Standards of reasonability play an important role in some of the most difficult cases of rape. In recent years, the notion of the ``reasonable person'' has supplanted the historical concept of the ``reasonable man'' as the test of reasonability. Contemporary feminist critics like Catharine MacKinnon and Kim Lane Scheppele have challenged the notion of the reasonable person on the grounds that reasonability standards are ``gendered to the ground'' and so, in practice, the reasonable person is just the reasonable man in (...) a gender neutral guise. These critics call for the explicit employment of a ``reasonable woman'' standard for application to the actions of female victims of rape. But the arguments for abandoning a gender-neutral standard are double-edged and the employment of gendered standards of reasonability is likely to have implications that are neither foreseen by, nor acceptable to, advocates of such standards. Reasonable agent standards can be dropped, in favor of appeals to the notion of a ``reasonable demand (or expectation)'' by the law. However, if reasonable agent standards are to be retained, gendered versions of such standards are not preferable to gender-neutral ones. (shrink)

"Sets a standard for rigor, parsimony and theoretical elegance in cognitive modeling....Offers a coherent and predictive system for tackling both specific and general issues." --Science.

A partir de son apparemment étrange observation d'une influence cachée des étoiles sur l'action humaine une attentive reconsidération du concept de l'actus humanus de Saint Thomas dans la Prima Secundae révèle une vue plus ample des processus internes à l'agent humain qui contribuent à la spécification individuelle de l'action humaine et, donc, de la liberté humaine. Il semble que parmi les adeptes de la théorie thomiste de l'action, l'influence importante que l'appétit sensible peut exercer en cette direction, tout en restant (...) entièrement caché aux actes conscients de l'intellect et de la volonté de la personne, n'a pas été reconnue jusqu'aujourd'hui. Dans sa théorie de l'action Saint Thomas fournit un cadre solide pour une réflexion ultérieure sur l'influence de l'inconscient dynamique sur la liberté et pour une intégration critique interdisciplinaire des intuitions valides de la psychologie des profondeurs. En plus, il semble que la redécouverte de son concept plus large de l'actus humunus rende possible de repenser à profit certains éléments classique de son éthique. (shrink)

This paper explores one aspect of the political in the early Hegel, that of criminal action and its relationship to the concept of recognition in the System of Ethical Life. While it is clear that in this work Hegel thinks that criminal action plays an important role in the transformation of simple ethical communities, it is not clear that, for Hegel, the formal character of crime in the struggle for recognition is anything but negative. I attempt to show how this (...) role for crime leads Hegel to a legalistic conception of Right that has no solid connection with recognition as a social force. (shrink)

In the work of Nietzsche, sacrifice can only sacrifice itself over and over (in an eternal return of the same) because what it seeks to overcome (the nihilistic revelation of truth that sublates sacrifice's negation) makes this sacrifice of itself both necessary and useless. The truth is eternally postponed in a necessary sacrificial gesture that can only sacrifice itself, thereby rendering itself useless. In the attempt to step beyond nihilism, that is, in the attempt to negate (or sacrifice) nihilism, one (...) repeats the negation characteristic of nihilism. One becomes inextricably implicated in the move of nihilistic sacrifice. The sacrifice of the sacrifice characteristic of nihilism, that is, the sacrifice of sacrifice, can only take place as (perform itself as) the impossibility (or eternally postponed possibility) of its realization. One, therefore, produces or performs an interminable step/not beyond, an incessant step beyond that eternally returns. (shrink)

The Catalogue of Palm Leaf Manuscripts kept in the Otani University Library. Otani University Library, Kyoto 1995. lxxxi, 778 pp. No price given.

From the author: The task undertaken in this Dissertation is an analysis of Hegel’s philosophy of religion, culminating in a systematic investigation of his concept of ‘God’. This analysis seeks to emphasize that Hegel’s philosophy has a thorough religious dimension: for him, thought is not philosophical if it is not also religious; both religion and philosophy have a common object and share the same content, and both are concerned with the truth of the inherent unity of all things, even though (...) religion perceives it with a lesser clarity. This inherent unity is fundamental to Hegel’s concept of God as ‘absolute Spirit’; and, by engaging in a systematic investigation of this concept, the Dissertation endeavours to make a contribution to the debate regarding the compatibility of Hegel’s concept of ‘God’ with Christian theology. This final section of the Dissertation proceeds by investigating theism, atheism, pantheism and panentheism as possible descriptive titles for Hegel’s concept. In arguing that Hegel’s position is incompatible with all except the last, namely, panentheism, and in rejecting the view that Hegel has developed a doctrine so different that all religious content has been lost, the Dissertation highlights some important considerations for contemporary theistic theology. (shrink)

Electrical membrane fluctuations are treated as due to sequences of ion pulses passing through the membrane. A mathematical procedure is developed which permits calculation of the power spectra for sequences in which the pulses can have Poisson or non-Poisson interval distributions and may or may not have coupled pulse parameters. It is shown that there probably exist specific sequences which are intimately related to membrane 1/f and burst noise. In particular, emphasis is placed upon sequences with non-Poisson interval distributions and (...) their implications for membrane structure. A variety of experiments is suggested which will help to distinguish among the alternatives presented. (shrink)

Context: Metaphysics of perception explores fundamental questions regarding the structure and status of the perceived world or appearance(s. By virtue of perception, the apparent world comes to existence. This, however, does not mean that the apparent world is a projection of mind, that it exists “in the head.” Implications: PL-metaphysics reconciles realism with constructivism. As such, it might be considered either an alternative to constructivism or an improvement and completion of this position. Constructivist content: The article refers to non-Cartesian movements (...) in contemporary philosophy, including radical constructivism, enactive and embodied cognition. Keywords: Perception, metaphysics, radical constructivism, realism, appearance, Jerzy Perzanowski, Plato, Gottfried Willhelm Leibniz, Ernst von Glasersfeld. (shrink)

These are exciting times for philosophy and psychiatry. After drifting apart for most of this century, the two disciplines, if not yet fully reconciled, are suddenly at least on speaking terms. With hindsight we may wonder why they should have ignored each other for so long. As Anthony Quinton pointed out in a lecture to the Royal Institute of Philosophy a few years ago, it is remarkable that philosophers, in a sense the experts on rationality, should have had so little (...) to say about the phenomena of irrationality. There have been partial exceptions, of course. Descartes and Kant both touched on madness; and there were, notably, important philosophical influences on the development of modern psychiatry in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Yet even John Locke, who was a doctor as well as philosopher, confined himself to a fair-l y superficial distinction between what we should now call mental illness and mental defect—those with, in Locke's view, respectively too many ideas and too few. (shrink)

In Praise of Mount Samanta by Vedeha Thera, Tr. Ann Appleby Hazlewood. Sacred Books of the Buddhists XXXVII, Pali Text Society, London 1986. xiv + 122 pp. £8.95.

Indexes to the Dhammapada. Compiled by Moriichi Yamazaki, Yumi Ousaka and Masahiro Miyao. Pali Text Society, Oxford 1995. vii, 139 pp. £12. ISBN 0-86013-337-0.

The Sutra of Golden Light. Translated by R. E. Emmerick. Second revised edition, Pali Text Society, Oxford 1990. xvi, 116 pp. £10.00.