Economics and Theology in Italy since the Eighteenth Century

2014 ◽  
pp. 56-72
Author(s):  
Luigino Bruni ◽  
Stefano Zamagni
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Research Program ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Caritas In Veritate ◽  
Original Contribution ◽  
Civil Economy ◽  
Significant Expression ◽  
As If

The “classic” Christian tradition of sociality, here referred to as Aristotelian-Thomistic, found a significant expression in economics within the eighteenth-century Neapolitan tradition of Civil Economy. This Civil Economy tradition includes the works Antonio Genovesi and Giacinto Dragonetti, which are examined in detail. It was submerged by other currents of modernity but has reappeared in recent Roman Catholic economic thought, in particular Pope Benedict XVI’s 2009 encyclical Caritas in Veritate. “Economics as if people mattered”—this catchphrase concisely explicates the ultimate content of the Civil Economy research program that constitutes the most original contribution of Italian economic thought since the eighteenth century.

PARETO’S INFLUENCE ON SCHOLARS FROM THE ITALIAN TRADITION IN PUBLIC FINANCE

2012 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-66 ◽  
Author(s):  
AMEDEO FOSSATI
Keyword(s):  
Public Finance ◽  
General Theory ◽  
Research Program ◽  
Time Span ◽  
Three Generations ◽  
Original Contribution ◽  
Specific Influence

The paper discusses the influence of Pareto’s methodological revolution on the Italian scientific tradition in public finance. To that end, the works of the most celebrated scholars from within the first, second, and final generations of this tradition are reviewed with reference to their reactions to Pareto’s idea of science as logico-experimental activities, and his contributions to the development of marginalism and theoretical sociology. The particular scholars considered across the three generations’ time span include Pantaleoni, De Viti, Barone, Einaudi, Sensini, Griziotti, Borgatta, Murray, and Fasiani. The main original contribution of this paper is the marshaling of evidence in support of the author’s proposition that Fasiani’s research program is characterized by a clearly Paretian mode of enquiry with regard to methodology and the economic investigation of fiscal activities, although the specific influence of Pareto’s sociology on Fasiani’s approach to fiscal studies was relatively modest. It is provisionally concluded that, in taking the best and most relevant of Pareto’s work for fiscal studies, Fasiani’s contributions came to represent the highest point in the evolution of the general theory of public finance in the Italian tradition.

BLAINVILLE'S NEW MODE, OR HOW THE PLAGAL CADENCE CAME TO BE ‘PLAGAL’

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-90
Author(s):  
CALEB MUTCH
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Mixed Mode ◽  
Musical Discourse ◽  
And Function ◽  
Mode A ◽  
As If

ABSTRACTThe plagal cadence has long been a significant concept within musical discourse, but that discourse contains no convincing explanation of why the progression should be characterized as ‘plagal’. This article elucidates the meaning of the term ‘plagal cadence’ by examining its introduction into a mid-eighteenth-century Parisian debate over the nature of what would come to be called tonality instigated by Charles-Henri de Blainville's proposal of the ‘mixed mode’, a supplement to the major and minor modes. Owing to the properties of his new mode's scale, which corresponds to the Phrygian mode, Blainville identified the plagal cadence as the proper conclusion for pieces in the mixed mode. Curiously, although Blainville's work appears to contain the first published articulation of the term, he employs it as if his readers were already familiar with the ‘plagal cadence’. This article explains that oddity, finding that Blainville misread earlier accounts of plainchant as saying that plagal modes were characterized by the interval of the descending fourth. In conclusion, consideration of the controversy regarding the mixed mode and plagal cadence reveals that those historical disagreements bear striking similarities to current debates over the significance and function of the plagal cadence in theories of harmony.

scholarly journals “Decently and order”: Scotland and Protestant pastoral power

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 79-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair Mutch
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Pastoral Power ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

