Faire preuve d'éthique professionnelle est une responsabilité qui incombe à tous les enseignants, ceux en devenir, les directeurs d'établissements scolaires et les professionnels de l'éducation. Or l'éthique professionnelle est une construction en mouvance faite d'expériences, de politiques, de pratiques... Dresser un plan linéaire des étapes à franchir pour la développer serait présomptueux, mais il est nécessaire d'en explorer les différentes facettes. Cet ouvrage met en lumière les éléments présents dans le processus de construction de l'agir éthique chez les professionnels de (...) l'éducation, notamment au regard des rôles que ceux-ci doivent assumer auprès des divers acteurs scolaires. Présentant des approches et des modèles d'intervention et de construction expérimentés auprès de professionnels des milieux éducatifs, il amène des pistes de réflexion originales sur les formations initiale et continue. Riche de nouvelles avenues en matière d'éthique appliquée, il ouvre la voie à l'établissement de lignes directrices et à l'articulation de formations pour le développement de l'agir éthique, mais aussi à la mise en place d'un langage commun plus clair et plus sensible aux réalités que vivent les acteurs du milieu scolaire. (shrink)

« Devant les nombreux changements qui touchent l’école, le rôle de la direction d’établissement se complexifie. Simultanément, le nombre de problèmes éthiques vécus dans les milieux scolaires s’accroît, et il devient nécessaire que les directions d’établissement développent leur agir éthique pour faire face à ces nouveaux défis. Le développement de l’agir éthique ne s’effectue cependant pas de manière spontanée ; il est plutôt le fruit d’une pratique réflexive. Il est donc souhaitable d’accompagner et de guider les professionnels dans ce processus (...) afin d’éviter qu’ils évoluent seuls dans un contexte instable et dans des situations habitées d’enjeux éthiques parfois difficiles à cerner. Le présent ouvrage propose des idées de formation conçues à la suite de diverses recherches menées au cours de la dernière décennie auprès de professionnels de l’éducation. L’auteure souhaite aider la direction d’établissement scolaire à développer son agir éthique, et ce, en abordant différents angles : l’introduction à des fondements théoriques en éthique, la mise en évidence de quelques enjeux dominants actuels dans les écoles afin de mieux circonscrire la source de certains problèmes éthiques ainsi que la présentation de stratégies et d’outils à utiliser dans la formation et dans la pratique. »--. (shrink)

First, we define the concepts of well-being and happiness at school. Then, we explore well-being at school from the perspective of the teacher-student relationship, both from the point of view of the students and of the teachers. To do this, the main results of two studies carried out in 2019 and 2020, mainly in Quebec, are presented. Finally, the two perspectives, that of the pupils and that of the teachers, are confronted. The results of our analysis highlight the importance of (...) the teacher-student relationship both in the student's school experience and in the teacher's professional practice. The affective nature of the relationship seems to occupy a major place. Suggestions and recommendations for optimizing the quality of the teacher-student relationship, for the happiness of learning or teaching, are proposed. (shrink)

En décrivant la vieillesse comme l’une des modalités d’équilibre possibles des qualités premières qui assurent une santé à l’individu, les auteurs du Corpus hippocratique évitent d’associer systématiquement le vieillissement et la dégénérescence. Cet aspect singulier du corpus comporte pour nous un intérêt éthique : il prémunit contre l’âgisme médical. Cet article aborde la question des différences physiologiques qui caractérisent chacun des âges de la vie en insistant sur le fait que cette conception favorise un traitement égalitaire des patients relativement à (...) l’âge. (shrink)

Le dernier ouvrage d’Antony McKenna, intitulé Pascal et son libertin, présente en une synthèse claire et précise les résultats de plus de trente années consacrées par l’auteur aux études pascaliennes et à l’étude de la pensée libertine de la période classique. Auteur d’une thèse d’État publiée sous le titre De Pascal à Voltaire : le rôle des Pensées de Pascal dans l’histoire des idées entre 1670 et 1734 puis de plus d’une centaine d’études d’histoire de la philosophie du XVIIe et (...) du XVIIIe si... (shrink)

