Serious study of Peirce began some fifty years ago, in 1931, with the publication of the first of six volumes of the Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, edited by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss. Arthur Burks added two volumes to that collection in 1958. In the meantime there had appeared, and continued to appear, several one-volume editions, namely those by Morris R. Cohen, Justus Buchler, Vincent Tomas, Philip P. Wiener, and Edward C. Moore. A new era in Peirce scholarship (...) began in 1975 with the appearance of the first of three important multi-volume editions: Charles Sanders Peirce: Contributions to “The Nation,” edited by Kenneth L. Ketner and James E. Cook ; The New Elements of Mathematics by Charles S. Peirce, edited by Carolyn Eisele ; and Charles Sanders Peirce: Complete Published Works, Including Selected Secondary Materials, the 149-microfiche collection edited by members of the Texas Tech University Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism. (shrink)

In _An Introduction to Kant’s Aesthetics_, Christian Wenzel discusses and demystifies Kant’s Critique of the Power of Judgment, guiding the reader each step of the way and placing key points of discussion in the context of Kant’s other work. Explains difficult concepts in plain language, using numerous examples and a helpful glossary. Proceeds in the same order as Kant’s text for ease of reference and comprehension. Includes an illuminating foreword by Henry E. Allison. Offers twenty-six further-reading sections, commenting briefly on (...) books and articles from the English, German, and French, that are relevant for each topic Provides an extensive bibliography and a chapter summarizing Kant's main points. (shrink)

The paper begins by delimiting the scope of ‘logic’ and ‘philosophy of science’ and goes on to present the biographies and select bibliographies of 36 émigré scholars from Germany and Austria working in these fields. An evaluation of this material, and of data on societies, congresses, lecture series, books and periodicals on logic and philosophy of science, is then undertaken. Against the rich background of activity in the 20s and 30s of our century, there is manifest a rapid decline of (...) high-ranking research in the philosophy of science and in logic in Germany and Austria. Since, with one exception, émigré logicians and philosophers of science did not return after the breakdown of the Third Reich, recovery in these fields has been extremely slow. Pertinent knowledge had to be re-imported, and a satisfactory level has been reached only with the coming of a new generation. (shrink)

"This volume is a scholarly collection of massive biographical detail, much of which is being revealed for the first time." —Isis A selection of Fisch’s most important articles on these topics is presented here in a convenient format, including revisions and updating and a complete bibliography of Fisch’s published writings.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 41.3 (2003) 419-420 [Access article in PDF] Martin Mulsow. Moderne aus dem Untergrund: Radikale Frühaufklärung in Deutschland, 1680-1720. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 2002. Pp. x + 514. Paper, € 58.00.This is a marvelous, detailed, textured study of a large number of minor works and minor figures that developed and transmitted many of the elements of modern philosophy in early modern Germany. Many of (...) the texts were written in Latin, and only some were published. One should not teach the philosophy of the Enlightenment from Hazard or Cassirer without attention to these figures, whom they did not know. Now we know where our heroes like Lessing, Hume, and Kant got many of their fundamental ideas.Martin Mulsow ends this book with ten theses. The first holds that most of the authors discussed were radicalized in a multi-layered process, not simply from the reading of Hobbes, Spinoza, Bayle, or Toland. For example, one could take the role of an opponent in an academic disputation, and bit by bit begin to believe one's unorthodox role. Or one could be provoked by ultra-orthodox opponents to explore the opposite of what they believed. Some authors evolved into and out of radical positions over the course of their lives.Further theses contend that small, trusted circles of friends were often the enabling condition in which unorthodox views were first expressed and then hammered out. Irony, satire, humor, paradox, and ambivalence played key roles. It is often difficult to tell whether some of these texts were serious or intended as jokes, and perhaps the authors did not always know themselves. Some radical ideas were spread simply by curious erudites who assembled collections and bibliographies of radical manuscripts and texts without believing them.Mulsow shows how people wrote on controversial topics in coded scholarly language. Spinozism was discussed under the rubrics of Platonism and Stoicism; the sovereignty of the people was considered in terms of the lex regia; and Biblical criticism became code for the physicians' rejection of the materiality of the soul. Thus philosophical discourse can be found where one might least expect it in legal, philological, historical, and scientific debates. The numerous case studies that the author assembles amount to philosophical microhistory.Substantial chapters deal with various aspects of the intellectual stew that emerged from the bubbling pot of Jews and Socinians and other Christian sects that were semi-tolerated in the Netherlands. Unlike any construction of moderate and radical positions as opposed and at odds, Mulsow shows how they were often intertwined. The destruction of Christian Platonism, the paradoxical development of Enlightenment ideas out of anti-humanism, and the uses of so-called eclecticism in philosophy made possible the assembly of modern philosophical positions.In yet another paradox, many of these writers belong to what has been called the "conservative Enlightenment," intending only to temporize and draw the teeth of the political and philosophical radicals, and yet their writings systematized and transmitted the ideas of the radicals, opening the way to further radicality. It is a perennial weakness of the skeptics and proto-liberals like Gundling that they defended freedom of thought and libertas philosophandi even where it would undermine the ideas and institutions in which they believed.Most of the philosophically radical positions began as critiques of theological positions, and this is one reason why it is ever more apparent that one cannot understand the rise of modern philosophy without a close acquaintance with early modern theology. None of the early modern philosophers we are trying to understand was ignorant of the many levels of theological debate. There are numerous connections to later times: for example, a seventeenth-century debate over political theology anticipated Carl Schmitt's twentieth-century rediscovery of this topos.Mulsow places the Enlightened ideas of Locke and Newton in the context of their basis in the theology of anti-Trinitarian Socinians and Arians such as Samuel Crell. This was as important to many who radicalized it as the Spinozism credited with spawning the radical... (shrink)

