Path Of Virtue Research Articles

Ancient Indian Stories in the Oirat Collection “The Tale of the Nectar Teaching

Questions about the similarity of the plots of Oirat written monuments with ancient Indian ones still remain insufficiently studied. Most of the Oirat works have not yet been introduced into scientific circulation or translated into Russian and other European languages. The article examines the origin of the plots of 17th and 18th century Oirat religious and didactic collection. “Aršān nomiyin tuuǰi” (“The Tale of the Nectar Teaching”), dating back to the literary monuments of Ancient India. The collection consists of sixty-four short Buddhist stories. It is framed by a diagram of the Tibetan Buddhist treatise “Lamrim,” presented in thesis form. The main provisions of the treatise are revealed in the collection with the help of artistic examples from various Indian and Tibetian sources. The collection is distinguished by a strict functional purpose; it introduces the laity to the course of Buddhist teachings and instructs them on the path of virtue. It was used by Buddhist monks as a guide in his preaching practice until the beginning of the 20th century. The article examines the structure and content of Oirat and ancient Indian stories in their narrative presentation, identifying similarities and local differences. As a result of the study, it was established that genetically similar plots help to better understand the content of short stories in the Oirat collection, which have lost their essential structural components due to various reasons. The stories of “The Tale of the Nectar Teaching” differ from the source texts by the extreme conciseness of their plots: they lack any descriptions or comparisons, the main focus is exclusively on heroes’ actions, the action unfolds abruptly and dynamically. We noted a significant similarity between the plots of “The Tale of the Nectar Teaching” and ancient Indian works both at the plot-compositional and at content levels. This fact indicates their genetic relationship. The identification of the local differences in the Oirat collection demonstrates the genesis of the plots of ancient Indian monuments and their fate outside India.

SPIRITUAL RENEWAL OF SOCIETY DURING THE THIRD RENAISSANCE PERIOD IN NEW UZBEKISTAN

Humanity gradually progresses from the feeling of water, soil, air, and sun to complex socio-philosophical questions such as "Nature", "Life and death", "The essence of the human factor", and "Universe and existence". As he understands the world, he realizes how significant and lasting the path of virtue that starts from ignorance to enlightenment is. On this arduous journey, you will have to stop at various paths, straight and crooked streets, and right and wrong stops. In order to build a fortress of his thinking, a person must first make his/her foundation strong. This foundation is education and spirituality. This article discusses this.

Apologetics and Antiquity: Book of Mormon Reception, 1830–1844

Apologetics and Antiquity: Book of Mormon Reception, 1830–1844

Особенности таинственного незримого мира суфизма

The article is devoted to the reflection of the theme of dreams in Sufi writings, mainly manakibs (Lives of Saints), relating to the Middle-Age Transoxiana. Sufism is the earliest form of the spread of the Islamic faith in the world. Sufism has absorbed both some elements of the Qur'anic teachings, and many popular beliefs associated with the belief in supernatural forces. Sufis are people who dedicated their lives to the knowledge of God through various spiritual practices, one of which is, for example, the interpretation of dreams. In these dreams there are various images that are interpreted as flukes of providence, for example, appearing Saint Khidr (or Khoja Khizr) in a dream, who is considered as absolute authority and patron of the Sufis, and who is the bearer of the moral principle; he supports and guides people on the path of virtue. On the opposite side there is the genies community, which is “hostile” towards the Sufi community. Moreover, many Sufi authorities interpreted their presence in dreams or in reality as “good” or “bad” omens. Constant presence of such theme in Muslim hagiographic writings reflects the complex and specific worldview of Sufism. Some historical and Muslim hagiographic works (manakibs) of the late Medieval Transoxiana became the source base of our work. They contain numerous hagiographic episodes that tell us of such unusual phenomena in the life of Sufis. The subject of this article is the study of the dreaming spiritual practice of the Sufis. The purpose of the research is to study the phenomenon of dreams and its significance in Sufism, to consider the place and meaning of such an important hagiographic character as Khoja Khizra and such creatures as jinn in the Sufi’s worldview. The novelty of this work lies in the introduction of new information contained in the Lives of Muslim Saints of Transoxiana in the 16th century.

