This chapter contains sections titled: Appendix: Some Formal Principles and Arguments.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviews 75 REASON AND RELIGION Stefan Andersson [email protected] Erik J.Wielenberg. God and the Reach of Reason: C. S. Lewis, David Hume, and Bertrand Russell. Cambridge and NewYork: Cambridge U. P., 2008. Pp. x, 243.£50.13 (hb); us$30.99 (pb). rik J.Wielenberg is Johnson Family University Professor, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Philosophy Department at DePauw University. His interest in and affinity for Bertrand Russell’s views on religion came (...) through in his first book Value andVirtue in a Godless Universe, where he used a quotation from What I Believe as the epigraph: “Many a man has borne himself proudly on the scaffold; surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man’s place in the world”, and he referred to Russell in several places in discussing religion, naturalism, happiness and courage. b= 76 Reviews The central project of that book is an examination of the ethical implications of “naturalism”, which he uses as a synonym for “atheism”. In the introduction he writes: “In a naturalistic universe, there is no God, no afterlife, and no immortal soul.” He combines these familiar Russellian beliefs with metaethical views that Russell supposedly held until he abandoned Moore’s ethical objectivism and converted to some form of emotivism.1 Wielenberg leaves open the possibility that there are ethical facts that are not reducible to physical or scientific facts. He argues that we have good reasons to be moral and that life can be good and meaningful without believing in God, a soul or immortality (whether in heaven or hell). In the introduction he also outlines a two-part account of “why I am not Christian”, which is along the lines of Russell’s arguments for not having been one also. His latest book starts with a passage from the Phaedo where Socrates, facing execution, said:“… the one aim of those who practise philosophy in the proper manner is to practise for dying and death.” Wielenberg comments: “If the measure of a philosopher is the ability to face death without fear, then Clive Staples Lewis (1898–1963), David Hume (1711–1776), and Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) were great philosophers indeed” (p. 1). He uses a passage from “How to Grow Old” to illustrate Russell’s philosophy of life, ethic and attitude towards our mortality: An individual human existence should be like a river—small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past boulders and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being. The man who, in old age, can see his ______ 1 Towards the end of his life Russell showed signs of returning to Moorean objectivism and a belief in “absolute values”. In a letter to the editor of The Observer, 20 Oct. 1957, Russell wrote: “I cannot meet the arguments against absolute ethical values, and yet I cannot believe that a dislike of wanton cruelty is merely a matter of taste, like a dislike of oysters. But I am in complete agreement with Professor Ayer in thinking that the question whether ethical values are absolute has no bearing whatever on the question of the existence of God.” A week earlier he had written: “What Mr. Toynbee says in his criticism of my views on ethics has my entire sympathy. I find my own views argumentatively irrefutable, but nevertheless incredible. I do not know the solution.” See Papers 29: 21b and 21a, and Ramsay, Freedom and Immortality, pp. 43– 7. Both Pigden in Russell on Ethics and Potter in Bertrand Russell’s Ethics seem to have overlooked the possibility that Russell in old age returned to metaethical cognitivism and objectivism. Although he had difficulties in defending these positions theoretically, his practical involvement in cnd and protests against theVietnamWar show that he was at heart and in practice a believer in absolute values. See also n. 3. Reviews 77 life in this way, will not suffer from fear of death, since the things he cares for will continue.2 (PfM, p. 52) One... (shrink)

This essay presents the analysis of conflict history over freshwater in several drainage basins across the planet. As will be demonstrated in this essay, unilateral water policies have proved to reduce the role and prospect of water treaties and international water sharing regimes, and led to political tensions and conflicts. Using the case studies of conflict history in the Aral Sea Basin, the Jordan River Basin, the Ganges-Brahmaputra River system and the Tigris-Euphrates River Basin, the author assesses (...) a conflict potential and underscores that the necessity for sustained basin wide water treaties will increase along with the growing demand for freshwater. The central argument of the essay is that unilateral diversions of water flows will instigate wars between riparian states because of the rising demand for freshwater in the future. (shrink)

PREFACE. THE Author of this very practical treatise on Scotch Loch - Fishing desires clearly that it may be of use to all who had it. He does not pretend to have written anything new, but to have attempted to put what he has to say in as readable a form as possible. Everything in the way of the history and habits of fish has been studiously avoided, and technicalities have been used as sparingly as possible. The writing of this (...) book has afforded him pleasure in his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This section is interleaved with blank shects for the readers notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the case of the publishers, will meet with consideration in a future edition. We do not pretend to write or enlarge upon a new subject. Much has been said and written-and well said and written too on the art of fishing but loch-fishing has been rather looked upon as a second-rate performance, and to dispel this idea is one of the objects for which this present treatise has been written. Far be it from us to say anything against fishing, lawfully practised in any form but many pent up in our large towns will bear us out when me say that, on the whole, a days loch-fishing is the most convenient. One great matter is, that the loch-fisher is depend- ent on nothing but enough wind to curl the water, -and on a large loch it is very seldom that a dead calm prevails all day, -and can make his arrangements for a day, weeks beforehand whereas the stream- fisher is dependent for a good take on the state of the water and however pleasant and easy it may be for one living near the banks of a good trout stream or river, it is quite another matter to arrange for a days river-fishing, if one is looking forward to a holiday at a date some weeks ahead. Providence may favour the expectant angler with a good day, and the water in order but experience has taught most of us that the good days are in the minority, and that, as is the case with our rapid running streams, -such as many of our northern streams are, -the water is either too large or too small, unless, as previously remarked, you live near at hand, and can catch it at its best. A common belief in regard to loch-fishing is, that the tyro and the experienced angler have nearly the same chance in fishing, -the one from the stern and the other from the bow of the same boat. Of all the absurd beliefs as to loch-fishing, this is one of the most absurd. Try it. Give the tyro either end of the boat he likes give him a cast of ally flies he may fancy, or even a cast similar to those which a crack may be using and if he catches one for every three the other has, he may consider himself very lucky. Of course there are lochs where the fish are not abundant, and a beginner may come across as many as an older fisher but we speak of lochs where there are fish to be caught, and where each has a fair chance. Again, it is said that the boatman has as much to do with catching trout in a loch as the angler. Well, we dont deny that. In an untried loch it is necessary to have the guidance of a good boatman but the same argument holds good as to stream-fishing... (shrink)

I criticize the particular argument for evolutionary progressivism which is based on the concept of a series of "dominant life forms." My procedure is to show that there is no rigorous definition for the concept of "dominant life form." I examine several attempts to define this concept by Julian Huxley and a new formulation of the concept by G. G. Simpson and show that none of the criteria either of these men develop for determining which groups of organisms can (...) be classified as dominant are adequate to exclude any groups of organisms from the classification. The concept proves so broad as to be meaningless. Since it is a key concept in the particular argument for progressivism that I discuss, the criticism of the concept demonstrates the argument to be invalid. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:just Men and Just Acts in Plato's Republic JEROME SCHILLER I. Introduction Too MUCHhas already been written about Plato's Republic. But this, strangely enough, is why a little more needs to be written. For the book has been worked over so often that an obvious sign of fatigue has set in: critics are beginning to find such elementary flaws in the Republic that one wonders why he should waste (...) time on such a philosophically embarrassing work at all. It is to counter one of these recent criticisms and thus, hopefully, to help offset the fatigue, that this study is written. It purports not only to show the criticism mistaken, but also to sketch a way of looking at the Republic which should send the reader back for a further look at this incredibly rich work. The richness of the Republic is, indeed, a source of embarrassment for anyone writing on it. For because of its structure it is at least misleading to isolate one topic from the myriad others treated there, and because of its complexity, impossible to document interpretations of more than a few topics. I shall follow the time-honored practices here of merely expressing my bias on some topics (such as my non-political interpretation) and leaving it up to the reader to follow up hints of my interpretations of other topics (such as that of the Sun, Line, and Cave). II. Plato's Alleged Fallacy in the Republic David Sachs and A. W. H. Adkins have recently claimed that Plato commits the fallacy of equivocation in the Republic, not in the course of some minor argument, but in answering what is probably the central problem posed by the work: Why be just?1 Simply put, their objection goes like this: In the first book of the Republic, Socrates attempts to prove to Thrasymachus why justice is preferable to injustice. But even Socrates is dissatisfied with this answer and early in the second book, after a brilliantly fashioned defense of the Thrasymachean position by Glaucon and Adeimantus, the brothers ask for a more convincing demonstration from "You, [who have] passed your entire life in the consideration of this very matter." e Socrates seems to accept the challenge and proceeds to a search for the concept of justice writ large in the state. Now, claim Adkins and Sachs, Plato never does answer Glaucon's and AdeiDavid Sachs, A Fallacy in Plato s Republic, Philosophical Review, LX(XII (1963),141158 ;A. W. H. Adkins, Merit and Responsibility, A Study in Greek Values (Oxford,1960),p. 289. Adkins,in developingapolitical interpretation ofthe Republic, doesnot elaborate the criticism as does Sachs; hence I refer in this study primarily to the latter's article. sPlato, Republic 376e 2-3,trans. P. Shorey (2 vols.; Cambridge, Mass.: Loeb Classical Library, 1937-42).All subsequent quotations are from this translation. [1] HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY mantus' request. For though he does eventually purport to show that justice is preferable to injustice, the justice he attempts to prove this of is not at all the same justice that Glaucon and Adeimantus have in mind. Plato has simply equivocated on the term "iustice," meaning at one time the set of acts generally considered just,s but at another time a certain order in the individual's soul. He has purported to show that an individual with a well-ordered soul reaps advantages, but unless he can show a clear relation between this "Platonic" notion of justice and the "vulgar" notion of justice, the notion which Cephalus, Polemarchus, Thrasymachus, Glaucon and Adeimantus have in mind, he will not have answered the brothers' question, and will thus have avoided the central problem of the Republic. The relation he has to establish is, Sachs claims, that Platonic justice is a necessary and a sufficient condition for vulgar justice. Then he could argue that since he has shown that a man reaps advantages just to the extent that he is Platonically just, (1) a vulgarly unjust individual will not reap more advantages than a vulgarly just one (on the grounds that Platonic justice entails vulgar justice), and (2) a vulgarly just man will reap more advantages than a vulgarly... (shrink)

