While Weber’s distinction between ‘ideal’ and ‘material’ interests is one of the most enduring aspects of his theoretical legacy, it has been subjected to little critical commentary. In this article, we revisit the theoretical legacy of interest-based explanation in social theory, with an eye to clarifying Weber’s place in this tradition. We then reconsider extant critical commentary on the ideal/material interest distinction, noting the primarily Parsonian rendering of Weber and the unproductive allegiance to ‘generic need’ readings of Weber’s action theory. (...) We reconstruct the basis of the ideal/material interest distinction in the work of Rudolph von Ihering and provide a sounder basis for its analytic role in Weber’s ‘grand’ project. (shrink)

This paper argues that we can see our lives as a snapshot happening now or as a moving picture extending across time. These dual ways of seeing our lives inform how we conceive of the problem of age group justice. A snapshot view sees age group justice as an interpersonal problem between distinct age groups. A moving picture view sees age group justice as a first-person problem of prudential choice. This paper explores these different ways of thinking about age group (...) justice and illustrates them using a principle of respect for human dignity, understood in terms of reasonable support for floor level central human capabilities at each stage of life. I argue that different frames are suitable for different kinds of decisions, and each provides a true, but partial, picture of aging and age group justice. (shrink)

In this paper I briefly summarize Pellegrino’s phenomenological analysis of the ethics of the physician–patient relationship. In delineating the essential elements of the healing relationship, Pellegrino demonstrates the necessity for health care professionals to understand the patient’s lived experience of illness. In considering the phenomenon of illness, I identify certain essential characteristics of illness-as-lived that provide a basis for developing a rigorous understanding of the patient’s experience. I note recent developments in the systematic delivery of health care that make it (...) difficult for health care professionals to realize Pellegrino’s ethical model of the role of healer. Such developments limit both the physician’s freedom to act on behalf of the patient without the constraint of third parties and the physician’s freedom to act in light of his or her own ethical or religious convictions. Given these difficulties, I note MacIntyre’s call for the development of moral communities, as an alternative to the prevailing culture, and share a first-hand example illustrating how intentional Christian community provides an alternative nurturing context that permits the full development of the healing relationship. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:HUME'S BUNDLES, SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND KANT Even if we are inclined to view Hume's attempt to explain ascriptions of personal identity as an abysmal failure, we might still be sympathetic toward his proposal to replace the going substance theory of the nature of mind with his bundle account. Thus we might fault Hume for erecting an unachievably high standard for personal identity, or round on him for excluding bodily criteria (...) 2... from his solution, but nonetheless applaud his spiriting away of the Cartesian soul substance leaving his "true idea of the human mind" (261) as a collection of perceptions in its stead. However, Hume's concern to give an account of the idea of the unity of a human mind in terms of related perceptions has run into notoriously rough sledding, not the least of which is the fact that Hume himself in his Appendix to "Of Personal Identity" seems to abandon his bundle theory in despair. In this paper I shall first be concerned to examine the criticism of his bundle theory which Hume brings forth in the Appendix and explain why I think the core difficulty remains insoluble for Hume. I shall then go on to suggest that the unworkability of Húmete bundle theory is directly tied to his failure to appreciate certain features of the peculiarly first person nature of his question about the make-up of minds. In thus emphasizing the place of the first person voice in my interpretation I am stealing a leaf, if not a chapter, from Kant. But this is as it should be since one of the aims of this essay is to provide an interpretation of Hume's difficulties with his account of the nature of mind which explains part of the reason why 'self-consciousness' (or 'apperception') looms so very large in the Critique of Pure Reason attack upon Hume's type of bundle theory. 60. 1. Hume's Second Thoughts In a burst of self criticism at the Appendix to the section on personal identity, Hume brings forth this objection to his own efforts:...Having thus loosen' d all our particular perceptions, when I proceed to explain the principle of connexion, which binds them together, and makes us attribute to them a real simplicity and identity; I am sensible, that my account is very defective, and that nothing but the seeming evidence of the precedent reasonings cou'd have indue' d me to receive it (635). After additional reflections Hume encapsulates his objection thus:...All my hopes vanish, when I come to explain the principles, that unite our successive perceptions in our thought or consciousness (6SS-6). What is the defect Hume calls to our attention? Notice first that the footnote on page 635 explicitly refers us back to that part of his account Hume considers defective; and when we look back to the text of the Treatise in question, page 260, we find it is precisely there that Hume uses the analogy of a republic to sketch his bundle theory of the unity of mind in terms of the two associative principles, resemblance and causation. So it must somehow be that this account in terms of the associative principles is mistaken. But what then is the mistake? According to Hume it is that he cannot 'explain' the principles which unite the discrete percepts. Now it seems to me there are only two possible things Hume could mean in saying this. He could mean either (1) that the principles which connect the percepts of one mind are instances of the associative principles, but he cannot explain them; or (2) there must be other, non-associative, principles which connect the percepts of a single mind and these he cannot explain. 61. I think we can safely conclude (1) cannot represent Hume's misgivings when he says he is unable to explain the uniting principles of the mental bundles. There is first the fact that he does not call into question his general programme of accounting for the nature of the unity of complex things by the principles of causation, resemblance and contiguity — for example, ships, plants, animals, houses and rivers (e.g. 257f) — but only his... (shrink)

Hegel’s basic position so far on the various meanings of evil as necessary and thereby intelligible directly in the development of spirit might be summed up as follows. Evil is always a necessary moment of instability which gives impetus in the movement from various meanings of particularity to various meanings of universality; from the more abstract expression of potential unity and truth to the more actualized notion and unity.

