In the Phaedo, Socrates offers recommendations for living a philosophical life. We argue that those recommendations can be properly understood only in light of Socrates’ account of the soul’s true nature, considered separately from the body. Embodiment causes the soul to diverge from its proper end, the pursuit of knowledge. Bodily pleasures, pains, and desires divert the soul to other ends, distract its attention away from knowledge, and deceive it about what is true. Socrates’ recommended solutions to these obstacles are (...) diverse, reflecting the complexities of human psychology. He recommends avoidance of bodily experiences in many cases as well as reevaluation of the importance of the body, but he doesn’t recommend either the wholesale rejection or embrace of the bodily. We are our souls but, like it or not, we are temporarily embodied, and what happens to the body is thereby experienced by us. Socrates thus exhorts us to live in a way that recognizes both our temporary humanity and our lasting, true nature. Only so can we best pursue knowledge. (shrink)

In On my own opinions, Galen claims to agree with Aristotle that the soul is the form of the body. But should we take this statement at face value? After all, Galen says that the substance of the soul is a bodily mixture, and that the soul is the form of the body in the sense that it is the principle of mixing of the elementary qualities (i.e., hot, cold, wet, and dry). As is well known, Aristotle explicitly rejects this (...) sort of materialist account of the soul. In De Anima, he tells us that the soul cannot be a harmonia of bodily elements, understood either as the proportion according to which the elements are mixed, or as the mixtures themselves (I.4, 407b32-408a2). In this chapter, I argue that Galen rejects a substantive version of hylomorphism, in favor of a view according to which the soul’s substance is nothing other than a bodily mixture. Galen’s position contains a veiled objection to some central Aristotelian views and reveals a general suspicion regarding the Aristotelian notion of form as a genuine metaphysical and explanatory category. (shrink)

This is a translation of the second revised edition of Geist in Welt. It was J. B. Metz, a Rahner pupil, who carried out the revision with Rahner's full approval. Metz has added a brief foreword to this translation. Also included is an excellent and jam-packed Introduction by Francis P. Fiorenza which attempts to set the background for Spirit in the World, in terms of its being an attempt to ground a metaphysics by going through Kant back to an Aquinas (...) who is now viewed through the spectacles of transcendental method. Rahner was influenced in this attempt by Maréchal, of course, but also by Heidegger. The work itself is built around an exegesis of a key text from the Summa Theologiae I, Q. 84, a. 7. The title of the article in question is "Whether the intellect can actually know anything through the intelligible species which it possesses without turning to the phantasm." Since Thomas answers no to this question, it becomes clear that metaphysics for him is possible only on the foundation of imagination. It also becomes clear, through Rahner, that the feature of Thomas' epistemology which requires the most clarification is his doctrine of sensibility. Rahner's handling of this question is not altogether satisfactory. At crucial points he switches from an intentional analysis to a metaphysical analysis. But it is not entirely clear how phenomenological otherness can be reduced to the metaphysical otherness supposedly guaranteed by differing potentialities within the formal identity between knower and known in both sensibility and intellection. The work is overpowering in the execution of its intent, however, despite what seemed to this reviewer a crucial unclarity. It is interesting to note that the contents of this book were originally Rahner's doctoral thesis finished in 1936, turned down by Rahner's director M. Honecker, but first published anyway in 1939. It is surprising that these historical facts are not presented by the translator in at least a brief introduction to this important work. It must be lamented also that no attempt was made to compile any sort of index. Finally, while the translator cannot be envied the task of having to come to grips with Rahner's German, the English we are provided with leaves a great deal to be desired.--E. A. R. (shrink)

Toute une génération de penseurs catholiques allemands du xxe siècle a cru pouvoir se rattacher à la pensée de la finitude développée par M. Heidegger pour la faire dialoguer avec, d’une part l’idéalisme allemand, et d’autre part surtout, la métaphysique de Thomas d’Aquin et l’ouverture à Dieu Ipsum esse per se subsistens qu’elle semblait ménager via la différence ontologique. À cet égard, ils effectuaient bon gré mal gré une tentative de conciliation toute kantienne en ses origines, entre le thomisme transcendantal (...) du jésuite belge J. Maréchal et la pensée de Heidegger. Przywara, en dépit d’un apparent souci commun de concilier métaphysiques de la « finitude » et de l’« infinitude », n’épargne pas ce qu’il appelle « école heideggerienne catholique ». Nous tâcherons de comprendre ici précisément pourquoi, en donnant un aperçu de la lecture effectuée par le jésuite allemand, tant des entreprises maréchalienne et heideggerienne pour elles-mêmes que de quelques tentatives de leurs confrontations. (shrink)

