I Suppose that most believers in God, if asked what is the relation of God to the world, would reply that he is its Creator and its Lord. But, like all the language in which we express our religious convictions, the language of this reply is plainly metaphorical. It calls up the picture of a human artificer or artist, the image of a human ruler or proprietor. And yet it needs but little reflection to perceive that there must be essential (...) differences between a human artificer or artist, who has a material to work in ready to his hand, and One who makes all things, as it is said, “ out of nothing “; between a human ruler or proprietor. (shrink)

Illegitimacy in a historic, single community at Penrith, Cumbria (1557–1812), has been studied using aggregative analysis, family reconstitution and time series analysis. This population was living under extreme conditions of hardship. Long, medium and short wavelength cycles in the rate of illegitimacy have been identified by time series analysis; each represents a different response to social and economic pressures. In a complex interaction of events, the peaks of the cycles in wheat prices were associated with rises in adult mortality which (...) promoted an influx of migrants and a concomitant rise in illegitimacy. The association between immigration and illegitimacy was particularly noticeable after the mortality crises of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Children of immigrant families also tended to produce illegitimate offspring. Native and immigrant families responded differently to extrinsic fluctuations, and variations in their reproductive behaviour were probably related to access to resources. (shrink)

In the first part of this article I propose to describe two strongly contrasted situations in the world of thought, one of fifty years ago and the other of to-day. In the second I shall submit to my readers some reflections suggested by the contrast between the two.

Many of us have lately been reading, hearing or listening in to the present Master of Trinity's Presidential Address to the British Association's meeting at Oxford; and perhaps some reflexions suggested thereby may not be out of place in this number of Philosophy.

In an interesting article on Kierkegaard and the “Existential” Philosophy, contributed to the number of Philosophy for July 1941, Miss Dorothy Emmet counselled her readers to make themselves acquainted with the Journals of the famous Danish thinker, now rendered accessible to Englishmen ignorant of his language by the translation of Mr. Dru. I have taken her advice and am grateful to her for it. I am not indeed convinced that this self-revelation of a remarkable personality can be ranked among the (...) great autobiographies of the world. It seems to me to fall, if only on account of its lack of unity as a work of literary art, below the standard which such an estimate of it would imply. But it is undoubtedly both impressive in itself and important in view of the influence which its author, little known in his lifetime beyond a circle of the parochial narrowness of which he was painfully conscious, has come, long after his death, to exert upon the spiritual and intellectual life of Europe to-day. The present article, however, will not be concerned with the exposition or criticism of this or other writings of Kierkegaard, but with thoughts, more or less suggested by my reading of him, respecting the notion of God and its significance for philosophy. (shrink)

After the introduction of the fifth Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, familiar voices were raised in protest. The voices stem from ideas of which, among others, and in different ways, Michel Foucault and Thomas Szasz were influential proponents: The movement was referred to as 'antipsychiatry.' This movement reacted, among other things, to the system of categorization of mental disorders. Diagnoses, in a system of classification, were thought to be vague, arbitrary, labelling, stigmatizing, and scientifically and clinically poorly validated. (...) In contemporary debates on DSM-5, similar critiques can be heard, expressed by a movement now referred to as 'critical psychiatry'... (shrink)

This article is a longitudinal analysis of the relation between gendered labour divisions and new data processing technologies at the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics. Following social-constructivist and evolutionary economic approaches, the authors hold that the relation between technology and work organization is a two-way process. This means that technology does not only affect the relations between men and women at work, but that these relations also influence technological choices. The proportional numbers of men and women on the labour market (...) and changing conceptions of which work is deemed appropriate for women have been important factors in the strongly varying extent to which women participated in office work. They have also been important factors in determining the course of technological development. Shortages of women on the labour market have even determined search heuristics for new technological solutions in specific directions. (shrink)