This work is an attempt to elaborate an understanding of the nature and meaning of ontology, and on that basis, to construct it. The starting-point and clue for the construction of ontology is language, and language's power to express what is. The understanding of ontology which is secured in this essay is one which sees ontology as the linguistically conditioned account of what is and of the existence of what is, an account which becomes, coordinately and equally, onto-theology and onto-anthropology, (...) in which latter, the nature of person is adumbrated as transcendence towards Being as value and value as Being. (shrink)

"Translated with an uncanny sense for the overall point of Augustine's doctrine. In short, a very good translation. The Introduction is admirably clear." --Paul Vincent Spade, Indiana University.

Ecological developmental biology (eco‐devo) explores the mechanistic relationships between the processes of individual development and environmental factors. Recent studies imply that some of these relationships have deep evolutionary origins, and may even pre‐date the divergences of the simplest extant animals, including cnidarians and sponges. Development of these early diverging metazoans is often sensitive to environmental factors, and these interactions occur in the context of conserved signaling pathways and mechanisms of tissue homeostasis whose detailed molecular logic remain elusive. Efficient methods for (...) transgenesis in cnidarians together with the ease of experimental manipulation in cnidarians and sponges make them ideal models for understanding causal relationships between environmental factors and developmental mechanisms. Here, we identify major questions at the interface between animal evolution and development and outline a road map for research aimed at identifying the mechanisms that link environmental factors to developmental mechanisms in early diverging metazoans.Also watch the Video Abstract. (shrink)

This festschrift for Teddy Seidenfeld is a collection of newly commissioned essays on imprecise probability by leading experts in the field. Each contribution touches on Teddy’s seminal contributions to the field of imprecise probability, and gives an up-to-date state of the field that cannot be found elsewhere. The title, “a reflection on the foundations of probability and statistics”, calls back to Teddy’s seminal book, “Rethinking the Foundations of Probability and Statistics”, bookends to a career that has made fundamental contributions to (...) the foundations of probability and statistics, and shaped the field of imprecise probability. It is aimed at scholars engaged in probability and statistics. (shrink)

Volume XVII Part 1: Phenomenology, Idealism, and Intersubjectivity: A Festschrift in Celebration of Dermot Moran's Sixty-Fifth Birthday Part 2: The Imagination: Kant's Phenomenological Legacy Aim and Scope: The New Yearbook for Phenomenology and Phenomenological Philosophy provides an annual international forum for phenomenological research in the spirit of Husserl's groundbreaking work and the extension of this work by such figures as Scheler, Heidegger, Sartre, Levinas, Merleau-Ponty and Gadamer. Contributors: Andreea Smaranda Aldea, Lilian Alweiss, Timothy Burns, Steven Crowell, Maxime Doyon, Augustin (...) Dumont, Richard Kearney, Mette Lebech, Samantha Matherne, Timothy Mooney, Thomas Nenon, Matthew Ratcliffe, Alessandro Salice, Daniele De Santis, Andrea Staiti, Anthony J. Steinbock, Michela Summa, Thomas Szanto, Emiliano Trizio, and Nicolas de Warren. (shrink)

Alexis de Tocqueville asserted that America had no truly great literature, and that American writers merely mimicked the British and European traditions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This new edited collection masterfully refutes Tocqueville's monocultural myopia and reveals the distinctive role American poetry and prose have played in reflecting and passing judgment upon the core values of American democracy. The essays, profiling the work of Mark Twain, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Updike, Edith Wharton, Walt Whitman, Henry James, Willa Cather, (...) Walker Percy, and Tom Wolfe, reveal how America's greatest writers have acted as society's most ardent cheerleaders and its most penetrating critics. Christine Dunn Henderson's exciting new work offers literature as a portal through which to view the philosophical principles that animate America's political order and the mores which either reinforce or undermine them. (shrink)

I start with a story to convey what I think is the essence of the Platonic outlook that Augustine adopts. Then I’ll show you how various Platonists put the insights that this story encapsulates to work in three different aspects of philosophy. After I’ve laid all that out, I’ll talk about how Augustine transforms this Platonic picture in the light of his Christian faith..

