Economic inequality is one of the most daunting challenges of our time, with public debate often turning to questions of whether it is an inevitable outcome of economic systems and what, if anything, can be done about it. But why, exactly, should inequality worry us? The Greatest of All Plagues demonstrates that this underlying question has been a central preoccupation of some of the most eminent political thinkers of the Western intellectual tradition. David Lay Williams shares bold new (...) perspectives on the writings and ideas of Plato, Jesus, Thomas Hobbes, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, and Karl Marx. He shows how they describe economic inequality as a source of political instability and a corrupter of character and soul, and how they view unchecked inequality as a threat to their most cherished values, such as justice, faith, civic harmony, peace, democracy, and freedom. Williams draws invaluable insights into the societal problems generated by what Plato called "the greatest of all plagues," and examines the solutions employed through the centuries. An eye-opening work of intellectual history, The Greatest of All Plagues recovers a forgotten past for some of the most timeless books in the Western canon, revealing how economic inequality has been a paramount problem throughout the history of political thought. (shrink)

Introduction -- "Every Legitimate Government is Republican": Rousseau's Debt to and Departure from Montesquieu on Republicanism -- What if There is no Legislator? Rousseau's History of the Government of Geneva -- Rousseau's Republican Citizenship: The Moral Psychology of The Social Contract -- Rousseau's negative liberty: Themes of domination and skepticism in The Social Contract -- Rousseau's Ancient Ends of Legislation: Liberty, Equality (& Fraternity) -- Property and Possession in Rousseau's Social Contract -- Political Equality Among Unequals -- On the Primacy (...) of Peoplehood: Nations and Nationalism in Rousseau's Social Contract -- Rousseau on Voting and Electoral Laws -- Rousseau and the puzzle of the Roman Republic -- Rousseau's Case against Democracy -- Rousseau's Dilemma or "Of Civil Religion" -- Entreating the Political: Politics and Theology in Rousseau's Social Contract -- Civil Religion and Political Unity: Social Contract 4.8. (shrink)

This introduction to the review symposium on Ryan Patrick Hanley’s works on the relatively neglected early modern philosopher François Fénelon provides a brief overview of the symposium itself before turning to Hanley’s treatment of Fénelon’s work on the intersection of politics and religion, culminating in a comparison of Fénelon with his most celebrated admirer, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The article sketches how both francophone thinkers employ conceptions of divine justice as a measure to counter the dangers of amour-propre, contrasting Fénelon’s thick theology (...) with Rousseau’s thin theology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Justice and the General Will:Affirming Rousseau's Ancient OrientationDavid Lay WilliamsThere is much confusion about how to characterize the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. His thought has at various times been related to such dissimilar thinkers as Plato and Hobbes. From Plato he is said to have acquired his affinities for community and civic virtue. And one does not have to look too hard to find his praise for the great (...) sage of the Academy: "Plato only purified the heart of man."1 He was often eager to affiliate his ideas with those of antiquity. He yearned for modern society to rekindle the flames of a once-great civilization. "[W]hat keeps us [the moderns] from being men like them [the ancients]? Our prejudices, our base philosophy, and the passions of petty self-interest, concentrated together with egoism in all hearts by inept institutions in which genius never had any share."2 Despite his obvious admiration for the perceived greater ideas of the past, however, Rousseau also expressed some skepticism. James Miller has suggested that he held Plato's theory of the Forms to be unsustainable.3 Allan Bloom has likewise argued that Rousseau's "teaching is not... a revival of those of Plato.... If he admires the practice of antiquity, he does not accept the theory."4This has led many to argue that Rousseau is best understood as student of Thomas Hobbes. Roger D. Masters, for example, has suggested that "Rousseau's principles of political right can... be best described as a reformulation [End Page 383] of Hobbes' conception of the social contract."5 Arthur Melzer also argues, "The purpose of the doctrine Rousseau elaborates in the Social Contract is essentially the same [as Hobbes']."6 This view is argued on the grounds that the General Will is a positive or arbitrary standard, functioning as the primary principle of Rousseau's constructive political program. Yet the vision of Rousseau as a Hobbesian or modernist also merits skepticism. While he employs a social contract, as does Hobbes, he explicitly rejects traditional forms of positivism. "What is good and conformable to order is so by the nature of things and independently of human conventions."7 Whatever one might say about such passages, it at least raises the possibility that Rousseau is no modernist in the Straussian sense of defining Justice as human agreement.Much of what contributes to the conflicting interpretations of Rousseau can be attributed to different understandings of the relative priority and relationship of two central concepts in his writings. One of these is the well-discussed notion of the General Will. The dominant fashion is to read the General Will as a conventional substitute for natural law or transcendent Ideas. According to this reading, the General Will is grounded on nothing more than consent and functions as the first principle of all legitimate political societies. The other term central to Rousseau's program is the far less discussed but equally important concept of Justice. Little has been written on his understanding of Justice and, for that matter, he himself rarely discussed it explicitly. But it, too, could also be considered a primary principle. While it would be foolish to dismiss the importance of the General Will to Rousseau, it would be equally problematic to explore it independently of his Idea of Justice. The question in understanding his work is which of these two principles—the General Will or Justice—is primary or fundamental. If it is the General Will, a case can be made that the Straussians are right, and Rousseau is a positivist. If Justice is prior, on the other hand, then there is reason to believe that he was something much different.I argue that the positivist reading of Rousseau is flawed. Indeed, my thesis is that he is among the greatest and most thorough Platonists of the modern era.8 His rejection of Hobbes is not merely rhetorical. In fact, it represents the [End Page 384] true impetus of his social contract. This contract is designed explicitly to counter Hobbesian positivism. In the same way that Plato responds to Protagoras' positivism with his theory of the Forms, Rousseau responds to Hobbes... (shrink)

