After responding to several misreadings of Milbank’s project in Theology and Social Theory—e. g., that it dispenses with “truth” or “reality”, is sectarian, reads a social theory off the Bible, is ecclesially absolutist—the authors highlight several strands of Milbank’s argument to stress the resolutely theological character of this work. In Milbank’s narrative, modernity is defined as a theological problem in which forms of modern secular thought have usurped theology as the “ultimate organizing logic”; his theological response to this involves a (...) broadly Augustinian account of the relationship between nature and grace which requires a theology which can only be true if it is enacted: it is necessary for the Church to make an actual historical difference in the world. (shrink)

After responding to several misreadings of Milbank’s project in Theology and Social Theory—e. g., that it dispenses with “truth” or “reality”, is sectarian, reads a social theory off the Bible, is ecclesially absolutist—the authors highlight several strands of Milbank’s argument to stress the resolutely theological character of this work. In Milbank’s narrative, modernity is defined as a theological problem in which forms of modern secular thought have usurped theology as the “ultimate organizing logic”; his theological response to this involves a (...) broadly Augustinian account of the relationship between nature and grace which requires a theology which can only be true if it is enacted: it is necessary for the Church to make an actual historical difference in the world. (shrink)

For years, both psychologists and the general public have been fascinated with the notion that there are gender differences in cognitive abilities; even now, flashy cover stories exploiting this idea dominate major news magazines, while research focuses on differences in verbal, mathematical, spatial, and scientific abilities across gender. This new volume in the Counterpoints series not only summarizes and addresses the validity of such research, but also questions its ideology and consequences. Why do we search so intently for these differences? (...) And what are the social and cultural implications of this relentless emphasis? Do biological mechanisms, in fact, contribute to the male-female differences in cognition? These are just a few of the questions generated by this controversial topic as it is debated throughout the book. (shrink)

The chapters published in this volume developed from presentations, and their associated discussions at a conference organised by the Scottish Branch of the British Psychological Society, held at Rothesay, Isle of Bute, Scotland in September 1987. The goal of the conference was to bring together workers across a wide area of neuropsychological research to discuss recent technological advances, developments in assessment and rehabilitation, and to address theoretical issues of current interest. Thus, the chapters in this book include contributions on the (...) use of Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography in neuropsychological research, studies of hemi spheric specialisation and cooperation, alcoholic and Alzheimer type dementia, prosopagnosia and facial processing, the assessment, management and rehabilitation of memory problems, the assessment of premorbid intellectual status and issues in developmental neuropsychology. Many of those engaged in research and clinical practice in neuropsychology encounter a range of topic at least as wide as this in their professional lives. The opportunity for researchers and clinicians to discuss some of the key issues in the field was invaluable and we hope that readers gain as much from the material presented here as the participants did from the meeting itself. (shrink)

Multilevel research strategies characterize contemporary molecular inquiry into biological systems. We outline conceptual, methodological, and explanatory dimensions of these multilevel strategies in microbial ecology, systems biology, protein research, and developmental biology. This review of emerging lines of inquiry in these fields suggests that multilevel research in molecular life sciences has significant implications for philosophical understandings of explanation, modeling, and representation.

This seminal work by political philosopher C.B. Macpherson was first published by the Clarendon Press in 1962, and remains of key importance to the study of liberal-democratic theory half-a-century later. In it, Macpherson argues that the chief difficulty of the notion of individualism that underpins classical liberalism lies in what he calls its "possessive quality" - "its conception of the individual as essentially the proprietor of his own person or capacities, owing nothing to society for them." Under such a conception, (...) the essence of humanity becomes freedom from dependence on the wills of others; society is little more than a system of economic relations; and political society becomes a means of safeguarding private property and the system of economic relations rooted in property. As the New Statesman declared: "It is rare for a book to change the intellectual landscape. It is even more unusual for this to happen when the subject is one that has been thoroughly investigated by generations of historians.... Until the appearance of Professor Macpherson's book, it seemed unlikely that anything radically new could be said about so well-worn a topic. The unexpected has happened, and the shock waves are still being absorbed." A new introduction by Frank Cunningham puts the work in a twenty-first-century context. (shrink)

