John Gibbons presents an original account of epistemic normativity. Belief seems to come with a built-in set of standards or norms. One task is to say where these standards come from. But the more basic task is to say what those standards are. In some sense, beliefs are supposed to be true. Perhaps they’re supposed to constitute knowledge. And in some sense, they really ought to be reasonable. Which, if any of these is the fundamental norm of belief? The (...) book argues against the teleological or instrumentalist conception of rationality that sees being reasonable as a means to our more objective aims, either knowledge or truth. And it tries to explain both the norms of knowledge and of truth in terms of the fundamental norm, the one that tells you to be reasonable. The importance of being reasonable is not explained in terms of what it will get you, or what you think it will get you, or what it would get you if only things were different. The requirement to be reasonable comes from the very idea of what a genuine requirement is. That’s where the built-in standards governing belief come from, and that’s what they are. (shrink)

John Carroll undertakes a careful philosophical examination of laws of nature, causation, and other related topics. He argues that laws of nature are not susceptible to the sort of philosophical treatment preferred by empiricists. Indeed he shows that emperically pure matters of fact need not even determine what the laws are. Similar, even stronger, conclusions are drawn about causation. Replacing the traditional view of laws and causation requiring some kind of foundational legitimacy, the author argues that these phenomena are (...) inextricably intertwined with everything else. This distinctively clear and detailed discussion of what it is to be a law will be valuable to a broad swathe of philosophers in metaphysics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of science. (shrink)

In "Pursuits of Wisdom," John Cooper brings this crucial question back to life. This marvelous book will shape the way we think about and engage with ancient philosophical traditions.

An annotated edition of John Dewey's work of democratic theory, first published in 1927. Includes a substantive introduction and bibliographical essay"--Provided by publisher.

Isaiah Berlin was the greatest intellectual historian of the twentieth century. But his work also made an original and important contribution to moral and political philosophy and to liberal theory. In 1921, at the age of eleven, Isaiah Berlin arrived in England from Riga, Latvia. By the time he was thirty he was at the heart of British intellectual life. He has remained its commanding presence ever since, and few would dispute that he was one of Britain's greatest thinkers. His (...) reputation extends worldwide--as a great conversationalist, intellectual historian, and man of letters. He has been called the century's most inspired reader. Yet Berlin's contributions to thought--in particular to moral and political philosophy, and to liberal theory--are little understood, and surprisingly neglected by the academic world. In this book, they are shown to be animated by a single, powerful, subversive idea: value-pluralism which affirms the reality of a deep conflict between ultimate human values that reason cannot resolve. Though bracingly clear-headed, humane and realist, Berlin's value-pluralism runs against the dominant Western traditions, secular and religious, which avow an ultimate harmony of values. It supports a highly distinctive restatement of liberalism in Berlin's work--an agnostic liberalism, which is founded not on rational choice but on the radical choices we make when faced with intractable dilemmas. It is this new statement of liberalism, the central subject of John Gray's lively and lucid book, which gives the liberal intellectual tradition a new lease on life, a new source of life, and which comprises Berlin's central and enduring legacy. In a new introduction, Gray argues that, in a world in which human freedom has spread more slowly than democracy, Berlin's account of liberty and basic decency is more instructive and useful than ever. (shrink)

Presents John Locke's seventeenth-century classic work on political and social theory; and includes a history of the text, as well as notes and a bibliography.

John Coggon argues that the important question for analysts in the fields of public health law and ethics is 'what makes health public?' He offers a conceptual and analytic scrutiny of the salient issues raised by this question, outlines the concepts entailed in, or denoted by, the term 'public health' and argues why and how normative analyses in public health are inquiries in political theory. The arguments expose and explain the political claims inherent in key works in public health (...) ethics. Coggon then develops and defends a particular understanding of political liberalism, describing its implications for critical study of public health policies and practices. Covering important works from legal, moral, and political theory, public health, public health law and ethics, and bioethics, this is a foundational text for scholars, practitioners and policy bodies interested in freedoms, rights and responsibilities relating to health. (shrink)

How do laws resemble rules of games, moral rules, personal rules, rules found in religious teachings, school rules, and so on? Are laws rules at all? Are they all made by human beings? And if so how should we go about interpreting them? How are they organized into systems, and what does it mean for these systems to have 'constitutions'? Should everyone want to live under a system of law? Is there a special kind of 'legal justice'? Does it consist (...) simply in applying the law of the system? And how does it relate to the ideal of 'the rule of law'?These and other classic questions in the philosophy of law form the subject-matter of Law as a Leap of Faith. In this book John Gardner collects, revisits, and supplements fifteen years of celebrated writings on general questions about law and legal systems - writings in which he attempts, without loss of philosophical finesse or insight, to cut through some of the technicalities with which the subject has become encrusted in the late twentieth century. Taking his agenda broadly from H.L.A. Hart's The Concept of Law, Gardner shows how the key ideas in that work live on, and how they have been and can still be improved in modest ways to meet important criticisms - in some cases by concession, in some cases by circumvention, and in some cases by restatement. In the process Gardner engages with key ideas of other modern giants of the subject including Kelsen, Holmes, Raz, and Dworkin. Most importantly he presents the main elements of his own unique and refreshingly direct way of thinking about law, brought together in one place for the first time. (shrink)

Sir John Eccles, a distinguished scientist and Nobel Prize winner who has devoted his scientific life to the study of the mammalian brain, tells the story of how we came to be, not only as animals at the end of the hominid evolutionary line, but also as human persons possessed of reflective consciousness.

