bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Huygens: relativity and centrifugal force
Authors: Barbour Julian B
Published: November 2023

If Descartes exerted a stronger influence on the development of dynamics than the quality of his work on motion as such might have led one to expect, with Huygens it was the other way round. In accordance with the tally promised in the Introduction, all but 2½of the ‘baker’s dozen’ of insights needed before the synthesis of dynamics could commence were to hand when Descartes died in 1650. The remainder were all obtained by Huygens, who almost certainly had sufficient mathematical skill to put them together and claim the prize of immortal fame that actually went to Newton. But it did not happen that way. Huygens ‘ results were published in only mutilated form in his lifetime; a decade and more after he had discovered them and before any of them had been published Newton rediscovered nearly all of them. Then, more than another decade later, fortunate circumstances prodded Newton into the work that finally led to the creation of dynamics. During all this time Huygens was held back from taking the final step to dynamics by an attitude of mind. It was, in fact, the very same attitude of mind that led him to his great discoveries in the first place but which then became a hindrance. The hero and villain of this story was likewise one and the same person—Descartes.
Introduction
Authors: Cary Phillip
Published: November 2023

There are varieties of inwardness, so it is important to know which one is being investigated in this book. My concern here is with the concept of self as private inner space or inner world—a whole dimension of being that is our very own, and roomy enough that we can in some sense turn into it and enter it, or look within and find things there. This, I take it, is the deepest and most thoroughgoing form of inwardness; other forms shall be of interest in this investigation only insofar as they lead up to it. In this regard all roads lead to Augustine: the thesis I argue here is that he invented the concept of private inner space. The argument for this thesis consists of two narratives: one telling of the tradition of philosophy upon which Augustine drew (part I) and the other of the development of Augustine’s own thought (part 11). The aim is to watch the concept of private inner self as it is under construction: to discern its Platonist philosophical foundations, its Christian theological connections, its memorable metaphorical texture, and the motives that led to its being constructed in the first place.
Explorations of Divine Reason
Authors: Cary Phillip
Published: November 2023

The inward turn comes before the private inner space. There is a project of inward turn in Plotinus (his exhortation for the soul to turn “into the inside”) and even a conception of an inner world (i.e., the intelligible world) but no private inner space belonging only to a particular individual soul. Augustine was engaged in a fully articulated project of inward turn (a modification of Plotinus’s inward turn) at least since the time of the second book of On Free Choice, about a decade before the writing of Confessions, in which he first elaborated the concept of a private inner space of the soul.

In book 2 of On Free Choice, Augustine examines the lower powers of the soul without invoking a picture of inner space, and when he comes to deal with the power of intellectual vision, the space he pictures is explicitly public. For the Truth the mind sees when turned inward is one and the same for all who see it; it cannot be anyone’s private possession.I Nor does it need to be cut into pieces in order to be shared, like bodily things that must be divided among the many who are greedy for them.
An Abandoned Proof
Authors: Cary Phillip
Published: November 2023

The crowning task of the Soliloquies is to prove that the soul is immortal. Augustine’s general strategy here is one that goes back to the Phaedo: he tries to establish a necessary conceptual link between the soul and that which is immutable and divine. He follows Plotinus rather than Plato, however, in locating the immutable and divine within the soul. Hence with this argument we see the earliest version of an Augustinian philosophical project that bears the marks of an encounter with Plotinus’s inward turn. It is not yet Augustine’s inward turn, nor even an inward turn at all, but it takes the fundamental first step oflocating the immutable and divine within the soul. Hence in subsequent works he can conceive of seeking God there.

Augustine’s particular variation on the Platonist theme of the immortality of the soul is an attempt to demonstrate that the immutability of Truth, present within the soul, has a way of rubbing off on that in which it is present. The basic idea could have been suggested by Plato himself, who wrote in the Meno, “If the truth of beings is always in our souls, then the soul must be immortal.” But Augustine’s precise way of going about this demonstration is startling to the point of being bizarre and is quite unlike anything else in either Christianity or Platonism. We shall spend the rest of this chapter analyzing the structure of this astonishing argument, which was too bold and foolish to remain very long at the center of Augustine’s thinking.
The Evolution Of Mind: The Symbol-Making Animal
Authors: Nadeau Robert , Kafatos Menas
Published: November 2023

Recent studies on the evolution of the bodies and brains of our ancestors have shed new light on the preadaptive changes that eventually allowed us to acquire and use the complex symbol systems of ordinary language. These studies suggest that these changes occurred over millions of years and that the differences between our species and other species, including the primates, are much more subtle and complex than previously imagined. Equally important, it now appears that enhanced symbolic communication among hominids altered conditions for survival and created selective pressures in new ecological niches that contributed to further enhancements in symbolic communication.
Mind Matters: Mega-Narratives And The Two-Culture War
Authors: Nadeau Robert , Kafatos Menas
Published: November 2023

