Philosophy as a Way of Life

2020 ◽  
pp. 8-33
Author(s):  
Mark R. Wynn
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Spiritual Ideal ◽  
Guiding Questions

This chapter introduces some of the guiding questions of the investigation, here drawing on Pierre Hadot’s text Philosophy as a Way of Life. These questions include: how should we understand the nature of spiritual goods? What is the relationship between a tradition’s world view and its conception of the well-lived human life? How should we conceive of the connection between the different vocabularies that can be used to describe progress in the spiritual life, for instance, those involving metaphysical and experiential categories? What epistemic conditions, if any, does a world view need to meet if it is to be capable of informing a spiritual ideal of life? And what is the contribution of tradition in shaping our understanding of the spiritual life? The key concept that runs through this volume is Thomas Aquinas’s notion of infused moral virtue, and this chapter also introduces this notion and considers its fruitfulness for addressing the second of these questions, concerning the relationship between world view and ideal of life. A contrast is drawn between Aquinas’s account of these matters, according to which some spiritual goods—the goods that are the object of the infused moral virtues—cannot be identified independently of reference to our theological or metaphysical context, and Hadot’s account, according to which ethical or spiritual ideals come first, and provide the basis for metaphysical commitments. We note some reasons for thinking that this distinction between the two authors should not be too sharply drawn.

Metaphysics and Experience

2020 ◽  
pp. 63-97
Author(s):  
Mark R. Wynn
Keyword(s):  
Subject Matter ◽  
Spiritual Development ◽  
Spiritual Growth ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Theological Virtues ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter, and the next, further develop the notion of infused moral virtue, by considering how the target goods of these virtues can be realized in domains additional to those that Aquinas discusses. Chapter 3 examines in particular how our world-directed experience can be deemed more or less appropriate relative to a theological narrative, and how it is capable therefore of realizing the kind of good that is the object of the infused moral virtues. In this discussion, these goods are called ‘hybrid goods’ to mark the fact that they share their subject matter with the acquired moral virtues (since they are concerned with our relations to the created order), and their teleology with the theological virtues (because here the measure of success for our relationship to creatures is provided by reference to relationship to God). In this chapter, we also consider how a story of progress in the spiritual life that is rehearsed in an experiential idiom may be related to one that is cast instead in metaphysical terms. To develop the account, we examine in particular the relationship between Aquinas’s understanding of spiritual growth, expressed in terms of the acquired and infused moral virtues, and John of the Cross’s narrative of the various phases of the spiritual life. On this basis, we consider how experiential and metaphysical perspectives on spiritual development are mutually informing, while at the same time they also exhibit, relative to one another, a significant degree of independence.

Spiritual Traditions and the Virtues

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark R. Wynn
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Philosophy Of Religion ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Human Thought ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
Everyday World ◽  
Spiritual Tradition ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Heaven And Earth

This book develops a philosophical appreciation of the spiritual life. Specifically, it aims to show how a certain conception of spiritual good, one that is rooted in Thomas Aquinas’s account of infused moral virtue, can generate a distinctive vision of human life and the possibilities for spiritual fulfilment. Among other matters, the text examines the character of the goods to which spiritual traditions are directed; the structure of such traditions, including the connection between their practical and creedal commitments; the relationship between the various vocabularies that are used to describe, from the insider’s perspective, progress in the spiritual life; the significance of tradition as an epistemic category; and the question of what it takes for a spiritual tradition to be handed on from one person to another. So, while the discussion aims to make some contribution to the discipline that we standardly call the philosophy of religion, it has a rather different focus from some familiar ventures in the field, in so far as it starts from a consideration of the nature of spiritual goods and of traditions that seek to cultivate such goods. In his account of the virtues, Aquinas suggests how it is possible for our relations to the everyday world to be folded into our relations to the divine or sacred reality otherwise understood. In this sense, he is offering a vision of how it is possible to live between heaven and earth. This book considers how that vision may be extended across the central domains of human thought and experience, and how it can deepen and diversify our understanding of what it is for a human life to be lived well.

scholarly journals SPIRITUAL CIRCLE IN MURSHID AND PURE RELATION SURGERY

2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 59-97
Author(s):  
Ahmad Syatori
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Role Models ◽  
Role Model ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Soap Opera ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Social Attraction ◽  
Past Life ◽  
The Relationship