Centering on the early Platonic dialogues, this paper delineates the importance of considering Plato’s Lysis’ as rightful inclusion to Jan Szaif’s proposal of “core group” of aporetic dialogue. This paper highlights a synoptic presentation of the development of Lysis’s reception by modern scholars of Plato (Platonic scholars) at the beginning of this discourse to establish a compelling argument for its aporetic nature. It then proceeds with a revisit to Szaif’s article Socrates and the Benefits of Puzzlement. The first section, considering (...) its importance, emphasizes the evident possibility of opening his list of ‘core group’ of aporetic dialogue to Lysis benefitting the said dialogue. This exposition concludes with the philosophical nature of friendship, even love, must neither begin in Plato’s Phaedrus and Symposium nor in Aristotle’s conception of friendship in Nicomachean Ethics. Alternatively, cognizant of the aporetic tradition followed and practiced by Plato, all studies on the said topics may begin with Lysis. (shrink)

Western philosophy’s relationship with prisons stretches from Plato’s own incarceration to the modern era of mass incarceration. Philosophy Imprisoned: The Love of Wisdom in the Age of Mass Incarceration draws together a broad range of philosophical thinkers, from both inside and outside prison walls, in the United States and beyond, who draw on a variety of critical perspectives (including phenomenology, deconstruction, and feminist theory) and historical and contemporary figures in philosophy (including Kant, Hegel, Foucault, and Angela Davis) to think about (...) prisons in this new historical era. All of these contributors have experiences within prison walls: some are or have been incarcerated, some have taught or are teaching in prisons, and all have been students of both philosophy and the carceral system. The powerful testimonials and theoretical arguments are appropriate reading not only for philosophers and prison theorists generally, but also for prison reformers and abolitionists. (shrink)

In philosophical reflections on geoethics, it is primarily the question of what it means to be ‘part’ of the Earth system that is critically reflected upon. As the current geological era of the Anthropocene disrupts the dichotomy between Human agency and the Earth system, philosophers criticise a humanist account of geoethics and call for a post-humanist account. In this chapter, we critically engage with one specific proponent of the post-humanist position, Timothy Morton. We introduce his version of the post-humanist (...) position by focussing on his call for the ‘end-of-the-world’ in the Anthropocene. We subsequently criticise Morton’s rejection of the World for three reasons. We show that the emergence of the Anthropocene is primarily an ontological phenomenon, namely a shift in our ‘being-in-the-world’ and that the concept of World is needed to understand the meaning of our ‘being-in-the-Anthropocene’ in contrast with our ‘being-in-the-Holocene’. We introduce a twofold between our ‘being-in-the-world’ as a symmetric relation and our ‘being-on-Earth’ as an asymmetric relation that constitutes our ‘being-in-the-Anthropocene’. This asymmetry disrupts the post-humanist position and calls for a conceptualisation of the human ethos beyond the post-humanist position. This conceptualisation of the human ethos also has consequences for our understanding of geoethics as geo-ethos. (shrink)

The problem St. Augustine confronts in the Confessions is fundamentally one of rhetoric: God should be singularly desirable, yet rhetoric seems necessary to motivate our pursuit of him. Religion participates in the relative marketplace of rhetoric, where ideals need to be authorized because they lack a self-sufficient rationale. In his early encounters with Cicero and the Platonists, Augustine struggles to renounce all such partial ideals in order to pursue philosophical truth unequivocally. Yet the refusal of rhetoric is, paradoxically, another willed (...) ideal authorized by its own rhetoric. Augustine ultimately escapes rhetoric in the conversion scene by demonstrating his inescapable subjection to it; in doing so, he surrenders his will in such a way as to permit God's grace to operate through him. His conversion ultimately results from this inverted humiliation, which forces Augustine to abdicate his ascetic efforts and pretensions. (shrink)