An overview of major work on Augustine published between 1990 and 2000.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Incomprehensible Certainty: Metaphysics and Hermeneutics of the Image by Thomas PfauThomas ZingelmannPFAU, Thomas. Incomprehensible Certainty: Metaphysics and Hermeneutics of the Image. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2022. xxiii + 785 pp. Cloth, $80.00Thomas Pfau reconstructs one of the most traditional and possibly most decisive philosophical debates, [End Page 559] namely, the one about the form and function of appearance (Schein). This debate is (...) taken up on the basis of the concept of image. This means that Pfau concentrates historically as well as systematically on a specific topic within this debate. The book is divided into two major sections.In the first section, Pfau examines how the history of the metaphysics and theology of the image develops, starting with Plato in the first chapter. The basic idea in this section is that the image has a crucial epistemic role in the metaphysical and theological systems of the authors addressed. Here Pfau shows that Plato, at the latest in the Sophist, develops a theory of images that revalues appearance contrary to the assumptions in the Republic. Chapter 1 is about the mediation of unity and multiplicity, as it is also shown in Plotinus. Chapter 2 attempts to show how the Byzantine icon embodies the conviction that the invisible truth of the visual world can be revealed only through images. Pfau's demonstration of various epistemic dimensions of the image then begins with chapter 3: the eschatological vision from Augustine to Bonaventure to Julian of Norwich. Chapter 4, the last of the first section, reconstructs Nicholas of Cusa's position, which attempts to understand mystical visions mediated by images of Christ.The second section examines how the metaphysics of the image—in the sense of an epistemology, which tries to establish ultimate justifications—nevertheless persists and even evolves despite two crucial switches in philosophy. On the one hand, this concerns philosophy that subordinates the visual to the abstract (for example, Hegel) and, on the other, the supposedly nonmetaphysical status of the image in the developing natural sciences. Chapter 5 then attempts to show, through Goethe's botanical investigations and reflections, how, despite the establishment of the natural sciences, Goethe attempts to defend intuition as a scientific method and appearance as a scientific object of investigation. This position is then pursued historically in chapter 6, through the work of Lyell, Darwin, and Ruskin, where the visible is understood as the connecting point of the sciences in general. Gerard Manley Hopkins is then identified in chapter 7 as representing a position that combines theological with proto-phenomenological arguments to highlight the epistemic value of images. The last chapter then deals with decisive developments at the beginning of the twentieth century. In phenomenology (Husserl), painting (Cézanne), and poetry (Rilke), a conception develops that epistemically valorizes sensual and intuitive experience.Generally speaking, Pfau attempts to trace historically what arguments and positions have been developed on the relationship between image and knowledge. His work is based on the conviction that the image is the basis for human orientation in the world and is therefore of great epistemological value. Of outstanding importance for his question is that the epistemological value of images is not to be located in the properties of images, that is, an ontology of the image; rather, Pfau is interested in those positions that reflect on the relationship between knowledge and [End Page 560] experience of images. While clarifying the ontological status of images remains important, the epistemological status of images—what role the experience and usage of images has for humans—is in the foreground. Pfau reconstructs positions that hold that the pictorial is a medium of knowledge. He puts forward the thesis that there is a tradition that is of the opinion that in and through the medium of the image—and this closes the arc to the Schein-debate—being can be experienced by man. In other words, the invisible is to become recognizable through the visible. Of particular importance is his reading of the late Platonic dialogues: While appearance and being are still thought of as distinct in these dialogues, they are not opposed, in the sense of an epistemic opposition. Plato's... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Plotinus and the Augustine on the Mid-Rank of the Soul: Navigating Two Worlds by Joseph TorchiaThomas ClemmonsTORCHIA, Joseph. Plotinus and the Augustine on the Mid-Rank of the Soul: Navigating Two Worlds. Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 2023. vii + 237 pp. Cloth, $105.00For nearly four decades, Joseph Torchia, O.P., has written extensively on Augustine and Plotinus. He has produced numerous scholarly articles on both Augustine and Plotinus, as well (...) as monographs on Augustine’s understanding of creatio ex nihilo and tolma in Plotinus. This volume on the mid-rank of the soul in Plotinus and Augustine is the fruit of this life-long study.The major premise of Torchia’s study is the profound relation, even continuity, between Hellenistic philosophy, especially Neoplatonism, and early Christian thought. The Hellenistic view of an ordered universe, which extends from the material and physical to the spiritual and noetic, [End Page 730] places the human in a middle place. This view is exposited most clearly by Plotinus and shared, though with qualifications, by early Christians, especially St. Augustine. Torchia asserts that we are able to see this shared legacy and continuity between philosophers such as Plotinus and Augustine in “their respective anthropological and psychological theories.”The book is divided into halves; the first on Plotinus and the second on Augustine. Torchia’s discussion of Plotinus’s philosophy narrows and deepens through five chapters, from a general outline of the Alexandrian’s system to a heightened focus on the journey of the soul, as imaged through the figure of Odysseus. Torchia rightly notes the inconsistent depiction of the descent of soul(s), especially of individual souls as both in a sense “fallen” and “sent.” This tension is in part resolved through Plotinus’s emphasis on the middle place of the soul and the harmony of all the parts within the unity of the whole.The chapters on Plotinus are excellent. Torchia shows how Plotinus integrates concepts from Aristotle, especially his De anima, and qualifies the spiritualized philosophy of Plato. What we get, then, is Plotinus as a highly original philosopher, whose insights deserve closer examination. For example, Torchia glosses the Plotinian dictum, “we are soul,” to examine what is meant by “we” and “soul.” Far from leading to a dismissive view of the body and individuality (as is often stated about Plotinus), Torchia emphasizes that the middle state of the soul is the condition of soul. The lower soul, or the composite (per Torchia), cannot be simply lopped off. To do so, the unity of soul would be destroyed. Torchia thus presents a Plotinus profoundly concerned with humanity in its entirety—our affections, body, thoughts, and individuality. This is why Plotinus and Torchia land on the image of Odysseus as the journeyman to depict human existence.In the final five chapters, the book turns exclusively to Augustine. Torchia outlines the profound difference between Augustine and Plotinus as regards the ontological distinction between God as creator and the human. Because of this distinction, Torchia observes that the mid-rank of the soul takes on a more profound “existential significance.” This existential significance is witnessed in Augustine’s emphasis on free will and the “weight of love,” which, according to Torchia, shows affinities with Plotinus but also departs from the determinism and necessity of the descent of soul(s) in the Alexandrian’s system.The final chapter of the book examines Augustine’s understanding of the two cities, of God and of man. Torchia asserts that the middle-rank of the soul provides the philosophical undercurrent to Augustine’s conception of the City of God. The City of God is not exclusively a spiritual reality. Rather, much as with the middle-rank of the soul, the City of God is both “here” and “there.” The permixta of the Church as an intermediate state is “analogous to the mid-rank status of the rational soul.” For Augustine, both the individual and the Church journey, like Plotinus’s Odysseus, on the stormy seas. [End Page 731]In this book, Torchia has provided a thorough and insightful reading of Plotinus. He highlights the inherent rational optimism of Plotinus as well as the goodness... (shrink)

