In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The View from GadshillFrancis SparshottII once had a furious confrontation with that learned and passionate scholar, the late Milton C. Nahm. He had been giving a paper that involved Falstaff—I forget how, but it included the familiar appeal to the fat knight as the comic spirit of untrammelled life, so that the newly crowned Hal’s final repudiation—“I know thee not, old man”—chills the audience as a denial of humanity (...) in favor of impersonal administration. But I told Nahm that I could not see Falstaff that way. As a boy, if I cycled home from Gravesend to Rochester I had to pass over the North Downs at Gadshill. And it is at Gadshill, when we first meet him, that Falstaff’s gang is planning to waylay a band of innocent travelers. I could never take kindly to a man who made a living mugging and rolling people like me. Nahm was contemptuous of my incompetence to deal with literature: I was prevented from appreciating the portrait of the comic monster, appalling but breathtaking, by my inhibited and inhibiting moralism. But I insisted that I saw no reason why one should abandon one’s identity or one’s morality while one was watching a play or reading a book.Nahm would have been right if I had been insensitive to Falstaff’s outrageousness, his unscrupulous energy and vivacity, his wit and candor. But I think my appreciation was sharpened rather than nullified by my awareness of the real menace Falstaff represents to people who happen not to be his pals. And I think Nahm’s enthusiasm blinded him to something else that Shakespeare wrote into the part. At that very first meeting, we find Falstaff trying to negotiate for himself a position of power or privilege when the young prince shall succeed to the throne. And it is just this negotiation that Falstaff is trying to resume [End Page 398] from the sidewalk at the end, when the new king brushes him off. Nahm did not notice this because it did not occur to him that Henry V was going to be a real king with real power over real people, just as it did not occur to him that Falstaff’s robbed and brutalized pilgrim victims would be real people suffering real injury and loss. If my personal angle, the potential victim’s view, had so usurped my vision that it blinded me to whatever else the playwright had made of his character and its situation, it would have made me a bad viewer of the play. But it might have added depth to my understanding and my criticism if it gave me an angle that other viewers and readers could imaginatively share. 1 Since each of us has some sort of angle on everything, sharing perspectives can always be valuable.III have been reminded of my encounter with Nahm by reading Edward W. Said’s Culture and Imperialism. 2 The book appears to start from the position that imperialism is the “determining political horizon of modern Western culture” (p. 60), imperialism being defined as the policy of establishing and maintaining an empire, and an empire as “a relationship... in which one state controls the effective political sovereignty of another political society” (p. 9). Because this is the determining horizon, the right way to think of any “Western” author is as an agent of imperialism, although of course this is most easily shown in the case of authors and works in which the imperial connection is explicit.If there is to be a uniform curriculum and canon for the teaching of English literature everywhere in the world, that canon obviously should not be based on works that assume the rightness and normality of an imperialism that defines most readers of that literature as racially and culturally inferior; such a canon is itself a tacit agent of an offensive and gratuitous imperialism. This much seems clear. But Said’s book then moves off into a hackneyed recitation of the evils that the West (or the north, or the developed world 3 ) inflicts on a world of passive victims, followed by a denunciation of the... (shrink)

