This is the first intellectual and personal biography of Thomas S. Kuhn, author of Structure of Scientific Reolutions, one of the biggest scholarly bestsellers of all time and among the most influential books of the last century. Kuhn changed the way we think about the evolutionof ideas - especially scientific ideas - and raised doubts about the reality of long-term 'progress' in scientific concepts. The book paints a vivid picture of Kuhn's troubled career and personal life, as well as a (...) rich portrait of the 20th century scholarly and cultural controversies from which his work emerged. (shrink)

The world of mental health and madness explored in this issue can read like a series of conflicts, of stark choices between alternatives which appear mutually exclusive and often imply, “I am right, you are wrong” : Ill/well, mad/sane, biomedical/psychosocial, local/global, expert/patient, individual/collective, science/anecdote, stigmaphobic/stigmaphilic, insight/delusion, normal/abnormal, privileged/marginalized, and plenty more besides. When those of us who have been diagnosed mentally ill fall on the wrong side of most of those divides and our experience and knowledge is invalidated, psychiatry’s expertise (...) and dominance is reinforced. Engaging with the feature articles in this... (shrink)

The world of mental health has become used to the notion of co-production as a good thing. While the paper is not a critical analysis of co-production, the authors make the case that while it is a good thing, it is not the only good thing; and it is neither sufficient, nor necessary for good things to happen in mental health services. Alternative concepts of progressive innovation in this field are introduced. Real world case studies (most of them previously unpublished) (...) are then worked through to test which concept(s) – co-production, or the alternatives, or neither – are the better fit, bearing in mind the complex relationships to be negotiated, not just between service users and mental health professionals, but between service users and members of other professions, and of the general public. Finally, the question is raised as to whether there is anything (such as the flattening of hierarchies or stigma reduction) which all these innovations – co-production and the alternatives – have in common. (shrink)

Marie Stenlund’s careful reading of values-based practice and her demonstration of its links with Martha Nussbaum’s Capabilities Framework are innovative theoretically and have potentially important implications for policy and practice in mental health. As she indicates the two approaches converge in a number of key respects. Notably, both recognise the diversity of individual human values. This diversity crucially underpins contemporary person-centred conceptions of recovery in mental health based on quality of life as defined by reference to the values of the (...) person concerned rather than that of a generic professional ‘needs assessment’.1 2 Where the two theories diverge, too, Stenlund finds practically important consequences. Thus Nussbaum’s Capabilities Framework, as Stenlund indicates, is outcomes-oriented, while values-based practice focuses on process. The two approaches are not however thereby necessarily inconsistent. Drawing on early accounts of values-based practice, Stenlund suggests a degree of implicit blurring between it and Nussbaum’s capabilities. Here we need to be careful: values-based practice does not regard recovery as an outcome; it …. (shrink)

Britain's “restless republic” survived for only eleven turbulent years, from 1649 to 1660. Britain today is a somewhat restless monarchy, troubled from within by two turbulent and disgruntled royal princes, Andrew and Harry, and from without by considerable public unease. If the two princes had been firstborns rather than younger brothers, and in the direct line of succession, the long-term future of the monarchy would look very uncertain. Charles I, stubborn and inept, was a younger brother too. Had his very (...) popular older brother Henry, Prince of Wales, not died at the age of eighteen, from typhoid fever caught by swimming in the river Thames (very unwise then as now), the English Revolution might well never have happened. A generation later, Charles II came close to facing a second revolution, so we monitor the reign of Charles III with interest and some trepidation.Keay gives us the dramatic history of the republic through the eyes and lives of a dozen or so very diverse individuals and families. They include several major players, such as John Bradshaw, the judge who sentenced the king to death; Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector; and George Monck, architect of the Restoration. The cast of characters also includes a brilliant, time-serving journalist, a Norfolk country squire, a formidable French-born countess, an ambitious inventor, a lowborn visionary and prophetess, and Gerrard Winstanley, leader of the tiny Digger movement. Winstanley established a small and short-lived communist settlement in Surrey in 1649, and his name is still commemorated centuries later in an obelisk standing in Moscow's Red Square, credited as a forerunner of the Bolshevik Revolution. The settlement's site is now, paradoxically, home to a gated community of the megarich. Keay weaves these personal stories into a wider narrative of events across England, Scotland, and Ireland. Remarkably, she gives us a sympathetic and empathetic insight into each of her diverse subjects’ minds and lives. We enter their worlds and see events through their eyes, words, and actions. The composite world that emerges is splintered and full of contradictions, and Keay does not ignore the sometimes darker elements in her subjects’ visions and lives. I have been reading and writing on this period for over fifty years, and this book is probably the most engaging, page-turning account of it that I have encountered. Keay captures brilliantly its people and places, and her judgments are sharp and perceptive. There are lots of good pictures too. This is an ideal introduction for anyone coming new to the subject, or indeed new to history, and with plenty to delight hardened veterans too. Do read it. (shrink)

