Walters analyses Canadian and global information highway policy and practices from a philosophical, human rights framework that views freedom and well-being as the necessary conditions of human action.

Reagan mixes the genres of biographical essay, memoir, philosophical essay, and interview to provide the reader with a fascinating and highly readable account. The biographical essay narrates Ricoeur’s early life, his experience as a POW during the Second World War, professorships at the Sorbonne, Nanterre, and Chicago, and his “rediscovery” in and return to France after the publication of Time and Narrative. Reagan’s analysis betrays Ricoeur’s comment that “no one is interested in my life... [since] my life is my work... (...) my books and my articles.” Ricoeur’s captivity as a prisoner of war, the problems he encountered at Nanterre University as doyen of the Faculty of Letters during the 1960s, and the pain and love he and Simone felt for Olivier, their fourth child who committed suicide, are some of the intriguing and touching elements of the narrative. After Olivier’s tragic death in 1986, Ricoeur added “suffering” to the phrase “human action” whenever he wrote about the problem of human action and suffering. (shrink)

SUMMARYSchleiermacher's doctrine of the Trinity is constituted not only by his Glaubenslehre but also in Über den Gegensatz zwischen der Sabellianischen und der Athanasianischen Vorstellung von der Trinität . Schleiermacher can be seen to construe the persons of the Trinity as the circumscription of divinity. This point leads to consideration of divine wisdom as the ground of both the immanent and economic Trinity.

Karl Jaspers was one of the greatest European philosophers and humanists of the twentieth century. He demonstrated a broad range of philosophical thinking that makes his work relevant for the twenty-first century. Coming to philosophy from medicine and psychiatry, Jaspers's views encompass a vast and creative range of empirical, philosophical, social, historical, and poltical ideas. Hannah Arendt described Jaspers as one of the greatest interpreters of Kant in the German tradition. In the 1950s, Jaspers spoke of his "philosophy of reason" (...) and his debt to Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Weber, and others. His philosophy, however, has often been misunderstood by Anglophone readers and interpreters, both with respect to his so-called existentialism, as well as to the originality, creativity, depth, and scope of this thinking and method. The contributors to this fascinating volume offer fresh expositions and interpretations of Jaspers's philosophy. All are prominent experts in Jaspers research from three continents (Europe, North America, and Asia). Six major parts reveal the significant contribution of Jaspers's thought to the philosophy of psychiatry and science, philosophy of history, metaphysics, philosophy of education, philosophy of humanity, philosophy of politics, philosophy of religion, and intercultural philosophy. Key concepts of Jaspers's philosophy are highlighted and interpreted from a fresh and timely perspective: "boundary situations," existential communication, existential truth, transcendence, philosophical faith, the axial age in world history, new politics and the role of a moral and political conversion, the idea of the university, and Jaspers's fascination with and interpretation of Asian thought. The accessible essays will help readers overcome the intimidation often felt when faced with the work of a major German philosopher. The editors introduce and summarize Jaspers's published works, while offering an overview of his basic themes and concerns. New readers and researchers alike will find this collection instrumental in understanding recent developments in the interpretation of Jaspers. (shrink)

This translation of eleven essays originally published between 1898–1918 brings together almost everything Simmel explicitly wrote on religion. The editors arrange the essays thematically, rather than chronologically, in five parts: Religion and Modernity ; Religion and Personality ; Religion and Art ; Methods in the Study of Religion ; and Toward a “Broader” Perspective on Religion. Chapter 3, “The Conflict of Modern Culture”, contains only the final part of the original lecture. Chapter 8, “Rembrandt’s Religious Art”, is not included in (...) the German edition of the collection, and chapter 11 on “Religion” contains Simmel’s revised and augmented second edition essay of 1912. (shrink)

