This is a welcome reprint of a book that continues to grow in importance.

Despite the promise of international collaboration and sharing by bringing together bioethicists from throughout the world at the 2024 IAB conference in Qatar, I will not be attending. The authors...

A lot of the well known impact of the Gödel phenomena is in the form of painful messages telling us that certain major mathematical programs cannot be completed as intended. This aspect of Gödel – the delivery of bad news –is not welcomed, and defensive measures are now in place.

_Philosophical Adventures_ is a clear, concise introduction to philosophy, covering an engaging set of topics: reasoning, free will, religious belief, ethics, well-being, politics, and education. Stylishly written and cogently argued, the book engages readers by using compelling examples to make complex ideas accessible. The book’s distinctive and engaging content provides a welcoming path to understanding the appeal of philosophical inquiry.

Dr Gillian Craig (1) has argued that palliative medicine services have tended to adopt a policy of sedation without hydration, which under certain circumstances may be medically inappropriate, causative of death and distressing to family and friends. We welcome this opportunity to defend, with an important modification, the approach we proposed without substantive background argument in our original article (2). We maintain that slowing and eventual cessation of oral intake is a normal part of a natural dying process, that (...) artificial hydration and alimentation (AHA) are not justified unless thirst or hunger are present and cannot be relieved by other means, but food and fluids for (natural) oral consumption should never be 'withdrawn'. The intention of this practice is not to alter the timing of an inevitable death, and sedation is not used, as has been alleged, to mask the effects of dehydration or starvation. The artificial provision of hydration and alimentation is now widely accepted as medical treatment. We believe that arguments that it is not have led to confusion as to whether or not non-provision or withdrawal of AHA constitutes a cause of death in law. Arguments that it is such a cause appear to be tenuously based on an extraordinary/ordinary categorisation of treatments by Kelly (3) which has subsequently been interpreted as prescriptive in a way quite inconsistent with the Catholic moral theological tradition from which the distinction is derived. The focus of ethical discourse on decisions at the end of life should be shifted to an analysis of care, needs, proportionality of medical interventions, and processes of communication. (shrink)

Levinas’s ethics of other‐centered service has been criticized at the theoretical level for failing to offer a conception of moral agency adequate to ground its imperative and at the practical level for encouraging self‐ hatred. Levinas’s explicit resistance to the incorporation of the phrase ”as yourself“ in the Judaeo‐Christian love command might seem to validate the critics’ complaints. The author argues, on the contrary, that Levinas does offer a strong and compelling conception of moral agency and that his ethics, properly (...) understood, does not entail self‐abnegation. Levinas’s attempt to counter excessive and manipulative self‐concern and self‐inflation by insisting on the dependent and situational position of the self has been wrongly overinterpreted as an abandonment of the self and its just claims. The author seeks to establish a more balanced understanding by focusing attention on the “ethics of welcome”, on Levinas’s distinctive conception of passivity, and on the role of the “third” in all human relations. (shrink)

Cases of sexual harassment have become increasingly common in the courts, but there is at present no coherent definition of just what sexual harassment is supposed to consist. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines ultimately focus on issues of subjective victimization, a standard which is overly broad and prescriptively empty. In order to salvage the concept of sexual harassment, it is argued here that the element of unwelcomeness must be removed from it. Instead of considering welcomeness, it is argued that (...) sexual harassment can be given proscriptive clarity if it is delineated as gender harassment, coercive sexual harassment, and presumptive sexual harassment. (shrink)

Open peer commentary on the target article “Who Conceives of Society?” by Ernst von Glasersfeld. First paragraph: Issues such as social interaction and communication play an essential role in my recent approach to knowledge management called “Knowledge Cooperation”, conceived as “the participative cultivation of knowledge in a voluntary, informal social group”. Radical Constructivism provides a substantial support to the foundations of this approach, which aims at equilibrating intellectual and social capital. So I warmly welcome Ernst von Glasersfeld’s clarification of (...) the constructivist position in regard to “society.”. (shrink)

_The medical profession is set for a change. It is being redesigned as a corporate enterprise. The health-care industry has proved to be lucrative and therefore has seen the entry of newer players from the corporate field into the market. The "Medical-Industrial complex" has led to the commercialization of health care well beyond what traditional practitioners would consider ideal. Medicine is being treated as a business, with cost curtailment measures and profit margins often dictating physicians' choices. A number of factors (...) decide working environment in a corporate setup, all of which may affect the sacrosanct physician-doctor relationship and "physician" ethics. On the other side, the ability of the corporate sector to bring about a welcome change in the health-care sector in terms of availability of newer modalities of management, implementation of preventive and personalized health-care programme and, at the same time, adding to the comfort of the treating physician cannot be ignored._. (shrink)

Levinas's ethics of other-centered service has been criticized at the theoretical level for failing to offer a conception of moral agency adequate to ground its imperative and at the practical level for encouraging self-hatred. Levinas's explicit resistance to the incorporation of the phrase "as yourself" in the Judaeo-Christian love command might seem to validate the critics' complaints. The author argues, on the contrary, that Levinas does offer a strong and compelling conception of moral agency and that his ethics, properly understood, (...) does not entail self-abnegation. Levinas's attempt to counter excessive and manipulative self-concern and self-inflation by insisting on the dependent and situational position of the self has been wrongly overinterpreted as an abandonment of the self and its just claims. The author seeks to establish a more balanced understanding by focusing attention on the "ethics of welcome," on Levinas's distinctive conception of passivity, and on the role of "the third" in all human relations. (shrink)