‘Ev’ry Gamester winneth by the sport’: George Wither’s Emblem Lottery (1635)

George Wither, a notoriously controversial poet of the 17th century, wrote in the introductory text to his Collection of Emblemes in 1635 that he was adding a “harmless […] recreation”, referring to the lottery game he included in his book, which contains two hundred emblems. Wither goes to great length to claim that his lottery is merely an innocent pastime that was added to the work to make it less “over-solid and serious”, but a careful examination of the game in relation to the rest of the volume reveals a more complex rhetorical and aesthetic purpose. The lottery game is allegorically represented in the middle of the frontispiece on the first page of the book, an intricate engraving by William Marshall representing the pilgrimage of life on the paths of virtue and vice, where the pilgrims draw their metaphorical lots from an ewer under the supervision of Fortune personified. As the frontispiece can be read as an emblematic representation of the volume, this mise-en-abyme contradicts the poet’s assertions about the lottery’s incidental nature, and therefore raises questions on its true place in the work. Through his game, Wither establishes a close, personal, often tongue-in-cheek and multi-faceted relationship with his readers, addressing them directly and creating the impression that the broad and general advice provided in the emblems is in fact tailored to their very personal needs. It is an original vector for social criticism and satire, and mirrors the author’s own religious and philosophical ambiguities with respect to notions such as free will, personal responsibility, and fortune. It grants the emblems a theatrical, dynamic, and social dimension that testifies to Wither’s profound understanding of the rhetorical possibilities granted to him both by the emblematic genre and by the nature of a game.

АЛЛЕГОРИЧЕСКИЕ ПУТЕШЕСТВИЯ КИЕВСКОГО КНЯЗЯ В ПОЭМЕ М. М. ХЕРАСКОВА «ВЛАДИМИР»

The article examines several episodes of the poem “Vladimir” by M. M. Kheraskov, highlights and analyzes two allegorical journeys of the main character. By means of allegories, the work implements the author's didactic tasks – to instruct readers on the path of virtue on the example of the character's adventures. Vladimir's wanderings take place in a fantastic space and are aimed at spiritual rebirth and salvation of the soul. The vices and temptations of the Kievan Prince appear personified before him and try to turn the hero away from receiving baptism, discredit or distort the Christian faith. The first allegorical journey corresponds to the initial stage of the inner transformation of the character, the second coincides with the final one. Going to the abode of the righteous, Vladimir finds himself in darkness and fog, symbolizing his spiritual blindness, doubts and delusions, faces monstersvices under beautiful disguises, but with the help of a magic object – the flame of faith, presented by the wise mentor Idolem – fights with them and wins. On the way to the temple in the last song of the poem, Vladimir is again stopped and confused by pagans and embodied temptations, but the hero independently distinguishes between good and evil, truth and lies. As a result, the Kievan Prince makes the right choice, overthrows opponents and reaches the goal – the true temple where he receives baptism. Vladimir's twice-completed journey reflects the metamorphosis taking place with the hero. At the same time, allegorical journeys create the fantastic background necessary for the epic, replacing the mythological component. The magical adventures of Vladimir make the plot of the poem more fascinating, illustrate the moral quest of the Kievan Prince, thus allowing you to unobtrusively educate readers without boring teachings.

DASAR-DASAR PENDIDIKAN ANAK DALAM SURAH LUQMAN

The results of this study displayed that there are some principles of education that cover the main points of religious guidance such as Aqidah, worship, morality and the command to be patient. Those principles are absolute requirement for success after life. Thus, Luqman Al-Hakim educated his children, and also gave a guidance to anyone who wants to trace the path of virtue, which applies to all nations and people in the world. In a nutshell, this purpose has the same way with the Qur'an's mission which is intended to be a blessing for all nature through educational activities. In closing, the Qur'an wishes for the realization of human beings who are built up their full potential, physical, mental and intellectual, so that, the whole human beings are happy in the world and also the hereafter.

Love as Seeing in Truth: Sartre and Stein on Self-Constitution

Realizing who I am and who I am called to be depends in part on my relation to others. Others empathizing with me significantly impacts my self-understanding and character formation. The possibility of a positive encounter is vital because of its role in self-constitution. Both Jean-Paul Sartre and Edith Stein recognized the great import of the gaze of another in the realization of one's own personhood and personal development. However, due to different appraisals of the meaning of human life, Stein evaluates the ultimate import of intersubjective experience as positive whereas Sartre deems it negative. Sartre characterizes interpersonal relations as necessarily combative and conflictual: in order to realize one's full stature and freedom, one must objectify the other so as to escape the other's dominating look. For Sartre the only look one can receive is a look of hatred which attacks and steals one's dignity. On the other hand, Stein proposes that the look of the other has the power to reveal the true and full potential of the self, even counteracting false self-appraisal. A look or attitude of love from another can reveal one's capacity for virtue and initiate one along this path of virtue. In order to overcome the wounds of cultural commodification of the person, we must approach one another in love. Though Sartre offers a particularly incisive diagnosis of “fallen” intersubjectivity and interpersonal relations of objectification, Stein's thought can work to correct and complete his insights on the look of the other, offering a basis for understanding “redeemed” interpersonal relationships in a civilization of love.

