In September 2006, when 45 scholars and activists from 19 countries around the world gathered amid the spires and gargoyles of Oxford for a conference entitled, “Hope: Probing the Boundaries,” complex dialectics of hope and despair circulated through the meeting rooms by day, and the conversations in quadrangles and pubs late into the night. On the one hand, the remarkable social and political openings and possibilities of the previous decade, from Berlin to Johannesburg, Leningrad to the Lacandon jungle (...) of Chiapas, seemed to be ever-more constrained by political and economic forces as brutal as those that preceded them, but, on the other hand, there were the Zapatistas and a thousand other movements persisting in the belief that, to echo the mantra of the World Social Forums, “another world is possible,” and there we were from around the world, to do the work of theorizing, describing, and enacting the persistence of individual and collective hope despite grim realities. The essays developed from that conference and collected here reflect both the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings and the cultural and political praxes of “hope against hope.”. (shrink)

With the increasing number of human disasters in recent years, disaster service workers are faced with an ever-growing challenge of criticism concerning their professional competence. The workers also realize the limitation inherent in their practice, as well as bioethics problems regarding autonomy and heteronomy. Therefore, professionals and researchers of human service devote to the issue of post-disaster rehabilitation of the people so as to identify an effective way and practice to aid the post-disaster individual, family and community. This study explores (...) the effectiveness of rehabilitative function of disaster service workers through the action research of Typhoon Morakot and the 2014 Gas Explosion in Kaohsiung City, Taiwan. The case studies serves as a platform for thediscussion of principles of bioethics and the analysis of the process of self-discipline of the workers of human services in hope of ultimately establishing bioethical principles for heteronomy during disasters and work indicators for post-disaster community restoration. Discuss Issues are 1. How can self-discipline in bioethics be achieved for the human service workers during times of disaster? 2. In post-disaster reconstruction, how does the human service worker take into? account bioethical principles to serve and partake in the restoration of the postdisaster life of community residents? 3. During the process of a disaster research, what are the bioethical considerations to be taken into for the test subjects? Conclusion and suggestions: To formulate indicators for a post-disaster “community of health and wellness;” to establish bioethical principles of heteronomy for disaster service workers. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:UNDERSTANDING THE DIFFERENCE OF BEING: ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN METAPHYSICS AND THEOLOGY HELMUT HOPING University of Tubingen, Germany Introduction T:HE PHILOSOPHY of the twentieth century has been o no small extent a critique of metaphysics. Admittedly, philosophical programs have been developed in which the tradition of metaphysics survives. Yet the position of metaphysics in the modern age is disputed even today-as is demonstrated by the recent controversy between Jiirgen (...) Habermas and Dieter Henrich about the possibility of metaphysics after Kant.1 Since 1 See J. Habermas, "Ruckkehr zur Metaphysik: Eine Tendenz in der deutschen Philosophie?" Merkur 439/440, 39 (1985): 898-905; "Metaphysik nach Kant," in K. Cramer et al., eds., Theorie der Subjektivitiit: Dieter Henrich zum 60. Geburtstag (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1978), 425-443. (Both articles are reprinted in J. Habermas, Nachmetaphysisches Denken: Philosophische Aufsiitze [Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1988], 18-34; 267-279.) Henrich replied to Habermas's critique in the article "Was ist Metaphysik, was Moderne?: Thesen gegen Jurgen Habermas," Merkur 440, 40 (1986): 495-508 (reprinted in D. Henrich, Konzepte: Essays zur Philosophie der Zeit [Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1987], 11-43). On the controversy between Habermas and Henrich, see V. Gerhardt, " Metaphysik und ihre Kritik: Zur Metaphysikdebatte zwischen Jurgen Habermas und Dieter Henrich," Zeitschrift fur philosophische Forschung 42 (1988) : 45-70. Habermas's notion of a " return to metaphysics " undoubtedly has a certain diagnostic value; after all, there has indeed been a recent " discovery " of metaphysics. But Habermas 's criticism of the concept and content of metaphysics-i.e., his thesis that after Kant metaphysics is impossible-not only contradicts the self-understanding of modern philosophy for which metaphysics is essential; it also fails to recognize the metaphysical implications of his own theory of communicative action. See W. C. Zimmerli, "Kommunikation und Metaphysik: Zu den Anfangsgrunden von Habermas ' ' Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns,' " in W. Oelmuller, ed., Metaphysik heute? Kolloquien zur Gegenwartsphilosophie, vol. 10 (Paderborn: SchOningh, 1987), 97-111. 189 190 HELMUT HOPING metaphysics has been indispensable for the self-understanding of philosophy in the modern age up until Hegel, this controversy cannot be reduced to the simple disjunction: either the "end of metaphysics" or the "return to metaphysics "-as Habermas has suggested. The task of philosophy today lies in a metaphysical form of thinking that remains possible even after the critique of metaphysics in Kant and Heidegger. Until recently, the current debate about metaphysics has not been adequately addressed by theology. That is surprising because metaphysics is also indispensable for theology.2 But in the light of the modern critique of metaphysics, the self-understanding of theology and its relationship to metaphysics cannot remain unchanged -just as the self-understanding of metaphysics itself cannot remain unchanged. Yet at least in the realm of Catholic theology, the traditional doctrine of the praeambula fidei has not been abandoned. The aim of the following reflections is to show that the determination of the relationship between metaphysics and theology depends upon how metaphysics understands the " difference of Being" that is given with the manifold of beings. I will introduce four different understandings of the " difference of Being": that which is found in Aquinas's metaphysics; that in Kant's transcendental philosophy; that in Heidegger's thinking of Being; and that in the metaphysics of the absolute projected by Henrich. In some concluding reflections, I will then try to draw out some implications of these understandings of the " difference of Being " for the determination of the relationship between metaphysics and theology. I. Metaphysics of God and Creation : Theological Difference (Aquinas) It is well-known that Thomas Aquinas defines metaphysics as the science of being qua being. The subject-matter that dis2 See W. Kasper, " Zustimmung zum Denken: Von der Unerlasslichkeit der Metaphysik fiir die Sache der Theologie," Tiibinger Theologische Quartalschrift 169 (1989) : 257-271. RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN METAPHYSICS & THEOLOGY 191 tinguishes metaphysics from all other sciences is the ens inquantum est ens 3 or the ens commune.4 Contrary to later concepts of metaphysics, this is not an abstract-universal, for " the term ' a being' [ens], which is applied to a thing by reason of its being [esse], designates the same thing as the term which is applied... (shrink)

Hope and the Longing for Utopia is Daniel Boscaljon’s second edited collection, following his earlier Resisting the Place of Belonging: Uncanny Homecomings in Religion, Narrative and the Arts and his solo-authored Vigilant Faith, both of which I am now very excited to read! A welcome contribution to the postsecular discourse on utopian studies in the twenty-first century, the twelve interdisciplinary essays contained in this volume achieve what its editor sets out in the introduction: “contribute toward a revitalized sense of (...) the potentiality of utopic thinking, one that grounds its hopes in an embrace of human fragility, failure and imperfection instead of... (shrink)

The aim of the SI is to bring to the fore the places in which cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) are formed; how place shapes the dynamics of CSPs, and how CSPs shape the specific settings in which they develop. The papers demonstrate that partnerships and place are intrinsically reciprocal: the morality and materiality inherent in places repeatedly reset the reference points for partners, trigger epiphanies, shift identities, and redistribute capacities to act. Place thus becomes generative of partnerships in the most profound (...) sense: by developing an awareness of their emplacement, CSPs commit to place, and through their place-based commitments produce three intertwined modalities of place-specific ethics that bind CSPs and place: ethic of recognition, an ethic of care, and an ethic of resilience. Our authors have found vivid examples of how emplaced CSPs embody these ethics, signaling hope for the sustainability of our (always hyper-local) life-worlds. (shrink)

Piliavsky, A, Nobody’s People: Hierarchy as Hope in a Society of Thieves. Stanford University Press, 2020, ₹1870, 253 pp.. ISBN: 978 1 503 60464 3.

