Philosophers often focus on topics such as death and old age, and much less on other stages of life. The British-American philosopher Kienan Setiya (2017) has recently taken on the topic of middle age from a philosophical perspective and offered suggestions for dealing with the angst often associated with mid-age. His suggestions are based on both his own experiences and practical thoughts based on his readings of other philosophers during their mid-life periods. My own contribution is to describe his (...) thoughts and add a few observations of my own. (shrink)

’ During the late Middle Ages a growth of scientific and philosophical knowledge began to occur. There was an increase in attention to art and architecture. Europe started to move forward in terms of intellect and culture. The ‘Golden Age of Europe’ is well exemplified in documents 6, 7, and 10. “… we learn that an age once traditionally described as ‘dark’ had remarkable vitality and exuberance. … But even more it was creative and inventive, and transmitted to (...) later ages great rich. -/- . (shrink)

The majority of The Legend of the Middle Ages: Philosophical Explorations of Medieval Christianity, Judaism, and Islam has been published previously in different forms, but this edition has been completely revised by the author, the well-known French medievalist and intellectual historian Rémi Brague. It was first published in French under the title Au moyen du Moyen Âge in 2006. The book consists of sixteen essays ranging from Brague’s early years at the Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris I) in the 1990s (...) up until 2005. As a collection of articles, therefore, The Legend of the Middle Ages is not designed to be a monograph; one should not expect a single argument from the book, although it does explore key intersections of medieval religion and philosophy that I will touch upon later. (shrink)

Pierre Duhem is the discoverer of the physics of the Middle Ages. The discovery that there existed a physics of the Middle Ages was a surprise primarily for Duhem himself. This discovery completely changed the way he saw the evolution of physics, bringing him to formulate a complex argument for the growth and continuity of scientific knowledge, which I call the ‘Pierre Duhem Thesis’ (not to be confused either with what Roger Ariew called the ‘true Duhem (...) thesis’ as opposed to the Quine-Duhem thesis, which he persuasively argued is not Duhem’s, or with the famous ‘Quine-Duhem Thesis’ itself). The ‘Pierre Duhem Thesis’ consists of five sub-theses (some transcendental in nature, some other causal, factual, or descriptive), which are not independent, as they do not work separately (but only as a system) and do not relate to reality separately (but only simultaneously). The famous and disputed ‘continuity thesis’ is part, as a sub-thesis, from this larger argument. I argue that the ‘Pierre Duhem Thesis’ wraps up all of Duhem’s discoveries in the history of science and as a whole represents his main contribution to the historiography of science. The ‘Pierre Duhem Thesis’ is the central argument of Pierre Duhem's work as historian of science. (shrink)

The late Middle Ages witnessed a recapitulation of medieval reflection on beauty. Jean Gerson is an important representative of these philosophical and theological contributions, although he has been largely neglected up to this time. A first dimension of his ideas on beauty is the incorporation of beauty (pulchrum) into the number of transcendentals, i.e., the concepts “convertible” with the notion of being (ens), that is, unity, truth, and goodness (unum, verum and bonum). This article revisits Monica Calma’s study (...) on Gerson’s theory of beauty and suggests new hypothetical sources that may have inspired this aspect of his thought. The second aspect emphasised here is Gerson’s classification of beauty, which entails some similarities to the one of Ulrich of Strasbourg, but also differs from it. Moreover, its incorporation of a division entirely devoted to artistic beauty is highly remarkable. (shrink)

The Middles Ages are often portrayed as a time in which people with physical disabilities in the Latin West were ostracized, on the grounds that such conditions demonstrated personal sin and/or God’s judgment. This was undoubtedly the dominant response to disability in various times and places during the fifth through fifteenth centuries, but the total range of medieval responses is much broader and more interesting. In particular, the 13th-15th century treatment of three groups (martyrs, mothers, and mystics - whose (...) physical ‘defects’ were often understood as signs of special connection to God in this life, and who were often represented as retaining these signs in the life to come) challenge standard notions of beauty, disfigurement, and bodily perfection, particularly as the notion is applied to eternal life and our ultimate end. (shrink)

Cathars, a Christian dualist-gnostic order of the Middle Ages, is not known well in our country and has some certain striking features among the religious movement in this cultural area. The Cathars were denounced as heretics due to the mentioned features, and attracted the antagonism of the Churchseverely by their irreconcilable stances in basic dogmas and practices including the perception of God, baptism, Jesus Christ, Holy Virgin, the primordial sin, the Sacred Scripture. Thus, they witnessed the greatest massacres (...) in a manner unprecedently throughout the history. As a result of the attacks of the Papacy and the Inquisition against their leaders as well as their proponents, thousands of their followers were sacrificed. Moreover, the Cathars put their stamp on history as one of the most oppressed societies within the history in consequence of the carnages carried out by a certain Crusade called Albigeois, and they were exterminated by burning at the stake, which indicates the extent of the oppression they witnessed. (shrink)