The influence of William James on Ludwig Wittgenstein has been widely studied, as well as the criticism that the latter addresses to the former, but one aspect that has only rarely been focused on is the two philosophers’ use of the image of the flux, stream, or river. The analysis of some notes belonging to Wittgenstein’s Nachlass support the possibility of a comparison between James’ stream of thought, as outlined in the Principles of Psychology, and Wittgenstein’s river-bed of thoughts, (...) presented in On Certainty. After an introduction which offers a general frame for the following work, the first section of the paper examines all the Nachlass entries that directly mention James’ stream. Section 2 focuses on two remarks in which Wittgenstein explicitly criticizes James’ concept and implicitly anticipates his own way of dealing with this matter. These remarks, belonging to Manuscripts 165 and 129, both dating 1944, have not been published in any of Wittgenstein’s edited books, nor is it possible to find the same argument elsewhere. Wittgenstein’s critique concerns James’ lack of distinction between what is grammatical, or a priori, and what is empirical, or a posteriori, a distinction which the image of the stream should have suggested: a stream flows in a stream-bed and within banks. This is exactly the meaning that Wittgenstein’s own metaphor of the river-bed of thoughts is intended to convey. Section 3 analyses James’ concept of the stream and its corollaries, in order to clarify whether Wittgenstein’s critique is justified or not. James in effect draws a separation between a priori and a posteriori, but this separation is conceived from within the framework of empirical science. This analysis leads to the theme of the relations among science, philosophy and metaphysics, which is the subject of section 4. The conclusion is that Wittgenstein did appreciate James for his intuitions and for the power of his imagination: in a sense he even developed them; but he could not agree on the explicit formulation of his ideas. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Scamander and the Rivers of Hades in HomerC. J. MackieAt odyssey 10.488–95, in response to Odysseus' request that he and his men leave her island, Circe states that they must venture to Hades to consult with the Theban seer Teiresias. She gives Odysseus some basic instructions on how to get there and what to do there (10.504–40): he should cross Ocean and beach his ship where there is (...) a remote coastline and a grove of Persephone. He should then go himself to the house of Hades, where he should dig a pit and pour a libation. The location of Hades in the passage is further identified as a meeting point of four separate rivers: Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, Cocytus, and Styx:(10.513–15)There into Acheron flow Pyriphlegethon and Cocytus, which is a branch of the water of Styx, and there is a rock, and the junction of the two resounding rivers.The presence of a river, or a prominent body of water, characterizes the topography of the Underworld in many traditions, and Homer's Hades is no exception. Even though the Underworld in Homer is not really very clearly defined (indeed in Odyssey 10 and 11 it is scarcely "under" at all), one can at least say that rivers and gates are typical features of its landscape. Thus in the Iliad when Patroclus' apparition complains about Achilles' tardiness in conducting a funeral for him, it is specifically gates, 74) and a river (, 73) that he mentions as characteristics of Hades.1 Equally noteworthy is that no name for the river is given by Patroclus, which makes this Odyssey reference to four specific rivers (plus Oceanus) rather striking;2 for such a well–defined topography appears to conflict with the otherwise vague descriptions of Hades in Homer. In the Iliad the only named river in the Underworld is the Styx (2.755,3 8.369, 14.271, 15.37), with no reference to the other three. Likewise in the Odyssey Styx is referred to elsewhere (as the river that gods swear by, Od. = 5.184–86 Il. 15.36–38), but there is no other mention of Acheron, Pyriphlegethon, or Cocytus. Most important, there is no reference to any of these rivers when Odysseus actually conducts his quest to Hades (Odyssey 11), nor in the Second Nekuia of the Odyssey (24.1–204).4 Thus here in Odyssey 10 there seems to be a sudden proliferation of clearly defined rivers: "the rivers have multiplied: Okeanos comes in and so do Pyriphlegethon and Kokytos as well as Styx, and also Acheron."5In response to the apparent suddenness of four Underworld rivers, and the fact that Hesiod seems to know only Styx (Theog. 383, 389–403, 775–806), questions inevitably emerge about the authenticity of the passage. Merry and Riddell in their 1886 edition of the Odyssey felt that such a precise geography was out of keeping with early notions of Hades and that the passage may therefore be a later intrusion. Likewise, more recently, Vermeule raises the question whether it is "possible that these lines have been retrojected into the Odyssey text, in the late sixth or early fifth century."6 The question is not very easily resolved, because even later post–Homeric literature continues to allude [End Page 486] only in a very basic fashion to the Underworld rivers, rather than providing any expansive vision of them.7 Thus it is difficult to be precise about when, and by what process, the individual Underworld rivers enter into Greek perceptions of the afterlife. The names of the rivers (especially Cocytus, from, the verb used in Homer for the high– pitched wail of female mourners) seem to be connected with the pain and suffering associated with death, the funeral rites, and the process of cremation.8 In this sense there is an association with the transition from life to death, and it is appropriate in this context that Odysseus is told that he will meet these rivers on the way to Hades. At some point, however, Acheron, Cocytus, and Pyriphlegethon (in addition to Styx, which is indisputably very early) became fundamental landmarks of Hades itself, and... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 311-315 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Fire and Water: Basic Issues in Asian Buddhism and Christianity Fire and Water: Basic Issues in Asian Buddhism and Christianity. By Aloysius Pieris, S. J. Maryknoll: Orbis Books, 1996. Aloysius Pieris, Jesuit priest and Buddhist scholar, is well known in theological and interreligious dialogue circles in Asia, and this is the third collection of essays of (...) his to be published in the Faith Meets Faith Series of Orbis Books. The eighteen essays which make up this book, all previously published elsewhere, are conveniently put together in three sections, under the following headings: 1) Women and Religion: Buddhist and Christian Appropriation of Feminist Criticism; 2) issues in Theology, Religion and Society; and 3) questions of Spirituality and Human Liberation. To merely summarize the content of the essays and offer a third-party critique would do injustice to the book, and could even mislead one who peruses such a summary into thinking one thereby "knows" what the book or Pieris is about. Such a hasty conclusion would deprive a would-be reader of the powerful experience that awaits in wrestling with Pieris through each essay of this volume. Judith Berling puts it well in her blurb at the back, pointing out that the author "uses poetry, evocative symbolism, and humor to offer a theological call to action in a voice that is liberationist, Asian, and feminist." Indeed, this volume invites one to a way of seeing that can also transform one's way of being in this world marked by increasing violence, poverty, and a systemic kind of oppression dehumanizing to both the perpetrators as well as the victims.The title of the present volume, Fire and Water, alludes to a dynamic dipolarity, masterfully sketched for the reader by Paul Knitter in his foreword, which underlies the author's vision of reality and vivifies much of his writing. The masculine and the feminine, the (Buddhist) gnostic and the (Christian) agapeic, the metacosmic (transcendent) [End Page 311] and the cosmic (immanent), the prophetic and the mystical, are different ways of naming this dipolarity. The way to ultimate liberation is in the effective embrace of both poles in complementarity and mutual interplay, whereas taking one pole in preference over the other results in a warped vision or mode of being, in imbalance, or even in abuse.In this review I would like to simply echo some key themes that will jump at one perusing the essays, reiterating that the very act of reading them can of itself be a transformative experience for an open-minded, open-hearted, and open-handed reader.The thrust of the six essays comprising the first section can perhaps be summed up in the thesis as formulated by the author himself: "Religion cannot survive in the future without appropriating the feminist critique, just as feminism cannot achieve its liberative goal without the aid of a religion so critiqued" (p. 62). Behind this statement is Pieris' emphatically critical stance, on the one hand, against all forms of patriarchal religion, whether Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, or other, which has justified, lent a hand in, or continued to perpetrate the physical, psychological, and especially religious abuse of women, and on the other hand, against secularist (or anti-religious) kinds of feminist theory that take off on what he enumerates as "five false starts" (pp. 50-51), which only result in unnecessary dichotomies that truncate the understanding of the goal of liberation, and consequently of the human as such.Pieris offers a vision of liberation centered on what he terms the humanum. This refers to the point of ultimate perfection to which the human, that is, "whatever pertains to men and women as self-conscious, other-oriented, and dreaming components of the cosmos," has the capacity to carry the cosmos. In this context, the human is no other than "this self-transcendent capacity immanent in the cosmos, this power to unfold within itself the Other, which is ever present from the first moment of evolution." To be human is inherently to be endowed... (shrink)

The paper highlights some of John Stuart Mill’s views on the problem of gender equality, as expressed in his The Subjection of Women. The paper outlines the historical context of Mill’s conception and gives an analysis of his criticism of social conditions which lead to the subordination of women. It shows also the philosopher’s main ideas and arguments for equality and friendship between women and men. Attention is paid also to several main lines of contemporary reception of Mill’s views (...) from the perspective of feminist philosophy. (shrink)

