People talk about rats deserting a sinking ship, but they don't usually ask where the rats go. Perhaps this is only because the answer is so obvious: of course, most of the rats climb aboard the sounder ships, the ships that ride high in the water despite being laden with rich cargoes of cheese and grain and other things rats love, the ships that bring prosperity to ports like eighteenth-century Königsberg and firms such as Green & Motherby. By making the (...) insulting comparison - as I am in the course of doing – between us Kant scholars and a horde of noxious vermin, my more or less transparent aim is to mitigate, or at least to distract attention from, the collective immodesty of what I am saying about us. For my point is that, in the past half-century or so, Kant studies has become a very prosperous ship indeed. Its success has even been the chief thing that has buoyed all its sister ships in the fleet of modern philosophy, most of which are also doing very well. (shrink)

As one of the most important ethicists to emerge since the Second World War, Alan Gewirth continues to influence philosophical debates concerning morality. In this ground-breaking book, Gewirth's neo-Kantianism, and the communitarian problems discussed, form a dialogue on the foundation of moral theory. Themes of agent-centered constraints, the formal structure of theories, and the relationship between freedom and duty are examined along with such new perspectives as feminism, the Stoics, and Sartre. Gewirth offers a picture of the philosopher's theory and (...) its applications, providing a richer, more complete critical assessement than any which has occurred to date. (shrink)

It is not uncommon to hear that poor school performance, welfare dependancy, youth unemployment, and criminal activity result more from shortcomings in the personal makeup of individuals than from societal forces beyond their control. Are American values declining as so many suggest? And are those values at the root of many social problems today?Shaped by experience and public policies, people's values and social norms do change. What role can or should a democratic government play in shaping values? And how do (...) these values conditon the efficacy of public policy?In this book, six distinguished social scientists identify trends in America's values and their consequences, and consider public policy tools with which some of those values might be changed.Daniel Yankelovich begins with a discussion of how American values have shifted in the last half-century, and argues that affluence is the driving force behind these changes in values. James Q. Wilson argues that destructive habits which can lead to social pathologies, like crime and drug use, are set early in life; he examines how public policy might intervene when children are young to promote better values. David Popenoe maintains that America has veered too far towards industrialist values, and explores the resulting decline of families and many attendant social ills. Nathan Glazer describes the history and present status of the dispute over multicultural education. Jane Mansbridge examines the process of building cooperation, consensus, and public spirit. And George Akerlof and Janet L. Yellen discuss the problem of gang criminality.Inthe past, social scientists have often sidestepped questions about values as undefinable, unquantifiable, and somehow unscientific. The essays in this volume address these questions at last.Henry J. Aaron, director of the Economic Studies program at Brookings, is the authorof numerous books, including most recently Serious and Unstable Condition: Financing America's Health Care (1991), and coeditor of Setting Domestic Priorities (1992). Thomas E. Mann is director of the Brookings Governmental Studies program, coeditor of Media Polls in American Politics (1992), and coauthor of the Renewing Congress series (1993). Timothy Taylor is managing editor of the Journal of Economic Perspectives at Stanford University. (shrink)

(1994). Bearers of properties in the quantum mechanical description of nature. International Studies in the Philosophy of Science: Vol. 8, No. 3, pp. 179-194.

As John Henry Newman reflected on 'The Idea of a University' more than a century and a half ago, Bradley C. S. Watson brings together some of the nation's most eminent thinkers on higher education to reflect on the nature and purposes of the American university today. Their mordant reflections paint a picture of the American university in crisis. This book is essential reading for thoughtful citizens, scholars, and educational policymakers.

