There is some ground for saying that the real Confucius cannot be the object of recent critiques in the PRC. Both the critiques and critics are of questionable authenticity and they seem to be ‘pulling their punches’. What is clear is that these ideological pursuits mask some very serious political events over the recent past in the PRC.

John Austin's classic work that has had a profound influence on the study of English and American law presents Austin's distinction between "positive law" (i.e.

For this second edition, the editors have returned to Austin's original lecture notes, amending the printed text where it seemed necessary.

The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (1832) is a classic of nineteenth-century English jurisprudence, a subject on which Austin had a profound impact. His book is primarily concerned with a meticulous explanation of most of the core concepts of his legal philosophy, including his conception of law, his separation of law and morality, and his theory of sovereignty. Almost a quarter of it consists of an interpretation and defence of the principle of utility. This edition includes the complete and unabridged (...) text of the fifth (1885) and last edition. The comprehensive introduction discusses Austin's life, the main themes of his book, leading criticisms of his ideas, and recent interpretations of his legal philosophy. The edition also includes an up-to-date bibliography and biographical synopses of the principal figures mentioned in the text. (shrink)

Although they are continually compositionally reconstituted and reconfigured, organisms nonetheless persist as ontologically unified beings over time – but in virtue of what? A common answer is: in virtue of their continued possession of the capacity for morphological invariance which persists through, and in spite of, their mereological alteration. While we acknowledge that organisms‟ capacity for the “stability of form” – homeostasis - is an important aspect of their diachronic unity, we argue that this capacity is derived from, and grounded (...) in a more primitive one – namely, the homeodynamic capacity for the “specified variation of form”. In introducing a novel type of causal power – a „structural power‟ – we claim that it is the persistence of their dynamic potential to produce a specified series of structurally adaptive morphologies which grounds organisms‟ privileged status as metaphysically “one over many” over time. (shrink)

First published in 1962, contains the William James Lectures delivered at Harvard University in 1955. It sets out Austin's conclusions in the field to which he directed his main efforts for at least the last ten years of his life. Starting from an exhaustive examination of his already well- known distinction of performative utterances from statements, Austin here finally abandons that distinction, replacing it by a more general theory of 'illocutionary forces' of utterances which has important bearings on (...) a wide variety of philosophical problems. (shrink)

Change is the new normal, but so it has been for ages. Experience to navigate change is something you get just after you needed it, unless you tap into age-old experience. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is bringing about wide-ranging changes. With people having to adjust, the question is whether Christianity, with its roots in preindustrial times, may support people to navigate these changes. This conceptual article focusses on the relationships amongst constructs, exploring logical arguments about how these constructs are associated. (...) The 4IR is briefly described from differing vantage points, as to whether it is a valid description thereof. Whether a revolution or evolution, it is a complex system, and therefore the theory of complex systems is used, with the conclusion that one may merely participate in such systems. Being novel situations, one needs to participate creatively, based on a cognitive understanding of creativity. Creative solutions do not materialise out of thin air but are the novel use of existing knowledge structures. Christian traditions include institutional memories of how people managed situations of radical change, as reflected in Genesis 1 and Lamentations 4. These passages provide building blocks that may be used in creative coping strategies during times of change. Both passages suggest the strategy to juxtapose order and chaos, and borrowing from that, a ‘Grip-Grapple-Grow’ scaffolding system is suggested. To test the usability thereof, the issue of face masks during the Coronavirus Disease 2019 pandemic was touched upon, to evaluate how the interplay amongst 4IR, disruption, beliefs and technological advancement may play out.Contribution: The Fourth Industrial Revolution is speeding up the pace of change, with people having to adapt. This article explores processes of change management, juxtaposing the theory of complex systems, the cognitive science understanding of creativity and institutional memories afforded by some Christian traditions reflecting on how people managed order and chaos. (shrink)

