This article examines the account of the relationship between sin and suffering provided by J. L. A. Garcia in “Sin and Suffering in a Catholic Understanding of Medical Ethics,” in this issue. Garcia draws on the (Roman) Catholic tradition and particularly on the thought of Thomas Aquinas, who remains an important resource for Catholic theology. Nevertheless, his interpretation of Thomas is open to criticism, both in terms of omissions and in terms of positive claims. Garcia includes those elements of Thomas (...) that are purely philosophical, such as natural law and acquired virtue, but neglects the theological and infused virtues, the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit, and the beatitudes. These omissions distort his account of the Christian life so that he underplays both the radical problem posed by sin (and suffering), and the radical character of the ultimate solution: redemption in Christ through the grace of the Holy Spirit. (shrink)

Current theological thought across various fields emphasizes the synthetic and holistic nature of Christ’s saving work. For example, consider the use of the term “Paschal Mystery” by the second Vatican Council1 and the language of “the Christ event” in Biblical studies.2 Even Heideggarian theologians who use the language of “symbolic recognition” see the sacraments as moments when Christians recognize and affirm their connectedness to the whole mystery of Christ.3 Conversely, ulta-traditionalist authors combat the idea of Paschal mystery, (...) charging that the connection of the resurrection to the sacraments undercuts Christ’s propitiatory sacrifice.4 While Albert the Great does not, of course, speak directly to... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sacramental Wisdom:Humilitatio, Eruditio, Exercitatio in the Scholastics and TodaySr. Albert Marie Surmanski O.P.IntroductionThe relationship between human nature and the sacraments is often characterized in a way that takes away from the beauty and power of the sacraments. Sacraments are sometimes viewed today as something basically irrelevant to human life, an interesting spiritual "option" for those who find comfort in ritual. This view leads to a sacramental practice that (...) is occasional, irregular, or nonexistent. Many young people who fail to grasp religion as important to their reality implicitly embrace this perspective. The difficulty parishes have had in the past few years in convincing parishioners to return to liturgical prayer after each wave of the coronavirus pandemic demonstrates this viewpoint.In another perspective, the sacraments might be viewed precisely as expressions of what it means to be human, or one might say, to be human in a world in which God reveals himself at all times.1 In this view, the sacraments [End Page 1391] are our own graced self-expression as a community. They merely make thematic what already happens each moment. Alternatively, they celebrate who we are, and perhaps can be radically updated to reflect changing categories of social identity. 2Both of these viewpoints overlook the fallen state of human nature that cries out for healing from God. The first view does not preclude knowledge of human violence and fragility, but fails to recognize the sacraments as a medicine needed for the remedy of human ills. The second viewpoint, while professing a need for Christ, looks to the human person or community for healing rituals. This approach risks being enmeshed with human nature in a disordered state in such a way that it celebrates human disorder instead of healing it. Alternatively, the viewpoint may lead to the abandonment eschatological hope and wither into inanity.There are profound metaphysical and anthropological issues that play out in these two opposite but strangely united viewpoints. Rather than directly analyze these errors, this paper would like to propose the recovery of a medieval viewpoint that offers another perspective. This is Hugh of St. Victor's explanation that the sacraments fit and heal human nature through offering humanity humility, instruction, and exercise. 3 This paper will briefly survey Hugh's contribution, analyze its reception by several of the thirteenth-century Scholastics, shows its deep rootedness in biblical wisdom, and then show how it fruitfully opposes current-day challenges.Hugh of St. VictorHugh of St. Victor was a twelfth-century canon of the Parisian Abbey of St. Victor. The most influential writer of the Victorine school, his work is characterized by an Augustinian concern for the re-formation of the image of God in man, a sense of the wise ordering of salvation history, and an emphasis on both virtue and liturgical practice. In his masterwork, De Sacramentis Christianae Fidei, Hugh of St. Victor divides the works of God into two main periods: the work of creation and the work of restoration. Within the [End Page 1392] work of restoration, there are three periods: the period of the natural law, that of the Mosaic or written law, and that of grace, inaugurated by Christ.4 His book's division into two parts cuts across these distinctions: Part 1 of Hugh's text covers creation, the restoration in general, faith, sacraments in general, as well as particulars of the sacraments of the periods of the natural and written law. Part 2 includes the Incarnation, the Church, various Christian rituals, and the final restoration of Christ's return.Hugh is writing around the time when theologians began to list the number of the sacraments of the Church as seven. Emerging from the wider use of the term, Hugh uses the word "sacrament" in a wide sense, but distinguishes several categories of sacraments. Following Dominique Poirel, scholars recognize that Hugh uses the word sacramentum in five main ways.5 The first is a general definition: (1) any sign of anything sacred. The second through fourth are more specific usages, to which we do not commonly give the term "sacrament" today: (2) Scripture, which signifies sacred realities both through its text and the... (shrink)

