Out of the ashes of the post-modern critique of metaphysics comes a series of important essays which re-think the place of metaphysics in theological and philosophical inquiry. This book ranges across a variety of philosophical and theological traditions, charting new directions for theological reflection.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:324 BOOK REVIEWS Reading in Communion: Scripture & Ethics in Christian Life. By STEPHEN E. FowL & L. GREGORY JONES. Series: Biblical Foundations in Theology. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1991. Pp. ix + 166. $13.95 (paper). This book represents the collaborative attempt of a biblical scholar and an ethicist to determine the precise sense in which scriptural texts can be taken as normative for (...) the Christian moral life. The collabora· tion is a fruitful one, its results illuminating not only the problem of method in ethics, but issues of biblical hermeneutics as well. This re· sult is not serendipitous; for the authors, the question of how one ought to live the Christian life and the question of how one ought to interpret Scripture are inextricably linked. Indeed, perhaps it would be more accurate to suggest that, on the account that Fowl and Jones supply, these are different formulations of the very same question. There is no rigid demarcation here between the hermeneutical and the ethical realm, no rigorous sorting out of issues appropriate to each field of inquiry. The authors make good on their introductory promise "to write a single text " rather than simply to generate a series of " alternating perspectives " (p. 3). In the very first chapter of the book, certain typical, even dominant, ways of construing the relationship between Scripture and ethics are briefly reviewed and then rejected. Ethics is commonly perceived as being primarily "concerned with right actions and decisions," the authors contend, while the Bible is viewed as a moral guide for the " particular decisions made by isolated individuals " (p. 5). In contrast, Fowl and Jones argue that " Scripture is primarily addressed not to individuals but to specific communities called into being by God " (p. 8). Moreover, our ethical deliberations ought not to be focused on particular decisions and the formulation of moral principles that bear on those decisions, but rather, on " issues of character and the formation of character in and through socially-embodied traditions" (p. 9). The consequences of such a general position are carefully and sen· sitively explored in this first and in subsequent chapters. The authors reject the assumption that one such consequence must be the conclusion that moral behavior is not, after all, ruled behavior, that one cannot formulate and articulate the principles that govern much of what we do. Their position entails the conclusion, rather, that such principles cannot be meaningfully detached from the communally embodied traditions that engender them. Indeed, they have meaning at all only in· sofar as the individuals describing, interpreting and employing these BOOK REVIEWS 325 principles possess the peculiar habits and beliefs characteristic of the :members of a specific community. In the analysis of any given moral situation, then, the discussion of principles will necessarily presuppose.a discussion of character, of the sorts of persons involved in the situation, their moral beliefs and capabilities. It is important to note that this discussion will often take a narrative form, precisely because the delineation of character is most readily accomplished by telling stories about persons, about their communities, their politics and practices, their interests and aspirations. Thus, moral capabilities are formed in " the friendships and prac-.tices " that constitute communal life. In asserting this, the authors defend an important but not terribly controversial claim. What is especially intriguing and insightful about their account, however, is the reIated claim that moral capabilities are also hermeneutical capabilities, that some of the patterns and habits of action acquired by living in a·Community also function as habits of interpretation. "Well-formed·character," Fowl and Jones explain, is crucial not only to "Christians'.ability to live faithfully in the various contexts within which they find themselves," but also to their " ability to read, speak and perform the word of the Lord " (p. 85). Moral virtue is, on their account, a kind of interpretive skill. (If not identical, character and interpretive skill.are, at the very least, formed in the same process, inextricably linked ;together as aspects of "practical wisdom." See page 31.) This result is especially meaningful once it becomes clear that the authors are employing a usefully broadened concept of " interpreta· tion." To interpret a scriptural text can and often... (shrink)

Lately I've been giving a great deal of thought to the nature of human (and other organic) abilities. In part, this is connected to my recent research into multiple personality and the need to explain, not only the partitioning of abilities and skills among alternate personalities, but also the enhanced levels of functioning that some of them exhibit (and for that matter, the exceptional performances of "nonmultiples" in hypnotic and other sorts of dissociative states). My interest in this topic is (...) also connected to my ongoing study of savants and prodigies, who apparently have much to teach us about the limits (and perhaps also the latency) of human abilities. At bottom, I suppose, it connects with my general and longstanding concern with problems of psychological explanation, particularly in light of the gross inadequacies of trendy computational theories of the mind. (shrink)

The important question is how people process probabilistic information, not whether they process it in accordance with a normative model that we never should have expected them to be capable of following. Experience is not the cure, as widely thought, to problems with utilizing base rate information.

