The Elements of Philosophy: Readings from Past and Present offers an extensive collection of classic and contemporary readings, organized topically into five main sections: Religion and Belief, Moral and Political Philosophy, Metaphysics and Epistemology, Philosophy of Mind and Language, and Life and Death. Within these broad areas, readings are arranged in clusters that address both traditional issues--such as the existence of God, justice and the state, knowledge and skepticism, and free will--and contemporary topics--including God and science, just war theory, vegetarianism, (...) and time travel. Carefully chosen selections from a wide range of pre-20th-century philosophers are paired with writings from more than fifty leading contemporary philosophers and thinkers. The traditional philosophers represented range from Plato and Aristotle to Immanuel Kant and A.J. Ayer; the contemporary philosophers include Saul Kripke, David Lewis, Thomas Nagel, Derek Parfit, Hilary Putnam, Robert Nozick, Judith Jarvis Thomson, John Rawls, Bernard Williams, and Susan Wolf. Also included are selections from linguist Noam Chomsky, physicist Albert Einstein, and psychologist William James. Edited by a team of scholars who are also highly esteemed instructors, The Elements of Philosophy is uniquely student-friendly. A team of undergraduate philosophy majors played a central role in helping to select topics, choose readings, and identify terms likely to require clarification. In response to their suggestions, the volume includes detailed introductions to each section, explanatory footnotes that define unfamiliar terms and concepts, an extensive glossary, and a guide to further resources. A companion Instructor's Manual, available on CD, offers article summaries, suggested essay questions, reading guides, model handouts, and sample syllabi. One of the most extensive and expansive anthologies available, The Elements of Philosophy is an ideal choice for both general and targeted introductory philosophy courses. (shrink)

This collection of essays, addresses, and one interview come from the years 1966-73 and cover a wide spectrum of interest, dealing with such general topics as 'The Absence of God in Modern Culture' and 'The Future of Christianity.'.

entirety to contemporary readers." --Book Jacket.

Conscious experience is one of the most difficult and thorny problems in psychological science. Its study has been neglected for many years, either because it was thought to be too difficult, or because the relevant evidence was thought to be poor. Bernard Baars suggests a way to specify empirical constraints on a theory of consciousness by contrasting well-established conscious phenomena - such as stimulus representations known to be attended, perceptual, and informative - with closely comparable unconscious ones - such (...) as stimulus representations known to be preperceptual, unattended, or habituated. Adducing data to show that consciousness is associated with a kind of global workplace in the nervous system, and that several brain structures are known to behave in accordance with his theory, Baars helps to clarify many difficult problems. (shrink)

There is no question that Hick's theory rests upon multiple assumptions about a singular, transcendental grounding and the fundamental equality of the various religions that cannot be inductively verified beyond all doubt. That need not mean, however, that the “attractiveness” of his theory derives solely from the “peculiar charm” For the Wittgensteinian implications here, see again G. Loughlin, “Noumenon and Phenomena,” pp. 501–502. of supposing that the One and the Many are no more at odds in the realm of religion (...) than anywhere else. For Hick's assumptions are not just an exercise in wishful thinking or wild speculation. They are based upon “experience” from within what he calls the “benign circle of faith.”See Hick, “A Concluding Comment,” p. 451. Because the reality experienced is “ambiguous,” acceptance or rejection of his views will, of course, be a matter of “choice.” And, admittedly, this choice will be dictated not so much by a weighing of empirical evidence that might prove the various religions to be exactly as he sees them, as by a consideration of what we have been surveying in the preceding pages, namely, “the import of seeing things as Hick does.”See G. Loughlin, “Noumenon and Phenomena,” p. 502. (shrink)

Global Workspace Theory (GWT) can be compared to a theater of mind, in which conscious contents resemble a bright spot on the stage of immediate memory, selected by a spotlight of attention under executive guidance. Only the bright spot is conscious; the rest of the theater is dark and unconscious. GWT has been implemented in a number of explicit and testable global workspace models (GWM's). These specific GW models suggest that conscious experiences recruit widely distributed brain functions that are mostly (...) unconscious (unreportable). A large body of new findings support that view. For example, brain experiments show that while unconscious visual stimuli evoke high activity in visual cortex, identical conscious stimuli reveal an additional spread of high brain activity to frontal and parietal lobes (Dehaene, 2001). Similar results have been found for hearing, touch, pain, and sensorimotor skills (Baars, 2002). The conscious waking state supports such fast, flexible, and widespread brain interactions, while unconscious states do not (Baars et al, 2004). These findings illustrate the ability of the GW framework to suggest novel and falsifiable hypotheses. (shrink)

