For Self-Examination and its companion piece Judge for Yourself! are the culmination of Soren Kierkegaard's "second authorship," which followed his Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Among the simplest and most readily comprehended of Kierkegaard's books, the two works are part of the signed direct communications, as distinguished from his earlier pseudonymous writings. The lucidity and pithiness and earnestness and power, of For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself! are enhanced when, as Kierkegaard requested, they are read aloud. They contain the well-known passsages on (...) Socrates' defense speech, how to read, the lover's letter, the royal coachman and the carriage team, and the painter's relation to his painting. The aim of awakening and inward deepening is signaled by the opening section on Socrates in For Self-Examination and is pursued in the context of the relations of Christian ideality, grace, and response. The secondary aim, a critique of the established order, links the works to the final polemical writings that appear later after a four-year period of silence. Originally published in 1944. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

A comprehensive anthology of Kierkegaard’s writings that offers an unmatched introduction to one of the most original and influential modern philosophers This is the most comprehensive anthology of Søren Kierkegaard’s works ever published in English. Drawn from the volumes of Princeton’s authoritative Kierkegaard’s Writings series by editors Howard and Edna Hong, these carefully chosen selections represent every major aspect of Kierkegaard’s extraordinary output, which changed the course of modern intellectual history with its mix of philosophy, psychology, theology, and literary criticism. (...) The anthology reveals the most important themes of his work, especially what it means to exist and to be human, and captures the unique character of his writings, with their shifting pseudonyms, complex dialogues, and powerful combination of irony, satire, sermon, polemic, humor, and fiction. A superb introduction and guide to the Danish philosopher, The Essential Kierkegaard vividly demonstrates why his work continues to speak so directly to so many readers. Traces the full span of Kierkegaard’s writings, from his early journals to his final work Features generous selections from all of Kierkegaard’s most important works, including Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Works of Love, and The Sickness unto Death Presents selections from lesser-known writings, including Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions and The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air Includes an introduction to Kierkegaard’s writings and explanatory notes for each selection. (shrink)

In the second of his three prefaces to On Authority and Revelation , Kierkegaard writes: ‘“My reader”, may I simply beg you to read this book, for it is important for my main effort, wherefore I am minded to recommend it’ The question I will put to myself to begin my reflections on the book is: why should Kierkegaard recommend it so strongly? What is Kierkegaard doing in this book? One notices in his recommendation that it is addressed to his (...) reader who, presumably, is not simply the reader of this book but the reader of his other books as well. The Concluding UnscientUc Postscript was being published about the same time , and so the reader may well have been familiar with most of Kierkegaard's main philosophical works. The recommendation then is set in this context. The book is, on the face of it, so unlike the other works, concerned with certain odd claims to a revelation by a Danish pastor named Adler. Much of the book discusses the details of a deposition of Adler given to the local bishop and some details of later defences which Adler gave of his revelation in several works and sermons. It appears to be a local squabble of no general interest and certainly not the sort of thing that had occupied Kierkegaard's philosophical attention to this point. The book, then, stands in need of a recommendation to Kierkegaard's reader who is not otherwise prepared for this genre. But the recommendation does not say, ‘Try this, though quite different, you may like it.’ It says rather that the reader should read it, and later he adds read it carefully, because it is ‘important for my main effort’. So the book is to be seen as of a piece with the other main works of Kierkegaard. This is what I should like to understand in the following discussion: how is this book important for Kierkegaard's main effort? (shrink)

Taking Kierkegaard Personally: First Person Responses is a one-of-a-kind volume in which scholars from the world over address personal, existential lessons that Kierkegaard has taught them. Papers were selected from the June 2018 International Kierkegaard Conference, sponsored by the Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College. The Conference's prompt-The Wisdom of Kierkegaard: What Existential Lessons Have You Learned from Him?-compelled scholars to drop their guards and write primarily in first person narrative instead of standard third (...) person scholarly/professorial narrative. Papers range from a preacher in Texas discussing how this white nineteenth-century Dane's thought speaks to black issues, to a university development director wondering what Kierkegaard can teach Silicon Valley executives, to a Danish scholar struggling with human autonomy versus dependence on God, to a Jewish scholar finding hope in this Danish Protestant's works in which existential alienation from the world is the norm, to a Nigerian scholar introducing Kierkegaard's "single individual" into his Ndi Igbo community (a tribe predicated not on the individual but the collective), to a Slovak scholar surviving a bad divorce, to an Hispanic scholar's passion to teach Kierkegaard along the U.S.-Mexico border to Hispanic students, to an American scholar fielding his father's questions about suicide, to other scholars suffering from and coping with deaths of parents, raising children, working in trauma units, finding the need for self-denial in flourishing countries, preaching valuable sermons, dealing with college campus/department politics, and living perfectly quotidian lives. (shrink)

