The theme of the church's impact on culture does not ignore, but rather rounds out the Chicago school's earlier and opposite preoccupation with the cultural-environmental factors in the development of the church. Brauer sees the socio-historical method which is identified with the Chicago school as "the first serious attempt in America to make church history a responsible scientific discipline at home in the university." These essays by faculty and alumni of Chicago Divinity School are presented chronologically and cover ancient, medieval, (...) reformation, and modern church history. Specifically, the essays cover: the use of the prefix auto- in early Christian Theology; the period of Constantine; the fourth and fifth century relation between Christianity and Judaeism; some medieval reforming critiques; the importance of the church in the rise of Moscow; a new line on the problem of the sources of conciliarism in the fifteenth century; and various reformation essays including one by J. T. McNeil, one on Anabaptism, one on religion and science in the reformation, and one on reformation humanism. The final essays include studies of Oliver Cromwell, Schleiermacher, Joseph Miloslav Hurban, and one on Harnack.--S. O. H. (shrink)

The theme of the church's impact on culture does not ignore, but rather rounds out the Chicago school's earlier and opposite preoccupation with the cultural-environmental factors in the development of the church. Brauer sees the socio-historical method which is identified with the Chicago school as "the first serious attempt in America to make church history a responsible scientific discipline at home in the university." These essays by faculty and alumni of Chicago Divinity School are presented chronologically and cover ancient, medieval, (...) reformation, and modern church history. Specifically, the essays cover: the use of the prefix auto- in early Christian Theology; the period of Constantine; the fourth and fifth century relation between Christianity and Judaeism; some medieval reforming critiques; the importance of the church in the rise of Moscow; a new line on the problem of the sources of conciliarism in the fifteenth century; and various reformation essays including one by J. T. McNeil, one on Anabaptism, one on religion and science in the reformation, and one on reformation humanism. The final essays include studies of Oliver Cromwell, Schleiermacher, Joseph Miloslav Hurban, and one on Harnack.--S. O. H. (shrink)

abstract: One of the most prolific approaches to the comparative study of Buddhist and Christian philosophy has been the use of Buddhist anti-metaphysicism to overcome the allegedly obsolete metaphysical discourse of Christianity. This approach has been practiced, among others, by Edgar Bruns, Frederik Streng, Joseph O'Leary, and John Keenan. Keenan's 1980–1990s seminal works were determinative in that they appeared to rely on intuitive and evident premises: Christianity became infused with Greek metaphysical concepts early on; consequently, it adopted the forms of (...) essentialism and ontological discourse practiced in metaphysics. That discourse has now become obsolete and must be overcome; Buddhist anti-metaphysicism helps overcome it; hence, Christianity can learn from Buddhism. In this paper, I show that although Keenan presents the first of these claims as self-evident, it is in fact highly polemical. Its origins lie in Albrecht Ritschl's and Adolf von Harnack's Hellenization theory. While the theological and historical background to this theory has been debated, Keenan does not engage in these debates. Even more, he transforms the theory in such a way that it becomes incongruent with its inherent aim. Following the problems implied on these two levels, I suggest that Keenan's project makes itself vulnerable to incoherencies. In the end, I argue for the overcoming of antimetaphysicism as a basis for Buddhist-Christian dialogue. (shrink)