Part I Introduction -/- Passion at a Distance (Don Howard) -/- Part II Philosophy, Methodology and History -/- Balancing Necessity and Fallibilism: Charles Sanders Peirce on the Status of Mathematics and its Intersection with the Inquiry into Nature (Ronald Anderson) -/- Newton’s Methodology (William Harper) -/- Whitehead’s Philosophy and Quantum Mechanics (QM): A Tribute to Abner Shimony (Shimon Malin) -/- Bohr and the Photon (John Stachel) -/- Part III Bell’s Theorem and Nonlocality A. Theory -/- Extending the Concept of an (...) “Element of Reality” to Work with Inefficient Detectors (Daniel M. Greenberger) -/- A General Proof of Nonlocality without Inequalities for Bipartite States (GianCarlo Ghirardi and Luca Marinatto) -/- On the Separability of Physical Systems (Jon P. Jarrett) -/- Bell Inequalities: Many Questions, a Few Answers (Nicolas Gisin) -/- B. Experiment -/- Do Experimental Violations of Bell Inequalities Require a Nonlocal Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics? II: Analysis a la Bell (Edward S. Fry, Xinmei Qu, and Marlan O. Scully) -/- The Physics of 2 = 1 + 1 (Yanhua Shih) -/- Part IV Probability, Uncertainty, and Stochastic Modifications of Quantum Mechanics -/- Interpretations of Probability in Quantum Mechanics: A Case of “Experimental Metaphysics” (Geoffrey Hellman) -/- “No Information Without Disturbance”: Quantum Limitations of Measurement (Paul Busch) -/- How Stands Collapse II (Philip Pearle) -/- Is There a Relation Between the Breakdown of the Superposition Principle and an Indeterminacy in the Structure of the Einsteinian Space-Time? (Andor Frenkel) -/- Indistinguishability or Stochastic Dependence? (D. Costantini and U. Garibaldi) -/- Part V Relativity -/- Plane Geometry in Spacetime (N. David Mermin) -/- The Transient nows (Steven F. Savitt) -/- Quantum in Gravity? (Michael Horne) -/- A Proposed Test of the Local Causality of Spacetime (Adrian Kent) -/- Quantum Gravity Computers: On the Theory of Computation with Indefinite Causal Structure (Lucien Hardy) -/- “Definability,” “Conventionality,” and Simultaneity in Einstein–Minkowski Space-Time (Howard Stein) -/- Part VI Concluding Words -/- Bistro Banter: A Dialogue with Abner Shimony and Lee Smolin -/- Unfinished Work: A Bequest (Abner Shimony) -/- Bibliography of Abner Shimony. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Sophocles: AntigoneE. Christian KopffMark Griffith, ed. Sophocles: Antigone. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999. xii + 366. Cloth, $64.95; paper, $24.95.Mark Griffith's edition of Sophocles' Antigone is a welcome addition to the Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics. The best volumes in the series, inaugurated by T. B. L. Webster's Philoctetes (1970), enrich the traditional commentary format with the editor's distinctive scholarly concerns: general editor P. E. Easterling's Trachiniae (1982) (...) displays a sensitive literary taste; R. D. Dawe's Oedipus Rex (1982) provides a lively example of a first-rate mind reading a great text, as does Alan Sommerstein's Eumenides (1989); Sommerstein doubts that his play was originally called "Eumenides," while Griffith's Prometheus (1983) gives reasons to question the Aeschylean authorship of Prometheus Vinctus. Griffith's Antigone is less controversial, but it lives up to the series' high standards.The introduction has almost thirty pages of background information on Sophocles and Athens, the myth, dramatic structure, technique, and style, the production of Greek drama, and the transmission of the text. The forty pages on "The Meaning of the Play" contain short essays with bibliography on aesthetics, lessons, characters, ethics, contradictions (human/divine, polis/oikos, male/female), politics, and fantasies. The section on character is especially clear and forceful, but I found the pages on fantasies less focused and their discussion of Freudian criticism, with the rambling footnote on page 60, distracting. Colleagues will learn much from these pages, but students might well skip them and start reading the play.The text is temperately conservative, with good taste displayed when conjectures and variant readings are chosen. The commentary is careful, scholarly, and yet accessible to students. Difficult passages are translated with close attention to particles. The many notes devoted to explicating the nuances of the word reminded me of the story that Denniston was supposedly overheard telling a student, " can sometimes mean 'and.'"Each chorus is accompanied by a metrical description based on a colometry which is often that of R. D. Dawe's Teubner (1985). Griffith's short essays explaining the metrical patterns are usually successful. An exception is his note on [End Page 274] 1115-16/1126-27, which he prints as one long colon, which "could be classified as a kind of 'dragged enoplian'... or as 'acephalous dactylo-epitrite.'... In either case the affiliation to aeolics remains clear" (316). This is the kind of explanation which convinces people that metrics is mumbo-jumbo. Griffith refers to A. M. Dale, Lyric Metres of Greek Drama (Cambridge 1968, 191 n. 3), but Dale's note does not explain why she prefers this colometry over others. The colometry of Lloyd-Jones and Wilson's Oxford Classical Text (1990) is better than Dale's and Griffith's because it is easier to understand (telesillean with resolved first element/ iambic penthemimer) and fits the meter of the rest of the ode. This is also true of the colometry of manuscript L, Laurentianus 32.9 (telesillean/iambic dimeter/telesillean), which I prefer.Griffith usually ignores L's colometry, although for the third stasimon (781-800), the Eros Ode, he agrees with it, including word break at the end of 789/799, and gives a good discussion of the metrical and verbal traits that make the poem a satisfying unity. In other choruses the colometry of manuscript L is superior to that concocted by modern scholars, for example, the second stasimon (582-625), the Ate Ode. At 604-5/615-16, the beginning of the second strophe and antistrophe, Griffith prints glyconic () followed by hipponactean (). L presents these lines as hipponactean and hagesichorean (), an acephalous hipponactean. With modern editors' colometry, the hipponactean is a pendent clausula to the preceding glyconic. Two points noted by Griffith favor the manuscripts. The modern colometry entails word break in both strophe and antistrophe, so that, as Griffith notes (223) "'dovetailing' makes the distinction between 'glyconic' and 'hipponactean' arbitrary." The modern colometry is clearer on paper than in performance. The ancient colometry begins a pattern of increasingly acephalous verses, as noted by Bruno Snell, in Griechische Metrik (Göttingen 1984, 62).More important, as Griffith notes sagaciously: "The basic motif... (shrink)

