Religion is universal human culture. No phenomenon is more widely shared or more intensely studied, yet there is no agreement on what religion is. Now, in Faces in the Clouds, anthropologist Stewart Guthrie provides a provocative definition of religion in a bold and persuasive new theory. Guthrie says religion can best be understood as systematic anthropomorphism--that is, the attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman things and events. Many writers see anthropomorphism as common or even universal in religion, but (...) few think it is central. To Guthrie, however, it is fundamental. Religion, he writes, consists of seeing the world as humanlike. As Guthrie shows, people find a wide range of humanlike beings plausible: Gods, spirits, abominable snowmen, HAL the computer, Chiquita Banana. We find messages in random events such as earthquakes, weather, and traffic accidents. We say a fire "rages," a storm "wreaks vengeance," and waters "lie still." Guthrie says that our tendency to find human characteristics in the nonhuman world stems from a deep-seated perceptual strategy: in the face of pervasive uncertainty about what we see, we bet on the most meaningful interpretation we can. If we are in the woods and see a dark shape that might be a bear or a boulder, for example, it is good policy to think it is a bear. If we are mistaken, we lose little, and if we are right, we gain much. So, Guthrie writes, in scanning the world we always look for what most concerns us--livings things, and especially, human ones. Even animals watch for human attributes, as when birds avoid scarecrows. In short, we all follow the principle--better safe than sorry. Marshalling a wealth of evidence from anthropology, cognitive science, philosophy, theology, advertising, literature, art, and animal behavior, Guthrie offers a fascinating array of examples to show how this perceptual strategy pervades secular life and how it characterizes religious experience. Challenging the very foundations of religion, Faces in the Clouds forces us to take a new look at this fundamental element of human life. (shrink)

Guthrie contends that religion can best be understood as systematic anthropomorphism - the attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman things and events. Religion, he says, consists of seeing the world as human like. He offers a fascinating array of examples to show how this strategy pervades secular life and how it characterizes religious experience.

Professional chaplains have the unique opportunity to provide spiritual care within institutional settings where other types of pastoral care may not exist. Serving within these institutions presents special challenges, including tension between multiple identities and responsibilities. This tension can create conflict within the Christian chaplain, and confusion as to whom they are ultimately beholden. The first section of the article discusses what I see as the five identity-related tensions a professional chaplain may experience serving in an institution. The second section (...) of the article outlines a Christian theology of calling built on the framework of Covenant Theology and God’s reconciling work of grace. This theology of calling orients the professional identity of the Christian chaplains, rooting them in a clear sense of their responsibilities within their institutional setting. Christian chaplains are beholden first to God and to the calling God places on their life. Proper orientation to that calling equips chaplains to reconcile any cognitive dissonance caused by identity-related tensions, thus opening up a richer spiritual dialogue with God as they live out their kingdom-advancing mission. (shrink)

All volumes of Professor Guthrie's great history of Greek philosophy have won their due acclaim. The most striking merits of Guthrie's work are his mastery of a tremendous range of ancient literature and modern scholarship, his fairness and balance of judgement and the lucidity and precision of his English prose. He has achieved clarity and comprehensiveness.

The third volume of Professor Guthrie's great history of Greek thought, entitled The Fifth-Century Enlightenment, deals in two parts with the Sophists and Socrates, the key figures in the dramatic and fundamental shift of philosophical interest from the physical universe to man. Each of these parts is now available as a paperback with the text, bibliography and indexes amended where necessary so that each part is self-contained. The Sophists assesses the contribution of individuals like Protagoras, Gorgias and Hippias to (...) the extraordinary intellectual and moral fermant in fifth-century Athens. They questioned the bases of morality, religion and organized society itself and the nature of knowledge and language; they initiated a whole series of important and continuing debates, and they provoked Socrates and Plato to a major restatement and defence of traditional values. (shrink)