This paper expands the literature on accounting ethics education by considering the teaching of ethics in accounting doctoral education. Some of the ethical issues that might be addressed in accounting doctoral education are reviewed. A number of matters relating to teaching ethics to accounting doctoral students are considered. The paper concludes with a summary and some final remarks.

For over thirty years, Stephen Braude has studied the paranormal in everyday life, from extrasensory perception and psychokinesis to mediumship and materialization. _The Gold Leaf Lady and Other Parapsychological Investigations_ is a highly readable and often amusing account of his most memorable encounters with such phenomena. Here Braude recounts in fascinating detail five particular cases—some that challenge our most fundamental scientific beliefs and others that expose our own credulousness. Braude begins with a south Florida woman who can make thin (...) gold-colored foil appear spontaneously on her skin. He then travels to New York and California to test psychokinetic superstars—and frauds—like Joe Nuzum, who claim to move objects using only their minds. Along the way, Braude also investigates the startling allegations of K.R., a policeman in Annapolis who believes he can transfer images from photographs onto other objects—including his own body—and Ted Serios, a deceased Chicago elevator operator who could make a variety of different images appear on Polaroid film. Ultimately, Braude considers his wife’s surprisingly fruitful experiments with astrology, which she has used to guide professional soccer teams to the top of their leagues, as well as his own personal experiences with synchronicity—a phenomenon, he argues, that may need to be explained in terms of a refined, extensive, and dramatic form of psychokinesis. Heady, provocative, and brimming with eye-opening details and suggestions, _The Gold Leaf Lady and Other Parapsychological Investigations_ will intrigue both adherents and detractors of its controversial subject matter alike. (shrink)

We have seen that we cannot de-tense a sentence like (15) simply by changing its verb, since the tense of such a sentence is determined by a temporal adverb. More importantly, we have seen that de-tensing is a process of removing certain temporal restrictions from the truth-conditions of tensed sentences, and that tensed and tenseless forms of a verb do not differ in sense. Once we understand this, and once we realize that it is an historical accident that the tense (...) of sentences in English if often indicated by means of the grammatical device of inflecting verbs, tensed verbs no longer seem to be the sort of item that needs to be purged from ordinary language in constructing its tenseless analogue. Indeed, although the distinction between tensed and tenseless verbs may still be of philosophic interest, this distinction hardly seems to deserve the pivotal role assigned to it in the literature. (shrink)