Review of: Sigurd Bergmann (ed.), _Eschatology as Imagining the End: Faith between Hope and Despair_, New York: Routledge, 2018.

If C.S. Lewis' A Grief Observed can be considered an account of a lost human relationship, then Cunsolo and Landman's Mourning Nature forms a posthuman, but nonetheless personal, examination of the losses of relationships with plants, animals, and even entire ecosystems—an ecological grief observed. In this regard, one of the motivations for this book was Cunsolo's interviews with Inuit residents who experienced profound sadness and despair at the changes in the landscape brought by climate change. Beyond this, each of the (...) contributors to Mourning Nature brought a variety of written, auditory, visual, and meaning-making experiences to their acts of mourning wild nature. The parallels to Lewis' book end here... (shrink)

Philosophical Investigations, EarlyView.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Kant and the Possibility of Progress: From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties ed. by Paul T. Wilford and Samuel A. StonerBenedikt BrunnerPaul T. Wilford and Samuel A. Stoner, editors. Kant and the Possibility of Progress: From Modern Hopes to Postmodern Anxieties. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021. Pp. 328. Hardback, $65.00.Our present does not invite, let alone suggest, particularly optimistic expectations for the future. This volume, edited by (...) Paul Wilford and Samuel Stoner, not only analyzes the historical foundations of Kant's idea of progress but also explores contemporary reflections on such questions as the following: Do we still believe in the possibility of progress? And if not, why has this ability been lost? What about liberal democracy, which is contested from many sides?In addition to a lucid introduction, which clarifies the concepts of modernity and postmodernity, the volume assembles thirteen chapters. While the first seven chapters deal with the idea of progress in Kant, the remaining six contributions shed light on the history of that idea after Kant. Within the framework of this review, only selected articles can be discussed. In chapter 1, Oliver Sensen examines the idea of moral progress in the individual. In chapter 2, Kate Moran asks the fundamental question: should we believe in moral progress? According to Kant, the human being possesses "a duty to avoid despondency" (46). Following Kant, she encourages us not to go down the road of misanthropy as a consequence of one's own or others' moral failure, but "to be generous in our assessments of others" (46). In chapter 3, Jens Timmermann takes up this aspect again and illustrates clearly how complex Kant's concept of moral progress is. Moreover, he highlights that moral progress has a double meaning for Kant: "first in a fundamental change of priorities—privileging morality over self-interest—and then in an ever-closer approximation to a perfectionist ideal of virtue" (61). Like some of the other contributors to this volume, however, Timmermann remains rather vague regarding possible avenues for further research. Two other contributions deal specifically with Kant's relationship to religion. In chapter 5, Naomi Fisher asks how God, teleology, and progress are connected in the third Critique. She argues that in the 1790s, Kant made concrete new efforts to integrate different strands of his philosophy "and to develop a more unified view of the human being as free and natural" (93). Chapter 6 is a joint contribution by the two editors of this volume entitled "Realizing the Ethical Community." Their focus is on Kant's religious writings and their role in the context of a "Reformation of Culture." They notice—an observation as important as it is exciting—that Kant tempered his ambitious goal regarding the moral betterment of human beings with his ideas about radical evil. At the same time, Kant insisted that people must become aware of their duty to improve themselves.In the second section, Kant is brought into conversation with his contemporaries and some of his successors. In chapter 8, Karl Ameriks provides an overview of the relationship between history, progress, and autonomy in Kant, Herder, and beyond. In chapter 9, Richard L. Velkley analyzes the significance of language, embodiment, and the supersensual in Fichte. In chapter 10, Mark Alznauer examines the concept of philosophical history in Hegel.The volume concludes with three different but equally stimulating contributions. In chapter 11, Ryan S. Kemp argues that Kierkegaard "relocated" the concept of the Highest Good: "Unlike Kant, who regards happiness as realizable (if at all) only in an afterlife, Kierkegaard seems to think that the person who truly embraces the self-denial of Christian love, can, even now, receive the world in joy" (200). In this approach, Kierkegaard was clearly different from his predecessors in the German idealistic tradition. In chapter 12, entitled "Kant and Benjamin on Hope, History, and the Task of Interpretation," C. Allen [End Page 159] Speight shows that Walter Benjamin stands in Kant's tradition while also diverging from him in some important respects. From Kant's universalizing assumptions, especially in relation to progress, Benjamin moved "toward a distinctive, messianically influenced sense of time where interruption and immanent... (shrink)

Philosophical Investigations, EarlyView.

Fox, Patricia Review(s) of: Hope: Promise, possibility, and fulfillment, by ed. Richard Lennan and Nancy Pineda-Madrid, (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist, 2013), pp. 261, $39.95.

Previous ed.: Basingstoke: Marshall Morgan & Scott, 1984.

