Combining literary and philosophical analysis, this study defends an utterly innovative reading of the early history of poetics. It is the first to argue that there is a distinctively Socratic view of poetry and the first to connect the Socratic view of poetry with earlier literary tradition.Literary theory is usually said to begin with Plato's famous critique of poetry in the Republic. Grace Ledbetter challenges this entrenched assumption by arguing that Plato's earlier dialogues Ion, Protagoras, and Apology introduce a (...) distinctively Socratic theory of poetry that responds polemically to traditional poets as rival theorists. Ledbetter tracks the sources of this Socratic response by introducing separate readings of the poetics implicit in the poetry of Homer, Hesiod, and Pindar. Examining these poets' theories from a new angle that uncovers their literary, rhetorical, and political aims, she demonstrates their decisive influence on Socratic thinking about poetry.The Socratic poetics Ledbetter elucidates focuses not on censorship, but on the interpretation of poetry as a source of moral wisdom. This philosophical approach to interpreting poetry stands at odds with the poets' own theories--and with the Sophists' treatment of poetry. Unlike the Republic's focus on exposing and banishing poetry's irrational and unavoidably corrupting influence, Socrates' theory includes poetry as subject matter for philosophical inquiry within an examined life.Reaching back into what has too long been considered literary theory's prehistory, Ledbetter advances arguments that will redefine how classicists, philosophers, and literary theorists think about Plato's poetics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Efficacious Grace and Free Will:Taking Aquinas at His WordSteven A. LongProfessor Steven Jensen, in his Nova et Vetera article "Efficacious Grace and Free Will: Six Inadequate Arguments," identifies arguments that he argues to be insufficient to show the compatibility of efficacious grace with free will.1 With respect to his analysis, I wish here to address only four conspicuous points: (1) whether in the discussion of efficacious (...) grace "everyone" agrees that the will is not determined by efficacious grace; (2) whether the fact that non-rational creatures are also contingent agents makes the specific contingency of choice that flows from the relation of the finite objects of the will to the intellectually specified formal object of the will (universal good) to be insufficient to constitute the nature of rational free choice; (3) whether Thomas's texts regarding the infallibility of divine premotion are "equivocal"; (4) whether the arguments being considered are properly identified principally as those of Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Taylor O'Neill, and Steven Long or are not better first identified in historico-doctrinal terms as the teaching of Aquinas, and second, of several centuries of renowned theologians and philosophers prior in time and in dignity to the aforementioned authors—so that principally identifying these arguments with them, is rather like crediting them with the real distinction of essence and existence?2 [End Page 1105]I. "Everyone" Agrees That the Will Is Not Determined by Efficacious Grace?As to the nature of Thomas's teaching—or even of the account identified historically by the Holy See as "Thomist" with respect to the Congregatio de Auxiliis and held since by a very great many Thomistic authors—Prof. Jensen seems somewhat to miscast the nature of the propositions under consideration.3 He argues on 119 that, "In any case, everyone involved seems to be in agreement that the will should not be determined by efficacious grace." But this is not the case. What there is agreement about is that the will is not determined by efficacious grace in such a way that it is not also and simultaneously freely determined by the will itself. Manifestly this is a contradiction in terms if we define freedom as including a liberty of indetermination with respect to divine providential causality. But Thomas does not do this, and there is no good reason why one should.4 Thus Thomas in De malo, q. 3, a. 2, ad 4: [End Page 1106]Now it is manifest that when something moves something else, it is not from the fact that it is moving said to be the first mover; wherefore it is not excluded that it be moved by another, from which likewise it has this very thing, that it moves. In the same way, when something moves itself, it is not excluded from being moved by another, from which it has this very thing that it moves itself: and thus it is not inconsistent with freedom that God is the cause of the act of free will.5 [End Page 1107]In the Oesterle translation of De malo—a wonderful translation—nonetheless this passage is erroneously rendered (betimes even Homer nods) as "hence it is not precluded that it is moved by another and from that other has the very ability to move."6 But the passage refers to God as cause of the very act of free will, not merely of the "ability": "et sic non repugnat libertati quod Deus est causa actus liberi arbitrii." When something moves itself, this does not imply that the thing is not moved by another "from which it has this very thing that it moves itself." And "thus it is not inconsistent with freedom that God is the cause of the act of free will." That is, God causes the free self-determination of the human will (even at the level of nature, prior to the consideration of grace), by moving the will from potency to act with respect to its own self-motion. Whether at the level of nature or at the level of grace, God moves the will with respect to its own self-determination in freedom, and this motion is not "indeterminate... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 39-41 [Access article in PDF] Wishing I Were Here:Postcards from My Religious Journey Grace G. Burford Prescott College Summer 1966, Bowling Green, Kentucky An energetic ten-year-old, sitting on a red-cushioned wooden pew in a Presbyterian church leans over to her mother to whisper, "Which is it? Are we supposed to be like little children, or leave behind our childish ways?" After church, her mother (...) does a reasonably good job at answering the question.Later, perhaps even later that day, this little girl has gleefully exchanged her dress and going-to-church shoes for a cotton shirt and shorts and blue Keds, and has escaped to her favorite spot in the woods behind her house. There she swings on vines in imitation of Tarzan and plays contentedly on her own for hours, feeling utterly at home.In this scene, we see that the little girl has discovered that she can best deal with a certain type of recurring physical pain by focusing her entire attention on her breath, as she silently repeats "breathing in, breathing out." Fall 1971, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania A group of eight or so teenagers attend their English literature class at an elite college-preparatory school for girls. Our hero, recently arrived, southern accent still quite in evidence, revels in real education; this a delightfully stark contrast to what she got from Kentucky public schools, then forty-ninth in the nation according to some poll or other—only Mississippi's were worse. In this particular class she finds herself defending Presbyterians against what she considers simply inaccurate descriptions of them by James Joyce. At the same time, she is waking up to the realization that she does not believe—and the suspicion that she never really has believed—the Christian doctrines she has been raised on. Indeed, she feels quite foolish for never having properly examined what exactly she had bought into when she participated in all those church activities. She can't recall ever actually believing in "God the Father, Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth," much less in "Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord," and all the rest of it. [End Page 39] Spring 1975, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania Having thoroughly rejected religion—for she knows none other than the one she grew up with—our hero pursues study of astronomy, math, language, and music, quite intent on becoming a college professor of some subject or another. Somewhat annoyed that she must take two courses in the curricular area that includes religion, philosophy, anthropology, and sociology, but encouraged by her friends' assertions that religion courses are "not too bad," she signs up for religion and science, figuring that at least half of it will be rational. At the same time, she takes a course on Asian religions. Sometime in the middle of a clear spring night we find her engaged in her part-time job, seated at the eyepiece end of a twenty-meter-long, twenty-four-inch refracting telescope, patiently keeping a star placed just so on the cross-hairs in the siting scope, making fine adjustments to the telescope's precise tracking while the light of stars collects on glass plates coated with very fast photographic emulsion. Between clicks of the shutter she ponders the curiously attractive ideas she is encountering in her religion courses this term. Spring 1983, Evanston, Illinois Our hero earns a Ph.D. in the history and literature of religions, with a focus on Buddhism and Hinduism, and heads for Washington, D.C., to become what she had always aspired to be—a college professor. Summer 1997, Interstate 40 Having experienced a denial of tenure, the challenges of part-time college teaching, training and freelance work in the field of copyediting, life as a wildlife-wielding teacher of auditoria full of elementary school children, an administrative job as second-in-command to a self-described megalomaniac, and the vagaries of teaching two hundred students a term—this lifelong seeker eagerly moves across the country to start a job teaching at an alternative, experiential learning-based... (shrink)

