The Revolt against Accountability to God

2019 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 289-308
Author(s):  
C. Stephen Evans ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Moral Obligations ◽  
Shed Light

Philosophers such as Nietzsche, Marx, and Freud have developed “global hermeneutical perspectives” on human nature. This paper argues that Christian faith also provides such a perspective, which is termed the “no-neutrality thesis.” Humans were created to serve God, but they have rebelled against their rightful sovereign, and this rebellion may show itself in morality. If moral obligations are God’s requirements, then the human rebellion might provide motivation for rejecting objective moral obligations. Thus the noneutrality thesis may help us understand some forms of antirealism. It may even shed light on some forms of nontheistic realism.

سؤال العلاقة بين الفطرة والشريعة: قراءة معرفية (The Question of the Relationship between Shariah and Human Nature/fitrah: An Epistemological Review)

2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-42
Author(s):  
المختار الأحمر
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Islamic Law ◽  
Interconnected Systems ◽  
Evolutionary Aspect ◽  
Islamic Thought ◽  
The Creation ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Evolutionary Aspects ◽  
Shed Light

الملخّص يتناول البحث علاقة الفطرة بالشريعة في التفكير الإسلامي، وما تطرحه هذه العلاقة سواء على مستوى بيان الجوانب المتعلقة بخَلْق الإنسان وما فُطِر عليه ابتداء، وهذا البعد يمثّل الجانب التكوني في مفهوم الفطرة، أو على المستوى المتعلق بالشريعة وفطريتها، أي أنها جارية وفق ما يدركه العقل وتشهد به الفطرة، وهذا البعد يمثّل الجانب التشريعي الذي يطرحه مفهوم الفطرة. لقد زخرت أغلب الكتابات بتناول جانبا واحدا مما يتيحه أو يعكسه مفهوم الفطرة، لكن البحث في العلاقة التناسبية بين الفطرة والشريعة، وما يتيحه هذا النظر المتلازم بين المفهومين على مستوى الإمكانات المتعلقة بقدرات الإنسان الفطرية في فهم وتعقّل الخطاب الشرعي والأحكام التكليفية، والوقوف على غاياته ومقاصده، يبقى في حاجة إلى البحث والاستقصاء. ولذلك تأتي هذه الدراسة لتسليط الضوء على الجانب التشريعي والتكويني في علاقة الشريعة بالفطرة، باعتبارهما نظامين متلازمين يتيحان فهم طبيعة الشريعة وأحكامها ومقاصدها من جهة، وتحديد جوهر وماهية الإنسان الفطرية وإمكاناته في تعقّل هذه الشريعة من جهة ثانية.                  الكلمات المفتاحية: الفطرة، الشريعة، الدين، التكاليف، العقل. Abstract This research addresses the relationship between premordial human nature (fitrah) and Islamic law (SharÊÑah) within the frame of Islamic thought, while exploring the questions it raises at two levels. The first level explains the aspects related to the creation of man and what has initially been bestowed upon him, which represents the evolutionary aspect of the concept of fiÏrah. The second level is related to SharÊÑah and its nature, which evolves according to what is percieved by reason and witnessed by fiÏrah; this represents the legislative aspect presented by the concept of fiÏrah. The majority of studies to date address a single aspect of the illustrations of the concept of fiÏrah. However, research on the dialectic relationship between fiÏrah and SharÊÑah and what its relevant concurrent view provides at the level of potentials related to human innate capacities in understanding and realizing SharÊÑah discourse and mandatory provisions as well as understanding its objectives  remains scarce and requires further research and investigation. Therefore, this study intends to shed light on the legislative and evolutionary aspects of the relationship between SharÊÑah and fiÏrah as two interconnected systems that allow for the understanding of the nature of SharÊÑah, its provisions and purposes, as well as identifying the essence of human innate nature and its potential in perceiving SharÊÑah. Keywords: human nature (fiÏrah), Islamic law (SharÊÑah), religious mandates (TakÉlif), religion, intellect (ÑAqal).

Epilogue

2020 ◽  
pp. 179-184
Author(s):  
He Bian
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Moral Agency ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Vantage Point ◽  
Modern China ◽  
The Political ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Local Society ◽  
The Government ◽  
Shed Light

This concluding chapter turns to developments in the bencao tradition after the fall of Qing China and considers the broader implications of this study on modern China. It asserts that while the making of the bencao pharmacopeia had long faded from the government-sponsored cultural stage, the power of pharmaceutical objecthood endured in less centralized expressions. The popularization of pharmaceutical culture mirrored the efforts of local communities’ efforts to reclaim moral agency in the wake of the traumatic Taiping Wars (1852–1864) and the Arrow War (1856–1860). Pharmacists joined forces with resident gentry, clergy, and a growing contingent of Confucian activists to rebuild local society and reshape national politics. The struggle for authority over the nature of drugs thus continues to shed light on the complex interplay among knowledge, power, and ethics in modern China; pharmacy remains a good vantage point from which to observe the perennial search for consensus over the political administration of human nature.

