Religion and diversified religious experiences are always held suspect and not spared from apprehensions regarding its value, its ethics, its revelatory claims and its approaches. Time immemorial religion and religious experiences have played a pivotal role in building up society for betterment and also for deterioration. Man’s intellectual activity throughout the history was on the line of religion. The sacred in religion has always empowered man in many paths of his life, say, to bring social reformation, be it environmental concern or women empowerment. The sacred in religion have brought wonders in human life.

Gerard of Cenad, the first Christian Bishop (1030–1046) in the region known today as Banat, authored the Deliberatio supra Hymnum Trium Puerorum, a hermeneutical treatise of great importance for the 11th-century philosophy. The concept of concordia doctrinarum has been commented in several ways as the universal theology of the Catholic Church. Our study discusses this concept in relation with another Gerardian concept, that of divine procession. We argue that there is an idea of cosmic harmony in Gerard, strictly linked to more than one preceding doctrines. First, it is linked to the Areopagitic notion of processus, meaning. Second, Gerard links the same concept with the idea of cosmic hierarchy. The cosmic hierarchy in Gerard of Cenad offers a valuable perspective of a holistic kind, within the Christian so-called Platonic orientation of the 11th-century Latin tradition.

We aim to understand how different conceptions of the world coexisted, were created and maintained, and to understand the differences between classical and contemporary mythology in the art context. Are we living in post-mythological times? Is there a pattern or a semblance of structure in both classical mythology and contemporary myths such as the cyborg? Can we stretch the definition of mythology so that it encompasses everything that in some way tries to imbue a sense of order in the chaos of human life?

In this paper I will attempt to provide a fundamentally theoretical, political and experimental way for understanding “running” and the idea or notions of death and reincarnation, especially in terms of human development. More importantly, I will try to answer and explain how the physical exercise of running (or human movement) can play a key part in the transmigration of human souls. Furthermore, I will explain how running, death, and reincarnation are interconnected in some profound ways. It should be pointed out that humans have been running since walking up-right—for survival and transportation. Although the human, two-footed transit system is not the fastest or most efficient way of getting around, running ultimately allows us to get to where we want to go—even in life. As human beings, we also have souls and physically die, or cease living, which is inevitable, and should always be considered an integral part of our existence.

The definition and the aspects of myth, regardless of the time in which they appeared and the religion in which they were known, is present in Eliade’s thought throughout his life and work. The myth talks about the outbreak and manifestation of the sacred in the world, underlying realities as we know them. The myth explains human existence. The man, imitating the divine model, is able to transcend the profane time, returning to the mythical time. The sacred is equivalent with the reality. It is central for understanding in the hermeneutical effort to define homo religiosus.

In this paper I intend to show that the differences between the aesthetic experience and the religious experience do not “close” the dialogue between the aesthetic man (the modern one) and the religious man (the premodern one). Although these two types of experience are distinguished by “the way in which everyone understands its object” (while aesthetic perception implies a kind of “moderate” emotional identification with the aesthetic object, authentic religious feeling involves renunciation to self and total dedication)—there is a similarity between aesthetic experience and religious experience which resides in the fact that “towards their object, both are in an attitude of contemplation” (Paul Evdochimov).

This paper describes many connections between the wisdom literature of the Ancient Greeks and the work of contemporary scholars, intellectuals and professionals in many fields. Whether or not they use the word nous to refer to the highest power of the human soul, I show that their views converge on the existence of such a power. The paper begins with a brief summary of Greek educational texts, including Greek mythology, Homer, tragedy, and Plato’s dialogues, showing that they are designed to educate the power of mind (nous). Usually without realizing it, many later schools of thought can be shown to come to conclusions that are consistent with the insights of one school of thought or cultural practice among the Ancient Greeks. Many other ancient cultures also had a holistic view of the cosmos, the human soul, and the best human life.

We simultaneously live in two worlds—our internal world of thoughts, values, desires, and experiences; and our external world in which we are born, and perform actions. Modernity, despite successfully developing our external world, has failed to develop our internal world. This has resulted in our lower nature being unleashed and a crisis of morals and values taking over society. This paper, drawing from the “science of consciousness” as detailed in the Indian tradition, looks at the nature of modernity and how we can address the challenges being posed by it, by training our consciousness to higher levels.

In this paper I will argue that man as defined, at least in part, by the concept of human nature within an essentialist understanding remains a philosophically and anthropologically defensible way for understanding what it means to be a human being (person). That is, an understanding of human being includes, but is not limited to, the actuality of the non-material or non-extended substance commonly referred to as soul. The argument turns on the notion that persons are essentially persons. It seems intuitive to say that I cannot imagine myself as a “not-a-person” while it is quite easy to imagine myself as “not-a-professor.” To say I am a person seems not identical to saying I am a profesor—the former seems impossible while the latter possible. Although it might be argued that I could not verbalize I am a person without having a body it seems that would not permit one to conclude the two are identical.

In the Quran, the Muslim Holy book, many verses refer to the human being and in many ways issues regarding mankind are dealt with. In the Quran the possibility of doubting God’s existence is ruled out as man has a particular nature (“Fitrah” is a Quranic term). The aim of this paper is to disclose the very basic Quranic concept concerning human nature: Fitrah. According to the Quranic understanding, mankind has its origin in God; this understanding is based on the concept of Fitrah. Fitrah is considered a natural component of the human being in which God and another Truth can be perceived through man’s existential experience.

