Graham McAleer's Erich Przywara and Postmodern Natural Law is the first work to present in an accessible way the thinking of Erich Przywara (1889-1972) for an English-speaking audience. Przywara's work remains little known to a broad Catholic audience, but it had a major impact on many of the most celebrated theologians of the twentieth century, including Hans Urs von Balthasar, Karl Rahner, Edith Stein, and Karl Barth. Przywara's ground-breaking text Analogia Entis (The analogy of being) brought theological metaphysics (...) into the modern era. While the concept of "analogy of being" is typically understood in static terms, McAleer explores how Przywara transformed it into something dynamic. McAleer shows the extension of Przywara's thought into a range of disciplines: from a new theory of natural law to an explanation of how misunderstanding the analogy of being lies at the foundation of the puzzles of modernity and postmodernity. He demonstrates, through Przywara's conceptual framework, how contemporary moral problems, such as those surrounding robots, Islam and sumptuary laws, Nazism (including fascism and race), embryos, migration, and body modification, among others, are shaped by the failure of Western thought to address metaphysical quandaries. McAleer updates Przywara for a new audience searching for solutions to the failing humanism of the current age. This book will be of interest to intellectuals and scholars in a wide range of disciplines within philosophy or theology, and will appeal especially to those interested in systematic and moral theology. (shrink)

Disputing the Unity of the World: The Importance of Res and the Influence of Averroes in Giles of Rome's Critique of T homas Aquinas concerning the Unity of the World G. j. MCALEER 1. INTRODUCTION tILES OF ROME earned, after a decidedly difficult start, the most complete honors open to an academic religious in the Middle Ages. Joining the Hermits of St. Augustine at age 14, he became the first regent master of his order at the University of Paris (...) ; his works were made compul- sory in the education of students entering the Hermits in 1287; finally, in 1292 he became the general of the order itself.' Giles is significant, as Mandonnet puts it, because he "est incontestablement au premier rang des th~ologiens de la fin du XIII e si~cle. "2 But this is not all. Giles is also important to the period because his writings were censured by the same commission that composed the famous Parisian condemnation of 1277. As a result of this I would like to thank Robert Wielockx, Jos Decorte, Jennifer DeRose, and especially two anonymous referees of theJHP, for their extremely useful comments on an earlier draft of this paper. P. Nash, "Giles of Rome," New Catholic Eneydopedia, vol. 6 , 485 9 "P. Mandonnet, O. P., "La carri6re scolaire de Gilles de Rome," Revue des sciences philosophiques et thlologiques 4 09t~ 497. [~9] 3 ~ JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 36: I JANUARY 1998 censure, Giles had to leave.. (shrink)