Medieval and early modern devotional works rarely receive serious treatment from philosophers, even those working in the subfields of philosophy of religion or the history of ideas. In this article, I examine one medieval devotional work in particular—the Middle High German image- and verse-program, Christus und die minnende Seele (CMS)—and I argue that it can plausibly be viewed as a form of medieval public philosophy, one that both exhibited and encouraged philosophical innovation. I address a few objections to my (...) proposal—namely, that CMS is neither public enough nor that it counts as proper philosophy—and I attempt to defend CMS’s public philosophical credentials in light of these objections. I conclude with a brief discussion of how devotional texts like CMS can help us do innovative public philosophy today. (shrink)

In its literal meaning, the term ἔκστασις (ekstasis) indicates a displacement, ‘being out of immobility’, and ultimately being outside oneself. To some extent, this term takes on a mystical connotation in late Antiquity, notably in book VI.9.11.24 of Plotinus’ Enneads, where ekstasis is described as a non-ordinary way of seeing. The notion of ecstasy, often inseparable from the concept of vision, would keep its mystical role, though altered in some ways, over the centuries, conceptualizing a specific kind of knowledge, which (...) goes beyond the subject-object opposition, addressing the epistemological issues of perceiving and knowing the divine, and often challenging the nature of the self. This issue offers some attempts to track the constant reshaping and migration of the notions of ecstasy and intellectual or spiritual vision over the history of Western thought, unearthing their structural and constant persistence, from the Middle Ages to the contemporary ages, recurrently in many different non-ultimately-dialectical metaphysical systems. The papers in this volume provide some illustrative examples of the tangled history of the divergent meanings that the notions of ecstasy and vision have taken on, and their considerable reassessments and adaptations to constantly evolving conceptual frameworks, often redefining further notions such as those of rapture, prophecy, sleep, dream, and death. -/- . (shrink)

The article discusses the presence of Plato' philosophy in Poland including the presentation of the reception of Plato's texts and the knowledge of Plato's philosophy in Poland. It outlines the influence exerted by Plato's thought on various aspects of Polish culture and sets out the research on Plato in the XIX and XX centuries. The paper is supplemented with a selection of contributions concerning Plato (papers, monographs, translations) published in Poland after the year 1945.

How does aging affect facial attractiveness? We tested the hypothesis that people find older faces less attractive than younger faces, and furthermore, that these aging effects are modulated by the age and sex of the perceiver and by the specific kind of attractiveness judgment being made. Using empirical and computational network science methods, we confirmed that with increasing age, faces are perceived as less attractive. This effect was less pronounced in judgments made by older than younger and middle-aged perceivers, (...) and more pronounced by men (especially for female faces) than women. Attractive older faces were perceived as elegant more than beautiful or gorgeous. Furthermore, network analyses revealed that older faces were more similar in attractiveness and were segregated from younger faces. These results indicate that perceivers tend to process older faces categorically when making attractiveness judgments. Attractiveness is not a monolithic construct. It varies by age, sex, and the dimensions of attractiveness being judged. (shrink)

The turn of the nineteenth century marked a rich and exciting explosion of philosophical energy and talent. The enormity of the revolution set off in philosophy by Immanuel Kant was comparable, in Kant's own estimation, with the Copernican Revolution that ended the Middle Ages. The movement he set in motion, the fast-moving and often cantankerous dialectic of "German Idealism," inspired some of the most creative philosophers in modern times: including G. W. F. Hegel and Arthur Schopenhauer as well (...) as those who reacted against Kant--Marx and Kierkegaard, for example. This volume traces the emergence of German Idealism from Kant and his predecessors through the first half of the nineteenth century, ending with the irrationalism of Kierkegaard. It provides a broad, scholarly introduction to this period for students of philosophy and related disciplines, as well as some original interpretations of these authors. Also included is a glossary of technical terms as well as a chronological table of philosophical, scientific and other important cultural events. (shrink)

Extremism is a perennial problem in our civilisation. It has constantly impeded our progress by leading to unnecessary wars, conflicts, enmity and hatred. Understanding the middle way between these two extremes helps us to clarify what extremism is and how it arises. Such an understanding can be made part of the education system so that children are taught from an early age to detect extremist tendencies in their own thinking and to control them for their own good and the (...) good of society. This paper extends the views expressed in my book, The Promise of Dualism (Almostic Publications) and other papers on the subject of extremism. It is focused on the following table which shows how the middle way stands between the extremes of too much power and too much belief. After the introduction, the rest of this paper explicates this table’s contents in considerable detail – line by line and word by word – in explanatory notes. (shrink)

This paper addresses a philosophical problem concerning the ontological status of age classification. For various purposes, people are commonly classified into categories such as “young adulthood”, “middle adulthood”, and “older adulthood”, which are defined chronologically. These age categories prima facie seem to qualify as natural kinds under a homeostatic property cluster account of natural kindhood, insofar as they capture certain biological, psychological, and social properties of people that tend to cluster together due to causal processes. However, this is challenged (...) by the observation that age categories are historically unstable. The properties that age categories are supposed to capture are affected by healthcare and cultural developments, such that people are staying biologically, psychologically, and socially young for longer. Furthermore, the act of classifying people into age categories can bring about changes in their behaviors, which in turn alter the biological, psychological, and social properties that the categories are supposed to capture. Accordingly, I propose that age categories are best understood as interactive kinds that are influenced in dynamic ways by looping effects. I consider some implications of these looping effects for our classificatory practices concerning age, including how different disciplines may need to review the ways they define and use age categories in their inductive inferences. (shrink)

