To know the shape is to enjoy the information it embodies.In his classic work of lithic scrying, The Writing of Stones, Roger Caillois suggests that the pareidoliac's interpretation of a stone's pattern depends upon her own personal internalized database of stored images, a database defined by the cultural stock of mediated imagery forged and embellished by personal memory, emotion and psychical topography. For Caillois, "the vision the eye records is always impoverished and uncertain. Imagination fills it with the treasures of (...) memory and knowledge." Caillois's own database was one defined in a pre-digitized, barely computerized world. His meditations on Agates, Jaspers and Septaria evoked for him a world of... (shrink)

Shared Decision-Making is a widely accepted model of the physician–patient relationship providing an ethical environment in which physician beneficence and patient autonomy are respected. It acknowledges the moral responsibility of physician and patient by promoting a deliberative collaboration in which their individual expertise—complementary in nature, equal in importance—is emphasized, and personal values and preferences respected. Its goal coincides with Pellegrino and Thomasma’s proximate end of medicine, that is, a technically correct and morally good healing decision for and with a particular (...) patient. We argue that by perfecting the intellectual ability to apprehend the complexity of clinical situations, and through a perfection of the application of the first principles of practical reason, prudence is able to point toward the right and good shared medical decision. A prudent shared medical decision is therefore always in keeping with the kind of person the physician and the patient have chosen to be. (shrink)

A comprehensive account of women in Western thought, from ancient Greece, through the Middle Ages, to today In her sweeping, three-volume study, Sister Prudence Allen examined how women and men have been defined in relation to one another scientifically, philosophically, and theologically. Now synthesized for students, The Concept of Woman is the ideal textbook for classes on gender in Catholic thought. Allen surveys Greek philosophers, medieval saints, and modern thinkers to trace the development of integral gender complementarity. This doctrine--a (...) living idea according to the criteria of John Henry Newman--affirms the equal dignity of men and women and the synergetic relationship between them. Allen pays special attention to John Paul II's contributions to this holistic idea of gender. Readers will gain valuable context for current debates over womanhood and come to a greater appreciation of human personhood. (shrink)

That we owe duties to others is a commonplace, the subject of countless philosophical treatises and monographs. Morality is interpersonal and other-directed, many claim. But what of what we owe ourselves? In Duty to Self, Paul Schofield flips the paradigm of interpersonal morality by arguing that there are moral duties we owe ourselves, and that in light of this, philosophers need to significantly rethink many of their views about practical reason, moral psychology, politics, and moral emotions. -/- Among these (...) views is the idea that divisions within a person's life enable her to relate to herself second-personally--that is, as though she were relating to a distinct other person--in the way required by morality. Further, there exist political duties owed to the self, which the state may coerce persons to perform. This amounts to a novel argument for paternalistic law, which appeals to considerations of right, justice, and freedom in order to justify coercing a person for their own sake--a liberal justification for an idea typically thought to be deeply at odds with liberalism. -/- Schofield untangles how this view would impact various issues in applied ethics and political philosophy, for example, financial prudence and risk, the pursuit of the good life, and medical ethics. Duty to Self is essential for anyone working in moral and political philosophy or political theory. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 28, Issue 2, pp 103 - 131 Although the distinction between counsel and command in Hobbes’s works, especially _Leviathan_, has been often acknowledged, it has been little studied. This article provides background and analysis of this critical distinction by placing it in conversation with the works of Henry Parker and in the context of the English Civil War, especially as regards the discussion of prudence, interests and crisis. In so doing, three conclusions can be drawn. First, (...) it becomes clear that for both Parker and Hobbes, counsel serves as a foundation to their arguments about the placement and function of sovereignty. Second, in grounding their arguments about sovereignty in the discourse of counsel, both authors – intentionally or unintentionally – undermine the previously critical discourse of counsel. Finally, we see that especially Hobbes’s engagement with and overthrow of the discourse of counsel profoundly alters of the terms and focus of modern political debate, moving from a ‘monarchy of counsel’ to a discussion of political sovereignty. (shrink)

In the wake of Operation Desert Storm, the question of 'just war' has become a hotly contested issue, and this classic text on war and the ethics of modern statecraft written at the height of the Vietnam era in 1968 speaks to a new generation of readers. In defending just war against Christian pacifism, Ramsey joins a line of theological reasoning that traces its antecedents to Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas. Ramsey argues that decisions regarding war must be governed (...) by 'political prudence.' Whether a particular war should be fought, and at what level of violence, depends, Ramsey writes, on one's count of the moral costs and benefits. Characterized by a sophisticated yet back-to-basics approach, his analysis begins with the assumption that force is a fact in political life which must either be reckoned with or succumbed to. He then grapples with modern challenges to traditional moral principles of 'just conduct' in war, the 'morality of deterrence,' and a 'just war theory of statecraft.'. (shrink)

_Messiahs and Machiavellians_ is an innovative exploration of “modern evil” in works of early- and late-modern theatre, raising issues about ethics, politics, religion, and aesthetics that speak to our present condition. Paul Corey examines how theatre—which expressed a key political dynamic both in the Renaissance and the twentieth century—lays open the impulses that instigated modernity and, ultimately, unparalleled levels of violence and destruction. Starting with Albert Camus’ _Caligula_ and Samuel Beckett’s _Waiting for Godot_, then turning to Machiavelli’s _Mandragola_ and (...) Shakespeare’s _Measure for Measure_, Corey traces the emergence of two dominant, intertwining features of modern evil: an unrestrained pursuit of power and the utopian desire for perfection. Corey’s imaginative and convincing readings of these plays, based on detailed textual analysis, move beyond the accounts usually offered by literary critics. Drawing on political, theological, and philosophical sources—a combination as fertile as it is unusual—Corey’s methodology allows him to make keen and subtle arguments about the eschatological nature of modern politics. “Corey’s lucid, compelling treatise argues for a radical reconsideration of the role of tragedy in dealing with the shifting metaphysical and metatheatrical sands of the contemporary era. While the study begins with an examination of mid-20th Century French existentialism—and the dramatic work of Beckett and Camus in particular—the book soon takes the reader on a fascinating voyage back into the ‘problem’ comedies of the Italian and English Renaissance theatre, and beyond that, into Greek tragedy to understand the evolving concept of ‘evil’ in the Western philosophical, theological, and dramatic tradition. Ending with a reflection on the new ‘theatre’ of terrorism entering the 21st Century, Corey poses the intriguing suggestion, that far from being irrelevant to the post-modern era, a ‘new tragic sensibility’ may become key to our gaining a ‘lucid awareness of our current situation […] the limits of politics, the indelible nature of violence, our inescapable mortality, and a need for prudence’ ” —_Moira Day, University of Saskatchewan_ “A sensitive examination of the problem of evil in Renaissance and 20th century drama. Corey provides fascinating analyses of individual plays, and makes a compelling argument for restoring a tragic vision of good and evil in the face of modern expediency and utopianism.” —_Mary P. Nichols, Baylor University_ _ _ “In _Messiahs and Machiavellians_, Paul Corey delivers insights both numerous and profound. His work is a serious and important contribution to contemporary political science while also offering analyses of interest to scholars in literature, religious studies, theology, and ethics.” —_Barry Cooper, University of Calgary_. (shrink)