The past 25 years have seen a rapid growth of knowledge about brain mechanisms involved in visual mental imagery. These advances have largely been made independently of the long history of philosophical – and even psychological – reckoning with imagery and its parent concept ‘imagination’. We suggest that the view from these empirical findings can be widened by an appreciation of imagination’s intellectual history, and we seek to show how that history both created the conditions for – and presents challenges (...) to – the scientific endeavor. We focus on the neuroscientific literature’s most commonly used task – imagining a concrete object – and, after sketching what is known of the neurobiological mechanisms involved, we examine the same basic act of imagining from the perspective of several key positions in the history of philosophy and psychology. We present positions that, firstly, contextualize and inform the neuroscientific account, and secondly, pose conceptual and methodological challenges to the scientific analysis of imagery. We conclude by reflecting on the intellectual history of visualization in the light of contemporary science, and the extent to which such science may resolve long-standing theoretical debates. (shrink)

Thousands of youth suffering from acquired brain injury or other early-life neurological disease live, mature, and learn with only limited communication and interaction with their world. Such cognitively capable children are ideal candidates for brain-computer interfaces. While BCI systems are rapidly evolving, a fundamental gap exists between technological innovators and the patients and families who stand to benefit. Forays into translating BCI systems to children in recent years have revealed that kids can learn to operate simple BCI with proficiency akin (...) to adults. BCI could bring significant boons to the lives of many children with severe physical impairment, supporting their complex physical and social needs. However, children have been neglected in BCI research and a collaborative BCI research community is required to unite and push pediatric BCI development forward. To this end, the pediatric BCI Canada collaborative network was formed, under a unified goal to cooperatively drive forward pediatric BCI innovation and impact. This article reflects on the topics and discussions raised in the foundational BCI-CAN meeting held in Toronto, ON, Canada in November 2019 and suggests the next steps required to see BCI impact the lives of children with severe neurological disease and their families. (shrink)

The paper presents a new theory of perceptual demonstrative thought, the property-dependent theory. It argues that the theory is superior to both the object-dependent theory (Evans, McDowell) and the object-independent theory (Burge).

The Forge of the Spirit: Structure, Motion, and Meaning in the Japanese Martial Tradition. John J. Donohue. New York: Garland, 1991. 252 p. $37 (cloth).

How do concert pianists commit to memory the structure of a piece of music like Bach’s Italian Concerto, learning it well enough to remember it in the highly charged setting of a crowded performance venue, yet remaining open to the freshness of expression of the moment? Playing to this audience, in this state, now, requires openness to specificity, to interpretation, a working dynamicism that mere rote learning will not provide. Chaffin, Imreh and Crawford’s innovative and detailed research suggests that (...) the key to this skill is a declarative mental roadmap aiding musical performance. This hypothesis is neatly and unintentionally summarized by professional pianist Imreh, who states when learning a new piece of music “My fingers were playing the notes just fine. The practice I needed was in my head. I had to learn to keep track of where I was. It was a matter of learning exactly what I needed to be thinking of as I played, and at exactly what point. (shrink)

