From its beginnings, Confucianism has vibrantly taught that each person is able to find the Way individually in service to the community and the world. For over 2,600 years, Confucianism has sustained a continual process of transformation and growth. In this comprehensive new work, John Berthrong examines the vitality and expansion of the Confucian tradition throughout East Asia and into the entire modern world.Confucianism has been credited with being the dominant social and intellectual force shaping the enduring civilizations of (...) East Asia. If we are to grasp the history of East Asia, we must understand the role that Confucianism has played in the social and cultural formation of the entire region. Just as civilizations are ever-changing, there has been nothing timeless or static about Confucianism.Berthrong’s study is unique in its discussion of each of the historical and regional phases of the development of the Confucian Tao. All too often, Confucian studies have focused exclusively on the classical early period and the great thinkers of the later neo-Confucian revival in the Sung Ming dynasties. Berthrong’s work opens the reader’s eyes to the often neglected gifts of scholars of the Han, T’ang, and the modern periods, as well as to the vast contributions of Korea and Japan. The author concludes this revelatory study with an examination of the contemporary renewal of the Confucian Way in East Asia and its recent spread to the West. (shrink)

In 1984, John W. Yolton published Perceptual Acquaintance from Descartes to Reid. His most recent book builds on that seminal work and greatly extends its relevance to issues in current philosophical debate. Perception and Reality examines the theories of perception implicit in the work of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century philosophers which centered on the question: How is knowledge of the body possible? That question raises issues of mind-body relation, the way that mentality links with physicality, and the nature of the (...) known world. In contrast to commonsense realism, which suggests that the world is as it appears to be, a more complex theory developed throughout this period. Yolton traces its evolution from Descartes to Kant, via Arnauld, Malebranche, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Yolton explains that the new theory postulated two interactive relations between perceivers and the physical world, one physical and causal, the other cognitive. An understanding of this double relation is important for an accurate construction of the history of philosophy. It is also important for contemporary thought because it suggests a way to account for representation (cognitivity) and realism at the same time. (shrink)

Introduction to Medieval Philosophy combines and updates the scholarship of the two highly successful volumes Early Medieval Philosophy (1983) and Late Medieval Philosoph y (1986) in a single, reliable, and comprehensive text on the history of medieval philosophy. John Marenbon discusses the main philosophers and ideas within the social and intellectual contexts of the time, and the most important concepts in medieval philosophy. Straightforward in arrangement, wide in scope, and clear in style, this is the ideal starting point for (...) students beginning the subject. (shrink)

How do the hard facts of political responsibility shape and constrain the demands of ethical life? That question lies at the heart of the problem of 'dirty hands' in public life. Those who exercise political power often feel they must act in ways that would otherwise be considered immoral: indeed, paradoxically, they sometimes feel that it would be immoral of them not to perform or condone such acts as killing or lying. John Parrish offers a wide-ranging account of how (...) this important philosophical problem emerged and developed, tracing it - and its proposed solutions - from ancient Greece through the Enlightenment. His central argument is that many of our most familiar concepts and institutions - from Augustine's interiorised ethics, to Hobbes's sovereign state, to Adam Smith's 'invisible hand', understanding of the modern commercial economy - were designed partly as responses to the ethical problem of dirty hands in public life. (shrink)

... the first book to examine all the central issues surrounding the vexed relationship between the film-image and philosophy. In it, John Mullarkey tackles the work of particular philosophers and theorists (Žižei, Deleuze, Cavell, Bordwell, Badiou, Branigan, Rancière, Frampton, and many others) as well as general philosophical positions (Analytical and Continental, Cognitivist and Culturalist, Pyschoanalytic and phenomenological). Moreover, he also offers an incisive analysis and explanation of several prominent forms of film theorizing, providing a metalogical account of their mutual (...) advantages and deficiencies that will prove immensely useful to anyone interested in the details of particular theories of film presently circulating, as well as correcting, revising, and re-visioning the field of film theory as a whole. Throughout, Mullarkey asks whether the reduction of film to text is unavoidable. In particular: must philosophy (and theory) always transform film into pre-texts for illustration? What would it take to imagine how film might itself theorise without reducing it to standard forms of thought and philosophy? Finally, and fundamentally, must we change our definition of philosophy and even of thought itself in order to accommodate the specificities that come with the claim that film can produce philosophical theory?"--Publisher's description, p. [4] of cover. (shrink)