I analyze the complex relations between Pascal and the three figures of Montaigne, Descartes, and St. Augustine, and the relations the first two figures bear to St. Augustine. For Pascal's philosophy, one is in effect a resource , another a way of thinking that he makes his own , and yet another serves as a model . I further investigate Pascal's anti-Augustinism, that is, some of the points of resistance in Pascal against the thought of St. Augustine. Central to this (...) investigation is the famous rapprochement between the cogitos of Augustine and Descartes, which requires a consideration of what, for Pascal, it means "to say the same thing." This analysis leads us to two conclusions: first, Augustine's The City of God should be placed among the number of works that Pascal did not read; second, there are fundamental philosophical reasons for Pascal to reject certain theses central to that work. Above all, there should no longer be any need to assume a merely abstract conception of an unproblematic Augustinianism in Pascal. (shrink)

Between 1869 and 1871, D. I. Mendeleev, a teacher at the University at St Petersburg published a textbook of general chemistry intended for his students. The title, Principles of Chemistry was typical for the time: it meant that chemistry was no longer an inquiry on the ultimate principles of matter but had become a science firmly established on a few principles derived from experiment.

In this article I present St. Thomas Aquinas’s views on the possibility of multiple incarnations. First I disambiguate four things one might mean when saying that multiple incarnations are possible. Then I provide and justify what I take to be Aquinas’s answers to these questions, showing the intricacies of his argumentation and concluding that he holds an extremely robust view of the possibility of multiple incarnations. According to Aquinas, I argue, there could be three simultaneously existing concrete rational natures, each (...) of which is assumed by all three of the Divine Persons, all at the same time. (shrink)

This article aims to explore the concept of Heaven and St. Thomas Aquinas I "Summa Theologica" explained the basis of natural law and metaphysics. The philosophy, the I's "Road" was opened on their own, said that the ultimate reality itself; second source that can be raw, such as "Dawson, one two, two three, three things," a phrase below; again , then follow all the rules change. In this regard, I tend to "Heaven", "heaven" statement, basically all things to follow the (...) law is. I focus on is that all things are to follow the law is. As for the man-made law, I tend to be severely criticized, such as saying "Fa Wu Zi-chang, way more than a thief," and the like. Having said that, by Taoism Taoism Taoism and Legalism affect the development of the legislation is still based on natural law is human law theory. Thomas Aquinas's natural law, is given in accordance with the rational nature of God and the law of action, we can see, St. Thomas Aquinas's natural law focused on people, not only contains a real natural , but also ought to include , two related but different. There are words on the surface, natural law is that "people according to their nature are looking for is good." However, the surface should be made, the principle of natural law is: "People should do good to avoid evil." In this paper, to compare the Heaven and the ultimate source of natural law, I inquire of the non-personal God of the Trinity Road and Thomas Aquinas on how chemical and biological weapons or to create things, by the generosity or wisdom and love of order and law generated. Then, on the Heaven and the natural law itself for comparison. Finally, the two can be dealt with through the office, and, and related concepts in Taoism. The basic concern of this paper is to compare Laozi's Heavenly Dao and St. Thomas' natural law for the purpose of bringing them to dialogue. Philosophically speaking, Laozi's concept of Dao means first, the ever self-manifesting and creative Ultimate Reality; second, the Origin giving birth to all things; third, the law of becoming of all things in the universe. For this last meaning, usually Laozi uses the term "Heavenly Dao" to represent laws of nature that all beings in the universe, including human beings , must comply with. As to human laws, he takes a critical position, to the point of saying that "The more legal objects multiply, the more robbers and thieves there will be." Nevertheless, under his influence, Huanglao daoists and legalists have developed their philosophy of positive laws.In Comparison, St. Thomas' natural laws are principles of human action according to human rational nature. The emphasis of St. Thomas is put therefore on the rational nature of human beings, which includes both the aspect of "to be" and that of "ought to be," both being closely related yet distinct. Seen from "to be," the natural law says that all human beings desire goodness by their nature; while as their "ought to be," all human beings should do good and avoid doing evil.This comparative study will focus first on how the generosity of Dao's giving birth to all things in Laozi and the wisdom and love of God in St. Thomas become order and law. Then we will compare Laozi's laws of nature, to which human beings should also live accordingly, with techniques inspired from them, and the principles of St. Thomas' natural laws. We will discuss the possible compatibility and dialogue between St. Thomas thoughts, which are essential to Catholicism , and those of Laozi as followed by lluanlao Daoism and Religious Daoism. (shrink)

