Secular Thinking Research Articles

Thinkers of Russia of the XV-XVI Centuries About Justice

At the end of the XV–XVI centuries, Russian religious and secular thinkers discussed a number of issues related to the formation of a sovereign state, the formation of a permanent army subordinate to the head of state, the organization of power, administration and judicial proceedings in the country. The topic of righteous judgment, discussed back in the XI–XIII centuries, was not only in demand, but also became the focus of attention of prominent thinkers and publicists of that time. The authors analyze the works of Russian philosophers who defined the foundations of the doctrine of justice in Russia of the late Middle Ages and have not lost their significance in the modern period. The scientific article completes the cycle “Medieval Russian thinkers about justice”, which includes articles besides it: “The first words about justice in Russia (The Election of 1076 and ‘Bee’)” and “Russian thinkers of the XI–XIII centuries about justice”. Knowledge of the past is important for the future and allows not to repeat its mistakes, and therefore the problem chosen for research remains relevant and needs further study.

"That Jewish Belief in the Living God of Israel": Jewish Tradition in the Thought of Ze'ev Jabotinsky

ABSTRACT: Scholars who have dealt with Jabotinsky's attitude toward Jewish tradition have shared the premise that he was a secular thinker who went through a significant ideological shift in the 1930s, or at least displayed a more favorable approach to religion thereafter for political reasons. However, close examination of his early writings shows that almost all the views he expressed in the 1930s are to be found decades before. Hence, Jabotinsky should be viewed as a thinker who for most of his life held a multifaceted, yet fairly consistent approach to tradition: criticizing Jewish halakha and calling for its reform, while considering religion a great moral force for human progress, describing Jewish tradition as integral to national culture, past and future, and to a certain extent, even romanticizing religious experience. This inclination establishes Jabotinsky as a moderate-secularist easily able to ally himself politically with Religious-Zionists while remaining a non-observant Jew.

"That Jewish Belief in the Living God of Israel": Jewish Tradition in the Thought of Ze'ev Jabotinsky

ABSTRACT: Scholars who have dealt with Jabotinsky's attitude toward Jewish tradition have shared the premise that he was a secular thinker who went through a significant ideological shift in the 1930s, or at least displayed a more favorable approach to religion thereafter for political reasons. However, close examination of his early writings shows that almost all the views he expressed in the 1930s are to be found decades before. Hence, Jabotinsky should be viewed as a thinker who for most of his life held a multifaceted, yet fairly consistent approach to tradition: criticizing Jewish halakha and calling for its reform, while considering religion a great moral force for human progress, describing Jewish tradition as integral to national culture, past and future, and to a certain extent, even romanticizing religious experience. This inclination establishes Jabotinsky as a moderate-secularist easily able to ally himself politically with Religious-Zionists while remaining a non-observant Jew.

How should intellectual capital development? An islamic religious perspective

Purpose: The objective of this study was to reconstruct Intellectual Capital to fill gap between Humans, Corporations and God. Theoretical framework: Intellectual Capital in its form and development as part of intangible assets in the business world, both from commercial and non-commercial measurements, is part of accounting, considered a modern business perspective and a product of entity theory. This definition of Intellectual Capital shows the masculine side, the Value of Entity theory. The antithesis of this is Sharia Entity Theory which emphasizes responsibility toward the sole creator of the company's nature, specifically God. Spirituality or religion fills the gap behind critical accounting studies based on secular thinking. Design/methodology/approach: This research uses the Islamic spirituality perspective paradigm, which is at heart and related to the organizational, social, and human environment in reconstructing Intellectual Capital. Findings: The results of this study obtained that the construction of human Capital is positioning employees to have honesty, trustworthiness, ridho, demanding knowledge, shodaqoh, zakat, and ukhuwah Islamiyah. Second, structural Capital is a blessed business, not arbitrary to employees, welfare, business commitment to trustworthiness, sadaqah for business, the principle of ridho in the organization, and giving employee rights. Third, customer capital is a promise, doing good/service, honesty to customers, responsibility, ukhuwah Islamiyah, sadaqah for CSR, trustworthiness, and setting prices like for like. Research, Practical & Social implications: First, management in developing the company can change the company's philosophy through intellectual capital which is based on God's will. Second, it is important to treat human resources, organizational structure and relational capital by aligning the soul, nature and God as a manifestation of added value. Originality/value: An important finding in this research is that spirituality is the most important thing in positive change for the world in which we live. Intellectual Capital in creating value should be the result of human work that is blessed by God.

