Prologue, invitation to thinking about God In the Hebrew Bible? -- Part I, questions about God? -- Why does God in the Bible have a body? -- What do God's body parts in the Bible mean? -- Why is God angry in the Bible? -- Does God in the Bible have gender or sexuality? -- Part II, questions about God in the world? -- What can creation tell us about God? -- Who-or what-is the Satan? -- Why do people suffer (...) according to the Hebrew Bible? -- Epilogue, God in the Bible and beyond. (shrink)

Smith outlines the distinctive features of ecological thought and examines two contentious areas of environmental ethics, the obligations for present generations and the relationship of humans to non-human animals.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Socrates Dissatisfied: An Analysis of Plato’s Crito by Roslyn WeissMark L. McPherranRoslyn Weiss. Socrates Dissatisfied: An Analysis of Plato’s Crito. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997. Pp. xii + 187. Cloth, $39.95.The speech by ‘the Laws’ of the Crito has commonly been understood as a case of Socratic ventriloquism, voicing a doctrine of authoritarian civic obligation that Socrates himself endorses. This, of course, generates the standard problem of (...) reconciling this docile son of Athens with the radically autonomous Socrates of the Apology, a man obedient only to the dictates of his own reason. Roslyn Weiss’s book sets out to challenge this mainstream reading.On Weiss’s account, the speech of the Laws is a piece of crafty Socratic rhetoric antithetical to Socrates’ own convictions. Its purpose, then, is to convince not the reader but the lawless and unphilosophical Crito that Socrates ought to remain in Athens, using terms that Crito can comprehend (terms that will benefit his soul by making him more law-abiding). Despite this false ‘oratory’ (50b6–8), however, Socrates’ own first allegiance is to “justice and philosophy” (3) whose principles dictate that he suffer the court’s judgment, “abiding by the things agreed to” at his trial (Cr. 50a2–3).Although others have argued for this thesis, this is the first book-length argument of its kind and it supersedes all previous attempts in its persuasiveness and its thorough and detailed treatment: sensitive not only to the dialogue’s Greek and argumentative structure, but also to its literary/characterological nuances, it establishes an important scholarly outpost on the interpretation of the Crito and a worthy challenge to Richard Kraut’s reading. It is, finally, written in a remarkably engaging, clean and effective style, addressing the secondary scholarship adequately, and providing a useful bibliography and general index (though, regrettably, no Index Locorum).The book essentially follows the text of the Crito in a series of nine chapters. After a short Introduction, Chapter 2 begins by portraying Socrates as an autonomous moral agent utterly devoted to justice; Chapter 3 distinguishes Crito from Socrates; Chapter 4 contends that 46b–50a outlines Socrates’ complete argument against escape (one compatible with the principles of the Apology); Chapter 5 unpacks Socrates’ hint at 50a–d that the Laws will be offering only rhetorical arguments; Chapter 6 outlines these arguments and their logical flaws; Chapter 7 addresses Socrates’ characterization of their effect as ‘Corybantic’ (54d); Chapter 8 explains how the Laws are able to “boost Crito to a higher rung on the moral ladder,” (6); and finally, Chapter 9 reaffirms the radical moral independence of Socrates.Provocative and impressive, the book is bound to provoke criticism and reservations in its readers. Here I can only record a sample of my own. First, it seems to me that Weiss’s desire to portray Socrates as a slave of reason and not the state leads her astray when she tries to account for Socrates’ apparent reliance on the extrarational (15–23). Weiss, for example, tries to map out a new third alternative to the opposition between Vlastos’ view that the daimonion is no more than a kind of subjective, contentless hunch and the Brickhouse, Smith and McPherran view that the daimonion can oppose and ‘trump’ the results of rational deliberation. As she sees it, for Socrates the daimonion is not a voice independent of, and in potential conflict with, his own thinking; rather, it is the voice of his own unconscious beliefs, restraining him for his own reasons from [End Page 620] doing what he is tempted to do in moments of weakness. There is much to be said against this account, but it will suffice to point out that whatever the true nature of the daimonion might have been, Socrates is not likely to have been sympathetic to Weiss’s analysis of it. All our evidence, after all, indicates that Socrates takes the cause of the daimonion to be a god or daimoôn in the traditional sense of those terms (see, e.g., Ap. 27b–28a). Weiss’s proposal also runs up against texts such as Lysis 218C4–8 and 215C4–5, where Socrates recounts an... (shrink)