Against competing political theories of the integration of immigrants, we propose to reframe the relationship between the populations of host countries and arriving refugees in terms of a neo-Maussian theory of gift exchange. Using the example of the European refugee crisis of 2015 and the welcoming attitude of significant parts of German civil society, we argue that this particular situation should be understood as epitomizing the trend toward internal transnationalism. Increasingly, the “international” is becoming part and parcel of the “domestic” (...) sphere. Since Marcel Mauss was concerned with the question of how separate, culturally different communities can establish ties of solidarity and cooperation between each other, we use his work to answer key questions about the relations between international refugees and native citizens in their home countries: What are the expectations underlying gift-giving in the context of welcoming refugees? Should refugees feel obliged to repay the arrival gifts? How sh... (shrink)

The description Ausonius has given us of his family and of the teachers and professors of Bordeaux in the mid-fourth century is exceptional among our sources because of its detail and completeness. There is no reason to suppose that the picture he gives is untypical of life in the provinces and it makes a welcome change from the histories of aristocratic politics at Rome or Constantinople. It provides an excellent opportunity for a pilot study in which we may see (...) how the conflicting elements of social status were in practice reconciled and applied. In the traditional, and still prevalent view, the society of the Later Roman Empire was ‘crushed … in the iron clamp of castes separated from one another by barriers which could not be passed’. The evidence of Ausonius suggests that this judgement should be qualified. The society of the fourth century may have been stable. It was not static. (shrink)

Women who had had breast cancer and had been enrolled in a large genetic breast cancer epidemiological study were interviewed about their experience of participation in the study, their attitudes to the confidentiality of data, and the feedback of personal and general research results. Collection of family history information seemed more salient in indicating the genetic nature of the study than the enrolment information sheet. There were no concerns about confidentiality.While participants would have welcomed general feedback about the results of (...) the study and were critical that this had not been provided, the feedback of personal information proved complicated and, sometimes, difficult. It is suggested that individual feedback of genetic test information in epidemiological studies should be undertaken only when there are specific reasons. (shrink)

2nd edition. Many-valued logics are those logics that have more than the two classical truth values, to wit, true and false; in fact, they can have from three to infinitely many truth values. This property, together with truth-functionality, provides a powerful formalism to reason in settings where classical logic—as well as other non-classical logics—is of no avail. Indeed, originally motivated by philosophical concerns, these logics soon proved relevant for a plethora of applications ranging from switching theory to cognitive modeling, and (...) they are today in more demand than ever, due to the realization that inconsistency and vagueness in knowledge bases and information processes are not only inevitable and acceptable, but also perhaps welcome. The main modern applications of (any) logic are to be found in the digital computer, and we thus require the practical knowledge how to computerize—which also means automate—decisions (i.e. reasoning) in many-valued logics. This, in turn, necessitates a mathematical foundation for these logics. This book provides both these mathematical foundation and practical knowledge in a rigorous, yet accessible, text, while at the same time situating these logics in the context of the satisfiability problem (SAT) and automated deduction. The main text is complemented with a large selection of exercises, a plus for the reader wishing to not only learn about, but also do something with, many-valued logics. (shrink)

Should we remove whole organs from living donors only in the case where they are genetically related to the intended recipients of such organs? The practice in a majority of European nations is to apply such a restriction. Yet this restriction obviously limits the availability of already scarce donor organs, and curtails the opportunities for altruistic action on the part of those who, in any given case, are not genetically related to the recipient. The author argues that we have a (...) duty to maximise procurement of organs, and that we should respect the 'genetic relative' restriction only in response to compelling moral reasons. The author considers the principal objections to non-related donation and shows them to be misdirected. He concludes that non-related donation should be welcomed where clinically appropriate and truly voluntary. (shrink)

Context: Non-dualist philosophy is no longer novel. Arguing against the distinctions between thought and action, theory and practice, language and objects has been a staple of the debate for decades, and Josef Mitterer offers another approach to the problem. Problem: Non-dualist philosophy is beset by a problem: it is trying to argue against a separation of “ideas” from the life-world while staying exclusively on the side of ideas. They offer a philosophy seminar argument against the bread and butter of philosophy (...) seminars. Results: The paper argues that non-dualism in practice is best represented not by philosophers but by everyday life sociologists; not by those who argue against theory and idealisms but by those who simply ignore them. Non-dualism, however, is a practical tool when theorists have to be confronted practically; this, I argue, is their value, and in this debate, they are welcome. It is, however, a value that should not be overstated. (shrink)

Twenty-two Catholic periodicals were printed in Paris in February 1848 when the Orleanist king, Louis Philippe was overthrown and France became a republic. They are valuable but neglected resources which elucidate what Catholics thought and what their concerns were in 1848. While many Catholics retained legitimist or royalist sympathies, they welcomed the republic because of its promise of freedoms . This article examines how that Catholic periodical press was affected by and how it responded to the February revolution and the (...) proclamation of a new republic. The number of these periodicals suggests there was a Catholic revival in France during the July Monarchy and indicates that were divergent Catholic opinions about religious and political ideas. Il y avait vingt-deux périodiques catholiques à Paris en février 1848 quand le roi, Louis Philippe d’Orléans, fut renversé et que la France devint une république. Ces journaux sont des sources utiles mais négligées, ils révèlent ce que les catholiques pensaient et en quoi ils étaient affectés à la fin de la monarchie de juillet. Quoique beaucoup de catholiques aient conservé des sympathies pour les régimes royalistes ou légitimistes, ils acceptèrent la république parce qu’elle promettait des libertés . Le présent article étudie comment la presse catholique fut atteinte et comment elle réagit à la révolution de février et à la proclamation de la République. Le nombre de ces périodiques manifeste qu’il y eut une renaissance catholique en France durant la monarchie de juillet et révéle qu’il y avait des opinions catholiques divergentes en ce qui concerne les idées politiques et religieuses. Als der französische König, Ludwig Philipp von Orléans, im Februar 1848 abgesetzt und Frankreich zu einer Republik wurde, gab es in Paris 22 katholische Zeitschriften. Diese Zeitungen sind nützliche, jedoch vernachlässigte Quellen, denn sie offenbaren, was die Katholiken dachten und was sie am Ende der Julimonarchie berührte. Obwohl zahlreiche Katholiken weiterhin Sympathien für monarchistische und „legitimierte“ Regierungsformen hegten, akzeptierten sie die Republik, da sie Freiheiten versprach. Der vorliegende Artikel untersucht, wie die katholische Presse sich betroffen fühlte und wie sie auf die Februarrevolution und die Ausrufung der Republik reagierte. Die hohe Zahl der Zeitschriften zeugt von einer katholischen Wiedergeburt in Frankreich während der Julimonarchie und deutet darauf hin, dass die katholischen Meinungen im Hinblick auf die politischen und religiösen Ideen auseinander gingen. (shrink)

