This paper offers an assessment of the agricultural eco-politics of Edward Hyams, novelist, gardener, historian, broadcaster and anarchist. It focuses in particular on his collaboration with the conservative writer on rural England, and founding member of the Soil Association, H.J. Massingham which resulted in a book, Prophecy of Famine — a fundamental critique of the effects of industrial capitalism on farming and a call for agricultural self-sufficiency and soil conservation. This collaboration between two writers with very different political (...) views raises important questions about the nature of eco-politics and whether its critique of the dominant ideology of 'progress' can still constitute a radical 'progressive' politics. Hyams' writings, and his differences from Massingham, particularly over the issue of private ownership of land, are illustrative of this apparent tension. (shrink)

In this wide-ranging book, Brian Davies discusses the basis for scientists' claims to knowledge about the world. He looks at science historically, emphasizing not only the achievements of scientists from Galileo onwards, but also their mistakes. He rejects the claim that all scientific knowledge is provisional, by citing examples from chemistry, biology and geology. A major feature of the book is its defense of the view that mathematics was invented rather than discovered. A large number of examples are used to (...) illustrate these points, and many of the deep issues in today's world discussed-from psychology and evolution to quantum theory, consciousness and even religious belief. Disentangling knowledge from opinion and aspiration is a hard task, but this book provided a clear guide to the difficulties. (shrink)

The reader begins with an original paper by the editors that introduces the social-personality perspective on motivational science and provides an integrated review of empirical and theoretical contributions. Major issues in motivational science are identified that form the basis for the organization of the book. Each section of the book also has a brief introduction, suggested additional readings, and questions for discussion.

This book surveys the major thinking about Christian ethics as found in books published or distributed in the United States from the mid-sixties to the end of the seventies. In the first half of the book, Professor Long updates the analysis he first expounded in 1967 in his widely praised study, A Survey of Christian Ethics. Part one examines the literature dealing with moral reasoning, thinking about laws and codes, and ethics done in terms of situations and relationships. Part two (...) examines published work that stress the importance of institutions, politics in operational terms, and efforts to think of Christian fidelity as expressed in special communities outside or opposed to the civic mainstream. In part three Professor Long examines works concerned with the nature and function of the moral agent, covering such topics as attention to virtue and character, the nature and role of conscience, and thinking about the implications of moral development theory. Part four describes three new frameworks for doing ethics that have been developed during the last fifteen years: vocational ethics and policy studies; liberation theology; and comparative religious ethics. (shrink)

When New Labour came into office in 1997, its commitment to 'education, education, education' captured the imagination of the public. This collection of humorous articles by Ted Wragg between 1998 to 2003 exposes the real state of education during this period, when educational policy was never far from the headlines. No one escapes Ted's sharp-shooting wit: from the 'blamers and shamers' who try to turn teacher-bashing into a national pastime to the 'pale policy wonks' in the Department of Education, who (...) issue regular hare-brained initiatives from the mysterious 'Tony Zoffis'. Split into seven issue-focused chapters, this hilarious collection will be a tonic for anyone finding themselves unsure whether to laugh or cry about recent developments in the world of education. (shrink)

This book is part of a larger study of the problem of the one and the many in Aristotle's Metaphysics. Although this portion can be read and understood on its own, some remarks about the contents of the two sister volumes will be helpful.

Kierkegaard is more than a theologian, existentialist, or philosopher. Ziolkowski gives us a sequence of exhaustively researched chapters that are fine-tuned accounts of the Kierkegaard who assiduously and enthusiastically read Cervantes, Shakespeare, Wolfram, and Aristophanes. He also introduces us to a literary powerhouse who comes to influence great writers of the late 19th and 20th centuries: Ibsen, Rilke, and Kafka; Isak Dinesen, Ortega, and Unamuno; Auden, David Lodge and John Updike. The volume is a pleasure to read, an indispensable source, (...) and a pathbreaking account of “the literary Kierkegaard.”. (shrink)

Cette étude examine cinq principaux changements de méthodologie qui se trouvent dans cinq documents-clé de Vatican II, afin de discerner à quel point ces documents sont cohérents avec ou différents des principales caractéristiques de méthodologie de la période du concile. L'article commence par une introduction à trois approches théologiques en voque dans les écrits catholiques romains au temps du concile: néo-scolastique, transcendantalisme et correlationisme. La conscience historique est aussi examinée comme une note importante de méthode théologique. L'article examine ensuite Sacrosanctum (...) Concilium, Lumen Gentium, Dei Verbum, Dignitatis Huamnae et Gaudium et Spes en vue de ces données. L'étude identifie six changements méthodologiques notoires dans les documents: la mise en sourdine de la néo-scolastique du 19e siècle, la transformation de la néo-scolastique grâce aux ressources bibliques, la montée de questions centrales à la méthode transcendentale, des essais tardifs mais importants de raisonnement transcendental, une corrélation toujours croissante de mode confessionel, une conscience historique en développement. En conclusion, les A. affirment une évolution méthodologique dans Vatican II qui pourrait valider une évolution continue de la méthode théologique aujourd'hui. (shrink)

The dual responsibility of maintaining our copies of ancient writings in a state in which they reflect their originals intelligibly and authentically and of reinterpreting these writings in a manner which is both faithful and useful to later generations and their problems is so demanding that it has very frequently seemed justly to call forth a division of labor. But the divorce between the scholar and the philosophical interpreter has not always been fertile, as the more pedantic and frantic interpretations (...) of Plato demonstrate. Professor Brumbaugh seeks to avoid the specialist's isolation by uniting the two functions in his Plato on the One. The result is the unusual combination of the soundest and most elaborate work on the text of the second part of the Parmenides, so far as I can determine, yet done in this country, and in addition some very imaginative and varied philosophical interpretations. (shrink)

A brief analysis of the processes of measurement common to any science reveal a paradox. This paradox is encountered when one tries to make clear how formal statements are related to experience in such a way that factual statements, such as statements about measurements, result. I believe that this paradox bears an analogy to the “fallacy of the third man” which disturbed Plato. Be that as it may, this paradox has not been satisfactorily solved in modern times, although a full (...) comprehension of the processes of measurement would require its solution. In this paper I wish to do nothing more than present a statement of the difficulty. (shrink)

Moving from an historical analysis of the Catholic Church's gradual endorsement of liberal democracy to an explication of the ethical and political thought of Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Persons and Liberal Democracy concisely explains the relatively recent shift in the Church's political theory and, in the process, defends what could be deemed a non-statist form of welfare liberalism. This book offers a systematic account of John Paul's philosophical and theological ethics and their relationship to the key elements of his political (...) thought and then brings this thought into conversation with some important strands of Christian and secular political theory deliberating the nature and legitimacy of liberalism. (shrink)

This article discusses critiques raised by historians of religion concerning Ara Norenzayan's Big Gods: How Religion Transformed Cooperation and Conflict (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), offering some defense of Norenzayan's position, but also discussing in detail the more substantive challenges. It concludes with some reflections on the current position of the history of religion within the Academy, and an argument for why large-scale explanatory projects and interdisciplinary collaboration should be part of the future of our field.