An interactive collaborative drawing ‘machine’ designed on the concept of a neural network, allowing participants to experience a shared creative process, using the principles of open-source and social networked communication through an analogue string system. The underlying concept of the String Neural Network is to introduce participants to the idea of collaborative-shared drawing practice, as a dispersed collective that alludes to Roland Barthes The Death of the Author (1967) whereby each participant plays an equal role as both viewer and artist. (...) Played out like a surrealist Exquisite Corpse game of consequences or as a piece of Haiku poetry, the drawing participants contribute marks, signs and signifiers to an open-content drawing, akin to the development of open-source software. The string network consists of five drawing table ‘nodes’ within a room/studio space measuring eight by eight metres square. Each node is linked to the other four via pulleys and washing lines, making it possible to peg a sheet of A4 paper to a line and winch it across to any one of the other nodes. The network system uses ten string connections between the five drawing tables, creating a pentagram within a pentagon neural network design. Representing the interconnected synapses and neurons of the brain, the role of each participant is that of cause and effect. A single instruction initiates a series of consequences that unfold in drawings, marks and patterns that are created whilst being hoisted simultaneously across the room in quick succession. The Neural String Network project was first set up in March 2012 to coincide with ‘DecodeRecode’, a telematic art project undertaken by students at MediaCityUK Salford University, as part of the centenary celebration of Alan Turing. Each participating student was given a single word drawn from the Turing theme, such as machine, brain, code and apple that were interpreted and communicated as a drawing by a collective consciousness. (shrink)

COVID-19 vaccine research success and emergency use authorizations have shown the life sciences’ potential for positive health impact. But they also underscore potentially divergent and conf...

Background Few studies have been conducted to assess the quality of orientation practices for ethics advisory committees that conduct ethics consultation. This survey study focused on several Harvard teaching hospitals, exploring orientation quality and committee members’ self-evaluation in the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities ethics consultation competencies. Methods We conducted a survey study that involved 116 members and 16 chairs of ethics advisory committees, respectively. Predictor variables included professional demographics, duration on committees and level of training. Outcome variables included (...) familiarity with and preparedness in the ASBH competencies and satisfaction with orientations. We hypothesised that responses would be associated with both the aforementioned predictors and whether or not participants had encountered the ASBH competencies in training. Results A majority of respondents found their orientation curricula to be helpful, although a significant portion of respondents did not receive any orientation or were unsatisfied with their orientation. Familiarity with ASBH competencies was a statistically significant predictor of respondents’ self-evaluation in particular categories. Standard educational materials were reported as offered during orientation, such as readings and case studies ; different medium resources were less evidenced such as videos on ethics consultation. Conclusions Institutions should re-evaluate orientation practices for ethics committee members that perform ethics consultation. Integrating ASBH competencies and useful methods into a resourceful pedagogy will help improve both member satisfaction with orientation and preparation in consultation. (shrink)

Three ethical conflicts in particular are paradigmatic of what we define as “clerkship ethics.” First, a distinction that differentiates the clerkship student from the practicing physician involves the student’s principal role as a learner. The clerkship student must skillfully balance her commitment to her own education against her commitment to patient care in a fashion that may compromise patient care. While the practicing physician can often resolve the tension between these two goods when they come into conflict, the clerkship student (...) is left with a more ambiguous set of choices. Second, evaluative scrutiny during clinical clerkships often forces medical students to balance doing what is morally fitting against the perceived expectations of the medical teams in which they work. Third and finally, a deeply entrenched culture of medical hierarchy presents a particular challenge to innovation and improvement in ethics education during the clerkship years. Students regard faculty as exemplars, but are not provided with the tools to assess when technical medical competence is not matched by moral competence; moreover, these faculty are unlikely to have experienced the ethics education in which students are asked to demonstrate mastery. (shrink)

