In this paper, our goal is to survey some of the legal contexts within which violence risk assessment already plays a prominent role, explore whether developments in neuroscience could potentially be used to improve our ability to predict violence, and discuss whether neuropredictive models of violence create any unique legal or moral problems above and beyond the well worn problems already associated with prediction more generally. In Violence Risk Assessment and the Law, we briefly examine the role currently played by (...) predictions of violence in three high stakes legal contexts: capital sentencing, civil commitment hearings, and sexual predator statutes. In Clinical vs. Actuarial Violence Risk Assessment, we briefly examine the distinction between traditional clinical methods of predicting violence and more recently developed actuarial methods, exemplified by the Classification of Violence Risk software created by John Monahan and colleagues as part of the MacArthur Study of Mental Disorder and Violence [1]. In The Neural Correlates of Psychopathy, we explore what neuroscience currently tells us about the neural correlates of violence, using the recent neuroscientific research on psychopathy as our focus. We also discuss some recent advances in both data collection and data analysis that we believe will play an important role when it comes to future neuroscientific research on violence. In The Potential Promise of Neuroprediction, we discuss whether neuroscience could potentially be used to improve our ability to predict future violence. Finally, in The Potential Perils of Neuroprediction, we explore some potential evidentiary, constitutional, and moral issues that may arise in the context of the neuroprediction of violence. (shrink)

(2012). In Response to “Revisiting Blumberg's ‘The Practice of Law As A Confidence Game’” by Professor Gilbert Geis. Criminal Justice Ethics: Vol. 31, No. 1, pp. 39-41. doi: 10.1080/0731129X.2012.657508.

We live in a world of technical systems, designed in accordance with technical disciplines and operated by a personnel trained in those disciplines. This is a unique form of social organization without historical precedent. It overshadows traditional democratic institutions and largely determines our way of life. Technosystem: The Social Life of Reason reconstructs the idea of democracy for this brave new world. The author draws on the tradition of radical social criticism represented by Herbert Marcuse and the Frankfurt School as (...) well as contemporary Science and Technology Studies. The social critics recognized the role of instrumental rationality in modern societies, but they did not analyze any actual technologies in detail, nor did they develop a convincing theory of democratic resistance to the new forms of domination by rational systems. STS has developed methods of analysis for a fine-grained study of technology. Technosystem brings these methods to bear on the resistances emerging in the world described by the radical social critics of the Frankfurt School.--. (shrink)

The Critical Theory of the early Frankfurt School promised, in Adorno’s words, a ‘rational critique of reason’. Science and Technology Studies can play a role in the renewal of this approach. STS is based on a critique of the very same technocratic and scientistic assumptions against which Critical Theory argues. Its critique of positivism and determinism has political implications. But at its origins STS took what Wiebe Bijker called the ‘detour into the academy’ in order to institutionalize itself as a (...) social science. It adopted empirical methods, developed case histories, and limited its scope, avoiding politically controversial issues. Its latent political critique has become explicit in recent years as STS has responded to the rise of technical politics by broadening its concerns. Its wide scope converges with the equally encompassing Critical Theory. Together, STS and Critical Theory offer a new concept of politics. (shrink)

St. John of the Cross was aware of the fact that his mysticism resisted prosaic, discursive representation; however, most contemporary scholars have overlooked this radical component of his work. First, I trace the major philosophical influences on John’s work: Medieval Neoplatonism and Scholasticism. Second, by drawing on the Barthesian-Foucauldian concept of the author function, I demonstrate that the Mystical Doctor saw his poetry as free-standing, inexhaustible by even his own efforts to systematize key aspects of his poetry—an insurmountable task, which (...) he had to be compelled to compile and publish by the nuns he guided in spiritual direction. (shrink)

