From the outset Marenbon contends that in treating Peter Abelard as a critic and logician only, most scholars have neglected the originality of thought which Abelard brought to the questions of his day: “The aim of this book is to show that... [Abelard’s] was more than a fleeting superficial brilliance. He was a constructive and, at times, systematic philosopher; and, although it is certainly true that he used the methods of logic in treating Christian doctrine, his theology is remarkable for (...) much more than its method”. (shrink)

This volume picks up where Vaught's Journey toward God in Augustine's Confessions: Books I-VI concluded. The three chapters of this present work follow the Confessions' three central books, looking at Augustine's Neoplatonic moment of ecstasy, his conversion to Christianity in the Milanese garden, and the shared vision with his mother Monica in the house at Ostia. Very much appreciated in Vaught's approach here is his insistence that Augustine never intended to present these experiences as exclusively his own, but rather as (...) "archetypical expressions" of what occurs whenever any human soul comes upon the divine. The method employed throughout helpfully analyzes these major events within the Confessions in terms of chronological development, how Augustine engages or is engaged by those around him, and those encounters with God which shape a soul's story. (shrink)

Anyone interested in the relationship between culture and the intellectual life, has no doubt turned to the works of Christopher Dawson. This collection of ten essays from a recent conference at Oxford acts as an excellent commentary on Dawson’s main academic concerns: recovering history as a philosophical-theological category, and the reintegration of the disciplines so as to provide future generations with an understanding of culture in the truest sense of the term. As John Morrill points out in his introductory essay, (...) Dawson’s “passionate commitment to metahistory and his proclamation of the deeply moral purpose of the historian” —although out of favor in some academic circles—marks his as a unique voice in the search for truth. Dawson’s daughter, Christina Scott, offers the reader some otherwise inaccessible insights into her father’s life, especially regarding his early interest in Augustine’s De civitate Dei and Gibbon’s Decline and Fall. Aidan Nichols, OP provides a bigger picture. His essay, “Christopher Dawson’s Catholic Setting,” highlights the “theology of culture” affecting all parts of English life during the earlier part of this century: the literature, art, architecture, and philosophy that brought “a Catholic sensibility to bear on cultural life”. The Chelsea set, a vibrantly orthodox Catholic salon to which Dawson belonged, centered their thought around the Neo-Thomism of Gilson and Maritain, the literature of Fumet and Julian Green, as well as the social thought of Emmanuel Mounier. (shrink)

The head of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Harvard, MIT, and Tufts, Curtis Chang turns to the seminal works of Augustine and Thomas as a way of engaging the challenges of postmodernity. He accordingly argues that Aquinas’s De Civitate Dei and Aquinas’s Summa Contra Gentiles were composed precisely to challenge a world growing suspicious, if not negligent, of the Christian story. The rhetorical strategy Chang cleverly uncovers in both DCD and SCG is threefold: both Augustine and Thomas enter their opponents’ unique (...) stories and worldviews, both retell that story by reinterpreting that story on their opponents’ own terms, and finally, each capture that retold tale and tell the eternal story of Christianity in a way that is now intelligible and attractive to their interlocutors. (shrink)

In the earlier part of the sixth century, John of Scythopotis collected and edited the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite. Elevated to the episcopacy of the important see of Palestina Secunda, sometime between 538 and 544, John not only gathered these texts of Dionysius, he also lent his own Neochalcedonian Christology to them in order to have one more apostolic authority from which to quote against the Monophysites of his day. Thanks in large part to Beate Regina Suchla's recent work (...) in John's original Syrian, scholars have been able to discern more easily his commentary on the Dionysian corpus from Maximus the Confessor's, as both were unfortunately melded together by Père Migne. This excellent study from Rorem and Lamoreaux thus introduces us to John of Scythopolis: both a compiler and commentator on the thought of Pseudo-Dionysius as well as a theologian and defensorfidei in his own tight. (shrink)

