According to many contemporary metaphysicians, we ought to theorize in terms of grounding because of its promise to explicate the idea of reality having a layered structure. However, a tension emerges when one combines the layered structure view with the view that higher-level facts are not reducible to lower-level facts. This tension emerges from two problems. The first problem arises from the fact that grounding explanations entail true universal generalizations. In order to satisfy this constraint, we will face serious pressure (...) to make sure the entities involved in the grounded facts are appropriately connected to the entities involved in the grounding facts, otherwise the generalizations associated with those grounding claims will come out false. However, ensuring the appropriate connections seemingly leaves no way for the non-reductivist to fully squeeze out reference to higher-level entities as we descend the levels of ground. This threatens the result that some higher-level facts must be taken as fundamental, which the non-reductivist cannot accept. -/- I argue that we can resolve the tension by taking the connections at issue to be essentially true. We can call this view essentialist non-reductivism. One significant upshot of the argument is that we can see not only that essentialist non-reductivism successfully resolves the tension, but that in principle no better solution could be offered. (shrink)

Why is a college or university called an alma mater? This essay looks to Newman for an answer, first by pointing out his love for Trinity College, Oxford, his undergraduate alma mater. The author, sharing his experience of Louvain as his alma mater, emphasizes that an alma mater is not a theoretical concept, but a matter of real apprehension. This essay then examines two sources where Newman discussed the Catholic University of Ireland as an alma mater: his inaugural university sermon, (...) where he insisted that the university must be a mother to its students; and his first annual report to the Irish bishops, where he emphasized that the students’ resident life must provide a sense of community and a love for their alma mater. In sum, if a university is truly to be a “nourishing mother,” she must provide her students not only with an intellectual education, but also with moral discipline. (shrink)

Most people believe in an afterlife, but is such a belief warranted? While Newman did not specifically treat the doctrine of afterlife, his Grammar of Assent furnishes a trajectory that shows that Christians can believe in this doctrine with a warranted assent, precisely because the Church is a warranted belief.

Why is a college or university called an alma mater? This essay looks to Newman for an answer, first by pointing out his love for Trinity College, Oxford, his undergraduate alma mater. The author, sharing his experience of Louvain as his alma mater, emphasizes that an alma mater is not a theoretical concept, but a matter of real apprehension. This essay then examines two sources where Newman discussed the Catholic University of Ireland as an alma mater: his inaugural university sermon, (...) where he insisted that the university must be a mother to its students; and his first annual report to the Irish bishops, where he emphasized that the students’ resident life must provide a sense of community and a love for their alma mater. In sum, if a university is truly to be a “nourishing mother,” she must provide her students not only with an intellectual education, but also with moral discipline. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 387 and contributed an important and helpful study. This dissertation is a model of its kind. One hopes the author will continue his scholarly efforts. The Catholic University of America Washington, D.C. WILLIAM E. MAY John Henry Newman: A Biography. By IAN KER. New York: Oxford University Press, 1990. Pp. xii + 764. $24.95 (paper). The Achievement of John Henry Newman. By IAN KER. Notre Dame: University (...) of Notre Dame Press, 1990. Pp. x + 209. $24.95 (cloth). Ian Ker has inherited the mantle of the late Charles Stephen Dessain as the finest textual expositor of the Newman corpus, and Ker's biography should become a standard reference tool in the field. Ker ap· prenticed under Dessain in the production of the monumental (31volume ) Letters and Diaries, and his biography shows his command of the materials of that as yet unfinished project. Ker's hook joins the biographies of W. Ward (1912) and M. Trevor (1962) as significant "lives of Newman" to consider, and it addresses their earlier shortcomings : Ward's inadequate appraisal of the Anglican Newman and Trevor's unconcern for Newman's theological writings. Of Newman's intellectual contribution, Ker's treatment is similar to Dessain's John Henry Newman, an exposition of the major themes and intellectual moves, and theologically-minded inquirers need read both. Ker offers the hook as a personal life, a literary appraisal, and an intellectual study. The personal life and literary analysis are ably carried off; Ker's background in English literature and his editorial work on the letters have served him well. The intellectual study takes the form of synopses of Newman's hooks and articles, which are woven into the chronological narrative of the life. This aspect of Ker's hook is by no means "the theological achievement of JHN" (cf. Tracy's work on Lonergan); such a project still awaits Newman studies and someone of the conceptual breadth of the late Jan Walgrave to achieve it. Ker provides accurate and readable summaries of Newman's writings, and if a biography is meant to introduce the sundry aspects of a person, especially a complex thinker like Newman, then Ker's treatment of the intellectual aspect offers a fine introduction. I shall consider these three dimensions of the biography, and first the personal life. Newman considered that a person's life is best told 888 BOOK REVIEWS through that person's correspondence. Ker's biography is approached chronologically, and Newman's published letters guide the tale. Newman 's advice is particularly apropos for his own biographer, since Newman 's hooks and articles often displayed a "reserve" in which his true feelings were couched and nuanced. His letters, especially to confidants, were candid and often hard-hitting, as when he described the Curia in these words: " And who is Propaganda? one sharp man of business, who works day and night, and dispatches his work quick off, to the East and West, a high dignitary, [perhaps an Archbishop], hut after all little more than a clerk... with two or.three clerks under him " (p. 519). (Ker displays some reserve himself, omitting Newman's episcopal aside.) Ker's use of the letters is most revealing during Newman's Roman Catholic period when he encountered opposition from Archbishop Manning and W. G. Ward in England, from Archbishop Cullen in Dublin, and from Cardinal Barnaho in Rome. One senses how the laity rallied round him. Some of Newman's most pungent thoughts on ·theological freedom, on the suspicious nature of the clergy toward educated laity, on the wherewithal to make an institution a genuine university, on the role of patience and.trust in God when authorities are hearing down, are to he found in Ker's choice of letters. With so much material to mine-Newman wrote 20,000 letters-it is understandable that Ker does not include, save rarely, what Newman's opponents were thinking. Ker's account of Newman's Anglican period is equally illuminating, and indeed it is a highlight of the biography. While the Apologia has provided the main lines of the story, Ker puts flesh and hones to Newman 's struggle with his conscience. In coming to Oxford, Newman... (shrink)