Título Ação comunicativa e ética no acesso e uso sustentável da água: a experiência do saneamento rural de Marechal Cândido Rondon - PR (Communicative action and ethics on the access and sustainable use of water: the experience of rural sanitation of Marechal Cândido Rondon – Paraná, Brazil. DOI: 10.5752/P.2175-5841.2013v11n32p1571 Resumo O texto apresenta um estudo/pesquisa sobre a ética e os recursos hídricos, problematizando a relação entre a ética e o uso sustentável da água, tendo como modelo referencial aproximações na experiência (...) do saneamento rural de Marechal Cândido Rondon, PR que, através da organização dos próprios agricultores e com o apoio da autarquia municipal de água e esgoto, atingiu 100% de acesso à água potável na zona rural do município. A discussão propõe uma sinergia entre comunidades, gestores de sistemas e pesquisadores, que possibilite a criação de contextos comunicativos nos quais se partilha e socializa informações para o debate dos temas e situações que defendam um acesso democrático aos recursos hídricos e ao uso sustentável da água. Os fundamentos para este debate se encontram na obra de Lord Selborne, A Ética do Uso da Água Doce: um levantamento . (2001), e no paradigma da Teoria da Ação Comunicativa de Jürguen Habermas (1989), como um instrumento para propor o debate público sobre o acesso democrático aos recursos hídricos e, assim, criar contextos comunicativos que possibilitem a socialização de conhecimentos necessários relativos aos recursos hídricos e potencializar o debate sobre o uso desse bem natural como um direito humano universal. Palavras-chave: Ética. Água. Uso sustentável. Ação comunicativa. Saneamento rural.The text presents a study/research on ethics and water resources, questioning the relationship between ethics and sustainable water use, taking as reference model approaches in the experience of rural sanitation of Marechal Cândido Rondon, PR that, through the organization's own farmers, with the support of a municipal water and sewer, reached 100% access to safe drinking water in the rural area. The discussion proposes a synergy between communities, systems managers and researchers, enabling the creation of communicative contexts in which information is shared and socialized for discussion of issues and situations that advocate democratic access to water resources and the sustainable use of water. The grounds for this debate are the work of Lord Selborne, The Ethics of Freshwater Use: A survey. (2001), and the paradigm of the Theory of Communicative Action by Jürguen Habermas (1989), as an instrument to propose a public debate on democratic access to water resources and thus create communicative contexts that enable socialization of required knowledge of the water resources and enhance the debate on the use of this natural asset as a universal human right. Keywords: Ethics. Water. Sustainable use. Communicative action. Rural sanitation. (shrink)

This addition to Herder's "Quaestiones Disputatae" Series is a portion of Rahner's and Overhage's Das Problem der Hominisation; it is very nicely self-contained. After a rapid review of what the ecclesiastical and scriptural sources have to say about the problem of human origins and evolution as a possible explanation of these origins, Rahner launches into a metaphysical analysis of the concepts of "spirit" and "matter," on the one hand, and "causality" and "becoming," on the other. The method is transcendental and (...) the epistemology is that of a critical realism like that of Maréchal and Lonergan. The major innovation comes in Rahner's interpretation of Aristotelian efficient causality. Taking noetic transcendence, i.e., intentional becoming, as the paradigm for all becoming—anything less being a deficient form of the activity of being as spirit—Rahner argues in favor of a cause transcending itself in the production of an effect, whether immanent or transitive. Thus Rahner sees no essential contradiction between the traditional notion of causality, so interpreted, and a theory of biological and human emergence. The going is always rough through Rahner, but the speculative asides he scatters throughout this book on such questions as the unity of the biosphere and sub-organic telism are enough in themselves to justify the trip.—E. A. R. (shrink)

Fourteen essays by former pupils of Calhoun, including G. A. Lindbeck, W. A. Christian, N. C. Nielsen, Jr., R. P. Ramsey, and A. C. Outler. The depth of scholarship that these former students have achieved as well as the generally high calibre of all the essays are ample evidence of Calhoun's pedagogical prowess. Most of the contributions are of theological import, and most are historically oriented as the title of the book suggests. Lindbeck's essay, however, "The A Priori in St. (...) Thomas' Theory of Knowledge," has direct philosophical relevance for those concerned over the "Transcendental" interpretation of Thomas' epistemology and metaphysics. Nothing is advanced over the arguments of Maréchal, Lonergan, and Rahner in favor of this interpretation, but this additional support in a new context lends strength to the thesis.—E. A. R. (shrink)

