More's Latin reply to Bugenhagen, given here with a facing English translation, is a comparatively brief but intense rebuttal of the principal points of Lutheran teaching concerning scripture ant tradition, faith and works, grace and free will, clerical celibacy, and the sacraments. It presents arguments elaborated at much greater length in More's other polemical works. _Supplication of Souls_ refutes _A Supplication for the Beggars_, an anticlerical pamphlet by Simon Fish which Henry VIII seems to have regarded with some favor. More (...) places his response in the mouths of the souls in purgatory. In the first book, he contemptuously demolished Fish's loose railery with accurate statistics and historical analysis. In the second, he defends the traditional doctrine of purgatory with brief arguments drawn from reason and a detailed analysis of scriptural passages. _Letter against Frith_ answers John Frith's Zwinglian arguments against the physical presence of Christ in the more. Written to an unknown correspondent, it is the briefest and mildest of More's polemical works and anticipates arguments presented moer elaborately in More's _The Answer to a Poisoned Book_. Besides full introductions and commentaries, a glossary, and an index, this volume contains seven appendices giving the works to which More is replying and other thematic, historical, and bibliographical matter closely related to the three works by More. (shrink)

Richard Rorty is well known as a propagandist of pragmatism and of a "post-philosophical" culture in which many traditional philosophical debates are dismissed as outrightly fruitless. The paper is mainly concerned with Rorty's dismissal of the realism-antirealism debate. The shift from argument to propaganda which is typical of much of Rorty's reasoning is critically investigated from different perspectives. In particular, it is argued that Rorty cannot convincingly establish a pragmatist position beyond realism and antirealism, and that pragmatism seems to (...) be inadequate with respect to scientific practice. Finally, the fruitfulness of the realism-antirealism debate is defended. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 453 PAUL HENRY (19o6-1984) Paul Henry was a renowned scholar of Plotinus and Neo-Platonism. Born in Louvain, the son of a chemistry professor at the university there, he was sent to school in England during World War I. He then returned to Belgium, and studied philosophy and theology at Louvain, and joined the Society of Jesus. He did further studies in Paris in Middle Eastern culture, and (...) studied Arabic in Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. In Rome he did further studies and received an S.T.D. from the Pontifical Gregorian University, as well as a Licentiate in Sacred Scripture from the Pontifical Gregorian University. He was appointed professor at the Institut Catholique in Paris. He published several fundamental studies on Plotinus and the development of NeoPlatonism in Western thought. He and Hans Rudolf Schwyzer of Zurich collaborated on the critical edition of Plotinus's Enneads,and he and his former student, Pierre Hadot, produced the critical edition of the theological treatises of Marius Victorinus. Paul Henry made his first visit to the United States in 1952 where he was a visiting professor at Fordham. At a meeting of the American Philosophical Association that year he met Richard Popkin. They became close friends. This led to Henry being invited to be a visiting professor at the University of Iowa, to give the Foster lecture on the immortality of the soul at the University of California, Berkeley, and to his later being appointed a regular professor at the University of California, San Diego. He also was a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Duke, Northwestern, the College of New Rochelle and St. John's University in New York. Paul Henry was an important consultant and adviser to the JournaloftheHistoryofPhilosophy in its early years. With his vast erudition, his understanding of the different kinds of scholarship being undertaken in Europe and America, in Catholic and non-Catholic institutions, he was able to assist us in finding the best scholarly articles, the best referees and reviewers of materials in many fields. Paul Henry was a person of immense charm, vivacity and humanity. He was able to break down barriers between people of differing backgrounds, and to form deep, abiding friendships with students and scholars all over the world. He took great interest in a variety of ventures to increase learning and understanding in intellectual history. His concerns ranged from early Christian thought, pagan Neo-Platonism, the fusion of the two in Victorinus and Augustine, up to leading intellectual ideas in modern European thought such as the structuralism of LeviStrauss and the theology of Teilhard de Chardin. He encouraged young and maturing scholars in America and Europe, and tried to bring out the very best of their abilities. He encouraged the understanding of different thought systems, the appreciation of their strengths and weaknesses. And, perhaps as much as any one in the post-second-World-War period, he encouraged frank and open discussions between Catholic and non-Catholic scholars, and thereby built many bridges. Those who knew him have profited immensely from his learning, wisdom and humanity. Those who worked to launch and develop the Journal are especially grateful for his help and support in the early days of this venture. We hope that his scholarship will encourage many others to develop fresh understandings of Neo-Platonism and its importance in the philosophical, theological and scientific world, from ancient times to the present. He will be sorely missed, but he has left a great legacy to those working in the history of philosophy. RICHARD H. POPKIN... (shrink)