This article addresses a difficult case at the intersection of philosophical theology and truthmaker theory. I show that three views, together, lead to difficultiesin providing truthmakers for truths of contingent predication, such as that the bread is white. These three views are: the Catholic dogma of transubstantiation, astandard truthmaker theory, and a trope (or accident) view of properties. I present and explain each of these three views, at each step noting their connections to the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. After (...) presenting the three views, I show why they entail a difficulty for providing truthmakers for truths of contingent predication,drawing on two cases that are not impossible, for all we know. I then present four ways that one can respond to this difficulty, afterward noting some shortcomingsof those responses. (shrink)

In this article I present St. Thomas Aquinas’s views on the possibility of multiple incarnations. First I disambiguate four things one might mean when saying that multiple incarnations are possible. Then I provide and justify what I take to be Aquinas’s answers to these questions, showing the intricacies of his argumentation and concluding that he holds an extremely robust view of the possibility of multiple incarnations. According to Aquinas, I argue, there could be three simultaneously existing concrete rational natures, each (...) of which is assumed by all three of the Divine Persons, all at the same time. (shrink)

In this paper we present the standard Thomistic view concerning substances and their parts. We then note some objections to that view. Afterwards, we present Aquinas’s Christology, then draw an analogy between the relation that holds between the Second Person and the assumed human nature, on the one hand, and the relation that holds between a substance whole and its substance parts, on the other. We then show how the analogy, which St. Thomas himself drew at points, is useful for (...) providing a theory that answers the objections that the standard Thomistic view faces. Finally we answer objections to our approach. We conclude that there is a hylomorphic theory, founded on an analogy from Aquinas’s Christology, that fits well with the empirical data concerning substance parts, on which some complete created material substances have other complete created material substances as parts. (shrink)

I present and evaluate the 5 Ways of St. Thomas Aquinas. I discuss the contentious premises and inferences of the arguments.

In lieu of an abstract, here is the chapter's first paragraph: In 2004 I became a professor of philosophy at St. John Fisher College, a small liberal arts institution in the Rochester, New York founded in 1949 by a Catholic religious order called the Congregation of St. Basil (CSB). Some years after joining the college, while working on a project with Diane Lucas, our then-campus archivist, I was startled when she mentioned to me in passing that Marshall McLuhan’s daughter Stephanie (...) had been doing research in our archives on her father’s work. Marshall McLuhan?! I was astonished to hear that name mentioned, as it had been years since I had thought about the communications guru who had coined the phrases "the global village” and "the medium is the message". More to the point, what possible connection did he have with St. John Fisher College? To my astonishment, Diane told me that McLuhan had been a faculty member at St. Michael’s College, University of Toronto, which was run by the Congregation of St. Basil, the same order of priests which had also started St. John Fisher College. McLuhan, it turned out, had been on close personal terms with the founding fathers of the college, many of whom had been his students at St. Michael’s. In addition, he had been active in helping to found our Department of Communications, and often came to campus to give talks and meet with the faculty and students. Stephanie McLuhan had come to our archives to do research on a book she later edited of her father’s unpublished lectures, some of which had been delivered at St. John Fisher College. It was later published as Understanding Me: Lectures and Essays, edited by Stephanie McLuhan and David Staines, with a foreword by Tom Wolfe [MIT Press, 2005). (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to suggest a new direction in our thinking about substantive due process that recognizes human rights in the lived experience of our fellow human beings. The applicability of the approach, at least for equal protection purposes, was hinted at by the Supreme Court’s majority opinion in Romer v. Evans, but it has never been given full consideration.1 There, Justice Kennedy noted the very real impact of a state group of people. What he did not (...) say is how such an amendment might also impact the self-impression gays and lesbians have of themselves, although this would certainly be part of such an amendment’s impact. Moreover, legal and philosophical research in this area suggests that there may be more here than previously thought. While I do not hope to resolve every philosophical question at the heart of my legal analysis, I do intend to bring forth enough substance to answer the indeterminacy charge levied by certain Supreme Court justices and others concerning which rights should count as “fundamental” under substantive due process in part by looking at the impact such rights have on individual self-esteem. I. (shrink)