Firm managers make ethical decisions regarding the form and quality of disclosure. Disclosure can have long-term implications for performance, earnings manipulation, and even fraud. We investigate the impact of venture capital (VC) backing on the quality and informativeness of disclosure controls and procedures for newly public companies. We find that these controls and procedures are stronger, as evidenced by fewer material weaknesses in internal control under Section 302 of the Sarbanes–Oxley Act, when companies are VC-backed. Moreover, these disclosures are (...) informative and are more likely to be followed by subsequent financial statement restatements than are disclosures made by non-VC-backed IPO companies. (shrink)

This essay attempts concisely to articulate the necessary role played within moral theology in general—and within the moral theology of grace in particular—by the metaphysics and natural philosophy of human agency. It argues for the priority of the speculative with respect to the practical inasmuch as speculative knowledge precedes desire, and desire precedes intention; for the centrality of unified normative teleology; for the primacy of being over relation; and for the primacy of sound doctrine regarding the divine causal providence (...) for the moral theology of grace and freedom. (shrink)

Religion is the third and final volume in Robert Cummings Neville's systematic development of a new philosophical theology. Unfolding through his earlier volumes, Ultimates and Existence, and now in Religion, philosophical theology considers first-order questions generally treated by religious traditions through philosophical methods while reflecting Neville's long engagement with philosophy, theology, and Eastern and Western religious traditions. In this capstone to the trilogy, Neville provides a theory of religion and presents a sacred worldview to guide religious participation. His philosophical (...) theory of value enlightens religions' approaches to ethics, spirituality, and religious institutional living and collaboration. With a detailed examination of plausibility conditions for sacred worldviews, the book concludes with an exploration of "religionless religion" for which institutions of religion are of penultimate value. Through the development of philosophical theology, Neville has built a unique, multidisciplinary, comparative, nonconfessional theological system, one that addresses concerns and provides tools for scientific and humanistic scholars of religion, postmodern thinkers, intellectuals from both secular and religious backgrounds, and those interested in the global state of religion today. (shrink)

Background Intestinal transplant in infants with severe short bowel syndrome (SBS) is an emerging therapy, yet without sufficient long-term data or established guidelines, resulting in possible variation in practice. Objectives To assess current attitudes and counselling practices among physicians regarding intestinal transplant in infants with SBS, and to determine whether counselling and management vary between subspecialists or centres. Methods A national sample of practicing paediatric surgeons and neonatologists was surveyed via the American Academy of Paediatrics listserves. Results were analysed (...) by physician subspecialty and again by presence or absence of intestinal transplant at respondent's centre. Results The survey was completed by 433 respondents, consisting of 363 neonatologists and 70 paediatric surgeons. Fifty-seven respondents (13.2%) practiced at a centre that performed intestinal transplants in children. The vast majority of respondents (91% for preterm, 95% for term neonates) felt that maintaining a neonate with SBS on total parenteral nutrition for intestinal transplant was ethically optional (neither impermissible nor obligatory), and that parents should be given an informed choice whether to pursue that option. However, only 33% indicated they often/always offer intestinal transplant as a treatment option to families in this situation. Conclusions There is a marked disparity between individual physicians’ beliefs regarding the acceptability of intestinal transplant for severe SBS and their reported practice. Wide variability exists among physicians with respect to their knowledge, beliefs and practice regarding severe SBS, raising concerns about transparency and justice. Survival data prior to transplant, currently unavailable, are essential to rational decision making and informed parental permission. (shrink)

