The Decline of Magic: Britain in the Enlightenment by Michael Hunter

2020 ◽  
Vol 34 (4) ◽  
pp. 854-874
Author(s):  
Alan Gauld
Keyword(s):  
The Body ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Magical Beliefs

In the preface to this very Scholarly – and sometimes almost confusingly well-informed - book the author tells us that his aim is to offer “a fresh view of the change in educated attitudes towards magical beliefs that occurred in Britain between about 1650 and 1750.” In this he unquestionably succeeds. Actually the book continues somewhat beyond the later date, but there can be no doubt that there were changes – mostly declines - during the designated period in many of the miscellaneous human beliefs and activities that have for whatever reason been labelled as ‘magic’ or ‘magical’. Hunter begins the body of his book with a chapter–length Introduction entitled The Supernatural, Science and ‘Atheism’. This opens with an attempt to define what he means by ‘magic’, based, he says, on the similar attempt made by Sir Keith Thomas in his classic Religion and the Decline of Magic (1971), though unlike Thomas he very wisely does not include alchemy and astrology. Even so he includes quite a wide variety of topics, so wide indeed that it is hard to see what if anything these phenomena – if they do indeed occur – could have in common except that they are difficult to explain, or to explain away, in ordinarily accepted terms. The proposed list includes such matters as witchcraft, witch covens, involvement with the spiritual realm (good or evil, angelic or demonic, benevolent or pestilential) possession. conjuration, prophesies, ghosts, apparitions, fairies, omens and lucky charms, and what would now be called poltergeists. Other varieties of curious events linked to or supposedly similar to the above could in practice no doubt get included.

Yakir Englander and Avi Sagi, Sexuality and the Body in New Religious Zionist Discourse, trans. Batya Stein. Boston: Academic Press, 2015. 298 pp.

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
The Body ◽  
Academic Press ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
Bodily Integrity ◽  
The Enlightenment

This chapter reviews the book Sexuality and the Body in New Religious Zionist Discourse (2015), by Yakir Englander and Avi Sagi, translated by Batya Stein. Sexuality and the Body in New Religious Zionist Discourse examines the positions and debates about “sexuality” in one area of the Jewish public sphere in Israel—religious Jewry—and specifically that of the Israeli religious Zionists who, following the notion of “Torah ’im Derech Eretz” first formulated by Samson Raphael Hirsch as an answer to the Enlightenment, are now struggling in a Jewish state to combine halakhic commitment with the values of modernity. Englander and Sagi focus on questions of sexuality as defined by rabbinic notions of gender attraction and bodily integrity/autonomy: those dealing with homosexuality, lesbianism, masturbation, and the relationships between the sexes.

The history and scope of neuropsychiatry

2020 ◽  
pp. 3-12
Author(s):  
Michael Trimble
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Nervous System ◽  
Human Brain ◽  
Limbic System ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Romantic Era ◽  
The Brain

This chapter discusses the clinical necessity from which the intersection of neurology and psychiatry arose, exploring different eras and their associated intellectual milestones in order to understand the historical framework of contemporary neuropsychiatry. Identifying Hippocrates’ original acknowledgement of the relation of the human brain to epilepsy as a start point, the historical development of the field is traced. This encompasses Thomas Willis and his nascent descriptions of the limbic system, the philosophical and alchemical strides of the Enlightenment, and the motivations behind the Romantic era attempts to understand the brain. It then follows the growth of the field through the turn of the twentieth century, in spite of the prominence of psychoanalysis and the idea of the brainless mind, and finally the understanding of the ‘integrated action’ of the body and nervous system, which led to the integration of psychiatry and neurology, allowing for the first neuropsychiatric examinations of epilepsy.

Flânerie for Cyborgs

2006 ◽  
Vol 23 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 209-220 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rob Shields
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
The Body ◽  
Work Place ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Literary Figure ◽  
Social Science Fiction ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
A Site ◽  
Clinic Hospital

As a literary figure or conceit, Haraway’s cyborg is kin to Dumas’ and Balzac’s flâneur. As a social science fiction, crossing and mixing categories, the cyborg is an abject quasi-body who does not fit the Enlightenment model of the political subject and actor. The ‘Manifesto’ has a geography of sites - Home, Market, Paid Work Place, State, School, Clinic-Hospital and Church - which this article updates and to which it adds the Body and the Web. However, Haraway’s ‘cyborg-analysis’ directs attention to the nanotechnological scale of biotechnology. The spatialization implied in the ‘Manifesto’ is more like a surface, a site of regeneration, not a space of the body or of rebirth or the space of institutions such as the Market or School. The cyborg cannot be an Enlightenment political actor, but challenges the traditions, scale and space of the public sphere even as she carries ethical qualities and potentials for less normative forms of politics.

scholarly journals The Law of Nature in Locke's Second Treatise: Is Locke a Hobbesian?