The subject of this paper, Excuses, is one not to be treated, but only to be introduced, within such limits. It is, or might be, the name of a whole branch, even a ramiculated branch, of philosophy, or at least of one fashion of philosophy. I shall try, therefore, first to state what the subject is, why it is worth studying, and how it may be studied, all this at a regrettably lofty level: and then I shall illustrate, in more (...) congenial but desultory detail, some of the methods to be used, together with their limitations, and some of the unexpected results to be expected and lessons to be learned. Much, of course, of the amusement, and of the instruction, comes in drawing the coverts of the microglot, in hounding down the minutiae, and to this I can do no more here than incite you. But I owe it to the subject to say, that it has long afforded me what philosophy is so often thought, and made, barren of -- the fun of discovery, the pleasures of co-operation, and the satisfaction of reaching agreement. (shrink)

Although contemporary metaphysics has recently undergone a neo-Aristotelian revival wherein dispositions, or capacities are now commonplace in empirically grounded ontologies, being routinely utilised in theories of causality and modality, a central Aristotelian concept has yet to be given serious attention – the doctrine of hylomorphism. The reason for this is clear: while the Aristotelian ontological distinction between actuality and potentiality has proven to be a fruitful conceptual framework with which to model the operation of the natural world, the distinction between (...) form and matter has yet to similarly earn its keep. In this chapter, I offer a first step toward showing that the hylomorphic framework is up to that task. To do so, I return to the birthplace of that doctrine - the biological realm. Utilising recent advances in developmental biology, I argue that the hylomorphic framework is an empirically adequate and conceptually rich explanatory schema with which to model the nature of organisms. (shrink)

A recent development in biology has been the growing acceptance that holobionts, entities comprised of symbiotic microbes and their host organisms, are widespread in nature. There is agreement that holobionts are evolved outcomes, but disagreement on how to characterize the operation of natural selection on them. The aim of this paper is to articulate the contours of the disagreement. I explain how two distinct foundational accounts of the process of natural selection give rise to competing views about evolutionary individuality.

By re-examining the writings of Gadamer and Habermas and their views of earlier interpretive theorists, this book offers a radical challenge to their idea of the 'dialogue' between researchers and their subjects.

Is it possible to provide context-relevant education to a diverse and dispersed body of students via online presented courses? Contextual relevance is called for by students and the public alike, as can also be seen in the #fallist movements. More traditional academics and institutions argue for retaining excellence from the past and known knowledge still to be taught. In this conceptual article, education is seen as a mastery of knowledge expanses by integrating Data and Information into Knowledge and Wisdom (D-I-K-W). (...) Departing from the learning sciences, especially mind, brain and education science and its application in culturally appropriate learning, it is argued that including effective learning strategies in online courses, especially application-oriented strategies, can help students to apply knowledge from the past to contexts in the present, thereby attaining context-relevant education. However, the application of learnt material to situations brings forward another dimension, namely, the future, which is Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous (VUCA). In applying and making decisions, it is helpful to attend to the Cynefin framework, attending to the domains of the obvious, the complicated, the complex, the chaotic and the disorder. Excellence from the past and relevance in the present should, therefore, be augmented by abilities aimed at future readiness. Context-relevant online education should therefore attend to the past, the present and the future. (shrink)

This article proposes a 'fusion of horizons' in constructing urban public theologies in South Africa. This is done through the introduction of five interrelated themes that have emerged from the on-going knowledge and idea production by a distinguishable counterpoint in contemporary scholarly, intellectual and activist engagement with the urban, in the authors' own South African context but also wider internationally. In advancing a praxis-agenda for urban public theology, the authors subsequently identify the following, albeit not exhaustive, themes: southern urbanisms and (...) the factor of unprecedented urban migration; 'right to the city' and urbanisation from below; a reclaiming of the commons; the making of 'good cities'; and actors of faith in relation to urban social life. (shrink)