In their forthcoming article, ‘What makes a medical intervention invasive?’ De Marco, Simons, and colleagues explore the meaning and usage of the term ‘invasive’ in medical contexts. They describe a ‘Standard Account’, drawn from dictionary definitions, which defines invasiveness as ‘incision of the skin or insertion of an object into the body’. They then highlight cases wherein invasiveness is employed in a manner that is inconsistent with this account (eg, in describing psychotherapy) to argue that the term invasiveness is often (...) used to explicitly or implicitly reference interventions that do not fall under the standard account. The authors offer an alternative ‘schematic’ definition of invasiveness, whereby medical interventions entail an underlying context-independent property of ‘basic invasiveness’ and may be understood both relative to each other and to a context-specific threshold of what is ‘invasive’.1 We propose that the meaning of terms such as ‘invasiveness’ is necessarily heterogeneous, and that what is implied by its usage will certainly depend on context, particularly in medical settings. Hence, the creation of a unifying definition is less critical than clarification of the implied and intended meanings of each instance of the term’s use. We further argue that interpreting the use of terms like ‘invasiveness’ in medical practice is complicated by the embedding of each use of this term in a different ‘language game’, whereby words and their meanings are understood by an in-group familiar with …. (shrink)

Both the concept of a Darwinian tree of life (TOL) and the possibility of its accurate reconstruction have been much criticized. Criticisms mostly revolve around the extensive occurrence of lateral gene transfer (LGT), instances of uptake of complete organisms to become organelles (with the associated subsequent gene transfer to the nucleus), as well as the implications of more subtle aspects of the biological species concept. Here we argue that none of these criticisms are sufficient to abandon the valuable TOL concept (...) and the biological realities it captures. Especially important is the need to conceptually distinguish between organismal trees and gene trees, which necessitates incorporating insights of widely occurring LGT into modern evolutionary theory. We demonstrate that all criticisms, while based on important new findings, do not invalidate the TOL. After considering the implications of these new insights, we find that the contours of evolution are best represented by a TOL. (shrink)

We recently reported strong, replicable (i.e., replicated) evidence for lexically mediated compensation for coarticulation (LCfC; Luthra et al., 2021), whereby lexical knowledge influences a prelexical process. Critically, evidence for LCfC provides robust support for interactive models of cognition that include top‐down feedback and is inconsistent with autonomous models that allow only feedforward processing. McQueen, Jesse, and Mitterer (2023) offer five counter‐arguments against our interpretation; we respond to each of those arguments here and conclude that top‐down feedback provides the most parsimonious (...) explanation of extant data. (shrink)

The article discusses two bioart projects that bring the symbolically core human substances of blood, sweat and tears into technologically mediated relationships with plants and fungi to explore human kinship with other species: Tarah Rhoda’s BS&T (short for ‘blood, sweat and tears’) and OurGlass, and Saša Spačal’s MycoMythologies: Patterning. The article analyses the art projects through the lens of the molecular gaze and different perspectives on kinning, bringing anthropological conceptualizations of kinship together with Haraway’s pathways to connect with other species. (...) How can bioart use technologies to explore interspecies kinship through a molecular gaze? And may such artworks contribute to the toning down of human exceptionality in the face of a precarious future? We find that artworks providing a molecular gaze on interspecies biological processes may risk a decontextualized approach to complex relational processes but may also create new visions of filiation even with biological organisms imagined to be genetically distant from humans, thus spurring awareness of the fragile interrelationships among species. (shrink)

In 2022, the Camden Coalition Medical-Legal Partnership began providing civil and criminal legal services to substance use disorder patients at Cooper University Health Care’s Center for Healing. This paper discusses early findings from the program’s first year on the efficacy of the provision of criminal-legal representation, which is uncommon among MLPs and critical for this patient population. The paper concludes with takeaways for other programs providing legal services in an addiction medicine setting.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Editors’ IntroductionElizabeth S. Radcliffe and Mark G. SpencerThis issue opens with the winning essay in the Third Annual Hume Studies Essay Prize competition: “Hume beyond Theism and Atheism” by Dr. Ariel Peckel. Dr. Peckel’s essay was chosen as the winner from among papers submitted by emerging scholars from August 2022 through July 2023. Please see the full prize announcement with information about this talented Hume scholar elsewhere in this (...) issue. Our Call for Papers for the Fourth Essay Prize competition is printed in the back of this issue and on-line at the Hume Studies website. The contest is open to authors ten or fewer years from the Ph.D. and closes on August 1, 2024. If you are eligible, please consult our “Call” for further details!In other Hume Studies news, we have once again acquired a new printer. Christensen Printing (Lincoln, Nebraska), whose work for us was excellent, suddenly closed its business when its owner retired this past year and had no one to succeed him. We received the news just when our November issue was ready to go to press. With the assistance of our friends at the Philosophy Documentation Center, we obtained estimates from three printers and have now engaged Bailey Printing in Charlottesville, Virginia. Our November issue was published on-line by November 1 (at the Philosophy Documentation Center website, the Project Muse website, and the Hume Society website), but the print issue took longer to get to subscribers.For a second time, we want to bring to the attention of our readers that Hume Studies will be marking its 50th year of publication in 2025. As we have previously noted, we are planning an anniversary issue for 50:1 (April 2025). We hope to include among the special features of that issue paragraphs or statements from our readers in answer to this query: “Of all of the articles that have been published in [End Page 7] Hume Studies over the past 50 years, which one is most noteworthy to you? Why so?” Please see the “Call for Entries” in the back of this issue or on the Hume Studies website (https://www.humesociety.org/ojs/index.php/hs), which includes details on where to send your response. The due date is October 15, 2024, but we encourage you to send your entries as soon as possible! [End Page 8]Copyright © 2024 Hume Studies... (shrink)

