In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:
ources VICTORIA, LADY WELBY’S PAPERS AT YORK UNIVERSITY, TORONTO I. G-G Mathematics / Middlesex U.  St. Leonard’s Road, Bengeo, Herts.  ,  .-@.. ne of the fringe figures in British philosophical life during Russell’s early Ocareer was Victoria, Lady Welby (–). Coming in middle age to academic concerns, she was the most receptive person in Britain to the semiotics of C. S. Peirce (–), (...) giving his work some publicity especially in her books What Is Meaning? () and Significs and Language (). After her death much of her library went to the University of London Library; her heavily annotated copies of journals such as Mind and The Monist are worth consulting. Her papers remained with her family until they were purchased from Sir Oliver Welby in  by York University, Toronto. The large collection is stored in  large boxes, with the general reference number -; the archival staff has prepared an excellent catalogue. I sampled the collection in a short recent visit. It divides into two nearly equal halves. One half includes her own manuscripts and essays, sometimes including comments made by friends. Some manuscripts by others, or transcripts thereof (for example, H. G. Wells) were also stored. I looked at the manuscripts related to logic and language, and found that several were composed of transcriptions of her notes typed out on strips and then set in a chosen order by fixing to large sheets with pins. Logic as such did not feature strongly; more prominent were aspects of linguistics or speech practice. Lady Welby strove to popularize the work of fellow enthusiasts for linguistics. In particular, box  comprises her commissioned English translations of several articles published during the s by the logician and philosopher Giovanni Vailati (–), also the earliest follower of Russell’s hero Giuseppe Peano. Presumably Vailati’s and Welby’s deaths prevented the publication of the planned book. The other half of the collection comprises Lady Welby’s extensive correspondence, including copies or drafts of some of her own letters. Attached to many russell: the Journal of Bertrand Russell Studies n.s.  (summer ): – The Bertrand Russell Research Centre, McMaster U.  -  . - letters are partial typewritten transcriptions, presumably prepared by or for her daughter Nina Cust (–) for a two-volume edition. As these transcriptions suggest, the originals were not only selected but also mauled quite a bit; the edition provides only extracts both locally within a letter and also globally across a file. They are organized chronologically in chapters each covering a short run of years, so that any extensive exchange is spread across several chapters. Further, the precise date of each letter is never given. This is a pity, for the full collection reveals an impressive range of serious contacts in the philosophical and other communities, and also with some figures related to her social status (from the aristocratic Stuart-Wortley family, Very Important in those days). Some letters relate to a discussion group which met at her home; first at Denton Manor, Grantham, Lincolnshire, and then during her widowhood in Harrow, London. To Lady Welby herself, one of the most important exchanges was that with C. S. Peirce (–), some of which appeared in the daughter’s edition and since has been published in full. For my interests two other files stood out. One is an intense exchange, especially in , with Mary Boole (–), in which her working relationship with her late husband and their religious stance were discussed. The other exchange was with Philip Jourdain (–); they used to lend each other books and recent issues of journals. When Lady Welby planned a visit in September , Jourdain assured her that a “tyred fly” would be hired to bring her to his home from the railway station, and that it had a large room which should be satisfactory to “you and your maid”. These two also exchanged opinions on recent philosophical literature, including that by Russell, whose work is mentioned in other files. There is a small exchange with Russell himself; both sides are available here, and of course also at the Russell Archives. Some or all of these files are printed in the Cust volumes, but the full collection needs to be consulted in order to do justice to the material. Researchers visiting the Russell... (shrink)

It is widely believed that such old-fashioned questions have been rendered absurd by the materialism of modern empirical science, but some seemingly 'magical' properties of quantum mechanics have brought them back into serious discussion in some circles. I will examine the possibility of making miracles using well-established principles of quantum mechanics--in particular, the possibility that quantum theory allows for the most desirable ' miracle ' of all: immortality.