Andrey Bely's autobiographical novel Kotik Letaev and Terrence Malick's film The Tree of Life do not share a common subtext. Nevertheless, they have strikingly similar themes. They each deal with an adult's confrontation of his past through memory, a memory that extends back before birth. Coming to terms with the past prepares the adult protagonist of each work for his destiny. The essay discusses Malick's use of William Blake's mysticism and Bely's dependence on the religious-philosophical ideas of Rudolf Steiner. Memory (...) plays an important role in both works as it touches on the recapitulation of cosmic origins in the development of the individual human being. What the quester discovers through memory enables him to find the way back to Eternity from which he has descended. Both artists invoke the World Tree uniting heaven and earth and its association with the Cross of Christ. In both the novel and the film the world is seen first through a child's eyes, then through growing understanding of the adult. Malick illustrates with cinematography what Bely describes in words. Malick uses music in a way that fleshes out what Bely attempted to create through using musical tropes in language. (shrink)

Andrey Bely's autobiographical novel Kotik Letaev and Terrence Malick's film The Tree of Life do not share a common subtext. Nevertheless, they have strikingly similar themes. They each deal with an adult's confrontation of his past through memory, a memory that extends back before birth. Coming to terms with the past prepares the adult protagonist of each work for his destiny. The essay discusses Malick's use of William Blake's mysticism and Bely's dependence on the religious-philosophical ideas of Rudolf Steiner. Memory (...) plays an important role in both works as it touches on the recapitulation of cosmic origins in the development of the individual human being. What the quester discovers through memory enables him to find the way back to Eternity from which he has descended. Both artists invoke the World Tree uniting heaven and earth and its association with the Cross of Christ. In both the novel and the film the world is seen first through a child's eyes, then through growing understanding of the adult. Malick illustrates with cinematography what Bely describes in words. Malick uses music in a way that fleshes out what Bely attempted to create through using musical tropes in language. (shrink)

The selections contained in this volume were made by Richard Kik. The original edition Vom Licht in uns was published by Verlag J.F. Steinkopf, Stuhgart. It contains sayings of things highly spiritual nature as well as a description of the life of Richard Kik. One such selection is The beginning of all spiritual life is fearless belief in truth and its open confession. Albert Schweitzer (14 January 1875 4 September 1965) was a German-French theologian, musician, philosopher, and physician. He (...) was born in Kaysersberg in the province of Elsass-Lothringen (Alsace-Lorraine), at the time in the German Empire. Schweitzer challenged both the secular view of Jesus as depicted by historical-critical methodology current at his time in certain academic circles, as well the traditional Christian view, depicting a Jesus Christ who expected and predicted the imminent end of the world. He received the 1952 Nobel Peace Prize in 1953 for his philosophy of "Reverence for Life" expressed in many ways, but most famously in founding and sustaining the Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambarene, now in Gabon, west central Africa (then French Equatorial Africa). As a music scholar and organist, he studied the music of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach and influenced the Organ reform movement (Orgelbewegung). Schweitzer's passionate quest was to discover a universal ethical philosophy, anchored in a universal reality, and make it directly available to all of humanity. This is reflected in some of his sayings, such as: "Until he extends his circle of compassion to include all living things, man will not himself find peace." "I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.". (shrink)

Andrey Bely was an important member of the Russian symbolist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This essay presents a summary of the development of his ideas regarding the origins of image and symbol in poetic language. For Bely language organizes chaos. The poet finds images in the internal world of dreams. Music has an organizing power beyond that of language, which language attempts to imitate. Under the influence of Vladimir Solovyov he looked to the union of (...) Divine Wisdom or Sophia with the Eternal Logos as the principle behind symbolic images. Later, under the spell of Rudolf Steiner, he found the source of inspiration in the eternal dwelling of the Logos from which the human ego descends into flesh. The task of the poet is to recover the memory of the time before he left the realm of the Logos and to return to that realm by participating in Christ's ascent to the Cross. The autobiographical novel Kotik Letaev gives an account of recovering memory from before birth and the need to be joined with Christ crucified. (shrink)

