Early Thinkers Research Articles

From Arabia to Silicon Valley : How Early Thinkers Intuited the Modern World

From Arabia to Silicon Valley : How Early Thinkers Intuited the Modern World

Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius: The Methodology of a Commentator

This is the first book-length study in English of the interpretative and philosophical approach of the commentaries of of Cilicia (c. AD 530). Simplicius' work, marked by doctrinal complexity and scholarship, is unusually self-conscious, learned and rich in its sources, and he is therefore one of those rare authors who is of interest to ancient philosophers, historians and classicists alike. Here, Han Baltussen argues that our understanding of Simplicius' methodology will be greatly enhanced if we study how his scholarly approach impacts on his philosophical exegesis. His commentaries are placed in their intellectual context and several case studies shed light on his critical treatment of earlier philosophers and his often polemical use of previous commentaries. Philosophy and Exegesis in Simplicius not only clarifies the objectives, pre-suppositions and impact of Simplicius' work, but also illustrates how, as a competent philosopher explicating Aristotelian and Platonic ideas, he continues and develops a method that pursues philosophy by way of exegetical engagement with earlier thinkers and commentators. The investigation opens up connections with broader issues, such as the reception of Presocratic philosophy within the commentary tradition, the nature and purpose of his commentaries, and the demise of pagan philosophy.

TEOLOZI, FISICARI I UZROCI

Autor je u radu utvrdio da je Aristotel, tragajuci za niti vodiljom citavog prethodnog mišljenja, interpretacijski obrazac za razumevanje misaonih dometa vlastitih preteca postulirao u osobenom ucenju o uzrocima. U stvari, doktrina o materijalnom, formalnom, eficijentnom i finalnom uzroku predstavlja modus pomocu koga je Aristotel izvršio problemsku sistematizaciju prethodnika na nacin prikazan u prvoj knjizi Metafizike, i pritom sebe u isti mah razotkrio, makar i uz izvesne rezerve, kao prvog istoricara metafizike, pa i filozofije u celini. Zakljucak koji je autor izveo nakon detaljnog analiziranja Corpus Aristotelicum-a, a u vezi manifestovanja uzroka kod prvih teologa i fisicara, je da Stagiraninovi prethodnici nisu otkrili nijedan novi uzrok koji vec nije pomenut u njegovoj Fizici. Štaviše, i cetiri uzroka koje je Aristotel postulirao u svojim metafizickim razmatranjima, od strane ranijih mislilaca bili su spoznati, po njemu, tek nejasno i neosvešceno.

Applying an understanding of the early years thinkers

This is the first part of a series which builds into a guide to child development and important milestones, from birth to four years. Hilary White begins with the key theorists and their relevance to today's practice.

‘“Fuisse in Forma Hominis” belongs to Christ Alone’: John Calvin's trinitarian hermeneutics in hisLectures on Ezekiel

AbstractThe present article examines John Calvin's trinitarian and christological interpretation of Old Testament theophanies in hisPraelectioneson Ezekiel 1. The first section of the article treats Calvin's exegetical principles. It is noted that Calvin defends a strict set of rules for how to interpret Old Testament theophanies: in short, Calvin argues that if a passage presents the divine nature in the form of a human person, that given theophany must be interpreted as a representation of the second person of the Trinity, the Son of God (i.e. Jesus Christ). In defending this position, Calvin examines in great detail various rules for how to interpret Old Testament passages which indicate a plurality within the divine nature (i.e. the Trinity). He defends his exegetical approach to these texts with numerous passages from the New Testament.This examination of Calvin's exegesis is contextualised in two ways. First, it is noted that Calvin's exegesis of these passages is uncharacteristically more ‘strict’ in its trinitarian and christological reading than one finds in earlier thinkers such as Augustine and Jerome. For example, Augustine argued that Old Testament theophanies which present God in the form of a human being could be understood as the Father, the Son or the Holy Spirit. Augustine, in short, does not think one can definitively determine which member of the Trinity is ‘present’ in a theophany. Second, it is noted that this surprising development in Calvin's final work is the result of the rising threat of anti-trinitarianism in Transylvania. Thus, the article argues that the rise of Polish anti-trinitarianism not only contributed to Calvin's renewed interest in trinitarian and christological interpretations of the Old Testament, but it also pushed him to develop a more strict set of exegetical rules which govern how such passages are interpreted.Therefore, the article presents a reading of Calvin which strongly suggests that any complete analysis of Calvin's alleged ‘Judaising’ must develop a historically nuanced methodology. While it is often argued that Calvin hesitates from interpreting Old Testament passages in a strictly trinitarian or christological way, it must be acknowledged that towards the end of his career he radically began to alter his exegetical rules/method given the renewed threat of the anti-trinitarians.