The great increase of interest in the study of spirituality and mysticism is reflected in the large number of articles that the Encyclopedia of Religion devotes to various aspects of this topic. As one would expect, there are long entries for ‘Mysticism’ and ‘Christian Spirituality’ and ‘Religious Experience’. In addition to these broad categories, attention is given to more specific aspects of spirituality such as ‘Asceticism’, ‘Silence’, ‘Prayer’, ‘Meditation’, and so on. This is complemented by entries on many of (...) the spiritual giants of the Christian tradition, both ancient and modern. I shall begin by discussing these articles on individuals, and go on to examine the more general articles later in the review. I shall suggest that, despite many merits, both sorts of entry display an editorial policy about which serious questions must be raised. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought considerable death and economic hardship to populations around the world. Yet, its legacy may be in the form of Long COVID, a condition in which individuals who have had COVID infection continue to experience symptoms often for many months after their acute illness. One group of symptoms is described by sufferers as “brain fog”. This expression captures a constellation of complaints that are cognitive-linguistic in nature, with affected individuals reporting a significant impact of these (...) problems on their occupational functioning and daily lives. This chapter reports the findings of case studies of two adults with Long COVID. Both adults enjoyed good health prior to their COVID infection. Neither was judged to be unwell enough to require hospitalization during the acute phase of their illness. Yet, they each reported an incomplete recovery and the persistence of debilitating symptoms over many months. The case studies provide a detailed account of their pre-morbid functioning and lifestyle, the onset and progression of their COVID illness, and a comprehensive analysis of their language skills. Both adults had intact structural language skills in the presence of high-level discourse difficulties. Specifically, they struggled to harness their strong skills in structural language to produce informative discourse, the transmission of which is an important pragmatic function of communication. The language profile associated with these cases of Long COVID is discussed in relation to other conditions that are assessed and treated by speech-language pathologists. (shrink)

Since Hermann first suggested the likelihood of a considerable loss of verses from the text of the Heraclidae it has been generally assumed that the play has suffered either from some mischance in the copying of the manuscript or else at the hand of an interpolator. Hermann held that the end of the play had been lost: ‘Fabulae extrema pars videtur intercidisse, in qua fieri non poterat quin de Macaria referretur, eaque res solitis celebraretur lamentis.’ Kirchhoff places the lacuna after (...) line 629: ‘Post hunc versum multa desunt. Macariae narratio et Alcmenae matris [sic] lamentationes cum chori cantico integro; novit hanc fabulae partem auctor argumenti: **ταύτην μxs22EFν εxs1F50γενxs22EFς xs22EFποθανοxs22EFσαν xs22EFτίμησαν αxs1F50τοxs22EF δxs22EF τοxs1F7Aς πολεμxs22EFους xs22EFπιγνόντες παρόντας εxs1F30ς τxs22EFν μάχην xs1F65ρμησαν.’ Wilamowitz argues against the assumption of a ‘mechanischer Ausfall’ of a whole passage, and maintains that the play has been revised by a fourth century régisseur in order to adapt it to the capacity of his theatrical troupe. (shrink)

The second volume in a trilogy advancing a systematic philosophical theology, this book explores the realities of human existence articulated by religion. Religion, writes Robert Cummings Neville, articulates existential predicaments and provides venues for ecstatic fulfillment. Like its companion volumes treating ultimacy and religion, Existence advances a systematic philosophical theology to address first-order questions found in the array of Axial Age religions. Issues arising in the major religious traditions are explored through a complex array of philosophical approaches. This second volume (...) shows religion to be the engagement of ultimate realities common to all human beings. Neville finds five problematics relative to ultimate boundary conditions of the human world: the contingency of existence, living under obligation, the quest for wholeness, engagement with others, and the meaning or value in life. Common to all human beings and hence “religion,” the engagement with realities is also historically and culturally bound, becoming simultaneously socially constructed “religions.” Readers will find Neville’s philosophical theology both bold and enlightening, running counter to dominant intellectual trends while richly informed by a long and fruitful engagement with theology, philosophy, and religion, East and West. Robert Cummings Neville is Professor of Philosophy, Religion, and Theology and Dean Emeritus of the School of Theology at Boston University. He is the author of many books, including Realism in Religion: A Pragmatist’s Perspective; Ritual and Deference: Extending Chinese Philosophy in a Comparative Context; and Ultimates: Philosophical Theology, Volume One, all published by SUNY Press. (shrink)

How long does a quantum particle take to traverse a classically forbidden energy barrier? In other words, what is the correct expression for quantum tunnelling time? This seemingly simple question has inspired widespread debate in the physics literature. I argue that we should not expect the orthodox interpretation of quantum mechanics to provide a unique correct expression for quantum tunnelling time, because to do so it would have to provide a unique correct answer to a question whose assumptions are (...) in tension with its core interpretational commitments. I explain how this conclusion connects to time’s special status in quantum mechanics, the meaningfulness of classically inspired concepts in different interpretations of quantum mechanics, the prospect of constructing experimental tests to distinguish between different interpretations, and the status of weak measurement in resolving questions about the histories of subensembles. (shrink)

Evolution would favor organisms that can make recurrent decisions in accordance with classical probability (CP) theory, because such choices would be optimal in the long run. This is illustrated by the base-rate fallacy and probability matching, where nonhumans choose optimally but humans do not. Quantum probability (QP) theory may be able to account for these species differences in terms of orthogonal versus nonorthogonal representations.

Analogical reasoning relies on subprocesses of long-term memory and problem-solving. Stress, with its accompanying hormones dehydroepiandrosterone and cortisol, has been shown to impair memo...