Gerald Sykes -- Aldous Huxley -- Gerald Heard -- Christopher Isherwood -- John van Druten -- Marianna Masin -- J. Crawford Lewis -- Dorothy F. Mercer -- Kurt Friedrichs -- Swami Atulananda -- Jane Molard -- The Countess of Sandwich -- John Yale -- Joan Rayne -- Durgacharan -- Pravrajika Saradaprana.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Recent and Classic References at the Interface of Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Abnormal PsychologyArticlesAggernaes, A. 1972. The expanded reality of hallucinations and other psychological phenomena. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 48: 220–238.Anonymous. 1991. Child sexual abuse and the limits of responsibility. Lancet 337: 890.Anonymous. 1993. Mental incapacity and medical treatment. Lancet 341: 1123–1124.Appelbaum, M. D., and A. Creer. 1993. Confidentiality in group therapy. Hospital and Community Psychiatry 44: 311–312.Beatson, J. A. 1993. (...) The psychiatrist and peer review—a psychodynamic review of the literature. Australia and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 27: 311–318.Berrios, G. E. 1987. Dementia during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: a conceptual history. Psychological Medicine 17: 829–837.Blackburn, R. 1988. On moral judgments and personality disorders: the myth of psychopathic personality revisited. British Journal of Psychiatry 153: 505–512.Blackmon, W. D. 1993. Are psychoanalytic billing practices ethical? American Journal of Psychotherapy 47: 613–620.Blashfield, R. K., and J. G. Draguns. 1976. Evaluative criteria for psychiatric classification. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 85, no. 2: 140–150.Blashfield, R. K., J. Sprock, and A. K. Fuller. 1990. Suggested guidelines for including or excluding categories in the DSM-IV. Comprehensive Psychiatry 31, no. 1: 15–19.Blashfield, R. K., J. Sprock, D. Haymaker et al. 1989. The family resemblance hypothesis applied to psychiatric classification. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 177: 492–497.Borys, D. S. 1994. Maintaining therapeutic boundaries: the motive is therapeutic effectiveness not defensive practice. Ethics and Behavior 4, no. 3: 267–273.Brown, W. M. 1985. On defining disease. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 10: 311–328.Bub, J. 1994a. Is cognitive neuropsychology possible? Proceedings of the Biennial Meetings of the Philosophy of Science Association 1: 417–427.Bub, J. 1994b. Testing models of cognition through the analysis of brain-damaged performance. British Journal of Philosophy of Science 45, no. 3: 837–855.Buck, C. 1989. Problems with the Popperian approach: A response to Pearce and Crawford-Brown. Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 42: 185–187.Buck, R. 1994. The neuropsychology of communication: spontaneous and symbolic aspects. Journal of Pragmatics 22, no. 3-4: 265–278.Camp, N. M. 1993. The Vietnam war and the ethics of combat psychiatry. American Journal of Psychiatry 150: 1000–1009.Crockett, C. 1961. Ethics, metaphysics, and psychoanalysis. Inquiry 4: 37–52.Dalton, E., K. Hopper, and S. Reiner. 1976. Ethical issues in behavior control. Values and Ethics in Health Care 2: 1–40.Faust, D. 1993a. Use and then prove, or prove and then use? Some thoughts on the ethics of mental health professionals’ courtroom involvement. Ethics and Behavior 3, no. 3-4: 359–380.Fodor, J., and E. Lepore. 1994. What is the connection principle? Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 54: 4.Foss, L. 1994. Putting the mind back into the body: a successor scientific medical model. Theoretical Medicine 15, no. 3: 291–313.Galletly, C. A. 1993. Psychiatrist-patient sexual relationships: the ethical dilemmas. Australia and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 27: 133–139.Glymour, C. 1994. On the methods of cognitive neuropsychology. British Journal of Philosophy of Science 45, no. 3: 815–835.Gottlieb, M. C. 1994. Ethical decision making, boundaries, and treatment effectiveness: a reprise. Ethics and Behavior 4, no. 3: 287–293.Gutheil, T. G. 1994. Discussion of Lazarus’s “How certain boundaries and ethics diminish therapeutic effectiveness”. Ethics and Behavior 4, no. 3: 295–298.Helme, T. 1993. A special defence—a psychiatric approach to formalising euthanasia. British Journal of Psychiatry 163: 456–466.Kovel, J. 1976–77. Therapy in late capitalism. Telos 30: 73–92.Lazarus, A. A. 1994a. How certain boundaries and ethics diminish therapeutic effectiveness. Ethics and Behavior 4, no. 3: 255–261.Lazarus, A. A. 1994b. The illusion of the therapist’s power and the patient’s fragility: my rejoinder. Ethics and Behavior 4, no. 3: 299–306.Lehrman, N. S. 1980. Psychiatric power and responsibility: Abuse and abdication, a proposed corrective conference. The Humanist 40: 9–13.Lockhart, T. 1992. Professions, confidentiality, and moral uncertainty. Professional Ethics: A Multidisciplinary Journal 1, no. 3-4: 33–52.Margolin, S. G. 1964. The scientific status of psychoanalytic clinical evidence (II). Inquiry 7: 37... (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper investigates influences upon the development of library classification systems in nineteenth-century Britain. Two case studies – Edward Edwards's ‘scheme of classification for a town library’ of 1859 and the Bibliotheca Lindesiana of the earls of Crawford who made a number of significant contributions to the development of library classification over a fifty-year period – are deployed to explore how classification schemes reflected the habituses of their creators and how they were shaped by their socio-economic, epistemological and (...) geographical contexts. The paper also investigates the discourse of classification, examining authors’ claims for the legitimacy, widespread applicability and superiority of their schemes, while revealing how these claims were compromised or modified by practical considerations. The case studies suggest that a modernizing narrative of a transition in the second half of the nineteenth century from an aristocratic, largely rural and amateur paradigm of knowledge formation to a bourgeois, urban and professional model requires significant modification: a more nuanced approach is required, which recognizes the permeability of geographic and social boundaries and the continued relevance of aristocratic libraries as key sites of knowledge formation until the end of the century. (shrink)

