Contributi di Joseph P. Garske

SUMMARY: 1. The relevant Past - 2. Protest and Print - 3. The ramist Answer - 4. Modern Minds - Two Foundations.

ABSTRACT: In the global age the modern Western, secular, and material way of understanding human existence is generally accepted to provide the norm by which every alternative view is evaluated. It is the standard against which all other ways of thinking are judged. It is the accepted basis on which entire systems of law, forms of government, methods of education, and a modern way of life is extended across every region and people of the earth. Viewed historically, however, the fact that such a way of understanding should become the norm is quite ironic. Despite the predominance of this mode of thought in the present age, as far as can be determined, nearly all people who have ever lived on the earth, until very recent times, have lived according to principles and values that not only included the rational and material ways of understanding but combined them with a religious, sacred, or miraculous aspect as well. In fact, the peoples of the West were once uniformly of this mentality - and many remain so. Moreover, it was not until a great transformation began to take place, beginning around 1600 that the modern secular and materialistic way of understanding came to provide the basic premise for a Western way of life in which religious belief and spirituality survived, but mostly in an instrumental or subordinated role. The story of how this new Method of understanding - premised on Thought rather than Being, Fact rather than Truth, Empirical and Rational, rather than a fully human way of apprehending - involves three pivotal figures: Francis Bacon, Rene Descartes, and especially, Peter Ramus (Pierre de La Ramee). Following on these men an architecture of the modern mind - what Foucault called an episteme - is coming to predominate among a global population. It is a way of thinking based on some combination of their teachings. To understand how and why this occurred is to understand how and why the sacred or miraculous dimension of human existence lay outside a paradigm that shapes the global age.

SUMMARY: 1. The Medieval Age - 2. Becoming Modern - 3. Anglophone and Civilian - 4. Empire and Nation - 5. Global and Postmodern.

ABSTRACT: There are many ways to understand the project of globalization as it unfolds in the twenty-first century. It is often viewed in terms of technological advance, finance and trade, or travel and communication. Each of these describe aspects of the project, yet none of its parts is more important than the legal basis upon which a regimen of global governance is being constructed. It is a legal regime of two parts, the coercive, or adjudicative and the persuasive, or educative. It involves the ordering of persons and things on a global scale as well as shaping the mind and thought of a global public. But the sources of this expansive framework of authority are neither recent nor modern. Instead, they are derived from two historic legal traditions, Anglophone and Civilian, as those traditions carry forward many accoutrements of the legal past. Among these are techniques and instruments for shaping human identity and human understanding in ways that fulfill the requirements of legal rule. In fact, the global project follows on a long tradition of employing religion as the educative instrument of governance. However, the new project of global rule is unprecedented in that it is intended to include all peoples in all regions of the earth. The project is also taking on a unique character, becoming Anglicized as the adaptability of Anglophone law subsumes many features of Civilian practice. But the great challenge is not only to impose judicial authority, it is also to instill attitudes of acceptance and habits of compliance among a global public. The purpose of what follows is to provide perspective on the project of globalization in both its adjudicative and educative aspects, with a special emphasis both on the use of technology to shape human understanding, and the use of religion as an instrument of legal rule. To do so this paper will focus on a broad historical context and on continuing historical themes in the development of a twenty-first century global law.