Ordo Amoris Research Articles

Formation of the Heart by the Heart - Scheler's Conception of the Ordo Amoris as a Challenge (not only) for Contemporary Leisure Pedagogy

Formation of the Heart by the Heart - Scheler's Conception of the Ordo Amoris as a Challenge (not only) for Contemporary Leisure Pedagogy

Discovering the Longing for God as a Fruit of Spiritual Motherhood

The objective of this article is to explore the concept of spiritual motherhood from the perspective of helping the other to discover the desire for God within their life story. I will work with the hypothesis that the desire for God can be revealed through awareness and reflection on profane desires. To support this hypothesis, the article outlines a perceptual journey that enables the other to gain a deeper understanding of their desires by learning to perceive the objects of their longing as they are, using a phenomenological method. The goal of this journey is to place desires in their proper place within the order of love, known as Ordo Amoris and to discover their identity as a child of God.

Духовно-нравственные ценности населения Дальнего Востока России в начале ХХ в. в контексте межэтнических отношений (по произведениям И.У. Басаргина)

The paper analyzes the interaction of local and alien peoples in Primorye at the stage of its development by Slavic settlers from the point of view of spiritual and moral foundations and values. Owing to the great temporal separation of the period under study from the present and the impossibility of the searching for informants, the novels by I.U. Basargin, which are distinguished by documentary accuracy of description, historicity and covering a large time period — from the first settlers to the end of the Civil War came to be the study`s subject matter. Information about interethnic relations and spiritual and moral values was revealed in literary works and compared with the already available scientific materials. The dynamics of spiritual and moral values is analyzed on the basis of M. Scheler's concept of Ordo Amoris, a certain moral formula of a person, in accordance with which relations between values are built in the inner world of a particular moral subject. The study shows that the contacts of the newcomer Slavic peoples, namely the Russian Old Believers, with the natives and the Chinese, took place, on the whole, peacefully, thanks to the firm adherence of the settlers to universal human values. The Ordo Amoris community had become a guarantee of good neighborliness and mutual assistance, while its violation — the promotion of personal enrichment and power — led to crimes, violation of moral principles, and the destruction of peaceful coexistence.

Love and Do What You Want: Augustine’s Pneumatological Love Ethics

Augustine famously summarizes all of ethics in the maxim, “Love and do what you want” in his Homilies on the First Epistle of John, but also describes sin as misdirected love and humanity as characterized by sin. This raises the question as to how Augustine can offer such a maxim given humanity’s tendency to love so poorly. Aimed at ethicists and theologians with only a general knowledge of Augustine, this paper examines Augustine’s approach to ethics and its relationship to his theology of the Holy Spirit. By exploring the ordo amoris, the uti/frui distinction, and the doctrine of the Spirit as the inner-Trinitarian Love of the Father and the Son, I attempt to show how Augustine’s maxim can fit with his hamartiology.

The Images of Nations’ Locus in the Axiosphere of the Culture

The article contains reflections on axiology of such cultural conceptualizations as images of nations and countries. The problem is presented as being of interest to imagology (a humanities discipline). Special emphasis is on the ideas of the precursor of Polish imagology, Jan Stanislaw Bystroń. The principle of “centrality” proposed by Bystroń in 1923 as having an impact on the evaluation and construction of images of nations, ethnic groups and countries, is presented as corresponding to the “me first” image scheme proposed by cognitive linguistics and confronted with the philosophical concept of ordo amoris by Max Scheller, according to which man knows and evaluates the world not only in accordance with his mind and will, but above all in accordance with the fundamental order of love. The issue was discussed on the basis of statements about Poles and Lithuanians.

