The Role of Theology in the History and Philosophy of Science

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-105
Author(s):  
Joshua M. Moritz

AbstractAfter a bibliographic introduction highlighting various research trends in science and religion, this essay explores how the current academic and conceptual landscape of theology and science has been shaped by the history of science, even as theology has informed the philosophical foundations of science. The first part assesses the historical interactions of science and the Christian faith (looking at the cases of human dissection in the Middle Ages and the Galileo affair) in order to challenge the common notion that science and religion have always been at war. Part two investigates the nature of the interaction between science and Christian theology by exploring the role that metaphysical presuppositions and theological concepts have played—and continue to play—within the scientific process.

Author(s):  
Ildar Garipzanov

The concluding chapter highlights how the cultural history of graphic signs of authority in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages encapsulated the profound transformation of political culture in the Mediterranean and Europe from approximately the fourth to ninth centuries. It also reflects on the transcendent sources of authority in these historical periods, and the role of graphic signs in highlighting this connection. Finally, it warns that, despite the apparent dominant role of the sign of the cross and cruciform graphic devices in providing access to transcendent protection and support in ninth-century Western Europe, some people could still employ alternative graphic signs deriving from older occult traditions in their recourse to transcendent powers.


2020 ◽  
pp. 45-65
Author(s):  
Darya Morozova

The article analyzes the ethical and theological content of the apocryphal Syrian "autobiography" of St. Clement of Rome (Epytome), as well as its early Slavic translation (Life of St. Clement). The study uses historical-philosophical, patristic and philological methodology to outline the specific teachings, attributed to St. Clement by this Greek-speaking Syrian text from the pseudo-Clementine cycle. The methods of comparative textology and translation studies are used to analyze the features of the Slavic version of the work. The study revealed that, contrary to the ideas of the publisher of the Slavic version, P. Lavrov, the translation was undoubtedly made according to the archaic, pre-metaphrasic version of the work. Therefore, it can be dated to the ninth century and come from the school of Cyril and Methodius. The popularity of the monument among Slavic readers is partly explained by the archaic features of the original version of the work preserved in the translation, such as graphic imagery, expressive presentation, and numerous dialogues. Such a lively account facilitated the perception of the conceptually rich ethical content of the work. At the heart of both Greek and Slavic versions is the ethical category of philanthropy (φιλανθρωπία), which figures as a central Christian virtue. Much of the Epitome is devoted to a detailed explanation of this category and its distinction from other virtues. In the original, the ethics of philanthropy is opposed to the astrological ideology represented by Clement’s father Faust. Faust's views are based on the natural philosophical ideas of the early Greek Stoics. Apostle Peter, Clement's teacher, responds to his arguments from the standpoint of Judeo-Christian monotheism, referring to the biblical history of his people. Thus, Hellenism is confronted with biblical monotheism. So, Epitome appears a kind of argument in the controversy between Gentile Christians and Judeo-Christians (Ebionites), which has troubled the Syrian Church for centuries. However, in translation, this clash of worldviews remains obscured, as the translator does not seem to recognize either the terminology of Stoic natural philosophy, or astrological issues, or the debate between the traditions of Peter and Paul in Syria. Thus, all the Stoic terminology of Faust is reduced to a single concept of "being". Therefore, in the translated version, the controversy is not so much between Christianity and astrology, as between ethics and "ontology". Instead, the translator enriches the philosophical outline of the work with polysemic Slavic vocabulary, which sheds new light on the role of the bishop in Peter’s instructions to Clement. Comparison of the Greek and Slavic versions of the Epitome – an autobiography attributed to St. Clement – with his only authentic work, 1Corinthians, allowed to draw another unexpected conclusion. All these works are not only devoted to one main problem - the restoration of peace in the controversial Christian community, but also offer similar ways out of the crisis through brotherly love, solidarity and respect for the otherness of the fellow Christians. This may indicate either that the author of the Syrian apocrypha was inspired by the true Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, or that the image of St. Clement, that developed in the early tradition, dictated the message of the pseudo-epigraph quite powerfully. Due to this consonance, the apocryphal work of the Syrian Ebionites did to some extent acquaint Slavic readers with the ideas of Clement of Rome, whose only authentic work was almost unknown in the Middle Ages.


