Originally published in 1957 under the title Sunrise to Eternity, this Seabury edition performs the welcome service of presenting again the outstanding English exposition of Boehme's mystico-philosophical thought. The book is extremely sober and scholarly, systematically demythologizing the standard account of Boehme's life and work. Many expositions of Boehme are cluttered with unlikely and distracting accounts of his personal sanctity and numerous revelations. Stoudt, however, gives a tightly argued, well-documented account of Boehme's biography, alternating chapters on Boehme's life with chapters (...) on the works of the same period. This is extremely helpful, for it exhibits Boehme's development quite clearly. Stoudt makes it very plain that Boehme's early thought is couched in the language of alchemy but that it outgrows that strange vocabulary to become by the end of his life a mature spirituality, steeped in the earlier German mystical tradition and with a speculative depth which anticipates the main lines of German idealism. Boehme is not, then, as the standard hagiographers would have him, an unlettered shoemaker, sprung untainted from the breast of God and untaught by any mortal predecessor. Stoudt is not always as clear as we would hope, but, considering Boehme's notorious obscurity he is clearer than most. While Stoudt points out Boehme's origin in the German tradition that precedes him, he underplays the dependence of Boehme on Meister Eckhardt, or at least leaves that whole problem insufficiently analyzed. There is a brief preface by Paul Tillich.--J. D. C. (shrink)

Originally published in 1957 under the title Sunrise to Eternity, this Seabury edition performs the welcome service of presenting again the outstanding English exposition of Boehme's mystico-philosophical thought. The book is extremely sober and scholarly, systematically demythologizing the standard account of Boehme's life and work. Many expositions of Boehme are cluttered with unlikely and distracting accounts of his personal sanctity and numerous revelations. Stoudt, however, gives a tightly argued, well-documented account of Boehme's biography, alternating chapters on Boehme's life with chapters (...) on the works of the same period. This is extremely helpful, for it exhibits Boehme's development quite clearly. Stoudt makes it very plain that Boehme's early thought is couched in the language of alchemy but that it outgrows that strange vocabulary to become by the end of his life a mature spirituality, steeped in the earlier German mystical tradition and with a speculative depth which anticipates the main lines of German idealism. Boehme is not, then, as the standard hagiographers would have him, an unlettered shoemaker, sprung untainted from the breast of God and untaught by any mortal predecessor. Stoudt is not always as clear as we would hope, but, considering Boehme's notorious obscurity he is clearer than most. While Stoudt points out Boehme's origin in the German tradition that precedes him, he underplays the dependence of Boehme on Meister Eckhardt, or at least leaves that whole problem insufficiently analyzed. There is a brief preface by Paul Tillich.--J. D. C. (shrink)

D. M. Armstrong famously claims that deterministic laws of nature are contingent relations between universals and that his account can also be straightforwardly extended to irreducibly probabilistic laws of nature. For the most part, philosophers have neglected to scrutinize Armstrong’s account of probabilistic laws. This is surprising precisely because his own claims about probabilistic laws make it unclear just what he takes them to be. We offer three interpretations of what Armstrong-style probabilistic laws are, and argue that all three interpretations (...) are incompatible either with some feature of Armstrong’s broader metaphysics or with essential features of his account of laws (or both). (shrink)

At the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 became a global problem. Despite all the efforts to emphasize the relevance of preventive measures, not everyone adhered to them. Thus, learning more about the characteristics determining attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic is crucial to improving future interventions. In this study, we applied machine learning on the multi-national data collected by the International Collaboration on the Social and Moral Psychology of COVID-19 (N = 51,404) to test the predictive efficacy of constructs from (...) social, moral, cognitive, and personality psychology, as well as socio-demographic factors, in the attitudinal and behavioral responses to the pandemic. The results point to several valuable insights. Internalized moral identity provided the most consistent predictive contribution—individuals perceiving moral traits as central to their self-concept reported higher adherence to preventive measures. Similar was found for morality as cooperation, symbolized moral identity, self-control, open-mindedness, collective narcissism, while the inverse relationship was evident for the endorsement of conspiracy theories. However, we also found a non-negligible variability in the explained variance and predictive contributions with respect to macro-level factors such as the pandemic stage or cultural region. Overall, the results underscore the importance of morality-related and contextual factors in understanding adherence to public health recommendations during the pandemic. (shrink)

