In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 10.2 (2000) 175-188 [Access article in PDF] Scope Note 38 Bioethics Resources on the Web * Once described as an "enormous used book store with volumes stacked on shelves and tables and overflowing onto the floor" (Pool, Robert. 1994. Turning an Info-Glut into a Library. Science 266 (7 October): 20-22, p. 20), Internet resources now receive numerous levels of organization, from basic directory listings (...) to elaborate "links" (cross-references to other Internet documents) that flash and glow in the dark. In many ways, the Internet functions as a direct extension of the traditional library. Following linked references across various sites is an electronic version of browsing library stacks, and the serendipitous discoveries made while "surfing the Net" recall the wonders of physically going "book-to-book." Although many of the Internet's best aspects augment library strengths by eliminating physical distance from sources, Net resources pose unique problems for researchers. It is not always clear who is responsible for the content of Web documents, when the document was produced, or how often (if ever) it is updated. Internet resource tools, then, must enable researchers to identify appropriate resources and to evaluate what they find when they get there. Web Research as Taking "Snapshots" Given the Internet's visual nature and fluid content, the process of conducting research on the Web has been likened to taking an informal picture of information on a specific date at a particular time. This metaphor also conveys the "zoom-in" aspect of searching through Web pages by going from general to specific categories. In the first section of this Scope Note, National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature (NRCBL) staff present a snapshot of bioethics resources taken during the spring months of 2000. Entries are divided into the categories of directories, electronic journals, full-text documents, news/current awareness, and teaching resources. In the two subsequent sections, this series of categories is repeated for entries on a specific topic within bioethics-genetics-and again for general search and evaluation tools. Where a Web site may contain pages applicable [End Page 175] to more than one category, multiple entries are made for that site with appropriate information for each category.Much as telecommunication advances have strengthened the relationship of patients and providers as partners, the dynamic nature of the Internet acknowledges that the researcher functions as a librarian whenever accessing the Web. It is our hope that BIOETHICSLINE and the other NRCBL databases not only will enable researchers to search the Web more efficiently, but also will help them to evaluate what they find when they get there. Bioethicsline on the Web: An International Plan in Progress Once only available through libraries, the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM), the funding agency for the ongoing development of the BIOETHICS LINE® database from the Kennedy Institute, has provided free Web access to that database of 63,000 citations since September 1998 through Internet Grateful Med. Plans are now underway to eliminate such specialty databases and incorporate all citations into PubMed (for journal articles) or LOCATORplus (for book-like materials and chapters in books). Both of these databases are likewise available at no cost on the Web. In the transition to PubMed and LOCATORplus some features of BIOETHICSLINE that presently are available may be lost. Researchers are encouraged to contact the National Reference Center for Bioethics Literature with search requests or for search strategy assistance with either the current or the future system ([email protected]).The inclusion of bioethics citations in PubMed and LOCATORplus will have several advantages. First, unique keywords from the Bioethics Thesaurus will be considered for inclusion in Medical Subject Headings (MeSH), the indexing vocabulary for PubMed and LOCATORplus, thereby enhancing retrieval of relevant clinical literature by offering more precise terminology covering ethical issues. Second, it will be easier to identify foreign-language materials, which are not currently included in the scope of BIOETHICSLINE. Third, the updating schedule will become more frequent. On the other hand, there may be some loss of searching precision because certain specialized features... (shrink)

Possessed of a long and honorable philosophical tradition of its own, Soviet Armenia provides an unequalled opportunity for examining the attempt to reconcile the new Soviet culture with long-standing cultural values. Unfortunately, a thorough examination of available sources provides no unambiguous conclusion. Some contemporary Armenian philosophers do manage to imbue their work with a definitely national stamp. On the other hand, Soviet Armenia — like other areas of the Soviet Union — has its share of centralists. However, what (...) is most interesting is that their existential situation has led them to fruitful pursuit of a philosophical elaboration of problems of culture. (shrink)

Possessed of a long and honorable philosophical tradition of its own, Soviet Armenia provides an unequalled opportunity for examining the attempt to reconcile the new Soviet culture with long-standing cultural values. Unfortunately, a thorough examination of available sources provides no unambiguous conclusion. Some contemporary Armenian philosophers do manage to imbue their work with a definitely national stamp. On the other hand, Soviet Armenia -- like other areas of the Soviet Union -- has its share of 'centralists'. However, what (...) is most interesting is that their existential situation has led them to fruitful pursuit of a philosophical elaboration of problems of culture. (shrink)

Euphorion SH 417 deserves to be better known. A curiosity in itself—an apparent poetic reference to number theory—it is also, potentially, one of our earliest references to Euclidean material. On the authority of a late commentator on Aristotle, Euphorion, a mid-third-century b.c. Euboean poet who was also active in Athens and Antioch, is said to have mentioned perfect numbers—i.e. numbers which equal the total of all their factors, including 1 . It is a pity that the context in Euphorion does (...) not survive, and that the line is only preserved, and indeed interpreted, by so late a source. But the wording of the fragment—if Westerink's restoration of its various corruptions is plausible—would strongly suggest a reference to the notion of perfect number. The fragment has been known since Westerink published it in 1960, and was included both in Van Groningen's edition of Euphorion in 1977 and in Supplementum Hellenisticum . But its implications have still not been discussed, and when David Fowler came to gather the evidence for references to Euclidean material in and after the third century b.c. in The Mathematics of Plato's Academy, his attention, unsurprisingly, was not drawn to it. Euphorion has had a bad press, as a poet of rebarbatively obscure myth and intractable vocabulary; yet he holds some interest, and we may be missing more insights into the intellectual life of the Hellenistic period which the perverse intelligence and baneful wit of the fragments display. (shrink)

Euphorion SH 417 deserves to be better known. A curiosity in itself—an apparent poetic reference to number theory—it is also, potentially, one of our earliest references to Euclidean material. On the authority of a late commentator on Aristotle, Euphorion, a mid-third-century b.c. Euboean poet who was also active in Athens and Antioch, is said to have mentioned perfect numbers—i.e. numbers which equal the total of all their factors, including 1. It is a pity that the context in Euphorion does not (...) survive, and that the line is only preserved, and indeed interpreted, by so late a source. But the wording of the fragment—if Westerink's restoration of its various corruptions is plausible—would strongly suggest a reference to the notion of perfect number. The fragment has been known since Westerink published it in 1960, and was included both in Van Groningen's edition of Euphorion in 1977 and in Supplementum Hellenisticum. But its implications have still not been discussed, and when David Fowler came to gather the evidence for references to Euclidean material in and after the third century b.c. in The Mathematics of Plato's Academy, his attention, unsurprisingly, was not drawn to it. Euphorion has had a bad press, as a poet of rebarbatively obscure myth and intractable vocabulary; yet he holds some interest, and we may be missing more insights into the intellectual life of the Hellenistic period which the perverse intelligence and baneful wit of the fragments display. (shrink)

The De Malo represents some of Aquinas' most mature thinking on goodness, badness, and human agency. In it he examines the full range of questions associated with evil: its origin, its nature, its relation to good, and its compatability with the existence of an omnipotent, benevolent God. This edition offers Richard Regan's new, clear readable English translation, based on the Leonine Commission's authoritative edition of the Latin text. Brian Davies has provided an extensive introduction and notes..