The Fatally Flawed Leadership of Donald J. Trump

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 49-60
Author(s):  
David Koukal ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Good Cause ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Shed Light

Over the past two years, several political commentators have drawn on Plato’s Republic to shed light on our last presidential election. Many of these authors emphasize the features of democracy that make it especially susceptible to demagoguery, which heralds the arrival of tyranny, and then go on to relate this to Donald Trump’s political ascension. The problem with these analyses is that they tend to unquestioningly adopt Plato’s pessimistic view of democracy. While Plato’s criticisms do have the virtue of making us aware of democracy’s weaknesses, we would argue that our present political circumstances did not issue from these flaws. This makes these criticisms irrelevant. Other commentators come closer to the mark when they talk about Plato’s passages addressing the person of the tyrant in Book IX, but what is lacking in these accounts is a context that more fully explains why the tyrant is what he is, in Platonic terms. In this essay we argue that other parts of the Republic, particularly Book IV, can tell us much more about Trump and his presidency. This part of the dialogue deals with Plato’s conception of human nature, which he presents in his discussion of the soul or psyche [ψυχή]. An examination of these passages will grant us insight into the Trump’s actions and utterances and show that the president is not only intellectually but also temperamentally unqualified for his office, which should give citizens good cause for worry.

The Phronimos and the Sage

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
May Sim
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Practical Wisdom ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Highest Good ◽  
Nature And Nurture ◽  
Similarities And Differences ◽  
Good For ◽  
Shed Light

Aristotle’s phronimos and Mencius’s sage are the paragons of virtue. They exemplify practical wisdom, enabling them to perform virtuous actions called for in different situations, and are the concrete models of virtue for all human beings, without whom others would not be able to cultivate their virtues. Aristotle and Mencius are also alike in holding that the virtues of character are based on human nature, and cultivation is key to achieving them. Despite these similarities, they differ in their accounts of human nature, details on the virtues, and how they are cultivated. Whether being the phronimos or the sage is the highest good for a human being, the degree of effectiveness he has on fellow citizens and the rest of the cosmos are issues about which they would disagree. Exploring similarities and differences between the phronimos and the sage will shed light on nature and nurture in their virtue-oriented ethics.

scholarly journals HOBBES AS A SOCIOBIOLOGIST. RETHINKING THE STATE OF (HUMAN) NATURE

2017 ◽  
Vol 58 (136) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Darat G Nicole
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Political Authority ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Obligation ◽  
State Of Nature ◽  
Shed Light

ABSTRACT In the following text we aim to present a proposal of interpretation of Hobbes's work from sociobiology viewpoint. Despite the fact it may strike some at first as an anachronism or straightforward wrong, reading the philosopher of Mamelsbury from a sociobiological perspective, can shed light on some particular aspects of his argument, particularly those referring to the construction of human nature and its influence on the modulation of the state of nature and on the justification of authority and political obligation. So, Hobbes proceeds as a sociobiologist since he offers us a tale about the emergence of morality from where it didn't exist before and moves from there to a specific understanding of political authority.

Human Nature Is the Bride

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Daniel Cere
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Spiritual Life ◽  
Low Countries ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
Devotio Moderna ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
The Erotic

Abstract Recent scholarship has accented the impact of evolving forms of bridal mysticism on late medieval popular spiritualities of the Low Countries. Under the laicizing impulses of Devotio Moderna, these narratives were extended as models for the spiritual life of the laity as well as the consecrated religious. A number of Bosch’s key works appear to engage and explore the themes of bridal anthropology, as well as advance perspectives on bridal eschatology. These intersections between the Boschian imagination and the evolving tradition of bridal mysticism shed light on the puzzling play of the religious and the erotic in his work.

Lost Opportunities, Partial Successes, and Key Questions: Some Historical Lessons

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-20 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan C. Tjeltveit
Keyword(s):  
Christian Faith ◽  
Historical Understanding ◽  
Academic Psychology ◽  
Christian Psychology ◽  
Psychological Dimensions ◽  
Neutral Language ◽  
Shed Light ◽  
Key Questions ◽  
Mainstream Psychology

To shed light on some key perennial issues, I discuss several historical efforts to discern optimal understandings of human persons that take seriously both Christian faith and academic psychology. These include Gordon Allport's disguised integrative efforts; a 1924 book, An Elementary Christian Psychology; and Paul Meehl's 1958 integration book. I conclude that opportunities are lost: when seeking respectability becomes a primary motivator for Christians interested in psychology when psychology's implicit ethical and metaphysical assumptions are not recognized and critiqued, when efforts to create a Christian Psychology are based on a particular cultural-historical understanding of Christian faith that is assumed to be the only correct view of it, when Christians fail to engage with mainstream psychology when Christians fail to address rigorously key problems in the psychology/Christian faith interface, when Christians use ambiguous or supposedly neutral language to pursue Christian goals, and when Christians fail to work through thoroughly and develop fully the implications of Christian faith for our understandings of the psychological dimensions of embodied human persons.

