The 1981 Uniform Determination of Death Act (UDDA) established the validity of both cardio-respiratory and neurological criteria of death. However, many religious traditions including most forms of Haredi Judaism (ultra-orthodox) and many varieties of Buddhism strongly disagree with death by neurological criteria (DNC). Only one state in the U.S., New Jersey, allows for both religious exemptions to DNC and provides continuation of health insurance coverage when an exception is invoked in its 1991 Declaration of Death Act (NJDDA). There is yet (...) no quantitative or qualitative data on the frequencies of religious exemptions in New Jersey. This study gathered information about the frequency of religious exemptions and policy in New Jersey that was created out of respect for religious beliefs. Literature and internet searches on topics related to religious objections to DNC were conducted. Fifty-three chaplains and heads of bioethics committees in New Jersey hospitals were contacted by phone or email requesting a research interview. Respondents answered a set of questions about religious exemptions to DNC at the hospital where they worked that explored the frequency of such religious exemptions in the past five years, the religious tradition indicated, and whether any request for a religious exemption had been denied. This study was approved by the Northeastern University Institutional Review Board (IRB #: 16–03-15). Eighteen chaplains and bioethics committee members participated in a full research interview. Of these, five reported instances of religious exemptions to DNC occurring at the hospital at which they worked for a total of approximately 30–36 known exemptions in the past five years. Families sought religious exemptions because of faith in an Orthodox Judaism tradition and nonreligious reasons. No failed attempts to obtain an exemption were reported. Religious exemptions to DNC in New Jersey do occur, although very infrequently. Prior to this study, there was no information on their frequency. Considering religious exemptions do occur, there is a need for national or state policies that addresses both religious objections to DNC and hospital resources. More information is needed to better understand the impact of granting religious exemptions before new policy can be established. (shrink)

The social facilitation of eating plays a significant role in influencing individuals’ eating decisions. However, how social eating cues are processed in health promotion messages is unclear. This study examined individuals’ food craving in response to social cues in images and emotional experiences, perceived threat, perceived efficacy, behavioral intentions, and motivational coactivation elicited by social eating cues in obesity prevention fear appeals. Results suggested that the presence of a group of people eating in an image facilitated food craving for the (...) presented foods. Moreover, fear appeals that presented obesity and its consequences with more social eating cues, versus individual eating cues, generated greater positive emotional responses, perceived threat severity, response and self-efficacy, and motivational coactivation indicating more attention and threat vigilance. However, these cues also generated fewer self-reported intentions to change unhealthy eating behaviors. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed. (shrink)

Uncertainty about the acceptability of the forest industry and its practices to the citizens of Mississippi provided the impetus for a study of the attitudes and perceptions of eight constituency groups toward the forest industry in the state. This study examines attitudes and perceptions of two of those groups, loggers and two environmentalists/conservationists, and finds similarities and differences. Survey data analysis finds that all groups hold similar perceptions of themes defining the forest industry and forest industry occupations but differ concerning (...) activities the industry does or does not perform well and environmental problems associated with the forest industry. Mississippi Loggers Association members hold more positive attitudes/perceptions, similar to those of the Mississippi Wildlife Federation. Attitudes/perceptions of Mississippi 2020, a small grassroots organization, differ from Mississippi Loggers Association members in all instances and from Mississippi Wildlife Federation members on some issues. (shrink)

The coronavirus pandemic has necessitated extraordinary human resilience in order to preserve and prolong life and social order. Risks to health and even life are being confronted by workers in health and social care, as well as those in roles previously never defined as “frontline,” such as individuals working in community supply chain sectors. The strategy adopted by the United Kingdom government in facing the challenges of the pandemic was markedly different from other countries. The present study set out to (...) examine what variables were associated with resilience, burnout, and wellbeing in all sectors of frontline workers, and whether or not these differed between the UK and Republic of Ireland. Individuals were eligible if they were a frontline worker in the UK or RoI during the pandemic. Part of a larger, longitudinal study, the participants completed an online survey to assess various aspects of their daily and working lives, along with their attitudes toward their government’s handling of the crisis, and measurement of psychological variables associated with heroism. A total of 1,305 participants provided sufficient data for analysis. UK-based workers reported lower wellbeing than the RoI-based participants. In multivariate models, both psychological and pandemic-related variables were associated with levels of resilience, burnout, and wellbeing in these workers, but which pandemic-related variables were associated with outcomes differed depending on the country. The judgment of lower timeliness in their government’s response to the pandemic appeared to be a key driver of each outcome for the UK-based frontline workers. These findings provide initial evidence that the different strategies adopted by each country may be associated with the overall wellbeing of frontline workers, with higher detriment observed in the UK. The judgment of the relatively slow response of the UK government to instigate their pandemic measures appears to be associated with lower resilience, higher burnout, and lower wellbeing in frontline workers in the UK. (shrink)

In this work of historical theology, Rachel Davies considers the relationship between aesthetics and anthropology in Bonaventure's thought, and shows how bodily diminishment can become a sign and source of the self's renewal. Drawing from texts like the Collations on the Six Days, and the Major Life of Francis, Davies reconfigures traditional accounts of the fallen body's rebellion against the soul and emphasizes instead the soul's original abandonment of the body. Her interpretation draws attention to the crucial but undervalued (...) role that Bonaventure assigns to the body in the self's coming-to-be, and shows how contemplation involves the soul's tender recovery of the body it once rejected. Though contemplation makes body-soul integrity possible again, Davies argues that the body never fully recovers from its primordial alienation. Instead, Bonaventure suggests that individuals can experience brokenness and healing at the same time, and that suffering bodies can become paschal spaces, graced and open to beatific wholeness. (shrink)

Pour la philosophe d'exception qu'était Rachel Bespaloff, la pensée de Léon Chestov fut une pensée d'éveil, le commencement d'une vocation et la source d'une oeuvre profondément originale. Si, contrairement à Benjamin Fondane, elle entra en désaccord avec le penseur russe, elle lui conserva néanmoins une forme de fidélité créatrice.00Cette correspondance inédite de Rachel Bespaloff avec Fondane (1898-1944) et Chestov (1866-1938) couvre une période qui s'étend de 1929 à 1939. Elle éclaire leurs œuvres respectives et apporte des éléments décisifs (...) sur la réception des œuvres de Heidegger et de Kierkegaard dans le milieu de la philosophie existentielle d'avant-guerre. Elle donne aussi à entendre la voix intime de Rachel Bespaloff, ses espoirs, ses attentes, et son inflexible passion pour la vérité.00Une annexe contient des documents inédits indispensables à la compréhension des discussions philosophiques qui unissent et parfois séparent les deux disciples de Léon Chestov. (shrink)

