This study examined whether scaffolded lesson study might contribute to the emergence of a shared professional teaching knowledge culture among 4th grade social studies teachers. The study reports findings from a three-year lesson study professional development project that sought to develop professional teaching knowledge for problem-based historical inquiry among participating teachers. Participants included six 4th grade State History teachers from three different schools and three different school systems. Using qualitative data collected during three yearlong lesson study cycles, we present evidence (...) that suggests that lesson study can be used to develop a shared professional teaching knowledge culture among 4th grade social studies teachers. We suggest, however, that a combination of factors might contribute to variations in teachers' participation in that shared professional teaching knowledge culture including the degree to which the teachers embraced the public nature of lesson study. These factors include the teachers' idiosyncratic views of teaching and learning, the teachers' individual tolerance for socially constructing curricula, and the degree to which teachers acceded to cultural obstacles within elementary schooling. (shrink)

In this essay I examine the notion of forgiveness as found in Søren Kierkegaard’s Works of Love. After detailing the work of forgiveness in hiding the multitude of sins, I examine forgiveness as an example of Kierkegaard’s concept of redoubling. Then I relate Kierkegaard’s concept of forgiveness to his concept of hope. Throughout I emphasize the relation between forgiveness and neighbor love, which Kierkegaard views as an essential component of forgiveness. This emphasis counters the prevailing notion in the literature on (...) forgiveness, which views forgiveness as solely concerned with the relinquishing of negative emotions. For Kierkegaard, while this relinquishing is no doubt part of forgiveness, true forgiveness must include love for one’s neighbor. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

CHAPTER I1 BIOLOGY i BICHAT" Six months have passed since the centenary of the death of Bichat, which took place, in his thirty-first year, on July 22, ...

Procedures were designed to test for the effects of working-memory training on children at risk of fluency difficulty that apply to English and to many of the languages spoken by children with English as an Additional Language (EAL) in UK schools. Working-memory training should: (1) improve speech fluency in high-risk children; (2) enhance non-word repetition (NWR) (phonological) skills for all children; (3) not affect word-finding abilities. Children starting general education (N = 232) were screened to identify those at risk of (...) fluency difficulty. Children were selected who were at high-risk (12), or low-risk (27) of fluency difficulty. For the low-risk children 10 received, and 17 did not receive, the working-memory training. All children in the treatment groups received working-memory training over a 2-week period. For the high-risk group, fluency improved and lasted for at least a week after the end of the study. Phonological skills improved in this group and in the low-risk group who received the training and the improvements continued for at least a week. The low-risk group who did not receive working-memory training showed no improvements, and no group improved word-finding ability. (shrink)

Published in 1897, this was the first complete edition of Roger Bacon's influential thirteenth-century encyclopedia of science.

The two assumptions of this article are that the mainstream ecumenical paradigm of the 20th century is no longer viable, and that the gifts of global Christianity are adequate for the cause of mission and unity. The Christian landscape has vastly changed. Its centre of gravity has shifted to the South. A new form of ecumenism is needed. The vision of unity ‘made visible as all in each place who are baptized into Jesus Christ’, which involves death and rebirth, is (...) now a calling for a new generation. Constructing a new ecumenical table requires re-conception and re-visioning. North and South are henceforth equal partners.The gifts of Christianity in North and South must be re-conceived.The journey toward Christian unity must be re-visioned. For a viable future there will need to be conversion, openness and humility. (shrink)

Explores the significance of Dewey’s thought on democracy for the contemporary world.

_Explores the significance of Dewey’s thought on democracy for the contemporary world._.

The rapid industrialization of the nineteenth century transformed conditions of life in the Western world. It made possible an unprecedented scale of production that demanded new forms of labor and continuous innovation and populated the landscape with evidence of technological prowess. These dramatic changes affected how individuals conceived of themselves and their capabilities. On the one hand, they augmented the power of the individual in relation to the world: scientific discoveries and technological innovations brought natural forces under human control and (...) increased individual productivity. On the other hand, however, they diminished the significance of particular individuals within the world: with the use... (shrink)

Proper interpretations of symbols of authority are important for navigating both our cultural settings and the contours of Scripture. This paper looks at the ways the Book of Revelation contrasts images of competing authoritative kings, asking the question, who is worthy of worship, Caesar or Christ? In the African Folk-Islamic context of the Makua-Metto people of Mozambique, familiar national and traditional symbols of authority provide a framework for a robust reading of John’s Apocalypse.