After adaptive changes in the brains and bodies of hominids made it possible for modern humans to construct a symbolic universe using complex language systems, something quite dramatic and wholly unprecedented occurred. We began to perceive the world through the lenses of symbolic categories, to construct similarities and differences in terms of categorical oppositions, and to organize our lives according to themes and narratives. Living in this new symbolic universe, modern humans had a large compulsion to code and recode experiences, to translate everything into representation, and to seek out the deeper hidden logic that eliminates inconsistencies and ambiguities.
Mind Matters: Poets Of A New Reality
Authors: Nadeau Robert , Kafatos Menas
Published: November 2023

The worldview of classical physics allowed the physicist to assume that communion with the essences of physical reality via mathematical laws and associated theories was possible, but it made no other provisions for the knowing mind. In our new situation, the status of the knowing mind seems quite different. All of modern physics contributes to a view of the universe as an unbroken, undissectible, and undivided dynamic whole. “There can hardly be a sharper contrast;’ said Melic Capek, “than that between the everlasting atoms of classical physics and the vanishing ‘particles’ of modern physics.”
Was David a Shepherd?
Authors: McKenzie Steven L
Published: November 2023

Imagine rolling hills covered with thick grass under a glorious deep blue sky. Here and there the dark exclamation point of a tree punctuates the green carpet. The ribbon of a tiny brook meanders through the hills. Its steady gurgle is interrupted only by the occasional bleating of one of the cottony creatures lapping at its bank. An adolescent boy sits with his back to a tree beside the brook. His voice floats above the noises of the water and the sheep in clear, reverent tones. His hands strum a small harp cradled in his lap, while his eyes scan the horizon for any threat to his sheep.
Assassin
Authors: McKenzie Steven L
Published: November 2023

Juan Bosch combined careers as Roman Catholic priest, statesman, professor of political science, and author. He worked for years in his native Dominican Republic against an oppressive dictatorship and was finally elected president in 1963 by a huge majority. After only nine months in office, though, he was forced into exile by rebels. While in exile he wrote David: The Biography of a King.
Poetic Justice
Authors: McKenzie Steven L
Published: November 2023

Of all the novels written about David, the most entertaining is Joseph Heller’s 1984 God Knows. It is certainly the most raucous and irreverent. Heller has David write a retrospective on his life that is also aware of developments in art, politics, and fashion in the three thousand years since. The book is full of insights into both the life and story of David and modern Jewish life. It is at once hilarious and touching. Though impotent and on his deathbed, David still desires Bathsheba. He is a man of few scruples and no regrets for anything he has done. In fact, he is angry with God over the loss of the child produced in his adultery with Bathsheba.
The Subject Matter of Philosophy
Authors: Cook John W
Published: November 2023

In his lectures during the 1930s Wittgenstein often commented on the difference between what he was doing and what previous philosophers had done. Yet despite these differences there were also connections, he said. Too often, I believe, the differences have been emphasized and the connections ignored, with the result that his work has been seriously misunderstood. I want, if possible, to rectify this situation.
Reductionism and Inftationism
Authors: Cook John W
Published: November 2023

I have said that Wittgenstein very often dealt with philosophical problems by proposing reductionist solutions to them. To see that this is so, it is essential to understand what reductionism is and also what it is not. In this chapter, with the help of what is sometimes called Ramsey’s maxim, I will try to shed some light on this.
A Russellian Argument and Wittgensteinian Criteria
Authors: Cook John W
Published: November 2023

I have explained how Wittgenstein’s post-Tractatus version of reductionism was implemented, in part, by his substitution method. Equally important in this regard was his concept of criteria. In chapter 8 I will explain this concept in detail. In the present chapter I want to explain why Wittgenstein invented it.
Wittgenstein and the Metaphysical Use of Words
Authors: Cook John W
Published: November 2023

I have argued that Wittgenstein, far from being the ordinary language philosopher that he has been taken to be, was as deeply engaged in metaphysics as Russell and Moore. Why, then, did he say that what he does is “to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use” (Pl, §116)? Doesn’t this show that his aim was to steer away from the metaphysical use of words-and, hence, from metaphysics? The answer to that question depends entirely on what one takes to be the metaphysical use of words. As I remarked in chapter 10, there has been a strong inclination to suppose that Moore went a long way toward drawing the line between the metaphysical and the everyday use of words, and philosophers inspired by Moore’s work are disposed to view ordinary language in terms of Moore’s realism.
System Care Management
Authors: Saunders Susan
Published: November 2023

Health care delivery in the United States is undergoing a profound transformation in response to changes in health care financing and market dynamics. The future viability of health care systems depends, in part, on their ability to manage service, delivery, quality, consumer appeal, and cost. Effective service management, in turn, depends on the existence of a sophisticated care management infrastructure that is capable of affecting service access, utilization, and outcome across the care continuum.