In Faculty Misconduct in Collegiate Teaching, higher education researchers John Braxton and Alan Bayer address issues of impropriety and misconduct in the teaching role at the postsecondary level. Braxton and Bayer define and examine norms of teaching behavior: what they are, how they come to exist, and how transgressions are detected and addressed. Do faculty members across various collegiate settings, for example, share views about appropriate and inappropriate teaching behaviors, as they share expectations regarding actions related to research? And (...) what mechanisms are utilized to correct inappropriate behavior on the part of college and university teachers? The authors' work is based on survey results obtained from faculty members at research universities, liberal arts colleges, and two-year community, junior, and technical colleges. Braxton and Bayer's focus is on undergraduate teaching in four disciplines: biology, history, mathematics, and psychology. In their analyses, the authors examine how individual, disciplinary, and institutional differences influence professorial behavior. In contrast to the more explicitly understood and enforced rules of conduct in research, the authors find that teaching norms are informally defined and observed. They argue that a formal code of ethics for undergraduate teaching would serve the dual purpose of improving undergraduate education and elevating the status of college teaching. A groundbreaking study of contemporary academe, Faculty Misconduct in Collegiate Teaching is required reading for all university and college instructors and administrators. (shrink)

Causation can be understood as a computational process once we understand causation in informational terms. I argue that if we see processes as information channels, then causal processes are most readily interpreted as the transfer of information from one state to another. This directly implies that the later state is a computation from the earlier state, given causal laws, which can also be interpreted computationally. This approach unifies the ideas of causation and computation.

In J. Zlatev, T. Racine, C. Sinha and E. Itkonen (Eds.) The Shared Mind: Perspectives on Intersubjectivity, Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, in press.

JOHN E. MURDOCH AND EDITH DUDLEY SYLLA INTRODUCTION Conferences and colloquia are held and their results often published, but very rarely is any account ...

While sport has been practised since pre-historic times, it is a relatively new subject of systematic philosophical enquiry. Indeed, the philosophy of sport as an academic sub-field dates back only to the 1970s. Yet, in this short time, it has grown into a vibrant area of philosophical research that promises both to deepen our understanding of sport and to inform sports practice. Recent controversies at the elite and professional level have highlighted the ethical dimensions of sport in particular. Lance Armstrong’s (...) use of performance-enhancing drugs raised new issues in the ethics of cheating, middle-distance runner Caster Semenya has challenged prevailing rules around sex classification in sport, and Oscar Pistorius’s prosthesis has problematized the distinction between able-bodied and disabled sport. While philosophical analysis may help to achieve a deeper understanding of sport, such analysis may also illuminate problems of philosophy beyond sport, ranging from the nature of skill to the ethics of altruism. -/- This entry proceeds in three sections. Section 1 introduces the philosophy of sport with particular emphasis on the history of systematic philosophical thinking about sport. Section 2 examines the nature and value of sport, and it considers the main normative theories of sport developed in the literature. Section 3 addresses a cluster of topics that are central to the philosophy of sport, including: sportsmanship; cheating; performance enhancement; violent and dangerous sport; sex, gender, and race; fans and spectators; disability sport; and the aesthetics of sport. (shrink)

How does a school of thought, in the area of philosophy, or indeed of religion, from roots that may be initially open-ended and largely informal, come to take on the features that later mark it out as distinctive, and even exclusive? That is the theme which is explored in this book in respect of the philosophical movement known as Platonism, stemming as it does from the essentially open-ended and informal atmosphere of Plato's Academy. John Dillon focuses on a number (...) of key issues, such as monism versus dualism, the metaphysical underpinnings of ethical theory, the theory of Forms, and the reaction to the Sceptical 'deviation' represented by the so-called 'New Academy'. The book is written in the lively and accessible style of the lecture series in Beijing from which it originates. (shrink)

John R. Silber; XI—Human Action and the Language of Volitions, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 64, Issue 1, 1 June 1964, Pages 199–220, https://.