Contrary to what is generally said about the reception of Epicurus in the Middle Ages, many medieval authors agreed on his great wisdom, even if he made some philosophical and theological errors. From the 12th century to the 14th century on can find several "Lives of Epicurus" in which the best sayings of Epicurus are gathered from ancient sources (Seneca, Cicero, Lactantius, etc.). In this paper, we follow these quite unknown sources about Epicureanism in the Middle (...) class='Hi'>Ages. We try to show that if Epicurus was considered as a wise man in the MIddle Ages, Epicureans are condemned because after the Revelation of God's word, Christians can only accept Epicurus's ascetic ethics, not his errors about the eternity of the world, the mortality of the soul et the subordination of happiness to pleasure. (shrink)

The Four ages contains a brief explicit discussion of the issue of Christian philosophy, referencing the Middle Ages and the 1930s French debates about Christian philosophy. Closer attention to the debates reveals a plurality of positions rather than unanimous agreement on Christian philosophy, indicating that the quite complex issues were not resolved. In this review article, I contest Deely’s interpretation of Maritian’s position, provide an exegesis of Maritain’s position, argue that Deely’s explicit position is identifiable as very (...) close to Neo-Scholastic opponents of Christian philosophy during the debates, and briefly discuss Gilson’s and Blondel’s criticisms of such positions articulated during the 1930s debates. I also indicate that despite his opposition to Christian philosophy, Deely shares several key insights with its proponents, and I end by suggesting but not developing a few ways Deely’s semiotic approach could bear additional fruit for postmodern Christian philosophy’s ongoing projects of self-understanding. (shrink)

In the article, the author asserts that the transition of world history from Ancient Greece to the Middle Ages is connected precisely with the changed understanding and evaluation of the fundamental meanings of Being, but not with their replacement. The ancient paideia with all its achievements and peculiarities did not disappear in the history of culture. It transformed into the “paideia of Christ,” in which the second birth took place. After reviving in the new socio-cultural reality, Greek paideia (...) retained its fundamental meanings, which continued to be expounded through the conceptual apparatus of Christian theology in the theories of education in the Middle Ages. (shrink)

In this article, Aristotelian Intelligence in the 13th Century Latin Medieval Era was evaluated on the basis of Ibn Rushd. In this context, the philosophical movement which is known as Latin Averroism is discussed. The concept of reason, which has begun to be discussed by the philosopher Ibn Rushd in the Middle Middle Age through the recognition of the annotations he wrote on Aristotle's works in the Middle Ages, seems to have gained a theological and political (...) aspect with differentiated readings. (shrink)

This chapter analyzes traditional archetypes of divan literature—‘āşık (lover), ma‘şūk (beloved), and rakīb (opponent)—to show the presence of a dialectical discourse in classical Ottoman divan love poems. In both style and content divan poems display a comprehensive understanding of the postclassical Islamic philosophical conception of dialectic and argumentation theory, known as ādāb al-baḥth wa al-munāẓara. The focus on Ottoman love poetry and argumentation theory in this paper aims to demonstrate how the love poetry that developed in Ottoman culture is more (...) dialectical in form and content than Ottoman literary studies have recognized. (shrink)

In a companion article, “Terrible Knowledge And Tertiary Trauma, Part I: Japanese Nuclear Trauma And Resistance To The Atomic Bomb” (this issue), I argue that we need to teach about the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even though the material is difficult emotionally as well as intellectually. Because of the nature of the information, this topic can be as difficult for graduate students (and their professors!) as for younger students. Teaching about the atomic bombings, however, demands special treatment if (...) we are to prevent a sense of isolation, immobilization, or helplessness in students. We can do this by building a strong community of learning, offering students as much control over their learning as possible, and helping them find ways to connect to larger social and political processes and movements that make sense of an endangered world. Here I offer some thoughts on how to teach it, along with discussion questions, applicable to K-graduate school. Since middle-school students are becoming keenly aware of the larger world through the Internet, and middle school teaching can be (comparatively) easy to adapt for other age groups, I also offer some suggestions of some materials and projects appropriate for use with that age group. (shrink)

This chapter is a rethinking of my earlier “The Ages of Beauty” which investigated Charles Hartshorne’s Diagram of Aesthetic Values. The argument is placed in a long history of beauty being considered as the middle between extremes. It slowly develops into a structure not merely of aesthetic experience but of existence itself, making it a competitor of Heidegger’s fourfold.

