scholarly journals From Homo Economicus to Homo Eudaimonicus: Anthropological and Axiological Transformations of the Concept of Happiness in A Secular Age

2021 ◽  
pp. 61-74
Author(s):  
U. I Lushch-Purii
Keyword(s):  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Homo Economicus ◽  
Moral Foundation ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Common Value ◽  
Secular Ethics ◽  
Secular Age ◽  
Contemporary Interpretation ◽  
First Time

Purpose. The paper is aimed to explicate a recently emerging anthropological model of homo eudaimonicus from its secular framework perspective. Theoretical basis. Secularity is considered in three aspects with reference to Taylor’s and Habermas’ ideas: as a common public sphere, as a phenomenological experience of living in a Secular Age, and as a background for happiness to become a major common value among other secular values in the Age of Authenticity. The modifications of happiness interpretation are traced from Early Modernity till nowadays. The preconditions of the contemporary appeal to Aristotle’s eudaimonic theory of happiness are elucidated. The main characteristics of homo economicus anthropological model and reasons for its collapse in the contemporary world are analyzed. Specificities of the contemporary interpretations of eudaimonia are described with reference to the works of MacIntyre, Haybron, Hamilton, Kekes, Melnick, and others. A moral foundation and a behavioral strategy of homo eudaimonicus model are expounded and the role of this model in the life of a contemporary individual person and society is revealed. Originality. For the first time in the Ukrainian philosophical discourse, it is shown how secular ethics enables the rise of a new homo eudaimonicus model within a sphere of secularity; and it is argued that homo eudaimonicus is the result of overcoming the values crisis. It is revealed how homo eudaimonicus along with being descriptive becomes also a normative model of a new effective behavior strategy of a contemporary person facing the current social, economic, political, and environmental challenges. Conclusions. According to the contemporary interpretation, happiness as eudaimonia is a combination of the good life and the meaningful life; it is a human flourishing in this world (saeculum) through the accomplishment of a person’s life plan in the sphere of secularity. Homo eudaimonicus manifests the overcoming of values crisis and the rediscovery of purpose and meaning, this time on the secular basis. Homo eudaimonicus implies the realization of a person’s project of a happy and fulfilling life through moral behavior and socially useful activities.

Rise, Character, and Development of Jesuit Education

2018 ◽  
pp. 152-176
Author(s):  
Cristiano Casalini
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Jesuit Education ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many

One key to the success of Jesuit education has been the tension between the recognizable mark of uniformity that long distinguished the methods, contents, and practices of Jesuit schools and their ability to adapt to different contexts and times. Both of the aspects could be said to have found explicit support in that unique foundational document, the Ratio Studiorum, which retained some sway up until the middle of the twentieth century despite the many variations and complexities that had arisen since early modernity. Soon after the Ratio fell into oblivion, Jesuit schools began to think about what made them distinctively Jesuit. There was a need to clarify the profile of their mission in the contemporary world. This chapter will sketch a history of Jesuit education, focusing on both the permanent and changing traits of its distinctive pedagogy.

The Last of The Shireburnes: The Art of Death and Life in Recusant Lancashire, 1660–1754

2003 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 589-615 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Callow
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Market Town ◽  
Distant Market ◽  
Secular Age ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Mansion

When J. M. Turner came to make his sketches of Stonyhurst Hall and the neighbouring church at Great Mitton, for the first time in 1799, he was immediately struck by the melancholia and faded splendour of that part of ‘darkest’ rural Lancashire. Perched high upon the brow of Longridge, the mansion commanded sweeping views of the valley beneath, of Pendle Hill and of the distant market town of Clitheroe; while the thirteenth century church of All Hallows—almost lost in the folds of the countryside—sat squatly on the borders of Lancashire and Yorkshire, at the confluence of the Rivers Calder, Ribble and Hodder, and served as a stubborn reminder of an earlier and less secular age. Relatively untouched by the forces of industrialisation, these buildings proved a delight to the Gothic imagination of the young artist.

