A Text Worthy of Plotinus makes available for the first time information on the collaborative work that went into the completion of the first reliable edition of Plotinus’ Enneads: Plotini Opera, editio maior, three volumes (Brussels, Paris, and Leiden, 1951-1973), followed by the editio minor, three volumes (Oxford, 1964-1983). Pride of place is given to the correspondence of the editors, Paul Henry S.J. and Hans-Rudolf Schwyzer, with other prominent scholars of late antiquity, amongst whom are E.R. Dodds, B.S. Page, A.H. (...) Armstrong, and J. Igal S.J. Also included in the volume are related documents consisting in personal memoirs, course handouts and extensive biographical notices of the two editors as well as of those other scholars who contributed to fostering the revival of Plotinus in the latter half of the 20th century. Taken together, letters and documents let the reader into the problems – codicological, exegetical, and philosophical – that are involved in the interpretation of medieval manuscripts and their transcription for modern readers. Additional insights are provided into the nature of collaborative work involving scholars from different countries and traditions. A Text Worthy of Plotinus will prove a crucial archive for generations of scholars. Those interested in the philosophy of Plotinus will find it a fount of information on his style, manner of exposition, and handling of sources. The volume will also appeal to readers interested in broader trends in 20th century scholarship in the fields of Classics, History of Ideas, Theology, and Religion. (shrink)

Books reviewed:Renate Egger‐Wenzel, Ben Sira's GodPaul J. Achtemeier, Joel B. Green and Marianne Meye Thompson, Introducing the New Testament, Its Literature and TheologyI. Boxall, Revelation: Vision and Insight. An Introduction to the ApocalypseS. Moyise, Studies in the Book of RevelationG. R. Osborne, Revelation: The Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New TestamentN. T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of GodGillian Clark and T. Rajak, Philosophy and Power in the Graeco‐Roman World: Essays in Honour of Miriam GriffinRichard Paul Vaggione, Eunomius of (...) Cyzicus and the Nicene RevolutionStephen T. Davies, Daniel Kendall S. J. and Gerald O'Collins, The Incarnation. An Interdisciplinary Symposium on the Incarnation of the Son of GodRichard Cross, The Metaphysics of the IncarnationHugh Connolly, SinAnthony W. Bartlett, Cross Purposes: The Violent Grammar of Christian AtonementStanley Hauerwas, With the Grain of the Universe: The Church's Witness and Natural TheologySarah Coakley, Powers and Submissions: Spirituality, Philosophy and GenderChristopher Cocksworth and Rosalind Brown, Being a Priest Today: Exploring priestly identityRandall Balmer, Encyclopedia of EvangelicalismKate Armstrong, Crisis and RepetitionAnthony A. Barrett, Livia: First Lady of Imperial RomeGerhard Podskalsky, Von Photios zu Bessarion: Der Vorrang humanistisch geprägter Theologie in Byzanz und deren bleibende BedeutungNicola Coldstream, Medieval ArchitectureW. J. Armstrong, J. A. W. Hellmann and W. Short, Francis of Assisi: Early Documents, IIIEllen E. Kittell and Thomas F. Madden, Medieval and Renaissance VeniceTheodor Dieter, Der junge Luther und Aristoteles: Eine historisch‐systematische Untersuchung zum Verhältnis von Theologie und PhilosophieAndrew Brown, Church and Society in England, 1000–1500Renate Blumenfeld‐Kosinski, Duncan Robertson, and Nancy Warren, The Vernacular Spirit: Essays on Medieval Religious LiteratureBarry Collett, Female Monastic Life in Early Tudor England, with an Edition of Richard Fox's Translation of the Benedictine Rule for Women, 1517Marc R. Forster, The Catholic Revival in the Age of the Baroque. Religious Identity in Southwest Germany, 1550–1750W. R. Ward, Christianity under the Ancien Régime 1648–1789Nigel Aston, Religion and Revolution in France 1780–1804Catharine Edwards, Roman Presences: Receptions of Rome in European Culture, 1789–1945Bruce L. Kinzer, England's Disgrace? J. S. Mill and the Irish QuestionJohn Corrigan, Business of the Heart: Religion and Emotion in the Nineteenth CenturyPeter M. Chisnall, John Henry Cardinal Newman: A Man of Courage, Conflict and ConvictionVincent Ferrer Blehl, Pilgrim Journey: John Henry Newman 1801–1845Kester Aspden, Fortress Church. The English Roman Catholic Bishops and Politics 1903–63David Alvarez, Spies In The Vatican: Espionage and Intrigue From Napoleon to the HolocaustPeter McDonough and Eugene C. Bianchi, Passionate Uncertainty: Inside the American JesuitsRuby Blondell, The Play of Character in Plato's Dialogues. (shrink)

