Descartes contends that he, or his mind, is really distinct from his body. Many philosophers have little patience with this claim. What could be more obvious than that the mind depends on the body? But their impatience often dissolves when they recognize that Descartes only asserts a de re modal statement. To say that one thing is really distinct from another is to say that each can exist apart from the other. But should we grant Descartes this de re modal (...) claim itself?Descartes's argument for the real distinction is based on the assumption that clear and distinct conception provides a reliable guide to possibility. (shrink)

The Genesis of God: A Theological Genealogy. By Thomas J.J. Altizer. Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1993. pp.200.

Humanity’s creative capacity has never been more unsettling than it is at our current moment, when it has ushered us into new technological worlds that challenge the very definition of “the human.” Those anxious to safeguard the human against techno-scientific threats often appeal to religious traditions to protect the place and dignity of the human. But how well do we understand both theological tradition and today’s technological culture? In _The Indiscrete Image, _Thomas A. Carlson challenges our common ideas about (...) both, arguing instead that it may be humanity’s final lack of definition that first enables, and calls for, human creativity and its correlates—including technology, tradition, and their inextricable interplay within religious existence. Framed in response to Martin Heidegger’s influential account of the relation between technological modernity and theological tradition, _The Indiscrete Image_ builds an understanding of creativity as conditioned by insurmountable unknowing and incalculable possibility through alternative readings of Christian theological tradition and technological culture—and the surprising resonance between these two. Carlson concludes that the always ongoing work of world creation, tied essentially to human self-creation, implies neither an idol’s closure nor an icon’s transcendence, but the “indiscrete image” whose love makes possible—by keeping open—both the human and its world. (shrink)

Editors provide a substantive introduction to the history and theories of perfectionism and neutrality, expertly contextualizing the essays and making the collection accessible.

Jean-Luc Marion advances a controversial argument for a God free of all categories of Being. Taking a characteristically postmodern stance, Marion challenges a fundamental premise of both metaphysics and neo-Thomist theology: that God, before all else, must be. Rather, he locates a "God without Being" in the realm of agape, of Christian charity or love. This volume, the first translation into English of the work of this leading Catholic philosopher, offers a contemporary perspective on the nature of God. "An immensely (...) thoughtful book.... It promises a rich harvest. Marion's highly original treatment of the idol and the icon, the Eucharist, boredom and vanity, conversion and prayer takes theological and philosophical discussions to a new level."—Norman Wirzba, _Christian Century_. (shrink)

The Islamization of Syria, a multi-faceted social and cultural process not limited to demography, was slow and highly variable across different locales. This article analyzes geographical works—ten in Arabic, one in Persian, and one in Hebrew— as well as the earliest Ottoman defters of the province to outline the process of Islamization in Syria from the Islamic conquest in the seventh century to the Ottoman conquest in the sixteenth. Geographical texts cannot be mined as databases, but when interpreted as literature (...) they provide often detailed information regarding the foundation of mosques, the slow conversion of multi-religious shrines, and areas within Syria known for particular religious affiliations. (shrink)

En discrepancia con la afirmación de Jean-Luc Marion de que la fenomenología existencial de Martin Heidegger carece de un pensamiento del amor, este artículo sostiene que un pensamiento del amor —el cual es directamente deudor de San Agustín— es de hecho fundamental para la crítica de Heidegger a la metafísica moderna y su culminación en el dominio de la tecnología. La diferencia entre Marion y Heidegger en la cuestión del amor, según el artículo, reside en otra parte: para Marion, la (...) intencionalidad extra-mundana del amor aspira a lo eterno, mientras que para Heidegger la intencionalidad del amor atiende en el fondo a nuestro ineludiblemente temporal y mortal estar-en-el-mundo. (shrink)

Examines the relationship between the question of God and the destiny of metaphysics. Concept of the end of metaphysics; Ambiguous relation between phenomenology and metaphysics; Return of special metaphysics in phenomenology; Phenomenological figure of God. Examines the relationship between the question of God and the destiny of metaphysics. Concept of the end of metaphysics; Ambiguous relation between phenomenology and metaphysics; Return of special metaphysics in phenomenology; Phenomenological figure of God.

