At a very fundamental level an individual (or a computer) can process only a finite amount of information in a finite time. We can therefore model the possibilities facing such an observer by a tree with only finitely many arcs leaving each node. There is a natural field of events associated with this tree, and we show that any finitely additive probability measure on this field will also be countably additive. Hence when considering the foundations of Bayesian statistics we may (...) as well assume countable additivity over a σ-field of events. (shrink)

John Howard Yoder's reclamation of Christ's law of love as normative for Christian ethics makes important contributions to the field, but this pacifist legacy is tainted by his sexual violence against women. Prominent "witness" and "feminist" ethicists either defend or condemn Yoder, reflecting retributive approaches to wrongdoing. Restorative justice models—with their emphasis on truth-telling, particularity, and communal responses to violence—illuminate common ground between these often antagonistic groups of ethicists, whose specific resources are needed to "do justice" to Yoder's (...) legacy. Yoder claimed that "Christian identity itself calls for feminist engagement," but he failed to fully develop this claim in his theology or embody it in his life. By collaborating in such a truly feminist pacifist politics, witness and feminist ethicists not only strengthen their own internal projects with respect to the church's mission and the promotion of women's flourishing but also more effectively address sexual violence. (shrink)

The Foundations of Pragmatism in American Thought Series offers two sets of volumes containing the most significant defenses and critiques of pragmatism written before World War I: the Early Defenders of Pragmatism and Early Critics of Pragmatism . This, the first collection, Early Defenders , provides key texts for understanding the context of pragmatism’s years of greatest vitality. The early defenders were products of pragmatism’s three cradles. H. Heath Bawden was a graduate of the Chicago philosophy department, having studied with (...) John Dewey and George Mead. John E. Boodin and Horace M. Kallen earned their Ph.Ds with William James and Josiah Royce at Harvard. D. L. Murray and Howard V. Knox were independent scholars and writers inspired by F. C. S. Schiller’s humanistic pragmatism at Oxford. This collection brings together the central texts of the movement along with a representative selection of the secondary texts, reviews and responses, they elicited. Each volume features a newly-commissioned introduction by a leading scholar of American pragmatism. --five central texts reproduced in facsimile, accompanied by the main responses and replies, reset in new typography --scattered and scarce works available together for the first time --new introductions to each volume by leading scholars of American pragmatism. (shrink)

The Foundations of Pragmatism in American Thought Series offers two sets of volumes containing the most significant defenses and critiques of pragmatism written before World War I: the Early Defenders of Pragmatism and Early Critics of Pragmatism. This, the first collection, Early Defenders, provides key texts for understanding the context of pragmatism's years of greatest vitality. The early defenders were products of pragmatism's three cradles. H. Heath Bawden was a graduate of the Chicago philosophy department, having studied with John (...) Dewey and George Mead. John E. Boodin and Horace M. Kallen earned their Ph.Ds with William James and Josiah Royce at Harvard. D. L. Murray and Howard V. Knox were independent scholars and writers inspired by F. C. S. Schiller's humanistic pragmatism at Oxford. This collection brings together the central texts of the movement along with a representative selection of the secondary texts, reviews and responses, they elicited. Each volume features a newly-commissioned introduction by a leading scholar of American pragmatism. --five central texts reproduced in facsimile, accompanied by the main responses and replies, reset in new typography --scattered and scarce works available together for the first time --new introductions to each volume by leading scholars of American pragmatism. (shrink)

This essay reflects on the role academic journals like the JRE can play in facilitating and addressing tainted legacies. As an institution in religious ethics, the journal not only determines whose work is important, but it also replicates such judgments, passing certain sets of issues, concerns, and methods down from the past to the present, shaping future work. Journals highlight the systemic, structural elements of legacies that we often neglect in heated debate over how to respond to them. Consequently, they (...) illuminate the complexity of the problems tainted legacies present. I first discuss three ways a journal like the JRE facilitates the structural features of tainted legacies in religious ethics. I then suggest how the JRE might implement a position I call the “reformer” in response to such legacies. This position emphasizes practices of moral repair designed to challenge the systemic injustices that underlay tainted legacies. (shrink)

