Advocates of dialogic communication have promoted two-way symmetrical communication as the most effective and ethical model for public relations. This article uses John Durham Peters's critique of dialogic communication to reconsider this infatuation with dialogue. In this article, we argue that dialogue's potential for selectivity and tyranny poses moral problems for public relations. Dialogue's emphasis on reciprocal communication also saddles public relations with ethically questionable quid pro quo relationships. We contend that dissemination can be more just than dialogue because it (...) demands more integrity of the source and recognizes the freedom and individuality of the source. The type of communication, such as dialogue or dissemination, is less important than the mutual discovery of truth. Reconciliation, a new model of public relations, is proposed as an alternative to pure dialogue. Reconciliation recognizes and values individuality and differences, and integrity is no longer sacrificed at the altar of agreement. (shrink)

Although most natural law ethical theories recognize moral absolutes, there is not much agreement even among natural law theorists about how to identify them. The author argues that in order to understand and determine the morality (or immorality) of a human action, it must be considered in relation to the organized system of human practices within which it is performed. Such an approach, he argues, is to be found in the natural law theory of Thomas Aquinas, especially once it is (...) recognized that the logical structure of Aquinas's ethical theory is basically that of an Aristotelian science. In order to depict this structure and to explain how it bears upon the analysis of action, the author investigates a number of issues that have attracted the attention of Thomistic and Aristotelian scholarship. He examines the nature of practical reason, its relationship with theoretical reason, the derivation of lower from higher ethical principles, the incommensurability of human goods, the relationship between will and intellect, and the principle of double effect. The book will be useful to students and scholars interested in ethics, especially from an Aristotelian and/or Thomistic perspective. One appendix reproduces the Leonine text of the De malo (question 6), with facing English translation. Another appendix provides facing Latin text and English translation of the Summa Theologiae I-II (question 94, article 2). ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kevin L. Flannery, S.J., author of many works on the history of logic--particularly Aristotelian logic--is dean of the faculty of philosophy and professor of the history of ancient philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. PRAISE FOR THE BOOK: ""I know of no more careful and detailed study of Thomas's principle that the realms of theoretical and practical rationality are parallel. This principle is indeed central to an understanding of Thomas Aquinas's ethical thought, and Father Flannery examines its ramifications most perspicaciously. His book constitutes a valuable and important addition to the Thomistic literature. Father Flannery's writing is lucid, if not always extremely engaging, and his arguments are well supported by references to, and quotations from, the Aristotelian and Thomistic texts upon which they are based.""--The Medieval Review ""It would be hard to overstate the importance of this book at the present juncture of Thomistic studies.""--Ralph McInerny, University of Notre Dame ""... of interest and of great value mostly to specialists in Aquinas's ethics or moral theory more generally. Flannery presents complex matters clearly, and his explanations of the logical presuppositions of Aquinas's moral thought are always illuminating.""--Jean Porter, Theological Studies ""This is a significant work that belongs on the bookshelf of any serious student of Aquinas.... An important contribution to Thomistic studies.""--Irish Theological Quarterly ""This scholastic text will particularly appeal to thinkers interested in Aristotelian mathematics and logic and their practical integration into Thomistic natural law ethics. However, all natural law scholars must address the questions of context and method raised by Flannery's insights and his careful, precise textual analyses."" -- Beverly Whelton, Review of Metaphysics. (shrink)