It is important to re-engage public health professionals, after an absence of almost a half a century, in the issues of land development and community design. Resources should be devoted to processes that directly engaged diverse communities in defining their idea of good public health. In Michigan, within demographic communities, the idea or definition is slightly different, but an agreement was reached that activities should be developed around four basic environmental areas: food, air, water, and land use. Resource teams were (...) developed around each of these areas, and an attempt was made to describe the current status of environmental conditions and identify major health problems. The community was engaged in a dialogue and a strategy for improvements was developed. The Michigan Land Use Resource Team identified land trends, described water and air quality, and even mapped automobile injuries, including pedestrian injuries and deaths. (shrink)

This article provides an overview of current and prospective ethical issues facing commercial (as opposed to leisure) travel agents. Industry wide ethical issues include conflicting pressures from suppliers and clients, competency requirements for agents and misleading advertising and sales claims (vaporware in industry jargon). Issues with travel suppliers include calculation and payment of commissions, fare loopholes, frequent flyer plans and the use and abuse of benefits directed to individual employees. Issues with corporate clients of travel agents include hidden preferred carriers (...) or suppliers, client pressure to use fare loopholes and hidden relationships with corporate travel consultants. Future issues include protecting client privacy, free riding, and divergent international business practices. (shrink)

When we love a place: world's end with Cormac McCarthy -- Mourning places and time in Augustine -- The conversion of time to the time of conversion: Augustine with Marion -- The time of his syllables: dying together with Derrida and Augustine -- Thinking love and mortality with Heidegger -- World loss or heart failure: pedagogies of estrangement in Harrison and Nancy -- Ages of learning . . . the secular today with Emerson and Nietzsche.

The current paradigm in medicine generally distinguishes between genetic and environmental causes of disease. Although the word paradigm has become a commonplace, the theories of Thomas Kuhn have not received much attention in the journals of medicine. Kuhn's structuralist method differs radically from the daily activities of the scientific method itself. Using linguistic theory, this essay offers a structuralist reading of Thomas Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Our purpose is to highlight the similarities between these structuralist models (...) of science and language. In part, we focus on the logic that enables Kuhn to assert the priority of perception over interpretation in the history of science. To illustrate some of these issues, we refer to the distinction between environmental and genetic causes of disease. While the activity of scientific research results in the revision of concepts in science, the production of significant differences that shape our knowledge is in part a social and linguistic process. (shrink)

Jean-Luc Marion is one of the world’s foremost philosophers of religion as well as one of the leading Catholic thinkers of modern times. In _God Without Being_, Marion challenges a fundamental premise of traditional philosophy, theology, and metaphysics: that God, before all else, must be. Taking a characteristically postmodern stance and engaging in passionate dialogue with Heidegger, he locates a “God without Being” in the realm of _agape_, or Christian charity and love. If God is love, Marion contends, then God (...) loves before he actually is. First translated into English in 1991, _God Without Being_ continues to be a key book for discussions of the nature of God. This second edition contains a new preface by Marion as well as his 2003 essay on Thomas Aquinas. Offering a controversial, contemporary perspective, _God Without Being_ will remain essential reading for scholars and students of philosophy and religion. “Daring and profound.... In matters most central to his thesis, [Marion]’s control is admirable, and his attunement to the nuances of other major postmodern thinkers is impressive.”—_Theological Studies_ “A truly remarkable work.”—_First Things_ “Very rewarding reading.”—_Religious Studies Review_. (shrink)

