Non-rational Elements Research Articles

Posidonius’ Two Systems: Animals and Emotions in Middle Stoicism

Abstract This paper attempts to reconstruct the views of the Stoic Posidonius on the emotions, especially as presented by Galen’s On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato. This is a well-studied area, and many views have been developed over the last few decades. It is also significant that the reliability of Galen’s account is openly at issue. Yet it is not clear that the interpretative possibilities have been fully demarcated. Here I develop Galen’s claim that Posidonius accepted a persistent, non-rational aspect of the soul that he connects with the merely animal part of humans. The aim is to begin from this testimony in answering two questions: (1) How might the possession of a non-rational element of the soul operate alongside the hêgemonikon (leading-part of the soul) as a source of impulse for Posidonius. (2) How does this persistent animal aspect conform to the Stoic ontological classification found in their scala naturae? I shall argue in response to these that (a) Posidonius distinguished the merely cognitive aspects of the soul from those that are rational, and (b) that the hêgemonikon itself is not to be identified with what is rational. Accepting a persistent non-rational source of emotional impulses allows Posidonius a richer framework for explaining human affective responses and behaviours. I also briefly address Galen’s motivation for the account he offers. It is in view of Posidonius’ approach to Plato’s Timaeus that Galen’s discussion finds its most plausible interpretation.

Antygony polskie i świętość w odczarowanym świecie. Zmiana wzoru kulturowego w relacji do cmentarzy ewangelickich na ziemiach polskich po 1989 roku

Polish Antigones and Holiness in the Dis-enchanted World. Changing of the Cultural Pattern in the Relationship with Protestant Cemeteries in Poland after 1989 In this article, the authors set themselves the goal of describing the pattern of civil engagement comparable to that of Antigone in relations with the state on the case study of people associated with the “Anna Foundation,” saving the evangelical (protestant) cemetery in Gostków (Lower Silesia) from the mid-nineteenth century. The area of operation of this foundation is the local communion of multicultural influence. The research method involved reading sources, a series of qualitative interviews with activists and other subjects with “borderline experience,” a description of photographic documentation and an interpretation of the history of modernity. The article is a case study and an attempt to interpret a broader phenomenon of saving cemeteries of various denominations from destruction and oblivion in Poland after 1989. This study contributes to studies on culture and religion, and the philosophical and theological reflection of late post-modernity. In interpreting the phenomenon of civic involvement, the authors use the concepts of “disenchantment of the world,” “rationalization,” “bureaucratization” and “the garden state,” as well as “re-enchanting of the world” and “holiness in the secular age.” In the conclusions, the authors propose to correct both the definition of “world enchantment” and the definition of the inevitable secularization of the world in late (post) modernity. The authors argue that in the time of the post-pandemic crisis and the climate catastrophe, Albert Schweitzer’s “reverence for life” may be an equivalent that is appropriate for the non-rational elements of contemporary culture.

Minimal degrees of algebraic numbers with respect to primitive elements

Given a number field [Formula: see text], we define the degree of an algebraic number [Formula: see text] with respect to a choice of a primitive element of [Formula: see text]. We propose the question of computing the minimal degrees of algebraic numbers in [Formula: see text], and examine these values in degree [Formula: see text] Galois extensions over [Formula: see text] and triquadratic number fields. We show that computing minimal degrees of non-rational elements in triquadratic number fields is closely related to solving classical Diophantine problems such as congruent number problem as well as understanding various arithmetic properties of elliptic curves.

Kant and Stoic Affections

AbstractI examine the significance of the Stoic theory ofpathē(and related topics) for Kant’s moral psychology, arguing against the received view that systematic differences block the possibility of Kant’s drawing anything more than rhetoric from his Stoic sources. More particularly, I take on the chronically underexamined assumption that Kant is committed to a psychological dualism in the tradition of Plato and Aristotle, positing distinct rational and nonrational elements of human mentality. By contrast, Stoics take the mentality of an adult human being to be rational through and through, while recognising that this rationality is not normally in a state of health or excellence. I show how Kant’s account of affections—chiefly the “affects” and “passions” that he identifies as targets of a duty of apathy—draws substantive lessons from his Stoic sources, and how he accepts on his own terms the monistic principles of Stoic moral psychology.