After sketching four contemporary perspectives about the origin of the created world, this essay tests Newman’s contention that conflicts between true religious doctrines and sound scientific discoveries are only apparent: one truth cannot contradict another. In resolving tensions between religion and science, Newman’s advice about being patient with apparent incompatibility seems particularly appropriate in the contemporary debate between Creationism, evolutionary theory, and Intelligent Design.

RAID-II is a high-bandwidth, network-attached storage server designed and implemented at the University of California at Berkeley. In this paper, we measure the performance of RAID-II and evaluate various architectural decisions made during the design process. We first measure the end-to-end performance of the system to be approximately 20 MB/s for both disk array reads and writes. We then perform a bottleneck analysis by examining the performance of each individual subsystem and conclude that the disk subsystem limits performance. By adding (...) a custom interconnect board with a high-speed memory and bus system and parity engine, we are able to achieve a performance speedup of 8 to 15 over a comparative system using only off-the-shelf hardware. (shrink)

This word study, prompted by Newman’s statement that the church “superintends” the university, indicates that Newman, both as an Anglican and as a Roman Catholic, used “superintend” and its cognates in a variety of contexts: educational and ecclesiastical, theological and epistemological, as well as personal and parental.

The worldwide variation in mating strategies can be explained by differential paternal investment theory, which traces the differences back to the climates where the various peoples (races) evolved. Male provisioning is necessary for women and children to survive cold winters, which is less essential for tropical women. Androstenone may be the substance that makes symmetrical men smell better to fertile females.

This essay, which was originally the opening presentation for the 2005 conference of the Venerable John Henry Newman Association on “Newman and the Laity” at Villanova University, discusses four areas where Newman’s ideas about the voice of the laity have lessons for American Catholic life today: his non-clericalized view of the Church, the lack of appreciation for the laity, his vision of an educated laity, and the need for consulting the laity about doctrinal matters.

This word study, prompted by Newman’s statement that the church “superintends” the university, indicates that Newman, both as an Anglican and as a Roman Catholic, used “superintend” and its cognates in a variety of contexts: educational and ecclesiastical, theological and epistemological, as well as personal and parental.