Wisely, the authors begin this book by describing it as a polemic. They argue that most contemporary analytic metaphysics is a waste of time and resources since contemporary ‘neo-scholastic’ metaphysical theorizing cannot hope to attain objective truth given its penchant for making a priori claims about the nature of the world which are backed up by appeal to intuition. In engaging in this activity, metaphysicians have, the authors claim, abandoned hope of locating any interesting connection between their metaphysical pronouncements and (...) how our best empirical theories describe the world. Moreover, the success attained by empirical science just cannot be matched by metaphysical theorizing and so, faced with this asymmetry, empirical science wins: a priori metaphysical theorizing must give way to a naturalistic form of metaphysics, a positive account of which the authors attempt to elucidate in the second and third, rather lengthy chapters of the book.The first chapter consists of a statement of the authors’ negative view, a vigorous, sustained and sometimes withering attack upon contemporary a priori metaphysics. Most ire is reserved for those who indulge in what the authors call ‘pseudo-scientific metaphysics’; that is, those who pay lip service to keeping their metaphysical speculation in tune with physics, only to constrain their ontology in such a way that the entities and processes within it do not even play a role in current physical theory, or are in straightforward contradiction with it. Much philosophy of science and scientific metaphysics is too superficial and simplistic to deserve the name and bears more relation to ‘the philosophy of “A” Level chemistry’. The guilty in this respect include David Lewis, Jaegwon Kim, Jonathan Lowe, Donald Davidson, Jerry Fodor, Crawford Elder, Trenton Merricks among …. (shrink)

How do concert pianists commit to memory the structure of a piece of music like Bach’s Italian Concerto, learning it well enough to remember it in the highly charged setting of a crowded performance venue, yet remaining open to the freshness of expression of the moment? Playing to this audience, in this state, now, requires openness to specificity, to interpretation, a working dynamicism that mere rote learning will not provide. Chaffin, Imreh and Crawford’s innovative and detailed research suggests that (...) the key to this skill is a declarative mental roadmap aiding musical performance. This hypothesis is neatly and unintentionally summarized by professional pianist Imreh, who states when learning a new piece of music “My fingers were playing the notes just fine. The practice I needed was in my head. I had to learn to keep track of where I was. It was a matter of learning exactly what I needed to be thinking of as I played, and at exactly what point. . .” (Chaffin & Imreh 1997, p.326). (shrink)

Wisely, the authors begin this book by describing it as a polemic. They argue that most contemporary analytic metaphysics is a waste of time and resources since contemporary ‘neo-scholastic’ metaphysical theorizing cannot hope to attain objective truth given its penchant for making a priori claims about the nature of the world which are backed up by appeal to intuition. In engaging in this activity, metaphysicians have, the authors claim, abandoned hope of locating any interesting connection between their metaphysical pronouncements and (...) how our best empirical theories describe the world. Moreover, the success attained by empirical science just cannot be matched by metaphysical theorizing and so, faced with this asymmetry, empirical science wins: a priori metaphysical theorizing must give way to a naturalistic form of metaphysics, a positive account of which the authors attempt to elucidate in the second and third, rather lengthy chapters of the book.The first chapter consists of a statement of the authors’ negative view, a vigorous, sustained and sometimes withering attack upon contemporary a priori metaphysics. Most ire is reserved for those who indulge in what the authors call ‘pseudo-scientific metaphysics’; that is, those who pay lip service to keeping their metaphysical speculation in tune with physics, only to constrain their ontology in such a way that the entities and processes within it do not even play a role in current physical theory, or are in straightforward contradiction with it. Much philosophy of science and scientific metaphysics is too superficial and simplistic to deserve the name and bears more relation to ‘the philosophy of “A” Level chemistry’. The guilty in this respect include David Lewis, Jaegwon Kim, Jonathan Lowe, Donald Davidson, Jerry Fodor, Crawford Elder, Trenton Merricks among …. (shrink)

