In this paper I argue that whether or not a world is good can be a contingent fact about the world that is not dependent upon that world's natural facts, or, indeed, upon anyother facts. If so, the property, good, does not supervene upon the facts of nature (or upon any other facts). My argument for this claimis that it is possible to view the very world in which we live (viz. the natural facts that constitute it) as good and (...) to view it as bad. (shrink)

The G7 should address new, unprecedented and highly disruptive issues that characterize our complex world, rather than well-understood international problems that fit into existing categories. We argue that the G7 can do this by playing to its strengths – informality and like-mindedness in particular – in addressing emerging and transversal issues such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrencies.

Graphical AbstractScience and technology consortia provide a viable solution for the recent unsustainable academic growth in biomedical research.

O objectivo deste artigo é demonstrar como, através da participação de John Courtney Murray no decorrer dos trabalhos conciliares, certas noções e intelecções da reflexão teológica e epistemológica de Bernard Lonergan influíram decisivamente na estrutura básica da Declaração Conciliar Dignitatis Humanae. Neste sentido, o artigo passa em revista a estrutura fundamental do argumento em favor da liberdade religiosa de John Courtney Murray, focalizando a atenção sobre o momento em que este autor contribui directamente, como primeiro escriba, para a (...) construção do primeiro esquema autónomo sobre a Liberdade Religiosa no Concílio Vaticano II. O artigo destaca ainda, numa análise sucinta sobre este texto conciliar, os contributos lonerga-nianos que explicitamente transitam, através de Murray, para o corpo do documento, que foram decisivos para um novo enquadramento metodológico da problemática e, assim, para a aprovação final do Documento. /// The main purpose of this article is to show how certain notions and insights of Bernard Lonergan's theological and epistemological reflection exert their influence upon the basic structure of Dignitatis Humanae, through the active conciliar participation of John Courtney Murray on the subject. Thus, the focus of the article is on the main structure of Murray's apologetic argument for religious freedom, precisely when the author works, as first scribe, upon the first conciliar autonomous draft on Religious Liberty. Through a brief scrutiny of this conciliar text, the article also points out Lonergan's decisive assessments, although indirectly through the hands of Murray, for a new methodological stance that allowed the final Declaration's approval. (shrink)

In the pantheon of liberal political thought, John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty, with its defence of freedom of thought, conscience, speech and private property, takes pride of place. So why did Mill c...

En El Príncipe, las prescripciones políticas que Maquiavelo ofrece a sus lectores se presentan de manera predominante en la forma de reflexiones sobre ejemplos particulares. En este ensayo expongo tres interpretaciones distintas sobre Agatocles (las de Victoria Kahn, John McCormick y Erica Benner), quien figura en el libro como el principal ejemplo del príncipe criminal, apartado textualmente entonces del grupo de «hombres excelentes» que son llamados a imitar por los nuevos príncipes. A pesar de sus diferencias, estas diferentes lecturas (...) muestran el modo en que la virtù del príncipe es para Maquiavelo inseparable de la capacidad para juzgar ejemplos y extraer la verdad de ellos. (shrink)

El texto evoca el encuentro entre Paul Celan y Martin Heidegger que tuvo lugar el 25 de julio de 1967 que, a pesar de la admiración mutua por la poesía, especialmente la de Hölderlin, estuvo marcado por tensiones no resueltas. En el camino de las interpretaciones de Georg Steiner, Rüdiger Safranski, Ezra Pound, Walter Otto y John Banville, entre otros, esta nota hace converger, a partir de lo que puede suponerse en aquella reunión en la cabaña de la Selva (...) Negra, la relación de Heidegger con su pasado nazi, la experiencia del Holocausto en la vida de Celan, el papel del lenguaje y la nominación y el concepto e importancia del silencio. (shrink)

En el texto se hace hincapié en los tenebrosos elementos sacrificiales que le ha acarreado al movimiento estudiantil perteneciente a la combativa Escuela Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa, situada en el Estado mexicano de Guerrero, dominado por el narcotráfico y un gobierno municipal que actúa en complicidad con este último. Se trata de un establecimiento que, además de formar maestros populares, se halla enrolado en las luchas sociales y políticas. A fines de 2014 fueron reprimidos brutalmente y objeto de desaparición forzosa (...) unos 43 alumnos de esa Escuela, lo cual dio lugar a una ininterrumpida protesta civil con muy diversos ribetes internos y mundiales cuyas múltiples expresiones procuran explicitarse en el trabajo. Por otra parte, se incursiona en el trasfondo ideológico que viene acompañando el devenir institucional mexicano bajo el manto del neoliberalismo -al cual el autor ha optado por reconceptuar como neuroliberalismo en distintos ensayos suyos y en colaboración. Conjuntamente, se enfoca la problemática en cuestión desde un ángulo doctrinario y existencial específico: el del necropoder y el pensamiento crítico. Entre los referentes bibliográficos principales pueden citarse desde Foucault y Mbembe a Holloway y González Casanova. The paper deals with the engagement of mexican student movement in Ayotzinapa Rural College and the repressive way that the local goverment and the narco-maffia fought against those students, with the disappearance and destruction of their bodies and cadavers, around september 2014. The case has an enormous influence in world and local public opinion, with different movilizations and artistic expressions that have a very critical reading of Mexican treatment in the field of Human Rights. Mexican and international neoliberalism, as well as bio and necropolitics, has been specially analyzed with the auxiliary tool of critical thinking. Between the theoretical authors that are close involved in these approaches, we can find Michel Foucault, Achille Mbembe, John Holloway and Pablo González Casanova. (shrink)