What does it mean to experience and engage in religious ritual? How does liturgy structure time and space? How do our bodies move within liturgy, and what impact does it have on our senses? How does the experience of ritual affect us and shape our emotions or dispositions? How is liturgy experienced as a communal event, and how does it form the identity of those who participate in it? Welcoming Finitude explores these broader questions about religious experience by focusing on (...) the manifestation of liturgical experience in the Eastern Christian tradition. Drawing on the methodological tools of contemporary phenomenology and on insights from liturgical theology, the book constitutes a philosophical exploration of Orthodox liturgical experience. (shrink)

Prolonging neonatal lifeThe paradox that medicine’s success breeds medicine’s problems is well known to readers of the Journal of Medical Ethics. Advances in neonatal medicine have worked wonders. Not long ago, extremely premature birth babies, or those born with very serious health problems, would inevitably have died. Today, neonatologists can resuscitate babies born at ever-earlier stages of gestation. And very ill babies also benefit from advances in neonatal intensive care. Infant lives can be prolonged. Unfortunately, several such babies will not (...) survive for long whatever is done for them. Others will live to leave hospital, but face severe health problems. Doctors have gained the ability to prolong neonatal life. But should they always do so? This question is central to the recent report of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, Critical care decisions in fetal and neonatal medicine.1 In many quarters, the report received a very positive response, commended in The Lancet as “thoughtful, sensitive and sensible” and welcomed by the premature baby charity BLISS. Critics attacked on both flanks. The report goes too far—ushering in a culture of “throw away babies”. Or it does not go far enough—failing to endorse the Dutch precedent to sanction active neonatal euthanasia.TOO FAR?One of the key recommendations of the report is that guidelines be developed in relation to the institution of intensive neonatal care. It is these guidelines, which have been savaged by some parts of the media. The BMA called them “blanket rules” smothering clinical discretion. The guidelines on resuscitation at birth apply to babies born at the borderline of viability, that is, at or before a gestational age of 25 weeks 6 days. The earlier the baby is born, the lower are the chances that he/she will survive to leave hospital. Before 21 weeks 6 days, none of …. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:M. C. Henberg GEORGE ELIOT'S MORAL REALISM No moment in the history of ethics could be more propitious than the present for a comprehensive restudy of George Eliot's moral realism. Analysis of the "logic" of moral language has proved barren, prescriptivism is in full flight, and schematic divisions of moral theories into descriptive versus normative, deontological versus teleological, or substantive versus meta-ethical have promised much but delivered little. Such (...) distinctions dominate maps to the modern moral terrain, but awanderer in the land ofchoice itselfstill finds himselfwithout signposts. A particularly unhealthy bias in contemporary ethics has been the belief that moral principles ought to withstand all counterexamples, however plausible or implausible, whether concocted from a sense of men's actual capacities or from a fondness for outrageous possibilities, many of them lifted from the pages of science fiction. If moral rules do not govern in hard cases, it is thought, they do not govern at all. Few philosophers have bothered to distinguish between the hard cases common to men's actual choices and the hard cases confronted by one man in a million or by the imagined inhabitants of some future world. (Witness, for example, the present preoccupation with "lifeboat ethics" and ask yourself how many actual moral choices are so starkly dramatic.) Any logically possible circumstance is too often assumed to qualify as a fruitful area for moral investigation; and any conceivable counterexample, achieved by whatever stretch of the imagination, is assumed to be fair ammunition in the debate over principles. Closely related to this first bad tendency in modern philosophical ethics is another, equally bad. Too often the examples used are of little moral significance, obviously conceived to make a point rather than to direct attention to commonplace but nonetheless important circumstances where informed choice is essential. Philosophy journals have treated us to discussions about whether failing to wear tennis whites is or is not "rude" and about whether a first sinner's crossing of a patch of lawn does or does not have a "threshold-related effect" 20 M. C. Henberg21 which must be considered in assessing later consequences (a bare path ultimately worn in the grass). Such examples rightly earn a contemptuous snort from anyone who expects philosophy to increase our understanding in matters of serious consequence. Whatever her other accomplishments as a moralist and philosophical thinker, George Eliot never commits either of the preceding crimes. Her moral realism constitutes first and foremost an ethics aimed at the bulk of her fellow men. She yields to the theoretic impulse solely in criticizing other theories. When it comes to providing answers, she depicts fictional characters whose struggles, failings, and passions are ultimately akin to what we ourselves are likely to experience. Her ethical precepts are not aimed at proving themselves in every conceivable situation. They are instead precepts which are sometimes susceptible to ruin, just as are the changeable creatures who profess them. To know the natural boundaries of a moral rule, Eliot tells us, is as difficult and important as knowing the rule itself. Moral realism requires a combination of clear-eyed perception and imaginative sympathy—faculties ill-served by lectures on abstract principles. Eliot reminds us that our best moral judgments must be "checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the special circumstances that mark the individual lot" (The Mill on the Floss, Book VII, chap. 3). This emphasis in particular—found both in her early essays and early fiction—makes Eliot's moral realism a welcome anodyne to the worst tendencies of modern ethics. The discussion which follows will be confined to early works, including Scenes of Clerical Life, Adam Bede, and The Mill on the Floss. The ruminations of her authorial voice in these novels may conveniently be juxtaposed with her essays, for the works are near to one another both temporally and thematically. Later novels such as Middlemarch and Daniel Deronda—however interesting from an ethical perspective— do not lend themselves to this mode of analysis. To what extent Eliot's views are modified in these later novels constitutes a separate topic whose omission here does not reflect upon its intrinsic interest or importance. Since George Eliot offers no... (shrink)

SummaryThe reviewer welcomes Von Mises' book as a most valuable contribution to the nowadays so badly needed clarifying of philosophical terminology. The author confesses himself to positivism, but his work bears a far more psychological and significal stamp than those of most present positivists.SummaryReviewer objects to the in his opinion far too subjective, emotional and metaphorical way of reasoning, followed in some respects by the author, but appreciates nevertheless many sharp and critical remarks scattered all over the book.

