Text in Danish. Holger Pedersen (1867-1953) was one of Denmark's greatest scholars within Indoeuropean studies. During the years 1892-1896 he travelled extensively in Europe to broaden his field of language studies. His letters to scholars in Denmark provide a unique insight into the working methods of a young linguist. The letters, preserved in the Royal Library in Copenhagen, have been reproduced in the original orthography in the book.

This volume offers a new account of the relationship between literary and secularist scenes of writing in interwar Britain. Organized secularism has sometimes been seen as a phenomenon that lived and died with the nineteenth century. But associations such as the National Secular Society and the Rationalist Press Association survived into the twentieth and found new purpose in the promotion and publishing of serious literature. This book assembles a group of literary figures whose work was recommended as being of particular interest to the unbelieving readership targeted by these organisations. Some, including Vernon Lee, H.G. Wells, Naomi Mitchison, and K.S. Bhat, were members or friends of the R.P.A.; others, such as Mary Butts, were sceptical but nonetheless registered its importance in their work; a third group, including D.H. Lawrence and George Moore, wrote in ways seen as sympathetic to the Rationalist cause. All of these writers produced fiction that was experimental in form and, though few of them could be described as modernist, they shared with modernist writers a will to innovate. This book explores how Rationalist ideas were adapted and transformed by these experiments, focusing in particular on the modifications required to accommodate the strong mode of unbelief associated with British secularism to the notional mode of belief usually solicited by fiction. Whereas modernism is often understood as the literature for a secular age, Unbelief in Interwar Literary Culture looks elsewhere to find a literature that draws more directly on secularism for its aesthetics and its ethics.

This three-volume work comprises over eighty essays surveying the history of Scottish theology from the early middle ages onwards. Written by an international team of scholars, the collection provides the most comprehensive review yet of the theological movements, figures, and themes that have shaped Scottish culture and exercised a significant influence in other parts of the world. Attention is given to different traditions and to the dispersion of Scottish theology through exile, migration, and missionary activity. The volumes present in diachronic perspective the theologies that have flourished in Scotland from early monasticism until the end of the twentieth century. The History of Scottish Theology, Volume I covers the period from the appearance of Christianity around the time of Columba to the era of Reformed Orthodoxy in the seventeenth century. Volume II begins with the early Enlightenment and concludes in late Victorian Scotland. Volume III explores the 'long twentieth century'. Recurrent themes and challenges are assessed, but also new currents and theological movements that arose through Renaissance humanism, Reformation teaching, federal theology, the Scottish Enlightenment, evangelicalism, missionary, Biblical criticism, idealist philosophy, dialectical theology, and existentialism. Chapters also consider the Scots Catholic colleges in Europe, Gaelic women writers, philosophical scepticism, the dialogue with science, and the reception of theology in liturgy, hymnody, art, literature, architecture, and stained glass. Contributors also discuss the treatment of theological themes in Scottish literature.

"What does it mean to say that we live in a secular age?" This apparently simple question opens into the massive, provocative, and complex A Secular Age, where Charles Taylor positions secularism as a defining feature of the modern world, not the mere absence of religion, and casts light on the experience of transcendence that scientistic explanations of the world tend to neglect. In Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age, a prominent and varied group of scholars chart the conversations in which A Secular Age intervenes and address wider questions of secularism and secularity. The distinguished contributors include Robert Bellah, Jose Casanova, Nilufer Goele, William E. Connolly, Wendy Brown, Simon During, Colin Jager, Jon Butler, Jonathan Sheehan, Akeel Bilgrami, John Milbank, and Saba Mahmood. Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age succeeds in conveying to readers the complexity of secularism while serving as an invaluable guide to a landmark book.

One of the leading humanists of Quattrocento Italy, Lorenzo Valla (ca. 1406 1457) has been praised as a brilliant debunker of medieval scholastic philosophy. In this book Lodi Nauta seeks a more balanced assessment, presenting us with the first comprehensive analysis of the humanist s attempt at radical reform of Aristotelian scholasticism.

This study examines Valla s attack on major tenets of Aristotelian metaphysics, showing how Valla employed common sense and linguistic usage as his guides. It then explicates Valla s critique of Aristotelian psychology and natural philosophy and discusses his moral and religious views, including Valla s notorious identification of Christian beatitude with Epicurean pleasure and his daring views on the Trinity. Finally, it takes up Valla s humanist dialectic, which seeks to transform logic into a practical tool measured by persuasiveness and effectiveness.

