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Italo Calvino’s The Cosmicomics, despite its pluralistic openness to multiple critical interpretations by various theoretical and conceptual frameworks including post-humanism, science-fiction studies, postmodernism and many more, deals with the fundamental issue of the human’s physical and conceptual inseparability from Nature or the cosmos. The human’s inseparability from the non-humans (including animals, vegetation and inanimate matters) has profound ecological implications. What Calvino establishes in the mentioned text is the human’s inevitable and unconditional inclusion in Nature rather than his self-proclaimed, physical/conceptual exclusion from the same. This is vindicated by the fictional illustrations in the text in which the ‘human’ is posited as a mere member of the ecosystem, and not as its master. In this context, this article endeavours to explore and analyze the said ecological implications of the mentioned work in the light of some the established ecological theories and postulations.

Numenius is an author who straddles the line between Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism. In this contribution, I focus on the differences between the second and the third God, which emerge from analyses of the relevant fragments. Numenius emphasizes, on several occasions, how the second God (i.e., the demiurge) has a dual nature. In this paper, I investigate the role of the demiurge in Numenius and examine in what sense the second and third God are “one.” On the one hand, Numenius seems to be stressing the unity of the second and third levels of reality, but on the other hand, he also appears to be differentiating them. The present analyses concentrate on fragments 19F, 24F, 29T and 30T (respectively 11, 16, 21, and 22 in des Places’ edition). My purpose is to demonstrate that, according to Numenius, the second and the third God are one because they both can be regarded as demiurgic. Thus, Numenius conceives a kind of “double demiurgy,” which preserves the distinction between the second and the third God, who are distinguished from an ontological point of view, but who, at the same time, share a demiurgic function. The second God is then the paradigm, whereas the third God is immanent in matter as a ruling principle of the cosmos, which is similar to the World Soul, as he operates on matter in order to make it rationally ordered.

We live in extraordinary times for cosmologists. A vast amount of new astronomical data is pushing our model of the universe to its limits. An interest in cosmology is growing. The Little Book of Cosmology by Lyman Page is a concise up-to-date approachable introduction to the topic.

In previous research the human figures represented in the initials on fol. 26v and 120r of the Miroslav Gospel have been interpreted as personifications of the Year (Annus). However, this view can be challenged based on their iconographic characteristics, the Gospel verses that follow, the place of these verses in liturgical practice and their comparison with relevant visual specimens. The paper proposes a new identification of the shown human figures. The figure in the initial on fol. 26v can be interpreted as an allusion to the Feast of Pentecost, while the image in the initial on fol. 120r could arguably represent the Old Testament patriarch Noah.

En el siguiente trabajo se exploran los distintos sentidos del tiempo, distinguiendo el tiempo del universo, el tiempo de la vida y el tiempo de las personas como punto de partida para comprender la gran diferencia entre la evolución del cosmos y de las personas.

O presente ensaio tem por objectivo ajudar a discernir o novo prisma, e o novo curso de pensamento por Kant inaugurado sobre o mais originário dos tópicos da faculdade de representação humana: as representações obscuras; um tópico até então quase completamente negligenciado, ou então expressamente negado, em razão da sua ligação à sensibilidade, mas um tópico que, no entender do filósofo, não só era um tópico de grande relevância filosófica, como antes encerrava novas, até então impensadas potencialidades, que Kant traz à palavra pela primeira vez nas Lições de Antropologia. Assim, é nosso intento provar a matriz originariamente cosmológica que, para Kant, é aquela do problema das representações obscuras; trazer à evidência a forma embrionária da consciência que é a das representações obscuras, e sua relação com o conhecimento claro (o processo de intelectualização das representações sensíveis); e, por fim, salientar como o tópico das representações obscuras está na origem de um re-proporcionamento de todas as inferiores e superiores faculdades do ânimo – o mesmo que Kant visava com a poesia, de que as representações obscuras são afinal parte.

