Leo Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilyich might well be read as a narrative outworking of Pascal's observation that "We run heedless into the abyss after putting something in front of us to stop us seeing it."1 That Ivan Ilyich, an ambitious mid-level Russian legal official, plummets into the abyss is incontestable, for the novella opens by announcing his death. What is debated is how he does so: On his deathbed does he merely resign himself to nothingness, or does he (...) undergo some sort of religious conversion? Some scholars—call them "hermeneuts of denial"—find little or no religious significance in Ivan's death.2 If some allusions are religiously suggestive, they must be interpreted and discounted in view of... (shrink)

In the context of the growing popularity of the ethical consumer movement and the appearance of different types of ethical collective communities, the current article explores the meanings drawn from the participation in Responsible Consumption Cooperatives. In existing research, the overriding focus has been on examining individual ethical consumer behaviour at the expense of advancing our understanding of how ethical consumers behave collectively. Hence, this article examines the meanings derived from participating in ethical consumer groups. A qualitative multi-method approach is (...) adopted to increase the validity of findings. This includes focus groups, in-depth interviews, observation and document analysis. Results show that ethical consumption in a group project offers a greater sense of effectiveness and control when compared to individual actions. Furthermore, these groups facilitate the creation of a social circle and encourage new learning as a result of the social interaction that takes place in the ethical community of the cooperative. (shrink)

The concept of ?ethical consumer behavior? has gained significant attention among practitioners and academic researchers, generating increasing but disjointed knowledge on the topic. By analyzing the empirical research on ethical consumer behavior, this article provides researchers with a map to guide future research. In total, we review 80 studies. The main contributions of the article include the identification of the main trends in the ethical consumer literature and the conceptualization of ethical consumer behavior. In addition, several areas for future research (...) are proposed and discussed. (shrink)

René Girard, Theology, and Pop Culture provides a fresh and engaging introduction to and the application of René Girard's mimetic theory. From movies to social media, television to graphic novels, the contributors explore popular culture's theological depths and challenge readers to consider what culture reveals about them.

In A Secular Age, Charles Taylor, faced with contemporary challenges to belief in God, issues a call for "new and unprecedented itineraries" that might be capable of leading seekers to encounter God. In Spiritual Exercises for a Secular Age, Ryan G. Duns demonstrates that William Desmond's philosophy has the resources to offer a compelling response to Taylor. To show how, Duns makes use of the work of Pierre Hadot. In Hadot's view, the point of philosophy is "not (...) to inform but to form"--That is, not to provide abstract answers to abstruse questions but rather to form the human being such that she can approach reality as such in a new way. Drawing on Hadot, Duns frames Desmond's metaphysical thought as a form of spiritual exercise. So framed, Duns argues, Desmond's metaphysics attunes its readers to perceive disclosure of the divine in the everyday. In this way, Desmond's metaphysics is not about conjuring a different reality but instead leads readers to behold reality itself in a different way by helping them to encounter the presence of God, who abides in, and is disclosed through, all things in the world. Spiritual Exercises for a Secular Age offers a readable and engaging introduction to the thought of Charles Taylor and William Desmond, and demonstrates how practicing metaphysics can be understood as a form of spiritual exercise that renews in its practitioners attentiveness to God in all things"-- Back cover. (shrink)

René Girard, Theology, and Pop Culture provides a fresh and engaging introduction to and the application of René Girard’s mimetic theory. From movies to social media, television to graphic novels, the contributors explore popular culture’s theological depths and challenge readers to consider what culture reveals about them.

Josef Pieper’s insight into Aquinas’s metaphysics, that “createdness determines entirely and all-pervasively the inner structure of the creature,” applies equally to philosopher William Desmond.1 For at the heart of Desmond’s metaphysical project lies a refusal to take creation for granted, a challenge to Bertrand Russell’s assertion that “the universe is just there, and that’s all.”2 Desmond work aims at “renewing metaphysical astonishment before the enigma of being that was, and is, and always will be too much for us, in excess (...) of our groping efforts.”3 This “enigma of being” arouses a sense of astonishment at creation’s givenness, “that it is,” and at creation’s contingency, for all that is “might not have been .. (shrink)

