests that access to human bodies comes through the body of Jesus Christ. Because death has been overcome in his resurrected body, human embodiment can bear witness to the Triune God.Less
This book articulates a Christian theology of the body in light of both the doctrine of the resurrection of the body and the ethical concerns of feminism. In conversation with Augustine and Calvin, the book assesses the strengths and weaknesses of their theologies of the body and shows how the Christian tradition contains resources for conceptualizing a theology of the body as it coheres with resurrection doctrine. Beginning with eschatology, rather than creation, allows the book to address the disorder of bodies under the condition of sin while offering a constructive proposal for understanding the redeemed body through Christology. The book proposes a grammar in which human psychosomatic unity becomes the conceptual basis for sanctification. Using gender as an illustration, it interrogates the difference resurrection doctrine makes for holiness. The last part of the book suggests that access to human bodies comes through the body of Jesus Christ. Because death has been overcome in his resurrected body, human embodiment can bear witness to the Triune God.
Iris Marion Young
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780195161922
- eISBN:
- 9780199786664
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195161920.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
These essays describe diverse aspects of women’s lived body experience in modern Western societies. They combine theoretical description of experience with normative evaluation of the unjust ...
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These essays describe diverse aspects of women’s lived body experience in modern Western societies. They combine theoretical description of experience with normative evaluation of the unjust constraints on freedom and opportunity that continue to burden many women. The lead essay rethinks the purpose of the category of “gender” for feminist theory, after important debates have questioned its usefulness. Other essays include reflection on the meaning of being at home and the need for privacy in old age residencies. Aspects of the experience of women and girls that have received little attention even in feminist theory are analyzed, such as the sexuality of breasts, or menstruation as punctuation in a woman’s life story. The phenomenology of moving in a pregnant body and the tactile pleasures of clothing are also considered.Less
These essays describe diverse aspects of women’s lived body experience in modern Western societies. They combine theoretical description of experience with normative evaluation of the unjust constraints on freedom and opportunity that continue to burden many women. The lead essay rethinks the purpose of the category of “gender” for feminist theory, after important debates have questioned its usefulness. Other essays include reflection on the meaning of being at home and the need for privacy in old age residencies. Aspects of the experience of women and girls that have received little attention even in feminist theory are analyzed, such as the sexuality of breasts, or menstruation as punctuation in a woman’s life story. The phenomenology of moving in a pregnant body and the tactile pleasures of clothing are also considered.
Steven P. Hopkins
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195326390
- eISBN:
- 9780199870455
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195326390.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
A thematically organized, annotated anthology of translations from the Sanskrit, Tamil, and Maharashtri Prakrit devotional poetry of the South Indian Srivaisnava philosopher, sectarian preceptor ...
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A thematically organized, annotated anthology of translations from the Sanskrit, Tamil, and Maharashtri Prakrit devotional poetry of the South Indian Srivaisnava philosopher, sectarian preceptor (Acarya), and saint‐poet Venkatanatha or Venkatesha, also known as Vedantadesika (c. 1268‐1369). The poems collected in this volume, composed out of devotion (bhakti) for one particular Hindu god, Vishnu Devanayaka, the “Lord of Gods” at Tiruvahindrapuram, form a microcosm of the saint‐poet's work. They encompass major themes of Vedantadesika's devotional poetics, from the play of divine absence and presence in the world of religious emotions; the “telescoping” of time past and future in the eternal “present” of the poem; love, human vulnerability and the impassible perfected body of god; to the devotional experience of a “beauty that saves” and to the paradoxical coexistence of asymmetry and intimacy of lover and beloved at the heart of the divine‐human encounter. Moreover, these poems form more than a thematic microcosm, but also embrace all three of the poet's working languages—forming a linguistic one as well. Each translated poem forms a chapter in itself, has its own individual short afterword, along with detailed linguistic and thematic notes and commentary. The volume concludes, for comparative reasons, with a translation of Tirumankaiyalvar's luminous cycle of verses for Devanayaka from the Periyatirumoli. As much an argument as an anthology, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of South Asian studies, comparative religion, and Indian literatures.Less
A thematically organized, annotated anthology of translations from the Sanskrit, Tamil, and Maharashtri Prakrit devotional poetry of the South Indian Srivaisnava philosopher, sectarian preceptor (Acarya), and saint‐poet Venkatanatha or Venkatesha, also known as Vedantadesika (c. 1268‐1369). The poems collected in this volume, composed out of devotion (bhakti) for one particular Hindu god, Vishnu Devanayaka, the “Lord of Gods” at Tiruvahindrapuram, form a microcosm of the saint‐poet's work. They encompass major themes of Vedantadesika's devotional poetics, from the play of divine absence and presence in the world of religious emotions; the “telescoping” of time past and future in the eternal “present” of the poem; love, human vulnerability and the impassible perfected body of god; to the devotional experience of a “beauty that saves” and to the paradoxical coexistence of asymmetry and intimacy of lover and beloved at the heart of the divine‐human encounter. Moreover, these poems form more than a thematic microcosm, but also embrace all three of the poet's working languages—forming a linguistic one as well. Each translated poem forms a chapter in itself, has its own individual short afterword, along with detailed linguistic and thematic notes and commentary. The volume concludes, for comparative reasons, with a translation of Tirumankaiyalvar's luminous cycle of verses for Devanayaka from the Periyatirumoli. As much an argument as an anthology, this book will be of interest to students and scholars of South Asian studies, comparative religion, and Indian literatures.