While previous studies have examined the impact of informal institutions to determine entrepreneurial activities, this paper explores the different configurational paths of informal institutions to promote men’s and women’s entrepreneurial activities across factor-driven and efficiency-driven economies. We collected data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor for 56 countries for the years 2008-2013 and employed fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to conduct the empirical analysis. The results confirm that a single antecedent condition is unable to produce an outcome while combination of different conditions (...) can produce an outcome. We find that cultural-cognitive institutional antecedents in combination with social-normative antecedents create configurations of conditions that lead to the higher levels of men’s and women’s entrepreneurial activities in factor-driven and efficiency-driven economies. Moreover, this study shows that these causal conditions configure differently to promote men’s and women’s entrepreneurial activities in factor-driven and efficiency-driven nations. This paper may create awareness in potential entrepreneurs regarding specific sets of institutional antecedents that can increase the emergence of entrepreneurship in different economic clusters. We show that institutional antecedents which are essential to promote entrepreneurship combine distinctly for men’s and women’s entrepreneurship and this combination varies in different stages of economic development. (shrink)

In February 2016, the Cleveland Clinic initiated the first attempt at cadaveric uterine transplantation (UTx) in the United States. The transplantation was ultimately unsuccessful, but it opened doors for further research on both live and cadaveric UTx. While initial strides toward successful transplantation have been made, questions persist on the ethics of UTx: whether the uterus is a vital organ, whether we should prioritize live or cadaveric options, and how the procedure should be covered by health insurance. If we agree (...) that the goal of the medical profession is both to treat and improve quality of life, then the question of whether or not infertility is considered a disease becomes inconsequential in the discussion. As such, the medical enterprise should move forward with research in UTx. In doing so, considering the ethical implications of UTx remains essential—and we must remember to pair innovation with regulation. (shrink)

As face shields are dusted off and conferences go virtual again, Omicron reminds us how the once-novel coronavirus ruptured our collective idea of medical training. For nearly 2 years, social media...

BackgroundIn Pakistan, drug promotion practices, ethical or unethical, have rarely been in the spotlight. We aimed to assess the perception and barriers of medical representatives (MRs) and doctors (MDs) regarding ethical promotion of pharmaceuticals in Pakistan.MethodsA cross sectional survey was conducted in seven major cities of Pakistan for 6-months period. Self-administered questionnaire was used for data collection. Logistic regression and five-point Likert scale scoring was used to estimate the perceptions and barriers.ResultsCompared to national companies (NCs), the medical representatives (MRs) of (...) multinational companies (MNCs) strongly believed that their companies follow World Health Organization (WHO) (OR; 5.31, p = 0.0005), International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) (OR; 6.45, p = 0.0005) and national codes of ethics (OR; 5.84, p = 0.0005). MNCs trained their MRs (OR; 6.68, p = 0.0005), provide accurate and valid scientific data (OR; 4.01, p = 0.007) with adequate system of accountability and controls on product samples (OR; 1.96, p = 0.047), while, NCs sponsor social or entertainment activities, seminars and conferences, and all sort of facilitation in form of gifts of their choice and clinic renovation for medical doctors (MDs). MDs perceptions were similar to MRs mentioned above, yet strongly agreed that companies offer cash payments or equivalents to MDs. The MRs of NCs/mncs and MDs agreed/strongly agreed that no external accountability, profiteering, pressure on sale targets, job insecurity, condoning unethical promotion by high-ups’ and business promotion by junior MDs were the predominant barriers.ConclusionIn conclusion, MRs of MNCs and MDs believed that MNCs follow certain codes of ethics in the promotion of pharmaceuticals, while NCs tend to be more profit oriented and even condone unethical promotion. All stakeholders, MRs, MDs and companies, might pose certain barriers, intentionally or unintentionally, in ethical promotion. (shrink)

