In this remarkable collection of essays the editors and contributors reflect on the "constants" of mission throughout history and in today's context: the centrality of Christ and of Trinitarian faith, the importance of the communal or ecclesial nature of mission, the connection between missionary reflection and practice and a person's or community's eschatological vision, a person's or community's conviction about the nature of salvation) the perspective on the nature of humanity, and the appreciation or suspicion of culture. In a framework (...) of prophetic dialogue, theologians and missiologists from around the world relate these to the six elements of mission: witness and proclamation; liturgy, prayer, and contemplation; justice, peace, and the integrity of creation; interreligious dialogue; inculturation; and reconciliation. Out of this prophetic dialogue emerge theological reflections that are showing a way forward for theology and mission in a global context. Book jacket. (shrink)

“Cultural imperialism” has been an influential concept in the representation of the modern Christian missionary movement. This essay calls its usefulness into question and draws on recent work on the cultural dynamics of globalization to propose alternative ways of looking at the role of missions in modern history. The first section of the essay surveys the ways in which the term “cultural imperialism” has been employed in different disciplines, and some of the criticisms made of the term within those (...) disciplines. The second section discusses the application of the cultural imperialism framework to the missionary enterprise, and the related term “colonization of consciousness” used by Jean and John Comaroff in their influential work on British missionaries and the Tswana of southern Africa. The third section looks at the historiography of missions in modern China, showing how deeply the teleological narratives of nationalism and development have marked that historiography. The concluding section argues that the missionary movement must be seen as one element in a globalizing modernity that has altered Western societies as well as non-Western ones in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and that a comparative global approach to the missionary movement can help to illuminate the process of modern cultural globalization. (shrink)

Classical Free Churches emerged as the antitypical counterpart to established churches within a Christian society. Hence, they traditionally operated in a mode of revivalism, primarily reaching those who had already been religiously socialized to a significant degree. At the same time, Free Churches developed the natural tendency to define their ecclesiological and missional identity in opposition to other Christian groups. In a secular age, however, in which the former reality of Christian culture is fading, these conventional procedures are no longer (...) conducive for the accomplishment of Free Church mission. In this study, the current predicament of Free Church ecclesiology and missiology in a post-Christian society has been analysed. Through extensive discussion of quantitative and qualitative data, several assumptions that underlie Free Church (revivalistic) missiology have been scrutinized. Eventually, several perspectives for a sustainable, hopeful and yet realistic missional practice for Free Churches in a post-Christian context are pointed out. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Atonement, Justice, and Peace: The Message of the Cross and the Mission of the Church by Darrin W. Snyder Belousek, and: Restorative Justice: Theories and Practices of Moral Imagination by Amy LevadDana ScopatzReview of Atonement, Justice, and Peace: The Message of the Cross and the Mission of the Church DARRIN W. SNYDER BELOUSEK Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2012. 668 pp. $55.00Review of Restorative Justice: Theories and Practices of (...) Moral Imagination AMY LEVAD El Paso, TX: LFB Scholarly Publishing, 2012. 300 pp. $80.00In Atonement, Justice, and Peace and Restorative Justice, the authors advocate for a restorative conception of justice, which they oppose to the “normal” retributive concept. Amy Levad draws on Aristotle and the virtue ethics tradition to write about “moral imagination” and restorative justice. Darrin Belousek uses Thomas Kuhn’s language to write about a “paradigm shift” in our understanding of theological themes relevant to restorative justice. Both contrast the restorative imagination or paradigm with a retributive one, although Levad also contrasts restoration with rehabilitation. Levad limits her study to restorative justice as [End Page 214] practiced in the criminal justice system, while Belousek expands his work to consider the Bible, theology, and multiple issues in society and in the church.Levad begins her book by discussing Aristotle’s idea of justice as equity, which she points out requires more discernment from judicial decision makers than it requires the algorithmic application of laws. In order for them to enact justice as equity, she argues, decision makers need a “vivid and expansive” moral imagination. Toward this end, she brings together two traditions: Aristotelian virtue ethics and modern literature on moral imagination. At the heart of her work is an ethnographic study intended to determine whether there are practices of restorative justice that can foster such a vivid and expansive moral imagination. After observing and interviewing participants in restorative justice programs in Colorado, Levad examined the narratives, metaphors, and symbols they used in order to determine whether and how they demonstrated a distinctively restorative moral imagination. Because the scope of her study was limited, and because she had difficulty getting a wide spectrum of roles involved in restorative justice to participate in the study, Levad’s results are more suggestive than conclusive. She acknowledges that we cannot generalize from them; although she draws on research methods from sociology and criminology, her findings do not meet their standards of evidence. Thus, the book’s greatest value lies in the recommendations it makes for further study. Empirical studies of the effectiveness of restorative justice practices have tended to focus on either reducing recidivism or the satisfaction of participants with the process. Levad brings to the fore two questions that have so far not been explored in previous research. First, how do restorative justice practices affect the moral imagination? And second, what effect might those practices have on ethical discernment? Her book takes some hopeful initial steps in addressing those questions.Although Levad writes as a Christian ethicist, she did not explicitly incorporate theological reflection into her study of state-sponsored programs. Belousek, by contrast, takes on an explicitly theological project of evaluating how interpretations of the significance of the cross of Jesus interact with such things as support for capital punishment, just war, and market economics. Since Belousek’s book is wide-ranging, this review will concentrate on the task it has in common with Levad’s book: that of reconceptualizing justice.In a fashion parallel to Levad’s use of Aristotle’s notion of justice as equity, which sometimes departs from strict legal justice, Belousek cites Paul’s vision of God’s justice “irrespective of” or “apart from” the law (372). Belousek begins by linking penal-substitutionary atonement theory to capital punishment, just war, and exchange economy in a single “paradigm,” arguing that they are all under-girded by what he calls the “Retributive Principle” (28). He then challenges this paradigm’s appropriateness for Christianity on biblical and doctrinal grounds. After examining arguments in favor of penal-substitutionary atonement in detail—drawing on the works of J. I. Packer and Thomas Schreiner, among [End Page 215] others—he turns to the scriptures cited in support... (shrink)