Nauta firmly places Valla s arguments and ideas within the contexts of ancient and medieval philosophical traditions as well as renewed interest in ancient rhetoric in the Renaissance. He also demonstrates the relevance of Valla s conviction that the philosophical problems of the scholastics are rooted in a misunderstanding of language. Combining philosophical exegesis and historical scholarship, this book offers a new approach to a major Renaissance thinker.

Fifty years after its publication, Bryan Wilson's Religion in Secular Society (1966) remains a seminal work. It is one of the clearest articulations of the secularization thesis: the claim that modernizations brings with it fundamental changes in the nature and status of religion. For Wilson, secularization refers to the fact that religion has lost influence at the societal, the institutional, and the individual level. Individual secularization is about the loss of authority of the Churches to define what people should believe, practise and accept as moral principles guiding their lives. In other words, individual piety may still persist, however, if it develops independently of religious authorities, then it is an indication of individual secularization. Wilson stresses that the consequences of the process of societalization in modern societies and on this basis he formulated his thesis that secularization is linked to the decline of community and is a concomitant of societalization. Revised and updated, Steve Bruce builds on Wilson's work by noting the changes in religious culture of the UK and US, in an appendix on major changes since the 1960s. Bruce also provides a critical response to the core ideas of Religion in Secular Society.

Not in the Heavens traces the rise of Jewish secularism through the visionary writers and thinkers who led its development. Spanning the rich history of Judaism from the Bible to today, David Biale shows how the secular tradition these visionaries created is a uniquely Jewish one, and how the emergence of Jewish secularism was not merely a response to modernity but arose from forces long at play within Judaism itself. Biale explores how ancient Hebrew books like Job, Song of Songs, and Esther downplay or even exclude God altogether, and how Spinoza, inspired by medieval Jewish philosophy, recast the biblical God in the role of nature and stripped the Torah of its revelatory status to instead read scripture as a historical and cultural text. Biale examines the influential Jewish thinkers who followed in Spinoza's secularizing footsteps, such as Salomon Maimon, Heinrich Heine, Sigmund Freud, and Albert Einstein. He tells the stories of those who also took their cues from medieval Jewish mysticism in their revolts against tradition, including Hayim Nahman Bialik, Gershom Scholem, and Franz Kafka. And he looks at Zionists like David Ben-Gurion and other secular political thinkers who recast Israel and the Bible in modern terms of race, nationalism, and the state. Not in the Heavens demonstrates how these many Jewish paths to secularism were dependent, in complex and paradoxical ways, on the very religious traditions they were rejecting, and examines the legacy and meaning of Jewish secularism today.

This is a timely re-appraisal of feminist political thinkers and their male contemporaries, providing a re-evaluation of feminist humanism.

Das vorliegende essential beschaftigt sich mit der Nutzung des Smartphones und gibt Antworten darauf, warum wir immer mehr Zeit mit diesen Geraten verbringen. Es wird beschrieben, welche Gruppen besonders von einer ubermassigen Smartphone-Nutzung betroffen sind. Zusatzlich wird der Frage nachgegangen, ob digitale Welten tatsachlich unser Gehirn verandern. Ausserdem: Wie sieht eine gesunde Smartphone-Nutzung in der Familie und am Arbeitsplatz aus? Das Buch halt Tipps fur einen moeglichst stressfreien Umgang mit digitalen Welten bereit, damit wir wieder lernen, im Hier und Jetzt zu leben.

Everyday Humanism seeks to move the discussion of humanism's positive contributions to life away from the macro-level to focus on the everyday, or micro-dimensions of our individual and collective existence. How might humanist principles impact parenting? How might these principles inform our take on aging, on health, on friendship? These are just a few of the issues around everyday life that needed interpretation from a humanist perspective. Through attention to key issues, the volume seeks to promote the value of humanism at the level of the ordinary, typical occurrences and conditions of our existence.