The essays in this book engage the original and controversial claims from Michael Boylan's A Just Society. Each essay discusses Boylan's claims from a particular chapter and offers a critical analysis of these claims. Boylan responds to the essays in his lengthy and philosophically rich reply.

Socializing Metaphysics supplies diverse answers to the basic questions of social metaphysics, from a broad array of voices. It will interest all philosophers and social scientists concerned with mind, action, or the foundations of social theory.

Whole eye transplantation (WET) remains experimental. Long presumed impossible, recent scientific advances regarding WET suggest that it may become a clinical reality. However, the ethical implications of WET as an experimental therapeutic strategy remain largely unexplored. This article evaluates the ethical considerations surrounding WET as an emerging experimental treatment for vision loss. A thorough review of published literature pertaining to WET was performed; ethical issues were identified during review of the articles.

This report describes the rationale, approaches, organization, and resource development leading to a large-scale deletion bin map of the hexaploid wheat genome. Accompanying reports in this issue detail results from chromosome bin-mapping of expressed sequence tags representing genes onto the seven homoeologous chromosome groups and a global analysis of the entire mapped wheat EST data set. Among the resources developed were the first extensive public wheat EST collection. Described are protocols for sequencing, sequence processing, EST nomenclature, and the assembly of (...) ESTs into contigs. These contigs plus singletons were used for selection of distinct sequence motif unigenes. Selected ESTs were rearrayed, validated by 5′ and 3′ sequencing, and amplified for probing a series of wheat aneuploid and deletion stocks. Images and data for all Southern hybridizations were deposited in databases and were used by the coordinators for each of the seven homoeologous chromosome groups to validate the mapping results. Results from this project have established the foundation for future developments in wheat genomics. (shrink)

Edward Jonathan Lowe (usually cited as E. J. Lowe) was one of the most significant philosophers of the twentieth and early twenty-first century. He made sustained and significant contributions to debates in metaphysics, ontology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, philosophical logic, and philosophy of religion, as well as contributing important scholarly work in early modern philosophy (most notably on Locke). Over the length of his career, Lowe published eleven single-authored books, four co-edited collections, and well over 300 papers (...) and book reviews in journals and edited volumes. The range of topics covered in his published work is highly eclectic. Given this, and his prolific rate of publication, this article cannot aim to cover all of the questions that Lowe contributed work on. Instead, it will focus on some of his most significant contributions in metaphysics and ontology, and related topics in other areas of philosophy. This choice of focus stems, in part, from Lowe’s strong belief in the inescapability of metaphysical questions. Lowe argued for the need to approach metaphysics, and philosophy more broadly, in a serious, systematic fashion, likening metaphysics to putting together the pieces of a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, working with, rather than trying to overrule or being secondary to, natural science. Although the sections in this article focus on different topics, the highly systematic nature of Lowe’s work means that there are many potential points of intersection that could be drawn between them. In the interests of providing a navigable summary of Lowe’s work, this article highlights only some of these connections. (shrink)

Two self-paced reading experiments investigated several factors that influence the comprehension complexity of singly-embedded relative clauses (RCs) in English. Three factors were manipulated in Experiment 1, resulting in three main effects. First, object-extracted RCs were read more slowly than subject-extracted RCs, replicating previous work. Second, RCs that were embedded within the sentential complement of a noun were read more slowly than comparable RCs that were not embedded in this way. Third, and most interestingly, object-modifying RCs were read more slowly than (...) subject-modifying relative clauses. This result contradicts one of the central tenets of complexity research: that nested sentences are harder to understand than their right-branching equivalents (e.g., Miller and Chomsky 1963). It is hypothesized that this result followed from a combination of two information-flow factors: (1) background information is usually presented early in a sentence; and (2) restrictive RCs—the form of the RCs in Experiment 1—usually convey background information. Experiment 2 tested this hypothesis by comparing restrictive and non-restrictive RCs— which generally provide new information—in both subject- and objectmodifying positions. The results of the experiment were as predicted by the information-flow account: Only restrictive RCs were read more slowly when modifying objects. It is concluded that both resource and information-flow factors need to be considered in explaining RC complexity effects. (shrink)