' a welcome guide for researchers to the merging fields of neuroscience, linguistics and psycholinguistics.' BRAIN'... an important and captivating book, one that has been long awaited by all researchers interested in language and the brain.' Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 1999. The Neurocognition of Language brings together experts on human language and the brain to present the first critical overview of the cognitive neuroscience of language, one of the fastest-moving and most exciting areas today. In-depth discussion of the representations (...) and structures of language, as well as of the cognitive architectures which underlie speaking, listening, and reading, will provide a basis for future brain imaging research. In addition, the existing brain imaging literature on word and sentence processing is critically reviewed, as well as contributions from brain lesion data. Finally, the book discusses the prospects and problems of brain imaging techniques for the study of language, presents some of the most recent and promising analytic procedures for relating brain imaging data to the higher cognitive functions, and contains a review of the neuroanatomical structure of Broca's language area. Uniquely interdisciplinary, this book will provide researchers and students in cognitive neuroscience with state-of-the-art reviews of the major language functions, while being of equal interest to researchers in linguistics and language who want to learn about the neural bases of language. It will be an essential purchase for anyone requiring an overview of our current understanding of the relation between language and the brain. (shrink)

We welcome Ms Smajdor’s critique into our investigations of expected future tax gains to the state from children conceived by in vitro fertilisation .1 To better inform the JME readership, we wish to correct some misinterpretations of our research by Smajdor, and to highlight some weaknesses of current IVF funding policies.Our investigation sought to establish the long-term net tax contribution from an IVF-conceived child, assuming that the child was average in every respect .2 We conducted this analysis on the (...) basis that IVF, and other assisted reproductive treatments, are unique among all medical interventions—unique in the sense that their success leads to the creation of human life; a life that would not have existed had the technology not been available and accessible to couples willing to undergo treatment. Hence, this method provides us with an opportunity to explore lost tax revenue to the state resulting from children that have not been born due to limited public access to IVF treatments currently observed in the UK and many other countries.In our investigations, the costs of IVF were treated as an investment in human capital with future long-term cost and revenue implications for the state. Our evaluation ignored the many humanistic reasons for offering IVF treatment to infertile couples and concentrated solely on the possible economic benefits.3 The perspective of the analysis was that of the state; hence …. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 144-147 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Welcoming Flowers from Across the Cleansed Threshold of Hope: An Answer to the Pope's Criticism of Buddhism Welcoming Flowers from Across the Cleansed Threshold of Hope: An Answer to the Pope's Criticism of Buddhism. By Thinley Norbu. New York: Jewel Publishing House, 1997. 93 pp. Welcoming Flowers is a short and tightly written critique of the Buddhism chapter (...) of Pope John Paul II's 1994 best-seller, Crossing the Threshold of Hope. It is a strong, barbed, personal essay from a highly respected Buddhist teacher who expresses shock and dismay that the Pope's actual words about Buddhism that are read as absolute truth by millions of people around the world had "serious, gratuitous misrepresentations of Buddhist doctrine."The book is ostensibly a response to requests from Polish readers and a Polish publishing company to comment on "what the Pope clearly said about Buddhism." The author of Welcoming Flowers, Thinley Norbu, paints himself as a kind of efficient, spiritual cleaning maid who, with tongue in cheek despite his long admiration for the Catholic leader, has to tidy up after the Vicar of Rome: "It is as though the Pope suddenly vomited insolently and uncontrollably in a cathedral, so I hastily had to clean it up, as the Polish people asked me to do."The Pope's negative assessment of Buddhism inspired Thinley Norbu to match [End Page 144] his attack with even more exalted teachings of the Buddha: "I am grateful to the Pope for being like a hit-hitting drumstick that has given me the good opportunity to be like a drum myself, resonating with the sound of profound Dharma. I am grateful to the Pope for yelling with negative words in a valley, letting me return the answer of its transformation into the positive echo of Buddhist hymns."Thinley Norbu in fact uses the Pope's chapter to clarify some basic teachings of Vajrayana Buddhism and how it differs from Mahayana and Hinayana (note: Norbu's term, not this reviewer's) in a concise and instructive manner from the point of view of a practitioner. In this regard,Welcoming Flowers can be considered a kind of introductory, primary source ofTibetan (Nyingma)Vajrayana Buddhist doctrine for those who are unfamiliar with the various schools of Buddhism. The Pope's seriously outdated (reminiscent of Max Weber or early missionaries), limited, and unsympathetic understanding of one school of Buddhism is used by Thinley Norbu as a platform to expound his rich understanding of Buddhist traditions toWestern readers of comparative religion and specifically to Catholics. The book's twenty-nine footnotes can also function as a brief glossary of transliterated TibetanVajrayana Buddhist terms (but without use of diacritical marks for Sanskrit or Pali terms).Thinley Norbu is careful to mitigate his condemnation of the Pope's unwarranted ignorance of Buddhism by sharing the onus with the Pope's not-so-sapient preceptors. He generously suggests that the Pope may not bear all the blame for the chapter's shortcomings in the following paragraph: The misrepresentations of Buddhism in his book may have come from listening to advisors who were unfamiliar with Buddhism, from simply glancing at books at the Hinayana level, or by being shown books by misinformed authors. Perhaps he only looked at negative conceptions about Buddhism written by followers of other doctrines who had malicious intentions, or by idiots who wrote books for money without caring that they were full of mistakes. In any case, the Pope definitely heard about Buddhism from sources that did not know anything about it. It seems... as though he... scooped a few drops of water from an immeasurable ocean with a piece of grass and even misunderstood these few drops (p. 2). Norbu reprimands the Pope for not doing his required homework, a fault that can lead to serious disharmony among religions."Without studying and understanding other doctrines deeply, to say many things about them is not wise," Norbu continues; "it... (shrink)