Many philosophers hold that physical laws have a unique modal status known as nomic necessity which is weaker than metaphysical necessity. This orthodox view has come into question in the past few decades. In particular, the metaphysical view known as essentialism has provided an argument that the laws of nature are necessary in the strongest possible sense. It seems obvious to many that at least some essentialist arguments in favor of the necessity of scientific claims are going to be (...) sound. For example, the view that claims like "water is H2O" are necessary has itself 2 become an orthodox view. However, the question of whether laws, like the law of conservation of energy, or the law of gravity, are necessary is far more contentious. Philosophers divide roughly into two camps, law necessitarians1 who hold that the laws are necessary in the strongest sense and contingency theorists who hold that they are at least in some sense contingent. One argument for the necessitarian position is via an essentialist theory of the transworld identity of properties. In this paper I defend such a theory of the identity of properties and its necessitarian consequences from one major criticism. To focus the paper, I center the discussion on a single critic, E. J. Lowe. In his book, The Four Category Ontology, he offers a criticism of the essentialist argument for necessitarianism via an analogy with other forms of transworld identity and intuitions about the contingency of the physical constants2. I undermine the usefulness of Lowe's analogy by examining the purposes of attributions of properties. I also show that the essentialist's position can allow it to accommodate the intuitions of contingency in a way that fits best with the purpose behind property attributions. (shrink)

PREFACE. THE Author of this very practical treatise on Scotch Loch - Fishing desires clearly that it may be of use to all who had it. He does not pretend to have written anything new, but to have attempted to put what he has to say in as readable a form as possible. Everything in the way of the history and habits of fish has been studiously avoided, and technicalities have been used as sparingly as possible. The writing of this (...) book has afforded him pleasure in his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This section is interleaved with blank shects for the readers notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the case of the publishers, will meet with consideration in a future edition. We do not pretend to write or enlarge upon a new subject. Much has been said and written-and well said and written too on the art of fishing but loch-fishing has been rather looked upon as a second-rate performance, and to dispel this idea is one of the objects for which this present treatise has been written. Far be it from us to say anything against fishing, lawfully practised in any form but many pent up in our large towns will bear us out when me say that, on the whole, a days loch-fishing is the most convenient. One great matter is, that the loch-fisher is depend- ent on nothing but enough wind to curl the water, -and on a large loch it is very seldom that a dead calm prevails all day, -and can make his arrangements for a day, weeks beforehand whereas the stream- fisher is dependent for a good take on the state of the water and however pleasant and easy it may be for one living near the banks of a good trout stream or river, it is quite another matter to arrange for a days river-fishing, if one is looking forward to a holiday at a date some weeks ahead. Providence may favour the expectant angler with a good day, and the water in order but experience has taught most of us that the good days are in the minority, and that, as is the case with our rapid running streams, -such as many of our northern streams are, -the water is either too large or too small, unless, as previously remarked, you live near at hand, and can catch it at its best. A common belief in regard to loch-fishing is, that the tyro and the experienced angler have nearly the same chance in fishing, -the one from the stern and the other from the bow of the same boat. Of all the absurd beliefs as to loch-fishing, this is one of the most absurd. Try it. Give the tyro either end of the boat he likes give him a cast of ally flies he may fancy, or even a cast similar to those which a crack may be using and if he catches one for every three the other has, he may consider himself very lucky. Of course there are lochs where the fish are not abundant, and a beginner may come across as many as an older fisher but we speak of lochs where there are fish to be caught, and where each has a fair chance. Again, it is said that the boatman has as much to do with catching trout in a loch as the angler. Well, we dont deny that. In an untried loch it is necessary to have the guidance of a good boatman but the same argument holds good as to stream-fishing... (shrink)

The Water Margin is one of the four great classical novels of China. It describes how people from different walks of life were driven to become outlaws as a result of poor governance and widespread corruption. These outlaws have been regarded by some commentators as heroes, despite the fact that they perform wanton killing, over retribution, and cannibalism. Liu Zaifu 劉再復 argues that the novel has contributed to the moral downfall of the Chinese people. In this essay, I put (...) forward various arguments in objection to Liu. I think Liu’s argument is unsound, partly because he fails to address the nature of the cultural confrontation between modern readers and The Water Margin. By conducting an evaluation of Liu, I also consider a range of issues concerning how we may understand The Water Margin, and how the novel may morally relate to us in modern society. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 90-92 [Access article in PDF] Christian Views on Ritual Practice The Ongoing Creation of Loving Community: Christian Ritual and Ethics Jay T. RockNational Council of Churches of ChristAt the center of Christian practice is an ethical imperative: "This is my commandment," Jesus says; "Love one another as I have loved you" (John 15:12). This principle of active love lies at the heart of Christian living.The (...) argument about who is to be included in the circle of those to be loved, much alive in Jesus' own day, continues unabated. Christians do not agree whether the "sisters and brothers" whom one is instructed to love in various passages of the Christian canon refers only to the family of those in the Church, or to the family of all humankind. But there is certainly agreement that simply professing love is not enough: the love God has given is fully embraced only in being done.Given such a central emphasis on reconciling, active love, it is not surprising to find Christian ritual almost always directly connected to, and fully completed in, ethical behavior in the world. Even in the important ways in which Christian rites serve to open the individual and community to receive God, to become aware of the presence of the Ultimate Reality in their lives, one finds implicit links to acting in love. Christian ritual is itself incarnational: it continuously creates and recreates a community into which it incorporates individuals, and it reactualizes moments of sacred history in a way that opens them to the active participation and concrete action of the people.Some comments on the nature and significance of commemoration in the sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist, or Lord's Supper, may illustrate what I mean. These are the central liturgical celebrations of Christianity, one recalling the baptism of Jesus by John in the Jordan River, the other, more complex, connected to the events of the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus in Jerusalem. They are commemorations of past historical events, the memory of which is preserved in the theology and practice of the community. But their celebration by the community makes these events existentially present, and their meanings real and accessible, in several ways.Through Baptism, individuals enter into the Jesus community, and participate in the life of Christ. The rite is understood to effect a permanent bond between the one baptized, and Jesus, in whose name she is baptized. The one being baptized is taken down into water, and there is understood to die and rise with Christ: the ritual "makes present again what God has done through Jesus" and brings the Christian into direct, existential relation to the "actual happening of salvation in Christ." 1 Through this connection, the person undergoes a transition from the ways of "death" and "darkness" into the way of "light."The Eucharistic celebration, similarly, provides believers a way of entering into the events of Jesus' death and resurrection. In it, Christians both take part in these [End Page 90] acts of redemption--his death and rising again--and also take into themselves the body and blood of Jesus. The sacrament is a central way in which Christians partake of/take part in the Body of Christ. The rite commemorates a past event, but more importantly, it brings to present life the person of Christ, and allows active participation in the ongoing, communal expression of God's self-giving in Christ.In these rituals, a particular kind of historical memory is at work: that of anamnesis, which the Lutheran liturgist Frank Senn suggests might be best approximated in English as "reactualization." 2 This kind of remembering involves not simply a return to past events, but the placing of the past into the present situation. Ethicist John Pawlikowski reminds us that this concept has roots in the Hebrew Scriptures, in the biblical sense of zakar: just as it is only in being remembered by God that we continue in existence, remembering in this sense "brings the past as close as possible so that it becomes... (shrink)

This article highlights a use of analogies in science that so far has received relatively little systematic discussion: providing reasons for pursuing a model or theory. Using the development of the liquid drop model as a test case, I critically assess two extant pursuit worthiness accounts: that analogies justify pursuit by supporting plausibility arguments and that analogies can serve as a guide to potential theoretical unification. Neither of these fit the liquid drop model case. Instead, I develop an alternative account, (...) based on the idea that analogies facilitate the transfer of a well-understood modelling strategy to a new domain. 1Introduction2Case Study: The Development of the Liquid Drop Model3Plausibility Accounts 3.1Bartha on plausibility and analogical inference3.2Plausibility and the drop analogy4Analogies as a Guide to Unification5Generative Accounts 5.1Analogy-based modelling strategies5.2Did analogies play a merely generative role?6A New Pursuit Worthiness Account of Analogies 6.1Transferring understanding-with through analogies6.2Understanding-with and the liquid drop model7Conclusion. (shrink)

