Abdelkébir Khatibi

2020 ◽  
pp. 261-278
Author(s):  
Lucy Stone McNeece
Keyword(s):  
Modern World ◽  
Continuous Transformation ◽  
Arts And Sciences ◽  
Abdelkebir Khatibi ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The World ◽  
Rational Individual ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Church

Despite the considerable acclaim that Khatibi’s work has received, critics are frequently challenged to describe it. It is often considered « hybrid, » because it cannot be contained by the genres and categories of thought that we associate with Literature. I will argue that Khatibi’s work is less hybrid than « hermetic, » and that the difficulty felt in classifying or even analyzing his writing, is due to the presence of echoes and traces of archaic traditions. Khatibi devoted years of his life to studying other cultures as well as his own, finding that it was a rich fabric of varied influences, just as he found that other cultures bear material traces of many buried encounters. The influences present in Khatibi’s writing include Sufism, the traditions of Asia, such as the Tao and the Vedas, but also the esoteric sciences originating in Mesopotamia and Egypt that found their way to Greece, and which were revised and translated by Arabs and Eastern Christians. These entered into Europe from Andalusia and also through Italy, under the sponsorship of the Medicis, and contributed substantially to the revolution in the arts and sciences of the Renaissance. These cultures entertained a different relation to signs and images than that which has predominated since the Enlightenment in Europe. They also had a less binary and hierarchised conception of the world and man’s place in it. They imagined the universe as the space of a continuous transformation of diverse elements, a view opposed to that of the rational individual as master of his environment. Ostracized by the Church and the State, they remained in shadow, treated as heresies. I will try to show that many of the unorthodox traits of Khatibi’s thought and writing can be attributed to the influence of these archaic traditions, whose poetic and ethical values have much to teach us in the modern world.

Introduction: The Design of Culture and the Culture of Design

2002 ◽  
Author(s):  
David W. Orr
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Human Footprint ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
Industrial Age ◽  
The World ◽  
Moral System ◽  
To Come ◽  
Universe Story ◽  
The Universe

Environmentalists are often regarded as people wanting to stop one thing or another, and there are surely lots of things that ought to be stopped. The essays in this book, however, have to do with beginnings. How, for example, do we advance a long-delayed solar revolution? Or begin one in forest management? Or materials use? How do we reimagine and remake the human presence on earth in ways that work over the long haul? Such questions are the heart of what theologian Thomas Berry (1999) calls “the Great Work” of our age. This endeavor is nothing less than the effort to harmonize the human enterprise with how the world works as a physical system and how it ought to work as a moral system. In the past two centuries the human footprint on earth has multiplied many times over. Our science and technology are powerful beyond anything imagined by the confident founders of the modern world. But our sense of proportion and depth of purpose have not kept pace with our merely technical abilities. Our institutions and organizations still reflect their origins in another time and in very different conditions. Incoherence, disorder, and violence are the hallmarks of the modern world. If we are to build a better world—one that can be sustained ecologically and one that sustains us spiritually—we must transcend the disorder and fragmentation of the industrial age. We need a perspective that joins the hardwon victories of civilization, such as human rights and democracy, with a larger view of our place in the cosmos—what Berry calls “the universe story.” By whatever name, that philosophy must connect us to life, to each other, and to generations to come. It must help us to rise above sectarianism of all kinds and the puffery that puts human interests at a particular time at the center of all value and meaning. When we get it right, that larger, ecologically informed enlightenment will upset comfortable philosophies that underlie the modern world in the same way that the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century upset medieval hierarchies of church and monarchy.

Italy in the Modern World

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Reeder
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Liberal State ◽  
Italian History ◽  
Political Processes ◽  
Cultural Transformations ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The World ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Cold War

Providing a comprehensive history of Italy from around 1800 to the present, Italy in the Modern World traces the social and cultural transformations that defined the lives of Italians during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The book focuses on how social relations (class, gender and race), science and the arts shaped the political processes of unification, state building, fascism and the postwar world. Split up into four parts covering the making of Italy, the liberal state, war and fascism, and the republic, the text draws on secondary literature and primary sources in order to synthesize current historiographical debates and provide primary documents for classroom use. There are individual chapters on key topics, such as unification, Italians in the world, Italy in the world, science and the arts, fascism, the World Wars, the Cold War, and Italy in the twenty-first century, as well as a wealth of useful features for students, including: * Comprehensive bibliographic essays covering each of the four parts. * 23 images and 12 maps Italy in the Modern World also firmly places both the nation and its people in a wider global context through a distinctly transnational approach. It is essential reading for all students of modern Italian history.