A sympathetic exegesis of themes in Barry Stroud's later writings, with a particular emphasis on the role of a certain conception of "perceptual experience" in generating the skeptical challenge to our knowledge of the external world. The resultant morals are brought to bear on John McDowell's evolving account of the role of contentful "experiences" in providing for empirical thought. For Stroud's response to this essay (and others) see: http://philosophicalskepticism.org/skepsis/numero-14/.

This article considers how John Russon’s original analyses of sexuality in Bearing Witness to Epiphany: Persons, Things, and the Nature of Erotic Life and in relevant articles address the relation between erotic desire and the familiar cultural narratives that describe and set the terms for engaging in erotic experience. I show how, according to Russon, erotic experience is an initiation into our responsibilities within and for an interpersonal reality that challenges speci????ic cultural narratives about sexuality and the pre-sumption that (...) any cultural narrative could adequately prepare us to fulfill those responsibilities. I situate his work in relation to the classic account of the relation between erotic desire and culture in Socrates’s speech about eros in Plato’s Symposium. I also consider how it addresses concerns in contemporary feminist analyses about how intimate relationships may reproduce broader cultural patterns of oppression. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Buddhist-Christian Dialogue in an Age of ScienceNancy R. HowellBuddhist-Christian Dialogue in an Age of Science. By Paul O. Ingram. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008. 155 pp.To my knowledge, Paul Ingram’s Buddhist-Christian Dialogue in an Age of Science undertakes a new project: Systematic and methodological analysis of how Buddhist-Christian dialogue can be shaped by focus on the natural sciences, or, alternatively, how science-religion dialogue can be enhanced through (...) interreligious dialogue. Either description is appropriate and remarkable in light of the accomplishments of a modestly brief book. While I have participated in multireligious dialogue on science, never have I seen a cogent guide for undertaking the conversation until Ingram’s book appeared.The thesis of Ingram’s argument is that bringing the natural sciences into Buddhist-Christian dialogue promises mutual creative transformation of Buddhism, Christianity, and the natural sciences (p. 2). In such a compact sentence is much to be explained, and Ingram unfolds the meaning of the thesis particularly in chapters 2 and 6. Ingram describes both Christian and Buddhist understandings of the relationship of science and religion, as well as approaches to dialogue between the religions. Ingram’s book is focused on conceptual interreligious dialogue, which engages theological and philosophical worldviews and self-perceptions and how the religions can learn from each other (p. 10). (Not surprisingly, the Whiteheadian Ingram names John B. Cobb Jr. as an exemplar for conceptual dialogue.) Ingram proposes that Buddhism and Christianity enter conceptual dialogue with the natural sciences, with the goal of mutual creative transformation (p. 15). Creative transformation is a Whiteheadian concept defined as “a process of growth and novelty,” “the essence of life itself,” and “a process that alters the nature of...elements without suppressing or destroying them” (p. 120). Creative transformation is possible when all participants in the dialogue Ingram proposes have some particularity to contribute, so the challenge in Ingram’s book is to describe how Buddhism and Christianity have particular contributions to make to dialogue about the natural sciences, as well as whether the sciences can be creatively transformed by encounter with world religions (p. 121).The structure of the book, which includes chapters on Buddhist and Christian encounter with cosmology, evolutionary biology, and cognitive sciences, provides specific awareness of the literature about how the religions have individually engaged the natural sciences. Ingram presupposes and names the awe, wonder, and reverence generated by the natural sciences, whose insights shape our worldviews and inform understanding of ourselves. Scientific insights, according to Ingram, generate “an urgent cultural need to reflect thoughtfully and critically on these changes and challenges in a constructive dialogue involving the world’s religious traditions” (p. 130). Ultimately the dialogue must overcome compartmentalized, disciplinary knowledge and engage in integrative, inclusive, multireligious dialogue (p. 130). Ingram envisions that the “purpose of interdisciplinary and interreligious dialogue is mutual creative transformation” (p. 130), which can occur only when the complex details of the sciences and Buddhist and Christian traditions are honored. [End Page 209]Following Ian Barbour, Ingram recommends a critical realist stance, which he adopts as his approach. He understands critical realism to mean that scientific, Christian, and Buddhist conclusions, practices, and worldviews intend to correspond with reality. However, correspondence to reality, “the way things really are,” (p. 37) must be understood provisionally, so that conclusions and worldviews must always be subjected to correction and reformulation. In Ingram’s view, the need for reformulation is the justification for Buddhist–Christian–natural science dialogue because no single view “possesses the final truth about the natural order or ultimate reality” (p. 37). Buddhism, Christianity, and the natural sciences offer distinctive expressions of the search for truth, which (Ingram avers) “requires...some form of mutual critical integration” in the process of dialogue (p. 37).Concentrating more on the constructive methodology of the book (rather than the three chapters with examples of engagement of the natural sciences with Buddhism and Christianity), I want to address one feature of the argument. Chapter 1, “A Common Cosmology,” proposes appropriately that “[while] scientific cosmology cannot simply replace the basic content of religious creation myths, current scientific cosmology can clarify and transform religious creation myths” (p... (shrink)

