In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Freedom, Truth, and Human Dignity: The Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom: A New Translation, Redaction History, and Interpretation of “Dignitatis humanae.” by David L. Schindler and Jr. Nicholas J. HealyBarrett H. TurnerFreedom, Truth, and Human Dignity: The Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom: A New Translation, Redaction History, and Interpretation of “Dignitatis humanae.” By David L. Schindler and Nicholas J. Healy, Jr. (...) Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2015. Pp. xiv + 477. $45.00 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-8028-7155-8.“I fear that you are going to give the inaccurate impression that this document was exclusively the work of the Americans at the Council, or nearly so,” wrote Ernest Primeau, an American bishop who helped revise Dignitatis humanae (DH) at Vatican II, to a priest-journalist. “The truth is... that many others from other nations played an important role in the writing and passage of the declaration.” Despite Primeau’s warning, popular and scholarly interpretations of DH have often hewed closely to John Courtney Murray’s juridical approach, usually in contrast to the integralism of Cardinal Alfredo [End Page 309] Ottaviani and the Spanish episcopate. Yet “many others” did not fit into those two groups, for a large contingent of bishops favorable to religious liberty nonetheless sought to undergird the juridical reasoning for the right with an ontological foundation.David L. Schindler and Nicholas Healy promote these other voices in Freedom, Truth, and Human Dignity. Indeed, they argue that the other voices—the “French” or “ontological” school comprised of bishops such as Alfred Ancel and Karol Wojtyła—provide the true key to DH’s meaning and significance. The book thus responds from the perspective of Communio theology to Murray-ite political theologies that are critical of John Paul II’s emphasis on truth as the basis for freedom. Accompanying Schindler’s and Healy’s essays are conciliar texts charting the origin and influence of this ontological school: the six conciliar drafts, the oral and written interventions of Wojtyła, and an oral intervention of Ancel. These texts, transcribed from the Acta Synodalia Sacrosancti Concilii Oecumenici Vaticani II (AS), have been translated by Patrick T. Brannon, S.J., and Michael Camacho. Also included is a side-by-side comparison of the third and sixth drafts that displays the changes made to the juridical position in response to the ontological school.Schindler’s 170-page essay, “Freedom, Truth, and Human Dignity: An Interpretation of Dignitatis Humanae on the Right to Religious Freedom,” is the heart of the work. Schindler recapitulates in a fresh way themes from his prior analyses of liberalism and Murray. In section 1, he summarizes how Wojtyła’s interventions influenced the evolution of DH such that Murray’s juridical approach became subordinated to an emphasis on truth as the foundation and telos of freedom. He conveys Wojtyła’s concern that DH not divide reason and revelation, but that reason be presented as capable of knowing that religion is “nature’s crown and summit” (50). Section 2 outlines Murray’s postconciliar objections to DH’s final version, namely, that it assumes that the American juridical approach leads to relativism and that its insistence on truth as religious liberty’s foundation undermines the universality of the right by degrading the liberty of those in error. To the first, Schindler replies (in section 3) that Murray’s juridical approach necessarily entails what Servais Pinckaers, O.P., called the “freedom of indifference,” Murray’s denials of relativism notwithstanding. The juridical approach leads to the conception of civil space as something neutral to truth-claims about God, but finally results in a state-enforced indifferentism that limits the religious liberty of those who hold that all of existence, prior to human freedom, is intrinsically ordered to God. “The human act, considered from the perspective of the juridical order, is first empty; and truth thus becomes, from that same juridical perspective, adventitious, something that, as such, cannot but logically burden the free-intelligent human act by arbitrarily limiting and closing what is considered by government, for legal purposes, to be simply open, or abstracted from all (metaphysical-religious) content... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Eucharistic Form of God: Trinity, Incarnation, and Sacrament in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar by Jonathan Martin CirauloNicholas J. HealyThe Eucharistic Form of God: Trinity, Incarnation, and Sacrament in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar. By Jonathan Martin Ciraulo. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2022. Pp. xiii + 297. $50.00 (hardcover). ISBN: 978-0-268-20223-1.In Fides et Ratio 93, under the heading “current (...) tasks for theology,” John Paul II writes:The chief purpose of theology is to provide an understanding of Revelation and the content of faith. The very heart of theological enquiry will thus be the contemplation of the mystery of the Triune God. The approach to this mystery begins with reflection upon the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God: his coming as man, his going to his Passion and Death.... From this vantage-point, the prime commitment of theology is seen to be the understanding of God’s kenosis, a grand and mysterious truth for the human mind, which finds it inconceivable that suffering and death can express a love which gives itself and seeks nothing in return. In this light, a careful analysis of texts emerges as a basic and urgent need: first the texts of Scripture, and then those which express the Church’s living Tradition. On this score, some problems have emerged in recent times, problems which are only partially new; and a coherent solution to them will not be found without philosophy’s contribution.These words about the mystery of Jesus Christ’s life and death as a revelation of the Triune God—and about the emergence of new difficulties and questions—underscore the importance of a dialogue between St. Thomas Aquinas and the great twentieth-century theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. As two recent books written from a Thomistic perspective have shown (Aidan Nicholas, Balthasar for Thomists [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2020]); [End Page 715] Matthew Levering, The Achievement of Hans Urs von Balthasar [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2019]), Balthasar’s