Cet article reprend le dossier de la statue dite de la « déesse au serpent », découverte avec sa base non loin des Propylées du sanctuaire d’Apollon à Délos. Son propos est de remettre en cause, à travers l’examen de la base et de la technique de fixation, toutes deux exceptionnelles, l’hypothèse selon laquelle il s’agirait d’une copie ou d’une adaptation de l’Athéna Hygieia en bronze, réalisée par Pyrrhos et érigée devant les Propylées de l’Acropole d’Athènes dans les années 430 (...) av. J.‑C. C’est en fin de compte l’idée, largement acceptée aujourd’hui, d’un programme sculpté reproduisant à Délos l’aménagement de l’entrée de l’Acropole et destiné à manifester la domination athénienne sur le sanctuaire à l’époque classique, qui doit être revue. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Competence is an active state that defines the way in which cells respond to an inductive signal. A challenge of developmental biology is to explain not just the nature of the signalling molecules that promote cell specification or differentiation, but also how cells acquire competence to respond to these signals and what that reflects in molecular terms. A recent paper by Carmena et al.(1) has revealed how several signalling mechanisms are used sequentially and in specific combinations to specify two mesodermal (...) lineages in Drosophila. BioEssays 21:455–458, 1999. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

L'examen du parcours personnel et littéraire d'Assia Djebar, femme, écrivain et algérienne, est l'axe de l'approche de Vera Lucia Soares. Pour analyser les différentes composantes de son objet d'étude Soares a recours à quelques-uns des théoriciens les plus renommés ­ Roger Chartier, Paul Ricoeur, Todorov, entre autres ­ et les utilise de façon magistrale pour disséquer l'oeuvre d'Assia Djebar, sous les angles les plus divers. Il faut aussi signaler la bibliographie spécialisée sur laq..

L'examen du parcours personnel et littéraire d'Assia Djebar, femme, écrivain et algérienne, est l'axe de l'approche de Vera Lucia Soares. Pour analyser les différentes composantes de son objet d'étude Soares a recours à quelques-uns des théoriciens les plus renommés ­ Roger Chartier, Paul Ricoeur, Todorov, entre autres ­ et les utilise de façon magistrale pour disséquer l'oeuvre d'Assia Djebar, sous les angles les plus divers. Il faut aussi signaler la bibliographie spécialisée sur laq...

L'examen du parcours personnel et littéraire d'Assia Djebar, femme, écrivain et algérienne, est l'axe de l'approche de Vera Lucia Soares. Pour analyser les différentes composantes de son objet d'étude Soares a recours à quelques-uns des théoriciens les plus renommés ­ Roger Chartier, Paul Ricoeur, Todorov, entre autres ­ et les utilise de façon magistrale pour disséquer l'oeuvre d'Assia Djebar, sous les angles les plus divers. Il faut aussi signaler la bibliographie spécialisée sur laq...

Este artículo pretende exponer algo del tema de la bella y buena muerte en la épica griega arcaica y apuntar los profundos cambios ocurridos con Sócrates, según textos de Platón y Xenofonte, cambios que son fundamentales todavía para nuestras categorías éticas actuales. Se trata del tránsito desde una concepción épico-aristocrática de la bella muerte a ser entendida ésta como corolario de una vida iluminada por la reflexión.

