This book grows out of a long-felt need for a readable source that explores all aspects of people's values. Good information on the study of human values exists scattered about in various sources, spanning disciplines and decades, but it is not easily located nor readily assimilated and organized in mind.

Clearly, Marx thought he was promoting democratic values. In the Manifesto, the immediate goal of socialism is summed up as “to win the battle of democracy.” Marx sees the reduction of individuality as one of the greatest injuries done by a system in which most people buy and sell their labor power on terms over which they have little control. As they supervised translations and re-issues of the Manifesto, Marx and Engels singled out just one point as a major topic (...) on which their view in 1848 had been superseded. The forms of government needed to be changed to give people more control over the state, a change in structure pioneered by the Paris Commune. (shrink)

This book presents an alternative to conventional ideas about the evolution of the human intellect.

Contains fourteen essays and an introduction addressing the main areas of scholarly interest for Richard W. Davis, Professor Emeritus, Washington University, St Louis Questions how individuals envision the public good in modern Britain and how, through religious and moral beliefs, coupled with wisdom and political savvy, they can improve the public good through the ever-changing nineteenth century political institutions Essays range from studies of local electoral politics and parliamentary reform campaign to national political party organization, high politics and the (...) role religion and empire played in the creation of national policy Examines the influence of individuals on the political process through their professional work in historical and philosophical writing, journalism and missionary work at home and abroad Provides new original research in the area of modern British political history together in Parliamentary History. (shrink)

In this bold work of broad scope and rich erudition, Richard W. Miller sets out to reorient the philosophy of science.

The primary purpose of this paper is to offer an interpretation of Descartes' proof of the existence of matter as found in Meditation VI--an interpretation that is, I believe, the only one consistent with the relevant texts. The one guiding principle I use in offering this interpretation is the principle of charity, that is, when one interprets any philosopher's argument, and unsound argument should not be accepted as his unless there is no alternative interpretive argument that is both sound and (...) consistent with the relevant texts of that philosopher. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

"Intelligence" has long been considered to be a feature unique to human beings, giving us the capacity to imagine, to think, to deceive, to make complex connections between cause and effect, to devise elaborate stategies for solving problems. However, like all our other features, intelligence is a product of evolutionary change. Until recently, it was difficult to obtain evidence of this process from the frail testimony of a few bones and stone tools. It has become clear in the last 15 (...) years that the origins of human intelligence can be investigated by the comparative study of primates, our closest non-human relatives, giving strong impetus to the case for an "evolutionary psychology", the scientific study of the mind. (shrink)

There is a long tradition of considering the lesser Byzantine historical texts - those not written in the classicizing narrative style of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Procopius - as the products of a continuous development from Hellenistic and late antique chronicles. As a result, they are all still called chronicles in spite of the fact that the only characteristics they share with earlier chronicles and one another is their condensed and ‘universal’ approach to history. In reality, there were only a very (...) few true Byzantine chronicles, while all the other so-called chronicles developed from other Hellenistic and Roman genres into six distinct groups of texts that are completely unrelated to chronicles, apart from some content. This analysis is founded primarily upon the structure of and use of chronology by these texts, which are all represented by lengthy quotations that readers can compare for themselves. (shrink)

Professor Hutchings’ discussion of my views on the ontology of works of art pushes my argument further and clarifies some of the issues by relating them to scholastic ontology, both in traditional and in recent formulations. However, Hutchings misconstrues my argument in two important respects: he attributes to me a narrower view of ‘analogical method’ and of the term ‘equivocal’ than I actually hold and so consequently misses the sense in which the ‘ontological commitment’ the critic according to me will (...) be presupposed in aesthetic discussions. Since the clarification of these disagreements will throw light on the ontology of art, I should like to summarize Hutchings’ critical remarks relevant to points and and then briefly indicate my answers to these criticisms and their relevance to aesthetic theory. (shrink)

Immoral excesses of American foreign policy are so severe and so deep-rooted that American patriotism is now a moral burden. This love, which pulls toward amnesia, wishful thinking and inattention to urgent foreign interests, should be replaced by commitment to a global social movement that seeks to hem in the American empire. Teachers can advance this cause without abusing their positions. But to do so, they must violate distinctive social expectations at different levels of American education.

There has been a conflation by many Catholics of the Church's pro-life teaching with the strategy of overturning Roe v. Wade. In this paper, I argue that there are other ways for Catholics to think about and respond to the tragedy of abortion. First, I argue that there are serious limitations to the present legal strategy of overturning Roe. Second, I tum to social scientific data to describe the conditions that lead to abortions. Third, I argue that the Catholic strategy (...) should be mindful of the limits of the present legal strategy and should bedeveloped in accord with what the social scientific data reveals. Finally, since the multiple factors that lead to abortions demand a complex multi-faceted response, I suggest some ways Catholics should respond to the abortion problem within the Church and the wider political sphere. (shrink)