Augustine′s conversion to Christianity in A.D. 386 is a pivotal moment not only in his own life, but in Christian and world history, for the theology of Augustine set the course of theological and cultural development in the western Christian church. But to what exactly was Augustine converted? Scholars have long debated whether he really converted to Christianity in 386, whether he was a Platonist, and, if he adhered to both Platonism and Christianity, which dominated his thought. The debate of (...) the last thirteen decades spans an immense body of literature in multiple languages. In this literature, four major views on Augustine′s conversion may be discerned. The first view is associated with Gaston Boissier and Adolph von Harnack, and was famously championed by Prosper Alfaric: that Augustine in 386 converted to neo-Platonism but not to Christianity. Second, there is the view recently promoted by Catherine Conybeare: that Augustine in 386 converted to Christianity and rejected neo-Platonism. Third, there is the view that he converted to Christianity and was also a neo-Platonist; the most famous adherents of this view are Robert J. O′Connell and Pierre Courcelle. Finally, there is the view recently promoted by Carol Harrison: that Augustine committed to Christianity in 386, yet did not utterly reject neo-Platonism; rather, he aimed to develop a Christian faith that was informed by neo-Platonic insight. In this article, I first explain and distinguish these four general views, and then I explain why I prefer the fourth view. -/- More Info: This is the pre-peer reviewed version of Boone, Mark, "The Role of Platonism in Augustine's 386 Conversion to Christianity," Religion Compass 9.5 (May 2015), 151-61. This article has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/rec3.12149/abstract. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Cross and Creation: A Theological Introduction to Origen of Alexandria by Mark E. TherrienJean-Paul JugeCross and Creation: A Theological Introduction to Origen of Alexandria by Mark E. Therrien (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2022), xxii + 303 pp.Although Origen of Alexandria has been misrepresented and maligned since his own lifetime, allies have always arisen to defend him in his stead. Especially after the French Catholic reappraisal (...) of Origen's theology in the twentieth century, the once-dominant interpretation of Origen as a Platonist dressed in Christian garb no longer holds sway among most scholars. As Mark Therrien notes, however, traces of a "metaphysical reductionist" interpretation of Origen, propounded most notably by Adolf [End Page 295] von Harnack, still influences Origenian scholarship (89). Therrien's book vigorously opposes this line of interpretation and provides a rereading of crucial passages in Origen's On First Principles (Peri archōn) and his Commentary on John. In addition to presenting a fresh interpretation of these texts, Therrien also offers an introduction for those who are encountering Origen's theology for the first time. Rather than prefacing with biographical remarks, this book dives straight into Origen's major theological texts, allowing the reader, as Henri de Lubac put it, "to see Origen at work."Therrien operates under the principle that Origen is above all a biblical theologian whose speculation is driven primarily by his commitment to exegesis rather than Platonic presuppositions. Thus, his reading of various controversial excerpts of Origen, particularly from the Peri archōn, pays close attention to the biblical verses that Origen cites, which operate not as mere ornamentation but as the indispensable mechanics of his theology.This book is divided into eight chapters, each of which presents a "fundamental pillar" of Origen's thought: God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, eschatology the soul, the world, the Cross, and deification. Drawing attention to the first two cycles that comprise Origen's Peri archōn, Therrien treats the first cycle as authoritative to Origen's system, since it is here that Origen presents the Church's teaching in a more dogmatic form prior to the zetetic approach of the second cycle. Chapter 1 highlights the anti-Valentinian polemic that contextualizes Origen's account of divine incorporeality and the possibility of genuine knowledge of God. Following the insights of Cyril O'Regan, Therrien notes that an extreme apophaticism led the Valentinian Gnostics to "assimilat[e] God to creaturely categories," as seen in their account of various deities emanating from God as if by a material transfer of substance (36). For Origen, only the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are absolutely incorporeal, and it is their absolute incorporeality that separates the Trinity from all creatures. Despite this fundamental distinction between the Trinity and creation, Origen affirms that a limited knowledge of God is possible for rational creatures with the caveat that, whenever God is likened analogically to a created reality, the dissimilarity is always greater (38). Therrien contends that, unlike the Gnostics, Origen envisions the material world as the positive and even necessary means for creatures to derive knowledge of God.Chapter 2 focuses on Origen's Christology, especially the primacy of Christ's title "Wisdom," which the author accounts for by explaining the logic behind Origen's exegesis of John's Prologue and Prov 8:22. Long before the Arian controversy of the fourth century, Origen insisted that God is eternally Father and thus generates the Son from all eternity. Origen has often been characterized, however, as arguing that God's eternal status as Creator [End Page 296] necessarily entails the existence of creation ab aeterno. Therrien points out that such a reading conflates Origen's two distinct notions of creation: the foreknown existence of creatures as "sketched and prefigured" in Wisdom from all eternity and the concrete, substantial existence of creatures that begins in time (60). The investigation of Origen's pneumatology in chapter 3 shows how Ps 103 (in the Septuagint) informs Origen's notion of the Holy Spirit as Creator. For Origen, creation is not simply a past event, but is instead a dynamic process: "Created beings must, so to... (shrink)

