Joining his monumental erudition in the phenomenology of religion with affinity and skill in the arts, Gerardus van der Leeuw has produced a really beautiful work. Tracing the genesis of the various arts from an original unity in expressive religious dance, through their assertions of independence as distinctive secular forms marked by the individualism of their practioners, he tries to show that each art form structurally expresses an aspect of the holy. His concern is to prepare for the reunification (...) of the arts based on a religious esthetics. The writing is somewhat diffuse but graceful, the presentation descriptive rather than argumentative. Throughout, one senses the quality of the author's cultivation and concern. The posthumous translation and publication of this work gives his many admirers in the English-speaking world a fitting memorial of a beloved master.—W. G. E. (shrink)

Since the publication of the In Memoriam of Stefan George in “Understanding and Believing. Essays by Jochim Wach edited by Joseph Kitagawa”, the George-circle is seen as a major source for Wach's understanding of religion. According to the author nature is not a realm of abstract laws but the place where the divine reveals itself in the physical. Yet the In Memoriam was not composed by Wach, but by Gerardus van der Leeuw in 1934 and happend, by chance, to (...) find its way among the posthumous papers of Wach. From other statements we know that Wach rejected pagan conceptions of the epiphany of the divine. Nevertheless there exists an impact of the George-circle on Wach's sociology of religion. He was an early reader of Max Webers “Sociology of Religion ”, in which Weber chose as perspective a growing disenchantment of the world. Wach adopted the typology, but rejected Weber's systematics. The reason can be found in his essay on the relationship between Master and Disciple from 1925. Here he analyzed the George-circle as a case in point that the charisma of a master possesses a metaphysical quality that is resistant against the power of disenchantment. In contrast to Weber who correlated the varieties of religious communities with social conditions, Wach studied them as variations of genuine religious expressions. (shrink)

Joining his monumental erudition in the phenomenology of religion with affinity and skill in the arts, Gerardus van der Leeuw has produced a really beautiful work. Tracing the genesis of the various arts from an original unity in expressive religious dance, through their assertions of independence as distinctive secular forms marked by the individualism of their practioners, he tries to show that each art form structurally expresses an aspect of the holy. His concern is to prepare for the reunification (...) of the arts based on a religious esthetics. The writing is somewhat diffuse but graceful, the presentation descriptive rather than argumentative. Throughout, one senses the quality of the author's cultivation and concern. The posthumous translation and publication of this work gives his many admirers in the English-speaking world a fitting memorial of a beloved master.—W. G. E. (shrink)

Meillassoux seeks knowledge of transcendental reality, blaming Kant for the ‘correlationist’ proscription of independent access to either thought or being. For Meillassoux, correlationism blocks an account of the meaning of ‘ancestral statements’ regarding reality prior to humans. I examine three charges on which Meillassoux’s argument depends: (1) Kant distorts ancestral statements’ meaning; (2) Kant fallaciously infers causality’s necessity; (3) Kant’s transcendental idealism cannot grasp ‘the great outdoors’. I reject these charges: (1) imposes a Cartesian misreading, hence Meillassoux’s false assumption that, (...) for Kant, objects don’t exist without subjects; (2) misreads Kant, who infers causality’s necessity from the possibility of experience; (3) casts Kant’s idealism as subjective, ignoring his perspectival portrayal of it. (shrink)

Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We have not used OCR(Optical Character Recognition), as this leads to bad quality books with introduced typos. (2) In books where there are images such as portraits, maps, sketches etc We have endeavoured to keep the quality of these images, so they represent accurately the original artefact. Although occasionally there may be certain imperfections with these old texts, we feel they deserve to be made available for future generations to enjoy.

