The Salters’ Hall controversy was a watershed event in the history of English Dissent. Some historians have interpreted the controversy as an early sign of the theological demise of the English General Baptists and the English Presbyterians. Conversely, the controversy has also been used to demonstrate the theological steadfastness of the English Particular Baptists and Congregationalist in the eighteenth century. Yet some of the earliest accounts of the Salters’ Hall controversy maintain that the controversy was not about the (...) doctrine of the Trinity, but rather the requirement of subscription to extrabiblical words and phrases. This was the view of the revered divine Edmund Calamy, who refused to be involved in the controversy, even at the potential expense of his reputation. Edward Wallin, a Particular Baptist subscriber at Salters’ Hall, held a similar view of the controversy. While some historians acknowledge these accounts, they seem to ultimately doubt their truthfulness. This hesitancy is likely due, in part, to the fact that there were a few anti-Trinitarians among the nonsubscribers at Salters’ Hall. Furthermore, the English General Baptists and the English Presbyterians did deviate from theological orthodoxy later in the century. However, those who question the motives of the Non-subscribers at Salters’ Hall fail to take into account a theologically orthodox, nonsubscribing tradition among the English General Baptists and the English Presbyterians found in the writings of Thomas Grantham and Richard Baxter. In sum, one’s orthodoxy at Salters’ Hall cannot be determined solely on the basis of one’s view of subscription. (shrink)

The philosophical problem of the relation of symbol to truth is far from solved, but there have been significant advances toward its solution. It is the common Christian understanding that God is Truth , and that all truths must ultimately find union in him. This is to say that all genuine truths must be compatible. The true conclusions of genuine science must be compatible with the true conclusions of genuine theology. Or, to bring this general statement to a more particular (...) level, the true conclusions of Biblical scholarship must be compatible with the true conclusions of the natural sciences. When this compatibility is lacking, and it so often is, we must assume that the conclusions of one field of truth-seeking or the other do not partake of the Truth which is God. And there is no guarantee that theology as a field of truth-seeking cannot err. Another characteristic of genuine truth is that it is not dependent upon any particular environment or milieu —either social, cultural, philosophical, or even theological. Unless we are to make the common but dangerous division of sacred and secular, of holy and profane, claim that these areas of human experience have nothing to do the one with the other, compartmentalise our thought, and ask, ‘What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?’, it must be concluded that there is no one specifically Christian milieu . Genuine truths must be true at all times, in all places, and for all men. But since we are not gods, we must hold these truths in what St Paul called earthen vessels , vessels shaped and moulded by our particular milieu. (shrink)

In virtue of what does a representational state have the content it does? Several philosophers have recently proposed that a representational state gets its content from its biological function. After explaining the sense of biological function used in these views, I criticise the proposal. I argue that biological function only determines representational content up to extensional equivalence. I maintain that this holds even if biological function is defined in terms of an intensional notion like Sober's "selection for".

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:William James, A Pluralistic Universe. A New Philosophical ReadingRichard A. S. Hall William James, A Pluralistic Universe. A New Philosophical Reading. Ed. H. G. Callaway. Newcastle, U.K.: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008.In 1907 William James was invited to give the Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College, Oxford. Initially he was reluctant to do so since he feared undertaking them would divert him from developing rigorously and systematically some metaphysical (...) ideas of his own that had preoccupied him for some time. [End Page 130]In the end, however, he relented and in the spring of 1908 gave the lectures which were subsequently published as A Pluralistic Universe.As it happened, though, in the course of these lectures James presented some of those metaphysical ideas, though in a popular and informal style appropriate to lecturing. Later on he did get down to working out a systematic metaphysics in proper academic style, but the project was cut short by his untimely death in 1910. The incomplete Some Problems of Philosophy,posthumously published in 1911, recapitulates some major themes of A Pluralistic Universe.When James addressed his Oxford audience, the time was ripe for the advancement of his own brand of metaphysical pluralism and radical empiricism in opposition to the still-regnant forms of monistic idealism as represented by Bradley, Green, and Royce. The hegemony in the philosophical world long enjoyed by idealism was beginning to break up—something noted by James in his first lecture—due in no small part to the very ideas aired in his lectures and the then newly emerging schools of pragmatism and realism. The period between 1914 and 1918 not only rings the death knell of European imperialism but also, significantly, marks the watershed between nineteenth-and twentieth-century philosophy.The argument of A Pluralistic Universerevolves around the Parmenidean conundrum of the one-and-the-many. It is the solution to this problem that was the main bone of contention between James and absolute idealists like F. H. Bradley, T. H. Green, and Josiah Royce. For them, the world in reality is but one thing, though appearing illusorily as many, with a pervasive unity throughout—it is a "block-universe," to use James's expression for it; for James, by contrast, the world is irreducibly many things whose unities are partial and shifting. The gravamen of James's objections to absolute idealism was its monism, though he objected no less strenuously to other ideas associated with it: its doctrine of internal relations; its determinism; and, in particular, its deprecation of experience in favor of concepts (what James condemns as "vicious intellectualism"). James proposed, against this monolithic idealism, the alternative hypothesis of metaphysical pluralism. Here he affirmed the reality of external relations (particularly conjunctions) among things and the continuities within experience, thereby making his empiricism "radical." He approached experience phenomenologically, finding it, not concepts, to be constitutive of reality, the value of concepts being more practical than theoretical. He conceived of the universe as being open-ended, where human agency can make a difference for the better.A subtext of A Pluralistic Universeis James's advocacy of something like [End Page 131]traditional theism in contradistinction to the pantheism of absolute idealism. He rightly notes that the Absolute is not the God of Christianity. He believes that his pluralistic ontology allows for, and the religious experiences of people abundantly attest to, the existence of a personal God, albeit a finite one, with whom communion and commerce is possible. At a deeper, psychological level, though, A Pluralistic Universeis an expression of James's own desire to feel "at home" in the universe, a desire, I should add, that he shares with many protagonists of classic American fiction, and which is perhaps intensified by the experience of inhabiting and accommodating one's self to the relatively unfamiliar New World. He complains about the "foreignness" of the Absolute in objective idealism and of that sovereign God, in traditional theisms, subsisting beyond all human influence or effects.Howard Callaway's recent edition of James's Hibbert Lectures joins the Harvard edition of them, with a foreword by Richard J. Bernstein, as an indispensable volume of James's... (shrink)

