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Sotto questo titolo è apparsa nell'autunno del 1999 un'antologia curata dai quattro editori,. contenente 29 brani ( ad opera dei curatori e altri collaboratori). Le linee direttrici sono esposte nella prefazione (Preface, 2 pagine introduttive fuori paginazione). La base è l'antologia Early Romance Texts: An Anthology (1980) di Rodney Sampson, definita invaluable, ma ormai di difficile accesso. Perciò, con la presente scelta di testi si cerca di ovviare a questa situazione. Ci sono però determinati limiti: infatti, sono stati tralasciati i testi più noti, canonici, già bene studiati, ma nel contempo si è desistito anche dall'includere soltanto testi finora non pubblicati. In tal modo si è scelta una via di mezzo, includendo i testi meno noti e meno discussi, tutti pubblicati, è vero, già prima ma in places now considered relatively obscure e parecchio tempo (perfino tutto un secolo) fa. La struttura di tutti i contributi è identica: ad una succinta introduzione (dati essenziali sul relativo testo) seguono il brano, i commenti, la bibliografia e la traduzione inglese. In tal modo l'antologia è coerente, di facile orientamento ed altrettanto facili confronti tra i singoli testi, il che è di notevole importanza scientifica e pedagogica. Infine, i curatori fanno risaltare il ruolo delle ricerche filologiche negli studi più propriamente linguistici.

The subsequent three papers in the present volume (viz. Snedec', Teržan's, and Trobevšek-Drobnak's) have arisen from the research in historical syritax conducted since 1986 by us in the Department for Germanic Languages and Literatures of the University of Ljubljana, Yugoslavia, under the advisorship of J. Orešnik.

L'Università Autonoma di Barcellona ha inserito fra le sue Publicacions del Departament de Filologia Hispànica il volume che reca il titolo citato e che è desti­ nato ad avere carattere periodico (p. 6). Nel Prologo (pp. 5-6) i curatori affermano che fino agli anni 70 la linguistica «en aquest nostre país» non era arrivata al grado di maturità che permettesse la formazione di una scuola né di un sufficiente numero di ricercatori. Dall'inizio della scorsa decade le cose sono cominciate ad andare me­ glio: nel giugno del 1983 è stato spedito un invito a collaborare al volume miscella­ neo (qui recensito) e a Sitges è stato o ganizzato un colloquio internazionale dedica­ to ai problemi di linguistica teorica e agli aspetti (sincronici e diacronici) della lingui­ stica romanza che presentano interesse teorico. Il volume recensito raccoglie tredici contributi, di cui sei sono stati presentati al colloquio citato. Con le parole dei cura­ tori (collaboratori dell'Università Autonoma di Barcelona /U. A. B./: Joan Masca­ ró, Anna Bartra, Josep M. Brucart, Josep M. Nadal e Gemma Rigau): «d'aquesta manera volem fer plataforma que contribueixi a la consolidació, al nostre país, d'aquella pràctica científica "normal" que esmentàvem abans» (p. 6). Insomma, si cerca, e si riesce, a portare la linguistica catalana ed ispanica ad un livello internazionale e nel contempo si presentano i suoi risultati al pubblico linguistico mondiale.

In the paper, the author presents the theoretical starting point of the discussion on cyborgization. The phenomenon of cyborgization can be regarded from different angles of view – technical, medical, legal, ethical, etc. In the article, the author approaches the phenomenon of cyborgization from a philosophical point of view. Cyborgization means the process of connection artificial systems with the human body. In the article, the author displays the origin of the term cyborg, the areas of development and different interpretations of the term. The term cyborg originated in astronautics in the 1960s, soon entered American popular culture through comics, novels, and film, and underwent a theoretical transformation. The term entered philosophy at the end of the 20th century, and today it attracts attention due to the modern possibilities of connecting artificial systems with the human body. In the paper, author suggest clarification of cyborgization and cyborg and points to the existing transhumanist interpretation of the terms.

In this article, we focus on Biblical stories and, within them, on the connection between emotions and bodily sensations. We use a cognitive theory of emotions, which understands emotions as based on value judgments. The focus is on stories involving conflict in which emotions, including bodily sensations, are key to conflict resolution and to the orientation toward moral action. In the Bible, emotions play a multifaceted role. They are a natural and essential part of the human experience and of the relationship between man and God. This paper argues that bodily sensations are the building blocks of emotions or play an important role in the formation of emotions. A theology of emotions contributes to an understanding of this aspect of the body that is related to our emotions. The paper shows the hermeneutical potential of these stories for understanding emotions as embodied cognition and their relevance for morality.

The author examines how the Oberammergau Passion Play, which the Slovenian writer Ksaver Meško (1874–1964) attended in 1910, influenced his 1936 drama The Passion Play. In the first part of the paper, the author introduces the genre of the Passion play, places Meško’s Passion Play in his literary oeuvre, explains the broader cultural-historical background of its creation, and presents the centuries-old tradition of the Oberammergau Passion Play. In the second part of the paper, the author analyses and compares Meško’s Passion Play with the so-called official text of the Oberammergau Passion Play, which was published especially for the performances in 1910. The author identifies possible influences that manifest themselves throughout Meško’s text both on a formal level and on a content level: in the prologue, in the prefiguration scenes, in the central plot and also at the end of his Passion Play.

Pope Francis focuses on essential topics for the Church and society in his pontificate. To describe the relationships between different social subjects, he often uses the metaphor of the polyhedron to highlight the importance of each individual and each social group for the equitable development of the entire society. Nowhere does it systematically describe this metaphor, but it uses it in different contexts: societal, ecclesial, ecumenical, and theological. The literature also lacks papers that systematically and critically question this metaphor, presenting possible consequences for the Church’s life, i.e., pastoral care, liturgical practices, morality, doctrine, etc. This paper aims to describe this metaphor of the Church as a polyhedron. The metaphor of the polyhedron that he uses in his documents will be described first. Then, the key features, advantages, and disadvantages of the metaphor of the Church as a polyhedron will be brought out. According to this metaphor, the Church can be understood through her main characteristics: as synodal Church, unity in diversity, missionary Church, and charity.