profound indebtedness to the metaphysics of Aquinas provides a solid foundation for dialogue. And yet a number of difficulties remain. What is the relationship between the so-called real distinction of esse and essence and the hypostatic union of two natures in the person of the Son? How and in what sense does the paschal mystery of Jesus’s death and Resurrection presuppose and express the mystery of the Father’s eternal generation of the Son? In the words of Joseph Ratzinger, “in the pierced heart of the Crucified, God’s own heart is opened up—here we see who God is and what he is like” (Spirit of the Liturgy [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000], 48). How does the mystery of Christ’s Eucharist reveal the heart of God?This last question about the Eucharist and the nature of God is explored in depth in Jonathan Martin Ciraulo’s monograph, The Eucharistic Form of God: Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Sacramental Theology. Despite the expansive title, the primary aim of this book is fairly straightforward: to present Balthasar’s theology of the Eucharist and to show the significance of his thought for contemporary sacramental theology. Anyone who seeks to offer a systematic account of Balthasar’s theology of the Eucharist is confronted with at least two basic obstacles or challenges. First, his reflections on the Eucharist are scattered throughout (and often hidden within) an immense and complex corpus of writings. Second, the most distinctive feature of Balthasar’s theology of the Eucharist is the inseparability of his sacramental theology from his speculative account of the central mysteries of the Christian faith—Trinity, Incarnation, Cross and Resurrection, Church, and eschaton.The Eucharistic Form of God represents a thoughtful, well-written, and original response to this twofold challenge. Regarding the first point: Ciraulo demonstrates an intimate familiarity with the whole of Balthasar’s corpus. He draws together Balthasar’s early writings on German literature, his monographs on Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor, his engagement with Karl Barth, his interpretation of twentieth-century French Catholic literature... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:542 BOOK REVIEWS sires. Rather, the Subjects need to want to do those things that bring about the Bosses' satisfaction. And this raises the question of the control of the imagination. explores the subtle power relations between controllers and the controlled, to the end of exploring ways that imagination offers control over power relationships. Yet Rorty ends with a bleak vision: we are a basically conservative species, whose capacities (...) for imagining new forms of power relationships tend to be dominated by the archetypes gleaned from our collective and individual experience, often reflecting malign structures. Even benign experiences, Rorty argues, tend to reinforce our inclination to seek refuge in submission to authority. What are we to make of this collection which stretches from philosophy of mind through Freudian analyses to a chastened Hobbesian vision of our social and moral order? There is much here to interest philosophers of mind and those who are concerned with the frontier between that field and empirical psychology. While she does not supply a theory of mind, Rorty shows clearly how much heterogeneous material such a theory must encompass. JOHN CHURCHILL Hendrix College Conway, Arkansas Faith and Reason From Plato to Plantinga: An Introduction to Reformed Epistemology. DEWEY J. HOITENGA, JR. S.U.N.Y. Press, 1991. Pp. 263. $18.95. This is an excellent and important book. Most of those who have written about the ' Reformed ' epistemology of religious belief have done so with either polemical or systematic interests in mind. That is not inappropriate, since the interests of those who have propounded Reformed epistemology have also been mainly polemical and systematic. Though here and there they have pointed to historical antecedents, they have not traced those antecedents in any detail. Hoitenga's contribution is to do exactly that. For the most part, his understanding of Reformed epistemology is accurate. He himself crisply summarizes his understanding in these words: "Its central claim is the immediacy of our knowledge of God. We do not, in the first instance, know God by inference or testimony but by direct acquaintance with him. A closely related claim fa that we cannot easily remain indifferent to the God whom we know by such direct acquaintance. Thus our knowledge of God is like our knowl- BOOK REVIEWS 543 edge of every other fundamental kind of reality-physical objects, their properties and relationships, others persons, right and wrong, good and evil, and the elementary objects of logic and mathematics. Furthermore, the claim is that everyone knows God in this way, not just the Christian believer. If someone does not believe in God, that is, does not trust in God as Christians do, this is not because one does not know God. All human beings by nature have what Calvin calls an awareness of divinity.... Although the fall has clouded over this natural awareness of God and led to the loss of faith in him, it has not eradicated this awareness. Christian faith does not alter this direct awareness of God but rather presupposes it, rejuvenates it, and enlarges it " {235). Hoitenga discusses in detail three precursors of this view: Plato, Augustine, and Calvin, thus showing that the contemporary Reformed epistemology of religious belief stands in a long intellectual tradition. Though shortly I will offer a few critical comments about his interpretations, his discussion of the three thinkers is, in each case, extremely helpful. The full view of each of these thinkers, on the matters under consideration, must be constructed from passages scattered around in a large number of different texts. Hoitenga conducts this recovery of the relevant sources and the construction of his interpretation with wide knowledge of the primary texts, with apt use of the secondary literature, and with the judiciousness and balance which such interpretation requires. Though I shall now make critical comments on three points, I view these criticisms as entirely compatible with my judgment that Hoitenga has made a very important contribution with this historical introduction to Reformed epistemology. I begin with one point in his exposition of contemporary Reformed epistemology. Plantinga observes that there are perhaps some cases in which, though a person has a prima facie right to believe some theistic proposition immediately, that right is... (shrink)