If the greatness of a philosophical work can be measured by the volume and vehemence of the public response, there is little question that Rousseau's Social Contract stands out as a masterpiece. Within a week of its publication in 1762 it was banished from France. Soon thereafter, Rousseau fled to Geneva, where he saw the book burned in public. At the same time, many of his contemporaries, such as Kant, considered Rousseau to be 'the Newton of the moral world', as (...) he was the first philosopher to draw attention to the basic dignity of human nature. The Social Contract has never ceased to be read and debated in the 250 years since its publication. Rousseau's Social Contract: An Introduction offers a thorough and systematic tour of this notoriously paradoxical and challenging text. David Lay Williams offers readers a chapter-by-chapter reading of the Social Contract, squarely confronting these interpretive obstacles. The book also features a special extended appendix dedicated to outlining Rousseau's famous conception of the general will, which has been the object of controversy since the Social Contract's publication in 1762. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 42.2 (2004) 224-225 [Access article in PDF] Ross Harrison. Hobbes, Locke, and Confusion's Masterpiece: An Examination of Seventeenth-Century Political Philosophy. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Pp. v + 281. Cloth, $65.00. Paper, $23.00. The title of Ross Harrison's book is taken from Macduff's line in Macbeth, "[c]onfusion now have made his masterpiece," in reference to the discovery of a murdered king. Regicide (...) was a particularly unsettling crime in the day of Shakespeare, as Harrison reminds us, since kings were often associated with divinity (2). And perhaps it was their obvious and fragile mortality, as witnessed by the killing of King Charles I, that served to further unsettle what had previously been taken for granted in the modern world—the very foundations of the state. Today, Jürgen Habermas informs us from the perspective of critical theory that we live in a "postmetaphysical condition," where we can no longer count on the apparatus of Christian natural law or Platonic Ideas to justify the state and its laws. Practically, the difficulty in Iraq of bringing together the various religious perspectives of Sunnis, Shiites, Kurds, Christians, and others suggests that different religions or even varying interpretations of the same religion provide formidable barriers to the foundation of political systems. How do we bring people of different worldviews and perspectives together into one state? The great virtue of Harrison's book is the reminder that this is not a new problem. Rather, it resides at the core of the greatest challenges for political philosophy in any age. This challenge inspires what Harrison calls "some of the greatest and most important political philosophy ever written" (1).Thomas Hobbes is the first to receive extensive attention. Harrison provides a careful step-by-step analysis of Hobbes's reasoning in Leviathan. His affection for Hobbes is thinly veiled, as he parenthetically refers to Leviathan as "the greatest work of the greatest political philosopher" (62). Much of his account is standard, as he skillfully walks the reader from Hobbes's fascination with science to the sweeping authority of the sovereign. What is particularly worthy of note is his attention to the matter of foundations in Hobbes. Here his characterization reminds us of the eternality of Hobbes's central problem: "... how in a sceptical age to make statements of human reason that can depend on something fixed, or generally agreed" (64). Having found God superfluous to the question, according to Harrison, Hobbes ultimately employs prudence in relation to self-interest to be this fixed object. Since prudence—particularly its response to threats of violence—is the one element shared by all peoples, regardless of their religious or moral commitments, it makes the most sturdy foundation of political reasoning.The second object of extended attention is John Locke. And as was the case with his treatment of Hobbes, Harrison again looks to the foundations. As most readers of Locke are aware, the law of nature plays a central role in his thought, and if one is to get to the foundations of his politics, then one must unravel its mysteries. Locke makes solving these mysteries difficult for readers by denying the existence of innate ideas in the Essay. Locke makes his own task of grounding his theory difficult by doing just the same—denying the existence of innate ideas. Grounding natural law is made even more troublesome by his apparent appeals to these very same innate ideas on two occasions in the Second Treatise (§11, §136). It is perhaps in his own confusion that, according to Harrison, he "falls back, [End Page 224] after all, on revelation" (180). This is particularly unsatisfactory for Harrison, since revelation is characterized by the indeterminacy that led to the political conflict between Protestants and Catholics in modern England and eventually to the works of Hobbes and Locke in the first place.Shorter chapters are devoted to Grotius, Pufendorf, and the less-celebrated sixteenth-century figure, John Ponet. Ponet is found to appeal... (shrink)

