Public health ethics, like the field of public health it addresses, traditionally has focused more on practice and particular cases than on theory, with the result that some concepts, methods, and boundaries remain largely undefined. This paper attempts to provide a rough conceptual map of the terrain of public health ethics. We begin by briefly defining public health and identifying general features of the field that are particularly relevant for a discussion of public health ethics.Public health is primarily concerned with (...) the health of the entire population, rather than the health of individuals. Its features include an emphasis on the promotion of health and the prevention of disease and disability; the collection and use of epidemiological data, population surveillance, and other forms of empirical quantitative assessment; a recognition of the multidimensional nature of the determinants of health; and a focus on the complex interactions of many factors—biological, behavioral, social, and environmental—in developing effective interventions. (shrink)

Teilhard’s cosmological speculation is a valuable basis for an environmental ethics that perceives individual natural objects as good in themselves and the world as good in itself. Teilhard perceives man as fundamentally part of a cosmic environmental whole that is greater than mankind taken individually or collectively. His holistic views on human biological and psychological and social evolution are, I argue,compatible with a biocentric environmental ethics. I discuss some similarities and differences with the views of the deep ecology movement. I (...) show that Teilhard’s hierarchical system is not humanistically oriented in a way that need be interpreted by Teilhardians as contrary to environmental well-being. I argue that Teilhard’s sympathies toward transportation technology, including the automobile, can be interpreted in his holistic manner. I conclude that Teilhard’s theocentric views are also a basis for supporting an environmental ethics which is both optimistic and not anthropocentric. (shrink)

IT has been affirmed frequently that Aristotle’s Physics contains no concept of inertia. Indeed this character, coupled with his great subsequent influence up to the Renaissance, is often considered a key reason for the charge that Aristotle produced a set-back of one thousand years in the development of physics. Our purpose here is to attempt to put in a balanced perspective the Aristotelian doctrine and ancient anticipations of the concept of inertia; no attempt is made to study the medieval period. (...) A classic passage cited to illustrate the position of Aristotle is the analysis of projectile motion in Book VIII of the Physics. (shrink)

James McGrath's contribution to the forthcoming edition, Vocabulary for the Study of Religion.

This portrait of Hume as an ironist is offered as a supplement to recent historical and biographical studies, and especially to Mossner's The Life o] David Hume. While others have commented on the irony in Hume's writings, Price goes further and suggests that irony is a key with which to unlock Hume's philosophical attitudes and beliefs. Since ap- preciation of irony depends on an awareness of context, Price interprets this to mean that Hume's writings must be read against the background (...) of his life and intellectual milieu. He traces the development of Hume's use of irony through four successive stages, beginning with the formative influences on the early writings and concluding with the culmination of Hume's ironic style in the last works -- principally the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

Against recent commentators such as Annstrong, D’Arcy, Copleston, O’Connor, Bourke, and Grisez, I argue that the logic referred to by Thomas in his “Treatise on Law” should not be understood metaphorically. Instead, it involves a chain of syllogisms, beginning with the synderesis principle, followed by primary, secondary, and tertiary principles, and ends with a practical syllogism. In showing this, I attack the view that the synderesis principle, “good ought to be done and evil avoided,” is tautological. Second, I show the (...) syllogistic relation between this and the more subordinate moral principIes. Finally, I argue that the practical syllogism also involves a logical deduction, where the minor premise is a propositional attitude of perception, and the conclusion is an action which expresses a proposition. What emerges is a more precise account of how actions are related to natural law. (shrink)

Against recent commentators such as Annstrong, D’Arcy, Copleston, O’Connor, Bourke, and Grisez, I argue that the logic referred to by Thomas in his “Treatise on Law” should not be understood metaphorically. Instead, it involves a chain of syllogisms, beginning with the synderesis principle, followed by primary, secondary, and tertiary principles, and ends with a practical syllogism. In showing this, I attack the view that the synderesis principle, “good ought to be done and evil avoided,” is tautological. Second, I show the (...) syllogistic relation between this and the more subordinate moral principIes. Finally, I argue that the practical syllogism also involves a logical deduction, where the minor premise is a propositional attitude of perception, and the conclusion is an action which expresses a proposition. What emerges is a more precise account of how actions are related to natural law. (shrink)

W v o quine has argued that a thorough pragmatism in which 'no statement is immune to revision' is preferable to an empiricism which depends upon the dogmas of the analytic/synthetic distinction and reductionism. i argue that the processes of the revision of statements upon the basis of recalcitrant experiences and the redistribution of truth-values over statements in the system are just as dogmatically dependent as is the empiricism against which quine vies. in order for the re-evaluation of statements and (...) redistribution of truth-values to take place, there must be some rule, principle (dogma) accepted as analytic and unrevisable within that theory according to which the re-evaluation and redistribution take place. and the reason for such a rule or principle is logical and not pragmatic. in other words, revisability cannot take place if every statement is open to revision. (shrink)