This first book-length treatment of Thomas Aquinas'stheory of the body presents a Catholic understanding of the body and its implications for social and political philosophy. Making a fundamental contribution to antitotalitarian theory, McAleer argues that a sexual politics reliant upon Aquinas's theory of the body is better than other commonly available theories. He contrasts this theory with those of four other groups of thinkers: the continental tradition represented by Kant, Schopenhauer, Merleau-Ponty, Nancy, Levinas, and Deleuze; feminism, in the work (...) of Donna Haraway; an alternative Catholic theory to be found in Karl Rahner; and the "Radical Orthodoxy" of John Milbank. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Giles of Rome on Political AuthorityGraham McAleerDabo tibi regem in furore meo“I will give you a king in my rage” 1It is a commonplace among historians of medieval political theory that two great systems of thought dominate the period. Augustine’s City of God held the field until Thomas Aquinas absorbed Aristotle’s political thought largely culled from the latter’s Politics and Nicomachean Ethics. Aquinas stands as a watershed, a moment (...) when both sources meet and a synthesis is worked out in which Augustine loses ground to Aristotle. Indeed, Augustine’s thought loses such a hold on the political theory of the age that R. A. Markus has spoken of a “comfortable obliviousness” in the minds of theorists subsequent to Aquinas that “a profound cleavage” had been wrought by Thomas in the tradition of Christian political thought. 2 Ptolemy of Lucca and Giles of Rome, both of whom were students of Thomas, are picked out by Markus as typical of those theorists who are oblivious to the definitive break that Aquinas makes with Augustine.Although modern commentators of medieval political theory speak of an Augustinian tradition after Aquinas they are only referring to a series of thinkers who defended papal authority over and above monarchical authority. This tradition is said to be Augustinian because the thinkers defending papal authority, who included Giles, James of Viterbo and Augustinus Triumphus, were members of the Order of Hermits of St. Augustine. Nevertheless, these Augustinians are said to have absorbed Thomas’s Aristotelianism: convinced by his argument that since coercive power is intrinsic to political authority and since political authority is natural to the human condition, it must have been the case that coercive power existed in the state of innocence. These Augustinians, [End Page 21] modern scholarship maintains, did not then defend Augustine’s thesis that coercive political authority is unnatural to human society and was only introduced (albeit necessarily) into post-lapsarian society so that the worst excesses of our sinful condition might be controlled. Markus is by no means alone in identifying Giles as a follower of Thomas whose theory of dominium marks a radical break with Augustine. 3 Recently, J. M. Blythe has cited Markus when concurring with him that Giles simply adopts Thomas’s position which, as he puts it, “was to become ubiquitous in late medieval political discourse.” 4Perhaps this consensus has its origin in a most peculiar fact about twentieth-century scholarship on Giles’s political thought: none of it is based on a wide reading of his philosophical and theological corpus. Admittedly, an extensive reading of Giles is a daunting task. The editors-in-chief of the project to provide critical editions of Giles’s works catalogue sixty-seven titles and this vast array of writings match those of the other “greats” of the period in their scope, variety, complexity, and influence. 5 The hope of this essay is to show that a reading of Giles’s Sentences-commentary reveals him to be far more Augustinian than previously acknowledged this century.Although it is well recognized that Giles was one of the most original and influential political theorists of the Middle Ages, the pages dedicated to his political ideas amount to a few pages here and there, and sometimes as little as a few isolated comments, in the standard works on medieval political theory. 6 Moreover, these works unanimously consider only Giles’s explicitly political works. This limitation began with Otto Gierke, who single-handedly demonstrated the depth and richness of medieval political theory. At the beginning of his classic work, Political Theory of the Middle Age, Gierke provides a fifteen-page list of sources. For Thomas’s political thought Gierke directs us not only to Thomas’s explicitly political treatises such as his commentary on Aristotle’s Politics and the opusculum, De regimine principum, but also to the Summa theologiae, Summa contra gentiles, Thomas’s Disputed and Quodlibetal questions, [End Page 22] his exposition of the Psalms, and commentaries on Paul’s Letters as well as his Sentences-commentary. Yet for Giles only his De regimine principum and De potestate ecclesiastica are cited. 7 Gierke’s selection is repeated... (shrink)

As Modernist doctrines emphasizing the unity and agency of the educated self are increasingly set up as the straw men of contemporary educational discourses, premodern and Medieval theories of selfhood tend to disappear from the horizon of educational thought altogether. In this essay, in order to subvert this overcoming of our intellectual past, I examine Thomas Aquinas’ reading of the doctrine of original sin. Relying on Graham McAleer’s claim that Aquinas’ metaphysical theory sanctifies the body, I argue that (...) Aquinas’ understanding of original sin relies on a discursive, pedagogical model to account for human finitude. (shrink)

This scientific article explores the notion of a Christian geopolitics and its compatibility with realpolitik and international relations. The analysis delves into the perspectives of Pope Francis, John Mearsheimer, and Catholic social thought principles to examine the moral implications of geopolitical strategies. Mearsheimer’s bait and bleed strategy in Ukraine is critiqued for its callousness and disregard for human life, while Francis’s emphasis on personal and social reform highlights the importance of ethics and the universal destination of goods. The article questions (...) whether Christians can engage in realpolitik strategies that perpetuate poverty and violate the principles of human dignity and mercy. It further considers the implications for Catholic leaders in government and military roles, particularly in the context of upcoming U.S. presidential contenders. The analysis ultimately challenges the notion that a Christian geopolitics is a category mistake, advocating for a higher moral road in international relations. (shrink)

How did the universe begin? What is truth? How can we live good live? The Little Book of Philosophy answers these questions and more. Packed with simple explanations, witty illustrations, and step-by-step diagrams that untangle complex theories, you'll find plenty of food for thought in this book, whether you're a novice, a student, or an armchair philosopher"--Page 4 of cover.

