A memory of John -- Wonder -- Meister Eckhart -- Landscape -- Absence -- Dawn -- Mass -- Balance -- Ageing -- Death -- Postscript.

Platonic love is a concept that has profoundly shaped Western literature, philosophy and intellectual history for centuries. First developed in the Symposium and the Phaedrus, it was taken up by subsequent thinkers in antiquity, entered the theological debates of the Middle Ages, and played a key role in the reception of Neoplatonism and the etiquette of romantic relationships during the Italian Renaissance. In this wide-ranging reference work, a leading team of international specialists examines the Platonic distinction between higher and lower (...) forms of eros, the role of the higher form in the ascent of the soul and the concept of Beauty. They also treat the possibilities for friendship and interpersonal love in a Platonic framework, as well as the relationship between love, rhetoric and wisdom. Subsequent developments are explored in Plutarch, Plotinus, Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, Eriugena, Aquinas, Ficino, della Mirandola, Castiglione and the contra amorem tradition. (shrink)

Western philosophy’s relationship with prisons stretches from Plato’s own incarceration to the modern era of mass incarceration. Philosophy Imprisoned: The Love of Wisdom in the Age of Mass Incarceration draws together a broad range of philosophical thinkers, from both inside and outside prison walls, in the United States and beyond, who draw on a variety of critical perspectives (including phenomenology, deconstruction, and feminist theory) and historical and contemporary figures in philosophy (including Kant, Hegel, Foucault, and Angela Davis) to think (...) about prisons in this new historical era. All of these contributors have experiences within prison walls: some are or have been incarcerated, some have taught or are teaching in prisons, and all have been students of both philosophy and the carceral system. The powerful testimonials and theoretical arguments are appropriate reading not only for philosophers and prison theorists generally, but also for prison reformers and abolitionists. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Lost Sutras of Jesus: Unlocking the Ancient Wisdom of the Xian Monks, and: The Buddha's Gospel: A Buddhist Interpretation of Jesus' WordsJohn D'Arcy MayThe Lost Sutras of Jesus: Unlocking the Ancient Wisdom of the Xian Monks. Edited by Ray Riegert and Thomas Moore. London: Souvenir Press, 2004. 140 + xi pp.The Buddha's Gospel: A Buddhist Interpretation of Jesus' Words. By Lindsay Falvey. Adelaide: Institute for (...) International Development, 2002. 108 pp.Since Roy C. Amore's Two Masters, One Message (1987) revived the hypothesis of Buddhist influence on Christian origins and Hans-Joachim Klimkeit's research established links between Nestorian Christianity, Gnostic Manichaeism, and Mahayana Buddhism in Central Asia, there is scope for further reflection on commonalities between the two traditions over and above the purely doctrinal and philosophical. The two books under review, though intended for a general readership, are indications that interest in these matters is very much alive.Riegert and Moore preface their selection of texts with the story of Bishop Aleben (A-lo-pen), who travelled the Silk Road from Persia and was received with honour at the imperial capital of Xian (Chang-an) at the beginning of the Tang dynasty (635 CE). The emperor Taizong was sympathetic to what he called the "Luminous Religion," a Nestorian version of Christianity, possibly in Syriac, as presented by Aleben. It seems that these teachings were translated into Chinese in the form of sutras. One of them, preserved in stone as the Monument Sutra, features the cross rising from the lotus, the symbol chosen by Karl Reichelt for Tao-fung Shan, his Christian center in Buddhist style at Sha-tin outside Hong Kong, many centuries later. Thousands of Buddhist texts were preserved in the library cave at Dunhuang monastery, about one thousand miles west of Xian, where they were rediscovered by the Taoist priest Wang Yuanlu, who arrived there in the 1890s and became the self-appointed guardian of the scrolls.Included in this treasure trove were the Jesus Sutras, which are now scattered in museums and private collections, largely inaccessible to the public. But if the selection published here in a very elegant translation is anything to go by, they are [End Page 190] extremely significant religious documents with a spiritual value all their own. For the uninitiated, there is no way of checking the authenticity of these translations. The commentaries that accompany them could be slightly tendentious in that they nudge us in the direction of the editors' particular holistic worldview. But the texts themselves have a beauty and integrity that speaks for itself. They represent a Higher Dharma of perfect purity (p. 86), which, like a mirror, reflects the world with no trace of self: no desire, no action, no virtue, no truth (pp. 80–83, 126–129). The Jesus story is retold, and Jesus is portrayed as the teacher of this Higher Path. The sutras speak of One Spirit who is self-created, One God who is creator of the world, and One Lord, the Messiah who will return. There are prayers, too: "O Loving Father, Enlightened