Every reader creates a personal version of what is read....This is often the very opposite of what might at first blush be expected: but on consideration it is exactly the way in which a writer of genius should — we perhaps suddenly realise — respond. It is, in short, creative rather than passively parallel, and a matter of unobtrusive decisive omissions followed by the flow of new matter, of demarcation rather than of imitation.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Virtue and Grace in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas by Justin M. AndersonThomas V. BergVirtue and Grace in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas by Justin M. Anderson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), xiii + 327 pp.To ignore Aquinas's theological backstory to his account of the virtues—namely, his account of grace in its relation to human action—is to distort his account of the virtues. This is the (...) very valid thesis explored by Justin Anderson in Virtue and Grace in the Theology of Thomas Aquinas. Anderson critiques the tendency among contemporary Anglophone virtue ethicists to quietly bracket his account of grace even as they admire his account the virtues. More pointedly, Anderson holds that Aquinas's account of virtue is inseparable from his account of sin, grace, "and God's presence in human life and action." He endeavors to evidence Aquinas's authentic account of virtue and its "inner reliance on the theological categories of grace, sin, and divine providence" (1).Anderson thus proposes a reading of Aquinas that is diachronic, analytical and systematic, and text-based, and which follows the logic inherent in Aquinas's own reasoning.And he delivers.After a brief overview of Aquinas's understanding of virtue in chapter 1, in chapter 2, Anderson explores the Thomistic distinction that will largely serve as a heuristic for most of the study: the distinction between virtue secundum quid (pagan virtue) and virtue simpliciter, virtue infused in us by God—virtue in the truest sense of the term.In chapter 3, Anderson traces the historical evolution in Aquinas's understanding of grace as this impacts his understanding of the conditions under which a person can possess or embody virtue. He bases this exploration in part on the work of both Henri Bouillard and Bernard Lonergan. First Anderson explores how that evolution came about in the context of the emergence of two powerful categories of thought: the Aristotelian concept of nature in the twelfth century and the category of the supernatural in the thirteenth. According to Bouillard, Aquinas's understanding of grace would [End Page 1421] have been further shaped by two sets of discoveries during his sojourn in Italy in the early 1260s, the first being two anti-Pelagian tracts of St. Augustine, and the second being the Liber de bona fortuna, a Latin compilation, possibly translated by William of Moerbeke, consisting of two chapters on good fortune, one taken from Aristotle's Magna Moralia, and the other from the Eudemian Ethics.Aquinas discovers in Augustine's anti-Pelagian works the contention that the beginning of faith is from God and not from the individual. As with the grace of final perseverance, both initiation and perdurance in faith are gratuitous gifts of God. In his encounter with the Liber (and particularly his consideration therein of the "problem of the first deliberation"), like other medievals, Aquinas "[was] presented Aristotelian investigations regarding the possibility of a divine movement, even unacknowledged by the agent, at the very roots of human action" (98). And, in Thomas's evolved understanding, this divine influence would constitute an inner movement within the human agent apart from those external circumstances ordained by providence.Anderson embraces the thesis that, in this context, and under these influences, Aquinas's understanding of grace underwent a "revolution," that a mature Aquinas—and this is the thesis of Lonergan—moves beyond a consideration of grace merely as habitus (gratia gratum faciens) to a notion of operative grace, of grace as a movement, utilizing "the unique idea of a 'moving grace', a movement of God in, and in some cases with, the human soul" (105).And—Anderson is emphatic—this revolution in thought quickly steers Aquinas clear of what centuries later will be termed semi-Pelagianism, and toward a firmly anti-Pelagian conception of the human capacity for virtue.Chapters 4–9 comprise the second and third parts of the book. It is here that Anderson masterfully and exhaustively engages in the heavy lifting of evincing just how, in fact, Aquinas's account of virtue is inseparable from his theology of grace. On the supposition that Aquinas's mature theology of grace understands the latter to... (shrink)