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In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Kant without SadeFrancis SparshottErmanno Bencivenga’s discussion of “Kant’s Sadism” rests on a misrepresentation of Kant’s enterprise. 1 It presents Kantian morality as a matter of motivation, so that reason has to be pitted against desire. But Kant’s whole point is that, because the psychological causes of one’s actions can never be ascertained, they are irrelevant to morality. Morality is entirely a matter of the reasons for one’s actions, no (...) matter what one’s feelings. It is true that moral questions arise, morality exists, only for finite rational beings, who have inclinations that are relatively independent of the dictates of reason. But that independence does not mean that one should always act against one’s inclinations.The morality of an action depends on the agent’s “maxim”—the subjective practical principle on which one acts, the reasons one has and can give for thinking that what one is doing is right. Kant’s whole discussion is in terms of maxims. The word does occur twice in Bencivenga’s paper, but his account makes no use of it. When he says that “It is the motives of the action, the motives the person actually has—never mind what evidence we have for them—that confer moral content on the action” (p. 41), he does so in flat contradiction of Kant.The confusion underlying Bencivenga’s misunderstanding is most familiar to English-language Kantians from Schiller’s joke: “Gladly I serve my friends, but alas I do it with pleasure. / Hence I am plagued with doubt that I am not a virtuous person. // —Surely, your only resource is to try to despise them entirely, / and then with aversion do what your duty enjoins you.” 2 Both participants in the exchange think [End Page 151] the morality of an action depends on its psychological causes, not on the reasons the agent has for thinking the action right and doing it. Both are wrong.What is revolutionary in Kant’s position is his contention that all a maxim requires to be moral is that agents should really make it their principle at the time of action—that the agent should really stand by it. That means, obviously, that at that moment the agent should be able consistently to will that everyone should act on it. Kant argues that it also means, less obviously, that doing the right thing should be one’s paramount principle, which involves treating humanity and human freedom as an end in itself—ultimately, treating oneself and others as “law-making members of a kingdom of ends.” Thus, for Kant, morality is entirely a matter of rational consistency.Since rational consistency is all that morality requires, morality lays down no plan of action, but presupposes the familiar world in which people already have plans and purposes. What one wills is always some particular thing. Morality has to do with the principles to be followed in pursuing these objectives. 3 Bencivenga’s contention that “making the well-being of some other human, or of one’s own community, or of humankind the goal of one’s action would be relegating rationality to (at best) an instrumental role, and thus denying any ethical value to that action” is wrong. Kant insists that finite rational beings inevitably pursue happiness, 4 and it is their duty to do so for others and (in a sense) for themselves. 5 A leading contention of the Critique is that happiness, like duty, is a component of the summum bonum. Making a principle of maximizing happiness does not destroy the autonomy of the will; the principle is a principle and subject to the critique of consistency, like other principles. Kant explicitly denies what Bencivenga asserts, that it is merely an empirical matter that humans are desirous as well as rational. On the contrary, it belongs to their essence. 6 What is empirical, as Kant explains at some length, is the specific content of a person’s desires.Neither of Bencivenga’s examples tends to show that morality is opposed to inclination. It is true that if the reason moral agents treat people well is really only that, on each occasion, this is... (shrink)

This is a major contribution to the theory of rational choice which will be of particular interest to philosophers and economists. The author sets out the foundations of rational choice, and then sketches a dynamic choice framework in which principles of ordering and independence follow from a number of apparently plausible conditions. However, there is potential conflict among these conditions, and when they are weakened to avoid it the usual foundations of rational choice no longer prevail. The thrust of the (...) argument is to suggest that the theory of rational choice is less deterministic than many suppose. (shrink)

In (1991), Meinwald initiated a major change of direction in the study of Plato’s Parmenides and the Third Man Argument. On her conception of the Parmenides , Plato’s language systematically distinguishes two types or kinds of predication, namely, predications of the kind ‘x is F pros ta alla’ and ‘x is F pros heauto’. Intuitively speaking, the former is the common, everyday variety of predication, which holds when x is any object (perceptible object or Form) and F is a property (...) which x exemplifies or instantiates in the traditional sense. The latter is a special mode of predication which holds when x is a Form and F is a property which is, in some sense, part of the nature of that Form. Meinwald (1991, p. 75, footnote 18) traces the discovery of this distinction in Plato’s work to Frede (1967), who marks the distinction between pros allo and kath’ hauto predications by placing subscripts on the copula ‘is’. (shrink)

In 1583, Edward Kelley claimed to have made a number of archaeological discoveries on Northwick Hill in Worcestershire, including a forged document, the “Northwick scroll”, purportedly giving the location of treasure hidden by the Danes. The scroll was subsequently deciphered by Kelley’s employer, John Dee. Kelley’s hoax, which had to fool one of the country’s most learned men, was carefully constructed and drew on recent antiquarian work. However, Kelley also relied on older traditions of magical treasure hunting, thereby combining two (...) apparently antithetical approaches to the past. The article uses the example of Kelley’s hoax to argue that hoaxes served a useful and illuminating function in the early development of archaeology by testing the boundaries of plausibility. Furthermore, Kelley’s synthesis of learned antiquarianism and treasure hunting challenges the view that Elizabethan antiquaries were unwilling to excavate. Kelley’s methodologies in constructing the hoax echoed those of William Camden and others by linking excavated objects with chronicles and landscape features to create an integrated account of an imagined past. However, the hoax’s success also rested on Dee’s willingness to become a treasure hunter, demonstrating that elite learned antiquarian endeavours were not always distant from the aims of traditional “hill diggers”. (shrink)

