In recent analytic literature on the Trinity we have seen a variety of "social" models of the Trinity. By contrast there are few "non-­‐social" models. One prominent "non-­‐social" view is Brian Leftow's "Latin Trinity." I argue that the name of Leftow's model is not sufficiently descriptive in light of diverse models within Latin speaking theology. Next, I develop a new "non-­‐social" model that is inspired by Richard of St. Victor's description of a person in conjunction with my appropriating insights about (...) indexicals from David Kaplan and John Perry. I point out that the copula in tokens of statements like, "I am the Father," is an ambiguous term and when used by a certain divine person a different proposition is affirmed. Central to this model is the claim that the copula bears the "is of identity" and the "is of numerical sameness without identity." Further, I show that Leftow's model employs two concepts of "person," a Lockean one and a Boethian one, and mine employs Richard of St. Victor's. I describe Leftow's model as a "hard non-­‐social" model and mine as a "soft non-­‐social" model that is nearer to some social models. I conclude that Leftow's model is not the lone candidate among "non-­‐social" models and that the variety of "non-­‐social" models has yet to be exhausted. (shrink)

Since Voltaire’s caricature of him in Candide, Leibniz has had the unenviable reputation of representing the worst excesses of metaphysical rationalism. Bernard Williams once characterized Leibniz’s view that ours is the best of all possible worlds—defining “best” as maximum variety by the simplest laws—as “crass” and “untruthful.” Drawing on the character of Ivan in The Brothers Karamasov, A. W. Moore recently developed Williams’s view, claiming that Leibniz’s system lacks the resources to support a connection between what for Leibniz “matters in (...) the end, and what matters now, to us.” The author attempts to disarm Moore’s objection using Leibniz’s theory of truth and his principle of sufficient reason. More generally he argues that for Leibniz, when it comes to reconciling individual circumstance with the cosmic order of things, theodicy cannot provide any principled substitute for individual effort of will. This tempers the optimism typically associated with Leibniz’s philosophy. (shrink)

The third collection in this series includes the same combination of scarce and not so well-known texts as well as more important and popular works.

Motivated by a desire to narrate and contextualize the deluge of "French theory," After the Deluege showcases recent work by today's brightest scholars of French intellectual history that historicizes key debates, figures, and turning points in the postwar era of French thought.

Designer Biology: The Ethics of Intensively Engineering Biological and Ecological Systems consists of thirteen chapters that address the ethical issues raised by technological intervention and design across a broad range of biological and ecological systems. Among the technologies addressed are geoengineering, human enhancement, sex selection, genetic modification, and synthetic biology.

© 2015, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.Genetic studies have identified single nucleotide polymorphisms associated with the risk of prostate cancer. It remains unclear whether such genetic variants are associated with disease aggressiveness. The NCI-SPORE Genetics Working Group retrospectively collected clinicopathologic information and genotype data for 36 SNPs which at the time had been validated to be associated with PC risk from 25,674 cases with PC. Cases were grouped according to race, Gleason score and aggressiveness. Statistical analyses were used to compare the frequency (...) of the SNPs between different disease cohorts. After adjusting for multiple testing, only PC-risk SNP rs2735839 was significantly and inversely associated with aggressive and high-grade disease in European men. Similar associations with aggressive and high-grade disease were documented in African-American subjects. The G allele of rs2735839 was associated with disease aggressiveness even at low PSA levels in both European and African-American men. Our results provide further support that a PC-risk SNP rs2735839 near the KLK3 gene on chromosome 19q13 may be associated with aggressive and high-grade PC. Future prospectively designed, case-case GWAS are needed to identify additional SNPs associated with PC aggressiveness. (shrink)

In 1947 Donald Cary Williams claimed in The Ground of Induction to have solved the Humean problem of induction, by means of an adaptation of reasoning first advanced by Bernoulli in 1713. Later on David Stove defended and improved upon Williams’ argument in The Rational- ity of Induction (1986). We call this proposed solution of induction the ‘Williams-Stove sampling thesis’. There has been no lack of objections raised to the sampling thesis, and it has not been widely accepted. In (...) our opinion, though, none of these objections has the slightest force, and, moreover, the sampling thesis is undoubtedly true. What we will argue in this paper is that one particular objection that has been raised on numerous occasions is misguided. This concerns the randomness of the sample on which the inductive extrapolation is based. (shrink)

