This book addresses a lacuna in scholarship concerning Hannah Arendt's Augustinian heritage that has predominantly focused on her early work. It de-canonises the sources that political theology has appealed to by shifting the interpretive focus to her mature treatment in The Life of the Mind. Arendt's initial criticism of Augustinian desiring is that it generates worldlessness. In her later works, Arendt develops a more nuanced reading of the movements of thinking, desiring, and loving in her engagement with Augustine. This study (...) attends to these movements and inspects the spatio-temporal framework which structure Arendt's conception of the political. The author assesses the claim that Arendt's conception of the political is drawn from a pedagogy of desiring and thinking from Augustine severed from his mystagogy. Although respecting the method of political theory, the author contends that Arendt's severing of Augustinian pedagogy from mystagogy brings her to an insurmountable aporia. Instead, the author embeds these pedagogical practices within Augustine's theology and suggests how that aporia might be overcome and used to develop a mystagogy for contemporary political life. The book will be of particular interest to scholars of political theology, as well as political theory, and political philosophy. (shrink)

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:Reviewed by:Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth CenturyA. P. MartinichScott Soames. Philosophical Analysis in the Twentieth Century. Vol. 1, The Dawn of Analysis. Pp. xix + 411. Vol. 2, The Age of Meaning. Pp. xxii + 479. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003. Cloth, $35.00, each volume.This two-volume work treats Anglo-American analytic philosophy from 1900 to roughly 1970. This means that the views of Michael Dummett, John Rawls and others are (...) not treated. Soames explains the omission in an epilogue to the second volume. Too much good philosophy on too many topics has been done recently—much of it using technical devices—to allow him or anyone else, to master more than a few parts. That seems right to me.The first volume consists of five parts: One: G. E. Moore on Ethics, Epistemology, and Philosophical Analysis; Two: Bertrand Russell on Logical and Linguistic Analysis; Three: Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus; and Four: Logical Positivism, Emotivism, and Ethics; and Five: The Post-Positivist Perspective of the Early W. V. Quine. The great figure associated with twentieth-century analytic philosophy who is missing from Volume 1, Gottlob Frege, Soames omits, because Frege's "concerns were, on the whole, more specialized and technical than the others, and for many years this limited his influence" (1:xiii n. 1). The second volume consists of seven parts: One: Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations; Two: Classics of Ordinary Language Philosophy: Truth, Goodness, the Mind, and Analysis; Three: More Classics of Ordinary Language Philosophy: The Response to Radical Skepticism; Four: Paul Grice and the End of Ordinary Language Philosophy; Five: The Philosophical Naturalism of Willard Van Orman Quine; Six: Donald Davidson on Truth and Meaning; Seven: Saul Kripke on Naming and Necessity.What does twentieth-century analytic philosophy come to? Soames thinks its "two most important achievements" are (i) the recognition that philosophical speculation must be grounded in pre-philosophical thought, and (ii) the success achieved in understanding, and separating one from another, the fundamental methodological notions of logical consequence, logical truth, necessary truth, and apriori truth" (1:xi; see also 1:298-99 and 2:252). He admirably succeeds in making the case for these judgments, although many philosophers will think that these two together do not amount to a great deal, considering all the effort expended by analytic philosophers. I think that analytic philosophy has done more; it has given philosophers many techniques for attacking conceptual problems, a great deal of information about the structure and nature of language, and has decisively refuted various theses that were once thought attractive and even obviously true. In any case, those who think that analytic philosophy, especially conceptual analysis, accomplished nothing are, I think, refuted by these volumes. In his discussion of G. E. Moore's article, "A Defense of Common Sense," Soames explains what he takes to be the first great result of analytic philosophy. Moore showed that the beliefs of common sense should often be accepted "with more confidence" than any philosophical beliefs or propositions that conflict with them, and in these cases cannot be overthrown by philosophical beliefs. For example, "The skeptic assumes that we can be certain about what knowledge is before we decide whether what we all ordinarily take to be paradigmatic cases of knowledge really are genuine" [End Page 125] (23, entire sentence is bold in the original). (Soames uses boldface type to mark all of the significant propositions discussed in the book, a nice pedagogical device.)In his discussion of Bertrand Russell's theory of descriptions, Soames gives the impression that linguistic interests primarily motivated Russell. I think the motivation was primarily ontological. Russell wanted to justify ridding philosophy of nonexistent entities. The doctrines of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus and Logical Positivism were two ways in which philosophical analysis developed. For Soames, what is most important in the Tractatus is the theory of names, and he holds, I believe, the minority belief (which I share) that properties are reducible to configurations of objects (1:206-6). What is most important in Logical Positivism is the verification theory of meaning. Strongly verifiable sentences "were supposed to be those the truth of which could, in principle, be completely established... (shrink)