While there has been a resurgence in Malebranche scholarship in the anglophone world over the last twenty years, most of it has focused on Malebranche’s theory of ideas, and little attention has been paid to his philosophy of mind. Schmaltz’s book thus comes as a welcome addition to the Malebranche literature; that he has given us such a well-researched and carefully argued study is even more welcome. The focus of this work is Malebranche’s split with Descartes on the (...) question of our knowledge of the nature of the mind; the book concentrates specifically on Malebranche’s rejection of the claim that we know the nature of the mind better than we know the nature of body. Schmaltz maintains that Malebranche’s arguments for his position are, for the most part, successful against the Cartesians who opposed him, though he claims—and this is perhaps the central claim of the book—that “Malebranche took his negative thesis concerning our knowledge of the soul to involve not so much a rejection of Cartesianism as an internal correction of it”. While acknowledging that Augustine was “the primary inspiration for [Malebranche’s] view of the ideas that are the objects of perception”, Schmaltz’s interpretation of Malebranche’s theory of the soul “presents it as fundamentally Cartesian”. According to Schmaltz, not only is Malebranche closer to Descartes in this regard than is generally thought, he is closer to him than are many other Cartesians. Part 1 of the book examines Malebranche’s position that while we have certain knowledge of the soul’s existence, we have only confused knowledge of its nature. Part 2 focuses on Arnauld’s objection that if in fact we had no clear idea of the soul, we could not, despite Malebranche’s claims to the contrary, know anything of its immortality, spirituality, or freedom. (shrink)

To the question of why Matthew includes the phrase Πάτερ ἡμῶν (Our Father) in his version of the Lord’s Prayer, scholars guided by different theories answer this question differently. Employing literary criticism ranging from form, source and tradition history to reader–audience response and socio-rhetorical interpretation, scholars contend that Matthew composed the concept Πάτερ ἡμῶν (Our Father) as a crucial segment of his version of the Lord’s Prayer, either to present an opposition between Father who dwells in heaven and the Earth, (...) which is humanity’s dwelling place, or to evoke a community relationship to God in the context of welcoming God’s rule, or to present the Lord’s Prayer as God’s gift for creating order, community and transformation in society. In view of this inconsistent conception of the function of Matthew’s concept ‘Our Father’, the goal of this study is to employ semantic analysis and social identity theory (SIT) to analyse Matthew 6:9 to defend the argument that Matthew employed the concept Πάτερ ἡμῶν in the 1st century CE firstly to reconstruct the Christian identity of his community by identifying with the early Christian community and accommodating Jewish traditions and then to negotiate it by contesting the Roman Empire.Contribution: The interdisciplinary contribution of the study in tandem with the expectations of HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies has been attained through the application of a collective SIT prism of identification, accommodation and contestation to read the social function of Matthew’s concept Πάτερ ἡμῶν in reconstructing and negotiating the identity of his community in 1st century Roman society. (shrink)

Gathered together here are many workers in the field of philosophy and the natural sciences, among whom are those from our country and guests from abroad. I have been given the great honor of welcoming you in the name of the Presidium of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

In the modern world, in an epoch of fundamental changes in outdated social systems and the emergence of new societal relationships and develpments, an epoch of unprecedentedly rapid advances in science and technology — penetration into the depths of the atom and conquest of the cosmos — questions pertaining to art become of ever broader interest. In our rapidly changing world, art has become a powerful weapon in the struggle for the souls and minds of men. One can therefore (...) class='Hi'>welcome the major topic of this congress, as selected by the Hegel Society: the fact that it is devoted to problems of Hegelian esthetics. (shrink)

How do we measure happiness? Focusing on subjective measures as a proxy for welfare and well-being, this book finds ways to do that. Subjective measures have been used by psychologists, sociologists, political scientists, and, more recently, economists to answer a variety of scientifically and politically relevant questions. Van Praag, a pioneer in this field since 1971, and Ferrer-i-Carbonell present in this book a generally applicable methodology for the analysis of subjective satisfaction. Drawing on a range of surveys on people's satisfaction (...) with their jobs, income, housing, marriages, and government policy, among other areas of life, this book shows how satisfaction with life "as a whole" is an aggregate of these domain satisfactions. Using German, British, Dutch, and Russian data, the authors cover a wide range of topics. This groundbreaking book presents a new and fruitful methodology that constitutes a welcome addition to the social sciences. The paperback edition has been revised to bring the literature review up-to-date and the chapter on poverty has been revised and extended to take account of new research. (shrink)

A welcome re-issue of a pioneer study first published in 1894. The author explains the recurrence of certain basic Eurasian decorative motifs--e.g., the triskelion, the swastika, and the caduceus --by tracing their migration from one culture to another. The range of the author's archaeological samples is very wide, and a wealth of illustrations allows the reader to check on his inductive claims; the archaeological and historical evidence is well integrated.--C. M.