In a world increasingly marked by ideological and theological divisions, this paper aims to foster intercultural and interfaith dialogue by examining the resonances and dissonances between Charles Taylor’s communitarianism and Confucian philosophy. Focusing particularly on their theological and spiritual dimensions, the paper explores how both traditions conceptualize selfhood in terms of authenticity, community, and transcendence. Employing a multi-disciplinary approach, the study incorporates Warren G. Frisina’s critique of Taylor, shedding light on the interconnections among value, identity, and theological beliefs. Ultimately, this paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of selfhood across different cultural and theological contexts and offers constructive insights for bridging the existing epistemological and ethical divides that separate Eastern and Western religious and philosophical thought.

In the second half of the 1980s, Tine Hribar developed a distinctive interpretation of Sophocles’s Antigone, which he presented in 1991 in the monograph Tragična etika svetosti (The tragical ethics of sacredness). Here he developed an original concept of the sacred, on which he built an ethical system that has become – particularly through its determined defense of the so-called sanctity of the dead – a cornerstone of the Slovene reconciliation project. This paper deals with some of the fundamental problems that stem from Hribar’s enigmatic definition of the sacred as “the world itself in itself,” showing that, in the conclusions Hribar draws from that definition, the clear distinction between being and life is lost. The central aporia of the Tragična etika svetosti is also closely intertwined with other problematic dimensions of the work that are analysed in the paper: the unfounded appropriation of the ethical characteristics of traditions from which he distances himself in principle; the unreflecting distinction between being and action in relation to the sacred; and not least, the unexplained oscillation between vitalism and Antigone’s ideal of self sacrifice.

The paper introduces a close reading of Eco’s article “Generazione di messaggi estetici in una lingua edenica” (1971), in which he fictionalized the biblical story from Gen 2 to show that the aesthetic use of language generates internal contradictions (self-contradictions), as well as that any such contradiction at the level of expression/form also entails a contradiction at the level of content. Furthermore, the basic postulates of Eco’s semiotic theory revolving around the sign-function are discussed, followed by outlining certain theological-semiotics of language based on the text from the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles (descent of the Spirit). It is based on an original sign – which is not, as with Eco, a sign associated with another sign (interpretant) within a sign system (code) nor a “dynamic object,” but it is the Mystical Body. The paper concludes by arguing that it is this very Body, and not the poetic invention, that generates “other languages” (ἑτέραις γλώσσαις) and consequently a communion, which is not multiethnic nor multilingual, but a Catholic community.

At the center of Trstenjak's life and work is man. This is why anthropology has a special place in his scientific interest, not as a specific discipline, but as a search for an answer to the question who a human being is and how to live together in interpersonal relationships, in society and in culture. In the paper, we discuss Trstenjak's scientific and human-experiential ≫reflections≪ of society and culture. We are particularly attentive to his understanding of man as a person and as a being of symbol, not of reason. His approach has a strong and a weak side. The strong one seems to be his fundamental intuition about the person and the symbol that enabled him to have a deep insight into the soul of man, nation, and culture. The weakness of the approach, however, is some of its limitations and ambiguities, so we critically confront Trstenjak's thought with authors who have deepened the theme of the person and the symbol. In the next part of the paper, we discuss his thoughts on the Slovenian man, family and nation. We believe that his thoughts are still relevant and worthy of attention. The paper concludes with a reflection on the importance of Trstenjak's thoughts for our times. This, we believe, cannot be shown without taking into account his reflection on the five great thinkers who for him were a key mental reference and the challenge of how to face the choices of life.

The subject of research in this paper is the relationship between religion and politics in the current Bosnian moment. The research sample is limited to the appearance and analysis of cases/examples of the relationship between religion and politics in a period of one month of the current year. More precisely, from the end of January to the end of February 2023. The paper follows and analyzes the dynamics of three characteristic phenomena of the relationship between religion and politics in the public space, with an emphasis on the relationship between religious themes and political actors.

In this paper, we present the influence of religion on the revolutionary movement that led India to political independence in the last century. The most credit for the changes has Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who achieved political changes through satyagraha without violence. After introducing the term satyagraha, the authors outline Gandhi's life and his spiritual development, which enabled him to think and act nonviolently. The sources of his spirituality are highlighted as the Bhagavad-gita, the Bible and Leo Tolstoy's prose. He was also influenced by Jain religious practice, especially the principle of ahimsa practiced by Mohandas' mother. The paper concludes with an outline of the influence of satyagraha in India and beyond after Gandhi's death.

The article discusses Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a disruptive power, i.e., a power that – as the dictionary SSKJ states – “because of its otherness, its visionary conception in relation to the status quo, acts boldly and unexpectedly”. At the beginning of the paper, the theoretical background of AI tools is presented, along with some examples of the potential and problems of their use in foreign language teaching. The use of AI-powered tools in foreign language teaching must be thoroughly considered, researched, and regulated at national and supranational levels – e.g., the ethical aspects of using AI in teaching, intellectual property, data protection, and the actual impact of AI-assisted learning. Beyond these challenges, it is worth highlighting, exploring, and, above all, exploiting the potential of AI-based tools and the potential and constructive use of these tools in and for foreign language teaching. In the second part of the paper, the selected AI-based tools suitable for foreign language teaching are briefly presented and analysed through a use case. The advantages and disadvantages of these tools and their use for language learning, chatbots (including ChatGPT), AI-based tools for writing and text proofreading (grammar and spelling), and machine translation tools are illustrated using examples. Despite the advantages, disadvantages, and problems that the use of AI-powered tools entails, the paper aims to highlight their benefits and potential with regard to optimizing users’ — i.e., teachers and learners – time, and, above all, we want to encourage their constructive use.