Sleep physiology and the perioperative care of patients with sleep disorders

### Key points Sleep is a normal physiological process that is of great importance to us all. We know when we have not had enough of it and are aware of the effects that this can have on not only our work and productivity, but also on our social lives and emotional well-being. In addition to sleep deprivation-related personal accidents, it is well established that there is also an adverse effect on complex, ‘executive’ decision-making abilities, something that should concern us in our professional roles. Sleep has fascinated man throughout the ages. It is not difficult to see why early thinkers considered sleep to be a dormant process, somewhere between wakeful, sentient life, and the permanent state that is death. In Greek mythology Hypnos is the personification of sleep, his twin is Thanatos (death) (Fig. 1). Fig 1 ‘Sleep and his half-brother death’. J.W. Waterhouse, 1874. Image courtesy of Sotheby's, Inc. © 2003. However, this long-held idea of dormancy conflicts with man's equally long-held fascination with the process of dreams and the idea (or ‘science’) of dream interpretation. A link with spirituality was …

Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular Against the Sacred

Medieval Crossover: Reading the Secular Against the Sacred

On patience: thinking with and beyond Karl Barth

AbstractThis article has three goals: (1) to provide a careful analysis of Barth's treatment of divine patience inChurch DogmaticsII/1; (2) to show how Barth's thinking about divine patience helps to illumine his account of human being and human activity in later portions of theChurch Dogmatics; and (3) to offer a series of constructive suggestions which connect Barth's theology with liberationist visions of human existence.With respect toChurch DogmaticsII/1, I argue that Barth breaks with a number of earlier thinkers and focuses attention onGod'sexercise of patience, treating it as a key dimension of God's creative and providential work. This exercise of patience means, specifically, that God accords creatures their own integrity and a capacity for free action, tempers God's punishment of sin and, in Christ, fulfils but does not temporally close the covenant. My analysis of divine patience in II/1 then serves as an interpretative key for reading later volumes of theDogmatics. It sets in vivid relief Barth's belief that Christ's fulfilment of the covenant, achieved through Christ's life, suffering, death and resurrection, is the condition of possibility for humans being able to act with genuine integrity and consequence in the created realm. I propose, too, that Barth develops his thinking about patience by emphasising the ‘pressure’ of the patient God's empowering command – a command which is a constant summons, directed towards each and every human being, to live freely into God's future through acts of gratitude, obedience and responsibility, and to play some part in bringing creation to its glorious end. Finally, I explore the convergence between certain aspects of theChurch Dogmaticsand anti-essentialist construals of the self in contemporary theology. I aim to identify points of connection between Barth and thinkers like Marcella Althaus-Reid, and I voice support for a style of scholarship which elides the distinction between ‘systematic’ and ‘liberationist’ modes of inquiry.

History of Our Understanding of the Causes of Congenital Heart Disease.

Because the dawning of the era in which interventions for congenital heart disease (CHD) became possible, the primary intellectual framework undergirding pediatric cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery has been based on morphology and hemodynamics (henceforth, the M/H model). This model has been wildly successful, enabling practitioners to devise creative interventions for even the most complex forms of CHD. Today, we are confronting new challenges as we have awakened to the realization that longer-term outcomes for CHD, both cardiac and extracardiac, are well below earlier expectations.1 Relying on the M/H model that has permitted us to discover the unnatural history of CHD, our field is bringing scientific rigor to examining those outcomes and developing interventions to improve them. Although this M/H model–based approach to improving outcomes is eminently reasonable, sole reliance on it is ultimately limiting. Use of a model based on causes might enable us to envision other therapies for CHD. For example, the principal risk associated with bicuspid aortic valve is valve calcification in later adulthood. Using the M/H model, we have attributed bicuspid aortic valve–associated valve calcification to hemodynamic stresses and used surveillance of valve function to determine the timing of surgical intervention. Operating under the causation model, it was discovered that a small percentage of patients with bicuspid aortic valve harbor NOTCH1 mutations, which are associated with early valve calcification.2 Aside from improving prognostication, the cause-based understanding of this form of bicuspid aortic valve suggests that therapies altering NOTCH signaling might prevent the deterioration of aortic valve function. The causation model once occupied a larger role among CHD thought leaders. This period preceded the development of heart surgery and catheterization, when the only viable route seemed to be preventative strategies. Early thinkers emphasized environmental factors and, less importantly, heredity. Today, we still point to those 2 …

Reconceptualizing the Self Phenomenon: Toward an Emic Conception of the Self

In sociology, the self has been conceptualized as either self‐concept or the process of self‐reflectivity. Both notions of the self have been traced to the early thinkers—William James, Charles H. Cooley, and George H. Mead—who laid the foundation for the scientific study of the self phenomenon. In this article, I propose a revised conception of the self based on a re‐reading of the classics. I argue that the self is related to but not the same as self‐concept or the process of self‐reflectivity. The self is an emic object, that is, the entity that one takes oneself to be. More specifically, the self is the empirical existence of an individual perceived by the individual to be his or her own. As the identity the individual finds in his or her existence in a world shared with others, the self is a product of both self‐reflection and self‐enactment. Implications of this reconceptualization for some broad issues related to the self phenomenon are also discussed.