Against the backdrop of declining support for the humanities in American culture, this presidential address urges the philosophical community to examine itself. Scientific naturalists in particular are invited to apply their theories about the tribal nature of human social groups to their own community. The ultimate goal is to encourage contemporary naturalistic philosophers to reclaim the humanistic appeal of historical naturalists such as William James and David Hume. While the goal of the essay is serious, its tone as a (...) dinnertime address is irreverent, including among other indiscretions an analogy between prominent philosophical naturalists and leaders of the Tea Party. (shrink)

In my view there were two great under-appreciated geniuses of twentieth century philosophy. The first was D. C. Williams. The second was a man who greatly admired Williams, David Stove. Both have paid for having conservative views and presenting them polemically, but this is a great pity, for not only are their political views worth listening to, their nonpolitical work is brilliant, more so, I suspect, than even some of their aficionados realize. Now Stove’s following is on the up, (...) with the release of this compilation from a new admirer, Roger Kimball. (shrink)

William Watson, a Fellow of the British Academy, was a scholar whose contribution to the field of Asian art and archaeology was both multifaceted and far-reaching. He earned a scholarship to Gonville and Caius College at the University of Cambridge to read Modern and Medieval Languages, and it was at Cambridge that he met a fellow-student Katherine Armfield, whom he married in 1940. After World War II, Watson took up his first post in the arts in 1947, joining the staff (...) of the British and Medieval Department of the British Museum. In 1966, he left the British Museum and moved to the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art to become its Director and take up the professorship of Chinese Art and Archaeology at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. Watson travelled widely and often, and he became fascinated with the arts and language of Japan. (shrink)

William Coperthwaite is a teacher, builder, designer, and writer who for many years has explored the possibilities of true simplicity on a homestead on the north coast of Maine. In the spirit of Henry David Thoreau, Emily Dickinson, and Helen and Scott Nearing, Coperthwaite has fashioned a livelihood of integrity and completeness—buying almost nothing, providing for his own needs, and serving as a guide and companion to hundreds of apprentices drawn to his unique way of being. A Handmade (...) Life carries Coperthwaite’s ongoing experiments with hand tools, hand-grown and gathered food, and handmade shelter, clothing, and furnishings out into the world to challenge and inspire. His writing is both philosophical and practical, exploring themes of beauty, work, education, and design while giving instruction on the hand-crafting of the necessities of life. Richly illustrated with luminous color photographs by Peter Forbes, the book is a moving and inspirational testament to a new practice of old ways of life. (shrink)

Both in church and culture, discussion of sexual orientation has far outpaced discussion of gender identity, leaving the churches with limited resources to respond to “bathroom bills” or to walk faithfully with transgender persons in their midst. This paper draws on the work of Rowan Williams and Sarah Coakley to argue for understanding gender transition as an eschatological formation ordered to the body’s grace. In critical conversation with Oliver O’Donovan, John Milbank, and David Cloutier, the paper offers a constructive, (...) non-voluntarist theological proposal for transgender affirmation in the service of participation in the triune life that exceeds gender. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Echoes of Romanticism and Expatriate Englishness in Charlotte Brontë's The ProfessorDavid SiglerCharlotte Brontë's many debts to Romanticism, and especially Lord Byron, are a well-known feature of her fiction. Yet only recently has this become an important part of the discussion surrounding The Professor, her first-written and last-published novel. The novel, written between 1844 and 1846 and published posthumously in 1857, is increasingly seen to be in dialogue with William (...) Wordsworth and Walter Scott, in addition to Byron. Anna Barton, seeing Brontë as "the pupil of Wordsworthian Romanticism" and "a daughter of Romanticism," shows how The Professor develops "intertextual exchanges that perform the failure of the Romantic lyric within the Victorian novel."1 Tanya Llewellyn has argued that the protagonist William Crimsworth, seemingly influenced by Byron's Turkish tales, Orientalizes the women in his life as a way to manage sexual threats.2 Mandy Swann, meanwhile, sees in Brontë's early work an ambivalent response to the Romantic figure of the poet-prophet, as part of the author's general struggle, early in her career, to theorize female creativity.3Yet in other recent accounts, William Crimsworth seems to be as un-Byronic and un-Wordsworthian as possible. Crimsworth has been said to be a "particularly off-putting" narrator, "defensive and humourless," whose "dubious masculinity," passionlessness, and, in one reading, stiflingly repressed homosexuality render him a comically overliteral thinker.4 I will suggest that this incapacity in him for meaningful human engagement is what leads him to fixate on British Romantic poetry as a solution, however backhanded, to his erotic and professional difficulties. [End Page 30] Yet as the echoes of Romanticism that haunt his erotic and professional relations quickly take on lives of their own, they enable the story, and its ethical vision, to exceed William's control. Once the novel directs its protagonist's obsessive personality in the direction of Romantic poetry, it can become an intriguing meditation on ethics, expatriate Englishness, and time.William Crimsworth is a hardworking Englishman living and working in Brussels. The city, which William finds too "cosmopolitan," becomes the site of his zealous self-exploration as he mingles, ever defensively, with the locals.5 Approaching the city like "a morning traveller," as he puts it, William must analyze his foreignness if he is to survive his own residual and aspirational Englishness.6 The phrase "morning traveller" is drawn from Robert Southey's 1798 poem "The Traveller's Return," which describes love as an echo-effect. It is a very auditory poem: Southey's "morning traveller" spends the day listening to unfamiliar sounds, until, in the evening, he hears a "distant sheep-bell," which teaches him that "sweetest is the voice of Love / That welcomes his return."7 A sheep bell is, of course, a tracking mechanism, facilitating the free movement and eventual return of sheep to a shepherd. Southey's speaker learns to grasp the hidden similarity between love and the sheep bell. Just as the sound of the bell goes away and comes back, signifying the wandering and return of livestock, the human "morning traveller" must begin to identify with it. He himself, hearing the sound, gets interpellated by it, once it becomes his objective correlative. Brontë's The Professor, in matters of love, uses Romantic poetry, including Southey's, as a similar tracking device for William. The echo it produces constantly and ambivalently connects the protagonist to England and secures his place within the ideological apparatuses of the state.Judith Butler has observed that "my own foreignness to myself is, paradoxically, the source of my ethical connection with others."8 She explains that because there are aspects of oneself that remain forever baffling and inexplicable, we should suppose that other people—who can also seem foreign and inexplicable—contain similar aporias. If their accounts of themselves are difficult for us to understand, we should recognize, through our inability to sympathize, that we too are surely baffling and that they, like us, are likely also baffling to themselves. Thus, [End Page 31] through the sheer dubiousness of understanding other people, we can achieve a kind of negative shared humanity. We all probably confront an inassimilable kernel... (shrink)