THE PHILOSOPHICAL MEANING OF THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER AS A CONTEMPORARY INTERPRETATION OF TRAGEDY IPHIGENIA AT AULIS

2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (15) ◽  
pp. 491-508
Author(s):  
Metin BAL
Keyword(s):  
Human Life ◽  
Loss Of Life ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The People ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Contemporary Interpretation ◽  
Iphigenia At Aulis

With the movie The Killing of a Sacred Deer , Jorgos Lanthimos takes the value sacred from superhuman powers and makes it mundane. It is claimed that queen Clytemnestra, one of the heroes of Euripides’ tragedy Iphigenia at Aulis, does not believe in superhuman powers. This is because Clytemnestra considers the event of killing of her own daughter Iphigenia a murder rather than a sacrifice. In The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Lanthimos interprets the killing of Iphigenia as a “sacrifice” by her own father, King Agamemnon, to question the relations between the people of the contemporary world. Are the killings of Iphigenia and Martin’s father, Jonathan Lang, sacrifices or murders? Whatever the answer is, the idea that both the film and the tragedy suggest is that what should be considered sacred is life. King Agamemnon, who killed his own daughter, and surgeon Steven, who caused the death of his own patient, are expected to pay the price for the loss of life they caused. But how? What could be the cost of a human life? As a result, the contribution of the movie The Killing of a Sacred Deer to the people of the contemporary world is that it re-examines the values of “sacred” and “sacrifice.”

Globalism and the universal language

English Today ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdulla Al-Dabbagh
Keyword(s):  
Common Language ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
International Language ◽  
Artificial Languages ◽  
Universal Language ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One ◽  
European Thought ◽  
National Languages ◽  
First Time

Like so many other innovations, the idea of one common language for all mankind appeared for the first time, in European thought, during the Renaissance. It has been estimated that since then nearly ‘seven hundred such artificial languages’ have been tried. Undoubtedly, this had to do with the collapse of Latin as the common language of education, soon to be replaced by the various, rising national languages. Europe's great expansion overseas, in this epoch, also created the need for a unified vehicle of communication.In many ways, the world, and not just Europe, is now facing a similar challenge. While English has become the Latin of the contemporary world, such a position, one can say in the light of historical experience, has always been precarious. Whether English will be unanimously accepted as the one unifying, international language of the globe, whether it will share this role with one or more other languages, or whether an artificial language will be adopted for that purpose is the question that sooner or later we will all be facing.

Religious forms in secularized society: Three Catholic groups in comparison

2016 ◽  
Vol 63 (4) ◽  
pp. 513-528
Author(s):  
Daniela Turco
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Secular Age

Despite the evidence of a progressive disenchantment, the religious sphere maintains a strong grip on current societies though undertaking some transformations. Pluralism, individualism and privatization are three features we cannot ignore if we choose to study religion in the contemporary world and, more broadly, if we choose to study modernity. The aim of this article is to illustrate some features of the different forms of religiosity in the secular age (Taylor, 2007). We have focused on modern Catholicism, with particular reference to religious experience in the Catholic lay group. The stories of Catholic militants show that the motivation behind their choice is the crucial factor to analyze their religious experience and worldview. In this sense, we will try to reflect on some indicators that can help us to understand the resources and limits of the contemporary Catholic pluralism and the aspects of the ‘modern desire for God’ (Abbruzzese, 2010).

Museums and the Things in Them Should Be Alive

2008 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-200 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Busse
Keyword(s):  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
History Museums ◽  
The People ◽  
Museum Exhibitions ◽  
Museum Programs ◽  
Complex Relationships ◽  
Museum Practice ◽  
First Time ◽  
New Museology

Over the last 20 years, museums have attracted unprecedented academic attention. For the first time in their history, museums as institutions have been the subject of theorizing as well as intense academic and public debates about their place in the contemporary world. Much of the theoretical work has taken place in the context of the New Museology, a critical goal of which has been to rethink the manifold and complex relationships between museums and the societies in which they exist. Advocates of the New Museology have prominently sought ways to make museums less elitist but more inclusive, that is more directly and democratically involved with their various constituencies such as the people who create and use the objects that museums collect or the audiences who visit museum exhibitions and participate in museum programs. Unfortunately, the New Museology has been rather long on theory and rather short on detailed explorations or accounts of the implications of its theoretical formulations for museum practice, that is for the day-to-day activities and interactions comprising the work that goes on in and around museums.

