'The church in danger' : latitudinarians, Socinians, and Hobbists -- Animal spirits and living fibres -- Mortalists and materialists -- Journalism, exile, and clandestinity -- Mid-eighteenth-century materialism -- Epilogue : some consequences.

_Critical Reasoning in Ethics_ is an accessible introduction that will enable students, through practical exercises, to develop their own skills in reasoning about ethical issues such as: * analysing and evaluating arguments used in discussions of ethical issues * analysing and evaluating ethical concepts, such as utilitarianism * making decisions on ethical issues * learning how to approach ethical issues in a fair minded way Ethical issues discussed include the arguments about abortion, euthanasia, capital punishment, animal rights, the environment and (...) war. The book will be essential reading for philosophy, health, social work and nursing courses. (shrink)

Reasoning is the everyday process that we all use in order to draw conclusions from facts or evidence. To think critically about what you read and hear is a vital skill for everyone, whether you are a student or not. When we are faced with texts, news items or speeches, what is being said is often obscured by the words used and we may be unsure whether our reasoning, or that of others, is in fact sound. By the end of (...) this topical and exercise-based introduction to critical thinking, you will be able to: * identify flaws in arguments * analyse the reasoning in newspaper articles, books or speeches * approach any topic with the ability to reason clearly and to think critically This stimulating new introduction to reasoning will appeal to all those who would like to improve their reasoning skills, whether at work, in class or in the seminar. (shrink)

The Universal History, which had a complicated publishing history from the 1730s to the 1780s, was a commercial undertaking by a group of London booksellers, aimed at satisfying curiosity for reliable information about the rest of the world. It was finally composed of two separate parts, the Ancient and the Modern, which, while eventually published as a single work, were distinct. Its first author was George Sale, the noted translator of the Qur’an, who emphasized the recourse to original Arab manuscripts, (...) although, after his death in 1736, later authors had a different approach. This article looks first at the work’s hostile view of Islam and claim that sympathy to it was a tactic of irreligious thinkers to undermine Christianity. It then analyses the somewhat confused discussion of the Arabs, which varies according to the sources used in the two parts, before highlighting the emphasis on Ottoman despotism. It finally evokes the call in the Modern Part for a European expedition to free North Africa from the Ottomans, destroy piracy in the Mediterranean, and encourage the North Africans to develop agriculture and trade. This call was copied in the best-selling French work, Raynal’s Histoire des Deux Indes. (shrink)

Julien Offray de La Mettrie, author of Machine Man, was the most uncompromising of the materialists of the eighteenth century, and the provocative title of his work ensured it a succès de scandale in his own time. It was however a serious, if polemical, attempt to provide an explanation of the workings of the human body and mind in purely material terms and to show that thought was the product of the workings of the brain alone. This fully annotated edition (...) presents an English translation of the text together with the most important of La Mettrie's other philosophical works translated into English, and Ann Thomson's introduction examines his aims and the scandalous moral consequences which he drew from his materialism. (shrink)

SummaryThis article looks at the discussions of natural law by the eighteenth-century French materialists Julien Offray de La Mettre, Denis Diderot, Paul Thiry d'Holbach and Claude-Adrien Helvétius. It is particularly concerned with their discussion of moral values and their attempt to find a materialistic basis for them as part of their rejection of religion. The discussion brings out the différences between them and analyses their dialogues on this question, including the other materialists' rejection of La Mettrie's amoralism, which threatened to (...) undermine their attempt to found a natural law taught by experience and based on human nature. Particular attention is paid to Diderot's many writings which grapple with the subject, beginning with his Encyclopédie article droit naturel, probably written in 1754. He discussed the question in many of his later writings, including in his annotations on the works of Helvétius, who based natural law on the general interest. These writings reveal a tension between Diderot's emphasis on the search for individual happiness and the interests of society as he, together with d'Holbach, attempted to provide a natural basis for morality and government from which to criticise existing institutions. (shrink)

