Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) was convinced that without a new possibility for transcendence, democracies would be ill-prepared to allow for actual freedom. In Democracy in America, his study of the United States, he explained that when self-interest was enlightened, individuals would tend to identify their personal benefits with the well-being of the community. By transcending their individualistic tendency to self-enclose, they would contribute to forming and maintaining a real sovereignty of the people. However, unless the “doctrine of self-interest well understood” (...) was aided by a higher ideal, by itself it would eventually fall short, thus paving the way for new forms of despotism. Religion, and more specifically, reformed versions of Christianity, seemed to effectively elevate the outlook of the early Americans. As I will argue, however, Tocqueville ultimately held that those versions lacked the profundity and stability required to resist the strong materialistic and individualistic tendencies of people living in a democracy. Tocqueville’s apparent, if anxious-ridden, preference for Catholicism as the more adequate civil religion resonates with important aspects of Augustine’s theory of the Two Cities, the earthly and the heavenly city. For both Tocqueville and Augustine, the Roman Church’s stable doctrine was what could more successfully teach mankind the truth about their limited condition, hence making them more capable of learning the “art of being free.”. (shrink)

The debate over risk-related standards of decisional capacity remains one of the most important and unresolved challenges to our understanding of the demands of informed consent. On one hand, risk-related standards benefit from significant intuitive support. On the other hand, risk-related standards appear to be committed to asymmetrical capacity—a conceptual incoherence. This latter objection can be avoided by holding that risk-related standards are the result of evidential considerations introduced by (i) the reasonable person standard and (ii) the standing assumption that (...) patients have capacity. This evidential approach to justifying risk-related standards of capacity avoids the most significant challenges faced by extant views while grounding risk-related standards in two fairly uncontroversial views in biomedical ethics. (shrink)

Immediately before the release of DSM-5, a group of psychiatric thought leaders published the results of field tests of DSM-5 diagnostic criteria. They characterized the interrater reliability for diagnosing major depressive disorder by two trained mental health practitioners as of “questionable agreement.” These field tests confirmed an open secret among psychiatrists that our current diagnostic criteria for diagnosing major depressive disorder are unreliable and neglect essential experiences of persons in depressive episodes. Alternative diagnostic criteria exist, but psychiatrists rarely encounter them, (...) forestalling the discipline’s epistemological crisis. In Alsadair MacIntyre’s classic essay, such crises occur in science when a person encounters a rival schemata that is incompatible with their current schemata and subsequently constructs a narrative that allows them to reconstruct their own tradition. In search of rival schemata that are in conversation with their own tradition, psychiatric practitioners can utilize alternative diagnostic criteria like the Cultural Formulation Interview, embrace an epistemologically humble psychiatry, and attend to the narrative experience of a person experiencing a depressive episode. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 11, Issue 11, Page 44-45, November 2011.

TO the egoist the ultimate justification of his acts lies in their being conducive of his personal interest. This refusal to submit his own interests to any moral test beyond themselves in their interrelations and prospects of fulfillment makes the egoist the object of fierce attack. The non-egoist is supposed to be always ready to question the ultimacy of his own interests. Even where he pursues them, it is because on some other basis-general happiness or duty or anything else-he thinks (...) it right for a man in such circumstances to follow self-interest or give free play to inclination. (shrink)

Hippolytus of Rome on Aristotle’s definition of the soul. His work Concerning the Soul is obscure. For in the entire three books [where he treats of his subject] it is not possible to say clearly what is Aristotle’s opinion concerning the soul. For, as regards the definition which he furnishes of soul, it is easy [enough] to declare this; but what it is that is signified by the definition is difficult to discover. For soul, he says, is an entelecheia of (...) a sôma physikon organikon; [but to explain] what this is at all, would require a very great number of arguments, and a lengthened investigation. (shrink)

This paper contains a Dutch translation of the important text of Hippolytus of Rome on the Gnostic theology of Basilides of Alexandria. A summary of this theology is added together with some introductory remarks about whether or not Basilides received his doctrine from Matthias the Apostle, about the Aristotelean line of thought of Basilides, and about the relevance of modern study of Gnosticism.

In this article I argue that the heart of Aristotle’s philosophy was his doctrine of pneuma, which connected his psychology, biology, cosmology and theology, and which was central to his (lost and extant) works and should be taken into account, even where it is less explicitly discussed. Pneuma is not a sixth elementary physical body. It is the manifestation of the divine ether but always mixed with the other four elements within the sublunary sphere.