To fit the magnificence of this setting in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, and the honor of giving the 2007 Sir John Crawford Memorial Lecture, it is well to have a subject of suitable proportions. I have chosen one of global size and urgent time frame: our climate crisis. We only have one future and one global climate–and now it looks as if we only have one chance to rescue our civilization from collapse and prevent a mass (...) extinction of species during the 21st century. Unless you have been keeping up with climate science for the past twenty-five years, you likely do not know how serious the matter has become. The notion that we might slowly get into serious trouble by mid-century has been conveyed by the media and understood by at least some political leaders. But that scenario depends on somehow avoiding sudden shifts in climate in the meantime, instant setbacks at a time when we lack maneuvering room. An abrupt shift in drought area occurred in 1983 and we had a near-miss of a mass extinction of Amazon species in 1999. It is easy to appreciate that one more degree of global warming will seriously reduce crop yields in the tropics, but in the words of climate scientist Claudia Tebaldi 1, “It’s the extremes, not the averages, that cause the most damage to.. (shrink)

We are sceptical of concerns over the opacity of algorithmic decision tools. While transparency and explainability are certainly important desiderata in algorithmic governance, we worry that automated decision-making is being held to an unrealistically high standard, possibly owing to an unrealistically high estimate of the degree of transparency attainable from human decision-makers. In this paper, we review evidence demonstrating that much human decision-making is fraught with transparency problems, show in what respects AI fares little worse or better and argue that (...) at least some regulatory proposals for explainable AI could end up setting the bar higher than is necessary or indeed helpful. The demands of practical reason require the justification of action to be pitched at the level of practical reason. Decision tools that support or supplant practical reasoning should not be expected to aim higher than this. We cast this desideratum in terms of Daniel Dennett’s theory of the “intentional stance” and argue that since the justification of action for human purposes takes the form of intentional stance explanation, the justification of algorithmic decisions should take the same form. In practice, this means that the sorts of explanations for algorithmic decisions that are analogous to intentional stance explanations should be preferred over ones that aim at the architectural innards of a decision tool. (shrink)

Creations of the Mind presents sixteen original essays by theorists from a wide variety of disciplines who have a shared interest in the nature of artifacts and their implications for the human mind. All the papers are written specially for this volume, and they cover a broad range of topics concerned with the metaphysics of artifacts, our concepts of artifacts and the categories that they represent, the emergence of an understanding of artifacts in infants' cognitive development, as well as the (...) evolution of artifacts and the use of tools by non-human animals. This volume will be a fascinating resource for philosophers, cognitive scientists, and psychologists, and the starting point for future research in the study of artifacts and their role in human understanding, development, and behaviour.Contributors: John R. Searle, Richard E. Grandy, Crawford L. Elder, Amie L. Thomasson, Jerrold Levinson, Barbara C. Malt, Steven A. Sloman, Dan Sperber, Hilary Kornblith, Paul Bloom, Bradford Z. Mahon, Alfonso Caramazza, Jean M. Mandler, Deborah Kelemen, Susan Carey, Frank C. Keil, Marissa L. Greif, Rebekkah S. Kerner, James L. Gould, Marc D. Hauser, Laurie R. Santos, Steven Mithen. (shrink)