Probabilistic predictions of future risk govern much of society: healthcare, genetics, social media, national security, and finance. Both policy-makers and private companies are increasingly working to design institutional structures that seek to manage risk by controlling the behavior of citizens and consumers, using new technologies of predictive control that comb through past data to predict and shape future action. These predictions not only control social institutions but also shape individual character and forms of practical reason. Risk-based decision theory shifts people's (...) relationships to the future through knowledge of possible dangers and foregone opportunities, thus inspiring anxious solicitude and deceptive hopes for total security. This book uses virtue ethics to analyze these problems and to suggest ways to enjoy these technologies' positive benefits while constraining their dangerous aspects through a better understanding of practical reasoning and a theological analysis of our responsibility for future risks. (shrink)

In recent years, a number of authors have called for a return to an ethic of honour as a means of imparting virtue to military personnel. Mark Osiel, for instance, argues that ‘martial honor can be...

When political theorists teach the history of political philosophy, they typically skip from the ancient Greeks and Cicero to Augustine in the fifth century and Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth, and then on to the origins of modernity with Machiavelli and beyond. Paul Stern aims to change this settled narrative and makes a powerful case for treating Dante Alighieri, arguably the greatest poet of medieval Christendom, as a political philosopher of the first rank. In Dante's Philosophical Life, Stern argues (...) that Purgatorio's depiction of the ascent to Earthly Paradise, that is, the summit of Mount Purgatory, was intended to give instruction on how to live the philosophic life, understood in its classical form as "love of wisdom." As an object of love, however, wisdom must be sought by the human soul, rather than possessed. But before the search can be undertaken, the soul needs to consider from where it begins: its nature and its good. In Stern's interpretation of Purgatorio, Dante's intense concern for political life follows from this need, for it is law that supplies the notions of good that shape the soul's understanding and it is law, especially its limits, that provides the most evident display of the soul's enduring hopes. According to Stern, Dante places inquiry regarding human nature and its good at the heart of philosophic investigation, thereby rehabilitating the highest form of reasoned judgment or prudence. Philosophy thus understood is neither a body of doctrines easily situated in a Christian framework nor a set of intellectual tools best used for predetermined theological ends, but a way of life. Stern's claim that Dante was arguing for prudence against dogmatisms of every kind addresses a question of contemporary concern: whether reason can guide a life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Séduire, C'est ToutFrancis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and the Struggle of InfluencePaul Sharma (bio)One of the painter Francis Bacon's favorite bon mots was "séduire, c'est tout."1 With such a worldview, it is unsurprising that Bacon's work and life can be understood using René Girard's insights regarding the desire to influence or be influenced by the envied model, be it a person, a crowd, or even a country, resulting in mimetic (...) forces that unleash violence.This piece looks at Bacon's life and how the mimetic forces he experienced and intuitively understood are displayed in his painting. It examines the social and personal forces at play in four key works: Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion (1944), Head VI (1949), Two Figures (1953), and Three Studies of Lucian Freud (1969), beginning with the work that put Bacon on the artistic map at the end of World War II, to the triptych that foretold the breakup of the long friendship between Bacon and Lucian Freud. [End Page 205]1943: THE BLITZ ENDSBy the summer of 1943, the dust caused by the Luftwaffe bombing raid was mostly gone from the air in London, allowing the asthmatic Francis Bacon to return to South Kensington. The same summer, Ralph Vaughan Williams's Fifth Symphony, one of the last great pieces of English neo-romanticism and arguably his greatest work, premiered at the nearby Royal Albert Hall.It is strange to think that at the same time Vaughan Williams's Fifth was being played, down the road in Cromwell Place, the preparatory ground was being laid by Francis Bacon for Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion, a work that went well beyond any idea of English nostalgia and of which John Russell wrote, "There was English art before the Three Studies and there was English art after."2Before looking at the work in more detail, it is worth examining its inception, as it follows a pattern outlined by René Girard, that of a conversion in which there is a profound change in beliefs and values. In the same way that diamonds are formed out of coal if there is high enough pressure, Girard notes that "an experience of demystification, if radical enough, is very close to an experience of conversion."3Bacon's conversion occurred at the latter end of 1940 to 1942, a period he never discussed. He retreated to the country sixty miles outside London, to recover from his asthma and very likely from some form of breakdown, following a period as an air raid warden in London.The formula for each conversion is unique, and for Bacon, the catalyst bringing his experiences of art, the Blitz, his view of society, and his personal history together into a single style was the recently issued W. B. Stanford's Aeschylus in His Style: A Study in Language and Personality. A clue to Stanford's importance is Bacon later recalling that "some of the images are so startlingly beautiful in there and so exciting I go on reading it over and over again."4Stanford's insight into the use of a combination of a highly expressive and at the same time formal style in Aeschylus enabled Bacon to gather his influences and preoccupations of the previous decade to create his vision and, arguably, his first fully impactful works. (It could be said that the first work of real originality was the 1933 painting Crucifixion (Figure 1), a protype of the 1944 triptych, being of sufficient force to be included in Herbert Read's Art Now review of the same year).Stanford argued that the Greek playwright's "style was not of the unobtrusive, subtly modulated kind that escapes criticism," adding, "One is reminded of the strained, almost grotesque figures of a painting by El Greco … and the [End Page 206] Click for larger view View full resolutionFigure 1.Francis Bacon, Crucifixion, 1933. © The Estate of Francis Bacon. All rights reserved, DACS/Artimage 2023. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd.reason for both of these Greeks' extraordinary style is similar—the tension between an original and... (shrink)