Between Two Worlds is an authoritative commentary on--and powerful reinterpretation of--the founding work of modern philosophy, Descartes's Meditations. Philosophers have tended to read Descartes's seminal work in an occasional way, examining its treatment of individual topics while ignoring other parts of the text. In contrast, John Carriero provides a sustained, systematic reading of the whole text, giving a detailed account of the positions against which Descartes was reacting, and revealing anew the unity, meaning, and originality of the Meditations. Carriero (...) finds in the Meditations a nearly continuous argument against Thomistic Aristotelian ways of thinking about cognition, and shows more clearly than ever before how Descartes bridged the old world of scholasticism and the new one of mechanistic naturalism. Rather than casting Descartes's project primarily in terms of skepticism, knowledge, and certainty, Carriero focuses on fundamental disagreements between Descartes and the scholastics over the nature of understanding, the relation between the senses and the intellect, the nature of the human being, and how and to what extent God is cognized by human beings. Against this background, Carriero shows, Descartes developed his own conceptions of mind, body, and the relation between them, creating a coherent, philosophically rich project in the Meditations and setting the agenda for a century of rationalist metaphysics. (shrink)

John Henry Newman was a theologian and vicar at the university church in Oxford who became a leading thinker in the Oxford Movement, which sought to return Anglicanism to its Catholic roots. Newman converted to Catholicism in 1845 and became a cardinal in 1879. He published widely during his lifetime; his work included novels, poetry and the famous hymn 'Lead, Kindly Light', but he is most esteemed for his sermons and works of religious thought. This volume, first published in (...) 1870, is an ambitious examination of the logical processes that underpin religious faith. Newman discusses how it is possible to believe what cannot be proven empirically, and postulates that the mind has the facility to bridge the logic gap to allow for humans to believe in things that they do not fully comprehend. A lucid and masterful work which remains relevant to contemporary discussions of faith. (shrink)

How can philosophy or science claim to discover objective truth when their arguments originate from subjective beings? In _Intentionality and Semiotics_, John Deely offers a controversial solution to the problem of subjectivity in inquiry. He creates an interface between semiotics and the concept of intentionality, as it appears in Aquinas’s work, to demonstrate that every sign is irrevocably linked to the reality of relations. In the process, Deely builds a bridge between classical thinkers such as Aristotle and modernists such (...) as Heidegger and Peirce in this innovative volume. (shrink)

We typically think we have free will. But how could we have free will, if for anything we do, it was already true in the distant past that we would do that thing? Or how could we have free will, if God already knows in advance all the details of our lives? Such issues raise the specter of "fatalism". This book collects sixteen previously published articles on fatalism, truths about the future, and the relationship between divine foreknowledge and human freedom, (...) and includes a substantial new introductory essay and bibliography. Many of the pieces collected here build bridges between discussions of human freedom and recent developments in other areas of metaphysics, such as philosophy of time and the nature of metaphysical "dependence". Ideal for courses in free will, metaphysics, and philosophy of religion, Freedom, Fatalism, and Foreknowledge will encourage important new directions in thinking about free will, time, and truth. (shrink)