Bringing Flowers HomeWe try to put a bandage on the wound,offering a vague apology:Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home.Towers turn out to have been built on sand.Regimes collapse. No use in asking whywe ripped the bandage off that bleeding wound.An earthquake followed by a hurricane,fires, floods: they've passed some of us by.Us. And who is we? And what is home?Last week an enormous yellow moonhung low in a corner of the sky.Beauty is no bandage for the wound,hole in (...) the future much too big to mendor even to imagine, though we tryto camouflage it, bringing flowers home.You said, when we were talking of the end,that no one teaches us to say goodbye,or how to ease the bandage from the wound.Forgive me, death. I brought these flowers home.Moving the PianoCompact, gleaming, black and white,this sturdy Yamaha uprightstood staunchly in one room for yearsuntil, maneuvered through several doorstoday by two young slender menand up a ramp into their van,it ventured briefly out into the world again.The change of space, the space of change:the walls look naked, empty, strange.Heavy has given way to light.Habitual soliditytoo familiar to seeyields to possibilitytoo unfamiliar to see.Late and early, early, late,end, beginning—all are swirledinto a mist that veils the world.The black and white of status quoblends to a color I don't know,transition that I cannot name,but I salute it all the same.Goodbye, piano, and hello.So where is the piano going?Where will it find another life,music and memories unpackedin an unfolding second act?North Carolina, near a riverwhose stream, like time, is always flowing.My son lives there with his wife.Beloved, nothing is forever.You can't step twice into this life.Nap at Stony PointMy cousin and my friendon their respective recent deathbedsslid from my mind. I noticedthe scarlet splash of a cardinal perched on a cannonon a bluff above the Hudson.I lay down on a picnic table,sun on my face, five turkey vulturescircling overhead, and closed my eyes.And when I opened them I felt as pleasedas if I had completed some needful taskinstead of having forgottenhow my friend in January and my cousin in March,both of them alert and wry and tranquil,had faced what each of them clearly saw approaching—more, had recognized and greeted it,instead of ignoring it by looking through it,the way some people, even iftheir office is two doors down the hall,look right through you, pretending not to see you.Or maybe they don't see youany more than one envisions deathon a sunny April afternoon.The Last Lecture HallTheaters that were never ours,classrooms empty and refill.Nor do the trees belong to us.We cross the stage and disappearor venture in among the treesand lose ourselves there.Feverish categories blur.Genre distinctions: what for?The empty theater becomesa lecture hall. A classroom morphsinto a forest murmuringwith voices. Words pelt down like rainor rise like mist and dissipate.The rustling trees swell to a roar.But they were never still.Theater, classroom, maple, fir:feverish categories blur,presences pressing through the veilof the phenomenal;a leopard padding down the aisle.Tiger-masked students fill the seatsof the amphitheater.The old professor, looking outover the upturned faces, said“You are all allegoricalfigures to me. I will not learnyour names.” Did the students laugh?Tragedy, satire, comedy:genres are deciduous.Modes blur, leaves spin and fall.The leaves of memory seemed to makeA mournful rustling in the dark(Longfellow, “The Fire of Driftwood”).Lights go on in the theater.Class is over. We stumble out.The GatesWhen I woke up I had walked through a gate.I looked around the room—trickle or torrent, stepping into time—and bent my head to drink at a black stream.I look around a roomthick with the dust of after and before.Am I meant to drink from this black stream?My lips are dry,thick with the crust of after and before,gate of ivory and gate of horn.My lips are dry, I'm thirsty.Heat, cold, fire, snow, sun.Gate of ivory and gate of horn:to cross a threshold ends one story(firelight; snow squeaking; winter sun)and begins another.To cross a threshold ends one story(ever after? or a transformation?)and begins anotherthere is no law compelling us to enter.Ever after or a transformation.Torrent, trickle: we set foot in time,but there's no law compelling us to enterstory once we've latched the gate of dream.FilamentsYour past is thickening. You can seeits filaments, as carefullyyou begin to part the strands(they're all connected) with both hands,and clear a path. Now warilyenter the web—not all the way,but toward some kind of clarity.We have been rightly taught that wecan't finish, but must do, the work.Partway through the leafy murk,crisscrossing dapple of the trees,so tough and so precarious,you find yourself in the dawn air,the circle's center everywhere.Along the PromenadeReading a book about transitioningin the twenty-first-century meaning of the wordblends with plans for my son's upcoming weddingand scraps of conversation overheardat the Japanese-themed street fair today.Somnambulists along the promenadefloat in the warm currents of Broadway,eat talk look linger in the sun and shade.Then to the park: October leaves still green(climate change or merely Indian summer?).Snatched memories, I catch them on the wing:Samos Septembers, pomegranate tree,lemon tree, okra, a chameleon,the little summer of Saint Dimitri,they called it. All this happened; but to me?Streams of conversation flowing by.The sound artist described his work like this(if work is the right word): “Accidentallyuploading seemingly private messages,”which describes, also, dreams and poetry,the drifting crowd, incessant carousel,city and weather, time and holiday,all lived, palped, tasted, tested, overheard.Somnambulists along the promenadehave set up booths, their dreams... Bookending my dawn dream: symmetricalsoaking sponges dripping... DNA?Destiny, temperament, personality:the cards we're dealt and that we have to play,except we now can change them gradually.Transition: he or she or rather they,constructed, deconstructed, rearranged,the tarot spread of genealogy,inheritance as aleatoric play.We walked west to Eleventh Avenue,drawn by rumors of Ad Reinhardt's blue,which buzzed and throbbed. Stand still: my head was spinning.Allusions to water or to sky,dense, deep, alarming, ending or beginning... I sat awhile and watched the crowd glide by,enchanted promenaders all drawn inon the exhibition's last dayby the silence's cerulean humming.And then they climbed the stairs, and so did we,to lighter textures on an upper floorwhere Ruth Asawa's baskets in midairweightlessly demonstrated gravity,twigs, trees, crowns, bubbles dancing in white space.Next week my class will read “On Being Ill.”“Blogs,” I'll tell them, is the word we nowuse, not “essay,” for the moving mind,that saunterer who takes note and leaves behindand doubles back and ponders and regretsamidst the wash of vision, the flowand tidal pull of what we see and know,what we've dreamed, what we have said and heard,the thrumming colors and the floating crowd,as if the bubbly brew of sunny dayand anxious dreams could somehow all be caughtup in one enormous, one all-encompassing word. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 23 (2003) 39-41 [Access article in PDF] Wishing I Were Here:Postcards from My Religious Journey Grace G. Burford Prescott College Summer 1966, Bowling Green, Kentucky An energetic ten-year-old, sitting on a red-cushioned wooden pew in a Presbyterian church leans over to her mother to whisper, "Which is it? Are we supposed to be like little children, or leave behind our childish ways?" After church, her mother (...) does a reasonably good job at answering the question.Later, perhaps even later that day, this little girl has gleefully exchanged her dress and going-to-church shoes for a cotton shirt and shorts and blue Keds, and has escaped to her favorite spot in the woods behind her house. There she swings on vines in imitation of Tarzan and plays contentedly on her own for hours, feeling utterly at home.In this scene, we see that the little girl has discovered that she can best deal with a certain type of recurring physical pain by focusing her entire attention on her breath, as she silently repeats "breathing in, breathing out." Fall 1971, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania A group of eight or so teenagers attend their English literature class at an elite college-preparatory school for girls. Our hero, recently arrived, southern accent still quite in evidence, revels in real education; this a delightfully stark contrast to what she got from Kentucky public schools, then forty-ninth in the nation according to some poll or other—only Mississippi's were worse. In this particular class she finds herself defending Presbyterians against what she considers simply inaccurate descriptions of them by James Joyce. At the same time, she is waking up to the realization that she does not believe—and the suspicion that she never really has believed—the Christian doctrines she has been raised on. Indeed, she feels quite foolish for never having properly examined what exactly she had bought into when she participated in all those church activities. She can't recall ever actually believing in "God the Father, Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth," much less in "Jesus Christ, His only Son, Our Lord," and all the rest of it. [End Page 39] Spring 1975, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania Having thoroughly rejected religion—for she knows none other than the one she grew up with—our hero pursues study of astronomy, math, language, and music, quite intent on becoming a college professor of some subject or another. Somewhat annoyed that she must take two courses in the curricular area that includes religion, philosophy, anthropology, and sociology, but encouraged by her friends' assertions that religion courses are "not too bad," she signs up for religion and science, figuring that at least half of it will be rational. At the same time, she takes a course on Asian religions. Sometime in the middle of a clear spring night we find her engaged in her part-time job, seated at the eyepiece end of a twenty-meter-long, twenty-four-inch refracting telescope, patiently keeping a star placed just so on the cross-hairs in the siting scope, making fine adjustments to the telescope's precise tracking while the light of stars collects on glass plates coated with very fast photographic emulsion. Between clicks of the shutter she ponders the curiously attractive ideas she is encountering in her religion courses this term. Spring 1983, Evanston, Illinois Our hero earns a Ph.D. in the history and literature of religions, with a focus on Buddhism and Hinduism, and heads for Washington, D.C., to become what she had always aspired to be—a college professor. Summer 1997, Interstate 40 Having experienced a denial of tenure, the challenges of part-time college teaching, training and freelance work in the field of copyediting, life as a wildlife-wielding teacher of auditoria full of elementary school children, an administrative job as second-in-command to a self-described megalomaniac, and the vagaries of teaching two hundred students a term—this lifelong seeker eagerly moves across the country to start a job teaching at an alternative, experiential learning-based... (shrink)