Though system care management capability is essential for effective health network performance, few comprehensive models currently exist. This chapter offers one perspective on the nature and operational requirements of sys tem care management. The chapter highlights health care trends that necessitate system care management, delineates the broad objectives of a system care management program, describes care management functions and staffing patterns for designated sectors of the health delivery system, provides an overview of the information management requirements associated with system care management, and frames questions to be addressed in measuring the outcome of care management interventions.
Outcomes Research for Children and Adolescents
Authors: Stern Susan B
Published: November 2023

The challenge to better meet the mental health needs of children and adolescents has long occupied a position of top priority among researchers, clinicians, and policy-makers alike. Children and adolescents experience a high incidence of emotional and behavioral problems that render them less able to function at home, in school, or in their community (Cohen, Provet & Jones, 1996). Recent estimates place the prevalence of mental health disorder among this population between 14% and 26% (Brandenberg, Friedman & Silver, 1987; Tuma, 1989). The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH, 1990) has estimated that between 11 and 14 million children under the age of eighteen are in need of mental health services. Sadly, there is a significant gap between the number of children in need of mental health services and those served. It has been estimated that over half of children in need of mental health services do not receive them and, for those who do, services are of ten inappropriate or ineffective (Henggeler, 1994; Saxe, Cross & Silverman, 1988; Tuma, 1989).
Research Need In the Managed Care of Substance-Abusing Patients
Authors: Peebles-Wilkins Wilma , Veeder Nancy W
Published: November 2023

Social work intervention with substance-abusing patients needs further study in the current health care delivery system, which focuses on cost-containment and short-term treatment approaches. In many instances, addicted patients need extended care and treatment. While to some extent health care delivery systems have accommodated this need by increasing the number of visits allowable for substance-abuse treatment, alcohol and drug addicion problems are so pervasive in our society that there is an on going need to examine the role of counseling professionals such as social workers.
Alternative Global Futures in the Balance
Authors: Gopin Marc
Published: November 2023

An unprecedented level of paradoxical religious movement characterizes the contemporary era. On the one hand, there are a greater number of people than ever before who are expressing either secular perspectives on life or views of their own religions that are completely independent of traditional religious authority, dogma and law. There is more and more experimentation in some quarters on the basic meaning systems of traditional religion. This is due both to the unprecedented level of involvement of women in public religious life and to the interesting interaction of the liberal state and free religious inquiry and experimentation. Furthermore, the unprecedented mixture of people of all faiths in many parts of the globe, especially in large cosmopolitan centers, has also given birth to great creativity in religious life.
American Leadership:Understanding Our National Addiction to Individualism, Cooperation, and Authoritarianism
Authors: Lipman-Blumen Jean
Published: November 2023

American culture reveres leaders with a penchant for individualism, particularly when it’s laced with cooperation and discreet authoritarianism. In contrast to the overt authoritarianism of old Europe, our special brand demands a democratic context. Other societies, particularly in Asia and Latin America, gravitate toward leaders who prefer to work through family, friendships, and favors. Yet if the psychological and existential foundations of leadership that we explored in Chapter Two are really valid, shouldn’t people in all cultures seek the same kinds of leaders? The answer, as you may suspect, is “yes and no.” True, the underlying psychological and existential foundations for the acceptance of leaders exist in all societies.
The Direct Routes to Success: The Intrinsic, Competitive, and Power Styles
Authors: Lipman-Blumen Jean
Published: November 2023

We begin our examination of the achieving styles that constitute the Connective Leadership Model with the three direct styles: intrinsic, competitive, and power. The direct styles are as American as Apple Computer. These styles represent the core of American individualism. They also foster innovation, creativity, diversity, and authoritarian ism. In Chapter Three, we saw that the early American frontier, with its isolation and rugged terrain, and later the immigration experience favored strong, individualistic, self-reliant people. These conditions groomed individuals who looked to themselves and addressed their tasks directly, without counting on help from others except in crises. Direct achievers expect, even prefer, to con front their world head on in their own way. They welcome the enormous challenges of tasks, of competitors, and of situations.
By What Authority?:Hindu Women and the Legitimization of Reform in the Nineteenth Century
Authors: Falk Nancy Auer
Published: November 2023

The nineteenth century is a period especially crucial for understanding both the dilemmas and the distinctive opportunities that have emerged for Indian women. As is well known, the so-called “women’s question” was one of its focal issues, and repercussions from the way that question was addressed continue to affect the lives of Indian women today. The women’s question was the great nineteenth-century controversy over a series of customs that had restricted the lives of high-caste women and had prompted criticism from India’s British rulers. These customs had been cited to justify England’s argument that Indians—especially Hindus—were barbarians and therefore much in need of England’s “civilizing mission.” They were, moreover, much quoted by missionaries both in England and in the United States to justify evangelistic work in India.
Buddha Sakyamuni as a Saint
Authors: Ray Reginald A
Published: November 2023