Microbial ecology is flourishing, and in the process, is making contributions to how the ecology and biology of large organisms is understood. Ongoing advances in sequencing technology and computational methods have enabled the collection and analysis of vast amounts of molecular data from diverse biological communities. While early studies focused on cataloguing microbial biodiversity in environments ranging from simple marine ecosystems to complex soil ecologies, more recent research is concerned with community functions and their dynamics over time. Models and concepts (...) from traditional ecology have been used to generate new insight into microbial communities, and novel system-level models developed to explain and predict microbial interactions. The process of moving from molecular inventories to functional understanding is complex and challenging, and never more so than when many thousands of dynamic interactions are the phenomena of interest. We outline the process of how epistemic transitions are made from producing catalogues of molecules to achieving functional and predictive insight, and show how those insights not only revolutionize what is known about biological systems but also about how to do biology itself. Examples will be drawn primarily from analyses of different human microbiota, which are the microbial consortia found in and on areas of the human body, and their associated microbiomes (the genes of those communities). Molecular knowledge of these microbiomes is transforming microbiological knowledge, as well as broader aspects of human biology, health and disease. (shrink)

In this paper, we focus on whether and to what extent we judge that people are responsible for the consequences of their forgetfulness. We ran a series of behavioral studies to measure judgments of responsibility for the consequences of forgetfulness. Our results show that we are disposed to hold others responsible for some of their forgetfulness. The level of stress that the forgetful agent is under modulates judgments of responsibility, though the level of care that the agent exhibits toward performing (...) the forgotten action does not. We argue that this result has important implications for a long-running debate about the nature of responsible agency. (shrink)

The central conflicts of the world today are closely related to cultural, traditional, and religious differences between nations. As we move to a globalized world, these differences often become magnified, entrenched, and the cause of bloody conflict. Growing out of a conference of distinguished scholars from the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, this volume is a singular contribution to mutual understanding and cooperative efforts on behalf of peace. The term paideia, drawn from Greek philosophy, has to do with (...) responsible education for citizenship as a necessary precondition for effective democracy. (shrink)

Responding to volatile criticisms frequently leveled at Leo Strauss and those he influenced, the prominent contributors to this volume demonstrate the profound influence that Strauss and his students have exerted on American liberal democracy and contemporary political thought. By stressing the enduring vitality of classic books and by articulating the theoretical and practical flaws of relativism and historicism, the contributors argue that Strauss and the Straussians have identified fundamental crises of modernity and liberal democracy.

La sensatez o moderación (sophrosyne/σωφροσύνη) es un tema central que atraviesa diversos diálogos de Platón, en los cuales esta virtud se presenta en relación con el amor (erôs), el conocimiento de sí y la política. Esta virtud es abordada por Walter T. Schmid en su artículo “Socratic Moderation and Self-Knowledge”, publicado en el volumen 21 del Journal of The History of Philosophy, como resultado del seminario The Philosophy of Sócrates, organizado en 1981 por Gregory Vlastos, explorando la exposición (...) del término sophrosyne no solo en el Cármides, sino a través de distintos diálogos (Apología, Laques, Sofista). (shrink)