Although many commentators on Rousseau’s philosophy have noted its affinities with Platonism and acknowledged the debt that Rousseau himself expressed to Plato on numerous occasions, David Williams is the first to offer a thoroughgoing, systematic examination of this linkage. His contributions to the scholarship on Rousseau in this book are threefold: he enters the debate over whether Rousseau is a Hobbesian or a Platonist with a decisive argument supporting the latter position; he tackles from a new angle the (...) ever-challenging question of unity in Rousseau’s thought; and he explores the dynamic metaphor of the chain throughout Rousseau’s writings as a key to understanding them as inspired by Platonism. The book is organized into three main parts. The first sketches the background of Platonism and materialist positivism in modern European metaphysics and political philosophy that provided the context for Rousseau’s intellectual development. The second examines Rousseau’s choice of Platonism over positivism and its consequences for his philosophy generally. The third addresses the legacy of Rousseau’s thought and its appropriation by Kant, Marx, and Foucault, suggesting that in an age where materialism and relativism are rife, Rousseau may have much to teach us about how we view our own society and can engage in constructive critique of it. (shrink)

While Thomas Hobbes is not typically cited as a philosopher concerned with economic inequality, there is a great deal of evidence in his writings to suggest that he was aware of inequality and worried about its effects on the commonwealth. This essay first contextualizes Hobbes in the development of the 17th-century English political economy to understand the mercantilist milieu that might have shaped Hobbes’s thoughts. Second, it then explores Hobbes’s thoughts on wealth, poverty, and inequality, as outlined in his major (...) political works – revealing distinctively Hobbesian grounds for understanding these phenomena. Third and finally, it explores Hobbes’s constructive political philosophy for means by which he might offer prescriptions for addressing them. (shrink)