In the Parmenides, the logos is a matter of justification rather than definition. The Forms of which Socrates makes the hypothesis do not work only as conditions for the science of singular values. They are worth by their causal power with regard to the sensible variety. The hypothetical dialectic thus allows to guarantee the intelligibility of the cosmos. When the Hypothesis of Forms is then put to the test by Parmenides, the aporiae he draws from it are not enough to refute it; rather, they clear the boundaries of a correct interpretation. Nevertheless, these ideal units can only be preserved if, in turn, a superior principle justifies to suppose them. Only in this way, what was initially posited in the order of the possible will be revealed as a certain and necessary truth. Now, by practicing throughout the second part of the Dialogue, the mind will become capable of feeling the effectiveness of such a principle. For only the One, once liberated from pre-Socratic misunderstandings, can present himself to intuition as the “anhypothetic” which gives a definitive justification for the subaltern hypotheses. The successive hypotheses formulated by Parmenides bring an opportunity to recollect this absolute, as soon as they are overcome. A parallel reading of the Sophist suggests that the positive hypotheses, with their untenable conclusions, serve to denounce the ambiguities of Eleatic monism and to make us aware of its structural insufficiency: this version of the One, oscillating between the empty abstraction and the immanence in a dispersive matter, always lacks “dignity and power”, just as the Forms posed by Socrates. When this is recognized, the soul can experience the true transcendence.

Témoin d’un monde dévasté par la guerre, le poète suisse Philippe Jaccottet a constaté la curieuse condition humaine de l’époque moderne où l’homme se sent comme un étranger au sein de sa propre maison et dans son propre pays. Confronté à cette détresse psychologique généralisée, Jaccottet, à l’instar de ses prédécesseurs tels que Hölderlin et Gustave Roud, part à la recherche d’un « lieu » qui est moins spatial que philosophique. Dans la présente étude, nous proposons de réfléchir sur la conception du « lieu » chez Jaccottet en nous appuyant sur les « notes-graines » de La Semaison (carnets 1954-1967) et tentons d’en relever quelques caractéristiques principales. Le « lieu » de Jaccottet n’est pas un endroit isolé ni perdu, mais s’avère toujours « mis en rapport avec un ensemble » : les paysages chers au poète sont considérés comme liés directement au « très ancien » et à « l’élémentaire ». Pour Jaccottet, ce « lieu » propice à la communion et à la concentration est à la fois le centre cosmique et le centre ontologique où l’on peut pénétrer aux couches profondes de la vie, où ceux qui sont expulsés psychologiquement retrouveront la maison natale. Nous arrivons enfin au constat que Jaccottet, hanté par le désir de la protection et celui de la liberté observe un équilibre subtil dans la relation entre le dedans et le dehors du « lieu », qui est considéré comme un espace à la fois renfermé et ouvert.

Kozmos olarak kabul edilen evrenin açıklanmasına dayanan kozmolojik delil, teistikdelillerin en eskisidir. Platon ve Aristoteles’in delillerinin çıkış noktası evrendekihareketin kökenini soruşturmaktır. Kozmolojik delili Fârâbi İmkân delili, İbn Sina İlkNeden delili, Gazali Hudûs delili formunda inşa etmişlerdir. Delilin önemli kavramlarındanbirisi olan nedensellik, David Hume’dan önce Gazali tarafından eleştirilmiş veneden ile sonuç arasındaki ilişkinin zorunluluğu reddedilmiştir. Ancak neden-sonuçilişkisine dair bilgimizi Allah’ın yaratmasına bağlamakla evrenle ilgili bilgimizi teminataltına alarak düzensizliğe imkân tanımamıştır. Leibniz, Yeter-Sebep ilkesi iledelilin en güçlü formlarından birini inşa etmiştir. Kozmolojik delilin yeni bir biçimiçağdaş fi lozofl ardan Richard Swinburne tarafından geliştirilmiştir. Onun tümevarımlıdelilinde, evren ve evrendeki olgular, Tanrı’nın varlığı hipotezine eklendiğinde, hipotezinihtimalini arttırır. Tümevarımlı kozmolojik delilin yüksek olasılık bildirmesi,onun Tanrı inancımız için iyi bir gerekçe olduğunu gösterir. Bu makalede kozmolojikdelille ilgili bazı kavramlar analiz edilmiş ve delilin farklı biçimleri incelenmiştir.

