Hearing voices

The interpretation of Socrates’ daimonion, his “divine sign” or “supernatural force,” has troubled scholars for centuries. Naddaff argues that Socrates’ daimonion is central to understanding the exceptionality of this “atopos” philosopher. Insofar as he hears a voice that is “alogos,” without or beyond logos, Socrates chooses to live life differently, to transform his being as that which is beyond the human. As such, Socrates ontologically disrupts the very category of the “human,” and proposes a new style of living that radically redefines his relation not only to the divine but also to the animal.

Adoption institution among Bashkirs in the past (based on folklore and written sources)

The following paper discusses the institution of adoption among Bashkirs in the past based on folklore and written sources. This topic is not sufficiently studied in historiography. There are not many sources on it. The main sources here are the traditions, legends, genealogical trees of Bashkir. In these sources information about the adoption of young children (Kalmyks, Nogais, Kazakhs, etc.) by Bashkirs has been preserved. All these sources in most respects reflect the realities of the 16th - 18th centuries. In general, they help understand the views of Bashkirs on the adoption of other peoples children. The analysis of the sources allowed us to conclude that orphans, abandoned, captured, etc. children among Bashkirs were considered as being marked with a divine sign. Adopted children would become full members of the Bashkir community. It is assumed that the institution of adoption was widespread enough before the Bashkirs joined the Russian state. Materials confirm that the adoption was associated with the custom of obtaining the fruit of a noble person. Adoption was one of the ways to incorporate other ethnic groups in the Bashkir people. The historical roots of the institution of adoption needs a further study.

Heidegger and Scripture: The Calling of Thinking in Our Abandonment

This paper seeks to perform an interdisciplinary reading of some scriptural passages in light of Heidegger‘s phenomenology generally and his discussion of thinking in particular. The paper treats one passage from Isaiah and two from the Gospels of Luke and John that highlight the human situation of signification (or meaning) and abandonment (or alienation). Using Heidegger‘s description of experience, which roots the logic and unfolding of meaning as expressing the structure of human existence, the paper proposes that the movement toward the divine that each of the scriptural passages embodies (albeit each in its own unique situation) moves us toward an essential insight--namely that the human being exists as a divine sign of care. As such a sign, humans exist not just as the reception of the calling but also as the very calling of thinking itself.

Providence, the Renaissance Atlantic, and Law

This chapter introduces the late Renaissance preoccupation with the interplay between God's will and earthly power by focusing on three issues. Envisioning the law as pathways of rightful conduct where Providence and human initiative intersected, colonizers viewed Christopher Columbus's discovery as as a divine sign that Christians were free to cross the ocean. Because distinguishing lawful pathways from erroneous ones was a matter of conscience, the literature that emerged to justify the Virginia venture took the familiar form of casuistry. Centered on the callings or divinely appointed offices by which humans contribute to bringing about the eschatological promise of the world's redemption, casuistry underlay, for instance, the magus and humanist John Dee's claim, in 1577, that Elizabeth I had a duty as a grace-filled empress to issue her first letters patent authorizing Sir Humphrey Gilbert's colonizing voyages. And colonization was inevitably defined as a project in forging commonwealths that brought everyone to his or her duties, for only in such a morally complete polity would Virginia satisfy God and contribute to coaxing sinners away from the primitive individualism left by the Fall.