Responding to volatile criticisms frequently leveled at Leo Strauss and those he influenced, the prominent contributors to this volume demonstrate the profound influence that Strauss and his students have exerted on American liberal democracy and contemporary political thought. By stressing the enduring vitality of classic books and by articulating the theoretical and practical flaws of relativism and historicism, the contributors argue that Strauss and the Straussians have identified fundamental crises of modernity and liberal democracy.

The essays in this book deal with philosophical issues in the thought of Maimonides. Included are: The Literary Character of the Guide for the Perplexed by Leo Staus, The Purpose of the Law According to Maimonides by Miriam Galston, and Essence and Existence in Maimonides by Alexander Altmann.

The present article is published in Proche-Orient Chrétien, N.66, VOL.3-4, JAN. 2017, USJ: Beirut, pp. 425-430. It is a philosophical review of Philippe Capelle-Dumont and Yannick Courtel book “Religion et Liberté” that fetches the records of the First International Symposium of the Francophone Society of Philosophy of Religion about the two concepts Religion and Freedom. On one hand, religion has always been considered as a pole of practices and references contrary to freedom declining a dependence on a "binding doctrine"; on (...) the other hand, religion has undergone several political representations in the many spaces of cultural, social and international life which is urgent to re-examine. The article proposes a synthesis of the conferences of Philippe Capelle-Dumont, Jean-Luc Marion, Jean Greisch, Joseph O’Leary, François Chenet, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Francis Jacques, Pierluigi Valenza, Danielle Cohen-Levinas, Yannick Courtel and Jean Grondin who concludes with the “freedom to philosophize about religion”. (shrink)

Petite-fille du docteur Bordes-Pagès, ancien sénateur de l'Ariège, fille d'un économiste réputé, Marguerite d'Escola (pseudonyme de Madame Joseph Ageorges) est une femme de lettres prolixe. Elle est l'auteur d'une quinzaine de romans et de biographies, auxquels s'ajoutent de nombreux articles publiés entre 1908 et 1957. Elle fait ici le récit d'une entrevue réalisée avec des étudiantes parisiennes, au domicile de celles-ci ­ une chambre située au dernier étage d'un ancien hôtel ..

In this book, Joseph Millum explains how parental rights and responsibilities are acquired, what they consist in, and how parents should go about making decisions on behalf of their children. In doing so, he provides a set of frameworks to help solve pressing ethical dilemmas relating to parents and children.

This chapter evaluates whether AI systems are or will be rights-holders, explaining the conditions under which people should recognize AI systems as rights-holders. It develops a skeptical stance toward the idea that current forms of artificial intelligence are holders of moral rights, beginning with an articulation of one of the most prominent and most plausible theories of moral rights: the Interest Theory of rights. On the Interest Theory, AI systems will be rights-holders only if they have interests or a well-being. (...) Current AI systems are not bearers of well-being, and so fail to meet the necessary condition for being rights-holders. This argument is robust against a range of different objections. However, the chapter also shows why difficulties in assessing whether future AI systems might have interests or be bearers of well-being—and so be rights-holders—raise difficult ethical challenges for certain developments in AI. (shrink)

Joseph Owens presents an introduction to metaphysics designed to develop in the reader a habitus of thinking. Using original Thomistic texts and Etienne Gilson's interpretation of St. Thomas Aquinas, Owens examines the application of metaphysical principles to the issues that arise in a specifically Christian environment. An Elementary Christian Metaphysics focuses on questions of existence and the nature of revealed truths. Following his historical introduction to metaphysics, Owens provides a general investigation of the first principles and causes of being (...) and also a study of knowledge and of the divine nature and attributes in light of natural reason. "Irrespective of one's intellectual genotype, an exposure to the sustained, developmental elucidation of Aquinas' insights executed by an author such as Owens can only enhance any metaphysical approach to reality." --The New Scholastic "An Elementary Christian Metaphysics is intended primarily for undergraduate students as an introduction to metaphysics. . . . The scope of the metaphysical study pursued by Owens includes not only a general investigation of beings but also an analysis of knowledge (epistemology) and of the divine nature, all in light of natural reason." --Studies in Religion Joseph Owens (1908-2005) taught philosophy at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies and the University of Toronto for forty years. He is the author of a number of books, including An Interpretation of Existence, also published by the University of Notre Dame Press. (shrink)