This paper suggests that lessons from the field of environmental ethics and sociological perspectives on knowledge are important tools for rethinking what type of ethical analysis is needed for building up further the field of development ethics and, more generally, for addressing some of the most fundamental ethical problems related to global poverty and development. The paper argues for a methodologically pragmatist approach to development ethics that focuses on the interplay between facts, values, concepts and practices. It views development ethics (...) as a hybrid between a public moral?political philosophy and a public conception of social science. Ethical analyses of poverty and development must lead to fundamental changes in the ways knowledge is produced and justified and must challenge the dominance of global institutions and orthodox economics as the single sources of expert knowledge for development. Two of the main tasks of ethical analysis is to provide tools for the formulation of alternative knowledge for development centred on the equal moral worth of all human beings, and to influence global policy making as well as multilateral institutions' goals and policies. The last section of the paper argues that Amartya Sen's version of the Capability Approach is already methodologically pragmatist and points to some convergence between Sen's work and John Dewey's. Further sociological and methodologically pragmatist analysis of the approach is needed to assess the ways in which it is influencing debates on human development and leading to policy changes, and the possible distortions it suffers when adopted by multilateral agencies and policy makers. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the international conference on Ethics and Development at Michigan State University, East Landing (USA) 8?15 April 2005. The section on methodological pragmatism draws from an unpublished paper written with Andrew Light called ?A Pragmatist Methodology for Development Ethics,? presented at the American Philosophical Association (APA) meeting in New York, December 1999. I have updated, transformed and used some parts and insights developed with Light in a way he may not recognize. (shrink)

This paper investigates the role of oikonomia in the writings of St John of Damascus and how that role is integral to the construction of the figure of the Jew.

An essay on Pietro Pomponazzi, the philosopher and founder of the Aristotelian-Averroistic School. His great work De immortalitate animi, gave rise to a storm of controversy between the orthodox Thomists of the Catholic Church, the Averroists headed by Agostino Nifo, and the so-called Alexandrist School. The treatise was burned at Venice, and Pomponazzi himself ran serious risk of death at the hands of the Catholics. Two pamphlets followed, the Apologia and the Defensorium, wherein he explained his paradoxical position as Catholic (...) and philosophic materialist. His last two treatises, the De incantationibus and the De fato, were posthumously published in an edition of his works printed at Basel. Chapters: Aristotle in the Early Middle Ages; The Arabians and St. Thomas; Pomponazzi as an Aristotelian; Pomponazzi's Psychology; The Soul; Intelligence; Sense; Reason; Knowledge; The Nature of Virtue; and Natural Law in Human Life and Religion. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that adherents of Patrick Toner’s hylemorphic animalism who also assent to orthodox Christology and a thesis about the necessity of identity must reject a prima facie plausible theological possibility held by Ockham, entertained in one form by St. Thomas Aquinas, and recently held by Richard Cross, Thomas Flint,, and, and Timothy Pawl and concerning which individual concrete human natures an omnipotent God could assume.

This article discusses the relationship between a deconstructivist method in science and technology studies and the more recent moves towards a reconstructivist engagement with science and science policy making. Drawing on examples from the author's own research, the article identifies three forms of engagement and their relative utility and limitations. The article argues that these are typical of STS work that seeks direct engagement with science policy making and which could form the basis for a more "serviceable STS" that retains (...) its critical and independent perspective on science. The paper concludes by arguing that the analysis has important implications for the ways in which STS expertise can articulate with science policy making. (shrink)

In June 2022, Christopher Southgate delivered the Boyle Lecture for that year at St Mary-le-Bow, in the City of London, on the theme of evolutionary theodicy. This article contains the text of the short talk and vote of thanks delivered in response that evening.

In a well-known passage in his Apologia, Newman’s recognition of himself as a latter-day Monophysite marked a pivotal step towards his conversion. This recognition, however, was preceded by another painful anagnorisis: his realization, as a result of a stinging article by Nicholas Wiseman, that he was a latter-day Donatist. This essay examines how Wiseman’s article exposed Newman’s ecclesial ambivalence and highlights the role that St. Augustine’s writings played, not only in confirming Newman’s schismatic identity, but also in ultimately suggesting how (...) to move beyond it. (shrink)

Traditionally Christian ethical reflection has taken the form of what is called nowadays ‘virtue ethics’. This article compares the approach to virtue ethics in the Byzantine thinker, Maximos the Confessor, and the Western thinker, Thomas Aquinas. They both share the heritage of Plato and Aristotle. Maximos develops a concern for the virtues that is practical and ascetic; although he recognizes and uses the traditional classical terminology, he prefers a new Christian terminology, based more directly on the Scriptures. In contrast, Aquinas (...) accepts and uses the classical terminology, adding to it Christian ‘theological’ virtues. His concern is much less directly practical than Maximos, and more directed to the kind of society in which the virtues can flourish. This contrast between the ascetical and political (which should not be overdrawn) is manifest in Dumitru Stăniloae and Josef Pieper, introduced as modern interpreters of Maximos and Thomas respectively. (shrink)