The Buddhist saints, though reflecting a variety of types deriving from different times, geographical locales, and traditions, are nevertheless unified by a common and quite detailed conception of what a holy person is. At the outset, it will be useful to summarize the major features of this conception, as a hypothesis to be clarified, amplified, and tested in the following pages. Most simply put, the saint in Buddhism may be understood as a person in whom the ultimate potentiality of every human, indeed sentient, being has been more or less fully realized. In the Indian Buddhist context, such a realization implies three overlapping and mutually interdependent spheres of religious understanding and action: a characteristic life journey made by the individual from an ordinary human status to saintly perfection; a set of traditional disciplines, including forest renunciation and meditation, that are understood to facilitate this transformation; and a societal dimension, wherein the saint may manifest his or her enlightened charisma and others may respond to it through certain cultic behaviors.
Some Orthodox Saints in Buddhism
Authors: Ray Reginald A
Published: November 2023

This chapter contains discussion of three ‘ ‘orthodox saints ‘ ‘ of Indian Buddhism: Mahkasyapa, Upagupta, and Sariputra. These saints may be termed orthodox because they are paradigmatic, creative figures at the center of the history of the major Indian Nikaya schools, including those connected with the Mahasarpghika, the Sthavira/Theravada, and the Sarvastivada. Also, in the texts of the established monastic traditions, they are cast in a consistently positive light as embodiments of the schools ‘ highest ideals. The first saint to be treated, Mahakasyapa, is an important saint throughout the Northwestern and Southern sources, with a character that is variously described. The second, Upagupta, is celebrated chiefly, though not exclusively, in the Northwestern sources. The third, Sariputra, has particular importance for Southern Buddhism of the Sthavira/Theravada.
Cults of Arhants
Authors: Ray Reginald A
Published: November 2023

The phenomenon of the Buddhist saint is typically defined by the intersection of a particular paradigm of sainthood, characteristic traditions of forest renunciation, and an active cult. The preceding chapters have focused primarily upon the paradigm of Buddhist sainthood and have offered no more than glimpses of the saints ‘ traditions of forest renunciation and their cults. The present chapter contains a discussion of the cult of the Buddhist saints through an examination of the cults of the arhants, as expressed in two quite different but converging bodies of evidence: textual evidence of the cult of the sixteen arhants and the reports of the Chinese pilgrims on the general cult of arhants. As we shall see, the arhants depicted in this evidence possess many of the major features of the paradigm of the Buddhist saint outlined in previous chapters. However, in the evidence of the cult, almost the entire focus of attention is upon the arhants as fully realized saints. Although the postrealization careers of the arhants are depicted in the cultic evidence in bold and vivid colors, there is little discussion or even acknowledgment of their prerealization lives.
The Solitary Saint, the Pratyekabuddha
Authors: Ray Reginald A
Published: November 2023

The pratyekabuddha (P., paccekabuddha; “solitary Buddha “ or one “enlightened on his own “ ) is frequently mentioned in Indian Buddhist texts. Pali tradition, for example, attributes several characteristics to him. First and foremost, he is like a buddha, an enlightened being by virtue of having comprehended the four noble truths on his own, without the help of any teacher (Mp 105 [T.R. 1890-94, 1:158]). However, he does not have the capacity to proclaim the dharma to others and is not a teacher, and this separates him from a buddha. In addition, the pratyekabuddha cannot coexist in the same time period with a buddha and thus does not arise in the era when the teaching of a perfect buddha is known (Nyanatiloka 1980, 140). In terms of his personal style, the pratyekabuddha enjoys solitude and speaks little (La Vallee Poussin 1908-27c, 152). Among the wellknown and frequently appearing triad of arhant, pratyekabuddha, and buddha, he is superior to an arhant but inferior to a buddha (Mn 3:254 [Hn., 3:302]). Sometimes, he is closely linked with the buddhas, whereas the arhant seems to stand off to the side as a markedly lower ideal. The Sarvastivadin definitions follow closely upon the Pali.
The Cult of Saints and Buddhist Doctrines of Absence and Presence
Authors: Ray Reginald A
Published: November 2023

In the evidence examined in previous chapters, we have seen certain tensions, sometimes oppositions, between two ways of considering the Buddhist saints. On the one hand is the view that the Buddhist saints of the forest are the primary reference point for normative Buddhism. On the other is the view that tends to play down the saints and to find the heart of normative Buddhism elsewhere, in the characteristic values and preoccupations of settled monasticism. This raises the question of whether, at least to some extent, this divergence of views is not an isolated instance, but is rather connected with two distinguishable, sometimes quite different, understandings of what Buddhism is and should be. The present chapter takes up this question by focusing on ways in which these two views tend to express themselves in Buddhist doctrine and, in particular, where they stand in relation to the important question of the extent to which, and the way in which, the Buddhist saint, after death, is immanent within or absent from the deluded world.
/ The Stillness Controversy
Authors: Tyson John R
Published: November 2023

