Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

Feminists have long been aware of the pathology and the dangers of what are now termed “adaptive preferences.” Adaptive preferences are preferences formed in unconscious response to oppression. Thinkers from each wave of feminism continue to confront the problem of women's internalization of their own oppression, that is, the problem of women forming their preferences within the confining and deforming space that patriarchy provides. All preferences are, in fact, formed in response to a limited set of options, but not all (...) preferences are unconscious, pathological responses to oppression. Feminist theory therefore requires a method for distinguishing all preferences from adaptive or deformed preferences. Social contract theory provides such a tool. Social contract theory models autonomous preference-acquisition and retention at both the external level of causation and the internal level of justification. In doing so, social contract theory exposes preferences that do not meet those standards, acting as both a conceptual test that identifies adaptive preferences and as a practical tool for personal and social clarification. A social contract approach helps persons and societies to identify and to confront preferences rooted in unconscious response to oppression. (shrink)

I. Immanuel Kant claims that the existence of God cannot be proved by speculative theology, yet that speculative theology is the only means by which the existence of God can definitively be proved. All knowledge, Kant argues, including that of God’s existence, must be based on the forms of possible experience or deduced from premises known to be true: in the case of the existence of God, however, the former is impossible because God transcends experience, and the latter is impossible (...) because the premises themselves, to be known to be true, would have to be grounded in possible experience, while, by the very nature of the question, possible experience has been excluded. Thus, the existence of God cannot be known in the usual sense, that is, by means of the theoretical employment of reason. (shrink)

The distinction of fact and value and the problems entailed by it are concerns only for modern, Western thought. The distinction is supported by Kant, who, however, also attempts to solve its consequent problems. His first attempt is made by arguing that the standard of value is itself a fact. This brings fact and value together, but only in an intelligible world. Kant's second attempt is found in the third Critique in the argument that man, as both rational and animal, (...) must view the world in teleological terms; so doing advances the task of science, finds support in objects of natural beauty, and leads to the creation of beauty in art. Thus, ultimately, the highest complete good, a world under moral laws is itself seen as in fact really possible as the final goal of human creative artistic activity. (shrink)

Chaadayev's Philosophical Letters and Apology of a Madman unite the religious approach to history, which was later adopted by the Slavophiles, with the search for Western enlightenment, symbolized in the figure of Peter the Great. - Front flap.

This book constitutes the first volume of a projected two-volume intellectual biography of Auguste Comte, the founder of modern sociology and a philosophical movement called positivism. Volume One offers a reinterpretation of Comte's "first career," (1798-1842) when he completed the scientific foundation of his philosophy. It describes the interplay between Comte's ideas and the historical context of postrevolutionary France, his struggles with poverty and mental illness, and his volatile relationships with friends, family, and colleagues, including such famous contemporaries as Saint-Simon, (...) the Saint-Simonians, Guizot, and John Stuart Mill. Pickering shows that the man who called for a new social philosophy based on the sciences was not only ill at ease in the most basic human relationships, but also profoundly questioned the ability of the purely scientific spirit to regenerate the political and social world. (shrink)

Taking the possibility of visual argumentation seriously, this essay explores how refutation might proceed. We posit three ways in which images can refute and be refuted in a mixed-media environment: (1) dissection, in which an image is broken down discursively; (2) substitution, in which one image is replaced within a larger visual frame by a different image; and (3) transformation, in which an image is recontextualized in a new visual frame. These strategies are illustrated in an analysis of three American (...) documentary films on abortion. (shrink)

Meaningful participant engagement has been identified as a key contributor to the success of efforts to share data via a “Medical Information Commons”. We present findings from expert stakeholder interviews aimed at understanding barriers to engagement and the appropriate role of MIC participants. Although most interviewees supported engagement, they distinguished between individual versus collective forms. They also noted challenges including representation and perceived inefficiency, prompting reflection on political aspects of engagement and efficiency concerns.

Essays discuss the division of household labor, anti-semitism, violence against women, reproductive freedom, parenting, friendship between women, and feminist theology.

Auguste Comte's doctrine of positivism was both a philosophy of science and a political philosophy designed to organize a new, secular, stable society based on positive or scientific, ideas, rather than the theological dogmas and metaphysical speculations associated with the ancien regime. This volume offers the most comprehensive English-language overview of Auguste Comte's philosophy, the relation of his work to the sciences of his day, and the extensive, continuing impact of his thinking on philosophy and especially secular political movements in (...) Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Contributors consider Comte's reasons for establishing a Religion of Humanity as well as his views on domestic life and the arts in his positivist utopia. The volume further details Comte's attempt to apply his "positive method," first to social science and then to politics and morality, thereby defending the continuity of his career while also critically examining the limits of his approach. (shrink)