Thomas Reid was one of the greatest philosophers of the eighteenth century and a contemporary of Kant's. This volume is part of a new wave of international interest in Reid from a new generation of scholars. The volume opens with an introduction to Reid's life and work, including biographical material previously little known. A classic essay by Reid himself - 'Of Power' - is then reproduced, in which he sets out his distinctive account of causality and agency. This is followed (...) by ten original essays exploring different aspects of Reid's philosophy, as well as his relation to other thinkers, such as Kant, Priestley, and Moore. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

Anyone who comes to read some of Aquinas' works and at the same time looks around for modern discussions of them will be struck by two things: first, the greater part of the latter is the product of American and European Catholic neo-scholasticism; and second, that, with a few distinguished exceptions,1 what is contributed by writers of the analytical tradition is often a blend of uninformed generalizations and some suspicion that what Aquinas presents is not so much independent philosophy (...) as propaganda for the cause of Christian theology. (shrink)

One of the manuscripts of Buridan’s Summulae contains three figures, each in the form of an octagon. At each node of each octagon there are nine propositions. Buridan uses the figures to illustrate his doctrine of the syllogism, revising Aristotle's theory of the modal syllogism and adding theories of syllogisms with propositions containing oblique terms (such as ‘man’s donkey’) and with ‘propositions of non-normal construction’ (where the predicate precedes the copula). O-propositions of non-normal construction (i.e., ‘Some S (some) P is (...) not’) allow Buridan to extend and systematize the theory of the assertoric (i.e., non-modal) syllogism. Buridan points to a revealing analogy between the three octagons. To understand their importance we need to rehearse the medieval theories of signification, supposition, truth and consequence. (shrink)

While I was quietly thinking these thoughts [about misfortune] over to myself and giving vent to my sorrow with the help of my pen, I became aware of a woman standing over me. She was of aweinspiring appearance, her eyes burning and keen beyond the usual power of men. She was so full of years that I could hardly think of her as of my own generation, and yet she possessed a vivid colour and undiminished vigour … Her clothes were (...) made of imperishable material, of the finest thread woven with the most delicate skill … On the bottom hem could be read the embroidered Greek letter Pi , and on the top hem the Greek letter Theta . Between the two a ladder of steps rose from the lower to the higher letter. Her dress had been torn by the hands of marauders who had each carried off such pieces as he could get. There were some books in her right hand and in her left hand she held a sceptre … As she spoke she gathered her dress into a fold and wiped from my eyes the tears that filled them … the clouds of my grief dissolved and I drank in the light. (shrink)

IN HIS COMMENTARY on Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, Garth Hallett records Wittgenstein's extensive reading of Augustine's Confessions. By contrast, he remarks that Wittgenstein never read anything of Aristotle. However, he also reports Rush Rhees as saying that at the time of his death Wittgenstein had in his possession the first two volumes of a German-Latin edition of Aquinas's Summa Theologiae, containing questions 1-26 of the Prima Pars. Question 13 concerns the Divine Names, the first article asking whether a name can (...) be given to God. Aquinas begins his answer by referring to the passage from De Interpretatione quoted above: "Since, according to the Philosopher, words are signs of ideas, and ideas the similitudes of things, it is evident that words function in the signification of things through the conception of the intellect.". (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: What is Applied Ethics? The Rise of Applied Ethics A Neglected Precedent The Future of the Subject.

Like Kravchenko, we build on Maturana’s bio-logic and the view that language is the “outcome of the evolution of observers.” Yet, Kravchenko offers a narrow “linguistic” reading of Maturana. On our wider view, Kravchenko’s work is criticized for limiting use of “languaging” to aspects of observing that leave out how sensibility and activity inform human practices. Stephen Cowley & Rasmus Gahrn-Andersen.

Two Short Communications:R. A. Markus, Gregory the Great and In I Regum, by Francis ClarkAquinas's Claim ‘Anima Mea Non Est Ego’, by Stephen Priest.

In this dissertation, I will examine the problem of theological fatalism in St. Augustine and, specifically, whether or not Augustine was philosophically justified in his belief that his views on divine grace and human freedom could be harmonized. As is well-known, beginning with his second response To Simplician (ca. 396) and continuing through his works against the semi-Pelagians (ca. 426-429), Augustine espoused the Pauline doctrine of all-inclusive grace: that the fallen will’s ability to accomplish the good is totally a function (...) of God’s elective grace. What, then, does the fallen will do to work out its own salvation? There is the further issue of how to reconcile Augustine’s rather extreme emphasis on grace in his later works with the more balanced picture we receive in his sermones ad populum, written throughout his forty-year preaching career. In many of these sermons, even those written during the Pelagian controversy, Augustine is careful to leave space for both divine and human initiative in the process of our justification within the totus Christus, or ‘whole Christ.’ How we can understand Augustine in his role as doctor gratiae and as preacher of human freedom will be a major inquiry of this dissertation.The most serious obstacle to moving forward on these problems has been and remains the essentialist interpretation of Augustine’s Trinitarian theology by most commentators. On their interpretation, Augustine thought that there were no real distinctions within the Trinity, with each of the three divine persons and their actions sharing in the absolute unity of the divine essence. Holding this interpretation not only does away with the distinctness of each of the persons, but also requires all of God’s different powers and attributes, including willing and foreknowing, to be coalesced into one another without distinction in the divine essence. God’s foreknowledge is thereby identified with God’s will, which necessarily leads to theological fatalism: God would have to will everything that He foreknows, and God would have to foreknow everything that He wills. Since God is omniscient, He wills everything that will happen, including the future willings of the fallen human will.It cannot be denied that there are texts in the Augustinian corpus that seem to point to a reading of the Trinity as absolutely simple. But this study will endeavor to show that there are also other largely overlooked texts in On the Trinity, the Confessions, and his Commentaries on the Literal Interpretation of Genesis (among others) that argue for various distinctions within the Trinity to make sense of the relation between Creator and creature, and the differences between the divine processions of generation/spiration, and the act of creation. These texts will be shown to parallel very closely the position of the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition, which consistently uses the real distinction between God’s essential being and energetic activities (also known as the essence-energy distinction) to avoid the problem of theological fatalism. This rich theological and philosophical tradition, from the time of the fourth-century Greek Fathers to the Byzantine tradition that followed, differs less with Augustine concerning the essentials of Trinitarian theology and its practical implications for solving the problem of making human freedom and divine grace compatible than has been hitherto thought. (shrink)