Building on his long-standing work in metaphysics and Asian philosophy, Robert Cummings Neville presents a series of essays that cumulatively articulate a contemporary, progressive Confucian position as a global philosophy. Through analysis of the metaphysical and moral traditions of Confucianism, Neville brings these traditions into the twenty-first century. According to Confucianism, rituals define most of our relations with other individuals, social institutions, and nature, and while rituals make possible the positive institutions of high human civilization, they may also lead (...) to harmful behaviors, including racism, xenophobia, and sexism. Neville argues that the amendment of rituals that institutionalize oppression is a positive task, which should be undertaken from within a skillfully ritualized life rather than in the form of external criticism. Confucianism, in Neville's hands, is a left-wing, progressive, liberal political philosophy, one that can address institutionalized oppression and suggest a path for moving forward. (shrink)

In the 1978 volume of Process Studies, Nancy Frankenberry published an article called “The Empirical Dimension of Religious Experience” that I thought was so good that I wrote her a short fan letter about it.1 She responded by saying that she was flattered by my praise because I was a model for her younger generation. For the first time in my life I felt old. And I wasn’t yet forty. But here I am, still fully employed, presenting a long (...) fan letter at her retirement. Nice irony! I want to begin laying out some of the themes and accomplishments of her distinguished career as a model philosopher of religion by discussing her early book Religion and Radical Empiricism.2 The context in which she wrote.. (shrink)

Complete 3 volume set available for special price: Philosophical Theology Set (Volumes 1, 2 and 3) The concluding volume in a trilogy advancing a systematic philosophical theology, this book presents a plausible sacred worldview for religious participation. Religion is the third and final volume in Robert Cummings Neville’s systematic development of a new philosophical theology. Unfolding through his earlier volumes, Ultimates and Existence, and now in Religion, philosophical theology considers first-order questions generally treated by religious traditions through philosophical methods while (...) reflecting Neville’s long engagement with philosophy, theology, and Eastern and Western religious traditions. In this capstone to the trilogy, Neville provides a theory of religion and presents a sacred worldview to guide religious participation. His philosophical theory of value enlightens religions’ approaches to ethics, spirituality, and religious institutional living and collaboration. With a detailed examination of plausibility conditions for sacred worldviews, the book concludes with an exploration of “religionless religion” for which institutions of religion are of penultimate value. Through the development of philosophical theology, Neville has built a unique, multidisciplinary, comparative, nonconfessional theological system, one that addresses concerns and provides tools for scientific and humanistic scholars of religion, postmodern thinkers, intellectuals from both secular and religious backgrounds, and those interested in the global state of religion today. (shrink)

There is a long-standing discussion on the positive interactions between enterprise value creation and business competitiveness. The corporate value can be seen as being created from three major sources within the cycle - from employees, from processes, and from customers or investors through reinvestment. To achieve competitive advantages, a firm must create more value than its competitors in the industry. Emphasizing that, firms should explore the positive drivers of customer value creation, allowing for a true value creation that will (...) lead to increments in competitiveness. In reality, however, there are also barriers that hinder customer value creation. Targeting the above issues that have not yet been explored or analyzed, we have collected related literature at the first stage. Based on these presumable assumptions, this paper then conducts an empirical study by surveying and analyzing the relevance given by the investigated leading machinery measuring equipment firms in Taiwan, regarding the concerns as drivers and barriers in relation to customer value creation. This paper expecially aims to answer several key questions: What drivers revolving around employees and processes can facilitate the organization to create more value for its customers? Conversely, what barriers block the organization from creating value for customers in examining the same dimensions? Does value creation direct an organization's profitability and competitiveness? Our questionnaire survey results show that the most recognized and agreed drivers of customer value creation in consideration of employees are "distinctive skills", "personal experience", "learning and training", and "team work"; and, in regard to the firm's processes, the key drivers are "innovation and evolution", "R&D capability", and "capability for differentiation". Conversely, the most recognized and agreed barriers to customer value creation in relation to employees are a "distrustful environment" and "inadequate knowledge"; and, in terms of processes, they are "short of core technology", "poor resource support", and "bad services and attitudes". Furthermore, our in-depth interview outcomes reveal that "capital sufficiency" and "mergers and acquisitions" are in practice considered to be other important customer value creation drivers; in contrast, "cultural and structural barriers" and "short of mechanisms to measure customer value creation effectively" are viewed as additional critical barriers to customer value creation. (shrink)

For over a decade, we have watched the state affairs/practitioner constituency within the American Psychological Association move steadily to become the single largest group—clearly a majority—within the membership ranks of the association. Over the same period of time and as the obverse of related demographic phenomena, the research/academic constituency has shrunk to around 30% of the membership. Since power over the affairs of and the destiny of APA has traditionally resided in the hands of the latter, it probably would have (...) been too much to hope that the visionaries in the research/academic community would have made way gracefully for new leadership to be seated in the positions of authority in the association, a leadership more attuned to the needs of APA's majority. So it is not surprising that an orderly transfer of power has not taken place. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

The second volume in a trilogy advancing a systematic philosophical theology, this book explores the realities of human existence articulated by religion. Religion, writes Robert Cummings Neville, articulates existential predicaments and provides venues for ecstatic fulfillment. Like its companion volumes treating ultimacy and religion, Existence advances a systematic philosophical theology to address first-order questions found in the array of Axial Age religions. Issues arising in the major religious traditions are explored through a complex array of philosophical approaches. This second volume (...) shows religion to be the engagement of ultimate realities common to all human beings. Neville finds five problematics relative to ultimate boundary conditions of the human world: the contingency of existence, living under obligation, the quest for wholeness, engagement with others, and the meaning or value in life. Common to all human beings and hence “religion,” the engagement with realities is also historically and culturally bound, becoming simultaneously socially constructed “religions.” Readers will find Neville’s philosophical theology both bold and enlightening, running counter to dominant intellectual trends while richly informed by a long and fruitful engagement with theology, philosophy, and religion, East and West. (shrink)