Warfare ideologies are as old as human civilization. By now, they have grown into an important and extended research field, including works analyzing the justification of war in ancient Indian epic...

Leadership and governance structures for any organisations involved in God’s mission need to come under review because of the growing influences of the inter-connected globalised world. As Christianity moved farther away from the Christendom model of centralised control to other models of leadership and governance, other paradigms have been proposed along the way. One is called polycentric leadership and governance and is based upon principles of polycentrism. Using a case study approach assists in giving contexts for assisting the understanding of (...) polycentrism in a world where Christian mission is adapting in a rapidly changing polycentric world. The case study explores leadership, governance and specific focus of one geographic region all within the context of the Wycliffe Global Alliance. (shrink)

Pour la plupart, les membres du cercle de Vienne se sentaient investis d’une mission philosophique et aussi culturelle: poursuivre la tradition française des Lumières et l’adapter aux exigences du temps. Si l’on se demande dans quelle mesure l’objectif a été atteint, la réponse est double. Quand ils ont cherché à élaborer une encyclopédie empiriste, à savoir l’Encyclopédie internationale de la science unifiée, qui serait comme l’équivalent de la Grande Encyclopédie de Diderot et d’Alembert, l’échec a été flagrant. À cela, il (...) y a des raisons externes, comme la seconde guerre mondiale, ou la mort d’Otto Neurath, le principal éditeur et aussi le moteur de toute l’entreprise. Mais cela tient aussi à des facteurs internes, comme l’insistance de Neurath sur un Index verborum prohibitorum, qui a empêché certaines contributions importantes d’aboutir. Si maintenant l’on élargit l’horizon pour considérer le mouvement dans son ensemble, un bon point de départ se trouve dans la critique très polémique formulée par Max Horkheimer en 1937. L’examen des arguments avancés montre que les positions défendues par l’empirisme logique étaient beaucoup plus solides que ne l’imaginaient Horkheimer et l’École de Francfort: la prise en compte des faits et théories scientifiques est et reste un ingrédient important de toute politique éclairée. (shrink)

As the world faces rapidly increasing cycles of disruption, challenges, and disorder, mission leaders are stretched to adapt, trying to catch up with the pace of change and provide leadership to further the mission God has given his Church. This paper, presented at the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies Montagu Barker Lecture Series: “Polycentric Theology, Mission, and Mission Leadership,” focuses on ways leadership is changing, suggesting a new theoretical model for mission leadership. It reviews the idea of polycentrism through mission (...) history, mission and church organizations, movement theory, and governance, identifying themes of an emerging theory of polycentric mission leadership. (shrink)

