Philology

In this article, I outline a logic of design of a system as a specific kind of conceptual logic of the design of the model of a system, that is, the blueprint that provides information about the system to be created. In section two, I introduce the method of levels of abstraction as a modelling tool borrowed from computer science. In section three, I use this method to clarify two main conceptual logics of information (i.e., modelling systems) inherited from modernity: Kant's transcen-dental logic of conditions of possibility of a system, and Hegel's dialectical logic of conditions of in/stability of a system. Both conceptual logics of information analyse structural properties of given systems. Strictly speaking, neither is a conceptual logic of information about (or modelling) the conditions of feasibility of a system, that is, neither is a logic of information as a logic of design. So, in section four, I outline this third conceptual logic of information and then interpret the conceptual logic of design as a logic of requirements, by introducing the relation of " suffici-entisation ". In the conclusion, I argue that the logic of requirements is exactly what we need in order to make sense of, and buttress, a constructionist (poietic) approach to knowledge.

"This special issue of Comparative Literature Studies brings together talks, some extensively revised, others virtually unchanged, that were delivered at a conference entitled "What is Philology?" The gathering took place on Saturday, March 19, 1988 at Harvard University under the aegis of the Center for Literary and Cultural Studies. The depth and breadth of interest in the conference was deeply gratifying. I had not experienced another occasion when so many scholars from different language and literature departments gathered at Harvard, and I hope that publishing the proceedings will benefit a larger community outside the University.

By way of introduction I will describe how the event originated. My description will explore a few of the reasons why an interdisciplinary conference of a dozen speakers and respondents attracted an audience of more than two hundred, and why a topic that 'may sound rarefied drew participants whose main fields of research and teaching interests ran the gamut from the most ancient Indo-European languages to the most recent African American literature. In short, I will offer tentative explanations for the urgency of the topic to students, professors, and independent scholars who engage in philology, linguistics, literary history, literary criticism, and literary theory."

Paul has been regarded as being uncritical of the Roman Empire for a long time, not least because of his apparent call to obey the state in Rom 13:1-7. However, recent scholarship has questioned this assumption by pointing to "hidden criticism" in the letters of the apostle. But how can we decide, in a methodologically sound way, whether such a counter-imperial message lies beneath the surface of the text? On the basis of insights from the philosophy of science, Christoph Heilig suggests several analytical steps for examining this paradigm. He concludes that the hypothesis that we can identify critical "echoes" of the Roman Empire in Paul's letters needs to be modified for it to be maintained. In particular, concern over the danger of overt criticism and subsequent persecution do not sufficiently justify this interpretative hypothesis. Nevertheless, Heilig concludes that the search for a counter-imperial subtext in Paul could turn out to be heuristically fruitful so long as the limitations of the approach are heeded. Hence, a re-evaluation of Pauline passages in light of Paul's engagement with ideas from his Roman environment is encouraged.

North Finnic religions underwent a transformation during the Iron Age. This paper argues that the transformation occurred through the assimilation of Scandinavian ritual practices that produced a new type of ritual specialist that gradually displaced inherited forms of shamanism (and later displaced Sámi shamanism). Within the context of the volume, this is addressed in the framework of conversion. This paper concentrates on changes in conceptual modeling systems and the relationships of Finnic gods to the corresponding gods carried with the Germanic models. The text is oriented to scholars interested in Scandinavian or Germanic traditions with little or no knowledge of the Finnic traditions discussed. The study shows that comparisons of these traditions can be mutually illuminating.

Der Aufsatz behandelt eine auf germanischen Modellen beruhende religiöse Umwälzung in den nordostseefinnischen Kulturen. Dieser Prozess passierte, bevor das Christentum eingeführt wurde, und verdrängte den traditionellen Schamanismus, wodurch das mythologische System vollständig verändert wurde. Dieser Aufsatz konzentriert sich auf die Veränderungen in den Vorstellungssystemen und auf die Beziehungen der finnischen Götter (Väinämöinen, Ilmarinen, Ukko) zu den entsprechenden germanischen Göttern (Odin, Thor), wobei gezeigt wird, dass ein Vergleich dieser Traditionen gegenseitig erhellend sein kann.