ABSTRACTRheinberger's brief history brings into sharp profile the importance of history of science for a philosophical understanding of historical practice. Rheinberger presents thought about the nature of science by leading scientists and their interpreters over the course of the twentieth century as emphasizing increasingly the local and developmental character of their learning practices, thus making the conception of knowledge dependent upon historical experience, “historicizing epistemology.” Linking his account of thought about science to his own work on “experimental systems,” I draw (...) extensive parallels with other work in the local history of science and consider the epistemological implications both for the relation between history and philosophy of science and between history and theory more broadly. In doing so, I suggest that the long‐standing gap between the natural sciences and history as a “human science” has been significantly bridged by the insistence upon the local, mediated, indeed “historicized epistemology” of actual science. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Persians TIMOTHEUS (Translated by John Warden)... urging on their floating bronze-beaked chariots ram by ram furrowing the waves with pointed teeth....... with humped heads stripped away arms of fir, thumped ’em on the left, mariners tumbled, smashed ’em on the right in their pinewood towers, back on their feet again. Ha! Tear off flesh to their rope-bound ribs, sink ’em with thunderbolts, rip away gilded splendour with (...) iron-helmed rams. Thonged javelins fly fire-like, shafts trembling in pierced limbs, wood slivers ablaze long-winged brazen-headed, slaughtered victims swarm. ◊♦◊ Sea with glass-green hair its furrows stained with blood; shouts of victors, screams of vanquished; the barbarous fleet borne away over the fish-crowned gleaming curves of Amphitrite’s breast. ◊♦◊ Lord of a daywide land, islander out for a sail ha! listing, tipping, arms and feet arion 28.1 spring/summer 2020 96 the persians thrashing in the buffeting waves, cries to the sea god, “Father...” Winds drop and veer, smite him on the other side. No Bacchus poured that liquid into his wine jar belly. He vomits up the boiling sea flood, screaming through clenched teeth against the defiling sea: “Was once not enough to have your proud neck yoked with bonds of hemp? See, now my lord will churn you with pine trees born in the mountains, encompass your watery plains with mariners, you madcap, long-loathed, faithless plaything of the swift-surfing winds.” Gasps out the words and a disgusting stream of sour sea water comes belching from his belly. ◊♦◊ Homeward they scurry, the Persian fleet, the foreigners squadron smashing into squadron in the long-necked strait jolts from their hands their mountain feet, leap from their mouths their gleaming helpmates; bodies without breath, without light, festoon the starsprent sea, weigh down the headlands. Survivors on the shore sit naked and freezing, tears dripping from their howled laments. Possessed by the dirge-song of grief, they keen and beat their breasts: “O vales of Mysia with your trees like a woman’s hair, take me home. For the winds are carrying me away. Timotheus 97 Never will the dust of earth receive my body....... in a cave where nymphs are born, below the ocean floor. Protect me from Helle, ship-bridged bringer of war. Had my lord not built that far-travelled causeway, never would I have come from Tmolus or Lydian Sardis to keep at bay the Greek war god. But now where shall I find sweet refuge from unbending fate? Who will free me from suffering and bring me home to Troy? Could I but fall at the ivy-robed knees of the Queen, the Mountain Mother, embrace her lovely arms and pray: ‘Goddess of golden hair, mother, I beg you rescue me, rescue me from the devious steel that slits the throat, from the wave-skimming gales, ship breakers, from Boreas that freezes by night. The winds will dash me to pieces. Already the cruel waves have torn the clothing from my body. Now I shall lie wretched, my flesh a feast to the tribes of birds.’” ◊♦◊ See a Greek with a sword of iron grab a man from Celaeno, rich in flocks, bereft in battle, drag him by the hair. Arms twined around knees, he breaks the seal of his lips seeking Greek in the shrill voice of Asia: Listen Mister not me why come. Not me, no never, big master send me, me no never come fight. Stay home Sardis, Sousa, Ecbatana. Great god Artemis 98 the persians Ephesus guard me. Swift-running backward-running they pursue their flight, cast from their hands the twin-mouthed javelins, tear the flesh from their faces, rip from their breasts their sumptuous Persian gowns, raise in one voice their Asiatic wailing. Those round the King are loud in panic at the coming disaster. The King looks down at the mingled host in flight, falls to his knees, defiles his body. Tossed in fate’s waves he speaks: Root and branch my house has fallen! The flaming ships of the Greeks have slain the flower of our youth. There is no way home, our ships consumed by the blazing might of harsh... (shrink)