NIVISON AND THE PHILOSOPHICAL STUDY OF CONFUCIAN THOUGHT: IN MEMORY OF DAVID S. NIVISON (1923–2014)

AbstractOne of David S. Nivison's (1923–2014) most important contributions is his work in bridging philological studies and philosophical inquiry. His methodological approach resonates in spirit with an approach to the study of Chinese thought advocated by Confucian thinkers such as Zhu Xi and Tang Junyi, who both emphasize jing toward early thinkers. He pays careful attention to textual details, is respectful of cultural context, and seeks to preserve the distinctive features of Chinese traditions of thought and avoid imposing on them western philosophical conceptions. In doing so, he exemplifies the spirit of jing, a serious and cautious attitude dedicated to a proper understanding of early thinkers in their cultural context.

Naming/Power: Linguistic Engineering and the Construction of Discourse in Early China

The interplay between language and politics has been the subject of increased academic interest in the last few decades. The idea that language can be used as a device not only for communication but also for control and manipulation, however, is by no means new. This article traces the emergence of one of the first fully formed Chinese theories of language, Xunzi’s ‘rectification of names’ doctrine, in order to reconstruct a social history of language in early China. In addition to situating Xunzi’s philosophical system in the intellectual and historical context of the late Warring States period, this article also draws on Michel Foucault’s theory of knowledge and power to argue that early Chinese thinkers were fully aware of language’s constitutive role in the restoration of sociopolitical stability and thus sought to portray linguistic engineering as an efficacious, noncoercive, tool of government as part of an overarching single ruler-based political system.

The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous (Asa Simon Mittman and Peter J. Dendle, eds.)

<i>The Ashgate Research Companion to Monsters and the Monstrous</i> (Asa Simon Mittman and Peter J. Dendle, eds.)

Civil Power and the Deconstruction of Scholasticism in the Thought of Marc'antonio de Dominis

SummaryMarc'antonio de Dominis is well known to historians as a figure in the political and religious culture of early modern Britain and Europe. This article contends that he was also a major theorist of civil power: his critique of Catholic scholastic political thought is compelling and his account of divine right kingship sheds light on conceptual problems that troubled a range of early modern thinkers. De Dominis dismantled the scholastic theory of political power on its own terms, insisting that Almain, Bellarmine, Suárez and others could not distinguish, as they sought to, between the potestas politica in general and the rule of particular princes. By this insight de Dominis could vindicate royal authority against the deposing pretensions of the Pope, the main objective of James I's supporters during the Allegiance Controversy, but his own positive account of how to think about power ran into theoretical trouble which he evidently perceived himself. If the potestas politica cannot be abstracted from a specific regime, and if the prince's absolute sovereignty depends on this fact, can politics be understood only at the level of the particular and contingent? The article closes by setting Thomas Hobbes—well versed in Jacobean polemic—in the context of this question.

A study of/on India’s middle class

In order to establish the context of its emergence and the contemporary nature of the Indian middle class, this paper briefly presents its intricate link with colonialism and with economic liberalization. While this debate is focused and concentrated on the discussions in India, it also outlines how international approaches have been used to study it. In doing so, it assesses the ways in which contemporary scholarship is expanding on the theories of class as designed by late nineteenth and early twentieth century thinkers, Karl Marx and Max Weber. It then examines how the ideas of late twentieth century theorists such as Pierre Bourdieu are integrated in understanding and comprehending the new middle class in its relationship with capitalism.

The Gospel of John and Early Trinitarian Thought: The Unity of God in John, Irenaeus and Tertullian

ABSTRACTThis paper discusses the question of God's unity in the Gospel of John and two early Trinitarian thinkers, Irenaeus and Tertullian. It argues that in formulating the relationship of the Father, Son and Spirit, the Gospel of John makes explicit statements and evinces implicit judgments that preserve God's unity. This reading takes seriously John's first-century context, arguing that the continued conviction of God's oneness shapes the Christological formulations of the Gospel. Irenaeus and Tertullian similarly take pains to affirm the unity of God. In doing so, they made judgments about the relationship of Father and Son similar to those of the Gospel of John, while introducing new concepts or imagery to do so.

