With precision and profundity born of 30 years of devoted study, John Boyle offers an essential introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas on Scripture, shedding helpful light on the goals, methods, and commitments that animate the Angelic Doctor's engagement with the sacred page. Because the genius of St. Thomas's approach to the Bible lies not so much in its novelty but rather in the fidelity and clarity with which he recapitulates the riches of the preceding interpretive Tradition, this initiation into (...) St. Thomas's vision of Scripture is itself an orientation to the Church's vision of Scripture, from the Fathers through and beyond the Middle Ages. St. Thomas's embeddedness within the Church's Tradition and his own historical context is integral to his approach to Scripture, yet it sets him at some distance from modern readers, for whom his interpretive vision may seem perplexing or even impenetrable. In this Primer, Boyle first provides an acclimation to this medieval context through a survey and explanation of pertinent technical terminology used by St. Thomas and characteristic of the scholastic theology of the time. With an eye to the medieval practice of considering Scripture according to the fourfold division of causes, Boyle builds on this initial foundation by exploring in turn St. Thomas's accounts of the end or use of Scripture (final cause), its divine and human authorship (efficient cause), its order and division (material cause), and its literary styles or genres (formal cause). Drawing on writings from across St. Thomas's corpus, but especially his work On the Commendation and Division of Sacred Scripture and the prologues to his biblical commentaries, Boyle masterfully elucidates both the hermeneutical principles and deep wisdom of the Angelic Doctor's approach to Scripture, imparting invaluable guidance not only for reading and understanding St. Thomas and other great masters of the Tradition, but also-and ultimately-for understanding Scripture in light of this Tradition and reading it with greater benefit and joy. (shrink)

_Studies in Hermias’ Commentary on Plato’s_ Phaedrus is a collection of twelve essays that consider aspects of Hermias’ philosophy, including his notions of the soul, logic, and method of exegesis.

The proofs of the existence of God in part 4 of Descartes’s Discourse on Method may yet surprise us. These arguments appear to be crafted with such ambiguity that their deeper import has rarely been suspected. This essay proposes that, in spite of the text’s conventional appearance, Descartes exposes the error of scholastic metaphysics, namely, that it mistakes the perfectibility of the human mind for a transcendent perfect being. Superficially, the thinker’s “idea of a more perfect being” serves to ground (...) the traditional theology; but surreptitiously, this idea refers to human possibility and supplies the metaphysical basis for scientific progress, freed from theology altogether. This ironic result is obtained not by speculating on Descartes’s irony directly, but by submitting the “idea of a more perfect being” itself to the Cartesian test of truth and falsehood. In that light, the text’s proofs of God reveal their skeptical, philanthropic intent. (shrink)

Whiskey Lao -- Fair warning -- Randomness at large -- We the addicted -- The best possible world -- The importance of being doomed -- Moral responsibility -- The upper limit to the value of possible worlds.

The notion of what an agent ought to do is refined to yield a notion conditional obligation, representing what the agent ought to do under various circumstances. Patterns of reasoning in the conditional deontic logic are explored. In contrast to the dominance account developed earlier, a competing notion of orthodox act utilitarianism is formulated.

The notion of what an agent ought to do is generalized to yield a notion of what groups of agents ought to do. Relations among the obligations governing groups and subgroups are explored, as well as the connections among different species of individual act utilitarianism, group act utilitarianism, and rule utilitarianism.

Develops the formal theory of action, or agency, that forms the background of the book. The account is cast against the background of Prior's theory of branching, or indeterministic, time. Against this background, the chapter develops precise notions of action and ability for both individuals and groups.

Supplements the background theory of indeterministic time with a standard deontic logic, representing what ought to be the case. Taken together with the formal notion of action introduced in the previous chapter, the framework now allows us to speak about what it ought to be that the agent does, and to explore the possibility that this notion should be identified with the notion of what the agent ought to do. Examples are developed to show that the two notions should not (...) be identified. (shrink)

An analogy is developed between action in an indeterministic setting and choice under uncertainty, as it is studied in decision theory. Various dominance relations among actions are explored, and used both to provide a semantic account of what agents ought to do and to formulate a notion of dominance act utilitarianism. The ideas are related to problems involving independence, conditionals, and sure‐thing reasoning.

The notion of what an agent ought to do at a moment is generalized to yield a notion of what the agent ought to do over extended periods of time. This requires us to develop the notion of a strategy as a function from moments to actions available at those moments and appropriate notions of strategic dominance. A strategic ought operator is introduced and used to analyze the debate between actualists and possibilists concerning the ways in which an agent's obligations (...) depend on his or her future actions. (shrink)

This was designed for all instructors who teach aspects of biological evolution in their college courses.