Virtues and character strengths are often assumed to be universal, considered equally important to individuals across cultures, religions, racial-ethnic groups, and genders. The results of our surveys and laboratory studies, however, bring to light subtle yet consistent gender differences in the importance attributed to character in leadership: women considered character to be more important to successful leadership in business than did men, and women had higher expectations that individuals should demonstrate character in a new leadership role. Further, the gender of (...) the research participant affected character ratings such that male respondents viewed a female leader who exhibited agentic behaviors in a professionally challenging situation less positively than a male leader who displayed the same agentic behaviors. The data also showed that male participants rated almost every dimension of character displayed by the female leader lower than did female participants. Our findings suggest that the question as to what extent gender differences may bias the assessment of virtues and character strengths is an important one, and one for which the practical implications for individuals in organizations need to be studied in more detail. (shrink)

" Le concept d'un être infini est plus simple que celui d'un être bon ou d'un être vrai et autres semblables, parce que " infini " n'est pas une sorte d'attribut ou une propriété de l'être ou de tout ce dont il est prédiqué.

This paper examines a patient with borderline mental capacity, where the healthcare team is conflicted about how to proceed. This case demonstrates the complicated intersection between undue influence and mental capacity, allowing us to explore how the law is applied in clinical practice. Patients have the right to decline or accept medical treatments offered to them. In Singapore, family members perceive a right to be involved in the decision-making process for sick and elderly patients. Elderly patients, dependent on mainly family (...) members for care and support, sometimes submit to their overbearing influence resulting in decisions that fail to protect the patients’ own best interests. However, the clinicians’ own well-intentioned influence, driven by a desire for the best medical outcome can also be undue, and neither influence should seek to be a substitution for the patient’s decision. Following Re BKR [2015] SGCA 26, we are now obliged to examine how mental capacity can be affected by undue influence. A lack of capacity can be found when a patient fails to appreciate the presence of undue influence or is susceptible to undue influence due to their mental impairment causing their will to be overborne. This then paves the way for the health care team to decide based on best interests, because the patient is determined to be lacking in mental capacity. (shrink)

Cet article entend montrer comment, quand il expose la doctrine dite Assumptus homo, le philosophe et théologien latin Jean Duns Scot (1265 - 1308) prend appui sur le théologien grec Jean de Damas (c. 675 - c. 749), concernant trois points principaux: dans le Christ, la nature humaine est assumée par la personne du Verbe intégralement; elle est assumée dans un individu, non dans une personne; éternellement et temporellement. Le présent article complète l'étude des rapports entre les deux auteurs, (...) après l'article paru dans le numéro 3-4 la revue Chôra (2005-2006), sous le titre «Jean de Damas et Jean Duns Scot surl'infinité de l'essence divine». (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In reaffirming the intimate link between mind and life, John Duns Scotus is faithful to Augustine. His conception of the rational soul, however, differs from Augustine’s trinitarian image, since he stresses the difference between intellect and memory on the one hand, and will on the other hand. He also departs from Augustine by attributing, in his theory of intelligible species, a real, if partial, causal role to the external object in their generation. The principle that there cannot be (...) more reality in an effect than in its cause is true only of the total cause, and not of a partial cause, because an inferior partial cause can concur with a superior partial cause, such as the intellect, to produce a common effect, the perfection of which surpasses its own. (shrink)

Indo além do que já fora dito por E.Gilson, e por vezes discordando dele, o autormostra a importância de Avicena em algunstemas fundamentais da metafísica de DunsScotus. Entre eles, a questão do objeto da meta-fisica, a da univocidade do ser e a da naturezacomum.

Progressive supranuclear palsy is a movement disorder with prominent tau neuropathology. Brain diseases with abnormal tau deposits are called tauopathies, the most common of which is Alzheimer's disease. Environmental causes of tauopathies include repetitive head trauma associated with some sports. To identify common genetic variation contributing to risk for tauopathies, we carried out a genome-wide association study of 1,114 individuals with PSP and 3,247 controls followed by a second stage in which we genotyped 1,051 cases and 3,560 controls for the (...) stage 1 SNPs that yielded P ≤ 10-3. We found significant previously unidentified signals associated with PSP risk at STX6, EIF2AK3 and MOBP. We confirmed two independent variants in MAPT affecting risk for PSP, one of which influences MAPT brain expression. The genes implicated encode proteins for vesicle-membrane fusion at the Golgi-endosomal interface, for the endoplasmic reticulum unfolded protein response and for a myelin structural component. © 2011 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