What is right with this “comic” of Euripides's timeless and irreplaceable drama, The Trojan Women, is what was always right about a play that is relentlessly relevant. Carson's translation, spare and clear, distills the language of the original but keeps what is important, including some mouth-puckeringly wry lines. There is barbed wit and heartbreaking lullaby, sometimes coinciding on one page. Thus, the chorus comments, “Troy, you made a bad deal: / ten thousand men for a single coracle of cunt appeal.” (...) In the middle of the same page, the Greek herald Talthybius addresses Hector and Andromache's infant son Astyanax, whom he has come to carry off so that the baby can be thrown from the battlements: “Come along, little mushroom, / little rootlet, little sip, little milk fly, little asterisk, little welkin, / little silhouette, little sugar bubble—/ let go of your mother. / She's broken.” Then lower down on the same page: “It's time for your infinite leap / as decreed by the vote of men. / Take him. / The man to transact things like this / is one who doesn't know pity.”What is wrong with this new rendering is Bruno's awkward, amateurish drawings. Yes, the chorus are all animals, as are all the main characters except mad Cassandra (a partial exception might be made for Menelaus, who is some kind of machine); but Bruno is no Art Spiegelman, and this is no Maus. Spiegelman's cats, pigs, and mice make perfect sense and are elegantly and clearly depicted; they add resonance to the story without raising further questions. In this Trojan Women, it makes sense that Hecuba is an old bitch or Helen a svelte fox in high heels. Poseidon, a wave: okay. But Talthybius, a colossal raven? Athena, “a big pair of overalls, carrying an owl mask in one hand”? Andromache, “a poplar tree with trunk split and roots dragging out the back of the cart”? The infant Astyanax whom Andromache cradles in one Ent-like arm looks more like a cocoon or a hornet's nest or a hypertrophied oak gall than anything else. Menelaus, when he arrives, is “some sort of gear box, clutch or coupling mechanism, once sleek, not this year's model.” These surreal leaps might well work on the stage or screen, but the need to explain them in the text shows how uncomfortably they fit into the story. Carson's explanations, of course, constitute her only significant departures from Euripides.We do not need Bruno's drawings; Carson's pared-down text might work quite well on its own. But even grant the hypothetical that these drawings are an organic and crucial part of this version's vision, then the drawings should not need to be explained. Less would be more. What this version of the classic drama gains in succinctness it loses in tonal clarity—having said which, I would still like to try it out on my students, who might help me to change my mind. Does this retelling of the story remain heartrending and cruel, suffused with irony, sharpened by flashes of wit? Yes. Was it worth the experiment of turning the tragedy into a comic? Sure. Is this uneasy mix of verbal mastery and wobbly draftsmanship the ultimate version of The Trojan Women? Nope. (shrink)

‘The Thebans have also a grave of Hektor, son of Priam, beside a spring which is called the Spring of Oedipus, and they say that they brought his bones from Ilium in consequence of the following oracle: “Thebans who dwell in the city of Cadmus, If you wish your clan to dwell with noble wealth, Bring to your homes the bones of Hektor, son of Priam, From Asia and by the command of Zeus worship him as a hero.”’.

Problems from Philosophy is an introduction to philosophy which is organized around the great philosophical problems—the existence of God, the nature of the mind, human freedom, the limits of knowledge, and the truth about ethics. It begins by reflecting on the life of the first great philosopher, Socrates. Then it takes up the fundamental question of whether God exists. Next comes a discussion of death and the soul, which leads to a chapter about persons. The later chapters of the book (...) are about whether objective knowledge is possible in science and ethics. Each chapter is self-contained and may be read independently of the others. Problems from Philosophy represents the final work of author and philosopher James Rachels. In it, he brings the same liveliness and clarity to the introduction of philosophy that he brings to his best-selling ethics text, The Elements of Moral Philosophy . The second and third edition have been revised by Rachels' son Stuart, who carefully has carefully refined his father's work to further strengthen its clarity and accessibility. (shrink)

A few years ago I set out to canvass the literature on Charles Darwin. I thought it would be a manageable task, but I soon realized what a naïve idea this was. I do not know how many books have been written about him, but there seem to be thousands, and each year more appear.1 Why are there so many? Part of the answer is, of course, that he was a tremendously important figure in the history of human thought. But (...) as I read the books- or, at least, as many of them as I could- it gradually dawned on me that all this attention is also due to Darwin’s personal qualities. He was an immensely likeable man, modest and humane, with a personality that continues to draw people to him even today. Reflecting on his father’s character, Darwin’s son Francis wrote that ‘The two subjects which moved my father perhaps more strongly than any others were cruelty to animals and slavery. His detestation of both was intense, and his indignation was overpowering in case of any levity or want of feeling on these matters.’2 Darwin’s strong feelings about slavery are expressed in many of his writings, most notably in the Journal of Researches, in which he recorded his adventures on the Beagle voyage. His comments there are among the most moving in abolitionist literature. But it was his feelings about animals that impressed his contemporaries most vividly. Numerous anecdotes show him remonstrating with cab-drivers who whipped their horses too smartly, solicitously caring for his own animals and forbidding the discussion of vivisection in his home.3 At the height of his fame he wrote an article for a popular magazine condemning the infamous leg-hold trap in terms that would not seem out of place in an animal-rights magazine today. (shrink)

(1) If you would know God, you must not merely be like the Son, you must be the Son yourself.With these words Meister Eckhart encapsulates the aim of Christian mysticism as he understood it: to know God, and to know God in such a way that the knower is not merely like Christ but actually becomes Christ, taken into the Trinity itself. Eckhart speaks frequently of this in his sermons.

If you would know God, you must not merely be like the Son, you must be the Son yourself. With these words Meister Eckhart encapsulates the aim of Christian mysticism as he understood it: to know God, and to know God in such a way that the knower is not merely like Christ but actually becomes Christ, taken into the Trinity itself. Eckhart speaks frequently of this in his sermons.

‘Unhappy boy, what a deed you have done! What came into your mind? What disaster destroyed your reason?’ This version of 1228–9, by Andrew Brown in his recent commentary, represents the majority opinion. But what ‘deed’ has Haemon done that justifies such an outburst? Jebb, followed by Kamerbeek and Brown, claims that the deed which causes Creon to wail aloud with charges of insanity is Haemon's entry into Antigone's tomb. Kamerbeek and Brown justify the extremity of Creon's reaction by claiming (...) that Creon knows that Haemon intends to kill himself. But is it reasonable to suppose that Creon's first reaction to the shocking scene of Antigone's hanging corpse and Haemon helplessly wailing would be that Haemon is on the verge of killing himself? Creon has not had time to predict his son's actions and his screams of dismay are most naturally read as a reaction to something he sees before his eyes. It would also be strange if Creon had absolutely no reaction to Antigone's death; he expected to find her alive. (shrink)

‘Unhappy boy, what a deed you have done! What came into your mind? What disaster destroyed your reason?’ This version of 1228–9, by Andrew Brown in his recent commentary, represents the majority opinion. But what ‘deed’ has Haemon done that justifies such an outburst? Jebb, followed by Kamerbeek and Brown, claims that the deed which causes Creon to wail aloud with charges of insanity is Haemon's entry into Antigone's tomb. Kamerbeek and Brown justify the extremity of Creon's reaction by claiming (...) that Creon knows that Haemon intends to kill himself. But is it reasonable to suppose that Creon's first reaction to the shocking scene of Antigone's hanging corpse and Haemon helplessly wailing would be that Haemon is on the verge of killing himself? Creon has not had time to predict his son's actions and his screams of dismay are most naturally read as a reaction to something he sees before his eyes. It would also be strange if Creon had absolutely no reaction to Antigone's death; he expected to find her alive. (shrink)