Are the disciplines of education ghosts of a productive past or creative and useful forms of inquiry? Are they in a demographic and organisational crisis today? The contribution of the ‘foundation disciplines’ of sociology, psychology, philosophy, history and economics to the study of education has always been contested in the UK and in much of the English-speaking world. But such debates are now being brought to a head in education by the demographic crisis. Recent research has shown that with the (...) an ageing population of education academics, in ten years' time, there could be very few disciplinary specialists left working within faculties of education in UK universities. But does that matter and is the UK no more than a special case? How does this ‘crisis’ look from Europe where the disciplines of education are more embedded, and from the USA with its more diverse higher education system? In this book, leading scholars – including A.H. Halsey, David Bridges, John Furlong, Hugh Lauder, Martin Lawn and Sheldon Rothblatt – consider the changing fortunes of each discipline as education moved away from the dominance of psychology in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s as a result of the growing importance of the other disciplines and new social questions, and how the changing epistemological and political debates of the last twenty years haves resulted in their progressive demise. Finally, the book confronts the question as to whether the disciplines have a place in education in the twenty-first century. The book brings the coming crisis into the public view and explores the issue of the past, current and future relevance of the disciplines to the study of education. It will be of interest to all international academics and researchers in the field of education and the contributory disciplines as well as to students on educational research methods courses. (shrink)

Systematics, along with the other comparative biological sciences and certain astronomical disciplines, is much more concerned with form and organization than other biological and physical sciences, in which dynamics plays the central role. Within the biological sciences, Nelson (1970) characterizes disciplines that study diversity and patterns “comparative” and those that search for process and dynamics “general.” The goal of “general” science is to uncover the mechanisms that unify observed phenomena. Whether the physicist sees herself, like Newton (1953: 3-5), to be (...) discovering fundamental causal explanations, or like Duhem (1962: 19-30), to be uncovering a natural classification, dynamical concepts referring to essentially hidden processes are indispensable. Much of comparative biology, in contrast, is primarily descriptive, with explanations taking a secondary role, at least until the diversity is described and comparisons made. Unlike the general sciences, in which elegance and quantitative analysis have long been major indicators of truth, the comparative sciences stress complexity, happenstance and qualitative analysis. In systematics in particular, theory and explanation are often thought to play a minimal role, if any at all1. (shrink)

Davidson's principle of the anomalousness of the mental was instrumental in discrediting once-popular versions of mind-brain reductionism. In this essay I argue that a novel account of intertheoretic reduction, which does not require the sort of cross-theoretic bridge laws that Davidson's principle rules out, allows a version of mind-brain reductionism which is immune from Davidson's challenge. In the final section, I address a second worry about reductionism, also based on Davidson's principle, that survives this response. I argue that new reductionists (...) should revise some significant details of the program, particularly the conception of theories, to circumvent this more potent Davidson-inspired worry. (shrink)

There is no prospect of discovering measurable cardinals by radio astronomy, but this does not mean that higher set theory is entirely irrelevant to applied mathematics broadly construed. By way of example, the bearing of some celebrated descriptive-set-theoretic consequences of large cardinals on measurable-selection theory, a body of results originating with a key lemma in von Neumann’s work on the mathematical foundations of quantum theory, and further developed in connection with problems of mathematical economics, will be considered from a philosophical (...) point of view. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with whether there is a moral difference between simulating wrongdoing and consuming non-simulatory representations of wrongdoing. I argue that simulating wrongdoing is (as such) a pro tanto wrong whose wrongness does not tarnish other cases of consuming representations of wrongdoing. While simulating wrongdoing (as such) constitutes a disrespectful act, consuming representations of wrongdoing (as such) does not. I aim to motivate this view in part by bringing a number of intuitive moral judgements into reflective equilibrium, and (...) in part by describing the case of a character that I call The Devious Super Geek who simulates wrong to particular people that he knows personally. I build bridging cases from the case of the Devious Super Geek to capture games in which one simulates wrong to imaginary members of extant, morally salient categories. The surprising conclusions that we are led to include not just that simulated wrongdoing is pro tanto wrong, but that simulated Just killing is pro tanto wrong, and also that the simulated killing of zombies and aliens is also pro tanto wrong. Finally, I describe how I propose to handle some potential objections and attempt to weigh the pro tanto wrong identified in the paper against some countervailing considerations in some all things considered judgements. (shrink)