This essay is a short but impacting observation of the economy of the Middle Ages in light of recent economic historians’ discoveries: not only are some conventional beliefs such as the absence of a financial and trading economy of the period discredited, but a more nuanced view of feudalism also emerges from such revelations. The new, groundbreaking work of Michael McCormick is pitted against Henri Pirenne’s classic theory; in addition, seminal works by Marc Bloch, S.R. Epstein, and lesser (...) known work by Aron Gurevich provide a more authentic view of Middle-Age economy. Finally, contrary to Marxist historiography, this essay postulates that to some extent feudalism fomented the development of capitalism. (shrink)

Abstract -/- Before Descartes, middle age philosophers like Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), Duns Scotus (1266-1308), and Francisco Suarez (1548-1617) used to discuss the distinction between essence and existence in three ways (of course, Ibn-Sina was the first who made this distinction to rehabilitate Aristotelian philosophy in the Islamic heritage). Descartes was aware of that, but discussed it according to the relation between mind and body. Yet, he told us many times that he was used to separate essence from existence in (...) metaphysical issues. The objective of this paper is first to rephrase his untold opinion about the relation between essence and existence on the basis of his conception of the problem of distinction according to mind and body, and second, to disclose that Descartes's conception of existence is twofold. At the end, it is claimed that his twofold notion of existence and his inability to overcome it, is the principal factor in his failure to explicate everything according to first principles, and so in his failure to defeat skepticism. (shrink)

The Predynastic Period in Ancient Egypt is the time before recorded history from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic Age and on to the rise of the First Dynasty and is generally recognized as spanning the era from c. 6000-3150 BCE (though physical evidence argues for a longer history). While there are no written records from this period, archaeological excavations throughout Egypt have uncovered artifacts which tell their own story of the development of culture in the Nile River Valley. The periods (...) of the Predynastic Period are named for the regions/ancient city sites in which these artifacts were found and do not reflect the names of the cultures who actually lived in those areas. The Predynastic Period was given its name in the early days of archaeological expeditions in Egypt before many of the most important finds were discovered and catalogued which has led some scholars to argue over when, precisely, the Predynastic Period begins and, more importantly, ends. These scholars suggest the adoption of another designation, 'Protodynastic Period', for that span of time closer to the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3150-2613 BCE) or 'Zero. (shrink)

Central Eurasia in the Middle Ages. Studies in Honour of Peter B. Golden, ed. István Zimonyi & Osman Karatay, Harrassowitz Verlag (Wiesbaden, 2016). -/- Almost all institutions talk about ‘vision.’ All proudly display a sentence or two about this ‘vision’ on their premises. In the lobby of a swimming pool construction company it is possible to discover the statement: “Our philosophy is to have children splash happily in each one of our pools.” One wonders if the swimming pool (...) company intends to supply the children, too. Similarly, one can find a dentist who wrote a vision which he intends his future patients to read. Large multinationals reduce their vision to less than five words and let the whole world know. (shrink)

Lecturing is the only educational form inherited from the universities of the middle ages that is still in use today. However, it seems that lecturing is under threat, as recent calls to do away with lecturing in favour of more dynamic settings, such as the flipped classroom or pre-recorded talks, have found many adherents. In line with the post-critical approach of this book, this chapter argues that there is something in the university lecture that needs to be affirmed: (...) at its best, the university lecture functions as a technique for thinking together or for making collective thinking happen in a lecture hall. The lecture offers the set-up, both technological and architectural, to forge a common experience that binds together the listeners and the speakers; that experience can be characterised as visualising ideas or seeing things as if they had taken on a ‘bodily form’. By looking at several examples of lecturing moments experienced by Gadamer as a student and later recounted in his autobiography, we can better understand the paradigmatic experience that characterises the lecture – as an ideal to be sought, even if, perhaps, not always actualised in everyday lectures. (shrink)

A new translation and edition of Aristotle's Protrepticus (with critical comments on the fragments) -/- Welcome -/- The Protrepticus was an early work of Aristotle, written while he was still a member of Plato's Academy, but it soon became one of the most famous works in the whole history of philosophy. Unfortunately it was not directly copied in the middle ages and so did not survive in its own manuscript tradition. But substantial fragments of it have been preserved (...) in several works by Iamblichus of Chalcis, a third century A.D. neo-Pythagorean philosopher and educator. On the basis of a close study of Iamblichus' extensive use and excerption of Aristotle's Protrepticus, it is possible to reconstruct the backbone of the lost work, and then to flesh it out with the other surviving reports about the work from antiquity (for example in Alexander of Aphrodisias and other ancient commentators on Aristotle). It is also possible to identify several papyrus fragments of the work, and many references and literary allusions in later authors, especially Cicero, whose own lost dialogue Hortensius was a defense of philosophy modeleld on Aristotle's. (shrink)

Self-knowledge is a persistent—and paradoxical—theme in medieval mysticism, which portrays our ultimate goal as union with the divine. Union with God is often taken to involve a cognitive and/or volitional merging that requires the loss of a sense of self as distinct from the divine. Yet affective mysticism—which emphasizes the passion of the incarnate Christ and portrays physical and emotional mystical experiences as inherently valuable—was in fact the dominant tradition in the later Middle Ages. An examination of both (...) the affective and apophatic traditions demonstrates that, in addition to constituting a necessary stage on the path toward union with the divine, self-knowledge in medieval mysticism was seen not just as something to be transcended, but (particularly in the works of female mystics) as a means of overcoming alienation from embodied existence. (shrink)