Part I Philosophic Traditions Introduction to Part I 3 1 Philosophy and the Afro-American Experience 7 CORNEL WEST 2 African-American Existential Philosophy 33 LEWIS R. GORDON 3 African-American Philosophy: A Caribbean Perspective 48 PAGET HENRY 4 Modernisms in Black 67 FRANK M. KIRKLAND 5 The Crisis of the Black Intellectual 87 HORTENSE J. SPILLERS Part II The Moral and Political Legacy of Slavery Introduction to Part II 107 6 Kant and Knowledge of Disappearing Expression 110 RONALD A. T. JUDY 7 (...) Social Contract Theory, Slavery, and the Antebellum Courts 125 ANITA L. ALLEN AND THADDEUS POPE 8 The Morality of Reparations II 134 BERNARD R. BOXILL Part III Africa and Diaspora Thought Introduction to Part III 151 9 “Afrocentricity‘: Critical Considerations 155 LUCIUS T. OUTLAW, JR. 10 African Retentions 168 TOMMY L. LOTT 11 African Philosophy at the Turn of the Century 190 ALBERT G. MOSLEY Part IV Gender, Race, and Racism Introduction to Part IV 199 12 Some Group Matters: Intersectionality, Situated Standpoints, and Black Feminist Thought 205 PATRICIA HILL COLLINS 13 Radicalizing Feminisms from “The Movement Era‘ 230 JOY A. JAMES 14 Philosophy and Racial Paradigms 239 NAOMI ZACK 15 Racial Classification and Public Policy 255 DAVID THEO GOLDBERG 16 White Supremacy 269 CHARLES W. MILLS Part V Legal and Social Philosophy Introduction to Part V 285 17 Self-Respect, Fairness, and Living Morally 293 LAURENCE M. THOMAS 18 The Legacy of Plessy v. Ferguson 306 MICHELE MOODY-ADAMS 19 Some Reflections on the Brown Decision and Its Aftermath 313 HOWARD McGARY 20 Contesting the Ambivalence and Hostility to Affirmative Action within the Black Community 324 LUKE C. HARRIS 21 Subsistence Welfare Benefits as Property Interests: Legal Theories and Moral Considerations 333 RUDOLPH V. VANTERPOOL 22 Racism and Health Care: A Medical Ethics Issue 349 ANNETTE DULA 23 Racialized Punishment and Prison Abolition 360 ANGELA Y. DAVIS Part VI Aesthetic and Cultural Values Introduction to Part VI 373 24 The Harlem Renaissance and Philosophy 381 LEONARD HARRIS 25 Critical Theory, Aesthetics, and Black Modernity 386 LORENZO C. SIMPSON 26 Black Cinema and Aesthetics 399 CLYDE R. TAYLOR 27 Thanatic Pornography, Interracial Rape, and the Ku Klux Klan 407 T. DENEAN SHARPLEY-WHITING 28 Lynching and Burning Rituals in African-American Literature 413 TRUDIER HARRIS-LOPEZ 29 Rap as Art and Philosophy 419 RICHARD SHUSTERMAN 30 Microphone Commandos: Rap Music and Political Ideology 429 BILL E. LAWSON 31 Sports, Political Philosophy, and the African American 436 GERALD EARLY. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article:The Art of Biblical Poetry. By Robert AlterThe‐ Demise of the Devil: Magic and the Demonic in Luke's Writings. By Susan R. CarrettEchoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. By Richard B. HaysJesus and Postmodernism. By James BreechThe Genesis of Doctrine: A Study in the Foundations of Doctrinal Criticism. By Alister E. McGrathOrdination Rites of the Ancient Churches, East and West. By Paul BradshawMystagogy: A Theology of Liturgy in the Patristic Age. By Enrico MazzaLiberation Theology: (...) A Documentary Histoty. Edited by Alfred T. HennellyThe Gospel in a Pluralist Society. By Lesslie NewbiginThe Sacred in Life and Art. By Philip SherrardThe Ideology of the Aesthetic. By Terry EagletonThe Justification of Science and the Rationality of Religious Belief. By Michael BannerReturn to Reason. By James Kelly ClarkThe Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrares, Together with Notes of Schelling's Berlin Lectures. Edited by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong‘For Self‐Examination’and‘Judge for Yourself’. Edited by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. HongSimone Weil; Utopian Pessimist. By David McLcllanThe Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick. Edited by Rowan WilliamsThe Apostolic Fathers. By Simon TugwellChristian Spirituality: Post‐Reformation and Modern. Edited by Louis Dupré and Don E. SaliersThe Ignatian Personality of Gerard Manley Hopkins. By David Anthony DownesMissionaries Go Home? A Sociological Interpretation of an African Response to Christian Missions. By E. M. UkaChristian‐Nationalism and the Rise of the Afrikaner Broederbond in South AfricaThe Diocesan Seminary in the United States: A History from the 1780s to The Present. By Joseph M. WhiteThe Correspondence of Erasmus: Letters 1252 to 1355. Translated by R. A. B. MynorsCatholics Against the Church: Anti‐Abortion Protest in Toronto, 1969–1985. By Michael W. CuneoThe Return of the English Benedictines to London Ealing Abbey: 1896 to Independence. By René KollarThe Theater of Devtion: East Anglian Drama and Society in ttw Late Middle Ages. By Gail McMurray GibsonMary Tudor: A Life. By David LoadesMany Tables: The Eucharist in the New Testament and Liturgy Today. By Dennis E. Smith and Hal E. Taussig. (shrink)

Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context. By Carol Meyers.Wives, Harlots and Concubines. By Alice L. Laffey.Jonah. A Psycho‐Religious Approach to the Prophet. By Andre LaCocque and Pierre‐Emmanuel Lacocque.The Temptation and the Passion: The Markan Soteriology, Second Edition. By Ernest Best.Theios Aner and the Markan Miracle Traditions: A Critique of the ‘Theios Aner’Concept as an Interpretative Background of the Miracle Traditions used by Mark. By Barry Blackburn.The Shepherd Discourse of John 10 and its Context: Studies by Members of the (...) Johannine Writings Seminar. Edited with introduction by Johannes Beutler, S.J., and Robert T. Fortna.The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. By Harold W. Attridge, edited by Helmut Koester.Structure and Message of the Epistle to the Hebrews. By Albert Vanhoye, translated by James Swetnam.Religious Pluralism and Unbelief: Studies Critical and Comparative. Edited by Ian Hamnett.7he Uniqueness of Christ in the 7heocentric Model of the Christian Theology of World Religions: An Elaboration and Evaluation of the Position ofJohn Hick. By Gregory H. Carruthers.The Jewish Roots of Christian Liturgy. Edited by Eugene J. Fisher.Women, Religion and Sexuuliry: Studies on the Impact of Religious Teachings on Women. Edited by Jeanne Becher.In Whose Image? God and Gender. By Jann Aldredge Clanton.Women Towards Priesthood: Ministerial Politics and Feminist Praxis. By Jacqueline Field‐Bibb.Afrer Eve: Women, Theology and the Christian Tradition. Edited by J. Martin Soskice.Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian. By Thomas F. Torrance.Theology und Dialogue: Essay in Conversation with George Lindbeck. Edited by Bruce D. Marshall.From Theology to Social Theory: Juan Luis Segundo and the Theology of Liberation. By Marsha Aileen Hewitt.Liberation Theology at the Crossroads: Democracy or Revolution. By Paul E. Sigmund.Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic. By Hans Kung.Marxism, Moralig and Social Justice. By R. G. Peffer.The Political Philosophy of the British Idealists. By Peter P. Nicholson.The Political Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott. By Paul Franco.Divine Action. By Keith Ward.Free Willand the Christian Faith. By W. S. Anglin.Tracrurian Semantics: Finding Sense in Wirrgetisrein's ‘Tractatus’. By Peter Carruthers.The Metaphyics of the ‘Tracratus’. By Peter Carruthers.Realism with a Human Face. By Hilary Putnam.Explanation and its Limits. Edited by Dudley Knowles.Mencius and Aquinas: Theories of Virtue and Conceptions of Courage. By Lee H. Yearly.Hobbes. By Richard Tuck.Freedom and the End of Reason: On the Moral Foundation of Kant's Critical Philosophy. By Richard L. Velkley.Reason in Religion: The Foundarions of Hegel's Philosophy of Religion. By Walter Jaeschke.International Kierkegaard Commentary, VoL 13: The Corsair Affair. Edited by Robert L. Perkins.Ssren Kierkegaard: ‘Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses’. Edited by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong.Lonergan Workshop, Volume 6. Edited by Fred Lawrence.Holy City, Holy Places: Christian Attitudes to Jerusalem and the Holy Land in the Fourth Century. By P. W. L. Walker.Politics, Poetics and Hermeneutics in Milton s Prose. Edited by David Loewenstein and James Grantham Turner.Beauty and Holiness: The Dialogue between Aesthetics and Religion. By James Alfred Martin.Science Deified & Science Defied: The Historical Significance of Science in Western Culture. Volume 2: From the Earl? Modern Age through the Romantic Era ca. 1640 to ca. 1820. By Richard Olson.The Vatican and Zionism: Conflict in the Holy Land, 1895‐1925. By Sergio I. Minerbi.The Social Dimensions of Sectarianism: Sects and New Religious Movements Contemporary Society. By Bryan Wilson.Confessor between East and West: A Portrait of Ukrainian Cardinal Josyf Slipyj. By Jaroslav Pelikan. (shrink)