This article, after evoking the hostile fictitious account of La Mettrie's death in which he is described as a machine, studies first of all how this doctor discussed death in his own works, in particular in Systčme d'Epicure. Here La Mettrie also refers to his own death, claiming that he has no doubt he will die as a philosopher. A study of the diverse accounts of and reactions to his untimely death shortly afterwards lead to the conclusion that he did (...) not perhaps die as he had hoped but that he died as a physician, with no deathbed conversion. (shrink)

Immortalité de l'âme, intelligence, distinction des substances, vie éternelle: ces questions, qui sont au coeur de la réflexion sur la nature de l'être humain, ont passionné les philosophes et les lettrés du Grand Siècle et du Siècle des Lumières. Un débat animé, polémique, s'est noué dans toute l'Europe savante et, notamment, de part et d'autre de la Manche. Avec pour fil conducteur l'émergence d'une conception laïque et matérielle de l'être humain, Ann Thomson nous fait partager l'effervescence féconde de ces (...) échanges et de ces débats. Elle nous initie aux polémiques théologico-politiques qui ont nourri la "crise de la conscience européenne" et ses prolongements, jusqu'au milieu du XVIIIesiècle. Consacrée à l'Angleterre après la Glorieuse Révolution de 1688, la première partie analyse les luttes idéologiques et religieuses de la fin du XVIIe et du début du XVIIIe siècle, replacées dans leur contexte historique, philosophique et scientifique, avant d'étudier la controverse sur Dieu, sur l'âme et sur la nature humaine. La deuxième partie, centrée sur les "premières Lumières" françaises, suit le cheminement des échos de ces controverses anglaises transmis par les passeurs huguenots et les voies clandestines de la circulation philosophique, puis analyse la spéculation scientifique et philosophique dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle. Ces vifs débats ont fait naître de multiples courants qui ont permis l'éclosion et l'épanouissement d'une pensée matérialiste qui s'affirma à partir des années 1760, dans le cadre, notamment, dune réflexion sur la génération. En soulignant le rôle joué par les polémiques théologiques protestantes mais également par la recherche médicale, cet essai d'histoire intellectuelle, transnationale, nous transporte au coeur de la philosophie des Lumières, et des "Lumières radicales". En même temps, il s'inscrit clans une histoire de longue durée, car les questions soulevées par ce livre continuent aujourd'hui d'interpeller les théologiens, les philosophes, les anthropologues, les neurobiologistes. Les penseurs des Lumières furent aux avant-postes d'une vertigineuse interrogation sur l'identité et la nature de l'homme. Pour la première fois, ce livre nous permet d'en explorer toutes les dimensions. (shrink)

Myriam-Isabelle Ducrocq’s aim in this work is to show, by uncovering the traces of Harrington’s writings in a variety of French eighteenth-century texts, the broad relevance of his thought, despite...

Analysing reasoning -- Evaluating reasoning -- Recognising implications -- Evaluating evidence and authorities -- Two skills in the use of language -- Exercising the skills of reasoning -- Constructing reasoning.

This passage, from the brief exposition of Spinoza’s philosophy provided by La Mettrie in the Abrégé des systèmes, sums up various questions about his philosophy that I wish to raise in this article. I shall look at some of the main aspects of La Mettrie’s materialism that have presented problems since he published his works, and which have, to a large extent, accounted for, at best, the suspicion and, at worst, the revulsion that they have aroused from all shades of (...) opinion. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION The text presented here is one which, by virtue of its title, Discours preliminaire, has hitherto been overlooked in most discussions of La ...

These two books, while very different in many respects, also complement each other in several ways and overlap at some points. They both reflect the new paths that the study of Europe’s thinking ab...