William Scott Douglas's six volume edition of Burns's work is the most oustanding of all the nineteenth century editions in terms of completeness and scholarship. The first three volumes contain Burn's poetry, and the prose works in the final volumes include some sixty-eight previously unpublished letters or parts of letters.

In “Unity of Action in a Latin Social Model of the Trinity,” I objected to William Hasker’s Social Model of the Trinity on the grounds that it does not secure the necessary agreement between the divine persons. Further, I developed a Latin Social model of the Trinity. Hasker has responded by defending his Social Model and by raising seven objections against my Latin Social Model. Here I raise a new objection against Hasker on the grounds that it is inconsistent with (...) Conciliar Trinitarianism, and I respond to the seven objections and in so doing further develop the Latin Social Model. (shrink)

In the light of recent writings of Richard Pring, and in relation to the application of empirical research methods in education, this paper offers a corrective to a neo-realist viewpoint and develops a critical realist perspective. The argument is made that the deployment of empirical research methods needs to be underpinned by a meta-theory embracing epistemological and ontological elements; that this meta-theory does not commit one to the view that absolute knowledge of the social world is possible; and that critical (...) realism is the most appropriate meta-theory to underpin the use of empirical research methods. Further to this, unhelpful dualisms between quantitative and qualitative methodologies, and between structure and agency, are discussed in relation to neo-realist and critical realist perspectives. (shrink)

In the light of recent writings of Richard Pring, and in relation to the application of empirical research methods in education, this paper offers a corrective to a neo-realist viewpoint and develops a critical realist perspective. The argument is made that the deployment of empirical research methods needs to be underpinned by a meta-theory embracing epistemological and ontological elements; that this meta-theory does not commit one to the view that absolute knowledge of the social world is possible; and that critical (...) realism is the most appropriate meta-theory to underpin the use of empirical research methods. Further to this, unhelpful dualisms between quantitative and qualitative methodologies, and between structure and agency, are discussed in relation to neo-realist and critical realist perspectives. (shrink)

Kat Williams and Scott R. Stroud’s essay is about televised debates, but it is also about the value of television in a democracy. In Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman argues that television is devoid of serious content, that it is superficial. But while the debates contain superficialities, they also reveal substantive issues about the candidates, the electorate, and the state of our democracy.

GREEK IMPERIALISM IMPERIALISM AND THE CITY-STATE It is my purpose in this opening chapter to define some terms which I shall have to use repeatedly in the ...