This essay seeks to abstract from the works of Maximus the Confessor (580–662) a ‘theory’ of virtue ethics that engages Maximus’s own categories and language while still developing conversation with contemporary virtue ethics. First is a reconstruction of the larger cosmological (and moral) ‘narrative’—the oikonomia Maximus sees embodied in sacred history—that frames his essentially teleological understanding of the formation of virtue in created beings. The second part of the essay explores Maximus’s doctrine of the moral self as a synthesis of (...) ‘diachronic’ and ‘synchronic’ dimensions, and details three identifiable protocols by which moral agents cultivate the Christian virtues: first, the development of intellectual virtues such as prudence that serve clear vision (theoria) of worthy moral ends; second, the appropriate ‘use’ of the passible faculties of desire and temper in alliance with reason; and third, the conditioning of the virtues within moral communities (monastery or church) characterized by relations of accountability, imitation, and the traditioning of moral wisdom. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 263 articles, and supplementing his anthology of Wright (Liberal Arts Press). The biographical chapter presents Wright as an attractive character among devoted friends and also as a solitary, original scientist. Wright's primary achievement was to apply utilitarian principles to Darwinian natural selection theory. Since Darwin himself made no such attempt, nor did John Stuart Mill, and since Darwin showed an evident interest in Wright's attempt, this represents (...) a major contribution to evolutionary theory. On the negative side, too, Wright was incisive in his criticisms of Spencer, Mivart, Hamilton, Mansel, and Lewes. The pragmatic strains in Wright's philosophical method were incidental to his primary interest in showing that sciences are metaphysically "neutral." But his influence on Peirce and James was direct and strong, both on their cosmological and methodological doctrines. He deserves to be mentioned as the prime mover in this trinity of early pragmatism and naturalism, but since his own writings were relatively few and scattered, his historical importance rests largely on the use which Peirce and James made of his ideas and the development which they gave to his philosophy. HER~VRTW. SCHNEIDER Claremont, California Propos sur Jules Lequier: Philosophe de la libert~--R~flexions sur sa vie et sur sa pens~e. Par s Callot. (Paris: l~ditions Marcel Rivi~re et Cie, 1962. Pp. 142 [1]. Biblioth6que Philosophique.) L'oeuvre de Jules Lequier est importante. Nos philosophes am~ricains Charles Hartshorne et William L. Reese en ont fait un grand ~loge dans leur Philosophers Speak of God (pp. ix, 17, 109, 118, 227-230). Dans ce nouveau livre I~mile Callot nous donne des rfiflexions, des considerations, vraiment des Propos sur Jules Lequier en occasion du centenaire de la mort de Lequier (1862). La vie de Lequier est incontestablement dramatique. N~ en 1814 en Br6tagne off il passa son enfance, Lequier subit l'influence de son pays natal, de sa m~re dont il ~tait le ills unique, et d'une 6ducation profond~ment catholique. I1 entra ~t l'l~cole Polytechnique et il en sortit peu apr~s. Mais il y connut Renouvier et c'est grace ~ Renouvier que la pens~e de Lequier nous est connue. Renouvier intercala dans ses livres des fragments de Lequier et en publia des bonnes pages sous ce titre La recherche d'une premiOre v~rit& A l'~ge de 37 ans Lequier eut un acc6s de dfimence. Puis il eut un amour exaltfi pour une jeune fille qui le refusa en mariage. Lequier mourut, noy~, ~t l'~ge de 48 ans. De sa fin il nous est impossible de savoir si elle a 6t~ un suicide ou un accident, mais Lequier garda toujours con- 264 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY science de son g6nie: "Je crois avoir trouv6 un myst~re merveilleux de simplicitY, de profondeur et de t~n6bres: quelque chose h quoi nul ne pense." Lequier est un philosophe de la libert& Tout philosophe part de l'id& de v~rit~, cela est n&essaire, mais la prudence exige qu'on la mette sans cesse en cause. Comme Vinet (1797-1847) a dit, "La v6rit~, sans la recherche de la verit6, n'est que la moiti~ de la v~rit& On ne salt bien que ce qu'on n'a pas su toujours; on ne croit bien qu'apr& avoir dour6; on n'est vainqueur qu'apr6s avoir &6 vaincu. Et c'est pourquoi, en cette mati~re, notre premier effort doit avoir pour objet de mettre l'homme en demeure de choisir." Lequier avait eu tr& fort le sentiment du d&erminisme universel. Mais, au moment oth la croyance ~ la n&essit6 semblait devoir triompher dans son esprit, il la rejetta brusquement "par une r&olte de l'&re entier." Selon Lequier, la premiere et fondamentale d6marche de l'esprit est une affirmation de la libert~ par la libert6 m~me. La libert~ ne cr& pas la v6rit6, mais la croyance en la libert6 est une premi6re v6rit6. Sans cette croyance, on ne peut rien chercher et rien d&ouvrir. Mais l'homme, auteur de ses actes par la libertY, ne l'est pas de sa libert& Le Dieu de la Bible est un &re infini qui rien ne peut &happer. Ainsi le probl6me entier de la pr6destination se pose ici de nouveau. Et Lequier d&ouvre une solution originale: Si Dieu... (shrink)

'[T]he good man should be a lover of self.' Aristotle wrote. 'For he will both himself profit by doing noble acts, and will benefit his fellows … '. Yet in much of contemporary moral philosophy, concern for one's own interests is considered a non-moral issue, while concern for the interests of others is paradigmatically moral. Indeed, a central issue in ethical theory involves the proper balance to be struck between prudence and morality, between the pursuit of one's own good (...) and the pursuit of the good of others. When deliberating over what action to take, should one weigh one's own interests more heavily than those of others? Or is it possible to accommodate both self-interest and regard for others, to show that we have self-regarding reasons for helping others? The twelve essays in this volume - written from a range of perspectives - address these questions and examine related issues. (shrink)

Résumé À l’encontre d’une école récente d’interprétation qui tend à voir dans les Essais de Montaigne une pensée du renoncement à toute maîtrise de l’action, nous voulons montrer qu’il y a chez lui une authentique pensée de la prudence. Si les références aristotéliciennes et stoïciennes sont sollicitées par Montaigne, il reste que le caractère mouvant et imprévisible de la fortune ainsi que la part de fortuit inscrite dans l’être l’obligent à redéfinir les contours de la notion traditionnelle de (...) class='Hi'>prudence. À un premier niveau de prudence qui consiste à savoir agir dans le monde s’ajoute un second niveau, qui consiste à savoir se préserver face aux sollicitations du monde. Montaigne inaugure ainsi une pensée moderne de la prudence, qui trouvera, mutatis mutandis, une expression contemporaine chez Hannah Arendt, Georg Gadamer et Paul Ricœur. (shrink)

We sometimes face personal choices that are so momentous they appear to give rise to an intrapersonal analogue to the non-identity problem. Where the non-identity problem presents as a problem for morality, the intrapersonal analogue presents as a problem for prudence. The analogy has been explored recently by Das and Paul, and although, as this paper argues, their analysis fails—there is no intrapersonal analogue for the non-identity problem—it functions to highlight a persistent and perplexing puzzle for prudential rationality. (...) This paper offers its own explanation: namely, that the phenomena that motivate the purported intrapersonal problem are better accounted for by conceiving prudence as disjunctive. To this end, I sketch a theory of two varieties of prudence. (shrink)

A review of Paul Stern's Dante's Philosophical Life: Politics and Human Wisdom in Purgatorio (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018).