Andrey Bely was an important member of the Russian symbolist movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. This essay presents a summary of the development of his ideas regarding the origins of image and symbol in poetic language. For Bely language organizes chaos. The poet finds images in the internal world of dreams. Music has an organizing power beyond that of language, which language attempts to imitate. Under the influence of Vladimir Solovyov he looked to the union of (...) Divine Wisdom or Sophia with the Eternal Logos as the principle behind symbolic images. Later, under the spell of Rudolf Steiner, he found the source of inspiration in the eternal dwelling of the Logos from which the human ego descends into flesh. The task of the poet is to recover the memory of the time before he left the realm of the Logos and to return to that realm by participating in Christ's ascent to the Cross. The autobiographical novel Kotik Letaev gives an account of recovering memory from before birth and the need to be joined with Christ crucified. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Jacob Burckhardt, Religion, and the Historiography of “Crisis” and “Transition”Thomas Albert Howard*A great historical subject, the representation of which should be the high point of a historian’s life, must cohere sympathetically and mysteriously to the author’s innermost being.Jacob Burckhardt 1If you are to venture to interpret the past you can do so only out of the fullest exertion of the vigor of the present: only when you can (...) put forth your... qualities in all their strength will you divine what is worth knowing and preserving in the past.Friedrich Nietzsche 2The renowned nineteenth-century Swiss-German historian Jacob Burckhardt (1818–97) was a masterful historian of crises and transitional periods. Two of his major works, The Age of Constantine the Great (1852) and The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy (1860), bear out this claim. In his Constantine Burckhardt deals with the transition from late pagan antiquity to the early Christian Middle Ages, and in his more famous Renaissance he deals with the transition from the late Middle Ages to the beginnings of secular modernity. In the [End Page 149] latter, as is well known, he established one of the most compelling and creative theses in the history of modern historiography, virtually creating the “idea of the Renaissance” that has long influenced both scholarly and popular conceptions of that period. 3What elicited Burckhardt’s interest in crises and transitions in general and in these two periods of crisis and transition in particular? In this article, I shall argue that there is a strong relationship between Burckhardt’s own historical experience in the early and mid-nineteenth century and his choice of subject and mode of analysis in these two monumental works. In theoretical terms one observes a “dialectical” form of objectivity in the execution of Burckhardt’s historiographical tasks: a structural affinity or kinship between subject (Burckhardt, his historical experience) and object (late antiquity, Renaissance) predisposes Burckhardt to his theme/argument and thus provides a key to understanding the genesis and the character of insights that he offers in these two works. 4 To establish this point I shall focus on the category of religion, on Burckhardt’s own experience of questions of religious truth and skepticism in the nineteenth century, and on his treatment of religion in these two works.The Young Jacob Burckhardt and ReligionReligion is a crucial but often neglected aspect of Jacob Burckhardt’s thought. 5 Like a number of nineteenth-century German intellectuals, Burckhardt was a Pfarrersohn, a “pastor’s son.” 6 He grew up in a profoundly conservative Protestant environment in Basel, nicknamed “pious Basel” for its dogged resistance to the “ideas of 1789” and for its earlier heritage of Reformation and pietist religiosity. During Burckhardt’s youth in fact, his father was a children’s minister and head-deacon (Obersthelfer) before becoming in 1838 the city cathedral’s Antistes, the highest and most prestigious ecclesiastical office in Basel. In short, as his biographer Werner Kaegi has noted, Burckhardt’s early [End Page 150] upbringing and education were strongly shaped by the world of his father, a world of “old Protestant piety.” 7Following his father’s example, Burckhardt started out on the clerical track, studying theology at the University of Basel. However, during his Theologie-studium (1837–39) he experienced a profound crisis of faith brought on by an encounter with German historical biblical criticism and liberal theology represented in the person of W. M. L. de Wette (1780–1848). A radical theologian and biblical scholar, de Wette had wound up in Basel in 1822 after being dismissed from the University of Berlin for holding views considered heterodox and politically threatening by the conservative Prussian government. 8 In a letter to his friend Johannes Riggenbach written in August 1838 Burckhardt tells how de Wette’s critical theology had unseated his faith. “In my eyes,” Burckhardt wrote,de Wette’s system grows in stature every day; one simply must follow him, there is no alternative; but every day a part of our traditional church doctrine melts away under his hand. Today, finally, I realized that he regards the birth of Christ simply as a myth... (shrink)