What is meaning? How is linguistic communication possible? What is the nature of language? What is the relationship between language and the world? How do metaphors work? The Philosophy of Language, considered the essential text in its field, is an excellent introduction to such fundamental questions. This revised edition collects forty-six of the most important articles in the field, making it the most up-to-date and comprehensive volume on the subject. Revised to address changing trends and contemporary developments, the fifth edition (...) features seven new articles including influential work by Mark Crimmins, Gottlob Frege, David Kaplan, Frederick Kroon, W. V. Quine, and Robert Stalnaker (two essays). Other selections include classic articles by such distinguished philosophers as J. L. Austin, John Stuart Mill, Hilary Putnam, Bertrand Russell, John R. Searle, and P. F. Strawson. The selections represent evolving and varying approaches to the philosophy of language, with many articles building upon earlier ones or critically discussing them. Eight sections cover the central issues: Truth and Meaning; Speech Acts; Reference and Descriptions; Names and Demonstratives; Propositional Attitudes; Metaphor and Pretense; Interpretation and Translation; and The Nature of Language. A general introduction and introductions to each section give students background to the issues and explain the connections between them. A list of suggested further reading follows each section. (shrink)

The origin and early evolution of animals marks an important event in life's history. This event is historically associated with an important variable in Earth history – oxygen. One view has it that an increase in oceanic oxygen levels at the end of the Neoproterozoic Era (roughly 600 million years ago) allowed animals to become large and leave fossils. How important was oxygen for the process of early animal evolution? New data show that some modern sponges can survive for several (...) weeks at low oxygen levels. Many groups of animals have mechanisms to cope with low oxygen or anoxia, and very often, mitochondria – organelles usually associated with oxygen – are involved in anaerobic energy metabolism in animals. It is a good time to refresh our memory about the anaerobic capacities of mitochondria in modern animals and how that might relate to the ecology of early metazoans. (shrink)

This dictionary provides a comprehensive and cohesive expository account of about one hundred and fifty key concepts covering the entire range of Hobbes's thought, from philosophy, political theory and science, to theology, history and mathematics.

School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, Faculty of Arts, Australia This article analyses the role of early radical and socialist texts in forming the understanding of the Paris Commune in Britain and the United States. The Commune, while a French event, came to be associated with socialists, radicals, and as a symbol of internationalism. Marx’s The Civil War in France established the interpretation of the Commune that would see it become a radical shibboleth. This article analyses articles by Edward Beesly, (...) Lissagaray’s History of the Commune of 1871, E.B Bax’s Short History of the Commune, and Lenin’s State and Revolution to trace the influences of Marx’s interpretation. This analysis includes examination of the radical publishers in both Britain and the United States to explore how these texts were edited and changed, and how they were circulated to reach the intended working-class audience. The article’s core questions are where did this interpretation come from, how was it constructed, and how did it come to dominate the interpretation of the Commune. This is significant due to the Commune’s pre-eminence within socialist history and how it became an example of the ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’ for many future revolutionaries. (shrink)

