A major work in moral philosophy by the noted Puritan divine.

v. 1. Freedom of the will -- v. 2. Religious affections -- v. 3. Original sin -- v. 4. The Great Awakening -- v. 5. Apocalyptic writings -- v. 6. Scientific and philosophical writings -- v. 7. The life of David Brainerd -- v. 8. Ethical writings -- v. 9. A history of the work of redemption -- v. 10. Sermons and discourses, 1720-1723 -- v. 13. The "miscellanies" (entry nos. a-z, aa-zz, 1-500) -- v. 15. Notes on Scripture -- (...) v. 17. Sermons and discourses, 1730-1733 -- v. 18. The "miscellanies" (entry nos. 501-832) -- v. 19. Sermons and discourses, 1734-1738 -- v. 20. The miscellanies -- v. 22. Sermons and discourses, 1739-1742 -- v. 24. The "blank Bible" (2 v.). (shrink)

The Consensus Statement of the Third International Congress on Concussion in Sport in November 2008 defined concussion as a “complex pathophysiologic process affecting the brain, induced by traumatic biochemical forces.” Definitions of concussion vary slightly between various professional organizations of neurosurgeons, neurologists, and orthopedic surgeons, but all share the common characteristics of trauma affecting the head or body resulting in transient neurologic deficits or symptoms. Underlying the symptoms of concussion is a complex pathophysiologic process at the cellular level. While concussion (...) is typically thought of as resulting from a direct impact to the head, a concussion can also be sustained as a result of an impact to the body causing the force of the impact to be transmitted to and absorbed by the brain. (shrink)

Charity and its fruits -- Dissertation I, Concerning the end for which God created the world -- Dissertation II, The nature of true virtue.

President Lincoln's platform included a recommendation of "a vigorous and just system of taxation," because he believed that if you had been blessed by living in America and had benefited from what this country has to offer, then you should do more for your country. One hundred forty years later, we still need a "vigorous and just system of taxation," not because we like taxes, but because, as Oliver Wendell Holmes said, taxes are the price we pay for a civilized (...) society. We have been having a tax debate for more than a century, but what is new about today's debate is that tour leaders want to shift the tax burden from unearned income straight on to the backs of working people. This radical notion turns on its head the very values that built America — rewarding hard work. My radical notion is that it is time to abolish the work penalty by abolishing the tax code of special privileges for wealth. In this talk I set forth a set of ideas to do just that, and further I show how we can use our tax code to encourage asset building and reduce poverty. (shrink)

We perceive colour, shape, sound and touch 'bound together' in a single experience. The following arguments about this binding phenomenon are raised: (1) The individual signals passing from neurone to neurone are not bound together, whether as elements of information or physically. (2) Within a single cell, binding in terms of bringing together of information is potentially feasible. A physical substrate may also be available. (3) It is therefore proposed that a bound conscious experience must be a property of an (...) individual cell, not of a group of cells. Since it is unlikely that one specific neurone is conscious, it is suggested that every neurone has a version of our consciousness, or at least some form of sentience. However absurd this may seem it appears to be consistent with the available evidence; arguably the only explanation that is. It probably does not alter the way we should expect to experience the world, but may help to explain the ways we seem to differ from digital computers and some of the paradoxes seen in mental illness. It predicts non-digital features of intracellular computation, for which there is already evidence, and which should be open to further experimental exploration. The arguments given may well prove flawed or the conclusion biologically or physically untenable, but the idea is raised for discussion not least because a formal demonstration that it is invalid may help to identify more fruitful avenues. (shrink)

Humanitarian aid workers typically reject the accolade of hero as both untrue and undesirable. Untrue when they claim not to be acting beyond the call of duty, and undesirable so far as celebrating heroism risks elevating “heroic” choices over safer, and perhaps wiser ones. However, this leaves unresolved a tension between the denial of heroism and a sense in which certain humanitarian acts really appear heroic. And, the concern that in rejecting the aspiration to heroism an opportunity is lost to (...) inspire more and better humanitarian action. Having set out this problem in more detail in Part I, the argument in Part II will suggest that a virtue ethics approach to humanitarian moral obligations can make good sense of our intuitions concerning the role of heroism in humanitarian action. In Part III I will argue that at least “professional” humanitarians, instead of rejecting heroism, should aim to be heroes, in the sense of displaying a virtue of humanity in high-stakes contexts, because this is consistent with the aim of humanitarian action. Finally, some lingering problems of demandingness and motivation are considered. (shrink)