This ain’t your grandma’s virtue theory.In Michael Austin’s bold new collection, Virtues in Action: New Essays in Applied Virtue Ethics, gone are the pretentions of defining right action generically as what a virtuous person would do in the circumstances, while acting in and from character, provided that a virtuous person would end up in those circumstances. Instead, we find detailed explorations of specific virtues and vices related to specific fields of activity and problems, with attention (some of it careful – (...) some less so) to relevant empirical literature and elbowroom for alternative normative approaches and conceptions. Aristotle tells us about courage, temperance, generosity, magnificence, magnanimity, even temper, pride, justice, and friendship. The first wave neo-Aristotelians such as Peter Geach (The Virtues. Cambridge University Press, 1977) tell us about prudence, justice, temperance, courage, faith, hope, and charity. Contributors to the present volume tell us about inst .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Just Sustainability: Technology, Ecology, and Resource Extraction eds. by Christiana Z. Peppard and Andrea ViciniTallessyn Zawn Grenfell-LeeJust Sustainability: Technology, Ecology, and Resource Extraction Edited by Christiana Z. Peppard and Andrea Vicini maryknoll, ny: orbis, 2015. 304 pp. $42.00Just Sustainability offers a detailed journey through various Catholic contextual understandings of what ecological sustainability means today in light of the demands of justice. In the first section of the book, (...) called "Locations" (11–53), the contributors put concepts of sustainability into dialog with concerns of socioeconomic, gender, and racial justice from contexts as diverse as Europe, East Asia, India, Africa, and North America. The various locations share common themes, such as the importance of deep meanings of the term "sustainability," the priority of education and advocacy, the resource and energy challenges behind structures of injustice, and the primary role of economics. Yet distinctive emphases emerge from the diverse contexts as well. Examples include the [End Page 200] need for humility instead of the ironic arrogance of nuclear energy in Japan, the widespread challenges of corruption in Africa and Mexico, and the problem of the agriculture lobby in the United States.The second section, "Structures" (57–156), steps back from specific cultural contexts and explores various systemic approaches to the challenge of just sustainability. Using Catholic social teachings, the authors again often speak from diverse global contexts, but with reference specifically to economic and societal systems such as politics, measurements of well-being, urban planning, food and agriculture, and health care. In this section the authors speak of which structures have worked and which have failed to build just and sustainable societies. For example, in the Philippines, more accountability through transparency and regular reporting helped impact energy efficiency. In Kenya and Chad, the authors highlight the need for reliable social systems of access, communication, collaboration, and government in order to counter corruption and build sustainable programs to address HIV, hunger, employment, and food sovereignty. Several authors also describe the positive impact of more democratic and egalitarian participatory structures that involve the people most affected by ecological decisions and policies.The last section, "Theological Stances and Sustainable Relations" (159–268), delves more deeply into Catholic theological resources to provide both a foundation as well as specific practices of just sustainability. The authors wrestle with theocentric, biocentric, and anthropocentric concepts of humanity and the imago Dei, the Eucharist as a potentially powerful way to connect ideas of inequity, the promise of ecofeminist theologies in elevating the wisdom of local peoples to build just sustainability practices, and virtue ethics and Catholic social teachings to foster ecological conversion and build solidarity, hope, and efficacy.The book sets itself a challenging task, to provide a coherent picture of Catholic approaches to building just sustainability while presenting a spectrum of not only diverse cultural and geographical contexts but also diverse theologies. In the end, the book reveals the ways in which Catholic laity and leaders are creatively responding to the challenge of just sustainability across much of the globe by using a combination of ecclesial, theological, and social scientific resources. The book would have benefited from a concluding essay to tie together some of the salient themes from the numerous, somewhat disparate essays, and a chapter from South America would have strengthened the global orientation of the collection. Nonetheless, the reader is left with a more holistic understanding of the difficult task of just sustainability as well as the wealth of work toward this goal from many parts of the Earth. [End Page 201]Tallessyn Zawn Grenfell-LeeBoston University School of TheologyCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Theology as Interdisciplinary Inquiry: Learning with and from the Natural and Human Sciences eds. by Robin W. Lovin and Joshua MauldinSara A. WilliamsTheology as Interdisciplinary Inquiry: Learning with and from the Natural and Human Sciences Edited by Robin W. Lovin and Joshua Mauldin grand rapids, mi: eerdmans, 2017. 202 pp. $32.00How can Christian theology engage in fruitful dialogue with fields of inquiry such as cognitive science, anthropology, and (...) law? Might discoveries in the natural and human sciences open creative possibilities for theology, and vice versa? Can Christian theology maintain its integrity while integrating insights from other disciplines? Theology as Interdisciplinary Inquiry takes up these questions as its central aim. This volume of six essays emerges from a three-year Templeton Foundation initiative that brought an interdisciplinary set of scholars together at the Center for Theological Inquiry to explore how their research might collaboratively push theology in new directions. These conversations centered on three themes: evolution and human nature, religious experience and moral identity, and law and religious freedom.In the first essay, Celia Deane-Drummond proposes an alternative approach to traditional readings of the Genesis creation account that looks to "resonances" between von Balthasar's notion of "theo-drama" and niche construction theory. Her argument allows for human agency while drawing theology into a complementary, rather than conflictual, relationship with evolutionary science. The next three essays take up the theme of religious experience and moral identity. Michael Spezio proposes that both theology and cognitive science look to moral exemplars as the phenomenological basis for more realistic and mutually informative moral theology and cognitive models of learning. Colleen Shantz draws on cognitive science to demonstrate how the material [End Page 192] and relational are constitutive of cognitive processes, arguing that it is precisely through "development and change" that we bear the imago Dei (66). Andrea Hollingsworth offers a rereading of Nicholas of Cusa's De visione Dei to demonstrate how a medieval mystical text echoes elements of contemporary neurocognitive processes of self-transformation. The final two essays center on law and religious freedom. John Burgess examines the privileging of religious freedom for canonizing martyrs in post-Soviet Russian Orthodoxy, arguing that this provides theological grounding for the legal right to religious freedom. Mary Ellen O'Connell proposes aesthetics as a more adequate modern grounding for legal authority than science. She argues that aesthetics takes us beyond the limits of self-interest, drawing us into concern for the good of others through the contemplation of beauty.What holds these essays together is the pursuit of "transdisciplinarity": "paying close attention to the other discipline(s) in a way that has a substantial and mutual impact, but at the same time retaining a clear sense of disciplinary integrity" (14–15). Lovin and Mauldin argue for humility and hope as virtues that enable us to navigate the tension between openness and integrity. While humility enables us to recognize the limits of disciplinary boundaries and assumptions, hope propels us forward, promising that however incomplete our knowledge remains, by the grace of God we will make advances in understanding our world and ourselves.Just as Christian Scharen and Aana Marie Vigen's Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics argues for the value of engagement with ethnography and its related disciplines to produce theology and ethics grounded in lived reality, this volume argues for the value of engagement with the natural and human sciences to produce "theological realism" that accounts for the complexity of "human personality and community" (xviii). It is unsurprising, then, that both volumes respond to objections from the neo-Radical Reformation and Radical Orthodoxy camps. In his conclusion, Douglas Ottati argues that these camps cannot account for the ways in which theological production inevitably interacts with natural and cultural processes. He argues further that insulating Christian theology is a form of cultural accommodation because it mirrors the formation of discrete modern disciplines, the very limitation these essays seek to transcend.This volume advances the live discussion in Christian ethics about the promise and risks of engaging natural and social sciences. It is a valuable resource on this topic, and its essays are suitable for use in seminary course discussions... (shrink)

