Hurtado de Mendoza on the “Moral” Modality

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 69-97
Author(s):  
Miroslav Hanke ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Middle Knowledge

One of the prominent debates of post-Tridentine scholasticism addressed probability, often expressed by the term “moral” (or adverbially, “morally”), originally motivated by the epistemology of decision-making and the debates on predestination and “middle knowledge”. Puente (or Pedro) Hurtado de Mendoza (1578–1641), an Iberian Jesuit and the author of one of the earliest Jesuit philosophy courses, entered this debate in the early-seventeenth century. This paper presents his 1610s and 1620s analyses of different forms or degrees of evidence, certainty, and necessity or impossibility, addressing the commonly-used trichotomy of the “metaphysical”, “physical”, and “moral”, in which “moral” is the weakest form of a modality, together with the paradigmatic examples and interesting applications of the framework.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Todd Butler
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Political Thought ◽  
The Political ◽  
Cognitive Perspective ◽  
Shared Attention ◽  
Stuart England ◽  
To Come

This chapter explains how the political changes of early Stuart England can be usefully examined from a cognitive perspective, with questions of authority and sovereignty being determined not just by what individuals or institutions do but also by how they are understood and expected to think, and in particular how they were expected to come to decisions. In doing so, it links early modern and contemporary understandings of state formation in seventeenth-century England to processes of decision-making and counsel, as well as the management of personal and public opinion, thereby explicating the mental mechanics of early modern governance. More than being simply a form of political thought or doctrine, intellection is presented as a shared attention to cognitive processes amidst historical moments in which we can see particular patterns of thinking—and attention to them as politics—begin to emerge.

Herbert Thorndike and the Covenant of Grace

2007 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 440-460 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL McGIFFERT
Keyword(s):  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Human Freedom ◽  
Moral Life ◽  
Freedom Of Choice ◽  
Middle Knowledge ◽  
Ordo Salutis

Herbert Thorndike's Of the covenant of grace (1659) was the largest and last substantial word on its subject from a priest of the seventeenth-century English Church. Recasting elements of practical divinity that are commonly associated with evangelical Puritanism, attacking the error of absolute and immediate predestination by decree and shifting stress from baptism to regeneration, Thorndike defended God's honour and majesty by affirming human freedom of choice in the ordo salutis and the moral life. His argument centred in a programme of reciprocal ‘helps’ that unites Arminian synergism with the early modern scholastic concept of scientia media, God's ‘middle knowledge’.

The Politics of Counsel in England and Scotland, 1286-1707

2016 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern England ◽  
Political Debate ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Government Records ◽  
New Framework

Counsel was a fundamental element of politics in medieval and early modern England and Scotland. It assisted decision-making; facilitated dialogue, representation, accountability, consent and consensus; and was used tactically to delegate, delay and criticise decisions. Despite the platitudinous commonplace that good rulers heard advice, counsel was fraught with tension. Whose advice was wisest, whether it should be given in institutional councils, and its relationship to sovereignty, were questions at the heart of thirteenth- to seventeenth-century political debate. Emphasising counsel over councils, and exploring how to identify this ubiquitous yet archivally elusive practice, this volume uses government records, pamphlets, plays, poetry, histories and oaths to establish a new framework for understanding advice, reassess some crucial reigns, and evaluate continuity and change.

Decision Making as a Socio-Cognitive Process

2021 ◽  
pp. 488-509
Author(s):  
Monique Borges ◽  
João Lourenço Marques ◽  
Eduardo Anselmo Castro
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cognitive Theories ◽  
Complex Decision Making ◽  
Complex Decision ◽  
Scientific Fields

Researchers from multidisciplinary scientific fields have been puzzled by human behaviour in dynamic and complex decision-making contexts. Since the seventeenth century, several theoretical, conceptual, and empirical contributions have emerged. These contributions evidence the need to critically assess the rational foundations of decision theories, stemming from the cognitive basis for human heuristics and bias. This chapter focuses on how socio-cognitive theories have been introduced as analytic tools to explain individual and collective behaviours, decision rules, and cognitive mechanisms. In particular, the authors advance some arguments explaining its importance and the underlying challenges of social representations as part of the decision-making process. They propose a methodological script that stresses the social representations approach and encounters more functional and operational settings.