Giving an account of the relation between evolution and consciousness is painted as posing a dilemma between panpsychism, with minimal consciousness in every grain of matter, and radical emergence, with consciousness appearing as from nowhere in living structures. Panpsychism has been seen as suffering from a combination problem and radical emergence as unjustified in physics. The underpinning of physics now lies in field theory, which may provide a way out on both sides. Only, and always, in a field theory account (...) do influences at different points in spacetime combine in the same indivisible event. Radical emergence is also inherent to field theory. Moreover, by providing rich patterns of influence involving both discrete identities and quantitative values, field theory might provide a basis for sensed propositional meaning with subjects and predicates. Ordered condensed matter within living tissue may support unusual emergent dynamic units uniquely suited to building representations of the world with sensed meaning. The evolution of consciousness may then be seen as a tractable biological problem centred on increasingly sophisticated ways for external world dynamics to be mirrored by internal representations with semantic content, based in field relations within condensed matter with genetically encoded complex order. (shrink)

Prepared by editors of the distinguished series The Works of Jonathan Edwards, this authoritative anthology includes selected treatises, sermons, and autobiographical material by early America’s greatest theologian and philosopher.

It is argued that both neuroscience and physics point towards a similar re-assessment of our concepts of space, time and 'reality', which, by removing some apparent paradoxes, may lead to a view which can provide a natural place for consciousness and language within biophysics. There are reasons to believe that relationships between entities in experiential space and time and in modern physicists' space and time are quite different, neither corresponding to our geometric schooling. The elements of the universe may be (...) better described not as 'particles' but as dynamic processes giving rise, where they interface with each other, to the transfer, and at least in some cases experience, of 'pure'or 'active'information, the mental and physical just reflecting different standpoints. Although this analy-sis draws on general features of quantum dynamics, it is argued that purely quantum level events (and their 'interpretations') are unlikely to be relevant to the understanding of consciousness. The processes that might be able to give rise, within brain cells, to an experience like ours are briefly reviewed. It is suggested that the elementary signals that are integrated to generate a spatial experience may have features more in common with words than pixels. It is further suggested that the laws of integration of words in language may provide useful clues to the way biophysical integration of signals in neurons relates to integration of elements in experiential space. (shrink)

Asylum seekers, by their very circumstances, test our common assumptions and practice in relation to human rights. The treatment of asylum seekers in many European countries has become harsher, more restrictive and less tolerant in recent years, raising questions about the violation of their rights. The article examines the bases of the rights that asylum seekers do have and whether these are best supported as human rights or more limited rights that attach to the place of their temporary residence and (...) to obligations made by their country of temporary residence. Given the propensity of receiving countries to afford increasingly limited rights, the article identifies a limited set of rights that should take priority in a hierarchy of rights and which might claim widespread acceptance as those which asylum seekers must enjoy. (shrink)

McFadden has recently raised several cogent points about the problems of 'Gestalt Information' and the meaning of meaning in human experience, in particular the central problem of 'binding'. Very reasonably, he has tried to resolve these problems in terms of a unified electromagnetic field. However, certain premises on which his arguments are based are open to question. Of these, two deserve particular note. The claim that individual neurons only have access to a tiny number of bits of information seems wrong, (...) since neurons have up to 50,000 independent inputs. The basic claim that the brain has a single unified EMfield that could explain the richness of experience is also open to doubt. Taken together with related issues these points suggest that the role for EM fields in meaningful human experience may be more in line with conventional neurophysiology--at the level of post-synaptic integration. (shrink)

In the course of my efforts to distinguish and relate the methods and achievements of René Girard and James Alison, I have developed the hypothesis that a particular pair of theological terms might provide a helpful conceptual tool for carrying out this task—fides quae creditur and fides qua creditur. These terms were given their classic formulation within Protestant scholasticism at the beginning of the seventeenth century, where they were used to distinguish between two dimensions of Christian faith: the “object” or (...) “content” of faith , and the kind of activity that faith is or the form that it takes within the subject .My proposal, stated most briefly, is that Alison’s use of Girard’s .. (shrink)

Contents.--The theme.--What is music?--Music in nature.--Wherefore?--Law in music.--Correlations of music.--The beautifier of time.--The power of music.--Musico-therapy.--Design in design.--The altruistic art.--The social art.--The religious art.--Music and immortality.--The God of music.