Holy Communion in Greek Orthodoxy in the Time of Coronavirus: Ideological Perspectives in Conflict

This article examines the controversy over the mode of distribution of Holy Communion that surfaced during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on debates that took place in the Greek Orthodox community. After describing and evaluating the role of secular and religious experts in the context of the pandemic, the paper analyzes three main perspectives on the issue of the Eucharist: (1) the secularist-rationalist viewpoint; (2) the religious–traditionalist outlook; and (3) the “Third Way” perspective. The paper argues that the Church’s Holy Communion controversy is indicative of a deeper struggle between religious and secular thinkers and among various voices in the Greek Orthodox Church concerning the latter’s place in, and influence over, the modern secular socio-political order.

Veiling and unveiling: Identity formation in young Muslim women living in Germany

This qualitative study addresses the question of how a background of migration, nationalization, and globalization influences young Muslim women residing in Germany who form their identity and position themselves successfully in modern society. It includes 25 interviews with young Muslim women in the age group 18–25 years whose parents or grandparents migrated to Germany from Turkey. In terms of how their identity has evolved, the participants recount a mostly positive integration into German society, especially on a professional level, contrary to the negativity and devaluation often experienced within their Turkish family. This is a symptom of how Turkish and German society place different expectations on women, with an effect on the development of their identity as well as causing conflicting emotions, especially, for example, when it comes to religious matters such as deciding whether to wear a headscarf. The different personal and subjective motivations behind this are the result of Turkish-Islamic ideas clashing with Western secular thinking. These findings are psychoanalytically explained by suras on veiling in the Quran and the Lacanian dialectic of the symbolic and imaginary phallus.

MUHAMMAD NATSIR’S THOUGHT ON CORRELATION OF RELIGION AND STATE

The wish of Muhammad Natsir is just how to realize Indonesia as independent, peaceful, prosperous, and just state. So, its logic if he given a nickname as leader of freedom who integrates with the other, Soekarno, in exterminating colonizer – Dutch colonization. Although they are in difference of opinion, but still in building communication each other openly.Muhammad Natsir rejects secularism against state as implemented by movement of Kamal Attaturk in Turkish. He said that Islam is not only merely a religion but also a philosophy of life which covers political aspects, economy, social and culture. Islam doesn’t separate between religion and state, but its primary one. ( D.P. Sati Alimin, 1957: h. IX ) Lesson of the story can become evidence of reflection and understood that in political field the different opinon doesn’t bring enmity, but its mercy and as development of democracy dynamics. Muhammad Natsir consistently refuses all thoughts that weaken existence of Islam in state such as he opposes Soekarno’s nationalism ideas. This reality is indicated that Muhammad Natsir is a prominent leader of Islam nationalist since the age of Dutch colonization. He is also one of speakers and mediators of his group in verious cases that relate Islam and mankind, namely the correlation between religion and state. Beside that, Natsir’s ability integrates His view with his nationalism paradigm, and how then it becomes important one to be studied and thought of its struggle values for next Moslem generation. Actually, the above matter still becomes roof nowdays. It can be proven and indicated by appearing Moslem thinkers and secular thinkers whom they raise voice to fight for their each idea. Even though, deliberation about the correlation of religion and state still can’t be solved untill now. For that reason, this writing is expected as necessary one to be committed.

Ascendant and Descendant Types of Thinking and the Impact on Tolerance as an Educational Value

This article will explore the pattern of conflicts between secular thinking and religious beliefs from the perspective of critical thinking and analyse the potential that this conflict holds for increasing tolerance inside mixed society such as in Romania. It is often said that the ability of thinking critically deeply erodes the propensity towards religious faith and there are numerous study results that back up this assertion. This article tries to explain that religious faith becomes fully understandable only in some larger pattern that shapes morality, cognitive strategies and social practices and this is true for secular thinking as well. We can name this patterns ascendant, respectively descendant. Ascendant thinking derives and explains higher level practices beginning from lower level entities through progress and emergence and for this kind of thinking, morality and cognition are an open fields that can be indefinitely improved. This kind of thinking embraces novelty and creativity and aims at human beings becoming capable of managing this novelty. The descending model derives from and explains the lower levels through complex and immutable entities and will tend to see novelty as change capable of breaking their models and therefore act towards neutralizing novelty through interpretation. Information and practices that cannot be neutralized will be counted as abnormous. The article comes forward with a comparative analysis between these two opposing patterns, showing that this interpretative frame is valid in retrodiction and that it can fundament concrete predictions. It will also show that critical thinking is permitted and can fundament a space for compromise and dialogue between religious and secular people.

