This paper explores ‘mimesis’ not as an abstract concept, but as a practical method assisting in the formation of ethical character. The topic is located specifically in Plato’s Republic 395c-d, Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians 1:5-6. Additional references to ‘mimesis’ are made in the respective works, which either clarify or expand its operation. The topic is explored in three steps: a brief history of the tradition behind ‘mimesis’; the context of Plato’s Republic, Book 3; Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians.

The problem of the reality of God’s existence was a keynote of the history of Western philosophy. Anyway, the philosopher that could create his own philosophical system always touched upon the concept of God. It goes without saying that every historical period gave its own solution of the problem. The scholastics aimed to justify the provability of the reality of this concept and its deducibility from philosophical categories, while in The Age of Enlightenment, which included the Classical German philosophy, people tried to think of the question “Is there a God?” rationally. Immanuel Kant attempted to analyze the three proofs of God’s existence: ontological, cosmological and physico-theological. These proofs correspond to the specific cognitive abilities of a human (the perception, the understanding and the reason). The subject of our article is the criticism of the proofs of God’s existence.

There are many different religions in the world. Religions try to answer important but mysterious questions like “Where did the world come from?” or “What happens to us after we die?” All religions teach people to be good and to help each other. On the other side, science refers to a system of acquiring knowledge. This system uses its method to describe natural phenomena from classical times to the advent of the modern era; natural science was gradually specialized to its current domain. In this article, I tried to find out the possibility of relationship between religion and science. There are four approaches which science and religion can be related to each other, incompatibility, confirmation, complement and two ways of stating a fact. The majority of man’s problems have arisen, because of his disbelieving in religions and missing them. It is concluded that it is possible religion and science converge in the future world, and their convergence would bring lasting peace and happiness to humanity. Therefore man’s need for religion has not terminated.

This paper is an attempt to critically discuss the various formulations of religious plurality of the neo-Hindu standpoint and the various understandings these formulations have generated, and if possible, to identify the formulation and the understanding thereof, which seems to reflect the neo-Hindu position in the best possible manner. A distinct approach to religious plurality has been associated with Hinduism ever since the appearance of Swami Vivekananda at the ‘World Parliament of Religions’ in Chicago in 1893. The Hindu approach to religious plurality has been variously described as accommodating, catholic, universal, open, assimilative, hospitable, liberal, syncretistic and tolerant. Just as the Hindu position on religious plurality has been described in several ways; it has also been formulated in several ways. For the sake of clarity and precision, I shall divide the whole discussion in four separate sections on the basis of the four statements of the Hindu position bearing on the subject. These are that all religions are: (a) equal, (b) one, (c) true and (d) same. On the basis of a detailed discussion, I have arrived at the conclusion that, the neo-Hindu position is not that all religions are equal or true or one or the same, but rather they are all valid. But that all religions are valid never means that all religions are of the same value for all people, at all times. Nor need recognition of the validity of all religions necessarily imply their approval. The fact that one tolerates something does not automatically mean that one approves of it. In this context, religious tolerance does mean that the validity of the right of the other person is accepted, even while one is debating its value.

Natural science has developed by focusing on the objective side of the universe. It regards the material as reality, and regards the real universe as deterministic and causally created. Here, the mystery of why the material creates subject and life remains unsolved, because neither is reality. And the deterministic and causal universe should contain self-contradiction at the origin of the universe, because this is fundamentally contrary to causal law. It means that natural science still leaves metaphysical problems, although it has been extremely effective for us in recent times. On the hand, philosophy often starts with a certainty of subjective existence. This is affirming that the living universe is not material, and explaining the universe from a phenomenal point of view. Then reality leans toward the subjective side and the existence of an object or material becomes mysterious. As for the phenomenal point of view, subject is not subsumed under the causality, but Will even create the law. Thereupon, the mystery of the origin of the universe disappears and in return Will becomes the Creator of even the origin. And this Will turns out to be a mystery. In opposition to the above this paper examines the position which regards pure experience as reality which is just as direct. Here, both the material and the subject result from the differentiation of pure experience. And pure experience stands without any cause, therefore situated before causality. Again, it stands on neither the phenomenon nor the entity side of the question, and regards the dimension where the two are not differentiated as reality. But in the end it becomes a problem, why we can regard the directness of experience as reality. This paper will suppose such directness to be beyond the provable area, which any judgment should inevitably have.