The fundamental aims of this book are two: to explore the interaction between religion and secular society in the formation as well as the dissolution of just war doctrine; and to investigate just war doctrine as an ideological pattern of thought, expressive of a greater ideology. The author reconstructs the development of classic just war doctrine, showing it to be a product of secular and religious forces. From it he traces the growth of the doctrines of holy war and of modern just war. He demonstrates that the blending of two distinct traditions in the late Middle Ages has its counterpart in the century following the Reformation. The secularized just war doctrine exemplified in the writings of Grotius, Locke, and Vattel are related to the problems of war in our time. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Fosco speaks as a member of Post-Christian Society that has emerged from the Great Walk-Out from established religion but as one who cannot subscribe to the Economic Myth of Rational Humanism. Fosco's text, which he dubs My Reality , is republished in this volume, accompanied by six exploratory essays, ranging from the supportive to the dismissive, which seek to open up debate on the issues which he poses. Can we work towards a society in which humane values prevail, or must we accept that ours is, for lack of a better, the best of possible worlds?

The fundamental aims of this book are two: to explore the interaction between religion and secular society in the formation as well as the dissolution of just war doctrine; and to investigate just war doctrine as an ideological pattern of thought, expressive of a greater ideology. The author reconstructs the development of classic just war doctrine, showing it to be a product of secular and religious forces. From it he traces the growth of the doctrines of holy war and of modern just war. He demonstrates that the blending of two distinct traditions in the late Middle Ages has its counterpart in the century following the Reformation. The secularized just war doctrine exemplified in the writings of Grotius, Locke, and Vattel are related to the problems of war in our time. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

This book examines science fiction's relationship to religion and the sacred through the lens of significant books, films and television shows. It provides a clear account of the larger cultural and philosophical significance of science fiction, and explores its potential sacrality in today's secular world by analyzing material such as Ray Bradbury's classic novel The Martian Chronicles, films The Abyss and 2001: A Space Odyssey, and also the Star Trek universe. Richard Grigg argues that science fiction is born of nostalgia for a truly 'Other' reality that is no longer available to us, and that the most accurate way to see the relationship between science fiction and traditional approaches to the sacred is as an imitation of true sacrality; this, he suggests, is the best option in a secular age. He demonstrates this by setting forth five definitions of the sacred and then, in consecutive chapters, investigating particular works of science fiction and showing just how they incarnate those definitions. Science Fiction and the Imitation of the Sacred also considers the qualifiers that suggest that science fiction can only imitate the sacred, not genuinely replicate it, and assesses the implications of this investigation for our understanding of secularity and science fiction.

This three-volume work comprises over eighty essays surveying the history of Scottish theology from the early middle ages onwards. Written by an international team of scholars, the collection provides the most comprehensive review yet of the theological movements, figures, and themes that have shaped Scottish culture and exercised a significant influence in other parts of the world. Attention is given to different traditions and to the dispersion of Scottish theology through exile, migration, and missionary activity. The volumes present in diachronic perspective the theologies that have flourished in Scotland from early monasticism until the end of the twentieth century. The History of Scottish Theology, Volume I covers the period from the appearance of Christianity around the time of Columba to the era of Reformed Orthodoxy in the seventeenth century. Volume II begins with the early Enlightenment and concludes in late Victorian Scotland. Volume III explores the 'long twentieth century'. Recurrent themes and challenges are assessed, but also new currents and theological movements that arose through Renaissance humanism, Reformation teaching, federal theology, the Scottish Enlightenment, evangelicalism, missionary, Biblical criticism, idealist philosophy, dialectical theology, and existentialism. Chapters also consider the Scots Catholic colleges in Europe, Gaelic women writers, philosophical scepticism, the dialogue with science, and the reception of theology in liturgy, hymnody, art, literature, architecture, and stained glass. Contributors also discuss the treatment of theological themes in Scottish literature.

Why do some strategies for critique of religion seem to be more beneficial for constructive engagement, whereas others increase intolerance, polarization, and conflict? Through an analysis of the reasons underpinning a critique of religion in institutional contexts of secular democratic societies, A Constructive Critique of Religion explores how constructive interaction and critique can be developed across diverse interests. It shows how social and cultural conditions shaping these institutions enable and structure a critical and constructive engagement across diverging worldviews. A key argument running through the book is that to develop constructive forms of critique a more thorough and systematic investigation of resources for criticism located within religious worldviews themselves is needed. Chapters also address how critique of Islam and Christianity in particular is expressed in areas such as academia, the law, politics, media, education and parenting, with a focus on Northern Europe and North America. The interdisciplinary approach, which combines theoretical perspectives with empirical case studies, contributes to advancing studies of the complex and contentious character of religion in contemporary society.