There has been little considered reflection by Catholic theologians on the concepts of gender identity, gender dysphoria and gender transition. Seeking inspiration in the Scriptures, some Catholic thinkers have interpreted the first three chapters of Genesis and especially the text ‘male and female he created them’ (Gen. 1:27) as requiring all human beings to live in the gender role congruent with their biological sex, and have viewed the biology of sex as self-evident. This article argues that these chapters constitute an (...) appropriate locus for reflection on theological anthropology but that they need to be taken together with other texts and especially with the explicit teaching of Jesus Christ. In the Gospel according to Matthew, the one occasion in which Jesus invokes this passage from Genesis is when he draws attention to exceptional examples in nature and, in a striking phrase, states that some ‘have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven’ (Matt. 19:12). If the Genesis text is interpreted in the light of the words of Christ, the binary division of the sexes, while ordained by God and the basis for a vocation to marry and procreate, admits of exceptions both natural and supernatural. (shrink)

"L'exil" de Schweitzer à Lambaréné répond à l'appel du Christ.

Con este artículo se pretende ensa-yar y mostrar la virtualidad de una fenomenología de la actitud natural —en la línea en que la desarrollan Schütz, Berger, Luckmann, Ortega e incluso el propio Goffman. El tema del análisis corresponde al mundo del “actor”, concretamente, a una perspectiva: la asunción y vivencia de la profesión como una vocación. ¿Es cierto, como suele afirmarse, que esta profesión es vocacional? ¿Y es cierto, por tanto, que el teatro es el lugar privilegiado para llevarla a (...) cabo? Normalmente, estas son las respuestas que suelen darse. Sin embargo, tras nuestro análisis, veremos que la afirmación ni es tan fácil, ni tan cierta.The following article will attempt to explore and delve into the phenomenology of the natural attitude. The subject of the analysis corresponds to the world of the “actor”, more specifically to one perspective: the as- sumption and experience of this profession as a vocation. Is it true, as it is often claimed, that this profession is a vocational one? If so, is it true that the theater medium is the ideal place to conduct it? It is usually assumed that the answers to both questions are affirmative. However, after thorough analysis, we shall see that such affirmations aren’t quite as easy or as certain as they might seem. (shrink)

Bioethics represents a dramatic revision of the centuries-old professional ethics that governed the behavior of physicians and their relationships with patients. This venerable ethics code was challenged in the years after World War II by the remarkable advances in the biomedical sciences and medicine that raised questions about the definition of death, the use of life-support systems, organ transplantation, and reproductive interventions. In response, philosophers and theologians, lawyers and social scientists joined together with physicians and scientists to rethink and revise (...) the old standards. Governments established commissions to recommend policies. Courts heard arguments and legislatures passed laws. This book is the first broad history of the growing field of bioethics. Covering the period 1947-1987, it examines the origin and evolution of the debates over human experimentation, genetic engineering, organ transplantation, termination of life-sustaining treatment, and new reproductive technologies. It assesses the contributions of philosophy, theology, law and the social sciences to the expanding discourse of bioethics. Written by one of the field's founders, The Birth of Bioethics is based on extensive archival research into sources that are difficult to obtain and on interviews with many of the leading figures in the moral debates in medicine. A very readable and comprehensive account of the evolution of bioethics, this book stresses the history of ideas but does not neglect the social and cultural context and the people involved. It will serve the information needs of philosophers, ethicists, social historians, and everyone interested in the origins of some of today's most hotly debated issues. (shrink)

