In the Summa Theologiae ‘simplicity’ is treated as pre–eminent among the terms which may properly be used to describe the divine nature. The Question in which Thomas demonstrates that God must be ‘totally and in every way simple’ immediately follows the five proofs of God's existence, preceding the treatment of His other perfections, and being frequently used as the basis for proving them. Then in Question 13 ‘univocal predication' is held to be ‘impossible between God and creatures’ so that at (...) best ‘some things are said of God and creatures analogically’ because of the necessity of using ‘various and multiplied conceptions’ derived from our knowledge of created beings to refer to what in God is simple for ‘the perfections flowing from God to creatures… pre–exist in God unitedly and simply, whereas in creatures they are received divided and multiplied’ . In line with this, in the De Potentia Dei the treatment of analogical predication is integrated into that of ‘the Simplicity of the Divine Essence’ . Moreover, it lies at the root of Thomas's rejection of any possibility of a Trinitarian natural theology such as, for instance, St Anselm or Richard of St Victor had attempted to develop, on the grounds that ‘it is impossible to attain to the knowledge of the Trinity by natural reason’ since ‘we can know what belongs to the unity of the essence, but not what belongs to the distinction of the persons’ . Even modern minds sympathetic to Thomas have clearly found it difficult to understand his concern for the divine simplicity: in his Aquinas Lecture Plantinga speaks for many in stating that it is ‘a mysterious doctrine’ which is ‘exceedingly hard to grasp or construe’ and ‘it is difficult to see why anyone should be inclined to accept it’. Not surprisingly, therefore, some of the most widely read twentieth–century commentators on Aquinas have paid little attention to it. Increased interest has recently been shown in it, but a number of discussions pay insufficient attention to the historical context out of which Thomas's interest in the doctrine emerged, and consequently tend to misconstrue its nature. (shrink)

This contains an extended and wide ranging bibliography, beginning with the seventeenth century, of works relevant to the problem of miracles and Hume’s essay. It is especially useful for the problem in its historical setting.

The central feature of the narrative structure of Collingwood’s The Idea of History is the pivotal role accorded to Bradley, evident in the table of contents and in the two discussions of him. Few readers have noticed that, confusingly, the book’s first discussion of Bradley is a revision of the Inaugural Lecture “The Historical Imagination,” which constitutes the book’s second discussion of Bradley . The differences between these two presentations of Bradley are significant. The 1935 account seeks to portray the (...) Bradley of the Presuppositions of Critical History as a Copernican revolutionary in historical thought, even though the neo-Kantian transcendentalism promoted in the Lecture had been the core of Collingwood’s approach to philosophy of history from the mid-1920s, many years before he encountered Bradley’s essay. By 1935 this transcendentalism was in the process of self-destructing because of inner contradictions. By 1936, once Collingwood’s narrative and his criticisms of Bradley left the 1935 claims unsustainable, Collingwood shifted attention to Bradley’s later works, in an unsuccessful attempt to sustain the notion of his originality . Hitherto neglected Collingwood manuscripts held in the Bodleian prove that by 1940 Collingwood recognized this, so that the prominence Knox gave to Bradley in his editing of the IH is demonstrably not in accord with Collingwood’s views and plans for The Idea of History. Knox’s much-disputed claim that there was a radical shift to historicism in the later Collingwood is, however, confirmed, clear proof being adduced that in the later 1930s the attempt transcendentally to deduce universal and necessary presuppositions of historical knowledge is abandoned for a radically historicist account, paralleled by a demotion of “critical history” as the final form of “history proper” in favor of “scientific history.”. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe central feature of the narrative structure of Collingwood's The Idea of History is the pivotal role accorded to Bradley, evident in the table of contents and in the two discussions of him. Few readers have noticed that, confusingly, the book's first discussion of Bradley is a revision of the Inaugural Lecture “The Historical Imagination,” which constitutes the book's second discussion of Bradley. The differences between these two presentations of Bradley are significant. The 1935 account seeks to portray the Bradley (...) of the Presuppositions of Critical History as a Copernican revolutionary in historical thought, even though the neo‐Kantian transcendentalism promoted in the Lecture had been the core of Collingwood's approach to philosophy of history from the mid‐1920s, many years before he encountered Bradley's essay. By 1935 this transcendentalism was in the process of self‐destructing because of inner contradictions. By 1936, once Collingwood's narrative and his criticisms of Bradley left the 1935 claims unsustainable, Collingwood shifted attention to Bradley's later works, in an unsuccessful attempt to sustain the notion of his originality.Hitherto neglected Collingwood manuscripts held in the Bodleian prove that by 1940 Collingwood recognized this, so that the prominence Knox gave to Bradley in his editing of the IH is demonstrably not in accord with Collingwood's views and plans for The Idea of History. Knox's much‐disputed claim that there was a radical shift to historicism in the later Collingwood is, however, confirmed, clear proof being adduced that in the later 1930s the attempt transcendentally to deduce universal and necessary presuppositions of historical knowledge is abandoned for a radically historicist account, paralleled by a demotion of “critical history” as the final form of “history proper” in favor of “scientific history.”. (shrink)