A Probe into the Path of the Moral Issues From the Perspective of Marxist Philosophy’s Practical Existence Theory

<em>In the present era of the rapid development of market-oriented economy, the strangeness between people, the division of production and the diversity of occupations, and the different thinking ways of individual lead everyone to stand in their own position. As a result, the western tragedy appears and the social moral problems are becoming more and more serious. Marx turns his philosophical attention to the way of human existence—practical activities and their historical development. This paper analyzes the current moral problems from the perspective of Marxist practical existentialism. The rational path of virtue is to regard people as a rational being and its acquirement mainly depends on the intellect to overcome the perceptual preference. The spiritual path of virtue regards human as a spiritual being and its acquisition is through dialectical deduction of spirit itself. The practical path of virtue is to emphasize human’s perceptual activity and understand and manage things through practical activities.</em>

Paths of Virtue: Legal Rhetorics in Judaism and Islam

The historical relationship between Judaism and Islam has been the subject of scholarly inquiry for decades. Until recently, however, this fourteen-century-old relationship has gone unremarked on by theorists and historians of rhetoric. In this article, I explore the interconnectivities between legal rhetoric in Judaism and Islam. Looking at the Nicomachaean Ethics and Chaim Perelman’s analysis of rhetoric, justice, and law, I first investigate how, like Aristotle, Jewish and Muslim jurists link virtuousness to obedience to the law. Then, I show how sharia and halakha, Islamic and Jewish law, use rhetoric and systematic argumentation to articulate the place of law in the lives of Muslims and Jews. Finally, using the medieval Mamluk Sultanate and the Geniza community as the basis of a comparatist rhetorical analysis, I demonstrate the lived interconnectedness of Judeo-Muslim legal rhetorics pertaining to marriage, divorce, and the juristic agency of medieval Mediterranean women.

Nature Transformed: English Landscape Gardens and Theatrum Mundi

Nature Transformed: English Landscape Gardens and <i>Theatrum Mundi</i>

Types of Moral Consciousness

The path of virtue is based on the readiness to self discipline and moral course of action, to self-preservation and self-development in the process of mastering of nature and social forces. The moral pattern of communitarianist is happiness, which mined by the labor. He is intellectual, optimist, follower of the free will. Transition type – is two-faced Janus. He turns his face to his heads, or to the collective. Hedonist is our comfort I, and he is conformist. The sensual pleasure is the highest good for him. For pragmatist the highest good is technology, logic, technical interpretation of though, than the call of duty. In the process of mastering of social reality by the individuals, and production of identification strategies, types of moral consciousness are playing the role of latent structures in habitus. DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n5s4p84

Virtue and Vice: Developing Character Through Decisionmaking

Over time, our actions shape our habits and even our characters. I introduce this psychological trait into a model of economic decisionmaking: how agents allocate resources across time determines how tempting they find present consumption over future consumption. Minor differences between agents can trap them in divergent paths of virtue or vice as a consequence of two conflicting incentives: the self-improvement effect, the desire to have ‘better' preferences, and the burn-out effect, the temptation to overconsume immediately due to the increased indifference to future costs induced by myopic decisions. Agents may thus have multiple locally optimal equilibria, and preference endogeneity can explain why some agents attempt to resist temptation, while others indulge in it and eventually burn out their available resources. These findings have important implications for explaining and designing policy around consumer behaviour, particularly long-run behaviours such as obesity, educational achievement, and saving.

