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This review article explores two recent works on Paul Ricœur, A Companion to Ricoeur's The Symbolism of Evil, edited by Scott Davidson, and Ricœur at the Limits of Philosophy: God, Creation, and Evil by Barnabas Aspray. Both works focus on Ricœur's early works, before the 'hermeneutical turn'. In this review, I show how both works demonstrate Ricœur's applicability to contemporary theological thought, especially concerning the symbols of creation and evil. Ultimately, both works show the depth and complexity of Ricœur's early work and his continued importance for understanding how the symbols of creation, existence, finitude and God are deep and multifaceted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exposure to human evil, referring to malevolent deeds that deliberately inflict suffering or death, can be psychologically traumatic. This study examined self-perceived evil-related threats within the conception of hostile-world scenario (HWS) that signifies one's mental representation of major threats in life. The study explored whether evil-related threats, along with HWS, differentiated Holocaust survivors from comparisons, and how these concepts related to mental health. Participants were Israelis aged 58–93, including 220 Holocaust survivors and 205 non-Holocaust survivors. Participants completed measures of mental health (neuroticism, positive and negative affect, life satisfaction, depressive symptoms) and HWS. Evil-related threats were assessed by a 7-item Evil Scale separated from the HWS Questionnaire. Evil-related threats contained two factors, fear of human violence and interpersonal distrust, and correlated with lower mental health. With age and gender controlled, Holocaust survivors were higher than comparisons on evil-related threats and negative engagement with HWS. Beyond associations of HWS (in its negative and positive engagement modes) with mental health, evil-related threats related to higher depressive symptoms among survivors. Results suggest that early traumatic experiences related to perceived threats in later life. Evil-related threats complemented the HWS in associating with mental health. The findings bear implications in approaching victims of evil and trauma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I intend to examine an account of human free will suggested by one of the most prominent figures in religious institutions during the Safavid reign, which had a long-term effect on subsequent discussions on the subject. Muḥammad Bāqir Majlisī (1627–1699), a renowned theologian, muḥaddith, and jurist who played a significant role in shaping Shīʿism in Iran, emphasized human free will (ikhtiyār) in his various works. While he considers it a self-evident truth, Majlisī attempts to justify human agency in voluntary activities through his arguments. However, it appears that his emphasis on human free will is primarily aimed at demonstrating that individuals are legally bound. Due to the limitations of human intellect, Majlisī argues that humans cannot be considered competent to create the legal rules they must follow. Consequently, individuals are not authorized to determine their own obligations even though they are responsible for their actions. Thus, while Majlisī was determined to establish that humans possess free will, he believed that individuals were not allowed to exercise this freedom in the realm of social and political affairs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Folklor / Edebiyat is the property of Cyprus International University and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Social Sciences Research / Sosyal Bilimler Arastirmalari Dergisi is the property of ODU Journal of Social Sciences Research and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A conceptualisation of the COVID-19 pandemic through the analytic lens of a 'necropolitics as evil' brings to the fore Hannah Arendt's theorisation that evil is both an expression of, and a threat to, humanity and its plurality as an intersectional assemblage, and by extension as freedom in political action. Arendt accepts that while evil—as an expression of our humanity—can never be eradicated, it must—as a threat to our common humanity—be confronted. From this perspective, the functioning of race, gender, and wider structural inequalities as operational hinges of COVID-19 capitalism required spaces for resistance and change within the political economy of global inequalities during the recent pandemic. This (concept) paper explores such a conceptualisation through stories of the pandemic and with a particular focus on Indigenous people, marginalised groups such as migrants and asylum seekers, as well as the homeless. It is through the viral logics of cytopathic COVID-19 capitalisms that we confront and resist theoretical pathologies by re-theorising evil as conceptual currency to confront this conjuncture, critique limitations, and meaningfully translate the current societal landscape through this lens. This allows for engaging in a particular kind of reading of Arendt that is contextualised in terms of the stakes of the paper: the importance of thinking about convivialising solidarities in the