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Some Sources for Hume's Opening Remarks to Treatise LIVJII Graham Solomon Hume opens Book I, Part IV, Section III of the Treatise with these remarks: Several moralists have recommended it as an excellent method ofbecoming acquainted with our own hearts, and knowing our progress in virtue, to recollect our dreams in a morning, and examine them with the same rigour, that we wou'd our most serious and (...) deliberate actions. Our character is the same throughout, say they, and appears best where artifice, fear, and policy have no place, and men can neither be hypocrites with themselves nor others. The generosity, or baseness of our temper, our meekness or cruelty, our courage or pusilanimity, influence the fictions of the imagination with the most unbounded liberty, and discover themselves in the mostglaring colours. Who were these moralists? One looks in vain in the work of Malebranche, Locke, Shaftesbury and Hutcheson for such a recommendation. Did anyone make that recommendation? One moralist who did was "John Shadow," in a letter to Joseph Addison published in The Spectator, no. 586, 27 August 1714. Addison introduces Shadow's letter with the remark that it "is built upon a thought that is new, and very well carried on; for which Reasons I shall give it to the Publick without Alteration, Addition, or Amendment." I quote at length, for easy comparison with Hume: Sir, It was a good Piece of Advice which Pythagoras gave to his Scholars. That every Night before they slept they should examine what theyhad been a doing that Day, and so discover what Actions were worthy of Pursuit to Morrow, and what little Vices were to be prevented from slipping unawares into a Habit. If I might second the Philosopher's Advice, it should be mine, That in a morning before my Scholar rose, he should consider what he had been about that Night, and with the Volume XVI Number 1 57 GRAHAM SOLOMON same Strictness, as if the Condition, he has believed himself to be in, was real. Such a Scrutiny into the Actions ofhis Fancy must be of considerable Advantage, for this Reason, Because the Circumstances which a Man imagines himself in during Sleep, are generally such as entirely favour his Inclinations good or bad, and give him imaginary Opportunities of pursuingthem to the utmost; so thathis Temper will lye fairly open to his View, while he considers howitis moved when free from those Constraints which the Accidents ofreal Life put it under. Dreams are certainly the Result of our waking Thoughts, and our daily Hopes and Fears are what give the mind such nimble Relishes of Pleasure, and such severe Touches ofPain, in its Midnight Rambles. AMan that murders his Enemy, or deserts his Friend in a Dream, had need to guard his Temper against Revenge and Ingratitude, and take heed that he be not tempted to do a vile thing in Pursuit of false, or the Neglect of true Honour... I think it has been observed in the Course of your Papers, how much one's Happiness or Misery may depend upon the Imagination: ofwhich Truth those strange Workings ofFancy in Sleep are no inconsiderable Instances; so that not only the Advantage a Man has ofmaking Discoveries ofhimself, but a Regard to his own Ease or Disquiet, may induce him to accept ofmy Advice... Shadow has been identified as the poet John Byrom by various of the later editors of The Spectator? Of these, D. F. Bond footnotes Byrom's reference to Pythagoras, noting the publication in English of André Dacier's The Life ofPythagoras, with his Symbolism and Golden Verses; together with the Life ofHierocles, and his Commentaries upon the Verses. Bond notes Hierodes' comments on the following Verses: Never suffer Sleep to close thy Eye-lids, after thy going to Bed, Till thou hast examin'd by thy Reason all thy Actions of the Day Wherein have I done amiss? What have I done? What have I omitted that I ought to have done? If in this Examination, thou find that thou hast done amiss, reprimand thy self severely for it: And if thou has done any Good, rejoice. Dacier cites Porphyry and Marcus Aurelius... (shrink)

The De Malo represents some of Aquinas' most mature thinking on goodness, badness, and human agency. In it he examines the full range of questions associated with evil: its origin, its nature, its relation to good, and its compatibility with the existence of an omnipotent, benevolent God. This edition offers Richard Regan's new, clear readable English translation, based on the Leonine Commission's authoritative edition of the Latin text. Brian Davies has provided an extensive introduction and notes..

Thomas Aquinas is a massive figure in the history of western thought and of the Catholic church. In this major addition to the Cambridge Texts series Robert Dyson has chosen texts by Aquinas that show his development of a Christian version of the philosophy of Aristotle, its contrast with the Augustinian thought that had coloured so much political thinking in the previous eight centuries, and St Thomas's views as to the purpose of government, constitutions, and the relations between (...) secular and ecclesiastical power. Property, slavery, and usury are fully covered, as are St Thomas's celebrated and influential writings on law. The translations are extremely accessible and the whole is supported by all of the usual series features designed to assist the student reader, including brief biographies, notes for further reading and a concise critical introduction. (shrink)

In 1697, the Presbyterian, William Bates, presented an address, on behalf of some dissenting ministers, to William of Orange. In this, he called for measures against the Socinians and Deists, and, in particular, for the banning of the publication of Socinian works. Bates' address was published in JOHN HOWE, Sermon Preech'd on the Day of Thanksgiving (1698). On 17th February, 1698, the House of Commons presented an address to the King, We do further, in all humility, beseech Your Majesty, (...) that Your Majesty would give such effectual order, as to Your Royal Wisdom shall seem fit, for the suppressing all pernicious books and pamphlets, which contain in them impious doctrines against the Holy Trinity, and other fundamental articles of our Faith, tending to the subversion of the Christian Religion; and that the authors and publishers thereof may be discounted and punished.The statute 9 and 19 William III, c. 32, An Act for the more effectual suppressing of Blasphemy and Profaneness, accepted these requests. It prohibited the writing, publishing and teaching of doctrines that were contrary to the Trinity, Christian truth or the divine authority of the Old and the New Testaments.It should be noted that the Toleration Act of 1689 does not extend tolerance to, amongst others, those who deny the dogma of the Trinity. It was not until 1813 that the Unitarians were free to practise their cult. The Trinity Act (An Act to relieve persons who impugn the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity from certain Penalties. 53 Geo. III, c. 160) of that year exempted the Unitarians from the penalties laid down by the Toleration Act and by the Blasphemy Act quoted above. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Aquinas and Dōgen on Entrance into the Religious LifeDouglas K. MikkelsonComparative studies of Christianity and Buddhism have the potential to draw on a wide array of dialogic partners from their respective histories. Two promising candidates are Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) and Dōgen (1200–1253). Aquinas was the angelic doctor whose theological thinking became normative for Roman Catholicism; Dōgen was the prominent Zen master whose influence on the (...) intellectual development of Zen Buddhism is unsurpassed. As it happens, both men "entered into the religious life," and within their respective collected works we see considerable attention to the topic. If we seek to explore what they had to say on the subject, we might benefit by identifying some texts from both thinkers that could serve as focal points for a comparative analysis. Of the massive accumulated writings of both men, the largest are Aquinas's Summa Theologiae and Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō. So it seems logical to start our search by turning our attention to these monumental works.Let us begin with the Summa Theologiae. In the secunda secundae Aquinas addresses a total of 189 topics presented in a question-and-answer format. The first 170 topics concern "themes related to all stations of life"; questions 171–189 explore "details related to particular callings" (2a2ae, Prologus). Question 189, hereinafter identified as 2a2ae q. 189, is specifically devoted to the topic of "entering the religious life" (de ingressu religionis).1When we turn to the Shōbōgenzō, we find a work titled Shukke Kudoku. "Kudoku" means "merit"; "shukke," commonly translated as "leaving home," denotes a person who has renounced home and family in order to enter monastic life. Thus "Shukke Kudoku" can be rendered in English as "The Merit of Entering the Religious Life."2Given that these texts are relatively accessible and substantive presentations of comparable length on issues pertaining to the religious life, they seem to be good focal points for this discussion. At the same time, both thinkers addressed the subject in other venues also, and we can briefly refer to this material as well. But in this article I will primarily concentrate on how a comparative analysis of these two texts illuminates the subject. Defining the discussion in this fashion has the advantage of presenting Aquinas's and Dōgen's views in a particular time and place, leaving aside the more complex issue of how their views may have changed over time. [End Page 109]Let us begin with Aquinas. Aquinas begins 2a2ae q. 189 by outlining ten points of inquiry to be pursued, in effect dividing the question into ten subquestions. The first on the list is "whether those alone should enter religious life who are practiced in keeping the commandments." The commandments he means, of course, are the precepts of the decalogue, the Ten Commandments of Exodus 20:17 and Deut. 5:6–21.Aquinas's standard modus operandi was to first entertain arguments leading to aconclusion opposing his own. In this question he outlines five lines of argument, and in each instance the arguments lead to the assertion that one should not practice the counsels "until one is practiced in keeping the commandments" (nisi prius sit exercitatus in praeceptis); by "counsels" Aquinas means the observance of poverty, chastity, and obedience that are undertaken by those who enter the religious life. As he had explained previously, "The difference between a counsel and a precept lies in this, that a precept implies necessity, while a counsel is left to the choice of the one to whom it is given" (1a2ae q. 108.4).3 Precepts such as the commandments, in other words, enjoin an obligation; counsels are optional.We will discover Aquinas's own answer soon, but we should first note how Aquinas begins his discussion of entrance into the religious life. He begins by posing a question about whether or not one practiced in keeping the commandments should enter the religious life. In the course of answering his own question, he essentially reframes it, seeking to explore whether or not one should practice the counsels before one has become adept at keeping the commandments. For Aquinas, both formulations... (shrink)