There has been a lively debate amongst political theorists about whether certain liberal concepts of democracy are so idealized that they lack relevance to ʹrealʹ politics. Echoing these debates, Lois McNay examines in this book some theories of radical democracy and argues that they too tend to rely on troubling abstractions - or what she terms ʹsocially weightlessʹ thinking. They often propose ideas of the political that are so far removed from the logic of everyday practice that, ultimately, their (...) supposed emancipatory potential is thrown into question. Radical democrats frequently maintain that what distinguishes their ideas of the political from others is the fundamental concern with unmasking and challenging unrecognized forms of inequality and domination that distort everyday life. But this supposed attentiveness to power is undermined by the invocation of rarefied models of political action that treat agency as an unproblematic given and overlook certain features of the embodied experience of oppression. The tendency of radical democrats to define democratic agency in terms of dynamics of perpetual flux, mobility and agonism passes over too swiftly the way in which objective structures of oppression are often taken into the body as subjective dispositions, leaving individuals with the feeling that they are unable to do little more than endure a state of affairs beyond their control. -- Back cover. (shrink)

The third volume of Professor Guthrie's great history of Greek thought, entitled The Fifth-Century Enlightenment, deals in two parts with the Sophists and Socrates, the key figures in the dramatic and fundamental shift of philosophical interest from the physical universe to man. Each of the two parts is available as a paperback with the text, bibliography and indexes amended where necessary so that each part is self-contained. Socrates dominated the controversies of this period, as he has dominated the subsequent (...) history of western philosophy. He was the first to identify and grapple with some of the most intractable and persistent logical and philosophical problems; but he was also and has remained a highly controversial figure because of his extraordinary personal qualities and his remarkable career. Professor Guthrie offers a balanced and comprehensive picture of the man, his life, and his thought. (shrink)

Schlusslogische Letztbegründung is a collection of essays in honor of Kurt Walter Zeidler. Mr. Zeidler is a distinguished Kant- and Neo-Kantian-scholar who has reconstructed Kant's concept of transcendental logic in connection with the logic of the concept of Hegel and the logic of symbolization of Peirce. (cf. Zeidler: Grundriss der transzendentalen Logik, 3rd ed., Wien 2017) He has most notably inquired intensively into the relation of transcendental logic to philosophy of science (cf. Zeidler: Prolegomena zur Wissenschaftstheorie, Wien 2000) and to (...) phenomenology (cf. Zeidler: Vermittlungen. Zum antiken und neueren Idealismus, Wien 2016). He has also published several studies on Neo-Kantianism (cf. Zeidler: Provokationen. Zu Problemen des Neukantianismus, Wien 2018). This is refelected in the collection of essays by distinguished scholars who discuss and critically examine Zeidler's work. It includes contributions by Steinar Mathisen (Oslo), Wolfdietrich Schmied-Kowarzik (Vienna), Werner Flach (Lichtenau), Thomas Knoppe (Straberg), Geert Edel (Wyk/Föhr), Martin Bunte (Münster), Reinhard Hiltscher (Dresden), Walter Tydecks (Bensheim), Christian Krijnen (Amsterdam), Hartwig Wiedebach (Zürich), Max Gottschlich (Linz), Thomas Sören Hoffmann (Hagen), Rudolf Meer (Kaliningrad), Hans-Jürgen Müller (Frankfurt am Main), Robert König (Vienna), Ulrich Blau (Marburg), Karen Gloy (Luzern/Munich), Reinhold Breil (Aachen), Erhard Oeser (Vienna), Hans-Dieter Klein (Vienna), Hans Martin Dober (Tübingen), Kurt Walter Zeidler (Vienna) and Lois Marie Rendl (Vienna). (shrink)

A summary of teachings on the nature of incorporeal principles in the realm of Mind or Spirit.