In this article, I draw on ethnographic research to show how a particular ethos and worldview get produced in the context of “technical” education in a department of nanoengineering. Building on feminist science studies and communication theory, I argue that the curriculum introducing undergraduate students to scale implicitly teaches them an abstract and universal notion that smaller is better. I suggest that rather than smaller is better, a perspective that embraces context and specificity—such as the question “when, how, and for (...) whom is smaller better?”—would ground nanoengineering in a more reflexive, pluralistic, and democratically oriented mode of world-building. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Latina/o Social Ethics: Moving beyond Eurocentric Moral Thinking, and: Racism and God-Talk: A Latino/a PerspectiveKevin N. York-SimmonsLatina/o Social Ethics: Moving beyond Eurocentric Moral Thinking Miguel A. de La Torre, Waco Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2010. 160 pp. $24.95.Racism and God-Talk: A Latino/a Perspective Rubén Rosario Rodríguez New York: New York University Press, 2008. 320 pp. $24.00Although Latina/o theologians have contributed much to Christian (...) moral discourse in recent decades, the impact of these contributions has too often remained limited to other Latina/os and those with particular interests in liberation theologies. Miguel de La Torre and Rubén Rosario Rodríguez build on the contributions of theologians before them while challenging the broader theological community to take notice of these rich and provocative works.In four concise chapters, Miguel de La Torre’s Latina/o Social Ethics delivers a forceful criticism of prominent thinkers in the field of Christian ethics and offers a creative reconstruction of ethics from a Latina/o perspective. De La Torre offers a critique of “Euroamerican” Christian ethicists whose works have greatly influenced contemporary Christian moral discourse. He addresses the writings of Walter Rauschenbusch, Reinhold Niebuhr, Stanley Hauerwas, Anthony Campolo, Ron Sider, and Jim Wallis. De La Torre faults these theologians for the ways in which their moral thinking participates in the oppression and marginalization of Latina/os, either through their silence or through their endorsement of specific polices. De La Torre concludes that the legacy of cultural and economic privilege and the oppression of Latinas/os are so [End Page 199] deeply embedded in the Eurocentric thinking that has dominated the field of Christian ethics that it cannot be the foundation for Latino social ethics.De La Torre’s aim is to “move beyond” Eurocentric modes of thinking rather than dwell on critique. This eagerness to move forward to the creative and constructive aspects of Latina/o ethics, however, limits the forcefulness of his critique of Euroamerican ethicists. De La Torre’s reading of Euroamerican ethics—and even the application of that term—is highly selective, both in terms of the thinkers chosen and the writings examined. While De La Torre’s criticisms of these thinkers are generally insightful and serve to illustrate his basic criticism of Eurocentric ethics, these criticisms are limited in their depth of analysis. De La Torre is less concerned with the broader historical and theological considerations at work in these Euroamerican ethicists than with their failures to adequately address issues of concern to Latinas/os.The second half of Latina/o Social Ethics moves to his constructive, or “reconstructive,” project. De La Torre reviews central concepts in the methodology of Latina/o social ethics, including lo cotidiano, nepantla, la lucha, en conjunto, and acompañamiento. De La Torre’s explanation of these terms is brief and accessible. Moving beyond these concepts, the fourth chapter of Latina/o Social Ethics offers a creative approach to a liberative ethics that draws on Christian tradition as well as broader Hispanic cultural resources, including folk characters and themes of the trickster found in Afro-Caribbean religious traditions. De La Torre addresses the concern for how to imagine a Christian ethics with a role for the trickster, including identifying trickster characters and themes in the Bible. His “disruptive ethics” challenges the preference for order over justice that has characterized Eurocentric ethics, for which he provides helpful examples. De La Torre is clearly concerned with imperialism, immigration, and free trade, yet it is unclear what justice means in those contexts. Perhaps due to the powerlessness of marginalized Latina/os, criticisms of injustice weigh far more heavily than visions of justice.The concise length of this book broadens its appeal. Academics unfamiliar with some of the concepts and methodologies of Latina/o theologians will find this short introduction a useful starting point. This provocative book would also be a welcome addition to the classroom, either in part or in its entirety.In contrast to De La Torre’s short work, Rubén Rosario Rodríguez sets a broader and more ambitious task in his Racism and God-Talk. His project... (shrink)