1987 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Coby
Keyword(s):  
Political Science ◽  
John Locke ◽  
Thomas Hobbes ◽  
Body Politic ◽  
The Body ◽  
Civil Justice ◽  
Natural Justice ◽  
Law Of Nature ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Law

The question addressed by this essay is whether Thomas Hobbes is the true intellectual forebear of John Locke. A brief comparison of the teachings of these two authors with respect to natural justice and civil justice would seem to suggest that Locke is a determined adversary of Hobbes whose views on justice are reducible to the maxim that “might makes right.” But a reexamination of Locke's Second Treatise shows that Locke adopts this principle with hardly less thoroughness than Hobbes. Even so, an important difference remains, for Locke takes steps to disguise the grim reality of power, whereas Hobbes makes the enlightenment of people the sine qua non of his political science. Locke's departure from Hobbes is seen as an attempt to instill in the body politic a degree of justice that would not otherwise exist.

scholarly journals The Saint and the Cynic: Resentment and Jewishness in Améry, Sloterdijk, and Wyschogrod

2017 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 95-116
Author(s):  
Menachem Feuer
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
The Body ◽  
Harold Bloom ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Peter Sloterdijk ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
Modern Condition ◽  
Enlightenment Philosophy

The constellation of pain, resentment, the body, and time – as they exist in the wake of the Enlightenment and in the dawn of a new barbarism - is found throughout the work of Jean Améry and Peter Sloterdijk. Both thinkers were especially influenced by Nietzsche’s readings of resentment, his challenge to the Enlightenment, and his turn to the body as the basis of a new kind of thinking which starts with pain, dwells in irreversible time, and ends with the possibility of action and joy. While this new thinking is novel and appeals to all humankind, the most unexpected points of convergence between Améry and Sloterdijk can be found in their particular neo-Nietzschean articulations of Jewishness: using what Harold Bloom would call revision, they both propose a revision of Nietzsche’s reading of Judaism as resentment. Améry associates Jewishness with “revolt” while Sloterdijk associates what he calls “kynicism” (as opposed to cynicism) with Jewishness.1 Intensely aware of the mortal blows that have been dealt to the Enlightenment, philosophy, and modernity as well as to the human body during the Holocaust, Améry and Sloterdijk both address – either directly or indirectly – the meaning of cynicism in relation to Jewishness, in particular, and the modern condition, in general. 

scholarly journals The Idea of the Posthuman: A Comparative Analysis of Transhumanism and Posthumanism

2019 ◽  
Vol 62 (4) ◽  
pp. 132-147 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. I. Kriman
Keyword(s):  
Outer Space ◽  
The Body ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Human Influence ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Vitruvian Man ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
The One ◽  
The Mind

The article discusses the modern philosophical concepts of transhumanism and posthumanism. The central issue of these concepts is “What is the posthuman?” The 21st century is marked by a contradictory understanding of the role and status of the human. On the one hand, there comes the realization of human hegemony over the whole world around: in the 20th century mankind not only began to conquer outer space, invented nuclear weapons, made many amazing discoveries but also shifted its attention to itself or rather to the modification of itself. Transhumanist projects aim to strengthen human influence by transforming human beings into other, more powerful and viable forms of being. Such projects continues the project of human “deification.” On the other hand, acknowledging the onset of the new geological epoch of the Anthropocene, there comes the rejection of classical interpretations of the human. The categories of historicity, sociality and subjectivity are no longer so anthropocentric. In the opinion of the posthumanists, the project of the Vitruvian man has proven to be untenable in the present-day environment and is increasingly criticized. The reflection on the phenomenon of the human and his future refers to the concepts that explore not only human but also non-human. Very often we can find a synonymous understanding of transhumanism and posthumanism. Although these movements work with the same modern constructs and concepts but interpret them in a fundamentally different way. The discourse of transhumanism refers to the Cartesian opposition of the body and the mind. Despite the sacralization of technology and the desire to purify the posthuman from such seemingly permanent attributes of the living as aging and death, transhumanism in many ways continues the ideas of the Enlightenment. For posthumanists, the subject is nomadic and a kind of assembly of human, animal, digital, chimerical. Thus, in posthumanism the main maxim of humanism about the human as the highest value is rejected – the human ceases to be “the measure of all things.”