The paper examines the emphasis on knowing the inner life of Jesus by a prominent 19th century Liberal Protestant, and Albert Schweitzer's decisive blow to the Life of Jesus movement at the beginning of the 20th century. It gives critiques to both the former and the latter, and identifies the approach of the Liberal Protestants as ‘subjective’ in two senses. While the subjectivity of an interpreter can pose problems in the interpretation of Jesus, it is maintained that the possibility (...) of knowing some aspects of the subjectivity of Jesus cannot be ruled out a priori. A method of correlation is suggested to give a more objective and connected interpretation of Jesus' outer words/actions and his mind. (shrink)

Albert Lautman (1908-1944) was a French philosopher of mathematics whose work played a crucial role in the history of contemporary French philosophy. His ideas have had an enormous influence on key contemporary thinkers including Gilles Deleuze and Alain Badiou, for whom he is a major touchstone in the development of their own engagements with mathematics. Mathematics, Ideas and the Physical Real presents the first English translation of Lautman's published works between 1933 and his death in 1944. Rather than being (...) preoccupied with the relation of mathematics to logic or with the problems of foundation, which have dominated philosophical reflection on mathematics, Lautman undertakes to develop an understanding of the broader structure of mathematics and its evolution. The two powerful ideas that are constants throughout his work, and which have dominated subsequent developments in mathematics, are the concept of mathematical structure and the idea of the essential unity underlying the apparent multiplicity of mathematical disciplines. This collection of his major writings offers readers a much-needed insight into his influence on the development of mathematics and philosophy. (shrink)

This book is about the ethical issues that clinicians encounter as they care for patients and is written to assist those who serve on hospital ethics committees as they deliberate about appropriate action in difficult ethical cases.

We describe a method of forcing against weak theories of arithmetic and its applications in propositional proof complexity.

This article explores Albert Stephanus Geyser’s understanding and application of the Christ-hymn, focusing especially on the use of the words μορφή θεοῦ. The tension between a literary-critical approach to the text versus a dogmatic understanding is exposed, as well as the challenge of a political ideology of power. Geyser’s understanding and application are measured in terms of the current state of New Testament exegetical research. In the footsteps of Stendahl and contemporary New Testament scholars, legitimacy is given to (...) a socio-political reading of the text. Geyser is appreciated as a public theologian with a deep consideration for the text as the source for theological and socio-political reflection and practice. (shrink)

C.S. Peirce was a scientist and philosopher best known as the earliest proponent of pragmatism. An influential and polymathic thinker, Peirce is among the greatest of American minds. His thought was a seminal influence on William James, his life long friend, and John Dewey, his one time student. James and Dewey went on to popularize pragmatism thereby achieving what Peirce’s inability to gain lasting academic employment prevented him from doing. A life long practitioner of science, Peirce applied scientific principles to (...) philosophy but his understanding and admiration of Kant also colored his work. Peirce was analytic and scientific, devoted to logical and scientific rigor, and an architectonic philosopher in the mold of Kant or Aristotle. His best-known theories, pragmatism and the account of inquiry, are both scientific and experimental but form part of a broad architectonic scheme. Long considered an eccentric figure whose contribution to pragmatism was to provide its name and whose importance was as an influence upon James and Dewey, Peirce’s significance in his own right is now largely accepted. (shrink)

Blending social analysis and philosophy, Albert Borgmann maintains that technology creates a controlling pattern in our lives.

One of the most influential works of this century, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays is a crucial exposition of existentialist thought. Influenced by works such as Don Juan and the novels of Kafka, these essays begin with a meditation on suicide; the question of living or not living in a universe devoid of order or meaning. With lyric eloquence, Albert Camus brilliantly posits a way out of despair, reaffirming the value of personal existence, and the possibility of (...) life lived with dignity and authenticity. (shrink)

This book is about the ethical issues that clinicians encounter as they care for patients and is written to assist those who serve on hospital ethics committees as they deliberate about appropriate action in difficult ethical cases.