As dez categorias de Aristóteles não foram concebidas para serem aplicadas no âmbito da teologia trinitária católica. Juntamente com Santo Agostinho, Boécio tentou fazer a adaptação das mesmas. O artigo mostra até que ponto ele teve sucesso ou não neste empreendimento. A teologia de Boécio é aqui vista à luz da teologia mais madura de Duns Escoto, pois, de facto, como continuador de Boécio, o pensador medieval pôde realizar aquilo que o seu predecessor deixou inacabado, devido a uma metafísica (...) de espectro mais alargado de que faz parte, para além de conceitos categoriais limitados, novos transcendentais. /// The aristotelian ten categories were at first not conceived to be applied to the subject of trinitarian catholic theology. Together with Augustine, Boethius tried to adapt them. The paper shows how successful and how unsuccessful he was in his attempt. Boethius theology is seen here in the light of the more mature theology of Duns Scotus, because as a follower of Boethius, the medieval thinker could accomplish what his predecessor left unfinished, owing to a broadened metaphysics including, besides limited categorial concepts, new transcendantal ones. (shrink)

One of the conventions when it comes to discussing the thought of John Duns Scotus is that he postulated a “formal distinction” between the divine essence and the divine persons in the Trinity. This study challenges the truth of that convention in two ways. By analyzing parallel passages from the three primary works in which he discusses the Trinity (the Lectura, Ordinatio, and Reportatio), it makes apparent that Scotus does not propose the phrase “formal distinction” as part of his (...) explanation for the Trinitarian formula. More centrally, though, this study shows how the Subtle Doctor develops his thought along a consistent line, from theology through metaphysics to logic, that has as its centerpiece an argument for production in the divine. This argument is the real story behind Scotus’s account of the Trinity, as his ultimate conclusion is that God, in order to be God, must be a Trinity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The more I love someone, the more firmly or steadily I love her – the more ready I am to act for her good; accordingly, the more I love someone the more prepared I am to suffer evil for her sake. My desire for her good makes me want to act for her good. I appeal to this love when deciding what I should do; and in acting I (...) try to make the world around me conform to what I desire for her. But one might argue that I could be virtuous and order every good that I seek ultimately to my own good.This essay examines John Duns Scotus's efforts in Ordinatio 3.27, where he treats the natural and infused virtues of charity, to escape such an inference, an inference that he associates, I argue, with Aristotle. For Scotus we never act morally when the end that structures what we do and think is ultimately our own good. Against Aristotle, Scotus believes that the distinctive motive of virtuous agency is not the kalon of the virtuous act – its moral beauty – as aimed at the actualization of the agent's good. Rather, the distinctive motive of virtuous agency is the kalon of the virtuous act as aimed at the actualization or preservation of another's good. The virtuous agent does not seek the good of others instrumentally. His principal motives are not ulterior motives. The virtuous father, for example, seeks his child's good principally and his own good secondarily. For Scotus the moral act is an essentially ordered act in which the agent's self-interest is subordinated to the good of the other.I will argue that if careful attention is paid to Scotus's treatments of friendship and heroic self-sacrifice in Ordinatio 3.27, as well as the medieval debates in which they find a place, then the text warrants just this reading of Scotus's moral psychology. I will contrast Scotus's treatments of friendship and heroic self-sacrifice principally with Aristotle's, but also with those of Thomas Aquinas, Henry of Ghent, and Godfrey of Fontaines. In Ordinatio 3.27 Scotus shifts the virtuous agent's center of gravity from the self to the concrete individuals existing outside of him. This shift rests on a precisely defined theory of desirability that is enshrined in the distinction that Scotus draws between two grades of lovability of an object – a distinction that has received little scholarly attention. For Scotus the principal basis of friendship is not found, as Aristotle would have it, in a metaphysics of identity and resemblance. Rather human experience teaches us both that the most basic ratio of friendship is the ratio of lovability, a friend's amabilitas, and that the ratio of lovability is the moral beauty or uprightness of a friend, his honestas.A close reading of heroic self-sacrifice in Ordinatio 3.27 will bring further clarity to Scotus's moral psychology. Scotus's treatments of both friendship and heroic self-sacrifice are driven by the principle that God has made the human will so that it is free to tend toward every object in the manner dictated by reason. From this principle it follows that apart from grace we must be able to love more than the self whatever is better than the self, which effectively means that we must have a natural capacity to love God and the common good over the self. It also follows that if the distinctive motive of virtuous agency does not vary, as Scotus believes, then moral motives must properly be other-regarding motives. In Ordinatio 3.27 Scotus considers the example of the soldier who does not believe that the soul is immortal and who yet risks death for the common good because he loves it more than he loves himself. Thomas Osborne has recently argued that this soldier's choice and act exemplifies our ability to act freely on selfless motives against what.. (shrink)

