While many 20th-century fads in philosophy and theology have come and gone, McInerny's faith in Aristotelian-Thomism was boldly prophetic. His defenses of natural theology and law helped to create dialogue between theists and non-theists, and to provide a philosophical basis for Catholic theology.

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

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)

Die fünf Bände enthalten die überarbeiteten Fassungen aller Haupt- und Sektionsvorträge des IX. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, der im März 2000 an der Berliner Humboldt-Universität stattfand. Die Beiträge gliedern sich in die folgenden Sektionen: Der vorkritische Kant, Kants Theoretische Philosophie, Kants Praktische Philosophie, Kants Ästhetik, Kants Religionsphilosophie, Kants Geschichtsphilosophie, Kants Rechts-, Staats- und Politische Philosophie, Kants Anthropologie, Kants Naturphilosophie und das Opus postumum, Kants Logik, Kant und die Aufklärung, Kant, Deutscher Idealismus und Neukantianismus, Kant und die Folgen. Zu den Autoren zählen u.a. (...) Manfred Baum, Mario Caimi, Konrad Cramer, Jean Ferrari, Eckhardt Förster, Michael Friedman, Simone Goyard-Fabre, Paul Guyer, Gary Hatfield, Agnes Heller, Dieter Henrich, Otfried Höffe, Wolfgang Kersting, Béatrice Longuenesse, Onora O'Neill, Robert Pippin, Gerold Prauss und Michael Wolff. (shrink)

Neste artigo pretendo descrever o lugar da esperança como categoria filosófica na obra de Ernst Bloch assim como sua fundamentação.

Este artigo tenta mostrar o fundamento filosófico da pedagogia social de Paul Natorp bem como as propostas concretas que derivam do seu conceito filosófico do sujeito.

Spirituality emerges in the function of culture to reinforce and yet redirect our genetic heritage. Our genes urge us to be concerned only for our own welfare, which can turn us to evil behaviors. Our religious traditions urge us to engage in behaviors of transkin altruism. These religious traditions have been selected for in the processes of natural selection. The challenge to spirituality is to discern the fundamental dynamics of the evolutionary processes, both genetic and cultural, that have created us (...) and to direct our behaviors in ways that can be beneficial to the entire natural system. Reason is not enough; we must also cultivate spiritual discernment in order to perceive the true nature of our situation and the best responses that are called for. The religious communities have the major responsibility for cultivating the spirituality that can achieve the most adequate discernment. (shrink)

“O, rocks!” Molly exclaims in impatience with Bloom’s first definition of metempsychosis, “tell us in plain words” . Looking forward, then, we remember that Bloom asks Murphy if he has seen the Rock of Gibraltar and asks further what year that would have been and if Murphy remembers the boats that plied the strait. “I’m tired of all them rocks in the sea,” replies Murphy . Bloom’s interest derives from Molly’s connection with Gibraltar, and Molly herself in her monologue remembers (...) the boats well and thinks of missing the boat at Algeciras , just before the book ends with her thoughts of the awful deepdown torrent,” the tide that moves like a river through the strait. Imaginatively she moves with that torrent, figuratively the torrent of time that plunges from the future to the past, which she accepts, with her yes, going deeply with the flow of life, and with her goes Murphy/Joyce, touching on Gibraltar at last. Molly remembers Ulysses S. Grant getting off a boat in Gibraltar, an occurrence that Adams sees as unduly stretching probability merely in order to bring Molly in incidental touch with a man named Ulysses.19 But remembering that Murphy is a “wily old customer,” we may remember also that the Ulysses of Joyce’s favorite Dante cannot rest with Penelope but, in search of knowledge and excellence, moves on through the two rocks of the straits of Gibraltar, the pillars of Hercules, to further adventure and also to destruction; and we may then think that with this reference, Joyce took pains to tell us that the Ulysses of this book here completes in hidden climax the design and purpose of his work, and sails on to oblivion, or rather to dispersion and reconstitution as everyone in the new adventure of Finnegans Wake. 19. See Adams, Surface and Symbol, p. 233. Ralph W. Rader, professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, is the author of Tennyson’s “Maud”: The Biographical Genesis. He is currently working on a theoretical study of form in the novel and other genres. His previous contributions to Critical Inquiry include “The Literary Theoretical Contribution of Sheldon Sacks” and “The Dramatic Monologue and Related Lyric Forms”. (shrink)