One of the most historically recent and damaging blows to the reputation of utopianism came from its association with the totalitarian regimes of Hitler’s Third Reich and Mussolini’s Fascist party in World War II and the prewar era. Being an apologist for utopianism, it seemed to some, was tantamount to being an apologist for Nazism and all of its concomitant horrors. The fantasy principle of utopia was viewed as irretrievably bound up with the irrationalism of modern dictatorship. While these conclusions (...) are somewhat understandable given the broad strokes that definitions of utopia are typically painted with, I will show in this paper that the link between the mythos of fascism and the constructs of utopianism results from an unfortunate conflation at the theoretical level. The irrationalism of any mass ethos and the rationalism of the thoughtful utopian planner are, indeed, completely at odds with each other. I arrive at this conclusion via an analysis of the concepts of myth and narrative, and the relationships these have with the concept of utopia. (shrink)

It is my goal in this paper to offer a strategy for translating universal statements about utopia into particular statements. This is accomplished by drawing out their implicit, temporally embedded, points of reference. Universal statements of the kind I find troublesome are those of the form ‘Utopia is x’, where ‘x’ can be anything from ‘the receding horizon’ to ‘the nation of the virtuous’. To such statements, I want to put the questions: ‘Which utopias?’; ‘In what sense?’; and ‘When was (...) that, is that, or will that be, the case for utopias?’ Through an exploration of these lines of questioning, I arrive at three archetypes of utopian theorizing which serve to provide the answers: namely, utopian historicism, utopian presentism, and utopian futurism. The employment of these archetypes temporally grounds statements about utopia in the past, present, or future, and thus forces discussion of discrete particulars instead of abstract universals with no meaningful referents. (shrink)

The central argument of this article is that the standard conception of character given in virtue theory, as exemplified in the work of Rosalind Hursthouse, is seriously flawed. Partially, this is because looking behind a moral action for a ‘character’ is suspiciously akin to looking behind an object for an ‘essence’, and is susceptible to the same interpretive errors as an epistemic strategy. Alternately, a character—once inducted and projected upon a moral agent—is supposed to be a more or less permanent (...) property of that individual; a schema which leaves little room for the real possibility of personal transformation. I argue here that what is often referred to in virtue literature as ‘character’ can be productively re-described as the aggregate of all moral actions performed by any one moral agent: nothing more, and nothing less. My hope is that this interpretive strategy will result in broader and more coherent readings of moral actions, and thus also clarify moral confusion resulting from the current lack of the same. (shrink)

The similarities between the concept of cosmopolitanism and the concept of the world-state are, in some regards, fairly intuitive. At the very least, the theme of universalism is often seen as common to both. The precise form of a universalized ethical or political order, however, is not expressly conceptually determined by either cosmopolitanism or the world-state; both are susceptible to pluralist interpretations. Further, we cannot assume that an ethical concern will either motivate the creation of, or become a central policy (...) issue to, a world-state, in the way that a concern for moral universalism—sometimes referred to as ‘moral minimalism’—is inseparable from the cosmopolitan project more generally. Nor does cosmopolitanism have a necessary political component in the manner in which the world-state does. Nevertheless, we may assume that any form of global government should have some minimal degree of responsibility and concern for the welfare of all world-citizens. This paper considers Michael Walzer’s analysis of moral minimalism, and posits that this concept could form a common normativebasis for both moral cosmopolitanism and the reform of existing institutions of global governance, as well as having possible applications for the drafting of just policies for a potential world-state. (shrink)

The global digital divide represents one of the most significant examples of international inequality. In North America and Western Europe, nearly 70% of citizens use the Internet on a regular basis, whereas in Africa less than 4% do so. Such inequality impacts business and trade, online education and libraries, telemedicine and health resources, and political information and e-government. In response, a group of educators and community leaders in South Africa and the United States have used various information technologies to create (...) a ―global classroom‖ that connects people in the two countries. University students, high school students, and other citizens communicate via Internet exchanges, video conferencing, and digital photo essays. The project has produced a number of tangible benefits and it has developed a model for reducing inequality in global education, at least for those institutions with the technological resources to participate. We also present several recommendations for how to expand the initiative and thereby increase the number of people who can benefit from it. (shrink)