Flourishing and Welfare

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory S. Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Rule Of Law ◽  
Capabilities Approach ◽  
Martha Nussbaum ◽  
Value Pluralism ◽  
Amartya Sen ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Moral Foundation ◽  
A Value ◽  
Consequentialist Theory ◽  
Primary Focus

This chapter argues that the moral end of property is human flourishing, a concept which the author uses in a neo-Aristotelian sense. The bulk of the chapter is devoted to an analysis of the concept of human flourishing. It stresses three points: First, human flourishing, although overlapping at times with the concept of welfare, is fundamentally different from welfare. Second, human flourishing is a value-plural concept, encompassing multiple and incommensurable moral values; hence property has multiple ends. Third, property’s pluralistic moral foundation does not mean that rationality and consistency must be sacrificed when property’s various ends come into conflict. Value pluralism is reconcilable with both rational choice and rule-of-law values such as consistency. The human flourishing theory is a consequentialist theory, but in measuring human flourishing, its primary focus is on capabilities rather than resources, and thus the theory draws upon the capabilities approach of Amartya Sen and Martha Nussbaum.

scholarly journals Hierarchy, symmetry, and the xavante spiritual life cycle

2010 ◽  
Vol 16 (34) ◽  
pp. 235-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
James R. Welch
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Age Group ◽  
Structural Dynamic ◽  
Daily Experience ◽  
Group System ◽  
Secular Age ◽  
Pass Through ◽  
Basic Features ◽  
First Time

Xavante society, well-known for its dual structural aspects, provides the best documented example of a formal age-group system in South America. Although the basic features of the Xavante secular age-group system were previously described, a second age-group system in the spiritual domain is presented here for the first time. In this paper, I describe the Xavante spiritual life cycle, including a structural dynamic whereby age sets pass through age grades in alternate fashion, allocating them between two moieties. That basic morphology is shared with the secular age-group system and attests to a Xavante logic of hierarchy and symmetry as mutually constructed and non-contradictory. Interactions between the spiritual and secular age-group systems manifest in the daily experience of spiritual participants in ways that suggest plurality and contingency are essential features of Xavante social organization.

The Political Philosophy of Fénelon

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Patrick Hanley
Keyword(s):  
Political Philosophy ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Early Modernity ◽  
Education Literature ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Political Philosopher ◽  
Political Thinker ◽  
First Time

Fénelon may be the most neglected of all the major philosophers of early modernity. His political masterwork was the most-read book in eighteenth-century France after the Bible, yet to now we have lacked a single interpretive monograph in English devoted specifically to his thought. This monograph aims to correct this by providing the first such book-length study. In focusing specifically on Fénelon’s political thought, it has three primary aims. The first is to provide a reconstruction of Fénelon’s political ideas accessible to those who might be encountering Fénelon directly or at length for the first time. The second is to demonstrate the connections between Fénelon’s political thought and several other fields to which he made significant and long-recognized contributions, including not only philosophy and political science but also economics, education, literature, theology, and spirituality. Third, the book aims to cut several new edges in our extant understanding and appreciation of Fénelon’s political thought and its significance. On this front, it specifically argues that Fénelon is better understood as a moderate and modern thinker rather than as a radical or reactionary, and that Fénelon deserves to be seen not merely as a political thinker but as a political philosopher. Finally, The Political Philosophy of Fénelon argues for Fénelon’s relevance to our political world today. Fénelon was a nuanced and insightful diagnostician of ills from egocentrism and social atomism to authoritarianism and imperialism, and our understanding of these political phenomena so familiar to us today can benefit from attending to his insights.

Property and Human Flourishing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory S. Alexander
Keyword(s):  
Modern Society ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Private Ownership ◽  
Individual Freedom ◽  
Human Flourishing ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Moral Foundation ◽  
Moral Value ◽  
Historic House ◽  
African Slaves

Many people assume that what morally justifies private ownership of property is either individual freedom or social welfare, defined in terms of maximizing personal preference-satisfaction. This book offers an alternative way of understanding the moral underpinning of private ownership of property. Rather than identifying any single moral value, this book argues that human flourishing is property’s moral foundation. It develops a theory that connects ownership and human flourishing with obligations. Owners owe obligations to members of the communities that have enabled the owners to live flourishing lives by cultivating in their community members certain capabilities that are essential to leading a well-lived life. These obligations are rooted in the interdependence that exists between owners and their community members, a condition that is inherent in the human condition. Obligations have always been inherent in ownership. The human flourishing theory explains why owners at times owe obligations that enable their fellow community members to develop certain necessary capabilities. This book considers implications for a wide variety of property issues of importance both in the literature and in modern society. These include questions such as: When is a government’s expropriation of property legitimate? May the owner of a historic house destroy it without restriction? Do institutions that owned African slaves or otherwise profited from the slave trade owe any obligations to the African American community? What insights may be gained from the human flourishing concept into resolving current housing problems like homelessness, eviction, and mortgage foreclosure?

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