Flush with the juices of adolescence, American philosophy declared independence from its European parentage in the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson and his generation. In 1837, Emerson addressed the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa Society on the occasion of its inaugural meeting for the year, which he called a "holiday." Emerson began: I greet you on the recommencement of our literary year. Our anniversary is one of hope, and, perhaps, not enough of labor. We do not meet for games of strength (...) or skill, for the recitation of histories, tragedies, and odes, like the ancient Greeks; for parliaments of love and poesy, like the Troubadours; nor for the advancement of science, like our contemporaries in the British and European capitals. Thus far, our holiday has been simply a friendly sign of the survival of the love of letters amongst a people too busy to give letters any more. Perhaps the time is already come when it ought to be, and will be something else; when the sluggard intellect of this continent will look from under its iron lids and fill the postponed expectations of the world with something better than the expectations of mechanical skill. Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The millions that around us are rushing into life, cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests. Events, actions arise, that must be sung, that will sing themselves. (shrink)

At its January 2017 meeting, the Executive Committee of the Peirce Society decided to plan a panel on "Charles S. Peirce and the Study of Religion" for the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting in November, 2017, in Boston. The AAR accepted our proposal as a special meeting and I had the privilege of organizing and chairing it. We are pleased that the panel of papers will be published as a group in The Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society.Michael (...) L. Raposa's paper, "On Reading God's Great Poem: A Delayed Response to Christopher Hookway," picks up a long debate about the extent to which Peirce's late "Neglected Argument for the Reality of God" is continuous or discontinuous with his early work.Brandon... (shrink)

Let me begin by giving preliminary definition to the two kinds of contingency named in my title, although I shall argue that the distinction between them gets too complicated to sustain in the long run. Cosmological contingency is the contingency of things within the world upon other things within the world, plus perhaps their own spontaneous creativity. Ontological contingency is the contingency of everything in the world that is determinate in any way upon an ontological ground. That ontological ground (...) cannot itself be determinate, and you can recollect Plotinus's One, Thomas Aquinas's Pure Act of To Be, Brahman without qualities, or the Ultimate of Non-Being in Zhou Dunyi's philosophy for sample conceptions of... (shrink)

In the January 2020 issue of this journal, Rory Misiewicz penned an excellent review of Brandon Daniel-Hughes's book. His one complaint is that Daniel-Hughes appeals to my theory that the Ultimate is "entirely indeterminate and absolute nothingness that contextualizes all things." This he claims to be inconsistent with Peirce. I do not want to defend Daniel-Hughes's use of my idea, although I surely congratulate him. I do want to correct Misiewicz's understanding of it, however.My idea is that all thought is (...) determinate, at least in part, and is therefore consequent to its creation. I give long, convoluted, but utterly persuasive arguments that the existence of any determinate things is the... (shrink)

The increased incidence of morbidity and mortality due to Clostridium difficile infection, had led to the emergence of fecal microbial transplantation (FMT) as a highly successful treatment. From this, a 32 strain stool substitute has been derived, and successfully tested in a pilot human study. These approaches could revolutionize not only medical care of infectious diseases, but potentially many other conditions linked to the human microbiome. But a second revolution may be needed in order for regulatory agencies, society and medical (...) practitioners to accept and utilize these interventions, monitor their long term effects, have a degree of control over their use, or at a minimum provide guidelines for donors and recipients. (shrink)

The symbolic argument against women's ordination supposes that the theological significance of Christ's sex is his saving relationship to the Church, which takes the form of that of a bridegroom and his bride. It infers that a male priest alone is fit to represent Christ in his capacity as the Saviour of the Church, and thus that only men should be ordained. Since the emergence of the symbolic argument, however, scholars have rediscovered a long tradition of understanding Christ's saving (...) relationship to the Church in maternal terms. While remaining neutral on whether women ultimately ought to be ordained or not, I argue that the Jesus as Mother tradition undermines the symbolic argument against women's ordination. Other critics of the symbolic argument tend to contest what is seen as its ‘literalist’ or ‘essentialist’ or overly gendered-valanced assumptions about priestly representation. I show that even if we grant to the symbolic argument more gendered and ‘essentialist’ views on each of the major points of disagreement in these debates, women might still be fit to represent Christ because of the maternal ways that Christ has traditionally been thought to relate to the Church. As a result, the symbolic argument may be repurposed to support women's ordination rather than undermine it. (shrink)

Summary Increased parental involvement in schooling is one of the central plans of government policy. The planned integrated schools in Northern Ireland provide direct evidence of high levels of parental participation in action. The experience of the schools suggests, that whilst parental involvement is relatively easy to generate during the initial stages of the setting up of a school it is much more difficult to sustain over the long term. There is also potential for difficulties to arise, both between (...) groups of parents and between parents and staff, over the range of issues which parents wish to influence and the direction of that influence. Parents wish to participate in the running of the schools in many different ways and this leads to the development of the concept of levels of involvement?. Whilst quite large numbers of parents want a direct involvement in the education of their own children only a small number seek the type of wider commitment to policy development implicit in positions such as that of school governor. (shrink)