Nul n'était mieux qualifié que l'autour de ce livre - docteur en philosophie et rabbin de la synagogue de Birmingham - pour entreprendre le véritable tour de force qu'il a réussi en réalisant la synthèse de l'enseignement contenu dans le Talmud. La richesse de son information n'a d'égale que la maîtrise avec laquelle il répartit son savoir en une suite de chapitres aussi clairs que précis. Cet ouvrage, pendant longtemps encore, rendra d'inestimables services à ses lecteurs.

Book reviewed in this article: Morality and Conflict. By Stuart Hampshire. Beyond Subjective Morality: Ethical Reasoning and Political Philosophy. By James S. Fishkin.

INTRODUCTION Readers of traditional treatises on ethical theory sometimes find the writers looking upon their disagreements as a kind of intellectual game, ...

A whole set of apprehensions blocks the relation of value theory to science. There is fear of a scientific authoritarianism in which a presumed scientific account of man's nature will dictate men's duties. There is a sensitive theoretical concern with the dangers of reductionism, the danger of sweeping aside the finer shades of human reactions that so far only phenomenological inspection has been able to reveal. There is the apprehension that causal inquiry will be substituted for responsible evaluative decision, or (...) that there may be helpless acquiescence in man's pitiful smallness instead of a sense of commitment and a stiffening of moral fibre. There is the danger too that the temporary character of many scientific hypotheses will be forgotten when they become the factual bases of ethical decisions. One cannot say that value theory which has spoken in the name of science has wholly avoided these dangerous pitfalls. But does not the avoidance of science in the realm of values have its own roster of dangers? Have not the dogmatisms of intuition, tradition, authority, been far more peremptory and far more arrogant in rejecting the need for evidence than a scientific dogmatism could ever be, hampered as it is by a built-in probabilism? Think of the many anxious beliefs about life and death that have taken the garb of certainty in issuing moral imperatives, or of arbitrary preferences unchecked in their universal pretensions. Recall the historical clinging to the familiar in a world that demands change, and the harsh striking down of the unconforming, the cramping effect on value creativity in all domains from art to morals. And what of the likelihood--if indeed there are scientific bases for value judgments--that turning the other way means simply making a faith out of outworn beliefs or yesterday's science rather than incorporating what is vital and growing in the expansion of human knowledge? One who would work in value theory has no other recourse than to appraise the relation of science and value in its own terms as a theoretical issue, and one of central importance. (shrink)

This essay analyzes the view of evolution of Jan Lever (1922–2010), founder of the biology department at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and compares his view with those of J.H. Diemer and H. Dooyeweerd. Together with Dooyeweerd, Lever wrote a series of chapters on the species concept inPhilosophia Reformata(1948–1950) in which species were defined as constant types. In his book,Creatie en Evolutie(1956), Lever still subscribed to Dooyeweerd’s philosophy but also suggested that it is possible that biological evolution occurred, including that of (...) human beings, and that scientific research can shed light on these processes. Influenced by his idea of individuality structures, Dooyeweerd criticized Lever and suggested that species are constant; that science cannot speak to the topics that Lever discusses. It is argued that Dooyeweerd’s views are influenced by the typological thinking of the time and that reformational thought would benefit from de-emphasizing this aspect of reformational philosophy. (shrink)

A discussion - historical and critical - of aesthetic problems in assimilation (words and music) is developed into a tentative position: since no direct cause-effect relationship between word and music can be established conclusively, fusion will not necessarily increase the value of either. successful fusion, a hybrid form, is characterized by a subtle synthesis of essences on both structural and aesthetic grounds. an analysis of two exemplary musical settings functions to describe the theoretical conditions. further, the author offers some critical (...) comment relating the tentative position to music education. (shrink)

Swami Vivekananda, 1863-1902, Indian philosopher and religious leader.

The peper rethinks the demands in various economic branches: market, macro control, institution, innovation, investment, monetary, anti corruption, demand inward and outward, etc., just for return to the Truetone that meets all the economic demands. What is the Truetone? says: “God is Spirit.” The spirit of Hebraic is ruagh that means the Truetone in Tao, so God is the Truetone in Chinese Taoists. All complex economies can be simplified as the two: one is thesustainable economy in the Truetone, another is (...) the unsustainable bubble in the conceittone. The Truetone, Truespring, and Trueword, is the Triplehelix impossible to be isolated, so the Truetone is the Triplehelix. The belief in the Truetone clears out the conceittone that blocks the free transactions and causes corruption in economy. Any economy has its own advantage with its Truetone. The paper trys to allow all economies to return to their own genuine believes toreceive full graces in the Truetone, and also Chinese government to get genuine economic policies to avoid the big crisis with the conceittone ahead. (shrink)