The proposals gathered under the rubric of “Hilbert Problems” (HPs) demonstrate the progress, the disciplinary maturity, and the distinctive analytical potential of bio-cultural approaches to the study of religion. The HPs identify and investigate the ubiquitous evolutionary, cognitive, and neural processes that undergird the disparate array of religious phenomena. Many of the proposals offer fresh perspectives on conventional components of religion by connecting the study of religion to disciplines as diverse as psychiatry, semiotics, and statistics. In these ways, the HPs (...) demonstrate the naturalness of religion in the evolution of the human species. This short commentary briefly explores the issues of the definition of religion, religion and morality, the naturalistic basis for religious hermeneutics, and tradition-centered research and suggests ways in which the humanities can inform and enrich bio-cultural approaches. It proposes that collaboration between science and the humanities can advance research and help illuminate religion’s relevance to humanity’s lived experience. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 38.4 (2000) 503-528 [Access article in PDF] Occasionalism and Occasional Causation in Descartes' Philosophy David Scott University of Victoria According to Descartes, the physical world's contact with the mind is through the sense organs and the brain, although the mechanics of this contact is by no means clear. Indeed, for many the idea that the physical world can act upon the (...) mind at all is a complete mystery on Descartes' principles, not least because the difference between the spatial and divisible nature of body and the non-spatial and indivisible nature of mind seems to preclude the possibility of body-mind contact or of a mechanism for such contact.1 Despite this, however, Descartes repeatedly affirms that body and mind interact causally. He claims that the fact of their disparate natures poses no special difficulty, and he even affirms that the mind and body can form a union (in the case of the human being).2In this paper I wish to examine two issues pertaining to the body-mind relation in Descartes' philosophy. First, I ask whether Descartes advances body-mind occasionalism: is there evidence in his writings of the view that bodies are not genuine causes of sensations, but are mere 'occasions' for God's production of sensations? Recently, it has been urged that Descartes begins his career as a body-mind causal interactionist, but perhaps ends as an occasionalist.3 [End Page 503] In Section 1 of what follows I argue against this. I attempt to show both that Descartes never strays from the body-mind interactionism which he is generally thought to espouse, and that he would undermine his proof of the material world if he did. The second issue I deal with concerns a position closely related to occasionalism which Steven Nadler has recently identified as body-mind "occasional causation."4 In Section 2 of the following I provide an interpretation of occasional causation as it appears in Descartes' reply to Regius in the Comments on a Certain Broadsheet. I argue that Descartes' occasional causation amounts to a form of interactionism which I term "inefficacious body-mind transmissionism." 1. Does Descartes Espouse Body-Mind Occasionalism? 1.1. Daniel Garber's Case for Descartes' Move Toward Body-Mind Occasionalism Occasionalism, roughly defined, is a doctrine according to which God's will is the only genuine efficient or productive cause that exists, and all other so-called 'causes' are really just 'occasions' for the exercise of that will.5 As Daniel Garber understands the term in "Descartes and Occasionalism," an occasional cause is "a cause whose effect is produced through the activity of God," and not through the exercise of any causal power within finite things.6 Body-mind occasionalism is a logical inevitability in Descartes' philosophy, Garber claims, because for Descartes "God is responsible for all motion in the inanimate world."7 The idea is that because there is no causal action on the part of bodies, bodies cannot act causally on anything, let alone minds.8Because for Garber body-body occasionalism is "as clear as anything" in Descartes' philosophy, he sets out to find evidence in Descartes' writings for [End Page 504] the body-mind occasionalism which it implies. It is Garber's case for body-mind occasionalism that I contest below, where I argue that Descartes remains a body-mind interactionist throughout his life. Clearly, my assessment of Descartes puts me at odds with Garber's more general view that Descartes is a body-body occasionalist, at least on the assumption that Descartes has a logically consistent position on body-body and body-mind causation. For, to reiterate Garber's point, to be logically consistent overall Descartes cannot be both a body-body occasionalist and a body-mind interactionist. Of course, Garber and I need not be at odds on body-body occasionalism; for since we need not assume that Descartes is logically consistent, he and I could say that Descartes as a matter of historical fact holds both positions. Within the confines of... (shrink)

I develop a Latin Social model of the Trinity that is an extension of my previous article on indexicals and the Trinity. I focus on the theological desideratum of the necessity of the divine persons’ unity of action. After giving my account of this, I compare it with Swinburne’s and Hasker’s social models and Leftow’s non-social model. I argue that their accounts of the divine persons’ unity of action are theologically unsatisfactory and that this unsatisfactoriness derives from a modern conception (...) of personhood according to which distinct and incommunicable intellectual acts and volitional acts are necessary conditions for one’s being a person. I argue that the Latin Social model is preferable to the modern-personhood models because it is simpler in explanatory economy with regard to securing the necessity of the divine persons’ unity of action. (shrink)