Social isolation and loneliness are growing concerns around the globe that put people at increased risk of disease and early death. One much‐touted approach to addressing them is deploying artificially intelligent agents to serve as companions for socially isolated and lonely people. Focusing on digital humans, we consider evidence and ethical arguments for and against this approach. We set forth and defend public health policies that respond to concerns about replacing humans, establishing inferior relationships, algorithmic bias, distributive justice, and data (...) privacy. (shrink)

Theologians are split into two groups: those who embrace prosperity theology and those who oppose it; both sides on scriptural grounds. Those criticising it embrace cessationism in its diversity, while its supporters are mainly found among Pentecostals and Charismatics, who are continuationists. Continuationists believe and teach that all gifts of the Spirit are still available to the church today, therefore should be practised by the church just as they were operative during the apostolic era. Therefore, it is clear that prosperity (...) preachers are continuationists. They believe and practice healing and miracle gifts today. A review of the literature, biblical texts, historical teachings, and Pentecostal and Neo-Pentecostal (also referred to as charismatic and neo-charismatic) form the basis of this article. It addresses the positive features of prosperity teachers’ beliefs and methods as well as how they exploit the dreams, fears, and aspirations of people living in poverty. The theology of sharing, as articulated by Nicholas B.H. Bhengu, is proposed as a solution to creating parity between the rich and the poor.Contribution: This article seeks to balance opposing theological approaches with the prosperity gospel. It does this by introducing a theology of sharing as taught by Nicholas Bhengu based on the philosophy of Ubuntu, a way of life among African people. The challenge for theologians on both sides of the argument is finding a way to accommodate the other side’s contributions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Configured to Christ: On Spiritual Direction and Clergy Formation by James KeatingChristian Raab O.S.B.Configured to Christ: On Spiritual Direction and Clergy Formation by James Keating (Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Road, 2021), xxix + 312 pp.Deacon James Keating has served the Church by forming her clergy for thirty years. While he has been a seminary professor and a director of deacon formation at the diocesan level, his prolific scholarship as (...) well as his time as director of theological formation for the Institute for Priestly Formation in Creighton, NE, made him a national figure. Configured to Christ is a collection of Keating's most important essays.While this book is a retrospective, it couldn't be more timely. In 2016 (on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, December 8), the Congregation for Catholic Education issued The Gift of the Priestly Vocation—Ratio Fundamentalis Institutionis Sacerdotalis, a text which provides guidelines for the whole Church concerning priestly formation. In the fall of 2021, the United States Council of Catholic Bishops completed their revision of the sixth edition of the Program of Priestly Formation (PPF), which translates the principles of the Ratio for the American context. With these two documents in place, it now falls upon seminaries to examine their programs in light of the vision provided by the magisterium. The next five to ten years promise to be a time of reform and renewal in seminary formation. Institutions will be looking for fresh and orienting ideas. Keating's book can be recommended as among the best resources for the venture that awaits.One reason Keating's book is so valuable is its focus on the "perichoresis" of the various aspects of formation (107). This emphasis is consonant with the terminological change found in the new PPF from the language of formational "pillars" to the language of formational "dimensions" (see the USCCB's 5th edition of the PPF, §28). The thinking behind this change seems to have been that it was too easy to imagine "pillars" as separate from [End Page 1110] one another. The human, spiritual, intellectual, and pastoral dimensions of formation are in fact interwoven, interdependent, and interpenetrating. While they can be distinguished, they cannot be divided. Growth in one fosters growth in the other. Keating has long understood this, as his various essays show.The book is divided into three parts and eighteen chapters. Part 1 is entitled "The Interior Life of the Cleric." Here, readers are introduced to the integral relationship between the spiritual and intellectual formational dimensions. For example, Keating provides, in chapter 1, a sustained theoretical reflection on the relationship between academic theology and spirituality, and, in chapter 2, he examines John Henry Newman's writings as a concretized test case for the right relationship of prayer, study, and thought. Authors such as Hans Urs von Balthasar and Jean Leclercq have investigated this relationship in classic works, but Keating's presentation is notable for its accessibility, coherence, and concision. The remaining chapters of part 1 address the topics of silence and spiritual direction. Emerging from these analyses are the insights that interiority expands through discovery of Christ within. We participate in Christ as we behold, wonder, think, theologize, and pray. Keating's plea that we introduce ministerial candidates to the romance of silence is most welcome.The second part of the book is entitled "The Formation of the Cleric." It brings together nine essays which explicitly explore the art of formation. The key to this section, and maybe to the whole book, is chapter 7, "Christ is the Sure Foundation: Priestly Human Formation Completed in and by Spiritual Formation." This chapter makes the case not only for the perichoresis of formational dimensions but also for a much stronger emphasis on spiritual formation than is often the case. Of special note is Keating's observation that spiritual formation can truly support human formation. This is an important insight. In his 1992 apostolic exhortation Pastores Dabo Vobis (on the formation of priests), John Paul II had articulated that human formation was "the basis of all priestly formation" (§43).Unfortunately, this line could be (and has been) interpreted problematically to mean human formation... (shrink)