Adam G. Cooper
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199546626
- eISBN:
- 9780191720208
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199546626.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Christianity is deeply interested in the living human body, since each body is a person, and each person a creature and image-bearer of God. The classic sources of the Christian tradition engender a ...
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Christianity is deeply interested in the living human body, since each body is a person, and each person a creature and image-bearer of God. The classic sources of the Christian tradition engender a spiritual philosophy that challenges the contemporary gnostic impulse to marginalize the body, to reduce it to meat. At the same time, a Christian metaphysics of the flesh affirms the human substructure as a bodily-spiritual synthesis. Since the person is an enfleshed spiritual being, the human body bears intrinsic personal meaning. In the three great mysteries of God's dealings with the universe—creation, incarnation, and resurrection—all material reality, but especially spirited, sensible, sexed, and social human flesh, is radically implicated. By dwelling in these mysteries, that is, by mentally and physically assimilating ourselves to the semitive and sacramental symbols that communicate their truth, we find that they have power to illumine whole vistas of knowledge that do not belong exclusively to the provenance of Christian revelation and belief, but are open to all people. In the light of the incarnate Christ, these other spheres of reality become especially luminous. With a Christian metaphysics of flesh, illuminated by the incarnation, we are able to address a number of pressing intellectual, ethical, and social questions about bodily life with philosophical integrity.Less
Christianity is deeply interested in the living human body, since each body is a person, and each person a creature and image-bearer of God. The classic sources of the Christian tradition engender a spiritual philosophy that challenges the contemporary gnostic impulse to marginalize the body, to reduce it to meat. At the same time, a Christian metaphysics of the flesh affirms the human substructure as a bodily-spiritual synthesis. Since the person is an enfleshed spiritual being, the human body bears intrinsic personal meaning. In the three great mysteries of God's dealings with the universe—creation, incarnation, and resurrection—all material reality, but especially spirited, sensible, sexed, and social human flesh, is radically implicated. By dwelling in these mysteries, that is, by mentally and physically assimilating ourselves to the semitive and sacramental symbols that communicate their truth, we find that they have power to illumine whole vistas of knowledge that do not belong exclusively to the provenance of Christian revelation and belief, but are open to all people. In the light of the incarnate Christ, these other spheres of reality become especially luminous. With a Christian metaphysics of flesh, illuminated by the incarnation, we are able to address a number of pressing intellectual, ethical, and social questions about bodily life with philosophical integrity.
Michael N. Marsh
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199571505
- eISBN:
- 9780191722059
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199571505.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society, Theology
Personalised accounts of out-of-body (OBE) and near-death (NDE) experiences are frequently interpreted as offering evidence for immortality and an afterlife. Since most OBE/NDE follow severe ...
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Personalised accounts of out-of-body (OBE) and near-death (NDE) experiences are frequently interpreted as offering evidence for immortality and an afterlife. Since most OBE/NDE follow severe curtailments of cerebral circulation with loss of consciousness, the agonal brain supposedly permits ‘mind’, ‘soul’, or ‘consciousness’ to escape neural control and provide glimpses of the afterlife. This study looks at the work of five key writers who support this so-called ‘dying brain’ hypothesis. The author disagrees with such otherworldly mystical or psychical interpretations, ably demonstrating how they are explicable in terms of brain neurophysiology and its neuropathological disturbances. The trust of this claim sees the recorded phenomenology as reflections of brains rapidly reawakening to full conscious-awareness, consistent with other reported phenomenologies attending recovery from antecedent states of unconsciousness: the ‘re-awakening brain’ hypothesis. From this basis, a re-classification of NDE into early and late phase sequences is given, thereby dismantling the untenable concepts of ‘core’ and ‘depth’ experiences. The book provides a detailed examination of the spiritual and quasi-religious overtones accorded OBE/NDE, highlighting their inconsistencies when compared with classical accounts of divine disclosure, and the eschatological precepts of resurrection belief as professed credally. In assessing the implications of anthropological, philosophical, and theological concepts of ‘personhood’ and ‘soul’ as arguments for personal survival after death, the author celebrates the role of conventional faith in appropriating the expectant biblical promises of a ‘New Creation’.Less
Personalised accounts of out-of-body (OBE) and near-death (NDE) experiences are frequently interpreted as offering evidence for immortality and an afterlife. Since most OBE/NDE follow severe curtailments of cerebral circulation with loss of consciousness, the agonal brain supposedly permits ‘mind’, ‘soul’, or ‘consciousness’ to escape neural control and provide glimpses of the afterlife. This study looks at the work of five key writers who support this so-called ‘dying brain’ hypothesis. The author disagrees with such otherworldly mystical or psychical interpretations, ably demonstrating how they are explicable in terms of brain neurophysiology and its neuropathological disturbances. The trust of this claim sees the recorded phenomenology as reflections of brains rapidly reawakening to full conscious-awareness, consistent with other reported phenomenologies attending recovery from antecedent states of unconsciousness: the ‘re-awakening brain’ hypothesis. From this basis, a re-classification of NDE into early and late phase sequences is given, thereby dismantling the untenable concepts of ‘core’ and ‘depth’ experiences. The book provides a detailed examination of the spiritual and quasi-religious overtones accorded OBE/NDE, highlighting their inconsistencies when compared with classical accounts of divine disclosure, and the eschatological precepts of resurrection belief as professed credally. In assessing the implications of anthropological, philosophical, and theological concepts of ‘personhood’ and ‘soul’ as arguments for personal survival after death, the author celebrates the role of conventional faith in appropriating the expectant biblical promises of a ‘New Creation’.