The major divide in contemporary epistemology is between those who embrace and those who reject a priori knowledge. Albert Casullo provides a systematic treatment of the primary epistemological issues associated with the controversy. By freeing the a priori from traditional assumptions about the nature of knowledge and justification, he offers a novel approach to resolving these issues which assigns a prominent role to empirical evidence. He concludes by arguing that traditional approaches to the a priori, which focus primarily on (...) the concepts of necessity and analyticity, are misguided. (shrink)

Translated by Anthony Bower With an Introduction by Oliver Todd 'A conscience with style' V.S. Pritchett The Rebel (1951) is Camus's 'attempt to understand the time I live in' and a brilliant essay on the nature of human revolt. Here he makes a daring critique of communism - how it had gone wrong behind the Iron Curtain and the resulting totalitarian regimes. And he questions two events held sacred by the left wing - the French Revolution of 1789 and the (...) Russian Revolution of 1917 - that had resulted, he believed, in the use of terrorism as a political instrument. In this towering intellectual document, Camus argues that hope for the future lies in revolt with revolution - a chance to achieve change without losing our freedom. 'The last French intellectual to take the side of humanity and talk its language... a figure of immense moral stature' Sunday Times Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. (shrink)

A collection of historical and contemporary writings that chronicle the development of the African critical response to attempts to ascribe a peculiar nature to the African character, and the debate in contemporary African philosophy on issues such as magic, witchcraft, aesthetics, and morality. Other topics include contemporary thought in French speaking Africa, and African traditional thought and Western science. Each selection is preceded by a synopsis. No index. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

In den sozialwissenschaftlichen und sozialtheoretischen Diskussionen ruckt nach einer langeren Interimszeit wieder zunehmend die Frage nach den Konstitutionsbedingungen des Sozialen, von Sozialitat bzw. sozialen Gebilden in den Vordergrund.

Ecouter est une tâche d'humanité. C'est ce que tout homme doit pouvoir offrir à l'autre en proie à une détresse dont il a envie de parler. Mais écouter peut devenir, dans certains cas, affaire de spécialistes. Les Eglises chrétiennes ont une longue, très longue expérience de ce qui s'appelait jadis la direction spirituelle et que l'on nomme plus volontiers de nos jours l'accompagnement spirituel. Les modalités et le but de ces accompagnements visent à faire grandir la relation avec Celui que (...) les Eglises confessent comme le Dieu de Jésus-Christ et, conséquemment, avec autrui. Or, depuis la fin du XIXe siècle, la psychanalyse, une toute nouvelle discipline, profane en son essence et en son déploiement concret, s'est donné comme tâche similaire d'écouter la souffrance et la détresse qui cherchent à se dire. Les modalités peuvent apparaître, dans un premier temps, assez proches de la relation pastorale ou de la cure d'âmes des prêtres ou des pasteurs chrétiens : il s'agit, dans l'un et l'autre cas, de parloirs en vue du dialogue, afin qu'une parole se fasse chair là où elle a fait défaut et là où, donc, le symptôme a surgi. Le but est, cependant, très différent : permettre au sujet souffrant de pouvoir à nouveau aimer et travailler est l'unique objectif d'une analyse qui ne saurait être confondue avec la poursuite d'une éthique, étrangère à Freud... mais peut-être un peu moins à Lacan. Cet ouvrage expose les thèses et les méthodes de la psychanalyse susceptibles de jeter des lumières nouvelles au profit de la relation pastorale. Des générations pionnières en la matière, celles de plusieurs théologiens et/ou spirituels chrétiens - comme Albert Plé, Louis Beirnaert, Marc Oraison - ont osé engager le dialogue avec la psychanalyse, aussi explosif qu'il puisse se révéler de prime abord. Il a fallu, d'abord, mettre au point une méthodologie du dialogue pour éviter, autant que possible, des jonctions injustifiées. Et puis, pour nombre de ces pionniers, c'est le vif de l'expérience psychanalytique qui est apparu comme le lieu-source d'où le matériau le plus riche sur les plans théorique et clinique peut être extrait au bénéfice d'une pratique chrétienne de l'écoute qui n'ignore pas les ruses de nos conflits intrapsychiques, ces ruses toutes passionnelles que la Tradition chrétienne avait déjà pressenties. (shrink)