Of course there is a long history of such sayings in all the world’s main spiritual traditions. Socrates’ remark reminds us at once of Solon’s doleful doctrine that we should call no man happy until he is dead (Herodotus Histories Book 1; Aristotle Nicomachean Ethics 1100a11). And Bonhoeffer’s famous saying, while it echoes the typical teaching of many Christian spiritual masters, for instance St Thomas à Kempis and Bianco da Siena (the author of that beautiful hymn “Come down O Love (...) Divine”), is ultimately just a paraphrase of Jesus’ even more famous saying that anyone who wants to follow him must “deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me” (Matthew 16.24). (shrink)

Many Christians seem to have difficulty in their worldview insofar as they affirm: (1) If a person cannot do something, then that person is not blameworthy for not doing that action, (2) No one has it within his or her power to acquire faith, and (3) Some individuals who do not have the virtue of faith are nevertheless blameworthy for not having faith. These propositions together appear to entail a contradiction. In this paper I show how the Christian philosopher, St. (...) Thomas Aquinas, affirms these propositions but avoids the contradiction because of his understanding of faith, blame, and grace. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The First Way – The Argument from Motion The Second Way – The Argument from Causation The Third Way – The Argument from Possibility and Necessity The Fourth Way – The Argument from Gradation The Fifth Way – The Argument from the Governance.

While working on various medieval philosophers, I have noticed an affinity between their remarks on the reasonableness of accepting propositions that are not matters of proof and strict deduction and St. John Henry Newman’s remarks that we accept unconditionally and rightly everyday ordinary propositions without calibrating them to demonstrable arguments. In particular, Cardinal Matthew of Aquasparta and Blessed John Duns Scotus both claim there is a sense in which assent to everyday propositions is tantamount to knowledge, even though there is (...) no adequate argumentation or demonstrative reasoning compelling us to assent to such propositions. Newman’s distinction between notional and real apprehension of propositions, notional and real assents, and his insistence on the existence of real assents to propositions that are not necessarily proved, or in some cases provable, seem, at first glance, a case parallel to that of the medieval philosophers we have mentioned. (shrink)

The hype surrounding the emergence of nanotechnology proved extremely effective to raise public attention and controversies in the early 2000s. A proactive attitude prevailed resulting in the integration of social scientists upstream at the research level, research programs on Ethical, Legal and Societal Impacts, and various public engagement initiatives such as nanojury and citizen conferences. Twenty years later, what happened to the promises of SHS integration and public engagement in nanotechnology? Was it part of the hype, one of the many (...) promises made by the champions of nanotechnology initiatives that never materialized? As a contribution to this broad question, this paper focuses on public engagement initiatives in France and ventures some general reflections on their fate. I will first report, from an insider’s perspective, the public debates conducted by a civil society organization VivAgora, in the national context of fierce controversies. Then I will describe the permanent forum NanoRESP opened in 2013 when nano controversies waned out. On the basis of this case study, I will argue that the STS ideal of co-production of science and society gradually gave way to a more modest co-learning process between stakeholders in the 2010s. (shrink)

The twenty-six works contained in this collection comprise some of the best and best-known scholars on the thought of Thomas Aquinas. Readers will find here helpful insights into St. Thomas's adjudication of various streams in the philosophical and theological traditions. Most pertinent for readers today is the way in which Aquinas integrates faith and reason, resulting in mutual benefit. Contributors include Roger Pouivet, Michael Sherwin, o.p., Anthony Lisska, Mario Enrique Sacchi, Ralph McInerny, Alice Ramos, John Hittinger, Leo Elders, and many (...) others. (shrink)