Stephen Read - Johannes Buridanus: Summulae de Practica Sophismatum - Journal of the History of Philosophy 45:1 Journal of the History of Philosophy 45.1 157-158 Muse Search Journals This Journal Contents Reviewed by Stephen Read University of St. Andrews Fabienne Pironet, editor. Johannes Buridanus: Summulae de Practica Sophismatum. Artistarium 10–9. Turnhout: Brepols 2004. Pp. xlix + 193. Paper, €40.00. John Buridan was an unusual figure in fourteenth-century logic and philosophy. Logic was at that time largely (...) the preserve of the young, who would lecture on logic while studying in higher faculties such as theology, before moving on to lecture in their maturity on philosophy and theology. Two notable exceptions are the Englishman Walter Burley and the Frenchman from Picardy, John Buridan. Already active in the Arts Faculty at Paris in the late 1320s, Buridan was still there thirty years later. In the meantime, among other works on metaphysics, ethics, politics, and natural philosophy, he.. (shrink)

This paper provides a philosophical analysis and a new edition of an anonymous Epitome of John Dumbleton’s solution to the semantic paradoxes. The first part of this paper briefly presents Dumbleton’s cassationist solution to the semantic paradoxes, which the English philosopher proposes in his Summa Logicae, written in the 1330s–40s. The second part investigates the solution to various types of insolubles proposed by the anonymous author of the Epitome. The third part provides a new critical edition of the Latin (...) text – a first edition was edited by Bottin in 1978 – and an English translation. (shrink)

This is the first volume in a series— Handbook [sic.] of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion —of which the author is also editor. Two things strike one immediately: first, it is very impressive in its range and depth of coverage; second, it is outrageously expensive. Kluwer’s pricing policy is a disgrace which reviewers ought not to let pass uncriticized. It is a disservice to individual readers, to institutions, and to writers. The present author has evidently labored long, hard, and fruitfully, yet (...) his work is not likely to be widely read because of an unwarranted cost imposed by the publisher. It is conceivable, though unlikely, that this criticism will affect the pricing of subsequent volumes, but it will be a cruel irony if the editor’s own volume is then the one that is least widely read. Kluwer would be advised to reprice this volume at half the cost. (shrink)

Gabriel Nuchelmans, Dilemmatic arguments. Towards a history of their logic and rhetoric. Amsterdam, New York, Oxford, Tokyo:North-Holland, 1991. 152pp. No price stated Francis P. Dinneen, Peter of Spain:language in dispute. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1990. xxxix + 271 pp. Hfl. 110/$58.00 Charles H. Manekin, The logic of Gersonides. A translation of Sefer ha-heqqesh ha-yashar of Rabbi Levi ben Gershom with introduction, commentary and analytical glossary. Dordrecht, Boston and London:Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1992. xii + 341 pp. £61.00 (...) F. P. Ramsey, Notes on philosophy, probability and mathematics. Edited by Maria Carla Galavotti. Naples:Bibliopolis, 1991 [published 1992]. 349 pp. No price stated Thomas Drucker, Perspectives on the History of Mathematical Logic. Boston, Basel, Berlin; Birkhäuser, 1991. xxiii 4- 195 pp. 108 SFr./128 DM J.P. Cleave, A study of logics. Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1991. xiii + 417 pp. £65.00 Hartry Field, Realism, mathematics and modality. Oxford and Cambridge :Blackwell, 1989. viii + 290 pp. £14.95 T.E. Forster, Set theory with a universal set, exploring an untyped universe. Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1992. viii + 152 pp., £25.00 Mark Sainsbury, Logical forms:an introduction to philosophical logic. Cambridge, Mass, and Oxford: Basil Blackwell Publishers, 1991. viii + 398 pp. £40.00, £11.95 L.C. Burns, Vagueness. An investigation into natural languages and the sorites paradox. Dordrecht, Boston and London:Kluwer, 1991. xii + 202 pp. dollar;130.00/£74.00/Dfl 130 Douglas Walton, Slippery slope arguments. Oxford:The Clarendon Press, 1992. xi + 296 pp. £35.00 Bas Van Fraassen, Quantum mechanics. An empiricist view. Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1991. xvi + 541 pp. £50.00 /£17.50 R. Giuntini, Quantum logic and hidden variables. Mannheim, Vienna and Zürich:BI-Wissenschaf ts-verlag, 1991. x + 184 pp. No price stated W. Spohn, B.C. Van Fraassn And B. Skyrms, Existence and explanation:essays presented in honor of Karel Lambert. Dordrect, Boston and London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991. xii 4- 243 pp. £56.00 Michele Di Francesco, Il realismo analitico. Logica, ontologia e significato nel primo Russell Milan:Guerini, 1991. 269 pp. 30,000 Lire Kenneth Blackwell and Carl Spadont, A detailed catalogue of the second archives of Bertrand Russell. Bristol:Thoemmes Press, 1992. xxvi + 433 pp. £60.00. (shrink)

In this challenging collection of new essays, leading philosophers and criminal lawyers from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada break with the tradition of treating the philosophical foundations of criminal law as an adjunct to the study of punishment. Focusing clearly on the central issues of moral luck, mistake, and mental illness, this volume aims to reorient the study of criminal law. In the process of retrieving valuable material from traditional law classifications, the contributors break down false associations, (...) reveal hidden truths, and establish new patterns of thought. Their always illuminating and sometimes startling conclusions makes this essential reading for all those interested in the philosophy of criminal law. (shrink)