Although many commentators on Rousseau’s philosophy have noted its affinities with Platonism and acknowledged the debt that Rousseau himself expressed to Plato on numerous occasions, David Williams is the first to offer a thoroughgoing, systematic examination of this linkage. His contributions to the scholarship on Rousseau in this book are threefold: he enters the debate over whether Rousseau is a Hobbesian or a Platonist with a decisive argument supporting the latter position; he tackles from a new angle the (...) ever-challenging question of unity in Rousseau’s thought; and he explores the dynamic metaphor of the chain throughout Rousseau’s writings as a key to understanding them as inspired by Platonism. The book is organized into three main parts. The first sketches the background of Platonism and materialist positivism in modern European metaphysics and political philosophy that provided the context for Rousseau’s intellectual development. The second examines Rousseau’s choice of Platonism over positivism and its consequences for his philosophy generally. The third addresses the legacy of Rousseau’s thought and its appropriation by Kant, Marx, and Foucault, suggesting that in an age where materialism and relativism are rife, Rousseau may have much to teach us about how we view our own society and can engage in constructive critique of it. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Terrorism is perhaps the greatest challenge of the contemporary age. Of all the canonical figures in political theory, Thomas Hobbes is the most likely candidate to offer genuine insight into this problem. Yet although his analysis of the state of nature is immediately relevant to the diagnosis of this problem, his metaphysics cannot sustain his politics. His aspiration to “immutable” natural laws grounded in the universal motivation of the fear of death crumble when this fear is no longer universal. (...) When terrorists are inspired by a religious ideology that makes them willing to die for their beliefs—and when they benefit from other asymmetries with the civilian populations against which they are arrayed—Hobbes the theorist of war and international relations becomes less relevant than Hobbes the prescriber of “rational” (fearfully pacific) human nature. (shrink)

This essay clarifies Patrick Riley’s account of G. W. Leibniz by placing Leibniz’s moral and political doctrines in historical perspective. By understanding Leibniz’s practical philosophy as a solution to the same problems confronted by Thomas Hobbes, one can appreciate the originality and appeal of Riley’s Leibniz — with its emphasis on benevolence and Platonic ideas. By drawing attention to Leibniz’s practical works, Riley has resurrected an important voice in the history of political thought that had been long neglected. The essay (...) concludes with some personal remarks about Riley’s own Leibnizian charity. (shrink)

This essay clarifies Patrick Riley’s account of G. W. Leibniz by placing Leibniz’s moral and political doctrines in historical perspective. By understanding Leibniz’s practical philosophy as a solution to the same problems confronted by Thomas Hobbes, one can appreciate the originality and appeal of Riley’s Leibniz — with its emphasis on benevolence and Platonic ideas. By drawing attention to Leibniz’s practical works, Riley has resurrected an important voice in the history of political thought that had been long neglected. The essay (...) concludes with some personal remarks about Riley’s own Leibnizian charity. (shrink)

This essay clarifies Patrick Riley’s account of G. W. Leibniz by placing Leibniz’s moral and political doctrines in historical perspective. By understanding Leibniz’s practical philosophy as a solution to the same problems confronted by Thomas Hobbes, one can appreciate the originality and appeal of Riley’s Leibniz — with its emphasis on benevolence and Platonic ideas. By drawing attention to Leibniz’s practical works, Riley has resurrected an important voice in the history of political thought that had been long neglected. The essay (...) concludes with some personal remarks about Riley’s own Leibnizian charity. (shrink)

In the founding documents of this country one finds appeals both to the sovereignty of the people and to abstract notions of rights, "justice," and "the common good". These two ideas are evoked almost as if there were no sense on behalf of the framers that these two ideas simultaneously held create a philosophic tension. Yet as history informs us, they are often contradictory in content. This theme was explored by Rousseau in his distinction of the general will versus the (...) will of all. For Rousseau, the answer to political legitimacy was simple: it was found in the general will, the embodiment of transcendent political ideas. ;Rousseau's choice is one which mirrors that of the American founders. And in doing so they have taken a necessary step in law and state formation: the appeal to Platonism. But, ironically, this appeal does not mean that the popular will has no place in the law. In fact, a careful reading of Plato will render precisely the opposite conclusion: that a sound state built upon transcendent ideas must take into account a number of important empirical considerations, perhaps most significant among these being the will of the people. These ideas are not, however, the determinate Forms from the Phaedo, but rather the indeterminate concepts which guide the Athenian Stranger in his construction of the constitution of Magnesia in the Laws. Given this ontological characteristic of the Forms, the author of a state must have a broad understanding of empirical circumstances including human nature, while serving the demands of the universal ideas. In this light, one must realize that the law will be of no service to its highest aspirations unless it can be written in a manner that the people will act in accordance with it But the lawgiver also relies on this body for the articulation of the higher ideas. Thus the people are at once an obstacle to and a conduit of a higher law. To the extent, however, that democratic theory fails to confront its foundations in such a manner, it becomes mired in confusion. (shrink)