The archive produces a linear time that reaches towards ‘what could be’ by asserting ‘what has been’, providing us reassurance of our existence through the assertion of a reliably past past. But the Anthropocene is an era of uncontained material ramifications, where the past juts into the future and temporality warps as change accelerates unexpectedly. As an ecological and geologic epoch, documentation of the Anthropocene inherently has a relationship to natural history museums and archives. These institutions, however, troublingly rest on (...) what Elaine Graham calls ‘ontological hygiene’ – the separateness of the human subject from ‘nature’. The Anthropocene however, challenges the western post-Enlightenment binary of man vs. nature, as it (supposedly) naturalizes humans into an earth systems force. As such, documentation of this epoch might resist ontological sanitation. This article outlines an artistic research practice to create artefacts of the Anthropocene – one that invites material idiosyncrasies, objects-in-becoming, ephemerality, and decay. I suggest that artistic ‘anarchices’ prioritize process over objects, and resist linear and static representation in lieu of material, embodied and sensory artefacts. These include relational encounters with waste materials, reworked forms of ‘geology’, edible artefacts and multimedia works at landfills and feral sites. The anarchives are interpolated by a rejection of hegemonic logic, positivism and ‘objective’ truths about environmental phenomena; Situated, ambiguous and material knowledges are inwrought into the so-called Anthropocene (and any alternatives to this term). By focusing on waste as an analytical category, I explore some of the ontological breakdowns present in the Anthropocene and question how to unorder systems and disturb materiality. (shrink)

The intensive process of differentiation of knowledge that has in the past decade come to include philosophy has had the results, inter alia, that ethics, esthetics, and empirical sociology have undergone a kind of secondary "branching off" from the philosophy of society and culture . On the level of teaching this had the consequence that a department of esthetics and ethics was carved out of the department of historical materialism at the Philosophical Faculty of Moscow University, and was subsequently divided (...) into departments of esthetics and ethics, respectively. It was thus that the independent department of ethics made its appearance for the first time in the history of Moscow University. This occurred in 1969, and recently the department of Marxist- Leninist ethics marked its modest first decade. (shrink)

The assumption in current U.S. mainstream medicine is that birthing requires hospitalization. In fact, while the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists supports the right of every birthing person to make a medically informed decision about their delivery, they do not recommend home birth owing to data indicating greater neonatal morbidity and mortality. In this article, we examine the evidence surrounding home birth in the United States and its current limitations, as well as the ethical considerations around birth setting.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:CRUCIFIXION: ACCIDENT OR DESIGN? Sebastian Moore, O.S.B. Downside Abbey Lastyear I was visited by an old friend from my Liverpool days. Mike and I had worked together with the young of the parish, and one summer the two of us took a couple of boys camping in France, a trial of patience which made us known to each other at some depth. He was in fact a passionately convinced (...) Catholic, and very pastoral with it. We had many and long theological discussions. On his recent visit to Downside, I was showing him and some friends round our church, when, à propos ofquite what I don't remember, he made a remark about the Catholic cult of suffering, and said, "and it's all because ofthe crucifixion, isn't it? Why don't we recognize that the crucifixion was an accident?" I didn't react, because I was dumbfounded at what seemed to be the denial ofthe mystery ofthe cross by a friend who I had no reason to believe had stopped being a Catholic. And I'm sure he hasn't. He would certainly have told me ifhe had. It has taken me over a year to figure out what is going on here, and this would not have been possible without intensive study of the work of René Girard. The only alternative to saying that the crucifixion was an accident is to say that it was "ordained by God." It is only as ordained by God that this horrible event could be presented to people as a divine affirmation that suffering is to be sought and espoused. Also, it is only as ordained by God that the crucifixion can be thought of as "appeasing God" in some way. Both the moral and the dogmatic implication ofthe crucifixion—that suffering is a good thing, and that God required a victim—are grounded in the notion that God required the crucifixion ofhis Son. And it is because this idea is quite unacceptable, unworthy of God and ofthe human mind made in God's image, that my friend concludes that the crucifixion was not required by God, not written into the eternal scheme ofthings, but an accident. 156Sebastian Moore Once the problem is clarified in these terms, more and more instances come to mind, of rejection, by Christians and others, of the whole divine ordination ofthe cross. Gore Vidal refers to Christianity as "that lugubrious religion." Mary Hunt, a prominent American Catholic feminist, introduced a workshop with the statement, "we are not about naked guys nailed to crosses, blood all over the place!" Where divine ordering is accepted the special painfulness and darkness ofthe idea is noted. Anselm refers to the doctrine as the Narnia Chronicles, to commend the notion, by referring to a dark law written into the nature ofthings beyond our comprehension. The children's suggestion that Asian should simply not comply with the Snow Queen's requirement is rejected by Asian with a mysterious impatience—the children justhaven't grown up, like the romantics who, according to Matthew Arnold, "did not know enough." Again, during a day on "the roots of violence" that I led here yesterday there was much questioning about the role ofGod die Father in the crucifixion. The problem is crystallized in the famous cry from the cross, "Why have you forsaken me?" To my confessedly lame suggestion that Jesus was "only quoting a psalm," someone remarked, "to quote that psalm at thatjuncture and not mean it, is somewhatmisleading!" Again it's the same problem. How can God be understood as ordaining the crucifixion, compatibly with the notion of God as all-loving which Christianity of course affirms? Hans Urs Von Balthasar, who is 90% pro-Girard, in the other 10% wants to hold on to something he calls "the wrath of God." Thus the seeming necessity of having God require and ordain the crucifixion is the main crisis of Christian belief. The six-year-old Willie, in Thomas Klise's amazing novel, The Last Western, puts the problem with childlike directness. He keeps interrupting catechism class with, "Why did God kill Jesus?" and is shushed by Sister. I recall that Illtyd Trethowan said to... (shrink)

Jecker, et al., argue against rejecting a location for an international bioethics conference based on a “litmus test” for several reasons, ranging from the practical to the theoretical. However, th...