Of all modern political philosophers, Rousseau is one most given to interpretations widely divergent and often contradictory. A romanticist, an intellectualist, an individualist, a collectivist, a Platonist, a fascist—these are some of the terms loosely attributed to his cast of mind. Ever-new interpretations are welcome. Two new volumes on his political philosophy have appeared within a recent period—both scholarly, penetrating, challenging, and novel. Between them they make for a fresh dialogue: Stephen Ellenburg’s, which in emphasizing the will embodies an (...) Augustinian spirit; and Ramon Lemos', which in emphasizing a more intellectual facet of Rousseau’s philosophy reflects a more Thomistic approach. A reader of the two may not arrive at the truth of Rousseau, yet he cannot but be impressed by the depth and pertinency of this philosophy in its conception of human nature, morality, politics, and perhaps even human destiny. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Spiritual Experience and PsychopathologyMike Jackson and K. W. M. Fulford (bio)AbstractA recent study of the relationship between spiritual experience and psychopathology (reported in detail elsewhere) suggested that psychotic phenomena could occur in the context of spiritual experiences rather than mental illness. In the present paper, this finding is illustrated with three detailed case histories. Its implications are then explored for psychopathology, for psychiatric classification, and for our understanding of (...) the concept of mental illness. It is argued that pathological and spiritual psychotic phenomena cannot be distinguished by 1) form and content alone (as in traditional psychopathology), 2) by their relationship either with other symptoms or with pathological causes (as in psychiatric classification), or 3) by reference to the descriptive criteria of mental illness implied by the “medical” model. The distinction is shown to depend, rather, on the way in which psychotic phenomena themselves are embedded in the values and beliefs of the person concerned. This in turn is shown to have implications for diagnosis (it shows the need for clinicians to attend to the values and beliefs of individual patients), for treatment (it points to a cognitive problem-solving model), and for research in psychopathology (especially as related to the emerging sciences of dynamic brain imaging and cognitive neuroscience).Keywordsfirst rank symptoms, schizophrenia, delusion, hallucination, thought disorder, religious experience, mystical experienceIntroductionThis paper explores some of the conceptual and practical implications of the finding that phenomena which in a medical context would probably be diagnosed as psychotic symptoms, may occur in the context of non-pathological, and indeed essentially benign, spiritual experiences.The existence of non-pathological psychotic experiences of this kind (we will call them “psychotic phenomena” as distinct from “psychotic symptoms”—see also Endnote 1, terminology) was a key finding in a study carried out by one of us (MJ) at the Alister Hardy Research Centre (AHRC) in Oxford. Details are given elsewhere both of the overall empirical findings of the study, including the relationship between spiritual experience and personality variables, and of a hypothetical cognitive problem-solving model of these phenomena (Jackson 1991, and forthcoming a and b). In the present paper, 1) the background to the study is described briefly in relation to earlier work on the possible links between spiritual experience and psychopathology; 2) some of the psychotic phenomena identified are illustrated with three detailed case histories; 3) the significance of these phenomena is reviewed for our understanding respectively of psychopathology, of diagnostic syndromes, and of the concept of mental illness; and 4) some of the practical implications of the study for clinical work and research in psychiatry are indicated.BackgroundIt has long been recognized that there are similarities between spiritual and psychotic experiences. [End Page 41] William James (1902), for example, argued that “in delusional insanity, paranoia as they sometimes call it, we may have a kind of diabolical mysticism, a sort of religious mysticism turned upside down” (426). Other commentators have noted a wide variety of phenomena, such as time distortion, synesthesias, loss of self-object boundaries and the transition from a state of conflict and anxiety to one of sudden “understanding,” all of which are reported in both spiritual and psychotic experiences (Buckley 1981; Watson 1982; Wapnick 1969; and Wootton and Allen 1983).Yet the similarities notwithstanding, the distinction between these two kinds of experience can be crucially important. Spiritual experiences, whether welcome or unwelcome, and whether or not they are psychotic in form, have nothing (directly) to do with medicine (Fulford 1996a). It would be quite wrong, then, to “treat” spiritual psychotic experiences with neuroleptic drugs, just as it is quite wrong to “treat” political dissidents as though they were ill (Fulford, Smirnoff and Snow, 1993). Pathological psychotic experiences, on the other hand, or psychotic symptoms, are by definition a proper object of medical treatment, sometimes even against the wishes of the person concerned. Hence it would be both negligent and, as Wing (1978) put it, morally “repellent,” to leave untreated someone who is genuinely ill (244).Given how much turns on the distinction between spiritual experience and psychopathology, it is perhaps not surprising that scholarly discussion of the relationship between them has at times... (shrink)

The volumes in the Clarendon Aristotle Series seek to meet the needs of philosophically inclined readers who do not know Greek by providing accurate translations of selected Aristotelian texts accompanied by philosophical commentaries. To these ends, Trevor Saunders’s welcome addition to the series, a treatment of the first two books of Aristotle’s Politics, provides a number of useful tools. First there is a new translation of books I and II. Saunders numbers the paragraphs of the translation and the corresponding (...) sections of the commentary to facilitate reference to the text and commentary within the discussion of each chapter, though not across chapters. Saunders provides Greek-English and English-Greek glossaries. These will be especially useful to Greek-less readers, because Saunders is often traditional in his translation of key terms and thus, for example, obscures connections that have to be made explicit. So, for example, Saunders follows the very common practice of rendering the cognates polis, politês, and politeia as ‘state’, ‘citizen’, and ‘constitution’, respectively. Each section of the commentary begins with an introduction and proceeds to discuss each paragraph in turn, often including several recommendations for where to go next in the secondary literature. The book also has a guide to the translation and commentary, a brief but helpful introduction, a short appendix on the alleged oligarchic bias in Plato’s Laws, a list of departures from Ross’s Oxford Classical Text, a bibliography of works cited, and a selective index. Sadly, but in company with most of its companions in the Clarendon Aristotle Series, it lacks an index locorum. (shrink)

The theme running through these cooperative studies is the relation between automated fields of communication and control, and the various strata of human behavior. The question of the stratification of behavior is beginning to receive serious attention from the standpoints of ecology and cybernetics. One can only welcome the explorations of this imaginative group of authors in areas as promising as those of form, information, and life ; communication, information, and poetic language ; the role of information in the (...) human sciences ; physics and information ; and knowledge and information. Once again E. Paci is the one who scans the largest territory.—A. M. (shrink)