Même s’ils ne sont pas volumineux, les commentaires de l’Ecriture tiennent une place essentielle dans la pratique théologique de S. Thomas. Après avoir rappelé ses clés de lecture et d’interprétation du texte biblique selon les coutumes et traditions de son temps, G. Berceville en vient, à propos du texte crucial de Rm 7,14-25 au « je » du discours de Paul tel que le perçoit S. Thomas. Tout en tenant compte de ce qu’en avaient dit les « Autorités », S. (...) Thomas n’en marquait pas moins ses « préférences » : ce texte, sur le bien difficile à faire et le mal qui se présente au « je », s’applique aussi bien au juste qu’au pécheur. En contrepoint, la lecture de Luther, en réaction contre le naturalisme de la Renaissance, se trouve au terme d’une transformation radicale de la raison et de la philosophie. Cette « lecture » dit à la fois l’étrangeté aujourd’hui de l’exégèse de Thomas et la sensibilité Luther à la dimension historique de l’homme, ce qui structure son « anthropologie théologique ». La question est posée : est-il possible aujourd’hui de se mettre à l’école de Thomas le contemplatif sans rien perdre de l’attention inquiète que notre modernité porte à l’histoire où Dieu vient et fait grâce ?Although they are not voluminous, St. Thomas’s commentaries on Scripture are essential to his practical theology. After recalling the keys to reading and interpreting Biblical texts according to the customs and traditions of his time, G. Berceville arrives at St. Thomas’ interpretation of the “I” in the discourse of St. Paul in the crucial text of Rm 7, 14-25. While taking into account what the “Authorities had said,” St. Thomas nevertheless pointed out his “preferences.” This text, concerning the good which is difficult to do and the evil that presents itself to the “I”, can be applied to the just man as well as to the sinner. In contrast, Luther’s reading – a reaction against the naturalism of the Renaissance – came at the end of a radical transformation of reason and philosophy. This “reading” reveals both the strangeness of Thomas’ exegesis today, and Luther’s sensitivity to the historical dimension of man, which structures his “theological anthropology.” It also raises the question: Is it possible today to follow the school of Thomas the contemplative without losing the uneasy attention our modernity brings to history which God enters and saves? (shrink)

In the course of an immune response, antibodies undergo affinity maturation in order to increase their efficiency in neutralizing foreign invaders. Affinity maturation occurs by the introduction of multiple point mutations in the variable region gene that encodes the antigen binding site. This somatic hypermutation is restricted to immunoglobulin genes and occurs at very high rates. The precise molecular basis of this process remains obscure. However, recent studies using a variety of in vivo and in vitro systems have revealed important (...) regulatory regions, base motifs that are preferred targets of mutation and evidence that transcription may play an active role in hypermutation. BioEssays 20:227–234, 1998. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (shrink)

Groups based on the notion of a shared sacralized descent enjoyed considerable influence in religious, social or political affairs in Central Asia by grace of their actual or imagined ancestry. They were credited by titles like īšān, sayyid, hwāğa and tūra. The flexibility of multiple genealogy accounts provided ample space for negotiations of conceptions concerning identity, descent, and sacredness as well as for their affirmation or disapproval. The 19th century saw an increase in newly emerging, self-styled religious dignitaries, but (...) the strategies these people adopted to achieve their goals and the responses of their environment remain largely understudied, the more so if their attempts remained unsuccessful. This article explores the vain endeavour of two īšāns, father and son, to establish themselves in the religious market in the Ferghana Valley, and discusses the “making of new religious figureheads” during the tsarist and early Soviet period. Based on letters and documents from the īšāns‘ private holdings, the essay shows their efforts to present themselves as progeny of the Prophet Ayyūb – patron saint of the silk processing craftsmen – from whom they tried to levy donations, but met repeated refusal. (shrink)

Dès ses premiers écrits, Lonergan a été attentif à la dimension d'amitié qui caractérise les ordres trinitaire et créé. L'homme est par essence ouvert au delà de lui-même; ne pouvant pas coïncider à soi, il est appelé à quelque conversion. La pensée moderne, qui par contre l'a prétendu capable de présence à soi; soutint l'individualisme òu le rapport à l'autre devenait instrumental. La réaction post-moderne, qui accentue l'idée d"autre', réveille la conscience à ses traits plus humains, en favorisant en même (...) temps un retour à la tradition philosophique et théologique sur l'amitié, òu d'ailleurs son idée d''autre' se voit elle-même enrichie. La réflexion thomiste sur la charité comme amitié divine est ici décisive. Lonergan la reprend en explicitant l'essence du corps mystique. L'attention à l'expérience concrète invite enfin à conduire la réflexion jusqu'au plan de l'éducation, d'òu on ne peut pas abstraire l'exigence du don de soi, à l'exemple du Christ qu'y s'est abaissé jusqu'à nous. (shrink)

À la ligne 35 du fr. 8 de son Poème, Parménide aurait dit, selon le texte transmis par Simplicius : « Sans l'être dans lequel il se trouve exprimé, tu ne trouveras pas le penser. » La difficulte qui consisterait à placer le penser dans l'être disparaît si l'on adopte le texte transmis par Proclus : « Sans l'être, grâce auquel il est exprimé, tu ne trouveras pas le penser. » Line 35, fr. 8 of his Poem, Parmenid is said (...) to have said, according to the text handed down by Simplicius : « Were it not for the being in which it is expressed, you will never find thinking. » The difficulty of resting thought in the being disappears if one adopts Proclus' text: « Without the being, through which it expresses itself, you never find thought. ». (shrink)

REBECCA TUVEL,VINCENT DUHAMEL | : La tentative de l’ancienne cheffe d’une section de la NAACP 1 Rachel Dolezal de passer de la race blanche à la race noire a occasionné une intense controverse. Son histoire est devenue célèbre au même moment où Caitlyn Jenner2 faisait la couverture de Vanity Fair, signe d’une acceptation grandissante de l’identité trans. Pourtant, les critiques adressées à Dolezal pour avoir caché sa race natale indiquent qu’il existe une perception sociale largement répandue selon laquelle il (...) n’est ni possible ni acceptable de changer de race de la manière dont on peut changer de sexe. Les considérations qui soutiennent le transgenrisme3 semblent s’appliquer également au transracialisme. Que Dolezal représente ou non un exemple authentique de personne transraciale, son histoire et la réaction publique qu’elle a suscitée peuvent fournir un cas instructif à étudier. | : Former NAACP chapter head Rachel Dolezal’s attempted transition from the white to the black race occasioned heated controversy. Her story gained notoriety at the same time that Caitlyn Jenner graced the cover of Vanity Fair, signaling a growing acceptance of transgender identity. Yet criticisms of Dolezal for misrepresenting her birth race indicate a widespread social perception that it is neither possible nor acceptable to change one’s race in the way it might be to change one’s sex. Considerations that support transgenderism seem to apply equally to transracialism. Although Dolezal herself may or may not represent a genuine case of a transracial person, her story and the public reaction to it serve helpful illustrative purposes. (shrink)