Rooted in the field of cathedral studies, this paper draws into dialogue three bodies of knowledge: Edward Bailey’s notion of implicit religion that, among other things, highlights the continuing traction of the Christian tradition and Christian practice within secular societies; David Walker’s notion of the multiple ways through which in secular societies people may relate to the Christian tradition as embodied within the Anglican Church and John Fisher’s notion of spiritual wellbeing as conceptualised in relational terms. Against this conceptual background, (...) this paper draws on data provided by 1234 participants attending one of the Christmas Eve carol services in Liverpool Cathedral to explore the perceived impact of attendance on the spiritual health of people who do not believe in God and yet feel that Liverpool Cathedral is their cathedral, and it is this sense of belonging that brings them back at Christmas time.Contribution: Situated within the science of cathedral studies, this paper links in an original way three fields of discourse: Edward Bailey’s notion of implicit religion, David Walker’s notion of the four ways of belonging to God facilitated by the Anglican Church and John Fisher’s conceptualisation and operationalisation of the notion of spiritual wellbeing. The hypothesis developed from this original integration of theoretical perspectives is then tested empirically on data provided by 404 participants at carol services who do not believe in God. (shrink)

Political and social commentators regularly bemoan the decline of morality in the modern world. They claim that the norms and values that held society together in the past are rapidly eroding, to be replaced by permissiveness and empty hedonism. But as Edward Rubin demonstrates in this powerful account of moral transformations, these prophets of doom are missing the point. Morality is not diminishing; instead, a new morality, centered on an ethos of human self-fulfillment, is arising to replace the old one. (...) As Rubin explains, changes in morality have gone hand in hand with changes in the prevailing mode of governance throughout the course of Western history. During the Early Middle Ages, a moral system based on honor gradually developed. In a dangerous world where state power was declining, people relied on bonds of personal loyalty that were secured by generosity to their followers and violence against their enemies. That moral order, exemplified in the early feudal system and in sagas like The Song of Roland, The Song of the Cid, and the Arthurian legends has faded, but its remnants exist today in criminal organizations like the Mafia and in the rap music of the urban ghettos. When state power began to revive in the High Middle Ages through the efforts of the European monarchies, and Christianity became more institutionally effective and more spiritually intense, a new morality emerged. Described by Rubin as the morality of higher purposes, it demanded that people devote their personal efforts to achieving salvation and their social efforts to serving the emerging nation-states. It insisted on social hierarchy, confined women to subordinate roles, restricted sex to procreation, centered child-rearing on moral inculcation, and countenanced slavery and the marriage of pre-teenage girls to older men. Our modern era, which began in the late 18th century, has seen the gradual erosion of this morality of higher purposes and the rise of a new morality of self-fulfillment, one that encourages individuals to pursue the most meaningful and rewarding life-path. Far from being permissive or a moral abdication, it demands that people respect each other's choices, that sex be mutually enjoyable, that public positions be allocated according to merit, and that society provide all its members with their minimum needs so that they have the opportunity to fulfill themselves. Where people once served the state, the state now functions to serve the people. The clash between this ascending morality and the declining morality of higher purposes is the primary driver of contemporary political and cultural conflict. A sweeping, big-idea book in the vein of Francis Fukuyama's The End of History, Charles Taylor's The Secular Age, and Richard Sennett's The Fall of Public Man, Edward Rubin's new volume promises to reshape our understanding of morality, its relationship to government, and its role in shaping the emerging world of High Modernity. (shrink)

This essay is a review of Edward Feser’s Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide. In the first part, the author summarizes the book’s five chapters, drawing attention to Feser’s application of Aquinas’s thought to contemporary philosophical problems. Part 2 is dedicated to Feser’s Thomistic analysis of Intelligent Design. The author explains Feser’s case and why Aquinas’s “Fifth Way,” which is often labeled a “design argument,” depends on a philosophy of nature that ID’s methods implicitly reject.

This volume inaugurates a new critical edition of the writings of the great English philosopher and sage Francis Bacon - the first such complete edition for more than a hundred years. It contains six of Bacon's Latin scientific works, each accompanied by entirely new facing-page translations which, together with the extensive introduction and commentaries, offer fresh insights into one of the great minds of the early seventeenth century.

First published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Edwards, Denis All those who read Laudato Si' are struck by the way Pope Francis says over and over again that everything is interconnected, or that everything is interrelated. In this article I will seek to explore the significance of this theme. In particular, I will ask about its theological meaning, attempting to bring out two aspects of Pope Francis's thought: the insight that interrelationships of the natural world can be seen as a pale reflection of the (...) dynamic relations of trinitarian life; the conviction that ecological conversion-learning to relate to the natural world, as well as to other humans and to God-is essential to the very nature of the human made in the image of the dynamically relational God. (shrink)