This article reconsiders the historical and typological relation between Greek maturation rituals and Greek mystery religion. Particular attention is given to the word κλεινός (‘illustrious’) and its ritual uses in two roughly contemporary Late Classical sources: an Orphic-Bacchic funerary gold leaf from Hipponion in Magna Graecia and Ephorus’ account of a Cretan pederastic age-transition rite. In both contexts, κλεινός marks an elevated status conferred by initiation. (This usage finds antecedents in Alcman'sPartheneia.) Without positing direct development between puberty rites and mysteries, (...) the article argues on the basis of shared vocabulary and other ritual elements that age-transitions influenced the ideology of mystery cults. It is further claimed that puberty rites and mysteries performed similar functions in their respective social contexts, despite obvious differences of prestige and visibility. Age-transition rites have been analysed in Bourdieu's terms as ‘rites of institution’, in which young elites were publicly affirmed in civic roles: private mysteries can be described in analogous but opposed terms as rites of ‘counter-institution’, in which familiar ritual language and symbols of elite status were used to construct an alternative ‘imagined community’ of mystery initiates. (shrink)

L-ewwel volum. A-L -- It-tiena volum. M-Z.

The "California Compassionate Choices Act," AB 374, is inching its way into the voter's booth. Are you ready to vote for or against physician-assisted suicide? California is not the only state facing this issue, and as a responsible citizen you will not be able to escape taking a position on this important social and personal moral question. This collection of essays was gleaned from the Jack W. Provonsha Lecture Series on physician-assisted suicide. Representing a variety of religious perspectives, the speakers (...) address this topic in the hope that you will be more informed and better able to face this issue. (shrink)

"Application of the possibilities for this renewal of temperance comes with an examination of how emotion will help moral deliberation in the clinical practice of medicine. Sir William Osler (1849-1919) and his doctrine of aequanimitas is greatly misunderstood to be the founder of emotional detachment in physician/patient relations. This book offers the most detailed look at aequanimitas in print and equates it with a normative view of temperance as a moral virtue." "For upper-level undergraduate and graduate-level students interested in ethics, (...) bioethics, and moral psychology; Oslerians; and students of Aristotle's and Aquinas' views of the moral virtues."--BOOK JACKET. (shrink)

Provides an overview of Mark Sharlow's philosophical work with summaries of his positions. Includes references and links to his writings.

This article argues that claims of divine kinship play a central role in the Bacchic gold tablets of the late classical period. While many scholars have interpreted these tablets in reference to the Orphic Zagreus myth, I contend that key details of their texts are better understood as assertions of a familial link with the gods that assured postmortem happiness. The tablets develop the Hesiodic idea of human-divine fellowship, expanding this theme to include claims of identity or kinship with the (...) gods through a variety of narrative strategies. This aspect of the tablets finds a parallel in Empedocles, who (under Orphic-Pythagorean influence) elaborates traditional human-divine fellowship into a claim that humans are exiled gods who can hope to rejoin divine society. Following this interpretive approach, I suggest that the puzzling expression “I/you fell into milk” in some tablets expresses a symbolic relation to the gods via divine breast milk. (shrink)

This document is an edited transcript of an impromptu talk by Mark F. Sharlow. In this talk, Dr. Sharlow examines one of the common arguments for God’s existence. He suggests that this argument is wrong, but not for the reason that skeptics usually cite. Instead, he points out a deeper error — and shows that by understanding this mistake, we can gain new insights into evolution and design.