Airuijiena is a medieval philosophy in the ninth century AD, the rise of a peak, it is the essence of mystical experience with God or with God, God included two adults and people of God into history. This article focuses on the Gospel of John describes Airuijiena Introduction sermons, also known as "Eagle Spirit Music," which contains the secret Qisi think, to be explored, but also involves its philosophy, theology and intellectual history of some of the relevant problem. This article (...) will first discuss the Airuijiena inherited traditions, such as the Irish spirit, Seven Arts in humanities education, Augustine Xing Greek Fathers, etc., and in "On the distinction between natural" will include them in a large integrated system. His "Gospel of St. John preaching preamble", or "Eagle Spirit Music," is a delicate little synthesis, which contains a wealth of secret Qisi want. This article will focus on St. John that he admired the mystical soul, show the people must continue to run away, until all finite things out, into the infinite God. This is a "self out of the" meaning of "extrapolation" of the most extreme, the most profound example. Then this paper to discuss Airuijiena by Zhu Zhong Jing's knowledge of God, to God and experience God together with their philosophical significance, particularly to understand the basis of the theory of divine light and darkness, which indicates not only the Word is the light itself, and all things even one grain of sand stone, they are the beacon. However, their theory of the divine darkness, God is also revealed that he is the ultimate person. In short, Airuijiena extrapolation of ideas and filled with the spirit of comparison, the system's deep and majestic, worthy I inspired. In the development of mediaeval philosophy, Johannes Scotus Eriugena stood like a "lofty rock in the midst of a plain", as Copleston puts it. His mysticism emphasized the union of God and Man in the double process of incarnation and deification. This paper will focus on his mysticism and its philosophical and historical implications in his Homily on the Prologue to the Gospel of St. John, also know as Vox Spiritualis Aquilae. We will discuss, first of all, what Eriugena had received from his Irish tradition, Neo-Platonism as interpreted by Greek fathers and St. Augustine and how he synthesized them into his Periphyseon. His Homily, as a marvelous work of synthesis in miniature, is very rich of mystic insights. We'll focus fist on his understanding of St. John's speculative mind, as a mind always going beyond itself that finally reaches the divine and thereby becomes deified in order to know God in himself. For me this is an extreme case of strangification. Then we will proceed to discuss Eriugena's mystic and philosophical concept of gnosis and theosis, and also his understanding of Logos as Light and that all things, even so tiny and low, are lights too. By contrast, his notion of Darkness of God leads us to the concept of God as totally Other , or the Ultimate Other. In sum, Eriugena's system of mystical philosophy is always deep and magnanimous, enough to inspire more generations to come. (shrink)

