In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Thomas Aquinas’s “Summa Theologiae”: A Guide and Commentary by Brian DaviesBrian J. Shanley, O.P.Thomas Aquinas’s “Summa Theologiae”: A Guide and Commentary. By Brian Davies, O.P. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. xv + 454. $105.00 (cloth), $31.95 (paper). ISBN: 978-0-19-938062-6 (cloth), 978-0-19-938063-3 (paper).The purpose of this book is to provide guidance to a nonspecialist reader of Aquinas’s Summa theologiae. It is not meant as a substitute (...) for the text itself, but rather as a companion for a reader in order to offer explication for the most important arguments, a sense of the context of the whole, a quick survey of the terrain of a treatise, some historical context when necessary, and a prod to critical thinking. Davies’s ambition is daunting. As the subtitle indicates, he intends the book to be both a guide and a commentary. If it were only a guide, it would focus on the truly critical themes in some depth in order to aid the reader through the various parts without commenting on everything. If it were only a commentary, its purpose would be largely expository and exegetical. It is hard to do both functions well on a work as large and complex as the Summa theologiae.After a brief overview of Aquinas’s life and a short commentary on the meaning of sacra doctrina, Davies turns to the topic of God. Given his previous work on Aquinas, it is not surprising that the strongest and longest section of his book concerns the Prima pars. Davies does a nice job of parsing the existence of God and mapping out the Five Ways in a manner suitable to his audience. He then turns to the question of how God does not exist, and makes it plain that the main thrust of Aquinas’s treatment is apophatic, or negative. It is surprising that Davies never mentions the influence of Pseudo-Dionysius on Aquinas and generally downplays the Neoplatonic strains in Aquinas’s theology. I would have thought that divine simplicity and goodness deserve more consideration, and I would have liked to see Davies give more insight for the reader on how to parse some of Aquinas’s metaphysical terms (especially the real distinction in created beings and how this is the main marker of the ontological gap between God and creation). When Davies turns to how we name or use language about God, he signals to his readers that he is entering into an area that has been much debated. Not surprisingly, while he does a reasonable job of trying to explain how analogical predication works to a nonspecialist reader, specialists will have much to quibble about. At the heart of his explanation of analogy is the claim that analogy is primarily “a linguistic phenomenon in which one and the same word is used to speak of different things with connections of meaning that can be traced in each use of the word” (69). Analogy in Aquinas is more than a theory about language; it is embedded in a metaphysics of participation and creation that needs to be adumbrated to understand how analogy works. The subsequent treatment of God’s knowing and willing is reliable, though more attention might have been paid to the practical model of divine knowing. When it comes to the Trinity, [End Page 306] Davies does a solid job of trying to explain that most complicated doctrine of Aquinas to a nonspecialist.Davies misses the opportunity to explore the fundamental contrast that Aquinas draws between God’s causal immanence in all things as Creator and his special, interpersonal, Trinitarian indwelling through grace, as the treatise on the Trinity segues into the treatise on creation. When turning to creation, Davies notes that the fundamental metaphysical principle behind Aquinas’s account is that “the existence of something that does not exist by nature has to be caused” (110), although he seems diffident about its validity (“like it or not”) and never mentions participation. Sometimes he speaks about God’s causality in creation as “causally accounting for their esse” (ibid.) even as he notes that God... (shrink)

In three experiments, subjects attempted to track multiple items as they moved independently and unpredictably about a display. Performance was not impaired when the items were briefly (but completely) occluded at various times during their motion, suggesting that occlusion is taken into account when computing enduring perceptual objecthood. Unimpaired performance required the presence of accretion and deletion cues along fixed contours at the occluding boundaries. Performance was impaired when items were present on the visual field at the same times and (...) to the same degrees as in the occlusion conditions, but disappeared and reappeared in ways which did not implicate the presence of occluding surfaces (e.g. by imploding and exploding into and out of existence, instead of accreting and deleting along a fixed contour). Unimpaired performance did not require visible occluders (i.e. Michotte’s tunnel effect) or globally consistent occluder positions. We discuss implications of these results for theories of objecthood in visual attention. (shrink)