In this article, we propose the Fair Priority Model for COVID-19 vaccine distribution, and emphasize three fundamental values we believe should be considered when distributing a COVID-19 vaccine among countries: Benefiting people and limiting harm, prioritizing the disadvantaged, and equal moral concern for all individuals. The Priority Model addresses these values by focusing on mitigating three types of harms caused by COVID-19: death and permanent organ damage, indirect health consequences, such as health care system strain and stress, as well as (...) economic destruction. It proposes proceeding in three phases: the first addresses premature death, the second long-term health issues and economic harms, and the third aims to contain viral transmission fully and restore pre-pandemic activity. -/- To those who may deem an ethical framework irrelevant because of the belief that many countries will pursue "vaccine nationalism," we argue such a framework still has broad relevance. Reasonable national partiality would permit countries to focus on vaccine distribution within their borders up until the rate of transmission is below 1, at which point there would not be sufficient vaccine-preventable harm to justify retaining a vaccine. When a government reaches the limit of national partiality, it should release vaccines for other countries. -/- We also argue against two other recent proposals. Distributing a vaccine proportional to a country's population mistakenly assumes that equality requires treating differently situated countries identically. Prioritizing countries according to the number of front-line health care workers, the proportion of the population over 65, and the number of people with comorbidities within each country may exacerbate disadvantage and end up giving the vaccine in large part to wealthy nations. (shrink)

Henri Bergson (1859-1941) was once the most famous philosopher in the world, but his reputation waned in the latter half of the 20th century. Barry Allen here makes the case for Bergson as a great philosopher, one whose thought has much to contribute to contemporary philosophical questions. Living in Time presents chapters on each of Bergson's four major works, explaining his theories of time, perception, memory, and panpsychic consciousness, his innovative concept of virtual existence, his objection to Darwin, his (...) controversy with Einstein, his philosophy of creative evolution, and his social philosophy of closed and open society. In particular Allen focusses on Bergson's powerful ideas on time. Classical arguments for determinism fallaciously apply spatial concepts to consciousness; once we take time seriously, which means acknowledging its reality as duration and its difference from space, Bergson showed that the arguments for determinism become insupportable. Bergson's ideas on time and evolution offer a comparison with Nietzsche, which Allen develops, exposing both philosophical concurrence and systematic difference. The book's conclusion discusses the question of Bergson and naturalism and summarizes the ontology of the virtual that emerges as a core part of Bergson's thought. (shrink)

Environmental aesthetics is an emerging field of study that focuses on nature's aesthetic value as well as on its ethical and environmental implications. Drawing on the research of a number of disciplines, this exciting new area speaks to scholars working in a range of fields, including not only philosophy, but also environmental and cultural studies, public policy and planning, social and political theory, landscape design and management, and art and architecture. _Nature, Aesthetics, and Environmentalism: From Beauty to Duty_ addresses the (...) complex relationships between aesthetic appreciation and environmental issues and emphasizes the valuable contribution that environmental aesthetics can make to environmentalism. Allen Carlson, a pioneer in environmental aesthetics, and Sheila Lintott, who has published widely in aesthetics, combine important historical essays on the appreciation of nature with the best contemporary research in the field. They begin with classic pieces by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, John Muir, John Burroughs, and Aldo Leopold, as well as an essay by Eugene Hargrove that lays out the scientific, artistic, and aesthetic foundations of current environmental beliefs and attitudes. The second section of the book addresses prevailing views on the conceptualization of nature and the various debates on how to properly and respectfully appreciate nature. The third section introduces positive aesthetics, the belief that everything in nature is essentially beautiful, even the devastation caused by earthquakes or floods. The essays in the final section explicitly bring together aesthetics, ethics, and environmentalism to explore the ways in which each might affect the others. (shrink)

