The purpose of this article was to compare Jerome’s and Augustine’s sermons on the fifth book of the Psalms with regard to their views on the rich and the poor. After a brief consideration of the different audiences of Jerome and Augustine, we focused on their attitudes to wealth and poverty, and almsgiving and its relationship to eschatology. In both Jerome’s and Augustine’s commentaries we were confronted with problems regarding the nature of the collections, the composition of the audiences, and (...) a lack of overlap between the two works, but it was possible to discern congruences and differences in their exegesis. In their preaching on poverty and riches, both homilists associated Judas with the devil and wealth. With regard to the identification of Christ and the poor, Jerome offers a somewhat uneasy exegesis in explaining that Christ stands at the right hand of the pauper, although the Lord himself is rich. Augustine mentioned the identification of Christ and the poor a few times in Enarrationes in Psalmos and framed the poverty of Christ within the body of the church, emphasising the common humanity of his congregation. In his sermons, mainly delivered to monks, Jerome advocated total renunciation. Augustine made more allowances for human frailty, advocating partial and gradual dispossession. The Songs of Ascent provided both our authors with the opportunity to consider the place of almsgiving in an eschatological context. Contribution: We investigate the views of two prominent Latin fathers on wealth and poverty in their sermons on Psalms 109–150. The focus on wealth and poverty is evident. Judas is identified with the rich and Christ with the poor, placing Christ and riches against each other in an either/or position. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:344 BOOK REVIEWS philosophy-that even seriously disordered individuals always have the possibility of renewing themselves morally. What we need is, first, a detailed specification of the range of goods towards which reason directs us, then, an explanation of how reference to these goods is explicit or implicit in those precepts directive of action upon which prudence has to he able to draw (if it is to function in such (...) a way as to break with the otherwise vicious circle), and, finally, an explanation of how in the concrete circumstances of social life the precepts of reason can become effective. The absence of a systematic treatment of goods, which I noticed earlier, therefore turns out to he an important omission from Cessario's account, since without it a crucial part of his argument remains incomplete. What makes this omission all the more disappointing is the excellence of Cessario's subsequent discussion of the relationship of the theological virtues to the intellectual and moral virtues and of how the habitus of nature are enriched and strengthened by the habitus of grace. Teachers of moral theology could reflect on this discussion with great benefit to their students. It is a mark of how very good a hook Cessario has written that it arouses enormous impatience for a sequel which will not only carry the argument further hut also fill out what is missing in the argument so far. University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, Indiana ALASDAIR MAclNTYRE De vitiis et pecatis: In I-II Summae theologiae Divi Thomae expositio. By JACOBUS (SANTIAGO) M. RAMiREz, O.P. In Jacobus M. Ramirez Opera Omnia, tomus 8, ed. Victorino Rodriguez, O.P. Bihlioteca de Teologos Espafioles, 37 and 38. Salamanca: Editorial San Esteban, 1990. 2 volumes (Pp. xiv + 902). Paper: 5,000 pesetas (=approx. $47.00 U.S.). After a dormancy of some sixteen years, and fittingly on the eve of the centenary of its author's birth, the publication of Santiago Maria Ramirez's (t 1967) Opera Omnia continued in 1990 with the appearance of volume 8, De vitiis et peccatis: In I-II Summae theologiae Divi Thomae expositio. When completed, the Opera Omnia will contain not only vast writings on analogy and the nature of philosophy hut also the single most thorough, and arguably most profound, exposition of the Secunda pars of St. Thomas Aquinas's Summa theologiae ever written. The present installment covers qq. 71-85 of the Prima secundae. BOOK REVIEWS 345 Although the Spanish province of the Dominican Order has taken over the publication and distribution of Ramirez's Opera Omnia from the Consejo Superior de lnvestigaciones Cientificas, who began the series and oversaw the publication and distribution of all previous volumes, the new volumes' physical constitution is identical to that of the earlier volumes, since the actual printing is done at the same house. The volumes read easily, not only because they are in octavo form, hut also because the publishers have done the printing on an off.white paper, with leisurely spacing of the 11 point type. The second volume contains four indices: an index of names, biblical references, references to Thomas's writings, and a schematized index of the contents of both volumes. In a project of this magnitude one is prepared to find printing mistakes, and there are occasional typographical errors and formatting errors such as mis-italicization. In one place there is an omission of an entire line. (In vol. 2, p. 537, no. 373, the citation from Innocent III, after the words ' visionis Dei,' should be completed with the following: " (= damni tantum), actualis vero poena peccati est gehennae perpetuae cruciatus.") But these are minor imperfections, and the editor Fr. Rodriguez once again deserves our thanks for making such learning tools available to us in so useful a format. Rodriguez has informed me that the next volume to appear will be De gratia in 1991, despite the fact that a treatment De lege would of course be in keeping with the order of the Prima secundae. The quantity of Ramirez's writing on the treatise on law did not justify a separate volume, so it will be included along with De iure gentium and De... (shrink)