Bernard Lonergan não menciona Joseph Maréchal nos seus escritos, apesar de ter sido por ele influenciado no que respeita à estrutura dinâmica do conhecimento. Apesar disso, há que reconhecer que a intenção de Maréchal não era a de Lonergan. Maréchal, formado em biologia e em psicologia, desejava participar no movimento de renovação do tomismo, o qual na sua época era fortemente intelectualista. O seu esforço juntou-se ao do Maurice Blondel afirmando os direitos do acto comprometido nos processos (...) cognitivos. O desejo natural de conhecer Deus não se dá sem um desejo vital que dinamiza também a vontade em que ele se exprime de forma mais pura e genuína. Lonergan, cujo objectivo era a construção de uma epistemologia da teologia, ocupou-se primordialmente dos procedimentos próprios das ciências. Para ele, o desejo de conhecer leva o sujeito cognoscente a ultrapassar todas as ciências particulares, proporcionadas às nossas funções cognitivas, em direcção ao ser, concebido este de forma adequada como a totalidade presente e futura dos conteúdos do saber. Segundo o autor do artigo, Lonergan estaria, assim, mais próximo de Maréchal do que este de Suárez. /// Bernard Lonergan does not mention Joseph Maréchal in his writings, even though he received his influence regarding the dynamic structure of knowledge. However, the intention of Maréchal was not the intention of Lonergan. Maréchal, who had studied biology and psychology, wanted to participate in the movement of renewal of Thomism, which at the time was strongly intellectualist. His effort conjoined with the effort of Maurice Blondel in the recognition of the rights of the act inherent to the cognitive processes. The natural desire to know God does not come to be without a vital desire that also animates the will in which it comes to a better expression of itself. Lonergan, whose aim was the elaboration of an epistemology of theology, occupied himself primordially with the scientific processes. The desire to know leads the knowing subject beyond all the particular sciences, proportioned to our cognitive functions, toward being, which is adequately conceived as the present and future totality of the contents of knowledge. Hence, according to the author or the article, we might think that Lonergan was closer to Marechal than Marechal was to Suárez. (shrink)

Agli inizi dell'anno accademico 2011-2012, si raduna un gruppo di professori della Pontificia Università Gregoriana che, grazie all'iniziativa di Giorgia Salatiello (filosofia), coinvolge a Rogelio García Mateo, SJ (spiritualità), Dariusz Kowalczyk, SJ (teologia), Ferenc Patsch, SJ (teologia), Gerald Whelan, SJ (teologia), e Rossano Zas Friz De Col, SJ (spiritualità). Il presente volume raccoglie otto anni di ricerca del gruppo, centrati nel rintracciare il rapporto tra spiritualità ignaziana e metodo trascendentale in diversi pensatori gesuiti del ventesimo secolo, come Joseph Marechal (1878-1944), (...) Johannes B. Lotz (1903-1992), Karl Rahner (1904-1984), Bernard Lonergan (1904-1984), Joseph de Finance (1904-2000), Juan Alfaro (1914-1993), Emerich Coreth (1919-2006). Attraverso il loro studio si è voluto scoprire le particolari caratteristiche di ognuno di loro per evidenziare una linea maestra che ispiri oggi il rinnovamento di questo orientamento, in modo di progredire nella consapevolezza del mistero dell'apertura e dell'accoglienza del Dio della rivelazione cristiana, che trova negli Esercizi Spirituali di Sant'Ignazio un metodo su cui è conveniente continuare a ragionare trascendentalmente. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:A Short ReplyGianluca MoriWhile thanking Thomas Lennon for the interest he has shown in my work—and without going into details of interpretation which cannot bear discussion in this context—I would like to make a few remarks on factual questions raised by his response.1) Lennon's text (p. 338): "The text that Bayle and Mori erroneously take to be Saint-Evremond's is in fact from Jean-François Sarasin."While it is not certain that (...) Bayle and I "erroneously" take this text to be Saint-Evremond's, it is certain that Lennon erroneously takes it to be Sarasin's. In fact, the text quoted by Bayle is not taken from Sarasin's Discours sur Epicure, but, as Bayle explicitly points out ("Xénophanes," K, note 124), from a "Discours des ennuis et des déplaisirs." This "Discours" is chapter 5 of De l'usage de la vie, a text published in many editions of Saint-Evremond's works (see the Barbin 1692 in-4° ed., Seconde Partie, p. 326). The paternity of De l'usage de la vie is doubtful and controversial, but it possibly contains some passages taken from Saint-Evremond's unpublished manuscripts, especially in chapters 3-6, as reported by an important source quoted by Ternois in Saint-Evremond, Œuvres en prose, IV, 3-4, note 1.2) Lennon's text (pp. 338-39): "The significance of two of the other texts advanced by Mori is fully vitiated, for in them Bayle makes the same mistake."In my article, I did not fail to state that these texts (OD I, 158 and Dict., "Epicure," M) are taken from an apocryphal source. On page 329 I wrote: "[Bayle] mistakenly attributes to [Saint-Evremond] a text on Epicurus's morals [i.e., Sarasin's Discours] included in that volume." However, it was absolutely impossible, for seventeenth-century readers, to distinguish between Saint-Evremond's original and apocryphal texts: the author himself—as is widely known—did not want to clarify this point (with a few exceptions, including the Saint-Evremoniana, which, as we have seen, Bayle never attributed to Saint-Evremond). [End Page 343] And this is true for all editions: there is no significant difference between genuine and pirated editions, since no official edition, authorized and revised by the author, existed before Des Maizeaux's posthumous one. From this point of view, virtually nobody (before 1705) could "study" Saint-Evremond's texts. (On this connection it should be added that I never claimed that Bayle "studied" Saint-Evremond, but only that he read his available works and made up his mind on them, and particularly on the Conversation du Maréchal d'Hocquincourt—which should be at the core of the present debate—long before reading Cotolendi).3) Lennon's text (p. 336): "As Mori acknowledges elsewhere, Labrousse thinks Le Vassor was a left-wing Anglican who failed to understand Bayle's calvinist perspective."Concerning Le Vassor, I "acknowledge" Labrousse's opinion only to reject it with a detailed argument (Bayle philosophe, 262, note 341).Gianluca MoriUniversità del Piemonte OrientaleCopyright © 2004 The Journal of the History of Ideas, Inc.... (shrink)