Critics of Robert Nozick's libertarian political theory often allege that the theory in general and its account of property rights in particular lack sufficient foundations. A key difficulty is thought to lie in his account of how portions of the world which no one yet owns can justly come to be initially acquired. But the difficulty is illusory, because the concept of justice does not meaningfully apply to initial acquisition in the first place. Moreover, the principle of self-ownership provides a (...) solid foundation for Nozick's libertarianism, and when seen in the light of that principle and its full implications, the standard purported examples of injustices in acquisition are revealed to be nothing of the kind. Footnotesa The original draft of this paper was written in the summer of 2002 while I was a Visiting Scholar at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center, Bowling Green State University. I thank the directors of the Center, Fred D. Miller, Jr., Ellen Frankel Paul, and Jeffrey Paul, for hosting me. I also thank colloquium audience members at Bowling Green State University for comments on that draft. (shrink)

A review of Edward Halper's brilliant exegesis of the middle books of Aristotle's Metaphysics, in which he shows that Aristotle keys his search for the hierarchy of senses of being to his quest for the hierarchical array of the senses of unity.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cognition: An Introduction to Hegel's Phenomenology of SpiritJohn RussonTom Rockmore. Cognition: An Introduction to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Pp vii + 247. Cloth, $40.00.Rockmore's book is an argument that Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit is a rigorous and systematic argument about epistemology (2) and it is a commentary designed to introduce students to the details of Hegel's text (1). The epistemological thesis is (...) stated most concisely in Chapter 9. Chapters 1 through 8 comment on the Phenomenology at something close to a paragraph-by-paragraph level, (in the form of Findlay's appendix to the Miller translation of the Phenomenology).Rockmore's thesis is that Hegel's epistemology is an "anti-foundationalism without [End Page 131] scepticism" (215), or a "tertiary empiricism," (197): following Kant, Hegel holds that all knowledge begins with, but does not arise from, experience, but, against Kant, Hegel maintains that knowledge does not relate to anything beyond experience, but is itself the ultimate or absolute object (3). The "Consciousness" section of the Phenomenology establishes this basic position in three stages: "Sense-Certainty" refutes sense-data empiricism; "Perception" shows that knowing what an object is requires the mind's mediation; "Understanding" shows that no successful theory of the unity of the cognitive object can be accomplished in an epistemology that maintains the independence of the object of cognition, (a "thing-in-itself"), and that epistemology must thus shift its focus from object to subject. The "Self-Consciousness" chapter demonstrates that the subject of knowledge must be self-conscious and free, and therefore social and historical. Hegel's great contribution to epistemology is thus to replace the "minimalist" subject of Early Modern epistemology with the "thick" subjectivity of "social human being" (4, 201, 208). The analysis of this "thick" subject is carried out through the "Reason" chapter, (which shows that abstract reason cannot account for the whole of the human subject), and especially the "Spirit" chapter, (though this latter is "perhaps also the most defective part of the Phenomenology" [204]). The "Religion" chapter shows human religious history to be faulty epistemology, that is, an attempt to know that fails because of religion's non-conceptual formulation of its own significance. "Absolute Knowing" rectifies this problem by putting religion's (Christianity's) own ultimate truth—that God is Spirit—into conceptual form in the recognition that human social experience is the absolute. While Rockmore's overall thesis is reasonable, there is much to argue with in the specifics.Kant's philosophy is indisputably a central concern in the Phenomenology, but Rockmore sees Kant in every central move of the book. In his treatment of the "Introduction" and "Consciousness" this is more misleading than helpful (37-8). In discussing the "Introduction," Rockmore helpfully shows that consciousness is a self-comparison, but is weak in discussing the "in-itself." The discussion of "Consciousness" is likewise weak in its treatment of textual specifics, but does assert a reasonable interpretation of this section as a refutation of immediate knowledge that demonstrates the problems of reconciling unity and diversity in objects of experience, and the need for a science of subjectivity.Rockmore portrays the "Independence and Dependence of Self-Consciousness" as establishing that freedom is to be found in equal recognition, a social situation that is not yet established (70-2). "The Freedom of Self-Consciousness" shows the inadequacy of abstract, individualistic conceptions of freedom (76, 202). Here again, Rockmore's claims are more overlain on the text than derived from it. The treatment of the "Freedom of Self-Consciousness" is disappointing in failing to recognize a systematic character to Hegel's study. Indeed, while claiming to defend Hegel against charges of non-rigorous, non-systematic idiosyncracy (195), Rockmore is surprisingly inattentive to the systematic shape of Hegel's argument.In discussing "Reason," Rockmore again treats Kant as Hegel's major antagonist. His introduction to the "Reason" chapter is helpful, but his treatment of "Observing Reason" suffers from lack of attention to Schelling's philosophy of nature, and lack of historical precision in the discussion of Early Modern science and philosophy. The [End Page 132] discussions of the later... (shrink)