In 2012, Loyola University Chicago's Stritch School of Medicine became the first medical school in the United States to actively recruit and accept undocumented immigrants who received protections granted under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program that was established by presidential memorandum. By 2016, sixty-one medical schools were considering applications from DACA recipients for admission, and more than 110 students applied. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, sixty-five DACA recipients matriculated in U.S. medical schools in the 2016–2017 (...) school year. These students contribute both diversity and talent to our medical community; they could also have a significant impact on the care of underserved and immigrant populations. The recent decision by the Trump administration to rescind DACA therefore comes with serious pragmatic and ethical ramifications, impeding our medical community's efforts to develop a diverse and representative workforce committed to improving access to quality care for all patients. (shrink)

During periods of scarcity, or the fear of it, many health systems create or adopt triage protocols to determine how to best allocate limited resources. Interest in such protocols has become acute...

The food industry is a major contributor to climate change and has been linked to environmental and health issues due to excessive use of agrochemicals. To address these issues, responsible consumption and production have emerged. Organic certification is a common strategy for assuring consumers about sustainability. However, there is little research on organic food consumption in emerging countries. This study aims to examine the impact of green consumption values on environmental concerns using the theory of consumption values and also looks (...) at the moderating effects of buying involvement. The researchers gathered data from 48 farmer markets in Punjab, Pakistan. They analyzed 730 respondents' data and found significant positive correlations between environmental concerns and multi-dimensional green consumption values. The epistemic value was identified as a highly significant predictor of environmental concerns. The studied relationships are influenced by the buyer's level of involvement (low, average, and high), with significant differences in the connections between environmental concerns and consumption values among consumers with different levels of buying involvement. The findings have important implications for increasing organic food consumption in the mainstream market. This initiative is a significant milestone in achieving Responsible Consumption and Production (SDGs-12th), as organic production benefits human health and promotes a sustainable environment. (shrink)

This is an account of a reading project that began in February 2020. Australia was burning, a pandemic was simmering, the two of us were early in our PhD journeys at the Melbourne Law School. Already, we felt exhausted by critical theory which seemed to amplify the affects we felt all too intensely. Our reading project began as an attempt to find and inhabit texts that might move beyond critique, that might allow us to find wonder and vitality in legal (...) theory. Taking up the literary critic Rita Felski’s invitation to craft a post-critical reading practice, our reading list evolved iteratively to encompass themes and concerns that we identified as possibly correlating with said practice. It evolved too, in conversation with Melbourne, as the city journeyed through different stages of the pandemic. Constantly changing restrictions changed the ways in which we met and conversed, influencing in turn the texts we chose to read and the manner in which we read them. In this account, we pay attention to the time and place of our encounters with these interlocutors, and to the feelings these encounters generated. As such, this article takes the form of a series of (revised) diary entries: first written in 2020, then revisited in the corresponding months of 2021. What we hope emerges from these entries is a sense of how these theoretical texts train us to live in a world undergoing a compounding series of crises – and, perhaps, to imagine that world otherwise. In a more jurisprudential register, we hope that our experiment will identify the methods these texts might give us for (re-)engaging with law in a spirit of wonder and vitality. (shrink)

In our Age of Interaction, we need a historically based method for validating our ethics as standing on solid ground. Applying such a method to historical test times such as the Third Reich, the US Civil Rights Movement, and others, indicates that an ethic of incarnational discipleship, trinitarianly interpreted, passes the test. But this requires an interpretation of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount that corrects idealist interpretations, and points instead to realistic practices of deliverance. A new paradigm for interpreting the (...) Sermon on the Mount is demonstrated, with fourteen grace-based transforming initiatives of realistic deliverance from vicious cycles. A hermeneutic of analogical imagination is advocated for relating Jesus' practices in his context to effective practices of deliverance in our historical context. This points to realistic practices of just peacemaking that are effective in preventing wars and creating conditions that lead toward peace — and therefore are realistic for social ethics. (shrink)