This is both a small and a large book. In number of pages it is modest, but it aspires to sort through a very large topic indeed. One of the challenges for a naturalist theology, which is to say a naturalist conception of the divine, and perhaps more importantly of the sacred, is to resolve the obvious problem of accommodating as an element of nature an entity that has for the most part been understood as supernatural. Yalcin’s book attempts to (...) do just that. Though I have some misgivings about this and that detail, which I will mention below, Yalcin succeeds, I would say, in articulating a coherent, plausible, creative, and wholly interesting understanding of the sacred on strictly naturalist grounds.It is... (shrink)

Art of seeing, John Rajchman argues in his essay, was in the center of Michel Foucault’s critical attention as well as practice. Foucault himself was a visual thinker and writer. More importantly, however, the ways in which historically changing vision determines not only what is seen, but what can be seen, are one of his major concerns. Rupture with self-evidences is then the first step one must take to make the invisible – yet not hidden – power visible. Th (...) e invisibility of power, seen as the invisible light that makes other things visible, is what makes it tolerable. Knowledge and the practice of knowing themselves are constructed by the technology of the visual, such as the diff erent types of spaces that bring about specific visibility. In Foucault’s histories, the prison or the clinic are such spaces that have visualized criminality, sexuality or madness in particular manner. However, problematization of these things needs to go beyond new ways of looking at them and has to question their entire field of vision. This implies that Foucauldian ethics is less concerned with what we do about things themselves, instead, it rather asks how we see them in the first place and how can they be seen differently. It thus requires not to look within us, on the contrary, we should look out, from outside of ourselves. (shrink)

In his masterly book Christ and Culture H. Richard Niebuhr identified five main attitudes which Christians have taken towards secular culture. The first emphasizes the opposition between Christ and culture. In the New Testament it is best seen in Revelation and in the First Epistle of John. But it appears in its most radical form in Tertullian, though even he is not wholly consistent. Men are under illusions from their very culture . Graeco-Roman society was shot through and through (...) with what Tertullian regarded as superstition and idolatry, as well as immorality. So Tertullian repudiated political life, military service, many aspects of commerce, philosophy and the arts. (shrink)

In his classic, The Idea of a University, John Henry Cardinal Newman advanced three arguments for the inclusion of theology in the liberal arts curriculum. These include the very nature of a university in its profession to teach all subjects, the interdisciplinary value of theology, and the danger of academic quackery and usurpation, when a subject matter is not given its due place in the curriculum. The arguments for theology are intimately connected to Newman's high ideal of education, rightly (...) celebrated by educators today. The crisis in contemporary liberal education is reflected in a dispute between Edward O. Wilson and Richard Rorty over the concept of "consilience." Yet there are promising signs of a renewal of liberal education through a deeper appreciation of theology in the course of studies in higher education. (shrink)

This chapter examines John Locke's work entitled Two Treatises of Government. It suggests that this work helped revitalize the social contract tradition by extending the elements of Calvinist political thought, and expanded the modern natural law tradition of Hugo Grotius and Samuel von Pufendorf. The chapter also contends that this work represents Locke's defense of his political philosophy and of the Whig political principles.

To be delivered at the 2nd "Deleuze Camp" in Cardiff, Wales, in August 2008. The intended audience is composed of students and scholars of Deleuze who are non-specialists in philosophy of biology. Thus these are introductory lectures with a good deal of simplification and exaggeration. I wish to thank Dominique Homberger, Vince LiCata, John Larkin, Chuck Dyke, and Alistair Welchman for critical and clarifying comments. They have helped immensely, and the remaining infelicities are solely my responsibility.