Hume's Reception in Early America: Expanded Edition brings together the original American responses to one of Britain's greatest men of letters, David Hume. Now available as a single volume paperback, this new edition includes updated further readings suggestions and dozens of additional primary sources gathered together in a completely new concluding section. From complete pamphlets and booklets, to poems, reviews, and letters, to extracts from newspapers, religious magazines and literary and political journals, this book's contents come from a wide variety (...) of sources published in colonial America and the early United States between 1758 and 1850. As well as classics by Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and Alexander Hamilton, it contains scores of unknown and hard-to-locate items, many of which have not been reprinted since their original publication. These responses are divided into four parts covering Hume's Essays; his Philosophical Writings; his History of England; and his Character and Death. Each of those parts has a separate introductory essay, and every selection is introduced by a short headnote that sets the piece in its historical context and provides bibliographical references. Packed with new insights into Hume and American thought and culture, Hume's Reception in Early America reveals the relevance and impact of Hume on American political, philosophical, historical, religious, and aesthetic debates. (shrink)

This book gives a comprehensive treatment of Thomas Hobbes' thought in the light of the most important research currently being produced by historians, philosophers, and political scientists. His life and political, religious, and scientific views are explained within the cultural context of Stuart England.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Dictionary of Seventeenth-Century British PhilosophersA. P. MartinichAndrew Pyle, general editor. The Dictionary of Seventeenth-Century British Philosophers. 2 volumes. Bristol: Thoemmes Press, 2000. Pp. xxi + 932. Cloth, $550.00.The history of modern philosophy is flourishing. More scholars are producing excellent works in this area than ever before. A large part of this health is due to scholars whose primary training is not in philosophy, such as historians of (...) political thought or literature (hereafter: historians). The dictionary being reviewed here is a case in point, a production of more than ninety scholars of whom the overwhelming majority are not formally trained philosophers.The dictionary consists of about 400 entries, alphabetically from Isaac Abendana (d. 1699) to Richard Zouche (1590-1661) and chronologically from John Case and Richard Hooker, both of whom died in 1600, to Richard Mead (1673-1754). As this list indicates, the general editor construed "philosopher" very broadly, too broadly, I think. There should be no objection to including scientists like Robert Boyle and Newton, theologians like William Chillingsworth and Henry Hammond, and poets like Andrew Marvell and John Milton, each of whom wrote some works with philosophical import. But Ralph Bathurst, a physician, comes no closer to being a philosopher than being "an early admirer of Hobbes's scientific work and [having] contributed some enthusiastic Latin verses to the latter's Humane Nature (1650)" (75a). Likewise Richard Barckley (fl. 1598), about whose life virtually "[n]othing is known" and whose sole book may be described as consisting of "meatpies stuffed with commonplaces"—Montaigne's phrase—does not deserve inclusion (55a, 56a). (Jill Kraye, the author of the article, serves Barckley very well.)Ramist logicians "are largely excluded... [because] they tended to assimilate logic to rhetoric and to limit it to the orderly exposition of what is already known" (p. x). Nonetheless, it is unfortunate, I think, that Abraham Fraunce (c. 1558-1633) and George Downham (d. 1634) are not included.The best articles tend to be about the best philosophers of the age: Thomas Hobbes and John Locke by G. A. J. Rogers, Shaftesbury by David McNaughton, and Francis Bacon by Graham Rees (who pointedly observed about Historia ventorum that "Bacon accomplished the considerable feat of making the weather boring" [41b]). Although by quality of thought and influence, each of these warrant longer treatment, the editor was right to restrict their length to a modest six or seven pages, the same length as those about William Ames, William Harvey, Bernard Mandeville, and John Toland. There are plenty of other places to go for information about the great philosophers. What we want and what the Dictionary provides are articles about the obscure philosophers.Some of the other especially well wrought articles are those on Richard Baxter by William Lamont, Walter Charleton by Margaret J. Osler, Joseph Glanvill by Richard Popkin, John Hales by Victor Nuovo, John Wilkins by John Henry, and Thomas White by Beverley Southgate.The editor is not nationalistic in his understanding of "British." Scots who spent their academic career on the Continent are included. Also included are the Czech John Comenius (1592-1670), the Dutchman Franciscus Mercurius van [End Page 598] Helmont (1614-98), and the Venetian Marc Antonio De Dominis (1560-1624), as they should, because of their influence on British thought or sometime residence. By the same token, Hugo Grotius should have an entry; but he does not.An average of two pages each is devoted to six women, Mary Astell, Catherine Cockburn, Ann Conway, Margaret Cavendish, Jane Lead, and Damaris Cudworth Masham. They deserve more space, especially Cavendish, whose The World's Olio (1655) includes a utopian scheme.Some other articles that I wish had been longer include those about John Bramhall, Richard Crackanthorpe, William Davenant, and John Eacherd, each roughly two pages. Although the proportional space allotted to a thinker is generally right, I think some figures should not have been included at all. John Flavel (1596-1617) does not deserve even the 3 column inches devoted to him. Better to have assigned those inches to someone else. None of the remaining articles should be shorter than they are, not even the five pages devoted... (shrink)