In the movie Contact, an astronomer played by Jodie Foster discovers a radio signal with a discernable pattern, a sequence representing prime numbers from 2 to 101. Because the pattern is too specifically arranged to be mere random space noise, the scientists infer from this data that an extraterrestrial intelligence has transmitted this signal on purpose.

Depth Calls to Depth: Jungian Psychology and Spiritual Direction in Dialogue draws on the author's dual background as a certified Jungian analyst and psychologist as well as a spiritual director with a master's degree in theology. Over the last several decades, spiritual direction has moved beyond its monastic origins to become a major force in contemporary spirituality. Its emphasis on direct spiritual experience offers a natural parallel to Jung's model of psychospiritual healing. This book describes how Jungian dreamwork can enhance (...) the practice of spiritual direction. There is much interest in Jung's thought in spiritual circles but little informed understanding of the details of his model and its application to work with individuals. In an effort to meet this need, chapters alternate between descriptions of Jung's approach, augmented by extensive case material and accounts of spiritual direction sessions. In this way, the book combines a comprehensive summary of Jung's main ideas and methodologies with vignettes that illustrate their practical application. Larger issues regarding the relationship between psychology and spirituality are discussed as well as Jung's complicated relationship with the Christian tradition. The author's background in Ignatian spirituality and the work of mystics like Meister Eckhart allow him to demonstrate how these approaches can bridge gaps between the Christian and Jungian models of spiritual growth. Parallels to 12-Step spirituality also are explored. (shrink)

The book relies on Bernard Lonergan’s method. It addresses today’s religious conflicts in the Middle East which have led to migrations of millions of persons. It systematically explores possible breakthroughs that might help people open their hearts to one another.

William Rehg believes that the ‘science wars’ of recent times make it acutely necessary that ‘reasonable’ or ‘cogent’ standards for the assessment of scientific claims find acceptance among the various constituencies of the debate. He see ‘Kuhn’s gap’ — the mutual estrangement of philosophy of science from empirical science studies — as lamentable and seeks to bridge these disciplines via ‘argumentation theory’ inspired by the philosophy of Jürgen Habermas. While the use of argumentation theory helps illuminate the complexities of scientific (...) practices of assessment, it may not be enough to engineer the interdisciplinary cooperation Rehg desires. (shrink)

A Buddhist-Christian Logic of the Heart explores the philosophies of Being and Nothingness as expounded in the Buddhist and Christian point of view with particular emphasis on the socioethical implication that all human beings, despite vast differences in history, language, and culture, share the cognitional, intentional makeup as emphasized by Nishida and Lonergan.

