Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Education, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 456-478).

Bibliography: leaves 456-478 / 478 leaves ; 31 cm. / Title page, contents and abstract only. The complete thesis in print form is available from the University Library. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Adelaide, Dept. of Education, 1992

Ces deux volumes présentent les résultats de recherches doctorales dans le domaine de la philosophie illuminationiste (ishrâqî). Le premier volume contient lédition cri-tique du Kitâb al-rumûz wa-l-amthâl al-lâhûtiyya fî l-anwâr al-mujarradat al-Malakûtiyya (Le livre des symboles et des paraboles divines à propos des lumières immatérielles du Malakût), un traité de noétique composé au XIIIème siècle AD par al-Shahrazûrî al-Ishrâqî. Ce premier volume comporte également une description et une tentative de classification des manuscrits ayant servi à létablissement de la stemma. Le second et présent volume offre une brève introduction à la vie et luvre de lauteur ainsi quune analyse détaillée déléments tant internes quexternes visant à confirmer lattribution de ce traité à al-Shahrazûrî, à soutenir lhypothèse de sa dimension illu-minationiste, objet de ces recherches, et à tenter de proposer une fourchette de da-tes pour la composition de cet ouvrage. La seconde partie de ce volume consiste en la première traduction annotée de ce traité en une langue occidentale, à savoir le français. These two volumes present the results of doctoral researches in the field of illumi-nationist (ishrâqî) philosophy. The first volume displays the critical edition of the Kitâb al-rumûz wa-l-amthâl al-lâhûtiyya fî l-anwâr al-mujarradat al-Malakûtiyya (the Book of the divine symbols and parables about the immaterial lights of the Malakût), a noetical treatise composed in the XIIIth century AD by al-Shahrazûrî al-Ishrâqî. This first volume also contains a description and an attempt of classification of the manuscripts used for the establishment of the stemma. The second and present vol-ume offers a brief introduction to the life and work of the author as well as a de-tailed analysis of internal and external elements aiming to confirm the attribution of this treatise to al-Shahrazûrî, to support the hypothesis of its illuminationist dimen-sion, subject of these researches, and to tempt to propose a range of dates for the composition of this work. The second part of this volume consist in the first anno-tated translation of this treatise in a Western language, i.e. French.

Topic of the Magister thesis is study of human knowledge about the real world. Thesis focuses on the establishment of Epistemology, a philosophical discipline that focuses on theory of knowledge, introduces its history and its relation to other philosophical disciplines, mainly onthology. Thesis thoroughly studies all epistemological conceptions, both from the epistemological and ontological points of view, including conception of subject-object relationship. Thesis studies different sources of knowledge, i.e. empirical, rational, irational, and also analytical philosophy and critical rationalism of the 20th century. Thesis includes a list of the most influencial philosophers and their concepts of human knowledge - Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Locke, Berkeley, Hume and Kant. Thesis studies the relationship of epistemology and axiology, the philosophical study of value. Thesis studies concepts of truth of knowledge. Thesis sudies evolutionary epistemology, its theoretical starting points, principles of natural and cultural evolution, phylogenetics and epigenetics and conceptual knowledge.

Dangerous Instincts is a collection of poems unified thematically by recurring and interstitial questions of the wilderness, the natural sciences - particularly astrophysics - the occult, and the mythic universe. These poems explore the mystical implications of the natural world and its meaning in the aesthetic consciousness, particularly in a highly secular century. Implied is the poet’s selfdiscovery and search for the divine. The collection emerges, not simply as interpretation, but a means of coming to terms with the fear of and compulsion to question the universe, and through those questions find illumination in the ordinariness of lived life and in the mystery and magic of complex phenomena. As a whole, the work is largely lyrical; occasionally it calls upon forms such as the villanelle and ekphrasis as deliberate formal poetic experiments. Sometimes the images are familiar recreations of creation myths and forest fires, and sometimes they range into as private and esoteric a realm as occult rituals, Scottish fairytale, and quantum entanglement. Dangerous Instincts is divided into five sections that explore the physical realm in terms of distances: from outward to inward, from heights to depths, and from beyond the speaker’s understanding to intrinsically self-reflexive poems written to amplify my notion that at the heart of poetry is myth.