Book Reviewed in this article Metaphysik. Eine methodisch‐systematische Grundlegung. By Emerich Coreth, S. J. Pp. 672, Innsbruck, Vienna and Munich, Tyrolia‐Verlag, 1961, 190 A. Schill., 33 DM.Frederick C. Copleston La preuve de l'Absolu chez Bradley. Analyse et Critique de la Méthode. By J. DE Marneffe. Pp. vii, 127, Paris, Beauchesne, 1961, no price given.Frederick C. Copleston Ancient Israel. Its Life and Institutions. By Roland DE Vaux, O. P. Translated by John McHugh. Pp. xxiii, 592, London, Darton, Longman & Todd, 1961, (...) 55s.Edmund F. Sutcliffe Exodus: a Commentary. By Martin Noth. Pp. 583, London, SCM Press, 1962, 40s.Edmund F. Sutcliffe Rédemption Sacrificielle: une enquête exégétique. By Léopold Sabourin, S. J. Pp. 492, Paris‐Bruges, Desclée de Brouwer, 1961, 280 Belg. Frs.Francis Clark The Jews and the Gospel. By Gregory Baum. Pp. viii, 288, London, Bloomsbury Publishing Co., 1961, 27s. 6d.John Bligh Message évangélique et Culture hellénistique aux IIe et IIIe siècles. By Jean Daniélou. Pp. 486, Tournai, Desclée, 1961, 200 Belg. Fr. Early Christianity and Greek Paideia. By Werner Jaeger. Pp. 156, Belknapp Press : Cambridge, Mass.; London: Oxford University Press, 1962, 21s.Maurice Bévenot Primauté Pontificale et Prérogatives Épiscopales;‘Potestas Ordinaria’au Concile du Vatican. By Gustave Thils. Pp. 104, Louvain, 1961, no price given.Maurice Bévenot L'Abbé Louis Bautain. By Paul Poupard. Pp. x, 404, Paris‐Tournai, Desclée 1961, no price given.Joseph Lebacqz The Christian Churches of the East. By Donald Attwater. Volume I: Pp. xiv, 232, London, Thomas More Books, 1961, 35s.; Volume II: Pp. xii, 260, London, Geoffrey Chapman, 1961, 30s.C. J. L. NapierLondon, N. 14 Beichte und Psychoanalyse. By Andreas Snoeck, S. J. Pp. 168, Frankfurt am Main, Verlag Josef Knecht, 1960, 6.80 DM.Philip Loretz Der Arzt in der Technischen Welt. Edited by Gottfried Roth and Wolfgang Müller Hartburg. Pp. 394, Salzburg, Otto Müller Verlag, 1961, 150 A. Schill.Philip Loretz The Novitiate. By Louis Colin, C. SS. R. Translated by Una Morrissey. Pp. xiii, 447, Tenbury Wells, Fowler Wright Books, 1962, 30s.V. Paul Brassell Deliverance to the Captives. By Karl Barth. Translated by Marguerite Wieser. Pp. 160, London, SCM Press, 1961, 12s. 6d. To Live Is Christ. By R. W. Gleason, S. J. Pp. xii, 180, New York, Sheed & Ward, 1961, $3.00. Le Mystère de la Charité. By Joseph‐Marie Perrin, O. P. Pp. 552,, Paris‐Bruges, Desclée de Brouwer, 1960, 210 Belg. Frs. Histoire de l'Homme, Mystère de Dieu. By Benoict Pruche, O. P. Pp. 452, Paris‐Bruges, Desclée de Brouwer, 1961, 240 Belg. Frs.B. R. Brinkman. (shrink)