This paper´s aim is to outline the foundation of Paul Ricœur´s ethics, which we believe to be a hermeneutical experience of recognition of existence´s original claim, a thesis that he takes from his master Jean Nabert. Although the question of recognition appears only in the last work of Ricœur, we hold that it is already present since the earliest works, particularly in The Symbolism of Evil , insofar as, through symbolic language, the contrasting experience of evil leads to the (...) whole hermeneutical process of recognition and interpretation of an original affirmation, despite evil. The very theme of man´s capability, including the issue of self-esteem, shall be understood on the basis of this original affirmation, which reveals his plural condition in the plan of responsibility in the context of applied ethics. (shrink)

Pope John Paul II bestowed upon St. Thomas Aquinas the accolade of Doctor Humanitatis, or Doctor of Humanity, because he was ready to affirm the good or value of culture wherever it is to be found. Thomas is a teacher for our time because of his assertions on the dignity of the human person and the use of his reason.. This collection of papers explores the various philosophical and theological aspects of the thought of both Thomas Aquinas and John (...) Paul II pertaining to this theme of teacher of humanity. The topics discussed here include the political praxis of Karol Wojtyla; Gadamer on common sense; prudence and subsidiarity; embodied cognition; the knowledge of God; the commandment of love; Pope Francis on the Beatitudes; the new evangelization; Thomism and modern cosmology; and the challenges of transhumanism and gender ideology. The papers were presented at a conference held in Houston, Texas, USA, in 2013, cosponsored by the Center for Thomistic Studies, the John Paul II Forum, and the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. This work will help to realize in its small way the hopes of Saint John Paul II concerning St. Thomas Aquinas: It is to be hoped that now and in the future there will be those who continue to cultivate this great philosophical and theological tradition [of Aquinas] for the good of both the Church and humanity. Additionally, it will undoubtedly be of interest to all participants in the cultivation of the thought of Thomas Aquinas and John Paul II, and the dialogue between Thomism and the modern world. (shrink)

Raymond Aron and his Dialogues in an Age of Ideologies examines the thought and rhetoric of the most interesting thinker of the twentieth century of whom no one has heard. This book investigates Raymond Aron's conversations on politics during the Cold War with several of his more well-known interlocutors including Jean-Paul Sartre, Friedrich Hayek, and Charles de Gaulle. Through exploring these dialogues on the subjects of Marxism, freedom, and nationalism, we see the prudence of Aron's politics of understanding (...) as well as the emphasis he places on and virtue he demonstrates in public discourse. Through his dialogues, Aron shows us not only how to think politically but also how to engage in constructive public debate. He stands as a model for us to emulate in our own age of ideologies. (shrink)

New York Post Best Book of 2016 We often think of our capacity to experience the suffering of others as the ultimate source of goodness. Many of our wisest policy-makers, activists, scientists, and philosophers agree that the only problem with empathy is that we don’t have enough of it. Nothing could be farther from the truth, argues Yale researcher Paul Bloom. In AGAINST EMPATHY, Bloom reveals empathy to be one of the leading motivators of inequality and immorality in society. (...) Far from helping us to improve the lives of others, empathy is a capricious and irrational emotion that appeals to our narrow prejudices. It muddles our judgment and, ironically, often leads to cruelty. We are at our best when we are smart enough not to rely on it, but to draw instead upon a more distanced compassion. Basing his argument on groundbreaking scientific findings, Bloom makes the case that some of the worst decisions made by individuals and nations—who to give money to, when to go to war, how to respond to climate change, and who to imprison—are too often motivated by honest, yet misplaced, emotions. With precision and wit, he demonstrates how empathy distorts our judgment in every aspect of our lives, from philanthropy and charity to the justice system; from medical care and education to parenting and marriage. Without empathy, Bloom insists, our decisions would be clearer, fairer, and—yes—ultimately more moral. Brilliantly argued, urgent and humane, AGAINST EMPATHY shows us that, when it comes to both major policy decisions and the choices we make in our everyday lives, limiting our impulse toward empathy is often the most compassionate choice we can make. (shrink)

Paul Guyer presents the first in-depth examination of the lifelong intellectual relationship between two of the greatest figures of the European Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant and Moses Mendelssohn. He explores their influence on each other and their disagreements, with particular focus on metaphysics, religion, and aesthetics.

The book integrates decades of multidisciplinary research, but its clear explanations and humor make it accessible to the general reader.

This article provides Catholic authorities with a useful framework for forming prudent and just policies to minimize clerical child sexual abuse, exploiting the 2011 John Jay College report Causes and Context while not ignoring its shortcomings. The framework is St. Thomas Aquinas’s treatment of prudence, and a “profile” of the clerical perpetrators is developed that uses their narcissism as a middle term to explain why these men behaved the way they did. The author concludes by recommending a deterrent policy (...) similar to the policy advocated by St. Paul, which does not unrealistically aim at an angelic clergy but aims to deter those who would enter the priesthood for its benefits. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.2 (Summer 2013): 299–311. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Law’s Virtue: Fostering Autonomy and Solidarity in American Society by Cathleen KavenyEric E. SchnitgerLaw’s Virtue: Fostering Autonomy and Solidarity in American Society By Cathleen Kaveny WASHINGTON, DC: GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY PRESS, 2012. 304 PP. $29.95In Law’s Virtue, Cathleen Kaveny calls those in Western liberal countries to rethink their fundamental framework of ethics and law through the guiding principles of autonomy and solidarity, understood through the Catholic context of Thomistic (...) virtue. The law operates not as the fence of individual isolation as it does in Enlightenment rights theory, whereby liberty is preserved through negative restraint, but as the teacher of a limited form of the virtues of prudence and justice (52). The law teaches this thin form of prudence through autonomy, which Kaveny takes from Joseph Raz as “the capacity to be the ‘part-author’ of one’s own life” (53). Solidarity, pulling from Pope John Paul II, correlates to a learned justice, in that it “attend[s] to the unseen members” of the community (54). It recognizes that the good of the community and the good of individual members are inexorably intertwined.The opening epigram of the preface, which sets the tone for the whole work, is a quotation from Isidore of Seville found in Aquinas: “Law shall be virtuous, just, possible to nature, according to the custom of the country, suitable to place and time, necessary, useful; clearly expressed, lest by its obscurity it lead to misunderstanding; framed for no private benefit, but for the common good” (xi). Kaveny argues that the phrases “possible to nature” and “custom of the country” need more attention in pluralist, democratic societies, because law is morally formed by its constituent community and there are deep disagreements within those communities. This gives a direction for how Catholics, and all citizens, should attempt to influence laws in these democracies. Because the law is a form of consensus over time, it should use severe sanctions such as criminal law only to reinforce the consensus that it represents. Tort and tax law are less severe tools that can encourage the moral direction of society, which, when used well, maintain the consensus of the law but still allow it to be a moral teacher.Kaveny’s practical thinking in this text does have some seeds of radical change. When she moves to the practicalities of life issues in the law—such as abortion, euthanasia, and genetics—she argues that the “entire fabric of the Anglo-American legal system” needs to add the concept of the “vulnerable” person to the “reasonable person” (79). In addition, her reframing of life issues contends that the Catholic view of issues like abortion is too different from [End Page 212] the “custom of the country” to make a change to the virtues and practices of other citizens. Instead, attention to the support necessary for families and social difficulties of economic poverty represents a way of using the law as a moral teacher while recognizing its limits (89, 156, 209). The book concludes with an incisive look at voting, in which Kaveny argues that the idea of issues-based voting is wrongheaded; instead, she urges voters to consider that they are voting for an individual who will take a broad moral stance and make a broad set of decisions (197 ff.).The quality of Kaveny’s clear thinking and moral consistency makes this book a pleasure to read—even for those who may disagree about the nature of the law or the virtues that Christians should bring to political, legislative, and judicial systems. This text, from its depth of legal and theological commitments, sets a high bar for further dialogue.Eric E. SchnitgerFuller Theological SeminaryCopyright © 2015 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