The peculiar situation of epistemology has often been remarked upon, meaning that sort of epistemology which issued from English empiricism and whose father is taken to be John Locke. Epistemology in the general sense has existed as long as there has been scientific philosophy, and in truth it has always formed the basis and core of all scientific philosophizing.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:498 BOOK REVIEWS generations of theologians across denominational lines. Both Placher and Hunsinger at the end of their essays choose quotations from within Frei's own writings to give a synoptic portrait of the man and his work. Placher chooses a remark about Niebuhr's sense of vocation as a theologian (20), and Hunsinger one about knowledge of that seemingly elusive reality, a person's identity (257). However one might come away (...) from this challenging collection of essays, further confused or more enlightened, more in agreement or disagreement, I think every reader will recognize the coincidence of intellectual perspicuity and generosity with passionate faith. Regis College, Toronto School of Theology Toronto, Ontario, Canada GEORGE P. SCHNER, S.J. Reasoned Faith. Edited by ELEONORE STUMP. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1993. Pp. x + 364. As the editor remarks in her "Introduction," it is not so long ago that the analytical philosophy of religion consisted very largely of discussions of the meaningfulness of religious language, and of arguments about the existence of God. Nowadays it is more adventurous, ranging over such topics as creation, providence, and God's responsibility for sin. According to Robert Merrihew Adams, the statement "truth is subjectivity," though one of the most famous, is also one of the most misunderstood in Kierkegaard's writings. He argues that, taken in context within the Concluding Unscientifu: Postscript, the statement is by no means incompatible with the objective truth of religious belief. From the point of view of the Postscript, a member of an idolatrous community who prays to her God with "the entire passion of the infinite" has more of the truth than one who prays in a false spirit from within Christendom; but this implies that the latter does have some truth. Whatever the deficiencies in her faith, she is clearly admitted to be in possession of the true concept of God objectively speaking (223 ). Adams maintains, quite rightly in the reviewer's opinion, that the Postscript is excessively pessimistic about the integration of the ideals of subjectivity and objectivity, of passionate commitment on the one side and rational assessment of evidence on the other, in religious faith (21). A useful distinction is made by Scott MacDonald between "occurrent" and "dispositional" belief; this seems to resolve some of the more puzzling paradoxes about the relation of the more cognitive and propositional side of faith to other aspects which may be thought essential to it. The demons alluded to by St. James (2:19) might believe dispositionally that their highest fulfillment BOOK REVIEWS 499 was to be found in obeying the divine will, and so performing acts of charity and service to other creatures. But to avoid the inconvenience of acting in such a way, they could think of God occurrently as just a powerful being who makes burdensome demands (55). For MacDonald, the cognitive component of faith has only two elements, belief that certain propositions are true, and belief that the kind of response of the will which is also essential to faith may be grounded on these (56). "We can make sense of Christian faith if we think of it simply as belief that Christianity is true plus an appropriate volitional response to that truth" (69). Against mainline Christian accounts like those of Augustine and Aquinas, he sees no good reason to suppose that one cannot have faith in propositions for which one has conclusive proof, but only in those for which one's justification is relatively weak. He provides interesting grounds for contradiction of a view which has been expounded by both Robert Adams and John Hick, that only such uncertainty can ground the trust which is essential to the relationship which human beings ought to have to God (59). "My ability to love and trust my wife, to commit myself without reservation to her well-being and to the goals and purposes we have chosen as definitive of our common life seem in no way dependent on my being uncertain about what she is like or what she will do" (60). On the question of how faith ought to be related to the demands of reason, Robert Audi remarks that, up to the middle 1970s... (shrink)

