In this volume, Veronica Roberts Ogle offers a new reading of Augustine's political thought as it is presented in City of God. Focusing on the relationship between politics and the earthly city, she argues that a precise understanding of Augustine's vision can only be reached through a careful consideration of the work's rhetorical strategy and sacramental worldview. Ogle draws on Christian theology and political thought, moral philosophy, and semiotic theory to make her argument. Laying out Augustine's understanding of (...) the earthly city, she proceeds by tracing out his rhetorical strategy and concludes by articulating his sacramental vision and the place of politics within it. Ogle thus suggests a new way of determining the status of politics in Augustine's thought. Her study clarifies seemingly contradictory passages in his text, highlights the nuance of his position, and captures the unity of his vision as presented in City of God. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Free Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy by Tobias HoffmannNicholas OgleFree Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy by Tobias Hoffmann (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), xiv + 292 pp.Modern readers are often perplexed by the frequency and rigor with which angels are discussed in medieval philosophical texts. To the untrained eye, it may seem as if debates concerning the various properties and abilities of (...) purely spiritual beings are the epitome of Scholastic extravagance, which can be safely disregarded—if not outright ridiculed—as a fanciful diversion from more essential philosophical concerns. The truth, of course, is that angelological reflection gave rise to some of the most original philosophical ideas of the Middle Ages, from Anselm's two affectiones of the will to Aquinas's "real distinction" between essence and existence. Far from being an idiosyncratic theological addendum to an already complete philosophical system, consideration of the angelic nature was in fact a central component of medieval philosophy, without which certain crucial metaphysical and psychological insights might not have occurred. This often-neglected truth is given detailed expression in Tobias Hoffmann's Free Will and the Rebel Angels in Medieval Philosophy, which explores how philosophical investigation into the fall of the angels—that is, the hypothesis of an evil choice made by rational beings under optimal psychological conditions—helped bring about significant advances in medieval debates about free will. Focusing on the century immediately following the reception of Aristotle's action theory in the Latin West (from roughly the 1220s to the 1320s), Hoffmann examines how theological claims regarding angelic sin influenced medieval thinkers as they sought to reconcile the intellectualism of Aristotelian moral psychology with their understanding of free will as the power to choose between alternatives.This period is particularly deserving of study, Hoffmann argues, because it was then that the existence of free will first began to be "investigated within a philosophical account of action," rather than merely asserted on theological grounds as a necessary corollary of the doctrines of grace and sin (1). Consequently, theological anthropology took what Hoffmann calls a "psychological turn," with theologians newly determined to explain rational agency in terms of the interaction between different powers of the soul. In Hoffmann's estimation, the subsequent debates over the respective roles of intellect and will in the process of decision-making, as well as the relation between faulty cognition and voluntary wrongdoing, gave rise to some of the most innovative theories of free will in the later Middle Ages—including not only those of celebrated thinkers such as Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus, but also those of lesser-known luminaries such as [End Page 388] John of Pouilly and Peter Auriol. Although the concerns that motivated these debates were primarily anthropological, having to do with specifically human psychological processes, Hoffmann's study foregrounds the role that the angels played in the unfolding of various controversies. Comparing medieval angelological discussion to the thought experiments commonly employed by contemporary philosophers, Hoffmann argues that angels proved significant because they provided a subject matter in which rational freedom could be considered in a pure and ideal form, abstracted from any material constraints (3). While the angelic nature was certainly regarded as worthy of study in its own right, it was also often viewed as an opportunity to explore the nature of cognition and volition simpliciter, in relation to which the distinctiveness of human psychology could be better understood.The book is divided into three parts, each of which traces the historical development of a distinct topic related to the free will debate. In the first part, Hoffmann presents a lucid account of the various ways that medieval thinkers employed Aristotelian ideas—including not only the essentials of his action theory, but also metaphysical doctrines such as the distinction between active and passive powers—as they sought to explain the psychological origins of free will. Comprising over half the text, these chapters provide a comprehensive overview of the free will debate from its origins in the writings of Anselm of Canterbury to its culmination in the proto-modern theorizing of William of Ockham, including a thorough discussion of the controversies... (shrink)

In this article, I offer a reading of City of God 19.6 that is consonant with Augustine’s message to real judges. Often read as a suggestion that torture and execution are judicially necessary, I argue that 19.6 actually calls such necessities into question, though this is not its primary purpose; first and foremost, 19.6 is an indictment of Stoic apatheia. Situating 19.6 within Augustine’s larger polemic against the Stoics, I find that it presents the Stoic judge as a man who (...) lacks fellow feeling, and therefore, has only a parodic happiness, costly to himself and those judges. A new look at Augustine’s letters to judges confirms this reading, and shows that, for Augustine, the man of humanitas is the true model for the good judge, not the man of apatheia. (shrink)