Introduction: -/- It is likely that Boethius (480-524ce) inaugurates, in Latin Christian theology, the consideration of personhood as such. In the Treatise Against Eutyches and Nestorius Boethius gives a well-known definition of personhood according to genus and difference(s): a person is an individual substance of a rational nature. Personhood is predicated only of individual rational substances. This chapter situates Boethius in relation to significant Christian theologians before and after him, and the way in which his definition of personhood is a (...) particular answer to the question, “Jesus has two natures, a divine nature and a human nature, but is one what?” Among Greek (and Syriac) speaking theologians, the typical answer is that Jesus is one ‘hypostasis’. Among Latin speaking theologians, the typical answer is that Jesus is one ‘persona’. It is Boethius’s definition of ‘persona’ that inaugurates personhood as such in Latin speaking theology. Although the Greek and Syriac theologians that I survey come close to a concept of personhood as a distinct category, they do not have such a concept and did not need it for their theological purposes. I show that Rusticus the Deacon is an early witness to this Latin theological invention, and also show that for later Latin theologians, the rationality condition for personhood does very little metaphysical work for their Trinitarian theology or Christology. -/- Further, this chapter surveys Patristic and Medieval Christian theologians’ answers to the question, “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are one God, but each is one what?” The same replies as above are typically given by Christian theologians. These two theological questions frame the discussion about personhood (and ‘hypostasis’) and put a boundary around what a satisfying account of personhood (and ‘hypostasis’) would be. -/- In contemporary philosophy, there is a lot of attention paid to the rationality condition for personhood. But if we look at the text in which Boethius defines a person, we do not find any precise criteria for it. In other texts, he says that a rational being is one compatible with (capable of) thought and free choice of the will. What we find is that detailed discussion of personhood shows up in theological questions about the Trinity and Incarnation, but not in e.g., applied ethics. The intrusion of personhood into contemporary applied ethics with a focus on detailed and disputed criteria for rationality as a condition for personhood seems to be a modern development. From a Patristic and Medieval Christian theology point of view, trying to find just the right detailed criteria for rationality in order to define personhood is a wild goose chase. This chapter makes clear another contribution that Christian theology had for personhood. Given the theological issues at play in developing a notion of personhood, Christian theologians came to posit that e.g., an individual human is a person contingently (i.e. not essentially), but God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit are each a person essentially. The contingency for created persons is not based on whether e.g., an individual human has conscious acts (as might be the case for John Locke) but on the possibility of a divine person’s assuming e.g., an individual human nature. -/- This sampling of Christian intellectual history spans over one thousand years. I make no claim of being exhaustive. The chapter consists of six sections, where each section covers significant historical conversation partners who together represent the sorts of things that Patristic and Medieval Christian theologians where concerned with in theorizing about ‘persona’ or ‘hypostasis’. -/- 1. Origen of Alexandria and the Cappadocians: Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa 2. Miaphysites: Severus of Antioch, John Philoponus, and Peter of Callinicum 3. Boethius and Rusticus the Deacon: Rationality, Subsistence, and the Invention of Personhood 4. Neo-Chalcedonians (II): Leontius of Byzantium 5. Scholastic Neo-Chalcedonians (I): Gilbert of Poitiers, Richard of St. Victor, William of Auxerre, Alexander of Hales, Bonaventure, Thomas Aquinas, and William of Ware 6. Scholastic Neo-Chalcedonians (II): Henry of Ghent, John Duns Scotus, and William of Ockham . (shrink)

One of the most innovative and brilliant philosophers of his generation, but largely neglected until he was brought to public attention by Gilles Deleuze, Gilbert Simondon presents a challenge to nearly every category and method of traditional philosophy. Psychic and Collective Individuation is undoubtedly Simondon's most important work and its influence, clearly felt in Stiegler and DeLanda, has continued to grow. David Scott provides the first full introduction to this work, which will inspire as well as instruct philosophers (...) working in Continental thought, philosophy of science, social theory and political philosophy. (shrink)

