In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Dogma and Ecumenism: Vatican II and Karl Barth's Ad Limina Apostolorum ed. by Matthew Levering, Bruce L. McCormack, and Thomas Joseph White, O.P.Gavin D'CostaDogma and Ecumenism: Vatican II and Karl Barth's Ad Limina Apostolorum edited by Matthew Levering, Bruce L. McCormack, and Thomas Joseph White, O.P. (Washington, DC: Catholic University Press of America Press, 2020), ix + 369 pp.In May 1966 Karl Barth visited Rome. He was (...) invited to reflect on the Second Vatican Council, to ask questions to leading curial figures, and peritus theologians, as well as Pope Paul VI. Barth's book Ad Limina Apostolorum: An Appraisal of Vatican II contains his questions and an account from Barth of his visit, along with some other important essays. It is still deeply challenging in its incisiveness, despite its brevity. I have always been struck by Barth's Marian criticisms that are so central to his viewpoint about divine agency and human cooperation. These give us an excellent insight into his ecclesiology. They represent the reasons for much of his questioning of various Roman Catholic positions on all sorts of matters. Eberhard Busch's diaries, while Barth's assistant during this period, form a fascinating complimentary account of the visit. These tell of the not-so-fruitful visit to Augustin Cardinal Bea and the great highpoint (for Barth) of his one-hour audience with Pope Paul VI. Barth was impressed by the Jesuits during his visit, but not so much by the Dominicans. He thought the latter had absorbed too many streams of liberal modernity. The two Dominicans participating in this book turn those tides. Indeed, all the authors could be located within the conserving wings of their ecclesial membership, which makes the volume all the stronger in raising serious unresolved disagreements and noting important common ground. It is testimony to Barth's enduring value that this volume seems so timely. The Barth Centre at Princeton and the Pontifical Faculty of the Dominican House in Washington were the sponsors of this collection.The volume is structured around five of the key documents commented on by Barth, with a Catholic and Reformed voice reflecting on both the particular document and Barth's input (with the exception of Francesca Aran Murphy, who deals with George Lindbeck rather than Barth), thereby simultaneously pushing forward the Catholic–Reformed engagement with the Council and with Barth. There is a preface with a penetrating introduction by Thomas Joseph White, O.P., and an irenic opening chapter by Matthew Levering on biblical renewal at Vatican II. Then follow the twin reflections on the five documents.First (and rightly so) comes the Dogmatic Constitution on Revelation, Dei Verbum. Katherine Sonderegger develops a nuanced reflection on the metaphor of Scripture as mirror of God (found in Dei Verbum), showing [End Page 971] a deep appreciation of currents within Dei Verbum that Barth had not detected, but which are more connective with his concerns and preoccupations. Lewis Ayres rather impishly takes what Barth saw as the main weakness of the text (its chapter 2: "Handing on Divine Revelation") and makes it the greatest strength. Ayers provides a deeply learned and original exploration of the concept of "tradition" as sacramental. In this duet, Barth comes out looking like he may have missed hearing the melodies while too closely studying the score.Then follow two profound essays on Lumen Gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. Christoph Schwöbel builds up a strong Protestant case for the necessary visible ecclesial identity of the Church, thus showing a deep convergence without denying differences that remain. White, in a deeply insightful and probing essay, goes to the heart of the ecclesiological difference between Barth and Yves Congar (and some other key Catholics at the time): the relationship between uncreated divine agency and created human agency, especially within the context of the post-apostolic Church. White suggests that, without some stable ecclesial mediations, there can be no proper relationship envisaged between the transcendent causality of God operating in Christ and the created, active cooperative acts with this grace. While building up both a metaphysical and a theological case against Barth's criticisms... (shrink)

This book argues that understandings and explanations of religion are always historically contingent.