John Cottingham explores central areas of Descartes's rich and wide-ranging philosophical system, including his accounts of thought and language, of freedom and action, of our relationship to the animal domain, and of human morality and the conduct of life. He also examines ways in which his philosophy has been misunderstood. The Cartesian mind-body dualism that is so often attacked is only a part of Descartes's account of what it is to be a thinking, sentient, human creature, and the way (...) he makes the division between the mental and the physical is considerably more subtle, and philosophically more appealing, than is generally assumed. Although Descartes is often considered to be one of the heralds of our modern secular worldview, the 'new' philosophy which he launched retains many links with the ideas of his predecessors, not least in the all-pervasive role it assigns to God (something that is ignored or downplayed by many modern readers); and the character of the Cartesian outlook is multifaceted, sometimes anticipating Enlightenment ideas of human autonomy and independent scientific inquiry, but also sometimes harmonizing with more traditional notions of human nature as created to find fulfilment in harmony with its creator. (shrink)

The theory of evolution by natural selection did not spring fully formed and unprecedented from the brain of Charles Darwin. The idea of evolution had been around, in various guises, since the time of Ancient Greece. And nor did theorizing about evolution stop with what Daniel Dennett called "Darwin's dangerous idea." In this riveting new book, bestselling science writers John and Mary Gribbin explore the history of the idea of evolution, showing how Darwin's theory built on what went before (...) and how it was developed in the twentieth century, through an understanding of genetics and the biochemical basis of evolution, into the so-called "modern synthesis" and beyond. Darwin deserves his recognition as the primary proponent of the idea of natural selection, but as the authors show, his contribution was one link in a chain that extends back into antiquity and is still being forged today. (shrink)

Professor Yolton delves into John Locke 's most important work, the Essay Concerning Human Understanding.

In this study John W. Elrod demonstrates that Kierkegaard's pseudonymous writings have an ontological foundation that unites the disparate elements of these books. The descriptions of the different stages of human development are not fully understandable, the author argues, without an awareness of the role played by this ontology in Kierkegaard's analysis of human existence. Kierkegaard contends that the self is a synthesis of finitude and infinitude, body and soul, reality and ideality, necessity and possibility, and time and eternity. (...) Each of these syntheses reveals a particular and unique aspect of individual being not disclosed in the others. Part One shows that ontology is central to the discussion of the self in the pseudonyms. The author notes that spirit, as a synthesis of the expressions of the self, develops as consciousness and freedom. In Part Two he indicates the relationship between notions of being and existence. He notes that existence, in Kierkegaard's thought, grows out of the life of the spirit; the different stages of existence are concrete modes that develop in the spirit's striving to unify the self as a synthesis. These existential expressions of spirit are dialectically related, in that each step requires the preceding stages of spiritual development. Originally published in 1975. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905. (shrink)

Are the disciplines of education ghosts of a productive past or creative and useful forms of inquiry? Are they in a demographic and organisational crisis today? The contribution of the ‘foundation disciplines’ of sociology, psychology, philosophy, history and economics to the study of education has always been contested in the UK and in much of the English-speaking world. But such debates are now being brought to a head in education by the demographic crisis. Recent research has shown that with the (...) an ageing population of education academics, in ten years' time, there could be very few disciplinary specialists left working within faculties of education in UK universities. But does that matter and is the UK no more than a special case? How does this ‘crisis’ look from Europe where the disciplines of education are more embedded, and from the USA with its more diverse higher education system? In this book, leading scholars – including A.H. Halsey, David Bridges, John Furlong, Hugh Lauder, Martin Lawn and Sheldon Rothblatt – consider the changing fortunes of each discipline as education moved away from the dominance of psychology in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s as a result of the growing importance of the other disciplines and new social questions, and how the changing epistemological and political debates of the last twenty years haves resulted in their progressive demise. Finally, the book confronts the question as to whether the disciplines have a place in education in the twenty-first century. The book brings the coming crisis into the public view and explores the issue of the past, current and future relevance of the disciplines to the study of education. It will be of interest to all international academics and researchers in the field of education and the contributory disciplines as well as to students on educational research methods courses. (shrink)