-/- In the Summa Theologiae ‘simplicity’ is treated as pre–eminent among the terms which may properly be used to describe the divine nature. The Question in which Thomas demonstrates that God must be ‘totally and in every way simple’ (1.3.7) immediately follows the five proofs of God's existence, preceding the treatment of His other perfections, and being frequently used as the basis for proving them. Then in Question 13 ‘univocal predication' is held to be ‘impossible between God and creatures’ so (...) that at best ‘some things are said of God and creatures analogically’ because of the necessity of using ‘various and multiplied conceptions’ derived from our knowledge of created beings to refer to what in God is simple for ‘the perfections flowing from God to creatures… pre–exist in God unitedly and simply, whereas in creatures they are received divided and multiplied’ (1.13.5). In line with this, in the De Potentia Dei the treatment of analogical predication is integrated into that of ‘the Simplicity of the Divine Essence’ (Q 7). Moreover, it lies at the root of Thomas's rejection of any possibility of a Trinitarian natural theology such as, for instance, St Anselm or Richard of St Victor had attempted to develop, on the grounds that ‘it is impossible to attain to the knowledge of the Trinity by natural reason’ since ‘we can know what belongs to the unity of the essence, but not what belongs to the distinction of the persons’ (1.32.1). Even modern minds sympathetic to Thomas have clearly found it difficult to understand his concern for the divine simplicity: in his Aquinas Lecture Plantinga speaks for many in stating that it is ‘a mysterious doctrine’ which is ‘exceedingly hard to grasp or construe’ and ‘it is difficult to see why anyone should be inclined to accept it’. Not surprisingly, therefore, some of the most widely read twentieth–century commentators on Aquinas have paid little attention to it. Increased interest has recently been shown in it, but a number of discussions pay insufficient attention to the historical context out of which Thomas's interest in the doctrine emerged, and consequently tend to misconstrue its nature. (shrink)

A reassessment of Aquinas’s doctrine of divine infinity, particularly in the light of the previous history of the concept within Western philosophy and theology. From the critical perspective provided by this history the central place which has been claimed for it in Aquinas’s thinking is questioned, as are also its originality and coherence. The notion that the doctrine of divine infinity was introduced to Western thought by Judaeo‐Christianity is rejected; from Anaximander onwards it had been a central concept in Greek (...) philosophy. Aristotle however had rejected it so effectively that, for several centuries afterwards, it seems to have led an ‘underground’ existence until it finally surfaces again in ‘Gnostic’ and related currents of thought. It is from these circles that it finally, and after some resistance, patchily entered orthodox Christian thinking. Likewise Plotinus was not the source of the doctrine, as some have claimed; historical precedence must be given to the Gnostics. Neoplatonism never, despite the prestige of Plotinus, fully accepted the doctrine; in Proclus it is a subordinate emanation from the One, which is beyond Infinity and Infinitude. Nor, because of the influence of Aristotle, does Islamic Neoplatonized Aristotelianism endorse the doctrine. Aquinas’s commitment to it seems to stem from the impact of John of Damascus’s stress upon the doctrine, the translation of whose work greatly influenced Western theology from the late twelfth century onward, together with his need to distance himself from the restrictions of the divine power and freedom found in the Arabic Aristotelian philosophers, whom, in general, he regarded as philosophical authorities. But his position on the doctrine is flawed by equivocation and self‐contradiction, flowing from his attempt to reconcile Christian personalist theism with Neoplatonized Aristotleain necessitarian monism. (shrink)

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

This collection of essays, offered in honor of the distinguished career of prominent political philosophy professor Clifford Orwin, brings together internationally renowned scholars to provide a wide context and discuss various aspects of the virtue of “humanity” through the history of political philosophy.