ongoing pandemic that has been perpetuated by 'evil political formations/evil governance' under capitalism, and as such, the structural pathologies that exacerbate COVID-19's deathly effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The existence of evil in our world seems to pose a serious challenge to belief in the existence of a perfect God. If God were all-knowing, it seems that God would know about all of the horrible things that happen in our world. If God were all-powerful, God would be able to do something about all of the evil. Moreover, if God were morally perfect, then surely God would want to do something about it. These facts about evil seem to conflict with the Islamic theist claim that there exists a perfectly good God. Several solutions to this problem have been proposed in Islamic thought. Ibn al-Arabi’s thought on evil goes as far as to say that what is seen as evil is actually illusory and has no reality. According to Ibn al-Arabi, existence is all good. Evil has no existence and belongs only to non-existence. The thoughts of Abu al-Hasan al-Ash‘ari can also be said to have caused a kind of moral conventionalism. Ash‘arism, unlike Mu‘tazilite thought, claims that the task of revelation is not only to explain moral statements but to impose and determine them. We encounter Neoplatonist point of view in Islamic thought. Avicenna says that evil has no positive existence or reality of its own. Evil is the incomplete realization of a good or existence. As maintained by him, evil arises when something does not show the full characteristics of its nature or type. There is no pure evil in the absolute sense. Solutions to the problem of evil do not always resort to the idea that evil is an illusion or an accidental element. According to Mu‘tazila and Maturidism, evil actually exists in this world; for conceptions of evil as an illusion or an accidental element do not adequately meet the conditions of being a free agent. According to this understanding, in order for an agent to have free will, it must not have been caused by external factors, e.g. God or the laws of nature.

This article attempts to identify certain shortcomings in analytic philosophy as practised today. First, it identifies a disconnect between the darker aspects of the human condition and philosophers' inability to engage with them. Second, it locates this inability in a certain logic of detachment, explored by Peter Strawson. Third, it points out problems with Strawson's analysis, which it then tries to overcome, using Constantin Noica's account of the Platonising attitude philosophers are perennially tempted by – one of several ways in which humans try to overcome their fallen condition. This is contrasted with Thomas Nagel's valuable but still deficient discussion of the "cosmic question". This brings us, finally, to a reconsideration of an older tradition in philosophy, which focused more explicitly on human fallenness. Petrarch's Secretum meum is used as an example to show that while the failure of analytic philosophers has deep existential roots, it is not commendable. Philosophers must learn, again, to reflect on the darkness of the human soul – their own darkness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to show that the traditional problem of evil can be logically dissolved by a more thorough analysis of what love (Agape, Eros, Philia) and evil actually are. When investigated this analysis reveals that they are manifestations and evaluations of power dynamical relations leading to a conclusion that it would be logically impossible for God to be all-loving and at the same time prevent evil as all-loving constitutes an unlimited, unjudgmental, empowerment and good and evil are simply evaluations or perspectives on that power use. To stop evil God would have to disempower in some way and that would not be Agape and thus logically impossible as Agape is part of the very nature of God. This paper reveals the "form" of good to be empowerment and the "form" of bad/evil to be disempowerment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Itobiad: Journal of the Human & Social Science Researches / İnsan ve Toplum Bilimleri Araştırmaları Dergisi is the property of Itobiad: Journal of the Human & Social Science Researches and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This essay aims to summarize and explore two issues that, in the exegetical and representational traditions of the biblical text, have triggered a myriad of semiotic intelligences. First, the nature of Cain's face at the moment of the sacrifice refused him by the Lord, a face variously interpreted as angry, sad, dejected, depressed, dark. Second, the nature of the sign imposed by God on Cain following Abel's fratricide. After exploring Jewish and Christian exegesis, ancient and modern, with some reference to contemporary narrative versions (and especially to Saramago's Cain), the reflection will turn to the question of whether this kind of exegetical questioning can be part of the objects of a discipline like semiotics, the modern science of signs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Annals of Philosophy / Roczniki Filozoficzne is the property of John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Faculty