Late in his life, Hans-Georg Gadamer was asked to explain what the universal aspect of hermeneutics consisted in, and he replied, enigmatically, “in the _verbum interius_.” Gadamer devoted a pivotal section of his magnum opus, _Truth and Method_, to this Augustinian concept, and subsequently pointed to it as a kind of passkey to his thought. It remains, however, both in its origins and its interpretations, a mysterious concept. From out of its layered history, it remains a provocation to thought, expressing (...) something about the relation of language and understanding that has yet to be fully worked out. The scholastic idea of a word that is fully formed in the mind but not articulated served Augustine as an analogy for the procession of the Trinity, and served Thomas Aquinas as an analogy for the procession between divine ideas and human thought. Gadamer turned the analogy on its head by using the verbum interius to explain the obscure relation between language and human understanding. His learned interpretation of the idea of the inner word through Neoplatonism, Lutheranism, idealism, and historicism may seem nearly as complex as the medieval source texts he consulted and construed in his exegesis, but the profoundity of his insights are unquestioned. In unpacking Gadamer's interpretive feat, John Arthos provides an overview of the philosophy of the logos out of which the _verbum interius_ emerged. He summarizes the development of the _verbum _in ancient and medieval doctrine, traces its path through German thought, and explains its relevance to modern hermeneutic theory. His work unfolds in two parts, as an expansive intellectual history and as a close analysis and commentary on source texts on the inner word, from Augustine to Gadamer. As such, this book serves as an indispensable guide and reference for hermeneutics and the intellectual traditions out of which it arose, as well as an original theoretical statement in its own right. “Consummately researched, lucidly written, and persuasively argued throughout, __The Inner Word_ _succeeds brilliantly in bringing to light this neglected but pivotal matter in Gadamer’s work. Arthos is learned in the best ‘humanist’ way, for he succeeds in creating something new of his own that will speak eloquently to all of us.” —_Walter Jost, University of Virginia_ “Gadamer suggests that the Christian idea of incarnation is a key to his hermeneutics, but does not explain his position in a detailed or systematic manner. Arthos brings his considerable knowledge of hermeneutics and rhetoric to bear on Gadamer's insight, recounting the rich intellectual history to which Gadamer gestures, and providing an extended and detailed exegesis of this pivotal point in the third part of _Truth and Method_. Gadamer's account of 'linguisticality,' Arthos explains, can best be understood through his use of a complex metaphor—the ‘inner word.’ Arthos matches his erudition with clear and clean prose, and his account exemplifies, rather than just describes, Gadamer's hermeneutical philosophy. Any scholar interested in Gadamer's philosophy should have this book on his or her shelf.” —_Francis J. Mootz III, William S. Boyd Professor of Law, William S. Boyd School of Law_ “Arthos's strength lies for me in his careful reading of the sources. He effectively commands the literature on the subject. This work shows in a sophisticated way the legacy of trinitarian theology for philosophical hermeneutics. The very complex task of illuminating the phenomenon of the _verbum interius _and indicating its centrality for philosophical hermeneutics is accomplished by John Arthos with great sensitivity to the subject matter.” —_Andrzej Wiercinski, The International Institute for Hermeneutics_. (shrink)

This book encapsulates John Beebe’s influential work on the analytical psychology of consciousness. Building on C. G. Jung’s theory of psychological types and on subsequent clarifications by Marie-Louise von Franz and Isabel Briggs Myers, Beebe demonstrates the bond between the eight types of consciousness Jung named and the archetypal complexes that impart energy and purpose to our emotions, fantasies, and dreams. For this collection, Beebe has revised and updated his most influential and significant previously published papers and has introduced, (...) in a brand new chapter, a surprising theory of type and culture. Beebe’s model enables readers to take what they already know about psychological types and apply it to depth psychology. The insights contained in the fifteen chapters of this book will be especially valuable for Jungian psychotherapists, post-Jungian academics and scholars, psychological type practitioners, and type enthusiasts. (shrink)

In this compelling book, John B. Davis examines the change and development in Keynes's philosophical thinking, from his earliest work through to The General Theory, arguing that Keynes came to believe himself mistaken about a number of his early philosophical concepts. The author begins by looking at the unpublished 'Apostles' papers, written under the influence of the philosopher G. E. Moore. These display the tensions in Keynes's early philosophical views, and outline his philosophical concepts of the time, including the (...) concept of intuition. Davis then shows how Keynes's later philosophy is implicit in the economic argument of The General Theory. He argues that Keynes's philosophy had by this time changed radically, and that he had abandoned the concept of intuition for the concept of convention. The author sees this as being the central idea in The General Theory, and looks at the philosophical nature of this concept of convention in detail. (shrink)

