scholarly journals What do the Angels Say? Alterity and the Ascents of Emanuel Swedenborg and the Baal Shem Tov

Open Theology ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 414-421
Author(s):  
Rebecca Esterson

Abstract This paper examines the history of boundary crossing and boundary preservation between Jews and Christians in the eighteenth century via an unorthodox path. Two men, a Swedish Lutheran natural philosopher and a charismatic Polish Rabbi, give their accounts of ascents to the heavens, both in the 1740s. The lives of Emanuel Swedenborg and the Baal Shem Tov did not intersect, but their otherworldly experiences tell related stories of strife between Jews and Christians while betraying something of a shared horizon concerning the future of their religious communities, and concerning sacred texts and their interpretation. Using a phenomenological framework informed by Emmanuel Levinas, and with theories of experience articulated by Steven Katz and Martin Jay at hand, this paper understands these accounts as articulations of relationship: not just the relationship between the subject and God, scripture, or the heavens, but articulations of the fraught relationship with the religious other in the earthly, human realm. By placing Swedenborg and the Besht, as it were, face to face, this paper emphasizes the presence of the religious other in their experiences, even in their private encounters with the Divine, and even though the intersubjectivity these experiences expose is characterized by difference, difficulty, and asymmetry.

Paleobiology ◽  
1980 ◽  
Vol 6 (02) ◽  
pp. 146-160 ◽  
Author(s):  
William A. Oliver

The Mesozoic-Cenozoic coral Order Scleractinia has been suggested to have originated or evolved (1) by direct descent from the Paleozoic Order Rugosa or (2) by the development of a skeleton in members of one of the anemone groups that probably have existed throughout Phanerozoic time. In spite of much work on the subject, advocates of the direct descent hypothesis have failed to find convincing evidence of this relationship. Critical points are:(1) Rugosan septal insertion is serial; Scleractinian insertion is cyclic; no intermediate stages have been demonstrated. Apparent intermediates are Scleractinia having bilateral cyclic insertion or teratological Rugosa.(2) There is convincing evidence that the skeletons of many Rugosa were calcitic and none are known to be or to have been aragonitic. In contrast, the skeletons of all living Scleractinia are aragonitic and there is evidence that fossil Scleractinia were aragonitic also. The mineralogic difference is almost certainly due to intrinsic biologic factors.(3) No early Triassic corals of either group are known. This fact is not compelling (by itself) but is important in connection with points 1 and 2, because, given direct descent, both changes took place during this only stage in the history of the two groups in which there are no known corals.


This volume is an interdisciplinary assessment of the relationship between religion and the FBI. We recount the history of the FBI’s engagement with multiple religious communities and with aspects of public or “civic” religion such as morality and respectability. The book presents new research to explain roughly the history of the FBI’s interaction with religion over approximately one century, from the pre-Hoover period to the post-9/11 era. Along the way, the book explores vexed issues that go beyond the particulars of the FBI’s history—the juxtaposition of “religion” and “cult,” the ways in which race can shape the public’s perceptions of religion (and vica versa), the challenges of mediating between a religious orientation and a secular one, and the role and limits of academic scholarship as a way of addressing the differing worldviews of the FBI and some of the religious communities it encounters.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-14
Author(s):  
Carlos Alvaréz Teijeiro

Emmanuel Lévinas, the philosopher of ethics par excellence in the twentieth century, and by own merit one of the most important ethical philosophers in the history of western philosophy, is also the philosopher of the Other. Thereby, it can be said that no thought has deepened like his in the ups and downs of the ethical relationship between subject and otherness. The general objective of this work is to expose in a simple and understandable way some ideas that tend to be quite dark in the philosophical work of the author, since his profuse religious production will not be analyzed here. It is expected to show that his ideas about the being and the Other are relevant to better understand interpersonal relationships in times of 4.0 (re)evolution. As specific objectives, this work aims to expose in chronological order the main works of the thinker, with special emphasis on his ethical implications: Of the evasion (1935), The time and the Other (1947), From the existence to the existent (1947), Totality and infinity: An essay on exteriority (1961) and, last, Otherwise than being, or beyond essence (1974). In the judgment of Lévinas, history of western philosophy starting with Greece, has shown an unusual concern for the Being, this is, it has basically been an ontology and, accordingly, it has relegated ethics to a second or third plane. On the other hand and in a clear going against the tide movement, our author supports that ethics should be considered the first philosophy and more, even previous to the proper philosophize. This novel approach implies, as it is supposed, that the essential question of the philosophy slows down its origin around the Being in order to inquire about the Other: it is a philosophy in first person. Such a radical change of perspective generates an underlying change in how we conceive interpersonal relationships, the complex framework of meanings around the relationship Me and You, which also philosopher Martin Buber had already spoken of. As Lévinas postulates that ethics is the first philosophy, this involves that the Other claims all our attention, intellectual and emotional, to the point of considering that the relationship with the Other is one of the measures of our identity. Thus, “natural” attitude –husserlian word not used by Lévinas- would be to be in permanent disposition regarding to the meeting with the Other, to be in permanent opening state to let ourselves be questioned by him. Ontology, as the author says, being worried about the Being, has been likewise concerned about the Existence, when the matter is to concern about the particular Existent that every otherness supposes for us. In conclusion it can be affirmed that levinasian ethics of the meeting with the Other, particular Face, irreducible to the assumption, can contribute with an innovative looking to (re)evolving the interpersonal relationships in a 4.0 context.