The renowned Christian theologian Bernard Lonergan was also a professor, teaching courses on theological method at universities in Canada, the United States, and Italy. This volume records his lectures and teaching materials, thus preserving and elucidating his intellectual development between the publication of Insight in 1957 and Method in Theology in 1972. The present volume contains a record of the lectures delivered in 1962, 1964, and 1968. This is the most 'interactive' volume yet published in the Collected Works series. (...) The audio recordings of the 1962 and 1968 lectures are now available on the website www.bernardlonergan.com, as are PDF files of original papers from his 1964 institute at Georgetown. These lectures help to elucidate the development of Lonergan's ideas on such key notions as horizon, conversion, and meaning, as well as his evolving opinion on how best to divide theology into fields of specialization. (shrink)

After suggesting an operational definition for fringe experiences—as opposed to clearly conscious and clearly unconscious phenomena—we examine three empirical cases: The tip-of-the-tongue experience, the fringe experience of "wrongness," and the case of conscious focus on abstract, hard-to-image conscious contents. In each case, Mangan′s four major claims are explored in some detail. Most tasks seem to involve a combination of conscious experiences, complex unconscious representations, and multiple fringe experiences. The chief disagreement from this analysis involves vague experiences that are generally believed (...) to be focal: The case of currently topical abstract concepts, which are not reported as conscious images or percepts. In the interest of caution, it may be better to speak of "conscious access" to focal abstract concepts, rather than "conscious experience" of such concepts. There may be other vague but focally conscious phenomena, such as an intention to act, the signal for executing a prepared action, and so on. Mangan′s points are generally supported, with some qualifications. (shrink)

Soldiers returning from war have always exhibited signs of psychological and emotional distress. In this book, Bernard J. Verkamp argues that the contemporary response to such symptoms—psychiatric treatment and therapy—is only a partial solution, and that when dealing with soldiers’ emotions of guilt and shame we would benefit greatly from a consideration of the religiously grounded practices of the Middle Ages. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including Reinhold Niebuhr, Michael Walzer, and the long tradition of just war (...) theory, Verkamp offers a stirring—and timely—call to reconsider our assumptions in light of historical understanding. “A wonderful book. The author’s erudition is staggering and the analysis is equally impressive.”—Stanley Hauerwas, Duke University. (shrink)

The scholastic philosopher is interested in definition for a different reason than the lexicographer and linguist. The philosopher is trying to learn things. Fe defines, after investigating reality, in an attempt to describe reality clearly and to sum up some aspect of his understanding of reality. Hence, we find our scholastic philosophers adopting as a main feature of their method this insistence on defining, on precise and detailed explanation of their definitions, and on proving that their definitions da correctly express (...) what a nature or activity is. A dictionary of the language of scholastic philosophy fitted to the needs of beginners and of undergraduate students of the subject is not available in English. (shrink)

Can we make progress exploring consciousness? Or is it forever beyond human reach? In science we never know the ultimate outcome of the journey. We can only take whatever steps our current knowledge affords. This paper explores today's evidence from the viewpoint of Global Workspace theory. First, we ask what kind of evidence has the most direct bearing on the question. The answer given here is ‘contrastive analysis’ -- a set of paired comparisons between similar conscious and unconscious processes. This (...) body of evidence is already quite large, and constrains any possible theory . Because it involves both conscious and unconscious events, it deals directly with our own subjective experience, as anyone can tell by trying the demonstrations in this article. (shrink)

The scholastic philosopher is interested in definition for a different reason than the lexicographer and linguist. The philosopher is trying to learn things. Fe defines, after investigating reality, in an attempt to describe reality clearly and to sum up some aspect of his understanding of reality. Hence, we find our scholastic philosophers adopting as a main feature of their method this insistence on defining, on precise and detailed explanation of their definitions, and on proving that their definitions da correctly express (...) what a nature or activity is. A dictionary of the language of scholastic philosophy fitted to the needs of beginners and of undergraduate students of the subject is not available in English. (shrink)