scholarly journals “Encores me frissonne et tremble le coeur dedans sa capsule”: Rabelais’s Anatomy of Emotion and the Soul

2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 33-58
Author(s):  
Emmanuelle Lacore-Martin
Keyword(s):  
Human Body ◽  
Natural Philosophy ◽  
Ancient Philosophy ◽  
The Body ◽  
Christian Faith ◽  
Animal Spirits ◽  
Philosophie Naturelle ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Shed Light

This article examines the role of anatomical references in the representation of emotion and argues that they constitute textual markers of the Rabelaisian view of the relationship between the body and the soul, and the nature of the soul itself. By analyzing the ancient models of natural philosophy and medicine on which Rabelais draws—Galen, in particular—and by contextualizing Rabelais’s thinking within contemporary debates on the faculties of the soul, the article aims to shed light on his representation of the intersection between material and immaterial processes within the human body. Instead of trying to reconcile potentially contradictory aspects of these ancient models with the Christian faith, Rabelais’s prose is informed by an intuitive understanding of ancient philosophy. His exploitation of the Galenic concept of the animal spirits gives us invaluable insights into the influence of materialist representations of the soul on Rabelais’s thinking. Cet article étudie le rôle des références anatomiques dans la représentation rabelaisienne de l’émotion et propose d’y voir les marqueurs textuels de la façon dont Rabelais conçoit les rapports entre l’âme et le corps, et la nature de l’âme elle-même. En analysant les modèles anciens de la philosophie naturelle et de la médecine — Galien en particulier — dont Rabelais s’inspire et en situant sa pensée dans le contexte des débats contemporains sur les facultés de l’âme, l’article vise à éclairer la façon dont Rabelais représente l’intersection à l’intérieur du corps humain des processus matériels et immatériels. Sans chercher à réconcilier avec la foi chrétienne certains aspects de ces anciens modèles qui peuvent être en contradiction avec elle, la prose rabelaisienne porte la marque d’une compréhension intuitive de la philosophie ancienne. En particulier, l’exploitation de la conception galénique des esprits animaux donne de précieux aperçus concernant l’influence des représentations matérialistes de l’âme sur la pensée de Rabelais.

scholarly journals ANOTHER postmodern (human nature and religious-mystical culture)

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (5) ◽  
pp. 77-86
Author(s):  
Michail Murashkin
Keyword(s):  
Human Nature ◽  
Creative Process ◽  
Comparative Method ◽  
Inductive Reasoning ◽  
States Of Consciousness ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Higher States Of Consciousness ◽  
The Subject ◽  
First Time ◽  
Shed Light

The aim of the study is to clarify and shed light on the phenomenon of OTHER postmodernism, the importance and significance of its characteristics as another within man himself, which regulates and purifies what is in human nature, which is reflected in religious and mystical culture and art. Also on the materials of psychology, as a parallel with OTHER postmodern, the phenomenon of compensatory enlightenment, the importance and significance of its characteristics as the spontaneous loss of insignificant, unimportant, shallow thoughts and vanity that exists in human nature. The importance and significance of compensatory enlightenment is demonstrated by the example of the connection with the transcendence of philosophical culture, as well as religious-mystical and aesthetic-artistic cultures. When we speak of the transcendence of philosophical culture, we mean the consideration by this culture of those states of man which cannot be reliably conveyed in words, but which are nevertheless presented in documentary as higher states of consciousness. The methodology of obtaining new knowledge is based on a comparative method of research, collecting the characteristics of another postmodern and inductive reasoning in this regard. Documentary texts are compared, generalizations of these texts are found. At the same time, different human states are compared on the examples of religious and mystical culture. The scientific novelty lies in the fact that for the first time such a phenomenon of human nature as the recognition of one’s own other within oneself is considered, which can be recorded in such categories as "compensatory enlightenment", "transcendent", "numinous". , "Sacred". The subject of research is considered in connection with the transcendence of philosophical culture, with such areas of culture as religious-mystical and aesthetic-artistic. Conclusions. It has been found that the other post-modern, as the inner recognition of one’s own other within oneself, can be understood as a compensatory enlightenment, which is a non-negative phenomenon of human nature. Another postmodern is related to the creative process at the stage of "maturation", in which a person destroys his outdated personality. This is highlighted in the demonstration of the transcendence of philosophy, as well as religious and mystical culture.

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