This volume brings together J.S. Mills On Liberty and a selection of important essays by such eminent scholars as Isaiah Berlin, Alan Ryan, John Rees, C.L. Ten and Richard Wollheim. As well as providing authoritative commentary upon On Liberty , the essays reflect a broader debate about the philosophical foundations of Mill's liberalism, particularly the question of the connection betweenMill's professed utilitarianism and his commitment to individual liberty. Introduced and edited by John Gray and G.W. Smith, the book (...) will be of interest to students of Mill, to ethical and political philosophers and to anyone interested in the contemporary status of liberalism. (shrink)

_The Social Thought of Ortega y Gasset_ is the third and final volume of John T. Graham's massive investigation of the thought of Ortega, the renowned twentieth-century Spanish essayist and philosopher. This volume concludes the synthetic trilogy on Ortega's thought as a whole, after previous studies of his philosophy of life and his theory of history. As the last thing on which he labored, Ortega's social theory completed what he called a "system of life" in three dimensions—a unity in (...) the plurality of philosophy, history, and sociology as three fundamental disciplines that enter into and overlap each other and other humanities. In this volume, Graham investigates Ortega's social thought as expressed in his central work, _Man and People,_ and in several pragmatic fields, interpreting it all in terms of comprehensive categories of postmodernism and interdisciplinarity. While others have studied Ortega's social thought and recently his postmodernity, no one has done so in the context of his thought as a whole or by such a variety of methods. The "unity in plurality" of Ortega's system is evident in the broad and varied structure of his sociology, which he intended to serve for postmodern times. His own postmodernism was rooted in Nietzsche but also in the pragmatism—from James, Peirce, and Dewey—that informs all parts of this trilogy. Ortega was the first educator with an interdisciplinary theory and practice—another aspect of the "unity in plurality" of his system. He found inspiration in both ancient and modern precedents for what he saw as a postmodern method of investigating themes and problems that are common to all the human sciences. Innovations at his Institute of Humanities were early postmodern precedents for a new interdisciplinary social method for use by specialists in a variety of fields. All of those interested in Ortega can utilize such methods to elucidate his thought as a whole as well as to pursue their own collaborative work. Home Complete Catalog Order Information Search. (shrink)

John Laird was a Scottish philosopher who specialised in metaphysics and moral philosophy. In this early work, which was originally published in 1920, Laird set out to analyse some of the more perplexing problems of philosophical realism. The text includes a brief survey of philosophical realism at the beginning and critical notes throughout. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the works of Laird and the history of philosophy.

John Barton is convinced that in many areas of ethical enquiry the Old Testament has much to teach us, and he argues his case in this new book, which developed out of lectures given both in Canada and in Oxford. During it he looks again at the Ten Commandments; the narrative about David and his children; the ethical issues of ecology, sexual morality and property; human morality as the express command of God; and the motivation for moral conduct. By (...) the end of the book it is clear that although the Old Testament comes to us from a remote, alien and apparently unsophisticated context, the powerful minds who worked on its books still have things to say which remain evocative and suggestive for our own moral enquiries. (shrink)

The Neoplatonist philosophers who flourished between the third and sixth centuries AD had a profound influence on western philosophy, on both Christian and Islamic literature and the visual arts from the Renaissance to modern times. This extensively revised and updated second edition of Neoplatonists provides a valuable introduction to the thought of four central Neoplatonic philosophers, Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus and Iamblichus. John Gregory presents new translations of a selection of key passages from Neoplatonist writings, an introduction that puts in (...) context the writings, and an epilogue detailing the legacy and influence of Neoplatonist thought. (shrink)

Rejecting both monism and dualism, in the spirit of the pragmatist tradition, on reasonably comes to a realistic pluralism. How might Dewey differ from James here?

John C. Hall; III—Quantity of Pleasure, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 67, Issue 1, 1 June 1967, Pages 35–52, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristotel.

A fascinating collection of essays by leading scholars in the field engage with the idea of religious pluralism mooted by John Hick to offer incisive insights on religious pluralism and related themes and to address practical aspects such as interreligious spirituality and worship in a multi-faith context.

John Frame gives us an accessible introduction to "triperspectival" study-where theological issues are fruitfully viewed from multiple perspectives without compromise to their unity and truth. Book jacket.