Everyday aesthetics, at its core, is based on the supposed dichotomy between art and life, considering life as something routine-like, and art as the breaking of the routine, something charismatic. Different authors of everyday aesthetics use different words to describe this dichotomy. For example, in his article “What is ‘Everyday’ in Everyday Aesthetics?”, Ossi Naukkarinen simply uses everydayness and non-everyday-like, while Arto Haapala, in his “On the Aesthetics of the Everyday: Familiarity, Strangeness, and the Meaning of Place” uses the terms familiarity and strangeness. The authors also propose different ways of bridging this dichotomy. However, as the paper shows, the real question is not how to bridge the dichotomy itself but rather whether the dichotomy exists in the first place. Moreover, the paper suggests a change of direction in future investigations of everyday aesthetics, and focusing on the nuances that exist on the routine-charisma and charismatic-routine spectrum, supported by academic research and the personal account of the paper’s author art project. Moreover, the implications of this shift extend beyond the boundaries of everyday aesthetics.

Building on the ongoing debates surrounding the archaeological application of New Materialism, posthumanism, speculative realism, object-oriented ontology, and the anthropological ontological turn, this paper examines sexual interactions between deities and humans, as well as among deities represented as statues in ancient Egypt. Acknowledging the existence of such sexual encounters and providing detailed descriptions of the involved entities alone does not fully recognize the underlying gender and class structures. This paper argues that these analysed sexual encounters were shaped by gender and class-based power asymmetries, revealing that the ancient Egyptians and contemporary perspectives are not as distinct as they might seem.

In the national archaeologies formed after the dissolution of Yugoslavia there emerged new reflections of old archaeological ideas, especially about the ethnogenesis and identity of the Illyrians, topics which dominated Yugoslav archaeology. The new ideas varied from those which continued and reaffirmed older theories to those which attempted to deconstruct them, among which the most influential was that of Danijel Džino. The topic of our paper – how the initial archaeological knowledge about the Illyrians was created – adds another component in deconstructing of Illyrians. The paper analyses the first and most massive excavations at Glasinac in the 19th century which served as an empirical base for creating the narrative of the Illyrian Glasinac and Illyrians in Yugoslav archaeology in the 1950s and 1960s.

The paper focuses on heritage value systems, particularly investigating the archaeological understanding of heritage values and evaluation. The literature review shows that the postmodern archaeological paradigm predominantly covers the topic, while the perspective of the intrinsic value is less explored. The starting point of our research is the thesis that archaeological paradigms obstruct better public support if they refrain from using axiological considerations. By archaeological paradigm, we refer to the processual and post-processual ones (the latter focusing on understanding past social phenomena). Axiology, as the theory of values, developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its approach is now used in many areas of social sciences (for example, education and medical care). Public archaeology is more open to societal needs than processual and post-processual archaeology but has yet to apply a values-based approach consistently. To clarify our thesis, we analyse the theoretical and practical considerations on the values of (archaeological) heritage, including the issues of the categorization of values, reflection on who assigns values to heritage and how this affects the reception of archaeological knowledge in society. The paper addresses some critical aspects of the evaluation in archaeological heritage conservation, management and building alliances with locals and communities who identify with heritage. I outline a comprehensive archaeological evaluation system considering systemic, extrinsic and intrinsic archaeological values in the conclusions.

The issues of conjugal communio amoris and the implications of this relationship in Christian marriage, i.e., the path to holiness, are the subject of this paper. Communio amoris in relation to marriage and family comes from the theological thought of John Paul II, from the “Familiaris Consortio” exhortation. In three parts of the paper, there are presented in turn: conjugal communion of love, conjugal love as the fruit of that communion, and communio sanctorum - holiness in marriage as the realization of the communion of love. The history of the Church shows that the holiness of spouses was practiced “despite” marriage, “in” marriage and “thanks to” marriage. However, a special emphasis in this paper is placed on the third model. Communio amoris is the principle of sanctification for spouses entering into a sacramental union; it is the path to communio sanctorum.

In the wider phenomenon of the reception and readaptation of aristocratic architectural heritage in post-revolutionary Europe, the repurposing of former aristocratic palaces in Venice after the Fall of the Serenissima in 1797 constitutes a preeminent example. The paper takes as a case study Ca’ Rezzonico, one of the most splendid palaces along the Grand Canal, which has housed, since 1936, the illustrious Museum of 18th-century Venice (Museo del Settecento veneziano). After the Rezzonico family died out in 1810, the palace was gradually stripped of its art historical treasures and has served the most diverse purposes. From being the seat of the Austrian Tobacco Administration to housing dealers’ galleries, from hosting the ateliers of stage designers and international painters to being the home of renowned intellectuals and aesthetes, Ca’ Rezzonico’s rooms and walls have witnessed the profound changes in art, taste, and culture that rang through Europe during the long 19th century. The paper offers a comprehensive recon struction of the palace’s 19th-century history, drawing from both published and unpublished sources.