Richard Sorabji presents a unique discussion of the development of moral conscience over a period of 2500 years, from the playwrights of the fifth century BCE to the present. He addresses key topics including the original meaning and continuing nature of conscience, the ideas of freedom of religion and conscience with climaxes in the early Christian centuries and the seventeenth, the disputes on absolution or 'terrorisation' of conscience, dilemmas of conscience, and moral double-bind, the reliability of conscience if it (...) is shaped by local custom, and modern opposition to the idea of conscience and its role in legislation. (shrink)

Richard Sorabji, a noted philosopher in his own right, here offers a new edition of his 1972 translation of "De Memoria" here with commentary, summaries, and three essays comparing Aristotle's accounts of memory and recollection. For this edition, Sorabji has also provided a substantial new introduction taking into account scholarly debates over the intervening thirty years, particularly those over the role of mental images in the imagination. "Sorabji has produced a first-class book on an important topic. All Aristotelians, and (...) anyone with an interest in any aspect of memory, will be in his debt."--Jonathan Barnes, "Isis ""Anyone concerned with Aristotle's psychology, theory of mind, or rhetoric, anyone interested in mnemonic systems, and anyone trying to work out for himself a theory of memory, should read Aristotle's treatise "On Memory," with the comments by Richard Sorabji."--"International Studies in Philosophy" "Sorabji's book is a sample of care, intelligence, and subtlety that the Anglo-Saxon philosophers do not hesitate to invest in such enterprises.... The notes seem to leave no detail, no textual difficulty unilluminated."--"Revue de Metaphysique et de Morale ". (shrink)

Charles Sanders Peirce is regarded as the founding father of pragmatism and a key figure in the development of American philosophy, yet his practical philosophy remains under-acknowledged and misinterpreted. In this book, Richard Atkins argues that Peirce did in fact have developed and systematic views on ethics, on religion, and on how to live, and that these views are both plausible and relevant. Drawing on a controversial lecture that Peirce delivered in 1898 and related works, he examines Peirce's theories (...) of sentiment and instinct, his defence of the rational acceptability of religious belief, his analysis of self-controlled action, and his pragmatic account of practical ethics, showing how he developed his views and how they interact with those of his great contemporary William James. This study will be essential for scholars of Peirce and for those interested in American philosophy, pragmatism, the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of action, and ethics. (shrink)

BackgroundDuring the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic, various professional ethical guidance was issued to (and for) health and social care professionals in England and Wales. Guidance can help to inform and support such professionals and their patients, clients and service users, but a plethora of guidance risked information overload, confusion, and inconsistency. MethodsDuring the early months of the pandemic, we undertook a rapid review, asking: what are the principles adopted by professional ethical guidance in England and Wales for dealing with (...) COVID-19? We undertook thematic content analysis of the 29 documents that met our inclusion criteria.ResultsThe 29 documents captured 13 overlapping principles: respect, fairness, minimising harm, reciprocity, proportionality, flexibility, working together, inclusiveness, communication, transparency, reasonableness, responsibility, and accountability.ConclusionsWe intend this attempt to collate and outline the prominent principles to be helpful, particularly, for healthcare practice during the COVID-19 pandemic and, hopefully, for future pandemic planning. We also offer some reflections on the guidance and the principles therein. After describing the principles, we reflect on some of the similarities and differences in the guidance, and the challenges associated not only with the specific guidance reviewed, but also with the nature and import of “professional ethical guidance”. (shrink)