Do my feelings fit the diagnosis? Avoiding misdiagnoses in psychosomatic consultation services.

Misdiagnoses are a major concern with far-reaching consequences, which have rarely been studied systematically. Therefore, the present study evaluated factors causing misdiagnoses identified by psychosomatic consultation services. Over a period of 5 years, all patients referred to the psychosomatic consultation services of a large university hospital were analyzed consecutively for misdiagnoses. We analyzed the reasons for suspecting a misdiagnosis through systematic introspection during peer supervision and evaluated the causes during semistructured interviews with the referring physician. In 165 psychosomatic consultations, 24 disorders were misdiagnosed (15%). The reasons for questioning the initial diagnoses were the consulting physician's feelings and thoughts resulting from the patients' inappropriate behavior during the consultation and unusual clinical features. In eight cases, the misdiagnosis resulted from availability bias, and in three cases each it resulted from confirmation bias, search satisfaction bias, and framing effect and attribution bias. However, lack of medical knowledge played only a minor role. This study highlights the nonrational elements of the diagnostic process. In the context of psychosomatic consultation services, introspection and intuitive thought processes are helpful in identifying misdiagnoses. Self-satisfaction (availability bias) and overconfidence (confirmation bias) are most likely to result in misdiagnoses.

Exploring Rational and Non-rational Dimensions of Interpersonal Complexity

Contemporary models of psychosocial development include domains of development for interpersonal relations and cognitive complexity. Integrating these two domains to conceptualize interpersonal complexity is a useful construct for research purposes. Furthermore, the analysis of interpersonal complexity can benefit from approaching it from both rational and non-rational dimensions. The former can be done through Jane Loevinger’s conceptualization of adult ego development while the latter can be done through Gilbert Durand’s conceptualization of the Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary. Furthermore, the Washington University Sentence Completion Test is an empirically sound instrument to test the rational aspects of interpersonal complexity while the Archetypal Test of Nine Elements is an empirically sound instrument to test the non-rational elements of it. This article will conclude with research implications and applications of approaching interpersonal complexity from both the rational and non-rational dimensions.

É POSSÍVEL EDUCAR AS EMOÇÕES?

O artigo trata a possibilidade de educar as emoções existente graças à sua possibilidade de ouvir e obedecer à razão. O estudo é feito a partir das propostas da Ética a Nicômaco, recorrendo, quando necessário, ao De anima e à Retórica, textos que dedicaram atenção às emoções. Para defender essa proposta, a investigação parte do Livro I da EN, que indica a possibilidade de a capacidade desiderativa ouvir e obedecer a razão. Com isso, percebemos que Aristóteles não pretende excluir os elementos não racionais da vida ética, estando mais preocupado em encontrar formas capazes de conciliar as capacidades anímicas e de sentir emoções na quantidade adequada, com as coisas certas, nos momentos convenientes, em direção a quê e a quem é adequado. Essa interpretação é possível porque o filósofo compreende a alma como algo composto, pondo as emoções, que são da alçada do desiderativo em contato com a parte racional da alma. Por isso, é necessário entender que Aristóteles propõe partes da alma que quando associadas conjugam o bom exercício de todas as capacidades anímicas humanas, levando às virtudes. Interpretação viável pela apresentação de faculdades encadeadas à parte racional que pode tocar a emoção, desde seu despertar até quando for moderada com o auxílio da razão prática.