This article proceeded from the assumption that the theme of service delivery in present-day South Africa could well be qualified by the notion of 'crisis', to the extent that this qualification, from a theological perspective and on the basis of comparative social analysis, well recalls the statements in such critical and profound theological documents as The Kairos Document and Evangelical Witness in South Africa on the 'crisis' in the latter years of apartheid. The further recognition that the theme of service (...) delivery constitutes an essentially new focus for practical-theological scholarship in South Africa led the author, who has a pertinent interest in the field of Christian diaconia, to thereupon go the full circle of practical-theological interpretation in developing such a focus. This was done by, firstly, attempting to develop a deeper contextual understanding of the problem of service delivery in the country on the basis of the prevailing debate on service delivery in South Africa, after which the ideas from conceptualisations of two different modes of diaconal practice within contexts of endemic poverty in the practical-theological literature were explored. The discussion concluded with a more pertinent consideration of the extent to which these two conceptualisations could be taken as providing direction in conceptualising a transformational diaconal response to the current service-delivery problem. (shrink)

Purpose:This study is meant to appraise philosophically the notion of family in Igbo African society. The study will also show the distinguishing features between the Igbo African society and the western societies in relation to the notion of family. This paper will attempt to discuss the notion of family in the Igbo-African society with a particular interest in analyzing the components that make the family in the Igbo-African society stand out.Methodology:The applicable methodology in any study is determined largely by the (...) objectives or purposes which the study is meant to achieve. For the purpose of this study, the applicable methodology will be a form of review of relative literatures, peer reviewed journals and internet sources which treated the concepts and issues relating the subject matters to be appraised by this study.Findings: The study finds that family is the smallest unit of society. The study also found that the concept of family is part and parcel of man, and it is as old as man himself. Furthermore, the study observed that there is a general assumption that the overall dispositions of conducts and characters in any given society can be traced to the conducts and characters at the family level. The study also found that the notion of family in the Igbo African society is distinct in several features and factors when compared to the one in the western cultures.Unique contribution to theory, practice and policy: Although several authors have devoted the time and scholarly efforts in researching about the concept of family; there are dearths of scholarly researched literatures which narrows the concept to the Igbo African society. It implies that there are few or no academic publications where the notion of family is philosophically appraised with specific interest to its features, and factors in the Igbo African society. It is on this note that this study comes in to fill the voidness by making a philosophical appraisal of the notion of family in the Igbo African society. (shrink)

Among mycologists, questions persist about what entities should be treated as the fundamental units of fungal populations. This article articulates a coherent view about populations of heterokaryotic fungi and the individuals that comprise them. Using Godfrey-Smith’s minimal concept of a Darwinian population, I argue that entities at two levels of the biological hierarchy satisfy the minimal concept in heterokaryotic fungi: mycelia and nuclei. I provide a preliminary answer to the question of how to understand the relation between these two populations. (...) This article contributes to discussions about the nature of biological individuality, organismality, and evolutionary transitions. (shrink)

The collapse of the Weimar Republic remains central to the history of the 20th century and to contemporary debates on 'classical modernity' and its Europe-wide crisis in the wake of the First World War. The present issue of Thesis Eleven focuses on three dimensions of the Weimar crisis: the experience of fundamental societal crisis and closure and its diagnostic power in relation to the rise of fascist movements; the cognitive and normative resources that sought to work against this crisis-ridden sense (...) of closure; and third, the degree to which these counter tendencies anticipate postmodern interrogations of the premises of classical modernity. (shrink)