The paper presents the multifaceted identity of the Hindu goddess Mahādevī, the dynamic feminine absolute of the religious tradition Śāktism, whose philosophical foundations have shaken several assumptions of established religious and social norms. Śāktism remains an integral part of the philosophical-religious landscape of the complex totality of Hinduism, while also stretching beyond narrow religious contexts and critically examines normative patterns of patriarchal social reality. In the first chapter, the paper outlines the origins of the formation of the goddess cult, from the earliest period of Indian civilization to the Purāṇas, and then introduces the key ideas of the goddess myth in the Devīmāhātmya, where, for the first time in the spiritual history of India, a goddess is defined as the Supreme Reality, who reconciles all opposites within herself. The interpretation of the most significant segments of the goddess myth is built on the basis of an analysis of the changes in metaphysics, specifically the transition from the pre-Tantric dualistic metaphysical system to the non-dualistic one in Tantra. This is followed by an outline of the two branches of Śāktism that were formed out of the two seemingly incompatible poles of the identity of the Supreme Goddess: on the one hand, as a benevolent mother and obedient wife, and on the other as a fierce, ruthless and independent female, which is discussed in more detail in the last chapter through a case study of two goddesses, Lakṣmī and Kālī.

The Current European Digital Competence Framework for Lifelong Learning (DigComp 2.2) includes five areas with 21 sub-competences, and most of them are included in the European Master’s in Translation (EMT) 2009-2022 frameworks. Which of these will be included in the curricula depends on the level of the study program (BA or MA) and the needs of the students, who we tend to believe are digital nomads. In the educational context of our study various areas of digital competences (DC) are developed implicitly as part of translation assignments and are not specifically acknowledged and assessed. In this paper we investigate how the students perceive their DC and whether this is connected to the number and type of translation courses taken and their view of themselves as future translators. The data was collected via an online questionnaire. The informants (N=58) assessed 25 statements on a five-point Likert scale, thereby reporting how skilled they believed they were with respect to various digital practices. The data was coded and analysed with the SPSS software package. The statistical tests include descriptive statistics, Pearson’s correlation, a one-way ANOVA and a two-way ANOVA. The results show that the students have a high perception of their DC, but no significant connection can be established between the pedagogical input and the students’ perception in this regard. The paper ends with the analysis of the pedagogical implications of this finding for teachers and course developers.

This paper presents the blessed Anton Martin Slomšek as a man who lived a virtuous life to an above-average degree. In addition to a general view of Slomšek’s life from the perspective of virtue, the author offers in the main part of the paper a concrete presentation of the realization of the theological virtues of faith, hope and charity in his life. He additionally reveals the extraordinary influence of Slomšek’s personality as a kind of “radiance” of faith, hope and charity around him; or, as we might say in modern terms, that he was an extraordinarily “resonant” personality. Slomšek’s extraordinary pastoral zeal was not based on theoretical teaching alone but was rooted in a personally realized life of infused virtues, which shaped him into an extremely harmonious and positive personality.

After the Second World War, Europe faced the question of what kind of political future to choose. Exactly five years after the end of the war, Robert Schuman proposed a declaration that opened the way for European integration: the European Community, later renamed the European Union, was created. This paper presents the circumstances of the creation of the Schuman Declaration and the vision that led him and other founding fathers to the realization of a completely new way of connecting European states. Three of the founding fathers of the European Community, Robert Schuman, Konrad Adenauer and Alcide de Gasperi, were devout Christians. In the paper, we show their understanding of the relationship between democracy, European integration and Christianity. According to Schuman, European institutions need a spirit, Europe needs a soul. What does this mean and how is it that only a few of the later European political leaders paid attention to this aspect? The last part of the article regards the efforts of Pope Francis to make Europe a place of peace and economic development, and furthermore, to strengthen the essence of its identity, encourage creativity and recognize its responsibility to its own nations and citizens, as well as responsibility to others in a globally connected world. The series of speeches by Pope Francis on Europe, including in the European Parliament, shows his closeness to the vision of Schuman and the founding fathers of the European Union on the one hand, and on the other hand, he directs attention to the present and the future.

The aim of this paper is to address the issues dealing with politics and religion in the Middle East, focusing on secularism vs. Islamism; the aftermath of the Arab Spring, and the Shia and Sunni split, as key themes for the purpose. Via analysis of the complexity of the Middle East, the Secular-Islamist Conflict, the Arab Spring and its outcomes, the article explains how the Arab Spring hardened the traditionally fluid relationship between the politics and Islam. It argues that Islam has never actually left the political realm, as there is still political contestation about the role of Islam in public life. The paper then deals with the complexity of the Shia and Sunni relationship and the split between the two, giving the explanation for such occurrences on the three levels – doctrine, legitimacy, and power.

The paper introduces the concept of Velayat-e faqih (Guardianship of the Jurist) as actual political system in Iran. The Farsi concept transfers the authority, political and religious, to the Shia clergy called ruling faqih (ruling jurist). It means that the religious leader (Vali-e faqih) is in fact the supreme leader in Iran. He gets his authority from God and he has already been appointed by the Hidden Imam and he would just be discovered by Maraj-e taghlid. Shia Islam knows a particular meaning of the concept Velayat-e faqih, started by Islamic Revolution in 1979. The paper presents the interpretation of the doctrine formulated by the dissident Iranian cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The presentation is based on his book Islamic Government: Governance of the Jurist. The paper compares different views of Velayat-e faqih and it describes the relation of the actual Iranian understanding of Velayat-e faqih with traditional Shia custom and practice. This paper is written in English but it is based on the Farsi bibliography and is supported by the life experience of the political system.