Genomic interventions ex utero and in utero are already a reality in medicine. It is plausible to believe that this reality will lead to therapies at the preimplantation level, especially where such interventions are the only safe and effective way to truly prevent human suffering and disease in offspring. The plausibility of this type of genomic therapy is of particular interest for prospective parents who are Roman Catholic, since in vitro fertilization provides the only means by which an offspring’s genome (...) may be accessed prior to implantation. The goal of this essay is to provide a review of two traditional methodologies in Roman Catholic moral thought and the potential moral quandary they present Roman Catholic parents: adherence to moral teaching prohibiting IVF or relief of gene-based disease in their child. After finding little resolution of this quandary through these two methodologies, the essay proposes as an alternative a third approach that leans heavily on John Henry Cardinal Newman’s understanding of doctrinal development. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.4 (Winter 2011): 735–756. (shrink)

An archive of Mark Sharlow's two blogs, "The Unfinishable Scroll" and "Religion: the Next Version." Covers Sharlow's views on metaphysics, epistemology, mind, science, religion, and politics. Includes topics and ideas not found in his papers.

Poetry, it is said, can reveal truth. Yet despite the best efforts of philosophers and poets to describe this truth, very few understand what kinds of truth poetry can convey.* One fact seems clear: only a few of the truths of poetry can be captured equally well in prose. Poetry also conveys truths of a different kind — truths that seem to exist on a level entirely different level from that of ordinary, factual truth. Some poems try to teach moral (...) or practical lessons that also could be stated in prose.* But this is not the kind of truth that puzzles philosophers and critics. Poetry also can tell another kind of truth — a truth that may be mystifying to scholars, but that is well known to anyone who becomes acquainted with poetry in an intimate way. This kind of truth cannot be spoken of or contemplated on the same terms as ordinary fact. What is the nature of this strange, yet familiar kind of knowledge that poetry can bring to the human mind? (shrink)

The current transatlantic debate over multilateralism reveals that the traditional understanding of liberal internationalism is being transcended in favor of “globalism.” The latter is a doctrine that goes well beyond favoring international cooperation among states; in fact, the new globalism is intrinsically hostile to the sovereignty of the nation-state. Thus it runs counter to the basic liberal understanding of the nature of the political order, as reflected in the American Declaration of Independence and, on a more philosophical level, in the (...) political teaching of John Locke. The Declaration and the Lockean teaching proclaim universal principles, but hold that the implementation of these principles should be the business not of some international authority but of democratically elected and accountable national. (shrink)

The iterative conception of set commonly is regarded as supporting the axioms of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory (ZF). This paper presents a modified version of the iterative conception of set and explores the consequences of that modified version for set theory. The modified conception maintains most of the features of the iterative conception of set, but allows for some non-wellfounded sets. It is suggested that this modified iterative conception of set supports the axioms of Quine's set theory NF.

This document consists primarily of an excerpt (chapter 14) from the author’s book From Brain to Cosmos. In that excerpt, the author uses the concept of subjective fact developed earlier in the book to address a question about consciousness: which physical systems (organisms or machines) are conscious? (This document depends heavily upon the concept of subjective fact developed in From Brain to Cosmos. Readers unfamiliar with that concept are strongly advised to read chapters 2 and 3 of From Brain to (...) Cosmos first. See the last page of this document for details on how to obtain those chapters.). (shrink)

Back in the 1980's I was a River Forest Thomist, eager to show that Thomas's debt to Aristotle on fundamental metaphysical issues was deep. And what's more deep than creation?

Philosophers long have noted that some sensations (particularly those of color) seem to be ineffable, or refractory to verbal description. Some proposed neurophysiological explanations of this ineffability deny the intuitive view that sensations have inherently indescribable content. The present paper suggests a new explanation of ineffability that does not have this deflationary consequence. According to the hypothesis presented here, feedback modulation of information flow in the cortex interferes with the production of narratives about sensations, thereby causing the subject to assess (...) as inadequate his or her own verbal descriptions of sensations. (shrink)

This collection serves as an introduction to the concept of subjective fact, which plays a central role in some of the author's philosophical writings. The collection contains two book chapters and a paper. The first chapter (Chapter 2 of From Brain to Cosmos) begins with an informal characterization of the concept of subjective fact. Then it fleshes out this concept with examples, gives a more precise characterization, and addresses some potential weaknesses of the concept. This chapter shows how subjective fact (...) is related to key ideas in the philosophy of mind, such as intentionality. The second chapter (Chapter 3) is a detailed study of the concept of “instance of seeming” that was introduced in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 ends with some remarks on the modal logic of subjective facts. The paper, also by the book’s author, answers some potential questions about the ideas in the two included chapters. (shrink)