In this first comprehensive treatment of Plato’s political thought in a long time, John Wallach offers a "critical historicist" interpretation of Plato. Wallach shows how Plato’s theory, while a radical critique of the conventional ethical and political practice of his own era, can be seen as having the potential for contributing to democratic discourse about ethics and politics today. The author argues that Plato articulates and "solves" his Socratic Problem in his various dialogues in different but potentially complementary ways. (...) The book effectively extracts Plato from the straightjacket of Platonism and from the interpretive perspectives of the past fifty years—principally those of Karl Popper, Leo Strauss, Hannah Arendt, M. I. Finley, Jacques Derrida, and Gregory Vlastos. The author’s distinctive approach for understanding Plato—and, he argues, for the history of political theory in general—can inform contemporary theorizing about democracy, opening pathways for criticizing democracy on behalf of virtue, justice, and democracy itself. (shrink)

Tekst pochodzi najprawdopodobniej z przełomu lat 1666/1667. Podstawą przekładu jest transkrypcja dokonana przez Jonathana Craiga Walmsleya w rozprawie doktorskiej John Locke’s Natural Philosophy, opublikowanej elektronicznie: https://core.ac.uk/ download/files/99/74250.pdf, ten sam tekst wraz z obszernym omówieniem został przezeń opublikowany w artykule Morbus – Locke’s Early Essay On Disease, „Early Science and Medicine” 2000, vol. 5, no. 4, s. 390–393.

'Straw Dogs' is a radical work of philosophy that challenges our most cherished assumptions about what it means to be human. John Gray explores how the world and human life look once humanism has been finally abandoned.

John Paul II frames the issue of disenchantment and re-enchantment in terms of “alienation” and “participation”--various works of human power recoil upon the person and inhibit full human development and participation. The neglect and distortion of human rights is one such form of alienation indicating the deeper issue concerning human flourishing. John Paul encourages a radical questioning about human progress so as to better understand the threats that accompany bureaucratic increase in power. Aspects of cultural and human development (...) offer a challenge to mankind to overcome alienation and to participate in community and social love. Through an appeal to the Spirit, and the search for truth, goodness, and beauty, John Paul seeks to open up a lived path to God by way of the person’s transcendence. (shrink)

In this awaited follow up to his book _Faithful Reason_, the well-known philosopher and Catholic thinker John Haldane brings his unrivalled insight to bear on questions of the existence of God and the nature and destiny of the human soul. His arguments weave elements drawn from philosophy of mind, epistemology and aesthetics, together with recurrent features of human experience to create a structure that simultaneously frames and supports ideas such as that the cosmos is a creation, human beings transcend (...) their material composition, and that human fulfilment lies beyond death. As in many of his other writings this volume blends themes from Aquinas with insights drawn from analytical philosophy and further establishes John Haldane as the leading 'analytical thomist'. (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)

