Stephen McNeilly - On the True Philosopher and the True Philosophy: Essays on Swedenborg

On the True Philosopher and the True PhilosophyEssays on Swedenborg

On the True Philosopher and the True PhilosophyEssays on Swedenborg

Edited by

Stephen McNeilly

Journal of the Swedenborg Society

Swedenborg House

20-21 Bloomsbury Way

London WC1A 2TH

2002

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to Daniel Cartwright, Heather Ferguson, Emma Keast and Lara Muth for their suggestions and close reading of the texts. Thanks are also extended to Clifford Marcus and Ute Decker - Interpreting & Translation Services for the translation of the articles by Francesca Maria Crasta.

The paper by Lars Bergquist titled , although delivered as a lecture at the Swedenborg Society in 1994, was first published in Arcana by the Swedenborg Association. It is published here by kind permission of the author.

Volume Two of the Journal of the Swedenborg Society

Enquiries concerning guidelines for submission, editorial policy and information on future editions should be directed to the Editor at the address below.

Editor: Stephen McNeilly

Assistant-to-the-Editor: Paul McNeilly

Published by:

The Swedenborg Society

Swedenborg House

20-21 Bloomsbury Way

London WC1A 2TH

2002 The Swedenborg Society

ISBN 0-85448-134-6

E-ISBN 978-0-85448-193-4

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data.

A Catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Table of Contents

Stephen McNeilly

Michelle Grier

Gregory R Johnson

Francesca Maria Crasta

Michael Costello

Gregory R Johnson

Lars Bergquist

Jos Antonio Antn-Pacheco

Lars Bergquist is a novelist, essayist and translator, and former Swedish ambassador to China and Italy. Among the many works published in Sweden include Per brahes undergng och brgning, Isvandring med Nordenskild, and Den heliga pyramiden. He has also translated works into Swedish including Chinese Tang poetry and novels by Leonardo Sciascia. His English publications include Swedenborgs Dream Diary (Swedenborg Foundation, 2001). He has written a biography of Swedenborg, a translation of which is soon to be published by the Swedenborg Society.

Michael Costello completed his Doctorate in Psychology at the University of Aberdeen in 1981. His philosophical interests include Ren Descartes, John Locke, David Hume, George Berkeley, C D Broad, G F Stout, C S Pierce, Thomas Reid, William Hamilton and Bertrand Russell, among others. He has also studied zoology. He has been a reader of Swedenborg since 1960.

Francesca Maria Crasta is Associate Professor of the History of Philosophy at the University of Cagliari, Italy. Her initial interests lay in medieval and eighteenth century cosmology, and the spread of Cartesianism in Italy. She has studied anti-Cartesian positions of the eighteenth century in relation to Leibnizian-Wolffian metaphysics. Her publications include Pianeti e teorie del cielo nel 700 (Torino, 1980); Swedenborg and Eighteenth Century Cosmology (New Philosophy no. 3, 1990); Sulla presenza di Descartes nella Galleria di Minerva (Giornale critico della filosofia italiana LXXV, III, 1996); Gli effetti son fatti e la ragioni son parole: Scipione Maffei nellEuropa del 700 (Verona, 1998); La Filosofia della Natura di Emanuel Swedenborg (Milano, 1999); Per unanatomia dellanima: Emanuel Swedenborg versus Christian Wolff (Ragione, Natura, Storia Milano, 2000).

Michelle Grier is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of San Diego, California. Her areas of research include Kant, Hegel, History of Modern Philosophy, and Post-Kantian Continental Philosophy. She has published numerous articles on Kants theoretical philosophy and is the author of Kants Doctrine of Transcendental Illusion (Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Gregory R Johnson is currently Visiting Scholar at the Swedenborgian House of Studies at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. His doctoral dissertation, A Commentary on Kants Dreams of a Spirit-Seer, argues that Kant adopted central tenets of his mature critical philosophy from Swedenborg. He has published widely on the Kant-Swedenborg relationship and is the translator of Immanuel Kant, Dreams of a Spirit-Seer and Other Writings on Swedenborg (Swedenborg Foundation, forthcoming). He has written editorial introductions to Swedenborgs Divine Love and Wisdom and Divine Providence for the Swedenborg Foundations New Century Edition of Swedenborgs Writings.

Stephen McNeilly is a Lecturer in Art and Critical Theory at the University of Kent, England. He has previously edited a collection of essays by the noted linguist Dr John Chadwick entitled On the Translator and the Latin Text (Swedenborg Society, 2001), and an anthology of contemporary poetry entitled x24 (Black Dog Press, 1997). He is currently working on a collection of essays to be published in the summer of 2003.

Jos Antonio Antn Pacheco is Professor of Philosophy at the Universidad de Seville, Spain. He has written on metaphysics, hermeneutics, traditionalist thought and themes connected with Emanuel Swedenborg. He has published numerous articles in Spain including his Symbolica Nomina: Introduccin a la hermenutica espiritual del Libro. He is also the author of Visionary Consciousness: Emanuel Swedenborg and the Immanence of Spiritual Reality (Arcana Books, 2000).

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Published by Swedenborg