Insight is Bernard Lonergan's masterwork. It aim is nothing less than insight into insight itself, a comprehensive view of knowledge and understanding, and to state what one needs to understand and how one proceeds to understand it. In Lonergan's own words: 'Thoroughly understand what it is to understand, and not only will you understand the broad lines of all there is to be understood but also you will possess a fixed base, and invariant pattern, opening upon all further developments (...) of understanding.' The editors of the Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan have established the definitive text for Insight after examining all the variant forms in Lonergan's manuscripts and papers. The volume includes introductory material and annotation to enable the reader to appreciate more fully this challenging work. (shrink)

For some years now, Hans Kueng has been advocating use of the dialectical method to make peace among the world religions. In this paper I try first to locate his Hegelian understanding of this method within its long and complex historical development. I then inquire about its value as an ecumenical tool by investigating some of its underlying assumptions about the subjective/objective, literary/figurative, monistic/pluralistic nature of religious truth. Along the way, doubts are raised about the likelihood or desirability of its (...) bringing the various religions any closer together than have earlier absolutist and syncretistic approaches to ecumenism. (shrink)

Back in the early 1960s, Karl Rahner acknowledged that ‘religious agnosticism’ did have “some truth” in it [meint etwas Richtiges]. On the Hegelian assumption that a thing being defined involves as much what it is not, as what it is, this paper will explore in what sense Rahner thought that religious agnosticism does contain an element of truth, by contrasting his interpretation of its component parts to that of the nineteenth century agnostic trio of Herbert Spencer, Thomas H. Huxley, and (...) John Tyndall. (shrink)

In the nineteenth century cultural milieu in which Darwin lived and worked, it was generally assumed that art and religion enjoyed a close relationship. While differing in their view of religion in many respects, common to all the major proponents of the Naturphilosophie that had infiltrated the cultural milieu of both German and English nineteenth century scientists1 was their tendency to sublate the earlier, eighteenth century, Idealist conceptual thought of the Absolute by what they labeled “the intuition and feeling for (...) the Infinite.”2 Experienced as an organic, all-comprehensive reality, the totality of Nature was said along quasi-pantheistic lines to be a manifestation of the infinite Absolute, God, or... (shrink)

„Fenomenologia: natura, znaczenie, ograniczenia” to przekład publikacji Bernarda J. F. Lonergana pt. „Phenomenology” nature, significance, limitations”. Tenże dwunasty wykład kanadyjskiego filozofia o fenomenologii traktuje o jej definicji, przedmiocie, naturze, znaczeniu i zasługach oraz związkach z innymi naukami. Wprowadza czytelnika w główne koncepcje tej szkoły filozoficznej i zapoznaje z autorami, dla których ten sposób myślenia jest charakterystyczny. Filozof w szczególności zwraca uwagę na to, iż jest to metoda badań, w której istotną rolę odgrywa wgląd. Warto zauważyć, że kategoria wglądu w epistemologii (...) Bernarda J. F. Lonergana — XX-wiecznego myśliciela i księdza filozofującego na pograniczu fenomenologii, tomizmu i hermeneutyki — jest kluczowa. Przekładu dokonała Dominika Dziurosz-Serafinowicz. (shrink)

Conscious perception, like the sight of a coffee cup, seems to involve the brain identifying a stimulus. But conscious input activates more brain regions than are needed to identify coffee cups and faces. It spreads beyond sensory cortex to frontoparietal association areas, which do not serve stimulus identification as such. What is the role of those regions? Parietal cortex support the ‘first person perspective’ on the visual world, unconsciously framing the visual object stream. Some prefrontal areas select and interpret conscious (...) events for executive control. Such functions can be viewed as properties of the subject, rather than the object, of experience – the ‘observing self’ that appears to be needed to maintain the conscious state. (shrink)

Presents Bernard Lonergan's five "verbum" articles that originally appeared in Theological studies. For Thomist students and scholars this "verbum" study offers a careful appraisal of the Thomist theory of knowledge as well as an introduction to the concepts found in Father Lonergan's "Insight". Since the concept of "verbum" dynamically affects the thought of Aquinas, it is necessary to grasp this concept to understand Thomist metaphysics and rational psychology. Lonergan has carefully analyzed and explicitly outlined "verbum"--An integral part of the (...) Thomist theory of knowledge. "Verbum" is examined as a tool of definition and for its impact on understanding, logical thought procession and related ideas stemming from "verbum". Discusses "the word" and its relation to abstraction. Focusses on St. Thomas' immediate concern in finding in Aristotle the point of insertion for Augustinian thought and in fusing a phenomenology of the subject with a psychology of the soul. (shrink)