Descartes' visit to the town library, or how Augustinian is Descartes' neurophysiology?

Rene Descartes was early accused of taking his central philosophical proposition from St Augustine. Did he also take his central neurophysiological concept from the same source? This is the question which this paper sets out to answer. It is concluded that the foundational neurophysiology propounded in L'Homme does indeed show strong and interesting resemblences to Augustine's largely Erasistratean version. Descartes, however, working within the new paradigm of seventeenth-century physical science, introduced a new principle: whereas Augustine's neurophysiology is pervaded throughout by a vital factor, the pneuma, Descartes' theory involved only inanimate material forces. It is concluded, further, that in spite of the interesting similarities between Augustinian and Cartesian neurophysiology there is no evidence for any direct plagiarism. It seems more likely that Augustine's influence was filtered through the Galenical physiologists of Descartes' own time and of the preceding century.     

Apocalypse tamed: Cusanus and the traditions of late medieval prophecy

In the late middle ages speculation on the end of the world attracted not only the eccentric and the obscure but some of the ablest and most renowned figures of the age, like the German Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa. On numerous occasions during a long career as theologian and reformer, Cusanus reflected on the course and meaning of history and of the last things. His short tract of 1446, the Coniectura de ultimis diebus, contains his most mature thought on the subject, although he evidenced a more than passing concern with eschatology, both prior to this work and subsequently. A prime purpose of this paper is to indicate how Cusanus' reflections on the end of time add a notable dimension to his thought, especially in relation to the dominant traditions of medieval prophetic speculation, the Augustinian and the Joachite. His millenarian position, while closer to that of Augustine, offered nonetheless a distinct alternative to the Augustinian contemplation of salvation only beyond time and the Joachite expectation of an imminent salvation within history. Also to be established is a certain continuity of concepts and themes between Cusanus' éschatological writings and some of his major works. Finally, there is the question of the relevance of his views of the end of time to his reform thought.     

William T. Cavanaugh and René Girard

Abstract

This article examines the argument of William T. Cavanaugh’s The Myth of Religious Violence in the light of the mimetic theory of the French-American cultural theorist Rene Girard. Though the two projects are significantly different I argue for their mutual compatibility. Each author is “apologetic” for the Christian revelation, though the presence of theology in “The Myth . . .” is muted or implicit, as in Walter Benjamin’s parable of the puppet and the dwarf. I argue for four areas of specific convergence between Cavanaugh and Girard, arising from a shared Augustinian, “two Cities” suspicion of the state, and their resistance to the secularising marginalisation of the Judeo-Christian tradition. The notion of martyrdom as a “dramatic” performance is a further shared dimension. Finally, I argue that the apparent divergence of their approaches, between an anthropological thesis (Girard’s) and a historical one (Cavanaugh’s) is narrowed when we consider the later work of Girard and its examination of nineteenth century dynamics of escalation in warfare in his last book Battling to the End.     

MODERNITY IN RELIGION: A RESPONSE TO CONSTANTIN FASOLT'S “HISTORY AND RELIGION IN THE MODERN AGE”

Contrary to Constantin Fasolt, I argue that it is no longer useful to think of religion as an anomaly in the modern age. Here is Fasolt's main argument: humankind suffers from a radical rift between the self and the world. The chief function of religion is to mitigate or cope with this fracture by means of dogmas and rituals that reconcile the self to the world. In the past, religion successfully fulfilled this job. But in modernity, it fails to, and it fails because religion is no longer plausible. Historical, confessional religions, then, are no longer doing what they are supposed to do; yet the need for religion is still very much with us. Fasolt's account would be a tragic tale, if not for his claim that there is a new religion for the modern age, a religion that fulfills the true reconciling function of religion. That new religion is the reading and writing of history. Indeed, for Fasolt, reading history is religiously redemptive, and writing history is a sacred act. The historian, it turns out, is the priest in modernity. In my response, I challenge both Fasolt's remedy (history as religiously redemptive) and its justification (the fall of historical religions). Indeed, I reject both his romantic view of past religion as the peaceful reconciler, as well as his pessimistic view of present religion as the maker of “enemies” among modern people. In the end, I argue that the way Fasolt employs his categories—“alienation,”“salvation,”“religion,”“history”— is too vague to do much useful work. They are significant categories and they deserve our attention. But in my view, the story Fasolt tells is both too grim (on human alienation) and too cheerful (on historian as modern savior).     

