scholarly journals The phenomenon of evil in the philosophical concepts of the European Middle Ages

Author(s):  
Pavel Aleksandrovich Gorokhov ◽  
Ekaterina Rafaelevna Yuzhaninova

The object of this research is the heritage of the leading representatives of Medieval philosophy, while the subject is the philosophical ideas of the prominent representatives of Patristic and Scholastic philosophy upon the nature of evil. The goal of this work lies in giving holistic assessment to the philosophical ideas on the phenomenon of evil in the Middle Ages, and is achieved by solving the following tasks: 1) assessment of the concept of “the first sin” as the foundation for understanding the phenomenon of evil in Medieval philosophy; 2) determination of the genesis of philosophical ideas of the Middle Ages pertaining to the nature of evil in the logical-historical aspect; 3) description of the impact of such ideas upon further development of the Western European philosophy. The scientific novelty consists in comprehensive examination of the Medieval philosophical concepts dedicated to the phenomenon of evil. In Christianity, evil is viewed as essentially historical phenomenon, stemming from the event of the first sin and being conquered by the will of God. Medieval philosophers underlined the need for determining the ontology of evil, which is called to answer the question on the nature of evil and the role of evil in the universe. Medieval philosophers were also concerned with the problem of Theodicy, i.e. why a good God permits the manifestation of evil. The representatives of Patristic and Scholastic philosophy reasoned over the moral aspect in interpretation of evil, trying to correlate the phenomenon of evil with the free will of a human. The ideas of evil as the absence of good prevailed in the Christian philosophy, which viewed the phenomenon of evil as opposite to being, nothingness. Medieval concepts on the phenomenon of evil had a considerable spiritual and sociocultural impact upon the views of the leading representatives of German idealism, who have embraced not so much the assuredness of Medieval Christian philosophers that evil is the absence of good, but the idea on the equality of good and evil as the fundamentals of the universe and the components of human nature.

1964 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-35 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hans J. Morgenthau

The nuclear age has ushered in a novel period of history, as distinct from the age that preceded it as the modern age has been from the Middle Ages or the Middle Ages have been from antiquity. Yet while our conditions of life have drastically changed under the impact of the nuclear age, we still live in our thoughts and act through our institutions in an age that has passed. There exists, then, a gap between what we think about our social, political, and philosophic problems and the objective conditions which the nuclear age has created.This contradiction between our modes of thought and action, belonging to an age that has passed, and the objective conditions of our existence has engendered four paradoxes in our nuclear strategy: the commitment to the use of force, nuclear or otherwise, paralyzed by the fear of having to use it; the search for a nuclear strategy which would avoid the predictable consequences of nuclear war; the pursuit of a nuclear armaments race joined with attempts to stop it; the pursuit of an alliance policy which the availability of nuclear weapons has rendered obsolete. All these paradoxes result from the contrast between traditional attitudes and the possibility of nuclear war and from the fruitless attempts to reconcile the two.


Traditio ◽  
1946 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Philip Merlan

According to Aristotle all heavenly movement is ultimately due to the activity of forty-seven (or fifty-five) ‘unmoved movers'. This doctrine is highly remarkable in itself and has exercised an enormous historical influence. It forms part of a world-picture the outlines of which are as follows. The universe consists of concentric spheres, revolving in circles. The outermost of these bears the fixed stars. The other either bear planets or, insofar as they do not, contribute indirectly to the movements of the latter. Each sphere is moved by the one immediately surrounding it, but also possesses a movement of its own, due to its mover, an unmoved, incorporeal being. (It was these beings which the schoolmen designated as theintelligentiae separatae.) The seemingly irregular movements of the planets are thus viewed as resulting from the combination of regular circular revolutions. The earth does not move and occupies the centre of the universe. Such was Aristotle's astronomic system, essential parts of which were almost universally adopted by the Arabic, Jewish, and Christian philosophers of the Middle Ages.