Ontology and Closeness in Human–Nature Relationships: Beyond Dualisms, Materialism and Posthumanism, by Neil H. Kessler

<i>Ontology and Closeness in Human–Nature Relationships: Beyond Dualisms, Materialism and Posthumanism</i>, by Neil H. Kessler

Имя и Церковь: ветхозаветное и раннехристианское почитание имени Божьего и философская ономатология А. Ф. Лосева

The article examines the question of the theological origins of the philosophy named after A. F. Losev. The analysis shows that the notions of name as energy and name as cosmos are related to Losev's turning to the Old Testament and early Christian terminological traditions of using the concept of "Name" to convey the idea of the divine presence. As a result of accepting the Greek philosophical terminology on the part of the Christian Church, the idea of the divine presence in the created world began to be conveyed through the term of divine energy. A.F. Losev believes that the identification of the name and the signified thing is a sign of pre-philosophical mythological thinking in general. It gives a clue to the mentioned Old Testament tradition of the name divinity. Philosophical secular thinking fundamentally departs from such a religious worldview element. For this reason, philosophical and archaic worldviews can be seen in the two mentioned customs, which have been reflected in the theological terminology. The theological perception of the philosophical categorical system has not resulted in the complete displacement of "name" from the Christian theological discourse. The ancient Bible tradition of conveying the idea of the divine presence in the categories of "name" and "glory" is evident in a number of the holy fathers' works (St. Justin the Philosopher, St. John Chrysostom, St. Isaac of Nineveh). "Name" as a term close to the that of "energy" is more peculiar to Liturgical texts as A.F. Losev sees it. Losev's idea of God's name as the ontological energetic foundation of the cosmos, usually seen as a borrowing from Neoplatonism, goes back, among other things, to the doctrine of the church as the Body of Christ.

Theology of the “Absent King” and the Possibility of Rabindranath Tagore’s Political Thought

ABSTRACT Contrary to his usual depiction as a modern secular thinker, heteronomous imaginaries of sacrality and kingship are pervasive in Rabindranath Tagore’s plays. A return to these referents, as I show in this paper, releases Tagore’s thought-world from the stranglehold of derivative categories and allows for his reconstruction as a political thinker. Eschewing the nationalist ideal of valiant and noble rulers shored up from histories and myths as legitimate alternatives to the colonial regime, Tagore aesthetically employed the imaginary of an “absent king” sourced from the Upanishads. Avoiding the tropes of spectrality of a dead king or an exceptional interregnal anarchic moment, emptiness was inscribed in the very heart of the monarchical model, thereby transfiguring it into a radical instituting imaginary of the social. This curiously brought together the apparently antithetical categories of sovereignty and freedom through an insistence on creative will and action.

Ernst Bloch and the subject of orientalism

ABSTRACT This essay offers a reading of German philosopher Ernst Bloch's 1952 essay Avicenna and the Aristotelian Left in relation to the question of orientalism. Bloch's study of first-century Islamic philosopher, scientist and doctor Ibn Sina (Avicenna) relies on orientalist sources and authors also discussed in Edward Said's Orientalism. Yet, it challenges many stereotypes and ‘structures of attitude and reference’ that are recurrent in European representations of the Middle East. Bloch presents Avicenna as a secular thinker and situates him in a complex economic and social conjuncture, refusing to see his work as manifestation of a non-Western pre-modern ‘essence’. This perspective avoids both primitivism and essentialism; rather, it aims to recuperate the vast influence of Islamic thought on European philosophy, especially the European Enlightenment. Avicenna's heterodox naturalism and rebellious interpretation of Aristotle is hence reframed as the source of a materialist line of descent to which Bloch himself belongs. Bloch hence sketches a concept of philosophical heritage grounded into the legacy of Avicenna's teaching, thereby anticipating Edward Said's critique of the metaphysics of exteriority proper to Orientalist discourse and its colonial underpinning.