This expands the proposal in 'Is consciousness only a property of individual cells?' to attempt to cover all relevant psychological, neuroscientific and philosophical issues. Some of the material is now dated (in 2011) but chiefly in the sense that tentative proposals have become firmer views for me. An example of this is the clarification of complementarities in "Are our spaces made of words?'.

Presents an analysis of Jonathan Edwards' theological position. This book includes a study of his life and the intellectual issues in the America of his time, and examines the problem of free will in connection with Leibniz, Locke, and Hume.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 122.2 (2001) 255-263 [Access article in PDF] Philology And Cuisine In De Re Coquinaria John Edwards The text of Apicius' De Re Coquinaria contains many disputed readings. Through bisociation, the use of one discipline to illuminate another, some of them can be resolved. To put it simply, the translation should fit the plate. Just as Homer, the poet of the Achaians, wrote a description of (...) a Troy whose existence was proven by close textual readings and subsequent field work by Schliemann, so Apicius, the Roman artist of cuisine, left recipes whose language can be emended and whose tastes can be verified through practical experiment in the modern kitchen.The limits of a strictly philological approach to Apicius became apparent when, during my composition of The Roman Cookery of Apicius, the translation of a number of recipe titles was inconsistent with the technical information which followed. This was extraordinary because of Apicius' imperative, laconic style, whose formulae more resemble the ritualistic epithets of the annals of the Hittite kings than the informed, conversational prose of an Elizabeth David or an M. F. K. Fisher. In his text there is little question of subjectivity in the nomenclature, or puns or literary allusions to test the reader. Indeed, in all ten books of the Coquinaria and in the later and derivative Excerpts of Vinidarius only twice does Apicius emerge from anonymity, at 4.2.12 ("ad mensam nemo agnoscet quid manducet"), and at 1.9.1 (miraberis); and, in any case, I think these uncharacteristic asides are really the happy observations of a copyist. The third atypical remark which puzzles is a reference to a lost and presumably illustrated version of his book. The reference is tantalizing and colloquial, the words perhaps of an editor: "patellam aeneam qualem debes habere infra ostenditur" (4.2.14).The Coquinaria is not written in the colloquial Latin of Petronius' Satyricon, with which it is probably contemporary. His text is spare to the point of postmodern bleakness; there is nothing, except some of the actual ingredients, of the decadence of the Cena Trimalchionis. It is a collection of lists and brief instructions, often formulaic, never personal. It follows, then, that what remains is the essential manual, stripped of nuance and personality through centuries of use and transmission, rather [End Page 255] like the spare lists of foodstuffs written by Anthimus in his De Observatione Ciborum or in Gargilius' De Hortis. The words must literally convey their meanings to the careful cook. The temptation to be swayed by a perhaps unusual or delicious adjective must be resisted. Although his text refers obliquely to his predecessors (the authors of lost Sicilian, Greek, and Egyptian monographs) and in spite of the fact that the sea routes which supplied Italian markets with oriental spices in the first century reached as far as southern China and the Banda Sea, the ascription of an historically interesting definition should be resisted unless the culinary facts are convincing.An illustration of a probably misunderstood recipe title occurs at 5.3.3, Pisum Indicum, in the Milham text (1969). The variant readings are pisum indicam in the Codex Vaticanus and indicum pisum in the New York Academy of Medicine Codex.These phrases take the accusative because the verb coques is assumed, while the gender is arbitrary throughout the section of recipes for peas in book 5, Ospreon. At 5.3.5, for instance, one reads Pisam Vitellianam sive fabam and later at 5.3.8, Pisam adulteram versatilem. These cases are consistent; but in the phrase pisum indicam the gender is confused, and in the phrase indicum pisum the syntax is irregular, since all of the other eight recipes for peas begin with Pisum, Pisam, Aliter pisa, or Aliter pisam. These variations are caused by the mixing of classical and late Latin forms in a text much altered by the long history of its transcription. Another example of unusual, that is English, syntax occurs with Frontinianum porcellum (8.7.10), "Frontinian pork."If one rejects the Vatican and the New York codex readings, the ambiguous... (shrink)