This book is the first major study of the theme of misanthropy, its history, arguments both for and against it, and its significance for us today. Misanthropy is not strictly a philosophy. It is an inconsistent thought, and so has often been mocked. But from Timon of Athens to Motörhead it has had a very long life, vast historical purchase and is seemingly indomitable and unignorable. Human beings have always nursed a profound distrust of who and what they are. This (...) book does not seek to rationalize that distrust, but asks how far misanthropy might have a reason on its side, if a confused reason. There are obvious arguments against misanthropy. It is often born of a hatred of physical being. It can be historically explained. It particularly appears in undemocratic cultures. But what of the misanthropy of terminally defeated and disempowered peoples? Or born of progressivisms? Or the misanthropy that quarrels with specious or easy positivities (from Pelagius to Leibniz to the corporate cheer of contemporary `total capital`)? From the Greek Cynics to Roman satire, St Augustine to Jacobean drama, the misanthropy of the French Ancien Regime to Swift, Smollett and Johnson, Hobbes, Schopenhauer and Rousseau, from the Irish and American misanthropic traditions to modern women`s misanthropy, the book explores such questions. It ends with a debate about contemporary culture that ranges from the `dark radicalisms`, queer misanthropy, posthumanism and eco-misanthropy to Houellebecq, punk rock and gangsta rap. (shrink)

Introduced in the comics in 1964, the “Dread Dormammu” is the ruler of the Dark Dimension and its magicks, with power comparable to the Vishanti, the mystical beings from whom Doctor Stephen Strange summons his own mystical energy. St. Augustine's journey was not too different from that of Stephen Strange: a man of secular culture who eventually is awakened to his higher calling from forces beyond the physical realm. One of Augustine's key insights into the realities of the human person (...) is an understanding of evil. His definition of metaphysical evil is a standard that still dominates conversations among philosophers centuries after his death. Augustine's conception of natural evil is rooted in his understanding that evil was brought into the natural world by sin. It seems that, being morally evil, Dormammu fits the mold of a classic Marvel villain. (shrink)

This article argues that Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of technology is useful for both science and technology studies and critical theory. The synthesis has political implications. It offers an argument for the rationality of democratic interventions by citizens into decisions concerning technology. The new framework opens a perspective on the radical transformation of technology required by ecological modernization and sustainability. In so doing, it suggests new applications of STS methods to politics as well as a reconstruction of the Frankfurt School’s “rational (...) critique of reason.”. (shrink)

What did God mean to F.H. Bradley? Bradley’s style and subtle philosophical approach makes it difficult to ascertain precisely what his settled thoughts were on this issue. He does say, for example, quite a lot as to what God is not. This essay will initially follow out this negative reading. This latter enterprise entails comparisons, first, with philosophy, or more appropriately the ‘metaphysical impulse’, second, with morality, and third, with history. Having followed out the more negative arguments, the essay turns (...) to what religion is for Bradley. This is intrinsically more difficult. The discussion elicits here some help from the other idealist thinkers who were close readers of Bradley. Almost surprisingly, Bradley does comment substantively, if briefly, on issues of faith, miracle, atonement, prayer, church going, and clerics. The most significant theological point to arise in both Bradley is the significance of St. Paul’s writings. The Pauline ‘justification by faith’ becomes a repeated motif. However, there still remains an ambiguous relation of God and religion to ‘social life’ or ‘sociality’, which is explored more carefully at the conclusion of the essay. The essay finally argues that Bradley’s highly nuanced response to religion and God embodies paradoxical and unresolved elements which encapsulate, unwittingly, a dilemma at the heart of the Idealist conception of religion. (shrink)

Instead of considering »being with« in terms of non-problematic, machine-like places, where reliable entities assemble in stable relationships, STS conjures up a world where the achievement of chancy stabilisations and synchronisations is local. We have to analyse how and where a certain regularity and predictability in the intersection of scientists and their instruments, say, or of human individuals and groups, is produced. The paper reviews models of emergence drawn from the history of cybernetics—the canonical »black box,« homeostats, and cellular automata—to (...) enrich our imagination of the stabilisation process, and discusses the concept of »variety« as a way of clarifying its difficulty, with the antiuniversities of the 1960s and the Occupy movement as examples. Failures of »being with« are expectable. In conclusion, the paper reviews approaches to collective decision-making that reduce variety without imposing a neoliberal hierarchy. (shrink)