La sagesse des chrétiens désigne la nécessité d’un arbitrage réfléchi dans la vie théologale : une vie appelée quotidiennement et promise définitivement à la communion avec Dieu. On le montre en mettant en situation successivement les vertus de foi, d’espérance et d’amour. La vie théologale doit fidélité à la folie de la Croix, qui est aussi la sagesse de Dieu, selon le témoignage de Paul. En retour, si la sagesse pratique, encore appelée prudence, appartient à la communauté universelle, (...) les chrétiens trouvent confirmation de sa justification à travers les nombreuses paroles de sagesse attribuées à Jésus. Sans négliger ces paroles, parfois déjà reçues par tradition, ni rejeter les leçons d’autres traditions, les chrétiens ont d’abord à faire preuve de réflexion et de jugement. Ils y sont invités par des philosophes qui ont compris qu’il fallait penser mieux pour vivre mieux. (shrink)

Republics Ancient and Modern: The Ancient Regime in Classical Greece, by Paul A. Rahe.Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994. 380 pp. $22.95.Republics Ancient and Modern, Vol. II: New Modes and Orders in Early Modern Political Thought, by Paul A. Rahe. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1994. 490 pp. $24.95.Republics Ancient and Modern, Vol. III: Inventions of Prudence: Constituting the American Regime, by Paul A. Rahe. Chapel Hill: The University of North (...) Carolina Press, 1994. 380 pp. $19.95. (shrink)

