In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sacrificial and Nonsacrificial Mass NonviolenceJohn Roedel (bio)Have been awake since 2 a.m. God’s grace alone is sustaining me. I can see there is some grave defect in me somewhere which is the cause of all this. All round me is utter darkness.—M. K. Gandhi, diary entry, dated January 2, 1947.1During the last few years of Gandhi’s life, massive rioting verging on civil war tore India apart, despite Gandhi’s (...) best efforts to calm the situation and despite repeated, widespread, politically successful mass nonviolent actions by large segments of the Indian populace in the previous decades. There have been many analyses of the violent births of India and Pakistan, but none that I know of have taken seriously Gandhi’s intuitions of his own responsibility. At most, intuitions such as these have been taken as further evidence of the Mahatma’s profound humility.I will not suggest that Gandhi bore some moral responsibility for this violence, but I will suggest that his (and others’) ignorance of what I will term the sacrificial aspects of mass nonviolence did have a role to play. I will model my distinction between sacrificial and nonsacrificial nonviolence on Girard’s [End Page 221] distinction between sacrificial and nonsacrificial Christianity as presented in Things Hidden since the Foundation of the World, and will attempt to use this distinction to suggest how violence might arise out of the practice of mass nonviolence, using the example of the nonviolent movement for Indian independence as an example. I hope that my speculations may also shed light on other puzzling aspects of mass nonviolence, such as the reason why, despite the many political successes of nonviolence, nonviolent movements have never become more widely established, and have for the most part been limited to ad hoc movements.2In Girard’s view, sacrificial practices such as I am proposing as part of mass nonviolence are ubiquitous, destructive, and mostly invisible. Girard writes, “every negation of the other leads... towards expulsion and murder. The basis for all of this lies in the fundamental human situation of a mimetic rivalry that leads to a destructive escalation.”3 That is, every negation of the other contributes to widening cycles of escalation that would lead to the extinction of humanity, were it not for sacrifice, which allows the rivalries to be discharged without consequences onto an individual outside the community—a scapegoat.There is not much agreement about how nonviolence functions or even about what the word “nonviolence” refers to. It will be defined here as a refusal to submit to or inflict violence, where “violence” includes not just physical violence but also verbal and structural violence, such as imperialism and poverty. Within such a definition, fleeing physically or otherwise from violence is a form of submission to the violence, and allows violence the last word, so to speak. Nonviolence is perhaps clearest in a face-to-face encounter with physical violence, as in the many civil disobedience actions of Gandhi’s career. But like violence, nonviolence also occurs in common, even subtle, situations, as in a conversation between friends.Beginning with Gandhi, a distinction has often been made between “strategic” and “principled” nonviolence. Strategic nonviolence is the contingent embrace of nonviolence as a tactic. Principled nonviolence is the unconditional embrace of nonviolence, on the basis of a moral or religious commitment. Gandhi spoke of principled nonviolence as a refusal to submit to or inflict violence out of unselfish love for the opponent. He spoke of strategic nonviolence as a means for achieving one’s goals; in his opinion, this was not really nonviolence at all, but a simulacrum of it. An individual may even sometimes be unable to distinguish the extent to which his own nonviolence is strategic or principled.To distinguish between strategic and principled nonviolence, according to Gandhi, it is necessary to explore the motivations and character formation of the nonviolent practitioner in question. For Gandhi, principled nonviolence [End Page 222] arises out of one’s “relationship to God” and a “deep sense of the intercon-nectedness of all beings.” Gandhi believed that in defense of truth, or in defense of the honor of oneself... (shrink)