It was Plato who informed the Greek philosophical tradition of how the King of Egypt declared that writing will inevitably “implant forgetfulness in men’s souls; they will cease to exercise memory because they rely on that which is written, calling things to remembrance no longer from within themselves, but by means of external marks”. Plotinus likewise knew how these “wise men of Egypt” therefore chose to inscribe only one image in their temples and thus “manifested the non-discursiveness of the intelligible (...) world”. Sara Rappe reminds us that such passages are not infrequent throughout the history of Neoplatonism, suggesting how Plato and his followers struggled to understand the proper use of the written word, the role of images and symbol, as well as the very possibility of the transmission of truth itself. Focusing on the question: “How is intuitive wisdom communicated, especially within the context of a philosophy that repudiates language but continues to practice speculative metaphysics?”, Rappe has produced a helpful work aimed at examining the Neoplatonic hermeneutic. (shrink)

There is something appropriate about Lyotard’s last printed work being his most intimate and revealing. Best known for The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, Lyotard died in the April of 1998, leaving his Confession d’Augustin, as Dolorès Lyotard tells us in her “Forewarning,” “scarcely half” finished. Although his New York Times obituary claimed that “awaiting publication is his final book about the ‘Confessions’ of St. Augustine”, this work is less a book about the Confessions as it is an insight (...) into a twentieth century philosopher at the end of his life. Revealed here is a philosopher struggling with the perennial themes of Augustine’s own odyssey: confession as praise and contrition. Perhaps it was Lyotard’s own battle with leukemia and his growing sense of mortality that gave him such insights into Augustine’s early fallacy of thinking of God as encircling and filling all things throughout space that he is able to write, “Such is flesh visited, co-penetrated by your space-time, disturbed and confused with this blow, but steeped in infinity, impregnated and pregnant with your overabundant liquid: the waters of the heavens” ; and regarding the relationship between time and immunity, Lyotard understands that, “God only sees himself in God. Compared with the incomparable brightness, all is night, and speech is noise after the silence of lauds. In the sky of skies, the heaven of heavens, wisdom celebrates its glory. The intelligence with which the angelic creatures are infused is not co-eternal with their creator, but it is exempt from becoming”. Passages like these not only present Augustine in a new light, but invite readers to see themselves in this light as well. (shrink)

Plotinus knew that evils “wander about mortal nature and this place forever” and Schäfer begins his analysis of evil in the Enneads with a very helpful survey of the philosophical schools and literary tradition of ancient Greece which influenced Plotinus. These opening pages thus treat χαχόν as understood by Heraclitus, Plato, and Sophocles. Schäfer stresses the quasi-dualism present in these earlier thinkers in order to show how Plotinus’ insistence that all is derived from a single origin, the One, forced him (...) to give a more precise account of evil’s origins. He therefore set out to explain how the individuality caused by material substantiation is that which brings about an Unwissenheit und Harmoniestörung. The human soul becomes enamored by that which is good and an instance of the One-on-a-lower-level; paradoxically, therefore, evil is brought about not by some competing substance of the One but by its own emanated beauty. As the soul freely chooses diversity over unity, it finds itself more and more “fanned out”, forgetful of its true origin. (shrink)

These six lectures from the twentyfirst Thomas Spencer Jerome Lectures, an annual series exploring various dimensions of Roman life, provide an invaluable reflection on the relationship, Pelikan’s “counterpoint,” between Genesis and the Timaeus down through the ages. How did the only Platonic dialogue known in its entirety during the Middle Ages influence Judaeo-Christian cosmology? Pelikan chooses to answer this question by first discussing “Classical Rome: ‘Description of the Universe as Philosophy’” and Lucretius’ theological and literary contributions to the history of (...) cosmogonic speculation. In rejecting divine causality, Lucretius’ atomism made room for natural science and for a teleology without explicit reference to direct heavenly agency. Talk of the divine was thus interpreted apophatically and the poetry of de Rerum Natura allowed the truths of what remains for us a “likely story” to be conveyed without a historical or anthropomorphic literalness. Lucretius’ indebtedness to Epicurean materialism is obvious and as Pelikan stresses, “it was from Athens that classical Rome learned to think philosophically about cosmogony”. In “Athens: Geneseôs Archê as ‘The Principle of Becoming’,” Pelikan poses the fundamental questions: Why was the cosmos created? And according to what model had it been created? Plato’s answer is of course that the world of becoming is an image of an immutable and perfect model. This patterning is due to God as Goodness and his willing that all things act together for a purpose. Chapter 3 continues this inquiry with “Jerusalem: Genesis as a ‘Likely Account’ of One God Almighty Maker.” Here Pelikan focuses in on Jerusalem’s contribution of the imago Dei. While the Timaeus defines “the terms of the counterpoint,” Genesis sets “the outline and sequence” of creation, the crowning achievement of which is the rational and sovereign human person. Therefore, whereas Plato may have understood the entire universe to be in God’s image, Moses reserved this exalted position for humanity alone, a dignity Pelikan treats in his discussion of free moral choice. (shrink)