Discussion on God's knowledge, awareness of God with people though are different, but still closely related. This article talks about God's knowledge, although knowledge of God and the people, but not for the medieval Shengboerna the so-called "secular knowledge" and "God of knowledge" distinction; this will only be God's own knowledge or wisdom, philosophical discussion. First, the paper will compare the start, mainly related to the so-called Fozhi Buddhism and Western philosophers such as Aristotle,圣多瑪斯, Hegel and others about God, know (...) God, absolute spirit of the discussion, especially圣多瑪斯discussion on knowledge of God, compare, and summarize them are focused on comprehensive and complete self-conscious, and of all things and the universal and the individual's knowledge. Then, this paper will further discuss whether it contains the narrative of God to know the ingredients, that is God for individuals and groups in the body of the story or may occur, actual and imagined the story of building awareness. In short, my book can only be regarded as restricted view up to see. Both for Glimpse, then it is limited, should be able to break the world's big pipe to significantly; both for the discussion, it should be deconstructed in order to display the infinite Creator. The discussion of "Scientia Dei " is very much related to, though still different from, the question "Quomodo Deus a nobis cognoscatur ." This paper deals with Scientia Dei, not in the sense it is distinguished from Scientia Mundi by St Bernard of Clairvaux, but in the sense it is related to all philosophical discourses on the wisdom of God Himself. The first step of this paper is a comparative study with "Buddha's Wisdom" taught by some major Mahayana Buddhist Schools, and the ideas of God, God's Knowledge and Absolute Spirit in Aristotle, St. Thomas and Hegel, in particular St. Thomas' discussion of "Scientia Dei." The result of this comparison is their common emphasis on God's total and complete transparent self-understanding, and His universal and concrete knowledge of all things. After this, we will move on to discuss the narrative component of Scientia Dei, to see whether in God's knowledge there is a place for the historical and imaginative stories of all social groups and individuals, of their inexhaustible possibilities, developments and constructions, both descriptive and imaginative. Anyhow, this essay is limited to a comparative and discursive study, without any ground in the author's religious experience with God's knowledge. Therefore it should be deconstructed once it is pronounced, erased once it is written. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:September 24, 2010 (10:17 pm) C:\Users\Milt\Desktop\backup copy of Ken's G\WPData\TYPE3001\russell 30,1 032 red corrected.wpd 1 Just what exactly “separated by degree” means is a bone of contention among those playing the game. But it seems to me that if you have actually met a person Xz, then you have knowledge by acquaintance of X, whereas if you meet someone who met Xz you are separated from Xz by one (...) degree. Thus, I never met the jazz great Sun Ra, but my friend Warren Allen Smith (former head of a recording studio) worked with him on several of his albums, so I am one degree of separation from Sun Ra. russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s. 30 (summer 2010): 63–7 The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U. issn 0036-01631 eu d’sprit “SIX DEGREES OF BERTRAND RUSSELL” Timothy J. Madigan Philosophy / St. John Fisher College Rochester, ny 14618, usa [email protected] One of the most quoted phrases in current popular culture is “six degrees of separation”. It expresses the idea that any human being is connected with any other human being by a chain of at most six acquaintances.1 While there is much debate as to whether this is literally true, it is an interesting thoughtexperiment, as well as the basis for many fun parlour games. One of these is entitled “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”, in which Wlm fans try to connect the aforementioned actor with any other movie star in as few links as possible. I have been thinking of launching a similar parlour game called “Six Degrees of Bertrand Russell”, in which any Wgure from the past 200 years or so could be connected with Bertie in as few steps as possible. Why Bertie rather than, say, Ludwig Wittgenstein (who after all had a stated interest in games)? For two reasons: Wrst, Russell lived to the ripe old age of 97, and thus had the time to interact with a wide variety of people; and secondly he was for most of that long life a celebrity, who rubbed elbows with all manner of individuals, many of whom were either celebrities themselves at the time or came to be celebrated later. As is often pointed out, Russell’s list of acquaintances stretched from Lenin (V.yI.) to Lennon (zJohn), from the Bloomsbury Group to the Doomsday Prophets, from William Gladstone to Harold Wilson. Russell’s grandfather, LordJohn Russell, had as a young man visited Napoleon on the island of Elba and shaken his hand. When I shake the hand of Honorary Russell Archivist Ken Blackwell, September 24, 2010 (10:17 pm) C:\Users\Milt\Desktop\backup copy of Ken's G\WPData\TYPE3001\russell 30,1 032 red corrected.wpd 64 timothy j. madigan 2 Other historical writings by Russell are discussed in Kenneth R. Stunkel, “Bertrand Russell’s Writings and ReXections on History”, Russellz 21 (2001): 129–53. who met Bertie, I often think that I am only three degrees of separation from shaking Napoleon’s hand as well. And as for Napoleonz—zwell, who knows where that hand had been? Given this strong connection to history, it is not surprising that Russell himself would write an essay entitled “How to Read and Understand History”.2 In his Autobiographyz and other works such as Portraits from Memory, Russell made it quite clear that his aristocratic and privileged background gave him access to many of the most important movers and shakers in twentieth-century politics, literature, and academia, areas in which he himself excelled. He was aware that, unlike many of his fellow philosophers, who were known only to a small coterie of fellow deep thinkers, he was an historic Wgure, one who could interact on a personal level with cabinet ministers, Nobel prize-winners in all Welds, press lords, movie stars, presidents and premiers. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, for instance, many concerned individuals tried to reach Kennedy and Khrushchev to give them advice, but Russell was one of the few outsiders whose letters actually got through, as he no doubt knew they would. For all of his concern with... (shrink)

This paper focuses upon "bebop" as a distinctively urban movement for the purpose of contributing to the articulation of a distinctively urban aesthetics. The author examines both how the music was taken up in such cities as New York, Los Angeles, Kansas City, St. Louis, and Chicago, and in turn how an urban sensibility was expressed in this particular movement.

New Blackfriars, Volume 102, Issue 1101, Page 607-622, September 2021.