What makes an object the same persisting individual over time? Philosophers and psychologists have both grappled with this question, but from different perspectives—philosophers conceptually analyzing the criteria for object persistence, and psychologists exploring the mental mechanisms that lead us to experience the world in terms of persisting objects. It is striking that the same themes populate explorations of persistence in these two very different fields—e.g. the roles of spatiotemporal continuity, persistence through property change, and cohesion violations. Such similarities may reflect (...) an underlying connection, in that psychological mechanisms of object persistence (especially relevant parts of mid-level visual object processing) may serve to underlie the intuitions about persistence that fuel metaphysical theories. This would be a way for cognitive science to join these two disparate fields, helping to explain the possible origins and reliability of some metaphysical intuitions, and perhaps leading to philosophical progress. (shrink)

The notion that visual attention can operate over visual objects in addition to spatial locations has recently received much empirical support, but there has been relatively little empirical consideration of what can count as an `object' in the ®rst place. We have investi- gated this question in the context of the multiple object tracking paradigm, in which subjects must track a number of independently and unpredictably moving identical items in a ®eld of identical distractors. What types of feature clusters can (...) be tracked in this manner? In other words, what counts as an `object' in this task? We investigated this question with a technique we call target merging: we alter tracking displays so that distinct target and distractor loca- tions appear perceptually to be parts of the same object by merging pairs of items (one target with one distractor) in various ways ± for example, by connecting item locations with a simple line segment, by drawing the convex hull of the two items, and so forth. The data show that target merging makes the tracking task far more dif®cult to varying degrees depending on exactly how the items are merged. The effect is perceptually salient, involving in some conditions a total destruction of subjects' capacity to track multiple items. These studies provide strong evidence for the object-based nature of tracking, con®rming that in some contexts attention must be allocated to objects rather than arbitrary collections of features. In addition, the results begin to reveal the types of spatially organized scene components that can be independently attended as a function of properties such as connectedness, part struc- ture, and other types of perceptual grouping. q 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. (shrink)

In cases in which many causes together bring about an effect, it is common to select some as particularly important. Philosophers since Mill have been pessimistic about analyzing this reasoning because of its variability and the multifarious causal and pragmatic details of how it works. I argue Mill was right to think these details matter but wrong that they preclude philosophical analysis of causal selection. I show that analyzing the pragmatic details of scientific debates about the important causes of the (...) Bhopal Gas Tragedy can illuminate causal reasoning about disasters and shed new light on causality and causal selection. (shrink)

Circumcision of males represents a surgical “vaccine“ against a wide variety of infections, adverse medical conditions and potentially fatal diseases over their lifetime, and also protects their sexual partners. In experienced hands, this common, inexpensive procedure is very safe, can be pain‐free and can be performed at any age. The benefits vastly outweigh risks. The enormous public health benefits include protection from urinary tract infections, sexually transmitted HIV, HPV, syphilis and chancroid, penile and prostate cancer, phimosis, thrush, and inflammatory dermatoses. (...) In women circumcision of the male partner provides substantial protection from cervical cancer and chlamydia. Circumcision has socio‐sexual benefits and reduces sexual problems with age. It has no adverse effect on penile sensitivity, function, or sensation during sexual arousal. Most women prefer the circumcised penis for appearance, hygiene and sex. Given the convincing epidemiological evidence and biological support, routine circumcision should be highly recommended by all health professionals. BioEssays 29:1147–1158, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

This chapter explores a way in which visual processing may involve innate constraints and attempts to show how such processing overcomes one enduring challenge to nativism. In particular, many challenges to nativist theories in other areas of cognitive psychology have focused on the later development of such abilities, and have argued that such development is in conflict with innate origins. Innateness, in these contexts, is seen as antidevelopmental, associated instead with static processes and principles. In contrast, certain perceptual models demonstrate (...) how the very same mental processes can both be innately specified and yet develop richly in response to experience with the environment. This process is entirely unmysterious, as shown in certain formal theories of visual perception, including those that appeal to spontaneous endogenous stimulation and those based on Bayesian inference. (shrink)