Amo, Ergo Cogito: Phenomenology’s Non-Cartesian Augustinianism

Phenomenologists turn to Augustine to remedy the neglect of life, love, and language in the Cartesian cogito: (1) concerning life, Edmund Husserl appropriates Augustine’s analysis of distentio animi, Edith Stein of vivo, and Hannah Arendt of initium; (2) concerning love, Max Scheler appropriates Augustine’s analysis of ordo amoris, Martin Heidegger of curare, and Dietrich von Hildebrand of affectiones; (3) concerning language, Ludwig Wittgenstein appropriates Augustine’s analysis of ostendere, Hans-Georg Gadamer of verbum cordis, and Jean-Luc Marion of confessio. Phenomenology’s non-Cartesian Augustinianism can tell us something about phenomenology, namely that it is engaged in the project of recontextualizing the cogito, and something about Augustine, namely how radically different his project is than Descartes’s. Phenomenology presents an Augustine that is well positioned for the debates of our times concerning mind and world, desire and the human person, and language and embodiment.

「愛の秩序」の精神病理学と「あいだ」の精神病理学 マックス・シェーラーの現象学的パースペクティヴから

「愛の秩序」の精神病理学と「あいだ」の精神病理学 マックス・シェーラーの現象学的パースペクティヴから

L’antropologia agostiniana dell’imago Dei. Nota di aggiornamento della ricerca

In Augustinian reflection, the main problem of the imago Dei is the renewal of its image through being healed from lust, so as to regain the ordo amoris destroyed by sin. Current research investigates what the gratia Christi and charity contribute to the renewal of the image of God, at the level of a marriage bond that human race was given as part of the act of creation. This emerges as a primary element, both in the original state of man and in his recovery through the gratia Christi.

Formalismus: Max Scheler’s Non-Formal Value Ethics

Max Scheler analyses the dominant Kantian formalism in ethics by describing non-formal ethics through ordo amoris. He brought attention to the impoverished conception of ethics by emphasizing rationality at all times and neglecting the emotive part of ethics. Before man becomes ens cogitans, he is an ens amans. There are four values in Scheler, namely the religious, spiritual, vital and sensory values which stratify man’s emotional life. In ordo amoris, Scheler meant to counter the reductionistic tendencies in various ethical theories.

Uti y frui: la doble dimensión del amor en el pensamiento de Agustín de Hipona.

Taking Hannah Arendt’s doctoral thesis entitled Love and Saint Augustine as a starting point, a development of the main elements of Augustine´s doctrine of love from the perspective of its double dimension known as use love (uti) and enjoyment love (frui), is suggested. Thus, this paper deals with the main objects of these loves, that is, God and the world, referring to what Arendt calls Cupiditas and Caritas in Augustine of Hippo, respectively. So, an atempt will be made to introduce the concept of love, showing and developing this distinction analytically, and trying to clearly manifest the centrality of love in Augustine´s thought. The approach emerges from anthropology; however, it will be predominantly ethical, being the well-known thesis of ordo amoris behind the whole work.

Sobre la esencia individual

<p class='p1'>Este artículo trata el problema de la esencia individual con el apoyo de la ontología de Zubiri, en la que la individuación no se entiende sólo como la mera “singularidad” de la filosofía clásica, sino como “diversidad”. La teoría zubiriana se completa introduciendo un nuevo sentido de individualidad propio del hombre: la individualidad como “irrepetibilidad”. Para explicar esta individualidad fuerte se utiliza la teoría de Scheler, la cual insiste en lo irrepetible del “espíritu” humano y sostiene que la esencia individual de la persona está dada por un carácter espiritual (ethos), por unordo amoris. Finalmente, en polémica con Scheler, se sugiere que es la libertad la que aporta la individualidad como irrepetibilidad.</p>

The Education in Lithuanian Christian Theatre: From Repetition to Recollection

The paper holds the review on the expression of religious theatre in theory as well as indicates characteristic educational strategies of the contemporary Christian theatre in Lithuania. The two types of sacral performances – the ones based on the lives of the saints, and the ones re-enacting Biblical events – are viewed within the historical and theoretical context of the sacral theatre, and comparisons are drawn between the strategy of recollection, modern man's attitude towards the realm of modern concept Ordo amoris and the classical strategy of repetition Theatrum Mundi, formed by the educational Jesuit theatre. In the course of the present analysis, the Christian theatre is treated as educational theatre of memory, the mnemonic strategies of which represent the transformation of repetition into recollection.