Every year in connection with the Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, a special seminar in gnosticism and later Platonism is held. Ten of the papers presented between 1993 and 1998 have been gathered into this volume. Each essay here examines some particular theme where the exchange between gnostics and later Platonic philosophers has proven particularly rich.

Echoing much of the neo-Thomistic revival of the twentieth century, Fides et Ratio §76 sketches the two main characteristics of a Christian philosophy: it is a type of thinking which simultaneously employs yet always seeks to purify reason and, secondly, it does not close itself off to the concerns and content of revelation. In this way, Pope John Paul II calls for a contemporary understanding of faith which is seen as a virtue freeing human reason from presumption, "the typical temptation (...) of the philosopher." In his latest, Bruno Niederbacher likewise calls for such learned docility in both the human soul as well as in the modern Academy. Divided into six main sections, this work concentrates on two main arguments. First, he shows why Thomas held that faith enables assent to what is and thus proves to be a necessary virtue for correct thinking and action and, secondly, what significance such a claim has for us today. (shrink)

Augustine of Hippo's The City of God is generally considered to be one of the key works of Late Antiquity. Written in response to allegations that Christianity had brought about the decline of Rome, Augustine here explores themes in history, political science, and Christian theology, and argues for the truth of Christianity over competing religions and philosophies. This Companion volume includes specially-commissioned essays by an international team of scholars that provide new insights into The City of God. Offering commentary on (...) each of this massive work's 22 books chapters, they sequentially and systematically explore The City of God as a whole. Collectively, these essays demonstrate the development and coherence of Augustine's argument. The volume will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars of ancient and contemporary theology, philosophy, cultural studies, and political theory. (shrink)

Hans Urs von Balthasar is one of the most prolific, creative and wide-ranging theologians of the twentieth century who is just now coming to prominence. But because of his own daring speculations about the meaning of Christ's descent into hell after the crucifixion, about the uniqueness of Christ as savior of a pluralistic world, and because he draws so many of his resources for his theology from literature, drama, and philosophy, Balthasar has never been an easily-categorized theologian. He is neither (...) liberal nor conservative, neither Thomist nor modernist and he seems to elude all attempts to capture the exact way he creatively reinterprets the tradition of Christian thought. For that reason, this Companion is singularly welcome bringing together a wide range of theologians both to outline and to assess the work of someone whom history will surely rank someday with Origen, John Calvin, and Karl Barth. (shrink)

What happens when someone acts? A familiar answer goes like this. There is something that the agent wants, and there is an action that he believes conducive to its attainment. His desire for the end, and his belief in the action as a means, justify taking the action, and they jointly cause an intention to take it, which in turn causes the corresponding movements of the agent's body. I think that the standard story is flawed in several respects. The flaw (...) that will concern me in this paper is that the story fails to include an agent-or, more precisely, fails to cast the agent in his proper role. (shrink)

The combination of genuine ethical concerns and fear of learning to use germ-line therapy for human disease must now be confronted. Until now, no established techniques were available to perform this treatment on a human. Through an integration of several fields of science and medicine, we have developed a nine step protocol at the germ-line level for the curative treatment of a genetic disease. Our purpose in this paper is to provide the first method to apply germ-line therapy to treat (...) those not yet born, who are destined to have a life threatening, or a severely debilitating genetic disease. We hope this proposal will initiate the process of a thorough analysis from both the scientific and ethical communities. As such, this proposal can be useful for official groups studying the advantages and disadvantages of germ-line therapy. (shrink)