This research is a comparative study of professional practice related to two schools of thought in the field of nonviolent conflict intervention: conflict resolution and conflict transformation.  The research relies upon a thorough review of scholarly literature related to these two schools and on primary data collected from twenty semi-structured interviews with professional conflict intervention practitioners.
The central question that guided the research was:  Do practitioners’ definitions (self-definitions and definitions of the terms conflict resolution and conflict transformation) and theories of practice, including goals, intervention strategies, and criteria for success, depend upon their self-identification with either the conflict resolution or conflict transformation school of thought?  Categories of analysis for self-definitions and intervention strategies arose from practitioner reports.  Data related to goals and criteria for success were plotted on a framework for evaluating interactive conflict resolution which provided a structure for comparison.
The findings show that some practitioners do refer to their practice exclusively as either conflict resolution or conflict transformation.  The data provide evidence however, that other practitioners use the terms conflict resolution and conflict transformation contextually for strategic, pragmatic, or philosophic reasons.  The subsequent comparative analysis describes the similarities and differences in practice between each of these categories of practitioners.  The comparative analysis shows that practitioners across definitional categories look beyond the various schools of thought and share a broad range of goals, intervention strategies, and criteria for success.
The research is relevant to everyone interested in research on practice.  It will be of special interest to all those in the evolving field of nonviolent conflict intervention where tensions related to professional identity are part of the current discourse in the field.  The study encourages consideration of the philosophical and practical complementarity of conflict resolution and conflict transformation, two, sometimes competing, schools of thought.

La scienza giuridica è una disciplina che studia il diritto, inquadrandolo razionalmente ed elaborandolo in modo tale che l’interpretazione delle norme sia compiuta attraverso procedure logiche verificabili in ogni passaggio. Nella storia della cultura giuridica dell’umanità una vera e propria scienza del diritto si trova sviluppata per la prima volta nel mondo romano, mentre non se ne riscontrano tracce significative né nella cultura giuridica dei paesi del Vicino Oriente Antico, né nella Grecia antica.

[for special issue, "Rethinking Philology: Twenty-Five Years after The New Philology"] In North American academia, the word ‘philology’ pulls in two directions—toward a broad, idealist sense corresponding to the roots philia and logos and toward a narrower conception of ‘mere’ philology, a historicist subdiscipline centered on etymology and textual editing. This essay examines the role of ‘philology’ before, during, and beyond the period known as the ‘linguistic turn,’ with special focus on The New Philology. Against the many invocations of ‘philology’ pitting the lofty ideal against fallen disciplinary practice, I argue for the institutional reelaboration of philological study in the present.

"ABSTRACT:
    This study assumes the subject's pursuit of meaning is generally incapacitating and should be suspended. It aims to demonstrate how such a suspension is theoretically accomplished by utilizing Lacan's formulae of sexuation integrated with his work in discourse theory and topology.
    Part I places this study into context by examining scholarship from the established fields of hermeneutics, phenomenology, (post)structuralism, aesthetic theory and psychoanalysis in order to extract out their respective theory of meaning. These theories reveal that an historical struggle with meaning has been underway since the Reformation and reaches near crisis proportions in the 20th century. On the one hand this crisis is mollified by the rise of Heideggerian-Gadamerian hermeneutical phenomenology which questions traditional epistemological approaches to the text using a new ontological conceptualization of meaning and a conscious rejection of methodology. On the other hand this crisis is exacerbated when the ubiquitous nature of meaning is itself challenged by (post)structuralism's discovery of the signifier which inscribes a limit to meaning, and by the domains of sense and nonsense newly opened up by aesthetic theory. These historical developments culminate in the field of psychoanalysis which most consequentially delimits a cause of meaning said to be closely linked to the core of subjectivity.
    Part II extends these findings by rigorously constructing out of the Lacanian sexuated formulae a decidedly non-hermeneutical phenomenological approach useful in demonstrating the sexual nature of meaning. Explicated in their static state by way of an account of their original derivation from the Aristotelian logical square, it is argued that these four formulae are relevant to basic concerns of textual theory inclusive of the hermeneutical circle of meaning. These formulae are then set into motion by integrating them with Lacan's four discourses to demonstrate the breakdown of meaning. Finally, the cuts and sutures of two-dimensional space that is topology as set down in L'étourdit are performed to confirm how the very field of meaning is ultimately suspended from a nonsensical singular point known in Lacanian psychoanalysis as objet a. The contention is that by occupying this point the subject frees himself from the debilitating grip of meaning."