Cette etude suppose un releve exhaustif des occurences d'aporia, et de douze autres mots etymologiquement apparentes, dans la litterature philosophique des Grecs, depuis les debuts jusqu'a Aristote. Les divers textes, que se sont repartis les collaborateurs du volume, sont etudies du point de vue de la grammaire et de la semantique. Chaque chapitre s'acheve sur des conclusions d'ordre philosophique, comme font aussi les trois grandes parties de l'ouvrage: philosophes preclassiques, Platon, Aristote. On trouvera en outre a la fin du volume (...) des etudes relatives au vocabulaire de l'aporia aussi bien dans la tradition arabe que chez les latins. Bibliographie et index des mots grecs etudies. (shrink)

This comprehensive and ecumenical bibliography of titles related to Scripture and and ethics includes both books and periodicals in English, French, German, Italian and Spanish. Many entries contain brief annotations which indicate their scope or thesis.

Vagueness is one of the most persistent and challenging topics in the intersection of philosophy and logic. At least five other noteworthy books on vagueness have been written by philosophers since 1991 [2, 6, 11, 12, 15]. A (necessarily incomplete) bibliography that has been compiled for the Arché project Vagueness: its Nature and Logic (2004-2006) of the University of St Andrews lists more than 350 articles and books on vagueness until 2005.1 Many new and interesting contributions have appeared since. The (...) book under review is much more than yet another addition to this prolific discourse. Nicholas Smith manages to tackle two different tasks that are potentially in tension. On the one hand, he provides a comprehensive, systematic and well written account of various approaches to vagueness that have been debated so far. On the other hand, Smith carefully explains and defends his own theory of vagueness, called fuzzy plurivaluationism. Given the complex and almost unsurmountably large amount of relevant literature and the fact that theories of vagueness based on fuzzy logic have almost universally been rejected by philosophers so far this is no simple feat. In the comments below, I will largely follow the structure of book. If along the way I cannot resist to make side remarks or even take issue with some of.. (shrink)