continent. 1.2 (2011): 145-147. Here I accoutred myself in my new habiliments; and, having em- ployed the same precautions as before, retired from my lodging at a time least exposed to observation. It is unnecessary to des- cribe the particulars of my new equipage; suffice it to say, that one of my cares was to discolour my complexion, and give it the dun and sallow hue which is in most instances characteristic of the tribe to which I assumed to belong; (...) and that when my metamorphosis was finished, I could not, upon the strictest ex- amination, conceive that any one could have traced out the per- son of Caleb Williams in this new disguise. William Godwin Caleb Williams (352). Giorgio Agamben. Nudities . Trans. David Kishik and Stefan Pedatella. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011. 144 pp. | 10 illustrations. | ISBN: 9780804769501 | $16.95 A. The Protective Overcoat. The most pervasive, resilient, robust, sneaky, and significant concept in all of Giorgio Agamben’s essays is that of separation. This is not the same as alienation. Separation is more nostalgic, for Agamben valorizes an ancient world in which human society and its beings were not subject to such separation. He implies that these separations are damaging to human beings, crippling them at the very level of their identities. $4.99 B. The Handsome Gloves. Giorgio Agamben’s Nudities , like Profanations before it, employs a wide range of subjects in order to establish separation as a metaphor, in much the same way that interdisciplinary scholars have adopted Michel Foucault’s concepts in order to rethink societies and texts. The longest essay from Profanations, entitled “In Praise of Profanation,” laments humankind’s inability to profane as the result of what Walter Benjamin has called “the capitalist religion.” Likewise, “Nudity” adopts a pessimistic stance on the Christian theological tradition’s perverse asphyxiation of the unclothed body. $2.50 C. The Hoop Earrings. Religion separates humans from things by procuring for itself items as “sacred,” thus taking them out of common use. In this state, human beings are unable to play with them, unable to change their use-value. They become off-limits, museified. $1,499.00 D. The Uncomfortable Shoes. Biometrics polices identity, replacing meaningful metrics of identity. It is a deplorable situation that leaves human beings in danger of, and indeed already victims of, mass persecution. $111.75 E. The Prince Albert. One could characterize Giorgio Agamben’s desire to catalogue a history of ignorance as a recognition that human beings are separated from knowledge by language. Where then is the prophet, and how shall we be saved? $49.50 + tip F. The Corset. Franz Kafka’s character of Joseph K. has put himself on trial, as in Roman trials when the Kalumniator was marked with the letter K. The torture he undergoes is meant to elicit a confession of the truth. It is possible that Giorgio Agamben perceives his role as a philosopher to be confined to self-trial, and that with every passage he flays the unclothed page with prophetic intent. $27.00 G. The Derby. Giorgio Agamben himself tries to bridge various separations through exploratory play. He is not a performative writer semantically, but his exploratory style is rooted in the play spirit. His strategy of numbering points is almost comical, yet it is not misleading. It is play, after all, not ruse. He denudes with pecks, like carrion on a tattered corpse. $11.00 H. The Trousers. Although Giorgio Agamben is elsewhere concerned with the profanation of religion’s apparatuses, in essay nine he would like to consider what is consumed during days of inoperativity, how religion governs these, and how to account for our binges and purges. Inoperativity is inextricably bound to feasting, to the festival. $24.50 I. The Stylish Belt. The only essay in Nudities to contain photographs is the essay entitled, “Nudity.” All of these photographs project human bodies. $.01 I The aim here is not to tap into an original state prior to the separation but to comprehend and neutralize the apparatus that produced this separation. (66) II The contemporary is he who firmly holds his gaze on his own time so as to perceive not its light but rather its darkness. (13) III We can therefore only experience nudity as a denudation and a baring, never as a form and a stable possession. (65) IV Just as genius and talent originally distinct and even opposite—are nevertheless united in the work of the poet, so the work of creation and the work of salvation, inasmuch as they represent the two powers of a single God, remain in some way secretly conjoined. (6) V In our culture, the face-body relationship is marked by a fundamental asymmetry, in that our faces remain for the most part naked, while our bodies are normally covered. (88) VI Every man initiates a slanderous trial against himself. (21) VII The glorious body is not some other body, more agile and beautiful, more luminous and spiritual; it is the body itself, at the moment when inoperativity removes the spell from it and opens it up to a new possible common use. (103) VIII As Kleist understood so well, the relationship with a zone of nonknowledge is a dance. (114) IX The deactivation of this apparatus retroactively operates, therefore, as much on nature as on grace, as much on nudity as on clothing, liberating them from their theological signature. (90) X At any rate, whether festive inoperativity precedes religion or results from the profanation of its apparatuses, what is essential here is a dimension of praxis in which simple, quotidian human activities are neither negated nor abolished but suspended and rendered inoperative in order to be exhibited, as such, in a festive manner. (112) XI This is just how much [of] the land [the] surveyor is allowed to catch a glimpse. (36). (shrink)