The focus of this book is Royce's imaginative proposal to preserve world peace by virtue of international insurance and his reasons for choice of insurance as an instrument of peace. He attempted to combine the art of statistics with the precepts of insurance as a means to craft a scheme for international peace.

This book (1) explains how just war theory variously presupposes ethical theories and, particularly, natural law; (2) shows how issues in just war theory might be resolved differently depending on which ethical theory is being appealed to in their proposed resolution; and (3) resolves conflicts among these resolutions.

In his list of essential reading, Richard Baxter includes a section on “affectionate practical English writers.” Among others, he mentions George Swinnock. While essentially forgotten today, Swinnock's contemporaries held him in high esteem as a skilful physician of the soul. The focus of this article is Swinnock's view of Scripture meditation as necessary for bridging the gap between head and heart in Christian experience. He encourages his readers to “retire out of the world's company, to converse with the (...) word of God.” He believes this “conversing” warms the heart, causing it to “boil with love” for God. With that basic premise in view, this article is organized around three main sections. The first establishes Swinnock's place in the Puritan meditative tradition, stretching back to Joseph Hall. The second analyzes Swinnock's faculty-focused approach to meditation, whereby it begins in the understanding, extends to the affections, and ends in the will, resulting in practical knowledge. The third section considers Swinnock's teaching on the role of the Holy Spirit in Scripture meditation. As with the other means of grace, meditation is ultimately dependent upon the Holy Spirit to work through it and along with it directly upon the faculties of the soul. The article concludes with Swinnock's threefold approach to transformative Scripture meditation. (shrink)

Ideal for anyone involved in the study of criminal justice, this book acquaints students with the philosophical concepts upon which ethical theory is based. It applies these ideas to specific issues and dilemmas within the criminal justice system. Its ultimate goal is to acquaint students with basic concepts of ethics in criminal justice and to train the mind to solve moral issues independently. The Ethical Foundations of Criminal Justice offers a comprehensive definition of ethics, and elucidates its unique language and (...) logic. The book explores the major ethical theories, with extensive discussion of authorities like Kant, Aristotle, Mill, and Hobbes. Chapters investigate normative ethics, teleological theories, deontological theories, and the alternative theories of ethics. The author exhibits the practice of these theories in actual matters of rights, the law, and the behavior of the courts. This book addresses ethics in the context of civil liability, police corruption, and abuse of police power, and includes numerous case studies and references to other relevant works. Criminal justice majors, criminology and law school students, and even police academy cadets will find this text an invaluable source of information both for academic studies and real-world applications. (shrink)

Many bodily sensations are connected quite closely with specific actions: itches with scratching, for example, and hunger with eating. Indeed, these connections have the feel of conceptual connections. With the exception of D. M. Armstrong, philosophers have largely neglected this aspect of bodily sensations. In this paper, I propose a theory of bodily sensations that explains these connections. The theory ascribes intentional content to bodily sensations but not, strictly speaking, representational content. Rather, the content of these sensations is an imperative: (...) in the case of itches, 'Scratch!' The view avoids non-intentional qualia and hence accords with what could be called, generalizing Lycan slightly, the 'hegemony of intentionality'. (shrink)

Jonathan Edwards and William James were preoccupied with religion, and both responded in print, and profoundly, to religious crises in their own cultures: Edwards wrote his Treatise on Religious Affections in response to the hysteria and factionalism spawned by the Great Awakening, and James his Varieties of Religious Experience in reaction to the crisis in faith afflicting his generation. Edwards in Religious Affections provides a model of emotional religion that is neither anti-intellectual nor fanatical, whereas James in Varieties reveals that (...) religion is intellectually respectable and occupies a rightful place in the economy of life. Though disagreeing as to the letter of religion, both agree as to its spirit. Both understand religion to be essentially experiential and emotional, though not excluding the intellect. They alike assign an important role to reason in the religious life. And, significantly, they concur that religion is ultimately validated by the behavior of its adherents. (shrink)

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version. Open access article.