Charles Wesley’s hymns and sermons were tools of evangelism and Christian nurture. As early Methodism was shaken by controversies his hymns also took on a polemical tone and became his ablest instruments in defending the movement. His polemical interests ranged from the issue of theodicy in Hymns Occasioned by the Earthquakes (1750) to a matter near and dear to Charles’s heart in “An Apology for the Enemies of Music. “ His hymns often assumed a posture that was prophetically critical toward eighteenth-century Christianity. The enlightenment’s christologies drew charges of “Arians,” “Socinians,” and “vain philosophies” in Charles’s hymns. The deists were poetically transformed into modern day Sadducees for their uneasiness about supernaturalism, while the orthodox Anglicans became “Pharisees” for their pride, arrogance, and hostility toward the Methodists.3 His Short Hymns on Select Passages of Scripture, especially those based on the Gospel of Luke, decried the materialism of his age. His hymn “The Man of Fashion” was a biting criticism of the trendy gentry and their aristocratic arrogance. In a similar way religious hypocrisy, which Charles described as a “mask of piety,” was often singled out for special criticism.
/ Christian Perfection and Its Pretenders
Authors: Tyson John R
Published: November 2023

Charles Wesley deemed Christian Perfection one of “the two great truths of the everlasting Gospel” (the other being “universal redemption”). It was the soteriological axis of his theology, a point around which a constellation of redemption themes revolved. Sanctification, as articulated in even his earliest preaching [No. 6], was the “one thing needful”-a renovation of the whole person in the image of God and mind of Christ. But the doctrine, despite its vital position in Wesleyan soteriology, was difficult to articulate. It demanded both theological balance and personal humility from its adherents in order to avoid extravagant claims and abuses of Wesley’s sanctification language and vision.
/ The Final Days
Authors: Tyson John R
Published: November 2023

Charles Wesley’s declining years were punctuated by bouts of serious illness and flurries of ministerial activity. A hymn, one of his most autobiographical, reveals his state of mind during this final period. Written between December 3, 1763, and April 30, 1764, the following unpublished hymn revealed Charles’s growing sense of physical frailty and increasing resignation of himself to the will of God.
Introduction
Authors: Gottschalk Peter
Published: November 2023

A friend had just returned from India, and we sat having tea in my Chicago apartment. She spoke of the disillusionment caused by the divergence between her American university, book-based education of India and her first year’s experience of living in India. One of the most difficult aspects of her life, she explained, was dealing with the communalism that increasingly simmered on the front burner of the 1996 national elections. Indian friends, whose opinions she thought she could predict, surprisingly began to echo the bigoted sentiments that bubbled and frothed in the heated climate of the elections. Her comments spurred my memories of uncomfortable moments I experienced occasionally in my rural research site—moments when a Muslim flamboyantly condemned Hindus or a Hindu harshly denigrated Muslims. Trying to camouflage my revulsion toward such talk without condoning these ideas with silence, I seldom responded to such situations with anything more than a halfhearted nod or a barely audible grunt. After all, I had come, in part, to explore such sentiments. Moreover, I knew that not only would any protest on my part be without good effect but also it would most likely make residents less forthcoming to me about such matters. Like my friend, I struggled with my feelings and lived with my frustration.
Multiple Identities, Singular Representations
Authors: Gottschalk Peter
Published: November 2023

Modernity has proven to be an illusive animal to snare in the trap of description. This results, in part, from the manner in which its constituent elements serve as paradigms for understanding the world—paradigms so basic to Western interpretation that they are often as presumed as looking through one’s eyes. Most Westerners, as children of the Enlightenment and the Protestant Reformation, unreflectively consider individualism, rationalism, secularism, and nationalism as prerequisite components of “modern” societies. Because they often adopt an idea of progress that posits the modern as the pinnacle of human cultural development, Westerners sometimes harshly judge cultures that fail to fulfill modern expectations, negatively labeling them as backward, medieval, or less developed. Absorbing and appropriating many of these paradigms and valuations through hundreds of years of Western cultural hegemony, many non-Westerners have come to share some of these views of modern Westerners and their critique of non-Western societies.
Monopolizing the Conversation: On Being Civilly Egocentric
Authors: Derber Charles
Published: November 2023

Individualism has a counterpart in American psychology. People tend to seek attention for themselves in face-to-face interactions. This attention getting psychology reflects an underlying character structure of “self-orientation” that emerges in highly individualistic societies.’ Erich Fromm has theorized that a shared character structure develops in each society, a “social character” that is a response to the requirements of the social order and best suited for survival and success within it. The self-oriented character type develops a highly egocentric view of the world and is motivated primarily by self-interest. To cope with social and economic insecurity bred by individualism, he becomes preoccupied with himself.
G
Authors: Andrews Tamra
Published: November 2023

Gaia was the Greek Mother Earth, the most ancient divinity born out of chaos. She was the female creative principle and the personification of the physical earth. The earth goddess was the object of a widespread cult but was gradually displaced by more humanized goddesses who embodied the same creative principle. Though Gaia embodied the entire planet, to the Greeks she more likely personified their particular area of earth and the fertile power of the land. The mountains were her breasts, the caves her womb, the earth’s waters her female fluids. She gave birth to Ouranos, the sky, then mated with him to create the first races of mankind.
L
Authors: Andrews Tamra
Published: November 2023