Ways into the Logic of Alexander of Aphrodisias is intended to give an overview of the logic of Alexander of Aphrodisias (fl. early third century A D). Since ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reduction's FutureTheology, Technology, and the Order of KnowledgeKevin L. HughesLet me begin with something of a confession. When as a young undergraduate I first encountered medieval texts, and so, for the first time, began to know something of the medieval "way of seeing," I was intoxicated. And I was intoxicated, in part, by the comprehensiveness and unity of this worldview, where God, humans, the cosmos, science, theology, philosophy, nature, (...) supernature – all of these elements fit. So often in my thinking I have repaired to those famous last lines of Dante's Comedy, to the "Love which moves the sun and other stars," as the epitome of the comprehension, coherence, and harmony of the medieval worldview.Perhaps this is one of the reasons I have been attracted to the work of St. Bonaventure. We may all be familiar with the statements that now have become almost truisms, that to know Bonaventure at all, one needs to know the whole system, and that the whole system is found in every kind of work that he had done. "Procession, exemplarity, return, this is the whole of our metaphysics."1 This principle of Order in Bonaventure, as described and analyzed by Wayne Hellmann, is a kind of keystone to all of Bonaventure's work.2 [End Page 227]If you understand the "order," you understand Bonaventure. Such admirable consistency and harmony! Such remarkable unity of perspective! And, at least by many accounts, the Reduction of the Arts to Theology3 is a perfect concise instance of Bonaventure's synthetic vision.It is precisely this unity, as found in the Reduction of the Arts to Theology, that Dieter Hattrup finds problematic. For Hattrup, the notion of unity itself is not problematic; rather, it is the unity of knowledge as conveyed in the Reduction that approaches a deeply problematic modern understanding of knowledge. Hattrup believes he has discovered in this brief treatise the seeds of what we might call a technological or manipulative knowledge. Whatever the limits of Dieter Hattrup's historical and textual brief against the authenticity of the Reduction, his theological queries should put us all on guard if we are to imagine a future for any "reduction of the arts to theology," Bonaventurean or otherwise.A Theological QuestionBonaventura zwischen Mystik und Mystifikation4 begins with a basic theological premise: Christian theology is interested in the relationship between faith and reason, and this interest follows from the even more basic Christian claim that God is distinct from the world. If one has an intra-cosmic notion of the divine, wherein gods are the greatest or most powerful beings among all other beings, then the question between faith and reason does not arise. Gods who are beings can be known in the way we know all other beings, i.e., through reason. Faith, on the other hand, describes the kind of knowledge we can have of the One who is not part but [End Page 228] Maker of the created order. From the time of Philo on, Jewish and Christian believers5 have drawn this careful distinction and explored how faith and reason might be related without being reduced one into the other. Hattrup suggests that this perpetual question is raised with particular intensity with the revival of Aristotelian philosophy in the High Middle Ages, and Bonaventure stands as a major figure in scholastic inquiry. But, he tells us, this question remains crucial to our own time under the sign of "secularization."6It is important to note this opening overture, as it tells us that Hattrup is exploring what he takes to be first and foremost a theological puzzle: Does the Reduction of the Arts to Theology faithfully represent Bonaventure's understanding of the relationship between faith and reason as ways of knowing? Is it consistent with what we find (and what Hattrup has studied elsewhere)7 in his Sentence Commentary, Disputed Questions on the Knowledge of Christ, and the Collations on the Hexaëmeron? Most importantly, and more theologically, does the Reduction distinguish properly between faith and reason, as would befit this Doctor of the Church? Or is it the beginning of the collapse of this classic distinction... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE ARISTOTELIAN FIRST PRINCIPLE OF PRACTICAL REASON KEVIN L. FLANNERY, S.J. Pontijicia Universitas Gregoriana Rome, Italy INTRODUCTION* I N THE Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 94, a. 2,1 Thomas Aquinas identifies what is often spoken of as "the first principle of practical reason"-that is, "that good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided." Thomas explains: All other precepts of the natural law are based (...) upon this: so that whatever the practical reason naturally apprehends as man's good (or evil) *I am grateful to Peter Ryan, S.J. and Stephen Brock for commenting on a draft of this paper. 1I shall use a number of abbreviations: ST= Summa Theologiae; An.Post. =Posterior analytics; An.Pr. =Prior analytics; DA =De anima; EE =Eudemian ethics; EN = Nicomachean Ethics; GA =De generatione animalium; lnsomn. =De insomniis; Int. = De interpretatione; Metaph. =Metaphysics; MM= Magna moralia; Phys. =Physics; R. =Republic; Rhet. =Rhetorica; SE =Sophistici elenchi; FPPR =the first principle of practical reason; PNC =the principle of non-contradiction. I also use a number of transliterated Greek terms such as akolasia (depravity), akolastos (depraved person), akrasia (weakness of will), akrates (person subject to weakness of will), egkrateia (continence in spite of temptation), egkrates (person who remains continent in spite of temptation ), and phronesis (practical wisdom). I use them for brevity's sake and since they have also found their way into the standard philosophical vocabulary, at least in Aristotelian studies. I also speak in this essay as if Aristotle was the author of MM. For an argument in favor of a qualified understanding of this thesis, see note 14. For the Greek text of the works of Aristotle I have for the most part used the Oxford Classical Texts. The one major exception is Susemihl's edition of the MM: Franz Susemihl, ed., Aristotelis: Magna moralia (Leipzig: Tuubner, 1883). For most (but not all) of the translations from Aristotle, I have made use of Jonathan Barnes, ed., The Complete Works of Aristotle: the Revised Oxford Translation, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984). For English translations of Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae, I have used the translation by the Fathers of the English Dominican Province (London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1920). 441 442 KEVIN L. FLANNERY, S.J. belongs to the precepts of the natural law as something to be done or avoided. Since, however, good has the nature of an end, and evil, the nature of a contrary, hence it is that all those things to which man has a natural inclination, are naturally apprehended by reason as being good and consequently as objects of pursuit, and their contraries as evil, and objects of avoidance. Wherefore according to the order of natural inclinations, is the order of the precepts of the natural law.' As its name suggests, the first principle of practical reason (FPPR) is no incidental tenet. Thomas compares it in this same article to the first principle of theoretical reason, better known as the principle of non-contradiction (PNC): "that the same thing cannot be affirmed and denied at the same time."3 On the other hand, it is also commonly acknowledged that Thomas's (philosophical) ethical theory is Aristotelian. How is it then that we never hear of an Aristotelian first principle of practical reason, either in the secondary literature or (as it seems) in Aristotle himself? I shall argue in this essay that there is such a principle in Aristotle's ethical theory and that it has the logical status that Thomas attributes to it. It is none other than the well-known paradoxical Socratic principle that no one deliberately does wrong4-understood in a certain way. (I shall refer to this principle as "the Socratic Principle.") I shall also argue that Aristotle has a fairly elaborate theory about how, psychologically, a person accommodates himself to a violatiqn of the first principle of practical reason. I shall leave one issue unaddressed: whether (as in the question from ST above) Aristotle's FPPR includes "all other precepts of the natural law." It will be apparent, however, 2 The best exegesis of this article of ST is Germain Grisez, "The First Principle of Practical Reason: A... (shrink)