Erasmus and Verhoef suggest that a promising response to the infinite God objection to the Kalām cosmological argument include showing that abstract objects do not exist; actually infinite knowledge is impossible; and redefining omniscience as : for any proposition p, if God consciously thinks about p, God will either accept p as true if and only if p is true, or accept p as false if and only if p is false. I argue that there is insufficient motivation for showing (...) and and that is problematic as a definition of omniscience. (shrink)

Richard Taylor was born in Charlotte, Michigan on 5 November 1919. He received his A. B. from the University of illinois in 1941, his M. A. from Oberlin College in 1947, and his Ph. D. from Brown University in 1951. He has been William H. P. Faunce Professor of Philosophy at Brown University, Professor of Philosophy (Graduate Faculties) at Columbia University, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Rochester. He is the author of about fifty articles and of five (...) philosophical books. This volume consists of essays presented to Richard Taylor on the occa sion of his sixtieth birthday. Some of the contributors have been Taylor'S students; some have been his colleagues; and all have been, and continue to be, his admirers. I have made several attempts to articulate what it is I (I would not presume to speak for anyone else) admire about Richard Taylor: (1) There is a particular 'flavor' to Taylor's philosophical writing and con versation that is wholly delightful. Like any other flavor, it can be tasted and enjoyed and remembered but never adequately described. (If there should be someone who has picked up this book who does not know what I mean, I recommend that he read the chapter on 'God' in Taylor's Metaphysics. ) (2) Taylor is a masterful dialectician. (shrink)

Integrated information theory (IIT) is a candidate theory of consciousness that highlights the role of complex interactions between parts of a system as the basis of consciousness – and, due to its general information-theoretic formulation, is capable of making statements about consciousness in neural and non-neural systems alike. Here, we argue that a system radically different to a human brain, host to complex physiological and functional structures capable of integrating information, can be found in the meristems and vascular system of (...) higher plants. Following a pragmatic and ontologically innocent approach, neither taking for granted that plants are conscious nor dismissing the possibility that they are, we argue that the time is ripe to apply analysis tools inspired by IIT to plants, taking advantage of recent developments in both plant imaging and information theory. We introduce and discuss the relevant literature, and pro information and integration in plant behaviour, assessing the plausibility of plant sentience. If successful, these experiments could position plants as the next frontier in consciousness science, and urge us to rethink our perspectives on consciousness, how to measure it, and its prevalence amongst living beings. (shrink)

Upshot: I describe my perception of deconstruction, including the controversial point of view that deconstruction is actually construction. I also provide more details about the some of the design decisions in the software, and how these affected the students’ experience.

The global workspace architecture is examined from an evolutionary perspective. It is argued that certain aspects of the theory are difficult to account for in terms of a sequence of evolutionary elaborations. These notably include distinct actors and audience members, and the lingua franca by which they communicate. An alternative metaphor of a ‘global arena’ is suggested, along with speculation on how this bottleneck of behavioural competition may have evolved toward a more sophisticated architecture, perhaps even a theatre . . (...) . (shrink)

Machiavelli claims to be animated by a ‘natural desire’ to ‘bring common benefit to everyone’ . But what kind of benefit is it that subjects so many people to tyrannical rule and world empire? What has Machiavelli to offer those whose freedom and independence are sacrificed to the greater glory of imperial powers? After framing the indictment against Machiavelli - in effect, that the world is worse off for having been instructed by him - the paper turns to composing his (...) apology. The defence speech comes in five parts. Most importantly, it makes no use of the association presumed to exist between Machiavelli and latter-day liberalism. For Machiavelli's philanthropy, the paper argues, rests on the conviction that the human essence resides in the spirited part of the psyche, or that the ‘lion’ in man is more meritorious and admirable than the ‘fox’ in man. (shrink)

Church's Thesis states the equivalence of computable functions and recursive functions. This can be interpreted as a definition, as an explanation, as an axiom, and as a proposition of mechanistic philosophy. A number of arguments and objections, including a pair of counterexamples based on Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem, allow to conclude that Church's Thesis can be reasonably taken both as a definition and as an axiom, somewhat less convincingly as an explanation, but hardly as a mechanistic proposition.