Over thirty volumes in the “5 Questions” series have appeared. Each publication gives a contemporary picture of the state of studies within a specific area. This volume on Peirce studies is no different. The volume contains answers to the questions by thirty-five Peirce scholars. My only minor criticism of the volume is that I would have liked to have seen some additional authors included—but they may have been unable to participate. The essays indicate that numerous thinkers have been drawn to (...) Peirce and made contributions to the Peirce field. That they are all writing about achievement and progress gives one great hope. The authors provide a variety of answers to the... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century: The German Tradition ed. by Kristin Gjesdal and Dalia NassarAlison StoneKristin Gjesdal and Dalia Nassar, editors. Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century: The German Tradition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021. Pp. 336. Hardback, $99.00."How plausible, [Dalia Nassar and I] kept asking, is it that women published philosophy in the early modern period and then simply ceased to think and publish (...) philosophy in the nineteenth century?" remarked Kristin Gjesdal recently (interview with Richard Marshall, 3:16am [blog], https://www.3-16am.co.uk/articles/gadamer-herder-and-the-womenphilosophers-of-the-long-nineteen-cent ury?c=end-times-series). Not plausible at all—yet this is what historians of women in philosophy often seem to have assumed, judging by the remarkably small amount of scholarship on nineteenth-century women philosophers compared with those of the early modern period or the twentieth century. Eileen O'Neill, for instance, claims that it was "not a particularly friendly century for women philosophers" (1). In fact, as Gjesdal and Nassar observe, women were "significant contributors" to the "thriving intellectual cultures in German-speaking countries" at this time (1). Gjesdal and Nassar contrast Germanic countries to France and Britain in this regard, yet I would add that nineteenth-century Britain too had a vibrant print and periodical culture that created openings for women philosophers such as Harriet Martineau, Anna Jameson, Frances Power Cobbe, and many others. The broader point remains: the nineteenth century has only seemed empty of women philosophers because we have not yet investigated the women thinkers of this period or challenged the canons and narratives from which they have been excluded.Recognizing German women philosophers is particularly important because the vast majority of scholarship on the nineteenth century focuses on the German tradition. Consequently, unless we recover the work of German-speaking women, we will never change the narrative about this period. This makes the present anthology invaluable for both teaching and research. Edited by Gjesdal and Nassar, it contains new translations, nearly all by Anna Ezekiel, of texts by historical German-speaking women philosophers.Regarding teaching, many courses on post-Kantian European philosophy include no women until Beauvoir or Arendt. Such courses typically cover Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Husserl, and Heidegger. The editors have clearly designed this volume to enable instructors easily to bring women into such courses, by providing extracts—of suitable lengths for teaching—from women affiliated respectively with German idealism and Romanticism (Germaine de Staël, Karoline von Günderrode, and Bettina von Arnim), Marxism (Clara Zetkin, Rosa Luxemburg), Nietzscheanism (Hedwig Dohm, Lou Salomé), and phenomenology (Edith Stein, Gerda Walther). Some of these women are already well-known as political activists, as with Luxemburg and Zetkin, or under the elastic heading of "writers," as with Staël and von Arnim. But this collection presents these women's writings in a new light, showcasing their philosophical side. After all, we have learned to read Marx and Nietzsche philosophically: why not extend the same courtesy to Staël or Luxemburg?For researchers, this collection will likewise be invaluable. Post-Kantian European philosophy has been slow to respond to the wider questioning and broadening of the traditional philosophical canon. It remains sadly common for narratives of nineteenth-century German philosophy to discuss men only—a position that this book makes untenable. [End Page 336] Hopefully it will galvanize philosophers to integrate these women into the historiography of the post-Kantian tradition at last.In the introduction, the editors helpfully contextualize the selected writings, arguing that these women's exclusion from academic institutions led them to philosophize in ways that spoke to general audiences, connected with lived experience, and addressed practical and political concerns. In short, these women did a type of philosophy that was not purified but socially engaged, and can be a model for us today. Thereafter the book consists of sections on nine women philosophers, ordered chronologically. Each section begins with an editorial introduction to the philosopher and her interests, ideas, writings, and interlocutors.The writings included from Staël—whose work spans the period from the French Revolution into Romanticism—are "On Women Writers" from... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Ethnography as Christian Theology and Ethics ed. by Christian Scharen and Anna Marie VigenJohn KiessEthnography as Christian Theology and Ethics Edited by Christian Scharen and Anna Marie Vigen New York: Continuum, 2011. 304 pp. $29.95Over the past decade, an increasing number of Christian theologians and ethicists have turned to ethnographic methodologies in order to attend more closely to the complexities of lived faith and the bodily character of (...) theological knowledge. For those wishing to get a glimpse of what this looks like in practice, what its implications might be for theology and ethics, and how one might set off and do it oneself, this book is an excellent introduction.Editors Christian Scharen and Aana Marie Vigen organize the book into three parts. The first part orients readers to the use of ethnography in cultural anthropology and reviews the recent “ethnographic turn” in Christian theology and ethics. This is followed by a brief survey of theological critiques of social science and a defense of ethnography against these critiques. Scharen and Vigen argue that the use of ethnography, far from compromising the integrity of theology, has the potential to renew and enrich the discipline through the incorporation of long-overlooked forms of local wisdom. As a method attuned to practical, often noncognitive forms of knowledge, ethnography can help scholars move away from an exclusive focus on texts to a deeper consideration of the theological and ethical claims “embedded and embodied” in the lives and practices of everyday communities (xxii). [End Page 190]Naturally, the best argument for such an approach is exemplification. The second part of the book presents an impressive collection of ethnographic work from contexts as diverse as Chicago, Atlanta, Oregon, Chiapas, Nairobi, and Gulu. Contributors employ ethnography to compare pastoral leadership in two African American churches, track grassroots dissent on the issue of contraception among women living with HIV/AIDS, and reimagine the debate on physician-assisted suicide from the perspective of the poor and disabled. Particularly effective are Vicini’s exploration of the liturgical response of local churches to the legacy of violence in Chiapas and Whitmore’s critical examination of his own place as a white researcher in Northern Uganda, which makes hauntingly transparent the ethical complexities of the research process itself.The final part of the book offers a more practical how-to guide for those looking to do ethnography, covering such issues as institutional review board approval, interview methodology, and accountability to research subjects. This part, like the rest of the book, will be a gift for graduate students facing down a dissertation proposal or scholars contemplating the use of ethnography in their work. Admirably reflexive, vigilantly attentive to issues of power and privilege, and articulate about the ways that research can be a form of discipleship, one can only hope this book will succeed in its aim of encouraging other scholars to “go and do likewise.”Those who have already incorporated ethnographic techniques in their scholarship or who are looking for a fuller articulation of the relation between ethnography, ethics, and theology may find themselves less satisfied with the book. Its treatment of existing options (virtue ethics, Catholic social ethics) and thinkers (David Ford, Stanley Hauerwas, and John Milbank) is thin, and a number of key figures in the broader story of the ethnographic turn in theology (Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Hans Frei) are conspicuously missing. Their absence is felt particularly strongly in the unanswered questions the volume provokes, including how to account for God’s difference when appeals to experience become primary (Barth), and how to avoid positivism when appeals to the “reality” of the church become the point of departure for ecclesiology (Bonhoeffer).Such provocations, however, are reminders that we are still at the very early stages of the ethnographic turn in Christian theology and ethics. If this volume is any indication, the future of this exciting intersection of thought and practice looks very promising indeed. [End Page 191]John KiessLoyola University MarylandCopyright © 2013 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Prophetic Evangelicals: Envisioning a Just and Peaceable Kingdom ed. by Bruce Ellis Benson, Malinga Elizabeth Berry, and Peter Goodwin Heltzel, and: Bearing True Witness: Truthfulness in Christian Practice by Craig HoveyGuenther “Gene” HaasReview of Prophetic Evangelicals: Envisioning a Just and Peaceable Kingdom EDITED BY BRUCE ELLIS BENSON, MALINGA ELIZABETH BERRY, AND PETER GOODWIN HELTZEL Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012. 225 pp. $35.00Review of Bearing True Witness: Truthfulness in (...) Christian Practice CRAIG HOVEY Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011. 258 pp. $27.00Christian thought and practice in North America—especially in the evangelical world—has undergone significant changes in recent years. Prophetic Evangelicals and Bearing True Witness deal with two areas where this is evident: first, the attention many evangelicals are now giving to social justice and peace and, second, their determination to witness to the truth about Christ in a manner consistent with the Christian gospel. Prophetic evangelicals is the name the editors apply to a new generation of evangelicals who believe that the gospel of Christ requires a commitment to proclaim and embody “the just and peaceable kingdom” (2). These evangelicals view Jesus as inaugurating “a new social order that is a radical alternative to the order of empire” (7).This trend among evangelicals to move beyond the preaching of the gospel in a narrow sense (over against the liberals’ emphasis on social justice) is the culmination of a trend that has been happening since the publication in 1947 of Carl Henry’s The Uneasy Conscience of Modern Fundamentalism. What is new about many younger evangelicals in recent decades is their embrace of the Anabaptist perspective on justice and peace. It is clear in the introductory and concluding chapters by the editors—with their appeals to John Howard Yoder and Stanley Hauerwas and their references to the “cultural captivity” of the church—that this is the trend they have in mind. One also reads hints of liberation theology in the editors’ references to the needs of the people being “holy” (12), to God’s being on the side of—and the gospel always being in favor of—the “least” (47), and to a critique of “the order of empire” (7). Of course, [End Page 221] non-Anabaptist evangelicals are also concerned with these themes as part of their commitment to justice and peace. But it is the distinctive emphasis of this book—with some exceptions among the contributors—that it highlights the ways Anabaptist evangelicals are prophetic.The chapters consist of expositions on the following biblical themes: creation, shalom, justice, kingdom, news, Mary, the cross, church, freedom, reconciliation, resurrection, and hope. The authors include a wide range of evangelicals: from a Kuyperian (Vincent Bacote on creation) to a committed Anabaptist (David Gushee on shalom), to postcolonial Christians (Gabriel Salguero on the cross, and Raymond Alfred on freedom). Although the term is slippery, the inclusion of two contributors raises the question about who the editors consider to be an “evangelical”: Helen Slessarov-Jamir (on justice) agrees with her students’ desire not to learn theology from “dead white men” (77) and embraces religious pluralism (85); Pamela Lightsey (on reconciliation) embraces liberalism and liberation theology and calls herself a “womanist theologian” (169).The chapters contain a diversity of contributions in length and quality. Some are good, short expositions of themes: creation (Bacote), kingdom (Christian Collins Winn), Mary—actually about suffering—(Ruth Padilla DeBorst), church (John Franke), and resurrection (Cherith Fee Nordling). Gushee’s chapter contains a good exposition of the Anabaptist view of shalom, along with typical sweeping statements about the “Constantinian compromise” and the evangelical compromise with the state (72). Two chapters deserve special recognition. Chris Boesel’s chapter, “News,” is an excellent account of the Christian call to justice as part of the full goodness of the gospel. He criticizes both liberal-progressive and evangelical-conservative assumptions about the church’s mission and calls for a “recovering evangelical faith” that pursues justice with repentance, humility, and a reliance on the Holy Spirit. Telford Work’s chapter, “Hope,” also articulates a perceptive critique of the activism of both the Christian Right and the Christian Left. Rejecting all alignments with worldly power, he calls on the... (shrink)