Vague predicates, those that exhibit borderline cases, pose a persistent problem for philosophers and logicians. Although they are ubiquitous in natural language, when used in a logical context, vague predicates lead to contradiction. This paper will address a question that is intimately related to this problem. Given their inherent imprecision, why do vague predicates arise in the first place? I discuss a variation of the signaling game where the state space is treated as contiguous, i.e., endowed with a metric that (...) captures a similarity relation over states. This added structure is manifested in payoffs that reward approximate coordination between sender and receiver as well as perfect coordination. I evolve these games using a variation of Herrnstein reinforcement learning that better reflects the generalizing learning strategies real-world actors use in situations where states of the world are similar. In these simulations, signaling can develop very quickly, and the signals are vague in much the way ordinary language predicates are vague—they each exclusively apply to certain items, but for some transition period both signals apply to varying degrees. Moreover, I show that under certain parameter values, in particular when state spaces are large and time is limited, learning generalization of this sort yields strategies with higher payoffs than standard Herrnstein reinforcement learning. These models may then help explain why the phenomenon of vagueness arises in natural language: the learning strategies that allow actors to quickly and effectively develop signaling conventions in contiguous state spaces make it unavoidable. (shrink)

This book broadens the range of theoretically informed empirical research on business ethics (using data from major American corporations) and addresses the underlying questions about business ethics scholarship. It culminates a decade’s work by the authors—individually, jointly, and with others. The first part of the book addresses the major theoretical questions involved in doing empirical research about normative issues. It addresses the boundaries—methodological, conceptual, and institutional—that too easily separate philosophical and social scientific approaches to business ethics and reviews various ways (...) in which those approaches can be brought close together to benefit research and practice. The second part of the book describes and explains the increasing institutionalization of formal systems designed to manage ethics in organizations. It reviews the state of the art initiatives to foster ethical business conduct and also looks at the relative roles of executives and external policies (e.g., government regulations) in creating meaningful ethical initiatives. In the third part, the focus shifts to individual ethical behavior and how organizations influence it, describing in detail some of the outcomes of organizational ethics initiatives. It also looks at successes, failures, and new prospects in the effort to identify and explain the multiple factors that influence individual ethical behavior. (shrink)

Adolf von Harnack auf schloss Elmau, von J. Müller.--Briefe Adolf von Harnacs an Johannes Müller.--Leben und erkennen, von A. Harnack.

Intersectionality theory explores the special sorts of disadvantage that arise as the result of occupying multiple disadvantaged demographic categories. One significant methodological problem for the quantitative study of intersectionality is the difficulty of acquiring data sets large enough to produce significant results when one is looking for intersectional effects. For this reason, we argue, simulation methods may be particularly useful to this branch of theorizing because they can generate precise predictions and causal dependencies in a relatively cheap way, and can (...) thus guide future empirical work. We illustrate this point through models which show that intersectional oppression can arise under conditions where social groups are disadvantaged in the emergence of bargaining norms. As we show, intersectional disadvantage can arise even when actors from all social categories are completely identical in terms of preferences and abilities. The conditions necessary to derive such disadvantage are relatively minimal. And when actors behave in ways that reflect stronger intersectional identities, the potential for disadvantage increases. (shrink)

Oliver Sacks MD, Clinical Professor of Neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, talked with Anthony Freeman during his visit to London in January 1995 to publicize his recently published book An Anthropologist on Mars. The interview is preceded by an overview of the book.

Recent work on consciousness has distinguished between the qualitative character of an experience (what a particular experience is like) and its subjective character or subjectivity (the for-me-ness of any experience). It is often suggested that subjectivity is a characteristic inner awareness subjects enjoy of their own occurrent experiences. A number of thinkers have also suggested that not only is each subject aware of her own experiences, but that in having these experiences she is aware of them as her own. This (...) is the subjectivity-mineness thesis: necessarily, an experience which is given to its subject is given as the subject’s own experience. I shall argue against the subjectivity-mineness thesis. While I agree that experiences are characterised by inner awareness, it is questionable whether inner awareness entails an awareness of my experiences as mine. I shall offer an alternative account of inner awareness, the impersonal account. On this account the subject of the experience is not presented in the content of inner awareness, but the mode of inner awareness is such that necessarily, this awareness is an awareness of experiences which belong to this subject. This is what makes inner awareness a characteristically first-personal form of awareness. (shrink)

Conceptions of individual autonomy and of rational autonomy have played large parts in twentieth century moral philosophy, yet it is hard to see how either could be basic to morality. Kant's conception of autonomy is radically different. He predicated autonomy neither of individual selves nor of processes of choosing, but of principles of action. Principles of action are Kantianly autonomous only if they are law-like in form and could be universal in scope; they are heteronomous if, although law-like in form, (...) they cannot have universal scope. Puzzles about claims linking morality, reason and autonomy are greatly reduced by recognising the distinctiveness of Kantian autonomy. (shrink)

I am working on a substantially revised second edition of this. It is due to be published by Palgrave in 2024.