The recent death of Peter McHugh becomes an occasion for the remembrance and recollection of the distinctive form of reflexive or analytic social inquiry, which framed his work and that of his longtime friend and collaborator, Alan Blum. Following dual appointments at York University, Toronto, Canada in 1972, Blum and McHugh’s partnership formed the basis for a community of scholars and students throughout the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. A brief review of McHugh and Blum’s works shows theoretical (...) roots in social constructivism and a deep appreciation of the linguistic turn, which in turn lead to the development of a form of social analysis that meets the stringent requirements of a reflexive sociology by repudiating any claim to a privileged exemption of theoretical speech (practice) from the hermeneutical circle of speech and language. Blum and McHugh are shown to embrace and not to evade the hermeneutical circle by a form of social inquiry that subverts the inherent possibilities available within speech and social convention to make available an encounter with the (moral) authority or form of life for that self-same speech. With each example of everyday life or conventional usage, McHugh (and Blum) move from theorizing which formulates the complexity of a particular instance of social interaction through its rules, to the question of the form of life that make that particular instance of the rules possible. It is the pursuit of transparency between speech and its roots in language that informed and continues to inform the distinctive style of social theory fostered at York-Toronto under the orchestration of McHugh and Blum. (shrink)

“Ontario and its Universities” embodies the views, on several central issues in higher education in Ontario, of members of a seminar which met regularly in the autumn of 1973 and early winter of 1974. The seminar was initiated by a group of professors from the University of Toronto and York University. They invited a number of their academic colleagues and several interested and informed persons from the wider public to discuss with them the responsibilities and essential (...) requirements of the contemporary university in Ontario. (shrink)

Tel-Aviv University and York University, Toronto Plato suggested ways to regulate and integrate slaves within the legal system of his Utopian Cretan polis Magnesia as described in his work, Laws . This text alone invalidates most criticism of Popper's presentation of Plato's political views. His 50-year-old reading of Plato fits the text better than any other. To preserve the noble tradition of classical scholarship, classical scholars should acknowledge explicitly that he was correct, and that by now (...) they have surreptitiously incorporated the substance of his views. Key Words: Plato • slavery • apologetics • classical scholarship • Laws • Popper. (shrink)

Speaking the Truth about Oneself is composed of lectures that acclaimed French philosopher Michel Foucault delivered in 1982 at the University of Toronto. As is characteristic of his later work, he is concerned here with the care and cultivation of the self, which becomes the central theme of the second and third volumes of his famous History of Sexuality, published in French in 1984, the month of his death, and which are explored here in a striking and typically (...) illuminating fashion. Throughout his career, Foucault had always been interested in the question of how constellations of knowledge and power produce and constitute subjects. But in the last phase of his life, he became especially interested not only in how subjects are constituted by outside forces but in how they constitute themselves. In this lecture series and accompanying seminar, we find Foucault focused on antiquity, starting with classical Greece, the early Roman dynasties, and concluding with fourth- and fifth-century Christian monasticism. Foucault's claim is that, in these periods, we see the development of a new kind of act-"speaking the truth" (about oneself)-as the locus of a new form of subjectivity, which he deemed important not just for historical reasons but also as something modernity could harness anew or adapt to its own purposes. (shrink)

Dissertation by Matthew Crippen on the pragmatic construals by James and Dewey of how we experience works of art, supervised by EWC and defended in May of 2010, as submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy, Graduate Programme in Philosophy, York University, Toronto, Ontario.