The Black Notebooks [Schwarze Hefte] are personal notebooks that Heidegger wrote from the beginning of the 1930s to the end of the war. The first notebook has been lost, but transcripts of the next fourteen, which originated in the decade 1931–1941, were published in 2014 in three consecutive volumes of the philosopher’s Gesamtausgabe (more recently, further notebooks up to 1970 have been published). Their publication triggered a new wave of public polemics about his Nazism and anti-Semitism. This paper evaluates Heidegger’s multistage and multilayered relationship to Judaism and National Socialism, and the most prominent modern interpretations of that relationship, especially in light of the Black Notebooks. Among such readings, some of the most profound and lucid are those of the editor of the German edition of the Notebooks, Peter Trawny, and the Spanish philosopher Jesus Adrian Escudero. Many early reactions to the first publication of the notebooks were characterized by a combative outrage that was not supported by serious study and understanding of the material in question. This paper studies the reasons why that initial, sensationalist reaction stimulated precisely the opposite effect from what might be expected: Instead of jeopardizing Heidegger’s well-established place in the Western philosophical canon, the controversies of 2014 triggered a kind of renaissance of interest in his life and work.

This paper presents and critically evaluates dr. Jakob Aleksič’s view of dialogue, the unity of the Scripture, and Judaism, based on the discussions published by him in the journals Zbornik teološke fakultete and Bogoslovni vestnik after the Second World War. The paper is a continuation of the article Jakob Aleksič – The Messenger of the Biblical Science Spring published in the Unity and Dialogue 74 (2019‑1). In his discussions Aleksič »faithfully follows the teachings of the Church« (Stainer 1980, 497), i.e. the Council’s and other documents of the Church. As Aleksič (1955, 144) himself asserted, his discussions do not represent an original scientific contribution but a more professional presentation, »which has only a more general introductory character«. Aleksič understands the Bible as a written record of the dialogue between God and man or as a historical sediment of this dialogue woven into the history of the elected people. In harmony with the Dogmatic Constitution on Divine Revelation (Dei Verbum), he emphasizes the unity of the two covenants, the Old and the New, for the history of salvation »did not begin with the wood of the cross on Golgotha, but with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in Eden« (1967, 6). Thus, the message of Jesus of Nazareth cannot be properly understood without »observing it in the context of the living, millennial prophetic tradition and historical reality of the Jewish people« (1965, 236b). Similarly, the question of Jews and Judaism is placed within the framework of God’s universal plan of salvation. Due to the fact that Aleksič was the first in Slovenia to report very accurately and extensively on the so called Declaration on the Jews, which in its final (fourth) form became known as the Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions (Nostra aetate), he is valued as a national awakener who educated future generations of priests for dialogue. His work thus in a special way prelude the present (and previous) issue of Unity and Dialogue, which marks the 55th anniversary of the publication of the Nostra aetate.

After the emergence of Islam in the early seventh century, the Arabic language saw its rapid expansion and eventually become a theological language as well. Non-Muslim theologians living in the Islamic world began to express themselves in Arabic and wrote polemical literature against their adversaries from different religions and religious denominations. Of special importance were also Jewish theologians who wanted to demonstrate the correctness of their own religious beliefs and the ill-foundedness of Christian and Muslim doctrines. This paper is dedicated to the Arabic speaking Jewish theologian Dāwūd al-Muqammaṣ (the 9th century A.D.), whose work Twenty Chapters (ʿIšrūn maqāla) is the earliest extant summa theologiae in Arabic, i.e., a work which aims to address the totality of theological teachings of a certain religion. The eight chapter of this work contains a critique of the Christian doctrine that God is three, while the tenth chapter refutes the Christian teachings that the Son is from eternity begotten by the Father and that God was incarnated in reality. This paper places Dāwūd’s critique in the broader context of trans-confessional polemic in the medieval Islamic world with special attention to Judeo-Arabic tradition.

This paper is an attempt to develop a design-oriented approach to ELT coursebook evaluation, with a particular focus on the internal organization of coursebook units at both intra-unit and inter-unit levels. We believe that looking at coursebooks from the position of the materials designer sheds some additional light on ELT coursebook evaluation. The design-oriented approach to ELT coursebook assessment proposed in the paper goes well beyond the immediate, and often superficial, ‘check-list’ methods commonly used to help teachers select coursebooks. In other words, the design-oriented approach to ELT coursebook assessment enables teachers an insight into ‘the architecture’ of textbooks. On this ‘journey to the centre of ELT textbooks’, we try to highlight how language teaching materials have been resolving the conundrum of the dynamic combination of the What (content), and the How (pedagogy/methodology). In presenting a materials design process, we start off with the assumption that there has always been a broad basis of theoretical and pedagogical notions that can inform the content and organization of ELT coursebooks, and upon which coursebook writers can build when designing instructional materials. The article then discusses three stages of the design process, offering a more detailed analysis of the complex issue of unit structure at intra- and inter-unit levels. We explore different formats of unit structure, its components, ways of creating coherence throughout the unit, and its underlying methodology/pedagogy. The last point prompts the conclusion that today’s ELT materials are produced in response to a perceived market demand that is often at variance with the latest theoretical developments in ELT.

This paper analyses morpho-syntactic interference errors committed by learners of French as a foreign language in four Tanzanian universities: UDSM, UDOM, DUCE and Makumira. The paper has three specific objectives: (i) to identify morpho-syntactic interference errors, (ii) to account for their sources and (iii) to recommend a corrective treatment. The study included a total of 61 respondents. The data was collected through learners’ written texts in French from which a corpus was developed. The study was guided by the interlanguage theory and the error analysis approach. Data analysis was qualitative. The findings reveal that errors included the use of nouns with English origins (18.87%), omission of prepositions (36.79%) and absence of determiners (44.34%). The findings further show that these errors are due to previously acquired or learned languages: Swahili, ethnic community languages and English. Different recommendations are given following the findings. As regards the use of definite and indefinite articles in French, teachers should provide a guided reading of different French texts through which learners will be able to understand how articles are used. To master the use of prepositions, teachers should encourage learners to read a variety of texts in French as this can make them understand and internalize the different prepositions. Moreover, through regular exercises on word formation in French, learners may be able to familiarize themselves with French nouns, hence internalizing their forms. Finally, the learning of French nouns should be done in context.