La présente thèse se donne pour fin d’interroger la notion d’être-en-Dieu telle qu’elle constitue le fondement de la pensée « mystique » du dominicain Maître Eckhart de Hochheim, connu pour ses sermons en langue vernaculaire prêchant le détachement (abegescheidenheit) et l’union déifiante de l’homme à son créateur. Se déployant doublement, l’être-en-Dieu concerne à la fois l’ordre de la réalité créée, temporelle, et celui de l’être inchangeant et atemporel. La pensée eckhartienne pense l’être-en-Dieu de l’homme comme débutant avec la création, qui fait être tout existant à titre d’idée dans l’intellect divin, et culminant dans le motif conceptuel de la Naissance du Fils dans l’âme – motif théologico-philosophique qui, en plus de constituer l’accomplissement de l’existence humaine, constitue la clé de voûte de la nature elle-même. La Naissance du Fils, simultanément descente de Dieu en l’homme et ascension de celui-ci en celui-là, devient pensable chez Maître Eckhart grâce à un appareillage conceptuel qui emprunte une part importante de ses axiomes les plus fondateurs à un certain aristotélisme dont la lecture, croisée avec celle de la Bible, fait de la divinisation de l’homme un concept rationnellement compréhensible. Il s’agit donc ici de démontrer que dans son effort pour expliquer « par les raisons naturelles des philosophes les propositions de l’un et l’autre Testament » de la révélation biblique, Maître Eckhart constitue un discours épistémologique s’appuyant sur une bipartition des discours scientifiques correspondant à celle des livres de la Bible. Induisant une tension fondatrice entre discours physique, portant sur l’être en mouvement, et discours métaphysique, portant sur l’être parfait, cette épistémologie comprend la totalité de l’existant comme marquée par la tension entre l’être mobile et l’être immobile – deux pans de la réalité qui sont opposés dans leur indivisible unité. À travers ce cadre herméneutique, il faut comprendre la nature elle-même comme cette tension vers l’être absolu et immobile qui constitue sa perfection. La mise en lumière de la construction épistémologique eckhartienne et de son fondement ontologique doit avoir pour fonction de permettre une nouvelle compréhension des motifs conceptuels les plus connus de la « mystique » de Maître Eckhart. Réinterprétés à l’aune de ce cadre épistémologique et ontologique, des notions telles que le détachement et la divinisation de l’homme apparaissent respectivement comme l’application la plus pure de la loi christique et le résultat nécessaire de cette application. La loi christique elle-même, commandant d’aimer toutes choses également, doit ainsi apparaître comme l’accomplissement du mouvement naturel, comme la re-création à laquelle toute existence créée est ordonnée. Cette étude se donne donc pour objectif de présenter au lecteur un Eckhart qui, loin d’être le symbole de dissidence religieuse (un hérétique) ou épistémique (un mystique rejetant les outils et les objectifs de la raison philosophique) qu’on a parfois voulu voir en lui, œuvre au sein d’une compréhension profonde de l’Écriture et avec les outils de la science philosophique pour initier son public à une vérité intérieure. / The following dissertation aims to question the notion of being-in-God, as it provides its foundation to the “mystical” thought of the Dominican theologian Meister Eckhart of Hochheim (widely known for his vernacular predication centered around the ideas of detachment (abegescheidenheit) and of a deifying union of man and God). Constituting a twofold notion, being-in-God as conceptualized by Eckhart pertains both to creation – the world of temporal and changing being – and God himself, who is unchanging and atemporal; for Eckhart, Man’s being-in-God starts with creation, an act through which every existing thing is grounded in being by having a corresponding idea in God’s intellect; it culminates in the concept of the birth of God’s Word in Man’s soul – a theological-philosophical concept that is both the telos of human life and the seal that unifies nature itself. The birth of the Word, understood both as descent of God in Man and ascension of Man into God, is the centerpiece of a conceptual construct which, borrowing heavily from both Aristotelianism and the Bible, presents the divinization of Man as a rational notion, one that can be adequately understood by using the tools of philosophy. Our objective is to demonstrate that, in his efforts to explain Revelation through the “natural arguments” (rationes naturales) of the philosophers, Meister Eckhart builds an epistemological discourse that rests upon the twofold unity of sciences which reflects that of the Bible – itself a reflection of the twofold unity of being. Founded on the complementary opposition of physical and metaphysical discourse – of discourse on imperfect, mobile being, and discourse on absolute, perfect and immobile being – Eckhart epistemology understands being as a whole as marked by a constitutive tension between these two complementary aspects that remain inalienably one through their opposition. Through this hermeneutical framework, we will understand nature itself as tension towards the esse absolute, its perfection. By shining light on the role this epistemology (and the ontology on which it rests) plays as the very scaffolding of Eckhart’s thought, we aim to provide a new understanding of the better known notions of his theology. Interpreted through our hermeneutical framework, the notions of detachment and of divinization of Man must appear respectively as the most accomplished application of the lex nova, and as the necessary result of this application. The lex nova itself, understood as the commandment to love everything equally in God, will present itself as the abolition of natural movement, as the re-creation towards which every being that is subjected to change is moved. This dissertation aims to paint a new portrait of Meister Eckhart as a thinker – as a theologian and a “philosopher of Christianity” – and to challenge the classical reading that sees in him a heretic and a mystic, rejecting church doctrine (or announcing the Protestant Reformation) and earthly knowledge itself – both its tools and its goals. The Meister Eckhart we will present here uses the tools of philosophy to provide his public with a rational explanation of Revelation that might put them on the way to the inner contemplation of Truth itself in God.