Psychologists have demonstrated the value of diversity – particularly diversity of viewpoints – for enhancing creativity, discovery, and problem solving. But one key type of viewpoint diversity is lacking in academic psychology in general and social psychology in particular: political diversity. This article reviews the available evidence and finds support for four claims: (1) Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years. (2) This lack of political diversity can undermine (...) the validity of social psychological science via mechanisms such as the embedding of liberal values into research questions and methods, steering researchers away from important but politically unpalatable research topics, and producing conclusions that mischaracterize liberals and conservatives alike. (3) Increased political diversity would improve social psychological science by reducing the impact of bias mechanisms such as confirmation bias, and by empowering dissenting minorities to improve the quality of the majority's thinking. (4) The underrepresentation of non-liberals in social psychology is most likely due to a combination of self-selection, hostile climate, and discrimination. We close with recommendations for increasing political diversity in social psychology. (shrink)

French philosopher Michel de Certeau wrote about seventeenth-century mysticism, religion and pluralism, architecture, everyday life, and the history of anthropology. But because critics of his works have tended to fragment it into hermetic compartments, dealing only with what is relevant to their own fields, the expansiveness of his ouevre has suffered damaging distortions in the secondary literature. This special issue of _South Atlantic Quarterly_ provides the first comprehensive view of his complete work, with contributors evaluating his weaknesses as well as (...) his strengths. With articles that engage directly—as well as theoretically—with de Certeau, this collection corrects a long-standing imbalance in the criticism by covering works from two periods about which little is known in anglophone circles: his early books on religious history and his midlife histories of mysticism and possession. It also includes critiques from queer theory and feminist theory, as well as comparative readings that assess de Certeau alongside his famous contemporary, Michel Foucault. With articles by an international array of scholars who address both the secular and the religious thinker, this special issue is the most definitive study to date of this important twentieth-century thinker. _Contributors. _Jeremy Ahearne, Frederick C. Bauerschmidt, Ian Buchanan, Philippe Carrard, Claire Colebrook, Tom Conley, Verena Andermatt Conley, Catherine Driscoll, Carla Freccero, John Frow, Richard Terdiman, Timothy Tomasik, Marie-Claire Vallois, Graham Ward. (shrink)

The purpose of this book is to give a coherent account of the different perspectives on science and technology that are normally studied under various disciplinary heads such as philosophy of science, sociology of science and science policy. It is intended for students embarking on courses in these subjects and assumes no special knowledge of any science. It is written in a direct and simple style, and technical language is introduced very sparingly. As various perspectives are sketched out in this (...) book, the reader moves towards a consistent conception of contemporary science as a rapidly changing social institution that has already grown out of its traditional forms and plays a central role in society at large. It will appeal to students in a wide range of scientific disciplines and complement well Professor Ziman's earlier books. (shrink)

Kant’s philosophy of science takes on sharp contour in terms of his interaction with the practicing life scientists of his day, particularly Johann Blumenbach and the latter’s student, Christoph Girtanner, who in 1796 attempted to synthesize the ideas of Kant and Blumenbach. Indeed, Kant’s engagement with the life sciences played a far more substantial role in his transcendental philosophy than has been recognized hitherto. The theory of epigenesis, especially in light of Kant’s famous analogy in the first Critique, posed crucial (...) questions regarding the ‘looseness of fit’ between the constitutive and the regulative in Kant’s theory of empirical law. A detailed examination of Kant’s struggle with epigenesis between 1784 and 1790 demonstrates his grave reservations about its hylozoist implications, leading to his even stronger insistence on the discrimination of constitutive from regulative uses of reason. The continuing relevance of these issues for Kant’s philosophy of science is clear from the work of Buchdahl and its contemporary reception. (shrink)