Lei Kung was the Chinese Duke of Thunder, a deity that can be traced back to the first century B.C. In ancient times, he was called simply “the thunderer;’ but after Buddhism came to China he assumed the name Lei Kung and became an official in the Ministry of Thunder. The Chinese believed thunderstorms were a form of divine punishment, and Lei Kung was one of the primary deities responsible for meting it out. But because he only made the noise of thunder, he enlisted help from the other gods to carry out the storms. Lei Kung often worked in tandem with T’ien Mu, who flashed the lightning, Yu Shih, who poured the rains from a watering can, Yun’t’ung, who piled up the clouds, and Feng Po, who released the winds from his goatskin bottle.
W
Authors: Andrews Tamra
Published: November 2023

In many cosmogonies, the world began with water alone. Water contained the seeds of life, so it had infinite possibilities and power-power to create the universe and to circulate through all three realms. The mythology and symbolism of water is pervasive and complex, and it encompasses the duality that defines the character of many natural forces. Water as creator and water as destroyer fostered the development of a wide range of spirits, some who ensured life and fertility and others who caused death.
The Practice of Silent Illumination
Authors: Sheng-yen Master , Stevenson Dan
Published: November 2023

We have spoken in an earlier chapter of the codification that the “gateless gate” of Chan underwent as it developed institutionally during the late Tang and early Song Dynasties. In an atmosphere of increasing sectarianism the different lines of Chan sought to formalize their patriarchal heritages and delineate the distinctive features of their particular brand of Chan practice and culture.
Muhammad the Model
Authors: Ruthven Malise
Published: November 2023

Muhammad ibn ‘Abdullah of the Banu Hashim of Quraish was born in Mecca in about 570, at a time when the ruling tribe of Quraish were increasing in wealth, power and prosperity. The caravan-city of Makka, probably the ‘Makorba’ mentioned in the writings of the second century geographer Ptolemy, had long been a centre of pilgrimage. The shrine from which its name derived, and the surrounding haram or sacred area, was a place where the beduin tribes who controlled the traffic in spices and other goods between South Arabia and the Mediterranean could exchange goods without fear of attack. The pilgrimage to the Ka’ba, in addition to its religious functions, encouraged trade, especially during the four sacred months when fighting was forbidden. Other harams in the Peninsula similarly combined religious with commercial functions, but Makka seems to have been the most important of these sanctuaries, lying as it did on the strategic road between Yemen, seat of an ancient if declining civilization, and the Mediterranean. In the decades before Muhammad, the volume of trade had increased, partly as a result of the continuing warfare between the Persian and Byzantine empires which disrupted the northern land routes. The tribes who controlled the Hejaz trade were becoming not only more powerful but increasingly civilized as they came into closer contact with the regions of high culture.
When Egypt Was Christian
Authors: Hasan S S
Published: November 2023

The following three chapters are a very rough historical sketch, based on a few of the better known works. Those who are well versed in Egyptian history are advised to skip chapters 1-3 of this book. To shed some light on Coptic myths and the commemorations of suffering and sacrifice that reproduce the Coptic past, I will attempt to outline in a rudimentary fashion the main personalities and events of the third to fifth centuries AD that captivate the imagination of Egyptian Christians to this day. The Greeks of Egypt were the first converts to Christianity and the first proselytizers among the native population. Alexander the Great arrived in Egypt in October 332 BC; the priests of Memphis (modem Luxor) offered him the crown of Upper and Lower Egypt, and after seven months, in April of 331, he left Egypt to engage in further conquests. He was never to return; he died eight years later in the year 323 BC in Babylon. However, his legacy, the prosperous capital city of Alexandria, which he had founded in April 331, was to become, under the Ptolemaic dynasty, the home of some of the greatest scholars of the age: Euclid the geometer, Erastosthenes the geographer, and Philo the New Platonist, a Jew who resided in Alexandria in the first century AD (after the Greeks, the Jews constituted the largest foreign community in Alexandria).
The Dawn of a New Era
Authors: Hasan S S
Published: November 2023

The Arab rulers were willing, on the whole, to allow Christians and Jews to practice their own religion and be governed by their own religious laws, since the Koran recognized the validity of these two religions (Suras 2 and 5 maintain that anyone who believed in God and performed good deeds, whether Jew or Christian, would be rewarded by God). Nonetheless, conversions to Islam gained in momentum between the seventh and ninth centuries, at times under pressure, at others for financial and tax advantages, so that by the ninth century the Coptic peasantry had largely intermingled with the Arab invaders and Coptic was being replaced by Arabic.
The Warring Founding Fathers: Bishop Shenuda, Bishop Samuel, and Abbot Matthew the Poor
Authors: Hasan S S
Published: November 2023