Researchers seeking to engage in projects related to Tribal communities and their citizens, lands, and non-human relatives are responsible for understanding and abiding by each Tribal nation’s research laws and review processes. Few studies, however, have described the many diverse forms of Tribal research review systems across the United States (US). This study provides one of the most comprehensive examinations of research review processes administered by Tribal Research Review Boards (TRRBs) in the US. Through a systematic analysis, we consider TRRBs’ (...) online presence, online documentation, and themes across documents, for five entity types: Tribal nations and Tribal consortiums, Tribal colleges and universities, Tribal health organizations, Indian Health Services, and other Tribal organizations. Results include an assessment of online presence for 98 potential TRRBs, identification of 118 publicly available online documents, and analysis of 41 themes across four document types: Tribal research codes and TRRBs’ guidelines, applications, and post-approval documents. Altogether, this research provides a macro-level analysis of the most common types of TRRBs in the US in an effort to increase researchers’ understanding of these important processes as they prepare to ethically engage Tribal communities in research. These results aim to empower Tribal decision makers as they align their TRRBs’ online visibility and documentation with community priorities and strengthen their protections for the rights and wellbeing of their citizens and community. Ultimately, by expanding our knowledge of TRRBs across the US, this contribution seeks to uphold Tribal sovereignty in research and promote ethical approaches to research with Indigenous communities. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:EPILOGUE Robert J. Daly, SJ. Boston College April 2002 Iwill arrange my comments under four headings: (1) what we had hoped to accomplish; (2) what we actually did accomplish; (3) what we may have learned from this; (4) what this might now enable us to do in thefuture. This epilogueisbeingwritten in April, 2002,twenty-twomonths after the conference. To draw what good we can from this delay, writing at this distance (...) allows me to summarize and draw conclusions with, perhaps, a bit more balance. On the other hand, my listening again to the audio record in the course ofpreparing this publication has enabled me to relive something of the original experience. (1)As I indicated in the introduction, we had unrealistically hoped that, by the time ofthe conference, the five presenters, and perhaps also the twoprincipals inthe "Girard-Lonergan Conversation," wouldhavealready exchanged with each other not just first drafts, but even second drafts of their papers, and that the conference itself would then be invited to join a conversation that was already well under way. As it turned out, I couldn't muster the organizational skills and resources needed to achieve this. But reflecting after the fact, I can see that so carefully detailed a preparation might have been counterproductive. Carrying out our original plan might have been at the cost ofimposing more ofa Western analytic pattern on our discussion ofother traditions, and of!thus smothering from the outset some of the insight that did occur. We had also hoped that the opening "Girard-Lonergan Conversation" would provide an analytic resource for the rest of the meeting. But that did not happen to any great extent. (2)The proximate preparation for this conference began with a draft version ofmy paper being sent to the other major presenters. I opened with 194Robert J. Daly, SJ. a series of brief sketches of salient points in the often unhappy but also occasionally felicitous history ofChristianity on this theme ofviolence and institution. Then, after emphasizing the importance of distinguishing between the normative and the descriptive, I tried to make some sense, both rational and theological, of all this data, especially by reflecting on the influences and consequences ofthe belief in hell, on the one hand, and the hope of universal salvation, on the other. The next major religious theme was Judaism. Reuven Kimelman provided a detailed—and, for some, overwhelming—glimpse of the way the talmudic traditions deal with the theme of war and its restrictions. This highly text-oriented and interpretation-of-texts driven presentation seemed to many, at first, to be irrelevant to mimetic theory and to the need to be confronting actual violence. But, in the course of Sandor Goodhart's response, and in the course ofthe at times spirited discussion that followed, we began to understand that how one interprets texts and traditions, and how these are played off against each other, is indeed fundamental to the way Jews typically try to deal with the practical challenges of violence. Qamar-ul Huda's presentation on IsIamfocused stronglyonthe way the spiritual teachings of Islam—i.e., islam as a religion rather than Islam as a political or national institution—foster peace. The initial reaction was somewhat similarto the reaction to Kimelman's paper: disappointment that Huda was not talking more directly about contemporary Muslim extremist violence. But here, too, the discussion enabled us to catch a glimpse both of the inner spiritual resources of Islam, and of the limitations ofthe range of concerns that Westerners typically bring to the table. Francis Clooney, in his presentation ofHinduism, strongly emphasized the great variety in Hinduism, stressing that one cannot speak ofHinduism as such. Much of this variety comes from the several millennia of Hindu history, and from the complex relationships to Buddhism and Jainism which, themselves, are important parts of Hindu history, and also from the fact that only recently have Hindus, after centuries of Moslem or Colonial domination, once again returned to positions of political and military power. Finally, Christopher Ives's presentation on Buddhism, in a way similar to my presentation on Christianity, but more extensively or more consequently, pointed out the various ways in which Buddhism has been politically and... (shrink)

Focuses on Hartry Field's Instrumentalism. The ‘Conservation Theorems’, upon which Field bases so much of his form of Instrumentalism, are examined in detail, as is Field's attempt to ‘nominalize’ physics. Doubts are raised about the adequacy of Field's views of mathematics and physics, and a detailed comparison with the Constructibility Theory is presented.

