Thomas Traherne,Thomas Hobbes,and the Rhetoric of Realism

Abstract

Thomas Traherne has often been seen as a mystic detached from the turbulence of his period. Recent scholarship has attempted to place him more firmly in context. This article contributes to this trend in arguing that Traherne's late works, especially Commentaries of Heaven, were shaped by the pressure of responding to Thomas Hobbes's Leviathan. Though Traherne makes only one direct reference to Hobbes, his idiosyncrasies in thought, argument, and mode of expression are all fundamentally influenced by the need to counter Hobbes's account of ethics, metaphysics, and language. Traherne is particularly concerned to assert and display an ardent realism against Hobbes's nominalism. In doing so, he creates a complicated play of rhetorical figures, especially abusio or catachresis, as embodying theological commitments. This both places Traherne more clearly against the background of the intellectual history of the period in which he lived, and demonstrates his particularity as a writer.     

Mr. George Thomas Clark

The Bordesley Abbey Project has widened its horizons as it has developed, linking the core excavation of the abbey church with archaeological fieldwork, both in the outer court and beyond the precinct boundary on the abbey's granges, and with architectural and documentary research. Exceptional preservation is the key to Bordesley's importance—the survival of its precinct as a complete set of earthworks and of the unusually deep and complex stratification, yielding data and artefacts which are both very rich and extensive, and very well stratified, within a finely divided chronology. This review is a preliminary attempt to integrate the different elements, and to highlight the potential of the data now and for the future.     

圣托马斯·阿奎那论高利贷

圣托马斯·阿奎那关于高利贷的讨论与亚里士多德的著述、罗马法和《圣经》等基督教道德伦理训导紧密相连,更与他的四法理论密切相关。通过在神法、"自然法"与"人法"等三个层面上对高利贷进行考察,阿奎那向我们展示了他对高利贷的独特态度:按照神法—"自然法",高利贷是绝对不允许的;但是根据"人法"或实在法,它又是可以存在的。阿奎那对待高利贷的态度之所以如此,主要原因在于一方面他秉承并发扬了教会的反高利贷道德伦理传统;另一方面他又受到同时期西欧经济社会现实的影响,对高利贷给予一定的关照。阿奎那的这种二元态度包含了一种内在的紧张关系,这种关系丰富了他的高利贷论的内涵,同时也使得他的态度具有复杂性。