La presencia de Platón y del pensamiento platónico se ha mantenido de manera incesante a lo largo de la historia de la cultura. En esta historia, el siglo XX refleja el rechazo y la aceptación, la recepción, en suma, de un modo inusitado tal vez porque, durante este siglo, la humanidad se vio cara a cara con los infiernos que supo crear: un mundo en ruinas hacía imposible intuir la perfecta quietud de las Formas. La recepción de Platón en el (...) siglo XX bucea en la recepción de Platón en aquel mundo contradictorio: ¿cómo se integra su pensamiento fundacionalmente metafísico con la deconstrucción de la metafísica? ¿Cuáles son los alcances de la crítica que la teoría política hace, desde la época de los totalitarismos, al autor de la República? ¿Qué valor cognoscitivo y pedagógico puede tener en mito platónico para filósofos cristianos que se ocupan del pensamiento platónico? ¿Cómo recibe la poesía hispanoamericana su voz de demiurgo? Estas preguntas, de las que se ofrecen diversas respuestas en este libro, son tratadas con rigor académico y confrontadas doblemente con las fuentes: en primer término, con Platón y luego con quienes son estudiados en el presente volumen, aunque desde ángulos muy diversos: M. Heidegger, H. G. Gadamer, K. Popper, E. Cassirer, L. Marechal. La seguridad del tratamiento metodológico y lingüístico que se refleja en esta obra hace que sea altamente recomendable para alumnos de grado y de posgrado en Filosofía, Teoría Política, Literatura y Humanidades en general. (shrink)

THE BOOK TAKES A LARGE NUMBER OF ISSUES WITHIN CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY (E.G., ATTRIBUTES OF GOD, ATONEMENT, SACRAMENTS, ESCHATOLOGY); ALLOWS TWO THEOLOGIANS (MOSTLY MODERN) TO PRESENT OPPOSED VIEWS ON THE SUBJECT IN QUESTION; AND THEN ILLUSTRATES HOW THE DEBATE HAS BEEN INFLUENCED BY, OR COULD BE DEEPENED BY, REFERENCE TO CONTEMPORARY CONTINENTAL PHILOSOPHY OF VARIOUS SORTS. THE PHILOSOPHERS DISCUSSED INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING: ADORNO, BARTHES, BENJAMIN, BLOCH, DELEUZE, DERRIDA, FOUCAULT, GADAMER, HEGEL, HEIDEGGER, KIERKEGAARD, LEVI-STRAUSS, LEVINAS, MARECHAL, RICOEUR. THOUGH THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND IS (...) EXPLAINED, THE STRESS IS VERY MUCH ON ASSESSMENT OF THE ARGUMENTS INVOLVED. (shrink)

A teologia de Karl Rahner teve um grande impacto no concílio Vaticano II e no tempo que se Ihe seguiu. Em ordem a compreender-se o seu argumento teológico é importante tomar em conta as suas bases filosóficas, especialmente a sua compreensão do "método transcendental". Neste sentido, opresente artigo começa por prestar atenção à abordagem transcendental de Kant. Em seguida investiga a transformação do método transcendental operada na obra de Joseph Maréchal, o qual fez uso dele em ordem a demonstrar (...) a orientação dinâmica do conhecimento humano e da sua decisão em favor do "Absoluto do Ser". Deste modo, o autor do artigo demonstra até que ponto Maréchal fornece uma fundação para a metafísica, a qual é bem diferente da metafísica do racionalismo que Kant tinha criticado. Inspirado por Heidegger, Rahner deu a esta abordagem transcendental uma viragem fenomenológica, ao mesmo tempo que forneceu uma reinterpretação de termos-chave da metafísica clássica, a qual encara como não dependente de uma cosmologia ultrapassada e que ao mesmo tempo é de grande relevância existencial para a vida humana. O artigo visa demonstrar, deste modo, até que ponto esta reinterpretação influenciou o pensamento teológico de K. Rahner. /// The theology of Karl Rahner had an enormous impact on Vatican II and the time following. In order to understand his theological reasoning it is important to take into account his philosophical foundations, especially his understanding of the "transcendental method". This article pays attention to the transcendental approach of Kant. Then it investigates the transformation of transcendental method in the work of Joseph Maréchal who used it to show the constitutive function of the dynamic orientation of human knowledge and decision towards the "Absolute of Being". He thereby provides a foundation for metaphysics, which is quite different from the metaphysics of rationalism which Kant had criticised. Inspired by Heidegger, Rahner gave this transcendental approach a phenomenological turn. He provided a reinterpretation of key terms of classical metaphysics, which is not dependent on an outmoded cosmology and which is at the same time of existential relevance for human life. This reinterpretation influenced the theological thinking of K. Rahner. (shrink)