New models of data governance for health data are a focus of growing interest in an era of challenge to the social licence. In this article, we reflect on what the data trust model, which is founded on principles of participatory governance, can learn from experiences of involving and engagement of members of the public and participants in the governance of large-scale biobanks. We distinguish between upstream and ongoing governance models, showing how they require careful design and operation if they (...) are to deliver on aspirations for deliberation and participation. Drawing on this learning, we identify a set of considerations important to future design for data trusts as they seek to ensure just, proportionate and fair governance. These considerations relate to the timing of involvement of participants, patterns of inclusion and exclusion, and responsiveness to stakeholder involvement and engagement. We emphasise that the evolution of governance models for data should be matched by a commitment to evaluation. (shrink)

Suppose there are two people having a moral disagreement about, say, abortion. They argue in a familiar way about whether fetuses have rights, whether a woman’s right to autonomy over her body overrides the fetus’s welfare, and so on. But then suppose one of the people says “Oh, it’s all just a matter of opinion; there’s no objective fact about whether fetuses have rights. When we say that something is morally forbidden, all we’re really doing is expressing our disapproval of (...) it.” The other person protests: “No!—that’s totally wrong. Of course there are objective moral truths.” And suppose their dispute now settles on this new matter of whether there are objective moral facts, and the debate continues. They’ve now stopped discussing abortion, and are discussing the nature of any moral debate about abortion; they’ve stopped doing ethics, and started doing metaethics. If wondering about what one morally ought to do is to engage in ethical thought, then wondering about what one is doing when one wonders about what one morally ought to do is to engage in metaethical thought. When we make public moral judgments are we stating facts, or are we just expressing our opinions? And if there are moral facts, then what kind of fact are they? Can moral judgments be true or false? Can moral judgments be justified, and if so how? These kinds of questions are the domain of metaethics. (I’m not saying that there is a crisp and principled line to be drawn between meta-ethics and regular ethical discourse; but it is, if nothing else, a pedagogically useful division of labor.). (shrink)

Our ancestors believed in many things which did not exist—gods, witches, the luminiferous ether, phlogiston, reincarnated souls, sense-data, conceptual analysis, and the like. But they had no better ways of coping with the irradiations beating down upon their sense organs. So they were justified in making assertions which did not bear those desirable relations to things in the world—relations like naming and truth—which we like to think are sustained by our own assertions. This fact brings out the difference between the (...) results of rational, sincere and industrious inquiry on the one hand, and truth on the other. Our ancestors had all the former virtues, but somehow these did not suffice to get them in touch with reality. Since we can no longer dismiss them as blinded by prejudice, passion and superstition, we would like some philosophical way of explaining our superiority to them. (shrink)

The political passages in Polanyi’s Personal Knowledge are an integral part of his arguments against ‘objectivism’ and/or a post-critical, personalist, fiduciary and fallibilist philosophy. This paper elaboratesthe social and political implications of Polanyi’s emphasis upon acceptance of one’s situation and the exercise in it of a sense of responsibility to transcendent ideals, as against attempts to start with a clean slate, to overcome all imperfections and to find some simple rule for political policy. Prescriptive duties and rights, and mutual trust (...) and solidarity, are the bases of politics, anti responsible action must start with them. But much of modern politics expresses a Gnostic impatience of our created and finite existence which results in arbitrary commitment to some radical and destructive ideology. (shrink)

This book brings recent developments in Anglo-American philosophy into engagement with dominant currents in contemporary European social theory in order to articulate a pragmatic account of moral criticism. Presented in a lively and accessible style that avoids technical jargon, Morality and Social Criticism argues that the objectivity of moral discourse can be preserved without recourse to the overweening philosophical ambitions of the Enlightenment.