"Racism and Anti-Blackness" in America is very bad.1 What has pragmatism had to say about this? Charles S. Peirce was a racist and thought that blacks are inferior.2 Much as most readers of this journal love him for other things, Peirce's pragmatism needs to change in this regard insofar as it bears on his racist views. A significant part of Peirce's racism came from his appreciation of science. Louis Agassiz strongly opposed Darwinian evolution and upheld racist views regarding Africans; he (...) was a close friend of Peirce's father, Benjamin Peirce, who long defended Agassiz. After the Civil War, many scientists added Mexicans and Native Americans to the list of inferior peoples who needed to be controlled by the... (shrink)

Sounds play crucial roles in a poem’s meaning (re)construction. Grasping the content of a literary work such as poetry often requires a profound interpretation of the underlying linguistic cum phonetic codes of its discourse. Extant studies on Nigerian children’s poetry have paid little attention to this aspect of meaning conception, thereby concentrating mainly on the surface lexical constructs. Hence, this study aims to examine imagic iconicity in children’s poems in order to demonstrate how a poem’s thematic realization is inferred through (...) the interpretation of the phonic and acoustic nature of the sounds employed. The study involves five poems: three from Ossie Enekwe’s Gentle Birds Come to me and two from Ikeogu Oke’s Song of Success and Other Poems for Children. The analysis is anchored to insights from Charles Sanders Peirce’s concept of the iconic sign, and exploits the action of acoustic and phonetic articulation of sounds to determine their functions and effects in the poems. The study reveals how specialized lexemic choices and onomatopoeia (kinaesthemes, phonaestheme or sound symbolism) in children’s poems make each poem functional and purposeful. Thus, children’s poetry contains language structures and configurations that transmit sense and embody what the poem is asserting in a way that interestingly engages the reader. (shrink)

Temporal binding via 40-Hz synchronization of neuronal discharges in sensory cortices has been hypothesized to be a necessary condition for the rapid selection of perceptually relevant information for further processing in working memory. Binocular rivalry experiments have shown that late stage visual processing associated with the recognition of a stimulus object is highly correlated with discharge rates in inferotemporal cortex. The hippocampus is the primary recipient of inferotemporal outputs and is known to be the substrate for the consolidation of working (...) memories to long-term, episodic memories. The prefrontal cortex, on the other hand, is widely thought to mediate working memory processes, per se. This article reviews accumulated evidence for the role of a subcortical matrix in linking frontal and hippocampal systems to select and ''stream'' conscious episodes across time (hundreds of milliseconds to several seconds). ''Streaming'' is hypothesized to be mediated by the selective gating of reentrant flows of information between these cortical systems and the subcortical matrix. The physiological mechanism proposed for this temporally extended form of binding is synchronous oscillations in the slower EEG spectrum (< 8 Hz). (shrink)

Emerging parallel to long-standing, academic and policy inquiries on personal responsibility for health is the empirical assessment of lay persons’ views. Yet, previous studies rarely explored personal responsibility for health among lay persons as dynamic societal values. We sought to explore lay persons’ views on personal responsibility for health using the Fairness Dialogues, a method for lay persons to deliberate equity issues in health and health care through a small group dialogue using a hypothetical scenario. We conducted two 2-h (...) Fairness Dialogues sessions (n = 15 in total) in Nova Scotia, Canada. We analyzed data using thematic analysis. Our analysis showed that personal choice played an important role in participants’ thinking about health. Underlying the concept of personal choice was considerations of freedom and societal debt. In participants’ minds, personal and social responsibilities co-existed and they were unwilling to determine health care priority based on personal responsibility. The Fairness Dialogues is a promising deliberative method to explore lay persons’ views as dynamic values to be developed through group dialogues as opposed to static, already-formed values waiting to be elicited. (shrink)

Across a series of four experiments with 3- to 4-year-olds we demonstrate how cognitive mechanisms supporting noun learning extend to the mapping of actions to objects. In Experiment 1 the demonstration of a novel action led children to select a novel, rather than a familiar object. In Experiment 2 children exhibited long-term retention of novel action-object mappings and extended these actions to other category members. In Experiment 3 we showed that children formed an accurate sensorimotor record of the novel (...) action. In Experiment 4 we demonstrate limits on the types of actions mapped to novel objects. Overall these data suggest that certain aspects of noun mapping share common processing with action mapping and support a domain-general account of word learning. (shrink)

William Abraham seeks to free Western Christianity from its epistemological captivity, at least as that captivity takes the form of a “criterion” that seeks certainty. To do so, he has developed “canonical theism,” an intriguing argument that draws on diverse means of grace for knowledge of God as justified belief. In Crossing the Threshold he gives us the epistemology for that project. Yet questions remains as to why it still needs an epistemology, why knowledge remains justified belief, and why (...) it cannot find more allies in other contemporary theological sensibilities. (shrink)