William of Malmesbury's Regesta Regum Anglorum is one of the great histories of England, and one of the most important historical works of the European Middle Ages. Although its focus is national, its scope encompasses most of Western Europe and beyond, providing a full-scale account of the First Crusade. Apart from its formidable learning, it is characterized by narrative skill and entertainment value - with topics including unpowered flight and Henry I's zoo. This edition in the Oxford Medieval Texts series (...) is the first modern translation and edition. A full historical introduction is supplied in Volume II. (shrink)

This book takes a bold new look at ways of exploring the nature, origins, and potentials of consciousness within the context of science and religion.

This paper traces the background to R. A. Fisher's multi-factorial theory of inheritance. It is argued that the traditional account is incomplete, and that Karl Pearson's well-known pre-Fisherian objections to the theory were in fact overcome by Pearson himself. It is further argued that Pearson's stated reasons for not accepting his own achievement has to be seen as a rationalization, standing in for deeper-seated metaphysical objections to the Mendelian paradigm of a type not readily discussed in a formal scientific paper. (...) The apparent, post-Fisherian, continued acceptance of Pearson's objections is presented as an interesting problem for the historian and sociologist. (shrink)

This paper describes the perspectives of stakeholders within the North American dairy industry on key issues affecting the welfare of dairy cattle. Five heterogeneous focus groups were held during a dairy cattle welfare meeting in Guelph, Canada in October 2012. Each group contained between 7 and 10 participants and consisted of a mix of dairy producers, veterinarians, academics, students, and dairy industry specialists. The 1-h facilitated discussions were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim. Content analysis of the resulting transcripts showed that participants (...) across all stakeholder categories identified lameness as the most important welfare issue facing dairy cattle. Other prominent issues of concern included cow comfort, disease, on-farm mortality, stockmanship, painful procedures, injuries, cull cow management, calf management, and restriction of behavioural freedoms. Participants typically gave several reasons for why they considered issues problematic. Underlying reasons were grouped according to animal-centered concerns [at both the individual and at the herd level ] and industry-centered concerns . This analysis identified areas of shared concern among diverse stakeholder groups, which should aid in the development of standards and policies that satisfy stakeholders within and external to the dairy industry. (shrink)

Psychoactive drugs are being prescribed to millions of Americans at an increasing rate. In many cases these drugs are necessary in order to overcome debilitating emotional problems. Yet in other instances, these drugs are used to supplant, not supplement, interpersonal therapy. The process of overcoming emotional obstacles by introspection and the attainment of self knowledge is gradually being eroded via the gratuitous use of psychoactive medication in order to rapidly attain a release from the common problems that life inevitably presents (...) us with. In this paper, I argue that Kant’s formula of humanity, which maintains that persons ought never to treat others or themselves soley as a means to an end, proscribes this. Moreover, Kant argues that we have an imperfect duty of self development, and I argue that we fail to adhere to such a duty whenever we seek to evade the process of introspection and self knowledge in favour of the expedient results that drugs may provide us with as we attempt to overcome the emotional hurdles in our lives. (shrink)