Ex interiore ipso exeas. Preface. This book reconstructs the history of a still open dialectics between several ethoi, that is, shared codes of unwritten rules, moral traditions, or self-aware attempts at reforming such codes, and ethical theories discussing the nature and justification of such codes and doctrines. Its main claim is that this history neither amounts to a triumphal march of reason dispelling the mist of myth and bigotry nor to some other one-way process heading to some pre-established goal, but (...) instead to a chain of controversies where the partners’ will to win unintentionally yields a wealth of insights on human existence that has still something to teach us. -/- 1. The Hellenic moral tradition. -/- Two different traditions of morality in vi-v century Greece are described. The birth of philosophical questioning of traditional morality and temporal and spatial variation of custom is described within the context of the v century crisis, the demise of traditional aristocratic and tyrannical rule and the birth of democracy. Two conflicting answers to the challenge are reconstructed, namely conventionalist or immoralist theories formulated by the Sophists and the eudemonist and intellectualist Socratic theory. -/- 2. Plato and the Good. -/- Plato’s own reformulation of Socrates rejoinder to the Sophists is reconstructed. His psychological views, his classification of the four cardinal virtues and his political theory are described as parts of a unitary system, culminating in an extremely realist moral ontology identifying the idea of the good with the essence of the (moral and extra-moral) world itself. -/- 3. Aristotle and practical philosophy. -/- Aristotle’s invention of practical philosophy as a field separated from first philosophy is shown to be an implication of his break with Plato moral ultra-realism. Aristotle’s agenda in his moral works is arguably dependent on a polemical intention, namely dismantling Socratic intellectualism. The semi-inductive or virtuously circular method of practical philosophy is illustrated, starting with the received opinions of the better and wiser individuals and trying dialectically to sift what is left of mistake and inconsistency in such opinions, finally trying to correct mistakes and make the overall practical science more consistent. The relationship of individual ethics, or ‘monastics’, with the art and the science of the pater families, or ‘economics’, and the science of the ruler and citizen, or politics, is illustrated. The nature of virtues, or better, excellences of character, is discussed, highlighting the basic role of hexes, or ‘dispositions’. Prudence, or better, practical wisdom, is the focus of the chapter. Its relationship with boùleusis or deliberation is discussed, and its autonomous status vis-à-vis theoretical knowledge is stressed. -/- 4. Cynics and Stoics: ethics as therapy. -/- The chapter provides an overview of Hellenistic ethics, which almost amounts to Hellenistic schools of philosophy, in so far as ‘philosophy’ became in these centuries primarily the name for a way of life. The typical character of the Cynical movement is highlighted, that of a school of life, not a school aimed at providing any kind of intellectual training was to be provided. The various phases of Stoicism are described, and the shifting place that was given to ethics in the Stoic system of idea, culminating in the paradoxical view of ethics, its impossibility in principle notwithstanding, as the only truly significant and necessary part of philosophy. The peculiar character of the Epicurean school is described, a combination of the science of well-being aiming, more than pleasure understood as in the popular view, the reduction of useless suffering, of unnecessary needs, and at a balanced selection of pleasures of the best and most durable kind. -/- 5. Roman and Imperial Moralists. -/- The chapter is dedicated to the reconstruction of a particular kind of literature, whose specific features have long been under-stressed, namely the Roman and Imperial moral literature. Cicero is treated at some length, showing how his own synthesis of various Hellenistic trends is as a truly philosophical enterprise, deserving serious consideration after one or two centuries when he was confined to the role of literate. Epictetus is given pride of place, stressing the novelty of his approach to ethics as cognitive therapy, in this case just following an already existing new wave of interest after nineteenth-century oblivion justified by alleged lack of authentic ‘philosophical’ character. -/- 6. The Hebrew moral tradition. -/- A reconstruction of basic ideas from a few books of the Hebrew Bible is provided, starting with the Prophetic tradition and the focus on God’s mercy as the source of motivation and standard for human behaviour. Then a comparative analysis is undertaken of a parallel tradition, namely the three codifications of the Torah (Law or, better, Instruction), highlighting how a core of moral ideas may be recognized as a basis and preamble of codification of civil law, cultural practice, and regulation of ritual purity. The importance of Levitic is stressed as the turning point when the stress on mercy, typical of the Prophetic tradition, starts being combined with legal tradition yielding the change in the sensibility of the Second Temple time. -/- 7. Second Temple Judaism. -/- This chapter describes the Long March leading from the post-exile Zadokite restoration to the first-century aevi vulgaris. The first topic reconstructed is the Zadokite theology of the double retribution. The second is the alternative Enochic tradition consistently rejecting the central role of the Temple, the Priesthood and worship as atonement for sins and offering as an alternative God’s unlimited mercy and preaching mercy, not sacrifice as the way of behaving requested by God. Wisdom literature, the third subject discusses, is a kind of third way, on the one hand increasingly critical towards the double retribution and ruling theology’s optimism facing the world as it is and on the other mocking at the Enochic current as a band of dreamers and visionaries. The third way consists in disenchantment facing the word as it is combined with a refusal of vain and childish hope of prizes for the righteous, suggesting instead the leading idea of right deeds for righteousness’s sake. Rabbi Hillel, Rabbi Yeshua and Philo of Alexandria are described as the three leading figures at the culminating point of such process of emergence of a new sensibility, gradually including mercy as an essential part of justice and establishing the starting point of both the Rabbinic and the Christian tradition. This starting point consists precisely in the precept of one’s neighbour’s love or of the golden rule, whose meaning is, arguably, more consistent than a long-lasting Christian tradition deriving from John and Augustine made us believe. And Christian morality, vis-à-vis allegedly legalist ‘Ancient Testament’ teachings, is less of a novelty than most early Christian writers announced. -/- 8. Talmudic moral doctrines and proto-Christian paraenesis. -/- The first three sections examine the moral doctrines of so-called 'ethical Treaties' from the Talmud, a group of treaties, among which the best known is Pirke Avot, that were left out of the six "orders" of the canon as they did not fit in any of the six groups of issues ritual or legal on which the division was based. According to Maimonides, their peculiar theme is provided by the Deot, 'opinions', i.e., mental dispositions, that is, the translation of the Greek term hexes and Arab akhlak (in turn providing in this language the name for ethics as such). The three topics I reconstruct are: i) the notion of Torah: The Torah is understood as the world order itself, or as the ‘Wisdom’ that existed even before creation and was "the tool by which the world was built"; however, the Torah is an earthly and human entity, as it was "received" by humans, and from that very moment belongs to them; ii) the relationship between love of God and love of neighbour; the treaties require us to study and practice the Torah ‘for its own sake’, that is, require us to act out of love, not out of fear or hope of reward; iii) the idea of sanctification of daily life: having disappeared with the destruction of the Temple the possibility of any conflict between liturgical service and everyday life, the latter is assumed to be in itself divine service: to give food to the poor has the same value as sacrifices in the Temple, and as an implication, the insistence become recurrent on the goodness of created things in themselves along with a polemic against ascetic currents. The conclusions drawn are: i) the moral teachings of the Talmud and those of Yeshua are, rather than similar, virtually identical; one may safely say that the precept of love and the golden rule are central ones for all Talmudic rabbis, that mercy plays an indispensable role alongside with justice, and the latter is not a different thing from one’s neighbour’s love; ii) a peculiarity of Talmud rabbis facing Yeshua is the idea of study as worship, and knowledge as a source of justice; but this is an idea of Judaism after the Temple's destruction that cannot be attributed to the Pharisees of Yeshua’s time; iii) the relation of study and practice in the Talmud parallels that between faith and deeds in Paul's epistles, that is, respectively faith or learning are a necessary and sufficient condition to be recognized as righteous, but deeds are the inevitable effect of either faith or learning. The last two sections examine first the various Christian currents and then Gnostic para-Christian or non-Christian currents as well as Manicheism. The sayings ascribed to Yeshua are examined first, yielding the conclusion that a close equivalent may be found for every saying in Talmudic literature and yet the whole is ascribed to one rabbi, with rather consistent stress on God’s mercy and unconditional forgiving as the mark of true imitation of God. Thus, Yeshua’s teaching is pure, purest Judaism. The last section describes briefly the galaxy of Gnostic currents and Manicheism, trying to sketch the profile of moral teachings resulting from an encounter of Asian spiritual traditions, Hellenistic lore and sparks of teachings from apocalyptic Jewish currents. -/- 9. Christianity as “philosophy”. -/- The chapter reconstructs the stormy story of several encounters between Christian currents and Hellenistic philosophical schools. The first one was with late Cynicism. Recent, rather controversial, literature discovered the jargon and several rhetorical topics from the Stoic and Cynical popular philosophy in a few books from the New Testament itself. This, far from proving that Rabbi Yeshua himself had been influenced by cynical preachers, is a proof of the necessity to translate the original Christian message in a Greek lexicon deeply impregnated with cynic terminology. The second was with Platonism, yielding the mild and temperate moral teaching of Clemens of Alexandria, teaching the sanctity of nature and the human body, the joy of moderate fruition of ‘natural’ kinds of pleasures, and the beauty of the marital life – in short, the opposite of the standard picture of Medieval Christianity. Ambrose of Milan brings about a different kind of synthesis, namely with Middle Platonism, where Stoic themes prevail. The most shocking case is Augustine, where early Manichean education is overcome in a former phase by a synthesis of Plotinian Neo-Platonism and Christian preaching, yielding a sustained polemic with the Manicheans and rather optimistic views on life and Creation, the body and sexuality, and Hebrew-Judaic tradition not far from Clemens of Alexandria. In a later phase, occasioned by controversy on the opposite front, with such Christian currents as the Pelagians and Donatists, Augustine comes back to heavily anti-Judaic and