Philosophy & Art: The Dispute between Faith and Understanding (1303). The Allegory in philosophical thought and Baroque Art: Ramon Llull (1232-1316) & Vermeer (1632-1675)
Luís Carlos Silva de SOUSA
Original title: Filosofia & Arte: A Disputa entre a Fé e o Entendimento (1303). A Alegoria no pensamento filosófico e na Arte Barroca: Ramon Llull (1232-1316) & Vermeer (1632-1675)
Published in The World of Tradition
Keywords: Allegory, Art, Faith, Johannes Vermeer, Philosophy, Ramon Llull, Reason, Understanding.
The purpose of this article is to analyse the work of Ramon Llull (1232-1316), Disputatio fidei et intellectus (1303), comparing it with the painting by Johannes Vermeer (1632-1675), The Allegory of Faith (ca. 1672-4). The statute of the Allegory is examined in Llull and Vermeer. It is argued that both work with the theme of the personification of the Allegories and that, in the relationship between faith and reason, the transcendence of the mysteries of the Christian faith is preserved, without hindering the power of reason.
Saint Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419) and the philosophical-rethorical efficacy of sermon: Art and Philosophy
Ricardo da COSTA, Gustavo Cambraia FRANCO
Original title: São Vicente Ferrer (1350-1419) e a eficácia filosófico-retórica do sermão: Arte e Filosofia
Published in Art, Criticism and Mysticism
Keywords: Art, Medieval Rethoric, Philosophy, Saint Vincent Ferrer, Sermon.
The aim of this work is to analyze some aspects of the philosophical discourse and the medieval rethoric elements contained in the sermons of Saint Vincent Ferrer (1350-1419), especially his thoughts about a theme currently and universally present in the Christian Middle Ages: the moral virtues or cardinal virtues. For this, we will utilize a specific sermon wrote in Latin language (the Vth Sermon of the IVth Sunday of Advent), in which the preacher relates the four cardinal virtues with episodes of the life and deeds of Christ, as reported in the Gospels. The theme will be related with some artistic representations of the saint: the paintings of Joan Macip (1540-1545) and the most famous, of Alonso Cano (1601-1667), “Saint Vincent Ferrer Preaching” (1644-1645), as well as the central altarpiece of the Dominican Convent Church of Cervera (Segarra c. 1456), which represents Saint Vincent Ferrer and the Mother of God (Apocalyptic Virgin) of Pedro García de Benabarre (1445-1485). Our iconographic analysis is based on the theoretical perspective of Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968), and in the definition of image for the period according with the considerations of Jean-Claude Schmitt (1946- ).
Thanatology of the Corpus Hermeticum (c. 100-300): the philosophical concept of Death in the Hermetic Tractates
David Pessoa de LIRA
Original title: A Tanatologia do Corpus Hermeticum (c. 100-300): o conceito filosófico da Morte nos Tratados Herméticos
Published in The World of Tradition
Keywords: Corpus Hermeticum, Death, Hermetic Literature, Hermeticism, Marcus Aurelius’ Antoninus, Philosophy, Stoicism, Thanatology.
This article attempts to examine the idea of death, its problem, in the scope of hermeticism in Antiquity, having mainly as object of analysis the Corpus Hermeticum. In particular, the problem of death, in the Corpus Hermeticum, is treated from the ontological point of view. A history of ideas about death in the Corpus Hermeticum supposes an analysis of the underlying conception of the world by the Hermetic authors, and not just of their philosophy. Although this study is linked to an examination of ideas about the meaning of life and the conception of immortality, which are problems related to the theme of death, here it does not imply an analysis of these problems, but a conclusive indication that some Hermetic Tractates show the dilemma of death between dissolution and change from the reflection of the Stoic Marcus Aurelius Antoninus.
The Descent of Er: Ethic's philosophical foundation in Republica X
Flavia Dezzutto
Original title: El Descenso de Er: La fundamentación filosófica de la ética en República X
Published in Mirabilia 4
Keywords: Cavalry, Philosophy, Ramon Llull, Thought.