Robert C. Fuller
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195369175
- eISBN:
- 9780199871186
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195369175.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This book examines the biological underpinnings of religion. We can only experience, the book argues, what our bodies allow us to experience. As a consequence, religious thought and feeling are ...
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This book examines the biological underpinnings of religion. We can only experience, the book argues, what our bodies allow us to experience. As a consequence, religious thought and feeling are heavily influenced by our sensory organs, emotional programs, sexual sensibilities, and the neural structure of our brains. Studying “spirituality in the flesh” opens up new and exciting agendas for understanding the nature and value of human religiosity. This exploration of embodied spirituality establishes middle ground between the explanations of religion typically made by either scientists or humanists. The book takes most scientific interpreters to task for failing to understand the inherently cultural aspects of embodied experience, even as he chides most religion scholars for ignoring new knowledge about the biological substrates of human thought and behavior. Each chapter takes up a different facet of embodied experience and shows the ways it helps us understand just how and why humans reconstruct their worlds in religious ways. Emotional programs such as fear or wonder, altered consciousness, sexuality, pain, and spatial orientation to the environment provide critical categories that are used to interpret selected episodes in American religious history. Topics as diverse as apocalypticism, nature religion, Native American peyotism, and the sexual experimentalism found in 19th‐century communal societies illustrate how the study of spirituality in the flesh enriches our appreciation of religion.Less
This book examines the biological underpinnings of religion. We can only experience, the book argues, what our bodies allow us to experience. As a consequence, religious thought and feeling are heavily influenced by our sensory organs, emotional programs, sexual sensibilities, and the neural structure of our brains. Studying “spirituality in the flesh” opens up new and exciting agendas for understanding the nature and value of human religiosity. This exploration of embodied spirituality establishes middle ground between the explanations of religion typically made by either scientists or humanists. The book takes most scientific interpreters to task for failing to understand the inherently cultural aspects of embodied experience, even as he chides most religion scholars for ignoring new knowledge about the biological substrates of human thought and behavior. Each chapter takes up a different facet of embodied experience and shows the ways it helps us understand just how and why humans reconstruct their worlds in religious ways. Emotional programs such as fear or wonder, altered consciousness, sexuality, pain, and spatial orientation to the environment provide critical categories that are used to interpret selected episodes in American religious history. Topics as diverse as apocalypticism, nature religion, Native American peyotism, and the sexual experimentalism found in 19th‐century communal societies illustrate how the study of spirituality in the flesh enriches our appreciation of religion.
Deborah Beth Creamer
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195369151
- eISBN:
- 9780199871193
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195369151.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology, Religion and Society
Attention to embodiment and the religious significance of bodies is one of the most significant shifts in contemporary theology. In the midst of this, however, experiences of disability have received ...
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Attention to embodiment and the religious significance of bodies is one of the most significant shifts in contemporary theology. In the midst of this, however, experiences of disability have received little attention. This book explores possibilities for theological engagement with disability, focusing on three primary alternatives: challenging existing theological models to engage with the disabled body, considering possibilities for a disability liberation theology, and exploring new theological options based on an understanding of the unsurprisingness of human limits. The overarching perspective of this book is that limits are an unavoidable aspect of being human. In addition, since most of us also experience limits that take the form of disability at some point in our lives; could be described as disability is more “normal” than non-disability. If we take such experiences seriously and refuse to reduce them to mere instances of suffering or randomness, we discover insights that are lost when we take a perfect or generic body as our starting point for theological reflections. While possible applications of this insight are vast, this work focuses on two areas of particular interest: theological anthropology and metaphors for God. This project challenges theology to consider the undeniable diversity of human embodiment. It also enriches previous disability work by providing an alternative to the dominant medical and minority models, both of which fail to acknowledge the full diversity of disability experiences. Most notably, this project offers new images and possibilities for theological construction that attend appropriately and creatively to diversity in human embodiment.Less
Attention to embodiment and the religious significance of bodies is one of the most significant shifts in contemporary theology. In the midst of this, however, experiences of disability have received little attention. This book explores possibilities for theological engagement with disability, focusing on three primary alternatives: challenging existing theological models to engage with the disabled body, considering possibilities for a disability liberation theology, and exploring new theological options based on an understanding of the unsurprisingness of human limits. The overarching perspective of this book is that limits are an unavoidable aspect of being human. In addition, since most of us also experience limits that take the form of disability at some point in our lives; could be described as disability is more “normal” than non-disability. If we take such experiences seriously and refuse to reduce them to mere instances of suffering or randomness, we discover insights that are lost when we take a perfect or generic body as our starting point for theological reflections. While possible applications of this insight are vast, this work focuses on two areas of particular interest: theological anthropology and metaphors for God. This project challenges theology to consider the undeniable diversity of human embodiment. It also enriches previous disability work by providing an alternative to the dominant medical and minority models, both of which fail to acknowledge the full diversity of disability experiences. Most notably, this project offers new images and possibilities for theological construction that attend appropriately and creatively to diversity in human embodiment.
Michelle T. Grando
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199572649
- eISBN:
- 9780191722103
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199572649.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Public International Law
This book examines the process through which a World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement panel formulates its conclusions with respect to the facts of a case, i.e., the process of ...