Literature is an open concept and a creative art which expresses human history, experiences, imagination, observations, predictions and suggestions at a particular time in a given society. Either as fiction or non-fiction, literature can be rendered in both spoken and written words. It is often argued whether literature is for itself or the development of the society that produces it. This study, therefore, interrogates how the selected Francophone African novels, namely Sembène Ousmane’s Les bouts de bois de Dieu, Mariama Bâ’s Une si longue lettre, Ferdinand Oyono’s Le vieux nègre et la médaille, Aminata Sow Fall’s La grève des bàttu, Patrick Ilboudo’s Les vertiges du trône and Fatou Keïta’s Rebelle, depict the function of literature. The novelists are selected because of their inclination towards the social transformation paradigm. The purpose of this paper is to raise people’s awareness and mobilize them towards positive change. Based on close reading, the paper is built around Marxist theory which is interested in the class struggle as demonstrated in a literary text, with a view to deconstructing the existing capitalist tendencies in a given society. The findings reveal that the selected novels are focused on the poor conditions socio-politically, economically, culturally and psychologically that exist both during and after the colonial era. The paper concludes that literature helps readers to cope with the socio-cultural, political, economic, religious and other challenges of their immediate as well as remote environments through the process of self-discovery. As such, positive social change is possible through literature.

The paper gives a comprehensive insight into the peculiarities of concept profiling through defining the related etymological domains. The aim of the paper is to reveal the peculiarities of the profiling of the concepts GOOD / EVIL and JUSTICE through elucidating their source domains from an etymological perspective. The choice of the analysed ethical concepts is stipulated by their higher contextual actualization frequency, as compared with the other ethical concepts, according to the data obtained from British National Corpus. The research method of trajector / landmark alignment used in this work is based on R. Langacker’s views on the profiling of concepts in language utterances and on the tenets of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. The novelty of this approach consists in the fact that it was elaborated and tailored for the analysis and explanation of the onomasiological principles of ‘wrapping’ abstract ethical concepts into the language form. The underlying idea is that abstract categories were conceptualized on the basis of background central life experience and knowledge of concrete things. It is argued that such things were the source domains in ontological cross-domain mappings for the target ethical concepts. The current research into the source domain etymons of the ethical categories made it possible to determine the underlying images, which are the core for drawing metaphorical correspondences between source and target concepts. The etymological layer of source domain lexicalizers revealed the intrinsic psychological mechanisms of human cognition and perception of the world, which consist in the inherent proclivity of the human mind to make metaphorical parallels in the direction from daily, central experience to complex abstract ideas and notions. The results made it possible to develop the matrix model of the analysed concepts, which was further developed into a ‘conceptual edifice’ multi-layer model, which reveals the conceptualization paths along which the human mind classifies and categorizes abstract ethical ideas.

The central question of the article is already formulated in the title. The author advocates a minimal definition of intelligence: intelligence is independent problem solving. The level of intelligence depends on the complexity of the problems and the degree of independence in solving them (Klaus Mainzer). According to this definition, the author notes that intelligent machines already exist. These are AI systems that are capable of deep learning. In the paper, the author presents criticisms of the claim that AI is intelligent in the literal sense and not just in the metaphorical sense. These criticisms are based on objections that can be divided into two basic groups. Proponents of the first line of criticism cite mental abilities (such as phenomenal consciousness and awareness) and aliveness as essential attributes of intelligence, rejecting the notion of artificial life as nonsense. Inanimate and non-mental systems are merely adaptive, not intelligent systems. Representatives of the second group claim that the indispensable characteristics of intelligence are generality, intuition, common sense and abduction. The author analyses the aforementioned criticisms and concludes that their proponents have not given good reasons against the minimal definition.

This paper explores the evolving perception of artificial intelligence (AI) systems in our increasingly AI-driven world, focusing on conversational AI or chatbots. With the rise of human-like robotic AI systems, there is a growing need to understand the identity these machines assume as they take on roles previously reserved for humans, such as caring for the elderly and educating children. The central thesis posits that comprehending the identity of such AI systems necessitates considering the aspect of our own identity that we shape and project onto them in our interactions with these systems. In an era defined by AI, these inquiries into identity and AI-human interactions are of paramount importance and are also vital for the very development of AI.

One of the first pioneers to try to reconcile the Catholic doctrine of creation, salvation and redemption with the idea of evolution was the French Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin. He believed that humanity has an important role to play in the further development of the universe, since human consciousness or thought represents the highest stage of the evolution of the universe. This evolution was to be completed by reaching the Omega Point, which draws the universe and humanity towards the perfect complex interconnectedness. This is a distinctly teleological, finalistic view of the evolution of the universe and of life in it, and the Omega Point is associated with Christ, as depicted in some of the writings of the New Testament. In this paper, two hypotheses are put forward on the basis of Teilhard’s philosophy and proved by scientific facts. The first is that in the evolution of nature, that is, of the material universe (cosmogenesis), of life (abiogenesis) and of thought or spirit (noogenesis), we can see the solution of the original theological problem, namely, the evil of disconnectedness, by means of the integration of simple parts into a complex whole. The second hypothesis argues that modern technology is one of the phenomena of evolution, specifically of noogenesis, because by facilitating the flow of information and transdisciplinary learning, research and collaboration, it can foster the interweaving of simple thoughts and thinking persons into a complex whole. This is not to overlook the pressing problem where technology is not only connective but also disruptive, not because it is inherently bad, but because of the unhealthy spirit of a society that is immature to the new gains of humanity due to a weak moral consciousness. In this article we suggest that guidelines for the ethical use of technology should also be developed from the perspective of the Omega Point, namely from the ultimate full complex interconnectedness of creation, and that the motivation for following them should be found in the meaningful and realizes identity of the persons who use them.