The standard adaptationist explanation of the presence of a sensory mechanism in an organism--that it detects properties useful to the organism--cannot be given for color vision. This is because colors do not exist. After arguing for this latter claim, I consider, but reject, nonadaptationist explanations. I conclude by proposing an explanation of how color vision could have adaptive value even though it does not detect properties in the environment.

The standard adaptationist explanation of the presence of a sensory mechanism in an organism—that it detects properties useful to the organism—cannot be given for color vision. This is because colors do not exist. After arguing for this latter claim, I consider, but reject, nonadaptationist explanations. I conclude by proposing an explanation of how color vision could have adaptive value even though it does not detect properties in the environment.

Higher education is increasingly unable to engage usefully with global emergencies, as its functions are repurposed for value. Discourses of entrepreneurship, impact and excellence, realised through competition and the market, mean that academics and students are increasingly alienated from themselves and their work. This book applies Marx’s concept of alienation to the realities of academic life in the Global North, in order to explore how the idea of public education is subsumed under the law of value. In a landscape of (...) increased commodification of higher education, the book explores the relationship between alienation and crisis, before analysing how academic knowledge, work, identity and life are themselves alienated. Finally, it argues that through indignant struggle, another world is possible, grounded in alternative forms of organising life and producing socially-useful knowledge, ultimately requiring the abolition of academic labour. This pioneering work will be of interest and value to all those working in the higher education sector, as well as those concerned with the rise of neoliberalism and marketization within universities. (shrink)

Can the physicalist consistently hold that representational content is all there is to sensory experience and yet that two perceivers could have inverted phenomenal spectra? Yes, if he holds that the phenomenal properties the inverts experience are dummy properties, not instantiated in the physical objects being perceived nor in the perceivers.

Let us assume that some organisms, humans at least and the other higher animals, have internal states and behavioral states that represent things external to themselves. One of the questions that everyone would like answered about these states is: In virtue of what does such a representational state get the specific content that it has? An answer to this question that’s popular just now is: In virtue of its biological function. I believe there is a deep reason why such an (...) answer can’t work. I shall present that reason in this paper.First, we need to be clear about the notion of biological function that’s being appealed to here. In particular, we need to distinguish two fairly different ways of thinking about function. We could think of something’s function as what it contributes to the present functioning or output of some complex system of which it is a part. Roughly, this is Cummins’ view in (Cummins 1984). (shrink)

The ‘learning community’ is an important theme within the move to an information age. This article argues that the empowering elements of such communities are fundamental to higher education. However, a better understanding of what they entail is required by teachers. The author reflects upon current thinking about collaborative learning and communities of practice, and highlights how userinvolvement in curriculum design and delivery can promote fuller engagement with the learning process. The findings of a three-year Higher Education Funding Council for (...) England-funded initiative to implement and evaluate online teaching/learning in humanities and arts departments are analysed in order to illustrate the possibilities for learning and teaching innovation that learning communities can offer. (shrink)

Objective: There is a demonstrated link between the mental health and substance use comorbidities experienced by young adults, however the vast majority of psychological interventions are disorder specific. Novel psychological approaches that adequately acknowledge the psychosocial complexity and transdiagnostic needs of vulnerable young people are urgently needed. A modular skills-based program for emotion regulation and impulse control addresses this gap. The current one armed open trial was designed to evaluate the impact that 12 weeks exposure to ERIC alongside usual care (...) had on young people's ability to regulate emotions, as well as examine potential moderating mechanisms.Methods: Seventy nine young people were enrolled to the 12 week intervention period. Twenty one practitioners from youth and community health services delivered relevant ERIC modules adjunct to usual care. Linear mixed effects regression was used to examine change over time across the primary outcome of emotion dysregulation and secondary outcomes of depression, anxiety, stress, experiential avoidance and mindfulness. Moderation analyses were conducted to test whether the magnitude of change in emotion dysregulation moderated change over time in secondary outcomes.Results: Analyses revealed significant improvement in the primary outcome of emotion dysregulation with a moderate effect size, in addition to decreases in the secondary outcomes of depression, anxiety, stress and experiential avoidance. No improvements in mindfulness were reported. Moderation analyses revealed that the residualised change over time in emotion dysregulation moderated the change over time in symptoms of distress, depression, anxiety, stress, experiential avoidance, and mindfulness.Conclusion: Reductions in the severity of emotion dysregulation, depression, anxiety, stress and experiential avoidance are promising, and were evident despite the complexity of the participants and the diversity of the service setting. The improvements found in each outcome were only observed for those young people whose emotion regulation also improved, providing preliminary evidence for the role of emotion regulation as a key treatment target in this population. (shrink)