The “revolution of the saints” in Egypt was replete with the kind of fierce infighting and bitter feuds that characterize worldly revolutions, for each one of its leading figures had his own burning vision of the Orthodox revival movement and went after it with single-minded, almost ruthless, determination. When in 1959 the papal throne became vacant, the members of the Sunday School Movement felt that their turn had come. They decided to put forward the candidacy of a member of St. Anthony’s Church, Father Anthony, and that of a member of the Giza church, Father Macari, as well as that of Father Matthew the Poor. In the words of another former member of the Giza church, Bishop Bimen, “We felt that if the pope was chosen from among members of the Sunday School Movement, he would be younger, more energetic, more dynamic, and more moral.’’1 But the revolutionary ideas of this generation were suspect. The old guard quickly closed ranks against it, by influencing the Holy Synod to enact a law making ineligible any monk who had spent less than fifteen years in a monastery and who was under 40 years of age.
Dealing with the Muslim State: Pope Shenuda
Authors: Hasan S S
Published: November 2023

Ironically, President Nasser’s authoritarian regime unwittingly schooled the church for a political role, by weakening the Christian secular aristocracy as well as the liberal institutions like Parliament and the Communal Council in which they had played an important role. Even before it issued the decree banning the multiparty system, the new regime that had come to power as a result of the 1952 revolution had undermined the political power of the Coptic landed aristocracy by destroying, through the Agrarian Reform Act, their economic base. Nasser was uncomfortable with private voluntary associations: he regarded them as potential centers of subversion. The Communal Council, an institution dominated by that same aristocracy, was not done away with in quite as blatant a manner as Parliament had been, but it was reduced to a shadow of its former self The same republican decree that limited land holdings to 200 feddans authorized the Agrarian Reform Authority to confiscate all church holdings beyond that limit.
Centralizing the Church Administration
Authors: Hasan S S
Published: November 2023

The battle Pope Shenuda had to fight was not only against the state: within the church itself, it was not possible for Shenuda to implement his socioeconomic reform project without causing an upheaval and generating many enemies, both among the clerics and the laymen who served the church. For one thing, such reforms threatened their position, because they necessitated a centralization of power. During his reign, the church ceased to be the loose conglomerate of self-governing units (dioceses) that it had been in the past. he dioceses were pretty much autonomous quasi-feudal principalities before the reign of Shenuda, with the bishops paying pro forma homage to their overlord, the pope, while in fact regarding their dioceses as their own private fiefdoms. Even the selection of the bishops was far more decentralized. Often the pope was happy to leave the choice of the bishop up to the local notability, in whose interests it was to nominate someone pliable, whom they could control.
Culture and Hegemony: “Islam Is the Solution”
Authors: Hasan S S
Published: November 2023

The revolutionary junta that came to power in 1952 was drawn from the lower middle class, whose cultural mooring was religious, hence Islamic. The leading cadres of the conspiratorial movement of the Free Officers did not feature a single Christian (possibly because of the underrepresentation of religious and ethnic minorities in the Egyptian military academy).1 Unlike members of the old regime, not a single member of the junta had studied in the West, and few spoke a foreign language. Thus, they had not come into contact with western secular thinkers or with the notion of the separation of church and state. And though Nasser himself was not wed to any particular ideology when he first came to power (he had ties at different times to a variety of political groupings), other members of the junta had had close ties with the Muslim Brotherhood.
The Church as Amphitheater
Authors: Hasan S S
Published: November 2023

The General Meetings, which the Coptic canticles inaugurate, well examplify the way in which the new and old mesh to create traditions. Pope Shenuda first called these meetings” Dars” (Lesson). This at one and the same time underlined their innovative character, by distinguishing them from the religious sermon, and created a tradition, by emphasizing their continuity with the pedagogical mission of the founder of the Sunday School Movement, the by then “resting” I:Iabib Jirjis. (Pious Copts never use the word dead; they say itnayah, “he rested.”) Thus, we can see how new traditions are fashioned, as the rapid transformation of society weakens the social patterns for which the “old” traditions had been designed. The sermon itself was at one time an innovation for the Coptic Church. Prior to its adoption, by the Sunday School generation in the 1940s, the Coptic Church was limited to the celebration of mass.
Introduction—Reconstructing Ancient Sport
Authors: Scanlon Thomas F
Published: November 2023

The last decades of the past century witnessed in many countries the literal and metaphorical unveiling of the body, a huge interest in sports both as a medium of personal fitness and as immensely profitable big business, fervid public discussion of sex and gender, and radical restructuring of conventional religious institutions. Academics concerned with ancient Greece and Rome, spurred on by these cultural dynamics, are asking newquestions of ancient materlaI, to some extent so that classical constructions of sex, gender, sports, and religion might open up new perspectives on analogous modern phenomena. Cultural relativity shows us alternative modes of thinking about Individual behavior and societal institutions. Hy noting similarities and differences with the ancient civilizations on which European culture was based, and by recognizing the ways In which cultural constructions In general take place, the dialogue with the past continues to enlighten the present. ln this work, explicit comparisons and contrasts with parallel modern phenomena will mostly be left to the readers: many parallels will be obvious from individual experiences of contemporary social contexts.
Athletics, Initiation, and Pederasty
Authors: Scanlon Thomas F
Published: November 2023

