Richard Popkin opened an early paper with the observation "No figure in the history of European philosophy has had a more direct and enduring influence on American thought than George Berkeley."2 Popkin's case for Berkeley's "enduring" influence well into classical pragmatism is compelling.3 But in what follows I will be concerned with his more "direct" influence on the Connecticut philosopher and theologian Samuel Johnson —not to be confused with the English stone-kicking confuter of Berkeley—during Berkeley's brief, abortive Rhode Island (...) sojourn of 1729–31. Johnson studied classics and history at the nascent Yale College, until, "accidentally lighting on Lord Bacon's Instauratio Magna or Advancement of... (shrink)

Wells identifies influential mistakes about language embedded in the empiricist philosophical tradition of Locke, Russell and Ayer. He shows how these errors stimulated a religious backlash, in which faith became coupled with commonsense realism. He also covers behaviourism and magical thinking.

This chapter examines the nature and normative significance of taxation. In particular, it identifies and explores two central normative questions: (1) What tax arrangements should a state or society put into place? (2) How should a citizen or taxpayer relate to an existing system? In thinking through these and relate questions, the discussion also critically engages with the broadly Rawlsian view of taxation defended by Murphy and Nagel in The Myth of Ownership.

Many theologians accept that it is not plausible to dismiss what is called the ‘higher criticism’ altogether, but try to limit its efficacy. This article discusses a number of their ways of doing so.

This extraordinary book offers a clear and compelling biography of Jacques Derrida along with one of Derrida's strangest and most unexpected texts. Geoffrey Bennington's account of Derrida leads the reader through the philosopher's familiar yet widely misunderstood work on language and writing to the less familiar themes of signature, sexual difference, law, and affirmation. In an unusual and unprecedented "dialogue," Derrida responds to Bennington's text by interweaving Bennington's text with surprising and disruptive "periphrases." Truly original, this dual and dueling (...) text opens new dimensions in Derrida's thought and work. "Bennington is a shrewd and well-informed commentator whose book should do something to convince the skeptics... that Jacques Derrida's work merits serious attention."—Christopher Norris, _New Statesman & Society_ "Geoffrey Bennington and Jacques Derrida have presented a fascinating example of what might be called post-structuralist autobiography."—Laurie Volpe, _French Review_ "Bennington's account of what Derrida is up to is better in almost all respects—more intelligent, more plausible, more readable, and less pretentious—than any other I have read."—Richard Rorty, _Contemporary Literature_. (shrink)

We describe a way of modeling high‐dimensional data vectors by using an unsupervised, nonlinear, multilayer neural network in which the activity of each neuron‐like unit makes an additive contribution to a global energy score that indicates how surprised the network is by the data vector. The connection weights that determine how the activity of each unit depends on the activities in earlier layers are learned by minimizing the energy assigned to data vectors that are actually observed and maximizing the energy (...) assigned to “confabulations” that are generated by perturbing an observed data vector in a direction that decreases its energy under the current model. (shrink)