The king therefore went down to the village, since the Wise Men's rule did not permit him to spend more than a day with them, but Iarchas said to the messenger, ‘Damis too we consider worthy of the secrets here, so tell him to come, while you look after the others in the village.’ When Damis had come, the Wise Men formed their usual circle and gave Apollonius permission to put questions. So he asked what they thought the universe consisted (...) of, to which they replied, ‘Elements.’ ‘Four, do you think?’ he said. ‘Not four’, said Iarchas, ‘but five.’ ‘What could a fifth one be’, said Apollonius, ‘besides water, air, earth, and fire?’ ‘Ether’, said Iarchas, ‘which we must consider to be the origin (γένεσιν) of the gods. All that breathes air is mortal, but what breathes ether is immortal and divine.’ Next Apollonius asked which of the elements came into existence first. ‘All came together’, said the other, ‘since a living being is not born one piece at a time.’ ‘Am I to consider the universe living?’, asked Apollonius. ‘Yes, if you reason correctly’, said Iarchas, ‘since itself it gives life to everything.’ ‘Should we then call it female’, asked Apollonius, ‘or of the contrary, male sex?’ ‘Of both’, was the answer, ‘since it has intercourse with itself, and performs both the mother's and the father's role with respect to generation. It feels a desire for itself more intense than that of any two other beings, and this joins and unites it, and there is nothing unreasonable about its coalescence. And just as the action of the hands and feet in a living creature comes from mobility and the intelligence (διὰ τὸν ἐκείνου νοῦν) that causes it, so also we must suppose that, because of the intelligence of the universe (κατὰ τὸν ἐκείνου ϕοιτᾷ νοῦν), its parts accommodate themselves to everything that undergoes birth and conception. For instance, the sufferings resulting from drought arise from the mind of the universe, when justice is banished from mankind and treated with dishonor. And this being guides itself not by one hand alone but by many unseen ones that it uses; though too large to be restrained, it moves obediently and tractably.’The doctrine contained in this extract – the only passage ofThe Life of Apollonius of Tyanatreating matters of ‘cosmogony’ – could be summarized in the six following propositions. First, the universe consists of five, not four elements, the fifth being the ether, the γένεσις θεῶν. Just as mortals breathe air, gods breathe ether. Secondly, there is no ‘primordial element’; all five came into being simultaneously. Thirdly, the universe is a living being. In the fourth place, the universe is both male and female at the same time. In the fifth place, as the universe is androgynous it feels desire (ἔρως) towards itself and it is this desire that makes it whole and united. And finally, the passion of the universe for itself is governed by Intelligence (ἐκείνου νοῦς). (shrink)

Summary This paper investigates the Athenian gymnasiarchy, an office that remains badly understood. Originally a festival liturgy, the gymnasiarchy was transformed into a magistracy at the end of the fourth century BC. This paper first examines the reasons for the shift and argues that it was connected to broader political currents in late Classical Athens. Secondly, it sheds new light on the nature of the office in the Hellenistic period. Whereas earlier scholars assumed that the Athenian gymnasiarch was a minor (...) official under the kosmetes, epigraphic and literary sources reveal that he was a fully-fledged gymnasium director, just as in other poleis. (shrink)

Originally published in The Hafner Library of Classics in 1953, The Political Ideas of St. Thomas Aquinas provides important insights into the human side of one of the most influential medieval philosophers. St. Thomas Aquinas (c. 1226–1274) is recognized for having synthesized Christian theology with Aristotelian metaphysics, and for his spirited philosophical defense of Christianity that was addressed to the non-Christian reader. In this collection, editor Dino Bigongiari has selected Aquinas’s key writings on politics, justice, social problems, (...) and forms of government, including the philosopher’s main works: Regimine Principus (On Kinship) and The Summa Theologica. In an authoritative discussion of the historical background and evolution of St. Thomas Aquinas’s political ideas, Dr. Bigongiari’s commentary explains this philosopher’s enduring influence and legacy. Accompanying explanatory notes and a helpful glossary of unusual terms and familiar words help to make this practical volume an ideal text for students and general readers alike. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:What Makes the Common Good Common?Key Points from Charles De Koninck1Aquinas Guilbeau, O.P.In even the most capable philosophical hands, the common good remains a slippery concept. Its essence eludes the grasp of those who reach for it. This is due in part to the concept's complexity. "Common good" is composed of two rich, philosophically pregnant notions: goodness and commonness. Reflection on these two notions is ancient, of course. How (...) a thing is good has preoccupied philosophers since the dawn of time. How a thing may be common has exercised philosophers less throughout history, but even the ancients recognized that the question of a thing's commonness remains as intricate as the question of a thing's goodness. Despite their long philosophical history, however, the notions of goodness and commonness evade quick and easy description. Because they represent elemental characteristics of being itself, they share in being's fundamental mystery. As a result, millennia of reflection have not exhausted these notions' meanings. Like being, goodness and commonness require careful study by each generation, so that its intellectuals and teachers might clarify these notions' remaining secrets. Thus does each generation contribute to the perennial philosophy.When we modern and post-modern thinkers try to describe the common good, and thereby grapple with its notions of goodness and commonness, we find one of these two notions more elusive than the other. Which of the two might surprise us. It is not the common good's goodness. [End Page 739] Despite the philosophical confusions of our age, we more or less still agree publicly as to what constitutes a good, and as a result what constitutes an evil. We deem health a good, for example, while we deem disease an evil. We embrace one as perfective; we repulse the other as destructive. To my knowledge, no one has yet extolled COVID-19 as a good. So, we moderns and post-moderns have not completely lost hold of reality. We still share a sense of goodness, even if our generation mislabels some evils as goods.When it comes to describing the common good, therefore, it is not the common good's goodness that eludes us. Rather, it is its commonness that we have difficulty grasping. What does it mean for a good to be common? How is a common good common? Are all common goods common in the same way? How is the example of health common? Is health a common good properly speaking, or does it only appear to be common? How do we know the difference? Is there a difference? Unfortunately, few of us can answer these questions well. The reasons may not all be our fault, but we should admit that, along with our secular contemporaries, we remain largely unversed in commonness. A sign of our inexperience with the concept is that we seldom ask questions about commonness. Instead, we take it for granted that we know what commonness involves. When pressed to describe it, however, we quickly discover just how uncommon understanding of commonness is.In the first half of the last century, Charles De Koninck was well aware of modernity's inexperience with commonness. He recognized that individualism and its philosophical prerequisites had so captured the popular imagination, even among Catholics, that the common quality of the common good was disappearing from view. As a result, political discourse—to say nothing of political life—had entered serious difficulty. Between the World Wars, De Koninck spoke up among Catholic philosophers to remind them of the "primacy of the common good," not simply as a practical concept but as a speculative one, in accord with its classical conception.De Koninck recalled for his contemporaries not only that but also how commonness, like goodness, is primarily something objectively real and metaphysically constituted, and only secondarily something subjectively perceived and practically useful. To revive the objective and metaphysical notions of goodness and commonness among Catholic intellectuals—many of whom had traded these for easier subjective and practical notions2—De [End Page 740] Koninck composed his famous essay The Primacy of the Common Good, Against the Personalists.3 In it, De Koninck spends eighty pages reviewing the objective... (shrink)

