Adriaan Koerbagh, “An Excellent Mathematician but a Wicked Fellow”

2020 ◽  
Vol 100 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 255-271
Author(s):  
Sonja Lavaert
Keyword(s):  
Explosive Mixture ◽  
Broad Audience ◽  
Radical Enlightenment ◽  
Critical Project ◽  
Critique Of Religion

Abstract In the spirit of the new naturalism, Adriaan Koerbagh defends in Een Ligt schijnende in duystere plaatsen (1668) the freedom to philosophize with a fundamental critique of religion and metaphysics. He links this criticism to the politically radical, anti-hierarchical idea of universal equality and freedom. Moreover, by writing in Dutch, he addresses a broad audience with this explosive mixture of ideas. At the very center of his naturalism is the idea of an indifferent God or nature. He criticizes, unmasks, and translates improper language that is aimed at deception and oppression, and leads to violence. His loanword dictionary Een Bloemhof van allerley lieflijkheyd sonder verdriet (1668) can be seen as the preparatory handwork to this critical project. Koerbagh thereby places himself in the line of the clandestine freethinkers such as Vanini, the anonymous authors of Theophrastus redivivus and De jure ecclesiasticorum, Spinoza, and the clandestine text written ‘in the spirit of Spinoza,’ Traité des trois imposteurs. I will illustrate this genealogical line and thus illuminate the significance of this (politically) subversive thinker for the radical Enlightenment.

Comment le rapport au texte biblique transforme le rapport au texte littéraire au XVIIIe siècle : le cas Rousseau

2013 ◽  
pp. 40-47
Author(s):  
Geneviève Di Rosa
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Xviiie Siècle ◽  
Radical Enlightenment ◽  
Biblical Intertextuality ◽  
Full Force ◽  
Xviiie Siecle ◽  
Book Of Judges ◽  
Literary Reception

In the 18th century, the Bible felt the full force of criticism by radical Enlightenment thinkers who read it piece by piece and denounced the process of its creation as an imposture – thus extending the break initiated by moral and historical critiques of the previous century. In doing so, they nevertheless failed to grant it the literary status of a “profane work”. Yet, Rousseau, who produced a literary rewriting of the Book of Judges with his Levite of Ephraim, pondered over the violence inflicted on biblical intertextuality during his exile in Môtiers: in his Letters Written from the Mountain, he compared it to the violence caused to his own literary works. By draw-ing this parallel, he opened a reflection on the different manners of reading a text, as well as the possibility of regulating the reader’s violence through proposing an ethics of literary reception. Analogy might not work as a substitute; however, it enabled Rousseau to go beyond the mistreatment which anti-philosophers or philosophers inflicted on his works, by giving, among other things, an autobiographical orienta-tion to his writing: one in which the author is ready to take responsibility for giving himself to the reader. The ambivalence of the sacred and the profane, the perception of a common essence of religion – defined either by sacrifice or gift – were thus what helped Rousseau invent the autobiographical pact.

VHS and the Transitional Phase of Polish Capitalism

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Świrek
Keyword(s):  
Business Model ◽  
Economic Transformation ◽  
Social Formation ◽  
Specific Content ◽  
Broad Audience ◽  
Historical Phenomenon ◽  
Transitional Phase ◽  
The Way

The presented article is an attempt to interpret the historical phenomenon of VHS during the economic transformation in Poland. This technology is understood here as an ideological complex, which functioned on three levels: content distributed on videotapes, a business model, and an offer directed to a broad audience. Through films distributed on tape, VHS was a medium of capitalist realism: it showed capitalist social formation as a background for the way in which individuals experience their lives. VHS was also a transitory phenomenon: as a technology, medium of specific content, and practice it has lost popularity towards the end of the phase of capitalism, with which it was tied.