Drawing on modern responses to Scotus made by Heidegger, Peirce, Arendt, Leibniz, Hume, Reid, Derrida and Deleuze, John Llewelyn explores Scotus' influence on 19th-century poet and philosopher Gerard Manley Hopkins.

L'importance de Duns Scot (1265?-1308) pour l'histoire de la métaphysique et de l'éthique n'est plus à démontrer. En demandant à Olivier Boulnois de recueillir ces études, Philosophie tente de se faire l'écho de la floraison récente de travaux consacrés à cet auteur, aussi bien à l'étranger qu'en France. L'article de Stephen Dumont souligne la place fondamentale de Scot dans l'histoire de la métaphysique. Mais au lieu de se centrer sur la tradition moderne de la métaphysique transcendantale (de Suarez à (...) Kant), il insiste sur le fait que Scot résout l'énigme de la Métaphysique d'Aristote en réduisant sa dimension théologique de celle-ci à sa dimension ontologique. La philosophie scotiste apparaît ainsi comme l'aboutissement d'une exploration systématique des possibilités d'interprétation ouvertes par le texte aristotélicien. L'étude d'Olivier Boulnois fait la transition entre la métaphysique et l'éthique. Elle s'interroge sur le fondement métaphysique de l'éthique scotiste et montre comment le primat d'une volonté libre, et, dans le monde fini, la contingence de la loi morale, s'accompagnent d'une objectivité du bien. La rigueur de la liberté n'est précisément pas l'arbitraire. Gérard Sondag, quant à lui, pose, à partir d'un point très précis d'exégèse aristotélicienne - pour quelle raison le citoyen courageux expose-t-il sa vie quand la Cité est en danger? - la question du fondement éthique du sacrifice de soi. En rejetant, dans sa réponse, toute éthique de l'intérêt personnel, et en posant une objectivité de la norme éthique indépendante de notre propre avantage, Scot ouvre une voie qui conduit à la morale normative de Kant. Duns Scot apparaît ainsi à la fois comme le refondateur de la métaphysique comme discipline transcendantale et comme un penseur original de l'éthique. Unissant ces deux dimensions, il est l'auteur d'une véritable métaphysique de l'éthique. (shrink)

Depuis maintenant plusieurs années, le lecteur francophone encourt une dette de gratitude envers Gérard Sondag pour des traductions et des présentations originales de textes de Duns Scot. Le présent ouvrage nous fournit une introduction précieuse à la nature de la théologie selon Scot. Le texte traduit est le Prologue de la Lectura en quatre questions qui traitent de la nécessité pour l’homme d’une doctrine révélée sur Dieu, du sujet de la théologie, du statut scientifique de la théologie, et du (...) caractère «pratique» de la théologie. La traduction est accompagnée d’une quantité généreuse de notes et elle est précédée d’un «Commentaire continu» par Gérard Sondag où transparaît un contrôle impressionnant de toute l’œuvre du Subtil. Une note d’édition introduit le lecteur dans les problèmes de traduction que rencontre le vulgarisateur de Scot aujourd’hui et qui sont dus au caractère hyperformel de sa pensée. On peut signaler la note éclairante sur la polysémie du mot necessarium chez Scot. (shrink)

Cet article est destiné à montrer qu’antérieurement au développement par Ockham d’une doctrine de l’intuition du non-existant, deux théologiens parisiens avaient déjà construit, chacun à sa manière, une théorie de la connaissance intuitive qui établissait, contre Duns Scot, la possibilité de l’intuition d’une chose non-existante ou absente : Gérard de Bologne et Hervé de Nédellec. L’étude philosophique de ce thème chez ces deux penseurs s’appuie sur l’édition critique de leurs Quodlibeta qu’a réalisée l’auteur de l’article.

The following paper shows that prior to Ockham’s doctrine on the intuition of non-existents, two Parisian theologians had already developed, in opposition to Duns Scotus, their own theories on the possibility of having intuitive cognition of non-existent or absent things. The article uses the editions of the two theologians’ Quodlibeta prepared by the author.