Superstition, Misconceptions, and Magical Beliefs in Burns Patients—A Cross-Sectional Study of 100 Patients

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (3) ◽  
pp. 652-656
Author(s):  
Suvashis Dash ◽  
Vamseedharan Muthukumar ◽  
Shardendu Sharma
Keyword(s):  
Care Center ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
The Body ◽  
Common Phenomenon ◽  
Sectional Study ◽  
Food Category ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Burn Care ◽  
Superstitious Beliefs ◽  
Magical Beliefs

Abstract Superstitious beliefs have been frequently encountered in our day-to-day practices among patients and caretakers. Though this is a common phenomenon, there is a paucity of data pertaining to these beliefs due to various reasons. Many of these beliefs are deep engraved into the culture and mindsets of the population. This is an observational study performed in Tertiary burn care center in India during period October 1, 2018 to January 31, 2019. Data from 100 patient units were collected through a set of questionnaires given to each of patient and their caregivers/family members and responses were collected and analyzed. In the food category of superstitions, there was a thought that white colored foods had to be avoided to avoid pus discharge and wound healing in 60% of the response; eating pomegranate or drinking the juice of pomegranate improves the hemoglobin in 80% of the response. Wearing various colored strings in various parts of the body seemed to be a dominant practice in 85% of the responses, wearing the hair with origin from human, donkeys, horses, and various animals was practiced in 45% of people and wearing peacock feathers was seen in 40% of patients. About 95% of the patients thought adversely to the idea of bathing or even contact of the water with the wounds. This study is an attempt to analyze the different parameters of superstition, misconception, and magical beliefs.

The Resurrection of the Body

2018 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-260
Author(s):  
Martin Rheinheimer
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ordinary People ◽  
Christian Doctrine ◽  
Medical Progress ◽  
Material Life ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Bodily Resurrection ◽  
Church Paintings ◽  
Written Materials

This article analyses visual and written materials which indicate some of the interesting changes that the authoritative, Christian doctrine of bodily resurrection underwent in modernity. These materials document a growing gap between the authoritative creed and people’s beliefs, which cannot, I argue, be attributed solely to intellectual changes, but which was also highly reliant on changes in material living conditions and medical and hygienic progress. The article suggests that the belief in the resurrection of the body was quite firm in the general population even in the eighteenth century - the century of the Enlightenment, but that it faded towards the end of the nineteenth century due to changes in the material life conditions, such as medical progress and a decline in child mortality. My sources are gathered from the predominantly Lutheran former Duchy of Schleswig, and particularly from northern Friesland, and consist of personal letters, sermons, and visual sources such as church paintings and gravestone images. By means of selected examples, I investigate what the authoritative dogma of belief in the resurrection of the body meant to ordinary people. I trace the causes of this belief, and I discuss why it faded towards the end of the nineteenth century.

Health and Medicine in the Enlightenment

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
E. C. Spray
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Medical Knowledge ◽  
The Body ◽  
Medical Practitioners ◽  
Ordinary Life ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Mass Inoculation

This article discusses the transformation of medicine at the very end of the century and thus represents a shift both in the training of medical practitioners and in accounts of the body. The eighteenth century has been described as a time of increasing medicalization of Western societies. Though this is usually portrayed as a growth in the power of medical practitioners over ordinary life, in practice lay people may also understand it as an increasing embrace of the medical. The eighteenth century continues to be viewed as a critical period in the history of medicine, as the century when bodies became the subject of large-scale political intervention, from centralized responses to plague epidemics or mass inoculation programmes early in the century to the growing use of mortality tables at its end. To portray these knowledge projects in all their complexity, historians still need to embrace the full implications of treating eighteenth-century medical knowledge as a political enterprise.

Reintegrating Care for the Dying, Body and Soul

2010 ◽  
Vol 103 (3) ◽  
pp. 351-364 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael J. Balboni ◽  
Tracy A. Balboni
Keyword(s):  
Division Of Labor ◽  
Human Person ◽  
Modern Medicine ◽  
The Body ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Primary Role ◽  
Scientific Medicine ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Contemporary Life ◽  
Body And Soul

Modern medicine owes many of its founding principles to a spiritual heritage. However, passage through the Enlightenment and entry into a secular, pluralistic health context have yielded an estranged relationship between care of the body and care of the soul.1 Scientific medicine now holds the primary role in care of the body while religious communities are solely responsible for care of the soul. The needs of both body and soul are in many respects served well by this specialization and division of labor, but ultimately, of course, human experience is not susceptible to such a simplistic dichotomization. The lack of integration of spiritual and material care of the human person in contemporary life has led to increasingly evident tensions, most notably in the mechanization and isolation of the experiences of illness and dying.2

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