John Stuart Mill is one of the greatest thinkers of the nineteenth century. But does he have anything to teach us today? His deep concern for freedom of the individual is thought by some to be outdated and inadequate to the cultural and religious complexities of twenty first century life. In this succinct and shrewd book, John Skorupski argues that Mill is a profound and inspiring social and political thinker from whom we still have much to learn. He (...) reflects on Mill's central arguments in his most famous works, including _Utilitarianism_ and _On Liberty_, and traces their implications for democratic politics. With the use of topical and controversial examples, including privacy, religious intolerance, and freedom of speech, he makes Mill's concerns our own at a time when what liberalism means, and why it matters, is once again in dispute. He concludes that Mill's place in the pantheon of 'great thinkers' rests not only on his specific political and social doctrines, but above all on his steadfastly generous and liberal vision of human beings, their relations to one another, and what makes life worth living. (shrink)

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Reasoning is an activity of ours by which we come to satisfy synchronic requirements of rationality. However, reasoning itself is regulated by diachronic permissions of rationality. For each synchronic requirement there appears to be a corresponding diachronic permission, but the requirements and permissions are not related to each other in a systematic way. It is therefore a puzzle how reasoning according to permissions can systematically bring us to satisfy requirements.

This self-contained lecture examines uses and misuses of the adverb conversely with special attention to logic and logic-related fields. Sometimes adding conversely after a conjunction such as and signals redundantly that a converse of what preceded will follow. -/- (1) Tarski read Church and, conversely, Church read Tarski. -/- In such cases, conversely serves as an extrapropositional constituent of the sentence in which it occurs: deleting conversely doesn’t change the proposition expressed. Nevertheless it does introduce new implicatures: a speaker would (...) implicate belief that the second sentence expresses a converse of what the first expresses. Perhaps because such usage is familiar, the word conversely can be used as “sentential pronoun”—or prosentence—representing a sentence expressing a converse of what the preceding sentence expresses. -/- (2) Tarski read Church and conversely. -/- This would be understood as expressing the proposition expressed by (1). Prosentential usage introduces ambiguity when the initial proposition has more than one converse. Confusion can occur if the initial proposition has non-equivalent converses. -/- Every proposition that is the negation of a false proposition is true and conversely. -/- One sense implies that every proposition that is the negation of a true proposition is false, which is true of course. But another sense, probably more likely, implies that every proposition that is true is the negation of a false proposition, which is false: the proposition that one precedes two is not a negation and thus is not the negation of a false proposition. The above also applies to synonyms of conversely such as vice versa. Although prosentence has no synonym, extrapropositional constituents are sometimes called redundant rhetoric, filler, or expletive. Authors discussed include Aristotle, Boole, De Morgan, Peirce, Frege, Russell, Tarski, and Church. END OF PUBLISHED ABSTRACT -/- See also: Corcoran, John. 2015. Converses, inner and outer. 2015. Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, third edition, Robert Audi (editor). Cambridge: Cambridge UP. https://www.academia.edu/10396347/Corcoran_s_27_entries_in_the_1999_second_edition_Audi_s_Cambridge_ Dictionary_of_Philosophy . (shrink)

We discuss misinformation about “the liar antinomy” with special reference to Tarski’s 1933 truth-definition paper [1]. Lies are speech-acts, not merely sentences or propositions. Roughly, lies are statements of propositions not believed by their speakers. Speakers who state their false beliefs are often not lying. And speakers who state true propositions that they don’t believe are often lying—regardless of whether the non-belief is disbelief. Persons who state propositions on which they have no opinion are lying as much as those who (...) state propositions they believe to be false. Not all lies are statements of false propositions—some lies are true; some have no truth-value. People who only occasionally lie are not liars: roughly, liars repeatedly and habitually lie. Some half-truths are statements intended to mislead even though the speakers “interpret” the sentences used as expressing true propositions. Others are statements of propositions believed by the speakers to be questionable but without revealing their supposed problematic nature. The two “formulations” of “the antinomy of the liar” in [1], pp.157–8 and 161–2, have nothing to do with lying or liars. The first focuses on an “expression” Tarski calls ‘c’, namely the following. -/- c is not a true sentence -/- The second focuses on another “expression”, also called ‘c’, namely the following. -/- for all p, if c is identical with the sentence ‘p’, then not p -/- Without argumentation or even discussion, Tarski implies that these strange “expressions” are English sentences. [1] Alfred Tarski, The concept of truth in formalized languages, pp. 152–278, Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics, papers from 1923 to 1938, ed. John Corcoran, Hackett, Indianapolis 1983. -/- https://www.academia.edu/12525833/Sentence_Proposition_Judgment_Statement_and_Fact_Speaking_about_th e_Written_English_Used_in_Logic. (shrink)