“Lambeth Palace is my Washpot. Over Fulham have I cast my breeches.” So declared the novelist and secularist H. G. Wells in a letter to his mistress, Rebecca West, in May 1917. His claim was that, because of him, Britain was “full of theological discussion” and theological books were “selling like hot cakes”. He was lunching with liberal churchmen and dining with bishops. Certainly, the first of the books published during Wells’s short “religious period”, the novel Mr. Britling (...) Sees It Through, had sold very well on both sides of the Atlantic and made Wells financially secure. Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy (“Woodbine Willie”) wrote that, “Everyone ought to read Mr. H. G. Wells’s great novel, Mr. Britling Sees It Through. It is a gallant and illuminating attempt to state the question, and to answer it. His thought has brought him to a very real and living faith in God revealed in Jesus Christ, and has also brought relief to many troubled minds among the officers of the British Army.” Yet, Wells’s God was explicitly a finite God, and his theology was far from orthodox. How can we account for his boast and for the clerical affirmation which he certainly did receive? This article examines and re-evaluates previous accounts of the responses of clergy to Wells’s writing, correcting some narratives. It discusses the way in which many clergy used Mr. Britling as a means by which to engage in a populist way with the question of theodicy, and examines the letters which Wells received from several prominent clerics, locating their responses in the context of their own theological writings. This is shown to be key to understanding the reaction of writers such as Studdert Kennedy to Mr. Britling Sees It Through. Finally, an assessment is made of the veracity of Wells’s boasting to his mistress, concluding that his claims were somewhat exaggerated. “Lambeth Palace is my Washpot, Over Fulham have I cast my breeches.” Mit diesen Worten erklärte der literarisch außergewöhnlich erfolgreiche und entschieden säkular denkende, kirchenkritische Schriftsteller und Science-Fiction-Pionier Herbert George Wells seiner Geliebten, dass seinetwegen Großbritannien “full of theological discussion” sei. Nicht ohne Eitelkeit schrieb er es seinem im September 1916 mit Blick auf den Krieg geschriebenen und stark autobiographisch gefärbten Roman Mr. Britling Sees it Through von knapp 450 Seiten zu, dass theologische Bücher reißenden Absatz fänden. Auch war er stolz darauf, liberale Kleriker zum Lunch zu treffen und von Bischöfen zum abendlichen Dinner eingeladen zu werden. In einer kurzen Phase seines Lebens war – oder inszenierte sich – Wells als ein frommer, gläubiger Mensch. Sein damals veröffentlichter Roman Mr. Britling Sees It Through verkaufte sich sowohl in Nordamerika als auch im Heimatland so gut, dass der Autor nun definitiv finanziell gesichert war. Der anglikanische Priester und Dichter Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, der im Ersten Weltkrieg Woodbine Willie genannt wurde, weil er verletzten und sterbenden Soldaten in den Phasen der Vorbereitung auf den Tod Woodbine-Zigaretten anbot, empfahl die Lektüre von Wells’ “great novel” Mr. Britling mit den Worten: “It is a gallant and illuminating attempt to state the question, and to answer it. His thought has brought him to a very real and living faith in God revealed in Jesus Christ, and has also brought relief to many troubled minds among the officers of the British Army.” Allerdings war H. G. Wells’ Gott ein durchaus endlicher Gott, und seine Theologie war alles andere als orthodox. Wie lassen sich dennoch seine evidente Prahlerei und die emphatische Zustimmung zu seinem Roman in den britischen Klerikereliten erklären? Im Aufsatz werden zunächst einige ältere Deutungen der Zustimmung führender Kleriker zu Wells’ Roman untersucht und einige der dabei leitenden Deutungsmuster kritisch infrage gestellt. Deutlich wird, dass nicht wenige anglikanische Geistliche Mr. Britling dazu nutzten, um höchst populistisch das umstrittene Theodizeeproblem anzusprechen. Auch werden die Briefe prominenter Geistlicher an Wells analysiert, mit Blick auf ihre eigenen Publikationen. Diese Reaktionen haben stark Studdert Kennedys Haltung zu Mr. Britling Sees It Through beeinflusst. Besonders aufrichtig war Wells mit Blick auf sich selbst allerdings nicht. Die Selbstinszenierung gegenüber seiner Geliebten war einfach nur peinliche Übertreibung. (shrink)

Johann Wolfgang Goethe* (1749–1832) believed that in 1784 he demonstrated the presence of the intermaxillary (premaxillary) bone in man, and that after a certain amount of opposition professional anatomists accepted his findings. This paper tries to show what the anatomical facts are, what it was that Goethe discovered, how his beliefs about his contribution and influence arose, and how his discovery is related to his general scientific aims and methods.

The nineteenth century saw frequent appeals to the idea of a redeemer personality, a heroic leader – musings which culminated in the cults devoted to Hitler and Stalin. This article shows that the self-assertion of leaders can stimulate the self-abasement of the followers on whom they depend (and vice versa), and discusses in what circumstances such an interplay becomes dominant in a society, and with what advantages and disadvantages for it.