Fruit d'une large collaboration interuniversitaire, cet ouvrage, qui fait suite a une publication consacree a eidos, idea et morphe, expose les resultats d'une enquete qui a porte sur tous les emplois du mot ousia dans la philosophie grecque jusqu'a Aristote ; il commence par un apercu des significations du mot dans la litterature non philosophique. Est ainsi offert un cadre de reference exhaustif pour l'etude d'une notion qui compte parmi les plus importantes et aussi les plus complexes de l'histoire de (...) la philosophie. Chacune des uvres concernees de Platon et d'Aristote fait l'objet d'un examen systematique, suivi d'un bilan partiel. Des conclusions generales recapitulent la polysemie foisonnante d'ousia, qui va de l'avoir aux differentes facettes de l'etre, et en font voir aussi l'evolution ainsi que les principaux enjeux philosophiques. Trois outils de travail s'y ajoutent: une riche bibliographie, un index de toutes les occurrences d'ousia chez Platon et chez Aristote ainsi qu'un index de plus de 200 mots grecs apparaissant dans ce champ semantique. (shrink)

Toutes les occurences des trois termes presentes dans les fragments des philosophes presocratiques ainsi que dans les oeuvres de Platon et d'Aristote ont ete examinees par une quinzaine de professeurs et de chercheurs issus des Universites de Liege, de Bruxelles, de Louvain-la-Neuve et de Leuven. Les resultats de l'enquete ont ete presentes et discutes au cours d'un colloque qui s'est tenu a Liege en mars 2001. Dans le volume, chacun des trois corpus donne lieu en outre a un tableau recapitulatif (...) des occurences et a des conclusions propres. Un quatrieme chapitre comprend une etude sur Proclus ainsi que des investigations relatives aux traductions arabes et latines du vocabulaire concerne. Pour finir, Enrico Berti degage les principaux resultats du travail et montre aussi certains enjeux de cette philosophie de la forme inauguree par les penseurs grecs. L'ouvrage comprend une bibliographie de quelque deux cents quarante titres ainsi qu'un index des mots semantiquement apparentes aux trois termes etudies et des autres mots qui apparaissent frequemment dans leur voisinage. (shrink)

This thematic bibliography provides a narrative account of the most important literature comprising, and about, the 1930s debates about Christian carried out by Etienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, Maurice Blondel, Emile Brehier, Gabriel Marcel, and many others. It functions as a companion piece to my book Reason Fulfilled By Revelation: The 1930s Christian Philosophy Debates In France.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Christian Moral Life: Faithful Discipleship for a Global Society by Patricia Lamoureux, Paul J. WadellVictor Lee AustinThe Christian Moral Life: Faithful Discipleship for a Global Society Patricia Lamoureux and Paul J. Wadell Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2010. 306pp. $27.00In ten chapters, the authors provide what is in effect an introductory college textbook in Roman Catholic moral theology. They aim to ground their exposition in scripture and to (...) reach a broad audience by drawing on ecumenical and interfaith perspectives. Their organization is clear: they summarize each chapter in advance and then conclude it with a list of main points and questions for reflection. The index is extensive, the bibliography is large, and the table of contents is quite detailed. In short, the book aims to be accessible to undergraduates and helpful to more advanced students. (There is, unfortunately, no index of scriptural citations.) [End Page 201]The arc of their approach to moral theology is as follows. One should begin with discipleship and more specifically with its dynamic of call and response. Discipleship is a process in which one learns to see, particularly to see the reign of God. Sin and repentance are continually involved in discipleship. The development of the virtues is central because through them we learn to be good at being human. In the moral life, conscience is the central gift by which we learn to live by love in a Eucharistic life. Such life is informed by the resurrection as understood both “analogically and dialectically” (206), it is guided by the Spirit, and it is anchored in the shared resources and discernment of Christian community. Finally, the moral life is not private. Thus, the authors conclude with a chapter that draws out the implications for public discipleship.I venture three critiques that arise in part from my place as an Anglican moral theologian. The first deals with scripture. The authors are aware of the characteristic biases of preconciliar Roman Catholic moral theology. I am less certain that they are self-conscious of some of their own presuppositions. Commendably, they provide a verse of scripture at the head of each chapter, and they conceive of what they are doing as working from scripture throughout. Yet it is not clear to me that they present us with a moral theology that comes out of a prayerful wrestling with scripture. For example, their statement, “Jesus praises the [good] Samaritan” (46) is not strictly true. Rather, in telling that parable, Jesus holds back from stating a conclusion. Moreover, the authors are correct to say that parables are useful in transforming our vision. They make that point over eight pages (39–47), in which there are seventeen citations of secondary literature from six different authors. Yet, I would have preferred to see how the authors themselves digested, synthesized, and struggled with the parables, rather than simply discussing the conclusions of others.My second critique deals with conscience. When students start to think about how the moral life is grounded in scripture, they will at some point ask: What if my conscience tells me that something is right that scripture says is wrong (or vice versa)? This question, however, does not appear in this book. In their chapter on the centrality of conscience, it becomes clear that the authors see the primary challenge to the primacy of the conscience as coming from “church leaders.” This is, I think, a regrettable continuation of the tired struggle of Roman moral theologians with their church’s magisterium. At least to this outsider—who lives within an ecclesial context marked by extreme weakness of teaching—there seems to be a highly important and positive use of obedience, which is different from the “mystique of obedience” that these authors criticize (170–71). To be precise, “church leaders” can help us learn something about the relationship of conscience and scripture. This book does not show the place of obedience in the Christian moral life.My last point is a comment on textbooks. Although this book is quite long (I estimate it at 150,000 words), it has that textbook quality of passing lightly [End Page 202] from one thing to the next... (shrink)