The article scrutinizes Michel Foucault’s interpretation of Machiavelli in his famous lecture on governmentality. Foucault is slightly misguided in his search for the origins of governmentality, the article asserts. Foucault gives credit for the development of what he calls a new art of government to anti-Machiavellian treatises, but also follows those treatises in their distorted interpretation of Machiavelli. Consequently, Foucault’s analysis gets confused and regards as novel those arguments and developments that were essentially of ancient pedigree compared with Machiavelli’s ideas. (...) The article discusses especially two points in Foucault’s interpretation of Machiavelli: Foucault’s insistence on the singularity of the prince in Machiavelli and the importance of territory to Machiavelli. In both of these points Foucault is beside the mark. Foucault’s interpretation inverts the development of an art of government and regards as new those ideas that were fundamentally reactionary vis-à-vis Machiavelli’s ideas. The article suggests that a more viable lead in searching for an art of government might be found from Machiavelli’s writings and the republican experience of the late medieval Italian city-states rather than from the birth of administrative monarchies of the 16th and 17th centuries. Therefore, the article concludes that Foucault is somewhat misled in contextualizing the birth of governmentality, a view which also has some wider implications for the whole framework of governmentality Foucault is trying to develop. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:St. Thomas Aquinas's Appeal to St. John the Baptist as a Benchmark of Spiritual GreatnessJohn Baptist Ku, O.P.When we think of sources of St. Thomas Aquinas's speculative theology, we rightly recall teachings given in Scripture—such as that sin came into the world through one man (Rom 5:12) or that all that the Father has belongs also to the Son (John 16:15)—as well as teachings, based on (...) Scripture, imparted by Church councils or Fathers, such as that Christ is one person with two natures1 or that the human nature of Christ is an instrument of his divinity.2 In the project of faith seeking understanding, these teachings lead expeditiously to distinctions and clarifications concerning person and nature, habit and action, primary and instrumental causality, intellect and will, faith and reason, and the like. However, the saints themselves too serve as a source for Aquinas's speculative theological reflection. Though they admittedly constitute a less abundant source than scriptural, conciliar, or patristic teaching, the saints' contribution to Aquinas's theology merits our attention.For instance, in "Jean-Baptiste: figure du prêcheur chez Thomas d'Aquin," Jean-Pierre Torrell observes that Aquinas's research into the Fathers of the Church for the Catena aurea bore considerable influence on his subsequent works, and Torrell documents how Aquinas's treatment of John the Baptist is a precise case that shows this influence.3 More recent [End Page 1119] scholarship has, fortunately, taken note of the saints' contribution to Aquinas's theology—in the figures of St. Benedict and the virgin martyrs.4This article will therefore examine St. John the Baptist as just such a source of Aquinas's speculative theology. Aquinas appeals to St. John as a benchmark of spiritual greatness against which to situate other figures: Christ, angels, Mary, apostles, prophets, evangelists, priests, and the people of God. By examining these cases, we will not only observe the Angelic Doctor's appreciation of the saints as our teachers, as examples to be imitated, and as proofs of God's love in transformative grace; we will also witness aspects of the Dominican master's theological method, that is, in his manner of interpreting Scripture and his application of reason to scriptural data to make arguments and draw conclusions.5 For instance, in his treatment of the least in the kingdom of heaven, Scripture will definitively confirm what theological reasoning can determine concerning the knowledge of those with the beatific vision. Furthermore, his exposition on the Blessed Virgin will reveal that he reads the Bible as a whole with one divine author, in support of traditional interpretations.6 However, he is not naive about diverse human authorship and the literal versus the spiritual senses [End Page 1120] of Scripture,7 and his methodology unveils his explicit conviction that Scripture must be the basis of theological claims.8My presentation will unfold in five sections. After (1) a glance at some of Aquinas's comments on the authority of various sources of theology so as to situate our conversation about the saints as a source of theology, I will review Aquinas's enlistment of John the Baptist as a standard by which to establish: (2) three simple points about Christians and Christ—that all of the articles of faith must be accepted, that prepubescent children can enter religious life, and that Christ's baptism manifests divine power—(3) the superiority of angels to wayfarers, among whom John the Baptist is the greatest, followed by apostles, prophets, and evangelists; (4) the eminence of John the Baptist and a ranking, in order, of God, angels, John the Baptist, prophets, priests, and then God's people; and (5) the holiness of Mary the Mother of God.The Authority of Various Sources of TheologyIn just a few lines in the Summa theologiae, Aquinas identifies the roles of reason and authority in theology. On one hand, "it is most proper" to theology to offer "proofs from authority," since theology's "principles are known through revelation"—making theological arguments dependent on "the authority of those making the revelation." But on the other hand, theology "also uses human reason, not to... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Thomas Aquinas and Cognitive TherapyChristopher Megone (bio)Keywordsemotions, rationality, cognitivism, Aristotelian psychology, powersGiuseppe butera has written a stimulating and persuasive defence of the view that Aquinas’s philosophical psychology (APP) can provide “a profound and cogent philosophical framework for cognitive therapy (CT).” In this short commentary, I respond to Butera’s claims from the perspective of one possible reading of the moral psychology of Aristotle, one of Aquinas’s major (...) philosophical influences. Given the general debt that Aquinas owes to Aristotle, as noted by Butera, this may provide a helpful slant on Butera’s interpretation of Aquinas.Indeed although Butera offers Aquinas as an alternative source for a philosophical underpinning of CT, rather than the Stoics cited by Beck, one might think that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle could in any case be put forward as equally fruitful areas for inquiry in this context. Thus, one might think that Socrates’ moral psychology, which led him to the cognitivist claim that virtue is knowledge, provides a commitment to a CT-related perspective that both predated and itself influenced the Stoics. And one might then expect to learn things of relevance to CT from the ways in which Plato and Aristotle responded to that Socratic cognitivist outlook.From such an Aristotelian perspective, then, Butera’s approach is very welcome. He makes a strong case for considering Aquinas’s broadly Aristotelian conception of the human person as a desirable alternative to any account that depends on Cartesian substance dualism (of mind and body). On the Aristotelian account, by contrast, the human person is itself a single substance comprised of form (the soul) and matter (the body), the ensouled body constituting a substantial unity. The soul is a set of essential powers, the powers each human has which makes him/her a human being. These powers are necessarily linked in such a way as to comprise that unity and enmattered in a body, each enmattered set of powers constituting an individual member of the species.As Butera also notes, Aquinas follows Aristotle in supposing there to be five basic kinds of human essential powers—vegetative or nutritive, locomotive, sensitive or perceptual, appetitive or desiderative, and rational. Taken together, these distinguish humans from other species. And broadly speaking Aquinas thinks of the distinctively human motivational features as having three parts, non-rational appetites or desires, appetites or desires open to reason, and the purely rational intellect.Within this broad framework, Butera offers an account of APP and in particular of the emotions whose treatment is so important with CT. Given that this account is broadly congenial from an Aristotelian perspective, I offer three main comments. First, Butera makes interesting methodological claims, which I briefly explore. Second, and most [End Page 373] substantially, I examine Butera’s claims about emotions in APP in terms of some Aristotelian points about the acquisition of emotions. Third, I suggest that these latter points bring out a slight tension between the way in which Butera endorses CT at the outset of his paper and his slightly more qualified remarks at the end of it.MethodIn footnote 1, Butera talks of “the differences and complementarity of the methods employed by philosophers and scientists.” However, although he fairly notes that the ambitions of his paper far exceed its scope, so he cannot be expected to have elaborated this theme, his methodological comments do raise some questions as to how exactly we might understand the relation between the two modes of inquiry. He suggests, as noted, that APP can provide the philosophical underpinnings for CT. He goes on to indicate that APP can provide a deeply rooted and highly articulated philosophical explanation for the effectiveness of CT (347). This consists in showing that the principles and methods of CT can be philosophically grounded by APP (348), which he exemplifies by identifying seven points of contact between CT and APP.Butera contrasts this approach with that of Beck, who is content for CT to be “an empirically grounded system of psychological principles and therapeutic methods” (347). So what does the philosophical material add? According to Butera, “employing the rational, dialectical method of the philosophers, [Aquinas] is able to sound depths inaccessible... (shrink)

It is a rather remarkable fact that in most discussions of Aquinas’s ethics, Q. 21 of the De Veritate which deals with Aquinas’s notion of Good, is almost entirely overlooked. For example D. J. O’Connor’s book Aquinas and Natural Law refers only once to the De Veritate and that is not a reference to Q. 21. Even the massive work of Gilson, The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas, in the entire third section which deals with (...) Aquinas’s moral theory has only six references to the De Veritate and again none are to Q. 21. H. J. McCloskey in Meta-Ethics and Normative Ethics, provides what he considers two definitive repudiations of Aquinas’s theory but there is no mention or reference to the De Veritate. There may be a reason for this. Thomists like Gilson may not be attuned to or interested in answering the specific problems which contemporary ethical theorists address themselves to, while ethical theorists like O’Connor seem to depend upon traditional Thomistic accounts to locate the pertinent passages in Aquinas’s ethical writings, accounts which follow the order of one or other of the Summas. Be that as it may, some of the most illuminating sections of Aquinas dealing with ethical-theoretical issues are to be found in Question 21 of the De Veritate, for in this question is found a definition of the good as well as explanations of this definition. Consider the following passages where Aquinas lists what seem to be necessary conditions for calling something good. (shrink)

In Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society N.S. 14, 68, D. C. C. Young drew attention to a curious variant in the text of Longus 2.2.1, where, in a description of how, at the vintage, women ‘eyed’ Daphnis, A has concluding that ‘brothers’ must be a colloquial expression for ‘eyes’, he was however unable to cite any other example of this usage, but compared ‘picked men’, in Paulus Silentiarius, a locution found in a small range of other authors, as well (...) as ‘comrades on the flank, bystanders’ ‘twins’ = testicles, and French jumelles - binoculars. (shrink)

The text of the fourth-century veterinary writer Pelagonius, recently edited for the first time this century and greatly improved by K.-D. Fischer, poses many problems for an editor. The Latinity of Pelagonius himself in the epistles which precede various chapters is awkward and difficult to understand. Much of the rest of the work is a compilation, not all of it Pelagonius' own work, based on a variety of sources from the magical to the scientific. The work survives largely in (...) a single manuscript, codex Riccardianus 1179, a. 1485 . In this paper I pass over intractable questions of spelling and concentrate on more substantial problems of text and interpretation, some of which concern punctuation. (shrink)