Bishop John A.T. Robinson's Honest to God was exceptionally successful. In the decade following its publication more than a million copies were sold in seventeen different languages. Robinson was aware that numerous awkward questions were being asked about traditional Christian beliefs, which it was no longer possible to ignore. His purpose was not so much to question traditional ideas of God as to suggest alternatives for those who found them unsatisfactory . He wanted to convince such persons that an inability (...) to believe what is stated in the Bible or the prayer book does not disqualify them from calling themselves Christians and presenting themselves at church. He speaks of traditional Christian beliefs, as stated in the New Testament, as a ‘language’ and thinks that Christianity should be conveyed to people in a variety of languages. By employing, as he does, the language of such Christian scholars as Bonhoeffer, Tillich and Bultmann, an atheist may find himself able to call himself a Christian. But the old familiar language of the Bible remains more pleasing to most of God's children, particularly to his ‘older children’ , so we must not give it up, although he allows that it is becoming increasingly unpopular, so that without ‘the kind of revolution’ he is advocating, ‘Christian faith and practice … will come to be abandoned’. (shrink)

C.S. Lewis, the scholar of English mediaeval and Renaissance literature who died in 1963 and is still widely respected as a Christian apologist, complained that academic biblical scholars simply assume that miracles cannot have occurred in the fashion reported in the New Testament. In a lecture quoted by A.I.C. Heron 1 , he said: ‘The canon “If miraculous, unhistorical” is one they bring to their study of the texts, not one they have learned from it.’ In fact, as John Kent (...) retorted, they did not rule out in advance the idea of supernatural events, but were able, without it, to give adequate and plausible accounts of how the biblical documents reached their present form, by means of a method ‘based on questions of probability in terms of evidence’, not ‘on an a priori rejection of miracle’. 2 Conclusions concerning historical events of any kind are similarly based. ‘No historians’, says the historian R.J. Evans, ‘really believe in the absolute truth of what they are writing, simply in its probable truth, which they have done their utmost to establish by following the usual rules of evidence’. 3 To this question of ‘absolute’ truth I shall return. (shrink)

When I purchased Verdict on Jesus: A New Statement of Evidence, published by SPCK in 2010, I hoped it would confront me with the very latest attempt to vindicate Christian doctrines. In fact the book turns out to be fundamentally a reissue of a very conservative apologetic work of that title, first published sixty years earlier by an Anglican – Leslie Badham, who later became Vicar of Windsor and chaplain to the Queen. Admittedly, he updated the book in 1971, and (...) in 1983 his son, the Revd. Professor Paul Badham, further revised it after the author's death, and later reissued it as a fourth edition, with further revision, in 1995. The present edition is thus the fifth, and includes a new introduction by Paul Badham and three new chapters (one of which he has written himself) presented with his conviction that the book is ‘a religious classic’ and ‘its central argument of permanent validity’. -/- One of the added chapters, entitled ‘Current Trends in Historical Jesus Research’, by the New Testament scholar Kathy Ehrensperger (239–258) is of philosophical interest. She insists that it is now acknowledged that a historical account is ‘not an objective reconstruction of the past’ but ‘a narrative about it from the perspective of the present’ – a perspective informed by the historian’s own ‘hermeneutical presuppositions’, who in consequence cannot ‘retrieve neutral facts from the past and thereby present an original, that is, “true” image of “how it really was”.’ This insight, she says, constitutes a ‘challenge to the notion of history as a discipline’. Scholars can do no more that provide ‘reconstructions ... informed by the best available contextual information interpreted in a responsible way which is sensitive to the data’. But ‘because of the limitations of the discipline of history itself’, they cannot ‘excavate the real Jesus ... as he really was’, and the present diversity of interpretations of him ‘should not be deplored’ but is ‘to be expected’, and is not ‘evidence for the failure of ... research’. (shrink)

