VOLUME 5(1) • 2017
Reality-as-imagination openness
ABSTRACT. Hallucinations are a form of the human imagination that is generated by an utterly complex cognitive process, being paradoxically a (rich or poor) spring of progress (science, technology, art). Imagination is thus susceptible of belonging to the domain of either creativity or psychopatholo..
Orestes Brownson and the mesmeric universe
ABSTRACT. The present paper investigates the semantic horizons opened by Brownson’s The spirit rapper (1854), a semi-autobiographical fantastic roman à clef about the life of a man who is involved in an attempt to find a balance between religion and science, thus experimenting with mesmerism, spirit..
Is it possible to experience the end of one’s own life?
ABSTRACT. Death and dying are seen, for a start, in a large cultural and philosophical context. Dying is then singled out, with special references to suicide which gets a fastidious contextualization, cultural and philosophical as well. The emphasis finally rests on artistic creativity, with a view ..
Paterikon Fathers on period-related penitence
ABSTRACT. God’s love for people is full and rich, as the Holy Fathers often say in their writings. Even if penitents have gathered sin upon sin, error upon error, mistake upon mistake, thus becoming grievous wrongdoers, even if they do not show complete and intense repentance for their misdeeds, Chr..
In the mirror of sanity
ABSTRACT. In outstandingly “modern” terms, Don Quixote is regarded as one of the best-selling novels of all times. At first sight, there seems to be a classical relationship between the master and his servant, one which has not suffered great shifts from its initial implications in the Middle Ages. ..