Adam Boreel and Galenus Abrahamsz. Against constraint of consciences: seventeenth-century dissenters in favor of religious toleration

This paper examines two seventeenth-century works written by Adam Boreel and Galenus Abrahamsz, two most famous scholars among the Amsterdam Collegiants who advocated ideas in favour of religious toleration. This study is divided in three main parts. Firstly, I give historical information on the circumstances that led Galenus Abrahamsz to write his work. Secondly, I make a thorough comparison between Abrahamsz’s work and Boreel’s treatise, arguing that the latter exerted great influence on the former. However, despite major parallels, I also show that there are deep differences in their works. Thirdly, I argue that both Boreel and Abrahamsz pursued the same aim: to establish religious toleration among Christians. In the conclusion, I suggest that we should not regard Abrahamsz as a Collegiant himself, but only as a sympathizer of Collegiant ideas. I also suggest the significance of further studies on the Collegiants, their practices, and their ideas.     

Some Personal Reminiscences and What They Meant for Me

There are those who have said I should write a book, and there are those—about the same in number—who have said I should not write a book. Those in the negative assert that my “book” already is written in the several hundred opinions (majorities, concurrences, dissents) I have filed over the years, and in my public utterances. There are valid arguments, I suppose, on both sides. I certainly do not wish to write anything that merely seeks to explain further my vote in decided cases, or to comment—supportively or adversely—on colleagues' votes, or to express little more than after‐the‐fact criticism. In that context, what might be said belonged in the decisional process itself. But there are other things in Supreme Court experience. Law students are inclined to ask questions. Example: “Tell me, how does one come to be a federal judge?” Justice Tom Clark had a direct response: “One has to be on the corner when the bus comes by.” One federal appellate judge plaintively said to me: “The only reason I am on the federal bench is because I was a close friend of a United States Senator.” (He had served for a time as the Senator's administrative assistant.) It may perhaps be said that every federal judge comes by his status in his own way. Of course, there are things one must not do, but I doubt that there is a specific path one must follow to be eligible and seriously regarded as a candidate for federal judicial service.     

Practical Hagiography: James of Voragine’s Sermones and Vita on St Margaret of Antioch

Abstract

In addition to his exceedingly popular Legenda Aurea, James of Voragine wrote in another hagiographical genre: sermons on the saints. The Sermones de sanctis likewise became immediately popular, as his Dominican brothers used James’s model sermons to learn to preach about the saints in a format that would provide the laity with intelligible and practical theological instruction. James’s corpus gives us a rather unusual opportunity to compare the ways in which a single author manipulates multiple hagiographical genres, and his writings on St Margaret of Antioch allow us to explore how a medieval preacher used a historically disputed saint — a dragon-fighter — to provide a practical model of sanctity to his lay audience. I compare the representations of Margaret in James’s sermones and vita, arguing that James adapted certain features of Margaret’s saintly example in the vita to instruct the audience of his sermons about proper Christian virtues and actions. As a point of comparison, I explore a sermon by Évrard of Val des Écoliers in which the Augustinian teaches his audience a practical skill — how to pray — through Margaret’s example.     

Pascal’s modernity

Pascal can be readily inserted into familiar characterizations of the emergence of modernity (man’s alienation from the cosmos). He himself theorized the proper relationship between innovation (legitimate in the physical sciences) and traditional authority (legitimate especially in theology). While accepting the mechanistic philosophy and in particular the rigid Cartesian distinction between immaterial and corporeal substance, he registers its divergence from our spontaneous understanding of experience; we find him encountering the view of one of his religious mentors that Cartesian science has deprived the cosmos of its spiritual significance as an image of the creator. His relationship to Latour’s conception of (non-)modernity is considered. Though many of his attitudes are uncongenial to modern secular humanism, his theologically-motivated rejection of the concept of nature as normative has surprising echoes in aspects of twenty-first century thought and culture.     

A Transformed Life? Geoffrey of Dutton,the Fifth Crusade,and the Holy Cross of Norton

Despite the volume of scholarship dedicated to crusade motivation, comparative little has been said on how the crusades affected the lives of individuals, and how this played out once the returned home. Taking as a case study a Cheshire landholder, Geoffrey of Dutton, this article looks at the reasons for his crusade participation and his actions once he returned to Cheshire, arguing that he was changed by his experiences to the extent that he was concerned with remembering and conveying his own status as a returned pilgrim. It also looks at the impact of a relic of the True Cross he brought back and gave to the Augustinian priory of Norton.     

Proceedings at Meetings of the Royal Archæological Institute,June 4th, 1885

This is the report of three small research excavations at Waltham Abbey. Each was designed to answer specific questions about the destroyed east end of the Collegiate Church and the relation to it of the Augustinian extensions. Excavation in 1984 was across the chancel of the Collegiate Church which became the Augustinian central nave. In 1986 an area around the Collegiate ambulatory was dug and, in 1987, this was extended to establish the geometry of the apse.