The Dutch Reformed Church had a strong missionary DNA since the planting of the church. This missionary focus and fervour, however, ebbed and flowed during the history of the church. Saayman described that the mission upsurges in the DRC in four waves or 'periods of extraordinary mission endeavour'. The current research aimed to develop this theory through a literature study on the sociopolitical context and the developments in the ecclesiology and missiology of the DRC since the planting of the (...) church up to 2013. The research found strong evidence to define a fifth wave. The fifth wave was influenced by contextual changes and loss of influence and money by the DRC. Furthermore, the growth in the church's missional identity can be seen in the following aspects: the influence of theologians like Lesslie Newbigin and David Bosch; a belief that mission is not something the church does but something the church is; a shift from a Christocentric theology to a Trinitarian theology; a holistic view of salvation; a commitment to the local context of the congregation and a focus on bringing healing to their local communities; and lastly, the success of the Gestuurde Gemeentes network and, more recently, the Mission Shaped Ministry training. (shrink)

Pour la plupart, les membres du cercle de Vienne se sentaient investis d’une mission philosophique et aussi culturelle: poursuivre la tradition française des Lumières et l’adapter aux exigences du temps. Si l’on se demande dans quelle mesure l’objectif a été atteint, la réponse est double. Quand ils ont cherché à élaborer une encyclopédie empiriste, à savoir l’Encyclopédie internationale de la science unifiée, qui serait comme l’équivalent de la Grande Encyclopédie de Diderot et d’Alembert, l’échec a été flagrant. À cela, il (...) y a des raisons externes, comme la seconde guerre mondiale, ou la mort d’Otto Neurath, le principal éditeur et aussi le moteur de toute l’entreprise. Mais cela tient aussi à des facteurs internes, comme l’insistance de Neurath sur un Index verborum prohibitorum, qui a empêché certaines contributions importantes d’aboutir. Si maintenant l’on élargit l’horizon pour considérer le mouvement dans son ensemble, un bon point de départ se trouve dans la critique très polémique formulée par Max Horkheimer en 1937. L’examen des arguments avancés montre que les positions défendues par l’empirisme logique étaient beaucoup plus solides que ne l’imaginaient Horkheimer et l’École de Francfort: la prise en compte des faits et théories scientifiques est et reste un ingrédient important de toute politique éclairée. (shrink)

In this paper I discuss recent scholarly work on ideology, mostly by Europeans, that exposes a secularist bias in current political theory, invites a nonderogatory concept of religion, and justifies more flexible church/state relations. This work involves redefining ideology as any action-oriented ideas, whether destructive or ameliorative, including both secular theory and religion, then drawing on hermeneutical and critical studies of the power/ideology relationship to rediscover a role for ‘utopia’ as a social catalyst for amelioration. I then call (...) attention to the relevance of ‘mission’ to this work. For in both secular and sacred contexts, missions are defined and assigned to individuals or groups to enhance some aspect of the organizing entity’s sense of purpose and possibility. What stands out in each instance is that the sense of mission is not passively epistemic but actively project-oriented, goal-directed. It can be used with reference to any end or goal that is at least implicitly normative and which people seek to attain. A mission moves people, however, only if it is tied to some belief-based social identity which can be interpreted as oriented to that end. A case can be made, accordingly, for accommodating religious views in our political discourse, for they have a history of directing people’s thinking beyond what is to what ought to be, and without them we are ever more inclined to tolerate mediocrity in ourselves and despair in others. (shrink)

In recent years, the contribution of various disciplines and professionals (i.e. from marketing, computer science, psychology and pedagogy) to museum management has encouraged the development of a new conception of museology. Specifically, psychology has affected the overall conception of museum and the visitors towards a more holistic vision of the museum experience as a complexity of memory, personal drives, group identity, meaning-making process, as well as leisure preferences. In this regard, psychological research contributes to advance the scientific knowledge about psychological (...) and social phenomena related to the visitor experience, as well as to design innovative technologies and future tourism services. The present contribution discusses the Socio-Cultural Activity Theory as a theoretical framework to conceptualize the museum visit as an activity mediated by the technology, and to better identify the factors shaping the interaction between the visitors and the technologies. To do so, a case study is presented: a qualitative research performed at the Ara Pacis Museum in Rome (Italy) to analyze the visitor experience of a tour that integrates augmented and virtual reality. Information derived from applying Activity Theory on visitors’ experience highlight the value of technology as mediating tool between the museum mission and the visitor experience, considering the interaction between visitors’ characteristics, museum environmental dimensions and technology’s features. (shrink)