Contemporary society very often asks of individuals and/or corporate entities that they perform actions connected in some way with the immoral actions of other individuals or entities. Typically, in the attempt to determine what would be unacceptable cooperation with such immoral actions, Christian scholars and authorities refer to the distinction, which appears in the writings of Alphonsus Liguori, between material and formal cooperation, the latter being connected in some way with the cooperator's intention in so acting. While expressing agreement with (...) most of Alphonsus's determinations in these regards, Cooperation with Evil also argues that the philosophical background to these determinations often lacks coherence, especially when compared to related passages in the writings of Thomas Aquinas. Having compared the philosophical approaches of these two great moralists, Cooperation with Evil then describes a number of ideas in Thomas's writings that might serve as more effective tools for the analysis of cases of possible immoral cooperation. The book also includes, as appendixes, translations of relevant passages in both Alphonsus and Thomas. (shrink)

_1650-1850_ publishes essays and reviews from and about a wide range of academic disciplines—literature, philosophy, art history, history, religion, and science. Interdisciplinary in scope and approach, _1650-1850 _emphasizes aesthetic manifestations and applications of ideas, and encourages studies that move between the arts and the sciences—between the “hard” and the “humane” disciplines. The editors encourage proposals for “special features” that bring together five to seven essays on focused themes within its historical range, from the Interregnum to the end of the first (...) generation of Romantic writers. While also being open to more specialized or particular studies that match up with the general themes and goals of the journal, _1650-1850_ is in the first instance a journal about the artful presentation of ideas that welcomes good writing from its contributors. First published in 1994, _1650-1850_ is currently in its 24th volume. (shrink)

Since its publication in the year 2000, M. Cathleen Kaveny’s article “Appropriation of Evil: Cooperation’s Mirror Image” has had a notable influence upon several scholars who appear to agree with its central argument— namely, that the theory of cooperation with evil needs to be supplemented by a concept that Kaveny calls “appropriation.” The main point of the present article is that Kaveny misrepresents the traditional theory regarding cooperation with evil and that appropriation, as she understands it, is therefore not the (...) mirror image of cooperation, although it is granted that Kaveny mentions cases that the traditional theory of cooperation with evil is unsuited to deal with—and that they need to be dealt with. (shrink)