The eagerly-awaited second volume of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts will allow scholars and students access for the first time in English to major texts in ethics and political thought from one of the most fruitful periods of speculation and analysis in the history of western thought. Beginning with Albert the Great, who introduced the Latin west to the challenging moral philosophy and natural science of Aristotle, and concluding with the first substantial presentation in English of the revolutionary (...) ideas on property and political power of John Wyclif, the seventeen texts in this anthology offer late medieval treatments of fundamental issues in human conduct that are both conceptually subtle and of direct practical import. Special features of this volume include copious editorial introductions, an analytical index, and suggestions for further reading. This is an important resource for scholars and students of medieval philosophy, history, political science, theology and literature. (shrink)

Modern Hume scholarship is still divided into two major camps when it comes to the issue of causation. There are those scholars who interpret Hume as a causal anti-realist, and there are those who interpret him as a causal realist. In my paper, I argue that there is an overwhelming amount of evidence – especially textual evidence – that should lead us to read Hume as being a causal anti-realist. That is to say, one who believes that cause and (...) effect relations are felt and known in the mind of the perceiver alone; not in objects themselves. I then attempt to settle, at least partially, the ‘two definitions of cause dispute’ that was brought about by Hume’s giving us not one, but two non-equivalent and non-substitutable definitions of the cause and effect relation. (shrink)

The excellent quality and depth of the various essays make [the book] an invaluable resource....It is likely to become essential reading in its field.—CHOICE.

The eagerly-awaited second volume of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts will allow scholars and students access for the first time in English to major texts in ethics and political thought from one of the most fruitful periods of speculation and analysis in the history of western thought. Beginning with Albert the Great, who introduced the Latin west to the challenging moral philosophy and natural science of Aristotle, and concluding with the first substantial presentation in English of the revolutionary (...) ideas on property and political power of John Wyclif, the seventeen texts in this anthology offer late medieval treatments of fundamental issues in human conduct that are both conceptually subtle and of direct practical import. Special features of this volume include copious editorial introductions, an analytical index, and suggestions for further reading. This is an important resource for scholars and students of medieval philosophy, history, political science, theology and literature. (shrink)

Stephen Cowley’s paper contends that the breaking of a formerly vital link between philosophy and theology has compromised the work of the Church of Scotland. To this end, he examines the connection between philosophy and theology in the work of John McLeod Campbell (1800–72), arguing that the link has either been neglected or significantly misrepresented. He demonstrates that Campbell ascribes a positive role to philosophy and reason in his work, a position partly drawn from rethinking the views of (...) his teacher, James Mylne (1757–1839). He goes on to show how Campbell’s rejection of legal metaphors in understanding the atonement may have developed from Mylne’s philosophical theology. The paper marks a break from the suggestion that Campbell’s conclusions in The Nature of the Atonement emerge primarily from an outworking of his pastoral experience in the light of a reading of Calvinist theologians. (shrink)

Do our lives have meaning? Should we create more people? Is death bad? Should we commit suicide? Would it be better if we were immortal? Should we be optimistic or pessimistic? Life, Death, and Meaning brings together key readings, primarily by English-speaking philosophers, on such 'big questions.'.

John Burdon Sanderson Haldane was a giant among men. He made major contributions to genetics, population biology, and evolutionary theory. He was at once comfortable in mathematics, chemistry, microbiology and animal physiology. But it was his belief in education that led to his preparing his popular essays for publication. In his own words: "Many scientific workers believe that they should confine their publications to learned journals. I think that the public has a right to know what is going (...) on inside the laboratories, for some of which it pays." So begins Haldane's collection of essays, perhaps the most public intellectual communicating science before the writings of Stephen Jay Gould. The first part of the volume emphasizes the important developments in biology and natural science in the first quarter of the century. As such, it provides a benchmark for studies of the next three quarters of the century. In an unusual introduction, Price takes the readers through their paces, discussing the situation then and now in vitamins, oxygen want, disease controls, and the rewards of science as such. This is followed by Haldane's views on society, art, religion and economy as seen through the eyes of a politically alert major scientist. The editor provides readers unfamiliar with Haldane with a carefully rendered chronology of a life that began in 1892 and that spanned much of the present century. Despite ideas on race, class and politics that have seen better times, Haldane was truly exceptional in translating the science of his time into ideas that "everyman" could readily grasp. His predictions on what science would achieve were on target far more often than not. But even his failed predictions are perhaps the most interesting of all. They throw into sharp relief the truly novel and revolutionary developments in science over the past 75 years. J.B.S. Haldane held many positions and received many honors during his lifetime. But for most of the period covered in this volume, he was the William Dunn Reader in Biochemistry at Cambridge University. He simultaneously served as Fellow of New College, in Oxford University's Horticultural Institute. Carl A. Price served until 1999 as professor IIof plant molecular biology in the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. He also served as the editor of Plant Molecular Biology Reporter from 1983 until 1997. This is the first volume in a new series on the history and theory of science. (shrink)

_Inspiring new techniques for engaging students with democratic ideals_ _John Dewey and the Philosophy and Practice of Hope_ combines philosophical theory with a study of its effects in an actual classroom. To understand how Dewey, one of the century's foremost philosophers of education, understood the concept of hope, Stephen Fishman begins with theoretical questions like: What is hope? What are its objects? How can hope foster a new understanding of democracy and social justice? The book's second half is a (...) classroom study that mir-rors in practice what Fishman explores in theory, as Lucille McCarthy observes Fishman's undergraduate students reading the theorists. Illustrating students' own vital engagement with the hope literature, McCarthy reveals how the discussions deepen student understandings, simultaneously showing education's power to promote hope and turn social ideals into reality. (shrink)