© 2017. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.We present new observations of the low-mass companion to HD 984 taken with the Gemini Planet Imager as a part of the GPI Exoplanet Survey campaign. Images of HD 984 B were obtained in the J and H bands. Combined with archival epochs from 2012 and 2014, we fit the first orbit to the companion to find an 18 au orbit with a 68% confidence interval between 14 and 28 au, an eccentricity (...) of 0.18 with a 68% confidence interval between 0.05 and 0.47, and an inclination of 119°with a 68% confidence interval between 114°and 125°. To address the considerable spectral covariance in both spectra, we present a method of splitting the spectra into low and high frequencies to analyze the spectral structure at different spatial frequencies with the proper spectral noise correlation. Using the split spectra, we compare them to known spectral types using field brown dwarf and low-mass star spectra and find a best-fit match of a field gravity M6.5 ±1.5 spectral type with a corresponding temperature of K. Photometry of the companion yields a luminosity of log=2.88 ± 0.07 dex with DUSTY models. Mass estimates, again from DUSTY models, find an age-dependent mass of 34 ±1 to 95 ±4 M Jup. These results are consistent with previous measurements of the object. (shrink)

Being born into a family structure—being born of a mother—is key to being human. It is, for Jacques Lacan, essential to the formation of human desire. It is also part of the structure of analogy in the Thomistic thought of Erich Przywara. AI may well increase exponentially in sophistication, and even achieve human-like qualities; but it will only ever form an imaginary mirroring of genuine human persons—an imitation that is in fact morbid and dehumanising. Taking Lacan and Przywara at a (...) point of convergence on this topic offers important insight into human exceptionalism. (shrink)

The stated goal of Donna Haraway's “Cyborg feminism” is to liberate sensuality from violence. In examining her book alongside that of Jesuit Toletus it becomes clear that both argue that sensuality is a place of metaphysical violence. The first two sections of the essay demonstrate this, and, in addition that Toletus' commentary on Aquinas is hardly accurate. This fact will help justify the claim that the Jesuit tradition includes a rather particular theory of sensuality, the origin of which is perhaps (...) Giles of Rome. A third section shows how the Jesuit Gaston Fessard rediscovered Aquinas' own theory of sensuality through a thoroughgoing critique of Hegelian and Marxist dialectic. The essay concludes that Haraway would do well to adopt Aquinas' non‐violent theory of sensuality as her own. (shrink)

L'essai concerne le philosophe-théologien, Giles de Rome, de la fin du treizième siècle. Bien qu'il fut un disciple de Thomas d'Aquin, sa théorie de la sensualité est très différente de la sienne. Dans sa discussion de la maîtrise de soi, Giles utilise des métaphores politiques pour exprimer comment la raison contrôle les appétits des sens. Ces métaphores sont toutes d'un caractère violent. Ici, Giles se trouve en compagnie de Platon, Descartes, Kant, et plus récemment du Jésuite Karl Rahner. Aquinas, au (...) contraire, développe un modèle de contrôle de soi basé sur un langage politique de persuasion. La préoccupation centrale de l'article consiste à montrer que ces images politiques contrastées mettent en lumière des conceptions métaphysiques très différentes de la structure de la personne humaine. A cause de sa métaphysique, Giles est très proche de poser la violence dans la structure même de la personne: une position commune à l'âge moderne, mais très différente de celle de Thomas d'Aquin. (shrink)

Being born into a family structure—being born of a mother—is key to being human. It is, for Jacques Lacan, essential to the formation of human desire. It is also part of the structure of analogy in the Thomistic thought of Erich Przywara. AI may well increase exponentially in sophistication, and even achieve human-like qualities; but it will only ever form an imaginary mirroring of genuine human persons—an imitation that is in fact morbid and dehumanising. Taking Lacan and Przywara at a (...) point of convergence on this topic offers important insight into human exceptionalism. (shrink)

Politics and the Environment includes chapters on environmental philosophy and ideology, environmental movements, collective action, environment and economics. Each chapter includes real- life examples of pressing problems.

Impact sourcing is the practice of employing socio-economically disadvantaged individuals at business process outsourcing centres to reduce poverty and create secure jobs. One of the pioneers of impact sourcing is Sama, a training-data company that focuses on annotating data for artificial intelligence (AI) systems and claims to support an ethical AI supply chain through its business operations. Drawing on fieldwork undertaken at three of Sama’s East African delivery centres in Kenya and Uganda and follow-up online interviews, this article interrogates Sama’s (...) claims regarding the benefits of its impact sourcing model. Our analysis reveals alarming accounts of low wages, insecure work, a tightly disciplined labour management process, gender-based exploitation and harassment and a system designed to extract value from low-paid workers to produce profits for investors. We argue that competitive market-based dynamics generate a powerful force that pushes such companies towards limiting the actual social impact of their business model in favour of ensuring higher profit margins. This force can be resisted, but only through countervailing measures such as pressure from organised workers, civil society, or regulation. These findings have broad implications related to working conditions for low-wage data annotators across the sector and cast doubt on the ethical nature of AI products that rely on this form of AI data work. (shrink)