Frogs for Middle School

Frogs for Middle School HELAINE L. SMITH When Aristophanes produced Frogs in 405 bc, the age of the great dramatists was over. Aeschylus had died in 456 or 455 bc, Euripides in 406, and Sophocles in 405. In this great comedy, Aristophanes presents the god of theatre, Dionysus, longing for a master playwright to guide Athens in the path of virtue once again. The god sets out, with his slave Xanthias and with the assistance of Heracles, to bring Euripides back from the dead. Instead, Dionysus returns to Athens with Aeschylus, who is more stately and traditional than Euripides, perhaps less fun, but able to write plays that teach the citizens what they and Athens once valued and once were, and what they might again become. It is partly for this reason that updating Frogs—as happened on Broadway a few years ago by transforming Euripides into Bernard Shaw and Aeschylus into Shakespeare—is a mistake. For one thing, the contest between Shaw and Shakespeare, unlike the imagined rivalry of Aeschylus and Euripides, is not a close contest at all. For another, a Broadway script doctor needs to have not only the most thoroughgoing knowledge of both playwrights, but wit equal to Aristophanes’ own genius. Most significantly, the purpose of the katabasis, the descent to the Underworld, is lost with a Shaw-Shakespeare paradigm in which neither playwright is fighting for the soul of England. Frogs is not simply about who is the better playwright; it is about the capacity of a great playwright to guide and regenerate the city at a time when all seems lost—and in 405 bc Athens was lost, her resources depleted from thirty years of war and civil instability , with a Spartan victory imminent. No such weight or moral urgency hangs upon the choice between two British arion 22.2 fall 2014 playwrights, three centuries apart, or, indeed, upon any substitution of modern artists. Directors update shows because they fear that Aristophanes is obscure. There are, of course, highly technical arguments about Greek metrics and Greek music in Frogs that we cannot easily follow. But there is much else in the literary contest scene that is accessible and hilarious—the “bottle of oil” sequence , the weighing scene, and so on—scenes wonderful to act and well within the range of any audience, including students in middle school. In productions of Shakespeare, as in productions by the great Greek dramatists, the closer one keeps to the original text, the more successful the production is likely to be, and certainly more satisfying to a young audience just discovering Aristophanes. Wasps, Birds, Clouds, and Women at the Thesmophoria take their titles from their Choruses. Lysistrata, Peace, and Wealth take theirs either from the protagonist or from an allegorical character who is a god of sorts and is the focus of the action. Not Frogs. Its true chorus is the Chorus of Initiates . The Frog Chorus is utterly unmusical. It neither dances nor sings. It croaks. And in its 58 lines onstage—or, according to some critics, offstage— it does not occupy even four percent of total playing time. It is, then, a false lead, an expectation that goes nowhere. And that, Professor Nancy H. Demand argues in an article called “The Identity of the Frogs,”1 is precisely Aristophanes’ point. One of the three competitors in the Lenaia of 405 bc, in which Frogs won first prize, was the comic playwright Phrynicus, with a comedy called Muses. In Aristophanes’ prologue, Dionysus and Xanthias joke about prologue jokes that dull-witted comic playwrights use time and again, naming Phrynicus as one such hack. Demand points out that there was a tragedian who competed against Aeschylus about fifty years earlier, around 460 bc, also named PhryniFROGS for middle school 98 1. Nancy H. Demand, “The Identity of the Frogs,” Classical Philology, Vol. 65, no. 2, April 1970, pp. 83–87. cus, and that one of the politicians in Athens in the decade in which Frogs was produced, an encourager of factionalism and one who, for personal gain, was an underminer of policies , was yet another Phrynicus. Each of these Phrynicuses is inferior either in art or in governance. Phryne...

‘¡Ay, mísero de mí! ¡Ay, infelice!’ Apuntes sobre La vida es sueño

In La vida es sueño the classic contrast between man's dignity and his wretchedness is interwoven with other themes as for example the notions of guilt or freedom, in a clear fusion of verba (words) and res (things). The cri de cœur of Segismundo in his despondency refers the reader back to a rhetorical and moral philosophical tradition, in particular to Aftonius, Seneca, Cicero and the Psalms which, as well as giving him his essential traits, sets out the path of virtue towards overcoming misfortune and being forgiven.

Hercules at the Crossroads: Confirmation as a Rite of Passage in the Nineteenth-Century Netherlands Reformed Church