In the traditional scientific research and production activities, due to the lack of sufficient communication and communication between researchers, the phenomenon of waste of scientific research resources occurs from time to time, which hinders the efficiency of scientific research output. Based on the design principle of the semantic knowledge framework, this paper puts forward the definition of ontology and semantic relationship of the collaborative system of scientific researchers. In this paper, a framework of collaborative semantic knowledge among researchers is established (...) through decentralized semantic information exchange architecture. In this article, the simulation is verified by experiments and compared with other exchange architectures. The results of the experiment confirmed the semantic information exchange architecture based on semantic knowledge proposed in this paper is 10.39% faster than the traditional centralized method in terms of data volume; the construction speed under the data node perspective is 12.84% higher than that of the traditional centralized construction method; the subject query speed is 36.84% higher than that of the traditional centralization method; the predicate query speed is 31.58% higher than that of the traditional centralization method. The experimental results confirm that the semantic information exchange architecture based on the semantic knowledge framework is feasible, and it has excellent performance in terms of construction speed and query speed. Under the background that researchers rely more and more on collaborative technology to interact with other members, this paper has a certain reference value and exploration value and proposes a new idea of group collaboration system under the framework of semantic knowledge. (shrink)

La théorie critique qui s’incarne dans plusieurs démarches épistémologiques et politiques, n’est pas un pur produit de consommation académique ni un dogme qui oblige à l’unanimité, mais un « miroir brisé » reflétant nos mondes si éclatés et déformés. Sa mission d’émancipation des années 1930 est sa carte d’identité. Elle poursuit dans les mondes du « Sud » cette mission par des « conversations » sur l’oralité (Benjamin), la crédulité (Adorno/Horkheimer), les utopies des arts (Adorno/Marcuse), les reconnaissances (Honneth) et la (...) place des intellectuels (Adorno, Horkheimer). (shrink)

Many business schools profess a commitment to ethics in their mission statements and focus a spotlight on the intersection between the university’s mission and attention to business ethics. To explore this trend, we analyze a sample of students’ values from two universities with an explicit religious foundation and recognized commitment to ethics against students from another university where this attention is not as explicit. This study identifies the personal values orientations (PVOs) for these students, born between 1980 and 2000, thus (...) millennials, and considers if differences can be attributed to the university’s culture and mission or business school curriculum. We utilize Social Identity Theory as a promising framework for illuminating these considerations. Our results confirm that a religious‐orientation characterizing a university’s mission may influence the business students’ (or millennials’) PVOs. Students at the two religious institutions manifested a stronger social, rather than personal, and moral, rather than competence, value orientation. Only marginal differences were discovered when assessing within group differences in the value orientations among our sample of business students. (shrink)

This article describes the curriculum review process at Faculdade Teológica Sul Americana, the aim of which was to bring a holistic mission perspective to the Centre’s theological studies program. Three options that involved the school’s curricular ideology, epistemological/methodological perspective and classroom practice are analysed in dialogue with curriculum and educational theories.

John Locke was considerably interested and actively involved in the promotion of Protestant Christianity among American Indians and African slaves, yet this fact goes largely unremarked in historical scholarship. The evidence of this interest and involvement deserves analysis—for it illuminates fascinating and understudied features of Locke's theory of toleration and his thinking on American Indians, African slaves, and English colonialism. These features include (1) the compatibility between toleration and Christian mission, (2) the interconnection between Christian mission and English geopolitics, (...) (3) the coexistence of ameliorative and exploitative strands within Locke's stance on African slavery, and (4) the spiritual imperialism of Locke's colonial vision. Analyzing evidence of Locke's interest and involvement in Christian mission, this article brings fully to light a dimension of Locke's career that has barely been noticed. In so doing, it also illustrates how the roots of toleration in the modern West were partly evangelical. (shrink)

This article posits that Christians, while being in the world, are not of this world. This duality confronts them with the twofold need to be fully compliant with the demands of their faith and its calling to evangelise this world, on the one hand; and to live fully as fellow citizens of this world, and to cooperate with them in search of solutions for this world's challenges, on the other hand. Lessons are drawn from cultural anthropology theories to underscore dynamic (...) processes of change, that start from non-threatening positions of working together inclusively, thus building trust, and advancing progressively, paving ways for dialogically sharing the Gospel. These developments are at the end argued and justified theologically, and then concluded with pragmatic examples drawn from live ministries born out of the co-author's initiatives. (shrink)