Acknowledgements / 4 Introduction / 5 DESCARTES / 1. Cartesian Science and the Instrumentalization of the Body / 35 FREUD / 2. An Introduction to Freud’s Early Attempt at an Eliminative Materialist Psychology / 55 3. The Libido, Trauma, and the Hidden Forces of the Death Drive in Freud’s Metapsychology / 81 HEGEL AND NIETZSCHE / 4. What Does the Master Really Want? Development and Structure in Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit / 116 5. Suffering as Negativity or Necessity? Hegel and (...) Nietzsche on the Master/Slave Dialectic / 140 6. Nietzsche’s Supreme Phantasm / 160 BERGSON / 7. The Ambiguity of Sensation / 170 8. The Force of the Present: A Bergsonian Challenge to Psychophysics / 189 9. Life and Death in the Philosophy of Henri Bergson / 214 Bibliography / 243. (shrink)

In this sweeping volume of comparative philosophy and intellectual history, Barry Allen reassesses the values of experience and experiment in European and world traditions. His work traces the history of empirical philosophy from its birth in Greek medicine to its emergence as a philosophy of modern science. He surveys medical empiricism, Aristotlean and Epicurean empiricism, the empiricism of Gassendi and Locke, logical empiricism, radical empiricism, transcendental empiricism, and varieties of anti-empiricism from Parmenides to Wilfrid Sellars. Throughout this extensive intellectual (...) history, Allen builds an argument in three parts. A richly detailed account of history's empiricisms in Part One establishes a context in Part Two for reconsidering the work of the radical empiricists--William James, Henri Bergson, John Dewey, and Gilles Deleuze, each treated in a dedicated chapter. What is "radical" about them is their effort to return empiricism from epistemology to the ontology and natural philosophy where it began. In Part Three, Allen sets empirical philosophy in conversation with Chinese tradition, considering technological, scientific, medical, and alchemical sources, as well as selected Confucian, Daoist, and Mohist classics. The work shows how philosophical reflection on experience and a profound experimental practice coexist in traditional China with no interaction or even awareness of each other, slipping over each other instead of intertwining as they did in European history, a difference Allen attributes to a different understanding of the value of knowledge. Allen's book recovers empiricism's neglected, multi-textured contexts, and elucidates the enduring value of experience, to arrive at an idea of what is living and dead in philosophical empiricism. (shrink)

Henri Bergson and William James were great admirers of each other, and James seemed to think he got valuable ideas from Bergson. But early critics were right to see in Bergson the antithesis of pragmatism. Unfolding this antithesis is a convenient way to study important concepts and innovations in Bergson's philosophy. I concentrate on his ideas of duration and intuition, and show how they prove the necessity of going beyond pragmatism. The reason is because knowledge itself goes beyond the utilitarian (...) limitations in which pragmatism confines it. Knowledge is more than utility, more than adaptation, more than pragmatism, because our cognitive powers prove capable of more than any naturally selected service to survival. (shrink)

Mit diesem 1957 von Gilles Deleuze zusammengestellten Band, der in einer kongenialen Aneinanderreihung von Textpassagen aus allen wichtigen Werken Bergsons einen guten Überblick über das Bergsonsche Denken vermittelt, begann die Wiederentdeckung Bergsons in Frankreich nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Dabei wird sichtbar, dass es neben der Intuition, dem Gedächtnis und dem *élan vital* vor allem die Dauer ist, die begrifflich im Mittelpunkt von Bergsons Philosophie steht. Sämtliche Texte wurden von Margarethe Drewsen einheitlich neu übersetzt; der Band lässt sich dadurch wie (...) eine kompakte Einführung aus Bergsons eigener Feder lesen. (shrink)

This volume contains contributions on different aspects of practical conflicts by: Peter Baumann Monika Betzler Ruth Chang Jon Elster Barbara Guckes Christine M. Korsgaard Isaac Levi Alfred R. Mele Joseph Raz Henry S. Richardson Peter Schaber J. David Velleman Nicholas White.