Decision Making as a Socio-Cognitive Process

2020 ◽  
pp. 382-403
Author(s):  
Monique Borges ◽  
João Lourenço Marques ◽  
Eduardo Anselmo Castro
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Decision Rules ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
The Social ◽  
Cognitive Theories ◽  
Complex Decision Making ◽  
Complex Decision ◽  
Scientific Fields

Researchers from multidisciplinary scientific fields have been puzzled by human behaviour in dynamic and complex decision-making contexts. Since the seventeenth century, several theoretical, conceptual, and empirical contributions have emerged. These contributions evidence the need to critically assess the rational foundations of decision theories, stemming from the cognitive basis for human heuristics and bias. This chapter focuses on how socio-cognitive theories have been introduced as analytic tools to explain individual and collective behaviours, decision rules, and cognitive mechanisms. In particular, the authors advance some arguments explaining its importance and the underlying challenges of social representations as part of the decision-making process. They propose a methodological script that stresses the social representations approach and encounters more functional and operational settings.

Godly choice: Puritan Decision-Making in Seventeenth-Century England

1983 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 307-334 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Donagan
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Presence Of God

[We] should … set upon our affairs with looking up to heaven for permission, power, and sufferance. … Let us therefore in all our affairs be holy, and not bind or limit our holiness only to coming to church; but seeing at all times and in all places we are Christians, and ever in the presence of God, let us place ourselves still in his eye, and do nothing but that we would be willing God shall see. … [We] ought not to set upon anything, wherein we cannot expect God's guidance.Richard SibbesIn Cromwell's rebellion the cause was managed by whining hypocrites, and no wonder if they cheated.Roger North

Archaeology and Gendered Magic

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
C. Riley Augé
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Driving Force ◽  
Traditional Beliefs ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Magical Beliefs

Chapter 1 introduces readers to the necessity of archaeological consideration of belief as a primary driving force behind daily decision making and praxis, while providing a brief history of the archaeology of magic and study of magical beliefs. It defines gender and situates it in relationship to the use of magic in the seventeenth century to create protective barriers. To reveal the traditional beliefs and rationales behind such practices requires knowledge of the folklore of the people under study. Finally, it provides chapter summaries to guide readers through the remainder of the volume.

scholarly journals The Implications of Metaphysical "Doubt" in Shakespeare's Hamlet

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 6-10
Author(s):  
Lotfi Salhi
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Human Soul ◽  
Profound Impact ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Drama ◽  
Human Individual ◽  
Philosophical Nature

In his likening of Shakespeare's Hamlet to a sponge which absorbs all the problems of our time[i], the Polish poet, critic, and Professor of Literature Jan Cott implies that Hamlet will continue to be contemporary no matter what time has passed. The timelessness of the play derives in the first place from its liability to re-interpretation and re-contextualization in different political and social circles by virtue of its humanitarian, existential and metaphysical implications. The skeptical philosophy background of "Knowledge and suspicion" seems to have had its profound impact on Shakespeare that he can be seen more like an ideological thinker and philosopher than simply a playwright. In Hamlet the Bard problematizes the philosophical nature of the human individual and puts into question the individual's relation to matters of decision-making, fate and willpower. The play puts into true moral test the nature of the human soul as a plot which moves the action forward, and simultaneously reflects on questions of relevance to knowledge and doubt. This article seeks to explore points of intersection between Hamlet and the philosophy of doubt, which lingered over the Renaissance and throughout the seventeenth century. The Central questions evoked revolve around two postulations: whether certainty about knowledge is reachable, and whether Prince Hamlet and ourselves are the ones who choose our destinies or whether our fates are pre-determined and we cannot change anything but yield in full subservience. Of all Shakeseare's plays Jan Kott wrote of Hamlet in particular: "Hamlet’ is like a sponge. Unless it is produced in a stylised or antiquarian fashion, it immediately absorbs all the problems of our time." His chapter on Hamlet focused on a Polish performance  just after the end of Stalinism (Stalin hated this play, of course).  Kott wrote, "here on the public stage was what Hamlet meant in 1956, there and then: ‘It was a political drama. Everybody, without exception, was being consistently watched… unequivocally and with a terrifying clarity.’