Explores the role of eliminating fear in Epicurean ethics and physics, focusing on techniques to eliminate the fear of death and the fear of the gods. Includes a taxonomy of types of fear and types of therapy for fear.

Self, Language, and World: Problems from Kant, Sellars, and Rosenberg Edited by James R. O'Shea and Eric M. Rubenstein Introduction KANT Willem deVries, Kant, Rosenberg, and the Mirror of Philosophy David Landy, The Premise That Even Hume Must Accept LANGUAGE AND MIND William G. Lycan, Rosenberg On Proper Names Douglas Long, Why Life is Necessary for Mind: The Significance of Animate Behavior Dorit Bar-On and Mitchell Green, Lionspeak: Communication, Expression, and Meaning David Rosenthal, The Mind and Its Expression MIND AND (...) KNOWLEDGE Jeffrey Sicha, The Manifest Image: the Sensory and the Mental Bruce Aune, Rosenberg on Knowing Joseph C. Pitt, Sellarsian Antifoundationalism and Scientific Realism Matthew Chrisman, The Aim of Belief and the Goal of Truth: Reflections on Rosenberg James O’Shea, Conceptual Thinking and Nonconceptual Content: A Sellarsian Divide ONTOLOGY Anton Koch, Persons as Mirroring the World Eric M. Rubenstein, Form and Content, Substance and Stuff Ralf Stoecker, On Being a Realist About Death William G. Lycan, Biographical Remarks on Jay F. Rosenberg Scholarly Publications of Jay F. Rosenberg. (shrink)

Anthony O'Hear; VI*—Guilt and Shame as Moral Concepts, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 77, Issue 1, 1 June 1977, Pages 73–86, https://doi.org/10.

These fifteen essays on Nietzsche's indebtedness to the Classical Tradition were composed by scholars in the fields of philosophy, theology, German and Classics. The essays roughly cover the following epochs: the age of the Fathers of the Western Church, medieval scholasticism, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, Weimar Classicism, Romanticism and the several other intellectual trends and movements in the nineteenth century. Collection includes three essays comparing Nietzsche's perceptions of Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates with those (respectively) of Augustine, Aquinas, and Hamann. Three (...) essays treat Nietzsche's relationship to Goethe, Schiller, and Heine. Three deal with Nietzsche and French literature or thought, one explores possible parallels between Nietzsche and Dante, another the extent of his debt to Byron. Four contributions center on Nietzsche's view of tragedy, and an older study has been expanded to show the underlying harmony of Nietzsche's conception with that of the French classical tragedians. This book affirms and fulfills the need for serious scholarship by the student of Nietzsche unable to work in German, while presenting a readable cross-section of the work being done relating Nietzsche to the intellectual tradition from which he sprang. (shrink)

Most commonplace moral failure is not conditioned by evil intentions or the conscious desire to harm or humiliate others. It is more banal and ubiquitous – a form of moral stupidity that gives rise to rationalization, self‐deception, failures of due moral consideration, and the evasion of responsibility. A kind of crude, perception‐distorting self‐absorption, moral stupidity is the cause of many moral missteps; moral development demands the development of self‐knowledge as a way out of moral stupidity. Only once aware of the (...) presence or absence of particular desires and beliefs can an agent have authority over them or exercise responsibility for their absence. But what is the connection between self‐knowledge and moral development? I argue that accounts (such as Kant's and Richard Moran's) which construe instances of self‐knowledge as like the verdicts of a judge cannot explain its potential role in moral development, and claim that it must be conceived of in a way that makes possible a process of self‐refinement and self‐regulation. Making use of Buddhist moral psychology, I argue that when self‐knowledge plays a role in moral development, it includes a quality of attention to one's experience best modeled as the work of the craftsperson, not as judge. (shrink)

This paper argues that Anscombe's arguments against appealing to the self-reference rule that 'I" refers to its producer are ineffective.

Onora O'Neill; I *—The Presidential Address: Constructivisms in Ethics, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 89, Issue 1, 1 June 1989, Pages 1–18, ht.