Jacques Barzun's account of William James is a rich-textured and wide-ranging combination of homage, exegesis and personal reflections. In many places it is more Barzun than James; in some it is difficult to tell them apart. Barzun's book is in effect a love offering to a revered master of philosophy, psychology and human relations. He quotes Whitehead's characterization of James as "an adorable genius"; John Jay Chapman's judgment that "I cannot believe that anyone ever met James without feeling that James (...) was a better man than himself"; Santayana's "He was so extremely natural that there was no knowing what his nature was, or what to expect next"; Henry James's description of his brother as "a creature who speaks another language from the rest of mankind, and who would lend charm to a treadmill"; and Charles Peirce's encomium: "Who could be of a nature so different from his than I? He so concrete, so living; I a mere table of contents, so abstract.... Yet in all my life I found scarce a soul who seemed to comprehend naturally... the main spring of my life better than he did. He was even greater in the practice than in the theory of psychology." Barzun tells us that Peirce, jesting in earnest, changed his middle name from Sanders to Santiago in recognition of James's tireless efforts on his behalf over half a lifetime. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Parmenides’ Lesson: Translation and Explication of Plato’s ‘Parmenides’ by Kenneth M. SayreHenry TelohKenneth M. Sayre, author and translator. Parmenides’ Lesson: Translation and Explication of Plato’s ‘Parmenides’. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996. Pp. xx + 383. Cloth, $50.00.Kenneth Sayre has written a masterful translation and commentary on Plato’s Parmenides. The translation is literal but readable, and the commentary is informative, challenging, and close to the text. (...) Sayre’s main concern, and what he takes to be the “main problem of interpretation” (xi) is “what to make of Plato’s treatment of the several hypotheses that constitutes the second portion of the dialogue.” Sayre devotes over half of his book to the second half of the Parmenides, and anyone who knows Plato’s text will infer correctly that this is not a book for novices, but rather one which will yield ample reward to serious students of Plato. The book would have benefited from signposts which would locate Sayre’s intricate analyses of passages within his larger scheme of Plato’s development, an account of Plato’s more mature theory of Forms, and a [End Page 524] discussion of how each section of the Parmenides connects or fails to connect with the later. (Granted that we can obtain Sayre’s views from his other works.)Sayre’s book is not only an analysis of Plato’s text; it is also an engagement with important commentaries on that text. He carefully outlines and criticizes Miller, Meinwald, Allen, and Cornford (being most indebted to Cornford’s statements about the Pythagorean elements in Plato’s mature theory). Sayre maintains that the first part of the Parmenides questions the immature theory of Forms which is found in the Phaedo and Republic (68). Sayre believes that this immature theory is in need of more careful articulation and revision, and that the Parmenides begins the process. (Note that Sayre does not worry about whether there are multiple theories of Forms, or developments and changes in a single theory.) The major tenets of the youthful theory are that Forms are: (1) real in that they are “themselves in themselves,” (2) the causes of determinate characteristics in sensible things, (3) paradigms for the naming of their participants, (4) directly known by mind or reason, and (5) absolute in the sense of being independent of their participants (75).Sayre argues that Parmenides’ arguments in the first part of the Parmenides show that (1)—(5) need more elaboration and interpretation. The sections on the sail, day, and participating in a part of a Form force revisions of (1) and (2); Forms must be free of contrary predicates, they cannot be divisible spatially, and hence Plato must rethink participation. The point of the third man argument is that since “.… Largeness has lost its self-determinate status by virtue of being 'demoted' (in thought) to an object of appearance, it is no longer capable of providing determination to the shared features of this augmented group of individuals” (81). Sayre claims that Largeness is no longer one, and that it is “indefinitely multitudinous” (82), and hence that Largeness lacks definite properties. I am unclear about what Sayre’s point is here. Does he mean that Forms come to have contrary predicates—Largeness is both one and many—and each of these predicates is definite enough, but confused when found in the same entity, or that these predicates are themselves indefinite, whatever that might mean? The first interpretation seems to fit Sayre’s overall theory best, and if this is correct, then the third man argument shows that Plato needs to reinterpret (1) and (2) above. The second third man argument shows, Sayre claims, that both participation and resemblance are unexplained in the immature theory, and thus that (3) needs work. The section on our knowledge of the Forms reveals that (4) and (5) must be rethought. Sayre states that Plato rejects radical separation for the position that forms are distinct from their participants. I concur with this last claim, but Sayre needs a sustained discussion of what this claim means. Sayre concludes that the point of the first part of the Parmenides is that... (shrink)