In this journal contains a description of the explanation of the relationship (relationship) between someone who plays himself as a teacher spiritual guide (Murshid) with other people who act as followers (Disciples). The second role is certainly not a role in the theater or soap opera shows that we watch on television, but it is a concrete manifestation on the real stage of life. In the tradition sosial urf social-attraction there are life phenomena that are very unique and interesting to study and examine in depth. Because in this phenomenon there is a mirror of human life, which between one another has a very strong relationship and attachment between them. This relationship can be intensively interwoven both physically and mentally which is implemented directly in religious spiritual life and social life. From each of them there were those who became role models who were very adhered to and respected, namely a murshid teacher. While others become followers who are very obedient and loyal, namely a student. The closeness of the relationship between murshid and students is part of an inseparable relationship. Both are bound and related to each other. Each of them takes care and maintains each other. This kind of life portrait is a picture of past life in the time of the Prophet and his companions. Where the Prophet's figure was his capacity as a figure who became uswah (role model) for his companions whose capacity was a loyal follower of the Prophet. This paper aims to reveal the pact around the scope of life in the circle of social-spiritual life played by God's chosen servants.

The Nature of Faith

2020 ◽  
pp. 161-205
Author(s):  
Mark R. Wynn
Keyword(s):  
World View ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Cognitive Action ◽  
Practical Implications

This chapter examines what kind of assent a person needs to give to a theological narrative if it is to support their pursuit of hybrid goods whose realization is tied to the truth of the narrative. It expounds Aquinas’s account of faith as in the relevant senses cognitive, action-guiding, voluntary, confident and certain, and notes how the idea of hybrid goods allows us to understand the spiritual life in comparable terms. The chapter proposes that faith is best conceived not as first of all a commitment to a world view, from which we are then to read off a set of practical implications, nor as first of all a commitment to a way of life, which then calls for the introduction of a supporting world view, but instead as a commitment to a way of life and world view taken in combination. In this way, the notion of hybrid goods allows us to develop an account of the practical reasonableness of particular forms of the spiritual life, where it is axiological questions at least as much as evidential or epistemic questions that determine the shape of that life.

scholarly journals How to Think of Religious Commitment as a Ground for Moral Commitment: A Thomistic Perspective on the Moral Philosophies of John Cottingham and Raimond Gaita

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark R. Wynn
Keyword(s):  
Religious Commitment ◽  
Moral Imagination ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Moral Commitment ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Moral Philosophies ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

John Cottingham has argued that certain traits that are widely considered ideals of character will only count as virtues granted the truth of theism. Writing from an atheistic or perhaps agnostic perspective, Raimond Gaita has proposed that the language of religion provides a useful aid for the moral imagination. This chapter aims to show how Thomas Aquinas’s category of infused moral virtue can be used to extend and integrate the work of these influential authors, so as to produce a further, broadly based account of the relationship of religious and moral commitment. Since Cottingham and Gaita set out their respective positions relatively briefly, it begins by presenting each approach in its strongest form, and then considers how these approaches may be extended by appeal to Thomas Aquinas’s account of the goods that are the object of the infused moral virtues.

Between Acculturation and Conversion

2013 ◽  
pp. 257-293
Author(s):  
Natalie Naimark-Goldberg
Keyword(s):  
Social Life ◽  
Religious Conversion ◽  
World View ◽  
Jewish People ◽  
German Society ◽  
Jewish Women ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter describes the relationship of the enlightened Jewish women to Judaism and to religion in general, including their attitude to conversion to Christianity. One of the most significant features of the act of conversion in the case of these Jewish women is the fact that, for them, it came in most cases at a relatively advanced age, despite the fact that their close involvement with German society and culture had started years before, in their teens or early twenties. All these women, then, spent many years distancing themselves in practice from the traditional Jewish way of life, blurring the borders that separated the Jewish and Christian worlds. During those years, they usually lived as non-observant Jews, who gradually abandoned Jewish practices but nevertheless remained affiliated to the Jewish people. As such, despite the indisputable importance of religious conversion, in most cases, the act itself did not mark a decisive point of departure in either the social life or the world-view of these women. The act of conversion constituted not a sudden leap from one world to another so much as one more step in a continuing process of acculturation in German society and alienation from the Jewish world.

scholarly journals Can a Good Person be a Good Trader? An Ethical Defense of Financial Trading

2017 ◽  
Vol 159 (1) ◽  
pp. 89-103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Rocchi ◽  
David Thunder
Keyword(s):  
Work Environment ◽  
Human Life ◽  
Moral Virtue ◽  
Financial System ◽  
Financial Sector ◽  
Good Person ◽  
Moral Virtues ◽  
Financial Trading ◽  
Proper Training