In this paper, we attempt to show the impact of digital technology on the spread of Salafist ideas in the Balkans and to demonstrate that Haykel’s division of Salafists into active and clandestine Salafists is not entirely correct. In particular, we address the reasons for the spread of Salafism in the Balkans and explain how this affects the situation in Slovenia. Finally, we show the dual role of digital technology in Salafism, which is used both to disseminate a particular Islamic doctrine of faith and to search for evidence of preformed beliefs.

Human life has always been understood as an inner tension between the mortality of the human body and the desire of the soul to attain immortality. The tension between mortality and immortality has reached new dimensions with the developments in medicine, technology and artificial intelligence that have the potential to extend our lives in many ways. In this paper, the authors first present a philosophical consideration of the body, which has often been seen as the prison of the soul, and then the modern quest for immortality. In the fourth chapter, they present the good news of Christianity, which is, among other things, that the body enables human beings to live their life in integral relationships and fulfil their vocations, and then the Christian understanding of immortality. They conclude by pointing to the new questions raised by the immense investment in the development of technology, especially artificial intelligence, which deep down is an expression of man’s desire for immortal life. At the same time, they point out that man can overcome his fear of death and discern multiple ways to avoid it if he is willing to accept death as an integral part of his life.

The paper deals with the role of image and beauty in the kerygmatic renewal of catechesis. In today’s technological age, the digital is no longer just part of existing cultures, but is emerging as a new culture that is changing the language and the way we think. The Catechesis is challenged to reflect on the form of the faith quest of digital youth and to adapt its vocabulary to the language of the new generations. The kerygmatic renewal of catechesis underlines the beauty of Christian life and salvation and of relationships in Christian communion and connects with the theology of beauty. Christianity needs to rediscover its beauty, the beauty of life with Christ, if it is to be attractive. The kerygma, the proclamation of God’s love and mercy, helps the individual to overcome fear and absurdity as he enters a new dimension of relationship that does not end in death

In this paper, we present a survey that took place in January 2023, with 68 participants, of which 62 were women and 6 were men, who in 2022 attended educational and practical workshops on the topic of developing positive parenting. The name of the workshop was “Families in the Centrifuge of Modern Times,” and it was organized by the University of Adult Education Celje. The aim was to find out which parents attended the workshops, where they learned about them, what are the reasons for their participation and what is their opinion on the usefulness of and satisfaction with the workshops. The results of the survey showed that the participants are mostly women in the age group of 41–50 years; they are mostly university-educated, married, and mostly found out about the workshops online or through social networks. All participants thought that the workshops were useful and that they gained new knowledge. They believed that the professional content was presented understandably and that the workshops improved their lives in general.

In 2021, all preserved topographical-historical descriptions of the parishes of the Diocese of Ljubljana were published within the framework of AES 43. In accordance with the bishop’s instructions, parish priests or chaplains of individual parishes more or less diligently, i.e., more or less extensively prepared the outlines of their parishes. At the time (if not earlier), data collecting with the help of questionnaires was already established across Europe. The efforts of the Archduke John in Styria and of Bishop Gruber in Ljubljana Diocese are especially interesting for our area, whereby they both probably derived from a similar (if not the same) context and vantage point. Work of both was in some sense upgraded by Georg Göth, who compiled his questionnaires thoughtfully but not too extensively, which helped to ensure that the responses were actually done and submitted by the addressees. The paper wants, first of all, to expose the little known and therefore rarely used material that is often of key value as it is only one that has actually been preserved. The survey questionnaires of the beginning of and middle of the 19th century therefore need to be reexamined and correctly reevaluated, if possible, establish their interdependence or influence that they had on each other, and show the latest findings on the specific case of Hoče parish.

The paper discusses and systematically analyses the term μετάνοια (most commonly translated with the word repentance), and the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. The general introductory part of the article explores the etymological and semantic meaning of the term μετάνοια in the original Greek language and classical Greek literature, as well as a brief history of the translation of this term into modern languages. The second part of the paper deals with the Hebrew biblical concepts ≫naham≪ ( נחם ) and ≫šub≪ ( שׁוּב ), which are related to the term metanoia, with an overview of their translation into Greek (LXX) and other modern languages, while the third, last part analyses the use of the term μετάνοια/μετανοεῖν in the New Testament, with particular emphasis on Luke's two-volume work (Gospels and Acts), which mostly uses these terms.

The paper is concerned with a detailed consideration of one of the most well-known and frequently mentioned Slavic pagan deities: Dazhbog (or Daž(d)bog). Historiographic stereotypes full of contradictions and problems have been fixed in research concerned with the deity, for example, defining Dazhbog as the deity of the sun; its proximity to another solar deity (Chors) and vagueness, why are there two solar deities; Dazhbog’s relation to the deity Svarog/Svarozhich; Dazhbog’s belonging only to the East Slavic area; the etymology of his name as a “giving deity”. An alternative view on Dazhbog (overlooked rather than new) that can solve these problems is given in this paper.

This paper aims to explore the phenomenon of the opera minute which emerged from the avant-garde experimentalism after WWI; its beginner and one of the foremost masters, the French composer Darius Milhaud put three short, eight-minute operas on stage in 1927. Others soon followed, among them the Slovenian composer Slavko Osterc who composed the opera-minute “Medea” in 1932. This paper is the first to transcribe in length the manuscript of Osterc’s “Medea”, comparing it to Euripides’ original. Furthermore, the article aims to establish the fine similarities and distinctions between the approach regular opera took towards myth and that of the avant-garde opera-minute.

