Book chapter
Франсиско де Витория. Лекция о магии. Перевод на русский язык и комментарий
This text is the commented translation from Latin into Russian of Francisco de Vitoria's lection on the magic art.
In book
The introductory part of the article is dedicated to the analysis of the external structure of the lecture on the ecclesiastical power. Are describing the date of the lecture, its place among others relectiones of Vitoria, the lists of the authorities and adversaries of the Dominican Theologist. In the principal part of the article are analyzing the crucial pillars of the theory of Church Power elaborated by Francisco de Vitoria. The theory of power formulated by this thinker had represented a new stage in the development of European Political Thought of Modernity. First of all, Vitoria denies the identity of the concepts of potestas and potentia and declares that the potestas consists from potentia, some preeminence and the auctoritas. Thus, the auctoritas became to be considered as a principal part of the potestas or, at times, its complete synonyms. The next crucial point marked in the article is the idea of the separation of Church and State. Vitoria considered the Church as an autonomous system (he said, “the Christian Commonwealth”), which had the same rights and privileges as the State. At the same time, when the State enters in the political collapse, is the Church (or, more precisely, a Pope) who should take the power and lead the State to its normal position. The State, in its turn, can rule the clergy in the causes concerning the civil administration, because the king “is the king not only for laymen but also for a clergy”.
The State Hermitage Museum (SHM) in St. Petersburg houses eleven Aramaic incantation bowls. Seven of them are inscribed in the Jewish Aramaic square script, one is inscribed in Mandaic characters, and there are three pseudoscript bowls. Six of these eleven bowls have been previously published (Shileyko 1921; Borisov 1939; Borisov 1969). The present paper is the first publication of the entire SHM collection, based on collations of the originals.
Introductive article to the translation of the Fr. Vitoria’s lecture “On civil power” consists from some biographical notes about Vitoria and his lectures and some considerations about his political theory. A much prominence is given to the Vitoria’scholastic method which determined both a structure of his texts and some peculiarities of his argumentation.
Although Vitoria did not give any definition of civil power in the text of this Relectio (it was given in the first lines of the lecture “On the ecclesiastic power” when the power was defined as a might or as a legal right of application of a violence), he, according to aristotelian methodology, marked its three principal causes (finalis, efficiens, materialis). The appearance of a power is caused by the nature of human society and, consequently, by the nature of a human himself. Following the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas (and, certainly, of Aristotle) Vitoria declared the social and political nature of a human being that calls him to live in the society. By turn, such society in order to convert in the perfect community needs some vis directiva, i.e., the power. Only the power can stimulate the birth of a Commonwealth, although doesn’t belong to it. The Commonwealth, by turn, can create the King, but can not give him the power (because it belongs only to God and can not be divided in some parts) and transfers to him the authority (authoritas). Thereby the King stands over any of his citizens and, in the same time, over all Commonwealth being responsible for his acts only before God.
Foreword to the publication of Dr. John Dee's privat diaries.
The book «The personal diary of Dr. John Dee» deserves the closest attention of all those who work in the field of history and philosophy of science, history of ideas, cultural studies, as well as the history and theory of esotericism. The central material of the book is personal notes of the famous British mathematician, astrologer, alchemist and philosopher John Dee (1527–1609), in the field of whose scientific interests there was a wide range of different branches of knowledge. The text in Russian is published for the first time and has nothing to do with John Dee’s Enochian diaries, edited by M. Casaubon. In addition, the book includes fragments of the texts by various authors — J. Lysons, B. Stoker, W. Lilly, G. Heppel and others, as well as a lengthy article about John Dee, written by a translator of the diary and applications — Yu. F. Rodichenkov, PhD. It seems that the attention of a reader interested in this topic will also be attracted by a detailed chronology of the life of John Dee.
Transhumanism is the brand-new term, which appears only in the beginning of the 21st century. The adherents of this term consider further development of humanity in a close contact with nanotechnology. People were always interested in how to improve the quality of life and prolong it. Medieval alchemists didn’t find the philosopher’s stone, the Holy Grail is still a legend. The Third Reich scientist’s experiments influenced in the development of medicine, but didn’t reveal the secret of immortality. In the 21st century scientists came more than ever closer to the creation of perfect man with the help of nanotechnology. How do philosophers consider this breakthrough in philosophy of technics?