scholarly journals VI. Buddhist Notes: Vedanta and Buddhism

1910 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-140
Author(s):  
Louis de la Vallee Poussin

There is much to support the opinion of Rāmānuja, Dr. Thibaut, and many others, that Śaṃkara's doctrine of “illusion” is a biassed rendering of the old Vedānta, Bādarāyaṇik as well as Aupanishadic. If that be granted, it is by no means self-evident that Buddhism has been without influence on Śamkara's speculation; and the last writer on the subject, Vasudev Anant Sukhtankar, a very able pupil of Professor Jacobi, does not conceal his opinion, or his surmise, that Śaṃkara is indebted to Nāgārjuna. That may be true, but I would object that we really know little or nothing about the history of Vedānta, and that conclusions based on philosophical parallels are by no means definitive. Autonomous developments— autonomous if not absolutely independent—are admissible. Nāgārjuna (or his predecessors, the anonymous authors of the oldest Mahāyānasūtras), by the very fact that he proclaims “voidness” to be the real nature of things, was prepared to distinguish the relative truth (saṃvṛtisatya) and the absolute one (pāramārthika); and his nihilism coupled with “idealism” might lead to the Vijñānavāda: “existence of pure non-intelligent (?) intellect.” On the other hand the Aupanishadas, from their main thesis (tat tvam asi, etc.), could derive the distinction of the two brahmans, of the two vidyās. Both developments are natural enough; the conception of the universal void (o) and the intuition of the infinite (∞) are convergent, in the end; but parallel and convergent as they are, these developments do not lose their primitive tinge.

1998 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
J. L. Helberg

The book of Amos contains many undertones of threat, except in the epilogue which, according to many scholars, is redactional The question thus comes to the fore whether this characteristic implies that God is seen by Amos as a God of threat for whom one can only have fear. This article, however, points out Amos’ moral justification of God's deeds. Israel's actions, on the other hand, display a self-centredness and a lack of theocentric and personal approach. Within this framework the history of salvation, especially the exodus and the conquest of the land, as well as the election, covenant and the idea of the remnant, is fossilised and God is made a captive of space, time and relations. However, Amos' proclamation implies that in reality God cannot be made captive - neither of such a religion nor of a theology of threat. Amos envisions a situation in which everything will comply with the real aim set for it/him.


1835 ◽  
Vol 125 ◽  
pp. 355-358 ◽  

The Fourth Memoir, published in my Zoological Researches and Illustrations, No. III. page 69, &c., having first made known the real nature of the Cirripedes , the key of which remained concealed in their metamorphosis, it might have been expected that some naturalist favourably situated to investigate the oceanic tribe of these animals, would have been the first to make the same discovery in regard to these, and thereby complete their natural history. It was scarcely to be expected that the honour of this discovery also should be reserved for the author, fixed to one spot, where none of them naturally exist, and are but casually thrown upon our shores by the waves of the Atlantic, attached to pieces of wreck, or brought into port fixed to the bottoms of ships returning from distant voyages. Fortunately, however, two ships of this description came into this harbour (Cork), one from the Mediterranean, the other from North America, which, not being sheathed with copper, had their bot­toms literally covered with Barnacles of the three genera of Lepas , Cineras , and Otion ; and having persons employed expressly for the purpose, numbers of these were brought alive in sea water, amongst which were many with the ova in various stages of their progress, and some ready to hatch, which they eventually did in prodigious numbers, so as to enable him to add the proof of their being, like the Balani, natatory Crusta­cea in their first stage , but of a totally different facies and structure; a circumstance which determines the propriety of the separation of the Cirripedes into two tribes, and evinces the sagacity of Mr. MacLeay in being the first to indicate that these two tribes, the Balani and Lepades , were not so closely related as generally supposed. The larvæ of the Balani , described in Memoir IV. under the external appearance of the bivalve Monoculi ( Astracoda ), have a pair of pedunculated eyes, more numerous and more completely developed members, approximating to those of Cyclops , and of the perfect Triton ; while, in the present type, or Lepades , the larva resembles some­what that of the Cyclops , which Müller, mistaking for a perfect animal, named Amymone , and which can be shown to he common to a great many of the Entomostraca ; or the resemblance is still more striking to that of the Argulus Armiger of Latreille, which, in fact, is but an Amymone furnished with a tricuspidate shield at the back.


