Three Philosophers in Paradise: Kant,Tillich and Ricæur Interpret and Respond to Genesis 3

Abstract

The story of the first sin, committed by Adam and Eve in paradise, has not only attracted the attention of biblical scholars. Philosophers have also shown much interest in the story. Study of the relevant work of Kant, Tillich and Ricæur reveals two opposing ways of philosophically reading the biblical story and similar myths about the fate of the first human beings. According to the first way of reading, best represented by Kant and his followers, including Schiller, the fall was a fortunate event, one that set humanity on the path of development and progress. According to the second, represented by Tillich and Ricæur, it was a tragic event, but one that had its merits, for it allowed humans to develop their own potentialities. Freedom was obtaine at the cost of being estranged from humankind’s divine ground of being.     

SHORT COMMUNICATION Autopsy Practises for Brain Dissections and Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Deyman

Illustrations, previous to the 19th century, provide evidence that brain dissections were executed on an isolated head, contrary to Rembrandt's anatomy lesson of Dr. Deyman. This paradox seems to be explained by clever biased composition.     

Using the Capability Approach to Conceptualise Inequality in Archaeology: the Case of the Late Neolithic Bosnian Site Okolište c. 5200–4600 <Emphasis Type="SmallCaps">bce</Emphasis>

The past few decades have witnessed a growing realisation that market-based measures of human well-being—measures that centre on income and consumption distributions—miss some other perhaps even more essential elements of human well-being. This insight has found a prominent expression in the work of the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen’s so-called capability approach. At the same time, the market-based measure of inequality as a function of the distribution of material remains in graves and other locations remain dominant in archaeology. In this paper, we explore the significance of the capability approach, and the associated concept of human well-being based on the idea of capabilities, to the archaeology of social inequality and social malintegration. We discuss these notions using the case study of the Late Neolithic Bosnian tell site Okoli?te and argue that there, in c. 5200–4600 bce, the monopolisation of certain critical goods led to a critical capability inequality, malintegration and to a prolonged period of social unrest and decline.     

WHITE,FRIEDLÄNDER, “… AND THE REST IS HISTORY”: A PAX HISTORIANA

Close analysis of the ostensive disagreement between Saul Friedländer and Hayden White on the necessarily literary character of Holocaust historiography shows instead of conflict two compatible and even mutually supportive emphases in that project: the assumption in modernist and disruptive narratives as elsewhere of a “corpus of facts,” together with the role of figurative discourse in conveying relevant features of events that linear chronological or causal narratives alone do not convey.     

What If? Modality and History

Philosophers and historians have long been suspicious of modal and counterfactual claims. I argue, however, that historians often legitimately use modal and counterfactual claims for a variety of purposes. They help identify causes, and hence help explain events in history. They are used to defend judgments about people, and to highlight the importance of particular events. I defend these uses of modal claims against two arguments often used to criticize modal reasoning, using the philosophy of science to ground the truth of modal claims. This analysis puts several important points into perspective, including how certain we can be about our claims about what might have been, and the role that determinism plays in those claims. The proper analysis of modality shows, I argue, that counterfactual claims are legitimate and important, if often uncertain, and that issues of determinism are irrelevant to the modal claims used in historical analysis.     

Poetic license in the Buddhist Sanskrit Verses of the Upālipariprcchā

Indo-Iranian Journal -