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This book examines the process through which a World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement panel formulates its conclusions with respect to the facts of a case, i.e., the process of fact-finding or process of proof. The Dispute Settlement Understanding provides general guidance but few direct answers to specific questions regarding the process of fact-finding, which has placed upon panels and the Appellate Body the responsibility to provide answers to those questions as they have arisen in the cases. This book reviews the extensive jurisprudence developed in the 14 years of operation of the WTO dispute settlement system with a view to (a) determining whether panels and the Appellate Body have set out optimal rules to govern the process of fact-finding and, to the extent that that is not the case; and (b) to make suggestions for improvement. This book analyses questions such as: (i) Which party bears the responsibility of ultimately convincing the panel of the truth of a fact (burden of proof)?; (ii) What quantum of proof is necessary to convince the panel (standard of proof)?; (iii) The role of the panel, disputing parties, and non-disputing parties (e.g,. experts, international organizations, private parties) in the development of the evidentiary record on which the panel bases its decision; (iv) The consequences of a party's failure to cooperate in the process of fact-finding; (v) How the parties can access the information which is necessary to prove their allegations; and (vi) The treatment of confidential business and governmental information. In assessing and making suggestions to improve the answers provided by panels to these questions, the book draws on the approaches followed in the two major legal systems of the world — the common law and the civil law — and to the extent possible, the approaches adopted by other international courts and tribunals.Less
This book examines the process through which a World Trade Organization (WTO) dispute settlement panel formulates its conclusions with respect to the facts of a case, i.e., the process of fact-finding or process of proof. The Dispute Settlement Understanding provides general guidance but few direct answers to specific questions regarding the process of fact-finding, which has placed upon panels and the Appellate Body the responsibility to provide answers to those questions as they have arisen in the cases. This book reviews the extensive jurisprudence developed in the 14 years of operation of the WTO dispute settlement system with a view to (a) determining whether panels and the Appellate Body have set out optimal rules to govern the process of fact-finding and, to the extent that that is not the case; and (b) to make suggestions for improvement. This book analyses questions such as: (i) Which party bears the responsibility of ultimately convincing the panel of the truth of a fact (burden of proof)?; (ii) What quantum of proof is necessary to convince the panel (standard of proof)?; (iii) The role of the panel, disputing parties, and non-disputing parties (e.g,. experts, international organizations, private parties) in the development of the evidentiary record on which the panel bases its decision; (iv) The consequences of a party's failure to cooperate in the process of fact-finding; (v) How the parties can access the information which is necessary to prove their allegations; and (vi) The treatment of confidential business and governmental information. In assessing and making suggestions to improve the answers provided by panels to these questions, the book draws on the approaches followed in the two major legal systems of the world — the common law and the civil law — and to the extent possible, the approaches adopted by other international courts and tribunals.
Patrik Hagman
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199593194
- eISBN:
- 9780191595677
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199593194.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
The ascetic tracts of 7th century writer Isaac of Nineveh (Isaac the Syrian) provide a wealth of material to better understand early Christian asceticism. The study focuses on the role of the body in ...
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The ascetic tracts of 7th century writer Isaac of Nineveh (Isaac the Syrian) provide a wealth of material to better understand early Christian asceticism. The study focuses on the role of the body in various ascetic techniques, such as fasting, vigils and prayer, and on the way the ascetic relates to the society. For Isaac, the ascetic is to function as something like an icon, an image that showed the world the reality of God's Kingdom already in this life, by clearly indicating the difference between God's ways and men's. The study reviews the scholarly discussion on asceticism and early monasticism of the last three decades, and then proceeds to analyse the texts of Isaac to reveal an emphasis on asceticism as a practice that is at the same time performative, transformative and bodily. This contrasts with the long‐established conception of asceticism as based on a negative view of the body. Isaac displays a profound understanding of the way body and soul are related, demonstrating how the body can be used to transform the personality of the ascetic, and to communicate the change to the world, without the use of words. By giving a thorough overview of Isaac's ascetic thinking, the study brings Isaac's fresh perspective to bear on an important, yet often overlooked, aspect of the Christian tradition, showing that asceticism is and important ecclesiological theme and that a theology of asceticism should be a political theology.Less
The ascetic tracts of 7th century writer Isaac of Nineveh (Isaac the Syrian) provide a wealth of material to better understand early Christian asceticism. The study focuses on the role of the body in various ascetic techniques, such as fasting, vigils and prayer, and on the way the ascetic relates to the society. For Isaac, the ascetic is to function as something like an icon, an image that showed the world the reality of God's Kingdom already in this life, by clearly indicating the difference between God's ways and men's. The study reviews the scholarly discussion on asceticism and early monasticism of the last three decades, and then proceeds to analyse the texts of Isaac to reveal an emphasis on asceticism as a practice that is at the same time performative, transformative and bodily. This contrasts with the long‐established conception of asceticism as based on a negative view of the body. Isaac displays a profound understanding of the way body and soul are related, demonstrating how the body can be used to transform the personality of the ascetic, and to communicate the change to the world, without the use of words. By giving a thorough overview of Isaac's ascetic thinking, the study brings Isaac's fresh perspective to bear on an important, yet often overlooked, aspect of the Christian tradition, showing that asceticism is and important ecclesiological theme and that a theology of asceticism should be a political theology.
Nils Jansen
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199588763
- eISBN:
- 9780191723315
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199588763.001.0001
- Subject:
- Law, Philosophy of Law
Accounts of the nature of legal authority typically focus on the authority of officially sanctioned rules issued by legally recognised bodies — legislatures, courts, and regulators — that fit ...