2018 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 291-312
Author(s):  
Anna Tarnowska

The following contribution is devoted to the informative and political journalism of the Stanislaw II Augustus era. It may constitute a secondary source for the research of law historians, particularly in the studies of the history of the system of government. Among other things, the article refers to “The Index of Bills” (Polish Seriarz Projektów do Prawa) which may be regarded as the first Polish legal periodical. Special attention is devoted to two landmark journals of the Great Sejm period, namely “The National and Foreign Newspaper” (Polish Gazeta Narodowa i Obca) and “The Historical, Political and Economical Journal” (Polish Pamiętnik Historyczno-Polityczno-Ekonomiczny), as well as to their editors. “The National and Foreign Newspaper” became the most popular contemporary periodical (1791-1792) which promulgated the subject matter of the proceedings and the effects of the legislative work of the Great Sejm. Moreover, it was shaping political sympathies of its readers in a relatively subtle way. On the other hand, particular commitment to politics and social policy was expressed by Piotr Świtkowski who was the editor and the publisher of “The Historical, Political and Economical Journal” (1782-1792). The end of both publications was brought about by the legal acts of the Targowica Confederation.


2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 63-72
Author(s):  
Rafael Herra

The importance of the labyrinth and the mirror in the history of culture has never ceased. This article reflects on what they agree on and what can be learned from them. The effort to determine where these myths converge brings me to the theme of the monster, which, however, is not always the same. In the article I point out the differences: the Minotaur represents power and is born alongside the labyrinth; the mirror monster, on the other hand, is inside the subject, and it is also an outer voice — an alter ego. Ethical consequences can be drawn from these observations.


1992 ◽  
Vol 13 (02) ◽  
pp. 30-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dieter Wandschneider

When the Ideal is understood as ontologically fundamental within the framework of an idealistic system, and the Real, on the other hand, as derived, then the first and foremost task of a philosophy of this kind is to prove the claimed fundamentally of the Ideal. This is immediately followed by the further demand to also substantiate on this basis the existence of the Real and particularly of natural being. These tasks have been understood and attempts made to solve them in very different ways in German Idealism - about which I cannot go into more detail here. Let me say this much: that Fichte and Schelling, it appears to me, already fail at the first task, ie. neither Fichte nor Schelling really succeeds in substantiating their pretended ideal as an absolute principle of philosophy. Fichte believes he has such a principle in the direct evidence of the self. However, as this is of little use for the foundation of a generally binding philosophy because of its ultimately private character, Fichte already replaces it with the principle of the absolute self already in his first Wissenschaftlehre of 1794. As a construction detached from the concrete self, this of course lacks that original direct certainty from which Fichte started in the first place, in other words: because the construction of an absolute self can no longer refer to direct evidence, it must be substantiated separately, something which Fichte, I believe, nonetheless fails to do. The same criticism can, in my view, be made of Schelling, who ingeniously substitutes constructions for arguments. His early intuition of an absolute identity which simultaneously underlies spirit and nature, remains just as thetic and unproven as that eternal subject on which he based the representation of his system in, for example, the Munich lectures of 1827.


1984 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 375-387 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharin Mack

England was conquered twice in the eleventh century: first in 1016 by Cnut the Dane and again in 1066 by William Duke of Normandy. The influence of the Norman Conquest has been the subject of scholarly warfare ever since E.A. Freeman published the first volume of his History of the Norman Conquest of England in 1867—and indeed, long before. The consequences of Cnut's conquest, on the other hand, have not been subjected to the same scrutiny. Because England was conquered twice in less than fifty years, historians have often succumbed to the temptation of comparing the two events. But since Cnut's reign is poorly documented and was followed quickly by the restoration of the house of Cerdic in the person of Edward the Confessor, such studies have tended to judge 1016 by the standards of 1066. While such comparisons are useful, they have imposed a model on Cnut's reign which has distorted the importance of the Anglo-Scandinavian period. If, however, Cnut's reign is compared with the Anglo-Saxon past rather than the Anglo-Norman future, the influence of 1016 can be more fairly assessed.