This article considers M. Therese Lysaught’s analysis of an apparent abortion that occurred in Phoenix, Arizona, in 2009. Since Lysaught invokes it, the article considers Rev. Martin Rhonheimer’s theory about the bearing of vital conflict situations on the object of the act performed. A vital conflict situation is present when, for instance, the life of a mother might be spared if her fetus is aborted, otherwise she and the fetus will die. The article argues that the use of such situations (...) in this way by Lysaught and Rhonheimer (and possibly others) is incompatible with Church teaching. The article concludes by suggesting that certain cases might be analyzed in such a way that the mother’s life is saved and the fetus dies but there is no direct abortion. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11.4 (Winter 2011): 691–704. (shrink)

Praise for 50 Fast Digital Camera Techniques "Applying the lively techniques in this book will make anyone's digital camera a more productive tool." -Al Francekevich, professional photographer, on the first edition Your digital camera is an amazing and versatile creative tool, with features and capabilities you probably haven't even explored-until now. Here are step-by-step instructions for 50 hot new techniques that take advantage of all the latest camera features, fully illustrated with stunning color photos taken by the author. No matter (...) what type of digital camera you have, this book will help you create more professional pictures. Your guide to amazing results with your digital camera * Select the right shooting mode and change critical settings in seconds * Use exposure and focal length to get sharper photos * Shoot fantastic candid, nature, and pet pictures * Learn the secrets of shooting dramatic skyscapes and urban landscapes * Plan shots for creative digital manipulation * Download and print your photos or share them on the Web * Create a photographic essay or convert color shots to artsyblack-and-white. (shrink)

1. Logic, perception, and the practical syllogism -- 2. The "physical" structure of the human act -- 3. Internal articulation and force -- 4. The constituents of human action and ignorance thereof -- 5. Intelligibility and the per se -- 6. Action, [phronåesis], and pleasure -- 7. [Phronåesis] and the [phronimos] -- 8. Some other character types.

The author considers, first of all, recent and fairly recent interpretations of Plato’s dialogue the Crito, arguing that the character Socrates, whose expressed ideas probably correspond in major detail to the convictions of the historical Socrates, is not saying that the laws of Athens demand unquestioning obedience. The dialogue is rather an account of the debate that goes on in Socrates’s mind itself. A strong consideration in this debate is clearly the rule of law; but equally strong is Socrates’s lifelong (...) commitment to carry out what, in the end, he regards as the most reasonable course of action. The author then considers two contemporary ethical issues: our way of coming to know the natural law and the proper understanding of laws that allow of exceptions. Regarding the first, he argues—consistently with what we find not only in the Crito but also in Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas—that we come to know the natural law through being immersed in the laws and customs of a particular society: the more just the society, the better access to the natural law it provides. Regarding the second, he argues that an article in Aquinas is sometimes interpreted as suggesting that the realm of concrete human experience is beyond the reach of law. He argues, in the spirit of the historical Socrates, that the rule of law is equivalent to the rule of reason and that this does reach into the realm of concrete human experience, where exceptions are sometimes recognized as contained in the law. (shrink)

(1993). Alexander of aphrodisias and others on a controversial demonstration in aristotle’s modal syllogistic. History and Philosophy of Logic: Vol. 14, No. 2, pp. 201-214.