Accommodating Inspiration: Discernment and Imitation within the Ignatian Pedagogical Tradition

ABSTRACT This article investigates the nuanced way that the Jesuits connect imitation with inspiration in the rhetorical arts. Highlighting the Ignatian pedagogical tradition of individual discernment, eloquentia perfecta, and “contemplatives in action,” this article shows how Ignatian imitation patiently permits time and space for rhetors to be actively inspired by their models. As such, Ignatian imitation practices may offer a more effective imitation approach than those offered by ancient rhetoricians that preceded (and influenced) the Jesuits. Informed by a humanistic understanding of tradition, this article celebrates how the Jesuit approach to imitation can accommodate both religious and secular thinking and inclusively empower individual rhetors still to this day.

Accommodating Inspiration: Discernment and Imitation within the Ignatian Pedagogical Tradition

ABSTRACT This article investigates the nuanced way that the Jesuits connect imitation with inspiration in the rhetorical arts. Highlighting the Ignatian pedagogical tradition of individual discernment, eloquentia perfecta, and “contemplatives in action,” this article shows how Ignatian imitation patiently permits time and space for rhetors to be actively inspired by their models. As such, Ignatian imitation practices may offer a more effective imitation approach than those offered by ancient rhetoricians that preceded (and influenced) the Jesuits. Informed by a humanistic understanding of tradition, this article celebrates how the Jesuit approach to imitation can accommodate both religious and secular thinking and inclusively empower individual rhetors still to this day.

Orthodox Christianity and War

The subject of this article is the Orthodox Christianity’s approach to war. Christians of other denomination have developed an elaborate theory of war, so-called “Just War Theory” (JWT), which has also been accepted by non-Christians and even secular thinkers regarding the nature and justification of war. A vast literature has been produced in a dire attempt to render perfect the world by insisting on the claim that war is the act of punishment for breaking the law. The result is an epistemological ease from which everything seems evident in advance including who is right and who at fault, who is and who is not favored by God. By removing from war an essential feature – that it is a form of conflict – JWT takes away the concept of reciprocity and introduces an in advance declared inequality which enables removal of uncertainty about the war’s outcome. In Orthodox Christianity, the situation is different. With still live debate whether to persevere or abandon original Christian pacifism, for Orthodox Christianity, war is always a combination of cataclysm and temptation and far less Manichean than anything present in JWT. The aim of war is peace; but, however necessary, justice is an insufficient condition for justification. The difference between “justness” and “justification” is preserved through the uncertainty whom God, at war’s end, loves more, because both victors and vanquished remain and continue to be in His grace. Losing a war, as such, does not turn the vanquished into criminals, nor does victory give the vanquisher the right of revenge for defending oneself. The latter approach to war has significant potentialities: preserving the distinction of ius ad bellum and ius in bello, preserving reciprocity, mutual respect and trust, impossibility of incrimination of war per se, the possibility of honorable defeat, etc.

Dutch Reformed support for Assisted Dying in the Netherlands 1969–2019

In the opinion of many, medical assistance in dying is advocated primarily by secular thinkers whereas Christians seem to be more skeptical. However, we conclude that Dutch euthanasia practice, the most liberal in the world, would not have been possible without the support of the Protestant Church in the Netherlands. We examine four sources that illustrate the nature and extent of that support: national surveys from 1970–2018, official church reports from 1972–2003, contributions to the public debate in the formative 1970s and 1980s made by protestant theologians and physicians, and a recent survey amongst Reformed pastors regarding their experiences with a parishioner’s euthanasia request. In the form of seven characteristics of Dutch Calvinism we explore the reasons for this early advocacy and try to understand why this support seems to be fading since the turn of the century.

Obilježja multikulturalizma i sekularizma u indijskom društvu

Obilježja multikulturalizma i sekularizma u indijskom društvu

ОБРАЗ СТРАШНОГО СУДУ У ВІТЧИЗНЯНИХ ЛІТЕРАТУРНИХПАМ'ЯТКАХ XII–XVIII ст. ЯК КЛЮЧ ДО ПОЯСНЕННЯ ПАНІВНИХ СВІТОГЛЯДНИХ УСТАНОВОК НАСЕЛЕННЯ УКРАЇНИ ДОБИ СЕРЕДНЬОВІЧЧЯ ТА РАННЬОМОДЕРНОГО ЧАСУ

