The Church is a sexed body, in both carnal and symbolic terms. The Church has sex, but being the Church it does so in a radically creative way. This article explores the contrast between sex as imagined by the Church and as imagined by evolutionary psychology (Darwinism). It argues that the latter reduces sex to reproduction (repetition) and makes this a metaphysical principle, whereas the Church transforms sex into a means for final beatitude. (Christian sex is not about self-perpetuation, but (...) about welcoming strangers; not about children as possessions, but as God's most precious gifts.) Darwinism strangely repeats a debased (neoscholastic) form of the natural law, whereas the Church looks to follow a law that is the dispossessive desire of God for God. Sex after this law orders us towards the infinite joy of our consummation with and in God, in the fellowship of Christ and the holy saints. (shrink)

" Le concept d'un être infini est plus simple que celui d'un être bon ou d'un être vrai et autres semblables, parce que " infini " n'est pas une sorte d'attribut ou une propriété de l'être ou de tout ce dont il est prédiqué.

Canavero and Ren (2017) suggest that both public and bioethical objections to head/body transplantation will subside after patient outcomes prove successful in an analogous way to how similar objec...

In his lecture course, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, Heidegger discusses three different forms of poverty and deprivation. First of all, the poverty in world of the non-human animal, second, the poverty in the being of contemporary Dasein, and, third, the deprivation of world in the fundamental attunement of profound boredom. This essay discusses these three forms of poverty or deprivation, with the goal to offer a preliminary analysis of Heidegger’s distinction between the human and the non-human animal.

Essays over het gedachtegoed van de Duitse filosoof (1844-1900).

Thagard's theory of explanatory coherence (TEC) is a conceptual and computational framework that is used to show how new scientific theories can be judged to be superior to previous ones. In Structures in Science (SiS), Kuipers criticizes TEC as a model that does not faithfully reflect scientific practice. This article tries to explain the machinery behind TEC, and tries to indicate where TEC falls short (conceptually speaking) and where it can be improved. The main idea proposed in this article is (...) not to derive a coherence network from the input (à la TEC), but to construct a coherence network right from the input itself. (shrink)

_The first comprehensive one-volume collection of St.Thomas More’s writing__ “[A] tremendous scholarly undertaking.... Accessible and transparent to both scholars and the general audience.”—_Renaissance and Reformation__ In this book, Wegemer and Smith assemble More’s most important English and Latin works for the first time in a single volume. This volume reveals the breadth of More’s writing and includes a rich selection of illustrations and artwork. The book provides the most complete picture of More’s work available, serving as a major resource for (...) early modern scholars, teachers, students, and the general reader. (shrink)

Después de la muerte de Franco el número de filósofos españoles dedicados a la Estética aumentó considerablemente, aunque todavía hoy el grado de internacionalización de la disciplina no sea el adecuado. El artículo pretende describir la escena pluralista de la Estética española. Para ello, el autor diferencia tres áreas de trabajo mayoritarias entre los estetas españoles: en primer lugar la de los problemas clásicos de la estética, como la belleza, la representación o la emoción estética, en segundo lugar, sobre la (...) filosofía del arte en general y el contemporáneo en particular, y en tercer lugar, el análisis teórico y la explicación crítica de las nuevas corrientes del arte actual. (shrink)