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Accounts of the nature of legal authority typically focus on the authority of officially sanctioned rules issued by legally recognised bodies — legislatures, courts, and regulators — that fit comfortably within traditional state-centred concepts of law. Such accounts neglect the more complex processes involved in acquiring legal authority. Throughout the history of modern legal systems, texts have come to acquire authority for legal officials without being issued by a legislature or a court. From Justinian's Institutes and Blackstone's Commentaries, to modern examples such as the American Law Institute's Restatements and the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, academic codifications have come to be seen as legally authoritative, and their norms applied as such in courts and other contexts. How have such texts acquired legal authority? Does their authority undermine the orthodox accounts of the nature of legal systems? Drawing on examples from Roman law to the present day, this book offers a comparative analysis of non-legislative codifications. It offers a contribution to the debates surrounding the harmonisation of European private law, and the growth of international law.Less
Accounts of the nature of legal authority typically focus on the authority of officially sanctioned rules issued by legally recognised bodies — legislatures, courts, and regulators — that fit comfortably within traditional state-centred concepts of law. Such accounts neglect the more complex processes involved in acquiring legal authority. Throughout the history of modern legal systems, texts have come to acquire authority for legal officials without being issued by a legislature or a court. From Justinian's Institutes and Blackstone's Commentaries, to modern examples such as the American Law Institute's Restatements and the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts, academic codifications have come to be seen as legally authoritative, and their norms applied as such in courts and other contexts. How have such texts acquired legal authority? Does their authority undermine the orthodox accounts of the nature of legal systems? Drawing on examples from Roman law to the present day, this book offers a comparative analysis of non-legislative codifications. It offers a contribution to the debates surrounding the harmonisation of European private law, and the growth of international law.
J. Warren Smith
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195369939
- eISBN:
- 9780199893362
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195369939.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Theology
Though understandably overshadowed by Augustine’s preeminence in the West, Ambrose is a doctor of the Catholic Church and an important patristic authority for the Middle Ages and Reformation, ...
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Though understandably overshadowed by Augustine’s preeminence in the West, Ambrose is a doctor of the Catholic Church and an important patristic authority for the Middle Ages and Reformation, especially in moral theology. Christian Grace and Pagan Virtue argues that Ambrose of Milan’s theological commitments, particularly his understanding of the Christian’s participation in God’s saving economy through baptism, are foundational for his virtue theory laid out in his catechetical and other pastoral writings. While he holds a high regard for classical and Hellenistic views of virtue, Ambrose insists that the Christian is able to attain the highest ideal of virtue taught by Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. This is possible because the Christian has received the transformative grace of baptism that allows the Christian to participate in the new creation inaugurated by Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection. This book explores Ambrose’s understanding of this grace and how it frees the Christian to live the virtuous life. The argument is laid out in two parts. In Part I, the book examines Ambrose’s understanding of human nature and the effects of sin upon that nature. Central to this Part is the question of Ambrose’s understanding of the right relationship of soul and body as presented in Ambrose’s repeated appeal to Paul’s words, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:24). Part II lays out Ambrose’s account of baptism as the sacrament of justification and regeneration (sacramental and proleptic participation in the renewal of human nature in the resurrection). Ultimately, Ambrose’s account of the efficacy of baptism rests upon his Christology and pneumatology. The final chapters explain how Ambrose’s accounts of Christ and the Holy Spirit are foundational to his view of the grace that liberates the soul from the corruption of concupiscence.Less
Though understandably overshadowed by Augustine’s preeminence in the West, Ambrose is a doctor of the Catholic Church and an important patristic authority for the Middle Ages and Reformation, especially in moral theology. Christian Grace and Pagan Virtue argues that Ambrose of Milan’s theological commitments, particularly his understanding of the Christian’s participation in God’s saving economy through baptism, are foundational for his virtue theory laid out in his catechetical and other pastoral writings. While he holds a high regard for classical and Hellenistic views of virtue, Ambrose insists that the Christian is able to attain the highest ideal of virtue taught by Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. This is possible because the Christian has received the transformative grace of baptism that allows the Christian to participate in the new creation inaugurated by Christ’s incarnation, death, and resurrection. This book explores Ambrose’s understanding of this grace and how it frees the Christian to live the virtuous life. The argument is laid out in two parts. In Part I, the book examines Ambrose’s understanding of human nature and the effects of sin upon that nature. Central to this Part is the question of Ambrose’s understanding of the right relationship of soul and body as presented in Ambrose’s repeated appeal to Paul’s words, “Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Rom. 7:24). Part II lays out Ambrose’s account of baptism as the sacrament of justification and regeneration (sacramental and proleptic participation in the renewal of human nature in the resurrection). Ultimately, Ambrose’s account of the efficacy of baptism rests upon his Christology and pneumatology. The final chapters explain how Ambrose’s accounts of Christ and the Holy Spirit are foundational to his view of the grace that liberates the soul from the corruption of concupiscence.
Lloyd P. Gerson
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780199288670
- eISBN:
- 9780191717789
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199288670.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Ancient Philosophy
For Plato, persons are not identical with individuals falling under the putative natural kind ‘human being’. Alternatively, it can also be said that for Plato, souls are not identical with individual ...
