Christology seems to fall fairly clearly into two divisions. The first is concerned with the truth of the two propositions: ‘Christ is God’ and ‘Christ is a man’. The second is concerned with the mutual compatibility of these propositions. The first part of Christology tends to confine itself to what is sometimes called ‘positive theology’: that is to say, it is largely given over to examining the Jons revelationis —let us not prejudge currently burning issues by asking what this is—to (...) see what evidence can be found for the truth of these propositions. Clearly, the methods used will be above all those of New Testament exegesis. The second part of Christology will necessarily consist entirely of that speculative theology which is contrasted with positive theology. Even if the earliest speculation on this topic is to be found in the New Testament itself and thus becomes fair game for the exegetes, any attempt to relate the primary truths, ‘Christ is God’ and ‘Christ is a man’, to eachother is a work of reflection, and in the terminology I am using speculative. (shrink)

In a discussion-note in Mind, Father P. M. Farrell, O.P., gave an account, in what he admitted to be an embarrassingly brief compass, of the Thomist doctrine concerning evil. There is one sentence in this discussion which at first glance appears paradoxical. Father Farrell has been arguing that a universe containing ‘corruptible good’ as well as incorruptible is better than one containing ‘incorruptible good’ only. He continues: ‘If, however, they are to manifest this corruptible good, they must be corruptible and (...) they must sometimes corrupt.’ The final words, despite Father Farrell's italics, strike one as expressing, not a self-evident truth, but a non sequitur. The fact that I am capable of committing murder does not entail that I will at some time commit it. It is not immediately obvious that a similar entailment holds in the case of corruption and corruptibility. (shrink)

Robert F. Williams, despite being a central historical figure and noted theorist of the Black radical tradition, is ignored as a subject of philosophical relevance and political theory. His challenges to the racist segregationist regime of the South influenced generations of thinkers and revolutionaries. However he is erased from the annals of thought for his use of armed resistance. This paper aims to introduce his life and work to philosophy as material for study and situate his program of pre-emptive (...) self-defense within the Black radical tradition. (shrink)

This highly readable translation of the major works of the 18th- century philosopher Etienne Bonnot, Abbe de Condillac, a disciple of Locke and a contemporary of Rousseau, Voltaire, and Diderot, shows his influence on psychiatric diagnosis as well as on the education of the deaf, the retarded, and the preschool child. Published two hundred years after Condillac's death, this translation contains treatises which were, until now, virtually unavailable in English: A Treatise on Systems, A Treatise of the Sensations, Logic.

We live in a complex world, made more complex for us by the difficulty of distinguishing between our cultural expectations for how things work and the physical systems we interact with. The environmental systems of nature and the economy are often hard to recognize and constantly change, having behaviors independent of what people think about them. So our rules for systems we come to trust can become highly misleading without notice. That seems to have happened to us, evident in how (...) people still project models of economic growth into the future, and already missing the turning point of timely response to erupting strains, fairly clearly around a century ago. That makes it valuable to know how the laws of physics provide some simple boundary conditions for responding to change in environmental systems, and knowing when you should.Learning to identify natural systems change and how to respond starts with learning to distinguish between physical systems, as one of our independent realities, and our worlds of information and belief as another. Once you can distinguish our information from its physical subjects you can compare the difference, and plan for change. Telling them apart can be a challenge, however, requiring attention to their distinctly different kinds of energy use, organization and natural limits. Environmental systems often change with their actively learning parts too, for another reason watching them change is more important than having theories of how they worked in the past.A useful way to find and track change in physical systems is found in how the conservation laws require energy flow and energy transfer processes to begin and end. They need a continuity that can be identified in recorded measures, made useful by raising key questions about irreversible changes precipitated by regular changes in scale. It builds a new bridge of methodology between theoretical and physical systems, introducing a new kind of empirical research. (shrink)