continent. 1.2 (2011): 70-75. cartography of ghosts . . . And as a way to talk . . . of temporality the topography of imagination, this body whose dirty entry into the articulation of history as rapturous becoming & unbecoming, greeted with violence, i take permission to extend this grace —Akilah Oliver from “An Arriving Guard of Angels Thusly Coming To Greet” Our disappearance is already here. —Jacques Derrida, 117 I wrestled with death as a threshold, an aporia, a (...) bandit, a part of life. —Akilah Oliver Moraine in geological lingo is that which is left behind. Moraine- a euphemism for the de-stabilizing referent of the writer-ly body as a “troubled and troubling landscape marked by cultural and historical signifiers, the body as flesh memory [...] the body as transitory” (Oliver, Author Statement). Moraine— a geological metaphor of the poet as a holder of memory, as an accumulation of rocks and debris carried along the edge, terminal, dropped at the foot of language (in language). “Flesh Memory” according to Akilah Oliver is "that which my body recalls [...] everything has to do with the task of remembrance and its narrative reinvention [...] I was always translating an idea of the world as it presented itself at any given time. To write was a choice about how to be seen, how to enter the world as translator, actor, participant, in the dialogues that apparently made the real 'real'" (Levitsky). Flesh. Memory. The stuff some poems are made from. The stuff that gets abandoned, gleaned, and picked up by more flesh and memory. "My body, my life has always felt like a kaleidoscopic rip in the dominant fabric [...] has always been a dialogue with the impossible and the apparent” (Levitsky). The impossible-body or poet's body anticipates and performs (through language) an irretrievable death. IN APORIA I realized everything I must have been doing must have been Death. It was Christmas or Labor Day—a holiday—and every time you turned on the radio they said something like ‘four million’ or ‘going to die’.” — Andy Warhol I’m trying on egos, [a justification for the planet’s continuance]. Oh hello transgressor, you’ve come to collect utilitarian debts, humbling narrative space. Give me condition and wheatgrass, I his body disintegrating. I his body is ossification. Death my habit radius, yeah yeah. I his body can’t refuse this summons. I can’t get out this fucking room. Tell me something different about torture dear Trickster. Tell me about the lightness my mother told me to pick the one i love the best how it signals everything I ever wish to believe true just holy on my ship. I jump all over this house. this is it [what I thought is thought only, nothing more deceptive than]: I his body keeps thinking someone will come along, touch me. As like human or lima bean. I’m cradling you to my breast, you are looking out. A little wooden lion you & Peter carve on Bluff Street is quieting across your cheekbone. Not at all like the kind of terror found in sleep, on trembling grounds. It is yesterday now. I have not had a chance to dance in this century. Tonight I shall kill someone, a condition to remember Sunday morning. To think of lives as repetitions [rather than singular serial incarnations]. To understand your death is as exacerbating as trying to figure out why as schoolchildren in mid-nineteen-sixties Southern California we performed reflexive motions: cutting out lace snowflakes, reading Dick and Jane search for their missing mittens, imagining snow. Disintegrat ing . The -ing gerund catapults from the non-finite verb into past, present, future. The -ing as a tail pinned to death, a dog spinning to bite and never fully reaching itself, always shy of the end, circumreferential; a double copulative: deathing. Possessively AO calls it “habit radius” (a virtual fetish attribute) or an inescapable death presence that “confronts us with the paradox of an unattainable object [...] through it’s being unattainable” (Agamben, 27). A flirtation or dialogue with an unknowable thing and aporia utilized as investigative instrument to engage (death) while (in Southern California) we “perform reflexive motions,” cut lace snowflakes, imagine snow, and pay rent like “yeah, yeah” what else is new. And this too, fiction. The book I wish to right. The restored fallen, heroic. Did you expect a different grace from the world? Or upon exit? I’m working on “tough.” They think I am already. All ready. Who is the dead person? Is "I'm sorry" real to a dead person? Browning grass. My hands on this table. A contentious century. A place to pay rent. Redemptive moments. Am I now the dead person? Dead person, dead person, will you partake in my persimmon feast? The body inside the body astounds, confesses sins of the funhouse. I too have admired the people of this planet. Their frilly, orderly intellects. The use they’ve made of cardamom, radiation as well. How they’ve pasteurized milk, loaned surnames to stars, captured tribes, diseases, streets, and ideas too. The living-body as archive: is it possible to experience the living-body as archive without a (kind of) death? Sifting the rubble, rummaging through hoarded debris, skin sheds, memory-napping, and re-awoken (in flesh and) on terrain. “An investigative poetics seeks to unravel staid communities of thought and grasp at what might always be just beyond reach; a poetics of inquiry that lies between language as meaning, and language as rapturous entry into the world of posited ideas and idealism”( Levitsky). Something snaps. Lights blow out prior to embarking upon an investigative poetics. It begins with a question (often a sexy aporia) that leads to openings. "Every politics of memory [...] implies an intervention of the state. It's a state that legislates and acts with regard to the nonfinite mass of materials to be stored, materials which must be collected, preserved” (Derrida & Stiegler, 62). It seems poetic investigation already contains the potentiality of an (invisible) archive if the writer is “always writing” especially when not. Here’s my stupid digital romantic inclination: the living-body (of a poet) is a self-sustaining archive of non-finite memories. But not even I really believe that. AO innovated and sculpted an investigative poetic praxis. In a conversation with poet Rachel Levitsky, poetic-voice is viewed not as a precious identifier, but as a means to think through/about form, concluding that form is linked to framing. While poetic-voice may have tendency to precede form, it also erupts as a result of framing techniques. “They are frames that hold the shape of thinking (which is also to say of imagining) [...].”7 This reminds me of my rabbit who symmetrically chewed the corners of his hutch, which makes me wonder if it’s an expression of the shape of some animal anxiety tick I won’t ever have access to. Beyond the form/frame, death is an unoriginal yet unique limit; death is a damn deathless thing. It functions as a source of poetic investigation; that thing always “just beyond reach.” And how is death not a fetish (in this case an obsessive reverence for something non-material)? “Insofar as it [death] is a presence, a fetish [...] it is in fact something concrete and tangible; but insofar as it is the presence of an absence, it is, at the same time, immaterial and intangible, because it alludes continuously beyond itself to something that can never really be possessed [...] The fetish is [...] a sign of an absence, it is not an unrepeatable unique object; on the contrary, it is something infinitely capable of substitution, without any successive incarnations ever succeeding in exhausting the nullity of which it is the symbol” (Agamben, 33). AO utilized absence (the absent body [catapulted by the death of a beloved]) as an apparatus to investigate. In the process of conversing with absence or that which is absent, the absent body is affectionately objectified, incessantly summonsed back to a place of recognition, of objects, a desire for the absent body to remain intact while exiting the structural limits of grammar and syntax by moving into chant forms “to say what cannot be said” (Levitsky). from AN ARRIVING GUARD OF ANGELS THUSLY COMING TO GREET dear oluchi- the light is blinking rapidly on the black boxy machine. your room seems bigger than before and i am still planning to read some of those robert jordan books of yours. yesterday at the used bookstore where i was browsing the mysteries to “stall reality” (they are really not mysteries at all, they just employ death as the plot mistress but are unable to grasp its mystery at all)—well the point is, things were calm down here for a while and the world was little. i want to be big like you. or i want you not vast, not dead, not gone, but human small and here. i am so selfish. that is what i really want. to see you again. to oil your scalp. to hear you walk in the door, say ma i’m home . give me a chance to say welcome home son. or when leaving, don’t forget your hat . what do you wear out there? i wish you could have taken your new shoes with you. i’m so proud of you. i’m sorry for the way you died. i miss you all the time. even before, i missed you. out there, one time, some different men said: “shake for me girl, i wanna be your backdoor man.” who dat you love. 5/18/03 A letter-poem in sixteen lines “dear oluchi-” is safe-housed in epistolary form. Poetic voice is rendered as internal thought meanderings, a not-so-much confession, private/(pillow?) talk in the desire to be heard/witnessed by the referent and reader with an intent to absolve. The diminutive “i” bears a relation to poet Fanny Howe’s “little g God” in that “One of the (many) things I like about little g God is that you can have a vodka tonic while you talk to little g God, sing along to Bowie’s “I’m Afraid Of Americans,” and hum Coltrane’s “A Love Supreme,” though maybe not all at the same time” (Oliver, 2009). Towards the middle of the poem AO is at a used bookstore and remarks on the funny employment of death as a ‘plot mistress’ that ‘they’ (the dubious employed mystery authors) are ‘unable to grasp’, thereby giving death a mouthpiece, a modeling job, something to do to pass the time. from THE VISIBLE UNSEEN When I first saw graffiti, I recognized in it an ugly aesthetic, a dialectics of violence, a distortion of limbs, a hieroglyph. It was only later when I read the names of the dead that I then saw the path of ghosts charted there; its narrative of loss for the visible unseen whose place in history has been fictionalized and rendered unseen under the totalizing glare of history. Inscriptions, traces, specters. Graffiti begs a public face just as ghosts require non-ghosts (humans) to sense them. The “visible unseen” is a game of hide-and-seek between public viewer and graffiti-inscriber, an ephemeral-violent aesthetic on an ephemeral-policed canvas. Graffiti-inscribers already submit to being forgotten, expect to be washed away; perhaps it’s a holy urban mandala created by gangster-type monks without Buddhism. [...] in its refusal to disappear it forces a discourse in the public imagination we are forced to see what we would rather not, to make sense of an encoded language that we cannot read on the level of meaning. it irritates, forces its agency on us, speaks outside and beyond semiotic reach. An epic font-size pervading the public’s imagination, illegible, I could just close my eyes, remain passive, drive past, abandon it beyond reach, push it further away beyond death walls. In Barcelona I watched a clean up crew wash walls with an awesome water hose but I was more intrigued by their bodies; not a distortion of limbs, not hieroglyph but also not entirely legible; the laboring body permanently erasing specters of the city, and of course they knew it was also an invitation for the ghosts to return. Graffiti is death’s little sister, is also an aporia. [...] Graffiti (fr GK -graph(os), something drawn or written, to diagram or chart) attempts to stage the impossible: to erase the essence of its own subjectivity. Graffiti is a cartography of ghosts, a mapping of elegiac rapture (the transporting of a person from one place to another, as in heaven) and rupture (the state of being broken open.) Dwelling is a fiction stasis. [...] The notion of the past as being something done with, a look-back event, inhibits the possibility of reading graffiti as rapture, as rupture. If graffiti posits history as always in the process of becoming undone. [...] Because what is the body, if not also a complex temple, an unstable site through which to negotiate subjects, materiality, economies, gods, and modes of representations? The site where we are all already belated. Graphein meaning “to write.” “Derrida says every archive makes a law, and the law of genre is its own rupture” (Bloch, 39). However, graffiti is an (non/anti)-archive of erasure due to (the politics of) washing out its subjectivity, which only adds onto (or is symptomatic of) its character. The inhibition of “reading graffiti as rapture, as rupture” is partly due to it being a “look-back” event in that it’s process involves scratching through layers to reveal previous specters underneath. Graffiti (as an ancient genre) has always been a thing of ‘becoming undone’, and therefore ‘belated and always in arrival’ (Levitsky). It’s a Dionysian activity done at night with it’s back turned toward us. "The specter [...] is of the visible, but of the invisible visible, it is the visibility of a body which is not present in flesh and blood [...] appearing for vision, to the brightness of day [...] something becomes almost visible which is visible only insofar as it is not visible in flesh and blood. It is a night visibility. As soon as there is a technology of the image, visibility brings night. It incarnates in a night body, it radiates in a night light" (Derrida & Stiegler, 115). (shrink)