On the back of recent high-profile cases, the subject of internet pornography has become the focus of media and political attention. Social workers are increasingly likely to be drawn into this issue through requirements to provide courts with reports or taking child protection decisions relating to clients' use of child or, potentially, extreme pornography. Within a risk paradigm, they may look for answers based on technical and ‘scientific’ knowledge. We argue here that pornography is, first and foremost, an ethical issue. (...) This article offers a preliminary exploration of some of the ethical issues it raises. We take as a starting point that whatever we might personally think about it, pornography is a fact of everyday life. Yet, in the current political and social climate it has become deeply moralised. We argue that social workers might legitimately adopt a range of value positions in relation to pornography that these need to be opened up to ethical debate. (shrink)

Emotion, Sense, Experience calls on historians of emotions and the senses to come together in serious and sustained dialogue. The Element outlines the deep if largely unacknowledged genealogy of historical writing insisting on a braided history of emotions and the senses; explains why recent historical treatments have sometimes profitably but nonetheless unhelpfully segregated the emotions from the senses; and makes a compelling case for the heuristic and interpretive dividends of bringing emotions and sensory history into conversation. Ultimately, we envisage a (...) new way of understanding historical lived experience generally, as a mutable product of a situated world-brain-body dynamic. Such a project necessarily points us towards new interdisciplinary engagement and collaboration, especially with social neuroscience. Unpicking some commonly held assumptions about affective and sensory experience, we re-imagine the human being as both biocultural and historical, reclaiming the analysis of human experience from biology and psychology and seeking new collaborative efforts. (shrink)

The 1920s and 30s were key decades for the history of American social science. The success of such quantitative disciplines as economics and psychology during World War I forced social scientists to reexamine their methods and practices and to consider recasting their field as a more objective science separated from its historical foundation in social reform. The debate that ensued, fiercely conducted in books, articles, correspondence, and even presidential addresses, made its way into every aspect of social science thought of (...) the period and is the subject of this book. Mark C. Smith first provides a historical overview of the controversy over the nature and future of the social sciences in early twentieth-century America and, then through a series of intellectual biographies, offers an intensive study of the work and lives of major figures who participated in this debate. Using an extensive range of materials, from published sources to manuscript collections, Smith examines "objectivists"--economist Wesley Mitchell and political scientist Charles Merriam--and the more "purposive thinkers"--historian Charles Beard, sociologist Robert Lynd, and political scientist and neo-Freudian Harold Lasswell. He shows how the debate over objectivity and social purpose was central to their professional and personal lives as well as to an understanding of American social science between the two world wars. These biographies bring to vivid life a contentious moment in American intellectual history and reveal its significance in the shaping of social science in this country. (shrink)

I offer a reading of the role of freedom in Descartes’ Meditations and other writings that sees freedom’s role in “assenting to ideas” as a matter of psychological possibility, and its role in acti...

Although the emotional and motivational characteristics of dreaming have figured prominently in folk and psychoanalytic conceptions of dream production, emotions have rarely been systematically studied, and motivation, never. Because emotions during sleep lack the somatic components of waking emotions, and they change as the sleeper awakens, their properties are difficult to assess. Recent evidence of limbic system activation during REM sleep suggests a basis in brain architecture for the interaction of motivational and cognitive properties in dreaming. Motivational and emotional content (...) in REM and NREM laboratory mentation reports from 25 participants were compared. Motivational and emotional content was significantly greater in REM than NREM sleep, even after controlling for the greater word count of REM reports. (shrink)

From environmental justice to environmental citizenship -- Citizens, citizenship and citizenization -- Rethinking environment and citizenship : ecological citizenship as a politics of obligation and virtues -- Environmental governance, social movements and citizenship in a global -- Context -- Corporate responsibility and environmental sustainability -- Environmental borderlands -- Insiders and outsiders in environmental mobilizations in Southeast Asia -- Citizenship generation, NGO campaigns and community-based research -- Acting and changing through lived experience : the new vocabulary of ecological citizenship, a new (...) research strategy. (shrink)

Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Organisational strategy -- Finance and economics -- Organisational behaviour -- Marketing and innovation -- HRM and employee relations -- Epilogue.