Tao and Trinity treats the Trinity as a philosophical notion coming to birth in Heraclitus, Parmenides, and Plato. All three attempt to treat the idea of an absolute source or unity of all things, and are driven in the direction of a first principle which is an instance of itself, an identity and a contradiction at once. The Trinity later on in Aquinas is also such a principle, one characteristically Western, with consequences for art and metaphor, image and symbol, (...) comedy, tragedy, and religion. The consideration of Aquinas forces a rewriting of the history of Western philosophy from Parmenides to Heidegger, Whitehead, and Derrida. The Tao is an Eastern version of such a principle - less dependent on dialectic, reason, logic, hierarchy, and more on nature, mysticism, and transcendence."--Back cover. (shrink)

The text of the fourth-century veterinary writer Pelagonius, recently edited for the first time this century and greatly improved by K.-D. Fischer, poses many problems for an editor. The Latinity of Pelagonius himself in the epistles which precede various chapters is awkward and difficult to understand. Much of the rest of the work is a compilation, not all of it Pelagonius' own work, based on a variety of sources from the magical to the scientific. The work survives largely in (...) a single manuscript, codex Riccardianus 1179, a. 1485. In this paper I pass over intractable questions of spelling and concentrate on more substantial problems of text and interpretation, some of which concern punctuation. (shrink)

The philosopher Akeel Bilgrami’s notion of identity is original and challenging to liberal political theory, but still largely unaddressed by it. In a nutshell, Bilgrami characterizes identity as holding certain values and commitments with a crucial addendum: as we want to continue living by those values and commitments in the future, we erect some social and legal barriers to prevent them from change. Liberals of a Millian and/or Rawlsian cast of mind, in turn, arrange political institutions to enable such (...) change, as they assume that we are the kind of creatures that change their minds. In this sense, the identitarian and the liberal mindset are, as the philosopher claims, “mirror opposites”. This article engages with Bilgrami’s view in two senses: on the one hand, it highlights some potentially problematic areas that may call for further clarification and reinterpretation of the liberal canon, as well as offering other set of tensions that arise with non-liberal philosophical traditions. On the other hand, it contends that Bilgrami’s ultimate claim is not merely that the identitarian mindset is more rational than the liberal mentality, as he does, but that it makes political demands that should be assessed against the liberal ideal of justification. While it may be the case that identitarianism is rationally superior to certain versions of comprehensive liberalism, the paper concludes that it loses out to political liberalism, to the extent that Bilgrami’s identitarianism is willing to display the state’s coercive muscle in oppressive ways, in a way that political liberalism does not. (shrink)

There is still some confusion over the literary evidence for the methods by which children and others learnt to write in the ancient world. There are four main sources: the analogy between the methods of thegrammatistesand the function of the laws in Plato,Protagoras326c–d, three passages in Quintilian, a passage from one of Seneca's letters and a short analogy in Maximus of Tyre.

This book addresses three kinds of readers. Academics working inside or outside philosophy should find explanations of key terms and issues in Wittgenstein's work, and be able to find out what impact it might have on their own. At the end of entries, I sometimes indicate briefly what impact it has actually had, but for detailed information one should consult the items listed in the Bibliography of Secondary Sources. Students working on Wittgenstein or related topics (Frege, Russell, philosophical logic, (...) metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of mind) should find an account of major exegetical and substantive problems. Wittgenstein scholars should find a state‐of‐the‐art discussion, as well as some new ideas. I have striven for a comprehensive coverage of the topics, but it is synthetic a priori that I have failed. (shrink)

Who was the author of the Fourth Edict in the great persecution of Diocletian's reign we do not know. Its precise terms are not recorded; of the date of its issue we are not informed. It is true that Mr. Kidd has recently written: ‘On April 30, 304, Maximian put out the Fourth Edict in the name of himself and bis co-Augustus,’ but he discreetly forbears to give the reader any hint of the source on which he bases that statement. (...) It may be doubted whether he has any better authority in mind than the ambiguous Passio S. Sabini, which, as even Mr. Mason admitted many years ago, ‘is not in the highest class of the historical relics of its age.’ If, indeed, this supposition does not do Mr. Kidd an injustice, it would have been well to have given some reasoned defence of the document. Dufourcq regards the Passio S. Sabini as a product of the Ostrogothic period, and contends that its picturesque exordium does not depend upon any earlier source. Until his detailed criticism of the Passion is answered, we can hardly use it for the reconstruction of the history of the fourth century. (shrink)

The article shows how merit has been used to highlight pensioners as a special population in the claims-making activities of the senior rights movement in Sweden, as well as in debates about issues concerning old age. Simply put, merit refers to the claim that pensioners have built the society and they are entitled to special treatment – for instance welfare, reverence – for this reason. Merit is concluded to be a rhetorical tool with the potential of countering images of (...) older people as a burden to the young. It portrays seniors as a population worthy of welfare and reverence. Social movements that emphasize merit among seniors will however risk isolation, since such claims to some extent have become associated with populist attacks on immigrants, politicians and other groups labeled as non-merited. (shrink)

Although he does not provide a general analysis of argumentation, Aristotle is a highly influential source of modern argumentation theory. In his treatises the Topics, the Sophistical Refutations and the Rhetoric, Aristotle presents complementary aspects of a theory of sound arguments that are seen as the most effective means of persuasion. Aristotle’s central notion of a deductive argument (sullogismos) does not include references to an addressee, the situative context or non-verbal aspects of communication, and thus differs from some modern (...) views on argumentation. A deductive argument in the Aristotelian sense is a sequence of intellectual steps where the conclusion follows of necessity from the premises. Aristotle does not relativize or relax this notion but takes other factors into account by providing supplementary theoretical elements. For example, he reflects on acceptable premises (endoxa), the adjustment of rhetorical arguments to the horizon of the audience, methods of finding premises on the basis of argumentative schemes (topoi), the use of non-argumentative means of persuasion, and a framework of implicit discourse rules. Many of these themes are, albeit under a different name, still discussed in modern argumentation theory. (shrink)

This article examines some interlinear and marginal notes on Henry Aristippus' translation of the Platonic Phaedo transmitted in Leiden, UL, BPL Ms. 64. The content of these notes also appears in H...

One of the most significant philosophical doctrines of Buddhism, and an idea that has remained at the centre of its theory and practice in virtually all historical times and places, is karma. The motivations for being involved in the accumulation of karmic merit in early medieval China were diverse, but one frequently mentioned goal was the health of the physical body. This brief article examines several facets of the relationship between karma and well-being, providing a few examples of the wide (...) range of sources on this subject and reflecting on its role in the popularization of Buddhism in China. I argue that medical metaphors were central to how the doctrine of karma was explained to diverse audiences, that the translation of these ideas emphasized connections with indigenous beliefs and social practices and that medical karma encouraged the self-regulation of behaviour and thoughts in conformity with Buddhist ideology. (shrink)

This article links Konstantin Batiushkov’s poem Elysium (1810) to the tradition of poetic imitations of Janus Secundus’s Basium II. A French equivalent for this poem’s pythiambic distichs was invented by Ronsard (Chanson, 1578), who used cross-rhymed quatrains with regular alternation of dodecasyllabic and hexasyllablic lines. However, the French translators of Basia of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries could not use this metre, because its semantic aura was drastically changed by Malherbe’s Consolation a Monsieur du Perier (1598). Batiushkov’s Elysium as (...) well as its Latin and French sources are poems about a delightful death and the union of lovers in the afterlife; yet the metre, which was used in Malherbe’s poem, was for more than two centuries a metre of mournful elegiac stanzas about eternal separation. The question of a metrical prototype for Batiushkov’s poem still remains undetermined. His “anacreontic” trochaic tetrameter does not have analogues in the Latin original or its French translations, but coincides with the metre of G. A. Burger’s Die Umarmung from 1776 (of which Batiushkov was hardly aware in 1810), and finds parallels in some eighteenth-century Russian imitations of Basium II which were most likely forgotten by the beginning of the nineteenth century. (shrink)