In his celebrated article on the contrary-to-fact conditional Roderick Chisholm makes the following astute observation.

From Fine and Kamp in the 70’s—through Osherson and Smith in the 80’s, Williamson, Kamp and Partee in the 90’s and Keefe in the 00’s—up to Sauerland in the present decade, the objection continues to be run that fuzzy logic based theories of vagueness are incompatible with ordinary usage of compound propositions in the presence of borderline cases. These arguments against fuzzy theories have been rebutted several times but evidently not put to rest. I attempt to do so in this (...) paper. (shrink)

This article investigates and resolves the question whether gauge symmetry can display analogs of the famous Galileo’s ship scenario. In doing so, it builds on and clarifies the work of Greaves and Wallace on this subject.

As a prolegomenon to understanding the sense in which dualities are theoretical equivalences, we investigate the intuitive `equivalence' of hyper-regular Lagrangian and Hamiltonian classical mechanics. We show that the symplectification of these theories provides a sense in which they are isomorphic, and mutually and canonically definable through an analog of `common definitional extension'.

Graham Priest (1994) has argued that the following paradoxes all have the same structure: Russell’s Paradox, Burali-Forti’s Paradox, Mirimanoff’s Paradox, König’s Paradox, Berry’s Paradox, Richard’s Paradox, the Liar and Liar Chain Paradoxes, the Knower and Knower Chain Paradoxes, and the Heterological Paradox. Their common structure is given by Russell’s Schema: there is a property φ and function δ such that..

Study on the logic of normative discourse.

This article uncovers a foundational relationship between the ‘gauge symmetry’ of a Newton-Cartan theory and the celebrated Trautman Recovery Theorem and explores its implications for recent philosophical work on Newton-Cartan gravitation.