Information can be public among a group. Whether or not information is public matters, for example, for accounts of interdependent rational choice, of communication, and of joint intention. A standard analysis of public information identifies it with (some variant of) common belief. The latter notion is stipulatively defined as an infinite conjunction: for p to be commonly believed is for it to believed by all members of a group, for all members to believe that all members believe it, and so (...) forth. This analysis is often presupposed without much argument in philosophy. Theoretical entrenchment or intuitions about cases might give some traction on the question, but give little insight about why the identification holds, if it does. The strategy of this paper is to characterize a practical-normative role for information being public, and show that the only things that play that role are (variants of) common belief as stipulatively characterized. In more detail: a functional role for “taking a proposition for granted” in non-isolated decision making is characterized. I then present some minimal conditions under which such an attitude is correctly held. The key assumption links this attitude to beliefs about what is public. From minimal a priori principles, we can argue that a proposition being public among a group entails common commitment to believe among that group. Later sections explore partial converses to this result, the factivity of publicity and publicity from the perspective of outsiders to the group, and objections to the aprioricity of the result deriving from a posteriori existential presuppositions. (shrink)

1996 : David M. Lee, Douglas D. Osheroff and Robert C. Richardson -- 1997 : Steven Chu, Claude N. Cohen-Tannoudji and William D. Phillips -- 1998 : Robert D. Laughlin, Horst L. Störmer and Daniel C. Tsui -- 1999 : Gerardus 't Hooft and Martinus J.G. Veltman -- 2000 : Zhores I. Alferov, Herbert Kroemer and Jack S. Kilby.

This essay presents an inquiry into the phenomenological epoche , specifically with a view to the function of the epoche in efforts to interpret sacred or religious meaning. Reflecting on contributions from phenomenology, hermeneutics, and deconstruction, with particular attention to the phenomenology of religion developed by Gerardus Van der Leeuw, I argue that the epoche can be defined in terms of hospitable restraint. By holding the presuppositions of one’s unique historical horizon in abeyance (e.g., presuppositions regarding the historical development (...) of religions or the ontological, theological, or scientific reality of religion), such restraint facilitates dialogue and diplomacy through an understanding of the alterity of the sacred and the alterity of others’ experiences of the sacred. (shrink)

In a recent article Duncan Purves, Ryan Jenkins, and B. J. Strawser argue that in order for a decision in war to be just, or indeed the decision to resort to war to be just, it must be the case that the decision is made for the right reasons. Furthermore, they argue that this requirement holds regardless of how much good is produced by said action. In this essay I argue that their argument is flawed, in that it mistakes what (...) makes an agent morally good for what makes an act morally good. I argue that the main thrust of Purves et al.’s argument in fact undermines the conclusion they wish to draw, and that the reasons for one’s action do not make an in principle difference to the morality of actions in war. I further argue that this position undermines the traditional ad bellum just war constraint of right intention, and that the morality of actions in war is, at core, only concerned with outcomes. I conclude by clarifying that one’s reasons for action do in fact matter when deciding to enter war or kill in war, but only because one’s reasons significantly impact the way in which one acts. The purpose of this paper is to clear the theoretical space by showing why intentions/reasons do not in principle matter when assessing the morality of war (or killing), but this should not be taken as an argument that we should ignore intentions/reasons altogether. (shrink)

In his article, a unified brain-based determination of death is described by James Bernat (2024) as a permanent cessation of systemic circulation causing a permanent cessation of brain circulation...

Resumen:Junto con Rebeldes académicos de Iván Jaksić (SUNY 1989; UDP 2013) y Una disciplina de la distancia de Cecilia Sánchez (CESOC 1992), este libro ya forma parte del canon bibliográfico selecto y escaso que propone investigaciones de largo aliento sobre la historia de la filosofía en el Chile republicano. No se trata de una reseña de nombres y obras, ni de una historia interna del desarrollo de problemas puros o escuelas. Más bien, su foco, en afinidad con las obras mencionadas, (...) son “las distintas relaciones históricas entre las fuerzas del poder y las razones de la filosofía […] las distintas inscripciones en los también múltiples quiasmos entre saberes y poderes” (14-15), asumiendo, de modo más sustantivo, que “el bloque histórico dominante en Chile rara vez ha logrado establecer un relato coherente de la dominación, justamente porque es poco lo que le importan las razones en nombre de las cuales ejerce la fuerza” (41). (shrink)

Response to commentaries on keynote article.