O estudo objetivou investigar a Síndrome de Burnout em professores de Educação Física no período de pandemia de Covid-19. Trata-se de uma pesquisa exploratória, na qual a amostra foi constituída por 31 professores de Educação Física do município de Marechal Cândido Rondon/PR. Foram utilizados questionário sociodemográfico e Maslach Burnout Inventory para educadores. Os dados foram analisados de forma descritiva (média e desvio padrão). Os resultados demonstraram que os índices das dimensões foram classificados como alto para exaustão emocional e médio para (...) realização profissional e despersonalização. Na correlação das variáveis, os dados mostraram fraca correlação negativa entre realização profissional e exaustão emocional e/ou despersonalização. Concluímos que para minimizar os riscos aos professores, destacam-se algumas sugestões: apoio e tratamento emocional, reduzir o excesso de trabalho, proporcionar o aumento de horas atividade, atividades de lazer e exercício físico regular. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:TRANSCENDENTAL THOMISM AND THE THOMISTIC TEXTS JOHN F. x. KNASAS Genter for Thomistic Studies Houston, Temas SOME THIRTY YEARS ago in the journal Thought, there appeared an article by Fr. Joseph Donceel, S.J., entitled " A Thomistic Misapprehension? " Its thesis is that American Thomism had seen too much of the a posteriori in Aquinas's noetic.1 In fact the interpretation was so a posteriori that it bordered on empiricism (...) and positivism. Donceel intends to balance the American understanding of Aquinas by spotlighting various Thomistic texts that speak of an a priori contribution of the intellect to human knowledge. Donceel is merely calling attention to something that some outstanding European Thomists, e.g., Defever, Marechal, and Rahner have known for some time. Donceel's " balanced" interpretation is what is called Transcendental Thomism. In sum, the position claims that the human intellect is not so complete a tabula rasa that it fails to make an a priori contribution to the data of sensation. This contribution is the intellect's very dynamism to Infinite Being. The dynamism has a constitutive role in human experience. Swept up within this intellectual torrent, the data of sensation stand before us in consciousness as finite and limited. So " objectified " the data are disposed for the traditional abstvactive account of the specific and generic natures. After the Second Vatican Council, Thomism generally fell into disrepute among American Catholic intellectuals. Phi1 Joseph Donceel, " A Thomistic Misapprehension?" Thought, 32 (1957) : 189. 81 82 JOHN F. X. KNASAS losophy departments " pluralized." Their members represented analytic, existential, and process philosophy.2 If Thomism remained vibrant, it was in the a priori strain. Both on the philosophical and theological levels, it was at home with the pluralism tha.t marked the time.3 The current emphasis on political activism, however, ha:s caused even Transcendental Thomism to suffer an eclipse. In the heat of political struggle, Transcendental Thomism, too, appears decadent and bourgeois. The case can be made, though, that the uncovering of the intellect's a priori dynamism to the Infinite was a crucial move for liberationists. Gutierrez notes 4 that the Transcendental Thomist understanding of the human intellect posits a single finality for human nature. The traditional distinction between the temporal and eternal planes loses meaning. Human history becomes salvation history. In this way, then, Transcendental Thomism continues to exercise its influence. This paper investigates the purported Thomistic texts expressing an apriorism. The texts cited by Donceel are all found in Marechal's Cahier V.5 There MarechaI mentions many others besides. Hence, my paper will use the Marechalian collection. My treatment focuses upon the texts that are seemingly most a priori. I. A central text for Marechal is De Veritate, q.l, a.4, ad 5m (first set). Aquinas remarks: 2 See "Is a 'Catholic' Philosophy Department Possible? " by the Committee on Research (Thomas I.angan, K. I,. Schmitz, Jude P. Dougherty) of the ACPA (HJ78). 3 On Transcendental Thomism's capacity to admit a theological pluralism without falling into a relativism, see Gerald A. McCool, Catholic Theology in the Nineteenth Gent1.ry (New York: The Seab1iry Pres8, 1977), pp. 258-9. 4 Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation, trans. by Caridad Inda and John Eagleson (New York: Orbis Books, 1973), p. 69. 