Machine generated contents note: INTRODUCTION 1 -- Focus of the Sections and Sub-sections 1 -- East Asian Internet Resources 1 -- A Note on Using the Index 2 -- GENERAL WORKS ON PHILOSOPHY& RELIGION IN ASIA 5 -- BUDDHISM 37 -- Primary Sources 37 -- Buddhist Ethics 38 -- Buddhism and Judeo-Christianity 52 -- Zen Buddhism 69 -- Other Works on Buddhism 76 -- CONFUCIANISM 95 -- Chinese and Confucian Classics 95 -- Translations of the Four Books 95 -- (...) Translations of other Chinese Classics 97 -- Secondary Works on Confucianism and/or the Chinese Classics --00 -- Neo-Confucianism 136 -- Confucian Ethics 150 -- Works on Confucianism and Judeo-Christianity 172 -- TAOISM 191 -- Primary Sources in Translation 191 -- Secondary Works on Chuang-tzu, Lao-tse and/or Taoism192 -- Taoism and Judaeo-Christianity 205 -- CHINESE/ CONFUCIAN UNDERSTANDING OF RELIGION 209 -- BUSINESS & ECONOMIC ETHICS IN ASIA 223 -- General, Miscellaneous, and/or Background Material 223 -- Business & Economic Ethics: China 225 -- Business & Economic Ethics: Japan 226 -- Business & Economic Ethics: Korea 228 -- HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE EAST ASIAN CONTEXT 231 -- ASIAN WOMEN'S PHILOSOPHY &THEOLOGY 247 SELECTED COUNTRIES OF EAST ASIA 2. -- CHINA2 -- China and Christianity2 -- Jesuit Approach to Evangelization in China2( -- Other Works on China and Roman Catholicism2 -- China and Protestantism2 -- Other Works on China and Christianity28 -- Other Works on Chinese Culture and Philosophy 29 -- JA PA N 32 -- Buddhism in Japan32 -- Shintoism and Confucianism in Japan 33 -- Christianity in Japan33, -- Other Works on Japanese Culture, Philosophy and Religion34' -- KOREA35! -- Buddhism in Korea 35! -- Christianity in Korea 36' -- Confucianism and Christianity in Korea 36: -- General Works on Christianity in Korea 36E -- Korea and Catholicism 38C -- Korean-American Christianity 390 -- Confucianism in Korea 394 -- M injung Theology 404 -- Women's Issues and Feminist Theology in Korea 423 -- Shamanism in Korea 432 -- Other Works on Korea, Including General Works on Religion --437 -- EAST ASIAN INTERNET RESOURCES 455 -- SUBJECT-AREA WEB-SITES 455 -- MISCELLANEOUS PHILOSOPHICAL/RELIGIOUS -- STUDIES SITES456 -- EAST ASIAN ART, GEOGRAPHY, HISTORY, AND/OR -- CULTURE SITES 466 -- OTHER ASIAN INTEREST WEB-SITES 471 -- CHINA471 -- JAPAN 480 -- KOREA 481 -- SINGAPORE 486 -- DISCUSSIONAND/OR NEWS GROUPS 486 -- ONLINE (ELECTRONIC) JOURNALS AND NEWSLETTERS488 -- EAST ASIAN ENGLISH-LANGUAGE NEWSPAPERS 494 -- LIBRARIES AND/OR UNIVERSITY WEB-PAGES496 -- SEARCH ENGINES 501 -- INDEX 503. (shrink)

Accession Number: ATLA0001712107; Hosting Book Page Citation: p 57-70.; Language(s): English; General Note: Bibliography: p 70.; Issued by ATLA: 20130825; Publication Type: Essay.