Kevin Yuill goes straight to the heart of a difficult issue. Critical of both sides of the discussion, this book presents an up-to-date analysis of the direction discussion is taking, showing that atheists, libertarians, those favouring abortion rights and stem-cell research should stand beside their religious compatriots in opposing legalization of assisted suicide. The author shows that the real issue behind the debate is not euthanasia but suicide. Rather than focusing on tragic cases, he indicates the real damage that (...) will be done if we affirm the suicidal wishes of even a small segment of the population. Analyzing the movement for the right to die in historical terms, Yuill shows that, though many proponents of a change in the law believe they are rationalist heirs of such thinkers as John Stuart Mill, legalizing assisted suicide will reduce privacy and freedom. Finally, Yuill suggests a radical alternative to legalization of assisted suicide that would embrace both the cause of freedom and the anxieties of many about securing good deaths. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to explain what the terms “formal cooperation” and “material cooperation” mean in the thought of St. Alphonsus Liguori, who is a pivotal figure in the Church’s tradition of reflection on cooperation and is often referenced when the distinction between formal and material cooperation in evil is discussed. The author explains why—and to some extent when—mainstream Catholic moralists who associate themselves with Alphonsus speak of some cooperation as formal and other cooperation as material. Specifically, he (...) discusses two factors that are essential for the analysis of cooperation in evil— the meaning of the term “formal” and the role of “segments of intelligibility” in determining what is material rather than formal cooperation. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.4 : 663–675. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Contradiction and Legislation Regarding the Right to LifeKevin L. Flannery, S.J.Unborn Human Life and Fundamental Rights: Leading Constitutional Cases under Scrutiny. Edited by Pilar Zambrano and William Saunders, with concluding reflections by John Finnis. Berlin: Peter Lang, 2019.The most fundamental principle of law is the principle of non-contradiction. This is Thomas Aquinas's position in the seminal article on the natural law, Summa theologiae I-II, question 94, article 2, where, (...) citing Aristotle, he formulates the principle as, "One should not simultaneously affirm and negate." Lafter in the same article, Thomas offers a practical formulation of the same principle, "Good is to be done and pursued and evil avoided"; but in law, since it is contained in propositions (airmations and negations) as distinct from ideas regarding the pursuit of goods, the prior formulation is the more immediately relevant of the two.The book under review is important in that, by going through the legal history regarding abortion and related issues in a number of different countries—the United States, Canada, Italy, Spain, Poland, Ireland (Eire), Costa Rica, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, and Peru—it causes to emerge any number of times the realization that legislation and judicial decisions in favor of abortion "rights" invariably infect a legal system with contradictions and inconsistencies of various sorts. The present essay is, therefore, not your typical book review. Its objective is simply to list some of the legal contradictions and inconsistencies identified by the book's various authors as they describe the legal status of the unborn in their respective nations. [End Page 1323]William Saunders's very clear and comprehensive first chapter is entitled, "Judicial Interference in the Protection of Human Life in the United States: Actions and Consequences." In it, he describes, among other things, the Human Cloning Prohibition Act passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2003, which prohibited "any person or entity, public or private" from performing human cloning (23). He speaks also of a bill proposed in the U.S. Senate once the Human Cloning Prohibition Act had passed in the House of Representatives. This Senate bill (which was entitle, "The Human Cloning Ban and Stem Cell Research Protection Act") would have prohibited "any person or other legal entity" from conducting human cloning, even while allowing nuclear transplantation, which it defines as "transferring the nucleus of a human somatic cell into an oocyte from which the nucleus... ha[s] been... removed or rendered inert." The problem here, as Saunders explains, is that this latter definition "is the very definition of cloning" (25). In other words, in the same year, two pieces of legislation were considered in the Congress of the United States, both purporting to ban human cloning, one of which would have permitted what the other described (correctly) as human cloning and so prohibited.In the second chapter, "Whither United States Abortion Law?" by Gerard V. Bradley, discussed, among other things, is the inconsistency between the United States Supreme Court's pro-abortion decision Roe v. Wade and various laws, both state and federal, prohibiting feticide. Bradley says of the 2004 federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act that, "in pertinent part it says that 'whoever' 'causes the death of or bodily injury to,' a 'child who is in utero' is guilty of an offense apart from any accompanying offense against the woman carrying the child." The penalty for such an act is the same as would be imposed if the act were inflicted upon the unborn child's mother: if, for instance, the mother was killed. "A child in utero," reports Bradley, "is defined as a member of the species homo sapiens, at any stage of development, who is carried in the womb'" (37).The problem here is that prosecutable under this law are acts identical with those performed legally by abortionists. Bradley mentions two cases in which a woman's male partner—in one case the woman's husband—effected by stealth the abortion of her child. In one case, the male purchased abortion pills and affixed to their container a pharmacy label indicating that it contained a common antibiotic; in the other, the husband obtained the same type of... (shrink)

As the Archive for the Psychology of Religion transitions to the SAGE publishing house, this editorial outlines the current vision and principles guiding the way forward. This includes a strong emphasis on publishing work that demonstrates transparency, precision, breadth, and depth in areas of theory, research, and pedagogy. The primary article types are described and the submission practicalities are addressed.

