G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831), the influential German philosopher, believed that human history was advancing spiritually and morally according to God’s purpose. At the beginning of this masterwork, Hegel writes: “What the history of Philosophy shows us is a succession of noble minds, a gallery of heroes of thought, who, by the power of Reason, have penetrated into the being of things, of nature and of spirit, into the Being of God, and have won for us by their labours the (...) highest treasure, the treasure of reasoned knowledge.” In his introduction to this Bison Book edition, Frederick C. Beiser notes the complex and controversial history of Hegel’s text. He makes a case that this English-language translation by E. S. Haldane and Frances H. Simson is still the most reliable one. (shrink)

In the fourth section of Goethe’s Zahme Xenien we find the quatrain from which I have taken the theme of such an old and new controversy, which, as I hope, concerns both Germanic studies and the other humanities: “What was it that kept you from us so apart?” I always read Plutarch again and again. “And what was the lesson he did impart?” “They were all human beings—so much is plain.”1 In the very years when Goethe wrote these lines, that (...) is in the 1820s, Hegel repeatedly gave his lectures on the philosophy of history. Right at the beginning he formulated the opposite view which I should like briefly to characterize as “cultural relativism.”Every age has such peculiar circumstances, such individual conditions that it must be interpreted, and can only be interpreted, by reference to itself…. Nothing is shallower in this respect than the frequent appeal to Greek and Roman example which so often occurred among the French at the time of their Revolution. Nothing could be more different than the nature of these peoples and the nature of our own times.2 What is at issue here is not, of course, Hegel’s assertion that ages and peoples differ from each other. We all know that, and Goethe, the attentive reader and traveler, also knew, for instance, that the Roman carnival differed in its character from the celebrations of the Feast of Saint Rochus at Bingen, both of which he had described so lovingly. What makes the cultural historian into a cultural relativist is only the conclusion which we saw Hegel draw, that cultures and styles of life are not only different but wholly incommensurable, in other words that it is absurd to compare the peoples of a region or an age with human beings of other zones because there is no common denominator that would justify us in doing so. 1. ‘Was hat dich nun von uns entfernt?’ Hab immer den Plutarch gelesen. ‘Was has du den dabei gelernt?’ Sind eben alles Menschen gewesen.’ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Sämtlich Werke. Jubiläums-ausgabe in 40 Bänden 4:73; with commentary.2. See Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorselungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte, Werke, 20 vols. , 12:17. E. H. Gombrich was director of the Warburg Institute and Professor of the History of the Classical Tradition at the University of London from 1959 to 1976. His many influential works include The Story of Art, Art and Illusion, Meditations on a Hobby Horse, The Sense of Order, Ideals and Idols, The Image and the Eye, Tributes, Aby Warburg, and New Light on Old Masters. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry include “The Museum: Past, Present and Future” , “Standards of Truth: The Arrested Image and the Moving Eye” , and “Representation and Misrepresentation”. (shrink)

In dieser Schrift begründet Schelling 1800 in methodischer Strenge das Programm seiner Philosophie, d. h. die Notwendigkeit der Zusammenführung von Natur- und Transzendentalphilosophie.

"Anton Wilhelm Amo is the first modern African philosopher to study and teach in a European university and write in the European philosophical tradition. We give an extensive historical and philosophical introduction to Amo's life and work, and provide Latin texts, with facing translations and explanatory notes, of Amo's two philosophical dissertations, On the Impassivity of the Human Mind and the Philosophical Disputation containing a Distinct Idea of those Things that Pertain either to the Mind or to our Living (...) and Organic Body, both published in 1734. The Impassivity is an extended argument that the mind cannot be acted on, that sensation is a being-acted-on by the sensed object, and therefore that sensation does not belong to the mind, and must belong instead to the body The Distinct Idea works out the implications for the mind's actions, and tries to show how the mind understands, wills, and effects things through the body by 'intentions' which direct motions in our body intentionally toward external things. Both dissertations try to show how far each type of human act belongs to the mind, how far to the body, and expose and resolve earlier philosophers' self-contradictions on these questions"--. (shrink)