Frances Burney is primarily known as a novelist and playwright, but in recent years there has been an increased interest in the medical writings found within her private letters and journals. John Wiltshire advocates Burney as the unconscious pioneer of the modern genre of pathography, or the illness narrative. Through her dramatic accounts of distinct medical events, such as her own infamous operation without anaesthetic, to those she witnessed, including the 'madness' of George III and the inoculation of her (...) son against smallpox, Burney exposes the ethical issues and conflicts between patients and doctors. Her accounts are linked to a range of modern narratives in which similar events occur in the changed conditions of the public hospital. The genre that Burney initiated continues to make an important contribution to our understanding of medical practice in the modern world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Hume's Demarcation Project John Losee Demarcation, Ideas and Impressions David Hume sought to exclude certain concepts from the domain of empirically significant discourse. He was critical of talk about "substances" that bear qualities, "forces" that cause motions, "powers" that produce effects, "necessary connections" that determine sequences of events, "extension without matter" and "time independent of succession or change in any real existence."1 Hume proposed a demarcation ofideas, a (...) demarcation intended to exclude these notions. The demarcation project, if successful, would exclude Locke's notion of "substance" as well as Newton's notions of "Absolute Space" and "Absolute Time." Some interpreters have taken the demarcation project to be the centrepiece of Hume's philosophy. Others have seen it to be an incidental aspect of Hume's search for an empirical theory of human nature. I believe that David Pears was correct to insist that an acceptable account ofHume's philosophy include both the "destructive emphasis" and the "constructive emphasis."2 Hume's demarcation project is based on a presumed relation, or relations, between ideas and impressions. Hume made the following claims about "simple ideas," those ideas that "admit of no distinction nor separation" (T 2): 1)every simple idea in its first appearance is derived from some impression (Derivability Principle); 2)every simple idea in its first appearance copies some impression (Copy Principle); 3)every simple idea represents some impression (Representation Principle); 4)simple ideas and impressions resemble one another; 5)simple ideas correspond to impressions; 6)every simple idea is borroVd from some impression; Volume XVII Number 2 51 JOHN LOSEE 7)for every simple idea there is some temporally antecedent impression; and 8)impressions cause simple ideas. Primafacie, these claims are empirical claims about the genesis of our ideas. But within Hume's demarcation project these claims also function as criteria for membership in the class of simple ideas. Those ideas that satisfy the criteria constitute raw material from which complex ideas are formulated. Complex ideas are constructed from simple ideas. However, they are not copies of simple ideas. Aparticular complex idea is empirically significant provided that, 1) it is derivable from simple ideas; and 2) each of those simple ideas is derivable from impressions. The Case of the Missing Shade ofBlue Tensions arise within the demarcation project in part because Hume employs nonequivalent criteria—Derivability Principle, Copy Principle, Representation Principle—as if they were equivalent. The tension is acute in the case of the missing shade ofblue. The "missing shade" is an idea formulated by a person with extensive experience of colours, but no prior exposure to the shade in question. If this idea is a simple idea, then it is false that every simple idea copies some antecedent impression. Why did Hume cite—in both Treatise and Inquiry—this apparently destructive exception? Bernard Rollin has suggested that Hume may have cited the missing-shade-of-blue example as a rhetorical device toprotecthis dichotomous divisionofpropositionsinto those that are analytic a priori and those that are synthetic a posteriori (including the Derivabihty Principle).11 John O. Nelson agreed that Hume is concerned to emphasize the contingent, empirical status of the Derivabihty Principle.12 Nelson suggested that Hume sought tomake two points. The first pointis that an exception to the Derivability Principle is empirically possible. The second point is that thought-experiments like the missing-shade example are inadequate to establish conclusions about matters offact. To entertain such thought-experiments is to lapse into hypothetical speculation, a violation ofthe "experimental method ofreasoning."13 Perhaps it was for this reason that Hume dismissed the missing-shade case as unimportant. Hume urged that this case is "so particular and singular" thatit provides nogoodreason to abandon the Copy Principle (T 6). 52Hume Studies HUME'S DEMARCATION PROJECT D. M. Johnson has developed a hypothesis to explain why Hume believed that this exceptional case is not damaging to his demarcation project. According to Johnson, Hume may have believed that for a person to reconstruct a shade he never saw before, he must have developed an appropriately detailed Tiabitual spectrum'—i.e., an ordered set oftendencies and expectations concerning colours, built up as a result oflong experience with thingshavingthese colours—whichhe then employs... (shrink)

"Don't believe any of this. Place no value in the book, in the author. Give it up, the idea of author, of truth. Give up all believe: believe only in yourself. You: you are nothing but my experience. Me: I don't. I don't believe any of this." —John Brockman.

Alternate View Column AV-38 Keywords: special relativity, twin paradox, time dilation, starship, Einstein, Lorentz factor Published in the March-1990 issue of Analog Science Fiction & Fact Magazine; This column was written and submitted 8/20/89 and is copyrighted © 1989, John G. Cramer. All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced in any form without the explicit permission of the author.

