scholarly journals Pierre Bourdin against Rene Descartes: Statement of Incompatibility of Positions

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 142-154
Author(s):  
Vasily P. Goran

The paper offers an analysis of the argument of priest P. Bourdin in his actual discussion with the philosopher R. Descartes, initiated by the response of this priest to the philosophical treatise “Meditations on the first philosophy...”. The paper also provides a historical and philosophical assessment of their positions. Particular attention is paid to the fact that Bourdin very persistently tried to clarify the conceptual basis on which Descartes rests his decision to consider the mind of a person incorporeal. In addition, Descartes considered the mind isolated from the body and independent of it so completely as to recognize it continuing to exist even after the death of the body. Since, according to Bourdin, Descartes’ efforts did not have a convincing positive result, the priest rejected this concept of the philosopher and the isolation of the mind from the body, and the immortality of the mind. This position of the church hierarch cannot but be recognized as materialistic. As a result, the paradox of the situation is established. On the question of the relationship between a person’s body and soul, the church hierarch essentially upholds a materialistic position, and one of the largest natural scientists of that time has a religiously idealistic idea of the immortality of the human soul.

Author(s):  
Stephen Gaukroger ◽  
Knox Peden

What do Montaigne’s Essays have in common with modern philosophy? ‘The origins of French philosophy’ explains different approaches to relativism, humanism, and scepticism in the writings of Montaigne and Descartes, and lesser-known philosophers Gassendi and Malebranche. As a cleric, Gassendi shaped his conclusions around Christian doctrine. When Descartes was unable to argue a central scientific theory because of the Church—that the Earth revolves around the Sun—he became preoccupied by the possibility of absolute, indisputable knowledge. Thus, ontology in French philosophy was replaced with epistemology—the study of knowledge. How did early modern philosophers explain the relationship between God, the mind, and the body?


Vox Patrum ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 39-56
Author(s):  
Mariusz Szram

The article systematises the metaphors ascribed by Origen (185-253/254) to the well-known female characters of the Old Testament utilising the method of allegorical exegesis of the text of Scripture. Females appearing on the pages of the historical books of Bible are – according to the Alexandrian – allegories of hu­man virtues or defects. They embody the spiritual warfare between the spirit and the body, between the mind and the feelings. In the collective sense they symbo­lize the synagogue or the church chosen from the Gentiles, and in the individual sense – the human soul in its relation to God. Origen refers to the telling names of women, translating them and embedding into the spiritual context often giving the several different allegorical meanings to the same biblical person. Despite the often-quoted in his writings beliefs characteristic to the ancient world, procla­iming that the woman is a symbol of bodily feelings and the man – a symbol of the intellectual abilities, majority of allegorical interpretations relating to the Old Testament women indicates a personification of the virtues worthy of imitation. This phenomenon is conditioned with the meaning of the names of those persons and the role attributed to them by the biblical authors, but Origen’s interpretations are original and based on his own concept of spiritual life. They deny opinions of misogyny of Origen and the early Christian writers in general.


2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (86) ◽  
pp. 130-134
Author(s):  
O.V. Ohirko

Philosophical, anthropological and Christian views on a person as a reasonable, free, religious and social person are considered. Theocentric and anthropocentric views are analyzed. Man is three worlds: physical, cognitive, and affective. Man differs from other creatures by having reason and will and natural inclinations. Man is embodied in the spirit and the spiritualized body, and its human spirit is expressed in bodily form. The body and soul of man are not two realities that are separated from one another. The body is a living matter, merged with the soul. The body, having the ability to feed, move, rest, multiply, falls under the laws of matter, that is, in particular, under the law of death. The human soul animates the body, reveals the spiritual ability to think abstractly, to create ideas, assessments, reasoning, make decisions freely. She does not suffer corporal death and can not decompose. In order for a person to live according to his nature, the mind must freely and sincerely seek the truth, and the will must always desire the truth offered as reason by the mind. A person is a person who has his own mind, will and feeling. In view of its dignity, the human person is the center of public life. Man as an image and likeness of God, is able to know, to love the Creator, and to serve Him. Man as a person is a goal in itself and in no case is not only an instrumental instrument. The purpose of human life is to love people and God, to be kind, to know, to speak and to testify the truth.


Author(s):  
Martin Eisner

This article investigates the significance of the manuscripts of Virgil and other classical poets that Dante might have read. Calling attention to the presence of musical notation (neumes) in copies that share the particular Virgilian readings Dante quotes, this essay explores the resonance of one of those passages (Aeneas’ dream of Hector) in Dante’s poem. It shows how Dante uses this Virgilian episode to craft his encounter with Manfred where he considers the relationship of body and soul that constitutes one of the major differences between classical and Christian thought, as Augustine frequently noted. Just as Christian anthropology maintains that the body constitutes an essential element of the human person, this essay argues that the materiality of the texts Dante read constitutes a crucial source for understanding how Dante interpreted these texts.