_The first unabridged English translation of the correspondence between Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Georg Ernst Stahl detailing their opposing philosophies_ The correspondence between the eighteenth-century mathematician and philosopher G. W. Leibniz and G. E. Stahl, a chemist and physician at the court of King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia, known as the Leibniz-Stahl Controversy, is one of the most important intellectual contributions on theoretical issues concerning pre-biological thinking. Editors François Duchesneau and Justin E. H. Smith offer readers the (...) first fully annotated English translation of this fascinating exchange of philosophical views on divine action, the order of nature, causality and teleology, and the soul-body relationship. (shrink)

Einleitung von H. Lubbe - K. Fischer: Geschichte der Philosophie als Wissenschaft - K. Rosenkranz: Hegel - E. Gans: (Aus:) Vorlesungen uber die Geschichte der letzten funfzig Jahre - F. W. Carove: (Aus:) Ruckblick auf die Ursachen der Franzosischen Revolution - K. Rosenkranz: Kurzer Begriff der offentlichen Meinung - K. Rosenkranz: Uber den Begriff der politischen Partei - H. F. W. Hinrichs: (Aus:) Politische Vorlesungen - K. Rosenkranz: Die Bedeutung der gegenwartigen Revolution und die daraus entspringende Aufgabe der Abgeordneten - (...) K. Rosenkranz: Die organische Gestaltung der Einheit Deutschlands - K. Rosenkranz: Republik und constitutionelle Monarchie - C. L. Michelet: (Aus:) Zur Verfassungsfrage - H. B. Oppenheim: Philosophie des Rechts und der Gesellschaft - H. B. Oppenheim: Uber politische und staatsburgerliche Pflichterfullung - J. E. Erdmann: (Aus:) Philosophische Vorlesungen uber den Staat - C. Rossler: (Aus:) System der Staatslehre. (shrink)

ZusammenfassungOhne Zweifel stehen Sprachen und Konventionen in engen Beziehungen zueinander; grosse Teile der Oberflächenstrukturen unserer natürlichen Sprachen hängen von Konventionen ab, und um aussersprachliches Verhalten durch Konventionen zu regeln, benötigt man eine gemeinsame Sprache. Zu fragen ist dann, ob eine reale oder idealisierte Gemeinschaft von Personen sich eine gemeinsame Sprache durch irgendeine Art von Konvention erstmals schaffen kann, ohne dabei bereits ausdrücklich oder stillschweigend eine gemeinsame Sprache zu benützen, die nicht weniger ausdrücksreich als die zu kreierende ist. Es wird gezeigt, (...) dass dies in unserer faktischen Welt nicht der Fall ist, und diese empirischen Gründe werden durch philosophische Argumente erhärtet, die sich auf Ergebnisse der Metalogik und der Wissenschaftstheorie beziehen, wonach eine Erstschaffung einer gemeinsamen Sprache ohne Voraussetzung einer mindestens genauso aus‐drucksreichen Sprache der Teilnehmer – vom logischen Gesichtspunkt aus gesehen unmöglich ist, d. h. in keiner möglichen Welt vorkommt.SummaryThere can be no doubt that languages and conventions are interrelated one to another; large parts of the surface structure of some given natural language depends on conventions, and some common language is necessary to create conventions with regard to non‐lingual behaviour. Then the question arises, whether or not some real or idealized community may create a common language via some kind of convention without using explicitely or implicitely some common language being at least as rich as the language to be created. It is pointed out that this does not hold in our factual world, and those empirical reasons are supported by philosophical arguments referring to results of metalogic and philosophy of science indicating that radical creation of some common language without using some common language being at least as rich as the other is impossible from a logical point of view, i. e. will never occur in any possible world.RésuméSans aucun doute, langues et conventions sont en relation étroite les unes avec les autres; pour une grande part, les structures superficielles de nos langues naturelles dépendent de conventions et, pour régler par conventions notre comportement non linguistique, il faut un langage commun. On peut ensuite se demander si une communauté réelle ou idéalisée peut se constituer, par quelque genre de convention, un langage commun sans pour cela utiliser, explicitement ou implicitement, un langage commun qui n'est pas moins riche en potentialités expressives que celui qu'il s'agit ?on;établir. On montre que cela ne se produit pas dans un monde factuel, et ces arguments empiriques sont confirmés par des arguments philosophiques se référant à des résultats de la métalogique et de la théorie de la science, selon lesquels la création originelle ?on;une langue commune est, du point de vue logique, impossible sans supposer chez les participants un langage au moins aussi riche. (shrink)