This paper presents a reconstruction of the “existential argument” for the existence of God that seems implicit, if somewhat elusive, in the writings of Thomas Aquinas. The reconstructed argument corresponds to no single passage of Thomas’s but gathers and synthesizes arguments used by him throughout his writings. The paper then attempts to evaluate the argument’s soundness against the background of Thomas’s metaphysical principles. There is ample motivationfor desiring such an evaluation. John Haldane has recently described the existential argument (...) as perhaps Thomas’s “most original contribution to the search for theistic proofs.” Yet, ironically, several prominent Thomistic philosophers have denied the soundness, and indeed the very possibility, of any such existential argument, leveling criticisms based on textual issues in Thomas’s works, the limitations of apriori reasoning, and perceptions of circular reasoning. The paper will attempt to show that the criticisms formulated by these critics are unfounded. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Remembering Lewis E. HahnGeorge C. H. Sun, President, John Howie, Professor Emeritus, Thomas Alexander, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Kenneth W. Stikkers, Professor and Chair, Randall Auxier, Professor, Robert Hahn, Professor, Joseph Wu, Professor Emeritus, Elizabeth R. Eames, Professor Emeritus, Martin Lu, Professor of Philosophy, George Kimball Plochmann, Professor Emeritus, Matt Sronkoski, Philosophy Graduate and Academic Adviser, Dave Clarke, Professor Emeritus, Eugenie Gatens-Robinson, Professor Emerita, Hans H. (...) Rudnick, Professor Emeritus, Stephen Bickham, Professor EmeritusPresident, and Don Mikula (bio)The following testimonials were offered on the occasion of a memorial gathering for Dr. Lewis E. Hahn held on February 19, 2005, and were compiled for presentation here by Sharon (Hahn) Crowell.A Tribute to Dr. Lewis E. Hahn (1908-2004) from a Global PerspectiveGeorge C. H. Sun President, Thomé H. Fang Institute, Inc., Mobile, AlabamaAmong the philosophical community in both the East and the West, no word of introduction is needed for our beloved Master, who was the recipient of numerous distinctions and honors, with titles that included "Man of the Year in Philosophy" and "Award of Lifetime Achievement." The very name "Lewis E. Hahn" itself already stands now for genuineness, dedication, and fulfillment.A great work is a dialogue with eternity; a great person is such a work. In less than thirty years he succeeded in developing Carbondale from what had been a small college town in the Midwest into the Mecca of American philosophy. His most important achievements were the Dewey Center and the Pepper Archives that he helped install at SIUC These, among other such institutions, will remain a unique contribution, a glory of American philosophy, and a monument in the history of human thought.For posterity Lewis E. Hahn will remain an object of wonder and amazement. How is it possible for one human being to have accomplished so much, so well, and in so short a span of time—less than one century—in breadth, depth, and diversity? Some one hundred years ago, by bridging the gap between the New World and the Old, William James was hailed as the great genius of international friendship among philosophical thinkers, but we now find a greater genius in Lewis E. Hahn, who succeeded in bringing together the peoples of East and West from at least four continents: Europe, Australia, America (both North and Latin America), and Asia. To my knowledge, few of his predecessors and contemporaries have been half so widely read and liberal-minded as he was, in view of the range and scope of the Library of Living Philosophers that he helped continue after the passing of its founder, Dr. Paul A. Schilpp.What type of man was Hahn, our younger generation will wonder? Only a pluralist approach can help us understand the true character of such a legendary pluralist-contextualist. In short, he was "a full personality." As I recall, while working on my dissertation with him in the 1970s, we had a brief discussion on Confucius, the sage of ancient China. "A full personality!" was his laconic assessment. Suddenly I realized, to quote the Analects: "The Master is talking about himself!" For, as the Buddhists put it, only a Buddha can understand a Buddha. Or, as William James put it, only one who has philosophy can appreciate philosophy. Many friends [End Page 1] of my generation admire him so much; Te Chen of Hong Kong calls him "a great Confucian in America." Those who regret the loss of many precious Confucian virtues in China today have now rediscovered them in the person of Lewis E. Hahn! If Nietzsche called Kant "a great Chinese in Königsberg," it is simply because he had not encountered our own Master.A paradigm of academic leadership, Dr. Hahn is simply irreplaceable—this is a tribute I personally heard in Carbondale in the late 1960s. It is not an exaggeration to say that he was a superb administrator, and he could have been the best Secretary of the State we ever had, for he possessed more in the way of philosophical wisdom than all his predecessors put together! As a great teacher, he was no less "serene, good, learned, wise, and ardent" than... (shrink)

This review article devoted to Stephen Menn's Descartes and Augustine, finds that his treatment of Augustine which includes him within the metaphysical tradition bridging antiquity and modernity balances the historicist, anti-metaphysical and anti-theoretical readings of Augustine coming from postmodern philosophy and theology. By looking at the two readings together, Wayne Hankey attempts to come closer to an understanding of Augustine especially in his relation to Plotinus. Hankey finds that Augustine's De Trinitate is better understood from within Menn's stance, where (...) Augustine is placed together with Plotinus and Descartes. Within that view, we are better able to understand Augustine's difference from Plotinus than from the alternative postmodern perspective. However he judges that Menn does not draw Augustine's theology closely enough together with philosophy. When that is done, what in Augustine lays the foundations for autonomous philosophy will be more fully known. (shrink)

_ Virtue Ethics_ collects, for the first time, the main classical sources and the central contemporary expressions of virtue ethics approach to normative ethical theory. Edited and introduced by Stephen Darwall, these readings are essential for anyone interested in normative theory. Introduced by Stephen Darwall, this collection brings together classic and contemporary readings which define and advance the literature on virtue ethics. Includes six essays which respond to the classic sources. Includes a contemporary discussion on character and virtue (...) by Gary Watson. Includes classic essays by Aristotle, Francis Hutcheson and David Hume, and recent reactions to this work by philosophers including Philippa Foot, John McDowell, Alasdair MacIntyre, Annette Baier, Rosalind Hursthouse, and Michael Slote. (shrink)

In 1997, the Nobel Prize-winning novelist J. M. Coetzee, invited to Princeton University to lecture on the moral status of animals, read a work of fiction about an eminent novelist, Elizabeth Costello, invited to lecture on the moral status of animals at an American college. Coetzee's lectures were published in 1999 as The Lives of Animals, and reappeared in 2003 as part of his novel Elizabeth Costello; and both lectures and novel have attracted the critical attention of a number (...) of influential philosophers--including Peter Singer, Cora Diamond, Stanley Cavell, and John McDowell. In The Wounded Animal, Stephen Mulhall closely examines Coetzee's writings about Costello, and the ways in which philosophers have responded to them, focusing in particular on their powerful presentation of both literature and philosophy as seeking, and failing, to represent reality--in part because of reality's resistance to such projects of understanding, but also because of philosophy's unwillingness to learn from literature how best to acknowledge that resistance. In so doing, Mulhall is led to consider the relations among reason, language, and the imagination, as well as more specific ethical issues concerning the moral status of animals, the meaning of mortality, the nature of evil, and the demands of religion. The ancient quarrel between philosophy and literature here displays undiminished vigor and renewed significance. (shrink)

I argue that Stephen Houlgate misstates an element in the Kantian background to my reading of “Lordship and Bondage” (§2). He misreads my remarks about the need to see Hegel’s moves there in the context of the progression towards absolute knowing (§3), and, partly consequently, he fails to engage with the motivation for my reading (§4). And he does not understand the way my reading exploits the concept of allegory (§5).