1934 ◽  
Vol 27 (6) ◽  
pp. 316-318

It is one of the encouraging signs of the time that such a book as this should be written and that its publication should be assured. Geometry, like other branches of mathematics, is under critical inspection, often on the part of those who are manifestly incapable of passing judgment as to the merits of the subject. On the other hand teachers possessed of scholarship, not only in the field of education, but also in that of mathematics, occasionally are found to pass calm judgment on the real questions at issue -What is the purpose in teaching geometry, and how is that purpose best achieved? To find a general educator who can discover flaws in a subject like geometry is an easy matter—simply go to any school of education and find a man to whom the subject was poorly taught. To find a mathematician who can discover flaws in a subject like the theory of education is equally simple—simply look in any class, for example in the theory or functions of a complex variable, and find a man whose teaching is that of most college instructors. Neither one is possessed of a judicial frame of mind that qualifies him for fair criticism.


1857 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 544-546

The author, after noticing the history of the subject, and the opposition which the assertion, “that the Zoë of naturalists is the larva of a common crab,” received, traces the progress of the development of the animal from the Zæa to the adult, and endeavours to demonstrate, that from the youngest to the most perfect form, the changes are the result of no sudden transformation, but produced by a gradual series of alterations contemporary with every succeeding moult; that the Zæa is connected with the Megalopa , and the latter with the adult by many intermediate gradations, each in itself scarcely appreciable, and progressively approximating nearer and nearer the more perfect stages. The author asserts that the development is earliest and most complete anteriorly; that when first born, the seventh or posterior segment of the head, one or more of the posterior segments of the pereion (thorax), and the penultimate of the pleon (abdomen) are wanting in the brachyurous Decapods; but that this general law loses somewhat of its force in the descending scale of development; and as it becomes less persistent, the animal approximates in the larval condition nearer to the form of the adult type; while on the other hand, the same appears to be a constant law of the depreciation in adult forms, as exhibited in the more or less aberrant Amphipoda, such as Cyrtophium, Dulichia , &c.


KUTTAB ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Shoni Rahmatullah Amrozi

The history of Islamic education is inseparable from the internal and external influences on the development and growth of Islamic education, these two influences accumulatively converge into one and produce a whole form of Islamic education in Indonesia. On the other hand the existence of the history of Islamic education has also long been the subject of studies conducted by some historians, both from within and from abroad. There have been many research results that inform Islamic education in Indonesia in a complete and comprehensive form. Based on this fact, the study of the history of Islamic education needs to be analyzed and applied to be used as reference material and references by Muslims themselves to better understand the journey and growth of Islamic education itself reviewed in Ibn Khaldun's perspective.


1957 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. L. Ackrill

My purpose is not to give a full interpretation of this difficult and important passage, but to discuss one particular problem, taking up some remarks made by F. M. Cornford (in Plato's Theory of Knowledge) and by Mr. R. Robinson (in his paper on Plato's Parmenides, Classical Philology, 1942). First it may be useful to give a very brief and unargued outline of the passage. Plato seeks to prove that concepts are related in certain definite ways, that there is a συμπλοκὴ εἰδῶν (251d–252e). Next (253) he assigns to philosophy the task of discovering what these relations are: the philosopher must try to get a clear view of the whole range of concepts and of how they are interconnected, whether in genus-species pyramids or in other ways. Plato now gives a sample of such philosophising. Choosing some concepts highly relevant to problems already broached in the Sophist he first (254–5) establishes that they are all different one from the other, and then (255e–258) elicits the relationships in which they stand to one another. The attempt to discover and state these relationships throws light on the puzzling notions ὄν and μὴ ὄν and enables Plato to set aside with contempt certain puzzles and paradoxes propounded by superficial thinkers (259). He refers finally (259e) to the absolute necessity there is for concepts to be in definite relations to one another if there is to be discourse at all: διὰ γὰρ τήν ἀλλήλων τῶν εἰδῶν συμπλοκὴν ὁ λόγος γέγονεν ἡμῖν So the section ends with a reassertion of the point with which it began (251d–252e): that there is and must be a συμπλοκὴ εἰδῶν.The question I wish to discuss is this. Is it true to say that one of Plato's achievements in this passage is ‘the discovery of the copula’ or ‘the recognition of the ambiguity of ἔστιν’ as used on the one hand in statements of identity and on the other hand in attributive statements? The question is whether Plato made a philosophical advance which we might describe in such phrases as those just quoted, but no great stress is to be laid on these particular phrases. Thus it is no doubt odd to say that Plato (or anyone else) discovered the copula. But did he draw attention to it? Did he expound or expose the various roles of the verb ἔστιν? Many of his predecessors and contemporaries reached bizarre conclusions by confusing different usesof the word; did Plato respond by elucidating these different uses? These are the real questions.


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