This paper provides a historical reevaluation of the originality and implications of Avempace's critique of Aristotle's causal explanation of the motion of projectiles. It also offers a serious revision of the place which has usually been assigned to Avempace in the history of science. The views regarding projectiles defended in Avempace's Arabic commentary are in sharp opposition to the anti-Aristotelian Avempace that was known in the Medieval West through Averroes. Avempace's commentary reveals only a moderate critic of Aristotle, a critic (...) who did not, in any case, break with the master, and who, therefore, did not even go as far as Philoponus in creating a new and more profound theory of projectile motion. (shrink)

Principled discussions of civil rights became inherently less likely as a direct result of the observation by Earl Warren, in Brown v. Board of Education, that, respecting freedmen, “Education of Negroes was almost non-existent, and practically all of the race were illiterate,” and in proportion as that observation increasingly became the foundation of common opinion on the subject. Warren's observation was not true in any meaningful or non-trivial sense. Nevertheless, it served to perpetuate the myth of a backward people needing (...) help to catch up instead of the truth of a people being held back. That is the perspective – the disadvantaged group perspective – that ultimately infected all discussion of civil rights, even after the designation of so-called “disadvantaged groups” had been extended beyond American blacks. To define civil rights, we may well begin with what all mankind would likely recognize. Thus the dictionary definition of “civil rights” stands: “the rights that belong to all individuals in a nation or community touching property, marriage, and the like.” In that definition the term “rights” may be further expanded to mean “legitimate claims,” following the definition of right as law – as “a claim or title or interest in anything whatever that is enforceable by law.” This definition applies with minimal distinction of regimes intruding and, therefore, without the host of recent complications in the United States that create the impression that civil rights have something to do with pluralism. Previously, the generic definition was thought to exhaust the meaning of the term in the United States. (shrink)

Let ${\mathbb{B}}$ and ${\mathbb{C}}$ be Boolean algebras and ${e: \mathbb{B}\rightarrow \mathbb{C}}$ an embedding. We examine the hierarchy of ideals on ${\mathbb{C}}$ for which ${ \bar{e}: \mathbb{B}\rightarrow \mathbb{C} / \fancyscript{I}}$ is a regular (i.e. complete) embedding. As an application we deal with the interrelationship between ${\fancyscript{P}(\omega)/{{\rm fin}}}$ in the ground model and in its extension. If M is an extension of V containing a new subset of ω, then in M there is an almost disjoint refinement of the family ([ω]ω) V (...) . Moreover, there is, in M, exactly one ideal ${\fancyscript{I}}$ on ω such that ${(\fancyscript{P}(\omega)/{{\rm fin}})^V}$ is a dense subalgebra of ${(\fancyscript{P}(\omega)/\fancyscript{I})^M}$ if and only if M does not contain an independent (splitting) real. We show that for a generic extension V[G], the canonical embedding $$\fancyscript{P}^V(\omega){/}{\rm fin}\hookrightarrow \fancyscript{P}(\omega){/}(U(Os)(\mathbb{B}))^G$$ is a regular one, where ${U(Os)(\mathbb{B})}$ is the Urysohn closure of the zero-convergence structure on ${\mathbb{B}}$. (shrink)

In our opinion, the flaws in the teaching of philosophy were to a large degree related to the fact that it was regarded as a science . The resolute rejection of this position and the recognition of philosophy's status as a world view is for us the necessary condition for escaping from the existing situation. To put it more concretely, the view of philosophy that became entrenched among us has produced the following fundamental flaws in the teaching process:—An underestimation of (...) or even a dismissive attitude toward pre- Marxist and in particular non-Marxist theories . Although non-Marxist philosophy was looked at in the course of study, this was done mainly to show its shortcomings—to the greater glory of Marxist philosophy. Idealism was regarded only as a barren flower. Students were instilled with the idea that idealism was on the verge of being overcome and supplanted by materialism, and this created in them a completely untrue picture of the real course of development of philosophical knowledge. (shrink)