Integrating emotion and other nonrational factors into ethics education and training in professional psychology

ABSTRACT Any professional or scientific discipline has a responsibility to do what it can to ensure ethical behavior on the part of its members. In this context, this paper outlines and explores the criticism that to date the emphasis in ethics training in professional psychology, as with other disciplines, has been on the rational elements of ethical decision making, with insufficient attention to the role of emotions and other nonrational elements. After a brief outline of some of the historical background to the development and understanding of ethical decision making, relevant theoretical and empirical literature on the influence of emotional and other nonrational factors on our ethical decisions is reviewed. The implications of this literature for ethics education and training are outlined, particularly with respect to the use of case studies. An integrative approach is proposed, and conclusions and recommendations are offered with respect to such an approach.

Science, Rationalization, and the Persistence of Enchantment

Against the view that in his lecture ‘Science as Vocation’ Weber was counselling students not to demand of science an emotional, prophetic or romantic response, this article argues that Weber saw experience and insight as crucial components of scientific endeavour. Beruf involves self sacrifice and discovery a mental frenzy. Drawing on Ancient Judaism non-rational elements cannot be excluded from the whole process of western rationalization. There are forces that limit rationalism and they become decisive in salvaging a place for humanity in an increasingly bureaucratized world.

Leibniz on Causation and Agency by Julia Jorati

Reviewed by: Leibniz on Causation and Agency by Julia Jorati Joseph Anderson Julia Jorati. Leibniz on Causation and Agency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. xii + 224. Cloth, $99.00 In Leibniz on Causation and Agency, Julia Jorati provides an account of Leibniz’s mature views regarding causation, freedom, and moral responsibility. Few monographs treat these central topics in Leibniz in such a sustained and helpful way. The focus on appetition and action is most welcome, and the book is well written and usually well argued. Even on the few occasions when Jorati’s arguments are unpersuasive, the theoretical benefits of her readings are clear, and the work displays an impressive command of the primary and secondary literature. The first three chapters treat monads, spontaneity, and teleology, respectively. Jorati gives useful accounts of the motivations for Leibniz’s bold theses. A clear strength of Jorati’s treatment is the emphasis on appetition, since most treatments of Leibniz’s monads put nearly all their attention on perception. The importance of attending to appetition is felt throughout the volume and has far-reaching implications. In chapters 2 and 3, Jorati outlines three senses of spontaneity and teleology in Leibniz’s thought. The distinctions here are not ones Leibniz explicitly makes, but the distinctions give us a useful perspective on Leibniz on spontaneity and teleology, highlighting some of the ways in which he thinks these matter. The most surprising thesis in these chapters claims that there is a kind of teleology in monads that is goal-directed without necessarily being goodness-directed in any interesting sense. Jorati’s main line of argument is that this kind of teleology is often associated with changes that in no way are good for the monad. It is a provocative thesis and argument, but I would like to see a stronger treatment of the possibility that these actions are directed at unachieved goods, a possibility raised in Monadology §15. The next four chapters treat, respectively, divine concurrence; freedom; control, akrasia, and compulsion; and moral agency and responsibility. The last three chapters especially deserve to be read widely as they contain strong arguments for surprising theses. The most successful of these have to do with the issue of control. In chapter 6, Jorati draws our attention to underappreciated passages from the Theodicy and the New Essays in which [End Page 171] Leibniz describes ways of having mastery over the nonrational elements in the soul. Jorati finds that this mastery can be either direct control or indirect control. In the same chapter, Jorati utilizes these passages to argue that there is a much stronger kind of weakness of will in Leibniz than is typically recognized. In chapter 7, Jorati very effectively argues that blameworthiness in Leibniz requires a greater degree of control than does praiseworthiness. In general, these chapters show that the will plays a much stronger role in Leibniz’s thought than is usually assumed. The least successful argument from these chapters claims that Leibniz does not think moral responsibility requires freedom (194–99). It is a provocative thesis, grounded in a sophisticated reading of Leibniz’s texts. It may, in fact, describe Leibniz’s position in some texts, but it is too dissonant with a great many texts to be terribly convincing. Elsewhere in the book, I find that Jorati navigates differences between Leibniz’s texts in a quite satisfying way. For instance, Jorati explains various options Leibniz might have taken for avoiding that God’s choice of the best is metaphysically necessary without imposing one reading on dissonant texts (137–42). Regarding moral responsibility and freedom, Jorati’s argument is worth considering, but I wish her approach to the texts on this point were as moderate as it is in other places. Throughout the work as a whole, it is clear that Jorati finds Leibniz’s positions appealing and worth considering today. Nevertheless, she does an exceptional job avoiding a vicious anachronism. For instance, in the chapter on control, weakness, and compulsion, it is clear that Jorati is giving a treatment of Leibniz’s texts on what he calls mastery. Jorati does not motivate her treatments of Leibniz with discussions of contemporary debates but is clearly...

