scholarly journals Dialectics in early Yogācāra and bodhisattva ideal

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 713-732
Author(s):  
S. L. Burmistrov

The article covers several aspects of Buddhist dialectics, as recorded in the last section of the “Abhidharma Compendium” (Abhidharma-samuccaya). It was compiled by Asanga (4th cent. AD) who was one of the founders of the Mahayana Buddhist school of Yogacara. Based on the Sanskrit text, the author gives a detailed account of Asanga's perception of the phenomenon of dialectics. He highlights the aspects as follows: the doctrine of reasoning methods, which provide the student with true knowledge, and the evidence of the reliability of this knowledge. The first part of dialectics comprises the essence of Buddhist teachings, which according to Asanga sees in the idea of three natures - the imagined, the dependent and the absolute (parikalpita, paratantra, pariniṣpanna) one. The second part covers the principles of rhetorics and the argumentation theory. Common principles lying in the basis of Buddhist rhetoric are determined by the bodhisattva ideal, or the ideal of an enlightened person who rises above the difference between samsara and nirvana, thus achieving the force to save other sentient beings from the ocean of saṃsāra. The author also points to the paradox that is immanent in Buddhist rhetoric: a preacher must show the emptiness of any conceptual construction by using the same constructions to enable the audience to get through them and to reach the non-conceptual reality. The article is an original study on the history of ancient and medieval Indian philosophy and rhetoric and will be of interest to everyone who deals with this problem.

1984 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 108-118 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Kelley

The words “liberty” and “liberalism” have a common root, reflecting the commitment of the original or classical liberals to a free society. Over the last century, the latter term has come to represent a political position that is willing to sacrifice liberty in the economic realm for the sake of equality and/or collective welfare. As a consequence, those who wish to reaffirm the classical version of liberalism – those who advocate liberty in economic as well as personal and intellectual matters – have invented a new word from the old root; they call themselves libertarians. Both in doctrine and in etymology, then, partisans of this view define themselves by their allegiance to liberty. Yet they spend most of their day-to-day polemical energies defending property rights and the economic system of laissez-faire capitalism that is based upon such rights. Evidently there is a strong link between liberty and property at work here. What is that link?The history of political thought is full of ideas and controversies about precisely this question. My goal here is to raise the question in a specific form, one that I think captures a basic difference in approach between classical liberals and most libertarians today. The difference is not in the substance of the position – it is not a disagreement about how the ideal society would be constituted – but rather in the way the position is to be defended. The key question is: can the right to property be derived from the right to liberty?Of course a property right is a right to kind of freedom.


2012 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 84-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey Edward Green

Abstract This essay takes up the fundamental question of the proper place of history in the study of political thought through critical engagement with Mark Bevir’s seminal work, The Logic of the History of Ideas. While I accept the claim of Bevir, as well as of other exponents of the so-called “Cambridge School,” that there is a conceptual difference between historical and non-historical modes of reading past works of political philosophy, I resist the suggestion that this conceptual differentiation itself justifies the specialization, among practicing intellectuals, between historians of ideas and others who read political-philosophical texts non-historically. Over and against the figure of the historian of ideas, who interprets political thought only in the manner of a historian, I defend the ideal of the pupil, who in studying past traditions of political thought also seeks to extend and modify them in light of contemporary problems and concerns. Against Bevir, I argue that the mixture of historical and non-historical modes of learning, in the manner of the pupil, need not do damage to the historian of ideas’ commitment to scholarship that is non-anachronistic, objective, and non-indeterminate.


2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-37
Author(s):  
Natalie Binczek

Der deutsche Barockdichter Georg Philipp Harsdörffer skizziert eine Theorie der Emblematik, die vor allem dessen Anwendungsvielfalt hervorhebt. Er hebt dabei besonders den Unterschied zwischen buchinterner und buchexterner Verwendung auf, indem er sich nicht nur für die Aufnahme der Embleme in Büchern, sondern auch auf Geschirr und Tapeten ausspricht. Der Beitrag liest Harsdörffers extensive Überlegungen nicht nur als Beiträge zur Theorie und Geschichte der Embleme als ›Sinn-Bilder‹, sondern auch als Beitrag zur Designgeschichte. German Baroque poet Georg Philipp Harsdörffer delineates a theory of emblematics that clearly sets itself apart from other contemporary theories, especially by its versatility. In particular, the author negates the difference between internal and external usage of emblems in books not only by promoting the incorporation of emblems into printed works but also by supporting their depiction on dishes and tapestries. This article strives to read Harsdörffer’s extensive thoughts on the matter of emblems not simply as another work on the theory and history of emblematics but rather as a contribution to design history as well


Author(s):  
Satyendra Singh Chahar ◽  
Nirmal Singh

University education -on almost modern lines existed in India as early as 800 B.C. or even earlier. The learning or culture of ancient India was chiefly the product of her hermitages in the solitude of the forests. It was not of the cities. The learning of the forests was embodied in the books specially designated as Aranyakas "belonging to the forests." The ideal of education has been very grand, noble and high in ancient India. Its aimaccording to Herbert Spencer is the 'training for completeness of life' and ‘the molding o character of men and women for the battle of life’. The history of the educational institutions in ancient India shows a glorious dateline of her cultural history. It points to a long history altogether. In the early stage it was rural, not urban. British Sanskrit scholar Arthur Anthony Macdonell says "Some hundreds of years must have been needed for all that is found" in her culture. The aim of education was at the manifestation of the divinity in men, it touches the highest point of knowledge. In order to attain the goal the whole educational method is based on plain living and high thinking pursued through eternity.