A key philosophical feature of Peter Jackson’s film interpretation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings is its use of fantasy to inspire a “recovery” of the actual or, in other words, a reawakening to the beauty of nature and the many possible ways of living in healthier ecological relation to the world. Though none of these ways is perfectly achieved, this pluralistic view is demonstrated in the various lifeways of Hobbits, Elves, Men, and Ents. All of the positive (...) relationships embodied in the films—to trees, mountains, horses, and vegetable gardens—involve loving care and attention, receiving nourishment and livelihood without instrumentalization, or reducing nature to mere resource. The films also vividly display a variety of ugly and destructive ways of using the land to accrue power and wealth. These noxious ways, specifically because they actively destroy the lands that they use, always need more. They will thus eventually annihilate the beautiful ways of being if they are not actively resisted. Some of those who would rather be tending their own trees, gardens, or horses or even wandering in the wild forests must therefore turn their attention to struggle and resistance instead. This is a struggle full of grief, and at times even verging on despair, but it is marked by the refusal to give up hope. Indeed, what Jackson and Tolkien have to say about hope is as important in responding to the ecological crisis as anything they have to say about nature, inasmuch as they help to remind us that even in our own times, “there is still hope.”. (shrink)

IN 1903, commenting on an article he had written more than thirty years before, Charles Peirce said that he had changed his mind on many issues at least a half-dozen times but had "never been able to think differently on that question of nominalism and realism" (1.20). For anyone acquainted with Peirce's writings, this remark alone could justify a study of "that question.".

John F. Post argues that physicalistic materialism is compatible with a number of views often deemed incompatible with it, such as the objectivity of values, the irreducibility of subjective experience, the power of the metaphor, the normativity of meaning, and even theism.

This article extends earlier research concerning the relationship between corporate social performance and corporate financial performance, with particular emphasis on methodological inconsistencies. Research in this area is extended in three critical areas. First, it focuses on a particular industry, the chemical industry. Second, it uses multiple sources of data-two that are perceptual based (KLD Index and Fortune reputation survey), and two that are performance based (TRI database and corporate philanthropy) in order to triangulate toward assessing corporate social performance. Third, it (...) uses the five most commonly applied accounting measures in the corporate social performance and corporate financial performance (CSP/CFP) literature to assess corporate financial performance. The results indicate that the a priori use of measures may actually predetermine the CSP/CFP relationship outcome. Surprisingly, Fortune and KLD indices very closely track one another, whereas TRI and corporate philanthropy differentiate between high and low social performers and do not correlate to the firm's financial performance. (shrink)

In this volume, John Horty brings to bear his work in logic to present a framework that allows for answers to key questions about reasons and reasoning, namely: What are reasons, and how do they support actions or conclusions?

Jaynes's maximum entropy principle (MEP) is analyzed by considering in detail a recent controversy. Emphasis is placed on the inductive logical interpretation of “probability” and the concept of “total knowledge.” The relation of the MEP to relative frequencies is discussed, and a possible realm of its fruitful application is noted.

It is assumed that experiments yield results that are not isomorphic with reality, but represent a distorted image of reality. Reality is related to observation via a communication channel of finite capacity. Quantum uncertainties are due to the bound on the amount of information available. Use is made of recent results from information and communication theories.

An examination and comparison of American and Israeli management students attitudes towards business ethics is made. The data were collected using both English and Hebrew versions of a thirty item attitudes towards business ethics questionnaire. Since the two groups differed on geographic, cultural, economic, and religious dimensions, it was not surprising to find that these prospective managers also differed on a number of their attitudes towards business ethics. However, a large number of similarities were also noted. Moreover, contrary to a (...) number of extant research studies, both groups held relatively high moral standards. The implications of these findings are discussed. (shrink)

Originally published in 1830, this book can be called the first modern work in the philosophy of science, covering an extraordinary range of philosophical, methodological, and scientific subjects. "Herschel's book . . . brilliantly analyzes both the history and nature of science."—Keith Stewart Thomson, American Scientist.

John Ashton, the editor who brought us In Six Days and On the Seventh Day, has done it again with this compelling new book that is a must-read for all ...

Secular and religious values of psychotherapists influence the process of psychotherapy. The psychologist Allen Bergin has pointed out several major antitheses between values of secular psychotherapists and their religiously oriented clients. The present essay is a response to Bergin's antitheses, on the one hand, and to humanistic psychology, on the other, from the point of view of a Christian humanism. Karl Rahner's theological anthropology is proposed as one possible foundation for an explicit articulation of the relationship between psychotherapy and religion, (...) and as a means to address apparently divergent values of psychotherapists and religious believers. (shrink)

A deconstruction of Hamlet's ontological metaphor—"the time is out of joint"—indicates Shakespeare has made an implicit commitment to a conception of time that is explicitly and systematically developed by Kant's transcendental philosophy. Consequently, a retro reading explains how Hamlet temporarily identifies with the Ghost's temporal-categorical mind-set, and how Hamlet, who has been acutely aware of the passage of time, loses track of time during the prayer/closet scene sequence. More specifically, I assert that Hamlet's identification with the Ghost's categorical sense of (...) what is possible and impossible in accordance with the passage of outer time is what causes his inaction. (shrink)

Busting the Hermenuetical Ghosts: Steering clear of pre-modern, Romantic, Freudian, and post-modern readings, DeCarlo asserts how Shakespeare's Hamlet text foreshadows the modern philosophical thought of Descartes, Kant, and Heidegger, particularly in regard to the intellectual issues of thought and doubt, time and action, and being and death.