5 Oahier V is a volume in Jl.riarechal's monumenfal Le point de depart de la metaphysique. Subsequent references to Oahier V are from Donceel's substantive translation A J,[wrechal Reader (New York: Herder and Herder, 1970). TRANSCENDENTAL THOMISM AND THE TEXTS 83 The truth by which the soul passes judgment on all things is the first truth; for, just as from the truth of the divine intellect there flow into the angelic intellects those: intelligible species by which angels know all things, so does the truth of the first principles by which we judge everything proceed from the truth of the divine intellect as from its exemplary cause. Since we can judge by means of the truth of these first principles only insofar as this truth is a likeness of the first truth, we are said to judge everything according to the first truth.6 The text illustrates a " dynamic exemplarism " in Aquinas... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:AN OBSERVATION ON ROBERT LAUDER'S REVIEW OF G. A. McCOOL, S.J.1 RoMANus CEssARro, O.P. Dominican House of Studies Washington, District of Columbia BECAUSE OF HIS scholarly commentary on the development of Roman Catholic theology in the 19th and 20th centuries, students interested in the history of this period owe a debt of gratitude to Fr. Gerald McCool, S.J. In a recent issue of this journal, Robert Lauder presented a (...) clear and sympathetic account of two major works, in which McCool identifies and evaluates the figures and currents that he considers of central importance for a proper understanding of Roman Catholic intellectual life from before the First Vatican Council (1869-70) to after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965).2 On Lauder's account, McCool records in these books " the movement within Thomism from its reliance on the commentators Cajetan and John of St. Thomas and the strong influence of hard-line Dominican Thomists such as Garrigou-Lagrange to the transcendental Thomism of Rahner and Lonergan" (p. 308). In his most recent study, From Uniity to Pluralism, McCool concentrates on the work of Joseph Marechal, Pierre Rousselot, Jacques Maritain and Etienne Gilson. Lauder believes that " McCool correctly cites these four thinkers as the key to Thomism's movement towards a greater openness to other thought patterns" (p. 308), but regrets that McCool failed to go further and provide " a detailed 1 See Robert E. Lauder, "On Being or not Being a Thomist," The Thomist 55 (1991): 301-319. 2 Gerald A. McCool, S.J., Nineteenth-Century Scholasticism: The Search for a Unitary Method and From Unity to Pluralism: The Internal Evolution of Thomism (New York: Fordham University Press, 1989). The first volume was originally published as Catholic Theology in the Nineteenth Centur31 (New York: The Seabury Press, 1977). 701 702 ROMANUS CESSARIO, O.P. discussion of the presence of St. Thomas's insights in the thought of Rahner and Lonergan... the two most influential Catholic thinkers of the latter half of the twentieth century" (p. 318). Apart from this reservation, which even Lauder considers " a backhanded compliment " (p. 318), I observe no point either at which Lauder takes issue with how McCool narrates the history of Catholic theology from roughly the middle of the 19th-century to the present or where he suggests alternative approaches for interpreting the significance of the individuals and events that figure prominently in McCool's narrative. In his Foreword to T. M. Schoof's A Survey of Catholic Theology 1800-1970, Fr. Edward Schillebeeckx warned its readers against making the book " a kind of ' theological canonisation ' of the theologians mentioned to the exclusion of others." 3 I would like to sound a similar note of caution with respect to McCool's version of the history of Thomism. For while I share Lauder's appreciation of McCool's careful scholarship, I am not at all convinced that McCool has uncovered the whole story, nor that his interpretation of the events which he chronicles warrants the lavish praise that Lauder bestows on it. In particular, I suggest that Lauder uncritically adopts McCool's attitude towards certain Dominican theologians who, even though they remain little known in the English-speaking world, still contributed to the upbuilding of theological culture entre les deux guerres. For example, in From Unity to Pluralism, McCool describes the Dominican Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange as a "conservative " Thomist (p. 212), which, in the context of the narrative as McCool relates it, sounds more like ideological pigeonholing, than an honest attempt to describe adequately what a philosopher such as Kenneth Schmitz recently referred to as the "structured" Thomism of Garrigou-Lagrange.4 In the same s T. M. Schoof, A Survey of Catholic Theology 1800-1970, Foreword by Edward Schillebeeckx (New York: Paulist Newman Press, 1970), p. 4. 4 In the first lecture, " In the Beginning : New Paths for Ancient Teachings " of the 1991 McGivney Lecture Series entitled "At the Center of the Human Drama: The Anthropology of Karol Wojtyla/Pope John Paul II." The four lectures will be published by The Catholic University of America Press. ROBERT LAUDER'S REVIEW OF G. A. MCCOOL, S.J. 703 manner, McCool talks about... (shrink)