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For Plato, persons are not identical with individuals falling under the putative natural kind ‘human being’. Alternatively, it can also be said that for Plato, souls are not identical with individual composites of soul and body. But an embodied person (or an embodied soul) is not exactly the same thing as a disembodied person (or soul), so it is a mistake to suppose that the human being is just the simple sum of person or soul and body. A person with a body is not a person plus a body. An embodied person is different from a disembodied person, as images of the intelligible differ from their paradigms. It would be more accurate to characterize Plato's dualism as based upon the distinction between disembodied person and embodied person than upon the distinction between soul and body. Therefore, Plato's position avoids or at least changes the meaning of the question ‘How is the soul related to the body?’ The embodied person or soul is neither a res cogitans related to a res extensa nor even a ‘captain’ related to a bodily ‘ship’, to use Aristotle's metaphor. The embodied person has a body and is the subject of bodily states.Less
For Plato, persons are not identical with individuals falling under the putative natural kind ‘human being’. Alternatively, it can also be said that for Plato, souls are not identical with individual composites of soul and body. But an embodied person (or an embodied soul) is not exactly the same thing as a disembodied person (or soul), so it is a mistake to suppose that the human being is just the simple sum of person or soul and body. A person with a body is not a person plus a body. An embodied person is different from a disembodied person, as images of the intelligible differ from their paradigms. It would be more accurate to characterize Plato's dualism as based upon the distinction between disembodied person and embodied person than upon the distinction between soul and body. Therefore, Plato's position avoids or at least changes the meaning of the question ‘How is the soul related to the body?’ The embodied person or soul is neither a res cogitans related to a res extensa nor even a ‘captain’ related to a bodily ‘ship’, to use Aristotle's metaphor. The embodied person has a body and is the subject of bodily states.
Garry Hagberg
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- September 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199234226
- eISBN:
- 9780191715440
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199234226.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Language
The voluminous writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein contain some of the most profound reflections of our time on the nature of the human subject and self-understanding — the human condition, ...
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The voluminous writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein contain some of the most profound reflections of our time on the nature of the human subject and self-understanding — the human condition, philosophically speaking. This book mimes those extensive writings for a conception of the self. And more specifically, the book offers a discussion of Wittgenstein's later writings on language and mind as they hold special significance for the understanding and clarification of the distinctive character of self-descriptive or autobiographical language. The book also undertakes a philosophical investigation of selected autobiographical writings — among the best examples we have of human selves exploring themselves — as they cast new and special light on the critique of mind-body dualism and its undercurrents in particular, and on the nature of autobiographical consciousness more generally. The chapters take up in turn the topics of self-consciousness, what Wittgenstein calls ‘the inner picture’; mental privacy and the picture of metaphysical seclusion; the very idea of our observation of the contents of consciousness; first-person expressive speech; reflexive or self-directed thought and competing pictures of introspection; the nuances of retrospective self-understanding, person-perception, and the corollary issues of self-perception (itself an interestingly dangerous phrase); self-defining memory; and the therapeutic conception of philosophical progress as it applies to all of these issues. The cast of characters interwoven throughout the discussion include, in addition to Wittgenstein centrally, Augustine, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Iris Murdoch, Donald Davidson, and Stanley Cavell, among others.Less
The voluminous writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein contain some of the most profound reflections of our time on the nature of the human subject and self-understanding — the human condition, philosophically speaking. This book mimes those extensive writings for a conception of the self. And more specifically, the book offers a discussion of Wittgenstein's later writings on language and mind as they hold special significance for the understanding and clarification of the distinctive character of self-descriptive or autobiographical language. The book also undertakes a philosophical investigation of selected autobiographical writings — among the best examples we have of human selves exploring themselves — as they cast new and special light on the critique of mind-body dualism and its undercurrents in particular, and on the nature of autobiographical consciousness more generally. The chapters take up in turn the topics of self-consciousness, what Wittgenstein calls ‘the inner picture’; mental privacy and the picture of metaphysical seclusion; the very idea of our observation of the contents of consciousness; first-person expressive speech; reflexive or self-directed thought and competing pictures of introspection; the nuances of retrospective self-understanding, person-perception, and the corollary issues of self-perception (itself an interestingly dangerous phrase); self-defining memory; and the therapeutic conception of philosophical progress as it applies to all of these issues. The cast of characters interwoven throughout the discussion include, in addition to Wittgenstein centrally, Augustine, Goethe, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Iris Murdoch, Donald Davidson, and Stanley Cavell, among others.
Joseph Almog
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195337716
- eISBN:
- 9780199868704
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195337716.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
Decartes' maxim Cogito, Ergo Sum (from his Meditations) is perhaps the most famous philosophical expression ever coined. The author of this book, Joseph Almog, is a Descartes scholar whose last book ...
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Decartes' maxim Cogito, Ergo Sum (from his Meditations) is perhaps the most famous philosophical expression ever coined. The author of this book, Joseph Almog, is a Descartes scholar whose last book What Am I? focused on the second half of this expression asking who is the “I”, who is thinking, and how does this entity somehow incorporate both body and mind? This book looks at the first half of the proposition — cogito. The book calls this the “thinking man's paradox”: how can there be, in and part of the natural world, a creature that thinks? Descartes' proposition declares that such a fact maintains and is self-evident; but as this book points out, from the point of view of Descartes' own skepticism it is far from obvious. How can it be that a thinking human can be both part of the natural world and yet somehow distinct and separate from it? How did “thinking” arise in an otherwise “thoughtless” universe and what does it mean for beings like us to be thinkers? The book goes back to the Meditations, and using Descartes' own methodology — and his naturalistic, scientific worldview — tries to answer the question.Less
Decartes' maxim Cogito, Ergo Sum (from his Meditations) is perhaps the most famous philosophical expression ever coined. The author of this book, Joseph Almog, is a Descartes scholar whose last book What Am I? focused on the second half of this expression asking who is the “I”, who is thinking, and how does this entity somehow incorporate both body and mind? This book looks at the first half of the proposition — cogito. The book calls this the “thinking man's paradox”: how can there be, in and part of the natural world, a creature that thinks? Descartes' proposition declares that such a fact maintains and is self-evident; but as this book points out, from the point of view of Descartes' own skepticism it is far from obvious. How can it be that a thinking human can be both part of the natural world and yet somehow distinct and separate from it? How did “thinking” arise in an otherwise “thoughtless” universe and what does it mean for beings like us to be thinkers? The book goes back to the Meditations, and using Descartes' own methodology — and his naturalistic, scientific worldview — tries to answer the question.
Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199230723
- eISBN:
- 9780191710872
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199230723.001.0001
- Subject:
- Mathematics, Applied Mathematics
General Relativity has passed all experimental and observational tests to model the motion of isolated bodies with strong gravitational fields, though the mathematical and numerical study of these ...
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General Relativity has passed all experimental and observational tests to model the motion of isolated bodies with strong gravitational fields, though the mathematical and numerical study of these motions is still in its infancy. It is believed that General Relativity models our cosmos, with a manifold of dimensions possibly greater than four and debatable topology opening a vast field of investigation for mathematicians and physicists alike. Remarkable conjectures have been proposed, many results have been obtained but many fundamental questions remain open. This book overviews the basic ideas in General Relativity, introduces the necessary mathematics and discusses some of the key open questions in the field.Less
General Relativity has passed all experimental and observational tests to model the motion of isolated bodies with strong gravitational fields, though the mathematical and numerical study of these motions is still in its infancy. It is believed that General Relativity models our cosmos, with a manifold of dimensions possibly greater than four and debatable topology opening a vast field of investigation for mathematicians and physicists alike. Remarkable conjectures have been proposed, many results have been obtained but many fundamental questions remain open. This book overviews the basic ideas in General Relativity, introduces the necessary mathematics and discusses some of the key open questions in the field.
Adam G. Cooper
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- April 2005
- ISBN:
- 9780199275700
- eISBN:
- 9780191602399
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/019927570X.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Early Christian Studies
Maximus the Confessor (580-662) is increasingly regarded as a theologian of towering ecumenical importance. This book engages the full vista of Maximus’ profound incarnational and cosmic theology ...
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Maximus the Confessor (580-662) is increasingly regarded as a theologian of towering ecumenical importance. This book engages the full vista of Maximus’ profound incarnational and cosmic theology with the question: What happens to the body when human beings are deified? The answer unfolds in five chapters under the rubrics of epistemology, cosmology, christology, ecclesiology and spirituality. Each specifies an integral dimension in the Confessor’s theological vision and its central motif, viz. God the Word wills always to be embodied in all things. By virtue of their respective teleological orientation to Christ the incarnate Word, creation, history and the life of virtue each functions as a pedagogical strategy by which the transcendent God simultaneously conceals and reveals himself with the aim of leading all creation, including matter and the body, into deifying union with himself by grace. Ultimately it is the deification of Christ’s body that constitutes the paradigmatic and definitive renewal of fallen creation.Less
Maximus the Confessor (580-662) is increasingly regarded as a theologian of towering ecumenical importance. This book engages the full vista of Maximus’ profound incarnational and cosmic theology with the question: What happens to the body when human beings are deified? The answer unfolds in five chapters under the rubrics of epistemology, cosmology, christology, ecclesiology and spirituality. Each specifies an integral dimension in the Confessor’s theological vision and its central motif, viz. God the Word wills always to be embodied in all things. By virtue of their respective teleological orientation to Christ the incarnate Word, creation, history and the life of virtue each functions as a pedagogical strategy by which the transcendent God simultaneously conceals and reveals himself with the aim of leading all creation, including matter and the body, into deifying union with himself by grace. Ultimately it is the deification of Christ’s body that constitutes the paradigmatic and definitive renewal of fallen creation.
Erik N. Jensen
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- September 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195395648
- eISBN:
- 9780199866564
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195395648.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Cultural History, European Modern History
Body by Weimar argues that male and female athletes fundamentally recast gender roles during Germany's turbulent post‐World War I years and established the basis for a modern body and ...
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Body by Weimar argues that male and female athletes fundamentally recast gender roles during Germany's turbulent post‐World War I years and established the basis for a modern body and modern sensibility that remain with us to this day. Athletes in the 1920s took the same techniques that were streamlining factories and offices and applied them to maximizing the efficiency of their own flesh and bones. Sportswomen and men embodied modernity — quite literally — in all of its competitive, time‐oriented excess and thereby helped to popularize, and even to naturalize, the sometimes threatening process of economic rationalization by linking it to their own personal success stories. Enthroned by the media as the new cultural icons, athletes radiated sexual empowerment, social mobility, and self‐determination. Champions in tennis, boxing, and track and field showed their fans how to be “modern,” and, in the process, sparked heated debates over the limits of the physical body, the obligations of citizens to the state, and the relationship between the sexes. If the images and debates in this book strike readers as familiar, it might well be because the ideal body of today — sleek, efficient, and equally available to men and women — received its first articulation in the fertile tumult of Germany's roaring twenties. After more than eighty years, we still want the Weimar body.Less
Body by Weimar argues that male and female athletes fundamentally recast gender roles during Germany's turbulent post‐World War I years and established the basis for a modern body and modern sensibility that remain with us to this day. Athletes in the 1920s took the same techniques that were streamlining factories and offices and applied them to maximizing the efficiency of their own flesh and bones. Sportswomen and men embodied modernity — quite literally — in all of its competitive, time‐oriented excess and thereby helped to popularize, and even to naturalize, the sometimes threatening process of economic rationalization by linking it to their own personal success stories. Enthroned by the media as the new cultural icons, athletes radiated sexual empowerment, social mobility, and self‐determination. Champions in tennis, boxing, and track and field showed their fans how to be “modern,” and, in the process, sparked heated debates over the limits of the physical body, the obligations of citizens to the state, and the relationship between the sexes. If the images and debates in this book strike readers as familiar, it might well be because the ideal body of today — sleek, efficient, and equally available to men and women — received its first articulation in the fertile tumult of Germany's roaring twenties. After more than eighty years, we still want the Weimar body.