On édite ici un sermon de Robert Holcot, frère prêcheur anglais actif dans les années 1331-1344, d’après le manuscrit 342 de la bibliothèque municipale de Toulouse. Ce discours introduit un commentaire à la Genèse qui est perdu. Il a dû être délivré dans un contexte conventuel, étant donné la diversité d’âges et d’occupations de son auditoire clérical. Il contient plusieurs traits notables que l’on peut qualifier de pré-humanistes : affirmation de la supériorité des Grecs sur les Latins, éloge de la (...) grammaire plus que de toute autre discipline, insistance sur la narrativité de l’Écriture, admiration pour les écoles philosophiques antiques. Parmi les sources citées, plusieurs exempla proviennent des Nuits Attiques d’Aulu-Gelle. (shrink)

Joseph Butler's Fifteen Sermons (1729) is a classic work of moral philosophy, which remains widely influential. The topics Butler discusses include the role of conscience in human nature, self-love and egoism, compassion, resentment and forgiveness, and love of our neighbour and of God. The text of the enlarged and corrected second edition is here presented together with a selection of Butler's other ethical writings: A Dissertation of the Nature of Virtue, A Sermon Preached Before the House of Lords, and relevant (...) extracts from his correspondence with Samuel Clarke. While this is a readers' edition that avoids cluttering Butler's text with textual variants and intrusive footnotes, it comes complete with scholarly apparatus intended to aid the reader in studying Butler's work in depth. David McNaughton contributes a substantial historical and philosophical introduction that highlights the continuing importance of these works. In addition, there are extensive notes at the end of the volume, including significant textual variants, and full details of Butler's sources and references, as well as short summaries of Butler's predecessors, and a selective bibliography. This will be the definitive resource for anyone interested in Butler's moral philosophy. (shrink)

Sermon Nuggets is a collection of ninety-one topics treated in hundreds of Fred R. Zimmerman’s sermons delivered over the span of six decades to a wide-ranging number of Protestant congregations, mostly in Ohio.

Meister Eckhart escribió textos en alemán y en latín. Pero, fuera del ámbito de los estudios eckhartianos, es conocido sobre todo por su obra alemana. De la obra latina, los textos menos frecuentados son los llamados “sermones latinos”: una serie de notas o borradores que podrían haber servido como material preparatorio para lo que en el Prologus generalis in Opus tripartitum el mismo Eckhart llama el Opus sermonum, del que no tenemos más noticia que la del Prologus mencionado. En castellano, (...) el destino de la obra latina de Eckhart no ha sido hasta ahora demasiado afortunado. Pocas son las traducciones. Y, en cuanto a los “sermones latinos”, ninguno ha sido traducido todavía. Ofrecemos la traducción de uno de estos sermones, el XXXVII, en el que Eckhart comenta un texto de Pablo (Efesios 4, 1-6): Unus deus et pater omnium. En el estudio preliminar se ofrece (1) una introducción a la obra latina de Eckhart en general y, en particular, a los “sermones latinos” y (2) un comentario del texto traducido. (shrink)

"Augustinus" 54 (2009) 13-32 publicó la versión española de los sermones agustinianos Erfurt 1=282 aum., sobre Perpetua y Felicidad, Erfurt 5=362A "Acerca de la resurrección de los muertos" y Erfurt 6=313G, sobre Cipriano. Ahora publica la traduccion de la editio princeps de otros tres sermones de san Agustín, desconocidos hasta ahora, aunque del tercero existían fragmentos, s. Lambot 28=164A. Tratan de la limosna. El lenguaje, el estilo y sus respectivos títulos coincidentes con POSSID.: índic. X6, 190-192, demuestran su autenticidad.

Theologien de haut vol et pasteur zele, Guillaume d'Auvergne a ete eveque de Paris de 1228 a 1249. Proche de la cour capetienne et des milieux mendiants de Paris, il a ete temoin et acteur des principaux evenements politiques et culturels qui ont caracterise la vie du royaume et de sa capitale. Ses sermons, au nombre de 582, dont 25 transmis en deux ou trois versions differentes et plusieurs sous la forme de reportationes, sont ici edites pour la premiere fois. (...) Apres les deux premiers volumes consacres aux sermons de tempore, les deux autres proposeront l'edition des sermons de sanctis et de communi sanctorum et de occasionibus.". (shrink)