AbstractIn a 2015 article entitled “The Irrelevance of Ethics,” MacIntyre argues that acquiring the moral virtues would undermine someone’s capacity to be a good trader in the financial system and, conversely, that a proper training in the virtues of good trading directly militates against the acquisition of the moral virtues. In this paper, we reconsider MacIntyre’s rather damning indictment of financial trading, arguing that his negative assessment is overstated. The financial system is in fact more internally diverse and dynamic, and more reformable, than suggested by MacIntyre’s treatment. The challenge at the heart of MacIntyre’s claims can be crystallized in the question, “under which conditions, if any, can a person be an effective trader and simultaneously live a worthy human life?” We conclude that there are realistic possibilities of integrity and growth in moral virtue for those who work in the financial sector, at least for those operating in a work environment minimally permissive toward virtue, provided they possess characters of integrity and genuine aptitude for the skills and attitudes required in their professional tasks.

scholarly journals On the Category of “Vital Activity” of a Person

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 360-363
Author(s):  
I. Petrov
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Human Existence ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Vital Activity ◽  
Life Activity ◽  
Physiological Factors ◽  
Sociological Approach ◽  
Special Sciences ◽  
Operational Capabilities ◽  
The Relationship

According to their content, the substantive concepts of “nature” and “essence” in relation to a person in the functional aspect are revealed in the categories of “vital activity”, which has operational capabilities, that is, the ability to become a tool for a specific study of the process of human existence. It is shown that the restriction of the study of human life activity only by the sociological approach prevents the creation of a general theory of the human way of life, which, in turn, makes it possible to synthesize conceptual schemes of various aspects of life activity developed by special sciences. It is emphasized that it is not enough to analyze the ratio of social and physiological factors of a person, to refer only to his biological nature as a prerequisite for social, since this overlooks the relationship and interdependence of the natural and social aspects of the process of human existence. This connection can be revealed only by examining the process of functioning of the universal nature of man, that is, his vital activity.

HARMONIZATION OF PHYSICAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH AS A GUARANTEE OF QUALITY OF HUMAN LIFE

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 138-142
Author(s):  
A. G. Suprun ◽  
◽  
S. S Salnik ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Origin Of Life ◽  
World View ◽  
Human Life ◽  
The State ◽  
Spiritual Health ◽  
Social Value ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Physical Status

Life of everybody is unique and unique. Questions about essence and origin of life always influenced on forming of world view of humanity. Intercommunication between a man and biosphere is actual at all times. Bioethics is based on principle of respect to life each. An autonomy of psychical and physical status of personality is one of her substantive provisions. It is set that a man that knows the limits of the health rationally keeps and strengthens him. The phenomenon of health is examined as the state, phenomenon and process of forming, maintenance, strengthening, renewal and transmission physical, psychical, social and spiritual constituents of man. The transmitters of health are separate people, groups of people and society on the whole. A primary purpose is illumination of problem of harmonization of physical and spiritual health in the modern world. A health of man is not only individual but also social value that needs maintenance and guard. On quality of health of modern man such factors influence as: society, heredity, contamination of environment, not mobile way of life, unbalanced feed, psycho-emotional loading, pernicious habits.

scholarly journals PENGARUH AGAMA SAMAWI TERHADAP PERUBAHAN SOSIAL-BUDAYA DI ASSOLOKOBAL LEMBAH BALIM

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 165
Author(s):  
Albertus Heriyanto
Keyword(s):  
Belief Systems ◽  
Community Building ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Cultural Process ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract: Before their encounter with the immigrants, the Balim religious lifecentered in their honai adat (traditional house). However, since the presence ofdivine religions, the center of their ritual and spiritual life is devolving to churchesor mosques, and marginalizes the role of the honai adat. The presence of divinereligions has contributed to peoples way of life, especially in broadening theperspective of the Balim about human beings. The extent of human relationsperspective has played a major role in relativizing the influence of traditionalvalues to their ways of thinking and behaving. With few exceptions, the generalcolor manifested in the relationship between the two belief systems is thedominance of the divine religions to local one. Conversion to the divine religionsand process of community building in one religion is not merely a faith event,but also part of the cultural process, part of a strategy to open an access toa better life in economy, socio-politics, or even in spiritual aspects. In this case,the divine religions are challenged to present their faces as the ways of salvationwhich is humane and civilized.

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