While many scholars have explored the Ciceronian roots of Augustine’s thought, the influence of De Finibus on De ciuitate dei has, as yet, remained unexamined. Dismissed by Testard as abstract and scholastic, De Finibus has long remained in the shadow of Cicero’s other work of moral philosophy, Tusculanae Dispuationes. This article reconsiders the nature of De Finibus and demonstrates its importance for De ciuitate dei. It begins by arguing that the dialogue is actually a meta-commentary on philosophic dogmatism, showing how (...) each of the schools that Cicero’s interlocutors represent—i.e., the Epicureans, Stoics, and Peripatetics—claim certainty about the Wise Man’s happiness. At the heart of the dialogue’s drama is Cicero’s skepticism about this claim. This article then shows how Augustine picks up on Cicero’s explanation as to why the adherents of these schools cling so tightly to their belief in the Wise Man’s happiness. Echoing Cicero, Augustine suggests that the reason for this belief is therapeutic. Going beyond Cicero, however, he diagnoses it as a symptom of pride, arguing that what the philosophers really need is not a model of self-sufficient virtue, but a Mediator. The article ends by briefly considering how Cicero might respond to Augustine’s position. (shrink)

Judgments of moral culpability play a crucial role in our lives, providing a basis for practices of accountability that are essential to a just society. Yet when they exceed their proper limits, such judgments can breed resentment and mistrust, thereby undermining the social bonds that they are meant to preserve. In this essay, I explore this tension in cases where the person being judged is sincerely ignorant of having done anything wrong. Drawing upon Aquinas’s discussion of negligence as a cause (...) of sin, I argue that individuals can sometimes be accountable for sins of which they are completely unaware, but only when this ignorance is of something that they could and should have known. Such a perspective, I suggest, offers a helpful way of addressing contemporary concerns regarding social sin and systemic injustice from within the Thomistic tradition. (shrink)

The relationship between great statesmen and political parties and what this means for political science and theories of the state; studies of Otto von Bismarck, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, Mahatma Gandhi and Nikola Pasic and their struggles for the public good and the national interest.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Politics and the Earthly City in Augustine's City of God by Veronica Roberts OgleAaron C. EbertPolitics and the Earthly City in Augustine's City of God by Veronica Roberts Ogle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), x + 201 pp.Politics is not a word in Augustine's lexicon—at least, it's not something he speaks of, in the abstract, in his great work of political theology, the City of God. This (...) curious omission from Augustine's late magnum opus et arduum has given rise to many a divergent reading of his political thought. Lacking an express account of the very term in question, his politics can seem to admit of a wide range of interpretations. On one side of the spectrum, it has been described as anticipating the religious neutrality of modern liberalism. On the other side, it has been interpreted as consolidating politics into religion by transposing political philosophy into the key of ecclesiology and making the Church the new realm of politics.1 In her elegantly written and insightful new book, which builds on the work of her 2014 dissertation at the University of Notre Dame and on a few published articles, Veronica Roberts Ogle charts a new interpretive path for reading Augustine on politics. She does this by means of two principal interventions.The first is by elucidating City of God's rhetorical purpose, what Ogle calls its "psychagogic character" (6). Psychagogy, "the art of leading [agô] souls [psychai] to a state of health," was the rhetorical aim and genre of much ancient philosophy (3). It took its cue from the philosopher's perception that his readers were sick with the disease of unhealthy attachment to the things of the world. Philosophers were physicians of the soul: they applied "the medicinal art of contraries" to their sick patients. This meant that their literary curatives often met patients/readers with the bitter taste of a poison (4). But—and this is the crucial point for Ogle—the poison was given for the purpose of health. What this means for Augustine's City of God, Ogle argues, is that we ought not take the work's biting and at-times-venomous rhetoric as evidence that Augustine is trying to poison his reader's vision of politics. Rather, he is trying to cure them of their attachment to the myths and delusions of politics-according-to-Rome and, instead, "to help us see the world, even the political world, anew: as part of a created order that is good, but that points beyond itself all the same" (4). Augustine's descriptions of Rome—indeed his frequent equations of Rome with the civitas [End Page 1426] terrena—are indeed meant to shock. But, so Ogle argues, they are meant to shock us out of destructive attachments so that we can learn to make the right attachments, first to Christ, and then, through Christ, to our earthly communities as pilgrims. City of God's pessimistic rhetoric is not Augustine simply denouncing the natural project of politics. It is a bitter medicine for a people deathly ill with an addiction to earthly glory.The second intervention of Ogle's book lies in its attention to what she calls City of God's "sacramental ethos" (5). This, I would argue, is the book's most important contribution. It is also the insight on which the heart of the book's argument depends. Sacraments, for Augustine, are signs that point us to God. Understood in this broad sense, the whole created order—that is, everything that is not God—has the quality of a sacrament by virtue of its very existence. This is connected closely to Augustine's understanding of evil as privatio boni: all that exists, to the extent that it exists, is good; and all that exists is, by nature, a sign (signum) pointing beyond itself to the Lord.These are not new insights into Augustine's doctrine of creation, but Ogle's application of them to the question of politics and the earthly city is suggestive. For what emerges is a new account of the relationship between politics and the earthly city. The whole created order... (shrink)