The German Tradition of Self-Cultivation (Bil dung) and its Historical Meaning. This article aims at analysing the historical meaning of the German ideal of self-cultivation (Bildung), considering its different uses and interpretations over time. Based on the historical semantics of Reinhart Koselleck and the bibliography on the subject, it reconstructs the core transformations in its semantic structure from the beginnings in the late Middle Ages to its institutionalization in the German school system in the nineteenth century. The development (...) of the ideal of Bildung in Germany is characterised by the tension between its function as means of integration through education and its function as instrument of social distinction. The reflexion on this educational ideal is presented as a counterpoint to some of the contemporary educational practices, based on the imperatives of the market and the neoliberal management of human capital. (shrink)

Moral concern with food intake is as old asmorality itself. In the course of history, however,several ways of critically examining practices of foodproduction and food intake have been developed.Whereas ancient Greek food ethics concentrated on theproblem of temperance, and ancient Jewish ethics onthe distinction between legitimate and illicit foodproducts, early Christian morality simply refused toattach any moral significance to food intake. Yet,during the middle ages food became one of theprinciple objects of monastic programs for moralexercise (askesis). During the (...) seventeenth andeighteenth century, food ethics was transformed interms of the increasing scientific interest in foodintake, while in the nineteenth century the socialdimension of food ethics was discovered, with theresult that more and more attention was given to theproduction and distribution of food products. Becauseof the increasing distance between the production andconsumption of food products ever since, theoutstanding feature of contemporary food ethics is itreliance and dependence on labeling practices. (shrink)

Aim: The researcher studied how the teachers at Guangdong Business and Technology University manage change based on the present situation in the country. -/- Methodology: This study utilized the descriptive – comparative research design with 275 teachers as respondents. Statistical test of data includes frequency count and percentage, weighted mean, t- test and/or ANOVA. -/- Results: Teacher respondents are very much ready to manage the change for the teaching and learning based on teaching-related factors which ranked first, as well as (...) on teaching-related factors which ranked second, and on technology-related factors which ranked third. It is noticeable that technology-related factor was the least assessed factors as regards their readiness to manage the change. Generally, an over-all mean value of 3.52 reveals that teachers are very much ready to manage the change for the teaching and learning. Based on the result, teacher respondents strongly agree on their level of motivation on their teaching and learning performance. The result reveals that teachers are highly motivated in performing their job as teachers based on their own assessment. -/- Conclusion: Majority of the respondents are female teachers in middle age aiming to earn their doctoral degree and have been in the university for not more than five years. Teachers believed that they are very much ready to manage the change for the teaching and learning. They also seem to be less ready in terms of accessing professional development opportunities that focus on continuous improvement of digital-age teaching skills. The use of variety of assessment strategies applying the technology and the implementation of alternative strategies in the classroom seems to be less managed by the teachers. They also have relatively the same assessment on how ready they are to manage the change in the teaching and learning regardless of their sex, age, educational level they have attained, and the length of stay in the institution. (shrink)

Avicena´s Metaphysics is probably the most mature expression of the Muslim rationalist thinking from the Middle Ages. From a Marxist point of view, this essay investigates how this way of thinking came to be, its historical roots and the economic, political and social network that made it possible. It also tries to uncover the theoretical problems it addresses and the intellectual needs tries to solve. Finally, this paper outlines a brief review of its historical significance as well as (...) its future projections, today our past. (shrink)

In the present paper, the meanings the term “Chaldeans” acquired during the Antiquity and the early Middle Ages are presented, but mainly the role the Chaldean Oracles played inside the movement of Neo-Platonism is emphasized. The stratification of Being according to the theology of the Chaldean Oracles, suggests a reformation of the ancient Chaldean dogmas by the Neo-Platonists. The kernel of this paper is the demonstration of the similarity between the name “En” that the ancient Babylonians used as (...) the first part of many compound words for their gods, with the One (Ἕν=En), the first theological principle in the Neo-Platonic system. Yet, a comparison between the Chaldean theology and the Neo-platonic views on Mysticism and religiosity follows. As it is well known, the later Neo-Platonism will be led to the creation of a way of thought and practice as impacts from the ancient tradition. (shrink)

This article analyzes the evolution of aesthetic role of the nature in the Middle Ages from the point of view of the philosophical systems influence on the interpretation of the corporal as a legitim way to the knowledge of the truth. it studies the intimate approach of neo-platonism, the shaping of its premises in the rejection of physical beauty and the change that occured after the assimilation of Aristotelianism toward a naturalistic outsourcing of the intellectual and artistic interests.