This scholarly inquiry examines the interplay between artificial intelligence (AI) and academic integrity within higher education. Through a comprehensive synthesis of academic literature, the study delves into the multifaceted implications of AI tools on academic practices, pedagogical approaches, and the evolving landscape of academic integrity within higher education. The findings, derived from an extensive analysis of scholarly works, offer profound insights into the challenges posed by the integration of AI in higher education. The impact on academic dishonesty, the nuances of (...) pedagogical shifts, and the dynamic relationship between students and AI are scrutinized, contributing to a nuanced comprehension of the intricate dynamics within the academy. (shrink)

Concerns an attempted refutation of nominalism put forward by John Burgess in the form of a dilemma argument. Argues that Burgess's argument is based upon a false dilemma.

"In The Givenness of Desire, Randall S. Rosenberg examines the human desire for God through the lens of Lonergan's "concrete subjectivity." Rosenberg engages and integrates two major scholarly developments: the tension between Neo-Thomists and scholars of Henri de Lubac over our natural desire to see God and the theological appropriation of the mimetic theory of René Girard, with an emphasis on the saints as models of desire. With Lonergan as an integrating thread, the author engages a variety of thinkers, including (...) Hans Urs von Balthasar, Jean-Luc Marion, René Girard, James Alison, Lawrence Feingold, John Milbank, among others. The theme of concrete subjectivity helps to resist the tendency of equating too easily the natural desire for being with the natural desire for God without at the same time acknowledging the widespread distortion of desire found in the consumer culture that infects contemporary life. The Givenness of Desire investigates our paradoxical desire for God that is rooted in both the natural and supernatural."--. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Introduction VIOLENCE AND INSTITUTION IN CHRISTIANITY Robert J. Daly, SJ. Boston College We need both to define our terms and to indicate whether we are using them in a normative or descriptive sense. Thus the question: "Is Christianity"—or, if you will—"Are the institutions of Christianity violent or nonviolent?" can be answered with either a Yes, or a No, or with anything in between, depending on the meaning we attach (...) to theterms "violence," "institution," and "Christianity" (Daly 1997, 321-43). When we speak normatively, or take Christianity and its institutions accordingto its best ideals, Christianity isessentially nonviolent. But when we speak descriptively, i.e., take Christianity according to what the institutions ofChristianity have actually done, and according to how those who call themselves Christian have actually acted, we can make the argument that Christianity is violent, ffanalogous distinctions can be made from within the other four traditions, this might offer a good starting point for discussion. Adapting to my purpose standard dictionary definitions, I understand violence to include in a broad way the justified or unjustified human exertion of internal or external power or force in order to achieve an injurious or abusive end, i.e., an end that is against the will, the good, or the interests of those who suffer it. (This includes all war and avoids, at least at the outset, arguments about whether a war is or can be a "just war.") I understand institution in its ordinary meaning of: any significant or established practice, relationship, structure, system, or organization in a society or culture. I understand Christianity also in its ordinary sense: the Roberti. Daly, SJ.5 religion which, derived from Jesus Christ, and based on the Bible, is professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Protestant bodies. Now, to help set the background for our discussion, I will try to list and briefly describe, relative to this theme, some of the major aspects or "moments" of Christianity (or Christian History), and do this in an approximately diachronic or chronological order. Much of this will be descriptive, but I will not go out of my way to dissociate the descriptions from the effects of all normative claims. I.Violence and Institution in the History of Christianity [1] The biblical foundation of Christianity in the Hebrew Scriptures. [2]The pervasiveness of violence in the Bible. [3]The Christian Scriptures present themselves as a gospel of peace. [4]Jesus and nonviolence. [5]Early Christians and nonviolence. [6]The early Christians and the military. [7]The "Constantinian turn." [8]Caesaro-papism. [9]The relegation ofChristian pacifism to religious and monastic life. [10]The just war theory. [11]The medieval Christian taken-for-grantedness of violence. [12]The Crusades. [13]Medieval Christian peace movements [14]Christians and heretics. The Inquisition. See [11] above. [1 5]Christianity and the witches. See [U] above. [16]The Reformation. [17]The Radical Reformation and the Peace Churches. [18]St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre (August 1572). [19]The religious wars. [20]Absolutism. [21]Modernity. [22]The Quakers—Religious Society of Friends. [23]The Enlightenment and Modernity. [24]Christianity and world mission; Christianity and colonialism. [25]Slavery. [26]Christianity and the "war" against native cultures. [27]Christianity and the First World War. [28]The Second World War. [29]The Holocaust. 6 Violence and Institution in Christianity [30]Christianity and the modern peace movement. [31]Christians and the "seamless ethic of life." [32]Christianity and International Communism. [33]Liberation theology. [34]The liberation of women. [35]Christianity and the resurgence of tribal and nationalist violence. [36]Christianity and human rights. [1] The biblical foundation of Christianity in the Hebrew Scriptures. Christians and Jews have the same family origins. Since believing Christians no less than believing Jews accept and revere the Hebrew Scriptures as the inspired word of God, Christians and Jews are indeed, to paraphrase Pope John XXIII, siblings. There is, beyond this, fromJudaism to Christianity, a significant parent-child relationship. In recent years (but not early enough to have prevented the Holocaust), the main line churches ofChristianity have rejected the supersessionism (the doctrine that the Old Testament has been abrogated by the New Testament) that used to characterize Christian attitudes towards the Jews and that... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:VIOLENCE AND NONVIOLENCE IN HINDU RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS Francis X. Clooney, SJ. Boston College Outline I.Violence, Sacrifice and Ritual 1. Some basic attitudes toward the killing of animals 2.Resolving the problem of sacrificial violence by internalization 3.Substitutions 4.Renunciation and nonviolence: an elite pathway 5.Violence andnonviolenceinrelation to vegetarianism: Hans Schmidt's theses?. Traditional Hindu Theorizations of Violence in Mimamsa Ritual Theory and Vedanta Theology 1. The ritual analysis (at Mimamsa Sutra 1.1.2) (...) of the Shyena rite which is performed in order to harm enemies 2.The Vedanta analysis (at Uttara Mimamsa Sutra 3.1.25) of ritual violence in relation to the prohibition of violence??. Violence in the Life of the State HOFrancis X. Clooney, S.J. 1. The royal power to punish (danda) 2.The synthesis of the ideals of brahmin and king a..The distribution and management of violence in the Laws ofManu (1st century CE) b. Policy toward warfare in the Arthashastra of Kautilya 3.The collapse of the brahmanical synthesis—and the emergence of a (seemingly) more nonviolent Hinduism 4.A comment on Gandhi (1 869-1948) and the contemporary emergence of post-Gandhian Hindu perspectives IV.Alternate Views from Outside the Sanskritic Tradition 1. Tamil Wisdom on Violence and Nonviolence: a.Tirukkural (c. 2nd century CE) b.Cilappatikaram (5th century CE) 2.Blood and Goddesses 3.From a Village Perspective a. Some Trouble with Cows b.Mahasweta Devi and the Literary Exposure of Violence V.The Question of a Christian Perspective on the Hindu Treatment of Violence and Religion: Are Victims Necessary? Some Presuppositions: • The following reflections, complex as they are, are governed by a reluctance to simplify Hindu teaching. I seek to avoid the view that the Hindu traditions had only one view of violence and nonviolence. • I use the term "Hindu" loosely and as a shorthand, without claiming that there is a single Hindu tradition, or a single creed shared by all Hindus, or a single attitude toward violence. But neither do I claim that there are simply many traditions without any common elements which justify the appellation "Hindu." • I am reluctant to idealize the Hindu traditions as if nonviolence must necessarily be taken as the epitome ofHindu thought. India's traditions are complex, and require complex treatment. • A serious artificiality of this paper is that I treat Hinduism without simultaneously lookinginto Buddhist andJain materials, though both were traditions with important and enduring commitments to nonviolence. Particularly with respect to the renunciant, marginal components of traditions, one ought not to make overly neat or decisive distinctions Violence and Nonviolence in Hindu Religious Traditions 1 1 1 between the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain theories and practices related to violence and nonviolence. • I attempt to give preference to indigenous discussions ofissues related to violence and nonviolence; the context and mode of thinking are important, notjust the conclusions drawn. I therefore avoid simply mining Hindu texts for an answer to a contemporary question, "What is the Hindu attitude toward violence and nonviolence?" • In most ofwhat follows we must distinguish contexts where "violence" indicates "physical action which causes pain to some living being," from contexts where "violence" indicates "an intention, rooted in anger or malice, to hurt someone." I use the word "violence" for both in order to highlight the complex issues of distinction involved. In considering the Sanskrit formulations, one likewise has to distinguish himsa as "causing pain" from himsa as "intending to harm." • It is often difficult to date ancient texts, and even when one narrows down a date—within 200-300 years—its significance still depends on other, often equally broadly stated dates. Nevertheless, I do offer dates throughout, as summarized here: •ancient Vedic sacrificial practices, from before 1200 BCE •Vedic ritual analyses and reformulations of sacrifices as ritualized acts, in the Brahmanas, from after 1000 BCE •the Upanishadic exploration of the deeper meanings of ritual and interiorized alternatives to ritual, from after 900 BCE •the Buddha, c. 500 BCE •key texts in the theorization of royal power, The Laws of Manu (beginning of Common Era) and Arthashastra (c. 150 CE) •the Tamil wisdom text Tirukkural (100 CE) •Goddess texts as evidenced in Sanskrit formulations, from after 500 CE... (shrink)