The American Medical Association enacted its Code of Ethics in 1847, the first such national codification. In this volume, a distinguished group of experts from the fields of medicine, bioethics, and history of medicine reflect on the development of medical ethics in the United States, using historical analyses as a springboard for discussions of the problems of the present, including what the editors call "a sense of moral crisis precipitated by the shift from a system of fee-for-service medicine to a (...) system of fee-for-system medicine, better known as 'managed care.'" The authors begin with a look at how the medical profession began to consider ethical issues in the 1800s and subsequent developments in the 1900s. They then address the sociological, historical, ethical, and legal aspects of the practice of medicine. Later chapters discuss current and future challenges to medical ethics and professional values. Appendixes display various versions of the AMA's Code of Ethics as it has evolved over time. Contributors: George J. Annas, J.D., M.P.H., Arthur Isak Applbaum, Ph.D., Robert B. Baker, Ph.D., Chester R. Burns, M.D., Ph.D., Arthur L. Caplan, Ph.D., Alexander Morgan Capron, J.D., Christine K. Cassel, M.D., Linda L. Emanuel, M.D., Ph.D., Eliot L. Freidson, Ph.D., Albert R. Jonsen, Ph.D., Stephen R. Latham, J.D., Ph.D., Susan E. Lederer, Ph.D., Florencia Luna, Ph.D., Edmund D. Pellegrino, M.D., Charles E. Rosenberg, Ph.D., Mark Siegler, M.D., Rosemary A. Stevens, Ph.D., Robert M. Tenery, Jr., M.D., Robert M. Veatch, Ph.D., John Harley Warner, Ph.D., Paul Root Wolpe, Ph.D. (shrink)

Ever want to be famous? They didn't. It just sorta happened. Playing for friends at a pizzeria one day - full-on, massive world tour the next. Insane to a power of ten. Then, right in the middle the madness, they crash and burn. The reality of life is - stuff happens... Now, their fans are asking - what is it going to take to get pop music's latest 'phenomenon' back together? Can it even be done? In the fast paced, high-pressure (...) world that is pop music, will their passion be enough to ensure that our five accidental superstars will find their way back to doing what they were so amazingly good at? This is a story of unimaginable gain, devastating loss, and the remarkable ability of five friends, to overcome it all... (shrink)

a comprehensive, somewhat Gricean theory of speech acts, including an account of communicative intentions and inferences, a taxonomy of speech acts, and coverage of many topics in pragmatics -/- .

Aversive experiences have been thought to provoke or exacerbate clinical depression. The present review provides a brief survey of the stress-depression literature and suggests that the effects of stressful experiences on affective state may be related to depletion of several neurotransmitters, including norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin. A major element in determining the neurochemical changes is the organism's ability to cope with the aversive stimuli through behavioral means. Aversive experiences give rise to behavioral attempts to cope with the stressor, coupled with (...) increased utilization and synthesis of brain amines to contend with environmental demands. When behavioral coping is possible, neurochemical systems are not overly taxed, and behavioral pathology will not ensue. However, when there can be no behavioral control over the stressful stimuli, or when the aversive experience is perceived as uncontrollable, increased emphasis is placed on coping through endogenous neurochemical mechanisms. Amine utilization increases appreciably and may exceed synthesis, resulting in a net reduction of amine stores, which in turn promotes or exacerbates affective disorder. The processes governing the depletions may be subject to sensitization or conditioning, such that exposure to traumatic experiences may have long-term repercussions when the organism subsequently encounters related stressful stimuli. With continued uncontrollable stimulation, adaptation occurs in the form of increased activity of synthetic enzymes, and levels of amines approach basal values. It is suggested that either the initial amine depletion provoked by aversive experiences or a dysfunction of the adaptive processes, resulting in persistent amine depletion, contributes to behavioral depression. Aside from the contribution of behavioral coping, several organismic, experiential, and environmental variables will influence the effects of aversive experiences on neurochemical activity, and may thus influence vulnerability to depression. (shrink)