Morality, besides being a form of regulation of human behavior, is also a form of spiritual cognition, having its specific features in each spiritual tradition, either philosophical or religious. Nowadays the humankind tends to forget about the Plato spiritual archetype of Goodness, Truth, and Beauty, united by the eidos of “χάρις” or “αγαθόν,” which in Russian orthodox culture long ago has been turned into the triad Truth, Virtue and Beauty united by Love. Recently, the person tends to lose his humaneness; the current spiritual crisis is of menacing scale and depth. It is necessary to reveal mutual universal values in order to stop any kind of violence. To realize this task, the author tries to investigate common features of spiritual cognition in different cultures and to suggest a universal dimension of the spiritual phenomenon of faith, founding the ethics of “openness to Being.”

In the Quran, mankind is mentioned in many verses with honours and dignity regarding its creation and position. The human being in some verses is honoured and respected: man is superior to angels as they bowed for Adam as the first man. Meanwhile the human being in other verses is dishonoured and devalued; being described like animals or lower beings. The aim of this paper is to deal with the Quranic perspective regarding the human being’s dignity and honour. The nature of human dignity and honour in existential interpretation is seen in self—realization and self—making destination. In this regard everything in the world is in the service of man in making his destination and identification.

The question of human nature has not been effectively addressed in our time because of great skepticism in the academic and philosophical discourses about the idea of social progress and the validity of a common humanity. As a result the question has been reduced by neoliberalism, biopsychology, and social psychology to demonstrating the malleability of humans in response to hierarchical, biological, or social-conformist pressures. To recover the concept of human nature it will be necessary to reconceptualize the dynamic of human development as a feature of the modern and late modern achievements of a more evolved vision of individuality and community.

According to Plutarch, the theory of psychological disharmony relies on the Platonic music harmony. When Plato refers to music harmony, he means the kind of harmony where the concept of God is the source through which all beings emanate. The mental passions define the quality of human character and consequently develop the social man. As far as the Aristotelian ethical theory is concerned, morality does not condemn the passions, because it has a clear ontological and anthropological basis. The Stoics stress that a trait of the human soul is sociality, and that happens because all human beings are under the law of sympathy and constitute a whole. At medieval times, Boethius portrays the middle age social conditions which also resemble with our postmodern societies.

A democratic polis requires a citizenry that is capable of choice, that is, a decision informed by reason and facts. Tyranny requires obedient subjects. Democratic citizens normally pursue happiness, a life of virtuous activity, a way of living that requires family and friendship. Periclean Athens demonstrates the perils of democracy when the polis assumes the prerogatives of the family and friendship, substituting patriotism. The Funeral Oration illustrates how a seductive charismatic leader undermines Aristotelian conditions of ideal citizenship by subordinating the citizen to the polis.

The paper argues that the balanced relationship between freedom and justice enables man to achieve the social good ontologically speaking (agathon), i.e. the one that holds together everything that exists. Reflecting the ontological Good on a social level is made on zoon politikon translated by “being together with the others,” where freedom and justice coexist in equilibrium. Justice and thus lay contribute to the achievement of ontological Good by the fair sharing of the existing goods on a social level and by human equality before courts.

The main thesis I put forward in this article is that the democratic theory needs an anthropological perspective which defines the human in plurality and signifies the possibility of achieving a fully inclusive rational consensus. I argue that a model of democracy in terms of cosmopolitan anthropology can help us to better envision the main challenge facing universal norms and principles today. How to create democratic forms of living together? I think we can answer this question by interpreting Hannah Arendt’s theory of political action on a philosophical anthropological basis. It is common knowledge that Hannah Arendt is suspicious of ethics and warns that ethics and conscience alone cannot produce the conditions for peace. In the present paper, I examine Arendt’s philosophical project together with Kant’s philosophical anthropology and try to demonstrate its importance for plurality and living together in peace.

The paper attempts to demonstrate the contemporary relevance of Spinoza’s ethics of virtue and responsibility—a non-deontic ethics whose foundation is not obligation and duty, not the normative laws which regulate the relations with the fellows, or the prescriptions, but an intuitive knowledge on the essence of things and on the choice of a proper way of life. The choice of the best way of life is equivalent with the responsibility to identify the opportunities to control the own life.

This article deals with the concept of “great questions” in Hans Blumenberg’s philosophy. The “great questions” are fundamental elements of the German philosophy due to their role in explaining the core of the modern paradigm. Great questions are posed as resorts, and create references to them. They can be seen as atoms on the bottom of the modernity foundation, while some phenomena that could make them functional emerge as related to them. The law that enforces the atoms bond and the possibility of combinations resides in the so-called reoccupation theory that gains a good sight of what happens in immanent history. The way this work intends to clarify the great questions issue is by observing three assets of Blumenberg’s philosophy: a) the dialectical orientation of history (in particular, the modernity); b) the rule of historical change; c) Blumenberg’s holistic tendencies. This article aims to demonstrate that Blumenberg’s vision not only allows freedom to be explicit in modernity, but freedom is the main asset of this epoch.

This paper presents human rights in connection with the dispute between legal positivism and legal non-positivism. The importance of this topic can be evaluated by the debate that took place between Hart and Dworkin. Indeed, much of Dworkin’s work can be considered a reaction to Hart’s positivism. The presented study argues for the defense of the thesis that in order to understand such a debate it is important to take a position between moral noncognitivism and moral cognitivism. The hypothesis is that legal positivism does depend on the non plausibility of strong moral cognitivism. Therefore, only based on strong moral cognitivism would it be consistent to sustain the typical non-positivistic thesis of the necessary connection between law and morality. Human rights are in the center of this debate because they constitute the core of the current morality, especially the most important core of justice.