La modernité, dès ses débuts, attribue un rôle-clef aux passions : qu’elles soient hostiles à la Raison ou au contraire ses alliées, dangereuses ou fascinantes, elles marquent le rôle du corps, du désir, du langage et de l’imagination dans la nature de l’homme. La même époque voit se développer différentes variantes du matérialisme. Presque toutes réévaluent ce que la raison classique avait tendance à réprimer ou à considérer comme révélateur de la faiblesse humaine : le corps et tout ce qui, (...) dans l’âme ou dans la société, porte les traces de l’activité et de la positivité du corps. On peut donc s’attendre à ce que les matérialistes fassent un sort particulier aux passions, à ce qu’ils y reconnaissent des lois et non pas seulement des manques ou des vices, à ce qu’ils essaient d’en repérer l’efficace dans l’ensemble des activités humaines. Encore faut-il se demander comment chaque matérialisme procède, par quelle configuration propre il rend compte de ces phénomènes ou comment il dévie les discours de la théorie classique pour les forcer à passer par les objets qui sont les siens. Plutôt que de supposer l’existence d’une théorie matérialiste unique, une enquête s’impose donc qui prenne en vue la diversité de ces auteurs, les situe dans leur contexte et repère les points d’inflexion que rencontre chez chacun d’entre eux cette problématique générale des passions qui semble avoir gouverné plusieurs siècles. (shrink)

The contribution of this book to the field of reconciliation is both theoretical and practical, recognizing that good theory guides effective practice and practice is the ground for compelling theory. Using a Girardian hermeneutic as a starting point, a new conceptual Gestalt emerges in these essays, one not fully integrated in a formal way but showing a clear understanding of some of the challenges and possibilities for dealing with the deep divisions, enmity, hatred, and other effects of violence.

The contribution of this book to the field of reconciliation is both theoretical and practical, recognizing that good theory guides effective practice and practice is the ground for compelling theory. Using a Girardian hermeneutic as a starting point, a new conceptual Gestalt emerges in these essays, one not fully integrated in a formal way but showing a clear understanding of some of the challenges and possibilities for dealing with the deep divisions, enmity, hatred, and other effects of violence. By situating (...) discourse about reconciliation within the context of Girardian thought, it becomes clear that like Peter who vowed he would never deny Jesus but ended up doing it three times any of us is susceptible to the siren call of angry resentment and retaliation. It is with a profound awareness of the power of violence that the emergence of mimetic discourse around reconciliation takes on particular urgency.". (shrink)

Background: When adolescent boys experience close, secure relationships with their parents and peers, the implications are potentially far reaching, including lower levels of mental health problems in adolescence and young adulthood. Here we use rare prospective intergenerational data to extend our understanding of the impact of adolescent attachments on subsequent postpartum mental health problems in early fatherhood.Methods: At age 17–18 years, we used an abbreviated Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment to assess trust, communication, and alienation reported by 270 male (...) participants in their relationships with mothers, fathers, and peers. More than a decade later, we assessed the adult males, now fathers, at 12 months postpartum for symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. Logistic regression was used to examine the extent to which attachment dimensions predicted paternal postpartum mental health, adjusting for potential confounding, and with assessment for interactions between parent and peer attachments.Results: Trust in mothers and peers, and good communication with fathers during adolescence, were associated with 5 to 7 percentage point reductions in postpartum mental health symptoms in early fatherhood. Weak evidence of parent-peer interactions suggested secure attachments with either parent or peer may compensate for an insecure attachment with the other.Conclusions: Our results suggest that fostering trust and communication in relationships that adolescent boys have with parents and peers may have substantial effects on rates of paternal postpartum mental health problems. The protective benefits may be preventative in intergenerational cycles of risk for mental health problems. (shrink)