Author(s):  
Lesaffer Randall

This chapter describes the role of Roman law—whose influence has been largely underestimated in recent scholarship—in the intellectual history and development of international law. To that end, the chapter offers a general survey of the historical interactions between Roman law and international law, drawing from general insights into the intellectual history of law in Europe that have remained remarkably absent in the grand narrative of the history of international law. The focus is on the periods in which these interactions were most pronounced. Next to Roman Antiquity, these are the Late Middle Ages (eleventh to fifteenth centuries) and the Early Modern Age (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries).


2012 ◽  
Vol 53 (6) ◽  
pp. 631-651
Author(s):  
Alina Nowicka-Jeżowa

Summary Based on earlier research, and especially Tadeusz Ulewicz’s landmark study Iter Romano- -Italicum Polonorum, or the Intellectual and Cultural Links between Poland and Italy in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance (1999) this article examines the influence of Rome - in its role as the Holy See and a centre of learning and the arts - on Poland’s culture in the 15th and 16th century as well as on the activities of Polish churchmen, scholars and writers who came to the Eternal City. The aim of the article is to trace the role of the emerging Humanist themes and attitudes on the shape of the cultural exchange in question. It appears that the Roman connection was a major factor in the history of Polish Humanism - its inner development, its transformations, and the ideological and artistic choices made by the successive generations of the Polish elite. In the 15th century the Roman inspirations helped to initiate the Humanist impulse in Poland, while in the 16th century they stimulated greater diversity and a search for one’s own way of development. In the post-Tridentine epoch they became a potent element of the Poland’s new cultural formation. Against the background of these generalizations, the article presents the cultural profiles of four poets, Mikołaj of Hussów, Klemens Janicjusz, Jan Kochanowski, and Mikołaj Sęp Szarzyński. They symbolize the four phases of the Polish Humanist tradition, which draw their distinctive identities from looking up to the Roman model


2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (136) ◽  
pp. 279
Author(s):  
Bento Silva Santos

Resumo: O artigo comenta globalmente algumas anotações da Vorlesung não proferida – “Os Fundamentos Filosóficos da Mística Medieval” (1918-1919) – na tentativa ainda fragmentária de esboçar uma compreensão fenomenológica da experiência mística. Assim, destaco, primeiramente, as duas observações iniciais de Heidegger sobre o sentido ambíguo da formulação “fundamentos filosóficos da mística medieval” ora com base na história da filosofia (1), ora com base na abordagem fenomenológica. Em segundo lugar, optando pela mística medieval como expressão (Ausdruck) da religiosidade cristã, Heidegger estabelece uma dupla distinção: de um lado, a religiosidade se distingue tanto da filosofia da religião como da teologia; de outro lado, a separação entre o problema da teologia e problema da religiosidade cristã (2). Por fim, em função desta oposição problemática entre teologia escolástica e mística medieval, trato brevemente da permanência ambígua do esquema de pensamento da teologia cristã no Denkweg de Heidegger, que pressupõe inegavelmente suas origens católicas (3).Abstract: This article broadly discusses Heidegger’s notes for his undelivered Vorlesung - “The Philosophical Foundations of Medieval Mysticism” (1918-1919) - in a still fragmentary attempt to outline a phenomenological understanding of the mystical experience. In order to do so, I first highlight the two initial observations of Heidegger concerning the meaning of the ambiguous wording “philosophical foundations of medieval mysticism”, sometimes referring to the basis of mysticism in the history of philosophy (1), sometimes to its phenomenological approach. Second, I discuss Heidegger’s option to consider medieval mystic as expression (Ausdruck) of Christian religiousness. Thus, the author establishes a double distinction: on the one hand, religiousness distinguishes itself from both the philosophy of religion and theology, and on the other hand, the problem of theology is separated from that of Christian religiousness (2). Finally, in light of this problematic opposition between scholastic theology and medieval mysticism, I briefly deal with the ambiguous persistence of the model of thinking of the Christian theology in Heidegger’s Denkweg, that unmistakably presupposes his Catholic origins (3).