What is courage and why is it one of the oldest and most universally admired virtues? How is it relevant in the world today, and what contemporary forms does it take? In this insightful and crisply written book, Geoffrey Scarre examines these questions and many more. He begins by defining courage, asking how it differs from fearlessness, recklessness and fortitude, and why people are often more willing to ascribe it to others than to avow it for themselves. He also (...) asks whether courage can serve bad ends as well as good, and whether it can sometimes promote confrontation over compromise and dialogue. On Courage explores the ideas of Aristotle, Aquinas and many later philosophers who have written about courage, as well as drawing on classic and recent examples of courage in politics and fiction, including the German anti-Nazi "White Rose Movement", the modern phenomenon of "whistle-blowing", and Stephen Crane’s The Red Badge of Courage. (shrink)

`The critic explicitly acknowledges his dependence on prior words that make his word a kind of answer. He calls to other texts "that they might answer him."' _Geoffrey Hartman_ is the first book devoted to an exploration of the `intellectual poetry' of the critic who, whether or not he `represents the future of the profession', is a unique and major voice in twentieth-century criticism. Professor Atkins explains clearly Hartman's key ideas and places his work in the contexts of Romanticism and (...) Judaism on which he has written extensively. In _Geoffrey Hartman_ he provides a valuable introduction to a major critical voice who has called into question our assumptions about the distinction between commentary and imaginative literature. (shrink)

We draw on the behavioral agency model to explore the ethical consequences of CEO equity incentives. We argue that CEOs are more concerned with funding pension plans when they have more to gain from their stock options yet will increasingly underfund employee pension funds as their current option wealth increases. Our findings reveal that both effects hold when the CEO has greater power (also occupying board chair) over firm decision making. Our study suggests that there is an ethical dimension to (...) equity incentives, given they are intended to align CEO interests with shareholders, yet potentially incentivize CEO behaviors with adverse consequences for employees. Insights from our findings provide boards and regulators with behavioral levers to protect employee well-being in the context of pension funding. (shrink)

This volume presents the most recent research on Title I federal compensatory education programs. Over the past three decades, Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act has served as the cornerstone of the federal commitment to equality of opportunity. It is the federal government's single largest investment in America's schools. As Title I begins a new century, this book documents the program's history and points to the potential for its future, building on 35 years of research, development, and (...) practical experience. The research and analysis it provides fills a void for systematic information that can help inform Title I education policies and practices. _Title I: Compensatory Education at the Crossroads_ is essential reading for educational researchers and students working in the areas of social stratification and equity-minded policies, programs, and practices. It will serve well as a text for graduate courses on these topics in education, as well as in public policy, sociology, and psychology. Educational policymakers and administrators at the federal, state, and local levels who are concerned with Title I and programs for students placed at risk will find it an important resource in crafting policies and programs for this population of students. (shrink)