PRIMORDIAL SYMBOLS – THE COMMON TREASURY OF MANKIND

2021 ◽  
pp. 223-238
Author(s):  
VESNA GAJIĆ
Keyword(s):  
Wide Distribution ◽  
Active Imagination ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Human Form ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
The World ◽  
Mundus Imaginalis ◽  
Essential Questions ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Universe

The paper explores the wide distribution of symbols whose religious and folklore interpretations are the same or similar among different cultures. The definition of symbols and their origin are considered, with reference to the theory of the "Mundus Imaginalis" of the orientalist Henry Corben, and its similarity with the "active imagination" of the psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung. The resemblances of the legends about the Cosmic man and the Centre of the world are followed through various mythologies, folklore traditions and cults. The Cosmic man – the first human being – who usually makes a sacrifice in order for the world to emerge and survive, in many cultures represents the embodiment of the highest virtues, towards which one should strive. The human form as the basis for temples or various sacral diagrams can be found in all ancient religious traditions and always symbolizes Imago Mundi – image of the world. At its center is the "navel" of the world, the Pillar of the Universe, Axis Mundi, which connects the earth with the sky and the underworld, and represents the axis around which the world revolves. Exploring these sets of symbols, we see that their essential aspect should not be understood as geographical places to be located, or personifications of some historical figures whose true identity needs to be interpreted. On the contrary, the symbols indicate that the search for meaning is, above all, internal; immersing ourselves in the domain of the archetype, we reflect on the essential questions of the purpose and origin of the universe, the nature of the self, kinship with the rest of humanity, which is why the symbolic layer of the human psyche helps us fight against the general alienation of the modern world.

William of Auvergne and the Manichees

Traditio ◽  
1993 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 63-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roland J. Teske
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Christian Theology ◽  
Latin West ◽  
The World ◽  
The University ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Church ◽  
Scholarly Attention

William of Auvergne became a master of theology in the University of Paris in 1223 and was appointed bishop of Paris by Gregory IX in 1228. William governed the church of Paris until his death in 1249, while continuing to write the works which constitute his immense Magisterium divinale et sapientiale. Despite the fact that he was the first of the thirteenth-century theologians to appreciate the value of the Aristotelian philosophy that poured into the Latin West during the last half of the twelfth and the beginning of the thirteenth century, his writings have not received the scholarly attention they deserve. Étienne Gilson has sketched well the impact of the influx of Greek and Arabian philosophical works into the Christian West: Up to the last years of the twelfth century, when the Christian world unexpectedly discovered the existence of non-Christian interpretations of the universe, Christian theology never had to concern itself with the fact that a non-Christian interpretation of the world as a whole, including man and his destiny, was still an open possibility.

scholarly journals The key to the solution of the world crisis we face

Human Affairs ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-39
Author(s):  
Nicholas Maxwell
Keyword(s):  
18Th Century ◽  
World Crisis ◽  
The Enlightenment ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Problems ◽  
Almost All ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Great Danger

Abstract Humanity faces two fundamental problems of learning: learning about the universe, and learning to become civilized. We have solved the first problem, but not the second one, and that puts us in a situation of great danger. Almost all of our global problems have arisen as a result. It has become a matter of extreme urgency to solve the second problem. The key to this is to learn from our solution to the first problem how to solve the second one. This was the basic idea of the 18th century Enlightenment, but in implementing this idea, the Enlightenment blundered. Their mistakes are still built into academia today. In order to le arn how to create a civilized, enlightened world, the key thing we need to do is to cure academia of the structural blunders we have inherited from the Enlightenment. We need to bring about a revolution in science, and in academia more broadly so that the basic aim becomes wisdom, and not just knowledge.