Post-Modern Relativist Challenges on Islamic Epistemology

With the emergence of the quantum world and the emerging weaknesses of the positivistic notion of science, post-modernism relativism emerged taking the world view that we constructed our own social reality. Thus, there are no such things as objectivity and truth. This amongst other things paved the way for secularism especially within the Western world, where its philosophy has been incorporated both in its education system and its multi-media, which has invariably impacted the Muslim world. The methodology entailed examining relevant Sociological text, as well as selected Islamic traditional literature including the creed of Taftanzanī, Al-Ghazālī, Ibn Ḥazm amongst others and inter-linking it with Qur’an and Prophetic hadiths. Post-modernism poses a challenge to Islam by way of trying to incorporate alternative narratives into its institutional structures. The solution to overcome this is by inculcating greater awareness amongst the Muslims, as well as properly understanding and disseminating the nature of knowledge of Islam in its multi-dimensional forms. Islam integrates the sacred and the profane, with accent on this world (dunyā) - next world (akhira). It is thus more holistic and profound, subsuming both the rational and non-rational elements, as well as giving life a definite meaning and direction.  &nbsp

Enlightenment and Its Fortunes in China’s Modernization

The central concept of Western Enlightenment is scientific reason. It catalyzed the development of modernity, but itself contains a series of paradoxes: between “ought” and “is,” between necessity and freedom, between universality and historicity, and so on. The impact of Enlightenment reason on China was negative in that it generated a superstitious belief in the omnipotence of scientific method and in Western experience and political principles. Consequently, Chinese liberals were unable to handle the relationship between modern Western culture and traditional local culture and the relationship between the ideals of Enlightenment modernity and the objective requirements of real-life politics. At the same time, they were unable to identify the rational and non-rational elements in Western modernity or to develop what was useful and discard what was not. The real value of the Enlightenment lies in its spirit of reflective criticism. It is, therefore, an unfinished business in terms of eliminating superstition and dogma.

Te Auahatanga me te Ara Auaha Creativity and Creative Process: The Bright Creative Life

Discussions on creativity available in the English language are dominated by western theorists and western philosophical understandings. These understandings emphasise individuality, innovation, the rational, and the necessity of a creative product. However, feminist, non-western and indigenous theorists assert the importance of culture, community and the non-rational, such as the spiritual, and place less emphasis on creative products. A Feminist Participatory approach informed by Indigenous Peoples’ worldviews (FP-I) provides a lens through which creativity may be viewed with an appreciation of the wider lived experience of the creative person. For a dance practitioner or researcher, this wider lived experience may include rational and scientifically verifiable elements, but also non-rational elements of relationship, community, culture, spirituality and the natural world. The Bright Creative Life approach arises out of such a worldview and includes preferring, practising, gathering, selecting, finding quiet spaces, laying creative work aside, and ritual, prayer and meditation.