Son, Holy Spirit King"; "Lamb of Love and Bliss"; "O Holy Sage, Universal Lord, Messiah" (pp. 110–113). The texts obviously bear witness to a Buddhist-Christian dialogue much earlier and at a far deeper level than many would have thought possible. Whether they represent the religion of the future, as the editors suggest, remains to be seen.Lindsay Falvey's project of interpreting the canonical texts of Buddhism and Christianity in reference to one another has a similar orientation. In the course of agricultural development work in Thailand he came to realize "that the striking similarity between the two teachers may well be a seamless cloak of congruence beneath the mantle of culture and lore" (p. 13); the texts, in other words, may be quite literally translatable into one another's terms. Though aware that Q, the collection of Jesus' sayings that is supposed to have been available to the synoptic evangelists, is a hypothetical reconstruction, he still feels able to use a version of it as a basis for his experiment. He prefaces this with what he calls "A... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Lost Sutras of Jesus: Unlocking the Ancient Wisdom of the Xian Monks, and: The Buddha's Gospel: A Buddhist Interpretation of Jesus' WordsJohn D'Arcy MayThe Lost Sutras of Jesus: Unlocking the Ancient Wisdom of the Xian Monks. Edited by Ray Riegert and Thomas Moore. London: Souvenir Press, 2004. 140 + xi pp.The Buddha's Gospel: A Buddhist Interpretation of Jesus' Words. By Lindsay Falvey. Adelaide: Institute for (...) International Development, 2002. 108 pp.Since Roy C. Amore's Two Masters, One Message (1987) revived the hypothesis of Buddhist influence on Christian origins and Hans-Joachim Klimkeit's research established links between Nestorian Christianity, Gnostic Manichaeism, and Mahayana Buddhism in Central Asia, there is scope for further reflection on commonalities between the two traditions over and above the purely doctrinal and philosophical. The two books under review, though intended for a general readership, are indications that interest in these matters is very much alive.Riegert and Moore preface their selection of texts with the story of Bishop Aleben (A-lo-pen), who travelled the Silk Road from Persia and was received with honour at the imperial capital of Xian (Chang-an) at the beginning of the Tang dynasty (635 CE). The emperor Taizong was sympathetic to what he called the "Luminous Religion," a Nestorian version of Christianity, possibly in Syriac, as presented by Aleben. It seems that these teachings were translated into Chinese in the form of sutras. One of them, preserved in stone as the Monument Sutra, features the cross rising from the lotus, the symbol chosen by Karl Reichelt for Tao-fung Shan, his Christian center in Buddhist style at Sha-tin outside Hong Kong, many centuries later. Thousands of Buddhist texts were preserved in the library cave at Dunhuang monastery, about one thousand miles west of Xian, where they were rediscovered by the Taoist priest Wang Yuanlu, who arrived there in the 1890s and became the self-appointed guardian of the scrolls.Included in this treasure trove were the Jesus Sutras, which are now scattered in museums and private collections, largely inaccessible to the public. But if the selection published here in a very elegant translation is anything to go by, they are [End Page 190] extremely significant religious documents with a spiritual value all their own. For the uninitiated, there is no way of checking the authenticity of these translations. The commentaries that accompany them could be slightly tendentious in that they nudge us in the direction of the editors' particular holistic worldview. But the texts themselves have a beauty and integrity that speaks for itself. They represent a Higher Dharma of perfect purity (p. 86), which, like a mirror, reflects the world with no trace of self: no desire, no action, no virtue, no truth (pp. 80–83, 126–129). The Jesus story is retold, and Jesus is portrayed as the teacher of this Higher Path. The sutras speak of One Spirit who is self-created, One God who is creator of the world, and One Lord, the Messiah who will return. There are prayers, too: "O Loving Father, Enlightened Son, Holy Spirit King"; "Lamb of Love and Bliss"; "O Holy Sage, Universal Lord, Messiah" (pp. 110–113). The texts obviously bear witness to a Buddhist-Christian dialogue much earlier and at a far deeper level than many would have thought possible. Whether they represent the religion of the future, as the editors suggest, remains to be seen.Lindsay Falvey's project of interpreting the canonical texts of Buddhism and Christianity in reference to one another has a similar orientation. In the course of agricultural development work in Thailand he came to realize "that the striking similarity between the two teachers may well be a seamless cloak of congruence beneath the mantle of culture and lore" (p. 13); the texts, in other words, may be quite literally translatable into one another's terms. Though aware that Q, the collection of Jesus' sayings that is supposed to have been available to the synoptic evangelists, is a hypothetical reconstruction, he still feels able to use a version of it as a basis for his experiment. He prefaces this with what he calls "A... (shrink)