2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Khalil Sardarnia ◽  
Yalda Bahrampour

With the expansion of Islamism, a wave of Islam phobia was launched by western Orientalists and intensified subsequent to September 11 Attacks. Theoretically, the subject of adaptation and compatibility or contrast between Islam and democracy has drawn the attention of academic circles. Using a comparative and analytical research procedure, the current article seeks to provide an answer to this question: In the area of Adaptation and Contrast Theories, what is the nature of the relationship between Islam and democracy? The research’s hypothesis is that: from Contrast perspective, adaptation between democracy and Islam is not possible due to ontological and epistemological differences. In contrast, given the existing rational and democratic potentials within the framework of genuine Islamic fundamentals, democratic empirical examples such as democratic attitudes and demands in Islam world and democratic governance in the Middle East countries and Islam world, adaptation oriented parties believe in the existence of contextualized democracy within the framework of Islam. Using a critical reappraisal, it must be noted that, in spite of some deficits, Adaptation is more tenable, while Contrast and Essentialism are not sufficiently tenable due to some causes including failure to make a distinction between Islam’s basic fundamentals and history of Islam, the performance of authoritarian regimes and radical Islamists, universalization of liberal-secular democracy discourse and its combination with western ethnic chauvinism and propaganda of Islam phobia and defamation to Islam.


PhaenEx ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 121
Author(s):  
NANDITA BISWAS MELLAMPHY

In 1971, Wolfgang Müller-Lauter introduced his study of Nietzsche as an investigation into the history of modern nihilism in which “contradiction” forms the central thread of the argument. For Müller-Lauter, the interpretive task is not to demonstrate the overall coherence or incoherence of Nietzsche’s philosophy, but to examine Nietzsche’s “philosophy of contradiction.” Against those such as Karl Jaspers, Karl Löwith and Martin Heidegger, Müller-Lauter argued that contradiction is the foundation of Nietzsche’s thought, and not a problem to be corrected or cast aside for exegetical or political purposes. For Müller-Lauter, contradiction qua incompatibility (not just mere opposition) holds a key to Nietzsche’s affective vision of philosophy. Beginning with the relationship between will to power and eternal recurrence, in this paper I examine aspects of Müller-Lauter’s account of Nietzsche’s philosophy of contradiction specifically in relation to the counter-interpretations offered by two other German commentators of Nietzsche, Leo Strauss and Karl Löwith, in order to confirm Müller-Lauter’s suggestion that contradiction is indeed an operative engine of Nietzsche’s thought. Indeed contradiction is a key Nietzschean theme and an important dynamic of becoming which enables the subject to be revealed as a “multiplicity” (BGE §12) and as a “fiction” (KSA 12:9[91]). Following Müller-Lauter’s assertion that for Nietzsche the problem of nihilism is fundamentally synonymous with the struggle of contradiction experienced by will to power, this paper interprets Nietzsche’s philosophy of contradiction in terms of subjective, bodily life (rather than in terms of logical incoherences or ontological inconsistencies). Against the backdrop of nihilism, the “self” (and its related place holder the “subject”), I will argue, becomes the psycho-physiological battlespace for the struggle and articulation of “contradiction” in Nietzsche’s thought.  


2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 205
Author(s):  
Salih Gülen

One of the tools that indicate the relationship between concepts is the volume of concept. Volume of concept is displayed that the relations between the concepts of the subject are exhibited in a meaningful harmonious and circular manner in a certain order. The purpose of this research; to be able to determine the usefulness volume of concept, from association tools of concept, in educational process. A mixed method was used in this study. Frequency and percentage values were calculated using comparative samples in the quantitative aspect of the study. In the qualitative aspect of work was used structured interview form, face to face interviews which were identified to code-categories and analyzed the data. As a result of the work, students had difficulty in drawing the volume of concept but they had expressed that the volume of concept was clearer. Moreover, it was determined that the rate of preference volume of concept during the exam was low. It can be said that use of the ready-made form of the volume of concept was increases although a small proportion of students prefer concept volume when presented in the same way with another tools. Various suggestions have been made as a result of the research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 121 (1) ◽  
pp. 175-194
Author(s):  
Andonis Piperoglou