Prologue, invitation to thinking about God In the Hebrew Bible? -- Part I, questions about God? -- Why does God in the Bible have a body? -- What do God's body parts in the Bible mean? -- Why is God angry in the Bible? -- Does God in the Bible have gender or sexuality? -- Part II, questions about God in the world? -- What can creation tell us about God? -- Who-or what-is the Satan? -- Why do people suffer (...) according to the Hebrew Bible? -- Epilogue, God in the Bible and beyond. (shrink)

Being and value, by J. Zaragüeta y Bengoechea.--The origin of man, by X. Zubiri.--Negation, by J. Gaos.--The juridical notion of the human person and the rights of man, by L. Legaz y Lacambra.--History and truth, E. Nicol.--Vital anxiety, by J. J. López Ibor.--The moralization of power through its self--imitation, by J. L. Aranguren.--The doctor-patient relationship in the general framework of interhuman relationships, by P. Laín Entralgo.--On the singular character of the historical destiny of Europe, by L. Díez del Corral.--On taking (...) things for granted, by J. Ferrater Mora.--The idea of metaphysics, by J. Marías. (shrink)

This is the substantially updated and revised edition of A. P. Martinich's best-selling text, Philosophical Writing: An Introduction.

Experiences whether personal or collective, sometimes evoke a psychological satisfaction of being superior to others. This could be due to inappropriate perception or some prejudice. When misperception takes a systematic and permanent form, it becomes an illusion. Several scientific works imply possible racial cognitive illusions. In this work, I treat honorary whiteness as a diminutive way of referring to some categories of human beings. Honorary whiteness is an ideology based on the belief of being superior to others on the basis (...) of colour. It is the practice of acting white or like European in order to gain some benefits or for some interests. This attitude pervades the political, economic, legal and social life of human beings. Hence, this research initiates the urgency to revisit the discourse on racial superiority and how it informs some cognitive misrepresentations of human biological givens. I examine the above theme with the aim of explaining honorary whiteness, racial cognitive illusion and finally, explore the psychological perspectives in view of proffering innovative solutions on racial cognitive illusion. (shrink)

Experiences whether personal or collective, sometimes evoke a psychological satisfaction of being superior to others. This could be due to inappropriate perception or some prejudice. When misperception takes a systematic and permanent form, it becomes an illusion. Several scientific works imply possible racial cognitive illusions. In this work, I treat honorary whiteness as a diminutive way of referring to some categories of human beings. Honorary whiteness is an ideology based on the belief of being superior to others on the basis (...) of colour. It is the practice of acting white or like European in order to gain some benefits or for some interests. This attitude pervades the political, economic, legal and social life of human beings. Hence, this research initiates the urgency to revisit the discourse on racial superiority and how it informs some cognitive misrepresentations of human biological givens. I examine the above theme with the aim of explaining honorary whiteness, racial cognitive illusion and finally, explore the psychological perspectives in view of proffering innovative solutions on racial cognitive illusion. (shrink)

This paper offers a new way to make sense of disagreement expansion from a polylogical perspective by incorporating various places in addition to players and positions into the analysis. The concepts build on prior implicit ideas about disagreement space by suggesting how to more fully account for argumentative context, and its construction, in large-scale complex controversies. As a basis for our polylogical analysis, we use a New York Times news story reporting on an oil train explosion—a significant point in the (...) broader controversy over producing oil and gas via hydraulic fracturing. (shrink)