This paper critically analyses and discusses two recent re-interpretations of the name of the Slavic god known as Sventovit. This deity was worshipped on Rügen Island, on Wittow Peninsula, at a locality called Arkona. The temple of Sventovit, with his four-headed statue, stood there on the cliff there in the Middle Ages until its destruction by the Danes in 1168/9. The paper explores an article by Michał Łuczyński published in the Polish journal Ling Varia in 2015, and a chapter on Sventovit in the book by Judith Kalik and Alexander Uchitel, titled Slavic Gods and Heroes, which was published by Routledge in 2018, in the USA and UK. In his work, Łuczyński postulated that root-stem -vit in the name of a deity is, in fact, a suffix -ovit implying its attributive character. The paper argues for a widely accepted explanation that root-stem -vit derives from the Slavic vitędzь, denoting warrior, hero, freeman, lord, master or ruler. In their book, Kalik and Uchitel argued that the name “Sventovit” was a corrupted form of the name of the Christian Saint Vitus. This article challenges this notion, arguing that the deity’s name Sventovit has nothing to do with Saint Vitus.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the main theses of the Czech philosopher, sociologist, and theologian Tomáš Halík on atheism. He departs from the dogmatic understanding of atheism as the conviction of the non-existence of God or the lack of conviction of His existence and argues on the side of atheism as a way of purification and maturation of faith. The article consists of two parts. In the first one the context of the emergence, sources and main types of dogmatic atheism are presented. In the second part, the concept of atheism as a way of faith’s criticism (criticism of inadequate concepts and ideas about God) and a form of existential experience (experiencing God‘s silence, absence and “death” and the insufficiency of human mental powers in His cognition) is outlined.

This paper attempts to draw a strict Christian vision of forgiveness from Kierkegaard’s religious writings and to present its possible meaning for immanent ethics. The starting point of the considerations presented herein is the presupposition that forgiveness, as an essentially Christian phenomenon, does not refer to immanent interpersonal relations, but has its own deep, transcendent dimension. In this view, forgiveness is founded on the spiritual understanding of love of one’s neighbour as an act in which God always mediates in the relation between two people. It is He who really forgives and, in this act, reconciles and equalizes the one who loves and the sinner with each other. Such forgiveness does not concern some particular sinful act, but the sin of life—living without God in the world. In this sense, forgiveness is a creative work of love which transforms the being of man and recreates it in the new reality of love, opening before the individual the way to salvation. At the end of the text, I argue that such forgiveness may have great importance for immanent ethics if only the epistemic and moral distance between temporal and eternal reality is kept.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already become a ubiquitous and autonomous force transforming our society and how humans interact with the world around them and each other. The staggering development and widespread of AI technology in the last decade raise debates on its evolution potential and social anxiety concerns about its detrimental effects. Techno-optimists expect AI to evolve into a sentient and conscious entity, reaching and surpassing humanlevel and thus challenging our understanding of the world and the fundamental principles of our society. This paper provides theological reflections on AI evolution and its effects on society and Christian spiritual life. It discusses the risks of AI hindering man’s spiritual ascent towards God by autonomously shaping man and society in its image, as expressed by advocates of technological determinism. Finally, it proposes an authentic and liberating Christian viewpoint on AI and today’s disruptive technologies by employing a patristic perspective.

This paper deals with the question of the formation of Croatian adjectives with the prefix među-. While such adjectives were very rare in late 19th and early 20th century, an analysis of relevant lexicographic works and digital corpora demonstrated that their number started to become larger in later 20th century, culminating in recent decades. Today, the [među-N-Suff]Adj derivational pattern is a productive, accounting for 134 adjectives with a frequency of ten occurrences or more retrieved from the largest extant Croatian web corpus, hrWaC. On the basis of an analysis of available older lexicographic works and digital corpora, it can be concluded that među- prefixed adjectives first entered into Croatian as loan translations (calques) of Latin(ate) and German terms. According to more recent lexicographic works and digital corpora, later on, and especially in recent decades, which coincided with a growing English influence on Croatian, među- prefixed adjectives were probably produced as equivalents of English inter- prefixed adjectives. The number of među- prefixed adjectives, as well as the variety of semantic domains in which they are used, testify to the fact that the [među-N-Suff]Adj pattern is well-established and productive in contemporary Croatian. The analysis of Croatian među- prefixed adjectives in this paper could contribute to shedding more light on the question of morphological borrowing phenomena in general.

The following paper discusses contemporary challenges of providing access to formally accredited higher education programs in the United States of America, and on a smaller scale also in Slovenia. It interprets the recent college admissions scandal within the historical framework of American educational policies, paired with its traditional social practices. In the initial sections, the paper provides a brief historical overview of the development of American (higher) education, the beginnings of which date as far back as the early 17th century. Back then, the very concept of formal and publicly accessible education was in its developmental stages. By focusing on a selection of historical aspects and educational trends within the American national context, the paper unveils the related expectations and attitudes toward acquiring formal education in the past. It lists a number of historically relevant changes, which have been implemented over the past century within the American educational system at state and federal levels. The latter have contributed to the development of contemporary approaches to education and have affected recent attitudes toward formal education in American society. The paper includes statistical data on enrolments and graduation rates in institutions of higher education in the United States and Slovenia, which offers an insight into the rising enrolment and graduation trends, and relates the figures to the importance of accessibility of education as an equalizer that should provide equality of opportunity for all, irrespective of social background or economic power. The accrued data and related research results support a favorable trend in accessibility of formal education in both countries, the US and Slovenia. This is an important finding, particularly in the context of the college tuition scandal, as it might at first sight create the impression that some of the highly valued and formally accredited institutions of higher education were subject to the influence of a powerful elite. The research results therefore support the trend of the educational system and the accrued knowledge assuming the role of the equalizer in leveling out certain aspects of social inequality.