The Importance of Religion reveals the significance of religion in modern times, showing how it provides people with meaning to their lives and helps guide them in their everyday moral choices Provides readers with a new understanding of religion, demonstrating how in its actions, texts and world views religion is enduring and vividly engages with the mystery of the world Offers striking arguments about the relationship of religion to science, art and politics Engagingly written by a highly respected scholar of (...) religion with an international reputation"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

Religion and the Philosophy of Life considers how religion as the source of civilization transforms the fundamental bio-sociology of humans through language and the somatic exploration of religious ritual and prayer. Gavin Flood offers an integrative account of the nature of the human, based on what contemporary scientists tell us, especially evolutionary science and social neuroscience, as well as through the history of civilizations. Part one contemplates fundamental questions and assumptions: what the current state of knowledge is concerning life (...) itself; what the philosophical issues are in that understanding; and how we can explain religion as the driving force of civilizations in the context of human development within an evolutionary perspective. It also addresses the question of the emergence of religion and presents a related study of sacrifice as fundamental to religions' views about life and its transformation. Part two offers a reading of religions in three civilizational blocks-India, China, and Europe/the Middle East-particularly as they came to formation in the medieval period. It traces the history of how these civilizations have thematised the idea of life itself. Part three then takes up the idea of a life force in part three and traces the theme of the philosophy of life through to modern times. On the one hand, the book presents a narrative account of life itself through the history of civilizations, and on the other presents an explanation of that narrative in terms of life.". (shrink)

This paper is a reply to D'Costa's article ("Religious Studies," 32, pp. 223-32) in which he argues that there is no such position as religious pluralism because in distinguishing between, e.g., Christianity or Buddhism, and Nazism or the Jim Jones cult, a criterion is involved and to use a criterion is a form of exclusivism. In reply I point out that this sense of 'exclusivism', as consisting in the use of criteria, is self-destructive; that the pluralistic hypothesis, as a (...) meta-theory about the religions, has a different logical status from the creeds of the historical religions; and I also show the origin of the ethnical criterion used by the religious pluralist who stands within one or other of the great world faiths. (shrink)

L'A. se base sur deux oeuvres artistiques sur la Trinité qui se correspondent et qui soulèvent des questions sérieuses au sujet de la négociation chrétienne avec les autres religions. Ces deux oeuvres traitent de la Trinité en relation avec les autres traditions religieuses. Il s'agit de l'icône intitulée la Trinité de l'orthodoxe russe André Roublev qui date du 15siècle et de l'oeuvre contemporaine de l'artiste indien catholique romain Jyoti Sahi intitulée Abraham et Sarah recevant les trois anges. Par cette étude (...) comparative, l'A. souligne la richesse du Dieu trinitaire dans l'ouverture à la multiplicité des représentations du mystère infini. Ces représentations, visibles dans les créations, sont parfois le fruit de l'imagination des artistes et des théologiens, imagination qui est nécessaire. (shrink)

The 2015 Varsity Medical Ethics debate convened upon the motion: “This house believes nootropic drugs should be available under prescription”. This annual debate between students from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, now in its seventh year, provided the starting point for arguments on the subject. The present article brings together and extends many of the arguments put forward during the debate. We explore the current usage of nootropic drugs, their safety and whether it would be beneficial to individuals and (...) society as a whole for them to be available under prescription. The Varsity Medical Debate was first held in 2008 with the aim of allowing students to engage in discussion about ethics and policy within healthcare. The event is held annually and it is hoped that this will allow future leaders to voice a perspective on the arguments behind topics that will feature heavily in future healthcare and science policy. This year the Oxford University Medical Society at the Oxford Union hosted the debate. (shrink)

