Gnosiology

In this research thesis we will discover that Augustine’s opinion that concupiscence was an evil, hereditary stain of original sin was not in line with the agreed-upon tradition of the earliest of Church fathers but there are strong arguments for believing that this opinion was based on non-Christian or spurious sources, the most probable direct source being the “Ambrosiaster” document. On this shaky foundation of the inheritance of concupiscence, Augustine built the idea of the massa damnata. It was a novel doctrine, since it was incompatible with the earlier Orthodox tradition. Augustine's claim that this denial of limbo and the positive damnation of unbaptized infants was part of the Catholic tradition, was a novelty to the Church universal. It was unsupported by early sources. This leads me to conclude that Augustine’s threefold philosophical structure of concupiscence, massa damnata and the positive damnation of unbaptized infants was not in accordance with “the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3b, NKJV). The lack of orthodox evidence supporting an idea of genetically inheriting sin substantially weakens the basis as proffered by Augustine.

All'interno di questo numero della rIvista antimoderna Antarès (qui caricata per intero) si accede al saggio su l'approccio cognitivo di Ioan P. Culianu (Iasi 1950-Chicago 1991) in ambito della storia delle religioni. Lo studioso romeno, assassinato nel 1991, è stato un precursore in questo senso, per questo ho voluto inquadrare il suo pensiero in un filone di ricerca emerso negli Stati Uniti proprio negli anni della sua morte con il nome di neuroteologia.  E' lo studio dei fenomeni religiosi implicanti uno stato alterato di coscienza dalla prospettiva neurologica.  Lo sviluppo di queste ricerche prende forma più compiuta a partire dal XXI° secolo con una sofisticata tecnologia SPECT per rilevare le attività cerebrali sottostanti l’esperienza mistico-religiosa. L’esperimento coinvolse monaci e monache in stato di profonda meditazione, per capire mediante hi-tech quali fossero le zone correlate all’esperienza spirituale.  Culianu è tuttavia partito da presupposti totalmente diversi rispetto ai sopra citati neuroscienziati americani, vediamo quali ...
http://www.bietti.it/riviste/lune-dacciaio-i-miti-della-fantascienza/culianu-e-lapproccio-cognitivo-nella-storia-delle-religioni/

This paper will explore three phenomenological themes relating to the processes of palingenesis and resurrection. Firstly, the bi-polarity of love and death through an etymological analysis of (a)mor and its connection to Eros. Secondly, the separation (separatio) of body and soul through the mors osculi or morte di bacio (Latin: death of the kiss). Thirdly, I will show that the resurrected body (sahu), in its primordial state, is bound to the all-pervasive power of Eros, a power that 'loosens or breaks the chains that bind the soul to the body’. Deathlessness implies both separation and reintegration of body and soul intrinsic to the renovatio of the alchemical body of resurrection: corpus resurrectionis (body to come) and post resurrectionem (glorified body).This transmutation of the soul, culminating in an invisible life force within the newly incorruptible body (ka) ‘survives’ death, thus entering a state of deathlessness. Through my explication of the mors osculi, I will establish that the process of death has a uniquely feminine quality. A view comparable with Sophia in her Exaltation, or more precisely, the death-initiatory aspects of the intercession of the Angel of Knowledge (Dator formarum). Lastly, it is this very intercession which underpins numinous modalities of theophanic apperception and transcendence. Through transfiguration, the 'alchemical body of resurrection,' the soul in eclipse achieves apotheosis through deathlessness—mors osculi—the Urphänomen for the concatenation of death-palingenesis-resurrection.

Ирини Артеми
(Грчки отворени универзитет, Атина)
ПРАВОСЛАВНА ГНОСЕОЛОГИЈА И ОНТОЛОГИЈА ТРИЈЕДИНОГ БОГА
У РУКОПИСИМА НИКОЛЕ; ЕПИСКОПА МЕТОНЕ
У раду се разматра доктрина Николе Метонског, водећег византијског филозофа
XII века. Био је бранилац православне теологије против Проклових неоплатонистичких
ставова. Његова доктрина о Богу је идеална и трансцедентна. Сматрао је да су негативни
ставови о Богу тачнији од оних који су правоверни. Бога је посматрао као бесконачног
и изнад човека, а разматрао је и суштину човека према Богу. Иако је у његовој доктрини
Бог једнак бескрају, човек Га може спознати због његове инкарнације у триједином
Богу. Објаснио је да је Свето Тројство уствари јединство и да заједно творе домострој
и отелотворење, а да је само Христос отелотворен као Богочовек

Philosophy courses help students develop logical reasoning and argument skills or so it is widely assumed. To test if this is actually the case, we examined university students’ familiarity with the basic tools for argument. Our findings, based on a sample of 651 students enrolled in philosophy courses at six Greek universities, indicate that students who have prior experience with philosophy are more familiar with the basic tools for argument, and that students who have taken philosophy courses at the university have stronger argument-recognition and argument-evaluation skills compared to university students with no prior experience with philosophy. Moreover, our findings suggest that students get more familiar with the basic tools for argument as their level of engagement with philosophy increases, and that they get significantly better at evaluating arguments when they become graduate students in philosophy. However, our findings also suggest that the majority of students in philosophy classrooms haven’t developed fluency in (at least some) basic argument-related concepts and skills. To remedy this, we argue that philosophy instructors need to re-think (a) the place that the teaching of argument has in philosophy courses, and (b) the way that they teach students about argument.

RESUMO Este ensaio objetiva analisar os limites das propostas gnosiológicas frente à contribuição da ontologia para o desenvolvimento do conhecimento e, em especial, para o conhecimento administrativo. Assim, procedemos uma análise da argumentação que consideramos ter produzido maior impacto na produção de conhecimento no campo administrativo brasileiro na atualidade, o "Círculo de Matrizes Epistêmicas" de Ana Paula Paes de Paula (2016). Partimos da apreciação das categorias de ontologia e gnosiologia buscando delimitá-las e confrontá-las para que pudéssemos contextualizar a Guerra Paradigmática que engendra a tese das matrizes. A análise nos mostra que a noção de “incompletude cognitiva” representa um estímulo para o avanço do conhecimento, como bem apontou a autora, contudo a solução proposta, os círculos epistêmicos, são incapazes de derruir a cisão entre os interesses técnicos, práticos e emancipatórios, pois mantém os cortes nos fenômenos sociais e opera gnosiologicam...

Most inferentialists hope to bypass givenness by tracking the conditionals claimants are implicitly committed to. I argue that this approach is underdetermined because one can always construct parallel trees of conditionals. I illustrate this using the Müller-Lyer illusion and touching a table. In the former case, the lines are either even or uneven; in the latter case, a moving hand will either sweep through or be halted. For each possibility, we can rationally foresee consequents. However, I argue that, until and unless we benefit from what is given in experience, we cannot know whether to affirm the antecedents of those conditionals.

An empirical study was conducted measuring the degree to which Greek university students’ understanding of core philosophical concepts (that is, ‘argument’, ‘knowledge’ and ‘ethics’) has been shaped by the material taught in the classroom. The extent of this transition from pre-instructional conceptions to textbook formulations has been investigated through the use of a new questionnaire. Findings indicate that generally, students retain their pre-theoretical understanding of these terms. Within this framework, some formal definitions are closer to common sense (e.g. ‘ethics’) and some others aren’t (e.g. ‘knowledge’). Furthermore, the role of intuitions in this process is been evaluated, leading to the ascertainment that previous philosophical encounters seem to play a crucial role in determining actual understanding.