Winner of the Schumpeter Prize, 2000 and Winner of the Smith Prize in Austrian Economics, 2000, this book explores how the limitations of human knowledge create both opportunities and problems in the modern economy. The growing field of evolutionary economics has developed as a result of the traditional failure of the discipline to explain certain phenomena that impact greatly on the economy. These are: *_Evolution_ - the impact on the economy of natural change over time *_Institutions_ - the impact on (...) the economy of government and/or company policy, rules and regulations *_Knowledge_ - the impact on the economy that is felt when new information becomes available _Knowledge, Institutions and Evolution in Economics _is a punchy overview of these topics and one that has become regarded as something of a modern classic that no serious social sciences academic or student should be without. (shrink)

This paper reports findings from a study into national associations of accountants from the perspective of the model code of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants. Using data collected from a survey document, the paper analyses the extent of the model code’s influence in an international process of harmonisation of ethical rules for accountants. Obstacles to the adoption of the model code are examined, as is the impact that government supervision of codes has had (...) on harmonisation efforts. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between professional independence and close family relationships and culture. Findings are also presented on other issues of code content, and the most appropriate body for interpreting national codes is identified. These items were included as matters of then current concern to the Ethics Committee of IFAC. (shrink)

This paper reports findings from a study into national associations of accountants from the perspective of the model code of the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), Code of Ethics for Professional Accountants. Using data collected from a survey document, the paper analyses the extent of the model code’s influence in an international process of harmonisation of ethical rules for accountants. Obstacles to the adoption of the model code are examined, as is the impact that government supervision of codes has had (...) on harmonisation efforts. Particular attention is paid to the relationship between professional independence and close family relationships and culture. Findings are also presented on other issues of code content, and the most appropriate body for interpreting national codes is identified. These items were included as matters of then current concern to the Ethics Committee of IFAC. (shrink)

Circumcision of males represents a surgical “vaccine“ against a wide variety of infections, adverse medical conditions and potentially fatal diseases over their lifetime, and also protects their sexual partners. In experienced hands, this common, inexpensive procedure is very safe, can be pain‐free and can be performed at any age. The benefits vastly outweigh risks. The enormous public health benefits include protection from urinary tract infections, sexually transmitted HIV, HPV, syphilis and chancroid, penile and prostate cancer, phimosis, thrush, and inflammatory dermatoses. (...) In women circumcision of the male partner provides substantial protection from cervical cancer and chlamydia. Circumcision has socio‐sexual benefits and reduces sexual problems with age. It has no adverse effect on penile sensitivity, function, or sensation during sexual arousal. Most women prefer the circumcised penis for appearance, hygiene and sex. Given the convincing epidemiological evidence and biological support, routine circumcision should be highly recommended by all health professionals. BioEssays 29:1147–1158, 2007. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Some of the evidence for a “magical number 4” has come from the study of visual cognition, and Cowan reinterprets such evidence in terms of a single general limit on memory and attention. We evaluate this evidence, including some studies not mentioned by Cowan, and argue that limitations in visual processing are distinct from those involved in other memory phenomena.

The theory of human moral evolution elaborated in the later work of Jürgen Habermas represents one of the most challenging and provocative of recent, linguistically inspired attempts to reinterpret our understanding of Western history. In critically examining this theory, the present article identifies some major problems with Habermas's reinterpretation of the history of the formation of Western civilization as the universal pragmatic process of the evolution of human moral communicative competences. Drawing on the works of Norbert Elias and Michel Foucault, (...) the article seeks to show how the formal grounding of Habermas's evolutionary theory in the categories of his universal pragmatic conception of communicative action ultimately prevents him from grasping the radically embodied nature of human discursive practice and its implications for the historical process of the formation of human moral will. (shrink)