Commentary with 11 supercommentaries, on Brahmasūtra of Bādarāyaṇa, work on Vedanta philosophy.

Abū al-Ḥajj¿j Yūsuf b. Muḥammad Ibn Ṭumlūs (Alhagiag Bin Thalmus, d. 620/1223) was a philosopher, physician and direct disciple of Ibn Rushd (Averroes, d. 595/1198), who lived and practiced rational sciences in Alzira and Marrakesh, a quarter of a century after the demise of his teacher. Ibn Ṭumlūs was not Ibn Rushd's only student who engaged in work on logic, but one of dozens of disciples, suggesting that the supposed simultaneous death of the latter's philosophy is "grossly exaggerated". As a (...) valuable window into the practice of logic in 13th century al-Andalus and the Maghreb, Ibn Ṭumlūs' Compendium on Logic (Al-Mukhtaṣar fī al-manṭiq) covers all the parts of "the expanded Organon", as it was known since al-F¿r¿bī (d. 339/951). The present volume offers a complete critical Arabic edition of this work, with an English and Arabic introduction, notes and indices. (shrink)

ArgumentIn theAlmagest, Ptolemy finds that the apogee of Mercury moves progressively at a speed equal to his value for the rate of precession, namely one degree per century, in the tropical reference system of the ecliptic coordinates. He generalizes this to the other planets, so that the motions of the apogees of all five planets are assumed to be equal, while the solar apsidal line is taken to be fixed. In medieval Islamic astronomy, one change in this general proposition took (...) place because of the discovery of the motion of the solar apogee in the ninth century, which gave rise to lengthy discussions on the speed of its motion. Initially Bīrūnī and later Ibn al-Zarqālluh assigned a proper motion to it, although at different rates. Nevertheless, appealing to the Ptolemaic generalization and interpreting it as a methodological axiom, the dominant idea became to extend it in order to include the motion of the solar apogee as well. Another change occurred after correctly making a distinction between the motion of the apogees and the rate of precession. Some Western Islamic astronomers generalized Ibn al-Zarqālluh's proper motion of the solar apogee to the apogees of the planets. Analogously, Ibn al-Shāṭir maintained that the motion of the apogees is faster than precession. Nevertheless, the Ptolemaic generalization in the case of the equality of the motions of the apogees remained untouchable, despite the notable development of planetary astronomy, in both theoretical and observational aspects, in the late Islamic period. (shrink)

Frank Jackson has abandoned his famous knowledge argument, and has explained why in a brief "Postscript on Qualia" . This explanation consists of a direct argument, and an attempt to explain away the intuition that lies at the heart of the knowledge argument. The direct argument is clarified and found to be subtly question-begging. The attempt to explain away the key intuition is reviewed and found to be inadequate. False memory traces, which Jackson mentions at the beginning of the direct (...) argument, are discussed and found not to materially affect the force of the knowledge argument. (shrink)

This book examines Augustine's description of the actually existing world, especially that aspect most important for the human pursuit of happiness: the human being and God. It begins with an overview of the characteristics of the human individual and the context in which they must live out their lives, a context dominated by two seemingly contradictory realities: the existence of God and the existence of evil.

The article proposes that the hypothetical framework of Kierkegaard's "Philosophical Fragments" is determined by the question 'How is it possible for one to become a disciple?' An account of this framework is provided by employing an original interpretation of the concept 'the Moment'. This enables an understanding of 'the condition' by means of a contrast between 'Universalist' and 'Particularist' perspectives. Moreover, it is only when the insights offered by both perspectives are combined that the answer to the determining question of (...) the Fragments becomes apparent. (shrink)

ABSTRACT:Daniel Callahan died on July 16, 2019, just short of his 89th birthday. In the years since, we have seen the overturning of abortion rights, a concern central to his scholarship and musings about the place of religion in American civic life. Callahan’s journey from lay Catholic journalist and commentator at Commonweal to a co-founder of the Hastings Center, during his decade of doubt, is especially relevant today as America revisits established precedent governing a woman’s right to choose. His life-long (...) struggle with faith and the secularization of bioethics is a story worth telling, as it may foster dialogue across a divide between religious and laical thinkers that has fractured our political discourse. We recall Callahan’s misgivings about the marginalization of religious perspectives in public life; he sought not the denial of complexity nor of difference in views, but rather the importance of free and honest debate around deeply held beliefs, contextualized in the realities of the contemporary world. Callahan’s ambivalence about his faith remains a part of the fabric of American life, a story that Callahan chronicled to our collective benefit for over a half-century. (shrink)