Barthélémy d’Exeter était tenu en haute estime par ses contemporains, et les spécialistes de l’Angleterre du xii e siècle le connaissent bien. La collection de ses sermons a néanmoins très peu attiré l’attention. Elle est le résultat de plusieurs années de prédications adressées à des auditoires laïques, ecclésiastiques et monastiques, probablement dans le diocèse de Barthélémy. Il s’agit d’une source rare et précieuse, qui nous donne à voir comment un des prédicateurs les plus reconnus de sa génération composait ses sermons, (...) et témoigne d’une pratique courante et pourtant mal documentée : la prédication quotidienne d’un évêque du xii e siècle. (shrink)

Dans le cadre de la réflexion menée par Jean Gerson (1363-1429) sur l’activité pastorale, le sermon occupe une place fondamentale aux côtés de la confession, place dont témoigne la pratique de prédicateur par laquelle il s’est illustré. Le sermon est investi par Gerson d’un rôle séminal dans l’articulation entre l’orthodoxie et l’orthopraxie, puisque la parole du pasteur est à l’articulation de la généralité de la loi qu’il doit transmettre et de la singularité de l’action qu’il doit réguler. Ce problème du (...) rapport entre le général et le particulier, chez Gerson, est résolu en grande partie, grâce à un détour par la casuistique, entendue comme méthode pour poser un cas et résoudre la question précise qu’il soulève. Par là, le sermon apparaît à bien des égards comme un appel à l’examen de conscience et une préparation à la confession, qui vient compléter à un niveau véritablement individuel, le travail de médiation entre la loi et le cas à l’œuvre dans la prédication. C’est cette mise en œuvre de cette proto-casuistique, illustrée par l’analyse du cycle de sermons français intitulés Poenitemini, qui permet de considérer la pratique du sermon comme une forme d’ ethica utens. (shrink)

In 1939, scholars associated with the pro-Nazi Thüringian German Christian movement founded a research institute dedicated to the task of removing the legacy of Judaism from Christianity. The mission of the Institute for the Study and Elimination of Jewish Influence on German Church Life was to render Christianity acceptable within the antisemitic and militarized climate of National Socialism. This task required purging Christian theology of Jewish influence, a feature evident in the Institute's version of the New Testament titled The Message (...) of God. This publication aimed to transform the religious experience of ordinary German believers and would eventually sell over 200,000 copies. This article examines material in this text as it relates to the Sermon on the Mount and concludes that, despite the apparent incongruity between Nazi ideology and New Testament ethics, the editors of the so-called ‘Nazi Bible’ believed their task to be guided by Christian ethical principles. (shrink)

Published here is a critical edition of Augustine’s Sermons 293 and 299, the first edition since the Maurists. Sermon 293 was preached in Carthage on the 24th of June 413, feast of John the Baptist, at a time when infant baptism was a controversial question. Sermon 299 was delivered on the 29th of June, in honour of Peter and Paul : its manuscript transmission and thematic likeness with Sermon 293 suggest that it was preached, according to Pierre-Marie Hombert’s hypothesis, in (...) the same year in the same city, not five years later. Both texts, numbered among the longest of the De sanctis sermons, contradict Pelagian theses about the origin of death and the notion of human impeccability. (shrink)

The title of this present volume tends to be misleading. For it suggests that Nicholas’s didactic sermons are to be distinguished from his non-didactic ones—ones that are, say, more inspirational and less philosophical, or more devotional and less theological, or more situationally oriented and less Scripturally focused. Yet, in truth, all 293 of Nicholas’s sermons are highly didactic, highly pedagogical, highly exegetical.1 To be sure, there are inspirational and devotional elements; but they are subordinate to the primary purpose of teaching. (...) Likewise, only occasionally2 do the sermons show signs of addressing local circumstances that are idiosyncratic to the respective churches in Koblenz, Trier, Mainz, Augsburg, Frankfurt, Brixen, and Rome. Rather, their Scriptural focus more often than not yields up interpretations that are allegorical—or otherwise figurative—in a general way that allows Nicholas to draw inferences about the relationship between the intellect and the senses, about the unity of the virtues, the two natures in Christ, human freedom of will, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the inter-relationship of faith and reason, the triune nature of God, the role of conscience, the precepts of the natural law, time as the image of eternity, the four stages of a knowledge of God, Christ as Wisdom Incarnate, God as Beauty, the Holy Spirit as Love, … and so on. Each of the sermons contains more than one major theme, so that no sermon dwells at length upon a single topic so as to sound pedantic and inappropriately academic. On the contrary: in a limited measure Nicholas’s sermons tend to entice through their extensive display of original metaphor, of striking imagery, of fresh vocabulary, and of erudite knowledge of earlier writers such as Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Anselm, Albertus Magnus, and Meister Eckhart. (shrink)