Governmental and non-governmentalagencies worldwide have devoted considerablefinancial, technical, and organizational efforts toconstruct or rehabilitate irrigation infrastructure inthe last three decades. Although rural povertyalleviation was often one of their aims, evidenceshows that rights to irrigated land and water wererarely vested in poor men, and even less in poorwomen. In spite of the strong role of irrigationagencies in vesting rights to irrigated land and waterin some people and not in others, the importance ofagencies‘ targeting practices is still ignored.This article disentangles how (...) public irrigationagencies either included or excluded women and mensmallholders as right holders to irrigated land andwater. This is done on the basis of significant casestudies from Africa, Asia, and Latin America thatpoint in both positive and negative directions. Thegeneral conclusions are the following. Rights toirrigated land are related to the site-selection andphysical design of land-bound irrigationinfrastructure. These rights are vested in the pooreither by implementing a localized land reform or bydirectly selecting poor people‘s land forimprovement. Among all potential land users in aselected site, water rights have to be defined. Thepoor are included as title holders if water rights arevested in land users rather than land owners, and inboth women and men, rather than in male householdheads. A common condition to get water rights is thatone has to participate in construction investments.Agencies need, firstly, to open up this condition forthe poor, also for women, and, secondly, ensure thatpoor people‘s investments are linked to rights.Parallel to vesting land and water rights, externalagencies influence the composition of the local forumsin which decisions on land and water rights arerefined, endorsed, and implemented, and they influencethe order in which project activities are planned andundertaken. Early inclusion of the poor in theseforums and crystallization of expropriation andallocation criteria and procedures before constructionstarts are pivotal for poverty alleviation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A History of Modern Criticism: 1750–1950, Volume 7: German, Russian, and Eastern European Criticism, 1900–1950Eva L. CorredorA History of Modern Criticism: 1750–1950, Volume 7: German, Russian, and Eastern European Criticism, 1900–1950, by René Wellek; xvii & 458 pp. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991, $42.50.The seventh volume of René Wellek’s history of modern criticism may well be the most interesting of his eight-volume (...) monumental oeuvre. Devoted to German, Russian, and Eastern European criticism between 1900 and 1950, it exemplifies most strikingly Wellek’s personal battles with critics who were roughly his contemporaries and closest to his own European background. “I should like to think of my History as ‘elucidatory,’ as not ‘argumentative’ or ‘polemical’” (v, xxi), Wellek writes, but he does not shrink from expressing his own critical perspective usually in a gentlemanly humorous or ironical, but occasionally also quite harsh and stubborn fashion. He insists on the importance of individual value judgments in critical analysis, particularly when they are his own: “I do not believe that... my views and those of my contemporaries will be replaced by completely different assumptions” (“Reflections on my History,” The Attack on Literature, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982, p. 145).Since Wellek rejects the idea of a historical determinism and thinks that “an evolutionary history of criticism must fail” (The Attack, p. 144), he provides less a history than a collection of essays in which he offers succinct appraisals of writers, thinkers and critics both as individuals and as participants in the broader literary movements of the century. He presents “portraits” (p. xv), which he also calls “doxographies” (The Attack, p. 143), containing a vast amount of quotations carefully selected to support the authority of his own views or to let them speak for themselves when he would rather not comment.More than any previous work, this volume embodies Wellek’s will and determination to carry on against all odds even when he can no longer do so on his own. An accident in 1986 left him bedridden and dependent on students and secretaries to help him with his research and writing. He was able to draw on a wealth of previously published essays, some of which had been written more than three decades ago. There are some arguable inaccuracies and shortcomings (his canon includes obscure writers but not Adorno and [End Page 259] again no women writers), and problems with his bibliographies and references. Yet Wellek’s unique talent to assemble in one volume half a century of critical commentary on the literatures of half a dozen different cultures appears intact. So do his well-known critical positions.Among his most interesting essays are those on Spitzer, Auerbach, Ingarden, Bakhtin, and Benjamin, highly erudite men in whose company Wellek enjoys moving. On the other hand, some extraordinarily fertile minds and their enormous influence on the post-1950 critical discourse are often quickly dismissed or treated with unnecessary condescension. Young Roman Jakobson “should be forgotten” (p. 372). Freud’s psychoanalysis “seems forced and mistaken” (p. 79). Heidegger “often ascribes a meaning which seems to me absent in the text itself” (p. 89). Wellek’s low tolerance of any but his own interpretation of Dostoevsky appears repeatedly in this volume: Thomas Mann’s views are called “strange” and “distorted” (p. 12), Freud’s “deeply flawed” (p. 79), Bakhtin’s “simply wrong” (p. 357), and Lukács’s “simply... [those] of Communism” (p. 232). Wellek’s anti-historicism is dramatized in essays on Auerbach and his “historical perspectivism” (p. 132), vs. Spitzer who “always saw that there is a point at which historicism must fail” (p. 144). The vacuum of German criticism during the Nazi period is hauntingly demonstrated. The essays on Walter Benjamin, Bertholt Brecht, and in particular György Lukács reveal best Wellek’s notorious feuds with Marxists. Wellek indulges in a sarcastic critique of the Marxist Lukács’s “doctrinaire limitations” (p. 245) and attempts, wrongfully, to “prove” the Hungarian philosopher’s “exaltation of Socialist Realism” (p. 244). When in the mid-eighties and after much encouragement Wellek finally writes an essay on the early Lukács, he... (shrink)

PREFACE. THE Author of this very practical treatise on Scotch Loch - Fishing desires clearly that it may be of use to all who had it. He does not pretend to have written anything new, but to have attempted to put what he has to say in as readable a form as possible. Everything in the way of the history and habits of fish has been studiously avoided, and technicalities have been used as sparingly as possible. The writing of this (...) book has afforded him pleasure in his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This section is interleaved with blank shects for the readers notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the case of the publishers, will meet with consideration in a future edition. We do not pretend to write or enlarge upon a new subject. Much has been said and written-and well said and written too on the art of fishing but loch-fishing has been rather looked upon as a second-rate performance, and to dispel this idea is one of the objects for which this present treatise has been written. Far be it from us to say anything against fishing, lawfully practised in any form but many pent up in our large towns will bear us out when me say that, on the whole, a days loch-fishing is the most convenient. One great matter is, that the loch-fisher is depend- ent on nothing but enough wind to curl the water, -and on a large loch it is very seldom that a dead calm prevails all day, -and can make his arrangements for a day, weeks beforehand whereas the stream- fisher is dependent for a good take on the state of the water and however pleasant and easy it may be for one living near the banks of a good trout stream or river, it is quite another matter to arrange for a days river-fishing, if one is looking forward to a holiday at a date some weeks ahead. Providence may favour the expectant angler with a good day, and the water in order but experience has taught most of us that the good days are in the minority, and that, as is the case with our rapid running streams, -such as many of our northern streams are, -the water is either too large or too small, unless, as previously remarked, you live near at hand, and can catch it at its best. A common belief in regard to loch-fishing is, that the tyro and the experienced angler have nearly the same chance in fishing, -the one from the stern and the other from the bow of the same boat. Of all the absurd beliefs as to loch-fishing, this is one of the most absurd. Try it. Give the tyro either end of the boat he likes give him a cast of ally flies he may fancy, or even a cast similar to those which a crack may be using and if he catches one for every three the other has, he may consider himself very lucky. Of course there are lochs where the fish are not abundant, and a beginner may come across as many as an older fisher but we speak of lochs where there are fish to be caught, and where each has a fair chance. Again, it is said that the boatman has as much to do with catching trout in a loch as the angler. Well, we dont deny that. In an untried loch it is necessary to have the guidance of a good boatman but the same argument holds good as to stream-fishing... (shrink)

This two-volume masterpiece mirrors its title. The prose is lyrical and lucid, the discussions evince intellectual integrity and rigor, and the author’s voice allows readers to successfully navigate the philosophical, religious, and literary waters of formal academic and religious institutions of middle to late seventeenth-and most of eighteenth-century Britain. Both volumes are chronologically arranged, revealing the actual participants’ inquiries and debates rather than placing them into particular schools or movements. Rivers’s purpose for this structuring is much like D. D. (...) Raphael’s, expressed in British Moralists, 1650-1800, “[to show] how the thought of the British Moralists developed and was modified by their criticism.” While the second volume alone—Shaftesbury to Hume—is the subject of this review, some discussions may be applicable to both, particularly given the overall general influence of religious beliefs upon theological and philosophical ethics documented in this study. (shrink)

Autism has been described as a neural deficit in prediction, people with autism manifest low perceptual construal and are impaired at traversing psychological distances, and Gilead et al.'s hierarchy from iconic to multimodal to fully abstract, socially communicated representations is exactly the hierarchy of representational impairment in autism, making autism a natural behavioural and neurophysiological test case for the prediction–abstraction relationship.

The language and ideals of Greek political life identified citizenship with manliness. Plato saw this engendering of politics as a threat to the unity, stability, and excellence of a city, for the unmoderated manliness of actual cities, he claimed, fosters bigoted patriotism, female dissipation, and unnatural vice. Moreover, these cities' civic pieties could not match the egoistic appeal of tyranny, for the Greek ideal of masculinity itself points to tyranny as the most manly life. ;Plato's project, as I will argue (...) through a study of the Republic and the Laws, is to harness spirit and desire to reason in order to rescue cities from these tragedies of engendered politics. Such a rationalization requires a proper understanding of the "male" passions and their subjugation to a disgendered reason. Plato argues not only that the engendered politics of Greek cities treats women unjustly, but also that by excluding females and the feminine these cities make their male citizens vicious and unhappy. ;Since Plato apparently contradicts the egalitarian views of the Republic in his later dialogue, the Laws, I aim to recover the single intention behind two political proposals differing widely in detail. Plato's teaching on gender and politics has been subject to a wide variety of criticism in recent years, but both his feminist and anti-feminist interpreters have generally failed to appreciate the thick and profound political psychology which stands behind his radical views on gender and politics. Plato describes both soul and city as complexes of frequently contradictory desires for whom unity of purpose must be achieved. The lives of men and women in actual cities display distinct and apparently incompatible virtues, but the rationalization of politics requires that these virtues be reconciled in a single regime for both soul and city. ;In conclusion, I will argue that arguments for gender justice, that, like Plato's, are founded in a critique of the pretensions of masculinity, provide more powerful arguments for sexual egalitarianism than more "feminist" arguments that attack patriarchy simply as unjust toward women. (shrink)

This much-anticipated work is a rich and insightful collection of essays that restores women and minorities to the arena of political theory and debate.