Drawing on an analysis of complaint files that we conducted for the Irish Medical Council, this paper offers three possible explanations for the gap between the ubiquity of official commitments to taking patients’ complaints seriously and medical professional regulators’ dismissal—as not warranting an inquiry—of the vast majority of complaints submitted by members of the public. One explanation points to the “regulatory illiteracy” of many complainants, where the remit and threshold of seriousness of regulators is poorly understood by the general public. (...) Another points to possible processes of “institutional epistemic injustice” that unjustly undermine the credibility of certain complainants, such as those with low levels of formal education. A third explanation highlights the marginalization of the general public from “symbolic power” to define what matters in medical professional regulation. The paper is offered in a spirit of ideas in progress and raising questions rather than definitive insights into the regulatory process. (shrink)

Why did the omnipotent, omniscient, unsurpassably, and perfectly good being who is necessary in Himself, and having a supremely rational will, contingently create ex nihilo? What motivation could account for such freely undertaken activity, displaying it as neither necessary nor less than fully rational? The chapter considers and criticizes answers recently offered by Mark Johnston and Alex Pruss. It is argued that creation of some contingent reality or other is necessary, and that plausible reflections on the ordered complexity in God’s (...) motivations indicate that the scope of contingency regarding what to create is highly constricted—though not to the point of complete modal collapse. A perfect creator would create either an infinite and richly varied multiverse or an infinitely improving universe realizing a wide array of kinds of goods. Finally, a rebuttal is given to the contention that any element of contingency in a divine choice entails a rational-explanatory deficiency. (shrink)

Rather surprisingly, T.H.Green's ideas on women and the family are as neglected today as they were immediately after his death in 1882, when his thought was first interpreted for a wider public by his colleagues and friends.1 Silence on such matters in the 1880s is not remarkable. It is odd, however, that it persists today, despite recent intense concern with the history of women and the family, including their place in political thought, and despite reviving philosophical interest in the British (...) Idealists and readiness to credit them with a significant impact on politics, education and social work. It has often been remarked that Green's political ideas have much in common superficially with those of John Stuart Mill, since their values and precepts are very similar, although the substructure of their thought is utterly different. Nevertheless it has altogether escaped notice that this is equally true of their ideas on women, marriage and family relationships. Today Mill's fabled feminism easily appears limited and imperceptive, and the priority he gave to the parliamentary vote strangely simplistic. Did Green show any greater realism and understanding? Did he practise as well as preach real equality between men and women, in private as well as public life? In short, what precisely was Green's position on 'the woman question'�? (shrink)

The importance of the specifi relationship between the US and the EU is determined by the role they play in solving international problems. The purpose of the article is to study the impact of common and distinctive position in US and EU foreign policy on the development of their relations and ability to effectively solve the world’s problems. At the beginning of the XXI century relations between the US and the EU have been developing in various spheres of foreign policy. (...) The priorities were security cooperation, the fiht against international terrorism and the development of economic relations. US and EU are mutually benefiial and priority partners for each other. This is determined in the foreign policy instruments of the United States and the European Union. However, this does not preclude the existence in the United States and the European Union different approaches to solving international problems and competition between them. The biggest differences between the US and the EU are shown in approaches to the settlement of military conflcts, the fiht against global warming and the greenhouse effect. The largest component of competitive relations is manifested in the development of the Arctic region. The US seeks to engage the EU foreign policy implementation taking into account American interests. However, at the beginning of the XXI century the EU had its own foreign policy program. The EU has an unhappy tendency towards US methods of solving world problems and unilateral actions in the international arena. The bipolar system was dominated by bilateral cooperation between the US and individual states of the European Union, but during the presidency of Barack Obama, the United States prefer relations with European politicians who represent the agreed position of 28 EU member states. The US in implementing its foreign policy should take into account the position of individual states and the European Union as a whole entity. This affects the process of solving international problems. Despite the existence of contradictions in the relations of the United States and the European Union, cooperation will continue to contribute to this long-term relationship, similarities in approaches to building political and economic systems and similarities in mentality. (shrink)

The present state of our spirituality is a consequence of the influences of particular circumstances of life. Undoubtedly, the general changes in the social, political and economic orientations of society significantly influence the nature of the processes taking place in the spiritual sphere. The transition to the rails of market reforms, the affirmation of the principle of pragmatism as a kind of measure of the effectiveness of human life, the priority of economic values ​​over others, including spiritual values, leads to (...) a deepening crisis of spirituality, crisis of man. And in this connection M. Berdyaev's words appearing to warn him against uncritical perception of the values ​​of Western civilization, which, incidentally, is quite characteristic of modern Ukrainian society, appear to be quite correct: the loss of the spiritual center. " And further: “The autonomy of economic life led to its dominance over the entire life of human communities. Mammonism has become the defining force of the age. ”. (shrink)