Francesco Calogero
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- May 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780199535286
- eISBN:
- 9780191715853
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199535286.001.0001
- Subject:
- Physics, Theoretical, Computational, and Statistical Physics
A classical dynamical system is called isochronous if it features in its phase space an open, fully dimensional sector where all its solutions are periodic in all their degrees of freedom with the ...
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A classical dynamical system is called isochronous if it features in its phase space an open, fully dimensional sector where all its solutions are periodic in all their degrees of freedom with the same, fixed period. Recently, a simple transformation has been introduced, featuring a real parameter ω and reducing to the identity for ω=0. This transformation is applicable to a quite large class of dynamical systems and it yields ω-modified autonomous systems which are isochronous, with period T = 2π/ω. This justifies the notion that isochronous systems are not rare. In this monograph—which covers work done over the last decade by its author and several collaborators—this technology to manufacture isochronous systems is reviewed. Many examples of such systems are provided, including many-body problems characterized by Newtonian equations of motion in spaces of one or more dimensions, Hamiltonian systems, and also nonlinear evolution equations (PDEs: Partial Differential Equations). This monograph shall be of interest to researchers working on dynamical systems, including integrable and nonintegrable models, with a finite or infinite number of degrees of freedom. It shall also appeal to experimenters and practitioners interested in isochronous phenomena. It might be used as basic or complementary textbook for an undergraduate or graduate course.Less
A classical dynamical system is called isochronous if it features in its phase space an open, fully dimensional sector where all its solutions are periodic in all their degrees of freedom with the same, fixed period. Recently, a simple transformation has been introduced, featuring a real parameter ω and reducing to the identity for ω=0. This transformation is applicable to a quite large class of dynamical systems and it yields ω-modified autonomous systems which are isochronous, with period T = 2π/ω. This justifies the notion that isochronous systems are not rare. In this monograph—which covers work done over the last decade by its author and several collaborators—this technology to manufacture isochronous systems is reviewed. Many examples of such systems are provided, including many-body problems characterized by Newtonian equations of motion in spaces of one or more dimensions, Hamiltonian systems, and also nonlinear evolution equations (PDEs: Partial Differential Equations). This monograph shall be of interest to researchers working on dynamical systems, including integrable and nonintegrable models, with a finite or infinite number of degrees of freedom. It shall also appeal to experimenters and practitioners interested in isochronous phenomena. It might be used as basic or complementary textbook for an undergraduate or graduate course.
Tad M. Schmaltz
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780195327946
- eISBN:
- 9780199869961
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195327946.001.0001
- Subject:
- Philosophy, General
This book is a systematic study of Descartes's theory of causation and its relation to the medieval and early modern scholastic philosophy that provides its proper historical context. The argument ...
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This book is a systematic study of Descartes's theory of causation and its relation to the medieval and early modern scholastic philosophy that provides its proper historical context. The argument here is that even though Descartes offered a dualistic ontology that differs radically from what we find in scholasticism, his views on causation were profoundly influenced by scholastic thought on this issue. This influence is evident not only in his affirmation in the Meditations of the abstract scholastic axiom that a cause must contain the reality of its effects, but also in the details of the accounts of body‐body interactions in his physics, of mind‐body interaction in his psychology, and of the causation that he took to be involved in free human action. In contrast to those who have read Descartes as endorsing the “occasionalist” conclusion that God is the only real cause, a central thesis of this study is that he accepted what in the context of scholastic debates regarding causation is the antipode of occasionalism, namely, the view that creatures rather than God are the causal source of natural change. What emerges from the defense of this interpretation of Descartes is a new understanding of his contribution to modern thought on causation.Less
This book is a systematic study of Descartes's theory of causation and its relation to the medieval and early modern scholastic philosophy that provides its proper historical context. The argument here is that even though Descartes offered a dualistic ontology that differs radically from what we find in scholasticism, his views on causation were profoundly influenced by scholastic thought on this issue. This influence is evident not only in his affirmation in the Meditations of the abstract scholastic axiom that a cause must contain the reality of its effects, but also in the details of the accounts of body‐body interactions in his physics, of mind‐body interaction in his psychology, and of the causation that he took to be involved in free human action. In contrast to those who have read Descartes as endorsing the “occasionalist” conclusion that God is the only real cause, a central thesis of this study is that he accepted what in the context of scholastic debates regarding causation is the antipode of occasionalism, namely, the view that creatures rather than God are the causal source of natural change. What emerges from the defense of this interpretation of Descartes is a new understanding of his contribution to modern thought on causation.