Henry at Work invites readers to rethink how we work today by exploring an aspect of Henry David Thoreau that has often been overlooked: Thoreau the worker. John Kaag and Jonathan van Belle overturn the popular misconception of Thoreau as a navel-gazing recluse who was scornful of work and other mundanities. In fact, Thoreau worked hard—surveying land, running his family’s pencil-making business, writing, lecturing, and building his cabin at Walden Pond—and thought intensely about work in its many dimensions. And (...) his ideas about work have much to teach us in an age of remote work and automation, when many people are reconsidering what kind of working lives they want to have. -/- Through Thoreau, readers will discover a philosophy of work in the office, factory, lumber mill, and grocery store, and reflect on the rhythms of the workday, the joys and risks of resigning oneself to work, the dubious promises of labor-saving technology, and that most vital and eternal of philosophical questions, “How much do I get paid?” In ten chapters, including “Manual Work,” “Machine Work,” and “Meaningless Work,” this personal, urgent, practical, and compassionate book introduces readers to their new favorite coworker: Henry David Thoreau. (shrink)

Marx was an exponent of the 'Labour theory' of value, held also by Adam Smith, Ricardo, James Mill, John Stuart Mill and some early 19th century political economists. This is the theory that human labour is the sole source of value (of exchange value), and that the value of a commodity is the quantity of socially necessary labour embodied in it. When we exchange commodities they exchange in the ratio of the quantities of labour required to produce them and (...) bring them into the market. (shrink)

A most unusual guide to the solar system, A Little Book of Coincidence suggests that there may be fundamental relationships between space, time, and life that have not yet been fully understood. From the observations of Ptolemy and Kepler to the Harmony of the Spheres and the hidden structure of the solar system, John Martineau reveals the exquisite orbital patterns of the planets and the mathematical relationships that govern them. A table shows the relative measurements of each planet in (...) eighteen categories, and three pages show the beautiful dance patterns of thirty six pairs of planets and moons. (shrink)

Western thought since the seventeenth century has been dominated by methodological solipsism (Krieger, 1991). The famous sound-bite of René Descartes 'cogito, ergo sum': 'I think, therefore I am', became the starting point for most discourse on the nature of things. This dictum does not advocate idealism. It does not assert that everything is necessarily a construct of the human mind. But it assumes that the world of things and beings is surveyed and interpreted from the point of view of a (...) single individual. Nowhere is this stance more entrenched than in the philosophy of science. To a remarkable degree the scientist is represented as studying the natural world as if alone in it, served only by mindless assistants who might as well be replaced by machines. Scientific theories are presented as systems of thought conjured up and tested by that same individual in a further series of single-headed operations. Research results are formulated and treated philosophically as the independent findings of lone explorers, each reporting the evidence of their own eyes and their rational inferences concerning the hidden mechanisms by which these personal percepts might be generated. Our epistemological role models are Robinson Crusoe and Sherlock Holmes, self-sufficient intellectuals to whom their human companions, Friday and Watson, are mere stooges. (shrink)

Thornhill, John It is not difficult to recognise that the 'new evangelisation' being undertaken by today's Church presents a considerable challenge. How many in today's Church, even among our leaders, have a clear idea of what it should involve in practice?

This paper presents some comparative themes examining the anthropologies of Bernard Lonergan, René Girard and the four noble truths in Buddhism. It also engages some specific aspects from the Tibetan lineage of Buddhism represented by Pema Chödron, following her teacher Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche. The approach of the paper invokes the structure of John Thatamanil's The Immanent Divine: diagnosis, etiology, prognosis, prescription as an organizational way of presenting material on such diverse thinkers. Following an overview of these thinkers, I will (...) highlight some of the themes such as suffering, violence, healing, compassion, and the role of affectivity in its relation to desire. It should become clear that such a practical approach to Buddhist-Christian dialogue provides a fruitful starting point and underscores the value of learning other religious traditions. (shrink)

English critics were brilliant initiators and exploiters of biblical criticism. This momentous exercise, whereby the 'Holy Scriptures' became the object of human critique independent of church control, is illustrated by John Drury in the present volume with excerpts from such famous critics as Coleridge, Blake and Matthew Arnold, and lesser names such as Collins and Deist and Bishop Sherlock. Robert Lowth's famous lectures on the Psalms, which had an important influence on Blake and Christopher Smart, are well represented here, (...) as is the famous contribution to Essays and Reviews by Benjamin Jowett. This book provides the only available collection of biblical criticism from this important period of critical enquiry, the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The extracts are accompanied by a full editorial introduction, notes and a bibliography. They should be read by all students of literature and theology interested in the period. (shrink)

