Christoph Jedan

The book argues that the theological motifs in Stoic philosophy are pivotal to our understanding of Stoic ethics. Part One offers an introductory overview of the religious world view of the Stoics. Part Two examines the Stoic characterizations of virtue and the virtues. Part Three deals with Stoic theories of how human beings can become virtuous. Part Four studies the practices of Stoic ethics. It shows inter alia how the Chrysippean table of virtues is still an (unacknowledged) influence behind Panaetius’ matrix of kathekonta, but how little agreement on the practical implications of their virtue ethics the Stoics could reach. The book suggests that the identity over time and cohesion of the Stoic school depended less on a commitment to the school founder’s memory and writings than on a common core of shared theological principles.

The article argues that frequently-voiced critiques of Rawls’s political liberalism have been misguided, because the ignore the extent to which Rawls takes his inspiration from a particular historical experience, namely that of the USA. The article suggests that a better model to accommodate the European historical experience would be a ‘symbolic’ presence of religion in public political argument: In a situation of world-view pluralism, politicians are well advised to show how the values and coercive laws they promote can be derived from within one or a number of) particular religious traditions. Such attempts will be particularly valuable where they are symbolic, in the sense that they are undertaken by politicians who do not themselves belong to the religious tradition(s) in question.

The article attempts to put the undervalued cultural phenomenon of offering comfort by means of persuasive speech acts (‘arguments’) on the research agenda of the human¬ities. The article proceeds in four steps. First, it defines ‘argumentative consolation’. Second, it argues that there has been a broad overlap of ancient philosophical and Christian modes of argumentative consolation. Third, it would be misguided to attribute today’s uneasiness with argumentative consolation to a process of ‘secularization’; the uneasiness stems from a radicalized intensification of life that is played out against the possibility of consolation in the face of death. Fourth, the ensuing emphasis on the notions of desires, plans and projects to measure the completeness of a life is self-defeating. The article argues the continued relevance of pre-modern argumentative consolation that identified virtue as the key factor in the completeness of a biography.

It is often assumed that a single, diachronically persistent motif of imitating god can be identifijied in Ancient philosophy and early Christianity. The present article takes issue with this assumption and seeks to establish the conceptual framework for a more sophisticated discussion of homoiôsis. The article identifijies eight crucial junctures at which homoiôsis stories can diverge. For all the variance of homoiôsis narratives, the category of imitation of the divine remains a useful analytical tool. The article supports this claim by a comparison of Platonic and Stoic narratives of homoiôsis. It established their distinctness and shows how the rhetoric of imitating the divine offfers important linguistic markers that allow us to trace the transgressive potential of (ancient) theologies.

TERRORISM, RESPONSIBILITY, AND RADICAL EVIL: RE-READING KANT?S RELIGIONSSCHRIFT In recent debates, insufficient attention has been paid to the positive role religions can play in modern societies. Religions offer insights that remain important even in secular societies. Kant?s conception of radical evil is a paradigm of positive engage�ment with Christian dogmatics. This article argues that Kant cannot formulate his con�ception of radical evil without falling back on Christian interpretative resources. Kant attempts a combination of Pelagian and Augustinian views on evil and free will. In spite of tensions in Kant?s analysis of evil, it still offers important insights that can help us to better understand, and deal with, contemporary manifestations of evil, like modern terrorism