There are two general routes that Augustine suggests in De Trinitate, XV, 14-16, 23-25, for a psychological account of the Father's intellectual generation of the Word. Thomas Aquinas and Henry of Ghent, in their own ways, follow the first route; John Duns Scotus follows the second. Aquinas, Henry, and Scotus's psychological accounts entail different theological opinions. For example, Aquinas (but neither Henry nor Scotus) thinks that the Father needs the Word to know the divine essence. If we compare the theological (...) views entailed by their psychologies we find a trajectory from Aquinas, through Henry, and ending with Scotus. This theological trajectory falsifies a judgment that every Augustinian psychology of the divine persons amounts to a pre-Nicene functional Trinitarianism. This study makes clear how one's awareness of the theological views entailed by these psychologies enables one to assess more thoroughly psychological accounts of the identity and distinction of the divine persons. (shrink)

I argue that there is a hitherto unrecognized connection between Henry of Ghent’s general theory of real relations and his Trinitarian theology, namely the notion of numerical sameness without identity. A real relation (relatio) is numerically the same thing (res) as its absolute (non-relative) foundation, without being identical to its foundation. This not only holds for creaturely real relations but also for the divine persons’ distinguishing real relations. A divine person who is constituted by a real relation (relatio) and the (...) divine essence is numerically the same thing (res) as the divine essence without being identical to it. Further, I compare Mark Henninger’s and Jos Decorte’s interpretations of Henry’s general theory of real relations and show that Henninger’s is to be preferred and how it is consistent with my interpretation. I argue that the difficulty with Decorte’s interpretation stems, in part, from his misrepresentation of Henry’s Trinitarian theology. Subsequently, I fill in some missing pieces to Decorte’s presentation of Henry’s Trinitarian theology, and this in turn shows why Henninger’s interpretation in conjunction with mine is to be preferred. (shrink)

For decades now some Christian theologians, and some philosophers of religion, have labored at distinguishing Social Trinitarianism and non-Social Trinitarianism. Many have revised their models of the Trinity in light of counter-arguments or counter-evidence. For Christian theologians, or philosophers of religion, what counts as a good counter-argument or counter-evidence may (but need not) depend on respected theological authorities. Recently, some focus has been paid to what is called Conciliar Trinitarianism, which is the name for whatever is endorsed by, or rejected (...) by, the first seven ecumenical councils regarding the Trinity. For those who respect these ecumenical councils as authoritative (to some extent), it would be useful to get a clearer understanding of Conciliar Trinitarianism in order to assist in evaluating contemporary models of the Trinity. In what follows I argue that the Sixth Ecumenical Council (Constantinople III, in 680-681ce) made important contributions, and clarifications (for the contemporary reader), to Conciliar Trinitarianism. Surprisingly, there is no secondary literature regarding these contributions. So, the historical evidence given in this article is evidence that almost nobody has been aware of - apart from the editors of the critical edition of the Acts of Constantinople III. After having made the historical case, I discuss the implications of Constantinople III for (i) our understanding of the place of the Pseudo-Athanasian creed in Trinitarian speculation, (ii) standard narratives about the division between Greek and Latin Trinitarian theology, and (iii) contemporary models of the Trinity. (shrink)

In “Unity of Action in a Latin Social Model of the Trinity,” I objected to William Hasker’s Social Model of the Trinity (among others) on the grounds that it does not secure the necessary agreement between the divine persons. Further, I developed a Latin Social model of the Trinity. Hasker has responded by defending his Social Model and by raising seven objections against my Latin Social Model. Here I raise a new objection against Hasker on the grounds that it is (...) inconsistent with Conciliar Trinitarianism, and I respond to the seven objections and in so doing further develop the Latin Social Model. (shrink)

DIVUses C.L.R. James’sThe Black Jacobins as a jumping-off point for a reconsideration of colonial and postcolonial concepts of history, politics, and agency./div.

Marilyn Adams rightly pointed out that there are many kinds of evil, some of which are horrendous. I claim that one species of horrendous evil is what I call horrendous-difference disabilities. I distinguish two subspecies of horrendous-difference disabilities based in part on the temporal relation between one’s rational moral wishing for a certain human function F and its being thwarted by intrinsic and extrinsic conditions. Next, I offer a theodicy for each subspecies of horrendous-difference disability. Although I appeal to some (...) claims made by Marilyn Adams for this theodicy, I reject one particular claim. I deny that one must be aware that one participates in a horrendous evil when the horrific event occurs. To develop this point and its relevance for a theodicy for horrendous-difference disabilities, I engage with Andrew Chignell’s work on infant suffering. In doing so, I show that what partly motivates the claim is a time-bias, i.e., near-bias. By rejecting this time-bias, I show how it is possible, given post-mortem life, for persons with profound cognitive disabilities to participate in horrendous evils and how these might be defeated by God. (shrink)

Introduction and initial thoughts -- Critical realism and empirical research methods in education -- Resolving the quantitative-qualitative divide -- Epistemic relativism, ontological realism, and the possibility of judgemental rationality -- Educational judgements : epistemic, parasitic and external criteria -- Judgemental rationality -- Empirical indicators and causal narratives -- Structure and agency : key ontological concepts -- Educational critique -- Arbitrary and non-arbitrary knowledge.