During the 1980s, empirical social sciences and normative theory seemingly converged within ethical debates. This tendency kindled new debates about the limits and possibilities of empirical-normative collaboration. The article asks for adequate ways of collaboration by taking a closer look at the philosophy of science of empirical social sciences as well as normative theory development and its logical groundings. As a result, three possible modes of cooperation are characterized: first, the empirical assessment of conditions that actually necessitate the (...) translation of normatively derived basic principles into practice rules; second, the empirical assessment of conditions for application of a moral norm which are formulated by bridging principles; third, the empirical assessment of social practice which allows to measure whether adopted norms actually are implemented in practice or not and to encounter new moral problems which are in need of ethical guidance. Finally, the article defends a symbiotic position in Weaver ’s and Trevino's triad of possible approaches to empirical-normative collaboration in ethics. (shrink)

Though it began with an assumption that there was one universal and normative Christian theology, the modern missionary movement has resulted in the emergence of polycentric theology. As each new centre thinks through the meaning of the faith in contextual terms, it offers a distinctive theology – to the extent that it becomes a question whether any universal theological affirmation can be possible. Meanwhile the theory and practice of mission has been no less radically reshaped by a polycentric vision, (...) with the concept of “mission from the margins” capturing the imagination. A profound openness to others and, ultimately, the deep spiritual discernment that is sensitive to the presence and action of the Spirit of God in our world, is the essential equipment needed for leadership in mission today. (shrink)

Resumen: El presente trabajo trata de la relación entre la misión suicida y el concepto de suicidio. Las misiones suicidas se han convertido en un importante instrumento de lucha política en la era contemporánea. Desde el punto de vista del atacante, el suicidio es una condición para el éxito de la acción y, desde el punto de vista del análisis, un concepto regulador que permite comprender las relaciones entre el individuo y la sociedad. Ahora bien, el concepto de suicidio puede (...) ser insuficiente o tener cargas ideológicas que hacen difícil cernir las características esenciales de dicho tipo de acto. Revisaremos, con criterios contemporáneos, algunos de los principales aspectos de la noción de suicidio definida por Durkheim, y cómo la llamada teoría del progreso es un instrumento teórico utilizado políticamente para desacreditar las misiones suicidas.: We treat in this article the relation between the suicide mission and the concept of suicide. Suicide missions have become an important instrument of political struggle in present era. From the point of view of the attacker, suicide is a condition for the success of the action, and, from the point of view of the analysis, it is regulator concept, which allows understanding the relations between the individual and the society. Nevertheless, the concept of suicide might be insufficient or might be ideologically loaded. Because of this, it might render difficult to grasp the essential characteristics of that act. It will be necessary to examine, with contemporary criteria, some of the principal aspects of the notion of suicide defined by Durkheim, as well as the way in which the so-called theory of progress is a theoretic instrument politically used to discredit suicide missions. (shrink)

The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Despite its central focus on human freedom and individual and social emancipation, critical realism has remained surprisingly quiet on the subject of authenticity. Drawing on a review of critical realist metatheory, and a study of authentic performance in the illuminating cultural context of Early Music, this paper seeks to address this gap by exploring the significance of authenticity in today's morphogenetic society. Real authenticity is introduced as the universal human capacity to reflexively manage the inherent contradictions that arise between and (...) across our intra- and interpersonal relationships at different levels of reality. It is this dialectical, phronetic capacity that determines whether acting in line with our ultimate concerns is both good for us as individuals and the organization of better futures for all. Managing real authenticity, therefore, must be considered at the core of any possible transition theory for human flourishing. (shrink)

“Bullshit”, as Harry Frankfurt writes in his recent book, On Bullshit, is a communication that pretends to be genuinely informative, but really is not. The person who talks bullshit, Frankfurt holds, is unconcerned with whether what he says is true, but is very concerned with how he is thought of by the listener. In this paper, I discuss Frankfurt's theory of bullshit, making specific reference to the requirement for deceptive intent on the part of the bullshitter, and to whether (...) bullshitting must involve conscious dishonesty. Some choice examples of bullshit are nosed and the question of whether Frankfurt really has it in for postmodernism is addressed. (shrink)