Debat tentang pluralisme tetap berlangsung di Indonesia, karena itu dua buku yang akan dibahas di sini sangat relevan. Paul F. Knitter, seorang teolog Katolik, merumuskan suatu pandangan pluralistik mirip dengan yang diharamkan oleh Majelis Ulama Indonesia pada 2005, sedangkan Gavin D’Costa dalam bukunya dengan tajam membongkar “pluralisme” itu. Dua-duanya berargumentasi secara teologis, atas dasar pengandaian-pengandaian Kristiani-Katolik. Dalam bab pertama Knitter menggariskan kembali perjalanan teolo- gisnya dari eksklusivisme, melalui inklusivisme, ke posisi yang dinama- kannya “pluralisme.“ Knitter tidak hanya menolak anggapan (...) (yang oleh Gereja Katolik sudah ditolak sejak sebelum Konsili Vatikan II) bahwa ”di luar Gereja tidak ada keselamatan“ (”eksklusivisme“), melainkan juga posi- si-posisi ”inklusivistik“—seperti yang misalnya dikemukakan oleh Karl Rahner—yaitu bahwa, meskipun semua orang dapat diselamatkan, namun mereka diselamatkan karena Yesus Kristus, jadi bahwa kebenaran penuh hanya ada dalam iman kepada Yesus Sang Juru Selamat bagi semua. Plu- ralisme Knitter menyatakan bahwa tidak ada agama yang dapat meng- klaim keunggulannya terhadap agama lain. Kalau saya tidak salah tangkap, Knitter mengajukan tiga argumen. Yang pertama adalah kejujuran dialog antaragama. ”Bagaimana,” tanya Knitter, “orang dapat sungguh-sungguh ’menghormati’ kebenaran dalam pandangan orang lain... apabila kita masuk ke dalam dialog dengan keyakinan bahwa kita yang mempunyai kebenaran definitif?” (hlm. 33). Argumen yang sama juga diajukan dalam bentuk sedikit lain: Menurut Knitter tidak mungkin seorang tokoh atau suatu ajaran religius tertentu memuat seluruh kekayaan realitas Ilahi. Yesus boleh diyakini sebagai “totus Deus” (seluruhnya Allah), tetapi bukan sebagai “totum Dei” (keseluruhan Allah). Yesus betul-betul penyelamat, tetapi selain Yesus ada banyak penyelamat lain. Argumentasi ini merangsang pertanyaan kembali apakah dialog dapat jujur kalau para peserta sebelumnya harus melepaskan keyakinan mereka yang paling inti? Knitter boleh saja menyangkal bahwa keseluruhan Ilahi ada dalam Yesus, tetapi atas dasar apa ia menuntut agar orang Kristiani menyangkalnya juga? Bukankah Knitter jatuh ke dalam dogmatisme sama dengan yang dituduhkannya?.................................................... D’Costa mengklaim bahwa pengertian keselamatan yang triniter itu menjamin apa yang justru tidak terjamin oleh “pluralisme” ala Knitter; yaitu, keterbukaan, toleransi dan kesamaan. Keterbukaan, karena Gereja dapat dan bahkan harus betul-betul belajar dari agama-agama lain. Tole- ransi, karena Gereja wajib menghormati kebebasan beragama; artinya, ada- lah hak setiap orang dan kelompok orang untuk mengakui dan mempraktikkan agama yang mereka yakini. Kesamaan, karena Gereja mengakui martabat setiap orang sebagai alamat cinta Ilahi. D’Costa mengakhiri bukunya dengan suatu pertimbangan bagus tentang makna dan tempat doa antaragama-agama yang berbeda. Buku D’Costa adalah salah satu bahasan paling jelas, mendalam, dan meyakinkan tentang bagaimana orang Katolik, dan seharusnya semua orang Kristiani, dapat bertemu dengan agama-agama lain tanpa kesombongan, tetapi juga tanpa mengkompromikan imannya. D’Costa membuka dogmatisme deistik-sekularistik (Allah tidak masuk kedalam sejarah umat manusia) dan posisi-posisi yang menamakan diri pluralistik. Adalah kekuatan buku D’Costa bahwa ia memperlihatkan bahwa justru iman pada Allah yang triniter, yang kita ketahui dari pewahyuan Diri Allah dalam Yesus, memungkinkan untuk bersikap hormat dan terbuka kepada agama-agama lain. Daripada menyanyikan lagu bahwa semua agama pada dasarnya sama saja, D’Costa memungkinkan kita untuk tanpa kompromi percaya pada apa yang diyakini Gereja sejak 2000 tahun: bahwa Yesuslah Sang Juru Selamat Ilahi, dan sekaligus menghormati mereka yang berbeda imannya. Itulah dasar mantap bagi dialog antarumat beragama. (Franz Magnis-Suseno, Program Pascasarjana, Sekolah Tinggi Filsafat Driyarkara, Jakarta). (shrink)

Bereby‐Meyer, Hayakawa, Shalvi, Corey, Costa and Keysar investigate lying for self‐serving reasons. Participants in their experiments had to report the outcome of rolling a die only known to them. They inflated their outcomes less, and thus lied less, when using a foreign language than when using their native language. The authors suggest that lying for self‐serving reasons is an automatic tendency that can be overcome by speaking in a foreign language. [71].