The Dethroning of Ideocracy

Robert Musil was not a professional philosopher. He was a novelist-and according to the widely accepted canon, his contribution to the twentieth-century novel is only matched by very few.Why then should there be a special issue on him in The Monist? The reason is that Musil was a philosopher-just a different kind of philosopher. He was trained in philosophy (he wrote his Ph.D. on Ernst Mach) and gave up a promising career in academia, turning down a job offer in Meinong's department because he thought it better to express his philosophical ideas by means of writing novels.While Musil is often considered to be the 'philosophical novelist'par excellence, his attitude towards the 'philosophical novel', that is, a novel expressing philosophical views, is somewhat ambiguous. On the one hand, he did believe that philosophy, science, and literature all do the same thing, just by different means (Notebook 5, 1911, October 14 [Musil 1976]). And his explicit reason for giving up academic philosophy was that philosophizing by means of writing novels was more efficient. At the same time, he warned against the obvious pitfalls of philosophical novels. As he said, usually it is not a pleasant experience when writers philosophize and formulate their thoughts directly (Musil 1999, 409). This is very similar to Proust's famous dictum in Time Regained, according to which work of art that contains theories is like an object on which the price tag has been left. Is this a contradiction then? Was Musil for or against the philosophical novels he later became so closely associated with? I don't think there is a contradiction here. Musil was committed to philosophizing by writing novels, but he didn't do it directly. He did so, to use a distinction from Philip Kitcher's framework of talking about the philosophical content of novels, by showing and not by saying (Kitcher 2013, Chapter 1 as well as Kitcher's paper here; see also Nanay [2013b]).Musil does not give us explicit philosophical theories. He simply shows us characters in various situations. But if we manage to put together these situations in the right way, we encounter philosophical ideas as clearly as if they were explicitly explained. A quick example. The protagonist of The Man Without Qualities is Ulrich and one of the least likable characters in the book is Amheim. But their general outlook is very similar in many respects. Most importantly, they are both against taking the human mind to be fully and entirely rational and they both emphasize the nonrational elements in human behavior and life. But the similarity of their views highlights the very few but nonetheless even more important differences-that the denial of rationality can lead to a pan-romantic attitude and also to a cheerfully skeptical antiromantic attitude. Musil doesn't explain this as if he were writing a carefully argued philosophy paper about the way the mind works, but by showing us two examples that have so much overlap that we immediately focus on the differences and the reasons for these differences.In this introduction, I would like to focus on what I take to be the main focus of Musil's philosophy, his account of the way the human mind works. I will largely ignore his extremely complex and sophisticated accounts of free will, moral responsibility, emotions, aesthetics, ethics, nominalism and naturalism. Many of these ideas foreshadow some important debates in contemporary analytic and continental philosophy. To mention just a few, he gives early formulations of the idea of moral luck, the narrative conception of the self, a neoformalist account of aesthetic experience, a fairly strong version of the embodiment of the mind, a similarly strong version of philosophical naturalism, and an outright radical account of human freedom (see Wilson's paper on some of these). But what I take to be the underlying theme of most of these ideas is Musil's insistence on, or maybe we should say obsession with, thinking of the human mind in a way that does not consider the functioning of the mind to be fully and completely rational. …