Evil has always been a main interest in the field of philosophy of religion, and lately in the field of ethics – in both continental and analytic traditions – the idea of evil seems to be making a comeback. This paper asks: What is the relation between transcendence and evil? Why is it such an uncanny one? Are there any new possibilities in thinking about it? The propensity in (post) modernism is to understand evil in radical immanent terms. Lars Svendsen, in A Philosophy of Evil (2010), argues for example that evil is about inter-human relationships, not about a transcendent, supernatural force. Emmanuel Levinas, on the other hand, describes evil as something that cannot be integrated into the world, something that’s always on the outside: the radical Other. Furthermore, evil appears to us as something chaotic, defying comprehension. Does this mean evil is something transcendent? In this paper, I will analyse the concept of evil in terms of the typology of transcendence that was developed by Wessel Stoker in Looking Beyond? (2012). Some critical questions to answer in this regard are: if evil is something transcendent, what does it imply for human responsibility? Is a radical immanent understanding of evil a better alternative? I will argue that there are, within the (post) modern discourse, and due to new developments in the understanding of transcendence, new nuanced possibilities of thinking about evil and its relation to transcendence.

The paper addresses the largely unknown debate on the relationship between politics and theology between Schmitt and Blumenberg. This exchange gains new significance at a time in which the topic of secularization and religion is back at the center of focus. Both Blumenberg and Schmitt agree in their endeavor to make sense of the event of modernity, but fundamentally disagree about its relationship to the transcendent. Schmitt defends his notorious definition of the political as rooted in a friend-enemy distinction that can only be understood from the vantage point of political theology. Blumenberg, it is shown, has good reasons to be convinced that modernity is capable of asserting itself without creating the absolute antagonisms that are the essential features of a political theology or relying on appeals to a transcendent dimension.

An advanced constitution is proposed to allow the age-old conflict of religion and reason to evolve and progress as have other human institutions. No specific resolution is imposed, but rather all sides are prohibited from dismissing in the disputation that which they have already accepted in practice. We work back from points at issue to the common ground, and then work forward using forms of inference accepted by all in practice. This method has the appearance of an argumentum ad hominem, but the intent is to subsume all parties under the same principles. We are left with those who reject all reason as such, the insane, the frivolous, the fanatic, and the coercive. Our constitution is able to bring in even this troublesome and disruptive population by using an aesthetic appeal that meets them where they are and shows that even their madness can be turned toward the good.

Comment un homme pourrait-il changer qualitativement (voire perdre tous ses composants) et demeurer numériquement identique après la résurrection ? L’ADN étant l’identité de l’homme, serait-ce la solution ? Nous essayons d’y apporter une réponse à partir de l’essentialisme sérieux d’E. J. Lowe et l’hylémorphisme de Thomas d’Aquin. On propose d’établir la résurrection corporelle et le principe d’Inwagen comme deux étapes fondamentales pour la réflexion d’une ontologie de la résurrection. Cela nous conduit à penser une ontologie de l’âme, la thèse la plus plausible pour une continuité numérique après la mort.

Eine der pointiertesten Thesen zur Problematik der religiösen Diversität hat John Hick mit seinem religionstheologischen Pluralismus formuliert. Für Hick teilen die verschiedenen Religionen sowohl den gemeinsamen Ausgangspunkt bei der menschlichen Erlösungsbedürftigkeit als auch die Bezugnahme auf eine als solche unerkennbare transzendente Realität, die Hick als „The Real“ bezeichnet. Für die Differenzierung zwischen den kulturell divergierenden Religionsformen und der transzendenten Wirklichkeit des Göttlichen hat Hick methodische Anleihen bei der kantischen Unterscheidung zwischen phänomenaler und noumenaler Sphäre gemacht, die sich aus mehreren Gründen als problematisch erweisen. Der religiös lebende Mensch kann sich die Position des religiösen Pluralismus im Sinne Hicks nicht zu eigen machen, ohne den Wahrheitsanspruch seiner Religion auf eine Weise zu relativieren, die ihre Ausübung nahezu verunmöglicht. Aus diesem Grund ist der religiöse Pluralismus Hicks letztlich nicht dazu geeignet, der kognitiven Herausforderung, die in der Koexistenz divergierender religiöser Wahrheitsansprüche besteht, angemessen zu begegnen. Eine religionsphilosophische Theorie religiöser Pluralität sollte sich demgegenüber von der kantischen Dreiteilung des menschlichen Vernunftvermögens in theoretische und praktische Vernunft sowie Urteilskraft inspirieren lassen und religiöse Positionen zu Welt- und Gottesbildern, ethischen Normen und mystisch-ästhetischen Erlebnissen hinsichtlich ihrer möglichen Konvergenz oder Divergenz analysieren.