Four previously unpublished chapters by Jacob Viner. The first two deal with the economic doctrines of the Christian Fathers and the Scholastics; the last two are each concerned with a particular aspect of the relationship between religious thought, economic ethics, and society. Initially conceived as part of a larger study on "Religion and Society," this volume holds some interest for the philosopher of religion because it examines the treatment by Christian theologians, both Protestant and Catholic, of topics such as private (...) property, riches and poverty, commerce, just price and economic motivation. Viner explores the roles of early Protestant theology in the rise of capitalism, with special reference to the Weber-Tawney thesis which attributes significant responsibility to Calvinist doctrine for the growth and the character of modern capitalism. The chapters on Patristic and Scholastic economic thought are particularly strong. There is a detailed examination of the economic views of Thomas Aquinas, though the author is aware that Aquinas’s influence was not a dominant one before the sixteenth century. In the final chapter Viner amasses considerable historical evidence to construct a case against Weber and his followers. In the first three chapters, Viner appears to have been partly inspired by a desire to correct the false impressions of some earlier and less friendly commentators on Catholic economic thought. Throughout, documentation is extensive. There is a rich bibliography.—J.P.D. (shrink)

In this article the picture of Jacob in Genesis is compared with that of Jacob/Israel in Hosea 12. While a tendency exists in exegetical literature to choose between a negative or a positive view, the thesis here proposed is that the negative image of Jacob in Genesis as well as in Hosea is a preparation for his change into Israel. Hosea uses the ambiguity of Jacob/Israel as an example for his audience. They love to cheat, but can find in Jacob (...) a way to become Israel. (shrink)

Que signifie « adorer en vérité »? Comment parvenir à distinguer la vérité de l’adoration et sa contre-vérité, cette défiguration de la foi que l’on peut nommer le fanatisme? À cette question, il semble que J.-L. Nancy ait refusé de se confronter. Il repère en effet dans notre modernité une sortie du religieux, un « devenir-athée » irrévocable. Cette thèse n’est-elle pas la conséquence d’une conception christocentrique de la religion? Ne nous empêche-t-elle pas de penser les mutations qui s’opèrent aujourd’hui (...) dans le champ du religieux? (shrink)

Scientists and laypeople alike use the sense of understanding that an explanation conveys as a cue to good or correct explanation. Although the occurrence of this sense or feeling of understanding is neither necessary nor sufficient for good explanation, it does drive judgments of the plausibility and, ultimately, the acceptability, of an explanation. This paper presents evidence that the sense of understanding is in part the routine consequence of two well-documented biases in cognitive psychology: overconfidence and hindsight. In light of (...) the prevalence of counterfeit understanding in the history of science, I argue that many forms of cognitive achievement do not involve a sense of understanding, and that only the truth or accuracy of an explanation make the sense of understanding a valid cue to genuine understanding. (shrink)

Philosophers agree that scientific explanations aim to produce understanding, and that good ones succeed in this aim. But few seriously consider what understanding is, or what the cues are when we have it. If it is a psychological state or process, describing its specific nature is the job of psychological theorizing. This article examines the role of understanding in scientific explanation. It warns that the seductive, phenomenological sense of understanding is often, but mistakenly, viewed as a cue of genuine understanding. (...) The article closes with a discussion of several new paths of research that tie the psychology of scientific explanation to cognate notions of learning, testimony, and understanding. (shrink)

This article examines corporate social disclosures (CSD) in an African developing economy (Mauritius) as provided in the annual reports of listed companies from 2004 to 2007. Informed by the country’s social, political and economic context and legitimacy theory, we hypothesise that the extent and variety of CSD themes (social, ethics, environment and health and safety) will be enhanced post-2004 and will be influenced by profitability, size, leverage and industry affiliation. We find a significant increase in the volume and variety of (...) CSD, although information in relation to social activities remains the most prominent form of disclosure. This is in contrast to previous studies which reported on the primacy of employee disclosures in developing countries. Using a pooled regression analysis, we also observe that size does explain variations in overall CSD and social disclosures, whilst leverage is positively related to changes in environmental and health and safety disclosures. There is no profitability relationship, and the effects of industry affiliation on CSD are non-significant or contrary to expectations. Overall, we assert that legitimacy, as a strategic and managerially driven approach favouring symbolic actions, is the prevailing motivation underlying the progression of CSD in Mauritius. (shrink)

I understand Pluralism to be the doctrine that, either generally or with reference to some particular area of judgement, there is more than one basic principle. It endorses the possibility that some particular case may arise which will be adjudicated in one way if one principle is applied while another principle points otherwise and to an answer which, at least in practice, is incompatible. Thus in morality, according to pluralism there may be more than one correct answer to the question (...) of which of the decisions available in some particular situation is the best. (shrink)