Few figures of the Middle Ages command the attention of so many modern disciplines as Robert Grosseteste (c. 1170-1253). Theology, Philosophy, History, and Science are all areas which his life and thought continue to have significance and to inspire re-interpretation. Accompanied by a series of original commentaries, this new edition of Grosseteste's work, with English translation, draws together the perspectives of modern scientists and medieval specialists. Volume I of a six volume series, Knowing and Speaking presents two of the earliest (...) of Grosseteste's works, the treatises On the Liberal Arts and On the Generation of Sounds. These are accompanied by a significant Middle English treatise on the Seven Liberal Arts whose anonymous fifteenth-century author translated and excerpted passages from Grosseteste's treatises in a re-imagining of their structure and function.0Each work is treated separately within the volume, which is constructed in three parts. On the Liberal Arts sets Grosseteste's thoughts on the arts subjects and emphasises moral concerns about the purpose of learning. On the Generation of Sounds builds on the theories and statements of On the Liberal Arts in connection to the production of sound, elaborating the earlier position, relating the generation of sounds to human vocal and speech production. (shrink)

How does an object persist through change? How can a book, for example, open in the morning and shut in the afternoon, persist through a change that involves the incompatible properties of being open and being shut? The goal of this reader is to inform and reframe the philosophical debate around persistence; it presents influential accounts of the problem that range from classic papers by W. V. O. Quine, David Lewis, and Judith Jarvis Thomson to recent work by contemporary (...) philosophers. The authors take on the question of persistence by examining three broad approaches: perdurantism, which holds that change over time is analogous to change over space; exdurantism, according to which identity over time is analogous to identity across possible worlds; and endurantism, which holds that ordinary objects persist by enduring. Each of these approaches appears to be coherent, but each also has its own metaphysical problems. Persistence includes papers that argue for perdurantism, exdurantism, or endurantism, as well as papers that explore some metaphysical difficulties challenging each account. In this way the collection allows readers to balance the trade-offs of each approach in terms of intuitiveness, theoretical attractiveness, and elegance.Contributors:Yuri Balashov, William Carter, Graeme Forbes, Sally Haslanger, Katherine Hawley, H. S. Hestevold, Mark Hinchliffe, Mark Johnston, Roxanne Marie Kurtz, David K. Lewis, Ned Markosian, D. H. Mellor, W. V. O. Quine, Theodore Sider, Richard Taylor, Judith Jarvis Thomson, Peter van Inwagen, Dean Zimmerman. (shrink)

This is the second volume of a two volume study on ethical issues concerning death. Volume 2 is subtitled Death and Whom to Save from It. In this second volume, Kamm deals with rights, duties, and status, developing an account of when it is permissible to harm others, especially when it is permissible to kill others. There is, however, a third book that must be considered if we are to fully understand the import of Volume 2 of Morality, Mortality. This (...) third book is entitled Creation and Abortion. It was originally intended to be included in Morality, Mortality, but, on account of considerations of length, the material on abortion was published separately by Oxford University Press in 1992. Creation and Abortion was prompted by Kamm's attempt to understand and modify Judith Thomson's "A Defense of Abortion.". (shrink)

There is a great deal in Man Machine and Other Writings that will delight the reader. Thomson has managed to capture much of La Mettrie’s wit and poetic use of language, which is no easy task; as La Mettrie himself comments on his “figurative style,” it “is often necessary in order to express better what is felt and to add grace to truth itself”. The central thesis of Man Machine needs little introduction. Inspired by the suggestion in Part 5 (...) of Descartes’s Discourse on Method that animals are machines, La Mettrie extends the metaphor to man. Man is like a watch whose springs and wheels, properly organized, move to perform its function. But before the reader concludes that La Mettrie is embracing Descartes’s reduction of biological phenomena to “lifeless” mechanism, La Mettrie further claims that matter itself cannot tell time. Only a body appropriately organized can have the property of self-motion, and, hence, perform such functions as telling time, or feeling, or thinking. La Mettrie’s primary task is to vitalize Cartesian mechanism to show that self-directed motion could be a property of organized matter: “I believe thought to be so little incompatible with organized matter that it seems to be one of its properties, like electricity, motive power, impenetrability, extension, etc.”. As for how inert, simple matter becomes active and composed of organs, and, in some cases, endowed with feeling and thought, La Mettrie appeals to our ignorance of causes which prevents us from knowing ultimate beginnings or ends. Such ignorance, however, does not prevent us from admitting such “incontrovertible observations” as that organized matter possesses a motive principle, whereas unorganized matter does not. Other themes in the work include his account of the faculty of imagination as the origin of thought, observations in comparative psychology, a sketch of thinking as a symbolic process, and a discussion of whether apes could speak. Man Machine, as Thomson explains in the introduction, is not a formal treatise, but, rather, a loosely structured polemic, often given to rhetorical flourishes. However, where Man Machine falls short on argumentation it will surely provoke and engage the reader. (shrink)

