The Comparison and Exploration of the Subject Difference between Lamentations and Lament of Capital Ying

Lamentations and lament of capital Ying are models of city lament in ancient Hebrew-and Chinese classical literary traditions respectively. A comparative study shows that there are significant subject difference between lamentations and lament of capital Ying . Lamentations is the collective works, and its compilation and inheritance function as emotional expression of sufferings of the past, present and future of the Jewish people, reflecting their infinite belief of transcendent God . In contrast, lament of capital Ying is the creation of Qu Yuan, and under the influence of the sage's commitment to the mandate of heaven by his individual virtue. The poetry expresses Qu Yuan’s personal grief through a special literary technique and its succession and experience in later generations are mainly individual. The subject difference of two poetry is a reflection of different development trajectories of the humans-transcendent relationship in Hebrew- and the Chinese civilizations of the Axial Age.

About the nature of the supra-personal reality of spiritual culture

The article shows that the suprapersonal reality of spiritual culture is an autonomous complex, purposeful reflection, a self-contained cultural process, which in the process of its development over two and a half thousand years has acquired the most developed structure and form. Hegel and Hartmann sufficiently revealed its peculiar nature, complex structure, and cultural-historical significance. Their conceptual constructions can serve as a methodological basis for general cultural studies.The thematic culturological approach allows us to analize the genesis of world culture and individual cultures of different peoples. Thematic analysis of the written sources (up to the 6th century B.C.) convincingly shows the naturalistic-power character of the mental spaces of all cultures. This means that in one culture by the sixth century B.C. we can not find any representations of reason and goodness as purely spiritual, independent realities. The thematic approach allows us to investigate the revolutionary transformation of the Axial Age, when a revolutionary transition from the naturalistic-force to the mentally charitable and mental space of culture is carried out. The purpose and objectives of the article. The aim of the article is to show the features of suprapersonal reality and the productive significance of thematic culturological analysis. Research methodology. The research was based on the methodology of thematic culturological analysis, which allows to study cultural processes in individual cultures and cultural regions.Leading methodological settings were the principles of objectivity, systemicity, integrity, unity of historical and logical, interconnection, convergence from the abstract to the concrete. Conclusions. Thus, the suprapersonal reality is a complex, autonomous, purposeful, reflection, a self-contained cultural process, which as it developed over two and a half thousand years acquired the most developed structure and content. The thematic approach allows to successfully study the genesis of both world culture and individual cultures of peoples

Westerse filosofie en de koorddans tussen geloof en weten

Western philosophy and the tightrope between faith and knowledge In Auch eine Geschichte der Philosophie (2019), Habermas develops a new view of the history of philosophy. Dating philosophy back to the axial age, he presents its history as the result of a collective learning process, spanning a period of three millennia. In this new approach he highlights the crucial importance of faith and religion which resulted in a specific constellation of belief and knowledge that, though unique to the West, has universal import, and led to greater ‘reasonable freedom (Vernüftige Freiheit). In Habermas’ view The West’s Judeo-Christian heritage was not a passing phase in the emergence of modern thought and politics, but contributed its essential core. Though sympathetic to the idea of learning processes spanning many centuries, one may ask whether reasoning and learning processes always tend to lead, as Habermas claims, in the direction of greater freedom instead of its opposite. In this respect Habermas could have learnt more from the sceptical tradition in philosophy and its persistent interest in the various ways in which reasoning processes are non-cognitively embedded in human nature and society and influence the direction these processes take.

The Persistence of Sacrifice as Self-Sacrifice and Its Contemporary Embodiment in the 9/11 Rescuers and COVID-19 Healthcare Professionals

The aim of this paper is to analyze the persistence of sacrifice as self-sacrifice in contemporary societies. In order to reach this goal, firstly, we discuss how in the Axial Age (800–200 B.C.E.) an understanding of sacrifice as ritual worship or a ritual practice that involves the immolation of a victim became less prevalent and a new understanding of sacrifice emerges. This new notion of sacrifice focuses on individual relinquishment and gift exchange, that is, on a person sacrificing or relinquishing him/herself as a gift that is given in an exchange relationship for protecting a greater good (a god, a community, a person, a nation, and so on). Secondly, we analyze how this new sacrifice formula had an important impact on the understanding of sacrifice. Most notably, it led people to conceptualize sacrifice as a project or as something that persons could intentionally embrace. Thirdly, and as a result of the previous processes, we attend to the secularization of sacrifice, not in the sense of a de-sacralization of this phenomenon but in the way of sacralization of the mundane realm and mundane things, such as intentional self-sacrificial acts, in social contexts where there is religious pluralism. Insight into how the notion of sacrifice is secularized is found throughout the classic works of Marcel Mauss and Georg Simmel, and these works are discussed in section three. Fourthly, we study the sacredness of the person as a clear type of secular religiosity that develops self-sacrificial forms. Two of these self-sacrificial forms are the actions of 9/11 rescuers and COVID-19 healthcare professionals. A short analysis of both will serve us to illustrate how self-sacrifice is embodied in contemporary societies.

Transcendence as Reflexive Sacredness

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the debate on the so-called Axial Age. It presents the major contributors from Karl Jaspers on, but also the predecessors in the 18th and 19th centuries. , It explores concepts such as the age of transcendence that have been used to characterize the fundamental innovation of that age. It particularly emphasizes the emergence of moral universalism in that period. The chapter also attempts to bring the different perspectives together by interpreting a reflexive view of the sources of sacredness as a major turning point in the global history of religion.

Conclusion

Hebraism has to do with the changing relation between Christianity and Judaism, between the New and Old Testaments, made possible by the cultural phenomenon of different contents coexisting within a symbol, for example, Israel. This concluding chapter provides a summary of the characteristics of Hebraism as a ‘Jewish Christianity’ or ‘Old Testament Christianity’, including patriotism. The chapter further situates Hebraism within the analysis of the axial age. In doing so, the distinctiveness of religion is taken up, as well as the place of pluralism in cultural history that requires the distinction between unity and uniformity. The chapter also discusses the place of sovereignty in Hebraic culture.

Understanding and Responding to Non-Affiliation

This chapter returns to the contents of the other chapters of the book and draws some tentative conclusions. At the outset, it presents some of the assumptions of the author as he approaches this topic, reviews briefly the literature on the now-outdated classic secularization thesis, and examines several historical factors that contribute to increasing non-affiliation for Catholics, including the impact and evaluations of the Second Vatican Council (Vatican II) and the possibility that we are entering a second axial age. After describing several current ways in which church people are reaching out to the non-affiliated, the chapter concludes on a hopeful note.