The article deals with the systematization and analysis of authentic ancient Ukrainian texts dedicated to the topic of the Last Judgment with the author's purpose to reconstruct the worldview of Ukrainian population of the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Times. The source base of the study included eschatological literature as the most popular and numerous during that ages as well as Holy Bible, hagiographic works, prophecies and the graffiti of St. Sophia Cathedral of Kyiv. The dominant idea in the works found was the idea of the Last Judgment. Through the prism of this idea the most urgent moral problems, which were of acute concern to society, are recovered: the problem of the fall of spirituality, social inequality, the decline of morality etc. The author also verified the foreign influences on Ukrainian eschatological literature as well the influence of preachers and polemicists of that time on public opinion about the signs of the end of the world. Revealing works in the medieval and early-modern Ukrainian literature devoted to the most fateful subjects, analyzing their content for reflection of eschatological ideas, systematizing the main ideas related to responsibility for terrestrial life, comparing these visions with those translated in literature, revealed the presence of the eschatological ideas on the common background of the general cultural and historical context of the studied ages. A study of Ukrainian eschatological literature led the author to the conclusion that the whole range of written eschatological sources gives us a linear development of the idea of the Last Judgment, from the dissemination of eschatological ideas of the 12th century to their concretization, development, popularization with each new period. Summing up the analysis of the works of eschatological literature, distributed on Ukrainian lands in the 17th – 18th centuries, the opposition of secular and religious thinking becomes noticeable, which is quite clearly reflected in the literature.

Mappila literature as a paradigm for countercultures: Reading Moinkutty Vaidyar in context

Abstract Recent studies on Mappila literature revisit Mappila culture in an attempt to understand the 'Mappila Muslim' beyond earlier representations by colonial and nationalist scholarship. Mappila literature is studied as a paradigm for understanding traditions of dissent and resistance by indigenous communities in colonized contexts. This article positions Mappila poet Moinkutty Vaidyar in a lineage of Mappila writings of resistance in Arabic, Arabimalayalam and Malayalam, and studies Vaidyar's works as a continuum of Mappila counterculture while also placing him as a link between two distinct eras in Kerala's literary history through synchronic and diachronic reading of Malayalam literary history. It critically explores the reasons behind marginalization of Mappila literature by mainstream academic studies until the early years of twenty-first century. While considering Moinkutty Vaidyar as a continuum of the Mappila counterculture, this research also presents a case for Vaidyar as an anti-orthodox social reformer, a secular thinker, a successor of the pāttu and bhakti traditions, a harbinger of romanticism and modernism in Kerala's literature and finally as the creative genius who created a new linguistic and literary landscape for Mappila society.

O aborto na perspectiva de Norberto Bobbio (1909-2004)

O tema desta pesquisa é o aborto procurado na perspectiva filosófico-ética de Norberto Bobbio. O problema que pretendemos responder com esta pesquisa é entender “o porquê” da posição contrária à legalização do aborto procurado, sendo Bobbio um pensador laico e avesso a qualquer profissão de fé religiosa e considerado ainda hoje na Itália intelectual como sendo o “papa laico” do século XX. Objetiva-se, portanto, penetrar em profundidade a perspectiva bobbiana sobre o problema do aborto procurado, que se coloca dentro de uma tríplice relação de direitos inconciliáveis: o direito da sociedade em não ter uma superpopulação, o direito da mulher de não ter os filhos que não deseja ter e, por terceiro, mas não menos fundamental, o direito do nascituro a viver. Para atender a tal objetivo precisa-se apresentar o pensamento de Bobbio sobre o valor da vida enquanto “fonte de todos os demais valores”, enquanto conditio sine qua non para a realização de todos os demais valores; pesquisar as razões que moveram Bobbio a posicionar-se contrário às tendências laicas do final do século XX que defendiam o direito de abortar como “direito da mulher sobre o seu corpo”. Este tema se justifica em nível acadêmico-científico, pois, esta temática apesar de extremamente atual e problemática para a vida em sociedade hoje, não é abordada a partir de uma perspectiva filosófica e ético-política, como o faz Norberto Bobbio, no ano de 1978. Destaca-se ainda a sua relevância social, pois são milhares de abortos clandestinos realizados no Brasil anualmente, em paralelo com milhares de mortes de mulheres vítimas da indústria do aborto. Esta pesquisa é eminentemente bibliográfica, pois analisa-se os principais escritos de Bobbio sobre os direitos à vida e a viver, bem como algumas outras obras de apoio e comentários. Os resultados esperados é, primeiramente, uma compreensão profunda e clara da perspectiva bobbiana sobre as relações que envolvem o problema do aborto procurado, bem como lançar luzes sobre a complexa problemática que afetam uma dentre cinco mulheres hoje.