1970 ◽  
Vol 42 (117) ◽  
pp. 159-174
Author(s):  
Michael Böss

WRITING NATIONAL HISTORY AFTER MODERNISM: THE HISTORY OF PEOPLEHOOD IN LIGHT OF EUROPEAN GRAND NARRATIVES | The purpose of the article is to refute the recent claim that Danish history cannot be written on the assumption of the existence of a Danish people prior to 19th-century nationalism. The article argues that, over the past twenty years, scholars in pre-modern European history have highlighted the limitations of the modernist paradigm in the study of nationalism and the history of nations. For example, modernists have difficulties explaining why a Medieval chronicle such as Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum was translated in the mid-1600s, and why it could be used for new purposes in the 1800s, if there had not been a continuity in notions of peoplehood between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. Of course, the claim of continuity should not be seen as an argument for an identity between the “Danes” of Saxo’s time and the Danes of the 19th-century Danish nation-state. Rather, the modern Danishness should be understood as the product of a historical process, in which a number of European cultural narratives and state building played a significant role. The four most important narratives of the Middle Ages were derived from the Bible, which was a rich treasure of images and stories of ‘people’, ‘tribe’, ‘God’, King, ‘justice’ and ‘kingdom’ (state). While keeping the basic structures, the meanings of these narratives were re-interpreted and placed in new hierarchical positions in the course of time under the impact of the Reformation, 16th-century English Puritanism, Enlightenment patriotism, the French Revolution and 19th-century romantic nationalism. The article concludes that it is still possible to write national histories featuring ‘the people’ as one of the actors. But the historian should keep in mind that ‘the people’ did not always play the main role, nor did they play the same role as in previous periods. And even though there is a need to form syntheses when writing national history, national identities have always developed within a context of competing and hierarchical narratives. In Denmark, the ‘patriotist narrative’ seems to be in ascendancy in the social and cultural elites, but has only partly replaced the ‘ethno-national’ narrative which is widespread in other parts of the population. The ‘compact narrative’ has so far survived due the continued love of the people for their monarch. It may even prove to provide social glue for a sense of peoplehood uniting ‘old’ and ‘new’ Danes.


Author(s):  
Rita Copeland

Rhetoric is an engine of social discourse and the art charged with generating and swaying emotion. The history of rhetoric provides a continuous structure by which we can measure how emotions were understood, articulated, and mobilized under various historical circumstances and social contracts. This book is about how rhetoric in the West from Late Antiquity to the later Middle Ages represented the role of emotion in shaping persuasions. It is the first book-length study of medieval rhetoric and the emotions, coloring in what has largely been a blank space between about 600 CE and the cusp of early modernity. Rhetoric in the Middle Ages, as in other periods, constituted the gateway training for anyone engaged in emotionally persuasive writing. Medieval rhetorical thought on emotion has multiple strands of influence and sedimentations of practice. The earliest and most persistent tradition treated emotional persuasion as a property of surface stylistic effect, which can be seen in the medieval rhetorics of poetry and prose, and in literary production. But the impact of Aristotelian rhetoric, which reached the Latin West in the thirteenth century, gave emotional persuasion a core role in reasoning, incorporating it into the key device of proof, the enthymeme. In Aristotle, medieval teachers and writers found a new rhetorical language to explain the social and psychological factors that affect an audience. With Aristotelian rhetoric, the emotions became political. The impact of Aristotle’s rhetorical approach to emotions was to be felt in medieval political treatises, in poetry, and in preaching.


Author(s):  
John Marenbon

This introductory chapter explains how medieval philosophy has hardly made an appearance before in this series of philosophy lectures, and why the author decided on a theme that brings together thinkers from the Middle Ages and the early modern period. It then briefly summarizes the arguments of the three main chapters and of the responses to them.


Author(s):  
Rita Copeland

Rhetoric was aimed at textual composition, but literary criticism was also always part of its remit. This chapter surveys the application of rhetorical thought to textual interpretation in the Middle Ages. This process was important for the interpretation of Scripture as well as literary works. The chapter considers the intersections between invention and hermeneutics, the relevance of theories of arrangement to analysis of narrative structure, and how rhetorical theories of genre and style (including figurative language) were transplanted into interpretive contexts. The chapter engages closely with the classical tradition, especially Ciceronian works, in order to demonstrate the value of classical thought for medieval theorists and literary exegetes. It explores the critical dimensions of the preceptive rhetorics of the Middle Ages, and it also considers how scholastic philosophy absorbed the rhetorical tradition and contributed to literary thought. Major medieval authors considered include Augustine, Geoffrey of Vinsauf, and Dante.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 947-967
Author(s):  
Gülcan Yücedağ