Generacja sandwicz - grupa osób w wieku średnim, która ze wzglȩdu na swoj¸a} centraln¸a} pozycjȩ w strukturze wieku i w zwi¸a}zanej z ni¸a} stratyfikacji wiekowej stanowi generacjȩ, które jednocześnie opiekuje siȩ osobami starszymi i osobami młodszymi. Zjawisko to określane jest też jako "kobiety w środku" lub "złapani w środku". Koncepcja "generacji sandwicz" w w¸a}skim ujȩciu odnoszona jest przeważnie do tradycyjnie postrzeganych ról opiekuńczych kobiet, które s¸a} w wieku środkowym, a zarazem na przedpolu starości. W ujȩciu feministycznym społeczne oczekiwania wobec kobiet (...) znajduj¸a}cych siȩ miȩdzy 40. a 60. rokiem życia s¸a} zorientowane z jednej strony na udzielanie pomocy dzieciom i młodzieży w uzyskaniu samodzielnego dorosłego życia, z drugiej zaś s¸a ukierunkowane na udzielanie pomocy pielȩgnacyjnej starszemu pokoleniu szczególnie w przypadku niepełnosprawności, otȩpienia lub choroby Alzheimera. Oczekiwania wobec powyższych ról opiekuńczych s¸a sformalizowane w mniejszym lub wiȩkszym stopniu co prowadzi do nierówności miȩdzy kobietami i mȩżczyznami. ** Sandwich generation - a group of middle-aged people who, due to its central position in the age structure and related age stratification is a generation that simultaneously takes care of elderly people and younger people. This phenomenon is also referred to as "women in the middle" or "caught in the middle". The concept of "sandwich generation" in a narrow sense refers mainly to the traditionally perceived caring roles of women who are middle-aged and at the same time on the forefront of old age. In the feminist approach, the social expectations towards women between 40 and 60 years old are oriented on helping children and young people to get an independent adult life, on the other hand they are oriented towards providing care to the older generation, especially in the case of disability, dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. Expectations regarding these care roles are formalized in a smaller one or to a greater extent which leads to inequality between women and men. (shrink)

List of Illustrations Introduction 1 The Didactic and the Elegant: Some Thoughts on Scientific and Technological Illustrations in the Middle Ages and Renaissance 3 2 Temples of the Body and Temples of the Cosmos: Vision and Visualization in the Vesalian and Copernican Revolutions 40 3 Descartes’s Scientific Illustrations and ’la grande mecanique de la nature’ 86 4 Illustrating Chemistry 135 5 Representations of the Natural System in the Nineteenth Century 164 6 Visual Representation in Archaeology: Depicting the Missing-Link (...) in Human Origins 184 7 Towards an Epistemology of Scientific Illustration 215 8 Illustration and Inference 250 9 Visual Models and Scientific Judgment 269 10 Are Pictures Really Necessary? The Case of Sewall Wright’s ’Adaptive Landscapes’ 303 Bibliography 339 Notes on Contributors 373 Index 377. (shrink)

Centre and Periphery in the Historiography of Philosophy: Peter Olivi and Medieval Psychology The paper inquiries into the (historiographical) question what does it mean to be a “marginal thinker” in the context of the medieval philosophy. The question is investigated on the example of Franciscan philosopher and theologian Peter Olivi (1248/49–1298) and his philosophical psychology. First, a preliminary option is introduced: for a thinker, being “marginal” depends on his relation to who is considered to be canonical. Since the most famous (...) thinker of the Middle Ages is Thomas Aquinas (at least according to the traditional canon of medieval philosophy), Olivi’s positions in psychology are compared with these of Aquinas. It is revealed that Olivi’s psychology is very different from the Aquinas’ one. (E.g. Olivi stresses the activity of perception, proprioceptual nature of the sense of touch, and direct access of the intellect to its own acts.) Moreover, Olivi is very critical towards the Aristotelian philosophy as is done by some thinkers of his time. Nevertheless, it does not follow that Olivi is a marginal thinker only because of his dissimilarity from the more Aristotelian-minded ones. It is argued that “centre” and “periphery” in the history of medieval philosophy depends not on the canon (which is rather a historians’ construct and instrument), but rather on the tradition. Hence, although Olivi can be considered as a marginal thinker if we take into the account the Aristotelian tradition of medieval philosophy, he is definitely a central and important thinker, if considered as a member of the Augustinian tradition. (shrink)

We can read about the morality of that time in works by authors who describe or criticize the conduct and activity of the members of those classes taking the lead in the morality of that time. Thus, we can find a lot of information about ancient Greece and its morality in Plato’s presentation of Socrates, Peter Abelard presenting the Middle Ages, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Niccolo Machiavelli, Baldesar Castiglione, but even also Slovak authors such as Martin Rakovský and Juraj (...) Koppay presenting very interesting contemporary facts about the Renaissance. (shrink)

Given the significance of Nicholas of Cusa’s ecclesiastical career, it is no surprise that a good deal of academic attention on Nicholas has focused on his role in the history of the church. Nevertheless, it would also be fair to say that a good deal of the attention that is focused on the life and thought of Nicholas of Cusa is the legacy of prior generations of scholars who saw in his theoretical work an opportunity to define the most salient (...) features of transformations in the habits of thinking leading from the Middle Ages into the epoch of modernity. Thus, although contemporary scholars have not been able to achieve any clear consensus on the question of whether Nicholas belongs to the Middle Ages or to modernity, the field of Cusanus studies has become much more attentive to the possibility that the uniqueness and significance of Nicholas’s vision is a function of his ability to synthesize and redeploy a variety of strands in the Catholic intellectual tradition—strands that are as apt to involve practical matters of canon law and church reform as they are to hinge on a unique and richly developed mystical theology. Given the flourishing of the attention devoted to Nicholas in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, the choices about which texts to include in this article were difficult ones. The rationale for this article’s predominant focus on scholarship of the late 20th and early 21st centuries is that, insofar as the recent studies listed here enter into the debates that have been shaped by their predecessors, the sources mentioned here will point readers to the prior work in the field not acknowledged here. (shrink)