Dunn, Geoffrey D We see in Mark's Gospel an interest in Jesus reaching out beyond the Jewish people to bring the good news to other peoples as well. One of the issues associated with that is the extent to which these other people need to adopt Jewish ways in order to become followers of Jesus. That is why, even though we are in a section of Mark's Gospel that deals with Jesus and the disciples, we have today's passage about (...) Jesus and the Jewish religious leaders, the Pharisees. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Impersonating the Dead:Mimes at Roman FuneralsGeoffrey S. SumiRoman aristocratic and imperial funerals often had a theatrical quality to them. We are told of the presence of musicians and dancing satyrs as part of the procession (pompa) and the excessive, even feigned grief, on the part of mourners, some of whom were professionals.1 Most striking of all was the performance of an actor (a "funerary mime") who donned a mask (...) that portrayed the likeness of the deceased and wore clothing that represented the highest offices and honors that the deceased had achieved. While dressed in this manner, the actor impersonated the deceased, imitating, and sometimes mocking, his well-known physical characteristics and movements and his words.2 To our modern sensibilities such a custom might seem odd, but a recent commentator on Roman aristocratic funerals has pointed out how the tone of a single funeral celebration ranged from "the patriotic and somber, to sad, to joyous and festive."3 The performance of this funerary mime, in which the dead momentarily came back to life in vivid form, apparently could reflect the full range of emotions on display at a Roman funeral. Despite recent studies on the Roman funeral, we still lack an analysis of the funerary mime that draws together all of the ancient evidence. Such an [End Page 559] analysis can shed light, as I hope to show, not only on the nature of the actor's performance, but also on what this performance might mean for our understanding of Roman funerals, both under the Republic and the Empire. Further light can be shed on the custom of the funerary mime by using Bakhtin's model of carnival as a way of demonstrating how in Rome certain carnivalesque elements could be interwoven into otherwise serious and even somber public events.4The first source that describes the practice of the funerary mime most explicitly is a passage of Diodorus, quoted by Photius, which is taken from his discussion of the funeral of L. Aemilius Paullus, the famous conqueror of Perseus who died in 160 B.C.:(Diod. 31.25.2)5Those Romans who by reason of noble birth and the fame of their ancestors are pre-eminent are, when they die, portrayed in figures that are not only lifelike as to features but show their whole bodily appearance. For they employ actors who through a man's whole life have carefully observed his carriage and the several peculiarities of his appearance. In like fashion each of the dead man's ancestors takes his place in the funeral procession, with such robes and insignia as enable the spectators to distinguish from the portrayal how far each had advanced in the cursus honorum and had had a part in the dignities of the state.(Loeb trans.)In this passage, Diodorus describes not only the use of masks to portray the facial features of the deceased, but also the employment of [End Page 560] actors () to play the role of the deceased at the funeral. The word can simply mean "imitator" in general terms, one who pretends to be someone or something else, but it can be used specifically of actors.6 Diodorus goes on to explain that this, during the lifetime of the deceased, observed the gait or carriage () of the deceased and "the several peculiarities of his appearance" (). The result of this "lifetime" of observation was that the actor could perform these traits faithfully at his subject's funeral. The translation of as "the several peculiarities of his appearance" renders into English the ambiguities of the Greek without making clear precisely what is meant. By this phrase, Diodorus must mean gestures or other physical movements, since it should refer to something, such as gait or carriage with which it is paired, that actors could observe, imitate, and then perform for a large audience. By the same token, it is unlikely that this phrase refers either to distinguishing physical characteristics, such as facial features or expressions, since these would have been depicted by the mask itself, or, for that matter, to physical blemishes of the body, such as scars, which would have been concealed by the dress... (shrink)

"Introducing Tibetan Buddhism is the ideal starting point for students wishing to undertake a comprehensive study of Tibetan religion. This lively introduction covers the whole spectrum of Tibetan religious history, from early figures and the development of the old and new schools of Buddhism to the spread and influence of Tibetan Buddhism throughout the world. Geoffrey Samuel covers the key schools and traditions, as well as Bon, and bodies of textual material, including the writings of major lamas. He explores (...) aspects such as the path to liberation through Sutra and Tantra teachings, philosophy, ethics, ritual, and issues of gender and national identity. Illustrated throughout, the book includes a chronology, glossary, pronunciation guide, summaries, discussion questions and recommendations for further reading to aid students' understanding and revision"--. (shrink)

How did the universe come to exist? What is the nature of its creator? Is there a purpose to human existence? What is it to live a good life? The Routledge Dictionary of Religious and Spiritual Quotationsoffers not just one, but many, answers to these questions. Geoffrey Parrinder has drawn on all the great books of world religions - the Bible, the Qur'an, Zoroastrian Gathas, Hindu Vedas, Bhagavad Gita, Jewish Mishnah, Sikh Adi Granth and Chinese Tao Te Ching - (...) in this collection of over 3000 quotations. Discover the words of prophets, scholars and mystics on matters spiritual and moral, as well as Plato on sexuality, Freud on religion and Gandhi on violence. Originally published in 1990, The Routledge Dictionary of Religious Quotationsis now reissued with a new preface by Geoffrey Parrinder. (shrink)