The relationship between migration and Australian capitalism has long been a topic of robust scholarly debate in sociology and economics. Researchers in those fields have highlighted how migration has left an indelible imprint on Australian capitalism. By contrast, Australian migration histories have given scant attention to the role ethnic groups played in Australian capitalism. This lack of attention is particularly curious in historical studies of Greek Australia given the significance of small business in facilitating migration and settlement. From Federation onwards, Greek ethnic capitalism - or, more precisely, the relations between Greek migrant labourers and their petite bourgeoisie employers - became a topic of media coverage. In fact, the relations between Greek workers and employers were so important that newspapers routinely reported on the subject. This article examines this media coverage, its racialist and criminalising connotations, and historical relevance. It concludes with some observations on how histories of capitalism can productively engage with the histories of ethnicisation.


1903 ◽  
Vol 3 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 380-391
Author(s):  
V. L. Borman

It is accepted and consecrated by custom that every university lecturer who joins the honorary faculty should begin to read his or her lectures with an introductory speech on the subject or the history of the subject to be taught in the following presentation, or the lecturer should develop his or her views before the students on the subject that is relevant to the course; finally, it may serve as a no less interesting topic for the introductory lecture and the outline of the instructional plan with the motivation of its individual points.I currently intend to develop my views on the relationship of surgery to certain areas of internal medicine and talk about the importance of surgical diagnostics for the practitioner.


Author(s):  
Айгүл Турсунова

Баарыбызга маалым болгондой аркылуу мамиле этишке мүнөздүү категория. Мамиле категорияларынын эӊ негизги өзгөчөлүгү - кыймыл-аракеттин субъектиси менен объектисинин ортосундагы мамиле, б.а. сүйлөмдө ээлик милдет аткарган сөздүн же кыймыл-аракеттин чыныгы аткаруучусунун субъект же объект экендигин аныктайт. Алардын ичинен аркылуу мамиле кыймыл-аракеттин башка бирөө тарабынан иштелгенин билдирет. Биз бул эмгегибизде кыргыз тилиндеги мамиле категорияларынан - аркылуу мамилени тарыхый жана маанилик жактан анализдемекчибиз. Маанилерди аныктоодо бул мамиленин байыркы Көктүркчөдөн азыркы убакка чейинки басып өткөн жолу талданып, кандай лигвистикалык методдор менен түзүлөрүнө да кеӊири токтолдук. Макалабызда кыргыз тили менен түрк тили негизге алынды. Категория залога - есть необходимая категория языковой мысли, присущая общению. Важнейшей особенностью категорий залога является отношение между субъектом и объектом действия. В предложении данная категория определяет, является ли реальный исполнитель слова или действия, выполняющий функцию, субъектом или объектом, и означает ли что действие было разработано кем-то другим. В этой статье мы проанализируем категорию залога с исторической и семантической точек зрения в кыргызском языке. Определяя значения, мы будем анализировать историю этих залогов от древнего Коктюрского времени до наших дней и подробно обсуждать лингвистические методы, с помощью которых они сформированы. Наша статья основана на материале кыргызского и турецкого языков. The collateral category is a necessary category of linguistic thought inherent in communication. The most important feature of the categories of collateral is the relationship between the subject and the object of the action. In a sentence, this category determines whether the real performer of a word or action performing a function is a subject or an object, and means that the action was designed by someone else. In this article, we will analyze the category of collateral from a historical and semantic point of view in the Kyrgyz language. By defining the meanings, we will analyze the history of these pledges from ancient Cocturian times to the present day and discuss in detail the linguistic methods by which they were formed. Our article is based on the material of the Kyrgyz and Turkish languages.


2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 544-556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bracha Hadar

This article explores the history of the exclusion/inclusion of the body in group analytic theory and practice. At the same time, it aims to promote the subject of the body in the mind of group analysts. The main thesis of the article is that sitting in a circle, face-to-face, is a radical change in the transition Foulkes made from psychoanalysis to group analysis. The implications of this transition have not been explored, and in many cases, have been denied. The article describes the vicissitudes of relating group analysis to the body from the time of Foulkes and Anthony’s work until today. The article claims that working with the body in the group demands that the conductor gives special attention to his/her own bodily sensations and feelings, while at the same time remaining cognizant of the fact that each of the participants is a person with a physical body in which their painful history is stored, and that they may be dissociated because of that embodied history. The thesis of the article is followed by a clinical example. The article ends with the conclusion that being in touch with one’s own body demands a lot of training.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document