Foucault’s conceptualization of “pastoral power” is important in the development and application of the notion of “governmentality” or the regulation of mass populations. However, Foucault’s exploration of pastoral power, especially in the form of confessional practice, owes a good deal to his Roman Catholic heritage. Hints in his work, which were never developed, suggest some aspects of Protestant forms of pastoral power. These hints are taken up to explore one Protestant tradition, that of Scottish Presbyterianism, in detail. Based on the history of the church in the eighteenth century, four aspects of Protestant pastoral power are outlined: examination, accountability, ecclesiology, and organizing as a good in its own right.

scholarly journals Plane Sailing or Horizontal Navigation

1956 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
pp. 454-462
Author(s):  
D. W. Waters
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Horizontal Plane ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Course Of Action ◽  
Plane Area ◽  
As If

Professor Taylor contends that the expression used to describe a course of action so simple as to leave no room for mistakes is plain sailing; that this is nautical in origin in that it derives from a simple or plain system of navigation based upon the use of a simple or plain (manifestly foolproof) chart; that this system of navigation was known originally as plain (simple) sailing—which expression she traces back to Richard Norwood's Doctrine of Plaine and Sphericall Triangles of 1631, and that it was sophisticated into plane sailing in the eighteenth century in the belief—which she holds to be erroneous—that the expression described a form of navigation based upon the use of a plane or flat chart on which the Earth was drawn as if the Earth and oceans lay in one horizontal plane area and not upon the surface of a sphere or, more accurately, ellipsoid; and, finally, that the Admiralty Navigation Manual is in error in teaching mariners that ‘to regard certain small triangles as plane… gives rise to the expression plane sailing, which is popularly referred to as if plane were spelt plain and the sailing free from difficulty’.

scholarly journals Economic theory of distributism

2015 ◽  
pp. 653-676
Author(s):  
Misa Djurkovic
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Catholic Church ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Specific Direction ◽  
The Status ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Social Teachings ◽  
Economic Thinking

this paper, the economic theory of distributism has been analyzed. In the first place, the author explains that the distributism is a social thought which emerged in the Anglo-American world as the development of social teachings in the Roman Catholic Church. Although it has not received the status the main schools in modern economic thought have, distrubutism persists as a specific direction of socio-economic thinking. The paper particularly investigates the ideas of classical distibutism. The author focuses on two basic books by Gilbert Chesterton and two most important economic books by Hilaire Belloc. These authors have insisted on the problem of society moving towards the so-called servile state in which a small number of capitalists rule over mass of proletarians who are gradually coming under slavery status, which is sanctioned by the law. For the purpose of remedying this tendency and collectivism, they proposed a series of measures for a repeated broad distribution of ownership over the means of production. Finally, there is an overview of this idea and its development throughout the twentieth century, finishing with contemporary distributists like John Medaille and Alan Carlson.

MARKETING THE TESTAMENTS: CANONGATE AND THEIR POCKET-SIZED BIBLES

2002 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-244
Author(s):  
Keyword(s):  
Biblical Studies ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
The West ◽  
Positive Potential ◽  
Publishing Firm ◽  
Investment Promotion ◽  
The Bible ◽  
King James Version ◽  
As If

AbstractRecently the Edinburgh-based publishing firm Canongate has brought out the Bible in the form of single books in the King James Version. Each of these volumes is introduced by a writer not necessarily associated with the Christian tradition, thus inviting the readers to approach them as literary works in their own right. For long the Bible came with commentaries written by prominent religious scholars, but now it looks as if it needed an introduction by novelists, pop artists, scientists including and even by some who are outside the Christian tradition to make the once familiar texts now widely neglected in the West come alive again. The purpose of this essay is to look at the following: the positive potential of this Pocket Canon; the role of the interpreter's personal voice within the process of discovering meaning in a narrative; the marketing of the Bible and appropriation of religious themes by secular marketeers; the re-iconization of the Bible though the King James Version; the colonial parallels in the investment, promotion and dissemination of the Bible; and the challenge of personal-voice criticism to biblical studies. Put at its simplest, can this disparate group of essayists rescue the Bible, which is fast losing its grip and importance in the West, and discover fresh significance in it?