1997 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 742-777 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erin O'Connor

In 1866, theAtlantic Monthlypublished a fictional case study of an army surgeon who had lost all of his limbs during the Civil War. Written anonymously by American neurologist Silas Weir Mitchell, “The Case of George Dedlow” describes not only the series of wounds and infections which led to the amputation of all four of the soldier's arms and legs but also the after-effects of amputation. Reduced to what he terms “a useless torso, more like some strange larval creature than anything of human shape,” Dedlow finds that in disarticulating his body, amputation articulates anatomical norms. His observation of his own uniquely altered state qualifies him to speak in universal terms about the relationship between sentience and selfhood: “I have dictated these pages,” he says, “not to shock my readers, but to possess them with facts in regard to the relation of the mind to the body” (1866:5). As such, the story explores the meaning of embodiment, finding in a fragmented anatomy the opportunity to piece together a more complete understanding of how the body functions—physically and metaphysically—as a whole.


2019 ◽  
pp. 192-209
Author(s):  
Дионисий Шленов

В XI в. монах Студийского монастыря прп. Никита Стифат в аскетико-богословском корпусе своих сочинений неоднократно пользовался выражениями «главные добродетели» и «главные страсти». В статье делается попытка раскрыть смысл выражения«главные добродетели», систематизировать представления автора о четырех главных добродетелях, известных ему от античной традиции через посредство христианских авторов, продолжавших и далее свободно пользоваться этим выражением. Общий контекст позволяет выявить своеобразие автора, который сравнивает «четыре главные добродетели» с четырехчастностью человеческой души как великого мира по сравнению с внешним, малым, миром, состоявшим, согласно античным представлениям, из четырех первоэлементов. Особо рассматривается еще более детализированное сравнение четырех добродетелей с четырьмя способностями высшей части души - разума. Наряду с этим, автор сопоставляет пять чувств тела и пять разумных сил души. Для прп. Никиты четыре главные добродетели являются основополагающими, что не исключает особого внимания автора к ряду других ключевых добродетелей, таких как смирение и любовь. Учение о четырех главных добродетелях отсутствует в корпусе сочинений учителя прп. Никиты - прп. Симеона Нового Богослова, что сильнее подчеркивает более«школьный» и компилятивный характер наследия Стифата. Учение Стифата рассматривается в контексте античной и византийской литературы. In the XI century a monk of the Studite monastery St. Nicetas Stethatus in the ascetic-theological corpus of his writings repeatedly used the expressions “main virtues” and “main passions”. The article attempts to uncover the meaning of the expression “main virtues”, to systematize the author’s ideas about the four main virtues, known to him from the ancient tradition through Christian authors, who continued to use this expression freely. The general context makes it possible to reveal the originality of the author, who compares the “four main virtues” with the fourfold part of the human soul as a great world compared to the external, small, world, which, according to ancient concepts, consisted of four primary elements. Particularly, an even more detailed comparison of the four virtues with the four abilities of the higher part of the soul, the mind, is considered. Along with this, the A. compares the five senses of the body and the five rational powers of the soul. For St. Nicetas the four main virtues are fundamental, which does not exclude the A.’s special attention to a number of other key virtues, such as humility and love. The doctrine of the four main virtues is missing from the corpus of St. Nicetas/St. Simeon the New Theologian, which more strongly emphasizes the more “school-like” and compilative nature of St. Stethatus’ heritage. The doctrines of Stethatus are considered in the context of ancient Byzantine literature.


2007 ◽  
Vol 56 (5) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean Laffitte