What did it mean for eighteen- to twenty-year-old men and women in the nineteenth-century Netherlands to be confirmed—that is, to sit in the front row of the church, dressed in Sunday dress, and be accepted into full church membership? Previous scholarship on confirmation in the Netherlands Reformed Church has mostly focused on theological controversies surrounding the wording of the so-called confirmation questions (three questions about Christian doctrine and morals that confirmants had to answer during the service), treating these controversies as markers of growing struggles between ‘wings’ or ‘parties’ in nineteenth-century Dutch Protestantism. Important as these theological controversies were, this article nonetheless approaches confirmation from a different, less frequently explored angle, arguing that confirmation was also, and perhaps especially, a social rite of passage, which symbolically marked transition into a new stage of life, with adult responsibilities in church and society. Drawing on a rich array of published as well as unpublished sources (sermons, booklets, letters, and diaries), the article examines what kind of meanings were associated with this rite of passage, by both clergy and confirmants, and to what extent these meanings changed over the course of the century. It shows that Protestants throughout the nineteenth century tried to hold together, in one way or another, what one may call the ‘inward’ and the ‘outward’ aspects of the ritual (expressions of personal conviction and conformation to societal standards of morality). Although they insisted that professions of faith must be made “from the bottom of the heart,” they simultaneously equated confirmation with a promise to a virtuous life. Also, while accepting sighs and tears as testifying to the sincerity of a confirmant’s profession, many authors explicitly warned against strong emotions that could carry newly confirmed church members away from the narrow path of virtue.

DYNASTIC POLITICS, DEFEAT, DECADENCE AND DINING: CLEOPATRA SELENE ON THE SO-CALLED ‘AFRICA’ DISH FROM THE VILLA DELLA PISANELLA AT BOSCOREALE

This article examines the so-called ‘Africa’ dish, part of a treasure trove of silver table-ware discovered in a cistern at the Villa della Pisanella, avilla rusticadestroyed in the eruption of Vesuvius inad79. It proposes a new interpretation of the dish's iconography and argues that the woman in the centre of the emblema is Cleopatra Selene, while the attributes surrounding her reference her parents Cleopatra VII and Marcus Antonius, her brothers Alexander Helios and Ptolemy Philadelphus, her husband Juba II of Mauretania, and their mythological ancestor the demi-god Heracles. Thus the emblema serves as a meditation on the fates of Antony and Cleopatra VII, descendants of Heracles who chose the path of vice, a choice that resulted in their defeat by Octavian at the Battle of Actium. Octavian's virtue, victory and clemency, combined with his guardianship of their children, ensured the subsequent promotion of their daughter Cleopatra Selene as a key figure in his dynastic and political strategy, through her marriage to Juba II and the couple's appointment as client rulers of Mauretania. Also supposedly descended from Heracles, Juba II and Cleopatra Selene chose to follow in their illustrious ancestor's footsteps along the path of virtue. In common with other pieces from the treasure trove, the ‘Africa’ dish alludes to recent historical events and personages, utilizes death as a means of promoting the enjoyment of life, and incorporates popular elements of Greek mythology, all the while offering banqueters an erudite puzzle to solve during the course of their banquet.

Macbeth and Hercules

This paper draws upon an iconographical topos and a political debate for its historical appreciation of Macbeth. It shows that Shakespeare sets up two opposing heroic ideals in this tragedy; the chivalric warrior hero and the humanist intellectual paragon of reason and virtue. Both are personified by two contrasting Renaissance adaptations of the mythical Hercules: the model of physical strength and victor of all battles, and the Hercules whose heroism resides in his superior intellectual strength and will power. At the crossroads of life he chooses the path of virtue and rejects vice and pleasure. At the beginning of the tragedy Macbeth is identified with Hercules, the invincible fighter. He fails, however, the test of Hercules in bivio, when he meets the weird sisters. His tragedy implies a radical critique of the heroic ideal of manliness and the conviction that fortitude and valour are the best way to assure justice and peace. Macbeth takes sides in the controversy between King James and a faction at Prince Henry's Court, which contested the King's policy of conciliation and peace and glorified the chivalrous ideal of martial strength.

Ignatius and Screwtape on Discernment: A Psychoanalytic Reading

This article brings together the Rules for Discernment of Spirits from the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola and the avuncular, if diabolical, advice given by C.S Lewis’ shrewd and experienced devil, Screwtape, to his fledgling nephew, Wormwood, who is still learning his satanic craft. The juxtaposition of Ignatius’ cautions regarding the wiles of the evil spirit with the counterpoise of the recommendations of the crafty old Screwtape for the temptation, beguilement and conquest of souls and the triumph of his evil satanic empire, may serve to deepen if not enrich our appreciation of the factors that draw good souls away from the paths of virtue. To mediate the discussion I have chosen to recast some of these reposts in terms of more contemporary psychoanalytic concepts in an effort to extend the borders of reflection between psychoanalysis and religious perspectives.

From the “courses of guilt and pollution” to the “paths of virtue” in the American city, 1750–1850

From the “courses of guilt and pollution” to the “paths of virtue” in the American city, 1750–1850