In the area excavated there were no remains of a church which might pre-date the apse-and- ambulatory form. The eastern walls were taken down when the building was extended as part of the Augustinian re-foundation of 1177. Continuous but irregular Collegiate pier foundations were seen and four buttress projections, to the wall foundations, suggest that the aisles and ambulatory had been vaulted. The Collegiate chancel pier foundations seem to have been re-used and even the piers themselves appear to have been incorporated into the Augustinian design. Two new pier foundations for the Augustinian central nave were seen. This nave was wider than the adjacent chancel which caused problems of alignment. Part of the Augustinian north-aisle tiled pavement survived. A previously discovered curved foundation is now known to be that of a small ‘bubble’ chapel which was added between two adjacent buttresses of the Collegiate Church.

As a result of the excavations it is possible to predict the form of the second Collegiate church, of Romanesque style, and to suggest it was begun in the late eleventh century. To the west of the present excavations a much more modest apsidal end is still possible for Harold's original Collegiate Church dedicated c. 1060; no physical evidence of this church has been established with certainty but some possibilities are mentioned.

There is a full documentary survey and a discussion of parallels for the apse-and-ambulatory east end with Waltham having features in common with churches of other secular houses. Details are given of mortar analysis and of stonework which shows some clear parallels with the church begun at Durham c. 1095. There is a record of all previous work on the monastic site.     

Ontologies of place,placelessness, and movement: queer quests for identity and their impacts on contemporary geographic thought

The rise of and reactions to identity politics and practice have precipitated renewed debates about ontology in geography. Actor‐network theory (ANT) and ‘non‐representational theory’ have much to offer these discussions. Their de‐centered notions of ‘agency’, topological (rather than Cartesian) spatial imaginations, and what I term ‘humble’ ontologies offer a way out of the seeming paradox presented by various binarisms underlying contemporary social theory and philosophy, such as structure/agency, essentialism/constructionism, subject/object, and theory/practice. The value of these approaches is very apparent when considering a particularly politicized form of identity practice: queer identity quests. They lead to (among other things) ontologies of place, placelessness and movement that are new, fresh, enriching and potentially empowering.     

Obeying,Believing and Rebelling

Abstract

This article offers a decisive alternative to a growing consensus within public theology that political liberalism represents the pro-Pelagian, atomistic and un-ecclesial face of modernity. Through a careful reappraisal of the sceptical theology of Michel de Montaigne I claim that contemporary Christian advocates of liberalism can develop a deeply Augustinian counter-account which has the ability to reconcile notions of individual autonomy and conscience with a strong sense of ecclesial authority. At the centre of this innovative settlement, I point to the value of Montaigne’s theological anthropology, which, in its sensitivity to human fragility and sin, offers a rich validation of pluralistic and tolerant societies by contesting absolutist claims to both knowledge and power. In framing political liberalism in these explicitly theological terms, such an account comes into sharp confrontation with the movement known as Radical Orthodoxy, which has defined the liberal tradition as intrinsically anathema to an authentically Christian understanding of politics. In contrast, this article claims that political liberalism, far from being automatically antagonistic to Christian theological commitments, can be justified by them.     

Julien Offray de la Mettrie (1709-1751)

The year 2001 marks the 250th anniversary of la Mettrie's death. This paper commemorates his stormy life and the contribution he made to the neurosciences. Trained as a physician, la Mattrie soon fell out with both the medical and ecclesiastical authorities and was exiled first to the Netherlands and then to Frederick the Great's circle of intellectuals at Sans Souci (Berlin). The two works which are of greatest interest to the readers of this journal are the 1745 Histoire Naturelle de l'ame (retitled Traité de l'ame in 1751) and the 1747 l'Homme Machine. Both are collected in the 1751 Oeuvres Philosophiques. This paper reviews these two ground-breaking tracts noting that, although they are both materialistic, and hence worthy of the odium theologicum into which they fell, they are not materialistic in the Cartesian sense. La Mettrie is dismissive of the Cartesian concept of inanimate matter and the related notion of the 'beast-machine'. Instead, he sees an unbroken continuity between humans and the rest of nature. His vision is in many ways far ahead of its time and prefigures some of the dilemmas and concerns which our evolutionary neuroscience presents today: how is consciousness related to the goings on in the cerebrum? How can we be held responsible for what we do if all is material? His biographer, Raymond Boissier, writes that we can recognise in him an obscure predecessor of Lamarck and a prophet of things to come.     

The Gravity of Archaeology

One of the defining features of the material culture of space exploration is the fact that much of it is “out there”: in orbit around celestial bodies and on planetary surfaces. In outer space, we have to rethink the meaning of place. Cartesian coordinates must be replaced with equations of motion to describe the ceaseless movement of heavenly objects in relation to centres of gravity. Archaeological sites in space are not solid condensations of artefacts, hundreds or thousands of years compressed into layers perhaps only centimetres deep. The materials of an archaeological deposit become rather a cloud or swarm. But for both Earth and space, gravity is the structuring force. In this paper I want to reconceptualise archaeological sites according to their position in the gravity well, using dynamical systems and Riemann surfaces. I then consider the Mir space station as an example of a site existing simultaneously on Earth and in orbit, as a preliminary excursion towards a frame of reference that can be used to effectively conduct an archaeology in outer space.     