Plato tries to explain the becoming of the cosmos by referring to the concepts of order and disorder. Scholars have usually focused on the relationship between the cosmos and the demiurge that Plato puts forward to explain the reasonable (i.e., well-ordered) development. Along these lines, scholarship has examined the providential role played by both the demiurge and the soul of the world. Yet, an interesting prob­lem still remains open: what exactly is the function of disorder? What is the sense of the concept of a perfectly established order if we do not know the manner in which it is achieved, since we have no understand­ing of the conditions that make it possible? Pursuing this line of thought, one may point to a providential role of the disorder given the balance of forces that operates in Plato’s cosmic becoming.

To express feelings often wrapped in the literary world of poetry and prose, the creative mind pulls from the energy of the cosmos. The writer/poet’s words become the universal truth that is retold by artists over time and offer more explicit insights to consciousness and sentience. Robert Salter, a novelist and writer wrote, “Everything is a dream, all that exist is what has been written down.” Albert Einstein, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as if everything is.” In my following poems, I write about the complexity of the human interaction with the spirit. We are unaware of our consciousness and how intricately it is a part of the universe and the cosmos. We look for those who go ahead of us, and question their journey into the present awareness of time. Searching for the meaning of life and for the consciousness, poets and philosophers record the eternal from the internal and call upon the cosmos.

In European antiquity as well as modernity, the city was generally regarded as the real place of mankind. With few exceptions: the Presocratics and Stoics regarded the cosmos as the true home of man. Modernism then developed - with drastic consequences - a new understanding of nature. Nature should be a merely material-mechanical matter, far from any determination by spirit or any proximity to it. Thus man, as a rational being, became the antipode of nature. Since he had no common measure with her, he could not recognize her, but on the other hand, he could do as he wanted with her. Modernity was deeply anthropocentric. It was only in the 20th century that this view was recognized as flawed. It was the perspective of evolution that refuted modernity's basic assumptions: the spiritlessness of nature, the spiritual exclusivity of man and the antagonism between man and world. Since then the task consists, also in matters of urbanity, in regaining a cosmic dimension beyond merely human-centered regulations. Transculturality is an important factor here. It allows us to reach out beyond the narrowness of city and homeland to the cultural worlds altogether, and it also admonishes us to consider, beyond all our cultural imprints, our prior evolutionary origin and cosmic coinage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

O presente trabalho descreve a música do compositor franco-grego segundo dois eixos: a vocação urbana e política do trabalho artístico e o domínio da contemplação, inclusive na música, nas artes. Sob esta perspectiva, e sendo um dos compositores mais emblemáticos da música contemporânea, seu trabalho se inscreve numa tradição clássica, de caráter platônico: aquela que, observando a harmonia do cosmos pode reproduzir a inteligência universal, ordenando os assuntos da alma e da polis. Este mesmo gesto auroral da filosofia é posto em obra por Iannis Xenakis.

How could we better understand the cosmic-positioning of human being/becoming in the territory of life we have access? Discussing some issues about the real and possible existence, on the ground of Tischner, Ingarden and Husserl’s philosophical/phenomenological perspectives, I argue the significance of my own phenomenology of the ontopoiesis of life, focusing on the opportunities of grasping the imaginative/intellective forces in deciphering the logos of life’s manifestations; finally, reaching to the comprehension of the indivualization within the cosmos, by life-transcendental architectonics of beingness/becoming.