Although it originated in theological debates, the general will ultimately became one of the most celebrated and denigrated concepts emerging from early modern political thought. Jean-Jacques Rousseau made it the central element of his political theory, and it took on a life of its own during the French Revolution, before being subjected to generations of embrace or opprobrium. James Farr and David Lay Williams have collected for the first time a set of essays that track the evolving history (...) of the general will from its origins to recent times. The General Will: The Evolution of a Concept discusses the general will's theological, political, formal, and substantive dimensions with a careful eye toward the concept's virtues and limitations as understood by its expositors and critics, among them Arnauld, Pascal, Malebranche, Leibniz, Locke, Spinoza, Montesquieu, Kant, Constant, Tocqueville, Adam Smith and John Rawls. (shrink)

This classroom edition includes _On the Social Contract_, the _Discourse on the Sciences and the Arts_, the _Discourse on the Origins of Inequality_, and the Preface to _Narcissus_. Each text has been newly translated and includes a full complement of explanatory notes. The editors’ introduction offers students diverse points of entry into some of the distinctive possibilities and challenges of each of these fundamental texts, as well as an introduction to Rousseau’s life and historical situation. The volume also includes annotated (...) appendices that help students to explore the origins and influences of Rousseau’s work, including excerpts from Hobbes, Pascal, Descartes, Mandeville, Diderot, Voltaire, Madame de Staël, Benjamin Constant, Joseph de Maistre, Kant, Hegel, and Engels. (shrink)

By closely examining the sources, movements, and persons of the Renaissance and the Reformation, Voegelin reveals the roots of today's political ideologies in this fourth volume of his _History of Political Ideas._ This insightful study lays the groundwork for Voegelin's critique of the modern period and is essential to an understanding of his later analysis. Voegelin identifies not one but two distinct beginnings of the movement toward modern political consciousness: the Renaissance and the Reformation. Historically, however, the powerful effects of (...) the second have overshadowed the first. In this book, Voegelin carefully examines both periods and their presence in modern thought. The Renaissance, represented by the works of Niccolò Machiavelli, Desiderius Erasmus, and Thomas More, is characterized by a struggle for balance. Machiavelli and Erasmus both looked to a virtuous prince to achieve order, one calling for brute force and the other for Christian spirituality to reach their goal. Also a participant in the first beginning of modernity, More was a complex thinker identified as a saint both of the church and of the communist movement. The issues he explored in _Utopia,_ as Voegelin demonstrates, indirectly gave rise to concepts that have profoundly affected Western history: colonization, imperialism, national socialism, and communism. Exploring the transition from the Renaissance to the Reformation is a brilliant chapter, "The People of God," which examines the sectarian movement. These pages contain the rich historical background that led to Voegelin's later conclusions about Gnosticism and its modern influences. Voegelin offers a controversial view of the Reformation as well as the political and religious situation directly preceding it. Yet he sheds light on the strengths and inadequacies of its key figures, Martin Luther and John Calvin. The driving force behind the Reformation stemmed solely from the powerful personality of Luther. What began as an abstract, purely technical discussion developed into a full-blown revolt. Later in the period, Calvin confronted the problems left behind by Luther and endeavored to create his own universal church to supplant the Catholic Church. His theory of a new elite would have a distinct impact on history. By examining the political ideas that first emerged during the Renaissance and Reformation, this fascinating volume provides a foundation for understanding the events of centuries to follow. (shrink)

This book, first published in 1989, contains a spirited debate between eminent economists, journalists, and publishers about the spread of economic ideas. Using many of the same ideas as do the rhetorical and sociological philosophical schools, the contributors to this book discuss the spread of economic ideas in readily understandable English. The examination of the flow of ideas among economists and from economists to the public is followed by a discussion of the public policy use and abuse of these concepts. (...) A final section provides insights into the funding of ideas and the incentives to make economics more relevant. The dialogue among the book's contributors provides both the lay reader and the interested professional with fascinating insights into what happens behind the scenes in academia, publishing, and journalism. (shrink)