Arguing About Human Nature covers recent debates--arising from biology, philosophy, psychology, and physical anthropology--that together systematically examine what it means to be human. Thirty-five essays--several of them appearing here for the first time in print--were carefully selected to offer competing perspectives on 12 different topics related to human nature. The context and main threads of the debates are highlighted and explained by the editors in a short, clear introduction to each of the 12 topics. Authors include Louise Anthony, Patrick Bateson, (...) David Buller, John Dupre, Paul Griffiths, Sally Haslanger, Richard Lewontin, Ron Mallon, and E.O. Wilson. Contributors Rachel Cooper, Nancy Holmstrom, Kim Sterelny, and Elizabeth Cashdan provide brand new chapters in these debates. Suggested Reading lists offer curious readers new resources for exploring these debates further. A rguing About Human Nature is the first volume of its kind, designed to introduce to an interdisciplinary student audience some of the most important arguments on the subject generated by scientific research and philosophical reflection. (shrink)

John Stuart Mill is known as the first canonical Western philosopher to espouse a stationary state of economic growth, and as such he can be seen as an important totemic figure for reformist strategies in environmental ethics. However, his reputation among environmental thinkers has been rendered more ambiguous in recent years by increased attention to his essay “Nature.” The “Nature” essay has been much used lately by critics to oppose claims that independent nature may properly be seen as important (...) in any way as an ethical guide or inspiration, and that Mill’s philosophy may feasibly be viewed as pro-environmentalist. This use of Mill’s essay is mistaken, and has undermined appreciation of the potential significance of Mill’s thought for environmental philosophy. When examining the most detailed of the critical treatments of the essay, reading “Nature” as an anti-environmentalist text badly distorts the essay’s meaning by ripping it from the context of Mill’s intentions as well as from the very specific and significant historical circumstances and biographical conditions of its production. Attending properly to these factors shows that the essay is unrepresentative of Mill’s general position and rather philosophically weaker than its reputation. Reading the text as a definitive statement of Mill’s supposed anti-naturalism is thus mistaken and fails to recognize different modes and significances in “following nature,” some of which Mill supported. The “Nature” essay is an aberrant outlier in the Mill canon, and one which should no longer be allowed to undermine Mill’s strong and important environmentalist credentials. (shrink)

This volume gathers essays by fourteen scholars, written to honor Fred Dallmayr and the contributions of his political theory. Stephen F. Schneck's introduction to Dallmayr's thinking provides a survey of the development of his work. Dallmayr's “letting be,” claims Schneck, is much akin to his reading of Martin Heidegger's “letting Being be,” and should be construed neither as a conservative acceptance of self-identity nor as a nonengaged indifference to difference. Instead, he explains, endeavoring to privilege neither identity nor difference, (...) the hermeneutic circle for Dallmayr must also be one of thoroughgoing critique and praxis. And, indeed, what joins together Dallmayr's many essays and explorations, what inheres within his “cosmopolitan” understanding of the contemporary world, and what lends his analyses their imperative, is this same “letting be.” "How many of us, over the last forty years, have opened up this or that book by Fred Dallmayr to acquaint ourselves with a new thinker or intellectual movement? It has happened to me several times. Each time, something else happens too. I become alert again to the distinctive and noble temper expressed in Dallmayr's work. _Letting Be_ consists of a series of essays by leading scholars who articulate and appreciate this temper, particularly as it has found expression in his thought about global politics work over the last two decades. This is a fine study, devoted to a thinker whose temper of critical responsiveness deserves wide emulation." —_William E. Connolly, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor, Johns Hopkins University_ _ _ "These essays constitute a marvelous, extended conversation on how political theory should delineate its future tasks. The reader is treated to a lively debate about a crucial set of questions: what strands of traditional Western political thought offer the best resources today; how do we think more comparatively about the foundations of political life; how do we engage more fruitfully Islamic, Indian, and_ mestizo_ contributions; and how do we best envision cross-cultural dialogue and imagine the shape of a "cosmopolis" in ways that will do greater justice to human dignity and diversity? All in all a rich feast honoring a remarkable man and scholar, Fred Dallmayr." —_Stephen K. White, James Hart Professor, University of Virginia_ “This is not the first Festschrift for Dallmayr, and it may not be the last, but it is the first that begins to be in a position to assess his long career with all its twists and turns. I have never fully understood Dallmayr as a creative thinker in his own right until now, and even when I sensed he was, I couldn't precisely say how. Now I can.” —_C. Fred Alford, University of Maryland_. (shrink)

A central problem within an influential strand of recent philosophy of mind has been to explain the “conformity of mind to thing” that characterizes knowledge. John Haldane has argued that this problem can be best addressed by a development of Thomas Aquinas’s account of the “formal identity” of the knowing subject with the object known. However, such a development is difficult to present in a manner perspicuous to a contemporary audience. This paper seeks to present a persuasive account (...) of formal identity, taking sensory cognition of the individual object as the primary case for examination. Formal identity is initially explored usingthe notion of encoding, or the systematic transfer of information reflecting efficient and formal causal processes. The mathematical notion of “isomorphism” is thenemployed to describe precisely the features of encoding needed for formal identity. Forms are defined as formally identical if and only if they are isomorphic. (shrink)