Stephen Whicher's Freedom and Fate begins with a tribute to Ralph Rusk's monumental biography The Life of Ralph Waldo Emerson, acknowledging its supremacy as a factual telling of Emerson's life that cannot be surpassed. Whicher's book aims to be a complement to the painstakingly researched outer life of Emerson by focusing on the great sage's inner life—not just his intellectual biography but the very nature of his thinking. Whicher stresses the life of "spectator-ship" that the young Emerson, perpetually ill (...) as he turned out to be, was condemned to. His writings, especially his private thoughts recorded in his journals, document the ebb and flow of his spirit, alternatively listless and resolute. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 61, Issue 1, pp 33 - 42 _De caelo_ 2.6 describes irregular motion differently from the discussion at _Physics_ 5.4. The desire to make the one discussion congrue with the other has strained interpretation of the _De caelo_ passage. Aristotle provides a theory of irregular motion that is tripartite and the passage ought to be interpreted in such a way as to explain this tripartite motion. _Akmē_ is not a ‘top speed’ as it is generally translated, but (...) a point in an object’s motion when _epitasis_ must become _anesis_. Although the terms _epitasis_ and _anesis_ cover ‘acceleration’ and ‘deceleration’ they cannot be reduced to them. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Wyclif on RightsStephen E. LaheyIn the study of medieval political philosophy the tendency has been to pay attention to thinkers who appear to have contributed to the birth of the modern. While the value in coming to understand how modern political thought developed is undeniable, this tendency is accompanied by an implicit, perhaps unintentional, devaluation of the study of that which did not contribute as obviously to modernity. In (...) the history of the idea of the natural right scholars have distinguished between the objective and the subjective right, characterizing the subjective right as what lies at the heart of the classically modern and liberal. One could get the impression that the good political philosophers, having hit upon the subjective right, dispensed with talk of the old-fashioned objective right just as people abandoned gaslight when Edison’s lightbulb went on the market. 1 But this is not what happened; not only did objective rights discourse continue into the modern period, but it was not necessarily the idiom solely of religious and political conservatives.Some late medieval philosophers, notably Marsilius of Padua, even came up with progressive and unorthodox political visions while adhering to the objective right. I will show that at least one late medieval political theory founded on the objective right, that of John Wyclif, can be argued to be as innovative in several important aspects as that of any of the better-known fourteenth-century advocates of the subjective right. To do that, I will divide this paper into three parts. In the first, I will explain the difference between objective and subjective theories of the right, making note of what we can reasonably expect from a fourteenth-century political theory in the way of toleration and briefly introducing John Wyclif’s life and works. In the second I will recount Wyclif’s view of ius, or the right, as it appears in his political writings, and in the third I will explain how this concept has a bearing on elements in his political thought that are recognizably unorthodox and even tolerant to modern, liberal eyes. Having [End Page 1] shown how Wyclif’s objective right plays out in his innovative and reformative political scheme, I hope to have helped to dispel the dogma that the only early rights theories worth studying are those that evolved into ones we use.I.a. Objective and Subjective RightsThe explicit distinction between objective and subjective rights is a new one, invented by scholars of the history of political thought to distinguish between the sense of the term ius, or right, as that which is just in accordance with a set body of law, and the sense of ius which refers to a licit power or faculty belonging to an individual in accordance with right reason. 2 The objective right is grounded in Roman law and functioned in medieval legal and political thought as it had in antiquity. Generally, an individual had a ius to act or be acted upon if that action was commensurate with the law. Among the Romans, that law was either Roman law, or it was according to objective natural law; with the introduction of Christian monotheism, the ius was “right” according to God’s law. Tuck notes that the concept of dominium had long been of a piece with objective ius and explains that dominium had usually been seen as a species of objective ius. If someone has just dominium over something, it is because their relation of dominium is “(what is) right,” ius, in accord with justice, iustitia. He argues that when dominium, which he understands to mean “property,” is equated with ius, “right,” the foundation is laid for a possessive (subjective) right. 3 While this is problematic on several counts, not the least of which is the restriction of dominium to the ownership of property, it illustrates the relatedness of the two concepts ius and dominium. 4As juristic sophistication grew in the twelfth century, it became useful to distinguish between ius in re, “right in a thing,” and ius ad rem, “right to a thing.” If someone has a ius in re, they can use the thing and/or exercise dominium... (shrink)

In two books and several articles Philip Goff has developed a panpsychist theory. Recently, he has put forth a version which he calls cosmopsychism. Rejecting both perfect being theism and physicalism, according to cosmopsychism, there is a unitary mind that is not only the cause of the universe, but in a sense is the universe. In this essay I critique Goff’s theory, arguing that it is not simpler than PBT, and that it fails to make important issues clear. I conclude (...) that Goff’s theory is a version of theism but fails to be a plausible alternative to PBT. (shrink)

The Limits of Influence is a detailed examination and defense of the evidence for largescale-psychokinesis. It examines the reasons why experimental evidence has not, and perhaps cannot, convince most skeptics that PK is genuine, and it considers why traditional experimental procedures are important to reveal interesting facts about the phenomena.