The aim of this chapter is to address the role of memory in past-life convictions. Although it is commonly accepted in the modern media - and popular western culture more generally - that people believe they have lived before because the memory contains detailed verifiable facts, little is known about how people actually reason about the veracity of their previous existence. To our knowledge, the current project is the most extensive research that probes the role of memory in past life (...) convictions. More specifically, we explore two questions. First, to what extent does memory lead to past-life belief, and is this conviction based on external validation or via the episodic sense of personal identity contained in the memory? Second, what is the conception of self on which one's current self is taken to be the same as the past-life self? -/- In what follows, we propose that memory plays an important role in convincing people that they have lived before. Fundamentally, this memory is episodic insofar as it represents the event as happened to the encoder. This memory contrasts with semantic memory - memory of facts...Further, we contend that it is the episodic sense of personal identity (rather than external validation) that typically contributes to the belief in a past life. Finally, we argue that the conception of self implicated in past-life belief is the non-trait conception. Of course, this fits naturally with the idea that the belief in a past life issues partly from the episodic sense of identity, since it is the non-trait conception of self that is implicated in the episodic sense of identity... -/- Our proposal in this chapter can be construed as a psychological extension of Reid's point in the context of past-life belief. People assume that they are the same person as someone in earlier times, despite large variations in the traits between those individuals, and they think this partly because of the testimony of their episodic memory. If our account is correct, then it makes the belief in a past life less bizarre, at least psychologically. For we are suggesting that the episodic sense of personal identity that led to your conviction that you existed at the time of your sixteenth birthday celebrations some decades ago, is also involved in other people's convictions that they existed 200 years ago. This proposal is also situated in recent cognitive approaches to the study of religion and religious experiences, which suggests that extraordinary convictions are often underpinned by the ordinary processes of social cognition (e.g. see Barrett 2000; Barrett 2007; Boyer 2001; Lawson and McCauley 1990; for reincarnation, see White Forthcoming-a,-b). (shrink)

Many studies have shown that marijuana can negatively affect the cognitive development of adolescents. For some individuals, marijuana use may also initiate opioid use, dose escalation, and opioid use disorder. States that legalize marijuana should help adolescents through regulation of advertising and availability of marijuana-infused edibles. Such policies may assist in protecting neurodevelopment of the adolescent and young adult brain. The federal government should also remove its prohibition of marijuana sales and use, leaving their regulation to state law-makers.

The central thesis of this article is that academic freedom has indeed become a "canonical value" of American higher education, though not for the reasons that conventional wisdom might posit. As recently as a half century ago, few university administrators or governing boards felt constrained in dismissing or refusing to hire outspoken professors. The quite remote risk of potential legal liability for such adverse action posed a minor deterrent. The Supreme Court's first recognition of academic freedom came only in the (...) late 1950s, and matured only in the ensuing decade. Apart from judicial endorsement of this doctrine, some credit must be given to faculty organizations such as the American Association of University Professors, and to the gradual spread of collective bargaining in public higher education. Yet the soundest explanation for the "canonization" of academic freedom is a slightly different one - that respecting and protecting faculty rights became an increasingly critical element in the intense competition to attract and retain the most eminent scholars. Quite simply, no reputable institution of higher learning could risk a valid charge of disparaging or disrespecting the expressive rights of its professors. (shrink)

Recent studies of early development in a number of ivertebrate and vertebrate species have suggested that growth factors and their receptors may play important roles in differentiation as well as cell proliferation. In the mouse embryo, the expression of the receptors for insulin and insulin‐like growth factors I and II (IGF‐I and ‐II) are temporally regulated. The ontogeny of receptor and ligand expression within the insulin and IGF gene family suggests that the very earliest stages of mammalian embryogenesis may be (...) subject to regulation by autocrine and paracrine factors from maternal and embryonic sources. (shrink)