Consonant Alliteration in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Books I-VIII An in-depth analysis enables us to observe that consonant alliterations in books I – VIII appear in the description of the most dramatic events, especially during the rapid and unexpected metamorphoses of Lycaon, Daphne, Io, Callisto, Clytie, Arachne, Lycia’s farmers and Proteus. They express the flights of Daphne and Arethusa. They accompany also the descriptions of nature and cosmos, mainly the disasters caused by the water element. They highlight the death of a protagonist, e.g. Phaethon, Argus, Coronis, Pentheus and Toxeus, or divine rage, e.g. of Juno, Minerva, Latona and Achelous. They appear often in the portrayal of punishment, e. g. of Marsyas, Pentheus and Erysichthon, or the grief after the death of beloved people, e. g. Heliades, Inachus. The greatest abundance and variety of consonant alliterations T, D and M, N is present in books I, II and IV.

The article presents the evolution of the theme of Armia Krajowa (Home Army) and the Warsaw Uprising, in Ficowski’s poetry. The theme, engaged by the poet in the late 1940s (Ołowiani żołnierze, 1948), was quickly abandoned as incompatible with the imaginary, magical direction in the development of young Ficowski’s poetry. Neither was the theme fostered by the general political background of the “dead season” of Communist Poland, by censorship, and by Ficowski’s fear of settling for the post-Romantic stereotype and patriotic myth-making. The theme returned in the 1970s (Gryps, 1979; Errata, 1981), which was related to Ficowski’s decision to liberate himself from self-censorship, and his readiness to express the once repressed content in his own, mature poetic idiom. The present study presents two aspects of historical narration in the Home-Army poems from the 1970s: the fabulous quality, which positions history in Ficowski’s private topics and intimate memory, and the scientific, naturalistic quality, which relates history to physical and cosmic categories. Both aspects redeem the poetry from the narrow specificity of Polish national myth, and make it possible to reconcile individual truth of the experience of death and suffering with the discourse of concepts and historiosophy, which also touches upon the cosmic order.

A blueprint for the future, Ephesians 1:9-10The aim of this article is to give an explanation of the phrase “anakephalaisasthai ta panta” in Ephesians 1:10. To understand this phrase correctly it is necessary to examine every word of this phrase in order to come to a clearer understanding of the whole phrase. The place of this particular phrase within the thought process of the whole epistle, as well as in the immediate context, will be explored to come to a correct perception of the object under research. Finally an answer will be given to the question whether the teaching of Paul is as vital today as it was in Paul’s own day.

In Gombrowicz’s novel Cosmos we can find a idea of reality, which is very similar to Nietzsche’s metaphysical postulates. In this article I’d like to show that points in the views both of autors, which are compatibile. Both of them characterize truth of existence by chaos and becoming. Polish writer assumes that man has a ground in thechaos, but can’t live without the ordering categories. Nietzsche also claims that we stay in world of pretence, because we havn’t the instruments to experience the “will of power” reality. It is a reason why people are looking for the way a chaos forming. They have found the constancy in the language and in the logic, which creates theworld of pretence. In Gombrowicz’s novel human’s world is created by form. People have to live in themselves reality, because chaos is a way to madness.

Evolution in all spheres—cosmos, culture, and consciousness—is explored as a dynamic, creative process of shifting and settling, where shifting breaks out of existing structures and conceptual moorings and settling solidifies the movement of evolution into structures. Both are seen as essential aspects of the evolutionary process, but a bias for settling is noted among living creatures. For humans in particular, shifting arouses anxiety whereas settling promises security. The correction of this bias in the educational process to help realign human consciousness and culture with the rest of nature and cosmos is explored. Such a realignment may be necessary for meeting the unprecedented challenges of our world today, and an open, perspective-free inquiry can serve as a vehicle for it. But this inquiry calls for a new way of relating to the inherent uncertainty of shifting and to the anxiety this arouses in teachers and students alike.