A specific issue for argumentation theory is whether information and communication technologies play any role in governing argument — that is, as parties engage in practical activities across space and time via ICTs, does technology matter for the interplay of argumentative content and process in managing disagreement? The case made here is that technologies do matter because they are not merely conduits of communication but have a role in the pragmatics of communication and argumentation. In particular, ICTs should be recognized (...) as communication-information services that are delegated degrees of responsibility for managing disagreements arising from practical activities. These services are organized around practical theories for designing disagreement space. However, recognizing this relationship between argument and technology requires accounting for procedures, techniques, or rules and speech acts that are not argumentative propositions in any strict sense but that are consequential for what becomes argumentation in any setting. An account about designing disagreement space, grounded in Jackson and Jacobs’s theory of Disagreement Management, is put forward to address these issues while more generally contributing to understanding argument in context. (shrink)

Abstract There appears to be very close link between globalization and imperialism. Both seem to have domineering character. Globalization could be likened to a new wave of imperialism as it could be adjudged the process by which the so called superior powers of the West dominate and influence developing countries like Nigeria. They are expansionist in nature. Christianity has the same expansionist features as globalization and imperialism. The imperialist nature of globalization could be assessed from the expansionist activities of Christianity (...) that equally originates from the West. This paper is an attempt to discuss globalization, imperialism and Christianity as expansionist realities from the Nigerian perspective. Information is gathered from content analyses of the concepts of globalization, imperialism and Christianity and simple observation of what Nigeria experiences with regard to Christianity. It is observed that much of what Christianity favours are materials from the West. The paper concludes that Christianity more than ever before rides on the crest of globalization to further imperialism. It suggests that Christianity in the twenty-first century should be more inculturated than hanging on the apron strings of the West especially with regard to religious wares. (shrink)

Aloysius Martinich - Writings on Common Law and Hereditary Right - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:1 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.1 120-121 Thomas Hobbes. Writings on Common Law and Hereditary Right. Edited by Alan Cromartie and Quentin Skinner. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005. Pp. lxxi + 192. Cloth, $99.00. Thomas Hobbes wrote three classics or near classics of political philosophy, Leviathan, De Cive, and the Elements of Law, Natural and Politic. He also wrote Dialogue between a (...) Philosopher and a Student, of the Common Laws of England. Not only is the Dialogue, written somewhere between 1668 and 1675, less rigorous than the earlier writings, it is, horribile dictu, boring for long stretches. This is partially due to his intention to prove.. (shrink)

W. Norris Clarke described his personalism as “substance-in-relation,” which emphasizes the equality of primordial modes of substance and relation as a solution to the dichotomy between substance and relation created in the history of metaphysics of the human person. African personalism seems to conceive the human person as essentially relational, which is mostly expressed in the saying: “I am because we are.” Though some contemporary African scholars, like Molefe, try to indicate the priority of the individual, the relational concept remains (...) dominant, which makes it inclined toward collectivism, that most often seems to repress the individual (substance). This article aims to attempt a proposal of a reconstruction of African personalism using the model of Clarke’s personalism by laying equal emphasis on the primordial modes of substance and relation in order to guard against individualism on the one hand and collectivism on the other hand. (shrink)

It is time to bring the rich resources of these traditions into the contemporary debate about the nature of self. This volume is the first of its kind.