Postmodernism and poststructuralism challenge fundamental positions in social theory. This book sets out some of the components of a postmodern social theory of health and healing, deriving from theorists including Derrida, Deleuze and Guattari, Foucault, Cixous and Kristeva. Nicholas J. Fox observes that the knowledge of the medical profession about the body, illness and health supplies the basis for medical dominance. The body of the patient is inscribed by discourses of professional `care,' an interaction which subjectifies the patient. Fox (...) explores the character of this power - and how it may be, and is, resisted. The book illustrates with detailed examples how the organization of health care and the caring relationship itself are sites for this contestation of power. Elements of feminist theory, and Derridean concepts of diffrance and intertextuality, supply the framework for the politics and ethics of the postmodern position on health. Deleuze and Guattari's radical challenge to psychoanalysis and familial repetitions within the healer/patient contact allows a re-reading of central ideas in medical sociology. While focusing upon the possibilities of postmodern social theory, the book demands a reappraisal of issues of structure, identity and knowledge in modernist medical sociology. Modernist sociology, Fox suggests, has been complicit in the creation of `the patient,' and of 'health' and 'illness.' Written with an emphasis on accessibility, this book explores the practical consequences of postmodern theory as well as familiarizing the reader with the concepts of postmodernism. (shrink)

Philosophers of physics and physicists have long been intrigued by the analogies and disanalogies between gravitational theories and gauge theories. Indeed, repeated attempts to collapse these disanalogies have made us acutely aware that there are fairly general obstacles to doing so. Nonetheless, there is a special case space-time dimensions) in which gravity is often claimed to be identical to a gauge theory. I subject this claim to philosophical scrutiny in this article. In particular, I analyse how the standard disanalogies can (...) be overcome in dimensions, and consider whether really licenses the interpretation of gravity as a gauge theory. Our conceptual analysis reveals more subtle disanalogies between gravity and gauge, and connects these to interpretive issues in classical and quantum gravity. 1 Introduction1.1 Motivation1.2 Prospectus2 Disanalogies3 Three-dimensional gravity and gauge3.1 gravity3.2 Chern–Simons3.2.1 Cartan geometry3.2.2 Overcoming obst-gauge via Cartan connections3.3 Disanalogies collapsed4 Two More Disanalogies4.1 What about the symmetries?4.2 The phase spaces of the two theories5 Summary and Conclusion. (shrink)

In VAGUENESS AND DEGREES OF TRUTH, Nicholas Smith develops a new theory of vagueness: fuzzy plurivaluationism. -/- A predicate is said to be VAGUE if there is no sharply defined boundary between the things to which it applies and the things to which it does not apply. For example, 'heavy' is vague in a way that 'weighs over 20 kilograms' is not. A great many predicates -- both in everyday talk, and in a wide array of theoretical vocabularies, from (...) law to psychology to engineering -- are vague. -/- Smith argues, based on a detailed account of the defining features of vagueness, that an accurate theory of vagueness must involve the idea that truth comes in degrees. The core idea of degrees of truth is that while some sentences are true and some are false, others possess intermediate truth values: they are truer than the false sentences, but not as true as the true ones. Degree-theoretic treatments of vagueness have been proposed in the past, but all have encountered significant objections. In light of these, Smith develops a new type of degree theory. Its innovations include a definition of logical consequence that allows the derivation of a classical consequence relation from the degree-theoretic semantics, a unified account of degrees of belief and their relationships with degrees of truth and subjective probabilities, and the incorporation of semantic indeterminacy -- the view that vague statements need not have unique meanings -- into the degree-theoretic framework. -/- As well as being essential reading for those working on vagueness, Smith's book provides an excellent entry-point for newcomers to the area -- both from elsewhere in philosophy, and from computer science, logic and engineering. It contains a thorough introduction to existing theories of vagueness and to the requisite logical background. (shrink)

In advocating an extreme form of specification requiring the abolition of separate senses, Stoffregen & Bardy run the risk of diverting attention from the multisensory integration of perception and action they wish to champion.