The recent interest in wisdom in professional health care practice is explored in this article. Key features of wisdom are identified via consideration of certain classical, ancient and modern sources. Common themes are discussed in terms of their contribution to ‘clinical wisdom’ itself and this is reviewed against the nature of contemporary nursing education. The distinctive features of wisdom (recognition of contextual factors, the place of the person and timeliness) may enable their significance for practice to be promoted in more (...) coherent ways in nursing education. Wisdom as practical knowledge (phronesis) is offered as a complementary perspective within the educational preparation and practice of students of nursing. Certain limitations within contemporary UK nursing education are identified that may inhibit development of clinical wisdom. These are: the modularization of programmes in higher education institutions, the division of pastoral and academic support and the relationship between theory and practice. (shrink)

There is a need to feminize the research on entrepreneurs — to include the experiences of women in what we know to be true about entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial process. This paper highlights some of the most significant methodological problems in researching women's entrepreneurial experience, problems which in the past, have prevented researchers from gaining an understanding of this experience, and which continues to stand in the way of developing female perspectives. Instead of using the existing male-based models, new approaches (...) are called for in incorporating women's experiences into entrepreneurship theory. This paper outlines the state of research and suggests future directions for developing research on women as entrepreneurs. (shrink)

This paper shows how the mythology surrounding rape enters into a criterion of reasonableness which operates through the legal system to make women vulnerable to unscrupulous victimization. It explores the possibility for changes in legal procedures and presumptions that would better serve women's interests and leave them less vulnerable to sexual violence. This requires that we reformulate the criterion of consent in terms of what is reasonable from a woman's point of view.

Greek ways of thinking -- Matter and form: (ionians and pythagoreans) -- The problem of motion: (Heraclitus, Parmenides and the pluralists) -- The reaction towards humanism: (the Sophists and Socrates) -- Plato (I): the doctrine of ideas -- Plato (II): ethical and theological answers to the sophists -- Aristotle (I): the aristotelian universe -- Aristotle (II): human beings.

My essay consists of three parts. In the first section, I review the historical context of Baroque aesthetics as it is developed during the late 16th and 17th centuries in Europe and then I track its development in Latin America into the third quarter of the 18th century. The principled excess of the Baroque, to adapt Cyrano de Bergerac’s formulation cited below, was designed for theological and imperial purposes. Secondly, I address more recent literature and literary theory. Why, in the (...) early 20th century, did Latin American poets, novelists, essayists and critics begin to rediscover, recover and reconstitute Baroque modes of expression? What was it about this Catholic, monarchical, colonizing aesthetic that now seemed suited to postcolonial purposes? I refer to several theorists and writers who pioneered and/or inspired the 20th-century idea of the New World Baroque as a rebellious retort to Europe rather than a passive reflection. My third section considers how to teach the politics of Baroque aesthetics, and why Baroque aesthetics remains relevant today. (shrink)

This article presents a fairness principle for evaluating decision-making based on predictions: a decision rule is unfair when the individuals directly impacted by the decisions who are equal with respect to the features that justify inequalities in outcomes do not have the same statistical prospects of being benefited or harmed by them, irrespective of their socially salient morally arbitrary traits. The principle can be used to evaluate prediction-based decision-making from the point of view of a wide range of antecedently specified (...) substantive views about justice in outcome distributions. (shrink)

This book offers a systematic attempt to explore the point of convergance between feminist theory and the work of Michel Foucault.

Embedded pragmatic clinical trials (PCTs), like other types of randomized comparative-effectiveness research (CER) studies, are sometimes conducted without informed consent. Indeed, authors of both...