John Granville's first book is unique on several counts. First, it's not simply a history of science, but rather a history of our evolving unerstanding of motion. It's unique in the detailed explanations given to common scientific riddles-explanations aimed to help students avoid catastrophic collisions with these concepts in college. It's unique in that it resents the philosophies on which the major scientific paradigm shifts rest. It's unique in its presentation from Thomas Kuhn's point of view (i.e., his concept (...) of world view and paradigm shifts as presented in his classic work The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). The book begins with an informal discussion of Kuhn's notion of world view, and various concepts relevant to his thesis concerning the nature of scientific revolutions; but, the Discovery of Motion proper begins with ancient Egyptian and Greek preparations for Aristotle (here the dialectic of Parmenides and Plato are given special attention). A survey of Aristotle and his science of motion follows (i.e., his theory of nature and natural philosophy). Included in this part of the book are the works of such notables as Archimedes and Ptolemy. The Copernican revolution, including the works of Galileo, Kepler and Newton is, of course, presented from the viewpoint of Kuhn's paradigm shift. Four chapters concerning Newtonian motion are the highlight of the first half of the book. It is here Granville's original aim, of explaning puzzling scientific phenomena to young students, is realized-but now this material serves another purpose. These chapters not only clarify Newton's world view but expose phenomena that were virtually invisible to the peripatetics...and will eventually expose reasons for the ambivalence and frustration that accompany scientific revolutions. Granville then turns to philosophical developments that led to our modern view of the world. This part of the book covers the evolution of empiricism from Bacon to Hume (with Descartes' rationalism thrown in for contrast). Kant's epistemology concludes this philosophical survey, deliberately leading the plot back toward the classical viewpoint. Finally, developments of the nineteenth century that led to the so-called Second Scientific Revolution are considered. The final chapter is a unique presentation of Einstein's relativity theory, where the incompatibility of this theory with Newtonian physics, and the reason why relativity must take precedence, are discussed. Granville compares the opposition to the Copernican revolution with twentieth century opposition to the Einsteinian revolution. The book reveals that, after building detailed understanding of classical Newtonian phenomena, opposition to a shift of world view is an understandable human reaction. (shrink)

John Gregory presents new translations of a selection of key passages from Neoplatonist writings, an introduction that puts in context the writings, and an..

"John Anton introduces the reader to the poetry and poetics of Constantine P. Cavafy from a different perspective. He traces Cavafy's development during the early phases of the poet's creativity, when he was gradually discovering his poetic self, until he finally created his own authentic voice. Autobiographical elements in Cavafy's poems are introduced mainly as guides to explore one aspect of Cavafy's world: how he gradually learned to control the transformation of experience into "work in progress". Professor Anton clearly (...) portrays Cavafy's quality of thought, his originality, the freshness of his imagery and his penetrating commentary on the human condition. The author also provides details of the historical background of ancient Alexandria, which formed one of the key ways whereby Cavafy recreated the city for himself and used it to develop his unique poetic vision."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved. (shrink)

John Benson; XIV—The Characterisation of Actions and the Virtuous Agent, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 63, Issue 1, 1 June 1963, Pages 251–266.

John Sellars presents a broad and lively introduction to Hellenistic philosophy. This was a rich period for philosophy, with the birth of Epicureanism and Stoicism, alongside the activities of Platonists, Aristotelians, and Cynics. Sellars offers accessible coverage of all areas from epistemology to ethics and politics.

Duiker, John It has been suggested that the global proliferation of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal (CCR) is a metonymic sign that directly manifests and points to the creative activity of the Creator in history, and that being an enchanted phenomenon it can stand as an example for the re-enchantment of a post-Enlightenment secular world.1 These appear to be strong claims for an ecclesial movement of the Church, and in order to ascertain the validity of such statements, it is necessary (...) to undertake a journey into the development and understanding of the movement itself. Our steps on the journey that will assist in the validation of such claims will locate the CCR within a cultural context, reflect on its history and origins, its christological and pneumatological character, explain its relationship to the sacramental economy and broader church, and identify its characteristics, fruits and its more specific place in the Australian church. This study will also provide an opportunity to gain a further appreciation of a movement that has touched the lives of millions of people. (shrink)