Moral responsibility requires that we are in control of what we do. Many contemporary accounts of responsibility cash out this control in terms of abilities and hold that the relevant abilities are strong abilities, like general abilities. This paper raises a problem for strong abilities views: an agent can plausibly be morally responsible for an action or omission, despite lacking any strong abilities to do the relevant thing. It then offers a way forward for ability‐based views, arguing that very weak (...) abilities can form the basis of moral responsibility for both actions and omissions. (shrink)

The necessity for a clear understanding of the dual character of scientific method and of its applicability in social study as in the physical and biological sciences, can hardly receive too much emphasis at the present stage of development. Such an understanding, however, merely provides the proper beginning or orientation in the organization of any scientific discipline. That which is a common element in all scientific procedure can hardly serve to differentiate one science from another.

Technological advancements, especially with regard to enhancements of human capacities and powers, have instigated a collision between opposing views of the human person. I begin with the premise that the predominant classical view of the human person attained its clearest and most cogent expression in the philosophy of Thomas Aquinas and can be termed the theory of the homo integralis. The human person is, for Thomas, the integrated being par excellence: he is a union of the material (body) and the (...) immaterial (soul); his freedom is guided by a normative nature; he is himself a product of and participant in nature; he is a member of a common species from which he draws his identity; and he balances the needs of his embodied state with a recognition that his existence is not limited to it. Due to the philosophical and technological revolutions of the modern period, themselves an outgrowth perhaps of earlier attitudes, a contrasting view of the human person emerged: the homo technologicus. Technological man, unlike his classical predecessor, is marked by fundamental disintegration: he is divided in himself, between mind and body; he is dissociated from a normative human nature; he is divided from nature itself as he sets himself against it through technological means; he is divided from the human community in radical, self-determining autonomy; and he is severed from any sense of transcendent purpose or value aside from that which can be attained through his own powers, technological or otherwise. By recovering a sense of the homo integralis as articulated by Thomas Aquinas, a fresh appraisal of contemporary issues regarding the human relationship to technology, human capacities and powers as evaluated by movements like transhumanism, and ultimately, human meaning and value, is made possible and is shown to provide a consistent and appealing rejoinder to the disintegrated vision of man that emerges in a technologized world. (shrink)

Au Centre Pompidou-Metz, faisant écho à l'exposition inaugurale, un colloque international a étudié de manière pluridisciplinaire et transversale la question du chef-d'œuvre. Loin de se focaliser sur le débat esthétique, les diverses approches ont assigné le droit, l'histoire, la sociologie, l'économie et les sciences exactes, pour mieux soumettre cet "objet" à un véritable examen clinique. Cette question ne serait-elle plus d'actualité? Loin s'en faut! Entre cœur et raison, la sacralisation des œuvres d'art produit toujours autant de savoirs, de savoir-faire et (...) de savoirs sur le faire. Mettant en avant le patrimoine, restaurant les objets de l'art, les reconstituant, favorisant le tourisme culturel, exhumant le vrai, condamnant le faux : à sa mesure, le "chef-œuvre" dynamise encore et toujours les divers moments de l'art. (shrink)

Conflicts of interests are typically divided into those that are financial and those that are not. While there is general agreement that financial COIs have a significant impact on decisions and need to be declared and managed, the status of non-financial COIs continues to be disputed. In a recentBMJfeature article it was proposed that religious beliefs should be routinely declared as an interest. The article generated over 41 responses from the medical community and health researchers, which put forward diverse and (...) opposing views. In this paper, we analyse the discourse to shed further light on the reasons put forward for and against declaring religious beliefs. We argue for a middle path in which only material beliefs should be declared, and then only when there are no extenuating circumstances. To this end, we present a framework to help evaluate the materiality of interests that can be used for both financial and non-financial interests. (shrink)

Review text: "A specialist collection, but fascinating in its sociological insights."John Turnbull in: New Directions 3/2010.