Gerard Manley Hopkins once said, “What you look hard at seems to look hard at you.” This phrase not only encapsulates the central emphasis of Hopkins’s poetry but also suggests a proper relationship between philosophy and art. The aesthetic experience of artworks can provide pivotal experiences for metaphysical interpretations, and I attempt to show that Hopkins’s poetry gives such a foundational and informative experience for philosophical investigations. Hopkins develops his poetic expressions based on what he calls the ability of (...) language to inscape and ingress profound experiences of reality. The metaphysics of Duns Scotus in which the particular embodies or transubstantiates the universal underlies these ideas and inspires Hopkins to write poetry. My point is not to say that a philosopher can offer the true meaning of Hopkins’s poetry and that, once we get the philosophical meaning, we can dismiss the poems. Rather, Hopkins’s poetry presents the kind of experiences that a philosopher can use to make meaningful metaphysical interpretations of the world. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Fine Delight that Fathers Thought: Rhetoric and Medievalism in Gerard Manley HopkinsRichard D. LordThe Fine Delight that Fathers Thought: Rhetoric and Medievalism in Gerard Manley Hopkins, by Franco Marucci; 261 pp. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1994, $44.95.Paging one day through Hopkins’s notebooks in the library at Campion Hall, I was startled to find the draft of “Spelt From Sibyl’s Leaves” placed directly (...) opposite the tortuous grade computations for one of his classes. This book presents a similar contrast—insights into “The Wreck of the Deutschland” buried in the technical language of structuralism, semiotics, and rhetoric.In his preface, the author calls his book “a revised and updated translation of my I fogli della Sibilla. Retorica et medievalismo in Gerard Manley Hopkins” (p. ix). As the title indicates, it is divided into two parts, the former dealing with Hopkins’s poetic rhetoric viewed synchronically and the latter with his “textuality as a confluence of... cultural codes” (p. 89).In the chapter introducing part one, Marucci dismisses, with few exceptions, criticism from 1918 to the present as being of little use to one investigating “the function and functionality of Hopkins’s poetic rhetoric” (p. 3). The exemplifying portion of this chapter (“Amplification”) addresses “God’s Grandeur” and “The Wreck of the Deutschland” as judicial speech (persuasive), with the reader performing the judicial function. The analysis is useful in providing insights into the poet’s rhetorical planning as he guides the reader in this persuasive process.Moving from the “Deutschland” to the “terrible sonnets” as exemplifications of “autocommunication,” Marucci notes that here the interlocutor gradually disappears as the sender-receiver relationship fades. He believes that Hopkins became “no longer capable of finding in himself (or, more probably, of offering to a receiver who had proved cold and indifferent) the necessary stimuli” (p. 76) and names the editor of The Month, Bridges, and other correspondents as the probable receivers.In the second (and major) part of the book, the author sets out to examine the cultural codes influencing the poet’s textuality. The chapter introducing this section, “‘Integrated’ and ‘Apocalyptic’ Writers,” first looks at “the global syntagmatic model of the Victorian Age” (p. 98) and then divides its texts according to this model into three categories. The first two either reflect or modify the syntagmatic codes (“integrated” writers) while the third opposes these codes (“apocalyptic” writers). The author’s thesis is that Hopkins is not fully any one of these, but that his Victorianism is subsumed in various ways and ultimately subordinated to his medievalism. His position is that Victorian codes essentially ceased to affect the poet after his entrance into the Society of Jesus, when they were replaced by medieval codes. This is developed in some detail in the chapter entitled “Hopkins and Duns Scotus.”Although the book takes a narrow critical approach to Hopkins, it still might [End Page 149] well have been enriched by allowing for the ways in which the Ignatian method of meditation, with its emphasis on the “application of the senses,” so clearly drew Hopkins to find a kindred spirit in Scotus. This, together with the kind of seminary training in vogue in the Catholic Church until after Vatican II, certainly contributed to the medievalism that Marucci finds in the later Hopkins.This is a useful and provocative book for scholars, but many of the footnotes seem unnecessarily long and some chapters conclude too abruptly. The highly specialized language of structuralism and semiotics requires an expertise that probably eludes most undergraduate students.Richard D. LordWillamette UniversityCopyright © 1995 The Johns Hopkins University Press... (shrink)