Convoys and Companies: Privatising Economic Warfare at Sea in the Dutch Republic, 1580–1800

2020 ◽  
pp. 63-84
Author(s):  
Erik Odegard
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Private Firms ◽  
Dutch Republic ◽  
Economic Warfare ◽  
Government Corporations

When the Dutch Republic and Habsburg Spain went to war again in 1621, the Dutch were confronted by a well-run campaign against its trade and fisheries mainly operating out of Dunkirk. This chapter studies how the Dutch Republic responded to this threat. It argues that consistent efforts were made to outsource protection of trade and fisheries to those groups which profited from it. Rather than centralising decision-making and monopolise violence at sea, the Dutch state devolved responsibility to lower levels of government, corporations and chartered companies, and private firms. These ships were mainly uses for convoy duty. This chapter argues that this devolution was instrumental in protecting Dutch commerce and provided ships to the fleet in crises such as the Battle of the Downs as well. But from the middle of the seventeenth century this system would deteriorate and more tasks would be taken up by the admiralties themselves.

How Muscovy Governed: Seventeenth-Century Russian Central Administration

2009 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 459-529 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Brown
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Foreign Affairs ◽  
Central Administration ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
Royal Court ◽  
Foreign Travel ◽  
Time Of Troubles ◽  
The Military

AbstractThe modern Russian state's first governmental administration, the chancellery system (prikaznaia sistema), guided Muscovy from the 1470s to the 1710s. A handful of state secretaries (d'iaki), subordinate clerks (pod'iachie), and several nascent bureaus matured into over ten permanent, well-codified bodies with decision-making boards, archives, professional hierarchies, and merit-based hiring and promotion by the 1550s. By the 1670s there were 60 chancelleries, and their Moscow staffs by the 1690s had increased to about 3,000, from the highest civil ranks (boyars and okol'niche) through the professional administrative ranks: duma state secretaries (dumnye d'iaki), the state secretaries, and clerks. The chancelleries (prikazy) discharged an array of state, royal court, and church functions, but military concerns were foremost. An arresting internal complexity typified the larger, more important chancelleries, like the Military and Foreign Affairs Chancelleries, divided into sub-units. The chancellery system was entirely homegrown, owning nothing to Roman Imperial and Medieval Latin traditions. The Russians borrowed some paperwork (scrolls) and zealous attention to that from the Mongols, as they did Byzantine and Lithuanian legal elements. Documentary language was a vernacular, Middle Russian register, with burgeoning specialized vocabulary and phraseology. Strict oaths guided conduct, though judicial bureau personnel were notorious for bribe-taking. Foreign travel accounts commented on the obsequiousness of documentary format wherein petitioners referred to themselves as “slaves” (kholopy) and used first-name diminutives. Seventeenth-century Muscovite centralized administration acquired Weber's hallmark features of a bureaucracy; the prikazy guided Muscovy and acculturated its subjects, from tsar to peasant, into its rationale, mechanisms, and operations. Weathering major social traumas and challenges, such as Ivan the Terrible's Oprichnina, the Time of Troubles, the Thirteen Years' War, and the 1682 Musketeers' Uprising, the chancelleries provided the bureaucratic continuity for the Imperial Russian and Soviet states.

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