" Those machines whose output was so great that all men might be clothed; those new methods of agriculture and new agricultural implements, which promised crops so big that all men might be fed—the very instruments that were to give the whole community the physical basis of a good life turned out, for the vast majority of people who possessed neither capital nor land, to be nothing short of instruments of torture. " (Mumford 1922, pp. 115-116, emphasis added) We grew corn at the xʷməθkʷəy̓ əm gardens this year, and while the corn stalks grew to be over eight feet high they were barren. The corn grew tall, but it was unable to bear fruit because of the northerly environment it grew in. Similarly, we grew a strain of tobacco that was gifted to the gardens by a company from the US, and while the tobacco grew tall, had big, beautiful leaves, and even began to flower, it did not mature to the point of bearing its seed pods. The tobacco grew tall, but it was unable to bear fruit because of the northerly environment it grew in. Post-Industrial society can be likened to such a plant, which grew tall from the seed—from the utopian myth—of industrial society but failed to bear the fruits portended by these myths because of the environment (the Paternalist Worldview [Barnesmoore 2017a; Barnesmoore 2017b; Barnesmoore 2017c]) it grew in.

This MA dissertation explores the issues surrounding the plagiarism charges leveled by W.E. Coleman against Madame Blavatsky, and goes on to analyze the influence of the works of little-known Orientalist S.F. Dunlap on Blavatsky's famous 1877 study "Isis Unveiled."

Makalah ini menjelaskan:
1. Naskah adalah semua bahan tulisan tangan (handschrift) dengan singkatan hs untuk tunggal dan hss untuk jamak; manuschrift dengan singkatan ms untuk tunggal, mss untuk jamak. Dengan demikian, naskah merupakan benda kongkrit yang dapat dilihat atau dipegang
2. kodikologi adalah ilmu mengenai naskah-naskah dan bukan mempelajari apa yang tertulis di dalam naskah
3. perbedaan antara naskah dengan prasasti dapat di tinjau dari tiga aspek, yaitu: bahan, penyalinan dan pengarang
4. bahan yang di gunakan dalam pembuatan naskah yaitu: karas, lontar, dluwang atau kulit kayu dan kertas eropa.
5. Tempat penyimpanan naskah tersebar di seluruh dunia baik di dalam negeri maupun di luar negeri.

This thesis re-evaluates Tibetan histories as intertextual literature, broadly following Ricoeur’s concept of mimesis. It then examines the portrayal of Khri Srong lde brtsan in these histories, whether as a Tibetan emperor, a Buddhist king or a tantric disciple. -----

To do this, it brings together all extant Tibetan sources on Khri Srong lde brtsan from the eighth to twelfth century. It rejects the attributed antiquity of some histories, on the basis of textual analysis. It also adds hitherto undiscovered texts to the already existing data, based on the author’s own discoveries. The thesis then describes Khri Srong lde brtsan’s imperial, royal and religious depictions as a process of metamorphosis over time. -----

Imperial texts depict him as a great Tibetan emperor (btsan po), endowed with the authority of his ancestors. The inscriptions at Brag lha mo and ’Phyongs rgyas even describe him as a bodhisattva, leading many of his subjects towards enlightenment. Post-imperial sources found at Dunhuang transform the emperor into a Dharma king. They identify him with idealised royal predecessors like Aśoka or King Tsa. Twelfth-century histories, such as the sBa bzhed and Nyang ral Nyi ma ’od zer’s Zangs gling ma, remember him as the patron and pupil of spiritually superior Buddhist masters. One Indian tantric master, Padmasambhava, even blames the king’s lack of faith for the future decline of the Dharma. These religious figures gradually displace the king as the central protagonists of his life history. -----

This thesis also uncovers the concerns that lie beneath early portrayals of Khri Srong lde brtsan. These include self-presentation, lineage legitimisation and complex relationships with the “golden age” of empire. The transformation of Khri Srong lde brtsan in Buddhist histories depends upon seismic shifts affecting Tibetan culture, including the cult of religious figures and the influx of Indian literary genres into Tibet.

Scrutinizes a short Latin poem written in the first quarter of the eleventh century, and refutes Alan Dundes's dismissal of literary evidence and to underscore the pertinence of studying medieval literature in coming to grips with that beautiful and elusive phenomenon to which English-speakers give the name `fairy tale.' Egbert of Liege's `De puella a lupellis seruata'; The medieval background of `Little Red Riding Hood.'