The 14th International Congress of Philosophy, held late last summer in Vienna, had an entire subsection devoted to Hegel. Several papers were presented by philosophers from America, including: "Hegel In Light of His First American Followers", by Professor Loyd D. Easton of Ohio Wesleyan University; "Hegel and Husserl", by Professor W.H. Werkmeister of The Florida State University; "Hegel's Theory of Signification & The Origin of Dialectic", by Professor Daniel Cook of Herbert H. Lehman College ; "Beginning the System: (...) Kierkegaard and Hegel", by Professor Robert Perkins, University of South Alabama. These papers and others will be published in the Congress Proceedings. Inquiries should be directed to the University of Vienna Department of Philosophy. * * * Professor H.S. Harris of Glendon College, York University, Toronto, will shortly have published in a volume titled Essays in Honour of Max Fisch "The Fragment on Faith and Being in Hegel's Early Theological Writings". The essay contains the text translation and a full commentary on the fragment Glauben und Sein in Nohl. * * * The Fall issue of Philosophy Today contain an article by Professor Howard P. Kainz of Marquette University titled "Hegel's Characterization of Truth in the Phenomenology". * * * James F. Donaldson of Texas Technological College has an article titled "The Origin of Hegel's Dialectic" in the current issue of Lavel Theologique et Philosophique. A brief abstract of the paper may be found in the Fall, 1969 Philosopher's Index. (shrink)

Celebrations of the second centenary of Hegel's birth have already begun, and more are planned. The Sixteenth Annual Wheaton College Philosophy Conference, "The Philosophy of Hegel on the 200th Anniversary of His Birth", was held November 6th and 7th at Wheaton, Illinois. Errol Harris of Northwestern delivered the Keynote lecture titled "The Importance of Hegel Today". Other papers read included "Hegel's Dialectic" by William Young of the University of Rhode Island; "Hegel and Contemporary Theology" by Merold Westphal of Yale; (...) "Hegel and the Existentialists on the Nature of the Self" by John C. Pageler of Wheaton College, and "Hegel, Marcuse, and the New Left" by Bernard Zylstra, Institute of Christian Studies, Toronto. * * * The Toronto Chapter of the Conference on Political Thought will sponsor a Symposium on "Hegel's Social and Political Thought" early next May. Interested persons are advised to contact Professor H.S. Harris, Department of Philosophy, Glendon College, York University, Toronto 12, Ontario, Canada. * * *Marquette University will conduct a major international symposium early in June, 1970, devoted to the intellectual legacy of Hegel. Preliminary plans call for a four day conference covering Hegel's influence in social and political philosophy and theory, his influence in philosophy of religion end theology, his influence in philosophy and theory of history, and current and projected efforts in editing and translating his writings. Principal participants include Shlomo Avineri of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Jean-Yves Calvez of L'Institut d'Etudes politiques de Paris; Emile Fackenheim of the University of Toronto; J.N. Findlay and Kenley Dove of Yale; Eric Well of L'Universite de Lille; Otto Pöggeler, Director of the Hegel-Archiv; James Doull of Dalhousie University ; Kenneth Schmitz of the Catholic University, and others. The unique format for the program is designed to permit maximum participation and discussion, and the Proceedings will be published. The Owl will give full details in the Winter or Spring issue. Interested persons should contact either Professor Joseph O'Malley or Professor Lee C. Rice, Co-Directors, Department of Philosophy. Marquette University, 62/north 13th Street, Milwaukee, Wisconsin 53233, * * * A World Hegel Congress is to be held in Berlin in August, 1970, under the auspices of the Internationale Hegel Gesellschaft. More on this will also be provided in forthcoming issues of The 0wl of Minerva. (shrink)

This essay explores how mid-twentieth-century mathematicians at New York University envisioned their discipline, cultural identities and social roles, and how these self-constructed identities materialized in the planning of their new academic building, Warren Weaver Hall. These mathematicians considered their research to be a ‘living part of the stream of science’, requiring a mathematics research library which they equated to a scientific laboratory and a complex of computing rooms which served as an interdisciplinary research centre. Identifying as ‘scientists’, they (...) understood their societal value to be that of researchers, outputting mathematics research valuable to the natural sciences, the emerging field of computer science and the United States government and military, as well as educators. When the building opened in 1965, it was touted by the university administration as an ‘example of excellence’; it later, in 1970, became the site of heated negotiations when university student and faculty protestors staged a sit-in rebuking the Atomic Energy Commission's Computing Center housed on the second floor. A close study of the correspondence between the mathematicians and their peers in the university's administration, private foundations, government agencies and an architectural firm not only illuminates the day-to-day work practices of this eminent group of mathematicians, but also sheds light on their own self-constructed academic and social identities within their contemporaneous Cold War culture. (shrink)