Charles Darwin's famous 1882 letter, in response to a gift by his friend, William Ogle of Ogle's recent translation of Aristotle's "Parts of Animals," in which Darwin remarks that his "two gods," Linnaeus and Cuvier, were "mere school-boys to old Aristotle," has been though to be only an extravagantly worded gesture of politeness. However, a close examination of this and other Darwin letters, and of references to Aristotle in Darwin's earlier work, shows that the famous letter was written (...) several weeks after a first, polite letter of thanks, and was carefully formulated and literally meant. Indeed, it reflected an authentic, and substantial, increase in Darwin's already high respect for Aristotle, as a result of a careful reading both of Ogle's Introduction and of more or less the portion of Ogle's translation which Darwin says he has read. Aristotle's promotion to the pantheon, as an examination of the basis for Darwin's admiration of Linnaeus and Cuvier suggests, was most likely the result specifically of Darwin's late discovery that the man he already knew as "one of the greatest... observers that ever lived" was also the ancient equivalent both of the great modern systematist and of the great modern advocate of comparative functional explanation. It may also have reflected some real insight on Darwin's part into the teleological aspect of Aristotle's thought, indeed more insight than Ogle himself had achieved, as a portion of their correspondence reveals. (shrink)

Ovaj ogled razmatra kritiku Kjerkegorovog ucenja o egzistenciji, koju je izneo Teodor V. Adorno u svom habilitacionom spisu Kjerkegor. Konstrukcija estetskog. Polazeci od ove filozofije, Adorno iznosi osnovnu tezu da je Kjerkegor, suprotno svojoj osnovnoj nameri suprotstavljanja Hegelovoj ontologiji, upravo idealista i da sa njegovim radikalnim personalizmom idealisticka filozofija dolazi u poznu fazu dezintegracije. Kjerkegorovo ucenje o?unutrasnjosti bez objekta? pokazuje nerazresive protivrecnosti, ali u fazi?raspadanja? na figurativan nacin otkriva i svoju istorijsku istinu da je on duhovni izraz individualizma gradjanskog doba (...) i otudjenja coveka u modernom drustvu. To otudjenje Kjerkegor vidi kao gubitak?smisla?, koji se ponovo moze zadobiti jedino u veri. Adorno preokrece ovo stanoviste misleci da se Kjerkegorova filozofija najvise priblizava njenoj istini ne u religioznom iskustvu, nego u estetskom. Trazeni smisao se ne moze ponovo pronaci skokom u transcendentno, vec u estetskoj sferi, gde je on utopijski, jer nagovestava privid pomirenog stanja izmedju coveka i prirode. (shrink)