Imbalance in the pH of water reduces this precious resource as an extremely dangerous liquid for human health and plants’ growth. Change in the pH levels of the drinkable water has majorly raised concern towards diverse health issues like heart problems, infant mortality rates, pigmentation of skin, and cholera outbreaks. Therefore, it is necessary to keep a check on essential water quality components that include acidic/basic nature of water. As per the US Environmental Protection Agency, the (...) drinkable water should have a pH level ranging from 6.5 to 8.5. Two sample situates have been identified wherever highly reported pollutants levels were found and have been analyzed through artificial intelligence techniques. It can be observed that wavelet denoised signals fed into the least squares support vector regression and M5 prime regression tree predicted more accurately on the basis of the performance errors that are as follows: root mean squared error ; mean squared error ; mean absolute error. On the basis of these errors, the coefficient of determination/goodness of fit simulated for the prototypes is developed in this study. RMSE outcomes diminish on the whole on applying the training and forecasting data-division via WLSSVR and WM5pRT as compared with fitting the normalized data through LSSVR and M5pRT. These performance measures are essential to analyze the concentration levels of pH in the river streams at the identified sites of study. Thus, the observed pattern from this study may help for future estimation of the quality of water at their sources so that it prohibits the further increase in either acidic or basic salts which prove to be lethal for the environment. Thus, these predictors would be helpful towards formulation of strategies for protection of ecosystem and human health. (shrink)

The arts of poetry and the arts of criticism are uncovered and studied in their products, in poems and in judgments. Poetry and criticism, however, the making and judging of poems, are processes. The study of literature as a product - existing poems and existing interpretations and appreciations of poetry - develops a body of knowledge which is sometimes called "poetic sciences." The recognition and use of poetic and critical processes - producing and judging poems which did not (...) previously exist, and uncovering and analyzing aspects of existing poems which were not previously discerned or appreciated - develop things and values by use of arts which are sometimes called "heuristic arts." Knowledge or science is used in the processes of deliberate or artful making; art or criticism is used in the production of things or knowledge of things, natural or artificial. Knowledge is a product of inquiry; criticism is a process of judgment; the two are joined - knowledge of things and use of knowledge - in critical inquiries or critiques of judgment. Richard McKeon is Charles F. Grey Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Greek at the University of Chicago; he was a member of the U.S. delegations to the first three General Conferences of UNESCO and served as U.S. counselor to UNESCO. His numerous publications include The Philosophy of Spinoza, Freedom and History, and Thought, Action, and Passion; he also has edited The Basic Works of Aristotle and coedited the forthcoming critical edition of Abailard's Sic et Non. His contributions to Critical Inquiry include "Canonic Books and Prohibited Books: Orthodoxy and Heresy in Religion and Culture" and Pride and Prejudice: Thought, Character, Argument, and Plot". (shrink)

This paper sketches a taxonomy of forms of substantivalism and relationism concerning space and time, and of the traditional arguments for these positions. Several natural sorts of relationism are able to account for Newton's bucket experiment. Conversely, appropriately constructed substantivalism can survive Leibniz's critique, a fact which has been obscured by the conflation of two of Leibniz's arguments. The form of relationism appropriate to the Special Theory of Relativity is also able to evade the problems raised by Field. I survey (...) the effect of the General Theory of Relativity and of plenism on these considerations. (shrink)

: ‘Alā’ al-Dawla al-Simnānī (d. 736/1336) was a Kubrawī sheikh lived in Simnān one hundred years after Ibn al-Arabī (d. 638/1240). He authored around ninety works in Arabic and Persian on various fields within Sūfism, raised many disciples. His contribution to the sūfī tradition mainly come to forefront regarding problems like unity, latāif (subtle organs), rijāl al-ghaib (men of the unseen), wāqia (dream-like mystical experiences) and tajallī (manifestation). Simnānī’s understanding of the unity influenced subsequent sūfī’s and specifically Ahmad Sirhindī (d. (...) 1034/1624) and his sheikh Bāqībillah’s (d. 1012/1603) views of the unity overlap with Simnānī’s one. In Maktūbāt, Sirhindī who developed the idea of unity of the seen against the unity of the existence expresses that his understanding of being is the same with Simnānī’s one. Simnānī is also known as the first critic of Ibn al-Arabī’s conception of the unity among sūfī’s. Such that, whenever his name is mentioned the first thing comes to one’s mind has been his criticism against Ibn al-Arabī. However, his criticism against Ibn al-Arabī was not studied as a whole looking at his ouvre. Studying Simnānī’s works, it is seen that his criticism is concentrated on two main problems. First is Ibn al-Arabī’s employing the concept wujūd al-mutlaq (absolute being) for God. He maintains that it is not convenient to use this concept for al-Haq. His second criticism is against a sentence mentioned in al-Futūhāt: “سبحان من أظهر الأشياء وهو عينها”. In this article, causes for Simnānī’s critiques will be discussed and both sūfī’s conceptions of wujūd al-mutlaq and ‘ayn (quintessence) will be studied.Summary: One of the famous names in the Kubrawī tradition, ‘Alā’ al-Dawla al-Simnānī is a sheikh who lived in the city of Simnān in the contemporary Iran between 659-736/1261-1336. In his youth, he served in the service of Arghūn Khan (r. 1284-1291) in the Īlkhānid Palace; and later, after a spiritual experience, he left the palace and turned to a Ṣūfī life. For a certain period, he continued worshipping and riyādhat (spiritual fight against the evil commanding self) on his own, and looked for a guide convenient to his character. Eventually, he became the disciple of the Kubrawī sheikh in Baghdad, Nūr al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Isfarāyīnī (d. 717/1317), and obtained ijāzah (permission) for irshād (guidance). After that, with the instruction of his sheikh, he went back to Simnān; and spent rest of his life with guiding his disciples and writing scholarly works. He authored around ninety works in Arabic and Persian on various fields within Sūfism. His contribution to the sūfī tradition mainly comes to forefront regarding problems like unity, latāif, rijāl al-ghaib, wāqia and tajallī; and influenced subsequent sūfī’s. Simnani’s influences can best be seen on the founder of the Mujaddidiyya branch of Naqshbandiyya, Ahmad Sirhindī (d. 1034/1624), and Sirhindī’s sheikh Bāqībillah (d. 1012/1603). In a letter Bāqībillah wrote to Sirhindī, he mentions certain differences between Simnānī’s understanding of unity and unity of the existence by stating that Simnānī’s path is not that of unity of the existence, and that his shuhūd (seen) is the most perfect shuhūd. Also in the Maktūbāt, Sirhindī expresses that his understanding of being is the same with that of Simnānī’s. Simnānī is also known as the first critic of Ibn al-Arabī’s conception of being and unity among sūfī’s. It would not be incorrect to say that he is more famous for this critique so much so that whenever his name is mentioned the first thing comes to one’s mind has been his criticism against Ibn al-Arabī. The main reason for this is that a letter Simnānī wrote to one of the followers of Ibn al-Arabī, ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Kāshānī (d. 736/1335) in which Simnānī criticizes Ibn al-Arabī’s conception of unity, was included in the famous work of Abd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 898/1492), Nafakhāt al-uns. This letter’s presence in the Nafakhāt played a vital role in its publicity. For this reason, it can be said that Nafakhāt made Simnānī famous. Yet, it should also be said that the fame stemming from Nafakhāt is incomplete and it is just about one aspect of Simnānī, a scholar who authored dozens of books on the Sūfism. Moreover, it is not correct to defend that Simnānī’s statements in that letter reflects a full picture of his opinion about Ibn al-Arabī. Hence, to have a better understanding of his criticism and thoughts about Ibn al-Arabī, one should explore other works of Simnānī as well. Studying Simnānī’s works, it is seen that his criticism is concentrated on two main problems. First is Ibn al-Arabī’s employing the concept wujūd al-mutlaq for God. His second criticism is against a sentence mentioned in al-Futūhāt: “سبحان من أظهر الأشياء وهو عينها”. To understand the first criticism, one needs to know the meaning both sūfī’s attribute to the concept of wujūd al-mutlaq; and for the second the meaning they attribute to the concept of ‘ayn. First, it should be known that Ibn al-Arabī did not think of being as a form category the members of which are beings. To the contrary, he uses wujūd exclusively for the Eternal, and refrains from using the concept of wujūd for the creation; and calls them mawjūd. In other words, Ibn al-Arabī differentiates between being and existence; and limits the concept of being only for the al-Haqq. Ibn al-Arabī states this view repeatedly in statements such as “al-Haqq (the Truth) is being; things, however, are attributes of being.” What Ibn al-Arabī means by wujūd al-mutlaq is al-Haqq who is wajib al-wujūd (the Necessary Being) and free from all restrictions. Thus, in a certain sense wujūd al-mutlaq means wajib al-wujūd. By writing that “Wujūd al-Haqq is the essence of wajib al-wujūd who is qualified with the perfect attributes of eternity and infinity. Absolute Being is the actions emanating from these attributes. Wujūd al-Muqayyad (the Limited Being) is the outcome that comes into existence as a result of these actions”, Simnānī explicitly states that for him Absolute Being is the actions of al-Haqq. What one can understand from the statements of both sūfī’s is that while by wujūd al-mutlaq Ibn al-Arabī refers to wajib al-wujūd (i.e. the essence of al-Haqq), for the same term Simnānī refers to actions of al-Haqq. Since in criticizing Ibn al-Arabī, Simnānī takes into account his own definition of the term Wujūd al-Mutlaq as the actions of al-Haqq, his criticisms are not valid. In fact, both exonerate al-Haqq from all the conditions. However, while Ibn al-Arabī chooses to verbalize the existence of God with the concept of “Absolute Being”, Simnānī only approves to express the existence of God with the concepts of wājib al-wujūd and al-Wujūd al-Haqq and differing from Ibn al-Arabī attributes the meaning of the actions of God to the concept of Absolute Being.Simnānī’s second critique against Ibn al-Arabī is related to this sentence: “سبحان من أظهر الأشياء وهو عينها”. An annotation that is written by Simnānī on a page which is out of his gloss on al-Futūhāt is highly harsh reads as follows: “O, followers of the most deviant leader! If you hear that one says that your sheikh is identical with his beard, put the claim that he is identical with his rejectomenta aside, should you accept this and tolerate him?” It is understood from these sentences that Simnānī considers the concept “al-ayn” as the essence of that thing. Though, the word “al-ayn” is one of the most multi-meaning word in the Arabic language and in Ibn al-Arabī’s works it is used with various meanings such as eye, the quintessence, spring, water source, tangible being of a thing, the essence of a thing and so on. The usage as “the essence of a thing” is very much common in Ibn al-Arabī’s works. It is interesting that while this word has so many meanings, Simnānī takes one meaning as base and blaspheme against Ibn al-Arabī. It is obvious that the main cause for Simnānī’s critique against Ibn al-Arabī in both problems is his attribution to the concepts different meanings than Ibn al-Arabī and then judging him in the context of his attributes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:77 KEMP SMITH, HUME AND THE PARALLELISM BETWEEN REASON AND MORALITY In a letter to a physician written in 1734 Hume expressed a dissatisfaction with the current state of philosophy and criticism, a dissatisfaction which he said had led him to strike out on his own and "seek out some new Medium, by which Truth might be establisht." He then went on to claim success: "After much Study, (...) & Reflection on this, at last, when I was about 18 Years of Age, there seem'd to be open'd up to me a new Scene of Thought, which transported me beyond Measure, & made me, with an Ardor natural to young men, throw up every other Pleasure or Business to apply entirely to it..." The wording suggests that the new Scene of Thought was a clear revelation, but nowhere does Hume tell us what the revelation was. (A clue, perhaps, is to be found in the "Abstract," where Hume says that if anything entitles him to the name of an inventor, "it is the use he makes of 2 the principle of the association of ideas.") Kemp Smith is convinced, however, that he knows what the new Scene of Thought was. According to Kemp Smith, Hume had already discovered that morality rests on feeling alone and depends in no way on insight or evidence, and the new discovery was simply the sudden realization that belief is equally independent of these considerations. I will argue in this paper that the great difficulty in this interpretation is that in those sections of the Treatise and the second Enquiry in which Hume expounds what could be called his moral epistemology he is concerned with pointing out what he considers to be important differences between reason and taste and between understanding and morality. I am not, however, questioning the validity of Kemp Smith's naturalistic interpretation, if it is broadly construed. 78 A curiosity of Kemp Smith's exposition is his citing of passages from Hume, which at first glance anyway seem to weaken, rather than strengthen, his case for the parallelism of moral and factual judgments. I will give two examples, the first being a quotation from the Green and Grose edition of the Enquiry. That Faculty, by which we discern Truth and Falsehood, and that by which we perceive Vice and Virtue had long been confounded with each other, and all Morality was suppos'd to be built on eternal and immutable Relations, which, to every intelligent Mind, were equally invariable as any Proposition concerning Quantity or Number. But a late Philosopher [Mr. Hutcheson, added as a note] has taught us, by the most convincing Arguments, that Morality is nothing in the abstract Nature of Things, but is entirely relative to the Sentiment or mental Taste of each particular [i.e. species] of Being; in the same Manner as the distinctions of sweet and bitter, hot and cold, arise from the particular feeling of each Sense or Organ. Moral Perceptions, therefore, ought not to be class 'd with the Operations of the Understanding, but with the Tastes or Sentiments. On the next page of this book Kemp Smith refers to this passage as part of the evidence for his claim that "the view here taken of our moral judgments of approval and disapproval can be extended to our beliefs regarding matters of fact and existence, and that 'logic', morals and 'criticism' may thus be brought 4 within the scope of the same general principles." The reference to "external and immutable Relations" may have led Kemp Smith to believe that Hume's thesis in this paragraph is the contrast between demonstrative and other kinds of judgment, but the last sentence is a decisive refutation of that interpretation. Hume frequently uses the term "understanding" to refer to causal reasoning, though in this sentence he seems to be using the term in 79 the more inclusive sense that would include demonstration and relations of ideas as well. But I know of no instances in which "understanding" is restricted to what Hume calls science, i.e., demonstration. Kemp Smith also quotes from the last section of Appendix I to the second Enquiry. This passage, appearing in the Selby-Bigge... (shrink)