Gianantonio Tadini is the little known protagonist in an important experiment carried out in Bergamo between 1794 and 1795. Based on the measurement of the deviation of a falling body, the experiment owes much to the one that was conducted by Giambattista Guglielmini in Bologna in 1791, which aimed at demonstrating Earth’s rotation. Tadini’s experimental work represents the most successful attempt carried out before the 19th century, and it led to the first correct formulation of deviation’s measurement. In spite of (...) this, it is not well represented in the general literature on the history of experiments intended to show diurnal Earth’s motion.1 The discovery of Tadini’s diary of experiments as well as some notes and a part of his correspondence – preserved as manuscripts in the Angelo Mai municipal library in Bergamo – allows us now to reconstruct the history of Tadini’s experiment and of his reasoning about Guglielmini’s work. In this paper, I describe the genesis and the development of Tadini’s experiment, clarify the role played by the different personalities involved and set these trials against the background of the widest history of proofs on diurnal Earth’s rotation carried out in Europe in those years. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Worth of Persons by James FranklinLouis GroarkeFRANKLIN, James. The Worth of Persons, New York: Encounter Books, 2022. 272 pp. Cloth, $30.99In The Worth of Persons, James Franklin, the well-known Aristotelian mathematician, sets out to provide an account of the very first principles of ethics and morality. Franklin argues that morality begins with an acknowledgment of the intrinsic worth of human persons, understood as beings possessing “dignity” or (...) “absolute inner worth.” As it turns out, we recognize naturally, without epistemic complication, that human beings have innate moral value.Although Franklin does not use the term “personalism” and does not discuss that specific philosophical tradition, he traces his own account to a familiar source: Kant’s personhood formulation of the categorical imperative. He has, however, little use for Kant’s rigid absolutism and prefers something much closer to a natural law formulation of ethical obligation, in large part because it allows for casuistry, a negotiation of the messy circumstances of everyday life that confront us with moral dilemmas and competing duties requiring some kind of moral calculation.But Franklin’s book is not so much about normative ethics. It is an exercise in metaethics, an attempt to make sense of morality as a root cause of value in the world. Franklin wants to secure an epistemological basis from which we can “deduce” moral principles. He is particularly impressed with contemporary discussion of “supervenience” or “metaphysical grounding” as a bridge over the alleged is–ought gap that has preoccupied analytic philosophers following in the footsteps of David Hume [End Page 349], G. E. Moore, and J. L. Mackie. Franklin shows, very effectively, that similar “gaps” can be found in logic, mathematics, linguistics, computer science, philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and so forth. As examples of supervenience, he mentions the way necessary mathematical concepts supervene on the physical, the way the meanings of words are added to spoken or written symbols, the way logical inference arises from premises and conclusion in an argument, the way social organization emerges from a collection of individuals, and the way the identity of a statue of Hercules arises from its disposition of physical parts. The point is that an empiricist fundamentalism that reduces reality to perceptible facts without any higher (or “emergent”) identities provides an overly narrow account of the metaphysical content of human experience.If ethical value supervenes on some nonethical base, it does not follow that moral judgments and obligations are a human fabrication without any grounding in the world. If we can intellectually access the moral worth of human beings the way, for example, we intellectually access necessary mathematical concepts, we can deduce moral obligations from the worth of persons in a way that preserves the epistemic status of morality against noncognitive challenges. Once we recognize that individual humans have worth (because of the potentialities inherent in their natures), we can, for example, infer moral axioms such as “human beings must be respected” and, further, infer that murder is morally wrong because it involves the wanton destruction of human beings. Franklin does not focus on the normative content of specific actions, duties, obligations, or virtues. His basic point is that moral knowledge is possible once we rationally access (through understanding) the first principle of morality: that human beings are (to use Kantian terminology) ends in themselves, beings that rational agents will value as loci of dignity and moral value.This is a thorough treatment. Franklin is moderate, cautious, careful, diligent; he adds together technical points in present-day academic discussion to produce a well-rounded worldview. He writes in an accessible manner, with good examples and flashes of wit throughout, referring to a wide range of issues and authors: Pseudo-Dionysius, Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant, Husserl, Moore, Wolterstorff, Mackie, Oderberg, MacIntyre, Midgley, Finnis, Korsgaard, Dworkin, Baier, Williams, Singer, Murdoch, and so on.The book includes eight chapters that discuss contrary positions, ethical concepts, supervenience, moral personhood, aesthetic worth, the value of animals and ecosystems, moral epistemology, and metaphysical systems compatible with a realist view of morality. There is a useful index, a modest bibliography, and a full section of notes, which contains many further references.The treatment seems a... (shrink)

In contemporary discussions of abortion, both sides argue well-worn positions, particularly concerning the question, When does human life begin? Though often invoked by the Catholic Church for support, Thomas Aquinas in fact held that human life begins after conception, not at the moment of union. But his overall thinking on questions of how humans come into being, and cease to be, is more subtle than either side in this polarized debate imagines. Fabrizio Amerini--an internationally renowned scholar of medieval philosophy--does (...) justice to Aquinas's views on these controversial issues. Some pro-life proponents hold that Aquinas's position is simply due to faulty biological knowledge, and if he knew what we know today about embryology, he would agree that human life begins at conception. Others argue that nothing Aquinas could learn from modern biology would have changed his mind. Amerini follows the twists and turns of Aquinas's thinking to reach a nuanced and detailed solution in the final chapters that will unsettle familiar assumptions and arguments. Systematically examining all the pertinent texts and placing each in historical context, Amerini provides an accurate reconstruction of Aquinas's account of the beginning and end of human life and assesses its bioethical implications for today. This major contribution is available to an English-speaking audience through translation by Mark Henninger, himself a noted scholar of medieval philosophy. (shrink)

The Hippocratic Aphorisms is a well-known treatise which was very popular throughout the ages. This paper studies the Arabic translation of [Hdotu]unayn ibn Ishaq, the renowned Arab translator, of the first book of the Aphorisms as well as the commentary of Ibn al-Nafis, the thirteenth-century Arab doctor, on the same book. This study highlights the difficulties that occasionally confronted the Arab commentator while commenting. The obscurity of a few Hippocratic sentences as well as [Hdotu]unayn's interpretation and alteration in meaning were (...) probable sources for those difficulties. Ibn al-Nafis, however, was unaware of the role played by [Hdotu]unayn in shaping the Arabic text. Ibn al-Nafis reflected a deep trust in the Arabic text to the degree of commenting on every single word. He used both his intellect and his knowledge of other commentaries to solve those problematic phrases. He did not exhibit an interest in philological matters to help explain the text. His commentaries reflect his respect and appreciation for both Hippocrates and Galen, the latter of whom exercised some influence on [Hdotu]unayn and Ibn al-Nafis in their understanding of the work. Nonetheless both [Hdotu]unayn and Ibn al-Nafis showed traces of independence from Galen's influence. (shrink)