BackgroundInternationally, patient access to notes is increasing. This has been driven by respect for patient autonomy, often recognised as a primary tenet of medical ethics: patients should be able to access their records to be fully engaged with their care. While research has been conducted on the impact of patient access to outpatient and primary care records and to patient portals, there is no such review looking at access to hospital medical records in real time, nor an ethical analysis of (...) the issues involved in such a change in process.MethodsThis study employed a systematic review framework in two stems, to integrate literature identified from two searches: Medline, CINAHL and Scopus databases were conducted, (for (1) hospitalised patients, patient access to records and its effects on communication and trust within the doctor-patient relationship; and (2) patient access to medical records and the ethical implications identified). The qualitative and quantitative results of both searches were integrated and critically analysed.Results3954 empirical and 4929 ethical studies were identified; 18 papers representing 16 studies were identified for review (12 empirical and 6 ethical). The review reveals a consensus that our current approach to giving information to patients – almost exclusively verbally – is insufficient; that patient access to notes is a welcome next step for patient-centred care, but that simply allowing full access, without explanation or summary, is also insufficient. Several ethical implications need to be considered: increased information could improve patient trust and knowledge but might transfer an (unwelcome) sense of responsibility to patients; doctors and patients have conflicting views on how much information should be shared and when; sharing written information might increase the already significant disparity in access to health care, and have unforeseen opportunity costs. The impact on medical practice of sharing notes in real time will also need to be evaluated.ConclusionsThe review presents encouraging data to support patient access to medical notes. However, sharing information is a critical part of clinical practice; changing how it is done could have significant empirical and ethical impacts; any changes should be carefully evaluated. (shrink)

This paper explores the embedding of data producing technologies in people's everyday lives and practices. It traces how repeated encounters with digital data operate to naturalise these entities, while often blindsiding their agentive properties and the ways they get implicated in processes of exploitation and governance. I propose and develop the notion of ‘data doxa’ to conceptualise the way in which digital data – and the devices and platforms that stage data – have come to be perceived in Western societies (...) as normal, necessary and enabling. The ‘data doxa’ concept also accentuates the enculturation of many individuals into a data sharing habitus which frames digital technologies in simplistic terms as panaceas for the problems associated with contemporary life, figures of progress and convenience, and mediums of knowledge, pleasure and identity. I suggest that three types of data-based relations contribute to the formation of this doxic sensibility: fetishisation, habit and enchantment. Each of these relations come to mediate public understandings of digital devices and the data they generate, obscuring the multifaceted nature and hidden depths of data and their propensity to double up as technologies of exposure and discipline. As a result of this situation, imaginative educational programs and revamped regulatory frameworks are urgently needed to inform individuals about the contribution of data to the leveraging of value and power in today's digital economies, but also to protect them from experiencing data-based harms. (shrink)

Today’s bodies are akin to ‘walking sensor platforms’. Bodies either host, or are the subjects of, an array of sensing devices that act to convert bodily movements, actions and dynamics into circulative data. This article proposes the notions of ‘disembodied exhaust’ and ‘embodied exhaustion’ to conceptualise processes of bodily sensorisation and datafication. As the material body interfaces with networked sensor technologies and sensing infrastructures, it emits disembodied exhaust: gaseous flows of personal information that establish a representational data-proxy. It is this (...) networked actant that progressively structures how embodied subjects experience their daily lives. The significance of this symbiont medium in determining the outcome of interplays between networked individuals and audiences necessitates that it is carefully contrived. The article explores the nature and function of the data-proxy, and its impact on social relations. Drawing on examples that depict individuals engaging with their data-proxies, the article suggests that managing a virtual presence is analogous to a work relation, demanding diligence and investment. But it also shows how the data-proxy operates as a mode of affect that challenges conventional distinctions made between organic and inorganic bodies, agency and actancy, mortality and immortality, presence and absence. (shrink)

