Under the mirror of the sleeping water: Poussin's Narcissus

Examined in conjunction with a close reading of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Nicolas Poussin's four paintings on the preoccupying theme of Narcissus and Echo reflect a developing aesthetic interpretation of its textual source. Poussin's reflective vision supports a radical reappraisal of the enigmatic myth at the heart of psychoanalytic theory and practice, in which Narcissus is construed as a far more object‐related figure that seeks the formative, affirmative mirroring of the other. This in turn encourages a more versatile conceptualization of narcissistic disturbance, in which an etiologically heterogenous constellation of issues stems from a variety of disturbances in the myriad dynamic and developmental aspects of mirroring and attunement: the narcissisms.     

From Latimer's Fellow-martyr to the ‘English Calvin': Nicholas Ridley's Reputation and the Circulation of A brief declaracion of the Lordes Supper, 1555-1570

Abstract

Nicholas Ridley, the Edwardian Bishop of London, was executed in 1555 during Mary Tudor's reign. An active publicist, he composed in prison a didactic treatise that promoted the Reformed view of the Eucharist and was published in Emden (1555) and in Strasbourg (1556). In 1556, A brief declaracion found its way to Geneva where a community of English exiles had it translated into Latin (Conrad Badius then issued a version in French). Not only did the translation acquire a polemical edge, but certain allusions, scattered in the preface and in the margins of the text, turned Ridley's treatise into a ‘Calvinist’ manifesto at a time when Calvin was ardently defending his views against the Lutheran polemicist, Westphal. Meanwhile, Jean Crespin made use of Badius's version in his martyrologies and reprinted Ridley's treatise in his 1570 edition. Whereas in England, Ridley's works began to be perceived as controversial after Mary's death, Crespin and Beza (Icones, 1580) kept his treatise alive and heralded him as the ‘English Calvin’ in French Reformed circles.     

A comparison of female supervisors in business and government organizations

This exploratory study compared the life style and interpersonal need orientation, leadership style, and perception of the organization structure of female supervisors in business and government organizations. The government group had a significantly higher formalistic and lower sociocentric and personalistic life style orientation; lower needs for expressed control, expressed affection, wanted inclusion, wanted affection, and a higher need for wanted control; were lower on consideration and higher on structure leadership dimensions; and perceived their organization as being more bureaucratic and less collaborative and coordinative than the business group. The findings were discussed in terms of the processes of individual-organization congruity and organizational socialization.     

J. Wentzel van Huyssteen: Refiguring Rationality in the Postmodern Age

In his three books J. Wentzel van Huyssteen develops a complex and helpful notion of rationality, avoiding the extremes of foundationalism and postmodern relativism and deconstruction. Drawing from several postmodern philosophers of science and evolutionary epistemologists who seek to devise a usable notion of rationality, he weaves together a view that allows for a genuine duet betweenscience and theology. In the process he challenges much contemporary nonfoundationalist theology as well as the philosophical naïveté of some cosmologists and sociobiologists.     

The Moscow Council of 1917–1918

Following a period of decline beginning in the early eighteenth century, the Orthodox Church in Russia held a general council in Moscow from August 1917 to September 1918. More than 500 clergy and laity met, prayed and discussed numerous issues relating to the church’s life and witness. The Moscow Council was prompted by various trends of renewal which were growing ever stronger among the clergy and laity. Political circumstances at the time also made the Council possible: a preparatory preconciliar process was initiated in 1905, in parallel with the first revolution against Emperor Nicholas II, and the Council itself was convened in 1917, in parallel with the establishment of a Provisional Government. However, it was precisely such political events which led to the premature interruption of the Council. The main items on the Council’s agenda were linked to the reformation of church structures and the implementation of conciliar provisions at every level of church life: parish, deanery, diocese and autocephalous church. Special attention was given to the renewal of the pastoral ministries of priests and bishops, and to that of committed laity. In a way, the Moscow Council was a kind of ‘first encounter’ of Orthodoxy with contemporary societies, secularised or on the road to secularisation. Its legacy is therefore of great interest to all Christianity today. This article aims to analyse the Council and the main decisions made, in the light of ecclesiology, and to provide a primary bibliography at the end of the text.     

Love and Liturgy

For two millennia Christians have assembled on the “day of the sun” to celebrate the liturgy together. But why do it? Why structure one's life in such a way that participation in ritualized religious activity is a fixed point in the weekly rhythm of one's comings and goings? The project of this essay is to identify reasons to engage in such activity that emanate from the Christian ethical vision. Fundamental to this vision is a contrast between an ethic of proximity, which enjoins us to attend to the needs of those near and dear, and an ethic of outwardness, which enjoins us to both attend to and open ourselves up to the needs of those who belong to various out‐groups. The Christian ethical vision enjoins an ethic of outwardness. A close look at the liturgies of the Eastern Christian tradition reveals the ways in which they express this ethic.     

Nicholas A. Vacc: A Legacy of Professional Leadership and Mentoring

For more than 20 years, Dr. Nicholas A. Vacc helped shape the counseling profession through his extensive involvement in accreditation, certification, and testing, as well as his research and scholarship. This article, based on a review of documents and interviews with his colleagues, former students, and family members, provides the only summary of Vacc's numerous accomplishments and describes his characteristics as a leader, a mentor, and a person.     

Pritchard on Virtue Epistemology

Abstract

Peter Godfrey-Smith and Nicholas Shea have argued that standard versions of teleosemantics render explanations of successful behavior by appealing to true beliefs circular and, consequently, non-explanatory. As an alternative, Shea has recently suggested an original teleosemantic account (that he calls ‘Infotel-semantics’), which is supposed to be immune to the problem of circularity. The paper argues that the standard version of teleosemantics has a satisfactory reply to the circularity objection and that, in any case, Infotel-semantics is not better off than standard teleosemantics.     

Jan Amos Comenius’s Trinitarian and Conciliar Vision of a United Europe: Christ as the Universal ‘Centre of Security’

This article explores Jan Amos Comenius’s vision of a Christian united Europe and its connection to his theological programme of reform. This is manifest first of all in his linguistic projects, in which he sought to break down the language barriers separating Christians both from each other and from the mission field of the New World, but it came to fruition especially in his comprehensive reform project of pansophia, especially as this was represented in his massive Consultatio catholica. For it is here that Comenius expands on his dream of a union of nations under one Christian religion. In this, Christ who transcends time and space, uniting in himself all the diverse aspirations of the nations, is revealed as the global ‘centre of security.’ Importantly, Comenius’s expression of this is profoundly indebted to Nicholas of Cusa and the article concludes by highlighting Comenius’s own Trinitarian and conciliar vision of Christian Europe.     

Constitutive Luck

‘Constitutive luck’ refers to luck that affects the sort of person one is. This article demonstrates that it is a philosophically troubling sort of luck, causing problems in, at least, ethics and political philosophy. Some, notably Susan Hurley, Nicholas Rescher, and Daniel Statman, have argued that such trouble can be avoided, by pointing out that the notion of constitutive luck is incoherent. The article examines this claim by means of a discussion of the idea of luck in general, settling on an account of luck in terms of the notions of chance, value, and (lack of) control. This account is then used to show that the notion of constitutive luck is not incoherent. We are stuck with the problems made by constitutive luck.