Réunissant les contributions de spécialistes reconnus du Japon, des États-Unis, d’Italie, d’Angleterre et enfin, de France, ce livre fera assurément progresser la connaissance et la reconnaissance de Diderot politique. Éclipsée par celles de Montesquieu ou de Rousseau, relativis...

The diversity of topics discussed in this book reflects the breadth of Judith Jarvis Thomson's philosophical work. Throughout her long career at MIT, Thomson's straightforward approach and emphasis on problem-solving have shaped philosophy in significant ways. Some of the book's contributions discuss specific moral and political issues such as abortion, self-defense, the rights and obligations of prospective fathers, and political campaign finance. Other contributions concern the foundations of moral theory, focusing on hedonism, virtue ethics, the nature of nonconsequentialism, (...) and the objectivity of moral claims. Finally, contributions in metaphysics and epistemology discuss the existence of sets, the structures reflected in conditional statements, and the commitments of testimony. Contributors: Jonathan Bennett, Richard L. Cartwright, Joshua Cohen, N. Ann Davis, Catherine Z. Elgin, Gilbert Harman, Barbara Herman, Frances Myrna Kamm, Claudia Mills, T.M. Scanlon, Ernest Sosa. (shrink)

A diverse collection of essays, which reflect the breadth of Judith Jarvis Thomson's philosophical work. The diversity of topics discussed in this book reflects the breadth of Judith Jarvis Thomson's philosophical work. Throughout her long career at MIT, Thomson's straightforward approach and emphasis on problem-solving have shaped philosophy in significant ways. Some of the book's contributions discuss specific moral and political issues such as abortion, self-defense, the rights and obligations of prospective fathers, and political campaign finance. Other (...) contributions concern the foundations of moral theory, focusing on hedonism, virtue ethics, the nature of nonconsequentialism, and the objectivity of moral claims. Finally, contributions in metaphysics and epistemology discuss the existence of sets, the structures reflected in conditional statements, and the commitments of testimony. Contributors Jonathan Bennett, Richard L. Cartwright, Joshua Cohen, N. Ann Davis, Catherine Z. Elgin, Gilbert Harman, Barbara Herman, Frances Myrna Kamm, Claudia Mills, T.M. Scanlon, Ernest Sosa. (shrink)

This article analyzes the experiences of ecologists who used data they did not collect themselves. Specifically, the author examines the processes by which ecologists understand and assess the quality of the data they reuse, and investigates the role that standard methods of data collection play in these processes. Standardization is one means by which scientific knowledge is transported from local to public spheres. While standards can be helpful, the results show that knowledge of the local context is critical to ecologists' (...) reuse of data. Yet, this information is often left behind as data move from the private to the public world. The knowledge that ecologists acquire through fieldwork enables them to recover the local details that are so critical to their comprehension of data collected by others. Social processes also play a role in ecologists' efforts to judge the quality of data they reuse. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In this paper, I shall explore the relationship between the control required for action and the control required for moral responsibility. I shall argue that there is an incongruity between Frankfurt’s account of guidance control presented in his theory of action and his commitment to the claim that alternative possibilities are not required for moral responsibility. This inconsistency centres around the role of abilities to do otherwise in our analyses of action and moral responsibility. After outlining the problem for (...) Frankfurt, I shall then motivate one way of resolving this tension. This solution provides a unified role for abilities to do otherwise in our analyses of control. (shrink)

I argue that a gendered division of labor is often the result of choices by women that count as fully voluntary because they are an expression of preferences and commitments that reflect women's understanding of their own good. Since liberalism has a commitment to respecting fully voluntary choices, it has a commitment to respecting these gendered choices. I suggest that justified political action may require that we fail to respect some people's considered choices.