The danger of human operators devolving responsibility to machines and failing to detect cases where they fail has been recognised for many years by industrial psychologists and engineers studying the human operators of complex machines. We call it “the control problem”, understood as the tendency of the human within a human–machine control loop to become complacent, over-reliant or unduly diffident when faced with the outputs of a reliable autonomous system. While the control problem has been investigated for some time, up (...) to this point its manifestation in machine learning contexts has not received serious attention. This paper aims to fill that gap. We argue that, except in certain special circumstances, algorithmic decision tools should not be used in high-stakes or safety-critical decisions unless the systems concerned are significantly “better than human” in the relevant domain or subdomain of decision-making. More concretely, we recommend three strategies to address the control problem, the most promising of which involves a complementary coupling between highly proficient algorithmic tools and human agents working alongside one another. We also identify six key principles which all such human–machine systems should reflect in their design. These can serve as a framework both for assessing the viability of any such human–machine system as well as guiding the design and implementation of such systems generally. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy after ChristJohn O'CallaghanConsider the words of Justin Martyr written in the middle of the second century after the birth of Christ and after Justin's conversion to Christianity:Philosophy is indeed one's greatest possession, and is most precious in the sight of God, to whom it alone leads us and to whom it unites us, and in truth they who have applied themselves to philosophy are holy men.1In addition to (...) the praise heaped upon the philosophers, among whom Justin had counted himself before his conversion,2 the text is one of the earliest pieces of evidence for the historical reality of Christian intellectual engagement with pagan or secular philosophy. Whether that engagement proved spiritually fruitful or sterile in any particular age or any particular tradition of philosophy, Christian intellectuals have often sought out engagement with philosophy as an inherent task of the intellectual life of the Church, in order to pursue and develop the understanding of Christian revelation and the mode of life informed by it. One lasting result of the impetus represented by Justin is to be found even now in the normative requirement in Catholic education that, at a certain stage of development, anyone who receives a [End Page 49] serious Catholic education must be introduced to serious philosophical reflection on where we came from, what we are, and where we are born to go.In addition, one of the general points John Henry Newman made in The Idea of a University is that the human mind looks for unity in the diversity of intellectual disciplines it pursues. In search of this unity, it seeks a kind of primary discipline that takes into account the truths discovered throughout the other disciplines as it seeks to understand what it can of the whole of reality, not just its parts. But Newman also pointed out that, in the absence of such a unifying discipline, practitioners of each particular discipline will often claim for their particular discipline the prize of being primary—of being the discipline by which all others must be understood and judged.3Take classical and modern physics. A familiar claim of some physicists, but even more so of non-physicist physicalists, is that physics is the fundamental intellectual discipline for understanding what is real. All reality, living reality, historical reality, moral reality, indeed perhaps even literary reality, must be reduced to reality as described by the physicists or rejected as unreal or epiphenomenal, or in a kinder, gentler vein, non-reductively emergent and supervenient. Whichever position is taken, whether reduction, non-reductive emergence, or epiphenomenalism, the thought is that the real work of the really real is done by reality as described by physics, either in its actual contemporary state or, more likely, in an idealized future state always on the horizon of where physics presently is. We are really atoms spinning ceaselessly in the void, mostly empty space, the warp and woof of a four-dimensional space-time manifold, or congeries of strings in an even more bizarre thirteen-dimensional manifold, or whatever was said most recently to surpass what was said before that by the leading physicists in California or Cambridge.However, anyone who has actually practiced physics knows that, even when uttered by a physicist, these are not claims of physics, but about physics. What prompts them is the sense that there is no intellectual discipline other than contemporary physics itself that can both understand the achievements of physics and integrate them into a larger intellectual comprehension of reality as a whole. These claims about physics nicely display Newman's point about the way in which a particular discipline, in the absence of a larger more comprehensive discipline, can take on an importance for its practitioners well beyond its disciplinary limits. [End Page 50]In the case of physics, if a more comprehensive unifying discipline is not to be found, this attitude is not entirely unjustified, for Newman's point is partly Aristotelian. Aristotle had pointed out that, if one cannot show that unchangeable, and thus non-physical beings, exist, then what Aristotle called "first philosophy" would just be physics as he understood it, the science of... (shrink)

In this celebration of the work of Paul Hager, I draw attention to his highly successful collaborations with David Beckett and John Halliday as indicative of his collegiality and his conviction that knowledge is produced in cooperation with others. I highlight his enduring theme of practice and his deep concern for vocational and technical education. The theme of embodiment underpins his extensive explorations of practical knowledge, work and learning. Hager’s focus on those processes of making and repairing are foregrounded (...) in the article. The work of Mathew B. Crawford and Olivier Dupon is deployed to explore these ideas further, with particular attention paid to Crawford’s spirited defence of the trades and of tradespeople, artisans and repairers. The functioning of judgement as reasoning within practice and the significance of tacit knowing are briefly explored. Hager’s enormous contribution to our understanding of work and its significance to conceptions of the good life are wholeheartedly applauded. (shrink)