It is understandable that Ewen Whitaker developed an interest in the history of mapping and naming the moon. As a participant in the Apollo missions and a member of the Task Group of Lunar Nomenclature of the International Astronomical Union, he was himself directly involved in conflicts between representatives of different countries over naming newly discovered lunar features. In an effort to understand the passions surrounding current controversies more completely, his book examines their origin and development from the seventeenth century (...) to the present.Whitaker's account, written without footnotes for the general reader, proceeds in a strictly chronological fashion. As he makes clear, the key event in the history of lunar mapping and nomenclature was the discovery and application of the telescope to increasing knowledge of the moon's features. Mapping and naming thus became important issues in the wake of Galileo's observations. Accordingly, the first part of Whitaker's study, which deals with the period from prehistory to 1651, is the longest and most important of its four sections. By 1651, with the publication of Francesco Grimaldi's map and the application of Giovanni Riccioli's nomenclature, a fairly detailed and accurate picture of the moon's surface features had become available.The second part of Whitaker's account carries the story to the beginning of the Victorian period and features the creation of a new lunar map based on the work of Johann Mädler and Wilhelm Beer. In Parts 3 and 4, which together are shorter than either of the first two sections, Whitaker focuses on such key developments as the emergence of photography and the creation of international organizations to settle disputes over nomenclature. By 1935, a committee of the International Astronomical Union had reached agreement on a map and the naming of surface features. However, the further explorations of the space age dramatically increased the work of mappers by providing the first photographs of the far side of the moon and revealing new features on the near side.The most compelling facet of Whitaker's study are the 112 reproductions of drawings and photographs of the moon from the seventeenth century to the present, which, taken together, constitute a rich visual history of efforts to portray lunar features for the public and for scientists. In addition, detailed appendixes, arranged in chronological order, provide lists of new names of lunar features as assigned by the most influential mappers of the lunar surface from Michiel Van Langren to the NASA Catalogue of Lunar Nomenclature.While Whitaker limits himself strictly to matters of mapping and nomenclature, his study has already been useful to other historians of lunar exploration, including Scott Montgomery and William Sheehan and Thomas Dobbins . Montgomery seeks to explain how political and aesthetic factors shaped the portrayal of lunar features and thus the drawing of maps and the naming of surface features up to 1651, while Sheehan and Dobbins move beyond mapping and nomenclature to consider controversies over the possible existence of life on the moon and the conflict surrounding the origin of lunar craters by volcanic activity or meteor impact. Whitaker's study, however, provides a unique record of the development of our image of the moon's surface over a period of more than three centuries. (shrink)