Some of the foremost living scholars in Islamic thought have come together to create a standard and definitive work on the subject of Islamic thought. Noted scholars from North America, Europe, and the Middle East offer new and generative interpretations of major themes in the field. They address perennial theological and philosophical questions: the nature of the God-head, the ultimate constitution of matter, the world's origin, causality, divine providence and the existence of evil, freedom and determinism, political wisdom, and the (...) reaches of human knowledge, The contributions include historical and analytical expositions of these issues in medieval Islam as well as discussions of individual thinkers, translations of Arabic texts with commentary, comparisons of Greek and Islamic thought, and bibliographical and textual sources. As a whole, these essays offer a wealth of philosophical, theological, bibliographical, philological, and historical information. Among the outstanding contributions are: an article by Charles Butterworth on Aristotle's rhetoric and how it was understood by al-Farabi, Avicenna and Averroes; Richard M. Frank's essay on the concepts of atoms and bodies, one of the most complex subjects in Islamic theology; and an article by Shams Inati on Ibn Sina and single expressions that discusses how language relates to mental processes and the unknown. Michael E. Marmura develops a new perspective on the subject of efficient causality, emphasizing the paradigmatic position of God's relationship to the world; Muhsin Mahdi analyzes a treatise of Averroes' that deals with the relationship between philosophy and law. (shrink)

How original was the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham? In John Stuart Mill's opinion, not very original at all. Bentham maintained that pleasure and pain should provide our chief criteria of the moral quality of actions, because they are important above all other things in making our lives go well or ill. But two thousand years before Bentham defended the doctrine of utility that ‘all things are good or evil, by virtue solely of the pain or pleasure which they produce”, a (...) gentle and cultivated man had taught in a garden at Athens that the pursuit of pleasure and the avoidance of pain were the most fitting objectives in the life of the wise man. The name of this sage, who endeavoured to provide in his own career an exemplar of his doctrine, was Epicurus of Samos. On Mill's reading of history, utilitarianism and Epicureanism were in essential respects the same. (shrink)

The E-Z Reader 7 model is powerful but incomplete. When programming the saccade to the next word, we take into account the familiarity of the letter sequences at the beginning of that word. This landing position effect is well established, but is neglected in the model. A possible locus for the effect is suggested within the E-Z Reader framework.

Examining various kinds of isolation phenomena in the Turing degrees, I show that there are, for every n>0, (n+1)-c.e. sets isolated in the n-CEA degrees by n-c.e. sets below them. For n≥1 such phenomena arise below any computably enumerable degree, and conjecture that this result holds densely in the c.e. degrees as well. Surprisingly, such isolation pairs also exist where the top set has high degree and the isolating set is low, although the complete situation for jump classes remains unknown.

George Berkeley (1685-1753) is the superstar of Irish Philosophy. He entered Trinity College, Dublin, in 1700 and became a fellow in 1707. In 1724 he resigned his Fellowship to become Dean of Derry, and in 1734 he was made Bishop of Cloyne. He settled in Oxford in 1752 and died the following year. The work of George Berkeley is marked by its diversity and range. His writings take in such topics as mathematics, psychology, politics, health, economics, deism and (...) education, as well as that with which he is most associated - philosophy. Whatever topic he dealt with, his grasp of the subject matter was always impressive and his criticisms of his contemporaries often acute. Among the most noteable of the British Empiricists, he took his starting point from Locke's new 'way of ideas', but he rejected abstract ideas and the possibility of real existence outside perception. It is for this doctrine that he is most known - that there is no such thing as matter, and that things are collections of ideas which can exist only in our minds and only for so long as they are perceived. This philosophy, summed up in his phrase 'to be is to be perceived', he termed 'immaterialism'. A.C. Fraser's collection includes a series of what were previously unpublished notes by Berkeley on all the main topics of his philosophy. This, the 1901 edition, was the first complete edition of his works. (shrink)