In this wide ranging volume of philosophical essays John Haldane explores some central areas of social life and issues of intense academic and public debate. These include the question of ethical relativism, fundamental issues in bioethics, the nature of individuals in relation to society, the common good, public judgement of prominent individuals, the nature and aims of education, cultural theory and the relation of philosophy to art and architecture. John Haldane is Professor of Philosophy, and Director of the (...) Centre for Ethics, Philosophy and Public Affairs in the University of St Andrews. He is also a former Royden Davis Professor of Humanities at Georgetown University and is currently a Senior Fellow of the Witherspoon Institute, Princeton. As well as being a prominent academic philosopher he is well known in Britain, in North America and elsewhere in the English-speaking world as a public intellectual and social commentator. 'In Practical Philosophy, John Haldane eloquently makes the case for an approach to ethics that is distinctively practical — thought with a view to action. Taking his inspiration from a tradition that includes Aristotle, Aquinas, and Elizabeth Anscombe, Haldane argues that an orthodox dichotomy has long dominated both philosophical and everyday thinking: we must be either dualists or material reductionists. Both of these alternatives, however, neglect a subtle approach to intentionality and agency offered by the Aristotelian tradition. Haldane uses his illuminating approach to advance arguments on a number of controversial moral and political issues: the status of the foetus, the importance of the family, compensation for victims of crime, the basis of human solidarity across national boundaries. Although his conclusions are frequently controversial, Haldane always avoids polemics and the ideological parti pris, thus giving a welcome example of respectful and civil public argument.' — Martha Nussbaum 'What resources can philosophy bring to bear, when its enquiries are not theoretical, but practical? In Practical Philosophy John Haldane answers this question in a brilliant survey of key issues, showing us how a variety of theories can obscure or distort our view of the practical realities of life, family, and society. With admirable clarity he also shows us how philosophy can rescue us from such theorizing.' — Alasdair MacIntyre. (shrink)

How should we think about the “shape” of human history since the birth of cities, and where are we headed? Sociologist and historian John Torpey proposes that the “Axial Age” of the first millennium BCE, when some of the world’s major religious and intellectual developments first emerged, was only one of three such decisive periods that can be used to directly affect present social problems, from economic inequality to ecological destruction. Torpey’s argument advances the idea that there are in (...) fact three “Axial Ages,” instead of one original Axial Age and several subsequent, smaller developments. Each of the three ages contributed decisively to how humanity lives, and the difficulties it faces. The earliest, or original, Axial Age was a moral one; the second was material, and revolved around the creation and use of physical objects; and the third is chiefly mental, and focused on the technological. While there are profound risks and challenges, Torpey shows how a worldview that combines the strengths of all three ages has the potential to usher in a period of exceptional human freedom and possibility. (shrink)

The present discussion aims to help corroborate recent claims that the link between nourishing life 養生 and the Butcher Ding 庖丁 vignette from chapter 3 of the Zhuangzi 莊子 (c. fourth to third century bce) might be taken seriously, while at the same time falsifying recent claims that it is nonetheless uncommon for the connection to be taken seriously. This is achieved by supplying several pieces of textual evidence from leading figures from throughout the history of Zhuangzi studies who all (...) explicitly make the connection and take it seriously. Beyond corroborating one claim and falsifying the other, the present discussion provides renderings of much hitherto untranslated work so as to prevent future scholars from underestimating just how common it is to take the link between the Butcher Ding story and nourishing life seriously. (shrink)

As John Henry Newman reflected on 'The Idea of a University' more than a century and a half ago, Bradley C. S. Watson brings together some of the nation's most eminent thinkers on higher education to reflect on the nature and purposes of the American university today. Their mordant reflections paint a picture of the American university in crisis. This book is essential reading for thoughtful citizens, scholars, and educational policymakers.

John Stuart Mill is the philosopher of liberalism. Or so some people think. Others disagree; they may give that status to Locke, or (perhaps) to Kant. Or they may think the question frivolous and insist – boringly but, I cannot deny, sensibly – that no one thinker is the philosopher of liberalism.