of Philosophy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Annals of Philosophy / Roczniki Filozoficzne is the property of John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Faculty of Philosophy and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The classic 'privation theory' of evil defines evil as an absence (or 'privation') of a good that ought to obtain. Despite its historical importance, privation theory is faced with a number of serious difficulties. I outline two of these difficulties and argue that they continue to pose a threat. I then present 'corruption theory', an alternative theory of evil reconstructed from some of Augustine's writings on the subject. I argue that this theory shares the strengths of privation theory, while evading its problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When we learn about a severe moral transgression that has been committed, we are often not only horrified but also puzzled. We are inclined to raise questions such as 'Why did they do this?' or exclaim: 'I cannot understand why anyone would do such a thing!'. This suggests that there is something difficult to understand about severe moral wrongs. In this paper, I offer an explanation of the phenomenon that severe moral transgressions are often difficult to understand. I begin by arguing that the relevant sense in which we try but often fail to understand morally bad action is that we try but fail to empathize with the agent at the time of the action. Then, I introduce a distinction between two broad kinds of morally bad action. Finally, I show that each of these kinds of morally bad action gives rise to obstacles to empathizing with the agent at the time of the action. Based on this explanation, I consider whether we should try to overcome this limitation to our understanding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Spanish process of addressing Euskadi Ta Askatasuna's (ETA) violent past has not followed a single transitional justice model or established a truth commission akin to those in South Africa, Latin America or Eastern and Central Europe. Instead, the case of Spain is marked by diverse legal, political and civic endeavours, sparking distinct discussions and artistic depictions regarding the dialectic between justice, forgiveness and reconciliation when addressing past crimes. By drawing on Hannah Arendt's influential perspective on reconciliation and its critiques (in particular, by Jacques Derrida), this article combines philosophy and film studies to contribute to the interpretation of Icíar Bollaín's recent film, Maixabel (2021). The film explores real-life instances of reconciliatory transformation that were part of the short-lived 'reparatory encounters' between ETA criminals and their victims. Bollaín's realist directorial intent notwithstanding, the significance of the encounters and reparatory justice leading to personal healing and social reconciliation is not self-evident but a matter of debate and legitimately different standpoints and experiences. This article sheds light on the hidden cracks of the cinematic mirror of the reparatory encounters by analysing the directorial intent, Maixabel, and Maixabel Lasa's testimony, the key inspiration for the movie. Bollaín's understanding of her film and the reparatory encounters echoes the Arendtian vision in that it separates reconciliation from forgiveness. In contrast, the film, and the real-life Maixabel Lasa's self-understanding, construct alternative views of reparatory reconciliation that embrace both public and personal acts of forgiveness. This leads to a phenomenologically richer depiction of reconciliation, forgiveness and transitional justice, one that does not conform to the rigid constraints of philosophical prescriptivism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much of the literature on religious fictionalism has emphasized that religious fictionalists employing a theistic fiction cannot just leave evil out of the fiction, and that on the contrary, they face worries that very closely parallel the worries raised by the problem of evil. This article argues that when religious fictionalism is construed most charitably, these worries do not arise. It explores three fictionalist approaches to evil (Excision, Completeness, and Inconsistency), shows that each can serve religious fictionalist ends, and recommends a pluralist stance towards them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Tasavvur: Tekirdag Theology Journal / Tekirdag Ilahiyat Dergisi is the property of Namik Kemal University, Faculty of Theology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Burdur Theology Journal / Burdur İlahiyat Dergisi is the property of Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy Universitesi lahiyat Fakultesi Dergisi and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Journal of Young Intellectuals / Genç Mütefekkirler Dergisi is the property of Journal of Young Intellectuals and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Literature has numerous dimensions, among which novels and short stories are worth the mention. Stories from the past have been including disabled male and female characters in their plots, but