‘When I use a word’, Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’In his recent note on Hipponax in this journal, Joseph Cotter first offers ‘a revised version of LSJ's definition’ of ὄρχις. At LSJ, s.v. ὄρχις I, ‘… testicle Hippon. 92.3 W. …’, he would delete the Hipponactean citation and rewrite the second definition, under ΙΙ, to read: ‘from similarity of shape, 1 glans penis, Hippon. 92, 2. (...) from the form of its root …’. Cotter derives his new definition from his reading of that Hipponactean line, καί μοι τὸν ὄρχιν τῆς φαλ[ …, which he supplements with the name of a marsh bird, φαλ[ηρίδος, also redefined. This supplementary ‘coot’ is said to mean ‘cock’, so that the narrator of the fragment's description of treatment for sexual impotence tells how a Lydian woman ‘thrashed with fig-branch the glans of my cock’. We are presented, then, with two previously unattested meanings of two nouns, ὄρχις and φαληρίς, and an accommodating correction of LSJ. What—I have asked Cotter—might Henry Liddell have thought of these innovations, familiar as he undoubtedly was with Humpty Dumpty's semantics! (shrink)

On affirme couramment que les trente-quatre homélies sur les Hébreux correspondent aux dernières années de Jean Chrysostome à Constantinople. Les AA. reprennent dans un premier temps les arguments des spécialistes depuis Henry Savile. En second lieu, ils s'arrêtent sur la thèse d'Opelt qui préfère Antioche plutôt que Constantinople comme lieu de provenance. Ces trente-quatre homélies constituent une partie importante de l'oeuvre de prédication de Jean Chrysostome et ne semblent pas appartenir à la série des dernières prédications assurées par ce (...) dernier. (shrink)

A comprehensive account of women in Western thought, from ancient Greece, through the Middle Ages, to today In her sweeping, three-volume study, Sister Prudence Allen examined how women and men have been defined in relation to one another scientifically, philosophically, and theologically. Now synthesized for students, The Concept of Woman is the ideal textbook for classes on gender in Catholic thought. Allen surveys Greek philosophers, medieval saints, and modern thinkers to trace the development of integral gender complementarity. This (...) doctrine--a living idea according to the criteria of John Henry Newman--affirms the equal dignity of men and women and the synergetic relationship between them. Allen pays special attention to John Paul II's contributions to this holistic idea of gender. Readers will gain valuable context for current debates over womanhood and come to a greater appreciation of human personhood. (shrink)

Democracy is increasingly being challenged, by disengagement and by anti-pluralist movements (Levitsky and Ziblatt in How Democracies Die: What History Reveals About Our Future, Viking, New York, 2018; Wikforss in _Därför demokrati. Om kunskapen och folkstyret_ [Because of this, democracy. On knowledge and people’s rule] Fri Tanke, 2021; Svolik et al. in J Democr 34(1):5–20, 2023). This article draws upon a theoretical discussion about democracy, pluralism, and threats to democracy. Departing from Dewey, Laclau, Mouffe, Young and Allen, we address (...) democracy as an ideology that centers around pluralism, or an ever-increasing inclusion of voices from the margins as its goal. We argue that perceiving democracy pedagogically as a pluralistic ideology would support students’ democratic citizenship and equip them for a world where threats to democracy are being reported. Employing a case study on Finnish social studies textbooks, we analyze how democracy as well as threats to democracy are discursively portrayed. Our study shows that the textbooks present democracy as predominantly institutional and static. We also find that while disengagement is portrayed as a problem for democracy, anti-pluralist movements are generally not referred to as a threat. Additionally, we examine a discourse in the textbooks that connects freedom of speech with democracy in a way that favors a multitude of opinions, even antidemocratic ones, over creating space for marginalized voices. Drawing on the theoretical discussion and the results of the analysis, we argue that a focus on pluralism as the core of democracy makes the opposition between restricting hate speech and advocating for democracy redundant. (shrink)