The Self Criticism of Science

The neoteric human being is now being cut off from the order of nature and establishes itself as the rationally reflecting and acting subject which is now posited against the object of its cognitive and practical activity. Civilization is constituted as the product of human activity, as an artifact and technical construct. With this development, human civilization is transformed to a ‘quasi nature’, aiming to correct and replace nature, and man assumes the nature of a technical existence. By ‘technical existence’ we mean the prevalence of a one-dimensional image of the human person as the producer of rational hypotheses and interpretations and the downgrading and degradation of the non-rational element of human existence, i.e. the radical imagination as a creative capacity, which forms the a priori condition and prerequisite for social activity. This constitutive element of the modern world (man, as the producer of rational hypotheses) and its articulation with the ideology of techno-scientific progress and the evolution of the machine that transforms the methods and theories of natural sciences, arming these with new tools and constantly renovating their research and experimental capabilities, finally led to the replacement of religious and metaphysical dogmas by the blind faith to the dogma of technical and scientific progress. The prevalence of a mechanistic, materialist and deterministic view of the world, the introduction of calculation, measurement and precision as the methodological principles of science, armed with the postulation of quantitatively defined entities, has formed an equally characteristic social ethics. The abstract schemata, the formalist methods, the universal ideas and concepts have subjected everything under the identional logic of the autonomous subjective Reason and to its now fundamental predicate, the intellectualist will for power. The result of this process was to underestimate or to ignore the relation and the difference between the concept and the object, between Reason and Nature, sameness and otherness, subject and object, universal and the particular. With this manner however, the variety of qualities of any species is eliminated, the distinctive singularity of the otherness is rejected, the immediate and the everlasting, non-identifiable element, is thrown in disregard. In summary, anything that could not be represented and signified within intellect’s dimension of formal logic, and this latter’s characteristic repetitiveness, was deemed as non-existent, that which is the ‘strictly psycho-spiritual’, the extraordinary, the unique, unrepeatable element that differentiates human beings, civilizations and entities and gives purpose and meaning to their existence. Certainly, the metaphysical and idealist distinction between the ‘formal-logical’ and the ‘strictly psycho-spiritual’ falls in the wider Western metaphysical-idealist tradition that discerns the material from the spiritual, the rationalistic from the temperamental, technique from art, Theory from Praxis, the collective from the individual. This distinction results from the greek-western thought and its positive element, which presupposed that Being is ontologically defined, is governed by an immanent rationality; that it is full in meaning and allows for a thorough verification and determination from the human mind, itself having the analogous characteristics. From this it is suggested that the world, as it is explained within the context of natural philosophy, is not deter- mined as it was viewed throughout the greek-western metaphysical tradition and the technique as a totally rational activity is not able to acquire a profound knowledge of its ‘subject’. In contrary, the world ‘is’ chaos or abyss, radically undetermined and inexhaustible, creating ways to bestow meaning to life from zero.

Modelling biased human trust dynamics

Within human trust related behaviour, according to the literature from the domains of Psychology and Social Sciences often non-rational behaviour can be observed. Current trust models that have been developed typically do not incorporate non-rational elements in the trust formation dynamics. In order to enable agents that interact with humans to have a good estimation of human trust, and take this into account in their behaviour, trust models that incorporate such human aspects are a necessity. A specific non-rational element in humans is that they are often biased in their behaviour. In this paper, models for human trust dynamics are presented incorporating human biases. In order to show that they more accurately describe human behaviour, they have been evaluated against empirical data, which shows that the models perform significantly better.

Answering a Question with a Question: Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Jewish Thought (review)

Answering a Question with a Question: Contemporary and Jewish Thought, edited by Lewis Aron & Libby Henrik. Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2009. 442 pp. $49.00. This book addresses the contentious issue: what was Freud's attitude to religion, and by extension, to Judaism? On one hand Freud's biographer, Petet Gay, insisted that Freud was a Godless Jew, and that Judaism played no role in the creation of psychoanalysis. On the other hand, Bruno Bettelheim has pointed out that such conclusions emerge from the systematic mistranslations of Freud's works, particularly by James Strachey. He emphasized the rational over the irrational, or as I would prefer to say, the non-rational elements in his writings, in order to make Freud more acceptable to an American audience. Freud was a wordsmith, perhaps as great as Goethe. When Freud chose to use psyche, he specifically meant soul, not mind. Hence psycho-analysis is best rendered soul not mind or mental analysis, a change which totally recalibrates one's thinking about Freud's intentions. Freud did disparage God and religion, as Celia Brickman points out in her excellent initial chapter on Psychoanalysis and Judaism in Context. But his attitude was rather more complex than most readers realize. Like Torah niglah and Torah nistar, the revealed and hidden observance of scripture, Freud appeared to despise formal practices and simplistic views of God. Thus, after they married, he prevented his wife, Martha, who was the granddaughter of the Chief Rabbi of Hamburg from lighting candles on a Friday night. She obeyed but was none too pleased. Aftet he died she exclaimed, That mamzer (bastard), he even forbade me to light candles. She proceeded to do so for the rest of her life. Yet Freud maintained a lifelong interest in the Kabbalah and, indeed, kept a copy of the Zohar (The Book of Splendor) in his library. This book covers many aspects of Freud's convoluted attitudes to Judaism. At one moment he could deny its importance to him. On another he could strongly affirm his Jewish identity, unlike many of his friends and colleagues who converted to Christianity in order to gain professional acceptance and advancement. The discussion of these issues is so rich that many chapters, such as Joyce Stochower's, on holding a psychoanalytic lens to Jewish rituals, Tuvia Peri's, on a Freudian and Kleinian reading of the Midrash, Moshe HaIevi Spiro's, on dreaming and Stephen Frosh's, on antisemitism, could easily be expanded into books on their own right. I particularly appreciated the chapter by Lewis Aron and Karen Starr on transformation in Jewish mysticism and contemporary psychoanalysis. …