Ovaj ogled razmatra kritiku Kjerkegorovog ucenja o egzistenciji, koju je izneo Teodor V. Adorno u svom habilitacionom spisu Kjerkegor. Konstrukcija estetskog. Polazeci od ove filozofije, Adorno iznosi osnovnu tezu da je Kjerkegor, suprotno svojoj osnovnoj nameri suprotstavljanja Hegelovoj ontologiji, upravo idealista i da sa njegovim radikalnim personalizmom idealisticka filozofija dolazi u poznu fazu dezintegracije. Kjerkegorovo ucenje o?unutrasnjosti bez objekta? pokazuje nerazresive protivrecnosti, ali u fazi?raspadanja? na figurativan nacin otkriva i svoju istorijsku istinu da je on duhovni izraz individualizma gradjanskog doba (...) i otudjenja coveka u modernom drustvu. To otudjenje Kjerkegor vidi kao gubitak?smisla?, koji se ponovo moze zadobiti jedino u veri. Adorno preokrece ovo stanoviste misleci da se Kjerkegorova filozofija najvise priblizava njenoj istini ne u religioznom iskustvu, nego u estetskom. Trazeni smisao se ne moze ponovo pronaci skokom u transcendentno, vec u estetskoj sferi, gde je on utopijski, jer nagovestava privid pomirenog stanja izmedju coveka i prirode. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:“Normalizing” Intersex Didn’t Feel Normal or Honest to Me.Karen A. WalshI am an intersex woman with Complete Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (CAIS). My 57–year history with this has its own trajectory—mostly driven by medical events, and how I and my parents reacted. Most of my treatment by physicians has not been positive. It didn’t make me “normal” at all. I was born normal and didn’t require medical interventions. And by (...) the way, I’ve never been confused about who or what I am.Truthful disclosure didn’t come to me about my biology and what was done to me as an infant until I was 33, when I forced the issue by removing my medical records from my endocrinologist’s office. I learned that there was never full disclosure to my [End Page 119] parents either, and therefore there was no informed consent for the “corrective” surgeries performed on me as an infant. My parents were only told that their little girl would get cancer and would not have a normal development as a girl unless her “deformed ovaries” were removed, and that they should never discuss these problems with me. Thus, after having presented with an inguinal hernia and having exploratory surgery at age 16 months, my intra–abdominal testes were removed in a second surgery two months later. I was pronounced a “male pseudohermaphrodite,” a diagnosis that was shared neither with my parents nor with me.Years later, I discovered an article my surgeon published in 1960 in the Delaware Medical Journal about me and another intersex person he operated on (whom he labeled a “true hermaphrodite”). The article gives a very detailed pathology report of my gonads, but only two sentences regarding my welfare and the rationale for performing those surgeries. Dr. J. F. Kustrup wrote in this article, “These [two cases] emphasize the need for early diagnosis and treatment in order to avoid the possibility of malignant change and to permit these individuals to follow a normal psychosexual pattern.” And: “Hermaphroditism and pseudohermaphroditism are conditions in which early diagnosis and treatment are essential to avoid malignant degeneration and to allow the child some chance toward normal pyschic [sic] development.” I was grateful to find this article because it revealed the unfounded assumptions underpinning the recommendations for treatment, much of which continues today. Worse even than the sort of social prejudice that shapes treatment is the absence of evidence for what doctors treat as “necessary” interventions. For my syndrome, CAIS, there never was—and still is not—data to support the cancer scare, or the opinion that I’d be confused and not have a normal life.From about the age of four, I can remember being different and being stonewalled by my doctor and prevented by my parents from talking about it. The feelings and fears I tried to express were shushed away, and I could tell that my questions were upsetting everyone. Even if I had wanted to be complicit with their lame diversions and nonsensical explanations, the massive abdominal scars were there as a daily reminder and hinted at a very different story.The Road to Hell is Paved with Good IntentionsGrowing up, I was treated like a fascinoma and a lab rat at a major teaching hospital on the East Coast. All I learned from those doctors as a young kid was what it feels like to be ogled, photographed and probed by a roomful of white–coated male doctors. Dissociation made itself my friend, and helped me to cope through the annual genital and anal exams and probing. I thought I was a freak and I felt completely powerless to protect myself from them and their “care”.At my annual appointment at age 12, with my mom present, three doctors told me I was infertile. Learning that I couldn’t have kids really saddened and shocked me, but there was no opportunity to talk about my feelings—either that day, or any time afterward. I was told to stop crying. I remember them telling me that there was no one else like me and that this was a random genetic anomaly, thereby reinforcing the freakishness... (shrink)

Until the last years of his life, Charles Darwin had actually never read Aristotle. The sole reference he makes to his naturalist forebear in _On the Origin of Species_ came in an addition to the fourth edition, published in 1866, in which he mistakenly refers to Aristotle’s summation of Empedocles’ position at _Physica_ II 8, as Aristotle’s own, and notes that ‘we see here the principle of natural selection shadowed forth’ (while disputing the specific scientific point Aristotle – though actually (...) Empedocles – was supposedly making). So when his friend William Ogle, a minor scientist and physician, and an evangelist Christian, published a translation of Aristotle’s _De partibus animalium_ in 1882 and sent a copy to Darwin, he was able to declare that he felt “some self-importance in thus being a kind of formal introducer of the father of Naturalists [Aristotle] to his great modern successor [Darwin].” Ogle, who despite his religious inclinations was nevertheless a strong proponent of Darwin’s theories, did not agree with Aristotle’s scientific theories – not least because Aristotle’s teleological model of animal development, which had been adopted as a model by many post-classical Christian scientists and theologians for centuries, was dealt a serious blow by Darwin’s theory of natural selection. So it is perhaps surprising to see Ogle produce a translation of one of Aristotle’s major biological treatises. By looking at key passages of Aristotle and Ogle’s translation, this paper will examine the reasons for Ogle’s curious choice to publish his work, setting it into the wider scientific, and Darwinian, context of late-nineteenth century Britain, and explaining how Aristotle the teleologist was used by Ogle to re-enforce Darwin’s position as a modern natural historian. (shrink)