Isaiah Berlin is widely acknowledged as a major figure in twentieth-century political philosophy and the history of ideas. His famous Oxford inaugural lecture, Two Concepts of Liberty, especially the last, crucial, section, entitled The One and the Many, has provoked a vast secondary literature. So it is surprising that until now there has been no substantial critical reader dedicated to his work.Editors George Crowder and Henry Hardy have admirably filled this need with this stimulating new volume, which provides a (...) systematic and comprehensive treatment of the main aspects of Berlin's work. The essays (all but two of which are newly commissioned) critically examine Berlin's work across its whole range, including his treatment of Marx, Russian thinkers, Jewish themes, liberty, pluralism, the Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment, nationalism, history, and religion.The contributors are: Jonathan Allen (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign); Shlomo Avineri (Hebrew University, Jerusalem); Terrell Carver (University of Bristol); Joshua L. Cherniss (Harvard and Oxford Universities); George Crowder (Flinders University); William A. Galston (University of Maryland); Graeme Garrard (Cardiff University); Ryan Hanley (Marquette University); Henry Hardy (Oxford University); Michael Jinkins (Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary); David Miller (Oxford University); Mario Ricciardi (University of Milan); and Andrzej Walicki (University of Notre Dame).Complete with a valuable bibliography, this outstanding collection of recent scholarship on a seminal thinker shows the continuing relevance and importance of Berlin's many contributions to the understanding of our contemporary predicament.George Crowder (Adelaide, Australia), associate professor in the School of Political and International Studies at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia, is the author of Classical Anarchism, Liberalism and Value Pluralism and Isaiah Berlin: Liberty and Pluralism.Henry Hardy (Oxford, England), a Fellow of Wolfson College (Oxford, England), Isaiah Berlin's editor, and one of his literary trustees, has edited or co-edited 17 books by Isaiah Berlin, most recently Political Ideas in the Romantic Age, Flourishing: Letters 1928-1946, and The Soviet Mind: Russian Culture under Communism. He is currently working with Jennifer Holmes on an edition of Berlin's letters. (shrink)

