9.1 [603] So then, by taking up our shield a longside the doctrines of the truth with the utmost endurance, so it seems to me, we have held our own against the nonsensical words of those who know only how to disparage our doctrines.1 But because our opponent bears down upon the ineffable glory with all his sails unfurled and dares, as it were, to lead forth his profane ideas in unbearable assaults, expending his most effective resources on the task of stripping the nature of God the Father of his progeny and stripping the true Son, who came from his nature, of his hypostasis2 (for he does away with his existence and engages in such extremely perilous undertakings), come now, “putting on the breastplate of justice,” while also lifting up “the shield of faith” and whetting against him “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God,”3 let us show that he is a liar and in his extreme arrogance all but kicks against the goads4 and leaps down into the deep pit of destruction.5 [604]

1 The successes of your holy empire are noteworthy, remarkable, and cannot be expressed in words, and the incomparability of your piety, which is like an inheritance come to you from above, you have successfully defended from the arrows of envy, thanks to the skill in all things excellent that you received from your father and also your grandfather,1 as is obvious in this instance.2

In the 1890s and 1900s, theologian and activist Jabez T. Sunderland became a keen follower of the Brāhmos, conceding that the Brāhmo movement and the Unitarian movement to which he belonged form parallel tracks in the reconstruction of religion. These parallel tracks manifest in both the rise of Indian religious reformers in the USA from the second half of the nineteenth century as well as North American religious reformers and theorists deepening their interest, and commitment, to, Indian religion. One of these Indian reformers who visited the United States was none other than the Brāhmo missionary and intellectual P.C. Mozoomdar, who lectured and wrote a great deal about Jesus, social service as a form of service to God, as inspirations for the new, Brāhmo religion. Mozoomdar argued that this new religion, keeping in faith and standards of worship, born out by the comparative method. The linkages between the USA and India in the realm of religion continued through the end of the century, with the rise of one Narendra Nath Datta, known from the 1890s as Swami Vivekananda in the USA in 1893. This final chapter includes a variety of critical engagements after the death of Keshab Chandra Sen and the appreciation of his ideas by the American parallel to the Brāhmo Samaj, the Free Religious Association, which began in the 1870s. These new conceptions of Indian religion preceded and paralleled the rise of Vivekananda by the 1890s. This chapter ends with a consideration of Vivekananda, a figure whose definitions of religion become dominant by the end of the century.

This chapter lays out the ways in which Hans Christian Ørsted (1777–1851) influenced the development of the concept of thought experiment. Ernst Mach (1838–1916) is currently more often credited with laying the foundations of contemporary views, and he is sometimes thought to have been little (if at all) influenced by Ørsted. Against these standard accounts, I will show that Ørsted’s and Mach’s descriptions have key features in common. Both thinkers hold that thought experiments: (1) are a method of variation, (2) require the experimenter’s free activity, and (3) are useful in educational contexts for guiding students to arrive at certain conclusions on their own (i.e., to genuinely appropriate new concepts). The process of variation is guided by the search for invariants, some of which do not directly appear in experience. Since it is important that teachers and students be able to bring the same ideal objects to mind, thought experiments play a key role for both Ørsted and Mach in math education. While Ørsted’s emphasis on the role of thought experiments in math has been proposed as a reason why his descriptions are not relevant for contemporary use of thought experiments, I will show how their role in mathematical thinking – stemming from Kant’s descriptions of the method of construction in geometry – are part of a wider account of thought experiments that encompasses their role in the sciences and also philosophy.

Memory, shared realities, and political possibility through the remnant traces of an art installation. The unstable documentation of several related 1990s collective arts installations, all intentionally ephemeral within the abandoned spaces of condemned buildings on the eve of their destruction, opens up questions of plural achievement, the singularity of truth, and the possible contradictions among versions of evidence. These interconnecting collective arts projects were all intended to break free of the commodified gallery space, while calling attention to the vulnerability of both culture and city to rampant financial speculation. Despite the author’s and the archive’s confusion, different versions of the Khaneh Kolangi (the “To-Be-Demolished House”) together provided a key intervention in Iranian postrevolutionary arts culture and practice. They also offer a ghostly metaphor for the ongoing potential power of collective action, individual and shared memory, and political inspiration. Luce Irigaray’s conceptualizations of a plural self and its potentials offers insight into posibilities for differently understanding power, politics, and history.

Sacra: Letter omicron, concerning conceit and appearance, and that being is better than seeming; for this is a hindrance to virtue2

The concept of leadership has not received much attention in Assyriology as it was overshadowed by the concept of kingship and its omnipresence in ancient Mesopotamia. As the available sources mostly are written from the perspective of the leader – in the case of ancient Mesopotamia this is the king or the city ruler – also Assyriologists mostly took this standpoint and wrote ‘history from above’. Much scholarly effort was invested in the study of various aspects of kingship. Because of the scarceness of sources discussing the experience of the ruler’s leadership and the abundance of royal inscriptions, we usually do not take the perspective – to use a widespread political metaphor – of the sheep, but only that of the shepherd. Nevertheless, there are some texts that critic the leadership of kings. These texts are mostly of literary nature but they allow us at least a partial ‘view from below’, as they describe the problems of people living under a powerful king.

Chapter 1 elaborates on how the assemblage of multilateral, bilateral, transnational, and private nongovernmental actors – the clean energy regime complex – interacts with domestic politics in emerging economies and developing countries (EMDEs) to foster energy transitions. The ripple effects of international norms regarding energy transitions are visible in domestic institutional change in Indonesia and the Philippines, but both cases demonstrate variable outcomes in terms of the relative impacts of the clean energy regime complex in removing barriers to geothermal development. The chapter underlines the importance of studying the interaction between the international and domestic politics in EMDEs to understand how best to catalyze energy transitions to meet global climate mitigation goals. The chapter summarizes the case study selection, research design and methods, and theoretical arguments on regime complex effectiveness mechanisms – including utility modifier, social learning, and capacity building, and their impact in overcoming domestic political lock-in. The chapter also provides a brief overview of the book.

This chapter further situates my Kantian account of thought experiments among competing views. I identify problems for contemporary accounts and contrast epistemological questions (How do thought experiments justify?), which guide most of the current scholarship, with Kant’s emphasis on cognition [Erkenntnis] (What makes concepts meaningful?). I note that metaphilosophical questions on the relationship between conceivability and possibility are not relevant for thought experiments if they are an apparatus for cognition, which is neutral toward the truth or actuality of the objects of cognition. Contemporary accounts that begin with Kuhn’s epistemological question differ on what the basis of knowledge might be. Leading approaches appeal to logic, stored knowledge, and intellectual intuition. I will briefly sketch here some of the basic approaches.

There has never been a time when the life of Jesus has not presented some occasion for scandal. Although the primordial scandal of the Christian Gospel unfolded around the figure of a crucified Messiah, this book takes as its principal subject a derivative scandal: the scandal of the Christian Gospels; namely, the impediments – even offenses – to literary, historical, and logical sense that only seem to multiply in proportion to one’s intimacy with the narratives of the four Evangelists. The suggestion of such things will itself be scandalous to some.