In this second edition of the best-selling Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics, Robin Gill brings together twenty essays by leading experts, to provide a comprehensive introduction to Christian ethics which is both authoritative and up to date. This volume boasts four entirely new chapters, while previous chapters and all bibliographies have been updated to reflect significant developments in the field over the last decade. Gill offers a superb overview of the subject, examining the scriptural bases of ethics as well as (...) discussing Christian ethics in the context of contemporary issues, including war and the arms trade, social justice, ecology, economics, medicine and genetics. All of the contributors have a proven track record of balanced, comprehensive and comprehensible writing making this book an accessible and invaluable source not only for students in upper-level undergraduate courses, graduate students and teachers, but anyone interested in Christian ethics today. (shrink)

In this second edition of the best-selling Cambridge Companion to Christian Ethics, Robin Gill brings together twenty essays by leading experts, to provide a comprehensive introduction to Christian ethics which is both authoritative and up to date. This volume boasts four entirely new chapters, while previous chapters and all bibliographies have been updated to reflect significant developments in the field over the last decade. Gill offers a superb overview of the subject, examining the scriptural bases of ethics as well as (...) discussing Christian ethics in the context of contemporary issues, including war and the arms trade, social justice, ecology, economics, medicine and genetics. All of the contributors have a proven track record of balanced, comprehensive and comprehensible writing making this book an accessible and invaluable source not only for students in upper-level undergraduate courses, graduate students and teachers, but anyone interested in Christian ethics today. (shrink)

Ancient and medieval dialecticians: the lengthening shadow of Plato.--Traveller on the royal way: Martin Luther on simul justus et peccator.--Musician in the concert of God's joy: Jacob Boehme on ground and unground.--Prodigy between finite and infinite: Pascal's dialectic of grandeur and misery.--Thinker of the thoughts of God: Hegel and the dialectic of movement.--Venturer at the brinks: Kierkegaard and the dialectic of the suffering self.--Walker on the narrow ridge: Karl Barth and the dialectic of the human and divine.--Bridge-builder beyond the boundaries: (...) Tillich's dialectic of estrangement and reconciliation.--Wanderer in the forest: Heidegger on the being of beings.--Man suspended in mid-air: Rudolph Bultmann on the believer as free for the future.--Struggler under the twofold verdict of God: Werner Elert and the dialectic of law and gospel.--Epilog.--Selected bibliography (p. 159). (shrink)

Swezey, C. M. Introduction.--The burden of the ethical.--Faith, unbelief, and moral life.--Education for moral responsibility.--The theologian as prophet, preserver, or participant.--Moral discernment in the Christian life.--The place of Scripture in Christian ethics.--The relation of the Gospels to the moral life.--Spiritual life and moral life.--The relevance of historical understanding.--Man--in light of social science and Christian faith.--The relationship of empirical science to moral thought.--What is the normatively human?--Basic ethical issues in the biomedical fields.--Genetic engineering and the normative view of the human.--Bibliography of (...) the writings of James M. Gustafson, 1951-1973 (p. 297-305). (shrink)

This is a marvelous book. Although billed as a Dogmatics, it is really a rambling and magnanimous presentation of the Christian faith-theology as well as practice. It is guided by the attempt to be systematic and comprehensive. It is filled with wonderful human insights into the nature of the Christian posture in a wayward world. It is part philosophical theology, part a theology of culture, and part practical theology. But it is more than all of its parts. What we have (...) is Hartt's mature ruminations on a vast number of subjects germane to Christian thinking. Hartt is a Barthian with humor, a neo-Reformation theologian with pizazz, a Methodist who has drunk deeply of American culture. Hartt divides his book into three parts: The Vocation of the Church as a Critic of Culture; The Dogmatic Content of Practical Theology; and Applications. The first part is an attempt to work the church into the role of a cultural interrogator, conscious on the one hand of its historic roots in that theological tradition known as the Christian faith, and on the other of its iconoclastic role, relativizing all absolutistic pretensions that civilization may attain, and in general, lose itself in the world, but not to the world. It is in this section that Hartt gives credence to the title of his book, A Christian Critique of American Culture. Part II emphasizes the "preachability" of the Gospel. Part III demonstrates what Hartt means by the applicability of the Gospel, its critique of art, politics, and mass culture. A chapter on "The Holy Spirit and 'Revolution'" concludes the work. There are no footnotes, no bibliography and no index. But none is needed. In the end what the reader has is Hartt and not a conglomeration and distillation of the thoughts of the theological luminaries of our day. Hartt's writing is the best among living theologians--and that fact alone ought to make anyone who is interested in great theologizing buy this book.--W. A. J. (shrink)

Covers all philosophers appearing in standard textbooks, from Thales to Augustine . A brief introduction to each thinker or school summarizes their major themes.