The A-Theory of time has long struggled with the results of special relativity. One proposed solution is to stipulate the existence of a physically or metaphysically privileged frame which defines the global present for all observers. Recently this proposal has cropped up in literature on spatially closed universes (SCUs) which seem to naturally instantiate such structures. This paper examines the privileged frame proposal through the lens of SCUs, arguing that even in these space-times which seem overwhelmingly friendly to A-theoretic accounts (...) the theory face insurmountable challenges. (shrink)

Julien Offray de La Mettrie (1709-51), author of Machine Man (1747), was the most uncompromising of the materialists of the eighteenth century, and the provocative title of his work ensured it a succès de scandale in his own time. It was however a serious, if polemical, attempt to provide an explanation of the workings of the human body and mind in purely material terms and to show that thought was the product of the workings of the brain alone. This fully (...) annotated edition presents a new English translation of the text together with the most important of La Mettrie's other philosophical works, translated into English for the first time, and Ann Thomson's introduction examines his aims and the scandalous moral consequences which he drew from his materialism. (shrink)

The essence of religion was once widely thought to be a unique form of experience that could not be explained in neurological, psychological, or sociological terms. In recent decades scholars have questioned the privileging of the idea of religious experience in the study of religion, an approach that effectively isolated the study of religion from the social and natural sciences. Religious Experience Reconsidered lays out a framework for research into religious phenomena that reclaims experience as a central concept while bridging (...) the divide between religious studies and the sciences. Ann Taves shifts the focus from "religious experience," conceived as a fixed and stable thing, to an examination of the processes by which people attribute meaning to their experiences. She proposes a new approach that unites the study of religion with fields as diverse as neuroscience, anthropology, sociology, and psychology to better understand how these processes are incorporated into the broader cultural formations we think of as religious or spiritual. Taves addresses a series of key questions: how can we set up studies without obscuring contestations over meaning and value? What is the relationship between experience and consciousness? How can research into consciousness help us access and interpret the experiences of others? Why do people individually or collectively explain their experiences in religious terms? How can we set up studies that allow us to compare experiences across times and cultures? Religious Experience Reconsidered demonstrates how methods from the sciences can be combined with those from the humanities to advance a naturalistic understanding of the experiences that people deem religious. (shrink)

Ann Whittle offers a fresh approach to questions about whether our actions are free and whether we are morally responsible for them. She argues that the answers to these questions depend on the contexts in which we make claims about our abilities and our control over our actions.

Stress in health care is affected by moral factors. When people are prevented from doing ‘good’ they may feel that they have not done what they ought to or that they have erred, thus giving rise to a troubled conscience. Empirical studies show that health care personnel sometimes refer to conscience when talking about being in ethically difficult everyday care situations. This study aimed to construct and validate the Stress of Conscience Questionnaire (SCQ), a nine-item instrument for assessing stressful situations (...) and the degree to which they trouble the conscience. The items were based on situations previously documented as causing negative stress for health care workers. Content and face validity were established by expert panels and pilot studies that selected relevant items and modified or excluded ambiguous ones. A convenience sample of 444 health care personnel indicated that the SCQ had acceptable validity and internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha exceeded 0.83 for the overall scale). Explorative factor analysis identified and labelled two factors: ‘internal demands’ and ‘external demands and restrictions’. The findings suggest that the SCQ is a concise and practical instrument for use in various health care contexts. (shrink)

Hospital ethics committees have evolved as a response to complicated legal, ethical, and social dilemmas that accompany modern medicine. In the United States, their growth has been augmented by Joint Commission for the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations standards and the Patient Self-Determination Act. There appears to be an implicit presumption that all clinical ethics consultation practices are relatively similar. Finally, there is heightened awareness of the needs for quality standards and assessment of the outcomes of ethics consultations.