This article analyses the development of the subjective concept of rights amongst Jesuit missionaries in Brazil during the sixteenth century, in the context of their cultural encounters with the Tupi Indians, and the ensuing debates over the justification of the natives' voluntary slavery. Usually associated with Hugo Grotius' natural law theory, the subjective concept of rights was originally developed by Jesuit theologians in Portugal, and justificatory practices in the missionary enterprise overseas formed the context in which this concept became (...) current within the Society of Jesus. This article traces such a development in the missions in Brazil. (shrink)

Derek Parfit (1942-2017) is the most famous philosopher you've likely never heard of. In 1984, Parfit published what was, and is still, hailed by many philosophers as a work of genius - one of the most cited works of philosophy since World War II, Reasons and Persons. At its core, he argued that we should be concerned less with our own interests and more with the common good. His book brims with brilliant argumentative detail and stunningly inventive thought experiments that (...) challenged contemporary views about what it means to be a person, why one should forego concern for oneself as an identity that persists over time, what it means to act on the basis of reasons, and what we owe to future generations. Parfit also - unfashionably at the time - believed in a kind of grand unified theory of morality, what he called theory x, a non-religious ethical theory wherein all the major moral theories were converging from different sides on the same mountaintop. Parfit has had an enormous influence not only on philosophy, but also beyond, particularly amongst those in the fields of climate ethics, poverty relief, and charitable giving. In this book, the first-full scale biography of Parfit, Dave Edmonds tells the story of the thinker that many philosophers consider the most important moral philosopher of the last century. Edmonds' rendering of the man in full skilfully illuminates the person behind the acclaimed philosopher. Despite Parfit's extraordinary mind, outward appearances suggest his was also an extraordinarily uneventful life - one largely spent in cloistered institutions from Eton to Oxford and one seemingly monomaniacally devoted to ideas. Edmonds' aim is to show how this son and grandson of missionaries went from a genial and outgoing history student to a captivating, yet monkish philosopher singularly devoted to saving morality. In doing so, Edmonds makes Parfit's profound, but often impenetrable, ideas accessible to a broad audience and gives life and body to the thoughts of a seemingly pure thinker that captured the imagination of a generation of philosophers. (shrink)

The research investigates the role of leadership in the transformation of denominational structures towards a missional ecclesiology, and focusses on the Highveld Synod of the Dutch Reformed Church. It describes the missional journey of the denomination, and interprets the transformation. The theory of ‘complex leadership’ in complex systems is applied to the investigation of the impact of leadership on a denominational structure. The theory identifies three mechanisms used by leaders as enablers in emergent, self-organisation systems: Leaders disrupt existing (...) patterns, they encourage novelty, and they act as sensemakers. These insights are applied as a tool to interpret the missional transformation of a denomination. (shrink)

The JSTOR Archive is a trusted digital repository providing for long-term preservation and access to leading academic journals and scholarly literature from around the world. The Archive is supported by libraries, scholarly societies, publishers, and foundations. It is an initiative of JSTOR, a not-for-profit organization with a mission to help the scholarly community take advantage of advances in technology. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

We examine the bioethical issues that arise from long-duration space missions, asking what there is that is distinctive about such issues. We pay particular attention to the possibility that such space missions, certainly if they lead to self-sustaining space settlements, may require human enhancement, and examine the significance of reproduction in space for bioethics. We conclude that while space bioethics raises important issues to do with human survival and reproduction in very hazardous environments, it raises no issues that (...) are distinct from those in terrestrial bioethics. Rather, space bioethics raises extreme versions of bioethical issues that are already found in the military, when working in extreme environments (such as Antarctica), or when living in circumstances (such as in prison) where one’s autonomy is severely curtailed. (shrink)

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1982.

This Editorial outlines recent developments in the Journal’s scope, mission and review policy. It also illustrates the range of topics addressed on the pages of Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, which is now entering its 24th year.