This chapter brings a philosophical perspective to the concept of stem cell. Three general questions both clarify the concept of stem cell and emphasize its ambiguities: (1) How should we define stem cells? (2) What makes them different from non-stem cells? (3) What is their ontology? (i.e. what kind of property is “stemness”?) Following this last question, the Chapter distinguishes four conceptions of stem cells and highlights their respective consequences for the cancer stem cell theory. Determining what kind of property (...) stemness is, in what context, is an urgent question, at least for therapeutic strategies against cancers. I hope that this chapter also illustrates how philosophy can be useful to biology. -/- The Chapter starts by clarifying the notions of self-renewal and differentiation. This leads to the question “can we (and if so, how) distinguish stem cells from non-stem cells through these two properties?”. From that will follow an interrogation on whether stem cells belong to a natural kind. On this issue, biologists and philosophers have framed the following alternative: either the concept of stem cell refers to entities (the cells that belong to the stem cell natural kind) or it refers to a transient and reversible cell state. I will argue that four conceptions of stemness should be distinguished rather than two. Finally, I will develop the case of the cancer stem cell (CSC) theory in order to show why it is crucial to answer the ontological question: some therapies might or might not be efficient depending on what stemness is. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Galen’s Epistemology: Experience, Reason, and Method in Ancient Medicine ed. by R. J. Hankinson and Matyáš HavrdaPatricia MarechalR. J. Hankinson and Matyáš Havrda, editors. Galen’s Epistemology: Experience, Reason, and Method in Ancient Medicine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. Pp. 348. Hardback, $99.99; paperback, $36.99.Galen famously says that some things are “securely known” (bebaiôs gnôston) (De optima doctrina I 41.15 Kühn). But how do we know things, and what (...) entitles us to take our beliefs to be securely grounded? An optimist on this point, Galen is not seduced by hyperbolic skeptical concerns and argues that, if we follow a systematic method of inquiry, we will build theories that are not only persuasive and useful, but also true. Unsurprisingly, Galen’s views on knowledge in general and its foundation are deeply informed by debates about the possibility and nature of medical knowledge. His method integrates both rationalist and empiricist insights, thereby overcoming the divide between two of the main medical sects of his time. According to Galen, reason and experience must be combined in medical theory and practice.This much is well known. The eleven essays in this volume take further steps to understand Galen’s scientific method by exploring in detail how reason and experience contribute to scientific discoveries and demonstrations. With the exception of two essays that tackle questions of general epistemological significance—Galen’s take on skepticism (Barnes) and his theory of vision (Ierodiakonou)—the majority of the contributions offer detailed descriptions of how Galen’s method integrates rational tools with experience. Some of the essays offer a close reading of Galen’s methodological discussions on these issues (Kupreeva, Hankinson, Tieleman), while others analyze his method in action by examining concrete cases and applications (Havrda, Singer, Lewis). As is to be expected, most of the essays focus on knowledge in the domain of natural philosophy—specifically, medicine—but one fruitfully extends the discussion to Galen’s ethical writings (Kaufman). The last two essays address the reception of Galen’s scientific methodology in Alexandrian Late Antiquity (Wakelnig) and the Islamic Middle Ages (Koetschet).This is an excellent volume that deepens our efforts to reconstruct Galen’s views on the foundation of epistēmē. One thread stands out. Galen argues that experience (peira) is indispensable to knowing and understanding the natural world. He also claims that experience that is not guided by reason will not take us far in our inquiries. The contributions to the volume allow us to appreciate two further facts about Galen’s views on the nature of experience. On the one hand, for Galen, experience itself is always cognitively and theoretically loaded since it is categorized and filtered through conceptual and linguistic categories. On the other hand, Galen is aware that sensory experiences are fine-grained, and he suggests that fully capturing the content of experience linguistically is hard and, sometimes, impossible. Scientific statements are often only a rough indication of the complex realities observed and felt by doctors and patients. Thus, errors may arise in our choice of terms, in the statement of scientific propositions, and in our classifications of experience. These two points could be in tension, and readers are left with questions pertaining to how both of them feature in Galen’s account of the content of experience. Regardless, the discussions in this volume reveal Galen’s acute sensitivity to issues related to the structure, cognitive penetration, and theory-ladenness of experience, as well as the problematic relationship between sense data and the basic empirical statements in [End Page 657] our scientific theories. These essays, then, further confirm Galen’s sophistication as a philosopher and scientist, and open further avenues for research on these questions.Since I am not able to comment on all the essays in the detail they deserve, I instead offer a brief indication of the contents of each. I hope this will allow the reader to get a sense of the richness and importance of this collection.In chapter 1, Jonathan Barnes addresses Galen’s dismissal of skepticism. While giving due consideration to his opposition to skepticism, Barnes persuasively shows that Galen fails to put skeptical worries... (shrink)