Embora Schiller reconheça a “origem kantiana da maioria dos princípios” que ele elaborou nas ästhetische Briefe [1794-95], specialistas reportam essa influência, em geral, à Kritik der Urteilskraft [1790]. Todavia, esse artigo aborda a importância das antinomias kantianas da Dialética Transcendental, da Kritik der reinen Vernunft [1780]. Com base nessa observação, levanta-se a hipótese de que há um vínculo direto entre o princípio regulador transcendental, que serviu para reorientar a passagem do condicionado ao incondicionado, e o conceito do belo de Schiller; (...) o qual assume a forma de um princípio regulador-estético para garantir a passagem da humanidade de sua imperfeição à plenitude antropológica. Nesse sentido, a discussão proposta defende a tese de que o belo schilleriano deve seu estatuto moral à resolução metodológica que Kant operou frente ao dilema imposto pelas antinomias; lição essa que inspirou Schiller a realizar a conversão do belo em princípio regulativo moral. Kant; Schiller; Antinomies; Regulatory Principle; Beauty. (shrink)

Esta apresentação identifica os principais conceitos envolvidos na teoria semântica da informação na obra An Outline of a Semantic Theory of Information de Bar-Hillel e Carnap. Inicio indicando as influências e desdobramentos sobre a elaboração desta teoria, seguido dos principais conceitos que os autores usarão para tratar o conteúdo semânticodas sentenças. O ponto de partida são operações conjunto-teoréticas, inicialmente através das funções In e Cont. Mas a dificuldade com a adição os leva a especificar o conceito de informatividade semântica por (...) meio das funções cont e m, que avaliam o espaço lógico-probabilístico sentencial. Sendo inversamente definíveis, onde a altaprobabilidade de verdade de uma sentença implica em seu escasso conteúdo informacional. Com isto, os autores introduzem a função inf como a contribuição de uma sentença na identificação de qual descrição-de-estado possível é o caso. A partir disto, eles ajustam a teoria para tratar probabilidades experimental-indutivas entre hipótesese evidências. (shrink)

O presente artigo tem os objetivos de caracterizar a necessidade de uma discussão ética sobre a informação e apresentar a ética da informação de Luciano Floridi como uma proposta interessante para esta demanda. Para tanto, inicio salientando a relevância da informação nos dias atuais e defino o que é informação e, seguindo os passos de Floridi, como devemos elaborar nossa compreensão da informação como uma categoria onto-epistemológica. Em seguida, levanto a urgência de uma ética da informação, seguido da apresentação da (...) proposta de Floridi de compreender a infosfera, o domínio total da informação. Por fim, destaco o caráter de macroética de sua ética da informação em conjunto com os princípios éticos e normas morais no tratamento da infosfera, com especial atenção ao princípio de entropia como conceito correlato ao mal. O resultado é que apesar de sua ética da informação conter algumas questões contestáveis, ela é um empreendimento a ser perseguido e aprimorado a fim de mitigarmos os efeitos disruptivos negativos das TIC no presente e futuro próximo. (shrink)