In this extended essay, Vittorio Hösle develops a theory of the comical and applies it to interpret both the recurrent personae played by Woody Allen the actor and the philosophical issues addressed by Woody Allen the director in his films. Taking Henri Bergson’s analysis of laughter as a starting point, Hösle integrates aspects of other theories of laughter to construct his own more finely-articulated and expanded model. With this theory in hand, Hösle discusses the incongruity in the characters (...) played by Woody Allen and describes how these personae are realized in his work. Hösle focuses on the philosophical issues in Allen’s major films by exploring the identity problem in _Play It Again, Sam_ and _Zelig_, the shortcomings of the positivist concept of reality in _A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy_, the relation between reality and art in _The Purple Rose of Cairo_, the objective validity of morality in _Crimes and Misdemeanors_, the power of evil in _Shadows and Fog_, and the relation between art and morality in _Bullets over Broadway_. He cites Allen’s virtuosic reinterpretation of older forms of expression and his integration of the fantastic into the comic universe—elements like the giant breasts, anxious sperm, extraterrestrials, ghosts, and magicians that populate his movies—as formal moves akin to those of Aristophanes. Both an overview of Allen’s work and a philosophical analysis of laughter, Hösle’s study demonstrates why Allen’s films have more to offer us—morally, philosophically, and artistically—than just a few laughs. “In _Woody Allen_, Vittorio Hösle goes a long way toward explaining everything you wanted to know about Allen but were afraid to ask. Just why exactly is he funny, and why does his humor have a strong appeal for academics? In his comprehensive analysis of Allen’s work, Hösle outlines a workable theory of humor, illustrates his conclusions by referring to the films and prose, and points out several philosophic motifs underlying Allen’s deceptively complex comedies. Hösle’s work elevates the enjoyment of Allen’s films from guilty pleasure to satisfying intellectual engagement with an intriguing contemporary thinker and artist.” —Richard A. Blake, S.J., Boston College “Vittorio Hösle presents a compelling overview of Allen’s work in which he discusses different theories of laughter and argues for the priority of the incongruity theory as the only one able to answer the normative question, what distinguises good from bad laughter? On this theoretical basis he goes on to delve into both the humor and the philosophical profundity of Allen’s films.” —Sander Lee, Keene State College. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThis paper is a critical response to Amy Allen’s The End of Progress: Decolonising the Normative Foundations of Critical Theory. We take up her book’s call for a “problematizing” history which challenges “taken-for-granted” preconceptions in order to contest Allen’s own representation of the thought of the enlightenment. Allen accepts that all the enlighteners agreed upon a stadial, progressive account of history, which she critiques epistemically and normatively. But we show in Part 2, drawing on the work of (...) Henri Vyverberg and other historians of eighteenth century ideas, that a cyclical, rise and fall account of historical succession was more prominent than the progressive narrative in leading enlighteners such as Montesquieu, Voltaire, Diderot, D’Alembert, Condillac, Jancourt, Grimm, and Raynal, all of whom Allen does not mention. In Part 3, we show that not all thinkers of the enlightenment were pro-colonial or pro-imperialist, as Allen also presupposes in The End of Progress. By examining Abbé Raynal’s History of The Two Indies in Part 3, and notably its Diderotian interpolations, we show that many enlighteners propounded fierce criticisms of European colonialism and the slave trade, even calling directly for armed resistance against European infractions. In critical theorists’ search for chastened normative foundations, our concluding remarks contend, there is a need to develop more accurate, balanced, post-postmodern reckonings of the enlightenment. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Rhetoric 33.1 (2000) vii-ix [Access article in PDF] In Memory of Henry I first met Henry W. Johstone Jr. during the spring of 1968. I was a doctoral candidate at the University of Wisconsin and Henry was in Madison as part of a distinguished visitor series hosted by my mentor, Lloyd Bitzer. Lloyd had invited a group of graduate students to his home to (...) meet the guest of honor. I was particularly excited because Henry had accepted my paper on Aristotle's theory of exemplification to appear in the new international journal Philosophy and Rhetoric, which he edited. This was my first publication and I wanted to thank him, which seemed to this novice the appropriate thing to do. I remember that evening for Henry's seeming reserve, which I later learned was a deep shyness that masked his capacity for uncanny directness and a wicked sense of humor, and for his generosity in deflecting my naiveté about the basis for editorial judgments. I also remember it for his deft way of engaging a room of young rhetoricians with questions that conveyed his doubt about their subject (he later changed his mind) without clouding his sincere openness to what we had to say. The following fall, we met again during my interview for a position in the Speech Department at Penn State University. I was offered the position and became Henry's colleague as Book Review Editor of P&R. For the next thirty years, I was blessed to serve as Henry's partner-in-crime in the joys of life that may remain today only among the professoriate. We shared in the editorial work of the journal, in co-teaching our graduate seminar in Philosophy and Rhetoric, in our intellectual passion for the bonds and wars between philosophy and rhetoric, and in the pleasure of choosing the right bottle of wine. But more than that, we shared these common pursuits in contexts of luncheons, dinners, and social occasions that mixed intellectual work with the pleasure of treasured company.My son phoned today to tell me that Henry had died. His passing leaves a void in my life that goes beyond the loss of a friend and colleague. Henry was the person who, through patient selection of manuscripts for me to referee and guidance, taught me how to read journal submissions and offer critiques that might help the author to improve and the journal to prosper. Henry was the person who taught me the value of generosity with junior colleagues by his respectful and serious engagement of my own work. He had a marvelous capacity to entertain any idea seriously, to consider the possibility that even a far-fetched conjecture might have value rather than rejecting it out of hand. He lived the ideas he wrote about as a philosopher, arguing always ad hominem and con amore. Henry was the person who took me in tow as a young Turk and suffered my impatience with the conservative ways of our established institution [End Page vii] by taking me to lunch, engaging me in discussions of ideas, and sharing the delights of intellectual work, and in the process helping me retain my ideals and my focus.Lunch for Henry was more than a noontime meal. It was the way he sustained bonds with those he valued as friends and colleagues. He would call two weeks in advance to arrange a date at the Allen Room of the State College Hotel. He would arrive at my office ten minutes early and we would take a leisurely stroll along the Old Main Mall to the hotel. Our arrival was announced by the host with "Good afternoon Dr. Johnstone," that showed in its formality deep respect and in its tone equally deep affection. Henry always took a cocktail with lunch, inviting his companion to join him, and unless you were specific about the bill beforehand, Henry usually insisted on paying. Settling the bill was never an issue for Henry. He often included a graduate assistant from the journal or an assistant professor in our party and seemed to... (shrink)