The work of James W. Fowler on faith development has become well known in the USA and in British theological and religious education circles in the last 15 years, even if this research has yet to make much impact on general education or any on philosophy of education. Now Drs Astley and Francis have produced a large, one volume collection of papers by Fowler, his associates and his critics. His theory and discussion of it, evaluation and application of it in (...) various spheres, is at last available in a convenient compass (although for a detailed acquaintance, reference must be made to his main publications, cited in this book's bibliography). (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 375 7he Westminster Dictionary of Christian Ethics. Edited by JAMES F. CHILDRESS and J mrn MACQUARRIE. Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1986. Pp. xvii + 678. $29.95. This is a second, revised edition of The Dictionary of Christian Ethics, prepared by John Macquarrie and published in 1967. This new edition follows Macquarrie's conception of a dictionary, but expands it. It includes several subject areas, basic ethical concepts, biblical (...) ethics, theological ethics, philosophical ethics, non-Cbistian ethics; psychological, 8ociological, political, and other relevant concepts; and articles on substantial issues such as war and abortion. The criterion for selection, as stated by the editor, was the importance of the topic for Christian ethical reflection. The aim was to indicate both what is agr.eed upon and what is controversial. About 40% of the entries from the first edition have been included. These are generally updated so as to include recent developments. The selection of subjects, the way in which they are treated and the list of contributors, reflect the ecumenical character of contemporary Christian ethics. The dictionary includes a host of valuable contributions. Readers who consults the work will no doubt evaluate the entries in terms of their particular purposes. This reviewer found most useful the entries which expla~ned particular basic concepts, for example Autonomy; those dealing with schools of thought, for example, Platonic Ethics, Marxist Ethics, or the contribution of particular traditions, for example, Jewish Ethics, Puritan Ethics, Official Roman Catholic Social Teaching, Eastern Orthodox Christian Ethics, and the many entries dealing with Biomedical Ethics and peace issues. 'rhere are a number of articles on topics which are most important, but for which it is often difficult to find a succinct and comprehensive treatment; such are the contributions on "Embodiment," and " Feminist Ethics." There are a number of useful entries on urg.ent contemporary questions such as Energy and Environmental Ethics. Practical questions such as the care of the aged and the ethics of counseling are also addressed. Each article has a short bibliography appended. Numerous cross-references to other relevant entries are most helpful in providing complementary information. There is a thorough index of names. The dictionary is not conceived as a compendium of the accepted or " official " ethical teachings of churches or religious traditions. Mention could be made, however, of the entry on " Official Roman Catholic Social Teaching." '¥here such teachings exist, they am usually indicated. There are some cases where the churches and/or traditions clearly differ. The approach which is most helpful to ethical debate is to acknowledge such differences clearly, with an appropriate statement of the relevant teaching. The editor himself (James F. Childress), in his own contributions, fol- 376 BOOK REVIEWS lows this p1'0cedure. Some Roman Catholic readers may find the articles on Abortion and Contraception, while excellent in other ways, less satisfactory in this respect. The general focus seems intended to be " middle of the road "; more conservative or radical groups may find their views insufficiently represented. No doubt some of the positions presented would be disputed by Christian ethicists. But the treatment of difficult points is balanced and fair. There are, unfortunately, some inaccuracies. The following examples deserve mention. In the article on Nullity, the Roman Catholic annulment is wrongly equated with papal dissolution of the marriage bond. In the article on Virtue, it is said that St. Thomas held that along with the infused supernatural virtues there are "infused natural virtues." St. Thomas spoke ratht>r of infused theological virtues and infused moral virtues (I. II, Q.63, 3.) In the article on deterrence, it is stated that the strategy of "mutual assured destruction ", dating from the 1960s, still provides the framework of American deterrence strategy. This point would be challenged by some representat.ives of the military, who claim that M.A.D. has not been policy for some years. The same article interprets the U.S. Bishops' Pastoral Letter, The Challenge of Peace. as basing its (conditional) acceptance of nuclear deterrence on the distinction between threatening to do an immoral aet without intending to do it, and threat coupled with the intent. That is, deterrence is aceepted as a "bluff." This is not a correct reading... (shrink)