À la ligne 35 du fr. 8 de son Poème, Parménide aurait dit, selon le texte transmis par Simplicius : « Sans l'être dans lequel il se trouve exprimé, tu ne trouveras pas le penser. » La difficulte qui consisterait à placer le penser dans l'être disparaît si l'on adopte le texte transmis par Proclus : « Sans l'être, grâce auquel il est exprimé, tu ne trouveras pas le penser. ».

Simone Weil (1909-1943), philosophe reconnue, engagée, mystique, ne laisse personne indifférent. Son année d'enseignement à Bourges (octobre 1935-juin 1936) est une année charnière, un moment de répit dans une courte vie mouvementée. Elle y réfléchit et y médite. Professeur de philosophie, elle a laissé une forte impression sur ses jeunes élèves du lycée de jeunes filles de Bourges. Ce sont ses cours, retrouvés grâce à deux anciennes élèves, que vous lirez dans cet ouvrage.

In this article, I reviewed the passage of the Prodigal Son in the context of the Lukan perspective and the reader then, is referred to Luke 15: 11-31. This parable gives us an image of a loving and forgiving God whose mercy endures forever. This is the greatest love story which presents the depths of God’s love. Several biblical scholars disclose that this parable guides us to new hope by allowing God to love, forgive us and accept his saving love.

This Element presents a philosophical exploration of the concept of the 'model organism' in contemporary biology. Thinking about model organisms enables us to examine how living organisms have been brought into the laboratory and used to gain a better understanding of biology, and to explore the research practices, commitments, and norms underlying this understanding. We contend that model organisms are key components of a distinctive way of doing research. We focus on what makes model organisms an important type of model, (...) and how the use of these models has shaped biological knowledge, including how model organisms represent, how they are used as tools for intervention, and how the representational commitments linked to their use as models affect the research practices associated with them. This title is available as Open Access on Cambridge Core. (shrink)

Cet article propose une édition critique des questions 7-9 de la Lectura sur les Sentences (Oxford, 1332-1333) de Thomas Bradwardine, où sont abordés la grâce et le mérite avant la publication de son monumental De causa Dei en 1344. La plus longue des trois, la question 7, a également été attribuée à Richard FitzRalph. Après avoir examiné les arguments en faveur de l’attribution à Bradwardine, l’article démontre comment le futur archevêque de Cantorbéry commençait seulement à réagir aux tendances pélagiennes dont (...) il avait été témoin l’année précédente. (shrink)