The agent portrayed in much philosophy of action is, let's face it, a square. He does nothing intentionally unless he regards it or its consequences as desirable. The reason is that he acts intentionally only when he acts out of a desire for some anticipated outcome; and in desiring that outcome, he must regard it as having some value. All of his intentional actions are therefore directed at outcomes regarded sub specie boni: under the guise of the good. This agent (...) is conceived as being capable of intentional action—and hence as being an agent—only by virtue of being a pursuer of value. I want to question whether this conception of agency can be correct. Surely, so general a capacity as agency cannot entail so narrow a cast of mind. Our moral psychology has characterized, not the generic agent, but a particular species of agent, and a particularly bland species of agent, at that. It has characterized the earnest agent while ignoring those agents who are disaffected, refractory, silly, satanic, or punk. I hope for a moral psychology that has room for the whole motley crew. I shall begin by examining why some philosophers have thought that the attitudes motivating intentional actions involve judgments of value. I shall then argue that their conception of these attitudes is incorrect. Finally, I shall argue that practical reason should not be conceived as a faculty for pursuing value. (shrink)

Existing accounts of shared intention (by Bratman, Searle, and others) do not claim that a single token of intention can be jointly framed and executed by multiple agents; rather, they claim that multiple agents can frame distinct, individual intentions in such a way as to qualify as jointly intending something. In this respect, the existing accounts do not show that intentions can be shared in any literal sense. This article argues that, in failing to show how intentions can be literally (...) shared, these accounts fail to resolve what seems problematic in the notion of shared intention. It then offers an account in which the problem of shared intention is resolved, because intention can indeed be literally shared. This account is derived from Margaret Gilbert’s notion of a “pool of wills,” to which it applies Searle’s definition of intention. (shrink)

Abstract I argue that meaning in life is importantly influenced by bioloical ties. More specifically, I maintain that knowing one's relatives and especially one's parents provides a kind of self-knowledge that is of irreplaceable value in the life-task of identity formation. These claims lead me to the conclusion that it is immoral to create children with the intention that they be alienated from their bioloical relatives?for example, by donor conception.

Existing accounts of shared intention (by Bratman, Searle, and others) do not claim that a single token of intention can be jointly framed and executed by multiple agents; rather, they claim that multiple agents can frame distinct, individual intentions in such a way as to qualify as jointly intending something. In this respect, the existing accounts do not show that intentions can be shared in any literal sense. This article argues that, in failing to show how intentions can be literally (...) shared, these accounts fail to resolve what seems problematic in the notion of shared intention. It then offers an account in which the problem of shared intention is resolved, because intention can indeed be literally shared. This account is derived from Margaret Gilbert’s notion of a “pool of wills,” to which it applies Searle’s definition of intention. (shrink)

Harry Frankfurt's philosophy of action as a prolegomenon to the Zhuangzi.

I offer an account of how ideals motivate us. My account suggests that although emulating an ideal is often rational, it can lead us to do irrational things. * This is the third in a series of four papers on narrative self-conceptions and their role in moral motivation. In the first paper, “The Self as Narrator” (to appear in Autonomy and the Challenges to Liberalism: New Essays, ed. Joel Anderson and John Christman), I explore the motivational role of narrative self-conceptions, (...) drawing on Daniel Dennett’s notion of the self as a “center of narrative gravity”. In the second paper, “Willing the Law” (in Practical Conflicts, ed. Monika Betzler and Peter Baumann [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming]), I explore the role of selfconceptions in Kantian “conflicts in the will”, drawing on Christine Korsgaard’s notion of “practical identities”. In a fourth paper, “A Sense of Self” (ms), I explore the role of narrative self-con-ceptions in Kantian “conflicts in conception”, drawing on the work of Thomas Nagel and John Perry on the self. (shrink)

We conducted an online study of projected behavioral and emotional responses to escalating terrorist threat. The study employed scenarios in which terrorists targeted commercial airliners with missiles at an international airport. An important feature of attacks on commercial flights is that unlike many other terrorist threats, exposure to the risk can be controlled simply be refusing to fly. Nine scenarios were constructed by crossing two between-subjects factors, each with three levels: (1) planned government protective actions and (2) social norm, expressed (...) as variation in airline ticket sales. Scenarios also incorporated descriptions of three increasingly severe attacks; this was a within-subjects factor. After each description, we asked respondents to imagine they had planned a vacation to a destination 2,500 km away, and we examined their projected fear and behavior. Fear increased and more trips were canceled as the attacks escalated. Government protective actions and social norm had little impact on either fear or planned flying. (shrink)