The patient preference predictor is a proposed computer-based algorithm that would predict the treatment preferences of decisionally incapacitated patients. Incorporation of a PPP into the decision-making process has the potential to improve implementation of the substituted judgement standard by providing more accurate predictions of patients’ treatment preferences than reliance on surrogates alone. Yet, critics argue that methods for making treatment decisions for incapacitated patients should be judged on a number of factors beyond simply providing them with the treatments they would (...) have chosen for themselves. These factors include the extent to which the decision-making process recognises patients’ freedom to choose and relies on evidence the patient themselves would take into account when making treatment decisions. These critics conclude that use of a PPP should be rejected on the grounds that it is inconsistent with these factors, especially as they relate to proper respect for patient autonomy. In this paper, we review and evaluate these criticisms. We argue that they do not provide reason to reject use of a PPP, thus supporting efforts to develop a full-scale PPP and to evaluate it in practice. There are no data in this work. (shrink)

Say that a ‘practical decision’ is a momentary intentional mental action of intention formation. According to what I’ll call the ‘Decisional Prior Intention Thesis’, each practical decisio...

E. Rae Harcum argues that Christians do not have to give up their religious faith to keep the contributions of science. He confronts the relation between the human body and its non-material parts—the mind and spirit—and provides a way of looking at these metaphysical issues.

In this comment, I indicate several challenges and opportunities—out of the many—for an integrated science–humanities approach to emotions, from the perspective of a historian of the modern science...

What is silence? Is it a loss, an omission? Is it a stopping of the mouth, of the voice? An empty place where no meaning has come forward…or perhaps at times quite the opposite, an absence-as-presence Deleuze, 1990; Derrida, 1976)? Might silence evoke much more about what we assume is our monological, unitary reality, indexing possibilities yet unseen? This paper outlines the ways in which silence is typically understood according to scholarly orthodoxy: as omission in human communication or a silencing (...) of minoritized individuals or communities by those in power. It then moves to critique the preeminence of whitestream Western-centric academic authority, which self-perpetuates via the exclusion of outsider ways of doing, being and knowing such as those brought forward by silence, constituting a loss of meaning and knowledge from the social imaginary. This paper suggests that the pursuit of an articulate unknowing regarding silence as a creative, disruptive force beyond the control of rationality is a means of engaging with radical possibilities for a different, juster world. It proposes a socio-diologic politics of the real that welcomes silence as an unsettling of our current thinking about what is and will be possible, as well as who does and does not matter. It concludes by illustrating the ingenious force of silence in examples of subversive art that expose the hegemonizing, rational version of reality sold by academics and powerholders, bringing forward into the imagination what prospects for change, justice, and social transformation yet await. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to analyze succinctly the concept of faith through the very penetrating gaze of the Danish philosopher Sören Kierkegaard. Faith is analyzed by Kierkegaard from absurdity, resignation and the paradox of faith. In the same way, his concept of faith is carved with a chisel that would complete all his philosophy, that is, to touch human reality away from any abstract thought, trying at all times that his examination be seen on a personal dimension in (...) his rigorously individual coret. (shrink)

In this paper, we argue that to reverse the excess of specialization and to create room for interdisciplinary cross-fertilization, it seems necessary to move the existing epistemic plurality towards a collaborative process of social cognition. In order to achieve this, we propose to extend the psychological notion of joint attention towards what we call joint intellectual attention. This special kind of joint attention involves a shared awareness of sharing the cognitive process of knowledge. We claim that if an interdisciplinary research (...) team aspires to work collaboratively, it is essential for the researchers to jointly focus their attention towards a common object and establish a second-person relatedness among them. We consider some of the intellectual dispositions or virtues fostered by joint intellectual attention that facilitate interdisciplinary exchange, and explore some of the practical consequences of this cognitive approach to interdisciplinarity for education and research. (shrink)

Educational policy and discussion, in Britain and the USA, are increasingly dominated by the confused ideology of egalitarianism. David E. Cooper begins by identifying the principles hidden among the confusions, and argues that these necessarily conflict with the ideal of educational excellence - in which conflict it is this ideal that must be preserved. He goes on to criticize the use of education as a tool for promoting wider social equality, focussing especially on the muddles surrounding 'equal opportunities', 'social mix' (...) and 'reverse discrimination'. Further chapters criticize the 'new egalitarianism' favoured, on epistemological grounds, by various sociologists of knowledge in recent years and 'cultural egalitarianism' according to which standard criteria of educational value merely reflect parochial and economic interests. (shrink)

Selected articles of Ēṭukūru Balarāmamūrti on Marxist philosophy; includes contributed on his life and work.

Tutte le dottrine tradizionali, da quelle più arcaiche e "primitive" a quelle più evolute e articolate, hanno sempre affermato che l'uomo non è un essere solamente corporeo, sia pur dotato di ingegno e di intelligenza, ma è un essere dalla natura composita, formato da una parte materiale e da una o più componenti invisibili e "sottili" e che in lui risiede un principio immortale di origine divina o comunque soprannaturale. Secondo il modo di vedere tradizionale, l'uomo, per conoscere e realizzare (...) se stesso, deve pertanto prendere coscienza, in primo luogo ed essenzialmente, di questa sua natura di essere composito e immortale, e questa è una di quelle idee universali (per noi forse la più importante) che troviamo diffuse presso tutte le popolazioni del pianeta, anche se con sfumature diverse nelle varie tradizioni..."--Cover flap. (shrink)