In this essay I pay homage to one of the most important but neglected philosophers of liberation in Latin America, Luis Villoro, by considering what possible lessons we can learn from his philosophy about how to approach injustices in the Americas. Villoro was sympathetic to liberatory-leftist philosophies but he became concerned with the direction they took once they grew into philosophical movements centered on shared beliefs or on totalizing theories that presume global explanatory power. These movements became vulnerable to extremes (...) or vices that undermine their liberatory promise. I examine some of these worrying tendencies among that body of literature roughly described as “decolonial thought” (e.g., Enrique Dussel, Walter Mignolo). After a concise presentation of Villoro and the decolonial turn, I consider four dangers that this new liberatory-leftist movement faces and why Villoro should be a significant voice as the decoloniality debate moves forward. (shrink)

Este ensayo considera el tema de sabotaje en Hitchcock, en especial su película británica Sabotaje, en términos de la teoría silogística de Manuel Asensi. También analiza temas subversivos semejantes en dos obras contemporáneas, Malditos bastardos de Quentin Tarantino y Volver de Pedro Almodóvar. Los sabotajes literales en la película de Hitchcock (la colocación de bombas en relación con el cine) se combinan con la matanza de un esposo (tratándole como un pedazo de carne) para figurar un cine radical no solo (...) como un arte anti-aurético (en el sentido del arte mecánicamente reproducido de Walter Benjamin) sino también como un texto atético, en términos de Asensi, para desconstruir el silogismo entimemático que informa el modelo del mundo (la sociedad y la política son como una obra artística de formas puras) al fondo del fascismo histórico. Malditos bastardos y Volver van más allá de Sabotaje de Hitchcock al ofrecer un hospedaje al subalterno en pos de los silogismos saboteados. La crítica como sabotaje nos ayuda a ver la dimensión subversiva de estas y otras películas. Al mismo tiempo, el análisis de los sabotajes cinematográficos pone en relieve el impacto político de la teoría de Asensi de la crítica como sabotaje.El fondo teórico de este artículo es el libro Crítica y sabotaje de Manuel Asensi que demuestra que las obras literarias y fílmicas tienen una función performativa. Son discursos que modelizan sujetos en el mundo. Tales modelizaciones ocurren de una manera inconsciente puesto que cada discurso contiene un silogismo que implica un modelo del mundo. La crítica como sabotaje es un instrumento para revelar estos silogismos modelizantes escondidos en las obras. Algunos textos como las películas estudiadas en este artículo explícitamente sabotean los modelos del mundo que históricamente han servido para reprimirnos, de modo que la crítica como sabotaje se une a la visión de Walter Benjamin del arte nuevo capaz de estallar el aura (los valores del culto inseparables del fascismo) asociado con el arte clásico. El cine para Benjamin, siendo un arte mecánicamente reproducido, ténia esta potencia explosiva. Es precisamente la misma visión saboteadora que encontramos en las películas analizadas en este ensayo. (shrink)