Pedagogical Love and Good Teacherhood

The aim of the article is to discuss the concept of pedagogical love and its connections to teaching and learning from various perspectives, as well as to illustrate the connection of pedagogical love to other forms of love. Pedagogical love is a specific teaching attitude and concretely demonstrates that action in the teaching profession, with pedagogical love as the core, consists of trust in pupils’ learning capacities and the desire to help pupils improve their abilities and talents. However, pedagogical love is not the only or easy solution to meeting different pupils’ needs and various learning problems.Keywords: pedagogical love; ordo amoris; education; successful teaching; joy of learning

El orden del amor. San Agustín y la ética de los valores de Scheler

One of the essential works to understand Max Scheler's thought is titled, with an augustinian expression, Ordo amoris. Is it a mere coincidence? Or may it exist a major relationship between both thinkers? The article demonstrates that a complete analysis of this question could lead us to conclude that there is a deep influence of Saint Augustine in Scheler. This is revealed in an explicit way on certain quotations of the saint of Hippo made by Scheler, and implicitly in main concepts of Sheler's thinking, as the Gesinnung, meaning ‘attitude of intention’.

Nation-States and Love of Neighbour: Impartiality and the ordo amoris

This paper is about love of one’s neighbour near and far given humanity’s division into nations. The primary dialogue partner is Peter Singer and his preference utilitarian approach to moral reasoning wherein the challenge is to count the welfare of individuals impartially, regardless—or, at least, with far less regard than is often given—of divisions into nation-states. The claim is made that, despite the considerable and proper challenges from Singer and other so-called new cosmopolitans, it remains possible and, indeed, necessary at the present time for Christian people to work with an account of nation and nationhood as permitted within divine providence. This claim is cast in terms of traditional Christian teaching about the order of love (L. ordo amoris).

El amor a la verdad en Tomás de Aquino / Love for Truth in Thomas Aquinas

The aim of this paper is to give an account of Aquinas’s doctrine of moral dimension of pursuit of truth. The article is divided into three sections. First of them deals with the notion of truth in epistemic perspective (judgment and truth). The second one is about truth inasmuch as a certain good and end not only of intellect but of human being. In the third one the consecuences of the previous statements are given. It is about the rol of intellectual and moral virtues in knowledge and in the pursuit of truth. In this final section the main topic of the paper is a central issue: love for truth is need to reach, truth given that virtue is defined as ordo amoris.

El yo inasible de Pascal frente a la fortaleza del sujeto cartesiano

Compared to Descartes, who attempted to make the thinking subject the centre and strengthen its power, Pascal was confronted with the contingency, chance and opacity of human existence. He tried to «decentralise» the subject and delve further into its deepest dissonance. He classified three unmeasurable orders of reality: body, spirit and charity. On a moral level, for Pascal the «ordo amoris» represents the absolute viewpoint to which all relative points of view are ordered. Only through a release from the desire of domination can the human being discover true justice and goodness.