Early in the 1930s, a number of French Catholic and secular philosophers debated the question of the meaning, even the very possibility, of Christian philosophy. Positions articulated during these debates provided intellectual background to debates about nature and grace, and the interaction of philosophy and theology that informed theological debate before and during the Second Vatican Council. These questions continue to be raised in theological debate today. -/- This selection of previously untranslated documents from the French debates about Christian philosophy (...) provides a long-needed complement to available English-language literature on the subject. These documents show that the debates were highly complex, involved multiple sides, and prompted development of certain participants' positions. Four of Maurice Blondel's contributions are included, as are selections by Gabriel Marcel, Etienne Gilson, Fernand Van Steenberghen, among others. A detailed historical introduction provides much-needed background to these intertwined debates. -/- The editor's thematic outline of seventeen different participants' positions and engagements includes but also goes beyond the selections translated in the volume. It provides a full and balanced treatment of the numerous participants, and sets the complex intellectual context for understanding the positions, issues, and main personalities of the debate. A chronological bibliography of literature comprising and commenting on the debates and their issues is also included and will serve as an invaluable aid to further scholarship. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 133 The Foundations of Mysticism. Vol. I of The Pl'.esence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism. By BERNARD McGINN. New York: Crossroad, 1991. Pp. xxii and 49. Index and bibliography. $39.00 (cloth). With this work Bernard McGinn delivers the first of a projected four volume History of Western Christian Mysticism. The Foundations in· cludes, as one might expect, the Scriptural tradition, Neoplatonic phi· losophy, early (...) Greek Fathers who influenced the Latins, as well as the early "Founders" Ambrose and Augustine. Judged by the quality of its start, this work promises to become a standard history for years to come. The author displays a stunning acquaintance with the sources of a subject that extends over full twenty centuries. Though " spe-·cialized " in the spirituality of the high and late Middle Ages (he has written substantial studies on Joachim de Fiore and Eckhart), the Chi· cago professor has admirably succeeded in mastering the mass of per· tinent literature of this early period, as the 150 pages of notes and bibliography testify. His ideas are clearly presented, his evaluations of others critical yet generous, his overall judgment impressively balanced. Moreover, he ventures well beyond the usual territory. His work in- -eludes subjects rarely discussed hut often alluded to in the history of.early Christian spirituality: e.g. Gnosticism, which appears here not as a " heresy ", but as a spiritual movement in its own right. The thorough discussion of Philo together with the introductory chapter on 4 ' The Jewish Matrix" (somewhat improperly entitled since it deals only with the Hebrew Bible) display an unusual appreciation of the underestimated influence of Jewish mysticism. One would have been happy to read more about Marius Victorinus, hut is grateful to find him present at all. A historical survey of this scope may easily degenerate into an enumeration of titles and trends, whereby ideas are treated as facts. Professor McGinn has judiciously avoided that. Entire sections of his history are rich monographs about spiritual systems treated for their intrinsic interest rather than as transitory moments of an indifferent history. The sections dealing with Origen, Evagrius, and Ambrose in particular deserve to be read as independent treatises. The long concluding chapter on Augustine also presents a marvelous synthesis, though one primarily written from the point of view of its later impact. In a study of this nature the definition of its formal object presents.a unique problem. Before the late Middle Ages the concept of a purely private spiritual experience remained largely unknown in Christian 134 BOOK REVIEWS spirituality and until the seventeenth century even the substantive " my,;· ticism ", referring to a separate activity, did not exist. H what we now take to be characteristic were to serve as normative concept, almost all spiritual writers of the :first Christian millennium and a good many after that would he excluded. Moreover, the subjective mystical ex· perience remains inaccessible to the historian. McGinn has wisely confined his subject to the spiritual text in its social and ecclesiastical context. But this choice leads to a further, equally difficult question: What constitutes a mystical text? Obviously not all religious or theo· logical writings are mystical. Protestant theologians of the nineteenth century tended to consider a genuine Christian faith incompatible with mysticism, while prominent students of mysticism in this century (such as Underhill, Butler) :remained highly suspicious of speculative theology, including the so-called "mystical" one, But friend and foe of mysticism agree that the mystical, however conceived, cannot simply he identified with the religious. Some scholars, such as von Hiigel, distinguish the mystical from other aspects of religion, but leave its positive content vague and controvertible. Avoiding a precision which the nature of the subject precludes, McGinn nevertheless goes to the heart of the matter in :referring to the mystical as to the dynamic power that drives the religious mind toward the experienced presence of God, without necessarily bringing it to the state of full union. The author's position appears in the felicitous choice of the general title: The Presence God. All religious life aims at entering into the presence of God. But " mystical " religious texts speak of a particular mode of divine presence, not ordinarily... (shrink)

In 1697, the Presbyterian, William Bates, presented an address, on behalf of some dissenting ministers, to William of Orange. In this, he called for measures against the Socinians and Deists, and, in particular, for the banning of the publication of Socinian works. Bates' address was published in JOHN HOWE, Sermon Preech'd on the Day of Thanksgiving (1698). On 17th February, 1698, the House of Commons presented an address to the King, We do further, in all humility, beseech Your Majesty, that (...) Your Majesty would give such effectual order, as to Your Royal Wisdom shall seem fit, for the suppressing all pernicious books and pamphlets, which contain in them impious doctrines against the Holy Trinity, and other fundamental articles of our Faith, tending to the subversion of the Christian Religion; and that the authors and publishers thereof may be discounted and punished.The statute 9 and 19 William III, c. 32, An Act for the more effectual suppressing of Blasphemy and Profaneness, accepted these requests. It prohibited the writing, publishing and teaching of doctrines that were contrary to the Trinity, Christian truth or the divine authority of the Old and the New Testaments.It should be noted that the Toleration Act of 1689 does not extend tolerance to, amongst others, those who deny the dogma of the Trinity. It was not until 1813 that the Unitarians were free to practise their cult. The Trinity Act (An Act to relieve persons who impugn the Doctrine of the Holy Trinity from certain Penalties. 53 Geo. III, c. 160) of that year exempted the Unitarians from the penalties laid down by the Toleration Act and by the Blasphemy Act quoted above. (shrink)