Review of Brian Dobell, Augustine's Intellectual Conversion.

This rich and varied collection of essays addresses some of the most fundamental human questions through the lenses of philosophy, literature, religion, politics, and theology. Peter Augustine Lawler and Dale McConkey have fashioned an interdisciplinary consideration of such perennial and enduring issues as the relationship between nature and history, nature and grace, reason and revelation, classical philosophy and Christianity, modernity and postmodernity, repentance and self-limitation, and philosophy and politics.

Augustine combined two distinctions to develop an elegant interpretive framework for embracing multiple senses of “resurrection,” resolving tensions that had bedeviled predecessors such as Irenaeus and Tertullian. The first distinction was between the general resurrection of the body and an accompanying bodily transformation restricted to the saved. The second distinction, which he shared with many fourth-century authors but may have drawn most directly from Tyconius, was between a “first,” spiritual resurrection experienced now by the baptized and a “second,” bodily resurrection (...) experienced eschatologically by all. Scholars have noted both distinctions separately but not explored how Augustine came to adopt them and use them in combination. Augustine deployed these distinctions together to resolve theological problems caused by apparent Pauline connections between the “first” resurrection of believers and the “second” resurrection of all. (shrink)

How does Christ's mediation affect the individual human being? And how does that effect on the individual human being's soul relate to the way of salvation that incorporates, in principle, all human beings? Harmon answers both questions by examining Augustine's narration of his own life, and his treatment of the universal way of salvation as it flows among men in society and as it flows through the individual both involve the reconciliation of elements divided by the effects of sin. The (...) healing of divisions among human beings and within human beings, in the thought of Augustine, is effected by the same agency: the redemptive action of the Incarnate Word. (shrink)