The primary purpose of this study is to identify differences in at­tainment of learning outcomes for ethics courses delivered using two distinct teaching approaches. The first approach uses a case based method in the context of applied moral issues within medical practice. The second approach surveys moral theories in the context of applied moral issues. Significant differences are found in the attainment of learner outcomes between the two groups. In particular, attainment of outcomes related to moral decision-making is higher in (...) those students who take the course with a case based method. In contrast, attainment of outcomes related to personal beliefs about applied moral issues is higher in those students who take an introductory ethics course surveying moral theories in the context of applied issues. Neither of these results is especially surprising. What may be surprising, however, is that students in the case-based course do not appear attain learner outcomes with regard to applied moral issues despite studying those issues in detail. Finally, the assessment tool developed and refined through this study may be of use for assessment in a variety of ethics courses. (shrink)

How have figures of speech configured new concepts of time, space, and mind throughout history? Brian J. McVeigh answers this question in A Psychohistory of Metaphors: Envisioning Time, Space, and Self through the Centuries by exploring “meta-framing:” our ever-increasing capability to “step back” from the environment, search out its familiar features to explain the unfamiliar, and generate “as if” forms of knowledge and metaphors of location and vision. This book demonstrates how analogizing and abstracting have altered spatio-visual perceptions, expanding (...) our introspective capabilities and allowing us to adapt to changing social circumstances. (shrink)

I argue that José Luis Bermúdez has not shown that there is a paradox in our concept of self-consciousness. The deflationary theory is not a plausible theory of self-consciousness, so its paradoxicality is irrelevant. A more plausible theory, 'the simple theory', is not paradoxical. However, I do think there is a puzzle about the connection between self-consciousness and 'I'-thoughts.

In this paper I focus on the role that cyberspace should play in social or political protest, and, in particular, in acts of civil disobedience. I have two main purposes in doing so. First, I want to address the question, “When is hacktivism civil disobedience?” I answer the question by including a more complete and explicit analysis of civil disobedience, as it is affected by information technology, than is currently done in the literature on hacktivism. This allows a clearer answer (...) to the question posed here than currently provided in the relevant literature. Second, I analyze James Moor’s claim that information technology transforms old processes, as this claim applies to the context of civil disobedience. As we will see, while information technology may exacerbate certain issues, little transformation seems required in this case. (shrink)

In his theory of history Gottfried von Herder presents a radical critique of the rationalist discourse of cosmopolitan human development advanced by the Enlightenment thinkers of his day. Herder's critique centers around his theory of history as the evolution of the Volk community. He opposed the way the rationalist perspective abstracts historical human development from all connection with the contingent elements of human historical linguistic and cultural practice in the creation of a unified, integrated world. Herder looks instead to a (...) world of infinite cultural diversity, where each historical culture is recognized as a distinct and unique manifestation of all that is rich and progressive in human life. There are some interesting parallels which can be drawn between Herder's relativistic conception of cultural community and the ideas on language and human cultural development presented in the writings of Franqois Lyotard. Both attack the Enlightenment paradigm of cultural knowledge, its pretensions to objectivity, and its claim of constituting a higher knowledge. There is a basic paradox in Herder's vision, for although Herder denies the validity of the universal claims of Enlightenment reason, his conception would appear to require the development of a form of universal rationality encompassing all national cultures. (shrink)

The dominant approach to the study of dynamic preference is to generate preference change by manipulating aspects of decision-problem presentation (problem description, task procedure, contextual options). The predisposing approach instead manipulates the decision maker’s mental state while holding problem presentation constant. Three illustrative studies are outlined here. The first modified preferences for ambitious consumption by manipulating subjects’ consumption energy. The second modified preferences for immediate consumption by manipulating subjects’ hedonic resources. The third modified preferences for consumption itself by manipulating subjects’ (...) desire proneness. Whereas framing is thought to affect perception, predisposing apparently can affect tastes and so involves a special kind of preference dynamism. (shrink)

Lankford’s (2013) essential empirical argument, which is based on evidence such as psychological autopsies, is that suicide attacks are caused by suicidality. By operationalizing this causal claim in a hypothetical experiment, I show the claim to be provable, and I contend that its truth is supported by Lankford’s data. However, I question the success of his follow-on arguments about beauty and goodness.