In this well-structured monograph, Stephen A. McKnight seeks to correct the view that Francis Bacon’s use of religious motifs and tropes is “manipulative,” “cynical,” and “disingenuous,” a view McKnight considers the “prevailing” one. To accomplish his goal, McKnight subjects several of Bacon’s works to a close reading. He concludes that the “pervasiveness of religious motifs, scriptural references, and biblical doctrines” in Bacon’s writings “establish the central role religion plays in Bacon’s thought”. McKnight holds that Bacon’s religiosity is not disingenuous, (...) but sincere. . . . . In documenting religious motifs in several of Bacon’s writings, this book is a valuable success. In characterizing Bacon’s religious beliefs and how they influenced the rest of his thought, it is much less convincing. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Advocacy, Therapy, and PedagogyJohn E. MacKinnonBeyond Political Correctness: Toward the Inclusive University, edited by Stephen Richer and Lorna Weir; 272 pp. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995, $55.00 cloth, $19.95 paper.Anyone who would doubt the relevance of philosophy to public affairs ought to attend to the unhappy evolution of the Canadian university. On campuses across the country in recent years, speech codes have been introduced, the “re-education” of (...) professors urged, visiting speakers on controversial subjects silenced, and classes monitored by administrators eager to do the bidding of various special interest groups. As universities have come more and more to see their role as that of some sort of multipurpose social project, education itself has become less pressing a priority. Thus, while money is found to hire sexual harassment officers, employment equity advisors and “wellness” mavens, academic posts disappear. Those that remain are frequently filled in accordance with crass gender and race-based quotas, and when that fails to guarantee positions for members of bureaucratically favored groups, contrived “schools” and pseudodisciplines proliferate. Many of these developments, however, are simply the manifestation of trickle-down deconstruction, trickle-down Rortyism, trickle-down “politics of difference,” of the sort that Charles Taylor is prone to rhapsodize. Notions of value, nature and merit, of equality, universality and objectivity are dismissed as mere inventions, “imperial” notions designed to favor the powerful and oppress the disenfranchised. The art [End Page 492] of spoken and written argument, with their ideals of detachment and discipline, are taken as evidence of a smug “androcentrism,” while rationality itself is derided as a “regime” that works “to maintain patriarchal control of knowledge and knowledge production.” Even the notion of evaluating students by means of essays and exams is ridiculed as scandalously “non-feminist.” While past attacks on academic independence have tended to come from outside the university, Canadian academics over the past decade have slavishly accepted their own domestication. More disconcerting still has been the role of pliant university presidents, most of whom have proved eager to unburden themselves of the inconvenience of scholarship and to indulge the cosmological musings of the radical left.Beyond Political Correctness: Toward the Inclusive University bristles both with resentment that such criticisms should even be aired and paranoia about their motivation. According to its contributors, the challenge to political correctness—the very use of the term as an epithet—is the result of a “neo-conservative” attack that has been orchestrated in and “imported” wholesale from the United States (to morally smug Canadians, there can be no more dastardly provenance) and insinuated into public debate by a servile media. The first two articles in the collection, by Dorothy Smith and Lorna Weir respectively, pursue this very theme. Each betrays that dreary habit, particularly prevalent among social scientists, of rendering imposingly technical the most bracingly trite. For instance, Smith writes: “The textuality of public text-mediated discourse is essential to its peculiar temporal and spatial properties of ubiquity and constancy of replication across multiple and various actual situations of watching, reading, or hearing” (p. 25). Translation? The more one sees, reads or hears a view expressed, the more one tends to believe it’s true. Her concern here, of course, is to establish that whoever controls the means of public debate controls its terms as well, that those means happen to be controlled by neo-conservative interests bent on retarding social progress, and that growing public disquiet about educational reform simply confirms the success of that neo-conservative strategy. But the failure of Smith’s account goes far beyond the thoroughly rebarbative nature of her expression.According to Smith, the very term, “political correctness,” is shorthand for an “ideological code” that has been expressly designed by “neo-conservatives” to caricature the good works of the visionary left. An ideological code, she says, operates as a “free-floating form of control,” which, once established, is “self-reproducing” (p. 27). Now, [End Page 493] the trouble with this picture is that it can account only for ascendant ideological codes, those that are successfully transmitted and progressively consolidated. And yet, in recent years, the ideological code of the left has to a considerable extent... (shrink)

In Alice Walker’s vignette “The Flowers,” a young black girl’s walk in the woods is interrupted when she treads “smack” into the skull of a lynched man. As her name predicates, Myop’s age and innocence obstruct her from seeing deeply into the full implications of the scene, while the more worldly reader is jarred and confronted with a whole history of racial violence and slavery. The skeleton, its teeth cracked and broken, is a temporal irruption, a Gothic “smack” that shatters (...) the transience of the pastoral scene with the intrusion of a deeper past from which dead matter/material de-composes the story’s present with the violent matter/issue of racism. Walker’s story is representative of an important trope in fiction, where the pastoral dead speak through the details of their remains, and the temporal fabric of text is disrupted by the very substance of death. Against the backdrops of Terry Gifford’s post-pastoral and Fred Botting’s Gothic understanding of the literary corpse as “negative[ly] sublime,” this essay explores the fictional dead as matter unfettered by genre, consistently signifying beyond their own inanimate silences, revealing suppressed and unpalatable themes of racial and sexual violence, child abuse and cannibalistic consumerism. Along with Walker’s story, this study considers these ideas through new readings of Stephen King’s novella The Body, Raymond Carver’s story “So Much Water So Close to Home,” and The Road by Cormac McCarthy. While these writers may form an unlikely grouping in terms of style, each uses pastoral remains as significant material, deploying the dead as Gothic entities that force the reader to confront America’s darkest social and historical matters. (shrink)