Attempts to introduce phenomenology to the English-speaking world have often been hampered by the specialist's tendency to substitute a part for the whole--thereby threatening the delicate balance guaranteed by the transcendental turn and so carefully maintained by Husserl throughout his-philosophical career. Thus some, in their concern to place Husserl in the context of the realism-idealism issue, have stressed the contrast between Ideen and some aspects of Krisis. Others, relying on the illuminating power of the notion of human roles, have devoted (...) themselves exclusively to the working out of a mundane phenomenology with or without ontological pretensions. While there is value to be found in this branching out of the research, it nevertheless needs to be integrated. Because of the character of the phenomenological synthesis, moreover, such integration cannot be achieved simply by generalists. Hence the value of scholars like Kockelmans whose experience in more than one type of reduction permits them to move readily from one level of intentionality to another. As the book amply demonstrates, Kockelmans has acquired this multiple capability by following in detail Husserl's philosophical development as it progressively opens the way to the exploration of all these levels. In commenting upon this development, he is also rendering an invaluable service by bringing to light many of Husserl's writings which otherwise might remain unknown to the interested student. The work is concise, a model of balance between exposition of the doctrine and clarification of the issues; in short, an excellent and welcome addition to the phenomenological literature.-A. M. (shrink)

Fifteen years after the first edition of this comprehensive work, German historicism remains largely and conspicuously in the shadows. The great historico-philological and historico-sociological work produced by, and on the fringes of, this school has given way to specialization. Great polygraphs of the caliber of a Meinecke, a Vossler, a Curtius, a Cassirer, a Croce, or an Auerbach seem to have completely disappeared from the scene. But is the necessity for cultural synthesis that these men stressed any less urgent today (...) than before? One of the major tasks envisioned by thinkers of the early twentieth century was the development of a philosophical anthropology which would consolidate all the preceding work of cultural synthesis. Today this task remains in the far horizon after a series of distinguished but discontinuous achievements. Thus the reappearance of the ambitious work of Professor Rossi is a welcome event. There are now indications that sociology is moving away from the neutral functionalism of the consensus years and is beginning to show some interest in the subconscious and in concrete constellations of values representative of communal forms of consciousness in a situation. Post-industrial society can no longer be examined with the rough tools of micro- or even macro-analysis. Because of their refinements in quantification and their awareness of the most specific features of every particular form of group consciousness, the new middle range methods are akin to the synthetic spirit of the historical school. As middle range research progresses, its results can provide the ontic ground for an ontology of the human condition in its adjustment to the world, and in its communicative-transcendent goals. For this reason, Rossi’s work, though excellent in its expository aspects should be read with care to avoid overemphasizing, as he does, the distance between rationalism and irrationalism that was apparent in the main tendencies of the historical school. Surely it is a worthwhile thing to show the tensions between the relativists such as Simmel and Spengler, the intuitionists such as Windelband and Rickert, and finally the neo-idealists such as Troeltsch and Meinecke. The tension that pulled apart these intellectual currents shows by contrast the great synthetic force operative in the systems of Dilthey and Weber, which provided the dominant inspiration for the whole school. But the fundamental perspective in today’s reconsideration of historicism need not be the tempering of any search for ideals through the insistence on sober methodological limits. A more fruitful emphasis can be placed today on action as a mediator between thought and adjustment, on community as a mediator between society and individuals, and most of all on expression and adventure as mediators between survival and moral absolutes. With his neo-Kantian insistence on the historical method, on the discovery of the historical horizon of the human condition, and on the establishment of the institutional connections within historical periods, Professor Rossi: a) misses the point of the anti-mechanistic efforts of modern philosophy, i.e., the constitution of synthetic a priori judgments in their true home grounds, the field of spontaneous human communication and action; b) restricts the ability on the part of the historical method to penetrate and elucidate the areas of the unconscious and of passive syntheses ; c) both presupposes and trivializes the definition of freedom. Freedom in Rossi’s interpretation of historicism, seems to result from the objective displacement of values, rather than from the dramatic insufficiency of every finite person as it transpires in the highest forms of symbolic communication and interaction.—A. M. (shrink)

An Institute of Medical Ethics working party supports the view that explicit permission should normally be sought in the case of testing for HIV antibody. It discusses this in relation to anonymised HIV testing for epidemiological purposes, concluding that this is to be welcomed, given certain safeguards. It next argues that pregnant women may have a greater and more immediate need than others to know their HIV status. It concludes that this need does not justify testing them without their permission, (...) but can be met by voluntary diagnostic testing on an 'opting-out' basis, supported by adequate briefing. (shrink)

This book presents a critical assessment of the political and social order in the post-revolutionary decade of the 1990s in both the transitional economies and Western welfare states confronting fiscal crises. As we enter the new post-socialist century, James M. Buchanan argues that we need to think and act on the premise that the future is uncertain. James M. Buchanan examines the political economy of the post-socialist era, analysing the events of 1989-91 and some of their predicted consequences. In addition (...) he reflects upon the influence of those revolutionary years and the reactions to the changes, as well as the role of economists in the new socio-political environment. The political economy of the post-socialist era will be determined by the forces of historical development, social and cultural evolution, directed political change and exogenous shocks. To a large extent, many of these forces cannot be planned for, except directed political change. This insightful new book will be welcomed by political economists, legal and political philosophers, political scientists and public choice economists. (shrink)