Composti tra il 1703 e il 1704, e pubblicati postumi da R.E. Raspe nel 1765, i Nuovi saggi sullíintelletto umano costituiscono un trattato di filosofia della conoscenza, ma scandito secondo la prospettiva metafisica elaborata dall’«autore del sistema dell’armonia prestabilita», come suona il sottotitolo del volume. Sono redatti in forma di dialogo tra Filalete, seguace di Locke, e Teofilo, portavoce di Leibniz, e i loro capitoli seguono pari passo, a mo’ di commentario analitico, quelli del Saggio sullíintelletto umano di Locke. Gli (...) estremi della disputa tra i due filosofi, imperniata per lo più sul tema della teoria della conoscenza in generale, sono riassumibili, da un lato, nell’assioma empirista lockiano, di tradizione aristotelico-tomista, secondo cui nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu (niente è nell’intelletto che non sia già stato nella sensibilità), e, dall’altro lato, nella risposta corrosiva e tagliente di Leibniz: excipe: nisi ipse intellectus (a eccezione dell’intelletto stesso). Ma, oltre al confronto con la posizione teorica di Locke, Leibniz fornisce al lettore i fondamenti e i principi del proprio sistema speculativo, tra i quali spiccano: il concetto di monade quale sostanza individuale, inestesa, dotata di attività; la teoria delle piccole percezioni, intese come processi e stati mentali inconsci (teoria che apre la strada alla scoperta dell’inconscio); la lex continui, ovvero la legge della connessione totale del mondo, che non tollera né salti né vuoti; il principium individuationis, basato sul principio metafisico di identità degli indiscernibili; il principio ontologico dell’infinita molteplicità e diversità del reale; la massima secondo cui «il fondo delle cose è ovunque identico». I Nuovi saggi sullíintelletto umano furono pubblicati postumi da R.E. Raspe nel 1765 in G.W. Leibniz, Oeuvres philosophiques latines et franÁoises, Amsterdam-Leipzig. La traduzione è stata condotta sull’edizione critica curata da A. Robinet e H Schepers: G.W. Leibniz, Nouveaux Essais, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1962, con recezione dei corrigenda acclusi nella ristampa del 1990. (shrink)

1.-2. Bd. Hauptschriften zur Grundlegung der Philosophie; übers. von A. Buchenau, durchgesehen und mit Einleitungen und Erläuterungen hrsg. von E. Cassirer. 1904-1906.--3. Bd. Neue Abhandlungen über den menschlichen Verstand; ins Deutsche übers., mit Einleitung, Lebensbeschreibung des Verfassers und erläuternden Anmerkungen versehen von C. Schaarschmidt. 2. Aufl. 1904. Erläuterungen zu den Neuen Abhandlungen ... hrsg. von C. Schaarschmidt. 1874.--4. Bd. Die Theodicee; uebers. von J. H. v. Kirchmann. 1879.

