No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The work aims to demonstrate that at the heart of Eriugena’s approach to Christian theology there lies a profoundly philosophical interest in the necessity of a cardinal shift in the paradigms of thinking – namely, that from the metaphysical to the dialectical one, which wins him a reputation of the ‘Hegel of the ninth century,’ as scholars in Post-Hegelian Germany called him. The prime concern of Eriugena’s discourse is to prove that the actual adoption of the salvific truth of Christ’s revelation about all humans’ Sonship to God (resulting in their return to union with Him) directly depends on the way the truth of God’s Oneness is consistently thought of. It is exactly the dialectic of the universal and particular which allows Eriugena both to tackle the dichotomy between being and non-being (called by him the fundamental division) and to proceed towards raising a question how the totality of God’s being can be approached so as to let him radically reconsider a predominantly metaphysical view of creation the theological reflection traditionally relies on. According to the dialectical understanding of unity (with a strong appeal to a dialectically coherent treatment of contradiction) that Eriugena does adhere to, the reality of creation cannot be thought of, and therefore known, otherwise than in the way of being inseparable from the universal Principle of all. This is the Principle abandoned by nothing, unless the mind corrupted by the senses thinks otherwise and, following the metaphysical pattern of dichotomy (as that of the fundamental division), improperly sets the creation and its Principle apart. Restoration of the mind to the proper rational motion of recta ratio (right reason) freed, as Eriugena argues, from the dictates of senses therefore becomes the way of both the epistemological breakthrough to the infinite whole and practical return (reditus) from the world of finite things (the corrupt mind’s construct) to living in the divine reality of creation. The work’s argument is based on the assumption of close affinity between Eriugena’s discourse and that of his Islamic contemporaries (Allaf, al-Nazzam, al-Kindi, and others), who developed their dialectical ideas within the Mu’tazilah tradition of a philosophically disciplined approach to the truth of God’s Oneness. In particular, al-Nazzam’s engagement with Parmenides’ Periphyseon and his resistance to the danger of a dualistic interpretation of its ontology seem to provoke Eriugena’s innovative approach to Christian theology with a view to suggesting a mode of overcoming dualism as the main obstacle on the way to the Truth revealed. This vision of the meaning of Eriugena’s undertaking allows us not only to better understand the novelty of his approach to Christian theology, but also reconsider some of the key points of his discourse that seem to have become a sort of commonplace in Eriugenian studies: 1. Unlike the prevalent opinion, not the forms of the division of Nature but the modes of interpreting being and non-being are to be understood to constitute the genuine subject-matter of each book of the Periphyseon and, hence, of the five parts of his system. 2. The fourfold division of Nature is to be interpreted not as a basic structure of the system offered by Eriugena, but as a means of introducing dialectic to the body of theology by refuting Augustine’s metaphysical vision of a hierarchical model of the universe and indicating the way of resolution of the cardinally theological contradiction – God does and does not create at the same time. 3. All this gives reason to disagree with a general tendency of associating Eriugena’s work with exploration of the division of God’s Nature and to reinterpret it as an immense anti-division project to be understood as an important turn in the history of Christian thought entirely focused on the truth of God’s Oneness and human life in conformity to it. *** I affirm that this thesis is entirely my own work and has not been submitted for examination in any form elsewhere.

This study within Practical Theology explores the nature of the relationship between women’s identity and religion in Wales, using qualitative and literary methods and in particular poetry as a form of theological reflection. The thesis is structured as a theological ‘critical conversation’. Dialogue partners include Western feminist theologians and their claim that women find it difficult to assert an authentic self and also sociological and historical texts looking at religion, women and identity in Wales. Christianity has played a significant part in Welsh identity construction, particularly in creating a repressive self-image for Welsh women for political reasons. Women’s current perspectives were investigated through life-story interviews, memoirs and the poetry of Menna Elfyn. My own poetry also makes a significant contribution to the reflexive insights within this project, and is an innovative aspect of my methodology. Unlike the representation of women as silent and disempowered within Western feminist theology, Welsh women are resilient and have an empowering and operative stereotype, the Welsh Mam – Strong Woman. Welsh women are at a key stage of constructing a new identity, disconnected from religion and other restrictive influences of the past. I end with a call for the churches in Wales to attend to issues of stratification, stigmatisation, repression and power in order to facilitate the flourishing of women as well as be more effective in their mission.

Andrew R. Hutson. / "January 13, 1955"--Cover. "Reprinted from The Physical review, vol. 98, no. 4, 889-901, May 15, 1955." / Includes bibliographical references. / Army Signal Corps Contract DA36-039 sc-42607 Project 132B Dept. of the Army Project 3-99-12-022

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-120). / vi, 120 leaves, bound maps 29 cm

n/a

The objective of this study is to understand the petrographical, mineralogical and geochemical characteristics of Messinian (Upper Miocene) gypsum occurence in Polatli Sazilar region, Ankara and to determine the impurities associated with gypsum. Moreover, it is aimed to interpret the usability of this raw material with impurities in plaster and plasterboard production based on industrial standards. Based on petrographical study, the first variety of gypsum which have different physical properties is white massive, micro crystalline, and translucent gypsum. Prismatic, transparent, idiomorphic and cleavage dominated selenite is the second variety. The gypsum rock is also identified that it is composed of sand sized selenite crystals and gypsum grains in a calcite and clay rich matrix. These impurity minerals also observed in thin beds alternating with gypsum. Scanning electron microscopic (SEM) studies are conducted to determine the relationship between the impurity mineral, gypsum and the selenite. X-ray diffractometry (XRD) studies were used to identify the type of clay minerals. In the samples, Ca-smectite is the essential impurity clay mineral. Rarely, mixed layer of illite-smectite is also identified. Geochemical studies also shows that as the amount of clay impurity increases, MgO, Al2O3, Fe2O3, Na2O, K2O (wt%) increases with decreasing SO3 (wt%). On the other hand, impurity of calcite controls the CaO (wt%) content in varying amounts. Five different groups of samples indicating different abundance of clay and calcite impurities are interpreted. The clay rich samples are enriched, in general, in vanadium, nickel, copper and chromium.

It has been argued that there are physically different ways of instantiating mental properties, the nature of which is the subject matter of cognitive science. This claim has been known as the Multiple Realizability Thesis (MRT). It has been suggested that the MRT shows that a reduction of mental properties to physical properties is impossible, as there cannot be one-to-one correspondences of mental properties to the properties of the brain. Moreover, it has been argued that the latter point shows that physical explanations are not relevant to the explanations of cognitive science, as they would lack the generality of psychological explanations. This thesis will try to explain from which assumptions of a traditional cognitive science perspective the MRT follows. It will also discuss several responses that have been introduced against both the MRT and the anti-reductionist conclusions that are assumed to follow from it. The responses include a challenge to the scientific status of cognitive science. According to this challenge, the MRT entails that the subject matter of cognitive science, namely mental properties, lack a similarity in the physical level, hence an instance of a mental property is not informative about another instance. While discussing these theories, a revision of the MRT will be proposed. According to this revision, the MRT is compatible with the assumption that there could be an underlying similarity between different physical realizers of a given mental property. It will be argued that by means of this revision, both the challenge to the scientific status of cognitive science, and the argument for the irrelevance of physical explanations will fail.