There is a growing recognition, stemming from work with both vertebrates and invertebrates, that the capacity for neuronal regeneration is critically dependent on the local microenvironment. That environment is largely created by the non‐neuronal elements of the nervous system, the neuroglia. Therefore an understanding of how glial cells respond to injury is crucial to understanding neuronal regeneration. Here we examine the process of repair in a relatively simple nervous system, that of the insect, in which it is possible to define (...) precisely the cellular events of the repair process. This repair is rapid and well organised; it involves the recruitment of blood cells, the division of endogenous glial elements and, possibly, migration from pre‐existing glial pools in adjacent ganglia. There are clear parallels between the events of repair and those of normal glial development. It seems likely that the ability of the insect central nervous system to repair resides in the retention of developmental capacities throughout its life and that damage results in the activation of this potential. (shrink)

I reconstruct Kant's derivation of the Categorical Imperative (CI) as an argument that deduces what the voice of conscience must say from how it must sound - that is, from the authority that is metaphorically attributed to conscience in the form of a resounding voice. The idea of imagining the CI as the voice of conscience comes from Freud; and the present reconstruction is part of a larger project that aims to reconcile Kant's moral psychology with Freud's theory of moral (...) development. As I reconstruct it, Kant's argument yields an imperative commanding us to act for reasons whose validity we can consistently will to be common knowledge among all agents. Universalizing a maxim thus turns out to consist in willing, not that there be some universally quantified rule of conduct, but rather that a principle of practical reasoning be common knowledge - as a principle of reasoning ought to be. (shrink)

This article explores the various senses in which the framers of the Constitution were motivated by a pragmatist philosophical framework, and how this pragmatism influenced their vision of the best interests of the American economic system. We argue that, on various grounds, the framers would have disapproved of the excessive regulation that characterizes the current business environment.

The view that something's being good for a person depends on his capacity to care about it – sometimes called internalism about a person’s good – is here derived from the principle that 'ought' implies 'can'. In the course of this derivation, the limits of internalism are discussed, and a distinction is drawn between two senses of the phrase "a person's good".

Just when philosophers of science thought they had buried Freud for the last time, he has quietly reappeared in the writings of moral philosophers. Two analytic ethicists, Samuel Scheffler and John Deigh, have independently applied Freud’s theory of the superego to the problem of moral motivation. Scheffler and Deigh concur in thinking that although Freudian theory doesn’t entirely solve the problem, it can nevertheless contribute to a solution.

J. David Archibald explores how Darwin first came to the conclusion that species had evolved in different regions throughout the world. Carefully retracing Darwin's gathering of evidence and the evolution of his thinking, Origins of Darwin's Evolution achieves a new understanding of how Darwin crafted his transformative theory.

This is the second of three papers on issues of personal identity, existence, and nonexistence. Here I argue that the birth of a child leads us to before and after value judgments that appear to be inconsistent. Consider, for example, a 14-year-old girl who decides to have a baby. We tend to think that the birth of a child to a 14-year-old would be a very unfortunate event, and hence that she should not decide to have a child. But once (...) the child has been born, we are loath to say that it shouldn't have been born. This conundrum is one of several that Derek Parfit considers in Part IV of Reasons and Persons. I suggest a solution that Parfit doesn't consider. Parfit's discussion is predicated on the assumption that our value judgments must be consistent, in the sense that they could be satisfied by some possible distribution of value across the possibilities. As we would say in logic, there must be a model of our value judgments, consisting in a distribution of value. I think that the present case gives us reason to reject this assumption. (shrink)