Planctomycetes, Verrucomicrobia and Chlamydia are prokaryotic phyla, sometimes grouped together as the PVC superphylum of eubacteria. Some PVC species possess interesting attributes, in particular, internal membranes that superficially resemble eukaryotic endomembranes. Some biologists now claim that PVC bacteria are nucleus‐bearing prokaryotes and are considered evolutionary intermediates in the transition from prokaryote to eukaryote. PVC prokaryotes do not possess a nucleus and are not intermediates in the prokaryote‐to‐eukaryote transition. Here we summarise the evidence that shows why all of the PVC traits (...) that are currently cited as evidence for aspiring eukaryoticity are either analogous (the result of convergent evolution), not homologous, to eukaryotic traits; or else they are the result of horizontal gene transfers. (shrink)

These fifteen essays on Nietzsche's indebtedness to the Classical Tradition were composed by scholars in the fields of philosophy, theology, German and Classics. The essays roughly cover the following epochs: the age of the Fathers of the Western Church, medieval scholasticism, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Weimar Classicism, Romanticism and the several other intellectual trends and movements in the nineteenth century. Collection includes three essays comparing Nietzsche's perceptions of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates with those (respectively) of Augustine, Aquinas, and Hamann. Three (...) essays treat Nietzsche's relationship to Goethe, Schiller, and Heine. Three deal with Nietzsche and French literature or thought, one explores possible parallels between Nietzsche and Dante, another the extent of his debt to Byron. Four contributions center on Nietzsche's view of tragedy, and an older study has been expanded to show the underlying harmony of Nietzsche's conception with that of the French classical tragedians. This book affirms and fulfills the need for serious scholarship by the student of Nietzsche unable to work in German, while presenting a readable cross-section of the work being done relating Nietzsche to the intellectual tradition from which he sprang. (shrink)

This collection of essays is a sequel to the editors' 1976 volume Studies in Nietzsche and the Classical Tradition. Philosophers, theologians, and literary historians discuss important aspects of Nietzsche's attack on Judaism and Christianity. The book contains studies of his view of biblical figures, Luther and Pascal as well as comparisons of his thought with that of Spinoza, Lessing, Heine, and Kierkegaard. Nietzsche's critique of the Old Testament, the Jewish religion of the diaspora, and historical Christianity are also investigated. Of (...) the eighteen articles included here, thirteen were prepared expressly for this volume--five were translated from German, one from French, and one from Hebrew. Contributors to this volume are: Eugen Biser, Harry Neumann, Israel Eldad, Charles Lewis, Jorg Salaquarda, Joan Stambaugh, Max L. Baeumer, Brendan Donellan, Diana Behler, Sander L. Gilman, Gerd-Gunther Grau, Josef Simon, James C. O'Flaherty, Bernd Magnus, Georges Goedert, Hans Lung, and Karl Barth. (shrink)

ABSTRACT: In a previous article (O’Shea 2006) I provided a concise overview of the reception of Kant’s philosophy among analytic philosophers during the periods from the ‘early analytic’ reactions to Kant in Frege, Russell, Carnap and others, to the systematic Kant-inspired works in epistemology and metaphysics of C. I. Lewis and P. F. Strawson, in particular. In this chapter I use the recently reinvigorated work of Wilfrid Sellars (1912–1989) in the second half of the twentieth century as the basis for (...) presenting some of the most familiar ‘analytic Kantian’ themes that continue to animate current debates. I also argue that the complex relationships between Sellars’ philosophy and Kant’s thought are often misunderstood. Overall the chapter examines Sellars’ analytic appropriations of Kant in three topic-areas of significant current philosophical debate: (1) conceptual analysis and the structure of human knowledge; (2) laws of nature, the causal modalities, and the pragmatic or relative a priori; and (3) the disputes concerning Kant and nonconceptual content. (shrink)

Self, Language, and World: Problems from Kant, Sellars, and Rosenberg Edited by James R. O'Shea and Eric M. Rubenstein Introduction KANT Willem deVries, Kant, Rosenberg, and the Mirror of Philosophy David Landy, The Premise That Even Hume Must Accept LANGUAGE AND MIND William G. Lycan, Rosenberg On Proper Names Douglas Long, Why Life is Necessary for Mind: The Significance of Animate Behavior Dorit Bar-On and Mitchell Green, Lionspeak: Communication, Expression, and Meaning David Rosenthal, The Mind and Its Expression MIND (...) AND KNOWLEDGE Jeffrey Sicha, The Manifest Image: the Sensory and the Mental Bruce Aune, Rosenberg on Knowing Joseph C. Pitt, Sellarsian Antifoundationalism and Scientific Realism Matthew Chrisman, The Aim of Belief and the Goal of Truth: Reflections on Rosenberg James O’Shea, Conceptual Thinking and Nonconceptual Content: A Sellarsian Divide ONTOLOGY Anton Koch, Persons as Mirroring the World Eric M. Rubenstein, Form and Content, Substance and Stuff Ralf Stoecker, On Being a Realist About Death William G. Lycan, Biographical Remarks on Jay F. Rosenberg Scholarly Publications of Jay F. Rosenberg. (shrink)