I argue that, in his effort to overcome causation as an obstacle to agency or free will, Raymond Tallis’ self-described “Humean” re-working of David Hume’s analysis of causation falters on historicotextual and conceptual grounds.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Leibniz and the Two ClocksDavid ScottAnyone familiar with Leibniz’s philosophy in general and with his critique of occasionalism in particular is likely familiar with his example of two clocks. Generally speaking, the example illustrates a range of hypotheses that, according to Leibniz, might possibly explain the connections between substances in the world. The most important of these hypotheses are Leibniz’s own doctrine of the preestablished harmony and the occasionalist—for (...) present purposes, Malebranche’s—doctrine of causation. In Leibniz’s mind at least, the two clocks example (so-called because substances are represented by two clocks) illustrates the superiority of the hypothesis of the preestablished harmony over occasionalism. Whether the example in fact succeeds in this regard is the primary question of this paper.Given the times, Leibniz’s choice of example is understandable. A clock is ideally suited to represent a mechanism, of course; and in view of the general “mechanization of the world view” of that time, the example seems to have been in the air.1 Spring-driven clocks had appeared at the outset of the sixteenth century, and the kind of clock Leibniz seems to have in mind in his example, namely, one driven by a pendulum, was the invention, in about 1656, of Christian Huygens, who was a significant influence on Leibniz. Huygens’s invention in fact provided the impetus for a broadening of the importance and extent of horology.2Although Leibniz’s choice of example was understandable, it was not a happy one, and the general importunity of his use of this example was [End Page 445] recognized by both his contemporary critics and his subsequent commentators.3 In fact his choice of the example becomes almost ironic when it is recalled that Geulincx, who is most commonly associated with the example, was an occasionalist. The operations of two clocks, between which there is a constant and fixed relation, say, of keeping the same time, cannot normally be said to be “related.” The example is more intuitively taken to indicate the random, accidental, unnecessary, and unconnected nature of the otherwise constant and regular relation between the clocks; and so one would think the example more suited to an occasionalist’s position than to that of Leibniz.In what follows I aim to judge the effectiveness—in Leibniz’s own terms—of the two clocks example. In gauging the effectiveness of Leibniz’s use of the example, I expect that a few things can be learned about Leibniz’s system in general and about his critique of occasionalism in particular. My procedure will be to examine separately what I take to be four significant occasions in which Leibniz compares things or substances in the world and clocks. The passages in question date from a period spanning ten years, and in each instance the example is put to service in Leibniz’s attempt to better occasionalism.Beyond this, although the comparison is employed or appraised in slightly different ways each time, the uses to which it is put are basically two. In the first two instances examined below, it is employed primarily to distinguish the preestablished harmony from occasionalism. I will be arguing that, to the extent that it fails to illustrate his point, Leibniz fails adequately to distinguish these two doctrines. This was Arnauld’s criticism.4 In the third and fourth instances, however, the example is employed solely to illustrate certain features of the preestablished harmony. On my analysis, it does not appear to fulfill this role either. [End Page 446]First Use of the ExampleOne of the more well known statements of the two clocks example is from an explanation Leibniz gives to Basnage de Beauval in 1696 of his “New System” (1695):Imagine two clocks or watches which are in perfect agreement. Now this can happen in three ways. The first is that of a natural influence.... The second way of making two clocks, even poor ones, agree is always to assign a skilled craftsman to them who adjusts them and constantly sets them in agreement. The third way is to construct these two timepieces at the beginning with such skill and accuracy that one can... (shrink)

This volume offers a critical appreciation of the work of 16 leading curriculum theorists through critical expositions of their writings. Written by a leading name in Curriculum Studies, the book includes a balance of established curriculum thinkers and contemporary curriculum analysts from education as well as philosophy, sociology and psychology. With theorists from the UK, the US and Europe, there is also a spread of political perspectives from radical conservatism through liberalism to socialism and libertarianism. Theorists included are: John Dewey, (...) Lev Vygotsky, Ralph Tyler, Joseph Schwab, Jerome Bruner, Maxine Greene, Basil Bernstein, Micheal Foucault, Paul Hirst, Donald Schon, Lawrence Stenhouse, Elliott Eisner, John White, Michael Apple, Henry Giroux and Robin Usher. This book is ideal for students looking for an introduction to some of the key educational thinkers of our time. It can also be used as a companion volume to the Routledge four-volume set on Curriculum Theory , 2003, which is also edited by David Scott. (shrink)

WilliamsThe disagreement between William Hasker and myself includes discussion of Gregory of Nyssa’s Trinitarian theology, the relevance of Conciliar Trinitarianism for evaluating models of the Trinity, and the defensibility of my Latin Social model of the Trinity. I respond to Hasker’s recent objections regarding all three areas. I contest Hasker’s interpretation of Gregory and argue that Gregory is indeed a “one-power” theorist. I make historical connections between Gregory’s Trinitarian theology and Pope Agatho’s “one-power” statements that were endorsed by the Sixth (...) Ecumenical Council (680-681ce); and I make explicit the Sixth Ecumenical Council’s interest in the general issue of how “ousia” and “hypostasis” pertain to the Trinity and the Incarnation. Lastly, I defend and develop the Latin Social model in response to Hasker’s five objections. In light of my findings in the Sixth Council, I retire the name “Latin Social Trinity” for my model and replace it with a name more apt for my model, that is, the “Conciliar Social Trinity.”. (shrink)

As evidenced in literature, physicians vary in their emotional devotion to patients. John Steinbeck's physicians are aloof. The doctors of William Carlos Williams and Richard Selzer form strong, complicated, emotional attachments to their patients. These attachments allow them to live fuller, more sensuous lives, without interfering with their proper functioning as healthcare providers. F. Scott Fitzgerald's Dr. Diver overly commits himself to a patient and suffers the consequences. The present-day physician can help modulate his own emotional connections to patients (...) by examining these literary models. (shrink)