This document consists primarily of excerpts (chapters 5 and 10-12) from the author’s book From Brain to Cosmos. These excerpts address several traditional problems about the histories of conscious subjects, using the concept of subjective fact that the author developed earlier in the book. Topics include the persistence of conscious subjects through time, the unity or disunity of the self, and the possibility of splitting conscious subjects. (These excerpts depend heavily upon the author’s concept of subjective fact as developed in (...) From Brain to Cosmos. Readers unfamiliar with that concept are strongly advised to read chapters 2 and 3 of that book first. See the last page of this document for details on how to obtain those chapters.). (shrink)

This document consists primarily of excerpts (chapters 5 and 7-9) from the author’s book From Brain to Cosmos. These excerpts address some traditional philosophical problems about temporal flux and identity through time, using the concept of subjective fact that the author developed earlier in the book. (Readers unfamiliar with that concept are strongly advised to read chapters 2 and 3 of From Brain to Cosmos first. See the last page of this document for details on how to obtain those chapters.).

This document consists primarily of an excerpt (chapter 6) from the author’s book From Brain to Cosmos. That excerpt presents an analysis of the problem of knowledge of other minds, using the concept of subjective fact that the author developed earlier in the book. (Readers unfamiliar with that concept are strongly advised to read chapters 2 and 3 of From Brain to Cosmos first. See the last page of this document for details on how to obtain those chapters.).

This document consists primarily of an excerpt (chapter 13) from the author’s book From Brain to Cosmos. In that excerpt, the author presents a study of the notion of truth using the concept of subjective fact developed earlier in the book. The author argues that mind-body materialism is compatible with certain forms of metaphysical idealism. The chapter closes with some remarks on relativism with regard to truth. (This document depends heavily upon the concept of subjective fact developed in From Brain (...) to Cosmos. Readers unfamiliar with that concept are strongly advised to read chapters 2 and 3 of From Brain to Cosmos first. See the last page of this document for details on how to obtain those chapters.). (shrink)

This document consists primarily of an excerpt (chapter 5) from the author’s book From Brain to Cosmos. That excerpt presents an analysis of personal identity through time, using the concept of subjective fact that the author developed earlier in the book. (Readers unfamiliar with that concept are strongly advised to read chapters 2 and 3 of From Brain to Cosmos first. See the last page of this document for details on how to obtain those chapters.).

This document consists primarily of an excerpt (chapter 4) from the author’s book From Brain to Cosmos. That excerpt presents a study of a specific problem about knowledge: the logical justification of one’s knowledge of the immediate past. (This document depends heavily upon the concept of subjective fact that the author developed in chapters 2 and 3 of From Brain to Cosmos. Readers unfamiliar with that concept are strongly advised to read those chapters first. See the last page of this (...) document for details on how to obtain those chapters.). (shrink)

We describe a first-order theory of generalized sets intended to allow a similar treatment of sets and proper classes. The theory is motivated by the iterative conception of set. It has a ternary membership symbol interpreted as membership relative to a set-building step. Set and proper class are defined notions. We prove that sets and proper classes with a defined membership form an inner model of Bernays-Morse class theory. We extend ordinal and cardinal notions to generalized sets and prove ordinal (...) and cardinal results in the theory. We prove that the theory is consistent relative to ZFC + (∃ x) [ x is a strongly inaccessible cardinal]. (shrink)

My first article, back in 1989! Thanks, forever, Ralph McInerny. Here I take issue with John F.X. Knasas, a strong supporter of the existential Thomism of Etienne Gilson and Joseph Owens. Knasas's desire to sequester Thomas away from allowing the discipline of natural philosophy to arrive at a fully immaterial reality through its proper demonstrative methods seemed to me to be at odds with Thomas's text.