Very few Catholics become vegetarians for moral reasons, and virtually no one would expect them to since vegetarianism seems to go hand in hand with views which are incompatible with the Catholic faith. The purpose of this paper is to show that the Catholic Church accepts principles-widely accepted by others, too-which imply a conditional, though broadly applicable, obligation to avoid killing animals for food. Catholic thinkers have not hitherto applied these principles to vegetarianism, but have long used them in other (...) ways. The case is built on texts from St. Thomas Aquinas and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. (shrink)

The Western philosophical tradition and mainstream Christian theology have a common flaw: both have consistently failed properly to appreciate poetic truth as such. Plato proposed to ban Homeric poetry from his ideal city while St. Augustine wished to 'shun the company of the poets entirely'. Nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy has seen a move towards rejection of this prejudice, largely pioneered by Heidegger and Nietzsche. But in this work Andrew Shanks argues that the rebellion of Heidegger and Nietzsche is (...) also deeply flawed, and proposes an alternative strategy for reconciling Christian theology with poetic truth. Heidegger's ideal prophetic poet, Hoelderlin is rescued from the Heideggerian interpretation through being set alongside his equally prophetic contemporary William Blake, and also alongside Nelly Sachs, arguably the greatest religious poet of the twentieth century. In these poets' work, it is argued, we see fresh eruptions of that primordial 'pathos of shakenness' which, pre-eminently in the prophecy of Amos and Deutero-Isaiah, represents the originatingl truth-impulse of the biblical tradition. (shrink)

Painting can only be thought in relation to the image. And yet, with (and within) painting what continues to endure is the image of painting. While this is staged explicitly in, for example, paintings of St. Luke by artists of the Northern Renaissance—e.g., Rogier van der Weyden, Jan Gossaert, and Simon Marmion—the same concerns are also at work within both the practices as well as the contemporaneous writings that define central aspects of the Italian Renaissance. The aim of this paper (...) is to begin an investigation into the process by which painting stages the activity of painting. This forms part of a project whose aim is an investigation of the way philosophy should respond to the essential historicity of art (where the latter is understood philosophically). (shrink)

Instead of considering »being with« in terms of non-problematic, machine-like places, where reliable entities assemble in stable relationships, STS conjures up a world where the achievement of chancy stabilisations and synchronisations is local.We have to analyse how and where a certain regularity and predictability in the intersection of scientists and their instruments, say, or of human individuals and groups, is produced.The paper reviews models of emergence drawn from the history of cybernetics—the canonical »black box,« homeostats, and cellular automata—to enrich our (...) imagination of the stabilisation process, and discusses the concept of »variety« as a way of clarifying its difficulty, with the antiuniversities of the 1960s and the Occupy movement as examples. Failures of »being with« are expectable. In conclusion, the paper reviews approaches to collective decision-making that reduce variety without imposing a neoliberal hierarchy. (shrink)

I begin by sketching a dialectic typical of modern discussions of the ontological argument and explain the underlying modal principles. I will not pursue this well-worn dialectic. Instead I will explicate David Lewis’s valid reconstruction of St Anselm’s argument in Proslogion-II. Lewis’s objections to this argument are based on his idiosyncratic views about modality. Implicitly, Lewis presents a challenge: either I am right about modality, or there is a sound version of the ontological argument. More specifically, Lewis claims there is (...) no good reason to supposethere is anything special about the actual world. I suggest there is good reason to think that must be incorrect. Thus we are left with a formal version of the ontological argument for God’s existence that for all we have seen here looks eminently viable. (shrink)

Social trinitarians are divided on whether the doctrine of the eternal relations of origin (DERO) should be maintained. In this paper, I focus on what social trinitarianism (ST) must affirm and cannot affirm by way of the divine attributes in order to maintain the DERO. First, I offer my own proposal for a mere ST before turning to the DERO, as the ST term currently suffers many uses and definitions. Second, I turn my attention to ST and the divine attributes. (...) The DERO requires one to affirm other divine attributes of God, such as divine atemporality, divine immutability, and divine impassability. If the social trinitarian desires to maintain the DERO, then they have to maintain these other attributes. However, they will have to forgo the doctrine of divine simplicity because it is incompatible with ST. I conclude by bringing this discussion to bear on models of God and the divine attributes, arguing that the DERO-affirming social trinitarian only has one such model available to them. (shrink)