A partire dalla seconda metà del secolo scorso, la Chiesa si è trovata a dover ripensare i rapporti tra fede, teologia e antropologia in problematiche nuove come, ad esempio, la sessualità umana. Interprete privilegiato di questa rielaborazione è stato, senza dubbio, Giovanni Paolo II che in più occasioni ha avuto modo di riflettere e illustrare la teologia, la antropologia e l’etica che sostengono la visione cristiana della sessualità umana. Di questa vasta produzione, l’articolo prende in esame soprattutto le Catechesi di Giovanni Paolo II con frequenti richiami e illustrazioni del pensiero del filosofo Karol Wojty´la. L’analisi dell’autore prende le mosse dall’esposizione di Giovanni Paolo II dei dati creaturali dei tre primi capitoli del libro della Genesi, esaminando, in particolar modo, i significati fondamentali della solitudine originaria dell’uomo verso la creazione e poi il rapporto maschio-femmina. Vengono illustrati quindi l’esperienza dell’amore e l’ethos del dono: l’esperienza cristiana è presentata dal Pontefice come evento e saggezza e legata all’esperienza di amore che l’uomo sperimenta nel rapporto di filiazione che lo unisce a Dio; l’esperienza dell’amore coniugale ruota attorno alla corporeità umana e ai suoi valori/significati. Il corpo assume dunque un significato sponsale che conserva anche dopo la caduta, testimonianza dell’innocenza originaria e della libertà del dono. In tale contesto l’esperienza dell’amore è vissuta come mediazione di una conoscenza che va al di là della persona dell’amato aprendo l’orizzonte al dono divino anteriore. Nella seconda parte del contributo si prendono in esame i significati dell’amore e l’esperienza etica della sessualità così come sviluppati da Giovanni Paolo II: nella corporeità umana, in cui è impressa la complementarietà biologica, vi è una chiamata alla comunione che non è solo comunione tra i due sessi, ma che rimanda a una divina comunione di Persone. L’autore esamina anche l’esercizio della sessualità in rapporto alla legge naturale intesa come conformità alla ragione umana protesa verso la verità. Tale conformità conduce alla retta comprensione dell’intima struttura dell’atto coniugale, la cui “verità ontologica” si manifesta nell'inscindibilità delle due dimensioni unitiva e procreativa. In questa ampia visione della sessualità è compreso anche il mistero dell’amore nuziale tra Cristo e la Chiesa: la comunione di vita e d’amore tra l’uomo e la donna ha come missione propria di significare e rendere attuale l’unione tra Cristo e la sua Chiesa. L’articolo termina con l’analisi del legame tra corpo e sacramento e della dimensione sacrificale e nuziale del dono eucaristico. ---------- Since the second half of the last century, the Church has found herself having to rethink the relationship between faith, theology, and anthropology within new problems concerning, for example, human sexuality. Without any doubt, a privileged interpreter of this reprocessing was John Paul II, who on more occasions had a way of reflecting upon and illustrating the theology, anthropology, and ethics that support the Christian vision of human sexuality. Out of the vast work produced, the article examines especially the Catecheses of John Paul II with frequent appeals to and illustrations of the thought of Karol Wojty´la. The author’s analysis begins its quest with John Paul II’s exposition of creatural data in the first three chapters of the Book of Genesis, examining in particular the fundamental meanings of the original solitude of man toward creation and then the relationship between male and female. The experience of love and the ethos of gift thus come to be illustrated: Christian experience is presented by the Pontiff as event and wisdom and is connected to the experience of love that man experiences in the relationship of filiation that unites Him to God. The experience of conjugal love revolves around human corporeity and its values/meanings. The body thus assumes a spousal meaning that remains even after the Fall, serving as testimony of original innocence and the freedom of gift. Within such a context, the experience of love is lived out as the mediation of knowledge that goes beyond the person of the loved, opening up the horizon to the earlier divine gift. In the second part of this contribution, the meanings of love and the ethical experience of sexuality as such are examined as developments by John Paul II: In human corporeity, upon which biological complementarity is impressed, there is a call to communion that is not only communion between the two sexes, but which refers back to a divine communion of Persons. The author also examines the exercise of sexuality in relation to a natural law intended as conformity to a human reason reaching toward truth. Such conformity leads to the proper understanding of the intimate structure of the conjugal act, whose “ontological truth” manifests itself through the inseparability of the two dimensions: unitive and the procreative. Within this comprehensive vision of sexuality also resonates the mystery of nuptial love between Christ and the Church: The communion of life and love between man and woman that has as its own mission to signify and render present the union between Christ and His Church. The article ends with an analysis of the connection between body and sacrament and of the sacrificial and nuptial dimension of the Eucharistic gift.


Humanities ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Alberto Tondello

In Agency and Embodiment, Carrie Noland describes gesture as “a type of inscription, a parsing of the body into signifying and operational units”, considering it as a means to read and decode the human body. Through an analysis of James Joyce’s collection of Epiphanies, my paper will examine how gesture, as a mode of expression of the body, can be transcribed on the written page. Written and collected to record a “spiritual manifestation” shining through “in the vulgarity of speech or gesture, or in a memorable phase of the mind itself”, Joyce’s Epiphanies can be considered as the first step in his sustained attempt to develop an art of gesture-as-rhythm. These short pieces appear as the site in which the author seeks, through the medium of writing, to negotiate and redefine the boundaries of the physical human body. Moving towards a mapping of body and mind through the concept of rhythm, and pointing to a collaboration and mutual influence between interiority and exteriority, the Epiphanies open up a space for the reformulation of the relationship between the human body and its environment. Unpacking the ideas that sit at the heart of the concept of epiphany, the paper will shed light on how this particular mode of writing produces a rhythmic art of gesture, fixing and simultaneously liberating human and nonhuman bodies on the written page.


2009 ◽  
Vol 56 (2) ◽  
pp. 226-236 ◽  
Author(s):  
Giuseppe Giordan

The distinction between religion and spirituality, as it is increasingly understood in the contemporary sociology of religion, has led to a reconsideration of the relation between the individual and his/her own body. In the Christian ambit, and especially in the Catholic sphere, the traditional religious attitude has always been that of emphasizing the dichotomy between soul and body, setting a hierarchy that puts the soul in a position superior to the body's, according to an ascetic approach that, particularly in the Middle Ages, foresaw the “mortification of the body”. In the contemporary spiritualist perspective, body and soul are seen as profoundly united, and the previous dichotomy seems to leave room for a more serene and less conflictual connection with one's body: spirituality relates to the sacred by leaving room for (and deriving from) emotions, feelings, the physical and the sexual, and takes a holistic view of human nature. Such a shift from the religious dimension to the spiritual dimension in the relationship with one's body can be observed not only in popular culture but also within Catholicism itself.


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