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

I first became interested in De dialectica in 1966, while I was doing re search on Augustine's knowledge of logic. At the time I made a transla tion of the Maurist text and included it as an appendix to my doctoral dissertation (Yale, 1967). In 1971 I thoroughly revised the translation on the basis of the critical text of Wilhelm Crecelius (1857) and I have re cently revised it again to conform to Professor Jan Pinborg's new edition. The only previously (...) published translation of the whole of De dialectica. is N. H. Barreau's French translation in the Oeuvres completes de Saint Augustin (1873). Thomas Stanley translated parts of Chapters Six and Nine into English as part of the account of Stoic logic in his History of Philosophy (Pt. VIII, 1656). I offer De dialectica in English in the hope that it will be of some interest to historians of logic and of the liberal arts tradition and to students of the thought of Augustine. In translating I have for the most part been as literal as is consistent with English usage. Although inclusion of the Latin text might have justified a freer translation, for example, the use of modern technical terms, it seemed better to stay close to the Latin. One of the. values in studying a work such as De dialectica is to see familiar topics discussed in a terminology not so familiar. In the translation I follow these conventions. (shrink)

This paper examines Augustine's exegetical theory and practice, with particular emphasis on the epistemology that undergirds his Biblical interpretation and the moral constraints on exegesis that Augustine sets forth on De doctrina christiana.

Trying, in his Soliloquia, to prove the immortality of the soul from the imperishability of truth, Augustine apparently commits a fallacia aequivocationis. Truth is imperishable insofar as it subsists independently. Immortality follows from this only insofar as truth is constituted by mental acts and is thus inseparable from the soul; for dualistically inspired scepticism, truth is given as being immanent to consciousness through methodologically correct procedures establishing coherence. This fallacy is avoidable only by presupposing a Platonic two-world-dualism: The soul, as (...) well as truth, belongs to the subsisting intelligible and therefore essentially has knowledge. Ignorance can be understood, according to recollection theory, as partial forgetting allowing for distinguishing between true and false, and remarkably also between true ideas and deceiving sensory imaginations. Such a faculty encompassing the intelligible as well as the sensible, however, undermines dualism. (shrink)

Augustine’s important work De uera religione has been frequently read for its Neoplatonic resonances. However, there is much in the work that cannot be reduced to this reading. Themes such as the importance of the common and public dimension of uera religio, the significance of history, and the function of ‘true religion’ toward the training and renewal of the whole human, are topoi that reveal the dynamic structure of the work. A consideration of these themes in uera rel. brings into (...) full relief Augustine’s answer to why God acted in time and through history for the whole human race and helps to explain Augustine’s complex articulation of Christianity in the work. (shrink)

This paper poses the question “Why did Augustine not use his Trinitarian theology to better effect in the Pelagian controversy?” I demonstrate first that Augustine’s mature Trinitarian theology would be directly relevant to the Pelagian discussions after the year 415. Second, I show a slight progression in Augustine’s treatment of relevant issues from 418 through the end of his life in his anti-Pelagian corpus. I argue that Augustine does not use his Trinitarian theology to his full advantage in the anti-Pelagian (...) corpus. I suggest that Augustine avoided these connections at least in parí because the Trinitarian reflections on “God is love” (I Jn 4) would ultimately push the anti-Pelagian reflections on God’s love for Jacob (Rom 9:13) towards universalism, but Augustine had already rejected universalism. (shrink)

In his discussion of how future contingents are known and revealed Thomas systematized what Augustine had developed in his disputes with the Stoics and Pelagians. Thomas shows how logical determinism concerning future contingents is avoided by Aristotelian logic, according to which future contingents have no determinate truth. Moreover, he explicitly unravels how our understanding of causal contingency and necessity is applicable only to created causes. Nevertheless, Augustine had explicitly done the same when he criticized the Stoics not for (...) their position that every event is ordered, but rather for not recognizing that this order must include God’s causal power. Moreover, Augustine’s discussion of God’s promise to Abraham stresses that only God can move the will without taking away its freedom. The truth of the promise is based on the truth of what God will do. Similarly, Thomas stresses that knowledge of future contingents can only be prophetic, since they are present only in God and have determinate truth only on account of his decision to cause them. Augustine did not go into detail concerning how future truths are usually known insofar as they are present in their causes, but Thomas’ position is compatible with that of Augustine and may go some way towards explaining its deeper philosophical implications. The similarity of Thomas and Augustine on the problem of prophecy and foreknowledge is an instance of how Thomas often agrees with Augustine on substance, even though he expresses his view in a more systematic and precise fashion. The most relevant texts of Augustine on this issue are polemical. There is even development in Augustine, as he moves from his relatively simple concerns about necessity in the De libero arbitrio to the more sophisticated treatments in the Ad Simplicianum, the De civitate dei and the anti-Pelagian writings. Thomas’ texts are scholastic. Consequently, he is able to discuss one topic at length and to use conceptual resources borrowed or developed from Aristotle. Nevertheless, there is no reason to conclude that Thomas’ development of these themes betrays Augustine any more than Augustine’s own development betrays his earlier writings. On this issue Thomas is truly Augustinian. (shrink)

The central positoin of St. Thomas Aquinas in the pantheon of Catholic thinkers along with St. Augustine of Hippo more than justifies ongoing attention to his thought and contributions to philosophy, theology, and medieval culture. This volume is an anthology of the passages of his Summa Theologia on human nature or the "human constitution.".