The purpose of the paper is to introduce a recursive model of ecological discursive sustainability, as it applies to and emerges from the history of an after-school program partnership between the School of Education at the University of Delaware, USA and the Latin American Community Center in Wilmington, Delaware, USA. This model is characterized by the development of shared ownership and collaboration between the institutional partners, the co-evolution and crossfertilization of the partners’ practices and the negotiation of institutional boundaries and (...) structures. This model was developed by analyzing dialogic discourses across six diverse ecological domains of the partnership. The purpose of the paper is to introduce a recursive model of ecological discursive sustainability, as it applies to and emerges from the history of an after-school program partnership between the School of Education at the University of Delaware and the Latin American Community Center in Wilmington, Delaware. This model is characterized by the development of shared ownership and collaboration between the institutional partners, the co-evolution and cross-fertilization of the partners' practices and the negotiation of institutional boundaries and structures. This model was developed by analyzing dialogic discourses across six diverse ecological domains of the partnership. (shrink)

According to the Bible, ancient Israel's neighbors worshipped a wide variety of gods. In recent years, scholars have sought a better understanding of this early polytheistic milieu and its relation to Yahweh, the God of Israel. Drawing on ancient Ugaritic texts and looking closely at Ugaritic deities, Mark Smith examines the meaning of "divinity" in the ancient near East and considers how this concept applies to Yahweh.

The papyrus was discovered in the temple library of Tebtunis and dates to the early second century AD. It accords a prominent position to the Primaeval Ocean ...

Dans cet article je propose d'exprimer et de défendre une conception des pratiques et du domaine de discours mathématiques qui soit sensible, d'une part, au pluralisme des relations entre pratiques inférentielles et intérêts, et d'autre part, à la structure objective et déterminante des concepts mathématiques. J'ébauche tout d'abord une caractérisation générale des pratiques, pour ensuite préciser certains phénomènes propres aux pratiques mathématiques. Suit un recensement des idées qui se dégagent des arguments pluralistes, et de celles qui sont à retenir. Mais (...) je défends par la suite la nécessité d'une forme de réalisme mathématique, qui toutefois ne peut être le réalisme d'objets que prônent les partisans de l'argument d'indispensabilité. Je défends plutôt un réalisme des concepts, soutenu par ce que je baptise l'« argument de la contrainte ». (shrink)

Dans cet article je propose d'exprimer et de défendre une conception des pratiques et du domaine de discours mathématiques qui soit sensible, d'une part, au pluralisme des relations entre pratiques inférentielles et intérêts, et d'autre part, à la structure objective et déterminante des concepts mathématiques. J'ébauche tout d'abord une caractérisation générale des pratiques, pour ensuite préciser certains phénomènes propres aux pratiques mathématiques. Suit un recensement des idées qui se dégagent des arguments pluralistes, et de celles qui sont à retenir. Mais (...) je défends par la suite la nécessité d'une forme de réalisme mathématique, qui toutefois ne peut être le réalisme d'objets que prônent les partisans de l'argument d'indispensabilité. Je défends plutôt un réalisme des concepts, soutenu par ce que je baptise l'« argument de la contrainte ». (shrink)

This is a comprehensive and authoritative reference collection in the philosophy and methodology of the social sciences. The source materials selected are drawn from debates within the natural sciences as well as social scientific practice. This four volume set covers the traditional literature on the philosophy of the social sciences, and the contemporary philosophical and methodological debates developing at the heart of the disciplinary and interdisciplinary groups in the social sciences. It addresses the needs of researchers and academics who are (...) grappling with the relationship between questions of knowledge construction and the problems of social scientific method. (shrink)

One problem facing Hockney and Falco is the lack of evidence among optical sources to support their claim that artists used image-projection by the early 1400s. After all, if quattrocento artists knew about image-projection, they must have learned about it from experts in the field, and no one was more expert at the time than Perspectivist opticians. As I argue in this paper, however, Perspectivist reflection-analysis posed certain theoretical and conceptual constraints that would have prevented Perspectivist opticians from recognizing, much (...) less understanding, image-projection. Their silence on this matter is therefore not evidence against the Hockney-Falco thesis. (shrink)

Through their psalms, the pilgrims of ancient Israel created a view of the world and of God that today remains central to the faith and life of the church.