Este artigo se divide em duas etapas. A primeira etapa tem o objetivo de apresentar, dos tópicos 1 ao 5, três métodos de prova e um de contraprova presentes nos Primeiros Analíticos de Aristóteles. Fornecendo uma notação de fácil acesso, compreensão e relativamente neutra à interpretações com o objetivo de demonstrar que a silogística preserva interessantes ferramentas de dedução e questões intuitivamente férteis para investigação filosófica, em especial, àqueles que desejam compreender leituras filosóficas à lógica de Aristóteles, como as presentes (...) em Łucasievicz e Corcoran. A segunda etapa consiste em oferecer uma interpretação inferencialista ao estilo de Robert Brandom para a silogística aristotélica. Para realizar esta tarefa, iniciaremos com a apresentação do contexto e dos elementos formais de desenvolvimento do método aristotélico de prova de argumentos chamado silogística. Em seguida, apresentarei o método direto de prova que envolve converter sentenças em silogismos imperfeitos e permutar a posição sujeito-predicado delas, de modo a obter um silogismo perfeito. Depois, apresentarei o método chamado reductio ad impossibile que se vale das regras do método direto, das relações semânticas entre sentenças categóricas e de hipóteses para provar a validade do silogismo. Por fim, apresento o método de prova chamado ekthesis, que envolve a introdução de categorias intermediárias e suas manipulações entre esquemas dedutivos a fim de provar a validade do silogismo. A segunda etapa, dos tópicos 6 ao 8, consiste na discussão da silogística como um sistema baseado em regras, inspirado nos trabalhos de Żłarnecka–Biały e Corcoran. A partir do qual exploro a possibilidade de interpretar a silogística de uma perspectiva inferencialista, como uma estratégia lógica de explicitação do “jogo de dar e pedir razões” que marcou a filosofia por cerca de dois milênios. (shrink)

According to “imaginability arguments,” given any explanation of the physiological correlates of consciousness, it remains imaginable that all elements of that explanation could occur without consciousness, which thus remains unexplained. The O'Brien & Opie connectionist approach effectively shows that perspicuous explanations can bridge this explanatory gap, but bringing in other issues – for example, involving biology and emotion – would facilitate going much further in this direction. A major problem is the ambiguity of the term “representation.” Bridging the gap requires (...) perspicuously explaining not just how we form “representations” in the sense of outputs isomorphic to what is represented, but also what makes representations conscious; I sketch briefly what this would entail. (shrink)

Volume 2 of __The Writings of Charles De Koninck_ _is part of the three-volume series presenting the first English edition of the collected works of the Catholic Thomist philosopher Charles De Koninck. Ralph McInerny is the project editor and has prepared the excellent translations. The second volume begins with two works published in 1943: _Ego Sapientia: The Wisdom That Is Mary_, De Koninck's first study in Mariology, and _The Primacy of the Common Good Against the Personalists_, which generated a (...) strong critical reaction. Included in this volume are two reviews of _The Primacy of the Common Good_, by Yves R. Simon and I. Thomas Eschmann, O.P., and De Koninck's substantial response to Eschmann in his lengthy “In Defense of St. Thomas.” The volume concludes with a group of short essays: “The Dialectic of Limits as Critique of Reason,” “Notes on Marxism,” “This Is a Hard Saying,” “[Review of] _Between Heaven and Earth_,” and “Concept, Process, and Reality.” “Volume Two of __The Writings of Charles De Koninck_ _reveals a Thomist at home not merely in the deepest questions of natural science and natural philosophy, but also in the highest reaches of ethical and political philosophy, and in the most wonderful realm of revealed theology. De Koninck combines a justified confidence in his wisdom about the highest things with humility and gratitude for the gift of that wisdom. The series edited by Dr. McInerny is taking shape as a recovered treasure of a philosopher who labored to receive, and to pass on, the gift of wisdom.“ —_David Quackenbush, Thomas Aquinas College_. (shrink)

Dictionary entry discussing the main moral and meta-ethical doctrines found in the works of James Griffin.