2021 ◽  
pp. 42-63
Author(s):  
Alla Aristova

The article actualizes the significance of scholastic encyclopedias for the religious and secular culture of medieval Europe. Their role as a compendium of accumulated knowledge and at the same time ideological synthesis of Christian religious doctrine and scientific achievements, ancient and scholastic traditions, university, and church-monastery intellectual culture is shown. The main attention is paid to the multi-volume Vincent of Beauvais’ work «Speculum Maius» («The Great Mirror») as the most significant work among medieval encyclopedias and its conceptual completion. The extraordinary role of the encyclopedia as a documentary evidence of knowledge, ideas, worldview, mentality of the Western European Middle Ages is proved. The author outlines the principles of codification of «The Great Mirror»; highlights the influence of the Christian-theological context on the content, structure and methods of organizing its material; the relationship of encyclopedic work with the processes of development and rationalization of the religious worldview. The focus is on the universalizing potential of the Christianity concepts, the extraordinary expression of which was the work by Vincent of Beauvais. The aspiration for universality was manifested both in the desire to understand the world as a Whole, created by God-completed omnipresence, and in attempts to base all the accumulated human experience, all kinds of knowledge and life on the principles of the Christian worldview. The encyclopedia is valued as a real «mirror» of an entire era, the medieval reception of Christianity, the history of European science and knowledge.


Author(s):  
Р.Г. ДЗАТТИАТЫ

В результате процессов, сопровождавших Великое переселение народов, аланы, попав в Западную Европу, были ассимилированы, оставив во Франции, Северной Италии, Испании, Англии несколько сотен топонимов, связанных с ними. Следы пребывания алан на Западе впервые были обобщены В.А. Кузнецовым и В.К. Пудовиным. Появление труда американского ученого Б. Бахраха «Аланы на Западе» сняли скептицизм по отношению к роли алан в истории народов Западной Европы. О роли алан в исторических событиях Западной Европы раннего и зрелого Средневековья было отчетливо заявлено в трудах В.Б. Ковалевской, Франко Кардини, Говарда Рида, Скотта Литлтона, Линды Малкор. Особенно замечательна объемная работа Агусти Алемани «Аланы в древних и средневековых письменных источниках». У алан было заимствовано устройство конного войска, а вместе с этим, вероятно, и экипировка всадника, важной деталью которой был воинский пояс. Пряжка со щитком такого пояса служила у алан маркером статуса: в зависимости от того, из какого материала она была изготовлена (золото, серебро, бронза), она указывала на место в социальной иерархии. Трехлепестковый орнамент в результате модификаций вполне мог стать основой или прообразом особого знака-символа – так называемой «королевской лилии». Схему трансформации трехлепесткового узора в лилию можно проиллюстрировать рисунками пряжек. Надо полагать, что аланы оставили свой след не только в топонимике, организации конного войска, но и в орнаментике, фольклоре, антропонимике и других проявлениях культуры, которые необходимо тщательно исследовать. As a result of the processes that accompanied the Great Migration of Nations, the Alans, having fallen into Western Europe, were assimilated, leaving several hundred place names associated with them in France, Northern Italy, Spain, and England. The traces of the Alans' stay in the West were first generalized by V.A. Kuznetsov and V.K. Pudovin. The appearance of the work of the American scientist B.S. Bachrach "Alans in the West" removed skepticism regarding the role of the Alans in the history of the peoples of Western Europe. The role of the Alans in the historical events of Western Europe of the early and mature Middle Ages was clearly stated in the works of V.B. Kovalevskaya, Franco Cardini, Howard Reed, Scott Littleton, Linda Malkor. Particularly remarkable is the voluminous work of Agusti Alemany "Alans in ancient and medieval written sources." The Alans borrowed the device of the horse army, and with it, probably, the equipment of the horseman, an important detail of which was the military belt. The buckle with the shield of such a belt served as a status marker for the Alans: depending on what material it was made of (gold, silver, and bronze) it indicated a place in the social hierarchy. As a result of modifications, the three-petal ornament could very well become the basis or prototype of a special sign-symbol – the so-called “royal lily”. The transformation pattern of a three-petal pattern into a lily can be illustrated with buckle patterns. It must be assumed that the Alans left their mark not only in toponymy, organization of the cavalry army, but also in ornamentation, folklore, anthroponymy and other cultural manifestations, which must be carefully studied.