The Sermon on the Mount is not abstract idealism. It connects to our political contest not least because it insists on the big questions of purpose and ends and how society should be ordered. Rooted in the Old Testament focus on the fair distribution of wealth (ensuring the poor get priority) — cf. Proverbs 2, 8, 9, 14, 15, 29 — the Sermon is a programme for social citizenship and local community development.

This study analyzes the elements that influence visitor contentment at cultural events by developing and testing several hypotheses. This framework considers visitor contentment as the dependent variable (DV) with independent variables (IVs) including program content, event logistics, social atmosphere, facilities, customer service, and accessibility. A survey of 270 visitors was conducted to evaluate these variables and their impact on visitor contentment. Statistical analysis was evaluated using SPSS 25. ANOVA, multiple linear regression, and chi-square tests were among the statistical techniques used (...) to assess the effects and associations of each factor. Chi-Square test results show that all hypotheses have substantial relationships (p-values < 0.05) and that each independent variable has a significant effect on visitor contentment. ANOVA supports the results that program content (F=7.45,p<0.001), facilities (F=8.20,p<0.001), and other factors significantly impact visitor contentment. According to multiple linear regression analysis, program content (coefficient=0.421,p<0.001) and facilities (coefficient=0.512,p<0.001) have the greatest impact on visitor contentment, followed by event logistics (coefficient=0.308,p=0.003), customer service (coefficient=0.189,p=0.028), accessibility (coefficient=0.294,p=0.002), and social atmosphere (coefficient=0.267,p=0.001). These results emphasize the significance of every element in improving visitor contentment, with facilities and program content being especially important. (shrink)

Why do scientists do experiments? What do their experiments reveal? Scientifically, can we decide what to believe? Is evolution a scientific theory? Such apparently simple questions are brilliantly investigated by celebrated philosopher and professor Alan Musgrave in order to interrogate the worldviews we inhabit - and their consequences. Musgrave brings to these questions an expansive historical knowledge, provoking readers to enter the now-discredited belief-systems of earlier ages in order to compare these with their own beliefs. Discursive, entertaining, and provocative, Secular (...) Sermons contains fourteen essays by Musgrave - New Zealand's leading contemporary philosopher - examining the basic assumptions of science, religion, and mathematics. The book is an insightful introduction to the philosophical thought of Aristotle, Bacon, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, Herschel, Darwin, and Einstein, among others. It puts modern science in a broader historical perspective and offers an entertaining introduction to the philosophical paradigm of Critical Rationalism. (shrink)

One of the goals of happiness research is to identify the key factors that influence it. Therefore, the present research is designed to examine the determining factors of subjective wellbeing in Pakistan. The present research is conducted by collecting the data of 1,566 households in Punjab, Pakistan, using the ordered logit and tobit model. The findings of this research confirm that income, education, government effectiveness, no perceived corruption, and perceived institutional quality improve wellbeing, while lower trust in family and friends, (...) poor health status, living on rent, and dissatisfaction with the services of hospitals lower the level of wellbeing. But individuals with more social ties, who face barriers in health services, live more happily satisfied with their lives. Crime victimization and worrisome terrorism also lower the level of SWB. Findings of research strongly emphasize policymakers and government institutions to improve their quality and take essential measures for improving the governance structure. (shrink)