_The first unabridged English translation of the correspondence between Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and Georg Ernst Stahl detailing their opposing philosophies_ The correspondence between the eighteenth-century mathematician and philosopher G. W. Leibniz and G. E. Stahl, a chemist and physician at the court of King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia, known as the Leibniz-Stahl Controversy, is one of the most important intellectual contributions on theoretical issues concerning pre-biological thinking. Editors François Duchesneau and Justin E. H. Smith offer readers the (...) first fully annotated English translation of this fascinating exchange of philosophical views on divine action, the order of nature, causality and teleology, and the soul-body relationship. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:François H. Lapointe PHILOSOPHY AND LITERATURE: A BIBLIOGRAPHIC SURVEY ThL· survey is limited to articles written in English that have appeared in journals published between 1 January 1974 and 31 December 1976. Abbott, Don. "Marxist Influences on the Rhetorical Theory of Kenneth Burke." Philosophy and Rhetoric 7 (1974): 217-33. Abel, Lionel. "Jacques Derrida: His 'Difference' With Metaphysics." Salmagundi no. 25 (1974): 3-21. Adamowski, T. H. "Character and Consciousness: D. (...) H. Lawrence, Wilhelm Reich, and Jean-Paul Sartre." University of Toronto Quarterly 43 (1974): 31 1-34. Adams, D. J. "Style and Social Ideas in Jacques le fataliste." Studies in Voltaire & the Eighteenth Century 124 (1974): 231-48. Adams, Hazard. "Contemporary Ideas of Literature: Terrible Beauty or Rough Beast?" Contemporary Literature 17 (1976): 349-77. Adorno, Theodor W. "Lyric Poetry and Society." Telos no. 20 (1974): 56-71. Ages, Arnold. "Bonald and the Jews." Revue de l'Université d'Ottawa 44 (1974): 32-43. Allen, Diogenes. "The Experience of Existence: Jean-Paul Sartre and Iris Murdoch." International Philosophical Quarterly 14 (1974): 181-87. Allen, Marcus. "Character Development in the Oreste of Voltaire and Les Mouches of Jean-Paul Sartre." CLA Journal 18 (1974): 1-21. Alter, Jean. "A (Terrorist) System of the Novel." Diacritics 6 (1976): 10-15. Altieri, Charles. "Wittgenstein on Consciousness and Language: A Challenge to Derridean Literary Theory." MLN 91 (1976): 1397-1423. Altieri,Charles. "Wordsworth's 'Preface' as Literary Theory." Criticism 18 (1976): 122-146. [On Wordworth and Wittgenstein.] Ames, Van Meter. "Art for Art's Sake Again?" Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 33 (1975): 303-307. Appleman, Philip. "The Dread Factor: Eliot, Tennyson, and the Shaping of Science." Columbia Forum, N. S. 3 (1974): 32-38. Armstrong, Paul B. " E. M. Forster's Howard's End: The Existential Crisis of the Liberal Imagination." Mosaic 8 (1974): 183-99. Arnold, A. James. "La Condition humaine as Nietzschean Tragedy." Mélanges Malraux Miscellany 6 (1974): 15-24. 366 François H. Lapointe367 Aronson, Ronald. "L'Idiot de la famille: The Ultimate Sartre?" Telos no. 20 (1974): 90-107. Arthos, John. "Du Bartas, Petrarch and the Poetry of Deism." Rice University Studies 60 (1974): 1-17. Artz, Johannes. "Newman as Philosopher." International Philosophical Quarterly 16 (1976): 263-88. Ausmus, Harry J. "Schopenhauer's Philosophy of Language." The Midwest Quarterly 18 (1977): 169-86. Ayala, Francisco. "Ortega y Gasset, Literary Critic." Critical Inquiry 1 (1974): 395-414. Bakalar, H. Nicholas. "The Cartesian Legacy to the Eighteenth-century Grammarians." MLN 91 (1976): 698-721. Barnes, Hazel. "Apotheosis and Deification in Plato, Nietzsche and Huxley." Philosophy and Literature 1 (1976): 3-24. Baron, Dennis E. "Role Structure and the Language of Literature." Journal of Literary Semantics 4 (1975): 43-52. Barooskian, Vahan D. "The Aesthetics of the Russian Revolutionary Theatre 1917-1921." British Journal of Aesthetics 15 (1975): 99-117. Bart, B. F. "Hypercreativity in Stendhal and Balzac." Nineteenth Century French Studies 3 (1974-75): 18-39. Barthes, Roland. "An Introduction to the Structural Analysis of Narrative." New Literary History 6 (1975): 237-72. Bashford, Bruce. "The Rhetorical Method in Literary Criticism." Philosophy and Rhetoric 9 (1976): 133-46. Bass, Alan. "Time and the Witch: Femininity, Metapsychology and the Temporality of the Unconscious." MLN 91 (1976): 871-912. Bassett, Sharon. "Towards a Critique of Romanticism: Wordsworth, Pater and the 'Anima Mundi'." Criticism 17 (1975): 262-75. Batchelor, R. "Literature, Society and the Concept of Revolt." European Studies Review 5 (1975): 395-427. Battin, M. Pabst. "Aristotle's Definition of Tragedy in the Poetics, Part 1." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 33 (1974): 155-70, and Part II in Ibid. 33 (1975): 293-302. Bauer, George. "Sartre and the 'Sugars' of History." L'Esprit Créateur 15 (1975): 377-86. Baumgarten, Murray. "The Historical Novel: Some Postulates." Clio 4 (1975): 173-82. Beauchamp, Gorman. "Gulliver's Return to the Cave: Plato's Republic and Book IV of Gulliver's Travels." The Michigan Academician 7 (1974): 201-10. Bennett, Jonathan. "The Conscience of Huckleberry Finn." Philosophy 48 (1974): 123-34. Benzon, William. "Cognitive Networks and Literary Semantics." MLN 91 (1976): 952-82. Bergonzi, Bernard. "A Grid of Codes: Views of Structuralism." Encounter 45 (1975): 52-58. Berry, Wanda Warren. "The... (shrink)