Aversive experiences have been thought to provoke or exacerbate clinical depression. The present review provides a brief survey of the stress-depression literature and suggests that the effects of stressful experiences on affective state may be related to depletion of several neurotransmitters, including norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin. A major element in determining the neurochemical changes is the organism's ability to cope with the aversive stimuli through behavioral means. Aversive experiences give rise to behavioral attempts to cope with the stressor, coupled with (...) increased utilization and synthesis of brain amines to contend with environmental demands. When behavioral coping is possible, neurochemical systems are not overly taxed, and behavioral pathology will not ensue. However, when there can be no behavioral control over the stressful stimuli, or when the aversive experience is perceived as uncontrollable, increased emphasis is placed on coping through endogenous neurochemical mechanisms. Amine utilization increases appreciably and may exceed synthesis, resulting in a net reduction of amine stores, which in turn promotes or exacerbates affective disorder. The processes governing the depletions may be subject to sensitization or conditioning, such that exposure to traumatic experiences may have long-term repercussions when the organism subsequently encounters related stressful stimuli. With continued uncontrollable stimulation, adaptation occurs in the form of increased activity of synthetic enzymes, and levels of amines approach basal values. It is suggested that either the initial amine depletion provoked by aversive experiences or a dysfunction of the adaptive processes, resulting in persistent amine depletion, contributes to behavioral depression. Aside from the contribution of behavioral coping, several organismic, experiential, and environmental variables will influence the effects of aversive experiences on neurochemical activity, and may thus influence vulnerability to depression. (shrink)

In “Bioethics and the Whole: Pluralism, Consensus, and the Transmutation of Bioethical Methods into Gold,” Patricia Martin identifies themes common to three emerging approaches to clinical bioethics--clinical pragmatism, ethics facilitation, and mediation-in order to develop an “ethical consensus method” that can serve as a “practical, step-by-step guide” for decision making She is to be applauded both for her identification of themes common to these three approaches and for her contribution to what we hope will be a growing literature on practical (...) methods for problem solving in clinical bioethics that take seriously the ideal of consensus. After a few preliminary remarks concerning Martin's working model, we focus the majority of our commentary on the notion of “consensus,” which is at the heart of her “ethical consensus method,” and the three approaches from which it is drawn. (shrink)

In “Bioethics and the Whole: Pluralism, Consensus, and the Transmutation of Bioethical Methods into Gold,” Patricia Martin identifies themes common to three emerging approaches to clinical bioethics--clinical pragmatism, ethics facilitation, and mediation-in order to develop an “ethical consensus method” that can serve as a “practical, step-by-step guide” for decision making She is to be applauded both for her identification of themes common to these three approaches and for her contribution to what we hope will be a growing literature on practical (...) methods for problem solving in clinical bioethics that take seriously the ideal of consensus. After a few preliminary remarks concerning Martin's working model, we focus the majority of our commentary on the notion of “consensus,” which is at the heart of her “ethical consensus method,” and the three approaches from which it is drawn. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: Case Studies in Nursing Ethics. By Robert M. Veatch and Sara T. Fry.

Jan Narveson has articulated a deeply held, widely shared intuition regarding what moral law has to say about bringing additional people into existence: while we are “in favour of making people happy,” we are “neutral about making happy people.” Various formulations of the Narvesonian intuition (closely related to the _person-affecting intuition_ or _restriction_) have been widely criticized. This present paper outlines an off-the-beaten-path alternate construction of the intuition—the _existence condition_—and argues that that particular construction has the resources to avoid some (...) of those criticisms. But still other considerably more widely recognized alternate constructions have been offered as well. Thus John Broome outlines what he calls the _neutrality intuition_. While Broome finds the underlying intuition “strongly attractive,” he nonetheless argues that the neutrality intuition itself leads us quickly into inconsistency. Wlodek Rabinowicz disagrees. On his view, Broome’s inconsistency argument shows, not that the neutrality intuition is false, but rather that it doesn’t follow, from the fact that the outcome, or possible future or _world_, that includes the additional person is neither better nor worse than the (otherwise similar) world that excludes that person, that the one world is exactly as good as the other. The better view, according to Rabinowicz, is that, on occasion, and specifically when the coming into existence of additional people is at stake, the one world is _incommensurate_ with the other. What is called the _principle of trichotomy_ is, in other words, false. Difficulties arise, however, when we try to reject that seemingly compelling conceptual principle. This present paper concludes with the argument that the availability of the existence condition—which, together with certain other uncontroversial moral principles and a handful of conceptual principles, forms the _existential approach_—shows that we can maintain the most intuitive parts of neutrality intuition while avoiding both Broome’s inconsistency worry and Rabinowicz’s commitment to incommensurability. Incommensurability may be correct on other grounds—but not, this present paper argues, on the grounds provided by Broome’s inconsistency argument. (shrink)