{"title":"What happens to old modes of cognition when new ones are introduced during trance and other transitions?","authors":"Ayelet Even-Ezra","doi":"10.5422/fordham/9780823281923.003.0006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5422/fordham/9780823281923.003.0006","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 5 examines the intense queries of the masters about whether previous modes of cognition remain when a new one is introduced, when entering trance, or during less dramatic transitions, such as learning a proof for what was formerly only believed. It explores the varying solutions proposed to this problem in which Aristotle’s model of knowledge and dependent sciences was employed. The chapter refines the earlier conclusion about the perception of the self implied in the discussions of a person's ability to hold to two different, contradicting, habitus (pl.) and interprets it against two challenges university theologians faced: professional scholars’ need to distinguish themselves from simple believers and the need to hold to the ideal of simplicity in the face of sophistication, that is, to be simultaneously simple and learned. This difficult reconciliation and its implications for the perception of a man's social performance are then shown to have been particularly relevant to the conflicts over learning and simplicity among the Franciscans of the first and second generations.","PeriodicalId":311870,"journal":{"name":"Ecstasy in the Classroom","volume":"170 1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133011878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Summary and Epilogue","authors":"Ayelet Even-Ezra","doi":"10.5422/fordham/9780823281923.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5422/fordham/9780823281923.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract and Keywords to be supplied.","PeriodicalId":311870,"journal":{"name":"Ecstasy in the Classroom","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115913786","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"How could Paul remember his rapture?","authors":"Ayelet Even-Ezra","doi":"10.5422/fordham/9780823281923.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5422/fordham/9780823281923.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Traditionally, Paul was thought to have seen God without any mediating images. Yet, if no images had been involved, no images could have remained following his rapture, and therefore, there would have been no imprint in his mind by which he could have recalled and shared with the audience what he had seen. The chapter describes the various solutions that were suggested to explain what possible residues enabled this memory, among them, that all Paul had when he returned from ecstasy were mere words and definitions; or, in opposition, that he still possessed part of the light in which he had been illuminated, thus arguing for a continuity between the experiencing subject and later processing. These opposing solutions are then examined considering the perception of transformation and the continuity of the self they imply; then in the context of the role of experience and experiment on the one hand, and words on the other, in the medieval university. Theologians of the time, it is argued, attempted to define the relation between experience and words in their own profession, drawing inspiration from both the image of science in Aristotle’s Analytics and Physics and twelfth-century mysticism.","PeriodicalId":311870,"journal":{"name":"Ecstasy in the Classroom","volume":"104 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122334760","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why was Paul ignorant of his own state, and how do various modes of cognizing God differ?","authors":"Ayelet Even-Ezra","doi":"10.5422/fordham/9780823281923.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5422/fordham/9780823281923.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"The chapter revolves around two problems that intrigued medieval masters the most concerning Paul's rapture: how to define his mode of cognition during rapture, while he himself confessed not to have known whether his soul was in or out of his body, and how does his mode of knowing God then differ from others. It examines the attempts of our group of theologians to classify the ecstatic mode of vision, while being aware of the tension between the rational theologian-observer and the experiencing subject. It discusses Augustine’s position as to Paul's self-ignorance, his threefold division of visions into corporeal, imaginative, and intellectual, then twelfth-century further developments, in which Paul's vision was framed between earthly faith and the heavenly, beatific vision. It then shows that in the early-thirteenth century, more cognitions joined the taxonomic parade: the visions of prophets, contemplators, Christ, Moses, scriptural exegetes, angels, and even God's knowledge of himself. This intense preoccupation with taxonomy, together with the perception of the self as both experiencing and observing, it is argued, served this community of theologians to map the field in which they operate and negotiate their position in it.","PeriodicalId":311870,"journal":{"name":"Ecstasy in the Classroom","volume":"99 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131476804","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Can a soul see God or itself without intermediaries? The self as distinct from its habits and actions","authors":"Ayelet Even-Ezra","doi":"10.5422/fordham/9780823281923.003.0004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5422/fordham/9780823281923.003.0004","url":null,"abstract":"Are our habits and knowledge an inseparable part of “us”? Or is there a certain primal self, concealed beneath, that remains constant, while habits may be lost, change and disguise it? Chapter 3 examines this question through the lens of the problem of the immediacy attributed to the visions of Paul and the blessed souls. Approaching the condemnations of 1241 from a new perspective, it argues that what was at stake was competing approaches as to what should be considered “the self.” According to some, the seeing subject constituted one unified unit but was composed of a naked potency to know, which was regarded as the “self,” and a habitus of knowledge, which stood between it and its object. The problem of whether one’s essence is faithfully seen through one’s habitus is then shown to be dominant in contemporary French romance literature, in works such as Silence,and Renart’s Guillaume de Dole and The Shadow.","PeriodicalId":311870,"journal":{"name":"Ecstasy in the Classroom","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121851378","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Does true faith rely on anything external?","authors":"Ayelet Even-Ezra","doi":"10.5422/fordham/9780823281923.003.0005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5422/fordham/9780823281923.003.0005","url":null,"abstract":"Chapter 4 examines the ways in which several masters recast the certitude of faith as a private intellectual illumination, similar to that of the first principles assumed by Aristotle. They strongly contrasted this to the weak faith that relies on authorities and is rooted in the ecclesiastical power structure, while simultaneously aiming to strengthen the scientific image of theology and its distinction from simple belief. It considers the place of relying upon one’s judgment and another’s authority in the context of the transformation of charismatic school culture into the institution of the university and then the complex problem of relying on oneself or on another’s words in the context of heresy.","PeriodicalId":311870,"journal":{"name":"Ecstasy in the Classroom","volume":"2 4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123697820","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Can knowledge qua knowledge be a virtue?","authors":"Ayelet Even-Ezra","doi":"10.5422/fordham/9780823281923.003.0007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.5422/fordham/9780823281923.003.0007","url":null,"abstract":"Some theologians defined Paul's cognition during his trance as purely intellectual and unmatched by the same degree of love, contrasting it to another form of cognition, which engages the affective part of the soul. Chapter 6 examines this dichotomy, thereby examining the moral aspects of knowledge in scholastic society and thought. A comparative investigation of questions concerning the meritorious value of prophecy and other modes of knowledge reveals the formulation of a new concept of grace: grace of a type that does not make one worthy for salvation and may well reside in a sinner. The prominent examples of such grace were the pure intellectual talent of pagans or sinners and the charisma of gifted preachers. A dominant metaphor for sterile knowledge was of “remaining standing in the truth, without moving further to the good deed” (which is like knowing you must go the gym—but remaining on the sofa). These and related theoretical discussions lead to a discussion of charisma, ethic in the academic sphere, and the value of personal example in teaching within the newly-formed institution and to reflections about the internal search for truth and the external pressure on university members to supply for the needs of society—tensions which have been accompanying the academy ever since","PeriodicalId":311870,"journal":{"name":"Ecstasy in the Classroom","volume":"6 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124271245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Summary and Epilogue","authors":"Michael G. Kort","doi":"10.1017/9781107110199.009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1017/9781107110199.009","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":311870,"journal":{"name":"Ecstasy in the Classroom","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2017-12-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133218137","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}