Max Weber discussed Islam in various places in his sociology of religion, but there was no sustained or systematic commentary unlike his other work on the religions of China and India. What he did have to say about Islam was, even by the standards of his own analysis of value neutrality, judgmental. Subsequently his sociology of Islam has been criticized as Orientalist. While he provided positive interpretations of Protestant inner-worldly asceticism and Old Testament prophecy as radical and charismatic, his commentaries (...) on Islam were by contrast negative and critical. He regarded Islam as a warrior religion in which the salvation drive was turned away from the individual soul and the energy of the Muslim community was directed towards imperial conquest. His arguments did not for example provide a valid account of how Islam spread peacefully in South and South East Asia through Sufi traders. The article however notes an ironic justification for Weber’s analysis through the growth of urban ascetic piety in so-called post-Islam. Finally the article, turning away from Weber’s focus on economic ethics of the world religions, argues that Weber’s work is better understood as an ethical reflection on the perennial conflict between religion (the ethic of absolute ends) and politics (the ethics of responsibility). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Response to My ReadersMichael S. Hogue (bio)I. IntroductionI often begin writing for personal reasons: to slow my thinking, clarify and organize my thoughts, trace ideas, and sort concepts. Generally, a concern for something I consider wrong about the world motivates me to write. Provoked by such a concern, I write to understand why and how what is wrong came to be that way and why and how I (...) think it can or should be different. I write in reply to H. Richard Niebuhr's moral hermeneutic question, "What's going on?" And yet, while writing typically begins (for me) as a personal search for understanding, this search eventually leads me to (re) discover my formative communities of inquiry and interpretation. None of my questions or ideas, none of my orienting values, none of my interpretive impulses are mine alone. They do not, and cannot, exist independently of others' questions, ideas, values, and interpretations. To use Peirce's metaphor, they are slender fibers braided into a larger cable rather than independent links in a chain. The issues and questions that motivate my research; the topics I care about enough to develop into articles and books; the conceptual, critical, and normative vocabularies I bring to my research and writing; the intellectual traditions that shape the patterns of my thinking—none of these are strictly personal or individual. They have taken root and grown in me as I've learned with and from others. Writing reminds me that, as a person, I am a creature of relational processes because it shows me that my mind is not (exclusively) my own—what and how I think have been formed, animated, and limited by my experience with others in a larger world of experience that is broader and deeper than any individual mind.I open this brief essay with this comment to acknowledge my gratitude and indebtedness not only to the authors of the articles in this special issue (Walter Gulick, Robert Smid, John Teehan, and AJ Turner) but also to the larger community of scholars that comprise the readership of the American Journal of Theology and Philosophy (AJTP) and the Institute for American Religious and Philosophical Thought (IARPT). I attended my first IARPT (HIARPT, at the time) conference about seventeen years ago, soon after completing my Ph.D. I didn't know anyone personally then, but I knew several folks as authors of articles and books I had read in recent years. I discovered IARPT through the bibliography of Victor Anderson's book, Pragmatic Theology: Negotiating [End Page 80] the Intersections of an American Philosophy of Religion and Public Theology. I resonated with Anderson's articulation of a socially engaged public theology that drew from American pragmatist, historicist, and naturalist philosophies of religion. His mind had been where mine was going, into the dissenting tradition of American immanence, or the left wing of American radical theology, as I refer to it.While reading Anderson's book, I learned that many of the authors in his bibliography met every summer as a (relatively?) organized group of like-minded scholars. I joined them the next chance I had. And as things go with this group, I was immediately recruited to serve as the book review editor for the AJTP! Since that first meeting, I've attended as many IARPT meetings as my schedule allows, organized one of the summer conferences, served as AJTP book review editor for several years, and then served for several more years as the AJTP editor (following Michael Raposa's illustrious term!). Most recently, I was honored when Andrew Irvine and Austin Roberts made American Immanence a focus of the 2021 IARPT conference, "Political Thought and the Powers of Democracy: American Thought in the Anthropocene." Gulick's, Smid's, Teehan's, and Turner's articles began as papers for that conference.All this is to say what I have heard many others say through the years: the IARPT/AJTP community of interpretation has become a primary intellectual (and even spiritual) home for me. I am (and we are) fortunate to belong to a group of academic philosophers and theologians who collectively embody a rare (let us hope not... (shrink)