The concept of hope plays a fascinating yet overlooked role in Kant's thought. Whilst his emphasis on reason and enlightened thought may be seen to leave little room for hope, it is a question that sits at the heart of his writings on religion and political philosophy. What May I Hope? introduces and assesses Kant's answers to this compelling question and also places hope in a contemporary philosophical context. Andrew Chignell begins by introducing accounts of hope before Kant, including (...) those of Plato, Aristotle, St. Paul, Augustine and Aquinas. He then explains how Kant’s metaphysics provides the background to his account of hope before examining the relationship between belief and hope, in particular Kant’s argument that it is rational for human beings to hope not only that God exists but that we legitimately hope for political ends such as the ideal republic, the ‘kingdom of ends’ and peace. He also shows how hope motivates a theme at the centre of Kant’s work as a whole: that we progress towards enlightenment and autonomy. He then considers early criticisms of Kant’s theory of belief and faith in the work of Jacobi, Fichte, Schelling and Feuerbach before considering the two most important critics of Kant’s philosophy of hope, Hegel and Marx. He also examines the criticisms levelled against Kant by Kierkegaard, for whom faith is much more important than hope, and Schopenhauer, who in contrast promotes a philosophical hopelessness before considering pragmatists such as John Dewey and Richard Rorty who accorded an important place to hope. The final part of the book asks what we may hope for today. Chignell asks what place hope has in the face of inequality, human suffering and genocide and asks whether religion may promote false hope, leading us away from political action. (shrink)

ResumoEste artigo defende que a teoria da concretização de Gilbert Simondon é útil tanto para os estudos sobre ciência e tecnologia quanto para a teoria política. Por "concretização", Simondon compreende o processo de multiplicação de funções propiciadas pelas estruturas de um dispositivo. Ele oferece o exemplo do motor com resfriamento a ar, que combina resfriamento e contenção em uma única estrutura, a caixa do motor. A concretização contrasta com projetos "abstratos", que acrescentam estruturas para cada função, complicando o dispositivo e (...) reduzindo sua eficiência. De acordo com Simondon, a evolução normal das tecnologias pode ser acompanhada através de suas sucessivas concretizações. O propósito deste artigo é concretizar em um único sistema de referência conceitual as noções funcionalmente distintas de "concretização" em Simondon e de "atores" nos ECT. Essa combinação tem aplicações políticas importantes. Ela mostra como demandas aparentemente contraditórias podem ser reconciliadas através de inovação. Por exemplo, diz-se frequentemente que acrescentar novas funções ambientais a tecnologias existentes implicará na troca da eficiência pela ideologia. Ao invés disso, o novo sistema de referência conceitual abre-nos uma perspectiva de transformação radical da tecnologia requerida pela modernização e sustentabilidade ecológicas. Ao fazer isso, ele sugere um modo de reconstruir a "crítica racional da razão" da Escola de Frankfurt e a noção de "racionalidade tecnológica" de Marcuse.This article argues that Gilbert Simondon's theory of concretization is useful for both science and technology studies and political theory. By "concretization" Simondon means the process of multiplying the functions served by the structures of a device. He gives the example of the air cooled engine which combines cooling and containment in a single structure, the engine case. Concretization contrasts with "abstract" designs that add structures for each function, complicating the device and reducing its efficiency. According to Simondon the normal evolution of technologies can be traced in successive concretizations. The aim of this paper is to concretize in a single conceptual framework the functionally distinct notions of "concretization" in Simondon and "actors" in STS. The combination has important political applications. It shows how apparently contradictory demands can be reconciled through innovation. For example, we are often told that adding new environmental functions to existing technologies will trade off ideology for efficiency. Instead, the new framework opens a perspective on the radical transformation of technology required by ecological modernization and sustainability. In so doing, it suggests a way of reconstructing the Frankfurt School's "rational critique of reason" and Marcuse's notion of "technological rationality". (shrink)