world-denying ascetic attitudes where is earlier Manichean upbringing seems to emerge again. The tragedy of medieval Christianity will be the later Augustine’s overwhelming influence. A final section is dedicated to the monastic tradition where a curious mixture of world-denying asceticism with an astonishingly penetrating ‘science’ of introspection emerges. -/- 10. Ethics in the Arabic-Islamic Philosophy. -/- The Qurān and the qadit, that is, collections of sayings ascribed to the prophet Muhammad contain a wealth of precepts and catalogues of virtues mirroring moral contents from the Jewish and the Christian traditions, among them the basic notion of imitation of the Deity, where mercy is assumed to be its basic trait. An important tradition within Islam, namely Sufism, stressed to the utmost degree the role of mercy, turning Islam into a mystic doctrine centred on the retreat from the world, abandonment to God’s will, and a peaceful and fraternal attitude to our fellow-beings. A secular literary tradition originating in the Sassanid Empire, the literature of advice to the Prince, had for a time a widespread influence in the newly constituted Arabic-Islamic commonwealth. In a later phase, the legacy of Hellenic philosophy made its way into the intellectual elite of the Islamic world. The first important legacy was Platonic, and the Republic became the main text for Islamic Platonism. In a second phase also Aristotelian and Stoic influence were assimilated. Miskawayh’s treatise was the masterwork at the time Arabic philosophy reached its Zenith. It is a treatment of the soul’s diseases and their remedies, combining the Aristotelian doctrine of the golden mean with the Stoic doctrine of the passions and elements of Galenic medicine. Towards the eleventh-twelve centuries, a war raged among theologians and philosophers, finally won by the former with the disappearance of philosophy as such. The newly established mainstream, yet, was no kind of intolerant fanaticism. It drew from the work of mystic theologian Al-Ghazālī, the best heir of Sufism, teaching a tolerant and peaceful attitude to our fellow-beings and a passive attitude to destiny as an expression of the Divine will. -/- 11. Ethics in the Jewish philosophy. -/- The encounter between the Talmudic tradition and Hellenic philosophy had taken place for the first time in Alexandria at the time of Philo but the two traditions had parted way again. In fact, the kind of Platonic Judaism founded by Philo survived only within Christianity, in the fourth Gospel and then in writings by Clemens of Alexandria. The Talmudic literature had absorbed too a few traits from the Hellenic Philosophy, namely an idea of ethics as care of the self and a role for the education of character as propaedeutic to theoretical knowledge. In the Arabic-Islamic world, a second round started when Jewish authors writing in Arabic undertook the task to prove the full compatibility of the tradition deriving from Tora and Platonic philosophy. The culmination of this attempt is provided by Moshe ben Maimon who tried to use Aristotelian ethics as a language into which the teaching from the Pirke Avot could be translated. -/- 12. The practical philosophy revival in Latin Europe. -/- A reconstruction is carried out of a fresh start of philosophical ethics in Latin Europe at the turn of the Millennium rescuing a Platonic and Augustinian legacy, with Anselm and Peter Abelard. In this phase remarkable innovations are introduced, including Abelard’s claim of the obliging character of erring consciousness. In a second phase, the rediscovery of Nicomachean Ethics thanks to Latin translation of Arabic versions, gives birth to a new wave of ethical studies, recovering the very idea of Aristotelian practical philosophy, with the potential implication of a full legitimization of natural morality, i.e. ethics without Revelation. -/- 13. Scholastic practical philosophy: Thomas Aquinas. -/- Aquinas’s ethics is theological ethics out of which it would be vain to try to extract self-contained philosophical ethics. His treatment of topics in philosophical ethics, yet, does not boil down to the repetition of Aristotelian arguments but is rather a creative reshaping of such arguments. For example, he introduces also in the practical philosophy a first principle parallel to the principle of non-contradiction; and he also carries out a synthesis of Aristotelianism, Stoicism, neo-Platonism. Even though it is essentially moral theology, Aquinas’s doctrine - unlike Augustine – grants full citizenship to "natural" morality, firstly by rejecting the claim that the corruption of human nature due to the original sin is so radical as to leave pure nature incapable of moral goodness. The doctrine is presented in a more sophisticated formulation in a few of the Quaestiones such as De Malo and De Veritate, in the Summa contra Gentes and in the commentaries to Aristotle than in the famous Summa Theologica, but the latter work includes the only or the largest exposition of some decisive part of the theory. Thus, the Summa Theologica should be read for what it is more than criticized for not being what it was not meant to be. It was not meant to be the brilliant synthesis of all that Reason he had been able to produce with what Revelation had added about which the Neo-Thomists used to dream, but rather a manual for the training of preachers and confessors, where theoretical claims are not too ambitious, and a few serious tensions are left. Besides a jump between the Prima Secundae and the Secunda Secundae, being the former an essay in virtue theory and the latter a handbook for confessors, the most serious tension is perhaps the one between the ethics of right reason presented in most of Prima Secundae and the eudemonistic ethics developed in quaestiones 1-5 of the same part; the alternative ethical theory which also may be found in Augustine, the Stoic view of a cosmic reason eventually coincident with the moral law, was believed by Anselm (followed by John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham) to be incompatible with eudemonism. It is questionable whether Thomas was able to solve the tension proving that it is just an apparent tension, in so far as the right reason and bliss derived from the knowledge of God tend to coincide, but this is just a conjecture. Thomas’s ethics is a virtue ethics, not a law-based one, and moral judgment focuses on the virtues, particularly charity, not on the commandments and even less on absolute prohibitions; Thomas, however, would not have considered a drastic alternative between law and the virtues such as the one which has been advanced in late twentieth-century philosophy to be justified. Nonetheless, when it discusses ‘special’ virtues, it ceases to be an ethics of virtue and becomes a disappointing and often contradictory discussion of legal and illegal acts. Such a discussion takes most of the time ‘reasonable’ middle positions on controversial issues but not the alternative approach that Aristotelianism would have made possible; even when some occasional Aristotelian claim shows up, such as money’s barrenness as a reason against usury, this seems to be made by an author who apparently ignores the Aristotelian Thomas of the Prima Secundae. It is an ethic of human autonomy which recognizes the binding character of the individual conscience and, potentially, even a duty to disobey unjust laws. It is true that what Thomas writes in his discussion of the death penalty and persecution of heretics is simply disgusting, and yet we should blame Thomas the man, not the Thomist ethical theory. Finally, Thomas’s ethics is no way an ethical ‘absolutism’, as both the traditionalist Catholic theologians and secularists tend to believe, but rather an ethic of prudential judgment on the individual case. Exceptions to this approach – or better the result of logical fallacies – are provided by the thesis of the absolute character of negative precepts and of the existence of so-called intrinsically evil acts, a thesis that would simply cease to make sense in the light of Thomas’s own distinction between human act and natural act, carrying consequences that Thomas did not live long enough to draw. -/- 14. Scholastic practical philosophy: John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham. A reconstruction is carried out of the ethical doctrines by both most authoritative Franciscan doctors. Their continuity with Aquinas is vindicated against prejudice carried by centuries of polemics within the Catholic Church and tendentious disparaging of both as forerunners of execrable Reformation. Besides aspects of continuity, also the important novelties are illustrated, first John’s abandonment of Aquinas’s and Augustine’s eudemonism, asserting righteousness for righteousness’s sake, and then William’s explicit defence of the philosopher’s virtues, that is, natural morality, and his solution to the dilemma of God’s omnipotence and the universal validity of natural law extending to God himself. -/- 15. Aristotelianism interpreted by the Magistri Artium. -/- A reconstruction of the until recently forgotten ethical doctrines by the Parisian Magistri Artium, falsely depicted as ‘Averroists’ and either deprecated as heretics or mistaken for predecessors of modern secularism. In fact, they illustrate a view of ‘natural’ virtue as may be understood by human reason without the assistance by Revelation. -/- Etiamsi daremus Deum non esse. Intermediate considerations. Three considerations may be suggested by the story told in the book. The first one is that intellectual histories have been mounted in the past with the same state of mind as one may mount a war chariot. Such constructions are not very helpful as tools for understanding the past. Wars waged in the past have left the field obstructed by ruins not easy to remove even by those historians who have animated by an impartial academic motivation. They have been influenced too by consequences of past emphasis on some authors and damnatio capitis suffered by others, by stratifications left on sources by secondary literature and translations, by allotment of originally close sources to different literary genres, by the monopolization of religious texts by churches with full cooperation by secular scholars who still fear contamination. The second one is that aware or unaware ethnocentrism has carried various calamities to our comprehension of the past. Their last vestiges have surfaced again in the semi-scholarly discussion on the idea of Europe occasioned by the debate on a project of a European Constitution. Mention of Europe’s Christian roots has been the clumsiest move. Proclamations of such roots were so obvious in what they affirmed as they were totally off-path concerning what they omitted, namely that he modern European moral tradition included legacies from Middle-Eastern wisdom, Hellenic philosophy, Roman Imperial legal literature, and, besides, a Jewish legacy in turn incorporating other more ancient Middle-Eastern legacies and which has been partly conveyed by Christianity. And the Islamic-Arabic philosophy too, in so far it made the Nicomachean Ethics available to Latin Christian scholars, is one more of Europe’s roots. The third is that religious traditionalists and secularist fundamentalists have gone hand in hand for a couple of centuries in either extolling or deprecating the allegedly Modern idea of Ethics without God, first formulated by Hugo Grotius with the claim that natural law would still be valid ‘etiamsi daremus – quod sine summo scelere dari potest – Deum non esse’. The facts are, firstly, that this is not an irreligious claim and Grotius was just a pious and meek Christian and, secondly, that it is not a ‘modern’ claim but rather one more formulation of the claim that there is a natural morality, independent of divine revelation, a claim shared by Moshe ben Maimon, Aquinas and William of Ockham. -/- . (shrink)