the question of how these characters have been depicted is still debatable. When it comes to writers of the disability study, it has been noticed that they have been trying to establish the present state of people with impairments with the help of their deformed or disabled characters. It has been witnessed that novels and short stories concentrate on bringing out the darker side of a disabled person by focusing on his/her issues and sufferings. The objective of this paper is to expose that literary works rarely focus on the brighter facet of a disabled character, especially a woman. It projects the differences that are endured by fictional individuals. The analysis undertakes the theory of Intersectionality to support its arguments of projecting the discrepancies in the picturisations of disabled female dramatic personas in novels and short stories. Hence, the research with the aid of select prose narratives brings out the conventional sketches of fictional impaired women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cumhuriyet Ilahiyat Dergisi / Cumhuriyet Theology Journal is the property of Cumhuriyet Universitesi, Ilahiyat Fakultesi / Cumhuriyet University, Faculty of Theology and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Drawing on insights found in both philosophy and psychology, this paper offers an analysis of hate and distinguishes between its main types. I argue that hate is a sentiment, i.e., a form to regard the other as evil which on certain occasions can be acutely felt. On the basis of this definition, I develop a typology which, unlike the main typologies in philosophy and psychology, does not explain hate in terms of patterns of other affective states. By examining the developmental history and intentional structure of hate, I obtain two variables: the replaceability/irreplaceability of the target and the determinacy/indeterminacy of the focus of concern. The combination of these variables generates the four-types model of hate, according to which hate comes in the following kinds: normative, ideological, retributive, and malicious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Kant’s philosophy directly addresses theological issues, one of which is the question of love for one’s neighbour. Its philosophical interpretation makes it possible not only to soften the rigorism of Kantian ethics, but also to resolve some of its characteristic paradoxes and to clarify the question of the concrete application of the categorical imperative. The article considers, in particular, the “paradox of method” used by Kant to define good and evil: evil is defined as reason’s abuse of its own freedom. It is precisely because of this understanding of evil that confidence in the moral quality of one’s own judgment becomes impossible. Kant even strengthens this point by introducing the notion of conscience as a self-judging reason, the latter being the strictest judge, whose verdict will always be accusatory. In order to avoid such undesirable conclusions, which leave no hope of justification in the face of the moral law, Kant introduces the concept of love for one’s neighbour as “a necessary addition to the imperfection of human nature”. True, such love, according to Kant, is impossible in respect to all people. But it is its presence in relation to some that allows us to overcome our own imperfection. Love for one’s neighbor precisely means voluntary recognition of the objective imperfection of one’s own subjective judgment about the morality and reasonableness of other people. And this recognition itself allows a person to rise to a moral height that would otherwise be inaccessible. In interpreting Kant’s ethics and, in particular, his concepts of reason and judgment, the author of the article relies on the concept of Joseph Simon, one of the leading modern German scholars of Kant studies in recent decades.

Categorizing things into good and evil is as old as the creation of man, and it is the way people face each other that determines whether phenomena are good or bad. Evil includes a wide range of concepts, and one of the most important and controversial concepts is political evil, whose most important indicators are the friend-enemy duality and the preoccupation with gaining power. Religion, with the aim of permanence, and to defend its legitimacy, uses the defensive function of speech in line with political purposes; As a result, religions and creeds are defined in opposition to each other, they are called evil and they try to destroy the other. The Ismailiyeh, from the path of Ismaili language and in confrontation and hostility with the Abbasid government, attribute the Abbasids and their followers to all kinds of evil and introduce them as a cruel government and clear examples of evil. Nasser Khosrow, as a high-level Ismaili thinker, using the structure of Ismaili thinking, while explaining what evil is and categorizing and describing its types, considers it necessary to avoid evil and destroy the enemy (which is the main cause of human misery). In this article, we intend to analyze the discussion of evil and enmity in Nasser Khosrow's intellectual system with the descriptive-analytical method and rely on the theory of "hostility" by Carl Schmitt.