Welcome to this special issue of Language Sciences on slurs. The collection in this issue consists of 21 original research articles from seasoned scholars and exceptional students across the humanities and social sciences. These scholars come from backgrounds in linguistics, anthropology, philosophy, psychology, and sociology, and here they investigate the use of slurs in a variety of natural languages, including English, Croatian, Hebrew, Korean, and Portuguese. -/- The topic of focus for this special issue has not only remained controversial (...) and relatively unexplored in academic publications, but has also largely been discussed in published work by privileged groups that lack practical experience of the variety of ways that slurs are actually used in contemporary life. This has resulted in mostly unseasoned speculations and one-sided discussions about slurs that do not offer genuine insight into the various ways that they are actually used and that does not help advance further research on the topic. Peer-review and citation practices in philosophy have been especially poor, leaving many minority groups without voice or proper credit for their original work. So with an opportunity to edit this special issue on slurs I felt it important to include contributions from a wide variety of demographics and disciplinary perspectives, and that each article be carefully peer-reviewed by an average of three anonymous reviewers. Scholars from different disciplines were encouraged to read widely, become familiar with each other’s work, and cite appropriately. This required an incredible effort and much patience from all involved, including authors, reviewers, and editors. But as a result this special issue provides a uniquely rigorous and interdisciplinary collection of articles from a wide variety of perspectives on a timely issue that has for far too long been neglected. -/- The aim for this special issue is not only to enrich our understanding of the meaning and use of slurs in natural language more specifically, but to further broaden our understanding of the meaning and use of natural language more generally by carefully considering, for instance, how language can carry such affective force, involve stereotypes of typical targets, and be used derogatorily or non-derogatorily depending upon the context and agents involved. The articles included in this collection explore these issues and much more, presenting new empirical findings and critical discussion that is sure to advance further fruitful work in the field. -/- I am honored to have the opportunity to provide a high quality and inclusive forum for discussion on slurs that will be of interest to lay readers, students, and seasoned scholars alike, and sincerely thank everyone involved for their thoughtful contributions to this special issue. (shrink)

Clarification of the terms ‘realism’ and ‘antirealism’ has always been a challenging task for philosophers of science, epistemologists, and metaphysicians. The first part of my paper offers a certain classification and critical exposition of realisms in philosophy of science. Next, I take up the issue of finding a middle or natural ground between realism and antirealism. Arthur Fine’s Natural Ontological Attitude is generally considered as a highly interesting and promising attempt at combining the strengths of the two sides of the (...) debate in philosophy of science while avoiding their excessive “philosophical” claims. I argue that while reconciliatory approaches are definitely welcome in this matter, Fine’s project fails because of its inability to pro- perly handle and carry certain significant and perhaps even indispensable features of realism and antirealism into the new position. Another indication of NOA’s failure is Fine’s notable misrepresentation of the main theses of the two camps that he strives to bring together. The resultant picture of NOA leaves a great deal to be desired because of Fine’s Procrustean treatment and the inadequate ontological account emerging out of it. (shrink)

“This is an impressive, well-researched book, of great value. It offers the wider philosophical community a point of entrance, by a proponent of a certain type of Thomism, into a domain that all philosophers think they already understand. The result is the creation of a ‘big picture’ of human knowledge.” —Mark Johnson, Marquette University Working from a realist Thomistic epistemology, noted scholar Benedict Ashley, O.P., asserts that we must begin our search for wisdom in the natural sciences; only then, Ashley (...) believes, can we ensure that our claims about immaterial and invisible things are rooted in reliable experience of the material. Any attempt to share wisdom, he insists, must derive from a context that is both interdisciplinary and intercultural. This capstone of a remarkable career will be welcomed by students in philosophy and theology. (shrink)

The editors welcome letters from readers, although we cannot guarantee that all will be published. To ensure timeliness, correspondents must respond to an article within seven weeks and not exceed two double‐spaced pages. Letters become the property of the editors and may be edited and shortened at our discretion.

Teacher and author Vivian Paley is highly regarded by parents, educators, and other professionals for her original insights into such seemingly everyday issues as play, story, gender, and how young children think. In _The Classrooms All Young Children Need_, Patricia M. Cooper takes a synoptic view of Paley’s many books and articles, charting the evolution of Paley’s thinking while revealing the seminal characteristics of her teaching philosophy. This careful analysis leads Cooper to identify a pedagogical model organized around two complementary (...) principles: a curriculum that promotes play and imagination, and the idea of classrooms as fair places where young children of every color, ability, and disposition are welcome. With timely attention paid to debates about the reduction in time for play in the early childhood classroom, the role of race in education, and No Child Left Behind, _The Classrooms All Young Children Need_ will be embraced by anyone tasked with teaching our youngest pupils. (shrink)

How can English language teachers contribute to peace locally and globally? English language teachers and learners are located in the global civil society – an international network of civil organizations and NGOs related to human rights, the environment, and sustainable peace. English, with its special role as an international language, is a major tool for communication within this network. On the local level, many teachers are interested in promoting reconciliation and sustainable peace, but often do not know how to do (...) so. This book provides information, analysis, and techniques to help teachers around the world take action toward this goal. Balancing, in a readable and accessible way, the global and the local, core and periphery, cultural diffusion and resistance, theory and practice, pessimism and optimism, outsider and insider perspectives, the expert role and the apprentice role, and prescriptive and elicitive methods, it offers an alternative to literature about critical applied linguistics, globalization, and peace education that is simply too complex and wordy to spread easily from theoretician to the classroom teacher. _The English Teacher in Global Civil Society_: synthesizes threads from many fields and topics into a coherent and empowering argument for the activist role English language teachers can take to promote social change draws on humanistic education, peace education, cross-cultural understanding, problem-posing, cooperative learning, and critical thinking methodologies to help English language teachers learn how to teach conflict resolution skills in their classrooms covers issues in critical applied linguistics, approaches and methodologies in ESL/EFL, global and local curricular issues, and specific skill areas such reading, writing, and speaking suggests a new goal for English language teachers: global citizenship. This engaging, informative, provocative, and highly readable book is a welcome resource for English language teacher trainers, pre-service teachers, practicing classroom teachers, and Peace Corps workers around the world. (shrink)