Theodor W. Adorno’s criticism of human beings’ domination of nature is a familiar topic to Adorno scholars. Its connection to the central relationship between art and nature in his aesthetics has, however, been less analysed. In the following paper, I claim that Adorno’s discussion of art’s truth content (Wahrheitsgehalt) is to be understood as art’s ability to give voice to nature (both human and non-human) since it has been subjugated by the growth of civilization. I focus on repressed non-human (...) nature and examine Adorno’s interpretation of Eduard Mörike’s poem ‘Mausfallen-Sprüchlein’ (Mousetrap rhyme). By giving voice to the repressed animal, Mörike’s poem manages to point towards the possibility of a changed relationship between mice and men, between nature and humanity, which is necessary in order to achieve reconciliation amongst humans as well. (shrink)

The river Portoviejo crosses four cantons of the province of Manabí and is the main source of water for the inhabitants of the area to be used in various uses. The objective of this bibliographic review article is to carry out a historical analysis of the water pollution of the Portoviejo River. The qualitative and descriptive documentary research methodology was used. The authors conclude that the factors that influence the pollution of the Portoviejo River are the constant direct (...) discharges of wastewater and solid waste along its route by the residents of the area and the contribution of the water treatment plant waste from the area. (shrink)

The influence of William James on Ludwig Wittgenstein has been widely studied, as well as the criticism that the latter addresses to the former, but one aspect that has only rarely been focused on is the two philosophers’ use of the image of the flux, stream, or river. The analysis of some notes belonging to Wittgenstein’s Nachlass support the possibility of a comparison between James’ stream of thought, as outlined in the Principles of Psychology, and Wittgenstein’s river-bed of thoughts, (...) presented in On Certainty. (shrink)

In response to Stephen Davis’s criticism of our previous essay, we revisit and defend our arguments that the Resurrection hypothesis is logically incompatible with the Standard Model of particle physics—and thus is maximally implausible—and that it cannot explain the sensory experiences of the Risen Jesus attributed to various witnesses in the New Testament—and thus has low explanatory power. We also review Davis’s reply, noting that he evades our arguments, misstates their conclusions, and distracts the reader with irrelevancies regarding, e.g., (...) what natural laws are, what a miracle is, and how “naturalism” and “supernaturalism” differ as worldviews. Contrary to what Davis claims (even in his abstract), we do not argue that “if the Standard Model of particle physics is true, then the resurrection of Jesus did not occur and physical things can only causally interact with other physical things.” Davis distorts our claims and criticizes straw men of his own creation. (shrink)

David Buller and Valerie Hardcastle have argued that various discoveries about the genetics and nature of brain development show that most ?central? psychological mechanisms cannot be adaptations because the nature of the contribution from the environment on which they are based shows they are not heritable. Some philosophers and scientists have argued that a strong role for the environment is compatible with high heritability as long as the environment is highly stable down lineages. In this paper I support this view (...) by arguing that the discoveries Buller and Hardcastle refer to either do not show as strong a role for the environment as they suggest, or these discoveries show that the brain's developmental process depends in many cases on input from the environment that is highly stable across generations. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss Heck's new argument for content dualism. This argument is based on the claim that conceptual states, but not perceptual states, meet Evans's Generality Constraint. Heck argues that this claim, together with the idea that the kind of content we should attribute to a mental state depends on which generalizations the state satisfies, implies that conceptual states and perceptual states have different kinds of contents. I argue, however, that it is unlikely that there is (...) a plausible reading of the Generality Constraint under which it is non-trivially true both that conceptual states meet it and that perceptual states do not. Therefore, the soundness of Heck's argument is dubious. En este artículo discuto el nuevo argumento de Heck en favor del dualismo de contenido. Este argumento se basa en la afirmación de que los estados conceptuales, pero no los perceptuales, cumplen con el Requisito de Generalidad de Evans. Heck argumenta que esta afirmación, junto con la idea de que el tipo de contenido que debemos atribuir a un estado mental depende de las generalizaciones que el estado satisface, implica que los estados conceptuales tienen un tipo de contenido diferente del de los estados perceptuales. Yo argumento, sin embargo, que es poco probable que haya una interpretación convincente del Requisito de Generalidad según la cual sea verdadero pero no trivial tanto que los estados conceptuales lo satisfacen como que los perceptuales no. Por lo tanto, la solidez del argumento de Heck es dudosa. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A History of Modern Criticism: 1750–1950, Volume 7: German, Russian, and Eastern European Criticism, 1900–1950Eva L. CorredorA History of Modern Criticism: 1750–1950, Volume 7: German, Russian, and Eastern European Criticism, 1900–1950, by René Wellek; xvii & 458 pp. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991, $42.50.The seventh volume of René Wellek’s history of modern criticism may well be the most interesting of his eight-volume (...) monumental oeuvre. Devoted to German, Russian, and Eastern European criticism between 1900 and 1950, it exemplifies most strikingly Wellek’s personal battles with critics who were roughly his contemporaries and closest to his own European background. “I should like to think of my History as ‘elucidatory,’ as not ‘argumentative’ or ‘polemical’” (v, xxi), Wellek writes, but he does not shrink from expressing his own critical perspective usually in a gentlemanly humorous or ironical, but occasionally also quite harsh and stubborn fashion. He insists on the importance of individual value judgments in critical analysis, particularly when they are his own: “I do not believe that... my views and those of my contemporaries will be replaced by completely different assumptions” (“Reflections on my History,” The Attack on Literature, Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982, p. 145).Since Wellek rejects the idea of a historical determinism and thinks that “an evolutionary history of criticism must fail” (The Attack, p. 144), he provides less a history than a collection of essays in which he offers succinct appraisals of writers, thinkers and critics both as individuals and as participants in the broader literary movements of the century. He presents “portraits” (p. xv), which he also calls “doxographies” (The Attack, p. 143), containing a vast amount of quotations carefully selected to support the authority of his own views or to let them speak for themselves when he would rather not comment.More than any previous work, this volume embodies Wellek’s will and determination to carry on against all odds even when he can no longer do so on his own. An accident in 1986 left him bedridden and dependent on students and secretaries to help him with his research and writing. He was able to draw on a wealth of previously published essays, some of which had been written more than three decades ago. There are some arguable inaccuracies and shortcomings (his canon includes obscure writers but not Adorno and [End Page 259] again no women writers), and problems with his bibliographies and references. Yet Wellek’s unique talent to assemble in one volume half a century of critical commentary on the literatures of half a dozen different cultures appears intact. So do his well-known critical positions.Among his most interesting essays are those on Spitzer, Auerbach, Ingarden, Bakhtin, and Benjamin, highly erudite men in whose company Wellek enjoys moving. On the other hand, some extraordinarily fertile minds and their enormous influence on the post-1950 critical discourse are often quickly dismissed or treated with unnecessary condescension. Young Roman Jakobson “should be forgotten” (p. 372). Freud’s psychoanalysis “seems forced and mistaken” (p. 79). Heidegger “often ascribes a meaning which seems to me absent in the text itself” (p. 89). Wellek’s low tolerance of any but his own interpretation of Dostoevsky appears repeatedly in this volume: Thomas Mann’s views are called “strange” and “distorted” (p. 12), Freud’s “deeply flawed” (p. 79), Bakhtin’s “simply wrong” (p. 357), and Lukács’s “simply... [those] of Communism” (p. 232). Wellek’s anti-historicism is dramatized in essays on Auerbach and his “historical perspectivism” (p. 132), vs. Spitzer who “always saw that there is a point at which historicism must fail” (p. 144). The vacuum of German criticism during the Nazi period is hauntingly demonstrated. The essays on Walter Benjamin, Bertholt Brecht, and in particular György Lukács reveal best Wellek’s notorious feuds with Marxists. Wellek indulges in a sarcastic critique of the Marxist Lukács’s “doctrinaire limitations” (p. 245) and attempts, wrongfully, to “prove” the Hungarian philosopher’s “exaltation of Socialist Realism” (p. 244). When in the mid-eighties and after much encouragement Wellek finally writes an essay on the early Lukács, he... (shrink)