This paper gives a new interpretation of the central section of Plato's Symposium (199d-212a). According to this interpretation, the term "καλóν", as used by Plato here, stands for what many contemporary philosophers call "intrinsic value"; and "love" (ἔρως) is in effect rational motivation , which for Plato consists in the desire to "possess" intrinsically valuable things - that is, according to Plato, to be happy - for as long as possible. An explanation is given of why Plato believes that "possessing" (...) intrinsically valuable things, at least for mortals like us, consists in actively creating instantiations of the intrinsic values, both in oneself and in the external world, and in knowing and loving these intrinsic values and their instantiations. Finally, it is argued that this interpretation reveals that Plato's "eudaemonism" is a different and more defensible doctrine than many commentators believe. (shrink)

Contrario a lo que algunos lectores opinan, el autor sostiene que El Punto de Vista es un texto tan importante y autoritario como todos los demás escritos de Kierkegaard y que es de especial interés analizar la llave interpretativa que ahí se ofrece para los textos seudónimos cara a los Discursos de 1843. Se analiza aquí la sensualidad, lo estético y lo poético como posible modo de existencia descartado por el cristianismo para concluir con la postura kierkegaardiana de que la (...) vida poética o estética es una vida no sólo de desesperación, sino imposible. El genio erótico-sensual, representado por Don Juan, aparece como una figura que sólo puede expresarse en la música, como hizo Mozart, y esto no puede existir realmente. Se analizan las posturas griegas de lo sensual frente a la felicidad en Aristóteles, con el argumento del érgon, y en Platón, leyendo el Protágoras con su visión jerárquica de las capacidades y actividades humanas, para culminar con el argumento de Kierkegaard: la vida estética es imposible porque es el esfuerzo por llevar conscientemente una vida inconsciente, es forzar la mente a ser a-mente. (shrink)

It is useful to envision two fundamentally different ways by which the timing of plant development is regulated: developmental stage‐transition mechanisms and time‐to‐flowering mechanisms. The existence of both mechanisms is indicated by the behavior of various mutants. Shoot stage transitions are defined by dominant mutants representing at least four different genes; each mutant retards transitions from juvenile shoot stages to more adult shoot stages. In addition, dominant leaf stage‐transition mutants in at least seven different genes have similar phenotypes, but the (...) leaf rather than the shoot is the. focus (and at least two of these genes encode domain proteins.) One mutant, Hairy sheath frayed 1‐0 (Hsf1‐O) simultaneously affects shoot and leaf; this mutant's behavior initiated our interest in plant heterochronism(1). The second type of timekeeping involves time‐to‐flowering. As with most plant but not animals species, cultivars of the maize species vary greatly for the time‐to‐flowering quantitative trait: between 6 and 14 weeks is common. It is via the 'slipping time frames' interaction that takes place between stage‐transition mutants and time‐to‐flowering genetic back‐grounds that unexpected and radical phenotypes occur. We see a reservoir of previously unsuspected morphological possibilities among the few heterochronic genotypes we have constructed, possibilities that may mimic the sort of variation needed to fuel macroevolution without having to posit (as done by Goldschmidt(2)) any special macromutational mechanisms. (shrink)

Recent critics of the coherence theory of truth (notably Ralph Walker) have alleged that the theory is incoherent, since its defence presupposes the correctness of the contrary correspondence theory of truth. Coherentists must specify the system of propositions with which true propositons cohere (the specified system). Generally, coherentists claim that the specified system is a system composed of propositions believed by a community. Critics of coherentism maintain that the coherentist’s assertions about which system is the specified system must be (...) true, not because they cohere with a system of beliefs, but because of facts about what a community believes. I argue that coherentists can admit that there are facts about what systems of beliefs communities accept, without being committed to the claim that these facts are the truth conditions of sentences about what communities accept. (shrink)

Recent critics of the coherence theory of truth (notably Ralph Walker) have alleged that the theory is incoherent, since its defence presupposes the correctness of the contrary correspondence theory of truth. Coherentists must specify the system of propositions with which true propositons cohere (the specified system). Generally, coherentists claim that the specified system is a system composed of propositions believed by a community. Critics of coherentism maintain that the coherentist’s assertions about which system is the specified system must be (...) true, not because they cohere with a system of beliefs, but because of facts about what a community believes. I argue that coherentists can admit that there are facts about what systems of beliefs communities accept, without being committed to the claim that these facts are the truth conditions of sentences about what communities accept. (shrink)