The essays in this collection demonstrate American philosopher John Dewey's wide-ranging influence on rhetoric in an intellectual tradition that addresses the national culture's fundamental conflicts between self and society, freedom and responsibility, and individual advancement and the common good. Editors Brian Jackson and Gregory Clark propose that this influence is at work both in theoretical foundations, such as science, pragmatism, and religion, and in Dewey's debates with other public intellectuals, such as Jane Addams, Walter Lippmann, James Baldwin, and (...) W.E.B. Du Bois. Jackson and Clark seek to establish Dewey as an essential source for those engaged in teaching others how to compose timely, appropriate, useful, and eloquent responses to the diverse and often-contentious rhetorical situations that develop in a democratic culture. What prepares people to intervene constructively in such situations is instruction in those rhetorical practices of democratic interaction that is implicit throughout Dewey's work. Dewey's writing provides a rich framework on which a distincly American tradition of a democratic rhetorical practice can be built - a tradition that combines the most useful concepts of classical rhetoric with those of modern progressive civic engagement. Jackson and Clark believe Dewey's practice takes rhetoric beyond the traditional emphasis on political democracy to provide connections to rich veins of American thought such as individualism, liberalism, progressive education, collectivism, pragmatism, and postindustrial science and communication. They frame Dewey's work as constituting a modern expression of continuing education for the "trained capacities" required to participate in democratic culture. -- from back cover. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS Summa Theologiae: A Concise Translation. By ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. Edited by Timothy McDermott. Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1989. Pp. lviii + 651. $78.00 (cloth). There are probably just a few of us familiar with Dominico Gravina's Compendium rythmicum, an ancient little book that summarizes the entire Summa theologiae in the same Latin meter as " Tantum ergo." But doubtless many are familiar with the experience Gravina must (...) have had that led him to write such a book. It is the same experience that has led to a remarkable number of synopses, compendia, introductory translations, selections, and most recently to Timothy McDermott's Concise Translation. These attempt to present the doctrine of the Summa without the massive weight of syllogism and definition, unfamiliar style, and innumerable (sometimes obscure) references, which make it so daunting a task for the unprepared reader. For example, Paul Glenn in Tour of the Summa excises every objection and response and summarizes only the bodies of the articles. Walter Farrell in Companion to the Summa does not attempt trans· lation hut instead rewords and restructures the Summa in the typically modern paragraph style. However, these works have their shortcomings. By neglecting the doctrine contained in the responses and by failing to provide any transition from the summary of one article to another, the Tour considerably weakens the ordo disciplinae which, as Thomas argues in his prologue, is essential to this work. In this regard, even Anton Pegis's Introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas tends to stumble along, despite being a close translation. The Companion, on the other hand, does preserve a continuity of thought, but in the final account it is Thomas's thought only secondhand. The Concise Translation, however, masterfully combines the strengths of these hooks, while avoiding their weaknesses. For it achieves concision in a manner that respects the order and development of the Summa, " not by selecting out parts, hut by compressing and distilling the whole" (p. xiii). Yet at the same time it is a translation. It is essentially Thomas in a similar form, approximately one sixth the size. McDermott admits that he has made certain omissions (for example, some of the remarkably lengthy discussions of the ceremonial and judicial precepts of the Old Law), but in these cases he retains enough to give the reader a sense of Thomas's treatment. There are of course 7~7 728 BOOK REVIEWS many passages which would he impossible to make more concise (for example, the proofs for God's existence), except by adapting them to a modern format. Here McDermott's use of modern punctuation and sentence structure tends to smooth out the stacatto (though extremely precise) structure of Thomas's syntax. At a glance, the Concise Translation appears as a thoroughly modern text, with paragraphs, titled sections, chapters, bibliography, and indices. Not surprisingly, it is divided into three main parts: God, Journeying to God, and The Road to God. Each of these is divided into chapters (numbered continuously through the parts) that correspond more or less to the so-called Treatises. For example, Part One, Chapter Five, entitled "Man's Place in Creation," corresponds exactly to the Treatise on Man. These chapters, in turn, are divided into sections which correspond closely to the major divisions that Thomas outlines in his introductions at the heads of various questions. The ohjec· tion/response format, however has completely disappeared, and the only evidence of the question/article format appears at the heads of certain paragraphs and in the margins. But this does not mean that the ohj ections and responses have altogether vanished. McDermott's careful eye has picked out many of the important distinctions they con· tain and has skillfully incorporated them into complete and unified paragraphs. This holds true also with many instances of the sed contra. Finally, in streamlining his text, he has done away with most references, keeping just enough to indicate on whom Thomas primarily relied. This regrettably leaves the reader unaware of Thomas's extensive use of his predecessors. But all in all, McDermott's format makes the text eminently readable. The translation itself is remarkable for its fidelity to the original and ease of comprehension. It almost... (shrink)

A comprehensive introduction to current research on the psychology of concept formation and use.

In Interfaces of the World, Walter J. Ong explores the effects on consciousness of the word as it moves through oral to written to print and electronic culture.