America is a wonderful and magnificent country that affords its citizens the broadest freedoms and the greatest prosperity in the world. But it also has its share of warts. It is embroiled in a war that many of its citizens consider unjust and even illegal. It continues to ravage the natural environment and ignore poverty both at home and abroad, and its culture is increasingly driven by materialism and consumerism. But America, for better or for worse, is still a nation (...) that we have built. So why then, asks Albert Borgmann in this most timely and urgent work, are we failing to take responsibility for it? In Real American Ethics , Borgmann asks us to reevaluate our role in the making of American values. Taking his cue from Winston Churchill—who once observed that we shape our buildings, and then our buildings shape us—Borgmann considers the power of our most enduring institutions and the condition of our present moral makeup to propose inspired new ways in which we, as ordinary citizens, can act to improve our country. This, he shows, includes everything from where we choose to live and what we spend our money on to daunting tasks like the reshaping of our cities—habits and actions that can guide us to more accomplished and virtuous lives. Using prose that is easy and direct throughout, Borgmann’s position is grounded neither by conservative nor liberal ideology, but in his understanding that he is a devoted citizen among many. In an age in which the blame game is the only game in town, this patriotic book is an eloquent reminder of the political strength we all wield when we work together. (shrink)

Charles Sanders Peirce is generally regarded as the founder of pragmatism, and one of the greatest ever American philosophers. Peirce is also widely known for his work on truth, his foundational work in mathematical logic, and an influential theory of signs, or semiotics. Albert Atkin introduces the full spectrum of Peirce’s thought for those coming to his work for the first time. The book begins with an overview of Peirce’s life and work, considering his early and long-standing interest in (...) logic and science, and highlighting important views on the structure of philosophical thought. Atkin then explains Peirce’s accounts of pragmatism and truth examining important later developments to these theories. He then introduces Peirce’s full accounts of semiotics, examines his foundational work on formal and graphical logic, and introduces Peirce’s account of metaphysics, the least understood aspect of his philosophy. The final chapter considers Peirce’s legacy and influence on the thought of philosophers such as John Dewey and Richard Rorty, as well as highlighting areas where Peirce’s ideas could still provide important insights for contemporary philosophers. Including chapter summaries, suggestions for further reading and a glossary, this invaluable introduction and guide to Peirce’s philosophy is essential reading for those new to his work. (shrink)

Holding On to Reality is a brilliant history of information, from its inception in the natural world to its role in the transformation of culture to the current Internet mania and is attendant assets and liabilities. Drawing on the history of ideas, the details of information technology, and the boundaries of the human condition, Borgmann illuminates the relationship between things and signs, between reality and information. "[Borgmann] has offered a stunningly clear definition of information in Holding On to Reality.... He (...) leaves room for little argument, unless one wants to pose the now vogue objection: I guess it depends on what you mean by nothing."—Paul Bennett, Wired "A superb anecdotal analysis of information for a hype-addled age."—New Scientist "This insightful and poetic reflection on the changing nature of information is a wonderful antidote to much of the current hype about the 'information revolution.' Borgmann reminds us that whatever the reality of our time, we need 'a balance of signs and things' in our lives."—Margaret Wertheim, LA Weekly. (shrink)

« Qu'est-ce qu'un homme révolté? Un homme qui dit non. Mais s'il refuse, il ne renonce pas : c'est aussi un homme qui dit oui, dès son premier mouvement. »[réf. nécessaire] D'apparence, il existe une limite à la révolte. Cependant, la révolte est un droit. La révolte naît de la perte de patience. Elle est un mouvement et se situe donc dans l'agir. Elle se définit par le « Tout ou Rien », le « Tous ou Personne ». En premier, (...) elle soumet l'idée d'égalité : position d'égal à égal entre le maître et l'esclave. Mais le révolté finit par imposer cette égalité qui se traduit souvent par une inversion des rôles (dialectique hégélienne). Suivant le raisonnement de Scheler, l'homme révolté n'est pas l'homme du ressentiment, c'est-à-dire qu'il ne baigne ni dans la haine ni dans le mépris. La révolte enfante des valeurs. De fait, « pour être, l'homme doit se révolter ». La révolte extirpe l'homme de la solitude puisqu'elle est collective, c'est l'« aventure de tous ». Néanmoins, faire l'expérience de la révolte, c'est faire l'expérience de l'ascèse. Les mythes de Prométhée, d'Achille (avec Patrocle), d'OEdipe et d'Antigone, sont des archétypes de révoltes antiques au même titre que la révolte de Spartacus. La révolte est souvent légitime, elle est l'expression la plus pure de la liberté et semble revêtir le visage de l'espoir. De surcroît, la révolte impose une tension, elle refuse donc formellement le confort de la tyrannie ou de la servitude. Le révolutionnaire a la volonté de « transformer le monde » (Marx) alors que le révolté veut « changer la vie » (Rimbaud). (shrink)