Brother of novelist Henry James, William James held views embodied in the tendency to subordinate logical proof to intuitive conviction. He was a vigorous antagonist of the idealistic school of Kant and Hegel, and an empiricist who made empiricism more radical by treating pure experience as the very substance of the world. Taking writings from The Principles of Psychology, Essays in Radical Empiricism and The Meaning of Truth amongst other publications, this edition offers a comprehensive selection of (...) class='Hi'>James's writings. (shrink)

The thymus is a unique primary lymphoid organ that supports the production of self‐tolerant T‐cells essential for adaptive immunity. Intrathymic microenvironments are microanatomically compartmentalised, forming defined cortical, and medullary regions each differentially supporting critical aspects of thymus‐dependent T‐cell maturation. Importantly, the specific functional properties of thymic cortical and medullary compartments are defined by highly specialised thymic epithelial cells (TEC). For example, in the medulla heterogenous medullary TEC (mTEC) contribute to the enforcement of central tolerance by supporting deletion of autoreactive T‐cell (...) clones, thereby counterbalancing the potential for random T‐cell receptor generation to contribute to autoimmune disease. Recent advances have further shed light on the pathways and mechanisms that control heterogeneous mTEC development and how differential mTEC functionality contributes to control self‐tolerant T‐cell development. Here we discuss recent findings in relation to mTEC development and highlight examples of how mTEC diversity contribute to thymus medulla function. (shrink)

It is argued that we should distinguish between an ‘early Hume’ and a ‘mature Hume’ on causality. In his early period, represented by the Treatise, Hume had not yet adopted Newtonian active principles. In the mature period, however, represented in particular by the First Enquiry, his theory of causation has been transformed by a reception of Newton. This leads Hume to drop the condition of contiguity, which had excluded action-at-a-distance in the Treatise. It also leads him to allow real necessary (...) connexions in nature which are inaccessible to us just as the real cause of gravitation was thought by Newtonians to be unknown. (shrink)

We argue for a discursive ethic of surveillancethat accounts for the paradoxes that thephenomenon presents to today's organisationalmembers. We first we develop a genealogy ofprivacy and illustrate its relation tosurveillance, focusing on the antinomianrelationship between the public and private. Then we review the common ethicaltensions that arise in today's technologicallyintensive workplace. Lastly, we develop acritical approach to the ethical status ofprivacy and surveillance – a micro-ethics – that remains open todiscursively-based negotiation by those whofind themselves at the verypoint of scrutiny.

The UK government has recently committed to adopting a new policy—dubbed ‘Martha’s Rule’—which has been characterised as providing patients the right to rapidly access a second clinical opinion in urgent or contested cases. Support for the rule emerged following the death of Martha Mills in 2021, after doctors failed to admit her to intensive care despite concerns raised by her parents. We argue that framing this issue in terms of patient rights is not productive, and should be avoided. Insofar as (...) the ultimate goal of Martha’s Rule is the provision of a clinical service that protects patient safety, an approach that focuses on the obligations of the health system—rather than the individual rights of patients—will better serve this goal. We outline an alternative approach that situates rapid clinical review as part of a suite of services aimed at enhancing and protecting patient care. This approach would make greater progress towards addressing the difficult systemic issues that Martha’s Rule does not, while also better engaging with the constraints of clinical practice. (shrink)

These essays provide the first interdisciplinary assessment of the links between the Anglo-Saxons and the Irish before 800. This overview of recent advances in the field ranges widely in scope, covering language and literature, legal traditions, ecclesiastical history, and the evidence of material culture, through art history and archaeology.

Formalised knowledge systems, including universities and research institutes, are important for contemporary societies. They are, however, also arguably failing humanity when their impact is measured against the level of progress being made in stimulating the societal changes needed to address challenges like climate change. In this research we used a novel futures-oriented and participatory approach that asked what future envisioned knowledge systems might need to look like and how we might get there. Findings suggest that envisioned future systems will need (...) to be much more collaborative, open, diverse, egalitarian, and able to work with values and systemic issues. They will also need to go beyond producing knowledge about our world to generating wisdom about how to act within it. To get to envisioned systems we will need to rapidly scale methodological innovations, connect innovators, and creatively accelerate learning about working with intractable challenges. We will also need to create new funding schemes, a global knowledge commons, and challenge deeply held assumptions. To genuinely be a creative force in supporting longevity of human and non-human life on our planet, the shift in knowledge systems will probably need to be at the scale of the enlightenment and speed of the scientific and technological revolution accompanying the second World War. This will require bold and strategic action from governments, scientists, civic society and sustained transformational intent. (shrink)