This book explores patient safety themes in developed, developing and transitioning countries. A foundation premise is the concept of 'reverse innovation' as mutual learning from the chapters challenges traditional assumptions about the construction and location of knowledge. This edited collection can be seen to facilitate global learning. This book will, hopefully, form a bridge for those countries seeking to enhance their patient safety policies. Contributors to this book challenge many supposed generalisations about human societies, including consideration of how medical care (...) is mediated within those societies and how patient safety is assured or compromised. By introducing major theories from the developing world in the book, readers are encouraged to reflect on their impact on the patient safety and the health quality debate. The development of practical patient safety policies for wider use is also encouraged. The volume presents a ground breaking perspective by exploring fundamental issues relating to patient safety through different academic disciplines. It develops the possibility of a new patient safety and health quality synthesis and discourse relevant to all concerned with patient safety and health quality in a global context. (shrink)

We address three fundamental questions: What does it mean for an entity to be living? What is the role of inter-organismic collaboration in evolution? What is a biological individual? Our central argument is that life arises when lineage-forming entities collaborate in metabolism. By conceiving of metabolism as a collaborative process performed by functional wholes, which are associations of a variety of lineage-forming entities, we avoid the standard tension between reproduction and metabolism in discussions of life – a tension particularly evident (...) in discussions of whether viruses are alive. Our perspective assumes no sharp distinction between life and non-life, and does not equate life exclusively with cellular or organismal status. We reach this conclusion through an analysis of the capabilities of a spectrum of biological entities, in which we include the pivotal case of viruses as well as prions, plasmids, organelles, intracellular and extracellular symbionts, unicellular and multicellular life-forms. The usual criterion for classifying many of the entities of our continuum as non-living is autonomy. This emphasis on autonomy is problematic, however, because even paradigmatic biological individuals, such as large animals, are dependent on symbiotic associations with many other organisms. These composite individuals constitute the metabolic wholes on which selection acts. Finally, our account treats cooperation and competition not as polar opposites but as points on a continuum of collaboration. We suggest that competitive relations are a transitional state, with multi-lineage metabolic wholes eventually outcompeting selfish competitors, and that this process sometimes leads to the emergence of new types or levels of wholes. Our view of life as a continuum of variably structured collaborative systems leaves open the possibility that a variety of forms of organized matter – from chemical systems to ecosystems – might be usefully understood as living entities. (shrink)

Some members from the cast of New Essays in Philosophical Theology set the tone of this anthology, although with essays not included in that volume. The Flew-Hare-Mitchell-Crombie discussion on falsifiability is the only selection from that volume included here. Also included in the same section are Wisdom's "Gods," much of Braithwaite's Empiricist's View of the Nature of Religious Belief, and selections by Diogenes Allen and John Hick. The opening section of the book is on the logical status of (...) religious language. Besides essays by MacIntyre, McPherson, and Crombie, it contains William Christian's article on truth-claims in religion and also a clear, sympathetic account by Father Bochenski on the formal structure of religious discourse. The section of the book on the question of literalness includes selections from Ayer, Tillich, Mascall, Buber, and Bultmann. The section on the possibility of religious knowledge includes essays by Calvin O. Schrag, Paul F. Schmidt, and Kierkegaard. Santoni's introduction discusses all the essays, ties them together, and consequently gives a rationale for their inclusion. On the whole, the anthology is thorough, unified, and, in spite of its restricted and well-worn theme, remarkably nonrepetative.--S. O. H. (shrink)