Couplets have long been recognized as a feature of Hebrew literature and of the Our Father (the Lord's Prayer). However, their use in the Our Father may be greater than has previously been noted. In addition, concepts such as kingdom, Father and evil can have wider connotations in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Religious protest, such as the protest that Job expresses, reveals the manners in which believers experience the absurd while hanging on to God. The purpose of this article is to explore the "grammar" of this paradoxical faith stance by bringing Kierkegaard and Camus to bear upon it, and thereby to show the "family resemblance" between Job, Camus's "absurd man," and the Kierkegaardian believer. I begin with a discussion of experiences of the absurd that give rise to religious protest. I then turn to Kierkegaard to explore the manners in which "faith's thought" renders the "experience of the absurd" a religious one, while pushing the believer further into the absurd. I end with a discussion of Job as an absurd rebel in Camus's sense. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article discusses the role of mega size African Pentecostal/charismatic prophets and charismatic figures in the public response to Covid-19. There were responses to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic in late 2019, and in Africa, a lot of these were religious. This article examines the intersection between religion and the Covid-19 pandemic, in the context contemporary African charismatic-prophetism. The data is sought mainly from oral and media sources of the various charismatic figures at the center of the discussion. The same religious interpretations that inform the understanding of events in society and human life in Africa were extended to the interpretation, diagnosis, and response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The charismatic power and influence of Pentecostal/charismatic church leaders, such as Emmanuel Makandiwa of Zimbabwe, was evident through the public role that the prophets played as these churches articulated their responses to the pandemic as a public health issue with spiritual implications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article begins by noting a discrepancy between systematic-theological discourse of God, which speaks of ideal qualities, and biblical discourse of God, which does not refrain from associating God with evil, and analyzes this in more detail in a first section. The argument then turns to biblical texts and establishes that, especially where hopes rest on Yhwh as the only God, the authors of biblical texts seem to assume that God is also behind evil. Since most of the texts that see evil together with God are fictional narratives, the lessons drawn are pragmatic in the sense that they are warnings against abuse of power (Saul), aggression and attempts at destruction (Noah and Jonah) and insight into the background of evil (evil spirit, Satan, human culpability, omnipotence and uniqueness) rather than systematic considerations of the attributes of God. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article deals with the ways evil was conceptualized in the works of Cornelius Agrippa, the most important German representative of the Renaissance humanist current often labelled as Hermetic Neoplatonism. In a heterodox fashion of blending various Christian and non-Christian concepts developed by Marsilio Ficino, Agrippa attempted to further Christianize some aspects of Hermetic and Neoplatonic theology, cosmology and anthropology. This entailed a new interpretation of pagan deities and demons, which Renaissance Neoplatonists in general sought to disconnect from the exclusive domain of evil. A significant aspect of Agrippa's syncretistic attempt was his interpretation of the origin and locus of evil, which, as I argue, reveals a tense coexistence of the classical Thomist concept of privatio boni and anthropological dualism of possibly Gnostic provenance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the unprecedented events unfolding around the globe over the past four years, psychoanalytic communities near and far have sought to ask and ventured to answer the question: What does psychoanalysis have to offer individuals, and the collective, as a way of seeing and being with the reality of what is? Taking up these questions in such a time as this, feels, perhaps inevitably, unsafe. Sometimes it can feel as if there is a silent and unspoken mandate to ensure safety at all costs when we seek to find a spirit of the depth's response to the spirit of the times. I propose that the work of psychoanalysis is grounded in nothing but the journey through that which is unsafe. This article will take up Ann Ulanov's notion that one's own evil is the hinge door into collective and archetypal evil. To become unhinged means to risk well‐formulated understandings, theories, and modalities about being and becoming for the other and instead to allow the other to penetrate that which is unknown in ourselves, upending our well‐formed theories and pressing us to take up our own lives in new and unpredictable ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]