This anthology of essays on the work of David Kaplan, a leading contemporary philosopher of language, sprang from a conference, "Themes from Kaplan," organized by the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University.

John Kulvicki explores the many ways in which pictures can be meaningful, taking inspiration from the philosophy of language. Pictures are important parts of communicative acts. They express a variety of thoughts, and they are also representations. Kulvicki shows how the meanings of pictures let us put them to a wide range of communicative uses.

This book is a philosophical examination of the main stages in our journey from hominid to human. It deals with the nature and origin of language, the self, self-consciousness, and the religious ideal of a return to Eden. It approaches these topics through a philosophical anthropology derived from the later writings of Wittgenstein. The result is an account of our place in nature consistent with both a hard-headed empiricism and a this-worldy but religiously significant mysticism.

The nature of representation is a central topic in philosophy. This is the first book to connect problems with understanding representational artifacts, like pictures, diagrams, and inscriptions, to the philosophies of science, mind, and art. Can images be a source of knowledge? Are images merely conventional signs, like words? What is the relationship between the observer and the observed? In this clear and stimulating introduction to the problem John V. Kulvicki explores these questions and more. He discusses: the nature (...) of pictorial experience and "seeing in" recognition, resemblance, pretense, and structural theories of depiction images as aids to scientific discovery and understanding mental imagery and the nature of perceptual content photographs as visual prostheses. In so doing he assesses central problems in the philosophy of images, such as how objects we make come to represent other things, and how we distinguish kinds of representation - pictures, diagrams, graphs - from one another. Essential reading for students and professional philosophers alike, the book also contains chapter summaries, annotated further reading, and a glossary. (shrink)

Health reform debate understandably focuses on large system design. We should not omit attention to the “last mile” problem of physician payment theory. Achieving fundamental goals of integrative, patient-centered primary care depends on thoughtful financial support. This commentary describes the nature and importance of innovative primary care payment programs.

In 1924 W. W. Tarn published an article in which he attempted to prove that the mother of Philip V of Macedon was the Epirot princess Phthia. Previously all historians had accepted the statement of Eusebius that Philip was the son of Demetrius II and Chryseis, whom, after the death of her husband, the Macedonians gave in marriage to Antigonus Doson. Despite the cogency of Tarn's arguments, his theory has been rejected by both Beloch and Dinsmoor, who adhere to the (...) traditional view. This problem of the identity of Philip's mother is one of considerable importance, and consequently in this paper I intend to collect the evidence once again and subject it to a careful analysis. The results will be found strongly to corroborate Tarn's contention. (shrink)

Language Games 2 This chapter provides some background necessary for subsequent discussions by sketching in the idea of a language game, thereby giving a ...

ABSTRACT Historians of science, inasmuch as they are concerned with knowledges and practices rather than institutions, have tended of late to focus on case studies of common processes such as experiment and publication. In so doing, they tend to treat science as a single category, with various local instantiations. Or, alternatively, they relate cases to their specific local contexts. In neither approach do the cases or their contexts build easily into broader histories, reconstructing changing knowledge practices across time and space. (...) This essay argues that by systematically deconstructing the practices of science and technology and medicine (STM) into common, recurrent elements, we can gain usefully “configurational” views, not just of particular cases and contexts but of synchronic variety and diachronic changes, both short term and long. To this end, we can begin with the customary actors’ disciplines of early modern knowledge (natural philosophy, natural history, mixed mathematics, and experimental philosophy), which can be understood as elemental “ways of knowing and working,” variously combined and disputed. I argue that these same working knowledges, together with a later mode—synthetic experimentation and systematic invention—may also serve for the analysis of STM from the late eighteenth century to the present. The old divisions continued explicitly and importantly after circa 1800, but they were also “built into” an array of new sciences. This historiographic analysis can help clarify a number of common problems: about the multiplicity of the sciences, the importance of various styles in science, and the relations between science and technology and medicine. It suggests new readings of major changes in STM, including the first and second scientific revolutions and the transformations of biomedicine from the later twentieth century. It offers ways of recasting both microhistories and macrohistories, so reducing the apparent distance between them. And it may thus facilitate both more constructive uses of case studies and more innovative and acceptable longer histories. (shrink)

Presents a chronological survey of some of the central topics in 20th century philosophy in the English-speaking world.