Criticism of ‘the West’ and of ‘Western civilization’ in Germany in the early 20th century is generally most familiar today as a conservative force of the age. It is well-known that at the outbreak of war in August 1914 a longstanding German complex of resentment of the Western European powers exploded in a call to arms. Yet it needs to be stressed that not all prominent German bourgeois writers endorsed a wholly militant reading of the motif of German national-cultural ‘protest (...) at the West’. By 1918 an array of voices could come to discern another kind of salient work of contention that refused apology for any kind of violent Kulturkrieg. The thesis defended in this article is that in sophisticated humanistic writing of the era, a German mood of antagonism with the West represents not a regressive ideology but the productive and intelligent outcome of a longstanding preeminence of philosophical questioning in German academic life since the later 19th century about European world pictures and their claims to universal validity on the stage of world history. A range of statements are shown here to anticipate debates of the present day about ‘late’, ‘reflexive’ or ‘post-Eurocentric’ conditions of Western modernity. (shrink)

From his own experience the author has found that searching and finding out that God has created a perfect world/universe relieves him of the stress and pressure of being in a world/universe of total confusion and turmoil while trying to make sense out of his daily struggles of living.

By re-examining the writings of Gadamer and Habermas and their views of earlier interpretive theorists, this book offers a radical challenge to their idea of the 'dialogue' between researchers and their subjects.

The influence of J. L. Austin on contemporary philosophy was substantial during his lifetime, and has grown greatly since his death, at the height of his powers, in 1960. Philosophical Papers, first published in 1961, was the first of three volumes of Austin's work to be edited by J. O. Urmson and G. J. Warnock. Together with Sense and Sensibilia and How to do things with Words, it has extended Austin's influence far beyond the circle who knew (...) him or read the handful of papers he published in journals. (shrink)

The idea of legal rights today enjoys virtually universal appeal, yet all too often the meaning and significance of rights are poorly understood. The purpose of this volume is to clarify the subject of legal rights by drawing on both historical and philosophical legal scholarship to bridge the gap between these two genres--a gap that has divorced abstract and normative treatments of rights from an understanding of their particular social and cultural contexts. Legal Rights: Historical and Philosophical Perspectives shows that (...) the meaning and extent of rights has been dramatically expanded in this century, though along with the widespread and flourishing popularity of rights, voices of criticism have increasingly been raised. The authors take up the question of the foundation of rights and explore the postmodern challenges to efforts to ground rights outside of history and language. Drawing rich historical analysis and careful philosophical inquiry into productive dialogue, this book explores the many facets of rights at the end of the twentieth century. In these essays, potentially abstract debates come alive as they are related to the struggles of real people attempting to cope with, and improve, their living conditions. The significance of legal rights is measured not just in terms of philosophical categories or as a collection of histories, but as they are experienced in the lives of men and women seeking to come to terms with rights in contemporary life. Contributors are Hadley Arkes, William E. Cain, Thomas Haskell, Morton J. Horwitz, Annabel Patterson, Michael J. Perry, Pierre Schlag, and Jeremy Waldron. Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College. Thomas R. Kearns is William H. Hastie Professor of Philosophy, Amherst College. (shrink)

Side effects are ubiquitous in medicine and they often play a role in treatment decisions for patients and clinicians alike. Philosophers and health researchers often use side effects to illustrate issues with contemporary medical research and practice. However, technical definitions of ‘side effect’ differ among health authorities. Thus, determining the side effects of an intervention can differ depending on whose definition we assume. Here I review some of the common definitions of side effect and highlight their issues. In response, I (...) offer an account of side effects as jointly (i) unintended and (ii) effects due to the causal capacities or invariances of an intervention. I discuss (i) by examining the intentions or reasons behind therapeutic interventions, and I discuss (ii) by appealing to a manipulationist model of causation. The analysis here highlights that side effects are conceptually distinct from related outcomes like adverse events, adverse drug reactions, and placebo effects. The analysis also allows for reflection on the utility of ‘side effect’ as a technical term in medical research and practice. (shrink)

This book is the one to put into the hands of those who have been over-impressed by Austin 's critics....[Warnock's] brilliant editing puts everybody who is concerned with philosophical problems in his debt.

INTRODUCTION The subtitle of this dissertation, "Brahman, the pure unity of thought within itself", which epitomizes Hegel's view of Indian philosophy and ...