Though It is essential to understand the character and history of the Olympics as the earliest known regular athletic festival among the Greeks, a myriad of other games testify to the use of athletics in constructing Greek society, The athletic contests of Greek myth and history were held in a variety of contexts: pure entertainment, physical education, funeral games, sacred festivals, and initiation rituals, The last of these occasions may be the least obvious, since it has not received much scholarly attention lately, but it is an essential strand in the complicated social nexus of Greek athletics. Moreover, In recent decades some scholarship has argued that Greek initiation had its origins in a prehistoric, India European ritual that assigned a significant role to homosexuality, or more specifically pederasty, in Greek culture. Since much of this work discusses issues of gender and sexuality In relation to Greek sports, it Is crucial that these theories of an initiatory origin of pederasty be examined In relation to athletics. Though origins per se are of less interest here than later historical manifestations, most of the Initiation theories claim that the Initiation-pederasty nexus continued to function in various ways in the historical period. Thus the theories may shed light on historical practice.
“Only We Produce Men”—Spartan Female Athletics and Eugenics
Authors: Scanlon Thomas F
Published: November 2023

With typically erotic overtones, Propertius sang the praise of Spartan maidens: “I marvel at the many rules of your palaestra, O Sparta, but even more at the blessings of your gymnasium for girls [virgineum gymnasium], since a naked girl may take part in the well-known games amidst men as they wrestle” (3.14.1–4). As with the Olympian Heraia, Spartan girls’ contests offer a unique perspective from which to observe young women engaged in the rites of passage from adolescence to adulthood. Unlike men’s athletics, which was an expression of heroic and martial aretē at Sparta and elsewhere, Spartan glrls’ games, like their counterparts in the Hernia and the Attica Arktela, were ultimately an expression of prenuptial strength for the wives- and mothers-to-be of warriors. At Sparta, however, the girls’ athletic regimen more closely resembled the men’s in form and variety than anywhere else. As in the Heraia and the Arkteia, Spartan female contests were open only to maidens (parthenoi) and, in part, the contests functioned as ritual tests of strength prior to marriage.
Race or Chase of “The Bears” At Brauron?
Authors: Scanlon Thomas F
Published: November 2023

Our final study of girls’ historical paideia moves to the region of Attica and a festival of Artemis Arkteia much studied in recent years. Since the 1960s, Lilly Kah ii has published a series of important articles on the unique vases, mainly from Brauron, associated with the worship of Artemis in Attica. These documents have stimulated a number of reinterpretations of the local festivals of Artemis, particularly the Brauronia and Munichla, There seems to be scholarly consensus that theactivities of the young girls shown on the vases are some form of prenuptial Initiation, and that the foundation myths of the Brauronla and Munichla support such a ritual representation by stressing the elements of tameness and wildness which would suit such ceremonies.
Eros and Greek Athletics
Authors: Scanlon Thomas F
Published: November 2023

Until recently, conventional wisdom told us that sports and sex were disassociated, if not antithetical activities: but cultural experience says otherwise, Once I saw Mariel Hemingway in the men’s locker room of the gymnasium at UCLA and was reminded of the Greek vase painting of Peleus gazing at Atalanta in a gymnasium. But our modern athletic heroine was surrounded by a movie crew as, some years ago, they were filming Personal Best (1982). A high point of the film was a passionate, lesbian love scene between Hemingway and another athlete after a bout of arm wrestling. About the same time, North Dallas Forty exposed, among other things, the sexual appetite of football players. The contemporary association of sports and sex is also reflected in the multi-million dollar endorsement contracts by attractive sports idols such as Dennis Rodman, Michael Jordan, Mia Hamm, and Picabo Street.
The Tenuous Self: Wu-wei in the Zhuangzi
Authors: Slingerland Edward
Published: November 2023

The Zhuangzian ideal of wu-wei resembles in certain respects that of Mencius, in that it represents a state in which one’s actions are perfectly harmonized with one’s “natural,” spontaneous inclinations. But whereas Mencius understands the “natural” in terms of human hierarchies and inherited cultural forms, Zhuangzian naturalness requires a transcendence of the human-particularly of the categories and valuations associated with that faculty so treasured by Mencius, the human heart/mind (xin ,C,,). Like Laozi, Zhuangzi uses wu-wei in a polemical fashion: as a tool to uncover the hidden tensions and difficulties in the thought of his predecessors. While Confucius and Mencius remain fairly silent on the subject of the paradox of wu-wei, Zhuangzi seems to take delight in it.