Metagenomics is an emerging microbial systems science that is based on the large-scale analysis of the DNA of microbial communities in their natural environments. Studies of metagenomes are revealing the vast scope of biodiversity in a wide range of environments, as well as new functional capacities of individual cells and communities, and the complex evolutionary relationships between them. Our examination of this science focuses on the ontological implications of these studies of metagenomes and metaorganisms, and what they mean for common (...) sense and philosophical understandings of multicellularity, individuality and organism. We show how metagenomics requires us to think in different ways about what human beings are and what their relation to the microbial world is. Metagenomics could also transform the way in which evolutionary processes are understood, with the most basic relationship between cells from both similar and different organisms being far more cooperative and less antagonistic than is widely assumed. In addition to raising fundamental questions about biological ontology, metagenomics generates possibilities for powerful technologies addressed to issues of climate, health and conservation. We conclude with reflections about process-oriented versus entity-oriented analysis in light of current trends towards systems approaches. (shrink)

This essay offers some lessons from the history of the United States Constitution for constitutions for emerging democracies in Eastern Europe. The United States Constitution declined in efficacy over time because special interests eroded its restraints on rent-seeking. This essay seeks to consider solutions to prevent constitutional decline. It suggests that since special interests will try to dissolve constitutional restraints, the original constitution should itself contain trigger rulers imposing new restraints when certain events occur that suggest the old restraints are (...) weakening. Thus in this essay I suggest creating constitutional provisions to spring into effect when the consequences of constitutional decline become apparent in the polity.Cet article met en avant quelques leçons puisées dans l’histoire de la constitution américaine pour les constitutions des démocraties naissantes de l’Europe Orientale. La constitution des Etats-Unis a perdu de son efficacité au fil du temps parce que les intérêts particuliers ont entamé les contraintes qui pesaient sur les activités de recherche de rente. Cet article essaye d’envisager des solutions pour contrecarrer le déclin constitutionnel. Il suggère que, puisque les intérêts particuliers essayent de dissoudre les contraintes constitutionnelles, la constitution devrait inclure, à l’origine même, des règles d’activation imposant de nouvelles contraintes quand certains évènements qui surviennent révèlent l’insuffisance des contraintes antérieures. Ainsi, dans cet article, l’auteur suggère la création de dispositions constitutionnelles qui sont activées quand les conséquences du déclin constitutionnel sont apparentes au niveau politique. (shrink)

Although underappreciated in his own day, Catholic convert John Henry Newman was remarkably prophetic about the challenges that lay ahead for the Catholic faith. In his 1873 sermon titled, ‘The Infidelity of the Future’, Newman warned of a time when the Church would face not only the cold indifference of agnosticism but also the targeted hostility of those opposed to both God and religion. Yet Newman was not without hope or wisdom for the future Church. This essay examines (...) Newman's insistence upon the need to cultivate an ‘ecclesiastical spirit’ and an ‘intelligent faith’. It specifically explores how Catholic institutions of higher education can respond to Newman's call and assist in bringing about a renewal in the evangelical mission of the Church, providing a much-needed alternative to the wisdom of the world. (shrink)

In September 2008, 10 years after the untimely death of Pere Alberch (1954–1998), the 20th Altenberg Workshop in Theoretical Biology gathered a group of Pere’s students, col- laborators, and colleagues (Figure 1) to celebrate his contribu- tions to the origins of EvoDevo. Hosted by the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research (KLI) outside Vienna, the group met for two days of discussion. The meeting was organized in tandem with a congress held in May 2008 at the Cavanilles Institute (...) for Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology (ICBiBE) in Valencia, Spain. The talks at the KLI were equal parts: nostalgic remembrance, excitement over new ways of thinking about old problems, and an unrepressed vitriol against the resurgence of reductionist thinking in EvoDevo. Here we highlight some of the key aspects of Pere’s life and work that informed and infused the talks. (shrink)

Footnotes to the Synthesis? Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-4 DOI 10.1007/s11016-011-9569-6 Authors John O. Reiss, Department of Biological Sciences, Humboldt State University, 1 Harpst St., Arcata, CA 95521, USA Journal Metascience Online ISSN 1467-9981 Print ISSN 0815-0796.