Adaptation and stress are two main concepts useful for better understanding the phases of illness and health-related human behavior. The two faces of adaptation, adaptation as a process and adaptation as a product, have raised the question of how long the adaptation process will take in cancer trajectories. The care setting transition from clinical-based into home-based cancer care has stressed the role of family caregivers (FCG) in cancer management. This study examines how types of demanded healthcare information affect the (...) FCG’s role in catalyzing the adaptation of female cancer patients. The mindsponge theory was used in conceptual development and results interpretation. Bayesian Mindsponge Framework (BMF) analytics was used for statistical analysis on a dataset of 48 spouses (husbands) and 12 other family members in five congested communities of Surabaya, Indonesia. Results showed that among the six types of demanded healthcare information, FCGs with a higher tendency to demand cancer-specific information are more likely to need support in catalyzing the adaptation of female cancer patients. Meanwhile, FCGs with a higher demand for information on alternative therapies are less likely to need support in catalyzing cancer adaptation. Other types of healthcare information have ambiguous effects on the need for support in cancer adaptation assistance. This study reveals that the demanded cancer-specific information, e.g., cancer’s prognosis or likely outcome, must be prioritized to assist FCG’s role in catalyzing adaptation among female cancer patients. Cancer prognosis and outcomes reflect the future of cancer care results. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 369 On Divine Foreknowledge. (Part IV of the Concordia). By Lms DE MOLINA. Trans. Alfred J. Freddoso. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988. Pp. xii +286. $34.95. The contents of the sixteenth century Jesuit theologian Luis de Molina's famous work are specified in its title: Liberi arbitrii cum gratiae donis, divina praescientia, providentia, praedestinatione et reprobatione concordia-" The Agreement of Free Choice with the Gifts of Grace, (...) Divine Foreknowledge, Providence, Predestination, and Reprobation." Part IV, which particularly concerns the Divine Fore· knowledge, is divided into seven " Disputations," 47-53 inclusive. These deal with contingency, the presence of all things to God in eternity, God's knowledge of future contingents (including the role of the Divine Ideas), and especially the reconciliation of freedom and contingency with absolutely certain Divine Foreknowledge and Predeterminations. It is Part IV, especially Disputation 52, which contains Molina's well known teaching about the scientia media, God's "middle knowledge," i.e., eternally between the natural knowledge He has of all things possible and the free or post-volitional (according to our way of conceiving it) knowledge He has of all things actual. More precisely, by middle knowledge God knows, before any exercise of His will, what a created free agent would do in various circumstances, both those which actually will obtain and those which, although possible, will never in fact exist. The objects of such knowledge are situated between what is merely possible and what will simply he at some moment of time. They are possible with a certain hypothetical (ex hypothesi) dependence on both Divine and human free causation. Thus, in comprehending them as they are, God's absolutely necessary and prior knowledge would seem in some way dependent upon what is contingent and even created. Molina's doctrine attempts to overcome the paradox in this. A competent admirer of Molina's position, University of Notre Dame Professor Freddoso is not just a master of the Jesuit's baroque Latin, with its sesquipedalian sentences bristling with spiny technical terms. He also shows himself to be a fine logician (earlier he translated portions of Ockham's Summa Logicae), with an excellent understanding of scholastic theology (in areas such as the Trinity, Christology, and the Eucharist), metaphysics, epistemology, and philosophy of human nature. To make the translated work even more accessible, he has in his introduction briefly treated prior parts of the Concordia as preparing the stage for Part IV, has related Molina's concerns to those of present day philosophers of religion, and has made clear the agreement as well 370 BOOK REVIEWS as the main difference between Molina and his " Banezian " opponents, whose position he summarizes from the 20th century theologian-philosopher, Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, O.P. In addition, he has graced the translation with helpful footnotes. At times these identify persons mentioned by Molina, some of whom (e.g. Richard of Middleton, William Durandus, Gregory of Rimini, or Didacus de Deza [Hispalensis]) would be less than household names today for a non·medievalist. At other times, Freddoso's notes clearly and succinctly explain items of Catholic doctrine which Molina presupposes or to which he refers. Still again, they reproduce important texts of St. Thomas connected with points Molina is making. And something which I welcomed, Freddoso uses his notes frequently to recall and clarify premises of earlier arguments to which Molina later simply alludes without restatement. The translation itself is from the modern critical edition of the Concordia by Johannes Rabeneck, S.J. (Oniae et Matriti, 1953), which I would like to have seen reproduced on facing pages. Freddoso's version is accurate to the point of being literal. Despite that, however, it is amazingly readable. He does on occasion have difficulty with terms like complexio (which he specially notes on page 10) and ratio: whether to understand them subjectively or objectively-but then, doesn't everyone have the same problem? Again, while one might wonder about sentences as long as nineteen lines (e.g. page 178), they are in fact the legacy of Molina himself (cf. Disp. 52, n. 19, Rabeneck, p. 346, where the Latin runs 14 lines). Freddoso speaks of Molina's " lumbering " prose. But at the same... (shrink)

Averageness is purportedly the result of stabilizing selection maintaining the population mean, whereas facial paedomorphosis is a product of directional selection driving the population mean towards an increasingly juvenile appearance. If selection is predominantly stabilizing, intermediate phenotypes reflect high genetic quality and mathematically average faces should be found attractive. If, on the other hand, directional selection is strong enough, extreme phenotypes reflect high genetic quality and juvenilized faces will be found attractive. To compare the effects of stabilizing and directional selection (...) on facial paedomorphosis (juvenilization), graphic morphing and editing techniques were used to alter the appearance of composite faces to make them appear more or less juvenile. Both facial models and judges of attractiveness were from the CSU-Long Beach campus. Although effect sizes for both preferences were large, the effect for averageness was nearly twice that found for juvenilization, an indication that stabilizing selection influences preferences for facial paedomorphosis more so than directional selection in contemporary humans. (shrink)

Development-oriented funding schemes such as the UK Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) have opened up opportunities for collaborations between low-middle income countries (LMICs) and high-income country (HIC) researchers. In particular, funding for medical technology research has seen a rise in previously under-represented disciplines such as physics and engineering. These collaborations have considerable potential to advance healthcare in LMICs, yet can pose challenges experienced to researchers undertaking these collaborations. Key challenges include a lack of tradition of HIC/LMIC collaborations within participating departments, (...) lack of experience with development agendas, designing contextually-appropriate technologies and ensuring long-term viability of research outputs. This paper reflects on these key challenges, using the experiences of the authors on the Open Laboratory Instrumentation (OLI) project as a focalizing lens. This project was a GCRF-funded collaboration between physicists in the UK and engineers in Tanzania to develop an open-source, 3D-printed, fully-automated laboratory microscope. The paper highlights key ethics lessons learnt. (shrink)