Necessity of Using the Science of Ahangyol (Way of Harmony) in building of economy in terms of modern requirements

2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 159-164
Author(s):  
Ahmad Gashamoglu
Keyword(s):  
Population Growth ◽  
Basic Principle ◽  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Basic Principles ◽  
Economic Theories ◽  
Proposed Model ◽  
The World ◽  
Modern Economic ◽  
The Universe

The basic principle of the science of Harmony (science of Ahangyol) is that - if the universe  has existed and functioned on the basis of the principle of Harmony for billions of years,  regardless of its size, the activity of any being  in the universe can be considered appropriate  if this   activity   serves to increase and multiply  harmony around itself and in the universe.  According to the author, more successful results can be achieved if the modern economic theories and economic mechanisms are also built on the principle of Harmony. The article analyzes the basic principles of modern economic theories, that deals with important issues, should be taken into consideration.  One of the most pressing issues in the modern world, as well as in economic projects, is the rapid growth of the world's population. It is highlighted in the article that the challenge of regulating population growth in the world currently is not being successfully addressed.  With the help of the science of Harmony (science of Ahangyol), a new model, based on the rules of natural development of society, is proposed to address the challenge. It is scientifically substantiated that modern economic theories can be further improved if we take the proposed model into account and use the science of Harmony (science of Ahangyol), which, in turn, can contribute to a more harmonious development of our societies.

Writing Cultural History in Early Modern Europe: Christophe Milieu and his Project

1999 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 342-365
Author(s):  
Donald R. Kelley
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Philosophy And Literature ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The World ◽  
Human Understanding ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Universe ◽  
Comprehensive History

AbstractChristophe Milieu's De Scribenda Vniversitatis rervm historia libri qvinqve (Basel, 1551) interprets the "universe of things" (universitas return) within an evolutionary and historical framework consisting of five connected and progressive "grades" (gradus) of existence accessible to human understanding: nature (natura), the world of God's creation and man's animal aspect; prudence (prudentia), including the arts of survival; government (principatus), the stage of civil society and political history; wisdom (sapientia), equivalent to civilization and including the higher sciences and philosophy; and literature (litetatura), in which knowledge of the preceding phases of "progress" (progressio) is expressed in writing. Milieu's "narrative" constitutes a pioneering and comprehensive history of western culture.

Newton, Einstein and Scientific Theology

1972 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. 233-250
Author(s):  
Thomas F. Torrance
Keyword(s):  
Jesus Christ ◽  
Human Science ◽  
Francis Bacon ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The World ◽  
The Universe ◽  
The Church

Everything about us today tells us that we live in a world which will be increasingly dominated by empirical and theoretic science. This is the world in which the Church lives and proclaims its message about Jesus Christ. It is not an alien world, for it is in this world of space and time that God has planted us. He made the universe and endowed man with gifts to investigate and understand it. Just as he made life to produce itself, so he has made the universe with man as an essential constituent in it, that it may bring forth and articulate knowledge of itself. Regarded in this light the pursuit of science is one of the ways in which man exercises the dominion in the earth which he was given at his creation. That is how, for example, Francis Bacon understood the work of human science, as man's obedience to God. Science is a religious duty, while man as scientist can be spoken of as the priest of creation, whose task it is to interpret the books of nature, to understand the universe in its wonderful structures and harmonies, and to bring it all into orderly articulation, so that it fulfils its proper end as the vast theatre of glory in which the creator is worshipped and praised. Nature itself is dumb, but it is man's part to bring it to word, to be its mouth through which the whole universe gives voice to the glory and majesty of the living God.

The Culture of the Church

1954 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 131-154
Author(s):  
Frank O'Malley
Keyword(s):  
Religious Education ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Church

Among the preparatory prayers of the Mass, there are these words from Psalm 42: “Judge me, O God, and distinguish my cause from the nation that is not holy.” However inadequately accomplished, the purpose of this essay is to affirm and distinguish our cause as Catholic minds and human beings from the nation and from the world that are not holy—to affirm the strength and meaning of the world of the Church for our varied worlds of living and working. As Christopher Dawson points out in a remarkable essay, there is, even in the modern world, “a tradition of sacred culture which it has been the mission of the Church to nourish and preserve”—and to nourish and preserve it even in the nation that is not holy. “However secularized our modern civilization may become,” Dawson continues, “this sacred tradition [this sacred life] remains like a river in the desert, and a genuine religious education can still use it to irrigate the thirsty lands and to change the face of the world with the promise of a new life. The great obstacle is the failure of Christians themselves to understand the depth of that tradition and the inexhaustible possibilities of new life that it contains.”

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