John Campbell; IX*—Possession of Concepts, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 85, Issue 1, 1 June 1985, Pages 149–170, https://doi.org/10.1093/aris.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Memoriam:John W. Yolton 1921-2005G.A.J. RogersJohn Yolton died a few days short of his eighty-fourth birthday. He was one of the most distinguished historians of philosophy of his generation. Early in his studies he had found Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding a challenging book that raised as many puzzles as it answered and it was his engagement with that work that dominated his intellectual enquires from his MA (...) studies until his latest book, published last year, The Two Intellectual Worlds of John Locke. Man, Person, and Spirits in the "Essay." It was his fifteenth authored book. His first book was his Oxford D. Phil. Thesis, John Locke and the Way of Ideas, published nearly fifty years ago in 1956. If Locke and Ideas were to dominate his writings, they were not exclusive of other interests. His second book was The Philosophy of A.S. Eddington. Others, not Locke-centered, were to follow. In later years he has focussed especially on the problem for all readers of Locke and other early modern philosophers including Descartes, Berkeley and Hume, as to the nature of their commitment to ideas. Did they really hold that ideas are objects that intervene between the perceiving mind and the outside world, or is the standard reification of ideas simply a mistaken reading of their argument? Yolton, since at least the early 1980s, has argued that to reify ideas in the standard way is based on a false reading of the texts. His reading has not always been accepted by historians of philosophy but there are signs that that might be changing and some books and articles published in the last five years or so reveal distinct signs of a Yolton influence.John Yolton was not only a prolific writer he was also a highly regarded editor, not only of Locke texts but also of important collections of papers such as John Locke: Problems and Perspectives (1969) and The Blackwell Companion to the Enlightenment (1992) to which he contributed [End Page 419] a prodigious number of entries. But perhaps as important as his writing was Yolton's teaching. Nobody who sat in on one of his classes could not but be impressed with the way in which he was able to hold a class's attention to a text of Descartes, Locke or Hume and engage first year or graduate students in a scrutiny of the text, perhaps only a paragraph or even a sentence long, teasing out its ambiguities and its place in an argument, to the obvious enlightenment of students who until then had found early modern philosophical prose dull and uncaptivating. It is no surprise to find that he supervised a large number of scholars of the early modern period who have gone on to make important contributions to the history of philosophy and intellectual history.John Yolton was always enormously generous with his time. His graduate students became extensions of the Yolton family. So also did younger scholars. Any book or paper sent him was always to receive careful attention and detailed comment, always fair but never patronising. He was also very active as a member of many editorial boards, including the Journal of the History of Ideas and the Clarendon Locke Board. John was appointed to the Board of Consulting Editors of the JHI in 1977. At the beginning of 1987 he was elected to the Board of Editors and he was still a member of that Board at the time of his death. During his membership on both boards he provided an enormous amount of editorial help, evaluating scores of submitted papers. He was especially active during the years that the Journal's editorial office was located at Rutgers University. In 1991 John was elected vice president of the Board of Directors, the governing body of the JHI. He served as vice president until the summer of 1998. He was chairman of the Clarendon Locke Board for nine years as well as, at the same time, being its general editor.John Yolton and his wife, Jean, a Locke scholar in her own right, were regular participants at conferences, but in recent years their travelling... (shrink)

In 1578, the Anglo-Italian author, translator, and teacher John Florio wrote that English was 'a language that wyl do you good in England, but passe Dover, it is woorth nothing'. Learning Languages in Early Modern England is the first major study of how English-speakers learnt a variety of continental vernacular languages in the period between 1480 and 1720. English was practically unknown outside of England, which meant that the English who wanted to travel and trade with the wider world (...) in this period had to become language-learners. Using a wide range of printed and manuscript sources, from multilingual conversation manuals to travellers' diaries and letters where languages mix and mingle, Learning Languages explores how early modern English-speakers learned and used foreign languages, and asks what it meant to be competent in another language in the past. Beginning with language lessons in early modern England, it offers a new perspective on England's 'educational revolution'. John Gallagher looks for the first time at the whole corpus of conversation manuals written for English language-learners, and uses these texts to pose groundbreaking arguments about reading, orality, and language in the period. He also reconstructs the practices of language-learning and multilingual communication which underlay early modern travel. Learning Languages offers a new and innovative study of a set of practices and experiences which were crucial to England's encounter with the wider world, and to the fashioning of English linguistic and cultural identities at home. Interdisciplinary in its approaches and broad in its chronological and thematic scope, this volume places language-learning and multilingualism at the heart of early modern British and European history. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE MARVELOUS EXCHANGE: RAYMUND SCHWAGER'S INTERPRETATION OF THE ffiSTORY OF SOTERIOLOGY JOHNP. GALVIN The Oath-Olia University of America Washington, D.O. IN A WIDE-RANGING series of studies of disparate material, the French ethnologist and literary critic Rene Girard has proposed 'a remarkably comprehensive anthropological theory. Girard identifies imitation, which inevita.bly issues in rivalry and violence, as the decisive force in human conduct. In primitive societies,,Jacking centralized civil authority and confronted (...) with recurrent threats to survival, a fragile social order is preserved solely by discharging violence upon an arbitrarily chosen victim. According to Girard's analyses, periodic ritual reenactment of this primal event is the source of all great social institutions; the "scapegoat mechanism " thus lies at the root of human culture.1 While Girard has devoted increasing attention to examining the Judeo-Christian tradition from the perspective of his anthropology,2 more thorough application of his thought to Christian theological themes has been undertaken by Raymund Schwager, a Swiss Jesuit professor of dogmatics at the University of Innsbruck. In a book published in 1978, Schwager argued that Girard's theory offers a useful framework for addressing various biblical issues (the pervasiveness 1 Cf. especially Violence and the Sacred (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1977) ; Des choses cachees depuis la fondation du monde (Paris: Grasset & Fasquelle, 1978); The Scapegoat (Baltimore: John Hopkins, 1986). For discussion of the bearing of Girard's thought on biblical issues cf. Robert North, "Violence and the Bible: The Girard Connection," OBQ 47 (1985), 1-27. 2 Cf. esp. Des choses cachees depuis la fondation du monde, pp. 163-304. 675 676 JOHN P. GALVIN of violence in the Old Testament; the diversity of Old Testament depictions of God; the prophetic critique of sacrifice; and the salvific significance of Jesus' public life and death) which have pvoven intractable from other perspectives.3 Since the appearance of that work, he has extended his testing of the theological value of Girard's thought, chiefly through publication of a series of ten articles in the Zeitschrift fur katholische Theologie on major figures and themes from the history of soteriology. These essays, always conceived as an integral whole, have now been gathered in a single volume; as a unit, they form a significant account of the history of Christian thinking on a central theological topic.4 Sohwa;ger devotes his first six studies to the patristic period. His historical survey begins with an examination of the contrasting soteriologies of Marcion and Irenaeus, under the title " The God of the Old Testament and the God of the Crucified " (pp. 7-31). Marcion's questioning of the inner unity of the Old Testament 1 and the apostolic writings led him to reject the Old Testament as the revelation of a creator God of rigorous justice, far inferior to the God of love manifest in Jesus Christ. Corruption of Christ's teachings by his disciples led to the calling of Paul, who alone preached the gospel in pure form. Marcion 1 therefore assembled a canon of Pauline writings (minus alleged regressive intevpolations) rand reconstructed f:vom Lu~e what he judged to he the sole authentic written gospel, one communicated directly to Paul hy Christ. In opposition to such Gnostic thought, Irenaeus rejected any dualism in the understanding of creation and :vedemption and a Brauahen wir einen Siindenbook?: Gewalt und ErlOsung in den biblisohen Sohriften (Munich: Kosel, 1978); an English translation has recently been published: Must There Be Scapegoats?: Violenoe and Redemption in the Bible (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987). For presentation and discussion of this stage of Schwager's work cf. John P. Galvin, "Jesus as Scapegoat?: Violence and the Sacred in the Theology of Raymund Schwager," Thomist 46 (1982), 173-194. 4 Der wunderbare Tausoh: Zur Gesohichte und Deutung der ErlOsungslehre (Munich: Kosel, 1986). Pp. 327. DM 34.00. RAYMUND SCHWAGEll AND SOTERlOLOGY 677 consequently defended the unity of the two testaments. Their distinct economies of salvation result from a wise divine pedagogy, ev;er attentive to different stages in the gradual maturation of the human raee. The Old Testament is a preparation for the recapitulation of all things in Christ; it should be understood typologically, iby reference to its... (shrink)