Four experiments are reported which investigated the types of truth tables that people associate with conditional sentences and the kinds of inferences that they will draw from them. The present studies differed from most previous ones in using different types of content in the conditionals, for example promises and warnings. It was found that the type of content had a strong and consistent effect on both truth tables and inferences. It is suggested that this is because in real life conditionals (...) make probabilistic assertions, and that the strength of the probabilistic link is determined by the situation in which the conditional occurs. The implications of these findings for current theories of reasoning are considered and it is concluded that none of them is entirely satisfactory. It is suggested that more linguistically based theories may prove more successful. (shrink)

This paper examines the ways in which familiar views about the world and our place in it must change in the face of the reality of psi phenomena. It is argued that most commentators are confused on this topic. Contrary to the received opinion, the existence of psi should make almost no difference to our currently accepted body of scientific theories. Nor, as some argue, can it be of much help to a defense of dualism. But the existence of psi (...) has profound implications regarding the pervasiveness of intentions in the world, even in connection with everyday sorts of events. The view is defended that we have no grounds for imposing antecedent restrictions on the range, magnitude, or refinement of psi. Finally, the paper discusses how the evidence for precognition forces serious consideration of a world?view generally associated only with so?called ?primitive? cultures. (shrink)

While humanists have pondered the subject of love to the point of obsessiveness, philosophers have steadfastly ignored it. One might wonder whether the discipline of philosophy even recognizes love. The word _philosophy _means “love of wisdom,” but the absence of love from philosophical discourse is curiously glaring. So where did the love go? In _The Erotic Phenomenon,_ Jean-Luc Marion asks this fundamental question of philosophy, while reviving inquiry into the concept of love itself. Marion begins his profound and personal book (...) with a critique of Descartes’ equation of the ego’s ability to doubt with the certainty that one exists—“I think, therefore I am”—arguing that this is worse than vain. We encounter being, he says, when we first experience love: I am loved, therefore I am; and this love is the reason I care whether I exist or not. This philosophical base allows Marion to probe several manifestations of love and its variations, including carnal excitement, self-hate, lying and perversion, fidelity, the generation of children, and the love of God. Throughout, Marion stresses that all erotic phenomena, including sentimentality, pornography, and even boasts about one’s sexual conquests, stem not from the ego as popularly understood but instead from love. A thoroughly enlightening and captivating philosophical investigation of a strangely neglected subject, _The Erotic Phenomenon _is certain to initiate feverish new dialogue about the philosophical meanings of that most desirable and mysterious of all concepts—love. (shrink)

In his book Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing, Bede Rundle argues that there is no need to appeal to God for an explanation concerning why the universe exists, and remains in existence. I argue that on the contrary, Rundle’s philosophical naturalism is unable to give a plausible account for the continued existence of the universe in a lawful manner and the objects of which it is composed. The major reason for this inability is that since, as Rundle admits, (...) everything that exists has a logically contingent existence, there can be no necessary principle by which contingent objects are sustained in existence. (shrink)

A common approach to explaining the perception of form is through the use of static features. The weakness of this approach points naturally to dynamic definitions of form. Considering dynamical form, however, leads inevitably to the need to explain how events are perceived as time-extended—a problem with primacy over that even of qualia. Optic flow models, energy models, models reliant on a rigidity constraint are examined. The reliance of these models on the instantaneous specification of form at an instant, t, (...) or across a series of such instants forces the consideration of the primary memory supporting both the perception of time-extended events and the time-extension of consciousness. This cannot be reduced to an integration over space and time. The difficulty of defining the basis for this memory is highlighted in considerations of dynamic form in relation to scales of time. Ultimately, the possibility is raised that psychology must follow physics in a more profound approach to time and motion. (shrink)

Bergson’s model of time (1889) is perhaps the proto-phenomenological theory. It is part of a larger model of mind (1896) which can be seen in modern light as describing the brain as supporting a modulated wave within a holographic field, specifying the external image of the world, and wherein subject and object are differentiated not in terms of space, but of time. Bergson’s very concrete model is developed and deepened with Gibson’s ecological model of perception. It is applied to the (...) problems of consciousness, direct realism, qualia and illusions. The model implies an entirely different basis for memory and cognition, and a brief overview is given for the basis of direct memory, compositionality and systematicity. (shrink)