This compelling study of the origins of all that exists, including explanations of the entire material world, traces the responses of philosophers and scientists to the most elemental and haunting question of all: why is _anything_ here—or anything _anywhere_? Why is there something rather than nothing? Why not nothing? It includes the thoughts of dozens of luminaries from Plato and Aristotle to Aquinas and Leibniz to modern thinkers such as physicists Stephen Hawking and Steven Weinberg, philosophers Robert Nozick and (...) Derek Parfit, philosophers of religion Alvin Plantinga and Richard Swinburne, and the Dalai Lama. The first accessible volume to cover a wide range of possible reasons for the existence of all reality, from over 50 renowned thinkers, including Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas, Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, Bertrand Russell, Stephen Hawking, Steven Weinberg, Robert Nozick, Derek Parfit, Alvin Plantinga, Richard Swinburne, John Polkinghorne, Paul Davies, and the Dalai Lama Features insights by scientists, philosophers, and theologians Includes informative and helpful editorial introductions to each section Provides a wealth of suggestions for further reading and research Presents material that is both comprehensive and comprehensible. (shrink)

In several essays I have argued that Berkeley maintains the same basic notion of spiritual substance throughout his life. Because that notion is not the traditional (Aristotelian, Cartesian, or Lockean) doctrine of substance, critics (e.g., John Roberts, Tom Stoneham, Talia Mae Bettcher, Margaret Atherton, Walter Ott, Marc Hight) claim that on my reading Berkeley either endorses a Humean notion of substance or has no recognizable theory of substance at all. In this essay I point out how my interpretation does (...) not assume that Berkeley adopts a bundle theory of mind, but instead redefines what it means for a simple substance to be the principle by which ideas are perceived. (shrink)

Central Works of Philosophy is a major multi-volume collection of essays on the core texts of the Western philosophical tradition. From Plato's Republic to the present day, the five volumes range over 2,500 years of philosophical writing covering the best, most representative, and most influential work of some of our greatest philosophers. Each essay has been specially commissioned and provides an overview of the work, clear and authoritative exposition of its central ideas, and an assessment of the work's importance. Together (...) these books provide an unrivaled companion for studying and reading philosophy, one that introduces the reader to the masterpieces of the western philosophical canon. Much of nineteenth-century philosophy may be viewed as either an affirmation or rejection of Kant. This volume therefore begins with Kant's magnum opus, the Critique of Pure Reason. Michelle Grier provides a masterly distillation of this monumental work. Curtis Bowman explores the central text of the first of the great post-Kantian idealists, Fichte who extended Kantian philosophy in a new direction. Hegel, one of Kant's most formidable critics, is given incisive treatment by Michael Inwood in his presentation of the Phenomenology of Spirit. Schopenhauer's World as Will and Representation, which hoped to solve many of the problems that Kant's philosophy left unsolved is explored in Dale Jacquette's chapter. The moral philosophy of John Stuart Mill, perhaps the only philosopher in this volume to circumvent Kant's influence, is examined in Jonathan Riley's essay on his classic work On Liberty. The philosophical ideas of Kierkegaard, widely credited as the founder of modern existentialism, are explored by Stephen Evans in his essay on Philosophical Fragments. Marx's Capital, one of the most influential books of the modern age, is given expert treatment by Tom Rockmore. The volume closes with Nietzsche, whose appropriation of Kant led to a radical anti-philosophy. Rex Welshon dissects his most philosophical and widely read work, On the Genealogy of Morals. (shrink)

In opposing Stephen Douglas’s alleged popular right to choose a slave constitution, Abraham Lincoln developed a rudimentary conception of the normative presuppositions of democratic rights that prefigures the theory of popular sovereignty articulated by Jürgen Habermas. While Lincoln was influenced by a civic republican conception of natural rights, and referred to personal autonomy in arguing that some political choices violate the grounds of collective self-governance rights, both Lincoln—as read by Jaffa—and Habermas conceive human rights not as trans-political principles (...) but as linking moral norms with the rule of law (or coordination through political power in general). The comparison shows that Habermas’s approach to the co-originality of civil liberties and democratic rights implies that legitimate secession, revolution, and primary constituent authority must be oriented toward creation of a just legal order. This enriched linkage approach explains why the right to democracy, like the right to basic liberty, is inalienable. (shrink)