First published in 1967, The Transcendence of the Cave is the second in a series of Gifford Lectures on philosophical issues, and continues the themes of the first series entitled The Discipline of the Cave. In the opening chapters, J N Findlay sketches an ontology, an axiology and a theology which are ‘phenomenological’ in the sense of Husserl, as they attempt to show that a ‘firmament’ of logical and other values emerges out of the contingencies of first order liking and (...) interest. The synthesis of these values in an object having many paradoxical, mystical-religious properties is also a necessary outcome of this ‘logic’. In the later chapters, the author attempts to construct an orderly picture of other worldly experiences and their objects based solely on the premise that these experiences must be such as to resolve the many philosophical surds that plague us in this life. (shrink)

When originally published in 1960, this was the first complete English translation since 1799 of Kant's early work on aesthetics. More literary than philosophical, _Observations _shows Kant as a man of feeling rather than the dry thinker he often seemed to readers of the three Critiques.

I attempt here to draw parallels between ancient and modern sophistry —and ancient and modern philosophy. Plato at one point identified a sophist as a paid hunter of rich young men who ‘lurks’ in non-being: that is, has no concern for truth. In more modern times Elizabeth Anscombe, when asked what her philosophical colleagues did, remarked that they spend most of their time corrupting the youth. And the present situation in many liberal universities encourages them to do so—and in the (...) humanities more generally, not only in philosophy. By the time a PhD candidate has completed his doctorate, joined a department and eventually got tenure, he will in many cases have become a practised sophist, equipped with what often amounts to a PhD in rationalizing, that is, in sophistry. I wonder whether we ought not to do something to change some of that. (shrink)

_Fundamentals of Philosophy_ is a comprehensive and accessible introduction to philosophy. Based on the well-known series of the same name, this textbook brings together specially commissioned articles by leading philosophers of philosophy's key topics. Each chapter provides an authoritative overview of topics commonly taught at undergraduate level, focusing on the major issues that typically arise when studying the subject. Discussions are up to date and written in an engaging manner so as to provide students with the core building blocks of (...) their degree course. _Fundamentals of Philosophy_ is an ideal starting point for those coming to philosophy for the first time and will be a useful complement to the primary texts studied at undergraduate level. Ideally suited to novice philosophy students, it will also be of interest to those in related subjects across the humanities and social sciences. (shrink)