A vivacious biography of the prophetic and sympathetic philosopher who along with Voltaire and Rousseau built the foundations of the modern world, and travelled as far as Russia to enlighten the Tsarina Catherine the Great. Denis Diderot is often associated with the decades-long battle to bring the world's first comprehensive Encyclopédie into existence. But his most compelling and personal writing took place in the shadows. Thrown into prison for his atheism in 1749, Diderot decided to reserve his most daring books (...) for posterity-for us, in fact. In the astonishing cache of unpublished writings that he left behind after his death, Diderot dreamed of natural selection before Darwin, the Oedipus complex before Freud, and genetic manipulation centuries before Dolly the Sheep was born. Even more audaciously, the writer challenged virtually all of his century's accepted truths, from the sanctity of monarchy, to the racial justification of slave trade, to the limits of human sexuality. He was also keenly aware of the dangers of absolute power, about which he wrote so persuasively that it led Catherine the Great not only to support him financially but also to invite him to St. Petersburg. In this thematically organized biography, Andrew Curran vividly describes Diderot's tormented relationship with Rousseau, his feud with Voltaire, his tortured marriage, his passionate affairs, and his often-paradoxical stand on art, morality, and religion. But what this book brings out most brilliantly is how a man's character flaws and limitations are often the flip side of his genius and his ability to break taboos, dogmas, and conventions. (shrink)

St. Augustine's book, The City of God , suggests the fundamental problem for the philosophy of a liberal education. The basic problem is that there are two cities which beckon our allegiance: the secular city and the city of God. The role of philosophy is to examine critically the arguments of the contending parties and to adjudicate between them. A denominational college, by its nature, proclaims its allegiance to the city of God; so the place of philosophy as adjudicator becomes (...) a problem. (shrink)

In this article I have highlighted what I take to be some salient deficiencies in Rahner's basic philosophical position, and I have argued that Lonergan does provide arguments which can be validated on the basis of the data of self-consciousness. Rahner's metaphysics of knowing often appears as a catena of simple assertions derived, it is claimed, from St Thomas' philosophy. There are occasional attempts to justify positions taken against the possible objections of contemporary philosophy but these attempts are sporadic at (...) best. It is Lonergan, rather than Rahner, I contend who is able to deploy St Thomas' insights in a fruitful way in the domain of contemporary thought, and that is due to the expeditious method he adopts. Characterizing an essential aspect of that retrieval of the tradition so as to be at the level of our own philosophical times, Lonergan writes: «The fact is that my aim is vetera novis augere et perficere. Nor is my procedure haphazard. Basically it is a matter of deriving basic terms and relations from the data of consciousness, of accepting traditional metaphysics in the sense that it is isomorphic with these basic terms and relations, and of rejecting traditional metaphysics in any sense that is not the to-be-known of human cognitional activity». (shrink)

This short article provides a response to Nowotny and Wynne's commentary on an earlier article by the author that examined the relation between science and technology studies and science policy. The article offers a reply with respect to understanding the domain of science policy; how Nowotny and Wynne seek to broaden the scope and so critical leverage of STS beyond the “policy room”; and the implications this has for the ways in which an STS/non-sts nexus might be configured in the (...) future. (shrink)

Part Two of Ordo VI of the Amsterdam edition of Erasmi opera omnia presents his Greek text and his Latin translation of the Gospel according to St. John and the Acts of the Apostles.

Part Three of Ordo VI of the Amsterdam edition of Erasmi opera omnia presents his Greek text and his Latin translation of St. Paul’s letters to the Romans, the Corinthians, the Galatians, the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians and the Thessalonians.

The idea of moral evil has always held a special place in philosophy and theology because the existence of evil has implications for the dignity of the human and the limits of human action. Andrew M. Flescher proposes four interpretations of evil, drawing on philosophical and theological sources and using them to trace through history the moral traditions that are associated with them. The first model, evil as the presence of badness, offers a traditional dualistic model represented by Manicheanism. (...) The second, evil leading to goodness through suffering, presents a theological interpretation known as theodicy. Absence of badness—that is, evil as a social construction—is the third model. The fourth, evil as the absence of goodness, describes when evil exists in lieu of the good—the "privation" thesis staked out nearly two millennia ago by Christian theologian St. Augustine. Flescher extends this fourth model—evil as privation—into a fifth, which incorporates a virtue ethic. Drawing original connections between Augustine and Aristotle, Flescher’s fifth model emphasizes the formation of altruistic habits that can lead us to better moral choices throughout our lives. Flescher eschews the temptation to think of human agents who commit evil as outside the norm of human experience. Instead, through the honing of moral skills and the practice of attending to the needs of others to a greater degree than we currently do, Flescher offers a plausible and hopeful approach to the reality of moral evil. (shrink)