This article considers two themes in Butler's work: the dialectic of subject formation - that the autonomous subject is instituted through constraint - and the relation between the psyche and the social. With regard to the former, the introduction of a notion of historicity into a conception of the symbolic yields a concept of agency. Nonetheless, this concept of agency still lacks social specificity. By reconfiguring the psyche as an effect of the interiorization of social norms, Butler introduces the destabilizing (...) force of the category of the unconscious into constructivist accounts of identity. This sociocentric reworking of the psyche-social relations provides a nuanced account of gender identity, but it results in a negative model of action as the displacement of constraining social norms. It is also important for a conception of agency to include an account of the creative dimensions of action where actors actively appropriate conflicting socio-cultural values to institute new collective forms of identity. (shrink)

We explore the extent to which Boards use executive compensation to incite firms to act in accordance with social and environmental objectives (e.g., Johnson, R. and D. Greening: 1999, Academy of Management Journal 42(5), 564-578; Kane, E. J.: 2002, Journal of Banking and Finance 26, 1919-1933.). We examine the association between executive compensation and corporate social responsibility (CSR) for 77 Canadian firms using three key components of executives' compensation structure: salary, bonus, and stock options. Similar to prior research (McGuire, J., (...) S. Dow and K. Argheyd: 2003, Journal of Business Ethics 45(4), 341-359), we measure three different aspects of CSR, which include Total CSR as well as CSR Strengths and CSR Weaknesses. CSR Strengths and CSR Weaknesses capture the positive and negative aspects of CSR, respectively. We find significant positive relationships between: (1) Salary and CSR Weaknesses, (2) Bonus and CSR Strengths, (3) Stock Options and Total CSR; and (4) Stock Options and CSR Strengths. Our findings suggest the importance of the structure of executive compensation in encouraging socially responsible actions, particularly for larger Canadian firms. This in turn suggests that executive compensation can be an effective tool in aligning executives' welfare with that of the "common good", which results in more socially responsible firms (Bebchuk, L., J. Fried and D. Walker: 2002, The University of Chicago Law Review 69, 751-846; Zalewski, D.: 2003, Journal of Economic Issues 37(2), 503-509). In addition, our findings suggest the importance of institutional context in influencing the association between executive compensation and CSR. Further implications for practice and research are discussed. (shrink)

This book reassesses theories of agency and gender identity against the backdrop of changing relations between men and women in contemporary societies.

All volumes of Professor Guthrie's great history of Greek philosophy have won their due acclaim. The most striking merits of Guthrie's work are his mastery of a tremendous range of ancient literature and modern scholarship, his fairness and balance of judgement and the lucidity and precision of his English prose. He has achieved clarity and comprehensiveness.

This audio recording contains a lecture led by Dr. William Christian, Dr. Shirley C. Guthrie, and Dr. Stanley R. Hopper on November 20, 1965 as a part of the America and the Future of Theology Lecture Series. Dr. William Christian discusses the possibility of interaction between metaphysics and theology, the concept of God in Alfred North Whitehead’s metaphysics, the relation of Whitehead’s metaphysics to Platonism, and the relation of Whitehead’s metaphysics to Christian theology. Dr. Guthrie responds to Dr. (...) Christian by accepting the interaction of metaphysics and theology as a possible subject and how metaphysics is necessary to theology, but only as an instrument not a dictator. Dr. Stanley responds to Dr. Christian by posing two questions: Can the relationship between theology and philosophy or theology and metaphysics be adequately represented when the concept of God has a strong family resemblance according to Whitehead, and What is the relationship between metaphysics and theology? Lastly, Dr. Christian responds to both Dr. Guthrie and Dr. Stanley. (shrink)

W.K.C. Guthrie has written a survey of the great age of Greek philosophy - from Thales to Aristotle - which combines comprehensiveness with brevity. Without pre-supposing a knowledge of Greek or the Classics, he sets out to explain the ideas of Plato and Aristotle in the light of their predecessors rather than their successors, and to describe the characteristic features of the Greek way of thinking and outlook on the world. Thus The Greek Philosophers provides excellent background material for (...) the general reader - as well as providing a firm basis for specialist studies. (shrink)

The fourth volume of Professor Guthrie's great history of Greek thought deals exclusively with Plato. Plato, however, so prolific a writer, so profoundly original in his thought, and so colossal an influence on the later history of philosophy, that it has not been possible to confine him to one volume. Volume IV therefore offers a general introduction to his life and writings, and covers the so-called 'early' and 'middle' periods of his philosophical development.