Recent discussion about the future of mission has engaged with concepts such as missio Dei, polycentrism, Christendom and glocalisation. In order to provide a philosophical response to these and to introduce a new conversation partner, this article explores key ideas from the nomadic theory of Rosi Braidotti. Notions such as the embodied subject, the rhizome and various forms of becoming could be of benefit to the evolving multilogue about mission futures, and an initial attempt is made to show their (...) relevance to the task of reforming an approach to cross-cultural mission usually associated with Christendom and the power of the West. (shrink)

The study of the cultural activity of the Spiritual missions of the Russian Orthodox Church in various regions of Russia is one of the urgent tasks in the context of the problematic field of the theory of regionalism, cultural studies and socio-philosophical knowledge. Russian settlements on the territory of the Yenisei River basin and the entry of ethnic groups and territories of Yakutia and Buryatia into the Russian Empire has become one of the most important stages of the (...) integration of the ethnic groups of Siberia into a single statehood. The Irkutsk Spiritual Mission received a more perfect organization, institutionalized by increasing the number of missionary camps, which for successful Christian activities carried out among pagans allowed the formation of school educational institutions for the education and upbringing of a new Buryat generation of children in the doctrinal Orthodox canons, and Russian cultural traditions. In this regard, one of the key tasks of the missionaries was to establish a rational view of further life in new Christian-type formations, which was realized in socio-cultural activities: providing medical care to sick representatives of other ethnic groups, a friendly attitude to people of a different faith and a sincere desire to guide them on the path of righteousness, etc. It should be noted that the largest share of foreigners in this territory belonged to Buddhists, which was reflected in the influence of lamas on doctrinal issues, including economic ones. Since Buddhism in the Russian Empire belonged to the section of tolerant religions, direct (administrative) pressure on it was impossible. There remained funds of an exclusively spiritual nature, to which Orthodox missionary work was directed. Today in the Russian Federation, Buddhism, as well as Islam, Catholicism and Protestantism, as well as some other faiths belong to the category of traditional religions, which organizationally operate within the framework of the modern Russian Constitution. (shrink)

It is well-recognised that workers may have intrinsic—as well as extrinsic—motivations. Previous studies have identified that public sector workers typically have a higher level of intrinsic motivation, compared to workers in the private sector. This paper compares intrinsic motivation among 30,000+ workers in the two sectors across 51 countries using data from the World Values Survey. We find that public sector workers exhibit higher intrinsic motivation in many countries, but that this is not a universal relationship. One possibility is that (...) public sector mission may influence whether or not motivated workers choose to work in the sector. In support of this, we show that the level of corruption—which plausibly affects mission—can explain some of the variation across countries in the proportion of motivated workers in the sector. (shrink)

Traditional correspondence theory of truth with the concept of fact encounters many serious difficulties, main one of which is that it is too difficult to explain clearly the concept of ‘fact’ and how propositions ‘correspond’ to facts. This does not mean that we should abandon the traditional correspondence theory of truth and turn to some other type theories of truth. In order to guarantee the objectivity of truth, any reasonable theory of truth must adhere to the core (...) insight of the traditional correspondence theory: it is not something in our language, nor in our mind, but something in the external world, that make the propositions we use to describe the states of affairs in the world either true or false. It is entirely possible to formulate a new correspondence theory of truth without the concept of fact but still adhering to the core insights mentioned above of the traditional correspondence theory. New correspondence theory of truth has its own metaphysical and epistemological assumptions, and also its assumption in the philosophy of language. Because of the generativity of language, in defining the concept of truth, the new correspondence theory of truth must resort to Tarskian recursive procedure. First, it gives the semantic value of the components of a proposition, defines the truth of its atomic propositions, then gradually defines the truth of its more and more complex propositions and finally of the whole proposition. Coherence is the intrinsic element of truth. The concept of truth is by no means trivial and insignificant; on the contrary, it is very substantive. The pursuit of truth is our mission. (shrink)

En croisant les avancées théoriques de la muséologie des années 1980-1990 et quelques analyses d’exposition de sciences de la vie des années 2000, nous soulignons combien la mission d’interaction sociale du musée a du mal à s’exprimer. Celle-ci semble en butte à une inertie disciplinaire et à une inertie institutionnelle et pédagogique , pourtant bien identifiées. Nous posons donc que cette résistance ne dépend plus d’une clarification de théories et de pratiques muséales, mais d’une mise en question profondément sociétale et (...) politique, capable d’interroger l’immobilisme d’une société désespérément positiviste, élitiste, sécuritaire, comportementaliste voire béhavioriste.Through a comparative analysis of theoretical advances in museology in the 1980-1990 period and several analyses of life sciences exhibitions in the decade starting in 2000, we highlight the obstacles inhibiting the expression of a museum’s mission of social interaction. Inertia, though well identified, seems to be the major stumbling block, whether at the disciplinary level or the institutional level . We therefore argue that what is needed to overcome this type of passive resistance is not further clarification of museum theory and practice, but a profoundly societal and political reappraisal capable of challenging the immobility of a desperately positivist, elitist, security-obsessed and behaviourist society. (shrink)