Working Alternatives

2020 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Roman Catholic ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Theological Ethics ◽  
Catholic Social Thought ◽  
New Ways Of Working ◽  
Economic Practice ◽  
Vantage Points ◽  
Work Management ◽  
Cycle Of Poverty ◽  
Interdisciplinary Thinking

Popular interest in the kinds of conditions that make work productive, growing media attention to the grinding cycle of poverty, and the widening sense that consumption must become sustainable and just, all contribute to an atmosphere thirsty for humanistic economic analysis. This volume offers such analysis from a novel and generative diversity of vantage points, including religious and secular histories, theological ethics, and business management. In particular, Working Alternatives brings modern Roman Catholic forms of engaging with economic questions—embodied in the evolving set of documents that make up the area of “Catholic social thought”—into conversation with one another and with non-Catholic experiments in economic thought and practice. Clustered not by discipline but by their emphasis on either 1) new ways of seeing economic practice 2) new ways of valuing human activity, or 3) implementation of new ways of working, the volume’s essays facilitate the necessarily interdisciplinary thinking demanded by the complexities of economic sustainability and justice. Collectively, the works gathered here assert and test a challenging and far-reaching hypothesis: economic theories, systems, and practices—ways of conceiving, organizing and enacting work, management, supply, production, exchange, remuneration, wealth, and consumption—rely on basic, often unexamined, presumptions about human personhood, relations, and flourishing.

Globalization in Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate

2012 ◽  
pp. 62-77
Author(s):  
Patrick Flanagan
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Catholic Social Teaching ◽  
Roman Catholic ◽  
The Other ◽  
Roman Catholic Church ◽  
Social Teaching ◽  
Economic Issues ◽  
Benedict Xvi ◽  
Caritas In Veritate ◽  
Primary Focus

Benedict XVI, the present pontiff of the Roman Catholic Church, published Caritas in Veritate in June 2009. This third papal encyclical of his is distinguished from his others that dealt with the area of theology commonly known as “constructive” or “systematic.” In this most recent publication, Benedict XVI moves his writing into a rich historical arena known as Roman Catholic social teaching. Building upon a solid tradition of popes tackling political, social, and economic issues, Benedict XVI tackles acute contemporary concerns. The key areas Benedict XVI addresses in this encyclical are globalization, the economy, technology, and the environment. Germane to this text, this chapter will seek to explain how globalization is described and critiqued by Benedict XVI in this pivotal letter of his pontificate. While globalization will be the primary focus, because of the interrelationship between the aforementioned topics, attention obviously will also to be given to the other primary areas.

Making an Ass of Yourself in Narrative

2020 ◽  
pp. 39-73
Author(s):  
Jane Spencer
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Classical Tradition ◽  
Christian Tradition ◽  
Biblical Story ◽  
Ancient Novel ◽  
Cultural Status ◽  
Animal Representation

Through close readings of literary asses in Sterne, Coleridge, Wordsworth, and Clare, this chapter argues that the development of sympathetic animal representation is marked by an ambivalence emblematized by the figure of the donkey. The chapter outlines the donkey’s ambiguous cultural status, discussing narratives from two different traditions: the Judeo-Christian tradition in which the meek ass is revered for its lowliness, and the classical tradition in which it is scorned. The biblical story of Balaam’s ass, in which the ass speaks against her master’s cruelty, is interpreted literally in the eighteenth century as teaching compassion to animals. In Apuleius’ ancient novel The Golden Ass the narrator, transformed into an ass, is a low, lustful, stupid beast. Both narratives influence the eighteenth-century donkey representations discussed here. The writers’ tonal complexities are traced to the fear that to sympathize with animals is to be transformed, like Apuleius’ narrator, into an ass.

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