. Because of similarities between some implications of Michael Polanyi's theory of personal knowledge and intelligent design, claims have been made that his theory provides support to the project of intelligent design. This essay contends that, when Polanyi's reflections on a Ideological framework for contextualizing evolutionary biology are properly understood as a heuristic vision, his position contrasts sharply with the empirical claims made on behalf of intelligent design.

While historians of scientific method have recently called attention to the views of many of John Stuart Mill's contemporaries on the relation between probability and inductive inference, little if any note has been taken of Mill's own vigorous attack on the received "Laplacean" interpretation of probability in the first edition of the System of Logic. This paper examines the place of Mill's critique, both in the overall framework of his philosophy, and in the tradition of assessing the so-called "probability (...) of causes". It also offers an account of why, in later editions of the work, Mill appears to adopt a much more sympathetic stance toward the received view. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to display a congruence between several important features of Augustine’s theory of knowledge, including our knowledge of the world (sapientia) and our knowledge of the standards guiding our thought (sapientia), and Michael Polanyi’s theory of personal knowledge. Its purpose is to commendan interpretation of Polanyi’s thought which situates his major insights within an Augustinian intellectual tradition and which thereby offers fruitful possibilities for theological reflection, particularly on the reality of God.

Using a multiple-trial stock market decision paradigm, the possibility that counterfactual thinking can be dysfunctional for learning and performance by distorting the processing of outcome information was examined. Correlational (Study 1) and experimental (Study 2) evidence suggested that counterfactuals are associated with a decrease in experiential learning. When counterfactuals were made salient, participants displayed significantly poorer performance compared to their counterparts for whom counterfactuals were relatively less salient. A counterfactual salience ? need for cognition (NFC) interaction qualified these findings. High (...) NFC participants outperformed their counterparts when counterfactuals were not salient. Evidence for a memory-based mechanism was also supported. (shrink)

This paper seeks to highlight the importance of spatial cognition in Bergson’s Données immédiates by engaging with Robert Watt’s reconstruction of Bergson’s argument that every idea of number involves the idea of space. We focus on the second stage of Watt’s reconstruction, where Bergson argues that only space can provide the distinction required for our counting of otherwise identical items. Watt bases his reconstruction on a premise regarding the possibility that identical objects, in the absence of spatial distinction, might remain (...) identical across different “temporal locations”. Our paper raises the prospect that Bergson is committed to a stronger thesis, namely one implying that identical objects would necessarily remain indistinguishable without the intervention of space. The paper thus concludes by emphasizing the indispensability of space for knowledge according to Bergson. (shrink)

This study examines Plato's dialogue on the good life and argues, most centrally, that the "pleasures of learning" exemplify, for Socrates, the possibility of good becoming or change.

This review discusses Weightman's interpretation of Torrance's appropriation of Polanyi's theory of science; Weightman shows how Torrance develops a contemporary “natural”theology, moving beyond Barthian roots, but he argues Torrance misconstrues Polanyi's understanding of “religion” and God. I support Weightman's account, acknowledging much of his argument regarding the nature of religion, but I question whether his constructivist view of God can support the role it must play in Polanyi's thought.

The doctrine of imputation is common to Early Modern Lutheran and Reformed theology, but Reformed orthodox theologians employed the distinction between the active and passive justification of the believer. Active justification is the objective imputation of Christ’s righteousness and passive justification is the subjective reception of the same. This distinction is a unique contribution in Reformed orthodox dogmatics and was used in polemics against Roman Catholic, Arminian, and Socinian theologians. This essay also compares Reformed orthodox formulations with Lutheran orthodox understandings (...) of how they preserved the extra nos of Christ’s righteousness in justification. The Reformed orthodox employed the active-passive justification distinction in conjunction with the decree and the doctrine of the covenant of redemption, whereas the Lutheran orthodox logically placed justification first in the order of salvation. Both groups maintain the extra nos of Christ’s imputed righteousness but do so in different ways. (shrink)