Adalah hal yang lumrah bila dalam tiga dasa warsa terakhir ini muncul minat yang semakin tinggi terhadap kajian dan seluk-beluk korupsi mengingat berbagai kerusakan yang ditimbulkannya. Bahkan, topik korupsi menjadi agenda internasional para ahli politik dan pembuat kebijakan. Kendati demikian, literatur kajian mengenai korupsi dalam tradisi filsafat masih dapat dikatakan minim. Oleh karena itu, kajian filsafat terapan mengenai korupsi yang dilakukan oleh Seumas Miller, Peter Roberts, dan Edward Spence layak diapresiasi. Dalam buku ini, para penulis (selanjutnya akan disingkat (...) menjadi Miller, dkk.) menegaskan bahwa korupsi merupakan suatu spesies imoralitas (hlm. xvi). Melalui titik pijak tersebut, Miler dkk. memperlihatkan perbedaan kerangka konseptual yang halus antara korupsi dan tindakan imoralitas lainnya. Dengan kata lain, tindakan korupsi sudah pasti merupakan perbuatan imoral, tetapi tidak semua perbuatan imoral adalah tindakan korupsi. Dengan menempatkan persoalan korupsi pada ranah moralitas, Miler dkk. seakan menegaskan bahwa korupsi adalah suatu gejala khas manusiawi dan dilakukan secara sadar. Hal ini diungkapkan secara eksplisit oleh Miller dkk. Mereka mengstakan bahwa tindakan korupsi adalah laku kebiasaan yang salah secara moral, dan karenanya tidak didorong oleh keyakinan sejati yang benar secara moral (hlm. 13)................... Berdasarkan uraian-uraian yang cermat dan halus mengenai korupsi, Miller dkk. juga memaparkan lokus tanggung jawab moral untuk memerangi korupsi. Secara detail, paparan tersebut diuraikan dalam bab ke-6 hingga ke-10 yang memuat berbagai alternatif untuk menghadapi korupsi, seperti pengembangan sistem-sistem antikorupsi, peran “peniup peluit” (whistleblower), pranata yuridis, serta mekanisme hukuman yang sesuai dengan teori keadilan yang bersifat memulihkan (restorative theory of justice). Bagi Miller dkk., berbagai pertimbangan tindakan antikorupsi yang ditawarkannya harus dilandaskan pada tanggung jawab moral. Pendasaran ini konsisten dengan kerangka konseptual yang diajukan pada bagian awal buku ini: bahwa korupsi merupakan persoalan moral. Mereka juga menegaskan bahwa tanggung jawab moral tersebut bersifat kolektif (hlm. 211). Tidak hanya itu, sistem antikorupsi yang digagas juga perlu bersifat menyeluruh: berupa pengembangan unsur-unsur reaktif maupun preventif sekaligus (hlm. 156). Miller dkk. juga berharap bahwa pranata yuridis dan mekanisme hukuman seharusnya dapat menentukan inti dari sistem keadilan dengan mengambil inspirasi pemikiran politik yang dikembangkan dari tradisi filosofis Aristoteles, John Locke, David Hume, Imanuel Kant, dan John Stuart Mill. Selain itu, baik pranata yuridis mapun mekanisme hukuman diharapkan dapat berperan untuk memulihkan (mengintegrasikan) kembali hal-hal yang korup (rusak) pada masyarakat dan sekaligus menghalau korupsi dari masyarakat. Melalui rangkaian paparan buku tersebut, kajian Miller dkk. mengenai korupsi dan antikorupsi merupakan masukan yang berharga dari tradisi filsafat, khususnya filsafat moral. Hal ini sangat berguna untuk mengembangkan kajian korupsi serta antikorupsi secara mendalam dan serius dalam konteks kekinian. (Yulius Tandyanto, Mahasiswa Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat Driyarkara, Jakarta). (shrink)