This volume collects for the first time in a single volume all of Kant's writings on religion and rational theology. These works were written during a period of conflict between Kant and the Prussian authorities over his religious teachings. His final statement of religion was made after the death of King Frederick William II in 1797. The historical context and progression of this conflict are charted in the general introduction to the volume and in the translators' introductions to particular texts. (...) All the translations are new with the exception of The Conflict of the Faculties, where the translation has been revised and re-edited to conform to the guidelines of the Cambridge Edition. As is standard with all the volumes in this edition, there are copious linguistic and explanatory notes, and a glossary of key terms. (shrink)

In this essay, I first evaluate the conceptual analysis of human rights by Wilfried Hinsch and Markus Stepanians. Next I criticize Allen Buchanan’s claim that Rawls did not address basic human interests/capabilities theories of human nature. I argue Buchanan is doubly mistaken when he claims that John Rawls sought to avoid such theories because they are comprehensive doctrines. Then I evaluate David Reidy’s defense of Rawls, while questioning his efforts to show how Rawls’s list of human rights could be (...) expanded. Finally, I accept James Nickel’s argument that Rawls has tied human rights too closely to intervention on their behalf. However, I reject his, and by implication Rawls’s, refusal to accept a two-tiered approach to human rights. (shrink)

The philosopher Henry Richardson's short book is a defense of a position on a neglected topic in medical research ethics. Clinical research ethics has been a longstanding area of study, dating back to the aftermath of the Nazi death-camp doctors and the Tuskegee syphilis study. Most ethical regulations and institutions have developed in response to those past abuses, including the stress on obtaining informed consent from the subject. Richardson points out that that these ethical regulations do not address one (...) of the key dilemmas faced by medical researchers -- whether or not they have obligations towards subjects who need care not directly related to the purpose of the study, termed 'ancillary care obligation'. (shrink)

Although a good deal has been written about Kant's conception of free will in recent years, there has been no serious attempt to examine in detail the development of his views on the topic. This book endeavours to remedy the situation by tracing Kant's thoughts on free will from his earliest discussions of it in the 1750s through to his last accounts in the 1790s. This developmental approach is of interest for at least two reasons. First, it shows that the (...) path that led Kant to view freedom as a transcendental power that is both radically distinct from and compatible with the causality of nature was a winding one. Second, it indicates that, despite the variety of views of free will that Kant held at various times, the concept occupied a central place in his thought, because it was the point of union between his theoretical and practical philosophy. (shrink)