On Exceeding Determination and the Ideal of Reason: Immanuel Kant, William Desmond, and the Noumenological Principle examines the critical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, as it bears on theological principles. Focusing on the foundational ideas (of self, world, and God) that constitute Kant's metaphysical system, Shaw argues that these ideal projections of the rational structures of the thinking subject only conceal and obfuscate the more robust sense of the real that exists behind all phenomenal appearances. This book aims to critically assess (...) the theological content presented in the philosophy of Kant whilst reconstructing and developing some of Kant's more obscure points on the epistemological limitations of pure reason and the borders of knowledge itself. Shaw draws into dialogue with the writings of the contemporary philosopher William Desmond to demonstrate some of the problems of Kantian thought when it comes to the deeper mysteries of being. Desmondian philosophy proves to be a powerful influence over much of this work, as Shaw advances upon the delicate nexus where philosophy and theology convene. As a bold addition to this work, Shaw lays the groundwork for a new discourse in theology and the philosophy of religion: "Noumenology". Noumenology, which is Shaw's response to the deficiencies in methods concerning many of the modern approaches to phenomenology, is a call for the recalibration of the starting point for eidetic inquiry through the proposal of a non-discursive approach to the sensible, emotional, and intellectual - or perhaps, the all together spiritual. To accomplish this, Shaw reaches back to Kant for a heterodox approach to the language and content surrounding the noumenonal to set forth his theological interpretation of the "Noumenological Principle". (shrink)

The attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 was a tragic illustration of the existential threat that the viral spread of disinformation poses in the age of social media and twenty-four-hour news. From climate change denialism to the frenzied conspiracy theories and racist mythologies that fuel antidemocratic white nationalist movements in the United States and abroad, What Would Cervantes Do? is a lucid meditation on the key role the humanities must play in dissecting and combatting all forms of (...) disinformation. David Castillo and William Egginton travel back to the early modern period, the first age of inflationary media, in search of historically tested strategies to overcome disinformation and shed light on our post-truth market. Through a series of critical conversations between cultural icons of the twenty-first century and those of the Spanish Golden Age, What Would Cervantes Do? provides a tour-de-force commentary on current politics and popular culture. Offering a diverse range of Cervantist comparative readings of contemporary cultural texts – movies, television shows, and infotainment – alongside ideas and issues from literary and cultural texts of early modern Spain, Castillo and Egginton present a new way of unpacking the logic of contemporary media. What Would Cervantes Do? is an urgent and timely self-help manual for literary scholars and humanists of all stripes, and a powerful toolkit for reality literacy. (shrink)

In “The logic of deep disagreements” (Informal Logic, 1985), Robert Fogelin claimed that there is a kind of disagreement – deep disagreement – which is, by its very nature, impervious to rational resolution. He further claimed that these two views are attributable to Wittgenstein. Following an exposition and discussion of that claim, we review and draw some lessons from existing responses in the literature to Fogelin’s claims. In the final two sections (6 and 7) we explore the role reason can, (...) and sometimes does, play in the resolution of deep disagreements. In doing this we discuss a series of cases, mainly drawn from Wittgenstein, which we take to illustrate the resolution of deep disagreements through the use of what we call “rational persuasion.” We conclude that, while the role of argumentation in “normal” versus “deep” disagreements is characteristically different, it plays a crucial role in the resolution of both. (shrink)

We comment that covariances between brain divisions may be constraining or facilitating, depending on what is being selected, and that modern quantitative genetic methods provide the tools to discover and manipulate the genetic networks that give rise to the covariances described in the target article.