One of the most important ongoing debates in the philosophy of mind is the debate over the reality of the first-person character of consciousness.[1] Philosophers on one side of this debate hold that some features of experience are accessible only from a first-person standpoint. Some members of this camp, notably Frank Jackson, have maintained that epiphenomenal properties play roles in consciousness [2]; others, notably John R. Searle, have rejected dualism and regarded mental phenomena as entirely biological.[3] In the opposite camp (...) are philosophers who hold that all mental capacities are in some sense computational - or, more broadly, explainable in terms of features of information processing systems.[4] Consistent with this explanatory agenda, members of this camp normally deny that any aspect of mind is accessible solely from a first-person standpoint. This denial sometimes goes very far - even as far as Dennett's claim that the phenomenology of conscious experience does not really exist. (shrink)

This is paper from my graduate school days that has had chunks of it published, but which I never did develop fully—nor do I think I ever shall. It is useful for getting a sense on how the notion 'obediential potency' was used in Thomas's day, however, and visits key moments in Thomas's writing that illustrate how he applies the notion in his teaching.Oh, the paper was written for Fr Walter Principe, who had no love for the notion of obediential (...) potency; but he did say to me that I had started to change his mind... (shrink)

The year is 1965. A child stands at the top of a hill, looking out over a vast golden meadow. In the field below is a dirt trail. Bicycles sail by on the trail, carrying other children to their playful destinations. Beyond the far edge of the field is the sea. On the sea are boats and ships — distant descendants of the caravels and barkentines that once explored the unknown waters of Earth.

The four talks in this collection are based on impromptu lectures by Mark Sharlow. Explores the topics of freedom, justice, punishment, capitalism, distributism, and the limits of government.

This short e-book is (in the author's words) "an attempt to open up new and better ways of thinking about God." The author draws together insights from philosophy of religion, philosophy of mind, and ontology to construct a conception of God that avoids both supernaturalism and simplistic forms of pantheism.

This book is a collection of some of my writings that do not fit the mold of standard philosophical articles. These writings range over several topics, including religion, free will, human dignity, the nature of persons, and a few others. The longest item in the collection is an archive of my blog, The Unfinishable Scroll, as it existed when the book was put together. That blog covers many philosophical topics, including some I haven't discussed elsewhere. Also in the collection are (...) essays (formerly web-based) on topics ranging from progress, to skepticism, to metaphysics - and back again. The book even contains an archive of another, less well-known, blog of mine. (shrink)

This is not a normal book. It is a collection of transcripts of talks that I gave between the year 2003 and now. I gave most of these talks on the spur of the moment, without making notes ahead of time. (“Impromptu” is the usual term for that dangerous way of speaking.) One of the “talks” is not a transcript, but a set of notes for a talk I never gave. Any organization or order in the talks is purely coincidental—or (...) at least it’s not all my fault. (shrink)

The United Nations' (UN) adoption of a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is intended to mark a fundamental ethical turn in the relationships between indigenous peoples and the community of sovereign states. This moment is the result of decades of discussion and negotiation, largely revolving around states' discomfort with notion of indigenous self-determination. Member states of the UN have feared that an ethic of indigenous self-determination would undermine the principles of state sovereignty on which the UN is (...) itself grounded. However, such fears are the result of very poor understandings of the ethical principles under which the relations between indigenous peoples and nation-states already have been formed under centuries of European colonialism. The principle of self-determination embraced in this Declaration does not diverge from colonial norms; it entrenches these norms as international policy. Without doubt, indigenous peoples are more likely to benefit than suffer from states' observance of the Articles within this Declaration. Reducing the challenge of indigenous peoples' rights to the notion of self-determination set out in this document, though, misses an extraordinarily important opportunity to critically investigate the ethic of rights that has produced an opposition between nation-states and indigenous peoples to begin with. A true turn in the ethics of this relationship would see not simply the institution of a right to self-determination but, rather, indigenous peoples' right to first determine the nature of self for themselves. (shrink)