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 119-121 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Ethics and Political Philosophy The Common Good in Late Medieval Political Thought Arthur Stephen McGrade, John Kilcullen, and Matthew Kempshall, editors. Ethics and Political Philosophy. Vol. 2 of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xii + 664. Cloth, $85.00. Paper, $29.95. M. S. Kempshall. The Common (...) Good in Late Medieval Political Thought. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Pp. x + 401. Cloth, $95.00. With the exception of the thought of Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus, late medieval political and ethical philosophy has been neglected. Two recent books attempt to rectify this neglect. One is the second volume of The Cambridge Translations of Medieval Philosophical Texts. A translator of this volume, Matthew Kempshall, has also recently written a thorough analysis of the common good as it is discussed in late thirteenth-century scholasticism. Many of the texts discussed in this second book are translated by Kempshall in the first book.The new volume of translations now makes it possible for the reader unfamiliar with Latin to have some exposure to the medieval reception of Aristotle's ethical and political thought. The selections are deliberately taken from lesser-known figures who are not often translated, such as Albert the Great, Godfrey of Fontaines, and Augustine of Ancona. The selections are carefully chosen to represent a wide variety of literary genres. For example, the selection from Albert is part of his commentary of Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics, [End Page 119] whereas the selection from Godfrey is a Quodlibetal Question, and that from Augustine of Ancona is part of a treatise. Moreover, there are some selections that show developments within a particular genre. For example, a translation from Buridan's commentary on Book X of the Nicomachean Ethics contrasts nicely with that of Albert. The selection from Albert focuses mostly on pleasure, the relationship between the active and the contemplative lives, and the connection between ethics and politics. His discussion of pleasure is philosophically important in light of twentieth-century discussions about reasons for actions. Moreover, these issues are all discussed in at least one of the other selections. Interestingly, Buridan's commentary on the same Book focuses instead on human freedom. Buridan makes fine distinctions that are relevant to contemporary debates about free will. Selections from Henry of Ghent, Godfrey of Fontaines, and James of Viterbo all address the topic of the relationship between self-love and the virtuous life. These passages are relevant to the question of whether there is egoism in ancient and medieval ethical thought.The volume is a companion to The Cambridge History of Later Medieval Philosophy and suffers from one of its weaknesses, which is that the selections can seem arbitrary. For example, the passage from Albert takes up nearly one quarter of the volume. Furthermore, sometimes the representation of an author by only one genre is misleading. For example, although Giles of Rome wrote a Quodlibetal Question (Quod 2, q. 20) that is directly attacked in a translation from James of Viterbo, Giles is represented only by a passage from his treatise De regimine principum. Moreover, the moral psychology of the late thirteenth century is not well-covered, which is odd considering the importance of Bonnie Kent's work in this area.One additional problem is that there are few notes to aid the reader. Sometimes the translations can be confusing. For example, in one passage "the Commentator" should be identified, since the name can apply to at least three individuals (262-3). More seriously, readers with little background in medieval thought might confuse the medieval referents signified in the translation by the words "state" or "love" with contemporary referents. The translations themselves are clear and the different translators follow a consistent set of guidelines. Anyone who tries to translate some of these passages for herself will understand that some... (shrink)

Michel Foucault's analysis of the constitution of the modern subject poses provocative philosophical and theological questions about the relationship between structures of power, practices of domination, and the subjects that they discipline. His problematization of the self proposes to illuminate Christianity's transmission, if not invention, of forms of self-knowledge and reflexive acts of truth that leave Christian subjects (understood in both senses of the term) open to the panoptical disciplines of the state, market, and other structures that dominate through normalization. (...) Even if one disagrees with his thesis that the teachings and practices of early Christianity are integral to the…. (shrink)