En explorant plus avant le projet des ouvrages théologiques précédents, Au lieu de soi ne distingue pas simplement la pensée de la création de l’onto-théologie mais la sépare aussi de son dépassement heideggérien, qui demeure pour Marion aussi idolâtrique que la métaphysique elle-même. L’ouvrage se concentre ici autour de l’interprétation de l’adonné comme créature par excellence, ou créature iconique – dont le privilège tient à sa temporalité et à sa mutabilité. Indispensable à l’interprétation de saint Augustin comme penseur non métaphysique, (...) l’analyse de la temporalité de l’homme iconique, en démontrant la manière dont la pensée de la création reste hors de l’ontothéologie et de la causa et de l’ego, suggère en même temps que saint Augustin n’affirme le devenir de l’homme qu’en lui enlevant toute innocence et, corrélativement, ne trouve pas de bonheur véritable dans l’amour du mortel comme tel. (shrink)

There has been an ongoing appeal in the bioethics literature for a broader understanding and conceptual clarity of the phenomenon of moral distress. Several authors argue that greater conceptual cl...

The emergence of private authority has become a feature of the post-Cold War world. The contributors to this volume examine the implications of this erosion of the power of the state for global governance. They analyse actors as diverse as financial institutions, multinational corporations, religious terrorists and organised criminals. The themes of the book relate directly to debates concerning globalization and the role of international law, and will be of interest to scholars and students of international relations, politics, sociology and (...) law. (shrink)

Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility is an edited collection of new essays by an internationally recognized line-up of contributors. It is aimed at readers who wish to explore the philosophical and scientific arguments for free will skepticism and their implications.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THOMAS, THOMISMS, AND TRUTH BRUCE D. MARSHALL Saint Olaf College Northfield, Minnesota I HE GREAT, as Hegel's dictum has it, condemn the rest f us to the task of understanding them. We take our evenge upon the great, especialy upon great thinkers, by enlisting them for our own purposes, as our supporters and defenders in conflicts perhaps quite different from those in which they themselves were engaged. (...) Thomas Aquinas was a master, virtually without peer, at the intellectual enlistment of the great, and he himself has been perhaps as widely and variously recruited as any of those to whom he devoted his own attentions. When we enlist Thomas for our own purposes with some consistency and success, the result is a " Thomism," of which there have been many, sometimes quite conflicting varieties. My article " Aquinas as Postliberal Theologian " does not propose anything so developed as a Thomism, but perhaps at most a fragment of one.1 In their responses to it, Frederick J. Crosson and Louis 1 The Thomist 53 (1989) : 353-402. The interpretation of Thomas proposed there bears a family resemblance to that of some recent Thomisms and so is not wholly without precedent. Cf. Michel Corbin, Le chemin de la theologie chez Thomas D'Aquin (Paris: Beauchesne, 1974); Otto Herman Pesch, Die Theologie der Rechtfertigung bei Martin Luther und Thomas von Aquin (Mainz: Matthias-Grunewald-Verlag, 1967) ; idem, Thomas von Aquin: Grenze und Grosse mittelalterlichen Theologie, 2nd ed. (Mainz: MatthiasGrunewald -Verlag, 1989); Gerhard Ludwig Muller, "Hebt das Sola-FidePrinzip die Moglichkeit einer naturlichen Theologie auf? Eine Ruckfrage bei Thomas von Aquin," Catholica 40 (1986) : 59-96; Victor Preller, Divine Science and the Science of God (Princeton: University Press, 1967). Reference to these Thomisms should not, of course, be taken to constitute agreement with any particular claim one of them may make. 499 500 BRUCE D. MARSHALL Roy, O.P., argue that as a piece of Thomism-as the enlistment of Thomas in defense and support of a particular contemporary view of truth, meaning, and epistemic justification-it is at best unpromising. In so doing, they indicate, at least in part, what views on these matters they think Thomas can plausibly be enlisted to support, that is, the sort of Thomism they find more convincing. Great thinkers are not, however, defenseless against our efforts to recruit them for our ends. Especially in the case of one whose thought is as ramified, precise, and historically distant as is that of Thomas Aquinas, these efforts are likely to meet with some resistance. (Indeed, we will be inclined to distrust them if they claim not to.) We may even find ourselves compelled to refashion our own ends in order not to forgo plausible appeal to his precedent and support. Sometimes different Thomisms will no doubt include purposes distant enough from Thomas's own (as best we can grasp them) that it may be impossible to adjudicate conflicts between them by appeal to his texts. But in many cases it ought to be possible to decide reasonably between competing Thomisms (that is, to decide which more plausibly enlists Thomas for its own purposes) by assessing the amount and type of resistance each meets from the text of Thomas (of course this includes the possibility that competition between Thomisms reflects unresolved conflict within Thomas's own thought). In the present case the prospect of reasonable adjudication seems much increased by the fact that the large issues with which it is concerned -truth, meaning, and justification-tend to coalesce around what seems to be a straightforward matter of fact: whether Thomas taught that persons without Christian faith, and especially pre-Christian philosophers, knew, or were even able to know, God. Crosson and Roy both argue that the implausibility of my interpretation of Aquinas on these larger issues-the linking of a comprehensively coherentist account of justification an~ a contextualist account of meaning to Thomas's correspondence notion of truth-is especially clear in its attribution to Thomas of a posi- THOMA$, THOMISMS, AND TRUTH 501 tion he manifestly rejects: that a pre-Christian philosopher like Aristotle did not, and indeed could not, know God. This seems obvious to most modern Thomisms, which, however... (shrink)