Conclusion

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Schliesser
Keyword(s):  
Adam Smith ◽  
Radical Enlightenment

The concluding chapter defends Adam Smith from Jonathan Israel’s criticism (and misrepresentation). Israel treats Smith as belonging to the moderate Enlightenment. While this chapter is agnostic about the moderate vs radical Enlightenment distinction, it suggests that Adam Smith offers enduring criticisms of applying Radical thought to political affairs. By contrast, this chapter treats Adam Smith as an exemplary philosopher not in terms of the doctrines defended, but rather as a model, who shows how philosophers of each generation need to develop normative and political ideals in light of other systematic commitments that may guide policy in a humane and responsible fashion.

All His Father’s Sins

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Timothy Larsen
Keyword(s):  
Christian Faith ◽  
Christian Identity ◽  
Jeremy Bentham ◽  
Church Of Scotland ◽  
Parting Ways ◽  
The Church ◽  
Critique Of Religion

This chapter explores the life and thought of John Stuart Mill’s father, James Mill. It seeks to unravel his journey from pursuing the calling of an ordained Christian minister in the Church of Scotland to parting ways with the Christian faith altogether. It will also seek to understand James Mill’s mature critique of religion, as well as that of his friend the Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham, the author of several works critical of traditional Christianity. The unhappy marriage of John Stuart Mill’s parents is presented as a vital background for understanding his future choices and convictions. The Christian identity of his mother and siblings are also presented.

Big Questions in Ecology and Evolution

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas N. Sherratt ◽  
David M. Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Partial Solution ◽  
Fundamental Importance ◽  
Evolutionary Perspective ◽  
Text Book ◽  
Broad Audience ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Tropics ◽  
Made In ◽  
Do So

Why do we age? Why cooperate? Why do so many species engage in sex? Why do the tropics have so many species? When did humans start to affect world climate? This book provides an introduction to a range of fundamental questions that have taxed evolutionary biologists and ecologists for decades. Some of the phenomena discussed are, on first reflection, simply puzzling to understand from an evolutionary perspective, whilst others have direct implications for the future of the planet. All of the questions posed have at least a partial solution, all have seen exciting breakthroughs in recent years, yet many of the explanations continue to be hotly debated. Big Questions in Ecology and Evolution is a curiosity-driven book, written in an accessible way so as to appeal to a broad audience. It is very deliberately not a formal text book, but something designed to transmit the excitement and breadth of the field by discussing a number of major questions in ecology and evolution and how they have been answered. This is a book aimed at informing and inspiring anybody with an interest in ecology and evolution. It reveals to the reader the immense scope of the field, its fundamental importance, and the exciting breakthroughs that have been made in recent years.

scholarly journals The graph neural networking challenge

2021 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 9-16
Author(s):  
José Suárez-Varela ◽  
Miquel Ferriol-Galmés ◽  
Albert López ◽  
Paul Almasan ◽  
Guillermo Bernárdez ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Computer Networks ◽  
Real World ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
Educational Resources ◽  
Global Competition ◽  
International Telecommunication Union ◽  
International Telecommunication ◽  
Broad Audience

During the last decade, Machine Learning (ML) has increasingly become a hot topic in the field of Computer Networks and is expected to be gradually adopted for a plethora of control, monitoring and management tasks in real-world deployments. This poses the need to count on new generations of students, researchers and practitioners with a solid background in ML applied to networks. During 2020, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has organized the "ITU AI/ML in 5G challenge", an open global competition that has introduced to a broad audience some of the current main challenges in ML for networks. This large-scale initiative has gathered 23 different challenges proposed by network operators, equipment manufacturers and academia, and has attracted a total of 1300+ participants from 60+ countries. This paper narrates our experience organizing one of the proposed challenges: the "Graph Neural Networking Challenge 2020". We describe the problem presented to participants, the tools and resources provided, some organization aspects and participation statistics, an outline of the top-3 awarded solutions, and a summary with some lessons learned during all this journey. As a result, this challenge leaves a curated set of educational resources openly available to anyone interested in the topic.

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