Soumis aux conditions difficiles que lui impose l’Occupation, Julien Benda exprime dans La Grande Épreuve des démocraties une foi lucide en la démocratie, fondée sur un bilan critique du combat antifasciste. Appelant les Européens à privilégier dans leur passé les éléments d’une tradition républicaine d’inspiration libérale et sociale, il remet en cause la relative indifférence qu’il a longtemps entretenue, dans l’esprit de La trahison des clercs, à l’égard des systèmes politiques et de l’espoir de promouvoir la justice dans les sociétés (...) humaines, au profit d’un idéal élitiste soucieux de préserver la liberté d’une minorité d’intellectuels tournés vers l’éternité.Affirmant nettement la nécessité d’un ordre juridique international coercitif et chargé de veiller au respect des principes démocratiques, Julien Benda, collaborant aux publications de la Résistance, a la conviction que la démocratie doit se libérer de l’humanisme pacifiste dont elle est naturellement porteuse, et qu’elle doit, passant par un moment machiavélien, aller contre ses propres valeurs, et s’appuyer sur la force pour assurer son existence face à ses ennemis.Submitted to the difficult conditions imposed on him by the German occupation in France, Julien Benda, in La Grande Épreuve des démocraties expresses a true lucid faith in democracy, grounded on the critical appraisal of the anti-fascist fight. Urging the Europeans to privilege within their past the elements of a Republican tradition of a social and liberal inspiration, he questions the relative indifference he had for quite a while entertained, within the spirit of the Trahison des clercs, towards political systems and his hope to be able to promote justice in human societies, to the profit of an elitist ideal careful to safeguard the freedom of a minority of intellectuals turned towards eternity.Strongly stressing the necessity of a legal international order both coercive and meant to be sure democratic principles should be applied and respected, Julien Benda, by collaborating to the publications of the French Resistance, strongly believes that democracy should free itself from the pacifist humanism which it normally evidences and that it should – through a Machiavellian moment – go astride from its own values and rest on strength to grant its existence when confronted to its enemies. (shrink)

Auschwitz shattered forever the liberal dream of an ultimately perfectible humanity, revealing human sin in all its horrifying possibilities but also revealing the universality of grace.

Dans les métiers de l'éducation au sens large, la difficulté de savoir qui s'adresse à qui suscite un désarroi. Toute incitation dominante découpe dans les personnes concernées par l'interaction un "sujet" d'un certain type qui, à peine instauré, s'effrite sous l'effet de ses propres ambivalences et sombre souvent dans l'indétermination ou la caricature des labellisations qui visent à éviter la complexité de ses composantes internes pour réduire le désarroi. Successivement, la face active, par trop valorisée, puis la face passive, souvent (...) assimilée à l'inertie, sont ici éclairées par des orientations de pensée fécondes pour les praticiens et leurs formateurs. (shrink)

1. Badly understood words are the main hindrance to the discovery of truth. But they need not be, especially in physical science, where the senses, experience, and geometrical reasoning prevail. Reflection on motion led ancient philosophers into opinions about it so absurd that they are almost forgotten and merit no attention. But even the better presentday scientists, in their treatment of motion, employ language too abstract and of doubtful reference--for example, the attraction of gravity, effort, latent forces, and the like--which (...) make otherwise learned writings unintelligible. Hence this essay. (shrink)

This essay maintains that although We Hold These Truths represented an important milestone in Catholic reflection on the American regime, Murray’s analysis of public morality and the state’s role in its promotion and enforcement is notably weak and of little assistance to us today. More specifically, it argues that Murray’s analysis is insufficiently philosophical and too concerned with the pragmatic task of forging an approach widely acceptable in the America of his day; that it rests on an artificial distinction between (...) “private” and “public” morality that fails to sufficiently appreciate the essential dependence of sound morals legislation upon the government’s recognition of moral truth; and that it too closely identifies the whole of law’s competence with the scope of its coercive jurisdiction, thus failing to appreciate the directive and educative properties of law and its role in the establishment of conditions conducive to human flourishing. (shrink)

This article investigates how late nineteenth century Japanese philosophers responded to large categories of ideas imported from the West and for which there were no Japanese equivalents; mainly "science," "religion," and "philosophy." Discussions on whether Buddhism or Confucianism would fall under "philosophy" or "religion" accompanied a re-categorization of ideas. Some philosophers made elaborate reconstructions of Buddhism and Confucianism as modern philosophies. However, over time, Japanese categorizations of Buddhism and Confucianism shifted from "philosophy" (tetsugaku) to "thought" (shisō). Investigating Meiji philosophy from (...) the perspective of this problem of categories makes it is possible to reevaluate it on its own terms. (shrink)

Utopia repeatedly sets forth the rhetorical strategy of using pleasant and healing words to “enter” or “flow” or “steal into” fortresses of hardened opinion and custom without arousing warlike passions to keep them out. An important part of this strategy is the creation of a character who denounces major instances and causes of injustice but who nonetheless supports war and other means of force at the expense of law in rectifying that injustice; another part of the strategy is the creation (...) of a character and a plot that embody the “indirect” rhetorical approach aimed primarily at long-term persuasion needed to improve laws and institutions. (shrink)