Aloysius Martinich - Aspects of Reason - Journal of the History of Philosophy 40:2 Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.2 273-274 Book Review Aspects of Reason Paul Grice. Aspects of Reason. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Pp. xxxviii + 136. Cloth, $29.95. H. P. Grice made it clear in some of his best works that he was a friend of reason. In "Logic and Conversation," he suggested that it was plausible that the general principles regulating conversation are (...) instantiations of principles of reason. His friendship with reason is central to Aspects of Reason, a revision of the John Locke Lectures given at Harvard. Unfortunately, not far into reading Aspects of Reason, Wittgenstein's quip, "A.. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.1 (2001) 161-163 [Access article in PDF] Avrum Stroll. Twentieth Century Analytic Philosophy. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Pp. ii + 302. Cloth, $32.50. Analytic philosophy has entered the history of philosophy since the greatest twentieth-century philosophers of that tradition are dead or retired. It is appropriate then to have a book that clearly and accurately explains the main theories and identifies (...) its character. Avrum Stroll has written such a book, and more. He explains and evaluates where analytic philosophy is today and speculates about where it might go from here.Reserving the first and last chapters for discussion later, I will begin with the seven intervening ones: 2. "Philosophical Logic," 3. "Logical Positivism and the Tractatus," 4. "G. E. Moore: A Ton of Bricks," 5. "Wittgenstein's Later Philosophy: 'The Stream of Life,'" 6. "Ryle and Austin: the Golden Age of Oxford Philosophy," 7. "W. V. O. Quine," and 8."Direct Reference Theories." Chapter 2 deals mostly with Frege and Russell, and Chapter 8 deals mostly with Kripke and Putnam. As the titles and contents indicate, Stroll inclines to a great man understanding of philosophical history, a sensible [End Page 161] approach given the consensus that four or five philosophers have dominated analytic philosophy in the last century, with another four or five being especially talented.Among his expositions of the various philosophical "isms," such as logical atomism and positivism, Stroll intersperses biographical matters that give the book rhythm—he demolishes the widespread idea popularized by Ray Monk that Wittgenstein was anti-Semitic—and charm—he quotes a letter that Wittgenstein wrote to Moore shortly after learning that a certain piece of work could not count as his bachelor's thesis at Cambridge: Dear Moore: Your letter annoyed me. When I wrote Logik I didn't consult the Regulations, and therefore I think it would only be fair if you gave me my degree without consulting them so much either!... If I am not worth you making an exception for me even in some STUPID details then I may as well go to HELL directly... (pp. 91-2). In Chapter One, "The Solera System," Stroll lays out the controlling analogy of his book. The system refers to a way of making sherry. A quantity of wine, drawn from the oldest and best barrel, is replaced by the same quantity drawn from the next oldest, and so one for each successive barrel. The old wine improves the new, and the new refreshes the old. Likewise, "old philosophy has the power to educate and improve new philosophy," according to Stroll. He then continues: "And new philosophy not only preserves the quality and character of old philosophy but has the capacity to refresh it" (246).Also in Chapter One, Stroll observes that "philosophy is essentially a humanistic activity" (3). As such philosophy is tied to its history in a way that science is not. I would put his underlying point differently. Philosophy is humanistic because its problems are timeless and universal; these include what it is to exist, what it is to be conscious, what causation is, and what is the good life. Further, its solutions rarely hang on technical devices.But something has been amiss. Most of the theories distinctive of analytic philosophy, from the theory of descriptions, to modal logic, the causal theory of names, and functionalism, seem to approach these problems obliquely. Also, some of the most respected analytic theories are 'evasion' theories. Eschewing the need to give a substantive account of relations, analytic philosophers hold that relations are n-tuples of objects, which themselves are reducible to unordered sets of objects. Notwithstanding its formal adequacy, the substantive issue seems to be left begging. Loving, causing, being taller than, and being the square of are all relations, but is it illuminating to treat all of them in the same way? Moderating his normal optimism, Stroll says, "I wonder whether the very conception of the role of philosophy has not changed recently. It strikes me that the classical problems that the solera model presupposes are... (shrink)