The ninth chapter of the Haṃsavilāsa of the Gujarati Śaiva author Haṃsamiṭṭhu (born 1738 ad) argues that Pātañjalayoga, conceived of as a conflation of Aṣṭāṅgayoga and Haṭhayoga, cannot be valid soteriology. Pātañjalayoga is presented as a paradoxical and painful attempt to achieve quiescence by forcibly eliminating karma. Haṃsamiṭṭhu, conversely, views ‘euphoria’ (ullāsa) as a prerequisite for liberation, and therefore advocates a painless method of Rājayoga. This is taught as a Śaiva form of the Rāsalīlā involving transgressive substances and behaviour. A frame story establishes Haṃsamiṭṭhu’s authority to teach such practices by revealing his secret identity as Haṃsa, a favored companion of Śiva who incarnates for a single life to promulgate esoteric teachings. The purity of this Rāsalīlā is defended by challenging the validity of a conventional morality that seeks to portray it as abhorrent.

Maya art is a rare combination of linear elegance and naturalism, blended with dazzling symbolic complexity.  Decorated objects, ranging from painted vases and carved jade and shell ornaments to towering stone monuments and building façades, bear the traces of a symbol system that, while fascinating, can make an understanding of these images elusive to the uninitiated.

Presented here for the first time is a compendium of one hundred Classic Mayan hieroglyphs that are also building blocks of much ancient Maya painting and sculpture. The symbols touch on many facets of the Maya world, from the natural environment—animals, plants, the heavens—to the mental landscape of gods, myths, and rituals.

Using hundreds of line drawings and photographs, the authors show how to identify these signs, understand their meaning, and appreciate the novel ways they appear in art. As well as providing a basic introduction, the authors offer many new and exciting interpretations.

Lavishly illustrated, and fully cross-referenced and indexed, this groundbreaking guide will prove an invaluable tool for those wishing to see Maya art, perhaps for the first time, through the eyes of ancient scribes and artists.

The subject of the present paper is a prophetic tradition found in some compendia of eschatological aḥādīth which has received considerable scholarly attention since Wilferd Madelung dedicated an article to it in 1981. Whereas Madelung shares the opinion of earlier scholars that only some of the incidents ‘prophesied’ by this tradition are historical, this study aims to show that it is a wholly ex post facto composition which, in its various strata, remarkably captures episodes from the Zubayrid war of propaganda against their rivals as well as their later attempts to redeem the memory of their lost cause as a just one. The discussion closes by producing a highly singular Syrian tradition most certainly put into circulation with the intent of countering these Zubayrid propaganda efforts.

This paper outlines a methodology for approaching mythology in earlier cultural environments for which written sources are limited or completely lacking. This methodology here specifically targets how to relate that mythology to evidence in the material record. This is illustrated through the case of the so-called clay paw rite of Viking Age Åland. Åland presents an interesting example owing to its position between linguistic-cultural areas on the one hand while the language and intangible culture of Åland remains otherwise unknown. The clay paw rite is a distinctively Ålandic phenomenon of the late Iron Age that is customarily interpreted as related either to a cult of the bear or a cult of the beaver. This rite is also interesting because it was apparently carried by Ålanders along the Eastern Route where it became established deep in a Finno-Ugric cultural area.

The methodology outlined here includes a theoretical framework for approaching 'mythology' in terms of systems of symbols, relating these to narratives, magic and ritual practices.  All of the systems of symbols within a cultural environment (which may include both e.g. Christian and vernacular systems, vernacular Germanic and Finnic systems, etc.) are together approached as a 'symbolic matrix' within which there can be different perspectives.  The different perspectives are discussed in relation to different genres of performative practices and different institutions or social roles of ritual specialist, from ritual lamenters to Christian priests.  The local and regional developments of mythology that are historical outcomes of both external contacts and internal change are viewed as producing 'dialects' of mythology. The long history of contacts and interactions in the Baltic Sea region are viewed as forming the equivalent of a language-dialect continuum for (at least certain areas of) mythologies cross-culturally.  Åland is situated on this continuum between North Germanic and North Finnic cultures. This situation on the continuum enables certain reasonable inferences about the mythology current in the Viking Age irrespective of whether Åland was a Scandinavian- or Finnic-speaking area.  The inferences that this approach enables are then applied to the case of the clay paw rite, the evidence of which is considered material outcomes of a mythologically informed symbolic practice.