Un aspecto poco estudiado del argumento de Michael Sandel en contra del carácter neutral de la justicia como equidad, es el modo en que funda sus conclusiones en el entendimiento que tiene de otros tres aspectos de la concepción rawlsiana de justicia: su carácter deontológico, el equilibrio reflexivo, y la posición original. Nuestro objetivo es mostrar que Sandel no ha cometido cuatro errores independientes, sino que poseer un entendimiento equivocado del carácter deontológico de la teoría lo ha llevado a caracterizar (...) mal en qué consiste el equilibrio reflexivo y esto -finalmente- lo ha conducido a una errónea interpretación de lo que se encuentra modelado en la posición original y -en última instancia- a sostener la falta de neutralidad de la concepción de justicia. Concentrarnos en este asunto nos permitirá apreciar cómo se articulan y complementan las distintas réplicas que Brian Barry, Samuel Freeman y el mismo John Rawls han dirigido contra Sandel. One aspect of Michael Sandel´s argument against the neutral character of justice as fairness on which little research has been done is the way in which he founds his conclusions on the basis of the understanding he has about three other aspects of the Rawlsian conception of justice: its deontological character, the reflective equilibrium and the original position. It is my aim to prove that Sandel has not made four independent mistakes but, on the contrary, to have a wrong understanding of the deontological character of the theory has driven him to a wrong characterization of what the reflective equilibrium consists of and this, in turn, has taken him to a wrong interpretation of what is modelled in the original position and, at large, to hold the idea that justice as fairness lacks neutrality. Focusing on this issue will allow us to appreciate how the different responses made by Brian Barry, Samuel Freeman and John Rawls himself against Sandel are articulated and complement one another. (shrink)

En este artículo expongo los análisis que realizan John Rawls y Maquiavelo acerca de lo que el primero denomina en Teoría de la justicia el “problema de la envidia”. Sostendré que las diferencias entre Rawls y Maquiavelo en lo que concierne a dicha cuestión expresan lo que aquí llamo las versiones liberal y plebeya del problema de la envidia. A partir de dicha comparación, argumento que el proyecto igualitario de Rawls requiere del tipo de politización de los muchos que (...) constituye el núcleo central del republicanismo defendido por Maquiavelo, particularmente en los Discursos. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content::QOOK ·REVIP/WS 198 Nagel emerges from the pages of his book as a philosopher whom, even when we disagree with him, we can still admire. St.John's University Jamaica, New York ROBERT E. LAUDER Religious Experience. By WAYNE PROUDFOOT. Berkeley and.Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985. Pp. xix + 263. For the last two centuries, religious experience has been a central concern of those who have thought about (...) religion. When evidence about primitive religious beliefs and practices became widely available in the nineteenth century, it tended to be understood not so much as bearing on cosmology or history as expressing particular kinds of religious experience. This was seen as an advance on the Enlightenment, which used to treat pagan religions as mere complexes of erroneous belief and immoral conduct. It is notable, however, that, while religious experience itself appeared to be m~re or less universal, the idea of it was novel. However impressive Isaiah's or Paul's religious experience.may have been, they themselves would not have said that they underwent religious experience, or that they expressed it in their speech or writings. Ever since Schleiermacher, whose influence above all gained currency for the notion, its apologetical uses have been noted. Religion need no longer be justified, apparently, by metaphysical arguments, or by alleging its importance for the moral life; religion is autonomous, and all basic conflict with morality or science.is conveniently excluded. The present book is a sustained critique of ·this whole approach to religion. The author argues that there are no simple inner states directly available to introspection, as Schleiermacher and others seem to suppose; the inner states associated with religion depend ineluctably on concepts, beliefs, and practices. Many recent authors would agree with this stricture.as far as it goes, but still argue for the autonomy of religious language and doctrine, and renounce reductionism in the manner of Schleiermacher. But the author urges that, ingenious as is the resulting protective strategy, it is based upon a confusion. It is one thing to insist on neutrality in the description of religious phenomena-here the religious subject's viewpoint is all-important; but it is another to be neutral in explanation of them-here one has to transcend, and may well have to contradict, that viewpoint. As well as Schleiermacher's Speeches and Christian Faith, William James's Varieties of Religious Experience is subjected by the author to 194 BOOK REVIEWS detailed discussion. Successive chapters examine Schleiermacher's theory of religious experience, two conceptions of interpretation, the ascription of emotion to oneself and others, mysticism, religious experience as such, and different kinds of explanation of religious experience and the issue of reductionism. The book as a whole seems to me rather an impressive treatment of a very important subject. University of Calgary Calgary, Alberta HUGO A. MAYNELL Intimations of Reality: Critical Realism in Science and Religion. By ARTHUR PEACOCKE. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984. Pp. 94. $10.95(cl.), $4.95(pa.). In the first of the two lectures printed in this small volume, Peacocke argues for a " critical realist " interpretation of both scientific theories and religious doctrines. Both aim (fallibly but genuinely) to speak of reality, and their methods and tools are similar enough so that if the claims of one deserve to be taken seriously, so do those of the other. Addressing one reality as they do, science and theology cannot proceed in isolation, but must he regarded as "interacting and mutually illumiminating " (51). In the second lecture Peacocke offers suggestions as to how theologians should construe the relation between God and the created world, in view of what scientists are now telling us about the latter. Many of the ideas presented here are familiar from Peacocke's earlier Creation and the World of Science and from writings of Ian Barbour and others. The main novelty lies in his buttressing the case for (and refining the interpretation of) critical realism with arguments drawn from recent work in the philosophy of science. I will start with his discussion of critical realism with respect to science, and then consider his claims for theology, his argument for the mutual relevance... (shrink)