The “justice of markets” is intricately connected to the treatment of the poor and the disadvantaged in market economies. The increased interest of multinational corporations in low-income market segments affords, on one hand, the opportunity for a more inclusive capitalism, and on the other, the threat of greater exploitation of poor and disadvantaged consumers. This article traces the contributions of Catholic Social Teaching and its basic principles toward providing insight into what constitutes “justice” in such “marketing to the impoverished” situations.

Beyond Health applies post-structuralist and postmodern ideas to issues of health and health care to provide a radical re-think of how health is to be understood. It offers a perspective in which health is seen as an affirmation of potential rather than as a narrow biopsychosocial construct. The author develops his notion of arche-health and in so doing provides a lucid account of a wide range of post-structuralist and postmodern theoretical perspectives and their relevance to the field of health. This (...) text explains complex ideas so even a reader with no previous background in the topic can grasp it. In each chapter the author explains and applies a selection of theoretical perspectives. (shrink)

This paper defends the idea that there might be vagueness or indeterminacy in the world itself--as opposed to merely in our representations of the world--against the charges of incoherence and unintelligibility. First we consider the idea that the world might contain vague properties and relations ; we show that this idea is already implied by certain well-understood views concerning the semantics of vague predicates (most notably the fuzzy view). Next we consider the idea that the world might contain vague objects (...) ; we argue that an object is indeterminate in a certain respect (colour, size, etc.) just in case it is a borderline case of a maximally specific colour (size, etc.) property. Finally we consider the idea that the world as a whole might be indeterminate; we argue that the world is indeterminate just in case it lacks a determinate division into determinate objects. (shrink)

We report evidence further supporting homology between proteins in the F1FO‐ATP synthetase and the bacterial flagellar motor (BFM). BFM proteins FliH, FliI, and FliJ have been hypothesized to be homologous to FO‐b + F1‐δ, F1‐α/β, and F1‐γ, with similar structure and interactions. We conduct a further test by constructing a gene order dataset, examining the order offliH,fliI, andfliJgenes across the phylogenetic breadth of flagellar and nonflagellar type 3 secretion systems, and comparing this to published surveys of gene order in the (...) F1FO‐ATP synthetase, its N‐ATPase relatives, and the bacterial/archaeal V‐ and A‐type ATPases. Strikingly, thefliHIJgene order was deeply conserved, with the few exceptions appearing derived, and exactly matching the widely conserved F‐ATPase gene orderatpFHAG, coding for subunits b‐δ‐α‐γ. The V/A‐type ATPases have a similar conserved gene order. Our results confirm homology between these systems, and suggest a rare case of synteny conserved over billions of years, predating the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA). (shrink)

Three characters with different skills and outlooks explore the idea of education, exploring what true education is, challenging common conceptions and putting forward rich definitions of education and what it ideally would be.

When considering other persons, the human mind draws from folk theories of biology, physics, and psychology. Studies have examined the extent to which people utilize these folk theories in inferring whether or not God has human-like biological, physical, and psychological constraints. However, few studies have examined the way in which these folk attributions relate to each other, the extent to which attributions within a domain are consistent, or whether cultural factors influence human-like attributions within and across domains. The present study (...) assessed 341 individuals’ attributions of anthropomorphic properties to God in three domains (psychological, biological, and physical), their religious beliefs, and their engagement in religious practices. Three Confirmatory Factor Analyses tested hypothetical models of the underlying structure of an anthropomorphic concept of God. The best fitting model was the “Hierarchical Dimensions Concept,” the analyses indicated one overall dimension of anthropomorphism with three sub-domains. Additionally, participants’ religiosity was negatively related to attributing human-like psychological properties to God, suggesting that the more people engage with their religion, the less they think about God as having a ‘human-like’ mind. Religiosity was positively related to individual consistency scores in the biological domain. In other words, greater religiosity was related to less consistent answers about God’s biological properties. As a result, the findings of the current study also suggest that individuals do not just vary between each other in how much they anthropomorphize God, but additionally, variation exists in the type of anthropomorphic reasoning used within an individual person’s concept of God. (shrink)