Comparative religion: Introduction and call for papers

Al-Qaradawi Center for Islamic Moderation and Renewal, Faculty of Islamic Studies, Qatar Foundation, Doha, Qatar ∗Email: m.khalifa@qfis.edu.qa The modern comparative study of religions began with Max Muller who published his two classics: Comparative Mythology in 1856, and Introduction to the Science of Religions in 1870. The term ‘science of religion’ (religionswissenshaft) was used to denote the emancipation of the study of religion from theology and from philosophy of religion. The Sacred Books of the East, edited by Max Muller marked the beginning of this independent step towards the new science of comparative religions. In this development, philological and historical concerns were dominating. Description of religious phenomena took the place of evaluation. Norms and values were explained in historical, psychological and sociological terms. This development was marked by two main characteristics: specialization and objectivity. Another important characteristic was the search for parallels, similarities and dissimilarities among religious phenomena in world religions [1]. The work of Rudolf Otto put the foundation for the science of comparative religion, which gave much concern for historical, philological and critical aspects. As explained by Wach, Otto’s work ‘‘lays powerful stress upon the objective character of ultimate reality, and thus refutes all subjective and illusionist theories of religion’’ [2]. Many new elements were introduced in the study of religion(s): interest in both the rational and non-rational elements, search for help among scholars who grew up in other religious traditions, giving importance to ‘native’ explanations and commentaries, avoidance of skepticism, relativism, and historicism [3]. The term ‘comparative religion’ is also shorthand for the method of comparative, cross-cultural, historical study of religions. With the increase of religious data provided by historical and archaeological studies, the science of comparative religion has emerged in order to compare similar religious phenomena in various religions and to draw certain results and conclusions from the similarities and differences between religions. Certain elements were suggested by Joachim Wach to characterize the comparative study of religion. First, to achieve understanding based on data provided by all scholarly disciplines and in different languages. Second: an emotional attitude of appreciation of how religion encompasses the entire person. Third: comprehension of various types of religiosity. Fourth: varied engagement in different religious experiences [4]. Comparative religion denotes the application of the comparative method (the scientific method) to the data provided by the religions of the world, past and present [5]. Each religion was given a place within a scheme of progress, development, or evolution in addition to the assessment of its value. Comparative religion was also understood as to compare and contrast the religions of the world, and to estimate their respective claims and values [6]. The theory of evolution (progress or development) was highly used and effectively in the study and understanding of the religions of the world [7]. A universal law of development was applied by comparative religion which claimed, then, to be a science and had to build ‘‘a comprehensive picture of the natural history of religion on evolutionary lines’’ [8]. This line of evolutionary thought in the study of religion was not accepted by Christian thinkers (and before that by Islam) because it relativized Christianity and tended to discount revelation. However, many scholars recognized the need to locate the evolution of religion within the broader categories of the evolution of human society [9]. According to this theory religion was developed from lowly beginning to the high point of ethical monotheism.