A recent re-reading of E. F. Schumacher's classic Small is Beautiful: Economics as though People Matter reminded me that while Western socio-economic systems seem to operate on the assumption that the chief end of a human life is to bring glory to the GNP, no religious person–certainly no Christian–can accept either economic theories or economic practices which functionally regard human beings as mere means to materialist ends. Western mission societies have by no means been exempt from the pressure all about (...) them to become numerically bigger, materially richer, and technologically more powerful in response to the highly competitive world of conflicting world views. That this is not only an inappropriate but dangerous trend is the point of this article. (shrink)

Coming to terms with Adorno and Eisler's Composing for the Films (Komposition für den Film) has never been easy. First-time readers in 1947 undoubtedly found the book puzzling, starting with its authorship. The art deco dust jacket transmits in chartreuse lettering against a dark grey background only five words: the title and the single name “Eisler.” Yet Hanns Eisler is not the sole author, a revelation delayed until 1969 (though still questioned), when, seven years after Eisler's death, his collaborator, Theodor (...) W. Adorno, issued a German-language version of the text.1 The preface to the 1947 edition compounds the likelihood of…. (shrink)

This paper studies Francisque Bouillier’s contribution to cousinian Spiritualism, from his first text on the History of Cartesian Philosophy from 1839 to the publication of Du principe vital et de l’âme pensante, a work which was likewise considerably amended as a result of the polemics it gave rise to. The paper is concerned with the reception of Leibniz in a double sense. In a positive sense, Bouillier managed to reintegrate in the caricature of the Cartesian soul conceived by the Cousinians, (...) a force that was criticized by the latter. In a negative sense to the extent that, for Bouillier, the direct re-appropriation of Leibniz’s dynamic ontology was impossible without completely breaking with Cousin himself. Hence, Bouillier’s reception of Leibniz took the form of a progressive suppression of a monadological tendency in favor of a rehabilitation of a theory of minute perceptions. The primacy of the interior sense that results from this allowed him to construct a Descar.. (shrink)

Narrative Representation Theory, an evolved framework of Verse Analysis, has come into existence with the mission of explaining the operation of macro-systemic structure that could be hardwired in the brain. Based on the analyses of creoles or archetypal human languages, the theory puts forward the premise stating that the fundamental design of the human language faculty possesses the computational system for internalized discourse. The theory preserves the principles of Quint-patterning, Idea-formatting, N-ary-branching and X-numbering, complying respectively with the (...) hierarchical orderings of constituency, the atomic elements of componentiality, the linear sequences of precedence and the specific measurement of terminal nodes. NRT tells that the macro-system of narrative superstructure must have emerged autonomously, yet links closely with the micro-system of phonology, morphology and syntax. This article explores for the first time scientific insights into the nature of human language, referring to recent research on the right cerebrum as well as on the prefrontal lobes of the brain, the relationship between mental disorders and their genetic deficiencies, and the investigations of human evolution during the period 200,000–40,000 years BP. All the converging evidence in biological sciences reinforces the hypothesis that the narrative superstructure of language faculty manifests as an inherent linguistic capacity in our mind. (shrink)

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of the main drivers of what has been described as the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”, as well as the most innovative technology developed to date. It is a pervasive transformative innovation, which needs a new approach. In 2017, the European Parliament introduced the notion of the “electronic person”, which sparked huge debates in philosophical, legal, technological, and other academic settings. The issues related to AI should be examined from an interdisciplinary perspective. In this paper, we examine (...) this legal innovation—that has been proposed by the European Parliament—from not only legal but also technological points of view. In the first section, we define AI and analyse its main characteristics. We argue that, from a technical perspective, it appears premature and probably inappropriate to introduce AI personhood now. In the second section, justifications for the European Parliament’s proposals are explored in contrast with the opposing arguments that have been presented. As the existing mechanisms of liability could be insufficient in scenarios where AI systems cause harm, especially when algorithms of AI learn and evolve on their own, there is a need to depart from traditional liability theories. (shrink)

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This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1972.