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch, 1304–1374) is universally regarded as one of the greatest Italian poets and considered to be the "Father of Renaissance Humanism." Petrarch is best known for his poetry, and especially for his sonnets, composed in the vernacular Italian dialect of his homeland. But Petrarch was also the author of an extraordinary body of prose works in Latin, including numerous books, essays, and volumes of his letters, which, with Cicero as his model, he collected, edited, and preserved for posterity. Included among these Latin prose works is The Life of Solitude ( De vita solitaria), which Petrarch began during Lent of 1346, and then sent in 1366—after twenty years of reflection, addition, and correction—to its dedicatee. Book I contains an argument for why a life of solitude and contemplation is superior to a busy life of civic obligation and commerce. Book II contains a long enumeration of exemplars of the solitary life drawn from history and literature (and occasionally mythology). Included in Book II are provocative digressions on whether one has an obligation to serve a tyrant and on the failures of contemporary monarchs to recover the holy sites in the East. Petrarch's solitary life is not an apology for monastic solitude. On the contrary, it contains a strong defense of friendship, the pursuit of virtue, and the roles that both secular and religious literature and philosophy play in human flourishing. This updated edition of Jacob Zeitlin's 1924 English translation restructures and numbers the text to make it consistent with the best available scholarly editions of De vita solitaria. The volume includes a new introduction by Scott H. Moore, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Great Texts and Assistant Director of the University Scholars Program at Baylor University, which situates Petrarch and the text within the larger traditions of virtue ethics, renaissance humanism, and reflections on the solitary life.

Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch, 1304–1374) is universally regarded as one of the greatest Italian poets and considered to be the "Father of Renaissance Humanism." Petrarch is best known for his poetry, and especially for his sonnets, composed in the vernacular Italian dialect of his homeland. But Petrarch was also the author of an extraordinary body of prose works in Latin, including numerous books, essays, and volumes of his letters, which, with Cicero as his model, he collected, edited, and preserved for posterity. Included among these Latin prose works is The Life of Solitude ( De vita solitaria), which Petrarch began during Lent of 1346, and then sent in 1366—after twenty years of reflection, addition, and correction—to its dedicatee. Book I contains an argument for why a life of solitude and contemplation is superior to a busy life of civic obligation and commerce. Book II contains a long enumeration of exemplars of the solitary life drawn from history and literature (and occasionally mythology). Included in Book II are provocative digressions on whether one has an obligation to serve a tyrant and on the failures of contemporary monarchs to recover the holy sites in the East. Petrarch's solitary life is not an apology for monastic solitude. On the contrary, it contains a strong defense of friendship, the pursuit of virtue, and the roles that both secular and religious literature and philosophy play in human flourishing. This updated edition of Jacob Zeitlin's 1924 English translation restructures and numbers the text to make it consistent with the best available scholarly editions of De vita solitaria. The volume includes a new introduction by Scott H. Moore, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Great Texts and Assistant Director of the University Scholars Program at Baylor University, which situates Petrarch and the text within the larger traditions of virtue ethics, renaissance humanism, and reflections on the solitary life.

Encountering an eccentric cast of characters along the way, Sebald confronts the frailty of human existence as he voyages along the Suffolk coast on foot. What begins as the record of a journey on foot through coastal East Anglia becomes the great, constellated story of people and cultures past and present: of Chateaubriand, Thomas Browne, Swinburne and Conrad, of fishing fleets, skulls and silkworms. A rich meditation on the past via a melancholy trip along the Suffolk coast, The Rings of Saturn is an intricately patterned and haunting book on the transience of all things human. VINTAGE VOYAGES: A world of journeys, from the tallest mountains to the depths of the mind

Drawing on ethnographic research, this book explores individualized religion in and around Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire. Claire Wanless demonstrates that counter to the claims of secularization theorists, the combination of informal structures and practices can provide a viable basis for socially significant religious activity that can sustain itself. The subjects of this research claim a variety of religious identities and practices, and are suspicious of religious institutions, hierarchies, rules and dogmas. Yet they participate actively in an overlapping and cross-linking informal network of practice communities and other associations. Their engagements propagate and sustain a core ideology that prioritizes subjectivity, locates authority at the level of the individual, and also predicates itself on ideals of sharing, mutuality and community. Providing a new theory of religious association, this book is a nuanced counterpoint to the secularization thesis in the UK and points the way to new research on individual religion.