Hill, John In a previous article, I broached the subject of priesthood as style, along the lines taken by Christoph Theobald and other contemporary French theologians.1 In that article I argued for a priestly style that fitted in with Theobald's vision of the Christian life as apprenticeship to Christ's own style of hospitable and eschatological messianism, and that also addressed current charges of clericalism and infantilism. I began to formulate that style in terms of citizenship, and I wish to (...) develop that approach in this article. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE INCOMMUNICABILITY OF HUMAN PERSONS JOHN F. CROSBY, III Franciscan University of Steubenville Steubenville, Ohio I PROPOSE TO explore the idea that persons do not exist as replaceable specimens of or as mere instances of an ideal or type, but rather exist in some sense for their own sakes, each existing as incommunicably his or her own.1 I undertake this study in the conviction that the incommunicability of (...) persons is profoundly characteristic for them precisely as persons, and has a major role to play in any philosophy of the person. And there is an entirely different reason which attracts me to this subject. I think that most of what I have to say here can find acceptance across a broad spectrum of philosophical positions. At a time when thinkers are increasingly suspicious of universally valid truth about man, when many of them think that a vision of man is proper only to some tradition and valid only within that tradition and not beyond it, one can offer a salutary challenge to one's contemporaries by showing a centrally important truth about persons which, as I say, can be accepted by philosophers coming from the most various points of view. Suppose that you were to minimalize the death of someone by saying that at least the human species did not die with him or her, as if the immortality of the species more than compensated for the mortality of this individual : everyone understands that you would thereby radically depersonalize the deceased. Or suppose that you were grieving over the death of someone dear to you, and a friend tried to comfort you with the thought that the 1 My thanks to Josef Seifert, William Frank, Damian Fedoryka, and Katryna Fedoryka for their comments on earlier drafts of this study. The text of this article forms Chapter Two of my book, Essay on Personal Selfhood, which is close to completion. 403 404 JOHN F. CROSBY, III particular excellences of the deceased, which awakened your love, also exist in other human beings who are still living, as if you could continue to love in them what you had loved in the deceased. Again, everyone understands that if you treat people having excellences as if they were replaceable specimens of those excellences, then you lose your grip on them as persons. But why is this? Why is personhood driven out of human beings as soon as their species-membership, or their particular excellences, are thought to predominate in them? What is that incommunicability of each person which is obscured as soon as persons are thought to be only specimens? One commonly thinks that this aspect of personal selfhood has been recognized only in modern thought; in fact it was recognized already by St. Thomas Aquinas. Creatura autem rationalis divinae providentiae substat sicut secundum se gubernata et provisa, non solum propter speciem, ut aliae corruptibiles creaturae : quia individuum quod gubernatur solum propter speciem, non gubernatur propter seipsum; creatura autem rationalis propter seipsam gubernatur, ut ex dictis manifestum est. Sic igitur solae rationales creaturae directionem a Deo ad suos actus accipiunt non solum propter speciem, sed secundum individuum.2 Notice that Aquinas teaches here the metaphysical ultimacy of personal incommunicability; it exists even before God in the sense 2 " Now, a rational creature exists under divine providence as a being governed and provided for in himself, and not simply for the sake of his species, as is the case with other corruptible creatures. For the individual that is governed only for the sake of the species is not governed for its own sake, but the rational creature is governed for his own sake, as is clear from what we have said (ch. 112). And so, only rational creatures receive direction from God in their acts, not only for the species, but for the individual." Summa Contra Gentiles, III, ch. 113 (Bourke translation). By the way, Chapters 111-114 of Book III seem to me to constitute the most " personalist " passage' in the entire corpus of St. Thomas. The modern reader sees to his amazement that St. Thomas here has already made his own the Kantian idea that each person in a sense exists for his... (shrink)

Levack, John Having just read another poem about how a city-bred agnostic finds God after spending a weekend away in the Australian bush..

John Wilson; Rationality and Moral Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 11, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 98–112, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-.

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill took thirty years to complete and is acknowledged as the definitive edition of J.S. Mill and as one of the finest works editions ever completed. Mill's contributions to philosophy, economics, and history, and in the roles of scholar, politician and journalist can hardly be overstated and this edition remains the only reliable version of the full range of Mill's writings. Each volume contains extensive notes, a new introduction and an index. Many of (...) the volumes have been unavailable for some time, but the Works are now again available, both as a complete set and as individual volumes. (shrink)

John Field’s Lifelong Learning and the New Educational Order (2000) represents a substantial contribution to the literature on lifelong learning. Whilst Field brings a wealth of policy-related and sociological learning to his work, this article focuses on a number of philosophical questions arising from the study. It is suggested that Field’s argument raises familiar questions about notions of ‘learning’, ‘reflexivity’, ‘personal autonomy’ and the conditions for knowledge. In each case, a number of considerations present themselves which have implications for (...) our understanding of lifelong learning: its nature, prevalence and significance. (shrink)

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1983.