Heinz Kohut was arguably the most influential modern day psychoanalyst. Because current interest in Kohut's work has focused so completely on self psychology, however, certain aspects of Kohut's thinking, in particular his nonreductive synthesis of Freudian theory, are in danger of being lost. Prior to his development of self psychology, Kohut was a legendary teacher of Freudian theory at the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis. In this volume, Philip Rubovits-Seitz presents Kohut's previously unavailable lectures from his course on psychoanalytic psychology (...) along with an illuminating summary statement on Freudian theory jointly written by Kohut and Rubovits-Seitz. Rubovits-Seitz continues with his own insightful analysis of Kohut's distinctive approach to Freudian theory. And he concludes by arguing persuasively why Kohut's later contributions should best be viewed as a continuation, rather than an abandonment, of this early vision. _Kohut's Freudian Vision _not only repairs an outstanding tear in received psychoanalytic history but also challenges self psychologists and contemporary Freudian psychoanalysts alike to renewed reflection. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt's approach to politics focuses on action and conduct, rather than institutions, constitutions, and states. In light of Arendtian conceptions of politics, essays in this book challenge conventional IR theories. The contributions on agency explore concepts and categories of political action that enable individuals to act politically and to re-make the world in new, unpredictable ways. The contributions on structure explore how Arendt provides new critical purchase upon often reified structures and categories.

Although clinical interpretation originated with Freud, the latter's positivist preference for purely observational methods made him ambivalent toward interpretive methods. According to Rubovits-Seitz, the legacy of Freud's positivism still pervades clinical thinking and interferes with progress in investigating and improving interpretive methods. He reviews the paradigm shift in general science from positivism to postpositivism by way of demonstrating the compatibility of interpretive inquiry with a postpositivist approach. Post-Freudian models of clinical interpretation are evaluated, andclinical methods of interpretation are compared with (...) interpretive approachesin nonclinical fields. A detailed discussion of the neglected problem ofjustifying interpretations incorporates evaluations of specific justifyingprocedures and a case report illustrating applications of such methods. Thework concludes with a consideration of common but avoidable errors in clinicalinterpretation along with remedial strategies for dealing with them. Following _Depth-Psychological Understanding, _clinicians may no longer take for granted the interpretive process and the accuracy of their own interpretations. Rubovits-Seitz's scholarly survey marks a major advance in comprehending the methodology of clinical interpretation and in setting forth both the problems and promise of interpretive methods. (shrink)

A thorough and closely argued examination of a central issue in philosophical logic, an issue which is shown to have profound implications for the philosophy of language and much of metaphysics.

Nativists about syntactic processing have argued that linguisticprocessing, understood as the implementation of a rule-basedcomputational architecture, is spared in Williams syndrome, (WMS)subjects – and hence that it provides evidence for a geneticallyspecified language module. This argument is bolstered by treatingSpecific Language Impairments (SLI) and WMS as a developmental doubledissociation which identifies a syntax module. Neuroconstructivists haveargued that the cognitive deficits of a developmental disorder cannot beadequately distinguished using the standard gross behavioural tests ofneuropsychology and that the linguistic abilities of (...) the WMS subject canbe equally well explained by a constructivist strategy of neurallearning in the individual, with linguisitic functions implemented in anassociationist architecture. The neuroconstructivist interpretation ofWMS undermines the hypothesis of a double dissociation between SLI andWMS, leaving unresolved the question of nativism about syntax. Theapparent linguistic virtuosity of WMS subjects is an artefact ofenhanced phonological processing, a fact which is easier to demonstratevia the associationist computational model embraced byneuroconstructivism. (shrink)

The UN Global Compact is a voluntary initiative designed to help fashion a more humane world by enlisting business to follow ten principles concerning human rights, labor, the environment, and corruption. Although the four-year-old Compact is a relatively successful initiative, having signed up over eleven hundred companies and more than two hundred of the large multinationals, and having begun some important projects on globalization issues, there is a serious problem in that very few of the major U.S. companies have joined. (...) While the premier U.S. companies are interested in meeting the legitimate expectations of society, there is concerncentering around accountability issues. The accountability issues are in four major areas: 1. Accountability showing that the globalization of the economy actually helps the poor. 2. Accountability showing the corporate performance matches rhetoric. 3. Accountability that provides legitimacy to a two-tier pricing system and other measures that are designed to assist the poor in developing countries. 4. Accountability in the human rights area; what societal expectations are multinational companies accountablefor? The article outlines the problems that the Compact brings to the fore and offers some insight from the ethical literature that may address U.S. company concerns or provide new ways of thinking about the issues. It further argues that the forum provided by the Compact may be the most effective means to gain consensus of the role of business in society. (shrink)