Two Modernist Approaches to Linking Art and Science

The Age of Insight , Eric Kandel's masterful account of the advances of neuropsychology over the last 150 years, starts with the nineteenth-century medical-scientific ethos that geminated the University of Vienna. On its journey it refers back frequently, almost exclusively, to Viennese modernist artists, because their painted images, especially those of the expressionists, resisted conventional realism and continue to this day to serve as perceptual intermediaries to realities that cannot be seen: emotions, character, even the processes of the brain itself. This article begins by further historicizing modernist medical research in Central Europe in regard to another visual medium, film, and then turns to the work of early thinkers who posited a similar relationship between moving images and insight. They, too, often called on anti-realist art to clarify their sense of filmic realism over and against what they considered to be pre-fabricated cinema. This discourse recurs throughout the twentieth century and comes to leave traces in non-conventional filmmaking like that of the contemporary Berlin School. These theories and practices offer useful complements to The Age of Insight 's history of art and science; however, they also issue important challenges to the "common sense" conclusion that some of Kandel's readers might reach regarding cognitive hardwiring as an unambiguous model for our approach to representation and to the world. If "the image of the world that is contained within the word gives rise to a seamless, meaningful system," as Béla Balázs put it critically, then the object might be to dust off the old figure-ground image to consider what our cognitive apparatus naturally shuts off from view. This essay concludes by considering an often overlooked, material marker of a perceptual transition point, one that has accompanied film from the fin-de-siècle on down, in order to foster a more ambiguous approach to the question of how the limits of visual systems relate to the invisible realms beneath the surface of things, both in ourselves and in the world around us.

Dust to Dust : The Figure-Ground Problem of Readymade Realism in Film

The Age of Insight , Eric Kandel's masterful account of the advances of neuropsychology over the last 150 years, starts with the nineteenth-century medical-scientific ethos that geminated the University of Vienna. On its journey it refers back frequently, almost exclusively, to Viennese modernist artists, because their painted images, especially those of the expressionists, resisted conventional realism and continue to this day to serve as perceptual intermediaries to realities that cannot be seen: emotions, character, even the processes of the brain itself. This article begins by further historicizing modernist medical research in Central Europe in regard to another visual medium, film, and then turns to the work of early thinkers who posited a similar relationship between moving images and insight. They, too, often called on anti-realist art to clarify their sense of filmic realism over and against what they considered to be pre-fabricated cinema. This discourse recurs throughout the twentieth century and comes to leave traces in non-conventional filmmaking like that of the contemporary Berlin School. These theories and practices offer useful complements to The Age of Insight 's history of art and science; however, they also issue important challenges to the "common sense" conclusion that some of Kandel's readers might reach regarding cognitive hardwiring as an unambiguous model for our approach to representation and to the world. If "the image of the world that is contained within the word gives rise to a seamless, meaningful system," as Béla Balázs put it critically, then the object might be to dust off the old figure-ground image to consider what our cognitive apparatus naturally shuts off from view. This essay concludes by considering an often overlooked, material marker of a perceptual transition point, one that has accompanied film from the fin-de-siècle on down, in order to foster a more ambiguous approach to the question of how the limits of visual systems relate to the invisible realms beneath the surface of things, both in ourselves and in the world around us.

Hume on Suicide

This essay examines Hume’s attitude to suicide, in which he had an ongoing philosophical interest, as found in the dialogue at the end of An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, and in his brief essay on the topic. His attitude to, arguments, and views on suicide are placed in the context of his other writings and biographical elements from his own life. The views of other early modern thinkers to suicide, Locke, Kant, and Montaigne, are presented and their arguments evaluated for contrast and comparison with Hume’s views. The views of other writers, most notably the Stoics and St. Thomas Aquinas, are also examined to further elucidate Hume’s views. By carefully reconstructing and evaluating his argument, Hume’s line of reasoning on suicide is found to be out of harmony with his general moral philosophy. The major weakness of his argument is identified as the failure to realize the harm caused to others by suicide.

Automobile design history: what can we learn from the behavior at the edges?

The paper is developed from a larger evaluation of the history of automobile design. This evaluation used categorical principal component analysis to analyze the direction of the product history, investigating how automobiles developed from 1878 to the present (2013), particularly focusing on whether automobile designers appear to be working within what are termed product paradigms. Rather than looking at how design thinking and paradigms became established in automobile design, this paper takes a sideways look at the variations and quirky automobiles that have been built by investigating the outliers of the analysis and categorizing them into three categories: those that are always outside of general trends, those that are throwbacks to earlier thinking, and those that are innovative and ahead of later thinking. The paper ends with a brief look at how and why novelty might become innovation and hence alter the course of the greater product history rather than remaining outliers, interesting as they are. This is where the novelty demonstrates significant advantages for the customer and manufacturer. The conclusion is that the process of investigating statistical outliers is useful and may lead to insights when investigating changes, developments, and innovations and their causes.