Anne Conway was an extraordinary figure in a remarkable age. Her mastery of the intricate doctrines of the Lurianic Kabbalah, her authorship of a treatise criticising the philosophy of Descartes, Hobbes, and Spinoza, and her scandalous conversion to the despised sect of Quakers indicate a strength of character and independence of mind wholly unexpected in a woman at the time. Translated for the first time into modern English, her Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy is the most interesting (...) and original philosophical work written by a woman in the seventeenth century. Her radical and unorthodox ideas are important not only because they anticipated the more tolerant, ecumenical, and optimistic philosophy of the Enlightenment, but also because of their influence on Leibniz. This fully annotated edition includes an introduction which places Conway in her historical and philosophical contexts, together with a chronology of her life and a bibliography. (shrink)

Anne Conway’s Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, first published in 1690, is probably the most ambitious contribution to early modern metaphysics by a woman writing in the English language. This beautifully prepared edition makes Conway’s treatise available to twentieth-century readers in an accessible English translation of the 1690 Latin text—itself a translation of an original English manuscript that has long been lost.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Enthusiastical Concerns of Dr. Henry More: Religious Meaning and the Psychology of Delusion by Daniel C. FoukeAllison P. CoudertDaniel C. Fouke. The Enthusiastical Concerns of Dr. Henry More: Religious Meaning and the Psychology of Delusion. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1997. Pp. xi + 257. Cloth, $93.75.In this detailed examination of Henry More’s psychological explanation of enthusiasm, Daniel C. Fouke persuasively argues that previous discussions of seventeenth-century attitudes toward (...) enthusiasm have been marred by misplaced attempts to categorize them in terms of “rationalism,” “empiricism,” and the “new science.” As he says, “a central problem in every account is that anti-enthusiasts and their targets simply refuse to ally themselves according to commitments which, to our eye, should sort them into well-defined genealogies, neat schools, and clear enmities. Clear battle-lines fail to emerge, and any portrait of the typical ‘enthusiast’ never gets so far as a bare outline” (122). The ample evidence he offers to support this point appears in the three main sections of his book, in which he analyzes More’s attack on two types of scientific “enthusiasm,” alchemy, represented by Thomas Vaughan, and the mechanical philosophy, and on the religious and political enthusiasm of radical sects, represented primarily by the Quakers.Fouke points out how similar More’s own views are in many respects to the enthusiasts he excoriates, and he illustrates how tendentious and often unfair his criticisms are. For example, More viciously attacks Thomas Vaughan for his vitalistic, organic view of the natural world when he himself holds similar views. And he later attacks the mechanical philosophers for rejecting the kind of vitalism he had earlier attacked in Vaughan, while chiding them for ignoring the sympathetic effects he had detected with such repugnance in Vaughan.The same inconsistencies and misrepresentations hold true of More’s attack on the Quakers. He criticizes them for relying on the “Inner Light,” when he himself had used the same expression and adhered to the same conviction that religion was a matter of inner experience not outward observance.In both his attack on scientific and religious enthusiasm, More descends, as Fouke amply shows, to a level of ad hominem vituperation at odds with his professed tolerance and good manners. By attributing all enthusiasm to physical disorders, which, in More’s view, arise primarily from carnality and lust, More effectively stigmatized and even demonized his opponents (since the devil was masterful at using physical disorders for his nefarious purposes).What accounts for More’s harshness and inconsistencies? Fouke argues, again persuasively, that one must view More’s attacks on enthusiasm in the context of the political and religious upheavals of the time and in terms of his own metaphysical and cultural outlook. As Fouke points out, all attacks on enthusiasm involved the larger issue of authority. Where should one look for guidance—to the State, the Church, the individual? More was a traditionalist, who deplored the political and religious anarchy of the Civil Wars and Interregnum. But although he was a political conservative and traditionalist, he too had been influenced by religious radicals and believed that an individual’s religion must be heartfelt and not a matter of ritual compliance. In essence More’s attack on enthusiasm was basically an attempt to legitimize his own theology, anthropology, and natural philosophy in the name of an indisputable, higher, religious [End Page 467] authority. The irony of More’s position was that in vilifying enthusiasm and attributing it to insanity, More’s writings became a useful resource in the armory of the deists, materialists and atheists, who were his real targets.Fouke is especially interested in analyzing what he describes as the “poetic source” of More’s attack on enthusiasm. As he says at the beginning of his book:I will argue that More and his “enthusiastical” opponents were offering competing ideals of religious meaning which they expressed by singling out particular kinds of experience as types of religious and moral cognition. I will also show that they differed in their account of the “crisis” experience which provides entry to the spiritual life, grounding this experience in competing theoretical, narrative, and poetical contexts. I will... (shrink)

The criminal law presently distinguishes between actions and omissions, and only rarely proscribes failures to avert consequences that it would be an offense to bring about. Why? In recent years it has been persuasively argued by both Glover and Bennett that, celeris paribus, omissions to prevent a harm are just as culpable as are actions which bring that harm about. On the other hand, and acknowledging that hitherto “lawyers have not been very successful in finding a rationale for it,” Tony (...) Honoré has sought to defend the law's differential treatment. He proposes a “distinct-duties theory” that in addition to the general duties we owe to everyone, we also owe distinct duties to a more limited collection of people and associations, specified by features of our relationship with them. Where a distinct duty holds, breach by omission may well be no better than breach by positive action. But absent a distinct duty, omissions, per Honoré, are less culpable. They are mere failures to intervene and improve or rectify things, whereas actions are positive interventions which make things worse. And, thus, the law has good reason to differentiate between them. (shrink)

