The historic Christian tradition of offering hospitality to strangers provides moral, theological and practical insights for contemporary responses to the needs of refugees, asylum seekers and immigrants. Ancient writers were explicit about the difficulties, blessings, and necessity of welcoming strangers. In this paper, specific components of the tradition, especially as they are evident in the writings of Chrysostom, Calvin and Wesley, are discussed. Suggestions are offered for points of intersection with contemporary concerns related to asylum and immigration.

Richard Rorty is well known as a propagandist of pragmatism and of a "post-philosophical" culture in which many traditional philosophical debates are dismissed as outrightly fruitless. The paper is mainly concerned with Rorty's dismissal of the realism-antirealism debate. The shift from argument to propaganda which is typical of much of Rorty's reasoning is critically investigated from different perspectives. In particular, it is argued that Rorty cannot convincingly establish a pragmatist position beyond realism and antirealism, and that pragmatism seems to be (...) inadequate with respect to scientific practice. Finally, the fruitfulness of the realism-antirealism debate is defended. (shrink)

This paper deals with Swinburne’s project of developing a theodicy. We criticise this project from both an external and an internal perspective. Regarding the first strategy, the target of our critique is Swinburne’s construal of God’s attributes—especially omniscience—and the related issue of incorrigible foreknowledge. We argue that Swinburne has to clarify and improve his position to deal with the fideist or the atheist. Regarding the second strategy, we focus on Swinburne’s notion of God’s right. In this context, the parent-child-analogy strikes (...) us as particularly problematic. Hence, we argue that Swinburne should either rethink it or drop it altogether. (shrink)

This is a new release of the original 1938 edition.

Multitrait-multimethod (MTMM) analysis is one of the most frequently employed methods to examine the validity of psychological measures. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is a commonly used analytic tool for examining MTMM data through the specification of trait and method latent variables. Most contemporary CFA-MTMM models either do not allow estimating correlations between the trait and method factors or they are restricted to linear trait-method relationships. There is no theoretical reason why trait and method relationships should always be linear, and quadratic (...) relationships are frequently proposed in the social sciences. In this article, we present two approaches for examining quadratic relations between traits and methods through extended latent difference and latent means CFA-MTMM models (Pohl et al., 2008; Pohl and Steyer, 2010). An application of the new approaches to a multi-rater study of the nine inattention symptoms of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in children (N = 752) and the results of a Monte Carlo study to test the applicability of the models under a variety of data conditions are described. (shrink)

The author shows that Aquinas’s treatise on the Trinity can be viewed in two ways. According to the first, now prevailing opinion, the thoughts of the Angelic Doctor are too speculative and in essence they harm our personal relationship with God. He aims to show that the main source of inspiration for this approach are those currents in modern and contemporary philosophy according to which any metaphysics is impossible. Adherents of the other view do not reject metaphysics, and so they (...) are also sympathetic towards Aquinas’s connecting speculation with the Trinity doctrine. They see a great advantage in this connexion, as it allows us to understand more deeply the mysteries of faith and so to demonstrate the uniqueness of the Christian message. The author aims to show that both approaches are justified and one should not be sacrificed for the other. He believes that a philosophical framework allowing the old and the new Trinitarian theologies to coexist is provided by Wittgenstein’s conception of speech games. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Living into Community: Cultivating Practices That Sustain Us by Christine D. PohlAndrew WattsLiving into Community: Cultivating Practices That Sustain Us CHRISTINE D. POHL Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012. 176 pp. $15.00With Living into Community: Cultivating Practices That Sustain Us, Christine Pohl provides a useful and accessible companion to her first book, Making Room: Recovering Hospitality as a Christian Practice (Eerdmans, 1999). Concerned that “church and (...) culture have not provided the skills or virtues for us to be part of the very communities we long for and try to create” (4), she again challenges the identity of the Christian community. She likewise draws again upon the rich contributions of John Calvin and John Wesley as well as Catholic social movements such as L’Arche as she examines three core practices that engender hospitality: gratitude, promise-keeping, and truth-telling.This book grew out of a grant to participate in the Lilly Endowment project, “Sustaining Pastoral Excellence.” In partnership with her church, Pohl gathered a group of pastors, leaders of intentional communities, and seminary professors to think about gratitude, promise-keeping, truth-telling, and hospitality. The group met for three days twice a year, sharing and reflecting on examples of these practices in their ministries. Pohl provides the practical and theological fruit of their conversations, hoping this work will be used by leaders and members to strengthen their communities. She lays out three sections of three chapters each addressing gratitude, promise-keeping, and truth-telling. Each chapter works from the previous one, examining the practices from historical, biblical, theological, and philosophical perspectives. The last section on hospitality integrates the previous ones rather than simply reworking her previous published material. The book is strengthened by Pohl’s ability to connect together various scholarly and pastoral threads—an ability aided by the practical wisdom of a good working group—to offer helpful practical insights.For example, in the first chapter on gratitude, “Grateful Hearts,” she examines the theological attitudes of gratitude, generosity, and debt contrasted with entitlement and dissatisfaction, or grumbling—ever-present cultural complications for “good” and “holy” communities. In the second section, “Promise-Keeping,” she works through different kinds of promises in order to initiate [End Page 245] the hard work of communal reflection. There, rather than resting in the beautiful but abstract insights of thinkers such as Margaret Farley and Hannah Arendt, she distinguishes contractual and covenantal promises from one another and describes their consequences.Throughout the first two sections, qualities of contemporary culture—individualism, freedom, autonomy, mobility, distrust of institutions—affect and deform the practices of gratitude and promise-keeping essential to healthy and faithful communities. This attention to contemporary culture produces vital insight for the section on promise-keeping: while most Christian organizations appear to operate with covenantal expectations, “we actually work with a hybrid of covenantal and contractual obligations” (78). This “contemporary confusion” can lead to betrayal and loss and impede the mediation of fierce disagreements.Although Pohl provides helpful biblical narrative to support her analysis of each practice, she does not provide an adequate analysis of contemporary culture. One suspects that for Pohl—much like H. Richard Niebuhr—culture exists as a construct external to the well-formed community. It appears responsible for many of the attitudes deforming the essential practices she examines. Yet this suspicion is never fully confirmed, in part because she addresses sin as a present deforming power.Perhaps the most eloquent analysis in the book is found in its discussion of truth-telling. Rather than concede to Augustine’s (theological) or Immanuel Kant’s (rational) prohibition against lying, Pohl turns to Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s invocation of the concrete situation to analyze the practice of truth-telling. Only a community that places truthfulness within the context of covenantal relationships can deal redemptively with deception and wrongdoing. Several of her examples help the reader understand the uniqueness of this practice for healthy communities. [End Page 246]Andrew WattsBelmont UniversityCopyright © 2014 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