Here is a universal biology that draws upon the contributions of Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel to unravel the mystery of life and conceive what is essential to living things anywhere they may arise. The book develops a philosopher’s guide to life in the universe, conceiving how nature becomes a biosphere in which life can emerge, what are the basic life processes common to any organism, how evolution can give rise to the different possible forms of life, and what distinguishes the (...) essential life forms from one another. (shrink)

This article focuses on an area of study that may be called folk economics and that is currently not on the social science agenda. Folk economics has as its task to analyze and explain how people view the economy and how it works; what categories they use in doing so; and what effect this has on the economy and society. Existing studies in economics and sociology that are relevant to this type of study are presented and discussed. A theoretical framework (...) for analyzing folk economic issues is suggested, centered on the distinction between episteme and doxa or between scientific knowledge, on the one hand, and everyday knowledge, on the other. This is then applied to an exploratory case study of the role that folk economics played in Trump’s presidential campaign. It is shown that Trump and his voters thought in a parallel way on key economic issues, especially protectionism. (shrink)

David Sedley recently complained that despite the enormous amount of work on Parmenides in the past generation, the details of Parmenides' arguments have received insufficient attention. It is universally recognized that Parmenides' introduction of argument into philosophy was a move of paramount importance. It is also recognized that the arguments of fragment B8 are closely related. At the beginning of B8, Parmenides asserts that what-is has several attributes; he offers a series of proofs that what-is indeed has those attributes. This (...) article undertakes a close analysis of fragment B8, teasing out the structure of the arguments, and showing what parts of the traditional and new interpretations of Parmenides those arguments do support. It presents some surprising conclusions and opens up spaces for new interpretations. (shrink)

But educational reflection of social rigidity lessens labor force's efficiency.

Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the decision regret scale. Methods: The data of 704 patients who completed the DRSc were used for the analyses. We evaluated the construct, convergent/discriminant, and known-group validity; internal consistency and test–retest reliability; and the item invariance of the DRSc. A receiver operating characteristic curve was employed to confirm the optimal cutoff point of the scale. Results: A confirmatory factor analysis indicated that a one-factor (...) model fits the data. The internal consistency and test–retest reliability [intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.71] of the DRSc were acceptable. The DRSc demonstrated unidimensionality and invariance for use across the sexes. It was confirmed that an optimal cutoff point of 25 could discriminate between patients with high and low decisional regret during clinical practice. Conclusion: The DRSc is a parsimonious instrument that can be used to measure the uncertainty inherent in medical decisions. It can be employed to provide knowledge, offer support, and elicit patient preferences in an attempt to promote shared decision-making. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe most publicised rebellion during the so-called ‘Shareholder Spring’ of 2012 was at Barclays PLC. Using multi-modal and critical discourse analysis, this paper examines how three UK television channels with different public service obligations covered this story on 27 April 2012. It finds that broadcasters’ regulatory obligations do not obviously impact content and that, for example, simple reporting routines contain judgemental phrases. Generally, the multi-dimensional nature of executive pay is simplified and the real balance between private and individual shareholders is (...) obscured. Analysis also reveals that editing and the use of images can subtly construct discourses that may not reflect the reality of the dissent. The paper concludes that established criticisms that business journalism is indolent and that corporate discourses are privileged are not supported, but also that the coverage contributes little to promote wider understanding of executive pay debates. (shrink)

This is the text of The Lindley Lecture for 1963, given by Richard B. Brandt (1910-1997), an American philosopher.

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)

The aim of this paper is to defend the evidential Argument from Evil from the challenge brought against it by skeptical theists. That challenge is rooted in skeptical theism's assessment that the so-called Noseeum Inference, which is at the heart of the Evidential Argument from Evil, is unsound due to the epistemic gap between God and humans. I will argue that that epistemic gap could be bridged if God were to build the bridge by assisting us to understand his morally (...) sufficient reasons for causing or allowing horrendous suffering of the innocent. I further argue that if God exists, he would be able to assist us, given his omnipotence, and he would want to assist us, given his omnibenevolence manifested in the Summum Bonum for humans. If so, then the soundness of the Noseeum Inference and the Evidential Argument from Evil would be upheld against the epistemic gap challenge from skeptical theists. (shrink)