Rombach, H. Die Gegenwart der Philosophie.--Möller, J. Philosophie als Antihumanismus?--Schaeffler, R. Zum Verhältnis von transzendentaler und historischer Reflexion.--Balmer, H. P. Produktivität und Rezeptivität.--Marx, W. Das Bedürfnis der Philosophie.--Mader, J. Philosophie als Kritik.--Hommes, U. Sein und Sinn.--Sobrevilla, D. Ortega und der deutsche Idealismus.--Kohlenberger, H. Robert Musils philosophischer Anspruch.--Schwartländer, J. Die Menschenrechte und die Notwendigkeit einer praktischen Weltorientierung.--Heintel, E. Vom Sinn der Freundschaft.--Oeser, E. Die wissenschaftstheoretische Wende der Philosophie.--Simon, J. Zu einem philosophischen Begriff der Kausalität.--Schäfer, L. Der wissenschaftstheoretische Status synthetischer Urteile a (...) priori.--Lütterfelds, W. Das kategoriale Apriori des Erfahrungsfortschritts. (shrink)

In recent years, Early Modern Philosophy has seen frequent and urgent calls for more diverse, equitable, and inclusive teaching and research. These are calls fo.

This new annotated translation of Chapter Six of Hegel's _Phenomenology of Spirit_, the joint product of a group of scholars that included H. S. Harris, George di Giovanni, John W. Burbidge, and Kenneth Schmitz, represents an advance in accuracy and fluency on previous translations into English of this core chapter of the Phenomenology. Its notes and commentary offer both novice and scholar more guidance to this text than is available in any other translation, and it is thus well suited for (...) use in survey courses. (shrink)

This collection of previously unpublished essays addresses a number of issues arising out of philosophical controversies over the possibility of genuine moral dilemmas. Issues addressed include the form of a moral dilemma; the paradoxes a moral dilemma is said to entail; the question of whether a moral dilemma must exhibit inconsistency; the role of intractable circumstances in occasioning moral dilemmas; and the plausibility of supposing that there might be rational ways of addressing moral dilemmas in practice. The contributors, writing from (...) a number of widely differing points of view, include Simon Blackburn, Ruth Barcan Marcus, Alan Donagan, Terrance McConnell, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Mary Mothersill, Norman Dahl, David Brink, Peter Railton, Thomas E. Hill, Jr., Christopher Gowans, and H.E. Mason. (shrink)

No one has the right to say what should be done to their body after deathIn my opinion any concept of property in the human body either during life or after death is biologically inaccurate and morally wrong. The body should be regarded as on loan to the individual from the biomass, to which the cadaver will inevitably return. Development of immunosuppressive drugs has resulted in the cadaver becoming a unique and invaluable resource to those who will benefit from organ (...) donation. Faced with the biological reality, the moral error of any concept of property in the body, and the quantitative failure of voluntary organ donation, I believe that the right of control over the cadaver should be vested in the state as representative of those who may benefit from organ donation.How one regards the dead human body, the cadaver, is in part governed by one’s familiarity with it. At the present time, very few people ever see a cadaver which has not in some way been altered after death, and even fewer touch, handle, deal in any way with the dead human body. In developed countries, death itself most frequently occurs away from the home, in an institution, under the supervision of professional caregivers. For most people, ideas concerning the cadaver, its nature, the proper way to deal with it, are formed under these conditions.As a pathologist specialising in forensic pathology, for 50 years I have been at the other end of the spectrum of experience. In my daily work I have been privileged to examine the cadaver in all its stages after death from the immediate postmortem moments through all the stages of decomposition to bare bones. Working in a relatively small community, I have sometimes been charged with examining the body of someone I …. (shrink)

Kant's philosophy of arithmetic / by Charles Parsons -- Visual geometry / by James Hopkins -- The proof-structure of Kant's transcendental deduction / by Dieter Henrich -- Imagination and perception / by P.F. Strawson -- Kant's categories and their schematism / by Lauchlan Chipman -- Transcendental arguments / by Barry Stroud -- Strawson on transcendental idealism / by H.E. Matthews -- Self-knowledge / by W.H. Walsh -- The age and size of the world / by Jonathan Bennett.

I argue, first, that the deprived individuals whose predicaments Nussbaum cites as examples of "adaptive preference" do not in fact prefer the conditions of their lives to what we should regard as more desirable alternatives, indeed that we believe they are badly off precisely because they are not living the lives they would prefer to live if they had other options and were aware of them. Secondly, I argue that even where individuals in deprived circumstances acquire tastes for conditions that (...) we regard as bad, they are typically better off having their acquired preferences satisfied. If they are badly off it is because they cannot get what we and they, would regard as more desirable alternatives. Preference utilitarianism explains why individuals in such circumstances are badly off whether they have adapted to their deprived circumstances or not. Even if they prefer the conditions of their lives to all other available alternatives, most would prefer alternatives that are not available to them which would, on the preferentist account, make them better off. And that, on the preferentist account, is the basis for a radical critique of unjust institutions that limit people's options and prevent them from getting what they want. (shrink)

The doctrine of the Trinity developed in response to a range of theological interests, among them the project of reconciling claims about the divinity of Christ with monotheism and massaging Christian doctrine into the ambient (largely Platonic) philosophical framework of the period. More recently the Trinity doctrine has been deployed to promote normative claims concerning human nature, human relationships and social justice. During the past two decades analytic philosophers of religion have increasingly engaged with the doctrine. There are, however, a (...) number of foundational questions that have not been addressed in the philosophical literature. The Trinity: A Philosophical Investigation considers the competing accounts of the Trinity doctrine, whether orthodox or heterodox, and aims to respond to objections and explicate their motivations and entailments. (shrink)