Octavia E. Butler was notoriously skeptical of utopian science fiction, and though she desired very much to write it, she found herself unable to do so "because I don't believe imperfect humans can form a perfect society."1 In interviews and in practice through her fiction Butler rejected the possibility of an ideal society and instead found her way to what Jim Miller has called "a post-apocalyptic hoping informed by the lessons of the past."2 This is to say that, as a (...) black woman science-fiction writer who had witnessed the pains of systemic racism, patriarchy, and oppressive violence against the communities to which she belonged, and who was particularly affected by the Religious Right–backed racist and classist... (shrink)

The Philosophical Challenge from China, edited by Brian Bruya, undoubtedly occupies an important place in the discourse about what practices and authorities are relevant to Philosophy as an academic discipline. Its confident reorientation of philosophical relevance in the context of Anglophone academics will hopefully speak meaningfully to any remaining skeptics of the usefulness of Chinese philosophy. The intended audience of this effort, however, is shrinking, or, more accurately, those willing to be convinced are increasingly few, and what remains is simply (...) and haplessly the staunch traditionalists of the so-called Western paradigm. This evokes the thought that anthologies that strive to show relevance... (shrink)

Fear is often seen as pathological, to be eliminated by expensive emotion-damping pharmaceuticals that have drastic side effects. Such therapies have indiscernible long-term success since they ignore why we have brains. This paper offers a new fundamental theory based on recognising that mental illness is bad decisionmaking—bad risk processing of external stimuli. Whiffs of danger—small risks —generate little fears and hopes of whether an act will have a nice or nasty surprise. From enough whiffs of danger with rapid reliable feedback (...) on whether the surprise is nice or nasty, and in adequate variety children learn the difference between luck and sensible choice, and adults maintain adequate decisionmaking—the author’s ‘whiffs of danger’ theory. Lack of whiffs constitutes risk starvation and can arise from under-challenge or over-challenge. Boys’ ADHD springs from under-challenge in physical risks—the digital seduction—and over-challenge in mental, psychological, social risks—by faster maturing schoolgirls as teachers quit traditional boy favouritism. Boys’ IQ/maturity over-challenge could be cut by: appropriate pre-school care; single sex schools or in co-ed schools boys’ school entry postponed so one year older than their female classmates; and boys praised for expressions of fears, hopes, not for emotion-damped macho utterances. Under-challenge underlies some panic attacks and epileptic fits, and a high proportion of depressions and dementias. Like schoolboys’ physical under-challenge, these under-challenges are reducible by compensating societal changes. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth: An Unofficial Catholic-Protestant Dialogue ed. by Bruce L. McCormack and Thomas Joseph WhiteFrederick Christian BauerschmidtThomas Aquinas and Karl Barth: An Unofficial Catholic-Protestant Dialogue. Edited by Bruce L. McCormack and Thomas Joseph White, O.P. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2013. Pp. viii + 304. $36.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-8028-6976-0.The essays collected in Thomas Aquinas and Karl Barth: An Unofficial Catholic-Protestant Dialogue are the fruit of a (...) conference held at Princeton Theological Seminary in 2011. As presented in this volume, they form five pairs, one each by a Catholic and a Protestant theologian, focused on the topics of (1) the being of God, (2) the Trinity, (3) Christology, (4) grace and justification, and (5) election, providence, and natural law. Thomas Joseph White provides a lengthy introduction, and Bruce McCormack concludes with a brief epilogue. All of the essays at least touch on both Barth and Thomas, though in varying degrees. It must be noted that, with the exception of the essays by White and Wawrykow, the Catholic interlocutors generally engage Barth less deeply than the Protestant interlocutors engage Thomas. Why this might be the case is a point to which I will return.Under the topic of the being of God, Robert Jenson begins with a brief, reflective essay focusing on the radical implications of Barth’s account of God’s “being” or “reality” as “event,” “I,” and “decision” (Ereignis, ich, Entscheidung), and on the content of God’s essence as “the loving One.” Jenson argues that if we follow Barth’s trajectory, we arrive at the paradoxical view that “God’s being is an implosion of freedom, so sheerly contingent that it is not contingent on anything and so is the one necessity. And it is an explosion of love, so sheerly a commitment to the other that it is freedom” (51). Thomas gets only a brief mention, though presumably he stands as the conventional account of God’s being that provides the background against which the true radicalism of Barth’s account can appear. Richard Schenk offers a Catholic counterpoint, engaging not so much with Barth himself as with Jenson and other post-Barthian thinkers such as Ebeling. His essay responds to Jenson’s paradoxes of imploding freedom and exploding love by educing from Thomas’s writings “a theodicy-capable theology of the cross” (57) that operates within a commitment to God’s impassibility as traditionally understood. Implicit in Schenk’s argument is the wager that a God who is, qua [End Page 301] God, beyond all suffering is a richer resource of hope for suffering humanity than is a God who suffers with us in his divinity.Under the topic of the Trinity, Guy Mansini’s essay launches something of a preemptive strike on Bruce McCormack, who, in a widely discussed essay (“Grace and Being,” in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth, 92-110) and in subsequent writings, has developed Barth’s notion of Christ’s obedience on the Cross as the manifestation in time of his “intra-trinitarian obedience” to the Father in order to argue against traditional notions of divine being and in favor of something like the view Jenson sketches in his essay. Mansini draws on the patristic and monastic traditions as well as Thomas to explore the humility and obedience of Christ, arguing that obedience can only be a virtue of a created will: “’To obey,’ like ‘to be caused’ or ‘to be moved,’ belongs exclusively to the created order” (82). Thus, Christ is humble and obedient qua human, not qua divine, and therefore one cannot sensibly speak of an intra-trinitarian obedience but only of the obedience of Christ’s human will to the one divine will that is common to the Father, Son, and Spirit. McCormack’s essay, which follows, seeks to show that the position he has developed by way of Barth’s theology can also be grounded in Thomas’s theology of the relation of divine processions and missions, at least as this has been interpreted by Matthew Levering. McCormack reads Thomas with notable ecumenical generosity, seeing in Thomas’s view that the... (shrink)

