As Hegel once said, in Byzantium, between homoousis and homoiousis, the difference of one letter could decide the life and death of thousands. As this article seeks to argue, Byzantine thinking was not only attentive to conceptual differences, but also to iconic ones. The iconoclastic controversy (726-842 AD) arose from two different interpretations of the nature of images: whereas iconoclastic philosophy is based on the assumption of a fundamental 'iconic identity', iconophile philosophy defends the idea of'iconic difference'. And while the (...) reception in the Latin West of the controversies over the image as a mere problem of referentiality of the letter explains why its originality has remained underestimated for centuries, reexamining Byzantine visual thinking in the light of today's 'pictorial turn' reveals its striking modernity. (shrink)

The idea of creation in the divine image has a long and complex history. While its roots apparently lie in the royal myths of Mesopotamia and Egypt, this book argues that it was the biblical account of creation presented in the first chapters of Genesis and its interpretation in early rabbinic literature that created the basis for the perennial inquiry of the concept in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Yair Lorberbaum reconstructs the idea of the creation of man in the image of (...) God attributed in the Midrash and the Talmud. He analyzes meanings attributed to tselem Elohim in early rabbinic thought, as expressed in Aggadah, and explores its application in the normative, legal, and ritual realms. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to examine the limits of Aristotle’s and Arendt’s contributions to a philosophical anthropology. By focusing on the concept of ‘potentiality’—and thus the ‘good life’ as a potentiality awaiting actualization—the limit emerges from the way Aristotle understands ‘life.’ His discussion of slavery is pivotal in this regard.

But that from which things arise (genesis) also give rise to their passing away (phtora) according to what is necessary (kata to chreon); for things render justice (dike) and pay penalty (tisis) for their injustice (adikias), according to the ordinance of time. The Anaximander Fragment.

It is generally believed that one argument advanced by Aristotle in favor of the political authority of the multitude is that large groups can make better decisions by pooling their knowledge than individuals or small groups can make alone. This is supported by two analogies, one apparently involving a “potluck dinner” and the other aesthetic judgment. This article suggests that that interpretation of Aristotle’s argument is implausible given the historical context and several features of the text. It argues that Aristotle’s (...) support for the rule of the multitude rested not on its superior knowledge but rather on his belief that the virtue of individuals can be aggregated and even amplified when they act collectively. This significantly alters our understanding of Aristotle’s political thought and presents a powerful alternative to the epistemic defenses of mass political activity popular today. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to investigate the role of allegory in Philo and spe­cifically in his text On the Migration of Abraham. This involves the twofold move of arguing that even though Philo remains a Platonist and that his language is Platonic in orientation what occurs is a transformation of seeing, which is an immediate activity, into reading, which is always mediate. The second elements stems from this insistence on mediation. It results in freeing allegory from the hold (...) of the allegorical/literal op­position. Allegory is transformed as a result in the name of an ineliminable allegoresis. (shrink)

Ce travail constitue un inédit dans les études hégéliennes. Jamais en aucune langue, en effet, l'ensemble des textes christologiques hégéliens de la maturité — Phénoménologie, Philosophie de la religion, Encyclopédie — n'avait été interprété de manière littérale ni dans une perspective systématique, fait d'autant plus étonnant que le philosophe lui-même avait un jour qualifié son oeuvre de "Vendredi Saint spéculatif". La méthode de l'auteur se signale par son caractère rigoureux. Les textes hégéliens sur la christologie sont commentés mot à mot (...) grâce au recours incessant aux diverses éditions de la Logique de Hegel. Cette référence permet de préciser avec exactitude la portée d'affirmations hégéliennes que les commentateurs habituels se contentent souvent de confronter avec leurs propres positions doctrinales, sans en avoir au préalable mesuré la densité. Non seulement le détail des textes est respecté, mais ce même détail et les textes pris globalement se trouvent situés dans le mouvement et la perspective de chacune des oeuvres étudiées. Ceci permet de percevoir la complémentarité et la cohérence des affirmations hégéliennes et de dégager à coup sûr le contenu de la christologie élaborée par le philosophe. En guise d'introduction, l'auteur décrit la genèse de cette christologie spéculative dans les écrits du jeune Hegel. Pour conclure, il esquisse les grandes lignes d'une christologie post-hégélienne originale, qui tâche d'absoudre la synthèse hégélienne de son unilatéralité cruciale en l'intégrant, à la lumière de Pâques, dans un cadre plus ample. (shrink)

In this eloquent book, Kathy Eden challenges commonly accepted conceptions about the history of hermeneutics. Contending that the hermeneutical tradition is not a purely modern German specialty, she argues instead that the historical grounding of modern hermeneutics is in the ancient tradition of rhetoric. Eden demonstrates how the early rhetorical model of reading, called interpretatio scripti by Cicero and his followers, not only has informed a continuous tradition of interpretation from Republican Rome to Reformation Europe but also has forged such (...) enduring hermeneutical principles as meaning, context, and literary economy. (shrink)