Young academics have been facing a problem of high turnover rate due to missing links between the institutions’ policies and the performance. This study explores the effect of job embeddedness and community embeddedness on creative work performance and intentions to leave of young teaching staff in academic institutions in Pakistan. In this study, 300 qualified young academics from public and private universities were selected as subjects and asked to complete a questionnaire. Data were collected via mail-survey. A variance-based structural equation (...) model is employed to measure the path model. The results show that the fit-dimension of organizational- and community-embeddedness, along with the moderating effect of organization size and the availability of nearby alternative jobs have a significant impact on improving perceived creative performance and reducing staff turnover intentions. This study suggests that organizations should focus on organizational-fit and community-fit constructs in their nurturing strategies to embed young teachers in their academic institutions. This study also suggests that monetary rewards only are relatively ineffective to improve retention. Hence, public and private sector universities should facilitate meaningful contributions from young teachers in creative work and provide opportunities for social interactions and personal development. (shrink)

Proper utilization of antenatal and postnatal care services plays an important role in reducing the maternal mortality ratio and infant mortality rate. This paper assesses the utilization of health care services during pregnancy, delivery and post-delivery among rural women in Uttar Pradesh and examines its determinants. Data from a baseline survey of UP Community Mobilization project was utilized. A cross-sectional sample of currently married women who delivered a baby 15 months prior to the survey was included. Information was collected from (...) 2208 women spread over five districts of UP. Information on socio-demography characteristics, utilization of antenatal care, delivery and postnatal care services was collected. To examine the determinants of utilization of maternal health services, the variables included were three ANC visits, institutional delivery and PNC within 42 days of delivery. Separate multilevel random intercept logistic regressions were used to account for clustering at a block and gram panchayat level after adjusting for covariates. Eighty-three percent of women had any ANC. Of them, 61% reported three or more ANC visits. Although 68% of women delivered in a health facility, 29% stayed for at least 48 h. Any PNC within 42 days after delivery was reported by 26% of women. In the adjusted analysis, women with increasing number of contacts with the health worker during the antenatal period, women exposed to mass-media and non-marginalized women were more likely to have at least three ANC visits during pregnancy. Non-marginalized women and women with at least three ANC visits were more likely than their counterparts to deliver in an institution. Contacts with health worker during pregnancy, marginalization, at least three ANC visits and institutional delivery were the strong determinants for utilization of PNC services. Self-help group membership had no association with the utilization of maternal health services. Utilization of maternal health services was low. Contact with the health worker and marginalization emerged as important factors for utilization of services. Although not associated with the utilization, SHGs can be used for delivering health care messages within and beyond the group. (shrink)

This study considers Newman’s sermon—“On the Nature of the Future Promise”—which he preached on 4 September 1825 at St. Clement’s Church, Oxford—likely with his mother and sisters present in the congregation; in addition to treating Newman’s style of preaching and Evangelical theology, this sermon’s theological and pastoral dimensions are also examined.

Joseph Butler's Fifteen Sermons is a classic and widely influential work of moral philosophy. Its topics include the role of conscience in human nature, self-love and egoism, compassion, resentment and forgiveness, love of our neighbour and of God. It is here presented with introduction, annotation, and other selected writings by Butler.

In medieval universities, preaching formed an essential part of the curriculum of theology. Though we know next to nothing about how the subject was formally taught and studied, we are well informed about its requirement and exercise. As early as the end of the twelfth century Peter the Chanter stated that the graduate in theology had to show proficiency in three areas: in lecturing, disputation, and preaching . How and when in a student's career such preaching was to be done (...) is set out in the statutes of major universities, such as Paris, Oxford, Cambridge, and others. In 1253, for instance, the statutes of Oxford University declared that “no one shall incept in theology in this university unless he has first been regent in the arts …, and unless he has lectured on some book from the biblical canon or a book of the Sentences or Histories, and preached in public before the university.” The three-fold requirement was still in place in the fourteenth century and later: “Those who are about to incept in theology, before they are admitted to inception, must throughout all theology schools oppose in public, preach in public, and read in public some book from the biblical canon or the Sentences.” The times and places of such required public preaching, as well as the order in which theologians would give their public sermons, were all regulated in similar statutes and have been discussed in Hastings Rashdall's history of medieval universities and, with particular focus on Oxford, by A. G. Little and F. Pelster. (shrink)