This chapter aims to contribute to the endeavour of investigating nonhuman animals as experiencing subjects in their own right with their own species-specific histories. Our focus is on the examination of pain experience in animals. We argue that there is need for more research in which pain experience in animals is accounted for in species-specific terms. Making use of empirical studies in the fields of neurobiology, evolutionary-developmental biology, comparative psychology, and cognitive ethology, we try to offer a phenomenological analysis of (...) indications and expressions of pain experience in animals. We attempt to show how different animals are capable of indicating and expressing specific and unique experiences of pain in terms of their particular species, evolution, and places of living in human and natural contexts. (shrink)

Since the constructibility quantifiers, used in the mathematical system to be developed, will all assert the constructibility of open sentences, an explanation is given of the kinds of open sentences that will be asserted to be constructible. Each of these open sentences will be assigned to a specific ‘level’, depending on the kind of objects or open sentences that can satisfy it, thus providing the basis for the Simple Type Theoretical characteristic of the system to be developed. The satisfaction relation (...) under discussion will be taken to be a primitive of the system. The relevance of Quine's objections to modality for this system is taken up. (shrink)

Concerns the ‘problem of existence’ in mathematics: the problem of how to understand existence assertions in mathematics. The problem can best be understood by considering how Mathematical Platonists have understood such existence assertions. These philosophers have taken the existential theorems of mathematics as literally asserting the existence of mathematical objects. They have then attempted to account for the epistemological and metaphysical implications of such a position by putting forward arguments that supposedly show how humans can come to know of the (...) existence of mathematical objects. The reasoning of the most prominent philosophers in this Literalist tradition, Quine and Gödel, are critically discussed. By way of contrast, an alternative position, Heyting's Intuitionism, is examined. (shrink)

Without seeking to diminish its authority as the Word of God, this article acknowledges the Fourth Gospel as a brilliant piece of literary artistry by the implied author. The aim of this article is to substantiate this assertion by conducting a study on focalisation and illustrating how it invites the implied reader’s participation in the narrative. This contribution acknowledges the existence of insightful contributions on the topic, particularly in relation to the Fourth Gospel. However, it asserts that the study of (...) the performative nature of focalisation in this particular Gospel has not received the attention it deserves. The main contribution of this article is its analysis of a selected narrative of the Fourth Gospel using focalisation as an analytical tool, with the objective of demonstrating that the Fourth Gospel is performative in nature, crafted and formulated to consistently engage the implied reader in considering its purpose, as stated in 20:30–31.Contribution: The article showcases that focalisation, when used as an analytical tool, can unlock, and enable the interpreter of the Fourth Gospel to recognise its performative nature to the implied reader of the text. This is critical, given that the text is crafted to encourage the reader to participate in it by making decisions regarding their faith in Jesus Christ. (shrink)