It is often alleged that an agent is morally responsible in a liability sense for a transgression just in case s/he deserves a negative interpersonal response for that transgression, blaming responses such as resentment and indignation being paradigms. Aside from a few exceptions, guilt is cited in recent discussions of moral responsibility, if at all, as merely an effect of being blamed, or as a reliable indicator of moral responsibility, but not itself an explanation of moral responsibility. In this paper, (...) I argue that an agent is morally responsible in a liability sense for a transgression just in case s/he deserves to feel moral guilt for that transgression. I argue that this alternative view offers all that the predominant blame-focused view offers, while also solving some puzzling features of moral responsibility. Specifically, it offers a compelling way to reconcile conflicting intuitions about the suberogatory, and allows those who do not understand what Darwall calls ‘second-personal’ reasons to be morally responsible for their immoral acts. (shrink)

As the United States is currently prosecuting two wars, it is important to consider whether those wars, and the resulting noncombatantcasualties, can be morally justified. Such consideration can be initiated by considering some of Alan Donagan’s work in his book The Theory of Morality. In that book Donagan sets out to develop, as a philosophical system, that part of the common morality according to the Hebrew-Christian tradition, which does not depend on any theistic beliefs. According to that tradition it is (...) sometimes morally permissible to resort to war. This poses a problem because also part of the tradition is a near absolute prohibition on harming innocent people. Since innocent people die in war, there is a tension here.Donagan claims that this problem can be solved by assigning the blame for some such deaths to the aggressor, thereby permitting (some) resorts to war. This paper shows that this solution is inadequate; and defends a more plausible (and more traditional) justification for some innocent deaths. This justification is consistent with the system Donagan develops, and thus may have application in the consideration of the justification of the two wars currently being prosecuted by the United States. (shrink)

The relation between Church and state is nowadays at stake. This article concerns the relation between Church and state from an ecclesiastical and canonical point of view. It makes clear, how the ecclesiastical doctrine reacts to social developments in relation to the national state in order to safeguard the independence of the Church. The 19th century ecclesiastical doctrine on the Church as a societas perfecta reacts on doctrines on the national states, which claimed absolute sovereignty and by that subordinated the (...) Church to the civil government and civil law. With societas perfecta doctrine the Church defends its sovereignty in the domain of the spiritual good of men. In this way the Church defines and protects its divine origin and independence from the national state. In the first half of the 20th century the democratic and constitutional national states were developed, which acknowledges religious freedom on a constitutional level as a human and a civil right. Because of this progress the Second Vatican Council could formulate its doctrine on religious freedom based on the traditional ecclesiastical teaching of the freedom of the religious act. By then, the independence of the Church is founded and defended on the freedom of the Church, which is guaranteed in national states, which acknowledge religious freedom as a human and civil right. Although one can say that there is discontinuity in the ecclesiastical teaching on the Church as a societas perfecta and the ecclesiastical doctrine on religious freedom, there exists also continuity, because both ecclesiastical doctrines intend to safeguard the independence of the Church in human society. (shrink)

We consider the meaning of the assignment of probabilities to events implied by the kind of model regularly used by Statisticians. Traditional frequentist understandings are reviewed and rejected. It is argued that many statistical models may be justified purely on the basis of the symmetry properties enjoyed by the observables being modelled.

Ideal interpretation is understanding a text in the best possible way. It is usually used when the text has a canonical status, such as the Bible or the U.S. Constitution. We argue that Zhu Xi’s view about interpreting the Four Books and Ronald Dworkin’s view about constitutional interpretation are examples of ideal interpretation and that their basic principles are similar. Each holds, roughly, that their target text contains moral truth; that the author’s mind requires the mediation of learning; that the (...) purpose of interpretation is not only to lead the reader to the moral truth but to become a better person; that all propositions are about the same moral truth or about political justice; that the interpretation ultimately must come from oneself, purged of prejudices; and that the only correct interpretation is one that captures the original meaning. (shrink)

The work _De spiritu_ is an important but neglected work by Aristotle. It clearly shows for the first time that Aristotle assumed a special body as the ‘instrument’ of the soul. By means of this soul/body the soul forms the visible body of plants, animals and human beings.

Thomas Hobbes is recognized as one of the fathers of modern philosophy and political theory. In his own time he was as famous for his work in physics, geometry, and religion. He associated with some of the greatest writers, scientists, and politicians of his age. Martinich has written a complete and accessible biography of Hobbes. The book takes full account of the historical and cultural context in which Hobbes lived, drawing on both published and unpublished sources. It will be a (...) great resource for philosophers, political theorists and historians of ideas. The clear, crisp prose style will also ensure that the book appeals to general readers with an interest in the history of philosophy, the rise of modern science and the English Civil War. (shrink)