A directory of archives and manuscript repositories, with links to web pages for the repositories and to online finding aids. Searchable by: collection name; city; state; National Inventory of Documentary Sources (NIDS) number; and National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections (NUCMC) number.

A central theme in the scholarly literature on Enlightenment Europe concerns the increased focus on the role of reason in the development of European thought, especially in the development of the new science by the natural philosophers. As a consequence, there is a tendency in both philosophical scholarship and teaching to bind philosophy and science tightly together. While there is certainly much that is correct in this approach, one motivation for pluralizing philosophy’s past is that this story leaves out a (...) great deal that is important in Enlightenment views of reason. We argue, using as an example the work of figures like Margaret Cavendish, that reason was significantly broader in scope—and that developments in science were paralleled by equally important advances in music, art, literature, medicine, philosophy, and other areas. In recognizing the lack of a sharp boundary between these areas, an inclusive canon of Enlightenment philosophy gives us this richer notion of reason. Integrating figures such as Cavendish into the canon helps us to see that the narrow focus on the scientific version of reason within Enlightenment scholarship creates a false distinction between science and the humanities and misses out on the humanistic ends for which we engage in philosophy. (shrink)

Listening to someone from some distance in a crowded room you may experience the following phenomenon: when looking at them speak, you may both hear and see where the source of the sounds is; but when your eyes are turned elsewhere, you may no longer be able to detect exactly where the voice must be coming from. With your eyes again fixed on the speaker, and the movement of her lips a clear sense of the source of the sound will (...) return. This ‘ventriloquist’ effect reflects the ways in which visual cognition can dominate auditory perception. And this phenomenological observation is one what you can verify or disconfirm in your own case just by the slightest reflection on what it is like for you to listen to someone with or without visual contact with them. (shrink)

To incorporate medical ethics into clinical practice, it must first be understood and valued by health care professionals. The recognition of this principle led to an expanding and continuing educational effort by the ethics committee of the Vancouver General Hospital. This paper reviews this venture, including some pitfalls and failures, as well as successes. Although we began with consultants, it quickly became apparent that education in medical ethics must reach all health care professionals—and medical students as well. Our greatest successes (...) came in the formative years of a medical career (ie, in medical school and residency training programmes), but other efforts were not wasted, particularly among nurses and other health care professionals.Although this is a personal review of the experience in one institution, the lessons learnt in Vancouver are applicable to the further development of medical ethics in the UK. (shrink)

This article explores children’s narrative identity formation and the impact of adult–child relationships on shaping a child’s narrative. The formation of identity in all children is vulnerable to a culture of ‘adultism’, wherein the authority wielded by adults can potentially subject children to abuse and neglect. Consequently, adultism has the aptitude to hinder the constructive development of a life-affirming identity in children. The primary objective of this article is to develop a childist narrative theology of praxis methodology, aimed at raising (...) consciousness and educating adults on both life-denying and life-giving ways of engaging in the process of children’s narrative identity formation.To achieve this goal, the methodology is developed by adapting Denise Ackermann’s ‘feminist theology of praxis’ to focus specifically on children. The application of feminist theory principles is deemed relevant to the social standing of children as it aligns with the broader goal of liberating oppressed groups, whether women or children. Additionally, John Wall’s work is employed to elucidate the terms ‘childist’ and ‘childism’ as interpretive frameworks. Positioned within the scientific domain of Practical Theology, this study seeks to transform conditions that impede human flourishing into opportunities for positive change.The research objectives determine that a literature review will be suitable to gather essential information for the formulation of a childist narrative theology of praxis. This review, characterised as explorative and descriptive, is conducted within the field of Practical Theology.Contribution: The significance of this study is underscored by its exploration and description of the pastoral functions of consciousness, awareness-raising, and education concerning adult–child relations. By scrutinising these pastoral functions, the emphasis is placed on the proactive, preventive, and universal aspects of pastoral care in the context of children, thereby contributing valuable insights to the discourse. (shrink)