It would seem that we in the West are suffering from an increasing glut of rights. To the sixty-odd human rights that the Universal Declaration and its Covenants have long given us, must now be added the particular rights claims of an increasing number of ‘oppressed’ minorities, claims to compensation rights for just about every conceivable harm done and claims to ever more trivial things. This tendency is harmful insofar as it trivialises rights and devalues the coverage of rights. Human (...) rights are fundamental and ought to be protected from these tendencies. Using an analysis of the foundations of human rights, and their function in maintaining autonomy in particular, this article analyses the content of rights – what must be fulfilled in order for a right to be protected – as a means of demonstrating the possibility of reducing the volume of rights without reducing rights coverage and of creating a defensible hierarchy. (shrink)

The spider papers.--Natural philosophy.--The mind.--Short scientific and philosophical papers.

Real change and real results for your school This book provides the practical tools and implementation guide to become a school that delivers. It fills the gap between intention and delivery. Every process in the book has been tested and refined across six countries. The book shares how to: blend research and practice to deliver results that matter in schools. develop a strong culture of leadership, trust and alignment. address the frustrations currently felt by teachers in a positive, productive way. (...) When a school community delivers together for their children, they feel the true joy of education. (shrink)

The idea that individual nerve cells might have conscious experiences has been around ever since cells were identified in the seventeenth century, but in the era of modern neuroscience the case for individual human neuronal experience has received little attention. A series of arguments will be presented suggesting that all the human conscious experiences that we talk about are events in individual neurons, not global to the brain or organism. We conclude that cellular consciousness is the only plausible way to (...) explain ‘our’ experiences within current physics and biology, however implausible it might at first seem. This implies that our experiences are multiple in space as well as time, consistent with the neuroscience watchword that there is ‘no single place where everything comes together in the brain’. The central argument is that events of experience must involve rich integration of information and individual neurons are the only places in brains where integration of information occurs. Any more global ‘binding’ is neither required nor physically possible. The detailed nature of events of integration of signals in a neuron’s dendrites remains uncertain but recent developments provide some candidates. (shrink)

Originally published posthumously in 1955, Harvey G. Townsend's Philosophy of Jonathan Edwards reprinted some of Edwards' most important early compositions on natural philosophy, Of Being and The Mind, and collected nearly two hundred Miscellanies entries, some of them published here for the first time. In his introduction, Townsend points to Edwards' radical idealism that derived from Christian Platonism and John Locke rather than George Berkeley, as commonly thought. Townsend's work represents an important sourcebook for Edwards' writings, and his introduction presents (...) a clear picture of mainstream Edwards scholarship at the middle of the twentieth century. (shrink)

In this collection of writings drawn from Jonathan Edwards’s essays and topical notebooks, the great American theologian deals with key Christian doctrines including the Trinity, grace, and faith. The volume includes long-established pieces in the Edwards canon, newly reedited from the original manuscripts, as well as documents that have never before been published and that in some cases reveal new aspects of his theology.

Jonathan Edwards is known as one of the most respected thinkers in American history and presided over the Great Awakening, one of the formative colonial events. What many don't realize is Edwards lived during a time of widespread conflict, which eventually touched the people of Northampton personally. Through these collected sermons, many of which are unpublished, Edwards sought to instruct, train, and comfort his congregation during a precarious season in provincial life. These sermons demonstrate the scope of Edwards's greatness: a (...) global thinker intimately connected to the British Empire as well as shepherd of the Northampton flock. The first part of this collection presents the sermons Edwards preached while the theater of war centered on the continent and the Caribbean. During this phase, Edwards's sermons leveraged martial language to promote the burgeoning revivals. In 1744, war was transplanted to the colonies in which the Northampton congregation personally participated. After a short hiatus of international conflict, warfare spread throughout the colonies. While he served a frontier mission, Edwards prepared his Indian congregation for yet another season of war. These sermons present Edwards as theologian, historian, philosopher, but most importantly, as pastor. (shrink)