The Value of Saint Augustine's Use / Enjoyment Distinction to Conjugal Love

The Proper Order of Conjugal Love:The Relevance of St. Augustine's Insights Perry Cahall (bio) Augustine says the "order of love" (ordo amoris) is the "brief and true definition of virtue."1 According to this order, the human person must love everything in creation according to its proper relationship to God, which means loving God above all creatures and not inordinately loving any creature as the human person's ultimate end.2 Living according to the order of love presents one with "the promise that human life might participate in the very trinitarian life and mutual love of God."3 Augustine also speaks of an "order of charity" that ideally "flourishes between husband and wife."4 This spousal love is part of the overarching order of love that orients the spouses toward participating in the life and love of the Trinity. Thus the order of charity that ought to flourish between spouses is one aspect of "believers living as a community of mutual love [who] should themselves be the eschatological appearing of God's own mutual, trinitarian love in history."5 In this article I will apply what Augustine says about the order of love in general to the order of love that he says should exist between spouses to show the validity Augustine's thought has for living out married life today. [End Page 117] Ordered Love and the Use/Enjoyment Distinction For Augustine, love that is in accord with the truth of God's love must be an ordered love, in terms of everything being loved hierarchically according to its proper relationship to God. In fact, for Augustine, all virtue is ordered love.6 He proposes a hierarchy of objects of human love consisting of God, ourselves, our neighbors, and our bodies.7 Our love of created things must be in relation to the Creator if it is to be considered true love.8 Whatever and whomever we love, we must not love them more than we love Christ.9 Augustine's point is that nothing we love can take the place of our ultimate end, who is God. Within this order Augustine distinguishes between divine love, lawful human love, and unlawful human love.10 With regard to marriage, Augustine says that a man who does not possess lawful human love for his spouse "isn't fit to be counted among human beings."11 Yet, if his love for his wife is true, a husband should order his love for her with reference to God.12 An important part of how human persons should order their love with reference to God, participate in the love of God, and share this love with each other, seeking each other's ultimate good, is Augustine's use/enjoyment (uti/frui) distinction. In the order of love, God alone is the ultimate object of our love and therefore God alone may be truly "enjoyed" (frui).13 Every created thing that is an object of our love must be referred to the love of God or "used" (uti).14 In De doctrina Christiana, Augustine defines frui and uti as follows: "To enjoy [frui] something is to hold fast to it in love for its own sake. To use [uti] something is to apply whatever it may be to the purpose of obtaining what you love—if indeed it is something that ought to be loved. (The improper use of something should be termed abuse.)"15 After providing these definitions Augustine says, "It is only the eternal and unchangeable things . . . that are to be enjoyed; other things are to be used so that we may attain the full enjoyment of those things."16 However, previously Augustine had said, "There are some things [End Page 118] which are to be enjoyed, some which are to be used, and some whose function is both to enjoy and use."17 Augustine asks "whether humans should enjoy [frui]one another or use [uti]one another, or both."18 He answers, We have been commanded to love one another [John 13:34; 15:12, 17], but the question is whether one person should be loved by another on his own account or for some other reason. If on...

A Postscript to Max Scheler’s “On the Rehabilitation of Virtue”

The translator of Scheler's essay, On the Rehabilitation of Virtue, presents an account of the context of this essay in Scheler's work and of its relevance to his concept of the ordo amoris and to his critique of Kant. The translator discusses the intended audience of the essay, its moral purpose, and the method of its procedure. The postscript further reflects on the essay's central themes of humility and reverence, suggesting avenues for a critical assessment of Scheler's conclusions. It ends with some reflections on the contemporary value of Scheler's contributions in this essay to a historical and philosophical understanding of the conflict between science and religion.

Liebendes Selbstbewußtsein. Das Verständnis Gottes als Liebe bei Ernst Wilhelm Christian Sartorius (1797–1859)

E. W. Ch. Sartorius (1797–1859), a forgotten lutheran theologian of the 19th century, provides a comprehensive understandig of God as love in the three volumes of his dogmatics (‘The Doctrine of the Holy Love’). He sees love as the intentional relative property (i. e. an attidude) of the surrrender of one self-conscious particular being to another. In applying this concept to the being of God, Sartorius develops the trinity of three divine persons from the statement ‘God is love’. However, this conception seems to fail because this particular concept of love implicitly presupposes a concept of individual self-consciousness. Consequently, God is “loving selfconsciousness” – three times. The main problem consists in the fact, that Sartorius, although he is able to develop the trinity from the concept of love, he is unable to show how the persons are constituted by love. However, the relationship of the notions of ordo amoris and surrender, the concept of faith as trusting in being loved and his concept of a specific relationship of the doctrine of the trinity to soteriology in order to avoid forms of “panentheism” could provide interesting suggestions for the present discussion of the doctrine of God.