Health, illness and disease are topics well-suited to interdisciplinary inquiry. This book brings together scholars from around the world who share an interest in and a commitment to bridging the traditional boundaries of inquiry. We hope that this book begins new conversations that will situate health in broader socio-cultural contexts and establish connections between health, illness and disease and other socio-political issues. This book is the outcome of the first global conference on Making Sense of: Health, Illness and Disease, held (...) at St Catherine's College, Oxford, in June 2002. The selected papers pursue a range of topics from the cultural significance of narratives of health, illness and disease to healing practices in contemporary society as well as patients' illness experiences. (shrink)

This important collection of essays by Andrew Feenberg presents his critical theory of technology, an innovative approach to philosophy and sociology of technology based on a synthesis of ideas drawn from STS and Frankfurt School Critical Theory. The volume includes chapters on citizenship, modernity, and Heidegger and Marcuse.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.3 (2001) 442-443 [Access article in PDF] Steven Nadler, editor. The Cambridge Companion to Malebranche. Cambridge Companions. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xi + 319. Cloth, $54.95. With his own Cambridge Companion, the seventeenth-century French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche has at last arrived in the English speaking world. As editor Nadler puts it, "Malebranche was widely recognized by his philosophical and theological (...) contemporaries... as an intellectual force to be reckoned with, a bold... synthesizer of... St. Augustine and Descartes and a systematic thinker of the first rank" (1). Yet until the relatively recent arrival of books or translations by scholars such as Nadler, McCracken, Jolley, Schmaltz, and Riley, Malebranche has largely been treated by Anglo-American scholars as merely the solitary proponent of the allegedly rather silly doctrine of occasionalism. The tide is now turning, and we may expect that over the next few years Malebranche's wide-ranging sophistication and significance will be more widely appreciated. Invaluable to that end will be Nadler's volume, which is of great interest both to those new to Malebranche and to seasoned scholars, for it presents accessible yet thorough introductions to Malebranche's many interesting doctrines—concerning self-knowledge, vision in God, continuous creation, occasionalism, theodicy, grace, freedom, morality, etc.—as well as raises important questions for future research. All of the essays Nadler has assembled are by well-known scholars, and all are worthwhile.The first point to make is that occasionalism—the view that God is the only true cause, and that finite substances lack all true causal power—was neither silly, nor was Malebranche its only proponent. As Nadler's own essay makes clear, the doctrine (or variations thereof) has roots in medieval philosophy as well as in Descartes, and was favored by other Cartesians preceding Malebranche, such as Cordemoy, la Forge, Geulincx, and Clauberg; further, Malebranche offered numerous distinct arguments for it, and, as evidenced in essays by Schmaltz, Rutherford, Kremer, and Riley, intended it to fit with his other metaphysical views in a complete and coherent system. Even if, as some of these same authors suggest, Malebranche failed to get everything to fit quite right, it's at least clear that the oft-raised charge that occasionalism was merely an ad hoc solution to the Cartesian mind-body problem is unjustified. There is of course room to disagree with certain details here: I've argued elsewhere, for example against Nadler, that despite evidence to the contrary Malebranche does not invoke continuous creation as an argument for occasionalism, and, in effect, against Kremer, that Malebranche can succeed in reconciling occasionalism and his conception of free will. But then the fact that scholars can disagree on points such as these is precisely evidence that Malebranche is a rich subject of study.Different essays have different virtues. Some are especially strong in philosophical analysis. Schmaltz provides penetrating analyses of Malebranche's doctrine that we see [End Page 442] all things "in God" as well as of related issues (such as the distinction between the intellectual and the sensible), and also traces their roots in or ramifications for thinkers such as Augustine, Descartes, Arnauld, and Regis; Kremer, too, does an impressive job disentangling the many discrete threads in Malebranche's theory of free will. Essays by Moreau and Riley are particularly useful for their overview or synthetic nature: Moreau presents the many points of contention in the decades-long dispute between Malebranche and Arnauld, while Riley makes explicit the implications that many of the doctrines discussed by other contributors have for Malebranche's moral theory (in the process perhaps implicitly supporting the claim that Malebranche's moral theory may be essential for understanding his metaphysics). Brown's and Robinet's contributions, the former detailing Malebranche's positive influence on or critical reception by figures such as Locke, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, and Reid, the latter focusing on disputes between Malebranche, Arnauld, and Leibniz, are essential for those interested (as all should be) in working Malebranche into standard undergraduate courses on modern philosophy, and will also be... (shrink)