The ethical issues around decision making on behalf of infants have been illuminated by two empirical research studies carried out in Scotland. In-depth interviews with 176 medical and nursing staff and with 108 parents of babies for whom there was discussion of treatment withholding/withdrawal, generated a wealth of data on both the decision making process and the management of cases. Both staff and parents believe that parents should be involved in treatment limitation decisions on behalf of their babies. However, whilst (...) many doctors and nurses consider the ultimate responsibility too great for families to carry, the majority of parents wish to be the final arbiters. We offer explanations for the differences in perception found in the two groups. The results of these empirical studies provide both aids to ethical reflection and guidance for clinicians dealing with these vulnerable families. They demonstrate the value of empirical data in the philosophical debate. (shrink)

Prima facie, relative identity looks like a perfect fit for the doctrine of the Trinity since it allows us to say that the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each of which is a Trinitarian Person, are the same God but not the same Person. Nevertheless, relative identity solutions to logic puzzles concerning the doctrine of the Trinity have not, in recent years, been much pursued. Critics worry that relative identity accounts are unintuitive, uninformative or unintelligible. I suggest that the relative (...) identity account is worth a second look and argue that it provides a coherent account of the doctrine of the Trinity. (shrink)

This paper offers a new approach to the philosophical foundations of information systems through feminist philosophy and, in particular, feminist epistemology. This can be used to expose the universalizing tendency of many information systems and to show the importance of using real-life complex examples rather than the simplified examples often favored by philosophers. Within traditional epistemology and its relation to IS, subjectivity, the propositional/skills distinction and epistemic hierarchies are subject to arguments from feminist epistemology. With respect to the emerging critical (...) school of IS, feminist epistemology, and within that, feminist standpoint theory, are used to examine the complexities of the positivist/anti-positivist position and the related concept of emancipation. In addition, it is argued that the liberal version of emancipation encapsulated in such systems may have an effect opposite to that of emancipation These issues are illustrated in an existing expert systems project. (shrink)

It is difficult to reconcile claims about the Father's role as the progenitor of Trinitarian Persons with commitment to the equality of the persons, a problem that is especially acute for Social Trinitarians. I propose a metatheological account of the doctrine of the Trinity that facilitates the reconciliation of these two claims. On the proposed account, ‘Father’ is systematically ambiguous. Within economic contexts, those which characterize God's relation to the world, ‘Father’ refers to the First Person of the Trinity; within (...) theological contexts, which purport to describe intra-Trinitarian relations, it refers to the Trinity in toto-thus in holding that the Son and Holy Spirit proceed from the Father we affirm that the Trinity is the source and unifying principle of Trinitarian Persons. While this account is solves a nagging problem for Social Trinitarians it is theologically minimalist to the extent that it is compatible with both Social Trinitarianism and Latin Trinitarianism, and with heterodox Modalist and Tri-theist doctrines as well. Its only theological cost is incompatibility with the Filioque Clause, the doctrine that the Holy Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son—and arguably that may be a benefit. (shrink)

According to many orthodox Christian theologies Jesus is not merely sinless but impeccable: he not only did not sin but could not. This is puzzling because one can only sin by doing something else and, prima face, Jesus can do actions that you or I could do by which we would sin. I suggest that appearances to the contrary, Jesus cannot do a variety of actions that a merely human duplicate could do. His doing sinful actions is compossible with a (...) range of empirical facts about his physical abilities and circumstances of the sort we ordinarily take into account in assessing what a person can do, but not with a wider range of theological facts concerning his divinity. Like Tim, Lewis’s time-traveler, who can kill Grandfather relative to facts about his immediate circumstances and abilities but not relative to a wider range of facts, Jesus ‘can’ in the ordinary sense sin, though he will not, but relative to a wider range of facts which obtain in virtue of his divinity, cannot. (shrink)