In 1968 E.K. Borthwick, with a brilliant conjecture, cleared up a passage from Aristophanes’Peacethat had been considered ‘nonsense’ since antiquity. ‘Bell goldfinch’ (κώδων ἀκαλανθίς) the line seemed to be saying: a jumbled idea at best, gibberish at worst (1078). The scholium reads ad loc.: ταῦτα δὲ πάντα ἐπίτηδες ἀδιανοήτως ἔφρασεν, ‘all this is said as deliberate nonsense’, and later scholars generally follow suit (W.W. Merry, for example, in his 1900 edition ofPeacerefers to the line as ‘magnificent nonsense’). But Borthwick showed (...) that this was not the case: ‘even nonsense expressions in Aristophanes’, he writes, ‘are not haphazard collocations of incongruous words signifying nothing’. What, then, to do with the ancient scholar (and those later ones) who failed to understand the passage, claiming it instead to be ‘nonsense’? (shrink)

In proposing that their model can operate in the concrete, perceptual world, Rogers & McClelland (R&M) have not done justice to the complexities of the ecological sphere and its invariance laws. The structure of concrete events forces a different framework, both for retrieval of events and concepts defined across events, than that upon which the proposed model, rooted in essence in the verbal learning tradition, implicitly rests.

Within Piaget there is an implicit theory of the development of explicit memory. It rests in the dynamical trajectory underlying the development of causality, object, space and time – a complex (COST) supporting a symbolic relationship integral to the explicit. Cassirer noted the same dependency in the phenomena of aphasias, insisting that a symbolic function is being undermined in these deficits. This is particularly critical given the reassessment of Piaget’s stages as the natural bifurcations of a self-organizing dynamic system. The (...) elements of a theoretical framework required to support explicit memory are developed, to include, (1) the complex developmental trajectory supporting the emergence of the explicit in Piaget, (2) the concrete dynamical system and the concept of a non-differentiable time contained in Bergson’s theory required to support a conscious, as opposed to an implicit remembrance, (3) the relation to current theories of amnesia, difficulties posed by certain retrograde amnesic phenomena, the role of the hippocampus and limitations of connectionist models, (4) the fact that nowhere in this overall framework does the loss of explicit memory imply or require the destruction of experience “stored in the brain.”. (shrink)

Food insecurity, and its extreme form, hunger, occur whenever the accessibility to an adequate supply of nutritional and safe foods becomes restricted or unpredictable. They are recurring problems in certain regions of the US, as well as in many parts of the world. According to nation-wide surveys conducted by the US Bureau of the Census, between 1996 and 1998 an estimated 9.7% of US households were classified as food insecure (6.2% being food insecure without evidence of hunger, and 3.5% being (...) food insecure with moderate to severe hunger). This means that approximately 10 million households each year did not always have access to enough food to meet basic needs. A potential tool in the fight against food insecurity and hunger is information technology (IT), since its use and range of application continue to grow at astonishing rates. The study presented here examined the question of how information technology, particularly the Internet, can be used to promote food security. The study used an action science research approach, and a case study strategy, with the food security system of Oktibbeha County, Mississippi selected as the case for study. The research design was a two-phase process. Phase one consisted of a needs assessment among food assistance organizations in Oktibbeha County, and included interviews of key food assistance personnel. Phase one also included a survey of IT subject matter experts to seek their opinions about the current state of Web-based information technology. Phase two involved an analysis of various IT implementation issues, as well as the development of a Web-based food security information system prototype tool. The needs assessment results indicated that (a) certain food security system and information needs existed among the food assistance organizations in Oktibbeha County, and (b) appropriate information technologies existed that could be applied to these needs. The food security needs related to better communication and coordination of information, such as program information, food site inventory information, client history information, food donation information, and nutrition education information. In regard to technology development, a variety of scenarios were examined. These included client-side approaches, server-side approaches, simple e-mail-based systems, Java-based systems, systems based on the Common Gateway Interface (CGI), and commercial database systems. In applying the needs assessment and survey results, the researcher developed a prototype Web site (including a series of online database tools) that could be used to promote food security in counties such as Oktibbeha County. The results of this research show that appropriate, Internet-based, IT holds promise for the reduction of certain social problems, such as food insecurity and hunger. (shrink)