IN the recently published Life by I.eslie Stephen of his brother, Fitz-James, there is an account of a school to which the latter went when he was a boy. The teacher, a certain Mr. Guest, used to converse with his pupils in this wise: "Gurney, what is the difference between justification and sanctification?- Stephen, prove the omnipotence of God " etc. In the midst of our Harvard freethinking and indifference we are prone to imagine that here at your (...) good old orthodox College conversation continues to be somewhat upon this order; and to show you that we at Harvard have not lost all interest in these vital subjects, I have brought with me tonight something like a sermon on justification by faith to read to you, --I mean an essay in justification of faith, a defence of our right to adopt a believing attitude in religious matters, in spite of the fact that our merely logical intellect may not have been coerced. 'The Will to Believe,' accordingly, is the title of my paper. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Remembering Lewis E. HahnGeorge C. H. Sun, President, John Howie, Professor Emeritus, Thomas Alexander, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Kenneth W. Stikkers, Professor and Chair, Randall Auxier, Professor, Robert Hahn, Professor, Joseph Wu, Professor Emeritus, Elizabeth R. Eames, Professor Emeritus, Martin Lu, Professor of Philosophy, George Kimball Plochmann, Professor Emeritus, Matt Sronkoski, Philosophy Graduate and Academic Adviser, Dave Clarke, Professor Emeritus, Eugenie Gatens-Robinson, Professor Emerita, Hans H. (...) Rudnick, Professor Emeritus, Stephen Bickham, Professor EmeritusPresident, and Don Mikula (bio)The following testimonials were offered on the occasion of a memorial gathering for Dr. Lewis E. Hahn held on February 19, 2005, and were compiled for presentation here by Sharon (Hahn) Crowell.A Tribute to Dr. Lewis E. Hahn (1908-2004) from a Global PerspectiveGeorge C. H. Sun President, Thomé H. Fang Institute, Inc., Mobile, AlabamaAmong the philosophical community in both the East and the West, no word of introduction is needed for our beloved Master, who was the recipient of numerous distinctions and honors, with titles that included "Man of the Year in Philosophy" and "Award of Lifetime Achievement." The very name "Lewis E. Hahn" itself already stands now for genuineness, dedication, and fulfillment.A great work is a dialogue with eternity; a great person is such a work. In less than thirty years he succeeded in developing Carbondale from what had been a small college town in the Midwest into the Mecca of American philosophy. His most important achievements were the Dewey Center and the Pepper Archives that he helped install at SIUC These, among other such institutions, will remain a unique contribution, a glory of American philosophy, and a monument in the history of human thought.For posterity Lewis E. Hahn will remain an object of wonder and amazement. How is it possible for one human being to have accomplished so much, so well, and in so short a span of time—less than one century—in breadth, depth, and diversity? Some one hundred years ago, by bridging the gap between the New World and the Old, William James was hailed as the great genius of international friendship among philosophical thinkers, but we now find a greater genius in Lewis E. Hahn, who succeeded in bringing together the peoples of East and West from at least four continents: Europe, Australia, America (both North and Latin America), and Asia. To my knowledge, few of his predecessors and contemporaries have been half so widely read and liberal-minded as he was, in view of the range and scope of the Library of Living Philosophers that he helped continue after the passing of its founder, Dr. Paul A. Schilpp.What type of man was Hahn, our younger generation will wonder? Only a pluralist approach can help us understand the true character of such a legendary pluralist-contextualist. In short, he was "a full personality." As I recall, while working on my dissertation with him in the 1970s, we had a brief discussion on Confucius, the sage of ancient China. "A full personality!" was his laconic assessment. Suddenly I realized, to quote the Analects: "The Master is talking about himself!" For, as the Buddhists put it, only a Buddha can understand a Buddha. Or, as William James put it, only one who has philosophy can appreciate philosophy. Many friends [End Page 1] of my generation admire him so much; Te Chen of Hong Kong calls him "a great Confucian in America." Those who regret the loss of many precious Confucian virtues in China today have now rediscovered them in the person of Lewis E. Hahn! If Nietzsche called Kant "a great Chinese in Königsberg," it is simply because he had not encountered our own Master.A paradigm of academic leadership, Dr. Hahn is simply irreplaceable—this is a tribute I personally heard in Carbondale in the late 1960s. It is not an exaggeration to say that he was a superb administrator, and he could have been the best Secretary of the State we ever had, for he possessed more in the way of philosophical wisdom than all his predecessors put together! As a great teacher, he was no less "serene, good, learned, wise, and ardent" than... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:John Henry Newman and the Development of Doctrine: Encountering Change, Looking for Continuity by Stephen MorganReinhard HütterJohn Henry Newman and the Development of Doctrine: Encountering Change, Looking for Continuity by Stephen Morgan. Foreword by Ian Ker (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2021), xvi + 315 pp.St. John Henry Newman was controversial during much of his lifetime—as an Anglican as well as a (...) Catholic. Nothing has changed since. There has been an eagerness to silence his voice, and with it the challenge of his theological insights then, and there is such an eagerness to do so also now—in ways more or less subtle. There are historians whose chosen object of study happens to be the Victorian Newman in the Victorian age and who take the immanent frame they tacitly presuppose as normative horizon and their assumed attitude of scientific detachment as indispensable precondition for historical objectivity, and who dismiss all interpretations of Newman that happen to display signs of substantive agreement with his insights and tenets as "Newman hagiographies" lacking the allegedly requisite scientific distance from their object of investigation. This principle of critical detachment would, of course, entail that Platonists are disqualified from investigating reliably Plato's thought, and the same would obtain presumably for Aristotelians regarding Aristotle, for Thomists regarding Thomas Aquinas, for Marxists regarding Karl Marx, for Foucaultians regarding Foucault, and so on and so forth—and last but not least, for historians committed to the immanent frame and historicist tenets regarding their interpretations of Troeltsch and Mannheim. Such an assumption, when consistently applied, carries itself, of course, sooner or later ad absurdum, but the derogatory denomination "Newman hagiography" survives and is conveniently attachable to whatever interpretation one likes to disqualify as scholarly serious and academically reputable work on Newman. Next to the "unmaskers" of "Newman hagiographies" there are those Newman scholars of a primarily evangelical and Anglican provenance eager to demonstrate that Newman's self-characterization, primarily [End Page 1335] in his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, is at best an ex post facto retro-projection, and hence an inherently unreliable, if not an intentional, re-composition of his intellectual past meant to be deceptive and hence bordering on the mendacious—in short, a renewal of Kingsley's charge. Things are not necessarily better on the Catholic side—since Orestes Brownson's attack, there continue notions, popular among Catholic traditionalists as well as Lefebvrists, that Newman's theory of the development of doctrine, if not outright modernist, is at best crypto-modernist, a view sadly encouraged by Catholic neo-modernists who instrumentalize Newman's account as a justification for interpreting "change" as an interminable but allegedly unavoidable sequence of ruptures and "development" as the intentional activity of progressive developers of doctrine establishing an ongoing praxis of pre-projected desired transmutations of faith, doctrine, and practice.It takes so-called "Newman hagiographers" to set the record straight and to save Newman's ongoingly pertinent and indeed salutary insights from multiple distortions and instrumentalizations, let alone attempts of effectively silencing Newman by way of a more or less subtle character assassination. It requires painstaking archival work and a close, careful, and comprehensive reading of Newman's published letters, diary entries, and works (in their original unrevised versions) as well as letters and works of his interlocutors and collaborators in the Oxford Movement to set the record straight, to unearth Newman's authentic voice, and first and foremost, to acquit him of the charge of systematic disingenuity, if not duplicity, in putting together his own account of the development of his religious opinions.John Henry Newman and the Development of Doctrine comprises, next to an introduction and a conclusion, four substantive chapters of about equal length: the first covering the years up to 1833, with a focus on Newman's first monograph, The Arians of the Fourth Century; the second considering the period from 1833 to 1838, with a focus on the Oxford Movement, the Tracts for the Times, and the Via Media; the third covering the period from 1839 to 1842, with a focus on Tract 90 and its aftermath; the fourth and final chapter advancing close... (shrink)