What are the primary characteristics that define what it means to be human? And what happens to those characteristics in the face of technology past, present, and future? The three essays in Image, by leading philosophers of religion Mark Taylor, Mary-Jane Rubenstein, and Thomas Carlson, play at this intersection of the human and the technological, building out from Heidegger's notion that humans master the world by picturing or representing the real.Taylor's essay traces a history of capitalism, dwelling on (...) the lack of humility, particularly in the face of our own mortality, that is the persistent failure of humans, before turning to art as a possible way to bring us back to earth and recover humility before it is too late. Rubenstein zeroes in on the delusions of imaginative conquest associated with space travel. Through a genealogy of the modern "view from space" from the iconic Earth rise photo of 1968 up to the new privatized American space race, Rubenstein provides an analysis of the perils of the one-world and the false unity it projects. In his essay, Carlson takes as his starting point the surveillance capitalism of facial recognition technology. He dives deep into Heidegger to meditate on the elimination of individuals through totalizing gestures and the relationship between such elimination and our encounters with mortality. Each of these essays, in its own way, reflects on the nature of imagination, the character of technological vision in contemporary culture, and the implications of these for the kinds of sociality and love that condition our human experience. (shrink)

Historians of technology have provided important accounts of technological innovation, but they rarely employ concepts which permit a rigorous analysis ofinvention as a mental or cognitive process. This article seeks to address this theoretical lacuna by using concepts adapted from cognitive psychology to compare the mental processes of two telephone inventors, Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison. Specifically, we suggest that invention may be seen as a process in which inventors combine ideas with objects, or what we call mental (...) models and mechanical representations. The strategies by which inventors generate and manipulate these mental models and mechanical representations are what we refer to as heuristics. Using these concepts to narrate the development of the telephone, this article shows how invention can be interpreted as being much more than simply a mysterious act of individual genius. (shrink)

Bruce L. Kinzer offers a rich examination of personal and political themes in the life of John Stuart Mill, one of the most influential liberal thinkers of the nineteenth century. By investigating young Mill's formative period and his relations with his father, Harriet Taylor, and Thomas Carlyle, Kinzer casts light on the challenges Mill faced in understanding himself and what he wished to become. Kinzer's political explorations probe issues central to the appreciation of Mill as an engaged political (...) thinker and actor and offers an insightful portrait of a complex and towering figure."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)