"Ecological catastrophes are ony terrifying for civilians. For the military, they are but a simulation of chaos, an opportunity to justify an art of warfare which is the more autonomous as the political State dies out. At this point, all civilian populations are helpless victims of the scam, of this ransacking of the world's resources.".

Scientific debates about the nature of light have nothing to do with the philosophical problem of evil if you focus on the subject matter of those debates, but quite a bit to do with it if you focus on the structure of the reasoning in those debates. Some theories of light have been shown to be improbable, at least other evidence held equal, by comparing them to incompatible theories, both with respect to how well they fit certain data and (at (...) least implicitly) with respect to how probable they are intrinsically. Similarly, (a popular form of) theism can be shown to be improbable, at least other evidence held equal, by comparing it to the incompatible theory that physical reality is the source of mental reality. This theory of “source physicalism” fits a variety of data about good and evil much better than theism does. Further, primarily because of its modesty, source physicalism is many times more probable intrinsically than theism. It follows that, other evidence held equal, theism is very probably false. (shrink)

Despite the wonders of the digital world, people still go in record numbers to view drawings and paintings in galleries. Why? What is the magic that pictures work on us? This book provides a provocative explanation, arguing that some pictures have special kinds of beauty and sublimity that offer aesthetic transcendence. They take us imaginatively beyond our finite limits and even invoke a sense of the divine. Such aesthetic transcendence forges a relationship with the ultimate and completes us psychologically. Philosophers (...) and theologians sometimes account for this as an effect of art, but How Pictures Complete Us distinguishes itself by revealing how this experience is embodied in pictorial structures and styles. Through detailed discussions of artworks from the Renaissance through postmodern times, Paul Crowther reappraises the entire scope of beauty and the sublime in the context of both representational and abstract art, offering unexpected insights into familiar phenomena such as ideal beauty, pictorial perspective, and what pictures are in the first place. (shrink)

In this book, Paul Moser explores Jesus' role as God's filial inquirer and clarifies a method of inquiry regarding Jesus, one that offers a compelling explanation regarding his experiential impact and his audience's response. Moser's method values the roles of history and moral/religious experience in inquiry about him, and it saves inquirers from distorting biases in their inquiry. His study illuminates Jesus' puzzling features, including his challenging question for inquirers of him, his distinctive experience of God as father, his (...) reference to himself as 'the son of man', his attitude toward his suffering and death, his unique role in the kingdom of God, and his understanding of his allegedly miraculous signs and of his parables and good news. The book also makes sense of evidence for the reality and the main purpose of Jesus. (shrink)

The German theologian examines the philosophical foundations of the religions practiced by Western man.

Despite the importance of extrapair copulation (EPC) in human evolution, almost nothing is known about the design features of EPC detection mechanisms. We tested for sex differences in EPC inference-making mechanisms in a sample of 203 young couples. Men made more accurate inferences (φmen = 0.66, φwomen = 0.46), and the ratio of positive errors to negative errors was higher for men than for women (1.22 vs. 0.18). Since some may have been reluctant to admit EPC behavior, we modeled how (...) underreporting could have influenced these results. These analyses indicated that it would take highly sex-differentiated levels of underreporting by subjects with trusting partners for there to be no real sex difference. Further analyses indicated that men may be less willing to harbor unresolved suspicions about their partners’ EPC behavior, which may explain the sex difference in accuracy. Finally, we estimated that women underreported their own EPC behavior (10%) more than men (0%). (shrink)

Diotima at the Barricades argues that the debates that emerged from the burgeoning of feminist intellectual life in post-modern France involved complex, structured, and reciprocal exchanges on the interpretation and position of Plato and other ancient texts in the western philosophical and literary tradition. Paul Allen Miller shows how individual works of Anglo-American figures such as Toril Moi, Judith Butler, and Kaja Silverman, as well as movements such as queer theory, are rooted in feminist theoretical debates that began in (...) the sixties in France and have continued right up to the present day. (shrink)