Article in German, Abstracts in English and German.While it is well known that Charles Darwin and Alexander von Humboldt appreciated each other's work, Humboldt's influence on Darwin has not yet been thoroughly examined. The following paper shows to what extent Darwin was inspired by Humboldt's publications while writing his Origin of Species.Darwin paid special attention to Humboldt's observations on plant migration and throughout his whole scientific career he used Humboldt's books as a major source of information. In fact, Darwin's last annotations in his copy of the Personal Narrative of travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New continent during the Years 1799-1804 date back to the last weeks of his life.On the other hand, Darwin rejected many of Humboldt's scientific conclusions. The two authors differed in their assessment of Heinrich Bronn's biological research. Finally, Darwin was dissatisfied with Humboldtís last work Cosmos because it did not contain the information he expected. Darwinís collaboration with Humboldt's travel companion Christian Gottfried Ehrenberg proved to be similarly disappointing. Darwin sent 183 samples of infusoria to Berlin, but the results of Ehrenberg's analysis did not support Darwin's theory on evolution.

Article in German, Abstracts in English, German and French.This article analyses the importance of an historical view of nature in the works of Alexander von Humboldt. In several of his first writings, Humboldt seems to outline the importance of what one may call history of nature. But even before his famous American travel, his position changed and he became reluctant to accept the seriousness of historical enquiry in the area of natural sciences: if we want to reconstruct the past state of nature, we cannot rely on empirical proofs; and history of nature is therefore necessarily based on uncertain hypotheses. Humboldt kept his sceptical attitude in the first decades of the 19th century, despite the positive results of the palaeontological researches of his scientific colleagues. However, he gradually convinced himself of the scientific interest of historical investigations in the natural sciences. The Cosmos paradoxally displays two apparently conflicting points of view: in his methodological remarks, Humboldt maintains that precise accounts of the past state of nature are out of reach of human knowledge, yet elsewhere in the same Cosmos he gives broad and rather vivid descriptions of the eventful history of nature.

Aspiration for discovering one necessary creature, who establishes visible and changeable cosmos, has existed in the early period of philosophical thinking. In philosophical tradition the most acknowledged way of determining existence of such creature starts form empirical givenness of this world which testifies about its imperfectness, instability, decadence, changeability, unnecessity (contingent). Hence it can be concluded that there exists one, necessary, perfect and infinite creature. On the example of T. Akvinski’s five ways the author gives the structure and content of cosmic evidence for God’s existence. In the end of each starting point it can be concluded that there exists either the First immovable initiator or the First cause or Necessary creature or according to Akvinski, God. The author also gives results of researching some natural-science theories comparing their ranges with the conclusions of cosmic evidence. The conclusion of that comparison is that the most known contemporary theories more confirm than deny ranges of cosmic evidence, firstly because they also show that world is contingent, finite, changeable, but based on legalities which have their justification in necessary, perfect and above all intelligent creature.

P. Thanassas, Parmenides, Cosmos, and Being. A Philosophical Interpretation, Milwaukee 2007, pp. 109.

The objective of this article is to consider whether the Commentator of the Derveni Papyrus can contribute to our understanding of the double divine will to reject and accept the name of Zeus. After examining some inconsistencies that the traditional readings raise, the authoress appeals to the Derveni Papyrus in order to offer an alternative diachronic interpretation. On this reading, the unique wise one, in the first place, does not wish to be called by the name of Zeus because this name ascribes birth and diversification to it, while it is, as such, eternal and simple. On the other hand, as it cyclically becomes multiple, it is also willing to be identified with Zeus, the God who, according to the Papyrus, swallowed his Grandfather’s phallus along with Mind, got pregnant of everything and re-created the universe. This account fits with Heraclitus’ doctrine that there is no creation of the world but some kind of derivation of it from the one, and vice-versa.