We critically evaluate arguments in a recent Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics article by Svoboda, Adler, and Van Howe disputing the 2012 affirmative infant male circumcision policy recommendations of the American Academy of Pediatrics. We provide detailed evidence in explaining why the extensive claims by these opponents are not supported by the current strong scientific evidence. We furthermore show why their legal and ethical arguments are contradicted by a reasonable interpretation of current U.S. and international law and ethics. After (...) all considerations are taken into account it would be logical to conclude that failure to recommend male circumcision early in infancy may be viewed as akin to failure to recommend childhood vaccination to parents. In each case, parental consent is required and the intervention is not compulsory. Our evaluation leads us to dismiss the arguments by Svoboda et al. Instead, based on the evidence, infant male circumcision is both ethical and lawful. (shrink)

The relations of comparison and contrast among the viewpoints of characters and between the viewpoints of authors and characters is one of the most important dimensions of meaning in literary texts.... It is for this reason that the analysis of irony, as a central tonal medium for registering differences in point of view, occupies a position of singular importance in the interpretation of literary meaning.Irony stings. Among friends it might be playful, its target joining in the fun. But it is (...) hard to see irony figuring into any how-to guide for making friends in the first place. Indeed, the word is absent from Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. More often irony is divisive, driving a wedge... (shrink)

The meaning of an experimental result depends on the experiment's conceptual backdrop, particularly its null hypothesis. This observation provides the basis for a functional interpretation of belief in the base rate fallacy. On this interpretation, if the base rate fallacy is to be labelled a “myth,” then it should be recognized that this label is not necessarily a disparaging one.

Lankford’s (2013) essential empirical argument, which is based on evidence such as psychological autopsies, is that suicide attacks are caused by suicidality. By operationalizing this causal claim in a hypothetical experiment, I show the claim to be provable, and I contend that its truth is supported by Lankford’s data. However, I question the success of his follow-on arguments about beauty and goodness.

In this paper I focus on the role that cyberspace should play in social or political protest, and, in particular, in acts of civil disobedience. I have two main purposes in doing so. First, I want to address the question, “When is hacktivism civil disobedience?” I answer the question by including a more complete and explicit analysis of civil disobedience, as it is affected by information technology, than is currently done in the literature on hacktivism. This allows a clearer answer (...) to the question posed here than currently provided in the relevant literature. Second, I analyze James Moor’s claim that information technology transforms old processes, as this claim applies to the context of civil disobedience. As we will see, while information technology may exacerbate certain issues, little transformation seems required in this case. (shrink)

In this discussion paper, I evaluate some arguments of Mark Johnston's which appear in his articles «Fission and the Facts» and «Reasons and Reductionism» . My primary concern is with his description of fission cases, and his assessment of the implications of such cases for value theory. In particular, Johnston advances the following three claims:Rejecting the intrinsicness of identity is an arbitrary response to the paradox of fission;Fission cases involve indeterminate identity;Contra Parfit, fission cases have no implications for value theory (...) in the actual world.I argue that and are false, and that , if true, is not true for any reason that Johnston gives. (shrink)

Such a moral theology not only provides us with a convincing certainty of God's being, but it also has the great advantage that it leads us to religion, since it joins the thought of God firmly to our morality, and in this way it even makes better men of us. Kant, Lectures on Philosophical TheologyThis philosophy too, which takes up the thought of confederation in the concept of communicative, historically situated reason, will be able to provide no assurance (keine Zuversicht); (...) it stands in the sign of a transcendence from within and must content itself with the justified encouragement of a skeptical but non-defeatist “resistance to the gods and demons of a world contemptuous of man.” Habermas, “Israel oder Athen: Wem gehoert die anamnetische Vernunft?”. (shrink)