The absence of self in Classical litera­ture and the emergence in the eigh­teenth century of the concept of the unique and individual self asserting its existence and seeking its truth in pri­vate experience and feeling is often touched upon in cultural histories but little explained. Seeking the reasons for and the effects of the change of attitude toward one’s concept of one’s self in the “new” eighteenth-century attitude to­ward history, biography, travel litera­ture, pornography, and the novel, Lyons finds, first, that (...) the term _self _is deceptively vague. It evolved, he notes, to fill the vacuum created by doubt about the existence of the soul. Second, Lyons finds that without a concept of the self—that ineffable something in a human being that to its inventors and their followers was an abstract of pure and intuited natural laws—the revolution and romanticism of the modern age would have been very different from what it has been. More importantly, Lyons concludes that the concept led to monumental error and to bitter disappointments rooted, as his il­luminating history shows, in the im­possibility of defining that which never was. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:347 THE ROLE OF PART XII IN HUME'S DIALOGUES CONCERNING NATURAL RELIGION Anyone appreciative of Hume's greatness as a philosopher will want to suppose that the Dialogues both form a coherent whole and express Hume's own views on natural religion or religion based on reason (as opposed to religion based on revelation). In the last connection, given what we know of Hume's epistemology, life, and correspondence, one would be (...) inclined to suppose that he would reject out of hand the claims of revealed religion and contend that if there existed an acceptable religion it would have to be some form of natural religion. But insofar as natural religion claimed to establish scientifically the existence and nature of God one would envisage Hume dissenting. Now as long as we restrict our gaze to Parts I-XI of the Dialogues we seem to be able, easily enough, to satisfy all these suppositions. In Part IV, under the name of 'mysticism, ' revealed religion is summarily and facetiously dismissed as 2 indistinguishable from atheism. Demea's apparently permanent departure from the discussion at the conclusion of Part XI as much as says, symbolically, that revealed religion is not a serious contender for one's belief. Its a priori arguments -- the argument from sufficient reason and the ontological argument -- are almost as shortly attacked and dismissed (D 188-192). Also quite in keeping with Hume's philosophical view on knowledge of matters of fact is, on the other hand, the lengthy and detailed examination he bestows on the empiricist argument from design. That Philo, ostensibly his spokesman, is however able to uncover all kinds of logical short-comings in its claims to scientifically 348 establish the existence and nature of God does not surprise us; it coheres perfectly with our preconceived picture of Hume the skeptic, and his system as restricting science to numbers and quantities or, in the term's looser sense, to human nature and its more immediate surroundings. In short, Parts I-XI seem to be all of one Humean whole. But at first and even second glance Part XII notoriously seems to tear our hopes to find coherence and a plausible representation of Hume to tatters. There are, for one thing, those mocking sentences that seem to paint Hume in the colors of a devout, believing Christian, 'avid' for revelation. Thus, at the end of Part XII, apparently expressing Hume's deepest convictions, Philo says that "a person, seasoned with a just sense of the imperfections of natural reason, will fly to revealed truth with the greatest avidity" and immediately afterwards, "To be a philosophical sceptic is, in a man of letters, the first and most essential step towards being a sound, believing Christian" (D 227, 228). For another thing, in Part XII Hume seems to be completely reversing his refutations in Parts I-XI of the argument from design's claims to establish the existence and nature of God. Thus, where in Part II he had Philo reject the use of causal reasoning in the establishment of a Mind as the first cause of the universe on the relevantly Humean grounds that, to do so, "it were requisite, that we had experience of the origin of worlds" (D 150), in Part XII he has Philo, apparently speaking for himself (Hume), argue that "as there are also considerable differences, we have reason to suppose a proportional difference in the causes; and in particular ought to attribute a much higher degree of power and energy to the supreme cause than any we have ever observed in mankind. 349 Here then the existence of a DEITY is plainly ascertained by reason" (D 217). Indeed, all forms of the argument of design, purely analogical as well as causal, seem resurrected in Part XII, although they were one and all hanged and buried in Parts I-XI. Moreover, it seems that in Part XII Hume via Philo is saying that science itself leads us "to acknowledge a first intelligent Author" (D 214-215). Before proceeding to deal with certain other incoherencies with which Part XII seems to confront us let us address ourselves to the two that I have so far... (shrink)