continent. 1.2 (2011): 136-140. In early 2011, Cow Heavy Books published The Official Catalog of the Library of Potential Literature , a compendium of catalog 'blurbs' for non-existent desired or ideal texts. Along with Erinrose Mager, I edited the project, in a process that was more like curation as it mainly entailed asking a range of contemporary writers, theorists, and text-makers to send us an entry. What resulted was a creative/critical hybrid anthology, a small book in which each page (...) opens to a new iteration of textual desire. These texts explore the material possibilities of the book. Somewhat parallel to the call of N. Katherine Hayles who, in her book Writing Machines , urges literary theorists to take up the practice of Medium Specific Analysis (to account for the way the medium in which it is presented conditions or at least bears on a literary text). I see in the imagined works of The Official Catalog a call for the innovative writers of today to become Medium-Responsive. This would mean thinking through the specific (materially constrained) possibilities offered by the media in which texts are presented, and in thinking of the literary text as a kind of art in the greater context of other arts and the book as a medium situated within the context of many other media. In doing so, the contemporary writer refutes the chorus of critics who lament the death of the book by consistently reinvigorating literary innovation. The following are selections from The Official Catalog of the Library of Potential Literature that show possible paths for (thinking about) new writing that engages with its medium. —Ben Segal, Editor THE CUBE Even the most radical non-linear texts have tended to exploit or subvert only the sequential possibilities of print—from the continuous loop of Joyce's Finnegans Wake to the shuffled cards of Marc Saporta's Composition No. 1 —but The Cube takes such multiplicities to an entirely new level. Set in a grid, the book's words can be read conventionally, across the page, as well as down each column—with either route making complete grammatical sense. But they can also be read as stacked strata and mined like lexical core samples through the layered pages of the book. Each path tells the same story from a different perspective (the narrative, naturally, hinges on the potential outcomes of a throw of cubed dice). By opening up the z-axis to reading in this way, The Cube recognizes the book as a three-dimensional sculptural space. Taking its lead from Armand Schwerner's (If Personal) and Raymond Queneau's Cent mille milliards de poèmes , The Cube reads like a experiment by Christian Bök precision printed by Emily McVarish. Craig Dworkin is the editor, most recently, of The Consequence of Innovation: 21st Century Poetics (Roof Books, 2008), The Sound of Poetry/The Poetry of Sound , with Marjorie Perloff (U. Chicago Press, 2009), and Against Expression: An Anthology of Conceptual Writing , with Kenneth Goldsmith (Northwestern UP, 2010). He teaches at the University of Utah. HE GOES In He Goes , we read notes, letters and e-mails from a scholar father to his novelist daughter. We read of the father's musings on Beckett, on Pinter, on Anne Frank; his description of a woman hanging laundry from a line. We read about his journey toward dying, followed by a brief, third person account of his death, and his obituary. Then a long series of blank pages that demand to be read in real time, non-sentence by non-sentence, blank page by blank page. Finally—and it is here that this peculiar little book begins to soar—the dead father writes to his as-of-yet-still-living daughter. He does not write from death. He does not write from life. The words unprint, unstamp, unkindle. Still, they require no translation. The father "writes" (for lack of a better word) about the serendipitous, the commonplace; he recommends another book. He jokes. He asks his daughter how her stomach is. He says forget about presence in absence, darling; screw words as memorial and the guys in garbage cans and loss as redemption and I can't go on I must go on. He goes, "Love, Fodder." He goes, "incidentally." He goes, "I thought you might like to know." Elizabeth Graver is the author of a story collection, Have You Seen Me? , and three novels: Unravelling ; The Honey Thief ; and Awake . Her work has been anthologized in Best American Short Stories , Best American Essays , and Prize Stories: the O. Henry Awards . She teaches at Boston College. THE PAPER ARCHIVIST A stunning package and a triumph of imagination, The Paper Archivist at times looks to be less a book than an abstract expressionist painting. Softly bound, its contents unfold to a single sheet of uneven thickness and texture—a canvas splattered with colored lines, stickers, broken sentences, and nonsense pictographs. But by following the directions to fold, dip, smell, rub, scratch, and tear the sheet according to the contingencies of the weather and using only the objects at hand, the reader slowly brings the forces hidden in the noise into a glorious sculptural convergence, processing a different story and shape each time. This is the rare book that continues to stir, whirl, and pop on every new reading. Sean Higgins blogs at BOMBlog where he is responsible for the column Volumes and Territories, as well as Ghost Island , a fledgling collaborative intellectual collective. THE SLOW BOOK The Slow Book , written by an anonymous author at the dawn of literacy, on a minor planet (otherwise notable only as the source of that exceptionally hardy, not very tasty grain called “shef” sowed on hostile planets as an early step to colonization), and encoded into a series of punctures on a strip of copper coiled inside a clever device, something between a player piano and an old-fashioned film projector, is being released into print, as was the author’s intention, at a rate of one word per century (local time). Each word is, across the Forty Galaxies, agreed to be uncannily apt for the century in which it appears—even “of,” in a century during which the highest value was attached to fidelity, whether to ideals, worlds, or romantic love; even “the,” which governed two centuries, one extraordinarily materialistic, during which advances in propulsion and navigation accelerated the exchange of exceptional objects between the remotest planets of the Forty, and one in which the central concern, both of philosophers and the common man, was whether, in an age of rapidly proliferating hypothetical worlds, anyone or anything concretely existed at all. Even those words published long before interstellar contact can be seen in retrospect to have transgalactic pertinence. As a result, attempts to abstract the machine from its publishers, Hobson & Hui, in order to “predict the future” for insight or gain by “fast- forwarding” the copper strip have been many and ingenious. While, in centuries of skepticism (“maybe”), or of unrest (“go”) the book has been nearly forgotten, in others it seems to haunt every thought, every deed, despite the fact that the subject of The Slow Book is still unclear. So far only a few sentences exist in print; everyone knows them, can quote them, offer the standard exegeses and assorted heresies; yet certainties are the stuff of adolescence; mature readers are forced to acknowledge that these sentences are probably only a preamble to the main argument. They contain no proper nouns, nor can we identify any definite theme. There is even disagreement about their tone, whether coolly ironic, as some insist, or ardent. The appearance of an unusual grammatical case, sometimes called the future pluperfect continuous, used to describe events that at some future point will have always been true (but are not yet)—hitherto known to appear only in the synthetic dogmas of the Thanatographical Society, and in certain highly circumscribed religious contexts—has suggested to some scholars that the Slow Book was originally intended for ritual use, but the proximity of the usage to a term designating a small hand plow that, as Pott and Mielcke have convincingly shown, would have borne a distinctly obscene double meaning in its culture of origin in the author’s time, argues otherwise. It is likewise unclear whether the situation that seems to be—with teasing incompleteness—sketched out in these few lines is intended as an illustration of general principles, a case study, a dramatic scene, or an extended metaphor. In short, we have no idea what The Slow Book is about. In our own time, we believe that it is almost certainly a work of fiction, but that may be because we live in the century of “if”. In each age, perhaps, we see the book we most need to read. Some have dared to suggest that the metal strip is blank until, with millennial fanfare, it advances into its new position, that no ur-text exists, that the book itself is brought into being—written—by our need. But that is exactly the sort of thing we would believe, in 7645. Shelley Jackson is the author of the story collection The Melancholy of Anatomy , the novel Half Life , and hypertexts including Patchwork Girl . The recipient of a Howard Foundation grant, a Pushcart Prize, and the 2006 James Tiptree Jr Award, she has also written and illustrated several children's books, including The Old Woman and the Wave ; Sophia, the Alchemist's Dog ; and Mimi's Dada Catifesto . Her stories and essays have appeared in Conjunctions , McSweeney's , The Paris Review , and Cabinet Magazine . In 2004 she launched her project SKIN , a story published in tattoos on 2095 volunteers. THE BOOK OF SOUNDS The Book of Sounds is just that: a book of sounds made when letters are construed in new ways to bring forth out of the alphabet new forms of speech. A book meant to be read out loud, The Book of Sounds is not unlike Laurie Anderson's O Superman or Brian Eno's Music for Airports in its attempt to make music out of the most primary and simplest of methods. It breaks language down to its barest bones and makes out of the page a drum that has never before been beaten upon. Peter Markus is the author of a novel, Bob, or Man on Boat (Dzanc Books) as well as two books of short fiction, Good, Brother and The Singing Fish , both of which were published by Calamari Press. A new collection of stories, We Make Mud , is now available from Dzanc Books. PARADISE OF THE BLIND by Celan Solen Although the reclusive Celan Solen published his first and only book in 1963—paying out-of-pocket for a limited edition of the slim collection No One May Have the Same Knowledge Again —he remained in American obscurity for almost three decades. In 1992 a micro-press in Istanbul brought out No One in Turkish. A German translation followed in 1995. Soon it became clear in literary circles Solen was a world-class (if highly unclassifiable) artist—lyrical, dense, enigmatic—who could undo the conventional short story in 397 words by inventing impossible worlds housed in impossible whirls (in “Small Sadnesses,” a single chartreuse tree frog in Borneo unknowingly holds time together by its very presence in the universe, while each letter of its tale refers, not to itself, but to the one preceding it in the alphabet). By his disappearance last year, Solen was considered master by a generation of writers and critics (except, alas, for those gentlemen in the Swedish Academy). Imagine, then, that generation’s delight at the discovery, locked away in the author’s safe-deposit box, of his second and final composition. Had Lynch’s Lost Highway been book instead of film, and had it been penned by Beckett at his least certain, revised by Barthelme at his most formally deranged, and typeset by Derrida at his most semiotically catastrophic, the result might have been something like Paradise of the Blind : interlacing narratives of a man composed of borrowed organs (whose most cheerless and difficult to locate, god, could only have been invented by an empty heart), a nonexistent medieval painting blamed for the ruin of future hope, and the spread of a philosophy that holds earth a mistake constantly recurring in the dream of a fish lying on the floor of the Atlantic (if the fish wakes, our world winks off)—all contained in a text packed with typed-over passages, torn postcards, poems that can be deciphered only when held up to a mirror, pages ornamented with trompe-l'œil paperclips and coffee stains and buzzing houseflies, some busy with illegible runes that dissolve when exposed to light, three that smell like roses or lemons (depending on whether a man or woman is reading), two that stain with the bloody fingerprints of the those who handle them, one that ignites when brushed with breath, thirteen sewn from baby skin, one that moans when touched, and one that screams—yet all without mass, unimaginable, and invisible. Lance Olsen is author of more than 20 books of and about innovative fiction, including, most recently, the novels Calendar of Regrets (2010) and Head in Flames (2009). He teaches experimental narrative theory and practice at the University of Utah. SUPERSTRUCTURE! by Barbara D'Albi As soon as I opened the third drawer of Barbara D'Albi's wooden novel, everything became hopeless. Now in Ithaca, there was no going back. And it wasn't just the intricate series of shelves, hinged doors and locked drawers which D'Albi layered into the book, no, lo, I was constructed anew by the story. Who else but D'Albi to imagine a God who becomes a carpenter and gets killed?! And makes it good! You want stories? D'Albi is a skyscraper, built with planes and levers. Momentarily I wondered where I could shelve this book, and then I thought: no matter; I couldn't put it down. Adam Robinson lives in Baltimore, where he runs Publishing Genius. He is the author of Adam Robison and Other Poems and Say, Poem. 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In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Aquinas on Imitation of Nature: Source of Principles of Moral Action by Wojciech GolubiewskiAnthony T. FloodGOLUBIEWSKI, Wojciech. Aquinas on Imitation of Nature: Source of Principles of Moral Action. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2022. xx + 309 pp. Cloth, $75.00Does Aquinas's ethical account necessarily rely upon his metaphysics of goodness and natural forms, or can we fairly interpret his ethics as merely (...) cursorily connected to these other aspects of his thought? Golubiewski offers a thorough and compelling case that Aquinas indeed bases his ethics on these various broader principles, such that proper practical principles inextricably and fundamentally are an imitation of nature.Golubiewski details the full range of scholarship on Aquinas's natural law theory in order to set up his meticulous and comprehensive analysis. He motivates his interpretation by examining two opposed positions in current discussion. On one side is the view championed by Stephen Brock and others that focuses on Aquinas's metaphysics of the good, along with "the imitation of nature as the 'imitation of the divine mind'" as crucial to an accurate understanding of the natural law. On the other side is Martin Rhonheimer, who maintains, "natural law is not the 'imitative reflex' of the 'natural order'." Rhonheimer wishes to avoid a moral physicalism that succumbs to charges of the naturalistic fallacy. Golubiewski sides with Brock and proceeds to show the extent to which the notion of imitation performs throughout Aquinas's ethical thought.Early in his analysis, Golubiewski notes that we should avoid an overly strict distinction between the two virtues of practical reason, namely, art and prudence. While art does have the specific sense of right reason regarding the making of things, Aquinas also uses it more broadly and analogically as conveying any kind of right reason. Thus, when Aquinas speaks of art, particularly in terms of right reason as an imitation of nature, this includes prudence and all of the moral virtues it directs. Moreover, the notion of art also pertains to God's creative act. Insofar as created natures are the effect of divine art, the parameters of their goodness are already determined. In the case of rational natures, they are not free to determine their own goodness. By imitating nature, a person imitates the mind behind nature.Golubiewski devotes considerable attention to the sources of moral knowledge. For human beings, the imitation of nature pertinent to right moral reasoning begins with the knowledge of sensible things, whereby we grasp the patterns, modes of operations, and inclinations of them. All [End Page 139] beings have a movement toward—a desire for—actuality, which in turn orients them to divine goodness. "In this way things 'desire' the divine goodness, according to their own 'immanent likeness' to it. They desire it insofar as they imitate it." Each kind of thing imitates God's goodness in its own, admittedly very limited way. Human nature has this same relation to God; thereby, proper human action is based on the same sort of imitation.This leads to a relevant analysis of the part/whole notion in Aquinas. Golubiewski remarks that we have an inclination not merely toward our own individual good but also to the good of the whole human community and ultimately God as the ultimate good. "Not only political virtue but all kinds of properly human virtues are intrinsically ordered to the common good. In this way all of them are part of general justice as ordered to reason in its imitation of nature." In light of the recent resurgence of interest in the precise connection between personal rights and the common good, Golubiewski's elaboration on these points might prove especially helpful to anyone desiring to bring Thomistic principles into the debate.Golubiewski proceeds to delve into the precise character of the inclinations of human nature as rational inclinations. The common intelligible structure of goodness entails three elements. One, the mode of each kind of thing's congruent action. Two, the virtuous dispositions as rooted in that nature. Three, the virtuous agency by which the proper good of that nature is obtained. In the case of human beings, the mode of obtaining goodness is... (shrink)