Modernist Economics

Modernist Economics Wyatt Wells (bio) Economics is a product of the Enlightenment, emerging as a distinct field with the publication of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations in 1776. Although writing on the subject dates back at least to Aristotle, Smith's work redefined the discipline, rendering much of what had gone before obsolete. At the heart of Smith's analysis is the "invisible hand," the idea that individuals rationally pursue their economic self-interest and that, in a free market, this serves the general good. Subsequent economists refined, expanded, and to a degree modified this picture, but rational choice remains central to the discipline. Those who operated outside this framework, like Thorstein Veblen or John Kenneth Galbraith, earned reputations as eccentrics or cranks. Certainly, conventional economic theory offers a powerful intellectual framework that explains a great deal, but it is not the only way of looking at the world. The two greatest economists of the first half of the 20th century, John Maynard Keynes and Joseph Schumpeter, both recognized this and incorporated modernist elements into their theories.1 The term modernism denotes not so much a fully fleshed-out ideology as a zeitgeist, a "spirit of the age." It developed at the end of the 19th century, became dominant with World War I, and went into eclipse in the 1970s, and it affected not only the arts but also philosophy and the social sciences. In part, modernism represented a reaction against Romanticism and the values of the Victorian era. Victorian thinkers had tremendous faith in progress and often based their ideas on stark dichotomies: good vs. evil, civilized vs. barbaric, masculine vs. feminine. These attitudes were common to groups as diverse as Social Darwinists and Marxist Socialists. Modernists saw the world as a far murkier place in which clear distinctions were rare and irrationality common. Traditions and conventional sensibilities—even civilization itself—were a veneer that obscured underlying realities. Modernists sought to scrape away the barnacles of civilization to reveal truth. Romantic novelists like Victor Hugo and Charles Dickens were, first and foremost, storytellers who explored and often critiqued their societies; a strong ethical sense informed their work. In contrast, modernist writers like Marcel Proust and James Joyce abandoned conventional narrative for the "stream of consciousness," which sought to replicate the actual workings of the mind. Their canvass was not so much society as the mind itself, which they pictured as chaotic. Romantic painters like Jean Auguste Ingres, William Turner, and Eugene Delacroix sought to portray places and events clearly, though they often used line and color inventively to this end. Modernist painters like Paul Cezanne and Pablo Picasso did not try to replicate how things and people looked but instead experimented with basic forms. The architects who built the Houses of Parliament in London, the Capitol in Washington, and the Pennsylvania and Grand Central Stations in New York looked to the past for inspiration—medieval cathedrals, Greek temples, Roman baths—though they used the latest materials and engineering techniques in construction. The great modernist architect Louis Sullivan declared that "form follows function," and Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe designed buildings of steel, glass, and concrete largely devoid of ornamentation. Click for larger view View full resolution John Maynard Keynes Comparable developments occurred in philosophy and the social sciences. Sigmund Freud, the great psychiatrist, was perhaps the quintessential modernist. [End Page 2] He argued that the mind had a large, nonrational element—the subconscious—of which the conscious mind was only dimly aware. Many attitudes and actions reflected not conscious decisions, but subconscious drives. Whereas Victorians considered categories such as "rational" and "irrational" mutually exclusive, Freud argued that they coexisted within all people. Simply denying impulses such as lust or anger created neuroses. Freud did not reject reason. The object of psychoanalysis, the therapy he developed, was to identify subconscious drives and bring them under control. Yet success required that subjects come to terms with their irrational impulses. Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche made the "superman" the driving force in history. Such individuals upended accepted verities, forcing people to rethink their beliefs and assumptions, thereby moving humanity forward. Nietzsche did not deny progress, but he saw it...

Pensamento complexo, razão e ensino de filosofia

O objetivo do texto é resgatar, em linhas gerais, o conceito de razão no pensamento complexo de Edgar Morin. A razão pode ser caracterizada no pensamento complexo como aberta ao diálogo com elementos não racionais. Procura-se investigar as possíveis contribuições que o entendimento de razão para o pensamento complexo produz para a formação de indivíduos. Mais especificamente a comunicação procura refletir sobre como o entendimento de razão para o pensamento complexo pode contribuir, no ensino de filosofia, para a formação de pessoas críticas e capazes de pensar os problemas atuais.