Building on the long-standing tradition of challenging oppression and questioning whose interests are being served in the field of language education, we report on a study that involved a group of U.S.-based graduate students who collaborated with a ninth-grade English teacher in Nepal. The study comes out of a larger project that sought to internationalize the curriculum of a graduate educational linguistics course at a U.S. university. At the heart of this internationalizing curriculum endeavour was a commitment to expose graduate (...) students in the U.S. to the issues of language teaching outside of the U.S. This was done through co-designing of a unit of lessons, with six graduate students meeting virtually with their teacher partner, Ditya, in Nepal over the course of a semester. The graduate students and Ditya constitute our research participants. The graduate student participants learned about the need to develop pedagogical materials that were relevant to the local context in Nepali classroom, and not attempt to transplant a Western-centric curriculum onto the Nepali classroom. In keeping with recent calls to decolonize higher education, we illustrate how critical theory in general and decolonizing pedagogy in particular can be infused into a U.S. graduate curriculum by drawing on the rich, indigenous knowledge and resources of a teacher collaborator from the Global South. We do this by reporting how this critical, decolonizing goal was realized through collaborative professionalism, which is characterized by the sharing of knowledge, skills, and experience to improve student achievement, reflection, dialogue and collective responsibility. (shrink)

Everyday surveillance work is increasingly performed by non-human algorithms. These entities can be conceptualised as machinic flâneurs that engage in distanciated flânerie: subjecting urban flows to a dispassionate, calculative and expansive gaze. This paper provides some theoretical reflections on the nascent forms of algorithmic practice materialising in two Australian cities, and some of their implications for urban relations and social justice. It looks at the idealisation – and operational black boxing – of automated watching programs, before considering their impacts on (...) notions such as ‘the right to the city’ and ‘the right to the face’. It will argue that the turn to facial recognition software for the purposes of automating urban governance reconstitutes the meanings and phenomenology of the face. In particular, the fleshly and communicative physicality of the face is reduced to a measurable object that can be identified by a virtualised referent and then consequently tracked. Moreover, the asymmetrical and faceless nature of these machinic programs of recognition unsettles conventional notions of civil inattention and bodily sovereignty, and the prioritisation given to pattern recognition renders them amenable to ideas/ideals from phrenology and physiognomy. In this way, algorithmic governance may generate not only forms of facial vulnerability and estrangement, but also facial artifice, where individuals come to develop tacit and artful ways of de-facing and re-facing in order to subvert the processes of recognition which leverage these modes of biopower. Thus, the datafication of urban governance gives rise to a dynamic biopolitics of the face. (shrink)

This article provides an introduction to a special issue of Body & Society that explores the surveillance--embodiment nexus. It accentuates both the prevalence and consequence of bodies being increasingly converted into ‘objects of information’ by surveillance technologies and systems. We begin by regarding the normalcy of body monitoring in contemporary life, illustrating how a plurality of biometric scanners operate to intermediate the physical surfaces and subjective depths of bodies in accordance with various concerns. We focus on everyday experiences of bodily (...) intermediation by surveillant dispositifs, and consider the broader political, epistemological, and ontological significance of these processes. We then point to the substantive intersections and divergences existing between body and surveillance studies. We conclude with an overview of the five articles appearing in this special issue. We describe how each contribution creates a template for imagining what a body is, and what a body might become, in a culture defined by proliferating data sharing behaviours, systems of codification, and practices of intermediation. (shrink)

In this paper we provide frame definability results for weak versions of classical modal axioms that can be expressed in Fitting's many-valued modal languages. These languages were introduced by M. Fitting in the early '90s and are built on Heyting algebras which serve as the space of truth values. The possible-worlds frames interpreting these languages are directed graphs whose edges are labelled with an element of the underlying Heyting algebra, providing us a form of many-valued accessibility relation. Weak axioms of (...) the form we treat here have been examined from the completeness perspective and further explored for applications in non-monotonic reasoning. Here, we introduce more weak many-valued modal axioms and prove a frame correspondence result for all of them. The classes of corresponding labelled frames possess algebraic properties which are strongly reminiscent of many classical ones, such as the Church-Rosser property, reflexivity, transitivity, partial functionality, etc. (shrink)

We prove frame determination results for the family of many-valued modal logics introduced by M. Fitting in the early '90s. Each modal language of this family is based on a Heyting algebra, which serves as the space of truth values, and is interpreted on an interesting version of possible-worlds semantics: the modal frames are directed graphs whose edges are labelled with an element of the underlying Heyting algebra. We introduce interesting generalized forms of the classical axioms D, T, B, 4, (...) and 5 and prove that they are canonical for certain algebraic frame properties, which generalize seriality, reflexivity, symmetry, transitivity and euclideanness. Our results are quite general as they hold for any modal language built on a complete Heyting algebra. (shrink)