It is refreshing to read fifteen erudite articles written by seasoned experts and promising young scholars who engage the wide-ranging question of the intersection of religion and politics in Hobbes's works. The free standing arguments are not framed by Hobbes's alleged religious sincerity, or by a priori conceptions of natural law, or some modernization thesis. This work is therefore a must-read for scholars yearning to explore Hobbes's religious politics in new ways. I hope it inspires more volumes, possibly organized (...) around narrower religious topics.Johan Olsthoorn argues that Hobbes's theory of representation takes him beyond Erastianism to the stronger claim of church-state identity... (shrink)

Roger T. Ames begins his contribution to Chenyang Li and Franklin Perkins’ edited volume Chinese Metaphysics and Its Problems with this scene from Charles Dickens’ Pickwick Papers, chapter 51: “They [a set of literary articles written for the Eatanswill Gazette] appeared in the form of a copious review of a work on Chinese metaphysics, Sir,” said Pott. “Oh,” observed Mr. Pickwick; “from your pen, I hope?” “From the pen of my critic, Sir,” rejoined Pott, with dignity. “An abstruse subject, (...) I should conceive,” said Mr. Pickwick. “Very, Sir,” responded Pott, looking intensely sage. “He crammed for it, to use a technical but expressive term; he read up for the subject... (shrink)

Literary Forms of Argument in Early China examines the functions of rhetorical markers and devices as well as the patterns and larger modes structuring various styles of early Chinese argumentation. The nine contributors to the volume each present tight analyses of specific compositional or literary aspects of persuasion, hoping to demonstrate how an unabashed focus on the formal elements of philosophical writing might come to the aid of, or even more drastically alter and transform, philosophical interpretation. The volume includes essays (...) by the following nine scholars, who are at once a mixture of philologists, textual and literary specialists, and intellectual historians: Rudolph Wagner, Andrew Plaks, David... (shrink)

Valerie Tiberius’s Moral Psychology: An Introduction is a gem. Clearly and crisply drawing on empirical and non-empirical work in philosophy and psychology, Tiberius illuminates the many ways in which the issues central to moral psychology arise in and bear on normative ethics, meta-ethics, and the study of agency and responsibility. Tiberius articulates deep debates, complex concepts and rationales, intricate empirical data points, and obscure assumptions with an enviable ease. Further, though the book is pitched in a manner that is accessible (...) to novices, it offers experts an opportunity to see their discipline through a very informed and distinctive lens. In particular, Tiberius imparts a rich and robust picture of value theory that can overlay the expert’s own and thereby enrich the concerns and problems that make up its subject matter. I hope that through this review I can add to the book’s excellence in two ways.First, one of the most helpful things to appear in the book are its g .. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Origins and Foundations of Music Education: International Perspectivesed. by Gordon Cox and Robin Sydney StevensEva Verena SchmidGordon Cox and Robin Sydney Stevens, eds., 2ndedn., The Origins and Foundations of Music Education: International Perspectives(London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2017)The Origins and Foundations of Music Educationis a selection of papers, including an introduction and a conclusion, that provides historical information about the origin and foundation of music education in compulsory schooling (...) in eighteen countries from around the world as well as historical narrations up to the present based on this history. This approach follows the prevalent tendency within historical research to explain the present state of the art as a product of the past. The authors were asked to reflect on the implementation of music education in compulsory schooling in various contexts: political, economic, religious, and social. The chapters have been revised and complemented with the latest information. An additional noteworthy contribution is that the editors managed to include new writers so that the book can provide a wide range of viewpoints from countries in Europe, America, Asia, and Africa. Religious diversity, for instance as seen in Jewish and Muslim cultures, has been taken into account. Papers from Israel, Kosovo, Lithuania, and Turkey are the new additions as well as one chapter which is dedicated to Brazil. [End Page 220]This concept is based on the observation of the editors that the roots of music education have been seen predominantly in a national context, as is usually the case when dealing with educational topics. However, recently one can observe a gradual change that is due to globalization.The purpose of the volume is not only to deliver historical information but also to make a contribution to international and comparative music education. The editors express the hope that the book can encourage readers to deepen their international understanding and awareness of the origins and foundations of music education. The goal is also to look for a "successful music education practice in various countries." 1Unfortunately, the editors do not describe what "successful" means for them. Moreover, it is largely impossible to define in general what successful is because it depends on the particular goals one sets.If you undertake an international and comparative approach, you have to clarify potentially confusing terms. The editors define "international education" and "comparative education" according to the Danish scholar Frede V. Nielsen: international education "is concerned with issues of practice and implementation," 2whereas comparative education "aims to provide historical, philosophical or otherwise interpretative explanations of how two or more educational systems have developed, responded to and/or influenced societal change." 3At this point, it would have been more profound to argue the complexity of this approach. Sigrid Abel-Struth, for instance, deems information about other music education systems is not comparative music education. 4She states that the reports are rather "informative-political" than "methodical-scientific." 5Moreover, she refers to Edmund A. Cykler who says that comparative music education should not only collect information in terms of practical and methodical aspects but also compare [!] them systematically in historical, educational, psychological, and aesthetic contexts. 6According to Bernd Clausen comparative music education requires that the researcher has to be conscious of being ethnocentric, that is Eurocentric. 7For him, comparative music education helps to reflect on the use of terms and practices and at the same time to widen the horizon for various solutions to problems. 8He also sees the necessity to reflect on one's own capacity during the process of analysis and description 9because researchers adopt an attitude or a point of view which is influenced by their cultural socialization. 10Unfortunately, these kinds of methodical reflection are missing throughout the collection. As the editors mentioned, the authors were asked not to include their opinions about the facts in the texts. However, a reflection on their own subjectivity and the research circumstances would have greatly helped readers to understand how the facts have to be seen and evaluated. One does not gain [End Page 221]objectivity when one leaves out the genesis of the facts as well as the intention of the researcher in... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 357 chorus of Protestants calling for a recovery of church discipline, of use of creed and sacrament in worship, of christian education as character formation, etc. Unfortunately, he gives no suggestions about how much a. recovered sense of authority and sacramentalism can avoid the distortions of this necessary element of Church life that gave rise to the original Protestant Reformation (distortions recognized and warned against at Vatican (...) II). Those engaged in Christian ministry in North America from all Christian traditions will find this book a helpful tool in deepening their theological reflection on (and in) ministry. Catholics and Arminians will :find it particularly amenable to their theological convietions. Catholics will identify with the ecclesial and sacramental sense. Both they and Arminians will find that Lee's degnostification of the doctrine of total depravity -by claiming this affirmation of fallenness is an imagined state apart from the graciousness of God (86)-sounds familiar: compare Rahner's "supernatural existential" and Arminius's "preventient grace." (Unfortunately, Lee misses this similarity because he accepts the classic caricature of Arminians as denying the need for grn.ce, cf. 103)" Could there be a correlation between Lee's more pastoral approach to theology and the narrowing of this classic theological distinction~ One can only hope. RANDY L. MADDOX Sioux Falls College Sioux Falls, Smith Dakota Darwinism and Dfrinity: Essays on Evolution and Religious Belief. By JOHN DURANT, Ed. Oxg·ord: Basil Blackwell, 1985, Pp. ix + 210. Cloth, $25.00. The work is based largely upon a collection of papers. delivered in 1982 at a conference on the relationship behveen evolutionary theory and relig ·ious. belief sponsored by the British Society for the History of Science. It consists of a brief Introduction, and seven chapters ranging in content from a general review by the editor of the problems which still persist in our day for anyone attempting a consistent interpretation of Darwin a8 a person and Darwinism as a doctrine in science, to topics.such as the popularization of Darwinism via writers such as Spencer, the current relevance of Darwinism to contemporary Christian theology, the religious nature of evolutionism itself, and the "scientific creationism" debate in the United States. In his overview Dura11t emphasi2;es the point that in reeent years there 358 BOOK REVIEWS has been an increasing dissatisfaction among historians of science concerning the supposed conflict that there either is or should be between science and religion. The latter have been in fact more often than not in close association with each other, and often in harmony with one another. This is especially true with respect to religion and Darwin's Origin of Species, which Durant describes as the "last great work of Victorian natural theology " (p. 16). Foolish as this may at first sound to some, it is in fact much closer to the historical truth than the forced conflict theories which so dominated the earlier part of our eentmy. This is certainly true and will, I think, become more and more widely accepted as time goes on. What is not the case, though, and what not only Durant but others in the volume insist upon continuing to maintain, is that Darwin himself was not a "progressivist." Durant tries to make out that Darwin is the good guy because of his neutrality on the topic of necessary prog-ress in nature while Spene.er is the bad guy who is largely responsible for turning a nicely neutral scientific doctrine into a " metaphysical " system of the world. This, however, is not what Darwin himself had to say, both publicly and privately. In chapter 2 J. H. Brooke discusses the relationship between Darwin's science and his religion. What was Darwin's personal religious position'l Brooke states that "Despite the fluctuation of his religious beliefs, in both content and strength, a faiTiy consistent position does emerge" (p. 42). Darwin was certainly not an atheist. He may, though, have been some sort of deist. He was, in fact, very likely a theologian in his own manner, desiring to offer the world a new and scientific alternative to the traditional theology of Paley and the Church of England. In any event, even though it is... (shrink)