Although the theory of the assertoric syllogism was Aristotle's great invention, one which dominated logical theory for the succeeding two millenia, accounts of the syllogism evolved and changed over that time. Indeed, in the twentieth century, doctrines were attributed to Aristotle which lost sight of what Aristotle intended. One of these mistaken doctrines was the very form of the syllogism: that a syllogism consists of three propositions containing three terms arranged in four figures. Yet another was that a syllogism is (...) a conditional proposition deduced from a set of axioms. There is even unclarity about what the basis of syllogistic validity consists in. Returning to Aristotle's text, and reading it in the light of commentary from late antiquity and the middle ages, we find a coherent and precise theory which shows all these claims to be based on a misunderstanding and misreading. (shrink)

In this article I trace some of the main tenets of the struggle between nominalism and realism as identified by John Deely in his Four ages of understanding. The aim is to assess Deely’s claim that the Age of Modernity was nominalist and that the coming age, the Age of Postmodernism — which he portrays as a renaissance of the late middle ages and as starting with Peirce — is realist. After a general overview of how Peirce (...) interpreted the nominalist-realist controversy, Deely gives special attention to Thomas Aquinas’s On being and essence and the realism it entails. A subsequent discussion of the Modern Period shows that the issue of nominalism and realism is very much tied up with di¤erent conceptions of the intellect. Deely credits the theory of evolution with bringing us a conception of the intellect that is closer to that of the Middle Ages and that opens the way for a truly realistic ‘‘fourth age’’ of the understanding. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to make a comparison between different streets typology (with a distribution from center to suburb) specified in Tirana, taking into account the pedestrians' behavior on these streets. This paper will primarily focus on the following streets: “Myslym Shyri” street, “Bllok” area, “Kombinat” area, (an extension of Kavaja’s Street), and also “Ana Komnena” street (former “Fusha e Aviacionit”). The pedestrian actions, likeness, dissatisfaction, walking distance while transferring to another zone, greenery effects on pedestrians, time spent, (...) points of interest, level of frequency, pavement quality, the favorite time for walking, meeting points, benches usage, ambulant sellers, vegetation and greenery impact, water basins, public transport preference, and road signs are some of the topics to be addressed in this paper. Determination of these data will be made by employing a questionnaire and direct observation. The study should provide recommendations as guidance for municipalities and stakeholders to better understand the behavior of pedestrians in Tirana. The “Bllok” area and “Myslym Shyri” Street are the most frequented streets by pedestrians. “Myslym Shyri” street has a slight edge over the “Bllok” area and is populated by different categories of pedestrians involving children, youth, middle ages, and the elderly. Ana Komnena Street (former "Fusha e Aviacionit") is not lacking any urban components. Meanwhile, the pedestrians on Kombinati’s street suffer a little bit more because of the traffic jam and vehicle pollution. (shrink)

_Theurgy and the Soul_ is a study of Iamblichus of Syria, whose teachings set the final form of pagan spirituality prior to the Christianization of the Roman Empire. Gregory Shaw focuses on the theory and practice of theurgy, the most controversial and significant aspect of Iamblichus's Platonism. Theurgy literally means "divine action." Unlike previous Platonists who stressed the elevated status of the human soul, Iamblichus taught that the soul descended completely into the body and thereby required the performance of theurgic (...) rites—revealed by the gods—to unite the soul with the One. Iamblichus was once considered one of the great philosophers whose views on the soul and the importance of ritual profoundly influenced subsequent Platonists such as Proclus and Damascius. The Emperor Julian followed Iamblichus's teachings to guide the restoration of traditional pagan cults in his campaign against Christianity. Although Julian was unsuccessful, Iamblichus's ideas persisted well into the Middle Ages and beyond. His vision of a hierarchical cosmos united by divine ritual became the dominant world view for the entire medieval world and played an important role in the Renaissance Platonism of Marsilio Ficino. Even Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that he expected a reading of Iamblichus to cause a "revival in the churches." But modern scholars have dismissed him, seeing theurgy as ritual magic or "manipulation of the gods." Shaw, however, shows that theurgy was a subtle and intellectually sophisticated attempt to apply Platonic and Pythagorean teachings to the full expression of human existence in the material world. (shrink)

