清代皇家雅曼达噶神坛丛考

“雅曼达噶”即大威德金刚,是藏传佛教重要的护法神。本文考证了乾隆时期所建的七处皇家“雅曼达噶坛”,分析了神坛的建筑特点与文物陈设状况,理清了这种重要的佛堂模式的特点。同时探讨了清富神坛与西藏寺庙的渊源及乾隆与藏传佛教的关系。藏传佛教中神灵众多。有一个庞大的神系。乾隆皇帝建七处雅曼达噶坛。说明了清宫廷对保护神大威德的特别崇拜,这种做法来自藏传佛教格鲁派的直接影响。由此种神坛之模式可见藏传佛教曾对清代宫廷的文化环境产生过深刻的影响。     

汉画风伯形象及其功能探析

在山东、江苏等地的汉画像中均可见到一种力士鼓唇吹气的形象,这一形象就是汉代人塑造的风神风伯。风伯或出现于雷电云雨之神出行的队列中,或张口弄舌地吹掀屋顶,或与箕星为伴驰骋于月夜星空。通过对诸类图像的分析可以看出,汉代风伯神话是在先秦流行的箕星信仰与飞廉崇拜的基础上发展、演变而来的,而风伯画像作为汉代丧葬艺术的有机组成部分,又承载着佑助墓主灵魂升仙的宗教功能。     

重读安菩墓

参互安菩墓志和两《唐书·安金藏传》所载,本文重新辨识了安菩一家的袄教信仰。文章认为,安金藏在为其父母举行的合葬仪中使用了犬视,并对袄教战神牡鹿和司水女神兼丰饶之神阿娜希塔致祭奉祀。其中,对前二者分别使用了现实中的动物,即犬和鹿,这就是《唐书·安金藏传》所载犬鹿相狎和原上旧无水,忽有涌泉自出的真实内容。这一葬仪不仅符合袄教教义,而且也与安菩定远将军的身份相符。安菩墓的特殊建制也体现了这一点。     

于阗的地神图像及其流变

于阗是著名的西域古国,汉唐时期佛教及其艺术在其地兴盛一时。本文主要围绕一百余年来在新疆和田地区发现的多件地神图像,结合文献,探讨了此类图像的外在形式、文献依据及其所反映的思想内涵。作者认为,于阗佛寺的地神图像是据《金光明经·坚牢地神品》绘制,它影响了龟兹和敦煌佛教绘画的王族供养人画像,反映了出身为世俗人的王族供养人试图藉此神化自我,宣扬王权天授的思想。     

“玄奘画像”解读——特别关注其密教图像元素

西安兴教寺所存玄奘石刻像与日本现存无名氏画玄奘像,所携带的历史信息超出了图像本身。作者认为,这一源于早期行脚僧图像的出现,是由于玄奘西行求法的成功,刺激了社会民众对行脚僧的认同,加之西来传法僧的大量涌现,于是在唐末、尤其是在宋代,出现了一批行脚僧图像,并由初时的胡僧梵相,变为汉僧模样,进而附会到玄奘的图像创作上。而在日本所存著名的"玄奘画像",事实上可能是一个具密教性质的僧人图像。作者试图通过有关这一图像的文献解读,全面分析该图像所包含的历史信息。     

Towards a Political Theology of Vulnerability Anthropological and Theological Propositions

Abstract

Recent experiences of terror, violence, and catastrophe, such as the terror attacks in Norway in 2011 or the Peshawar School Massacre leaving 132 children and nine staff dead on December 16, 2014, strengthen the sense of the fundamental vulnerability in human existence. In this article, it is argued that political theology, in responding to such experiences, should aim at perceiving and protecting vulnerability as a value. For this purpose, basic propositions for a theological anthropology of vulnerability are put forward. Likewise, propositions for interpreting God as vulnerable are presented, criticizing the traditional theistic concept of God as immutable and hence unable to suffer. The relevance of these propositions for political theology is finally addressed.     

Beauty and belief: Aesthetics and religion in Victorian literature

This article is in part an intervention in the ongoing debate inaugurated by Peter Harrison in 2002 when he called into question the validity of what had come by then to be called ‘the voluntarism and science thesis.’ Though it subsequently drew support from such historians of science as J.E. McGuire, Margaret Osler, Betty Jo Teeter Dobbs and, more recently, John Henry (in rebuttal of Harrison), the origins of the thesis are usually traced back to articles published in 1934–1936 and 1961 respectively by the philosopher Michael Foster and the historian of ideas Francis Oakley. While classifying Foster’s work as pertaining to the ecology of ideas rather than their history, the article argues for the complementarity of the two approaches and seeks, not only to vindicate the voluntarism and science thesis itself but also to locate it within the broader constellation of ideas embracing legal and political as well as natural philosophy that the political philosopher Michael Oakeshott characterized as pertaining to a fundamental tradition of European thinking dominated by the master conceptions of Will and Artifice.     

The man within the breast,the supreme impartial spectator,and other impartial spectators in Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Adam Smith infused the expression ‘impartial spectator’ with a plexus of related meanings, one of which is a super-being, which bears parallels to monotheistic ideas of God. As for any genuine, identified, human spectator, he can be deemed impartial only presumptively. Such presumptive impartiality as regards the incident does not of itself carry extensive implications about his intelligence, nor about his being aligned with benevolence towards any larger whole. We may posit, however, a being who is impartial and who holds higher levels of intelligence and of benevolence, and then converse over what her sentiments would be about the matter under discussion. It is natural to conceive of a being who is unsurpassable in such qualities, who is morally supreme, and who naturally takes the definite article the without having been definitized by the writer (because unnecessary, just as we speak of ‘the world’). Signal passages, new to edition 6, suggest that Smith formulates the man within the breast as a representative of the always present and everywhere morally supreme impartial spectator. When Smith speaks of the man within the breast as ‘the supposed impartial spectator’ (all new to edition 6), we interpret ‘supposed’ as sup-pos-ed (purported), not sup-pos’d (posited).     

Leibniz’s Kehre: From Ultradeterminism to the Philosophy of Freedom

Abstract

This article examines the rift in Leibniz’s conception of determinism after being rebuffed by the Parisian theologian Antoine Arnauld in their correspondence of 1686. As, in addition, his study of surds infracted his confidence in the “complete concept,” Leibniz embarked on a new, dynamic doctrine of substance or “law of the series.” In the literature, this strategy has been widely (mis)understood as “tweaking” the system to allow some self-assertion of free will. But as this article will show, it amounts to a revolutionary conception that culminates in the unmasking of determinism as an insupportable, indeed incoherent doctrine. As all forms of determinism are profoundly entangled with human self-perception, the Leibnizian Kehre invites us to a new engagement with human freedom and autonomy and the disentanglement from a philosophical position for which neither a metaphysical nor an empirical proof can be given.