According to the World Health Organization cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death globally. Over 80% of CVD deaths take place in low- and middle-income countries. It is estimated that 1 million to 2 million people worldwide die each year due to lack of access to an implantable cardiac defibrillator or a pacemaker. Despite the medical, legal, cultural and ethical controversies surrounding the pacemaker reutilization, studies done so far on the reuse of postmortem pacemakers show it to be safe (...) and effective with an infection rate of 1.97% and device malfunction rate of 0.68%. Pacemaker reutilization can be effectively and safely done and does not pose significant additional risk to the recipient. Heart patients with reused pacemakers have an improved quality of life compared to those without pacemakers. The thesis of this paper is that pacemaker reutilization is a life-saving initiative in LMICs of Nigeria and Ghana. It is cost effective; consistent with the principles of beneficence, nonmaleficence, and justice with a commitment to stewardship of resources and the Common Good. Used pacemakers with adequate battery life can be properly sterilized for use by patients in LMICs who cannot afford the cost of a new pacemaker. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.4 (2003) 555-557 [Access article in PDF] Quentin Skinner. Visions of Politics. Vol. I, Regarding Method. Pp. xvi + 209. Vol. II, Renaissance Virtues. Pp. xix + 461. Vol. III, Hobbes and Civil Science. Pp. xvii + 386. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Cloth, $180.00. Paper, $65.00. Quentin Skinner's Visions of Politics consists of three volumes of his essays, most of which (...) have been previously published. Volume I concerns the nature of historical interpretation. It contains the classic, "Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas"; much of his "Reply to My Critics," from Meaning and Context (James Tully, editor [Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988]);"Interpretation and the Understanding of Speech Acts"; and other notable essays. Volume II focuses on aspects of the Renaissance, especially discussions of the concept of liberty and various theories of civic republicanism. Volume III focuses on the life and thought of Thomas Hobbes, although its chapters also contain an enormous amount of information about ancient rhetoric, Renaissance humanism, and other things. As my brief description of the contents of these volumes indicates, Skinner's knowledge is [End Page 555] not just encyclopedic; it is Britannic. The range and depth of his scholarship, evident in each article written over several decades, is all the more impressive when they are gathered together. Unfortunately, he has stopped short of reprinting all of his articles in their entirety; for example, only part of "Hobbes on Sovereignty" (1965), is included.Although the Journal of the History of Philosophy does not normally review works of previously published essays, an exception is being made in this case because of the importance of Skinner's thought and because these volumes contain significant new material. Although most of the chapters are reprinted largely as they originally appeared, some chapters were extensively rewritten. Many readers will wish that he had changed less and provided more commentary on the views of his younger self.Given the number and originality of Skinner theses, every reader will disagree with some of them. In the rest of this review, I will discuss a few of these. Skinner makes the provocative claim that "our goals as historians should [not] be to recount [facts]... as objectively as possible" (I:1). This looks relativistic but he says that he is not a relativist. Shortly later, he makes the disturbing, but not unfamiliar, claim that "the concept of truth is irrelevant to the enterprise of explaining beliefs" (I:2). A major problem for this view is that anyone who makes a statement is, or purports to be, aiming at the truth. The fact that a speaker might not use the word 'true' or 'truth' does not show that the concept is not operating. Moreover, to be rational is to pursue the truth.Skinner is particularly interested in political rhetoric, and the rhetorical feature he studies most closely is paradiastole. Simplifying it, let's say that paradiastole is the technique of rejecting one description-cum-evaluation, say, "The prince is stubborn," for another, say, "The prince is resolute." Since redescriptions of things can go in either direction, many philosophers thought that the possibility of paradiastole undermined the objectivity of ethics. Rhetoricians fostered this belief by teaching students to argue for either side of an argument.Skinner thinks Hobbes "undoubtedly" provided a solution to the problem of paradiastole and that the solution "has the great merit of confronting the problem in a uniquely uncompromising way" (III:141). The solution depends on recognizing that the goodness of virtues "resides in the fact that they form 'the meanes of peaceable, sociable and comfortable living'" (III:137). So, when a dispute about morality arises, one simply asks "whether the effect of the action will or will not be conducive to the preservation of peace" (III:137). I do not see that this solves the problem. In early 2003, one side called the American invasion of Iraq a means to peace by defeating terrorism, the other side a provocation of war against Muslim nations; either side can be argued. Tending toward peace cannot be part... (shrink)