This paper examines the most influential naturalist theory of health, Christopher Boorse’s ‘biostatistical theory’ . I argue that the BST is an unsuitable candidate for the rôle that Boorse has cast it to play, namely, to underpin medicine with a theoretical, value-free science of health and disease. Following the literature, I distinguish between “real” changes and “mere Cambridge changes” in terms of the difference between an individual’s intrinsic and relational properties and argue that the framework of the BST essentially implies (...) a Cambridge-change criterion. The examination reveals that this implicit criterion commits the BST to the troubling view that an individual could go from being diseased to healthy, or vice versa, without any physiological change in that individual. Two problems follow: the current framework of the BST is ill-equipped to formally embrace Cambridge changes and it is theoretically dubious. The arguments advanced here are not limited to the BST; I suggest they extend to any naturalist claim to underpin medical practice with a value-free theory of health and disease defined in terms of an evolutionary view of biological fitness. (shrink)

The "tree of life" iconography, representing the history of life, dates from at least the latter half of the 18th century, but evolution as the mechanism providing this bifurcating history of life did not appear until the early 19th century. There was also a shift from the straight line, scala naturae view of change in nature to a more bifurcating or tree-like view. Throughout the 19th century authors presented tree-like diagrams, some regarding the Deity as the mechanism of change while (...) others argued for evolution. Straight-line or anagenetic evolution and bifurcating or cladogenetic evolution are known in biology today, but are often misrepresented in popular culture, especially with anagenesis being confounded with scala naturae. Although well known in the mid 19th century, the geologist Edward Hitchcock has been forgotten as an early, if not the first author to publish a paleontologically based "tree of life" beginning in 1840 in the first edition of his popular general geology text Elementary Geology. At least 31 editions were published and those between 1840 and 1859 had this "paleontological chart" showing two trees, one for fossil and living plants and another for animals set within a context of geological time. Although the chart did not vary in later editions, the text explaining the chart did change to reflect newer ideas in paleontology and geology. Whereas Lamarck, Chambers, Bronn, Darwin, and Haeckel saw some form of transmutation as the mechanism that created their "trees of life," Hitchcock, like his contemporaries Agassiz and Miller, who also produced "trees of life," saw a deity as the agent of change. Through each edition of his book Hitchcock denounced the newer transmutationist hypotheses of Lamarck, then Chambers, and finally Darwin in an 1860 edition that no longer presented his tree-like "paleontological chart.". (shrink)

In the latter half of the twentieth century, philosophers of science have argued (implicitly and explicitly) that epistemically rational individuals might compose epistemically irrational groups and that, conversely, epistemically rational groups might be composed of epistemically irrational individuals. We call the conjunction of these two claims the Independence Thesis, as they together imply that methodological prescriptions for scientific communities and those for individual scientists might be logically independent of one another. We develop a formal model of scientific inquiry, define four (...) criteria for individual and group epistemic rationality, and then prove that the four definitions diverge, in the sense that individuals will be judged rational when groups are not and vice versa. We conclude by explaining implications of the inconsistency thesis for (i) descriptive history and sociology of science and (ii) normative prescriptions for scientific communities. (shrink)

The "tree of life" iconography, representing the history of life, dates from at least the latter half of the 18th century, but evolution as the mechanism providing this bifurcating history of life did not appear until the early 19th century. There was also a shift from the straight line, scala naturae view of change in nature to a more bifurcating or tree-like view. Throughout the 19th century authors presented tree-like diagrams, some regarding the Deity as the mechanism of change while (...) others argued for evolution. Straight-line or anagenetic evolution and bifurcating or cladogenetic evolution are known in biology today, but are often misrepresented in popular culture, especially with anagenesis being confounded with scala naturae. Although well known in the mid 19th century, the geologist Edward Hitchcock has been forgotten as an early, if not the first author to publish a paleontologically based "tree of life" beginning in 1840 in the first edition of his popular general geology text Elementary Geology. At least 31 editions were published and those between 1840 and 1859 had this "paleontological chart" showing two trees, one for fossil and living plants and another for animals set within a context of geological time. Although the chart did not vary in later editions, the text explaining the chart did change to reflect newer ideas in paleontology and geology. Whereas Lamarck, Chambers, Bronn, Darwin, and Haeckel saw some form of transmutation as the mechanism that created their "trees of life," Hitchcock, like his contemporaries Agassiz and Miller, who also produced "trees of life," saw a deity as the agent of change. Through each edition of his book Hitchcock denounced the newer transmutationist hypotheses of Lamarck, then Chambers, and finally Darwin in an 1860 edition that no longer presented his tree-like "paleontological chart.". (shrink)