The Stoics identified thephantasiawith the impression (typos) in the soul, or the impressing process (typōsis). Alexander of Aphrodisias engages directly with this account atDe anima68.10–21, and argues against the applicability of the impression in a theory of perception inMantissa10, especially 133.25–134.23. I analyse Alexander’s polemic account atDe anima68.10–21, I demonstrate that it differs from Chrysippus’ criticism of Cleanthes (contrary to some commentators), and I show how it fits in the context of his argument. From this analysis it will (...) emerge how Alexander uses Stoic ideas to form his Aristotelian account. Then, I show that Alexander, by taking ‘typos’ metaphorically, not only prefers the term ‘enkataleimma’ over ‘typos’ in his theory ofphantasia, but he keeps the ‘typos’ terminology only to remain faithful to Aristotle’s use (contrary to some commentators). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.2 (2000) 263-283 [Access article in PDF] Contesting Metaphors and the Discourse of Consciousness in William James Jill M. Kress Ah, not to be cut off,not by such slight partitionto be excluded from the stars' measure.What is inwardness?What if not sky intensified,flung through with birds and deepwith winds of homecoming? --Rainer Maria Rilke William James's lifelong attention to questions about human mental experience (...) elucidates the development of the concept of consciousness through its realization in fields as disparate as natural science, radical empiricism, and religious mysticism. 1 Over the course of a career that both establishes and traverses disciplinary boundaries, James's work embodies tensions between scientific explanations for mental phenomena and the inescapability of metaphysical arguments. Jamesian psychology thus alternates between materialist and spiritualist assumptions of scientists and philosophers at the turn of the century, joining their compulsive investigations into the nature of consciousness. 2 Most readers [End Page 263] of James puzzle over the theoretical contradictions within his work, debating central philosophical dilemmas concerning the status of the conscious self. Perhaps the most paradoxical aspect of James's theories, his response to dualism, emerges as he attempts to negotiate ethereal explanations for consciousness with bodily processes. 3 The mind-body problem disrupts James's more delicately balanced theories, a disruption registered explicitly through the metaphors in his texts.Reading The Principles of Psychology (1890) alongside "Does 'Consciousness' Exist" (1904), this essay demonstrates how figurative language directs James's study of consciousness. I argue that metaphor does more than describe consciousness; metaphor constructs James's arguments, governs his conflicting theories of mind through a series of rhetorical configurations and provokes the continual reconstruction of his ideas of human subjectivity. Furthermore, while it is impossible for James to explain and to study consciousness without metaphor, he experiences great anxiety about using language, figurative or otherwise, to represent his object of study. The language becomes more powerful than his intentions or designs and, indeed, raises implications that James cannot control. James possesses a heightened awareness of what he crafts with words; he also, perhaps more penetratingly, acknowledges the inadequacy of any linguistic system to realize concepts thoroughly. 4 Struggling over appropriate "names" and "terms" for consciousness, James presupposes some clearly delineated concept around which we might wrap a verbal expression; yet he also seems painfully aware that every new metaphor launches an entirely new theory. Fluid and unpredictable, consciousness becomes like language itself, yielding its power precisely because it can be so many things at once. The ultimate principle of Jamesian consciousness seems to be its creative capacity; still, once James admits that the problem of consciousness is a problem of language, his carefully constructed designs begin to unravel. Though consciousness will be translated into James's notion of "pure experience" by the time he writes the radical empiricism [End Page 264] essays, James remains simultaneously committed to his figures (especially of the "stream of consciousness") and ambivalent about the account of consciousness that they provide. James helps create the modern self with its enhanced individuality, though his metaphors at once direct us inward to a centered, private self and propel us outward to find consciousness materializing in the fluxional cycle of the natural world.In presenting his initial theory of the stream of our thoughts, James argues for its coherence. His most famous metaphor of the "stream" of consciousness appears to saturate the varied material of the mind, its water washing over and through any distinctions or separations which the mind might present: Consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words as "chain" or "train" do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A "river" or a "stream" are the metaphors by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it hereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life. 5James's desire to find words that are more "natural... (shrink)

Boghossian’s discrimination argument aims to show that content externalism undermines the privileged access thesis. Simon Dierig has recently proposed a new objection to Boghossian’s argument according to which having a “twater thought” is not an alternative, and a fortiori not a relevant alternative, to possessing a “water thought”. Dierig also considers, and criticizes, a modified version of the discrimination argument which would be immune to his objection. I shall argue, first, that he fails to advance a (...) successful objection to the original version of the argument; and, second, that his criticism of the modified version is misconceived. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Artforum, Andy Warhol, and the Art of Living:What Art Educators Can Learn from the Recent History of American Art WritingDavid Carrier (bio)When around 1980 I began writing art criticism, Artforum was much concerned with historical analysis.1 When presenting the work of younger painters and sculptors, it seemed natural to explain artists' accomplishments by identifying precedents for their work. Much of my criticism published in the 1980s presented (...) post-formalist accounts of abstract painting. Seeking precedents for the painting I admired, I looked to the history of art. But such pleas for the value of tradition were doomed. Commentators preaching the values of tradition lost out to the writers emphasizing a break with the past. Much of interest for art education can be learned by studying the history of this very influential, small circulation journal.Only in retrospect did the urgency of this felt need for a break with the past become apparent. The history of responses to Abstract Expressionism suggested a different way of thinking about moments of change. HaroldRosenberg's conception of "action painting" implied that Pollock broke dramatically with the past. Clement Greenberg, by contrast, in a famous phrase said: "I do not think it exaggerated to say that Pollock's 1946-1950 manner really took up Analytic Cubism from the point at which Picasso and Braquehad left it...in their collages of 1912 and 1913."2 Greenberg's counter-intuitive analysis, asking us to see very different looking paintings as essentially similar, had prevailed. So it was not unreasonable to expect that after Greenberg, concern with tradition would remain important. But that was not what happened.Demand for a break with the past often carries political overtones. Historians debate whether the French Revolution broke with the past, or merely developed trends of the old regime. The idea of a complete break with tradition can seem attractive, but of course such dramatic ways of thinking underestimate real continuities. Struggle among post-Greenbergian artwriters to define a new critical paradigm mimics conflicts among artists to define the [End Page 1] leading post-Abstract Expressionist tradition. Once a critical paradigm has been established, debate may proceed peacefully. But when defining a period style is at issue, the stakes are high, and so conflicts are ferocious. Of course, struggle is always accompanied also by co-operation, but failing to grasp the real role of conflict leads to all-too-pious visions of what is possible.Greenberg developedthe most influential critical approach, and so when his way of thinking was rejected, a radically different approach was of most interest. Here we are dealing with what Harold Bloom famously called the anxiety of influence. Just as the most interesting painting after Abstract Expressionism deconstructed that tradition, so in criticism no ways of thinking too similar to Greenberg's stood a chance of being important. I think it interesting to reconstruct the process rationally in which an individual obtains such power. A totem, Freud explains, is "an animal (whether edible and harmless or dangerous and feared) and more rarely a plant or a natural phenomenon (such as rain or water), which stands in a peculiar relation to the whole clan."3 The communion bread and wine are just bread and wine, but for the believer they become Christ's body and blood. Rationally speaking, a representational painting is just pigment on canvas; and a minimalist sculpture, just shaped metal. But in what Arthur Danto calls the "transfiguration of the commonplace," "a work of art...has qualities to attend to which its untransfigured counterpart lacks...We are dealing with an altogether different order of things."4 Greenberg became a totem. He was not just an important writer whose arguments entitled him to reasonable respect. The mere mention of his name invoked irrational fears.Greenberg was obsessed with tradition. Abstract Expressionism was rooted in early modernism, so that the era from Manet through Pollock defined a period style. Greenberg's historiography may seem inescapable. How can a young painter be understood except by seeking precedents for her achievement? Cannot the now famous artists who emerged in the 1980s be understood in these terms? Barbara Kruger comes out of John Heartfield and dada... (shrink)