This paper evaluates the recent trend to renounce the similarity approach to counterfactuals in favor of the older metalinguistic theory. I try to show, first, that the metalinguistic theory cannot work in anything like its present form (the form described by many in the last decade who claim to be able to solve Goodman''s old problem of cotenability). This is so, I argue, because the metalinguistic theory requires laws of nature of a sort that we (apparently) do not have: current (...) physical theory cannot underwrite the metalinguistic theory. Second, I draw from the first point a motivation for the similarity approach, a motivation based on theoretical considerations apart from the standard ones of pretheoretical intuition. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Millennium Jahrgang: 13 Heft: 1 Seiten: 37-40.

Individual people are morally responsible. But can groups of people - corporations and nations, for example - be morally responsible as well? An affirmative answer has been defended by appealing to two criteria, here identified as the turnover test and the distribution test. The article argues for a Scotch verdict: neither criterion proves the point.

Contents: John BURNHEIM: Introduction. Mihály VAJDA: A Lover of Philosophy - A Lover of Europe. Phillippe DESPOIX: On the Possibility of a Philosophy of Values. A Dialogue within the Budapest School. Martin JAY: Women in Dark Times: Agnes Heller and Hannah Arendt. Johann P. ARNASON: The Human Condition and the Modern Predicament. Richard J. BERNSTEIN: Agnes Heller: Philosophy, Rational Utopia and Praxis. Zygmunt BAUMAN: Narrating Modernity. Peter BEILHARZ: Theories of History - Agnes Heller and R.G. Collingwood. Richard WOLIN: Heller's (...) Theory of Everyday Life. Paul HARRISON: Radical Philosophy and the Theory of Modernity. Arthur J. JACOBSON: The Limits of Formal Justice. Peter MURPHY: Civility and Radicalism. Peter MURPHY: Pluralism and Politics. Victoria CAMPS: The Good Life: A Moral Gesture. Laura BOELLA: Philosophy Beyond and the Baseless and Tragic Character of Action. György MÁRKUS: The Politics of Morals. Agnes HELLER: A Reply to My Critics. The Bibliography of Agnes Heller. (shrink)

Ethics and Technology is a step-by-step, hands-on process that companies, civic organizations, and watchdog groups can use to assess the benefits - and costs - of technology. Featuring vignettes drawn from actual business cases, as well as sharply focused study questions, this resource offers tools for asking effective questions and making ethical decisions. John Hart's book will enable corporations, governments, communities, and individuals to get beyond competing ideologies to work cooperatively on a progressive reshaping of society.

In this essay, I examine selected narratives in the Rājataraṅgiṇī that invoke a specific practice of suicide by starvation, what is referred to as prāya, prāyopaveśa, and/or prāyopaveśana. Commonly attested in the legal literature as well as in the epics, prāya is normally deployed there to redress financial grievances, to force debtors to pay their due. The use of the practice in the Rājataraṅgiṇī is often quite different from this, however: Kalhaṇa suggests that Brahmins, and others, engaged in the fast-unto-death (...) not only to redress their own grievances, but also the grievances of others. In particular, Kalhaṇa presents prāya as a tool used to compel Kashmiri kings to conform to the dharmaśāstric strictures of good government, to promote policies favoring not only Brahmins but also other, non-Brahmin subjects. The existence of such a form of the fast-unto-death is significant, for it signals a potentially unselfish use of caste, however imperfectly and corruptly the Rājataraṅgiṇī shows it to have been applied: by threatening their own deaths and promising thereby the karmic and social consequences of brahminicide, Brahmins sought to compel those sovereigns who pursued their own narrow interests to better serve the common good. That this is so raises a trio of vital concerns regarding the nature of the fast and its modern legacies, and the nature of royal succession, on the one hand, and on the other, the proper role of social and political elites in premodern South Asia. (shrink)