The question of how the university can relate to the world is centuries old. The poles of the debate can be characterized by the plea for an increasing instrumentalization of the university as a producer and provider of useful knowledge on the one hand (cf. the knowledge factory), and the defense of the university as an autonomous space for free inquiry and the pursuit of knowledge for knowledge’s sake on the other hand (cf. the ivory tower). Our current global predicament, (...) however, forces us to rethink the relation between university and world. Indeed, an easy nstrumentalization of the university for the purposes of society is no longer possible in troubled times when the future of society itself seems to be at stake. Nevertheless, urgent societal concerns do need to be addressed by the university. Hence, the disinterested position seems a highly irresponsible option. The aim of this dissertation is to reconsider the relation between the university and the world from an educational perspective by addressing the question “How to situate study in the relation between university and society?” The dissertation consists of three parts. In Part One, the existing literature on the relation between university and society will be discussed. The first chapter discerns two main approaches to this issue, namely the transcendental-philosophical approach (cf. the idea of the university) and the critical-sociological approach (cf. academic capitalism) that conceive of the university, respectively, as an idea and as an organization. By means of an excursus on the emergence of the university in the Middle Ages, the case is made for an ecological approach to the university. In the second chapter, the work of two authors who have recently adopted such an ecological approach is briefly presented. Whereas Ronald Barnett’s theory of the ecological university is situated more in the transcendental-philosophical tradition, Susan Wright’s investigations of the university in the knowledge ecology can be placed in the critical-sociological tradition. Both conceptions, however, are hinged on an institutional understanding of the university. In line with recent developments in social theory, namely the focus on practices, it is proposed to work towards an ecology of study practices. Part Two presents Isabelle Stengers’ idea of the ecology of practices. The third chapter elucidates Stengers’ work on scientific practices by first situating it within the so-called Science Wars, which provided the impetus to elaborate a theoretical framework for a civilized dialogue between scientists and the broader public. The basic tenets and concepts of her approach, such as the understanding of practice as a set of requirements and obligations, are presented, explained, and discussed. In the fourth chapter, the focus shifts from scientific practices to study practices. Assisted by Stengers’ writings on Whitehead’s speculative philosophy, this chapter aims to flesh out Whitehead’s description of the university as a ‘home of adventures’ in order to come to an educational understanding of the study practices of the university. A conceptual inquiry into how study practices activate certain worldly problems and turn them into matters of study is presented. Part Three develops the conceptual work on study practices further in relation to the activities of the Palestinian experimental university Campus in Camps. Chapter Five presents the work of Campus in Camps and explains how it relates to the theoretical discussion offered in the second part. On the basis of Stengers’ conception of practice, which discerns requirements and obligations as vital ingredients, this chapter argues that life in exile is what drives the study practices of Campus in Camps, and hence, that it is the issue of life in exile that participants are obligated to when they study. Whereas Chapter Five is focused on what is being studied in Campus in Camps, Chapter Six inquires in to the specific requirements its activities need to fulfill in order to be study practices; in other words, how the participants study. Four requirements are discerned that, taken together, seem indispensable to understand the study practices of Campus in Camps; namely, storytelling, comparing, mapmaking, and using. The concluding chapter returns to the research question and again takes up the main ideas developed in the dissertation, such as the adventure of study and the cohabitation of scientific and study practices in the university. The last two sections of the conclusion deal with two remaining issues of a more practical nature; namely, how to relate to institutionalization when working from a practice-theoretical point of view, and lastly the question of what can be done. In all, and returning to the initial problem, the dissertation asks what it means to conceive of the university as situated by and engaged with worldly questions. (shrink)

This paper presents an analysis of Seneca's 58th letter to Lucilius and Porphyry's Isagoge, which were the origin of the tree diagrams that became popular in philosophy and logic from the early Middle Ages onwards. These diagrams visualise the extent to which a concept can be understood as a category, genus, species or individual and what the method of dihairesis (division) means. The paper explores the dissimilarities between Seneca's and Porphyry's tree structures, scrutinising them through the perspective of (...) modern graph theory. Although traditional trees can be interpreted in a modern way, their terms and definitions defy modern standardisation. These distinctions are not only useful for differentiating between Seneca's and Porphyry's trees, but also for comprehending the evolution of this philosophical tradition. Thus the paper highlights the continued significance of these tree diagrams in analysing concepts and categories in philosophy and structuring objects and information in modern fields such as artificial intelligence, computer science, bioinformatics, graph theory, and many more. (shrink)

The paper proposes a novel understanding of how Aristotle’s theoretical works complement each other in such a way as to form a genuine system, and this with the immediate (and ostensibly central) aim of addressing a longstanding question regarding Aristotle’s ‘first philosophy’—namely, is Aristotle’s first philosophy a contribution to theology, or to the science of being in general? Aristotle himself seems to suggest that it is in some ways both, but how this can be is a very difficult question. My (...) answer is in some respects a version of one that goes back at least to the middle ages—i.e., that first philosophy is concerned with the gods (and to that extent offers a theology) because the gods are causes and principles of beings precisely insofar as they are beings. The more original aspect of my position lies in my claim that the sort of tension found in the Metaphysics is likewise to be found in many of Aristotle’s physical works. Thus, for example, the De caelo is (I argue) concerned generally with natural beings (= beings susceptible of change), but its discussions are focused largely on the heavenly bodies and the Aristotelian elements insofar as they admit of change with respect to place. Here I claim that the particular objects of discussion are dealt with precisely because they are causes and principles of natural beings as such. Something similar goes, I claim, for the De generatione et corruptione, the general concern of which is a particular species of natural being—i.e., natural beings susceptible of generation and corruption. In this way, I argue, Aristotle successively deals in his theoretical works with those causes and principles of (say) a horse which attach to it insofar as it is a being, those causes and principles of a horse which attach to it insofar as it is a natural being, those causes and principles of a horse which attach to it insofar as it is a perishable natural being, and so on for the lower genera under which the species horse is subsumed. (shrink)