Julien Offray de la Mettrie (1709-1751)

The year 2001 marks the 250th anniversary of la Mettrie’s death. This paper commemorates his stormy life and the contribution he made to the neurosciences. Trained as a physician, la Mattrie soon fell out with both the medical and ecclesiastical authorities and was exiled first to the Netherlands and then to Frederick the Great’s circle of intellectuals at Sans Souci (Berlin). The two works which are of greatest interest to the readers of this journal are the 1745 Histoire Naturelle de l’âme (retitled Traité de l’âme in 1751) and the 1747 l’Homme Machine. Both are collected in the 1751 Oeuvres Philosophiques. This paper reviews these two ground-breaking tracts noting that, although they are both materialistic, and hence worthy of the odium theologicum into which they fell, they are not materialistic in the Cartesian sense. La Mettrie is dismissive of the Cartesian concept of inanimate matter and the related notion of the ‘beast-machine’. Instead, he sees an unbroken continuity between humans and the rest of nature. His vision is in many ways far ahead of its time and prefigures some of the dilemmas and concerns which our evolutionary neuroscience presents today: how is consciousness related to the goings on in the cerebrum? How can we be held responsible for what we do if all is material? His biographer, Raymond Boissier, writes that we can recognise in him an obscure predecessor of Lamarck and a prophet of things to come.     

KOSELLECK,ARENDT, AND THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE

This essay is the first attempt to compare Reinhart Koselleck's Historik with Hannah Arendt's political anthropology and her critique of the modern concept of history. Koselleck is well‐known for his work on conceptual history as well as for his theory of historical time(s). It is my contention that these different projects are bound together by Koselleck's Historik, that is, his theory of possible histories. This can be shown through an examination of his writings from Critique and Crisis to his final essays on historical anthropology, most of which have not yet been translated into English. Conversely, Arendt's political theory has in recent years been the subject of numerous interpretations that do not take into account her views about history. By comparing the anthropological categories found in Koselleck's Historik with Arendt's political anthropology, I identify similar intellectual lineages in them (Heidegger, Löwith, Schmitt) as well as shared political sentiments, in particular the anti‐totalitarian impulse of the postwar era. More importantly, Koselleck's theory of the preconditions of possible histories and Arendt's theory of the preconditions of the political, I argue, transcend these lineages and sentiments by providing essential categories for the analysis of historical experience.     

R.I.P. Paul the Octopus http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate)

During the 2010 football World Cup, Paul the Octopus became a global celebrity. From his aquarium tank in Oberhausen, Germany, he predicted with 100% accuracy the outcome of eight World Cup matches in a row. In acknowledgement of his striking achievement, German aquarium authorities built Paul the first‐ever octopus memorial after his death. Curiously, Paul's popularity crossed over into countries that are not known footballing nations. One possible explanation for this is that his uncanny knowledge of the outcome of future events resonated with an audience sensitive to the uncertainties and risks of high modernity. Another explanation draws on Michael Jackson's work among diviners in Sierra Leone. I argue that Paul's prophecies created ‘fields of relationship’ that transcended national as well as ethnic divides, both within Germany and globally.     

The military, psychiatry, and "unfit" soldiers, 1939-1942

This article examines the psychiatric screening of U.S. soldiers during the Second World War, established by psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan (1892-1949), as a key moment in the public application of clinical psychiatry, as well as a turning point in Sullivan's intellectual and professional career. After a brief look at the ideas and expectations Sullivan brought to the screening system, I discuss a major problem of the screening: the mismatch between the medical concept of disease prevention and the realities of the mass screening as a public policy. As a way to highlight this mismatch, I focus on Sullivan's failure to protect homosexual men from medical and social stigmatization by screening them out of the armed forces. Despite his liberal approach to the issue of homosexuality before the war, which he had created in his clinical practice, Sullivan was unable to persuade the military and the public of gay men's right to serve the nation. The examination of how his sympathetic view of homosexuality became circumscribed reveals not only the gap between clinical insights and public policy, but also how tentative views of homosexuality in public debate among liberal psychiatrists during the decade preceding the war contributed to the failure to make non-homophobic policy in the 1940s. This article shows that the relative conservatism in the politics of sexuality among liberal psychiatrists, as well as the intransigent conservatism as seen in homophobic tradition of the Army, contributed to the discriminatory screening criteria.