The ‘happy fish’ dialogue is one of the best-known and heatedly debated passages of the Zhuangzi. Scholars have constructed different interpretations of the dialogue. Some argue that this dialogue expresses the idea of living at ease and enjoying life as it is; some refer to the idea of anti-anthropocentrism, while others reconstruct the dialogue as certain epistemological debates. This paper examines the connotations of ‘fish’, ‘water’, and ‘river’ in early Chinese political discourses and reads the political connotations in the (...) dialogue between Zhuangzi and Huizi. This can lead to an alternative interpretation, which is that, at its core, this passage is a dialogue between these two men on politics and their political careers. (shrink)

This thesis examines some of the legal philosophical issues that are implicated in the problem of outcome luck. In the context of criminal law, the problem asks whether we should hold agents criminally liable for the consequences of their actions given that those consequences are never wholly within anyone’s control. I conclude that outcomes should matter to an agent’s liability and punishment, and I make this argument indirectly by examining some of the foundational questions in legal theory. The thesis (...) begins by considering a current trend in some areas of philosophy. This trend involves attempts to address philosophical problems surrounding luck by doing conceptual analyses on the nature of luck. Chapter 1 critically examines modal theories, which conceptualize luck, as well as the related concept of risk, in terms of close possible worlds rather than probabilistic likelihood. I argue that not only are modal theories uninformative, but conceptual analyses on luck are unhelpful in addressing philosophical questions surrounding luck. Chapter 2 then returns to the traditional notion of luck as lack of control, and focuses on the relationship between luck, risk, and culpability. Some theorists argue that culpability, for any offence, is in part a function of the degree of risk the agent imposes on others. In the context of criminal law, degrees of luck and risk can both be understood in terms of degrees of control, so the suggestion that culpability is a function of the level of risk imposed (and thus of the degree of control an agent exercises) is attractive for insulating culpability judgments from luck. However, I argue that this view is mistaken because culpability is only sensitive to risk in reckless actions, but not in purposeful actions. The problem of outcome luck may raise different questions for reckless actions and purposeful actions. Chapter 3 looks at the mens rea element of criminal attempts, which is crucial for understanding the problem of luck in the context of purposeful actions. I discuss a variation of what are sometimes referred to as impossible attempts, which have helped shape current English law. I argue that the current doctrine is largely correct, and that perhaps with the exception of few paradigm sexual offences, the mens rea element for attempts should require a direct intention as to the consequence element of an offence, and knowledge or belief as to the circumstance element of that offence. Chapters 4 and 5 then look at normative justifications of criminal punishment. In order to understand whether outcomes should matter for punishment, we must first understand whether and why punishment is an appropriate response to criminal offending. Here, I defend a communicative theory, where punishment is a communicative process between the offender, the political community, and the victim. What punishment communicates is the appropriate degree of censure that is warranted in response to the offender’s wrongdoing. And in doing this, it publicly recognizes the wrong that has been committed by the offender. Chapter 4 offers a detailed explanation of this account, and argues that the political community’s recognition of wrongdoing is a valuable aim of communication. Chapter 5 then takes up a crucial challenge against communicative theories of punishment, which is that such theories fail to take crime prevention seriously. Against this criticism, I will show that general prevention can in fact be an essential part of communicative punishment. And I will show that it is specifically the political community’s recognition of wrongdoing that entails punishment’s preventive aims. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:EOONOMICS, WISDOM AND THE TEACHING OF THE BISHOPS IN THE THEOLOGY OF THOMAS AQUINAS* KEVIN A. McMAHON St. Anselm OoZZege Manchester, New Hampshire WHEN IN 1985 the American bishops came out with the first drait of thcir pastoiral letter on the economy, and ithen a year Later when they ~ssued the final text,1 they drew fire from groups both within and outside the Church. Much of the criticism, (...) on the popular front at least, seemed to concern the impropriety of religious leaders involving themselves in seoular.affairs (1and technical affairs at that). But while ithe bishorps were quick to admit their Lack of technical expertise, they claimed for rthemselves a special authority to teach regarding the principles tha.t underlie a just economic life. Far from sitepping outside their proper sphere, it is their obligation, they sruid, to speak on these issues, and to a.ddress not only membel'IS of the Ca.tholic Church in America, 1but the nation as a whole. It is a requirement of their ofHce that ithey be concerned with the weHare and security of all individuals,,and they effectively promorte this end iby setting forth the word of God recorded in Scriipture and handed on by the Church's tramtion.2 There,are two points in prurticu1ar that are implied by this statement. F1irst, knowledge of revelation is an aid to estab- " The substance of this article was first presented as a paper at the College Theology Society convention, held in Newport, Rhode Island, in May 1985. i "Economic Justice for All: Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy," Origins, vol. 16, no. 24 (November 27, 1986), 412-455.. 2 Pastoral Message to accompany the letter, sections 4-9, 12-19, 29; Pastoral Letter, sections 5, 22-27. 91 9~ KEVIN A. MCMAHON lishing peace and justice in the community at large because of the iin.sight into 1the good for man that the Gospel offers. Second, reason alone will not suffi,ce the community ·as a guide in interpel'lsonal activity, even in the area of economics, so it makes great sense for the citizen 1 to ·attend to rthe bishop, who in his teaching expresses the Church's foilith. The bishops' letter on economics does not fully draw out either of these points. And Aquinas nowhere expressly deaLs with the authority of the bishop in economic matteiis. But he does have something to say about rthe nature and soul'lce of episcopal authority, and of the need in the community for moral teachers. Priv.ate property, commercial trading, the use of moneyfor Thoma.s,aJl o[ these institutions or practices were devised by communities for the 1 sake of individual and general wellbeing. They conform to right reason, they are products of right reason, and they are governed by the virtue of justice. It would seem that practical rea:son,,all by itself, is sufficient in their regaOO.. Take priViate propecl;y a:s an e~ample. Thomas offers three arguments in irts defens·e in his Summa theologiae. First, people work more diligently when they own the product of their lrubor. Second, if people work in the first instance for their own sake, roncentrarting on their own needs, there.WJill be less confusion than if everyone has responsibility for the group. Thiird, to quote Thomais, "quarrels arise more frequently where there is no division of the things possessed." 3 Note that Thomais is not.arguing for the rubsolute necessity of private property. He defends private property as a social institution without prejudicing eiither :the right of specific individuals to hold property in common, or the good of their doing so. After all, Thomas himself belonged to a religious order whose members take a vow of poverty. All he iis claiming is that the institution of private property makes sense.4 If pria 2-2, q. 66, a. 2, c. "Odon Lottin writes that Thomas was unusual in regarding human nature, even after the Fall, as indifferent to the institution of private property; the natural la.w neither commands nor prohibits it. Rather, men cross-cul- BISHOPS' TEACHING ROLE IN ECONOMICS 93 vate ownership is so common, Aquinas might say... (shrink)

The Intellectual Foundations of Christian and Jewish Discourse is a unique and controversial analysis of the genesis and evolution of Judeo-Christian intellectual thought. Jacob Neusner and Bruce Chilton argue that the Judaic and Christian heirs of Scripture adopted, and adapted to their own purposes, Greek philosophical modes of thought, argument and science. Intellectual Foundations of Christian and Jewish Discourse explores how the earliest intellectuals of Christianity and Judaism shaped a tradition of articulated conflict and reasoned argument in the (...) search for religious truth and focuses especially on methods of discourse in the Judaic and Christian intellectual and literary traditions. (shrink)

It may be that the overworn analogy between the history of philosophy and a river system has still a value, and if so, it is a value beyond that usually claimed for it. The grosser likenesses between the stream of history and the stream of geography have been, it is true, too often pointed out, while the subtler similarities are neglected. For instance, there are points in both kinds of stream where it runs deep, others where it is shallow; at (...) one point it may run swiftly, as through a gorge, and at another the valley may be wide and the stream broad, and sluggish. However, whereas in the stream of science the running waters often purify themselves, in that of philosophy there are many stagnant pools where the current of criticism has never set in. Further, there are discernible here and there canalizations by which arid plains are artificially irrigated. And it must be admitted that, at other points, outhouses have been built over the stream and its waters sullied. (shrink)

People's attitude to animals is similar to the attitude Westworld has people adopt vis‐a‐vis the hosts: People often deem animal suffering acceptable because it improves their well‐being but still feel upset when an animal is mistreated just for the sake of it. Speciesism is the view that human well‐being matters more than that of other creatures. One justification for this view attempts to ground human beings’ special moral status in their membership in the human species itself. Some of Westworld's characters (...) are visibly tempted by this kind of justification. Logan is a prime example. One common argument in defense of speciesism is that non‐human animals are far less intelligent than human beings. Westworld's characters have interesting discussions about free will. In Westworld, all dialogues about free will focus on whether the hosts are determined or whether they could act otherwise. (shrink)

Eighteenth century river hydraulics used both theory and measurement to address problems of flood safety, navigation and defense related to the rivers. In the late eighteenth century the Dutch overseer of the rivers, Christiaan Brunings, integrated hydraulic theory and meteorological practices, which enabled him to design a unique instrument for measuring river flow. The question is whether the unprecedented detail of measurements fits the putative empirical stance in the eighteenth century. The interactions between theory, instrument, measurement, and other (...) knowledge practices are here assessed using experiences in similar measurement practices. I argue that Brunings had theoretical and embodied understanding of hydrodynamics, as he knew how to design an instrument for flow measurement of sufficient accuracy for his purpose in the sociopolitical context of river management. (shrink)