Kierkegaard’s attitude toward the family of issues usually associated with the rubric ‘nature and grace’ has long been disputed by his interpreters. Some of have seen him as a proponent of the ‘grace perfects nature’ position while others have viewed him as a radical bifurcator of nature and grace. Actually, Kierkegaard’s treatment of these issues is more nuanced. He does propose that human nature intrinsically possesses a yearning that can only be satisfied by God’s grace (...) (and therefore nature is oriented toward grace), but he suggests that the grace that God offers is utterly unanticipated, counter-intuitive, and potentially offensive (and therefore grace disrupts nature). The prospect of God’s self-emptying love is something that nature did not know would fulfill its deepest longings, and which excites both attraction and repulsion. (shrink)

A Pulitzer Prize–winning dance critic teaches us to appreciate—and enact—grace in every dimension, from the physical to the emotional. Grace has long been taught as essential to civilized living. The Three Graces—goddesses of charm, beauty, and creativity—exemplify ease and harmony with one another and the world around them. But what has happened to this simple, marvelous concept of being at ease in the world? With warmth, humor, and an ever-perceptive eye, Sarah L. Kaufman sifts the graceful from (...) the graceless, celebrating heart-catching moments of physical elegance in sports, movies, dance, fashion, and music; rare sightings of celebrity grace; the secrets of gracious hosts; and grace found unexpectedly, in the kitchen of a high-end restaurant and among strippers in a basement bar. Kaufman’s thought-provoking reflections on these physical and social acts of grace offer hope for even the clumsiest, most awkward among us. Guided by the muse of Cary Grant (with further inspiration from Smokey Robinson, Roger Federer, Nelson Mandela, Margot Fonteyn, Amy Purdy, Beyoncé, and others), Kaufman illuminates the importance of grace in the small moments of everyday life. In The Art of Grace, she inspires us to walk taller, spend time on unnecessary kindnesses, and celebrate the grace notes in our lives and those of others. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Efficacious Grace and Free Will:Six Inadequate ArgumentsSteven J. JensenDuring the de auxiliis controversies, the idea of efficacious grace was used extensively as an attempt to explain the manner in which God infallibly achieves his will at the level of supernatural grace. One meaning of efficacious grace has often been considered inconsistent with the idea of free will. The inconsistency—if there is any—depends upon a particular (...) meaning, according to which efficacious grace has three important characteristics: it is an infallible physical pre-motion. (1) Efficacious grace is "physical" because it moves after the manner of an efficient cause rather than after the manner of a final cause (which would be called a "moral" motion).1 (2) The motion is prior (or a pre-motion) because it causally precedes the act of the will to which it gives rise. Finally, (3) the motion is infallible because that toward which it moves the will in every case must be achieved.Suppose, for instance, that God gives Jerry an efficacious grace to help Jane, who is in need. The grace is not merely the enticement of some good (a moral movement), but is the movement of an efficient cause, after the manner by which fire heats water. Furthermore, the grace is efficacious prior to Jerry's actual choice and does not depend upon his will for its efficacy. Finally, once Jerry is moved by this grace, he will of necessity (or infallibly) choose to help Jane.In what follows, references to efficacious grace will refer to this particular [End Page 115] understanding, with these three characteristics. Other conceptions of efficacious grace, such as that given by Jacques Maritain, are not relevant to this paper.2The combination of these three characteristics is sometimes thought to be inconsistent with a particular understanding of free will, according to which the will is the only created cause that determines itself to its final action. Since efficacious grace is a created cause (and not the divine will), since it is an efficient cause, since it is causally antecedent to the final act of the will, and since it determines the will to act, it is inconsistent with free will. Or so the argument goes, at any rate. Whatever the details of this argument, most people will concede that there is, at the very least, an intuitive inconsistency between free will and efficacious grace. To be moved infallibly by an efficient cause seems incompatible with the movement of the will, the agency of which is free, and which therefore is not moved determinately to some effect.3Those who wish to defend efficacious grace have advanced a contrary claim—that efficacious grace is consistent with human free will—which might be called the Consistency Thesis. Apparent inconsistencies are nothing more than apparent. In defense of the Consistency Thesis, a multiplicity of Thomistic arguments are offered by authors such as Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, Steven Long, and Taylor O'Neill.This paper is concerned to show neither the truth nor the falsity of the Consistency Thesis. Rather, it considers six of the arguments defending the thesis and finds all of them wanting. Whatever their merits for other purposes (and often their merits are great), these arguments are inadequate to the task of defending the Consistency Thesis. They are often not bad arguments; they are simply insufficient. They are not enough to show a consistency between efficacious grace and free will. This goal, although modest, is significant, for when confronted with the six arguments readers can be left with the impression that the question is settled. [End Page 116]The Problem ClarifiedThe enemies of efficacious grace suggest the following implication: if the will is moved to act by an infallible physical pre-motion, then the will is determined. The Consistency Thesis may be defended by denying the implication. Even when moved by an infallible physical pre-motion such as efficacious grace (so the defense will argue), the will can remain undetermined. All the arguments discussed below (if they are indeed arguments in defense of the Consistency Thesis) take this approach, although the fourth argument does so only in a very indirect manner.The first argument claims... (shrink)