Este artículo intenta contextualizar la interpretación de Agustín de Hipona de dos versos de la pasión Joánica, Juan 19:23-24, dentro del legado de la recepción bíblica norafricana y especialmente en diálogo con la posición donatista respecto a la naturaleza de la Iglesia, su relación con Cristo y su rol en el mundo presente. Las principales preguntas que serán examinadas acá serán: 1) ¿cómo la “túnica de Cristo” sirve como inspiración para la interpretación simbólica entre los autores latinos; y 2) ¿cómo (...) una lectura tan “tipológica” de Juan 19:23-24 —y su antecedente en el texto de los Salmos 21:19— tiene lugar en un campo más amplio como lo es el de la polémica antidonatista de Agustín? Presentando evidencia relevante, comienzo por discutir varias referencias de Agustín acerca de la tunica desuper texta cronológicamente, que se encuentran principalmente en el Tractatus in Iohannis Evangelium, al igual que en sus sermones. La perspectiva esencial de Agustín a la imagen de la túnica del Cristo nunca se aleja radicalmente de sus propias lecturas tempranas, aunque surgen más tarde algunas diferencias. En consecuencia, continúa la preocupación por el impacto del per totum en Juan 19:23 sobre el desarrollodel entendimiento de Agustín de la redención del Cristo, del regalo del Espíritu Santo y acerca de la extensión de la Iglesia por el mundo. A la luz de estos elementos, a pesar de que podamos comenzar a sospechar que Agustín promueve una forma de universalismo, su catolicidades una descripción mucho más justa y acertada de este esfuerzo por superar el exclusivismo donatista. Entre estos dos extremos, el catolicismo de Agustín puede ser detectado dentro del horizonte de este parde versos y de su relación con la Iglesia de África del Norte. (shrink)

« Après des milliards d’années d’évolution, l’homme est apparu sur Terre et a transformé le monde causal de la nature et des animaux en un monde humain, conscient et créateur. Avec son libre arbitre et une prise de conscience croissante, l’homme comprend l’univers et apporte la création. On peut donc affirmer que notre monde est vraiment né dès l’instant où l’homme en a pris conscience et a participé à sa transformation. Le rôle de l’homme, à présent, est donc de comprendre (...) et de créer. « Comprendre... soi-même et autrui » est un essai sur la création et la compréhension de ce qui nous entoure dans leurs manifestations principales : l’art, la beauté et la psychanalyse... dans le cadre d’une évolution infinie et toujours plus parfaite. Ce livre a servi de point de départ à Joseph Vilner pour deux autres ouvrages — également publiés à La pensée universelle — intitulés respectivement « L’or et l’asphyxie de l’économie » et « L’individualité contre l’égalit頻 (ainsi qu’à « Soljhenitsyn and the future » paru à Exposition Press, Inc., New York). Tous ces livres analysent les moyens et les possibilités d’une vie meilleure, tant au niveau des individus qu’à celui des sociétés. L’auteur prépare actuellement un travail sur la réalisation de nous-mêmes. ». (shrink)

Although it is widely believed that post-Mao China has fallen into a moral crisis, there are few scholarly analyses of its nature, causes, and consequences. Jiwei Ci's Moral China in the Age of Reform–1 fills this gap by giving an unusually penetrating and insightful account of this crisis. There is much in Ci's account that one can find thought-provoking and enlightening. Any good analysis of a crisis not only gives a good diagnosis but also sheds light on a possible solution. (...) While the diagnosis of China's problem occupies a large part of the book, in a tentative yet careful manner Ci does suggest a way out. In my comment here, I focus on his suggestions as to how China can accomplish this.For Ci, China has been... (shrink)

Boston Monday Lectures: Biology, a book of popular essays by the American orator Joseph Cook first published in 1879, was derived from a successful lecture series at Boston's Tremont Temple in 1878 that expertly synthesised the scientific scholarship of the day for public consumption and attempted to show that science was in harmony with religion and the Bible. Writing with clarity and conveying excitement to the lay audiences who flocked to hear him, Cook's lectures became extremely popular around the (...) world. Biology focuses on evolution, immortality and materialism. In 13 lectures, Cook discusses topics including T. H. Huxley and John Tyndall's ideas on evolution, Rudolf Hermann Lotze's thoughts on theism, and microscopy. Cook's lectures on immortality all begin with 'Does Death End All?' before probing further into a philosophical aspect of immortality. Cook interjects short essays, which he calls 'preludes', on subjects as diverse as political patronage and Daniel Webster's death. (shrink)