The Ancient Greek religion is a creation of the poets. Nevertheless, this literary construction is reproduced, interpreted and ‘re-construed’ discursively, in a socio-political-philosophical context, as Olympian religion (linked to the central demos of the polis), and as mystery religions (in peripheral dēmoi). Inasmuch as the ancient Greek religion has not generally been treated in an interdisciplinary way (in a socio-political context, for example), this paper aims to show an intimate and reciprocal influence between myth and politics based mainly on Attic synoecism, and how, through the propaganda needs of democracy, there arise mythifications of politics and ideologization of myth. These concerns are articulated in the following working hypothesis supported by the information from historical, epigraphic, and literary sources: the influence of Greek politics on the writing, reading and re-writing of the myths, from which the ritual practices of the mystery religions developed, and how these, in turn, served to confront and resolve, discursively and ‘liturgically’ (using grammars of exclusion/inclusion) the multiple challenges of the democratic politics of the central demos in the face of the economic and psychosocial needs of the peripheral dēmoi.

This paper examines the history of Christianity from the stand-point of the development of the concept of universal evolutionism. It is shown that the emergence of new trends, organizations and communities in Christianity takes place in accordance with the basic concepts and laws of synergy: divergence, convergence, bifurcation, and self-development.

This paper is a survey of research in psychology and religious studies, which examine how religion (through human’s involvement in religious practice) determines the value-semantic sphere of the believer. Our study concerns the differences in value-semantic orientations of the represen-tatives of the Orthodox faith and the secular people. The hypothesis under examination is that there are differences in the value-semantic orientations of the representatives of the Orthodox and the secular people.

The specificity of interreligious dialogue through the phenomenon of the intersection of different discourses in education - scientific, philosophical, educational, religious (Christian and Muslim), revealed the role of interreligious dialogue in the development of a tolerant individual student and in the formation of an interfaith social stability.

Στο πλαίσιο του δαρβινισμού του 19ου αιώνα ο W. James φαίνεται να επηρεάζεται έντονα από μια βιολογική προσέγγιση. Η τελεολογική αντίληψη του James για το νου και η υπεροχή που αποδίδει στη δράση κάνει την εμφάνισή της, περιορίζοντας τη σημασία των πνευματικών αναζητήσεων. Έτσι φαίνεται να παρουσιάζει την ανθρωπότητα ιδιαίτερα κινητοποιημένη από την ικανοποίηση των βιολογικών αναγκών και των πρακτικών στόχων. Ο ριζοσπαστικός του εμπειρισμός αποτελεί μια προσπάθεια να αναλυθεί η φύση της πραγματικότητας σε ένα φιλοσοφικό επίπεδο, το οποίο θα αποκαλύπτει τη σημασία της γνήσιας εμπειρίας. Πρόθεσή του δεν είναι να αγνοήσει τις ρεαλιστικές πραγματικότητες της κοινής λογικής που περιγράφονται στη συνήθη γλώσσα, αλλά να διαφωτίσει τη σκοτεινή πλευρά τους και να τοποθετήσει αυτές στο πλαίσιο μιας οντολογικής θεωρίας. Εν ολίγοις ο,τιδήποτε πραγματικό πρέπει κατά κάποιον τρόπο να βιωθεί και ό,τι βιώνεται πρέπει με κάποιον τρόπο να είναι πραγματικό. Σύμφωνα με τη θεωρία περί του πεδίου του James, οι μυστικιστικές εμπειρίες είναι αποτέλεσμα των φυσικών και των υπερφυσικών σχέσεων. Όχι μόνο δεν μας παρουσιάζουν «υποβλητικές» πληροφορίες για τη δομή της καθημερινής πραγματικότητας, αλλά μας παρέχουν ενδιαφέροντα στοιχεία για την υποτιθέμενη ύπαρξη της αοράτου τάξης του εαυτού μας και της πραγματικότητας, έχοντας ως θεμελιώδη ουσία τη ροή της εμπειρίας και το ρεύμα αυτής της σκέψης. Αντλώντας από τη συγγραφή των μυστικιστών, ο James χαρακτηρίζει τη μυστικιστική εμπειρία ως άρρητη, ως μια νοερή ποιότητα και ως παροδική και παθητική, η οποία μπορεί και πρέπει να περιορίζει τη δεδομένη νατουραλιστική μας αντίληψη για όλα τα πράγματα.