The objective of the present work is to analyze the allegorical story of the book X of the POLITEIA or Republic of Plato, known like the myth Er, in the perspective that we expose next. The "displacements", towards prohibitive regions for the mortals, by the routes of the dream or the death, have the common characteristic, from most archaic Greek Literature, to constitute spaces of revelation of certain truths. The paradigm of the ultra tomb story or the narration of the dream, as well as the literary figures that are made presents there, the topography of those regions, and the learning and testimonies that are compiled in that context, are decisive to delimit the sense field that tries a content transmitted to the revelations or knowledge. Of such way, the meaning field that appears from this analysis, sends the proposition of a political ethics, in the Greece of the IV century B.C. that makes possible to us discern the construction of a prescriptive sense, by means of rhetorical resources that acquire relevance, and they are inserted in a complex interpretative tradition, because the mentioned factors more above are the vehicle than instructs us about the doctrines that are tried to expose. These are exposed like the foundation of what is a model in the life of the mortals, in a philosophical sense, and still present an evaluation of the human institutions that comes from a strange place to the intellection of those who lives in the time; the border areas of the dream and the death.
The Protagoras, by Plato (c. 427-347 a. C.), in dialogue with the Ethical Writings, by Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274)
Wilson Coimbra LEMKE; Bento Silva SANTOS
Original title: O Protágoras, de Platão (c. 427-347 a. C.), em diálogo com os Escritos Éticos, de Santo Tomás de Aquino (1225-1274)
Published in The World of Tradition
Keywords: Dialectic, Philosophy, Plato, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Virtue Ethics.
In his dialogue on the Sophists, entitled Protagoras, Plato deals with the nature of virtue, basically discussing whether it is something teachable. Some scholars, however, have designated this dialogue as aporetic, that is, inconclusive. We must, therefore, try to answer those questions that Socrates and Protagoras may have left unsolved on that occasion. Now, most of these questions were taken up in some works by Plato’s most famous disciple and, later, resolved in the Ethical Writings, by Saint Thomas Aquinas, such as the “Treatises on the virtues” (Faith, Hope, Charity, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance), contained in the Second Part of the Summa Theologica, the Disputed Questions on the Virtues, and the Commentary on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics. Hence, we must consider them here in the light of the great Aristotelian-Thomist synthesis. To do so, we use the scholastic method of disputatio, in which a quaestio is debated, structured in four articles, addressed by the Athenian philosopher to the great medieval Doctor. The article first discusses whether virtue is a science. The second, whether virtue can be taught. The third, whether virtue is one or multiple. And the fourth, if someone voluntarily acts badly.
The Sufi thought in the Rasā’il Iḫwān al-Ṣafā’
Mourad KACIMI
Original title: El pensamiento sufí en las Rasā’il Iḫwān al-Ṣafā’
Published in
Keywords: Philosophy, Rasā’il Iḫwān al-Ṣafā’, Sufí knowledge.
In this article we highlight the basic fundaments of Sufi discipline in religion and philosophy. Similarly, is shown how was employed this type of knowledge and conceptions in a book as the Encyclopedia of Iḫwān al-Safā’, classed inside the philosophical genre. On the other hand, we emphasize the significance and influence of the philosophical ideas of the Iḫwān al-Safā’ in later prominent Sufi scholars.
The role of the Philosophy and Jesuit imagery in the Portuguese missions (1500-1597)
Humberto Schubert COELHO
Original title: O papel da Filosofia e do imaginário jesuítico nas missões portuguesas (1500-1597)
Published in The World of Tradition
Keywords: Cultural Imagery, Jesuit Education, Jesuit Mission, Philosophy, Portuguese Thought, Transcendence.
As the importance of the Society of Jesus in the Portuguese colonizing process is indisputable, the specificities of Jesuit cultural imagery were equally decisive to define several elements in the cultural formation of the colonies. Often centred on literature at many points of its historical development, Portuguese thought of the time was heavily determined by philosophy. Particularly in the sixteenth century, the first century of global colonization, the evangelizing impetus of the Society of Jesus acted as a main existential drive in both cultural and political process of sending missionaries abroad. This paper emphasizes the capital relevance of transcendent beliefs and values in the worldview of such missionaries, and how they shaped the missionary ethos in the daily life, the educational initiatives and the first reports of Jesuit authors.