It has become fashionable to worry about the development of superintelligent AI that results in the destruction of humanity. This worry is not without merit; but it may be overstated. This paper explores some previously undiscussed reasons to be optimistic that; even if superintelligent AI does arise; it will not destroy us. These have to do with the possibility that a superintelligent AI will become mired in skeptical worries that its superintelligence cannot help it to solve. I argue that superintelligent (...) AIs may lack the psychological idiosyncracies that allow humans to act in the face of skeptical problems; and so as a result they may become paralyzed in the face of these problems in a way that humans are not. (shrink)

BackgroundDecision-making in end-stage dementia is a complex process involving medical, social, legal and ethical issues. In ESD, the person suffers from severe cognitive problems leading to a loss of capacity to decide matters regarding health and end-of-life issues. The decisional responsibility is usually passed to clinicians and relatives who can face significant difficulty in making moral decisions, particularly in the presence of life-threatening swallowing problems.AimThis study aimed to understand the decision-making processes of clinical teams and relatives in addressing life-threatening swallowing (...) difficulties in ESD in long-term care in Malta.MethodThe study followed a qualitative approach where six case studies, involving six different teams and relatives of six different patients, were interviewed retrospectively to understand their decision-making in connection with the management of swallowing difficulties in ESD. Data were collected through semistructured interviews with each stakeholder. All data were transcribed and subjected to thematic analysis.ResultsFour themes were identified: the vulnerability of patients in dementia decision-making; the difficult role of relatives in decision-making; the decisional conflict between aggressive care through tube feeding versus oral comfort feeding; a consensus-building decision-making process as ideal to facilitate agreement and respect for patient’s dignity.ConclusionDecision-making to manage swallowing difficulties in ESD is a challenging process, which involves an interpretation of personal values, beliefs, patient preferences, care needs and clinical practice. Better communication between clinicians and relatives in dementia helps promote agreement between stakeholders leading to a care plan that respects the dignity of patients at their end of life. (shrink)

Joseph Dunne’s essay begins by examining the ways in which schooling in modern liberal–democratic societies tend to function as the agent of cultural homogenization and alienation, and thus block liberal–democratic efforts to offer meaningful recognition of local cultures and to promote the skills and dispositions required for participatory democratic citizenship. The danger here, Dunne points out, is that when the homogenizing elements of modern schooling become dominant, they might serve to encourage an ‘insouciant cosmopolitanism that may fail to meet (...) people’s needs for identity ’. The chapter concludes by reflecting on some possible educational responses that might offer some hopeful ways of addressing such dismal extremes. In particular, he is interested in the educational possibilities offered by a reconfiguration of national identities and state institutions in the emerging European Community in the context of national, cultural, and religious strife that currently besets Northern Ireland. Thus, like Waldron, Dunne sees local cultural identities – be they national, religious, or cultural – as complexly related to, but potentially compatible with, cosmopolitan historical forces. (shrink)

Dignity may just be the most promiscuous normative abstraction. This article, informed by dignity’s historical variability, political theoretic multipurpose, and conflicting jurisprudence, focuses on a particular but influential invocation of the term: dignity as the normative ground for the ‘capabilities approach’ (CA) model of social justice. We ask whether or not the CA, in particular the influential version propounded by philosopher Martha Nussbaum, requires dignity as its foundational premise, and whether or not dignity may be more costly than beneficial for (...) the CA’s vision of a minimally just society. The first section of this article rehearses the warrants of and criticisms against the dignity-basis of Nussbaum’s CA. We canvass the relatively sparse scholarship on dignity within the CA to situate our contribution. The next two sections are case studies, demonstrating dignity’s shortcomings for assessing and regulating sex and abortion, respectively. The fourth section rebuts two possible objections to our criticisms of dignity. The fifth and final section gestures toward another normative abstraction, ‘minimum conditions of individuation’, less polysemic than dignity, which might alternatively ground the CA. (shrink)