Spacetime as we know and love it is lost in most approaches to quantum gravity. For many of these approaches, as inchoate and incomplete as they may be, one of the main challenges is to relate what they take to be the fundamental non-spatiotemporal structure of the world back to the classical spacetime of GR. The present essay investigates how spacetime is lost and how it may be regained in one major approach to quantum gravity, loop quantum gravity.

The problem of free will as it is know in Western philosophical traditions is hardly known in China. Considering how central the problem is in the West, this is a remarkable fact. We try to explain this, and we offer insights into discussions within Chinese traditions that we think are related, not historically but regarding the issues discussed. Thus we introduce four central Chinese concepts, namely: (1) xīn 心 (heart, heart-mind), (2) xìng 性 (human nature, characteristic tendencies, inborn capacity), (3) (...) mìng 命 (lifespan, fate, command, allotment, endowment), and (4) zìrán 自然 (self-so, so of itself, nature, spontaneity), and we indicate how these concepts and their discussions can be related to discussions on free will. (shrink)

_Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism_ fundamentally rethinks the nature of the transgressive theories and practices of the Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the notion that the Tantras were "marginal" or primitive and situating them instead--both ideologically and institutionally--within larger trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. Critically surveying prior scholarship, Wedemeyer exposes the fallacies of attributing Tantric transgression to either the passions of lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or slavish imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative analysis of modern historical narratives--that depict (...) Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism, a primal religious undercurrent, or medieval ritualism--he likewise demonstrates these to be stock patterns in the European historical imagination. Through close analysis of primary sources, Wedemeyer reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative, semiological readings of the influential _Guhyasamaja Tantra_ underscore the text's overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight--issues shared by all Indic religions--and a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism to be a highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual clarify the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how thoroughly these "radical" communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism. (shrink)

_Making Sense of Tantric Buddhism_ fundamentally rethinks the nature of the transgressive theories and practices of the Buddhist Tantric traditions, challenging the notion that the Tantras were "marginal" or primitive and situating them instead -- both ideologically and institutionally -- within larger trends in mainstream Buddhist and Indian culture. Critically surveying prior scholarship, Wedemeyer exposes the fallacies of attributing Tantric transgression to either the passions of lusty monks, primitive tribal rites, or slavish imitation of Saiva traditions. Through comparative analysis of (...) modern historical narratives -- that depict Tantrism as a degenerate form of Buddhism, a primal religious undercurrent, or medieval ritualism -- he likewise demonstrates these to be stock patterns in the European historical imagination. Through close analysis of primary sources, Wedemeyer reveals the lived world of Tantric Buddhism as largely continuous with the Indian religious mainstream and deploys contemporary methods of semiotic and structural analysis to make sense of its seemingly repellent and immoral injunctions. Innovative, semiological readings of the influential _Guhyasamaja Tantra_ underscore the text's overriding concern with purity, pollution, and transcendent insight -- issues shared by all Indic religions -- and a large-scale, quantitative study of Tantric literature shows its radical antinomianism to be a highly managed ritual observance restricted to a sacerdotal elite. These insights into Tantric scripture and ritual clarify the continuities between South Asian Tantrism and broader currents in Indian religion, illustrating how thoroughly these "radical" communities were integrated into the intellectual, institutional, and social structures of South Asian Buddhism. (shrink)

De differentia nexus rerum sapientis et fatalis necessitatis -- Monitum ad commentationem luculentam de differentia nexus rerum sapientis et fatalis necessitatis.

Mémoire de Mons. Lange contre cette philosophie -- Réponse préliminaire d'un auteur anonimeà ce mémoire -- Sommaire de la réponse de Mr. Wolf mȩme avec un avis au lecteur de l'histoire de ce nouveau différend.

This is a chapter of the planned monograph "Out of Nowhere: The Emergence of Spacetime in Quantum Theories of Gravity", co-authored by Nick Huggett and Christian Wüthrich and under contract with Oxford University Press. (More information at www<dot>beyondspacetime<dot>net.) This chapter introduces causal set theory and identifies and articulates a 'problem of space' in this theory.

Keine ausführliche Beschreibung für "Ethik und Technik" verfügbar.

Des Herrn Doct. und Prof. Joachim Langens, oder, Der Theologischen Facultaet zu Halle Anmerckungen über des Herrn Hoff-Raths und Professor Christian Wolffens Metaphysicam ... nebst beygefügter Hr. Hoff-R. und Prof. Christian Wolffens gründlicher Antwort -- Herrn D. Joh. Francisci Buddei S.S. Theol. P.P.O. zu Jena Bedencken über die Wolffianische Philosophie, mit Anmerckungen erläutert von Christian Wolffen.