Discourse ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 28-41
Author(s):  
L. A. Pafomova

Introduction. Evolution of views on the value of scientific knowledge in various directions of Western philosophy, from the ancient period to the 20th century is analyzed in the article. The relevance of the article is due to the fact that the view of scientific knowledge as the value of scientific reality is a fairly new phenomenon.Methodology and sources. The methodological basis of the work is the cultural and philosophical analysis of various points of view in the works of both ancient philosophers, philosophers of the Renaissance and the New times (Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, F. Aquinas, Leonard da Vinci, F. Bacon, Locke, Hobbes, Descartes, Spinoza), as well as in the works of O. Comte, Spencer, Mach, Poincare, Pierce, James, Dewey, Jaspers, B. Russell, etc. (i.e. representatives of positivism, existentialism, neo-Thomism).Results and discussion. Today two directions could be distinguished in the relation to science: either its absolutization, that we name scientism, or the cult of an abstract person opposed to science – anthropologism. This is a consequence of the changes in the views on scientific knowledge that have taken place throughout the history of science. Thus, in the ancient period, the value of science was determined, firstly, not in relation to the practical activity of a human being, but only in relation to science to knowledge and cognition, and secondly, as a way of self-development of the individual. In the Middle Ages, science was the “handmaid” of theology. In the Renaissance science faced new challenges: the first was an anti-religious understanding of the essence of a person, the second was the justification of the role of scientific knowledge both for practice and for the worldview as a whole. It was on this understanding of the meaning of scientific knowledge that the concepts of the philosophers of the XVII–XVIII centuries were built, and they dominated until the middle of the XIX century. From this period, a one-sided approach begins to dominate – the ideological role of the value of science was denied and only its pragmatic value is taken. Along with this, there is also a critical attitude towards science, which then develops into anti-scientism. Today, a pessimistic approach (postmodernism, for example) the approach to the consideration of the value of scientific knowledge is characteristic of modern philosophical trends that deny not only the value of scientific knowledge, but also deny knowledge itself.Conclusion. The evaluation of scientific knowledge in Western philosophy has undergone significant changes. If in classical philosophy, with a few exceptions, the recognition of the comprehensive value of science prevailed, i.e. its ideological, humanistic and practical value, then in the future all these three main aspects of the value of scientific knowledge are analyzed. In the extreme forms, this leads to the emergence of antiscientism, for which it is the development of scientific knowledge is perceived as a source of human misery and suffering.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 325-338
Author(s):  
Ekaterina V. Zakharova ◽  
◽  
Denis V. Kuzmin ◽  
Irma I. Mullonen ◽  
◽  
...  

The article marks the 50th anniversary of onomastic research in Karelia which has brought about 12 monographs and dictionaries, as well as several hundred articles. The paper summarizes the most important advances made by the research team in local toponymy studies: a typology of the Balto-Finniс toponyms, the peculiarities of Karelian and Vepsian name motivation, and the ways that Karelian and Vepsian names are adapted to the Russian naming system. The development of methods of areal typology allowed the researchers to restore the picture of ethno-linguistic history of Karelia and adjacent territories, based on toponymic evidence. In the field of anthroponymy, the progress relates to the identification of numerous Karelian folk variants of Orthodox names and the reconstruction of medieval male and female personal names system of Karelians and Vepsians. The latter also proved the fact that non-calendar Russian names were actively used among the Karelians at the turn of the Middle Ages and the Modern Times. Particular attention is given to the research team’s activity and achievements in the field of onomastic lexicography, which produced a number of toponymic dictionaries of different types. The important role of the continuous fieldwork of Karelian toponymists, carried out both in the territory of Karelia and outside the republic, is noted. Ultimately, the work of three generations of researchers has been brought together in a comprehensive toponymic card-index comprising 300.000 units in Karelian, Veps, and Russian, as well as its electronic version (GIS Toponymy of Karelia) with additional mapping and analytical functionalities.


2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (4(68)) ◽  
pp. 44-46
Author(s):  
A. Ibrahimova

The vocabulary of literary language of modern English that becomes rich these days we can see from the development process of its word formation. The role of history of prefixes in forming of new words in the word building is extensive. The article was explored the charachteristics of the history of the English language prefixes. During the Ancient and Middle Ages, prefixes were commonly used less in word formation than before. The decrease in prefixes, of course, is due to certain reasons. Some English prefixes, on the other hand, are derived from OE adverbs and prepositions, and ME and NE are more advanced in number in the creation of new words.


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