Ever since Darwin people have worried about the sceptical implications of evolution. If our minds are products of evolution like those of other animals, why suppose that the beliefs they produce are true, rather than merely useful? In this chapter we apply this argument to beliefs in three different domains: morality, religion, and science. We identify replies to evolutionary scepticism that work in some domains but not in others. The simplest reply to evolutionary scepticism is that the truth of beliefs (...) in a certain domain is, in fact, connected to evolutionary success, so that evolution can be expected to design systems that produce true beliefs in that domain. We call a connection between truth and evolutionary success a ‘Milvian bridge’, after the tradition which ascribes the triumph of Christianity at the battle of the Milvian bridge to the truth of Christianity. We argue that a Milvian bridge can be constructed for commonsense beliefs, and extended to scientific beliefs, but not to moral and religious beliefs. An alternative reply to evolutionary scepticism, which has been used defend moral beliefs, is to argue that their truth does not depend on their tracking some external state of affairs. We ask if this reply could be used to defend religious beliefs. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Revolutionary Christianity: The 1966 South American Lectures by John Howard Yoder, and: John Howard Yoder: Spiritual Writings by John Howard YoderJohn C. ShelleyRevolutionary Christianity: The 1966 South American Lectures John Howard Yoder. Edited by Paul Martens, Mark Thiessen Nation, Matthew Porter, and Myles Werntz eugene, or: cascade books, 2011. 193 pp. $18.00John Howard Yoder: Spiritual Writings John Howard Yoder. Selected with an Introduction (...) by Paul Martens and Jenny Howell. Modern Spiritual Masters Series maryknoll, ny: orbis, 2011. 172 pp. $20.00For more than sixteen years after his death in late 1997, John Howard Yoder has provoked, challenged, and inspired a new generation of theologians, ethicists, and pastors—including the editors of these two volumes—many of whom never met Yoder nor heard him speak. Now, just as this new generation prepares to preserve and enlarge his legacy, a series of revelations detailing Yoder’s repugnant behavior against women and against administrators of the Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) in Elkhart, Indiana, compromises that legacy. It has been widely known that in 1992, after some initial resistance, Yoder submitted to a disciplining process initiated by his home congregation for inappropriate advances to women and that he had been reconciled and reunited in worship shortly before his death.1 The new allegations, which have become broadly public only since 2013, are considerably more serious and include coercive—indeed, “violent”—advances toward a number of women over three decades, including many students and others in subordinate positions. Further, Yoder abused the power of his reputation by intimidating the president and other administrators of AMBS, compelling them to keep the matter quiet as he slipped away to a more prestigious appointment at Notre Dame in 1984.2 According to some witnesses, this inappropriate behavior continued at Notre Dame. [End Page 210]These revelations have complicated the process of writing even a simple review.3 Were Yoder an astrophysicist with groundbreaking discoveries regarding dark matter, we would be disappointed with his behavior, but we would not challenge on those grounds the veracity of his discovery. With Christian ethics, the issue is more complicated, especially for someone of Yoder’s stature whose persona suggested that he was committed to and embodied, however imperfectly, what he proclaimed. Reading these volumes a second time has brought several jarring moments. For example, in both volumes, Yoder defines in almost identical language the temptation of “egocentric altruism”:The real temptation of good people like us is not the crude, the crass, and the carnal as those traits are defined in Puritanism. The real refined temptation, with which Jesus himself was tried, was that of egocentric altruism, of being oneself the incarnation of a good and righteous cause for which others are to suffer, of stating our self-justification in the form of a duty to others.(Revolutionary Christianity, 83; Essential Writings, 144)Consider also the following statement on religious liberty, which is certainly prescient in view of the current conflicts being played out in the courts: “Religious liberty is not only a necessary limitation upon the power of the state; it also marks a voluntary renunciation by the church of any capacity to coerce” (Revolutionary Christianity, 11). At the very least, then, perhaps we should read Yoder’s misdeeds as a warning: even we may be tempted by the crude and the carnal as well as by egocentric altruism; when threatened, even we may resort to coercion.The fourteen lectures in Revolutionary Christianity, published here for the first time, are organized into three sections—“The Believers Church,” “Peace,” and “Church in a Revolutionary World”—roughly the order of presentation to predominantly Mennonite and Anabaptist groups in Montevideo and Buenos Aires in May–June 1966. Written and delivered when Yoder was only thirty-eight and not yet a full-time faculty member, it is remarkable how fully they anticipate his later work. Clearly he mined them for later writings. The four lectures titled “The Believers Church” may be the best theological introduction available to the Anabaptist/Mennonite tradition. Yoder’s description of the church as a community of forgiveness, discernment, grace; of the mandate to share; and of a morality of participation and community... (shrink)

Who are the major figures that have shaped philosophy of science in Britain? What impact has the subject had in Britain outside academic philosophy? How have two of the major centers of the subject - in Pittsburgh and in London - interacted over the years? I begin by looking briefly at the recent history of philosophy of science in Britain and its general impact (tying this in with its interaction with the Pittsburgh Center and Pittsburgh people. It seems to me, (...) though, that the best way to celebrate an anniversary like that of the Pittsburgh Center is by predominantly looking forward rather than back. And I concentrate in this lecture on showing how philosophy of science can have an impact on issues of current concern, in Britain and more generally. (shrink)