A stellar group of philosophers offer new works on themes from the great philosophy of Wittgenstein, honoring one of his most eminent interpreters David Pears. This collection covers both the early and the later work of Wittgenstein, relating it to current debates in philosophy. Topics discussed include solipsism, ostension, rules, necessity, privacy, and consciousness.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.This work is in the public domain in (...) the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Remembering Grayson Douglas Browning (1929–2023)Gregory Pappas, David Hildebrand, and William T. MyersBrowning, Grayson Douglas was born on March 7, 1929, in Seminole, Oklahoma.He received his PhD from the University Texas, Austin, 1958, where he returned later in 1972 to become its Philosophy Department chairman for four years.He was president of the Southwestern Philosophical Association in 1977, of the Florida Philosophical Association in 1967, and of the Southern Society (...) for Philosophy and Psychology in 1972.He was not only a member of the Society for Advancement of America Philosophy; he encouraged all of his students to attend and become members of this society. Among these former students are Bill Myers, David Hildebrand, and Gregory Pappas.He thought that this was one of the best societies, not only because of its pluralism and scholarship, but because it was a community. He was right!He was the author of several books of philosophy, including Act and Agent and Ontology and the Practical Arena, and he co-edited Philosophers of Process (with William T. Myers). He also has published poetry in Voices, A Journal of Poetry and the Beloit Poetry Journal.In the last years of his life, Doug Browning was a retired Professor of Philosophy, living outside Georgetown, Texas, where he labored at length over poems and novels, staying up throughout the night reading, writing, listening to jazz, and smoking cigars, and enjoying life in his countryside hacienda with his beautiful wife, Becky. During that time, he managed to write and publish sixteen books of fiction. [End Page 106]For us (his former students), one of the most important philosophical contributions of Doug Browning was his insistence that if there is a key lesson from American Philosophy, it is the importance of lived experience ("La Vida") as the "starting point" of philosophical investigation.As he wrote in one of his last published essays:[T]he point is that, wherever one thinks we should start, we can't start with the world. We can't start with the world and we can't test our theories by testing them against the world. Whatever we take to indicate or to provide evidence of a "real" world apart from experience must be found, can only be found, in experience. It must be found in the glass of Barrilito, the aroma of a good cigar, conversation among friends, hotel hallways, cats, thunderstorms, oak trees, and all of the brazen and all of the unpretentious things that we encounter and live among in our day-to-day lives.1Gregory PappasTexas A&M UniversityDavid HildebrandUniversity of Colorado DenverWilliam T. MyersBirmingham-Southern Collegenote1. Douglas Browning, "Dewey and Ortega on the Starting Point," Pragmatism in the Americas, edited by Gregory Fernando Pappas (Fordham UP, 2011), p. 155.Copyright © 2024 The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois... (shrink)

Eighteen Christian theologians and ethicists offer a rich engagement with the theological ethics of Glen Stassen (1936-2014).

_ Source: _Volume 5, Issue 2, pp 251 - 272 The old _Das Adam Smith Problem_ is no longer tenable. Few today believe that Smith postulates two contradictory principles of human action: one in the _Wealth of Nations_ and another in the _Theory of Moral Sentiments_. Nevertheless, an Adam Smith problem of sorts endures: there is still no widely agreed version of what it is that links these two texts, aside from their common author; no widely agreed version of how, (...) if at all, Smith's postulation of self-interest as the organising principle of economic activity fits in with his wider moral-ethical concerns. We argue that the enduring Adam Smith problem may be solved by recourse to a realist perspective that recognises the different levels of social reality to which Smith refers in his discourse. Essential to Smith, we try to show, is the action-theoretic distinction between motive and capacity; between a typology of empirical human acts, on the one hand—self-love and benevolence in Smiths terminology—and the condition of possibility of all human action—what Smith calls the sympathetic principle—on the other. (shrink)

This paper offers a new model of corporate purpose and applies it to the emerging legal form of the benefit corporation. First, corporate purpose is applied to the two currently dominant models of shareholder and stakeholder focus. Both are found inadequate to promote positive social and environmental impact because they remain anchored in a profit-seeking corporate purpose. Second, we offer an alterna­tive model of Integrative Corporate Purpose. Third, we apply ICP to benefit corporations as an ethically superior model for promoting (...) the common good. The benefit corporation offers four advancements: positive duties to stakeholders; legal protections for managers and directors to manage for the common good; a requirement to have a purpose geared toward public benefit; and required report­ing of benefits to stakeholders and the environment. The implications of benefit corporations are discussed within the larger arena of corporate social responsibility. (shrink)