This paper presents a new argument against A-theories of time. A-theorists hold that there is an objective now (present moment) and an objective flow of time, the latter constituted by the movement of the objective now through time. A-theorists therefore want to draw different pictures of reality—showing the objective now in different positions—depending upon the time at which the picture is drawn. In this paper it is argued that the times at which the different pictures are drawn may be taken (...) to be normal times or hypertimes. If they are normal times then the A-theory is inconsistent, or else collapses to the B-theory—and appealing to primitive tense operators will not help A-theorists avoid this conclusion. If the times are hypertimes then the A-theory is consistent, but deeply problematic none the less. (shrink)

On the verge of the one hundredth anniversary of the founding of the American Association of University Professors, we examine the organization’s focus on academic freedom, shared governance, and the challenges the AAUP faced during its early years. The history is a fairly uncontested one: higher education in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in the United States was the context for the struggle over academic freedom and shared governance. Dismissed professors, resignations by colleagues, and the struggle of professionalization (...) characterize the period.1 A century later, we wonder about the state of academic freedom and shared governance. We argue that higher education is currently so.. (shrink)

In this superb introduction, Nicholas Dent covers the whole of Rousseau's thought. Beginning with a helpful overview of Rousseau's life and works, he introduces and assesses Rousseau's central ideas and arguments. These include the corruption of modern civilization, the state of nature, his famous theories of _amour de soi _and _amour propre_, education, and his famous work _Emile_. He gives particular attention to Rousseau's theories of democracy and freedom found in his most celebrated work, _The Social Contract_, and explains (...) what Rousseau meant by the 'general will'. (shrink)

Philosopher Nick Pappas invites us to join the conversation as a few wise friends explore what it takes to live a meaningful life, to produce meaningful art, and to support others in their own efforts to fulfill their potential. How do we make the most of our lives? Is there a meaning, a goal, a purpose? Is it all a matter of chance or do we each have a destiny that beckons? Can we knowingly move toward it, and can we (...) choose to avoid it? From the rational, logical perspective on one hand, and that of intuition, passion and inspiration on the other, different characters address these questions over a series of exchanges that encourage us to pause, taking a deeper look at how we're living our lives and shaping who we are. (shrink)

Is it always better to be active than passive? Is passivity a sign of cowardice - or prudence? Are people who keep their thoughts to themselves passive, or might they be actively preparing for well-considered future actions? Seemingly simple concepts turn out to be deeper and more significant than they first appear.

The socio-economic “pro-democracy” revolutions which are currently sweeping the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe in the name of glasnost and perestroika have virtually stunned all but the best informed in the Western World. The demand for reform throughout the so-called “Soviet block,” and the concomitant impatience with the progress of these changes in the economic and basic social fabric of these societies, have come to exhibit an urgency which few observers, if any, had been able to forecast a few short (...) years ago. The declarations by some members of the U.S. Congress that these changes are indicative of the fact that the cold war has been won by the West, and that we are now witnessing the precipitous collapse of Marxist ideology, together with the widespread sentiment that there is “no going back” to the repressive Leninist-inspired regimes of Stalin, Khruschev, and Brezhniev are all synergistic to the creation of a sentiment of optimism that indeed we have turned the corner in East-West relations. To a world which has lived under the long night of thermonuclear extinction for over four decades, the feeling accompanying the prospect of a possible end to the nightmare of Armageddon further enhances the euphoric sentiment. (shrink)

This entertaining discussion illustrates how to approach life decisions to get the most satisfaction out of their work and leisure. The themes include pleasure, pain, and the importance of choosing one's experiences in life. If you make good decisions, there's value in every day. And that's a pleasure!

In this note I raise a new problem for backwards time travel, and make some first suggestions as to how it might be solved. I call it the motivation problem. It is not a logical or a metaphysical problem, but a psychological one. It does not impact upon the possibility, or even the likelihood, of backwards time travel. Yet it is deeply puzzling, and we will have no idea what time travel would actually be like until we explore it. Thus, (...) where other problems for backward time travel assume that we know what time travel would be like, and argue that we cannot have it, this new problem gives us no reason to think that we cannot have time travel, but argues that we have much less idea than we usually suppose about what it would really be like to travel back in time. (shrink)