Neo-scholasticism is supposed to be a "creative" development of the spirit of Thomism and its application to contemporary philosophical themes. Yet its partisans as well as its adversaries largely ignore the fact that many of the neo-scholastic thinkers are increasingly applying the transcendental method to reach the major ideas of Aquinas. The thesis of the present book is that the "transcendental method," viewed in a large sense as stretching from Kant to Heidegger, is an integral part of the thought of (...) several well-known neo-Thomists, and that it touches the work of many others. The author studies extensively the work of J. Maréchal, who was the first to attempt an integration of transcendental idealism into the realistic metaphysics of the school of Saint Thomas. Following a review of minor figures like Grégoire, Defever, and Isaye, short chapters investigate the critical approach of certain important contemporary Catholic thinkers to the transcendental method. A highly interesting part of the book treats the neo-scholastic "dialogue" with Heidegger, which is especially important in the work of the most powerful theological mind of contemporary Roman Catholicism, Karl Rahner. Finally, Muck shows, in the chapters on A. Marc, B. Lonergan, and E. Coreth, three examples of fully developed philosophical systems worked out by means of an extensive use of the transcendental method.—M. J. V. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Unpacking the Chalcedonian Formula:From Studied Ambiguity to Saving MysteryBrian E. Daley, S.J.One of the central questions Christian theologians continue to ask themselves, as they confront the mystery of the person of Christ, is, what is the significance for us today of the Council of Chalcedon? For generations of modern scholars, especially those in the West, the dense and rather technical phrases forged at that fifth-century gathering of Christian bishops (...) and appended to a restatement of what we know as the “Nicene creed” represented a major milestone in the Churches’ ongoing clarification of how disciples are to understand the person of Jesus the Savior.In J. N. D. Kelly’s widely used survey, Early Christian Doctrines,1 for instance, Chalcedon’s “settlement” of the twenty-four-year dispute between Nestorius and his Antiochene supporters and Cyril of Alexandria and the Church of Alexandria was the culmination of “the decisive period for Christology”2 in the early Church, an attempt to define an understanding of Christ that could be accepted by all Christians throughout the Empire, but which nevertheless—surprisingly, perhaps—“failed to bring permanent peace.”3 Aloys Grillmeier, in his foundational study of the growth of early Christian understandings of Jesus, speaks of the years up to Chalcedon as [End Page 165] temporally defining “the development of belief in Christ from its beginning to its first climax in a council of the Church.”4 In an influential study of the theology of the seventh-century monk and theologian Maximus the Confessor, Hans Urs von Balthasar emphasizes the centrality of Chalcedon’s formulaic, classically dialectical picture of the person of Christ as central to Maximus’s whole approach to God, the world, and the human spirit. The reason, Balthasar argues, lies in Chalcedon’s ability to affirm both unity and abiding difference in Christ as the dominant pattern of God’s relationship to creation:From the moment that Chalcedon, in its sober and holy wisdom, elevated the adverbs ‘indivisibly’ (ἀδαιρέτως) and ‘unconfusedly’ (ἀσυγχύτως) to a dogmatic formula, the image of a reciprocal indwelling of two distinct poles of being replaced the image of mixture. This mutual ontological presence (περιχώρησις) not only preserves the being particular to each element, to the divine and the human natures, but also brings each of them to its perfection in their very difference, even enhancing that difference. Love, which is the highest level of union, only takes root in the growing independence of the lovers; the union between God and the world reveals, in the very nearness it creates between these two poles of being, the ever-greater difference between created being and the essentially incomparable God.5With a little help from German Romantic philosophy, and perhaps from his Jesuit confrère Erich Przywara, Balthasar here sees in the Chalcedonian picture of Christ not only Maximus’s central inspiration, but the early Church’s final paradigm for conceiving how the transcendent God can be present and crucially active in the world.One might multiply examples. But does this understanding of Chalcedon’s portrait of Christ really represent its intent or its lasting meaning? What led to its articulation? What was, one may ask, the real achievement of this gathering of over 500 Eastern bishops, mainly from the Greek-speaking East, called by the new emperor Marcian and his long-influential spouse, the [End Page 166] Empress Pulcheria, in a port suburb across the Bosporus from Constantinople, in October of 451? On the level of Church politics, at least, it was a step towards restoring a balance, however briefly, between major centers of influence in the Church of the mid-fifth century, and the theological traditions with which they had become associated: a balance precariously achieved in 433, after the bitter controversy over Nestorius’s views on how to conceive the person of Christ, by what is often called the “Formula of Reunion,” which sketched the outlines of traditional faith in the Savior—a formula apparently drafted at that time by Theodoret of Cyrus and proposed by the Church of Antioch, but which was also warmly embraced by Theodoret’s principal rival, Cyril of Alexandria. After heated debates between the bishop of Constantinople, the... (shrink)