The absolute immutability of God, as it was expounded by many ancient and medieval thinkers such as Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas, contends that God has no real relation with the world, but only a relation of reason. This view lingered until contemporary scholars like the process thinkers such as Alfred North Whitehead and his disciple, Charles Hartshorne, argued that God has a dipolar meaning that God influences the world and that the world also influences him. While protecting God's intrinsic (...) Being, some contemporary thinkers like Clarke, Grant, and others also tried to formulate his real relationship with the world. But the problem remains on how to posit this real relation with the world without insinuating two natures in God. I wish to state in this paper that God has real relation with his creatures which is rooted in what I call “creational relation" that was made manifest at creation and continues after it. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 39.4 (2001) 605-606 [Access article in PDF] Ben Rogers. A. J. Ayer: A Life. New York: Grove Press, 1999. Pp. ix + 402. Cloth, $30.00. A. J. Ayer (1910-89) had the misfortune, for a philosopher, to write his most influential book, Language, Truth, and Logic, when he was in his twenties, even though he continued to publish into his seventies, and to have (...) his nonphilosophical life overwhelm his philosophical one. Almost everyone now knows the story of how he saved Naomi Campbell by going a round with Mike Tyson. Ben Rogers nicely intertwines the facts of Ayer's day-to-day life—which is not to say "quotidian," given Ayer's ego and libido—with his philosophical peregrinations.Although Ayer picked up logical positivism in Vienna when attending sessions of the Vienna Circle, he had accepted the main lines of an empiricism and positivism earlier and on his own. For twentieth-century British philosophy, Language, Truth, and Logic was both a philosophical Declaration of Independence (from metaphysics) and the Constitution for a new philosophy. Unfortunately, its founding principle, the principle of verifiability, was irremediably flawed, notwithstanding Ayer's best efforts, notably in the Preface to the second edition of 1946. Logical positivism in Britain lasted for only about a decade (1935-46). In fact, it may have been less. Language, Truth, and Logic was published in 1936, and Ayer "went off to war" in 1940, to speak loosely. (He spent a significant part of it in a Mediterranean villa, a Park Avenue apartment, "a palatial home" in Paris lent him by Guy de Rothschild, and in the best restaurants with friendly women.) No major British philosopher was championing Logical Positivism between 1940 and 1945. When Ayer returned to Oxford in 1945, he discovered that "the [philosophical] climate had changed; before the conflict he had been the leader of the avant-garde; now the brighter students and the young dons looked on logical positivism as old hat. He had mysteriously passed "from being a young Turk to being, at the age of thirty-five, to almost an elder statesman, without ever having known the plenitude of office'" (198). During the late 1940's, Ayer wrote mostly for London literary and arts magazines. The profession of philosophy disappointed him, and later, he found it difficult to keep up "in logic and the philosophy of maths and sciences" (262).Logical positivism had a longer life in North America, to which several of its members emigrated. But its influence was felt much longer in both places, primarily for its emphasis on three things: empiricism, empiricism, empiricism.Ayer continued to publish philosophy until the mid-1980s. Given the demise of logical positivism, he was something of a dinosaur, albeit a Tyrannosaurus Rex. There was no one else quite like him, and yet he could not be ignored. He was a formidable critic of whatever most other British philosophers were doing. In addition to his obvious intellectual brilliance, he was an excellent writer and expositor. After 1970, most of his books are potboilers, skillful in execution, but of no lasting merit, for example, Russell and Moore (1971), Russell (1972), Hume (1980), and Wittgenstein (1985). Ayer told Stephen Spender that "Russell's History of Western Philosophy... had made its author a fortune and he hoped his [Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (1981)] would do the same" (326). [End Page 605] He accepted a L 30,000. advance for a book about Thomas Paine, about whom he knew virtually nothing, and then did his research: "I mugged up just enough information from some American scholar, whose name I forget, an essay of Michael Foot and, principally, Moncure Conway" (342).As prominent as Ayer was in British culture—writing for the Spectator and Horizon, giving commentary on soccer, appearing on television, and championing liberal causes—he was something of a philosophical outsider. He had more affinity for the Cambridge philosophers, Moore, Russell, and the early Wittgenstein, than for his Oxford colleagues; the heart of his career was spent at the University of London, before... (shrink)

IN the preceding section, the immediate contact effected by sense-intuition between a percipient and existents was seen to enfold an epistemological value enabling us to regard this perception as the point of departure, the terminus a quo, of all our knowledge. Here we ask ourselves whether there is a sense in which we may say that this initial intuition is not only the point of departure, but is also the point of resolution for all our knowledge. May we not, to (...) pursue an analogy, consider experience as a terminus ad quem as well as a terminus a quo? The present chapter seeks the solution to this problem principally under the guidance of Aquinas and his interpreters, both classical and modern. However, before taking up the specific question we have just proposed, two more general considerations impose themselves as logically prior. (shrink)