Although famous as an economist, Amartya Sen is no less distinguished as a philosopher. In this he is far from unique. The same went for the founding father of economics, Adam Smith. But in these days of increased academic specialization the combination of philosopher and economist is rarer than once it was. Moreover the philosophical contributions of contemporary economists, such as they are, tend to be relatively narrow. Some, notably John Harsanyi and Thomas Schelling, are rightly lauded by philosophers (...) for helping to illuminate what Hegel called ‘the cunning of reason’ – the strange twists, loops, and blind alleys that obstruct or divert us, individually or collectively, in the pursuit of value. When it comes to the identification of the value to be pursued, on the other hand, it is harder to think of recent economists who have done important work. The preference-based theory of value treated as axiomatic by many economists is regarded as comic by many moral philosophers, even those with otherwise consilient utilitarian leanings. To break loose from the preference-based theory of value, while continuing to carry credibility for pioneering work in economics, takes a person of truly exceptional imagination, discipline, and versatility. (shrink)

Continuing the debate on assessment, we argue that Andrew Davis' use of examples fails to address issues in the assessibility of specific items of knowledge, and show that one of his examples supports our view rather than his. We argue that John White's preferred replacement of assessment by monitoring, based on teachers' personal knowledge of their pupils, confuses personal and professional knowledge, oversimplifies the teacher's role and does not address the need for objectivity. Finally we argue that neither White (...) nor Davis grasps the relationship between assessment and the need for wider forms of accountability for public education systems. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:RECENT BARTHIANA 1 JOHN D. GODSEY Wesley Theological Seminary Washington, D.C. N 0 ONE CAN responsibly do theology today without reckoning with the prodigious legacy of Karl Barth, the Swiss Reformed theologian who was born in 1886, began theological studies in 1904, entered a full-time pastorate in 1911, taught dogmatics successively at Gottingen, Munster, Bonn, and Basel between 1921 and 1962, and died in 1968. From his electrifying (...) Commentary on Romans through his multivolumed but unfinished Church Dogmatics he wrote unceasingly in the areas of exegetical, historical, ethical, practical, and dogmatic theology, and ventured from time to time into the realms of politics and culture. Helper in organizing textile workers while pastor in Safenwil, questioner of major assumptions of neoProtestant liberal theology, spiritual leader of the German Confessing Church's struggle against Nazism, principal author of the Barmen Confession, participant in the 1948 Amsterdam Assembly of the World Council of Churches, and invited guest of Pope Paul VI in Rome in 1966-these are some of the highlights of Barth's colorful career. The books under review provide impressive testimony to Barth's ongoing significance for modern theology. One is a work 1 Karl Barth, The Gottingen Dogmatics: Instruction in the Christian Religion, vol. I, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley (Eerdmans, 1991). 490 pp. $39.95 cloth. George Hunsinger, How To Read Karl Barth: The Shape of His Theology (Oxford Univ. Press, 1991). 298 pp. $32.50 cloth. John Macken, S.J., The Autonomy Theme in the Church Dogmatics: Karl Barth and his Critics (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1990). 232 pp. $54.50 cloth. S. W. Sykes, ed., Karl Barth: Centenary Essays (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1989). 171 pp. $39.50 cloth. 269 270 JOHN D. GODSEY by Barth himself, two grew out of doctoral dissertations, and the other contains interpretative essays by five theologians who wished to honor Barth on the occasion of his centenary year in 1986. To appreciate properly the surprising appearance of Barth's Gottingen Dogmatics requires a bit of history. After ten years as a pastor in the village of Safenwil in north-central Switzerland, Barth was called in 1921 to be "Honorary Professor of Reformed Theology" on the theological faculty of the University of Gottingen in Germany. Having neither doctorate nor teaching experience, he was offered the cp_air on the basis of the first edition of Romans ( 1919) with the expectation that he would represent the Reformed tradition in this German Lutheran stronghold. During his first years he presented exegetical lectures on biblical texts as well as historical lectures that would help him learn his own tradition: the Heidelberg Catechism, Calvin, Zwingli, the Reformed Confessions, and Schleiermacher. Not until 1924-25 did he dare attempt to lecture on dogmatics, and even then he was not allowed to use the title "dogmatics," which was reserved strictly for Lutherans, so he chose to name his lecture series " Instruction in the Christian Religion," recalling Calvin's chief work, Institutio religionis christianae. Unlike his second cycle of lectures in Munster in 1926 (published as Prolegomena to Die Christliche Dogmatik in 1927) and the magisterial Church Dogmatics that began in 1932, these first lectures on dogmatics were never published during Barth's life time. Preserved in his own handwriting, they were edited and finally made public in 1990 in the Swiss edition of his Collected Works. The first of two volumes has now appeared in English and comprises four of seven chapters : three on the doctrine of the Word of God (as Revelation, as Holy Scripture, and as Christian Preaching) plus one on the doctrine of God. Three other major loci (Anthropology, Reconciliation, and Redemption) will appear in Volume Two. Professor Daniel L. Migliore of Princeton Seminary has written a 48-page Introduction to the whole, which provides brilliant insights into Barth's theology and points RECENT BARTHIANA 271 out the particular characteristics and peculiarities of this first (and only completed!) set of lectures on dogmatics. Why should one read the Gottingen Dogmatics rather than, say, the Church Dogmatics? First, Barth's basic theology, at least the lineaments thereof, is to be found here in what is perhaps its most accessible form; in relatively short compass he sets forth his... (shrink)

Imagine a society of fisherfolk, who, in the state of nature, fish on a lake of finite size. Fishing on the lake is characterized by decreasing returns to scale in labor, because the lake's finite size imply that each successive hour of fishing labor is less effective than the previous one, as the remaining fish become less dense in the lake. In the state of nature, the lake is commonly owned: each fishes as much as he pleases, and, we might (...) suppose, calculates his fishing plan by taking the labor of the others as given, as he sees it. Each knows that the distribution of fish will be proportional to labor expended among the fisherfolk: if I fish twice as long as you, I will end up with twice as much fish as you. This is not due to some kind of concern with equity among the fisherfolk; it is a technological fact, implied by the assumption that fishing labor is homogeneous, and all are equally likely to catch a fish in a unit of time. An equilibrium under common ownership can be thought of as a Nash equilibrium of the game where each computes his optimal fishing plan, given the labor of the others and knowing what the consequent distribution of fish would be. (shrink)

Human Rights and Common Good collects John Finnis's wide-ranging work on central issues in political philosophy. The subjects explored include the general theory of political community and justice; the nature and role of human rights; national territory and migrants' and non-citizens' rights; the justification of punishment; and the public control of euthanasia, abortion, and marriage.

This classic guide, from the renowned novelist and professor, has helped transform generations of aspiring writers into masterful writers—and will continue to do so for many years to come. John Gardner was almost as famous as a teacher of creative writing as he was for his own works. In this practical, instructive handbook, based on the courses and seminars that he gave, he explains, simply and cogently, the principles and techniques of good writing. Gardner’s lessons, exemplified with detailed excerpts (...) from classic works of literature, sweep across a complete range of topics—from the nature of aesthetics to the shape of a refined sentence. Written with passion, precision, and a deep respect for the art of writing, Gardner’s book serves by turns as a critic, mentor, and friend. Anyone who has ever thought of taking the step from reader to writer should begin here. (shrink)