Tracer le panorama de l'apologétique à l'âge classique n'est pas chose facile, tant sont multiples les perspectives philosophiques et diverses les formes littéraires. La tentation est alors grande d'aligner les monographies. Le colloque de Metz (16-18 octobre 2008), dont sont issues les contributions du présent ouvrage, a choisi d'appréhender cette diversité foisonnante et mouvante en la soumettant à une unique approche, la question du croire. Tenant de l'imaginaire et du rationnel, la foi manifeste l'ambition de réaliser la synthèse du sentiment (...) et de la raison. La théologie pascalienne de la grâce fournit des éléments de réponse pour faire cohabiter ces deux principes, constituant le matériau dont d'innombrables apologies se nourriront pendant plus d'un siècle. De 1650 à 1802, de Pascal à Chateaubriand, en contexte catholique comme en contexte protestant, la réflexion est inlassablement reprise sur la possibilité de rendre raison de sa foi à autrui, comme le demande saint Pierre (1 P 3, 15), alors que les progrès de l'histoire, de l'exégèse biblique ou des sciences de la nature en renouvellent les conditions. Mais peu à peu le sujet s'affirme comme la preuve première : son expérience de la foi, le témoignage qu'il en rend, l'espace de parole qu'il ouvre à l'autre, pour mettre ses idées en débat et engager un possible dialogue, sont les nouveaux moyens de la persuasion et de la conversion. (shrink)

I develop and defend the view that subjects are necessarily psychologically able to revise their beliefs in response to relevant counter-evidence. Specifically, subjects can revise their beliefs in response to relevant counter-evidence, given their current psychological mechanisms and skills. If a subject lacks this ability, then the mental state in question is not a belief, though it may be some other kind of cognitive attitude, such as a supposition, an entertained thought, or a pretense. The result is a moderately revisionary (...) view of belief: while most mental states we thought were beliefs are beliefs, some mental states which we thought were beliefs are not beliefs. The argument for this view draws on two key claims: First, subjects are rationally obligated to revise their beliefs in response to relevant counter-evidence. Second, if some subject is rationally obligated to revise one of her mental states, then that subject can revise that mental state, given her current psychological mechanisms and skills. Along the way to defending these claims, I argue that rational obligations can govern activities which reflect on one’s rational character, whether or not those activities are under one’s voluntary control. I also show how the relevant version of epistemic ‘ought’ implies ‘can’ survives an objection which plagues other variants of the principle. (shrink)

Philosophers have long been interested in love and its general role in morality. This volume focuses on and explores the complex relation between love and justice as it appears within loving relationships, between lovers and their wider social context, and the broader political realm. Special attention is paid to the ensuing challenge of understanding and respecting the lovers’ personal autonomy in all three contexts. Accordingly, the essays in this volume are divided into three thematic sections. Section I aims at shedding (...) further light on conceptual and practical issues concerning the compatibility or incompatibility of love and justice within relationships of love. For example, are loving relations inherently unjust? Might love require justice? Or do love and justice belong to distinct moral domains? The essays in Section II consider the relation between the lovers on the one hand and their broader societal environment on the other. Specifically, how exactly are love and impartiality related? Are they compatible or not? Is it unjust to favor one’s beloved? Finally, Section III looks at the political dimensions of love and justice. How, for instance, do various accounts of love inform how we are to relate to our fellow citizens? If love is taken to play an important role in fostering or hindering the development of personal autonomy, what are the political implications that need to be addressed, and how? In addressing these questions, this book engenders a better understanding both of conceptual and practical issues regarding the relation between love, justice, and autonomy as well as their broader societal and political implications. It will be of interest to advanced students and scholars working on the philosophy of love from ethical, political, and psychological angles. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 27.2 (2003) 341-362 [Access article in PDF] Virgin Father and Prodigal Son Stephen Brockmann I IN BOTH THE UNITED STATES and Germany—as well as in much of the rest of the Western world—the baby-boom generation now holds a controlling position in politics, economics, and culture. The election of Bill Clinton (born in 1946) to the Presidency signaled the generational shift in the United States as early (...) as 1992, and that shift was confirmed by the election campaign of 2000, in which both candidates, Al Gore (born in 1948) and George W. Bush (born in 1946), in spite of their differences, represented the same generation. In Germany the political shift in generations did not occur until 1998, when Gerhard Schröder (born slightly before the beginning of the German baby boom, in 1944) defeated Helmut Kohl (born in 1930).Significantly, Kohl is a member of the generation of Germans born during the 1930s and reared during the years of the Third Reich but too young to have played any significant role, either negative or positive, during the Nazi era. No member of this generation born in the 1930s ever became President in the United States, where the generation of World War Two veterans dominated national politics from Eisenhower to George Herbert Walker Bush. However what in America is a "silent generation" has been, in Germany, the generation most closely identified with the success of the Federal Republic of Germany: these were the so-called Flakhelfer (antiaircraft helpers) who had been children during the war. Kohl therefore famously referred to them as having the "grace of late birth," meaning that they, unlike the war veterans, were presumably untouched by any form of collective guilt for Nazi crimes against humanity. Whereas in the United States the Presidency was transferred directly from the World War Two veterans to [End Page 341] baby boomers—and in the case of the two Bush presidencies, literally, albeit indirectly, from father to son—in Germany the transition from the World War Two veterans (particularly former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt) to the baby boomers was interrupted by a long period of domination by the in-between generation of Flakhelfer.In both countries the baby-boom generation represents a significant shift in sensibilities and encompasses the generation involved in student protest and oppositional social movements in the 1960s and 1970s. In the United States these included the anti-Vietnam War movement, the feminist and gay-rights movements, the sexual revolution, the civil-rights movement, and the ecological movement, as well as, on the extreme fringes, terrorist groupings such as the Weather Underground and a great many religious sects and cults. In Germany the baby boomers formed many parallel groups and movements, including antiwar, feminist, ecological, and gay segments, as well as a proliferation of sectarian Marxist political groupings (so-called K-Gruppen, with the "K" meaning "Kommunist"). In the United States, Bill Clinton was an antiwar protester in the 1960s and 1970s, while both Gerhard Schröder and his Green Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer (born in 1948) had participated in left-wing political movements during the same period.In both West Germany and the United States the heyday of protest movements in the 1960s and 1970s signaled a generational split, with younger people—the very generation that is now in power in the two countries—accusing their elders of Machiavellian cynicism, imperialism, patriarchy, and worse. Such accusations can be recalled by the formerly popular slogans "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" in the United States and "Unter den Talaren der Muff von tausend Jahren" ("under the academic regalia the stench of a thousand years") in Germany. The latter slogan was a reference not just to a generalized stodginess on the part of elderly German academics but to Hitler's invocation of a "Thousand-Year Reich;" German students were none-too-subtly suggesting that many of their professors had once been Nazis.The difference in these two slogans—one referring to past and the other to present sins—corresponds to a major distinction between the two baby... (shrink)

Despite the increased prevalence of bioethics research that seeks to use empirical data to answer normative research questions, there is no consensus as to what an appropriate methodology for this would be. This review aims to search the literature, present and critically discuss published Empirical Bioethics methodologies.