After the Second World War in Germany, guest worker migrations came into question. In recent years, the refugee problem in Europe in general and Germany in particular has been attracting attention. However, German history has a much richer content in terms of migration and migrant types. It is possible to say that the content of migration varies according to factors such as the way of migration, the duration of stay in the target country, and distance. Meanwhile, the definition of migrant is also classified in relation to religious, political, national or ethnic identities. This study traces the migration and migrant facts in German history since the Middle Ages. Although Germany received a high rate of migration, until recently it has not called itself as a migration country. Despite that, this paper aims to show that Germany was not independent from the types of migration and migrants also in the past. Therefore, the reflections of migration and migrant facts in German history are researched. In this article, the literature review is done and the data are descriptively analysed. In the Middle Ages, the mobility of the nobility, clergy, students and merchants attracts attention. Forced migration and immigration to America and the impact of industrialization on migration are other important issues. The types of migration and migrants that gained importance during and after the First World War include diversity. Millions of refugees created by the Second World War, guest worker migrations with international treaties after the war, ethnic Germans’ remigration after the Cold War, and the current refugee problem are important reflections in German history related to migration and migrant facts. ​Extended English summary is in the end of Full Text PDF (TURKISH) file. Özet Almanya’da İkinci Dünya Savaşı’ndan sonra misafir işçi göçleri gündeme gelmiştir. Yakın zamanda ise genel olarak Avrupa, özel olarak Almanya’da mülteci sorunu dikkat çekmektedir. Bununla birlikte Alman tarihi, göç ve göçmen türleri açısından çok daha zengin bir içeriğe sahiptir. Göçün içeriğinin göç etme biçimi, hedef ülkede kalış süresi, mesafe gibi faktörlere göre değiştiğini söylemek mümkündür. Buna paralel olarak göçmen tanımı da dini, siyasi, ulusal veya etnik kimliklerle ilişkili olarak sınıflandırılır. Bu çalışma, Ortaçağ’dan günümüze kadar Alman tarihinde göç ve göçmen olgularının izi sürmektedir. Almanya, yüksek oranda göç almasına rağmen, yakın zamana kadar kendisini bir göç ülkesi olarak adlandırmamıştır. Bununla birlikte, bu çalışma Almanya’nın, geçmişte de göçlerden ve göçmenlerden bağımsız olmadığını göstermeyi hedeflemektedir. Bu nedenle, göç ve göçmen olgularının Alman tarihindeki yansımaları incelenmiştir. Bu çalışmada literatür taraması yapılarak veriler betimsel analize tabi tutulmuştur. Ortaçağ’da soyluların, din adamlarının, öğrencilerin ve tüccarların hareketliliği dikkat çekmektedir. Zorunlu göçler ve Amerika’ya yönelen göçler ile sanayileşmenin göçe etkisi önem taşıyan diğer konulardır. Birinci Dünya Savaşı ve sonrasında öne çıkan göç türleri ve göçmenlik hâlleri çeşitlilik içermektedir. İkinci Dünya Savaşı’nın yarattığı milyonlarca mülteci, savaş sonrasında uluslararası anlaşmalarla gerçekleşen misafir işçi göçleri, Soğuk Savaş sonrasında etnik Almanların geri göçü ve günümüz mülteci sorunu, göç ve göçmen olgularının Alman tarihindeki önemli yansımalarıdır.


wisdom ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 136-145
Author(s):  
Haykazun Alvrtsyan

The article presents the perceptions and viewpoints of the Armenian medieval literary men concerning the spiritual symbol. Being anchored in the pan-Christian perception of the symbol, it laid the basis of the symbolic-allegorical thinking of the Armenian spiritual culture. In the history of the Armenian medieval literature and art studies, the analysis of symbols, in essence, the discovery of the epiphany in them, which is the fundamental meaning of the culture, have often been neglected. Today there is a necessity to analyse the spiritual culture in a new way to dig out its ideological – world outlook basis conditioned by the artistic and the festival and ritual functions of the different types of art. Such a research also enables us to comprehend the aesthetic, artistic and doctrinal - philosophical merits of the spiritual culture (literature, miniature, architecture, etc.) created throughout the centuries and still unknown to us in a new way, to review the system of criteria and ideological-methodological basis of the evaluation, which bears a great significance for the complete and precise perception and evaluation of the Armenian art and literature of the Middle Ages.


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 185
Author(s):  
Ahmed Abd Al Awaisheh ◽  
Hala Ghassan Al Hussein

This study examines the history of the development of the doctrine of infallibility of the Pope (Bishop of Rome) in the Catholic Church, from the Middle Ages to its adoption as a dogmatic constitution, to shed light on the impact of the course of historical events on the crystallization of this doctrine and the conceptual structure upon which it was based. The study concluded that the doctrine of infallibility of the Pope was based on the concept of the Peter theory, and it went through several stages, the most prominent of which was the period of turbulence in the Middle Ages, and criticism in the modern era, and a series of historical events in the nineteenth century contributed to the siege of the papal seat, which prompted Pius The ninth to endorsing the doctrine of infallibility of the Pope to confront these criticisms in the first Vatican Council in 1870 AD, by defining the concept of infallibility in the context of faith education and ethics, and this decision was emphasized in the Second Vatican Council in 1964 AD, but in more detail.


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