The Interreligious Dialogue in De docta ignorantia of Nicholas of Cusa

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 217-237
Author(s):  
Marica Costigliolo

This article explains the method followed by Nicolaus Cusanus (Nicholas of Cusa, 1401–1464) to develop the theme of difference in relation to identity, and the way in which, following this perspective, Cusanus first comes to formulate a discourse of interreligious dialogue. We can interpret the theory on conjecturality expounded by Cusanus in De docta ignorantia as a system of thought that proves essential to understand the irenic model of De pace fidei, because it is in virtue of this metaphysical assumption that he affirms that absolute truth cannot be reached and infinity is incomprehensible to all. By developing the theme of concordantia differentiarum (concordance of differences), Cusanus elaborates in De docta ignorantia the theme of the coincidentia oppositorum (coincidence of opposites). In exploring this connection, I shall consider his work for the purpose of underlining the relevance of the themes of identity and difference to the focus on interreligious dialogue.

2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 161-205
Author(s):  
Andrés Saab ◽  
Eleonora Orlando

Abstract In this paper, we further elaborate on a syntactic ambiguity between slurs and epithets first noticed in Orlando, Eleonora & Andrés Saab. 2020b. A stereotype semantics for syntactically ambiguous slurs. Analytic Philosophy 61(2). 101–129. Here, we discuss in detail the large theoretical implications of such an ambiguity both for the proper analysis of binominal constructions in Spanish (e.g., el idiota de Juan) and for the way in which it is advisable to model the expressive content slurs and certain epithets (those deriving from slurs) have. As for the first aspect, we contend that mainstream approaches in terms of predicate inversion for binominal constructions cannot account for why slurs lose their predicative import when occurring as epithets in binominal environments. In consequence, we propose a new analysis for epithets both in simple occurrences and in binominal constructions. This analysis derives the above-mentioned ambiguity as a type of structural ambiguity, according to which certain slurs can occur in predicative and in non-predicative positions. When they occur as predicates, they have a mixed semantics (McCready, Eric. 2010. Varieties of conventional implicatures. Semantics & Pragmatics 3. 1–57) reflected both in the truth-conditional and the expressive dimensions, but when they occur as epithets, the truth-conditional dimension is lost and only the expressive content survives. As for the second aspect, we defend a stereotype semantics, according to which stereotypes are modeled as Kratzerian modal bases (i.e., set of propositions) in virtue of which stigmatizing theories of human groups are reflected in a parallel, expressive dimension of meaning. This way of modeling some kinds of expressive contents explains how different slurs and epithets manage to communicate different theories about particular human groups, which are the target of derogation.


2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Terrence W. Tilley

This article addresses three problems and suggests ways to address these problems. First, Christian theology has often been supersessionist, especially in Christology and Mariology. Claims about Jesus and Mary being exceptional (in different ways) often involve forms of supersessionism. I report on two theological works that attempt to be orthodoxly Catholic and to avoid supersessionism. Second, I address the conflict between affirming the irrevocable covenant God made with Israel and the universality of salvation God wrought in Jesus. I argue herein that the key problem is logical, not theological. Hence, we should not seek to resolve this problem theoretically, but to dissolve it logically in a manner analogous to the way philosophers of religion have dissolved the logical problem of evil. Third, some have suggested that a commitment to true interreligious dialogue should weaken our commitment to our own tradition. I disagree and show that interreligious dialogue can, in practice, strengthen, not weaken, our commitments to our home tradition. 


Author(s):  
Kent Emery

Denys de Leeuwis was born in the village of Rijkel, in modern Belgium. In 1421 he matriculated at the University of Cologne, where he received the Master of Arts degree in 1424. There he followed ‘the way of Thomas Aquinas’, whom he calls his ‘patron’ in his early works. Later Denys adopted ‘Albertist’ against ‘Thomist’ positions on a number of philosophical issues. After leaving the University, he entered the Carthusian monastery in Roermond, where, save for brief periods, he spent the rest of his life. He corresponded with Nicholas of Cusa and dedicated two or three works to him. Denys was a voracious reader of the ancient and medieval philosophers whose writings were available in Latin, and of scholastic theologians. Because of his extensive references to authorities, historians often call him ‘eclectic’. Yet from his sources he educes his own distinctive philosophy. Like Albert the Great, Denys practised philosophy and theology by paraphrasing and analysing their histories.


Exchange ◽  
2013 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 125-142
Author(s):  
Naoko Frances Hioki

Abstract This paper explores the potential of Japanese tea ceremony to be an aesthetic space for inter-religious dialogue. Through a study of historical encounters that took place between European Jesuit missionaries and Japanese tea masters in the late 16th century, this paper elucidates the missionaries’ experiences of tea ceremonies and discusses the validity and limitation of a tea house as a space for cross-cultural and interreligious dialogue. The fruit of tea ceremony in terms of interreligious dialogue includes a shared sense of aesthetic communion that is attained through communal enjoyment of the beauty of nature and drinking a cup of tea in an isolated tea house, where guests are invited to cast away worries of everyday business, as well as their social and religious differences; whereas its limitation pertains to marked indifference toward verbal communication that is characteristic to the way of tea, and thus the historical missionaries’ experience was limited to aesthetic paradigm and did not lead to logical understanding of doctrinal differences between Buddhists and Christians.


Author(s):  
A.P. Liusyi

The first book of the untimely departed literary critic Vladimir Krasnokutsky (1943–1980) is considered. Spreading a colossal white spot on the research map of Russian literature in the form of a certain "secondary" genre of memoir literature with its installation on absolute truth and at the same time very rough, arbitrary implementation with confidence, can now take its full place on the general literary map. The block of materials on the literary society "Arzamas" with its unique concentration of the playing principle in Russian literature will also not be lost in the "Arzamas text" that has already developed by now. The relevance of future readings of Pushkin, Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Solzhenitsyn is shown.


Reasons First ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 183-198
Author(s):  
Mark Schroeder

Chapter 9 extends the arguments of Chapter 8 by defending the view that we can wrong each other in virtue of what we believe about one another, and arguing that this is best and most conservatively explained by Pragmatic Intellectualism. It is argued that cases from Rima Basu, Simon Keller, Sarah Stroud, Tamar Gendler, and Berislav Marušić all involve doxastic wrongs. Though there are two prominent objections to the idea that beliefs can wrong, it is shown that Pragmatic Intellectualism offers answers to each of these objections. And finally it is argued that we have independent grounds to think that the best cases of doxastic wrongs are also among the very best cases for pragmatic encroachment, because of the way that the wrongs they involve are stable over time.


2020 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Paul Boghossian ◽  
Timothy Williamson

This essay distinguishes between metaphysical and epistemological conceptions of analyticity. The former is the idea of a sentence that is ‘true purely in virtue of its meaning’ while the latter is the idea of a sentence that ‘can be justifiably believed merely on the basis of understanding its meaning’. It further argues that, while Quine may have been right to reject the metaphysical notion, the epistemological notion can be defended from his critique and put to work explaining a priori justification. Along the way, a number of further distinctions relevant to the theory of analyticity and the theory of apriority are made and their significance is explained.


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