With much talk of President Obama’s pragmatism, there is good reason to explore what this means in terms of his commitments and his policies. When we call Obama a pragmatist, is this merely a way of saying he selects policies and makes decisions that work, quite independent and sometimes against principles he may hold? Or, do we mean to point to something more robust—a kind of pragmatism that emphasizes experimentalism as a cooperative venture, that locates principles in and assesses their (...) worth based on background experiential conditions, that eschews epistemic and practical certainty for fallibilism, that is oriented by a chastened hope, and that is committed to public deliberation as essential to democratic.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:184 BOOK REVIEWS knower, one may avoid undercutting the position that the cognitive powers are passive, without failing to do justice to the fact that aware· ness and discrimination are activities of the knower {pp. 71-72; 148· 49, n. 6). Second, Kai holds that the individual human being cannot really he said to have intuitive mind in himself: "Man has mind; hut only to a certain degree and without (...) mind losing its independence from the human whole.... the divine mind is present in man without los· ing its character of divine mind " (p. 75). If only God has intuitive mind {pp. 155, n. 32; 156-57, n. 13), how can the individual human being really know, even in the sense of having discursive thought? Since knowledge depends on first principles, what does not possess the intuitive mind which knows the first principles would, it seems, not properly have knowledge. The only hope for a definitive interpretation of the disconcertingly brief De Anima, 3. 5, lies in the possibility that one can establish a definite connection between this chapter and other elements in the Aris· totelian corpus, a connection that would elucidate the otherwise in· scrutable teaching on active mind. It is the great merit of Kai to have made an excellent case for a connection between De Anima, 3. 5, and two other elements in the Aristotelian corpus: nous as it functions in the logic and epistemology, and the unmoved mover of Metaphysics, Lambda. Exploring this connection in a penetrating and thorough analysis of a great body of Aristotelian and secondary te~ts, Kai has not merely taken a position on a more than two-thousand-year-old con· troversy, hut also has decisively advanced our understanding of active mind. St. John's University Jamaica, New York JAMES T. H. MARTIN Anselm Studies: An Occasional Journal. Vol. 2. Edited by JosEPH ScHNAUBELT, OSA, et al., White Plains, New York: Kraus Inter· national Publications, 1988. Pp. 634. $55.00. This volume contains the proceedings of the Fifth International Saint Anselm Conference (Villanova University, September 16-21, 1985). Held in conjunction with the Tenth International Patristic, Medieval, and Renaissance Conference, the meeting occasioned papers concen· trating on areas of "influence and juncture" in the life and thought of St. Anselm and St. Augustine. Given the dependence of much of Anselm's work on the thought of St. Augustine, the Conference took as its particular objective the understanding of the relationship between BOOK REVIEWS 185 faith and reason. While the focus of the papers in this volume includes both saints, the principal emphasis falls on Anselm as inheritor and interpretor of the methods and ideas of his intellectual ancestor. A brief introduction provides cameo presentations of Anselm's character as abbot, monk, and archbishop, together with a conspectus on Anselm's position vis-a-vis the canonical and ecclesiological issues of his day. The papers are then divided into five chapters: "Anselm's Monasticism." "The Proslogion Argument," "Truth: Anselm and Augustine," "Theological Method," and "The Anselmian Worldview." While the papers are of use to scholarly readers desiring detailed treatment of central issues in Anselm's logic and epistemology, the un· doubted strength of the collection lies in its well-calculated effort to integrate an understanding of Anselm's intellectual and spiritual out· look with the theological, spiritual, and literacy currents of his time. Especially for the historian of intellect and society, the essays in this volume provide analysis that advances our understanding of the cultural context of the 11th and 12th centuries. The contribution to our understanding of Anselm's culture is par· ticularly clear in the first and fourth divisions of the volume, the sec· tions dealing with monasticism and Anselm's worldview. In the former division, Glenn Olsen's assessment of " Anselm and Homosexuality" neatly evaluates the evidence for Anselm's sexual orientation made controversial by John Boswell's Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality. In fact, the present article, together with its notes, provides a useful summary of the critical literature which has grown up of late around the Boswellian thesis as well as the study of literary expressions of affection in the 11th and 12th centuries. Olsen grasps the... (shrink)

In Heidegger and his Anglo-American Reception, John Rogove and Pietro D’Oriano have compiled nineteen essays discussing or displaying Heidegger’s influence on anglophone philosophy. The collection includes papers taking a pragmatist approach to the interpretation of Heidegger, as well as papers taking a continentalist approach. In this way, the editors hope to begin to overcome the mutual isolation in which these two prevailing anglophone approaches to Heidegger scholarship have been carried out. Topics treated in these essays are wide-ranging, including examples (...) of English-language Heidegger interpretation, historical and philosophical accounts of the introduction of Heideggerian thought to anglophone academia, and critical analyses of the ways in which Heidegger’s thought has been adopted by Anglo-American commentators. (shrink)