We present a quite simple proof of the fixed point theorem for GL. We also use this proof to show that Sambin's algorithm yields a fixed point.

Pico’s view on emanationism is ambiguous. Moreover, his position viz. emanation seems to change at times. He made his emanationism more elaborate and complex by incorporating in it Neoplatonic ideas and the Kabbalistic hierarchy. He attempted a reconciliation of emanatio and creatio ex nihilo, as certain Christian Neoplatonists like Augustine did before, but Pico’s main intention was not the defense of the Christian dogma. To illustrate this point, I note that he did not hesitate to interpret even the book of (...) Genesis through Neoplatonism and Kabbalah, despite the resistance of the Roman Church. Philosophical accuracy and integrity was not always Pico’s main concern since he intended to prove the concordia of all the major previous philosophies and theologies. Furthermore, he disagreed with Aquinas’ solution for the problem of emanatio and creatio ex nihilo. He went on defending emanationism by relying on scholastics like Albertus Magnus. The aim of this paper is to explore Pico’s dependence on Proclus concerning the relation of emanatio and creatio ex nihilo. (shrink)

: The written renderings of Turkish names, so frequently encountered in the history of the pre-modern ruling dynasties of the Central and Eastern Islamic lands, suffered badly in the past from the deformations of authors and copyists, mainly Arabs and Persians, who did not themselves know Turkish. Moreover, these renderings have often been perpetuated by modern historians of Islam, few of whom have bothered to elucidate these names and to set forth their correct forms and meanings. The present study discusses (...) some of the very diverse principles behind medieval Turkish onomastic and uses these specifically for a consideration of the names of some prominent military commanders of the Great Seljuq sultans, ruling essentially in Persia and Iraq during the 11th and 12th centuries. (shrink)

Over recent decades there has been a growing interest in the question of whether computer programs are capable of genuinely creative activity. Although this notion can be explored as a purely philosophical debate, an alternative perspective is to consider what aspects of the behaviour of a program might be noted or measured in order to arrive at an empirically supported judgement that creativity has occurred. We sketch out, in general abstract terms, what goes on when a potentially creative program is (...) constructed and run, and list some of the relationships (for example, between input and output) which might contribute to a decision about creativity. Specifically, we list a number of criteria which might indicate interesting properties of a program’s behaviour, from the perspective of possible creativity. We go on to review some ways in which these criteria have been applied to actual implementations, and some possible improvements to this way of assessing creativity. (shrink)

Research on the evolution of language is often framed in terms of sharp discontinuities in syntax and semantics between animal communication systems and human language as we know them. According to the so-called “pragmatics-first” approach to the evolution of language, when trying to understand the origins of human language in animal communication, we should be focusing on potential pragmatic continuities. However, some proponents of this approach (e.g. Seyfarth and Cheney Animal Behavior 124: 339–346, 2017) find important pragmatic continuities, (...) whereas others (e.g. Origgi and Sperber 2000) find sharp discontinuities. I begin (in Section 1) by arguing that this divergence is due to the fact that the proponents implicitly rely, respectively, on two different views of pragmatics, corresponding to different conceptions of what is involved in context-dependence – one “Carnapian”, the other “Gricean”. I argue that neither conception is fit to serve the purposes of pragmatics-first approaches to the evolution of language. In Section 2, I examine a recent formal “semantic-pragmatic” analysis of monkey calls, due to Philippe Schlenker et al. (in, e.g., Linguistics and Philosophy 37 (6): 439–501, 2014, Trends in Cognitive Science 20 (12): 894–904, 2016a, Theoretical Linguistics 42 (1–2): 1–90, 2016b), which appears to improve on the Carnapian and Gricean conceptions. However, I argue that the appearances are misleading and that the S-P analysis is no better suited than Carnapian analyses for the purposes of those seeking to establish human-nonhuman pragmatic continuities. Understanding why this is so will point the way toward my preferred, genuinely intermediate conception of pragmatics (as defended in Bar-On Biology & Philosophy 36 (6): 1–25, 2021), which – I argue in Section 3 – is better fit for these purposes. Drawing on recent discussions of chimpanzee communication, I briefly indicate which aspects of extant primate call communication – both gestural and vocal – could potentially count as pragmatic according to this conception. (shrink)