Author(s):  
Barry Allen

Empiricisms reassesses the values of experience and experiment in European philosophy and comparatively. It traces the history of empirical philosophy from its birth in Greek medicine to its emergence as a philosophy of modern science. A richly detailed account in Part I of history’s empiricisms establishes a context in Part II for reconsidering the work of the so-called radical empiricists—William James, Henri Bergson, John Dewey, and Gilles Deleuze, each treated in a dedicated chapter. What is “radical” about their work is to return empiricism from epistemology to the ontology and natural philosophy where it began. Empiricisms also sets empirical philosophy in conversation with Chinese tradition, considering technological, scientific, medical, and alchemical sources, as well as selected Confucian, Daoist, and Mohist classics. The work shows how philosophical reflection on experience and a profound experimental practice coexist in traditional China with no interaction or even awareness of each other. Empiricism is more multi-textured than philosophers tend to assume when we explain it to ourselves and to students. One purpose of Empiricisms is to recover the neglected context. A complementary purpose is to elucidate the value of experience and arrive at some idea of what is living and dead in philosophical empiricism.


Author(s):  
Laurence Publicover

This chapter explores the mostly overlooked history of romance on the early modern stage. Analysing the geographies of two little-known plays, Clyomon and Clamydes (1580s?) and Guy of Warwick (early 1590s?), it argues that, in its imaginative openness and its flexible staging of space, the early modern theatre was the ideal environment in which to stage romance’s extravagant spatial and ethnographical imaginings. Further, the chapter demonstrates how a theatrical tradition of clowning enabled these late-Elizabethan dramas to contest the values of the very romance-worlds they had established. It closes with a fresh reading of Francis Beaumont’s parody of romance, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, arguing that the play satirizes dramatic romance’s spatial grammar as well as its narrative strategies.


Author(s):  
Simon Kirchin

This chapter introduces the distinction between thin and thick concepts and then performs a number of functions. First, two major accounts of thick concepts—separationism and nonseparationism—are introduced and, in doing so, a novel account of evaluation is indicated. Second, each chapter is outlined as is the general methodology, followed, third, by a brief history of the discussion of thick concepts, referencing Philippa Foot, Hilary Putnam, Gilbert Ryle, and Bernard Williams among others. Fourth, a number of relevant contrasts are introduced, such as the fact–value distinction and the difference between concepts, properties, and terms. Lastly, some interesting and relevant questions are raised that, unfortunately, have to be left aside.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ján Krahulec ◽  
Martin Šafránek

Abstract Background The aim of this study was to provide an information about the homogeneity on the level of enterokinase productivity in P. pastoris depending on different suppliers of the media components. Results In previous studies, we performed the optimisation process for the production of enterokinase by improving the fermentation process. Enterokinase is the ideal enzyme for removing fusion partners from target recombinant proteins. In this study, we focused our optimization efforts on the sources of cultivation media components. YPD media components were chosen as variables for these experiments. Several suppliers for particular components were combined and the optimisation procedure was performed in 24-well plates. Peptone had the highest impact on enterokinase production, where the difference between the best and worst results was threefold. The least effect on the production level was recorded for yeast extract with a 1.5 fold difference. The worst combination of media components had a activity of only 0.15 U/ml and the best combination had the activity of 0.88 U/ml, i.e., a 5.87 fold difference. A substantially higher impact on the production level of enterokinase was observed during fermentation in two selected media combinations, where the difference was almost 21-fold. Conclusions Results demonstrated in the present study show that the media components from different suppliers have high impact on enterokinase productivity and also provide the hypothesis that the optimization process should be multidimensional and for achieving best results it is important to perform massive process also in terms of the particular media component supplier .


2002 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 268-269
Author(s):  
Larry Neal

Economic historians usually have to explain to their economist colleagues the difference between economic history, which focuses on facts, and history of economic thought, which focuses on ideas. Our colleagues in finance departments, typically fascinated by episodes in financial history treated by economic historians, are bound to be disappointed in the lack of attention given to the development of ideas in finance by historians of economic thought. Geoffrey Poitras, a professor of finance at Simon Fraser University, makes a valiant effort to remedy these oversights in his collection of vignettes that highlight the sophistication of financial instruments and analysts of financial markets well before the time of Adam Smith. Starting in 1478 with the publication of the Treviso Arithmetic, a typical textbook of commercial arithmetic for Italian merchants, and ending with brief snippets from the Wealth of Nations, Poitras treats the reader to a fascinating potpourri of excerpts from various manuals, brief biographies of pioneers in financial analysis, and historical discursions on foreign-exchange and stock markets.


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