Aristotle’s treatment of mixed, first-figure, problematic-assertoric syllogisms has generated a good deal of controversy among modern commentators.I argue that W.D.Ross’s criticism of A.Becker’s cr...

Personality and prayer are both conceptualized as focusing on issues of connectivity with the self and beyond. Individual participants each recruited a peer to join the study . Participants rated themselves according to multi-item scales that detail five personality factors . They also responded to an instrument specifying eight foci of the inward, outward, and upward cognitive content of prayer ; these eight foci were reduced to three prayer themes: internal concerns, embracing paradox, and bold assertion. Finally, respondents reported the (...) strength of six "basic" emotions that may be experienced during their typical prayer. Using the same instruments, each peer rated her or his matched participant. Results reveal discrete patterns between self and peer ratings, with respect to links among prayer and personality variables. Both self and peer ratings emphasize a relation between prayer and the personality traits of agreeableness and conscientiousness . Several concluding points highlight the value of the present conceptualization of personality and prayer with relation to connectivity, potential differences between personal and corporate prayers, and the potential role of sex differences in the disclosure of prayer's content and emotional influence. (shrink)

This paper examines Hegel’s chief paradigm for interpreting his dialectical method, which is that of circularity. The position that Hegel’s Logic (whether Greater or Lesser) begins without presuppositions loses validity upon clarification of this model of reasoning. Philosophy must begin necessarily with presuppositions, according to Hegel, and can only be justified adequately by explaining those presuppositions while also reflecting upon its own immanent method of explanation. Philosophy must therefore be self-reflexive, immanent, and systematic (or holistic). Such a view of philosophy (...) defends the goal of theoretical closure and excludes the assumption of a value-neutral standard of rationality. (shrink)

Written for non-specialists, this concise and accessible work by moral philosopher Kevin L. Flannery engages in a careful reflection of the moral issues of greatest importance in the lives of Christians today. After introductory chapters on the relationship between ethics and church teaching, and on the relevance of action theory--the study of the nature and structure of human actions--Flannery applies Aristotle's and Thomas Aquinas's theory of human action to the following topics: sexual morality, reproduction, killing and keeping alive, cooperation (...) in the evil acts of others, and conscience. The book treats a number of controversial issues, not so much because they are controversial, but because they usefully explain the philosophical principles underlying church teaching. Flannery considers, for example, whether it is moral for a spouse who has contracted a disease such as HIV or AIDS to make use of a prophylactic during sexual intercourse. Flannery also addresses whether it is moral for a politician to vote in favor of legislation that permits same-sex marriage, or for a family or doctor to withdraw nutrition and hydration from a patient in a vegetative state. A major theme discussed throughout the book is intention and its effect on the moral character of human acts. ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kevin L. Flannery, S.J., professor of philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, is author of many works on ethics and on the history of logic, including Acts Amid Precepts: The Aristotelian Logical Structure of Thomas Aquinas's Moral Theory (CUA Press). (shrink)

Although higher education understands the need to develop critical thinkers, it has not lived up to the task consistently. Students are graduating deficient in these skills, unprepared to think critically once in the workforce. Limited development of cognitive processing skills leads to less effective leaders. Various definitions of critical thinking are examined to develop a general construct to guide the discussion as critical thinking is linked to constructivism, leadership, and education. Most pedagogy is content-based built on deep knowledge. Successful critical (...) thinking pedagogy is moving away from this paradigm, teaching students to think complexly. Some of the challenges faced by higher education moving to a critical thinking curricula are discussed, and recommendations are offered for improving outcomes. (shrink)

The present research examines whether the perceived uniqueness of one’s thoughts and salience of uniqueness motivations can influence attitude strength and resistance. Participants who rated their thoughts as relatively unique formed attitudes that showed greater correspondence with behavioral intentions to act on the attitude (Study 1). In Study 2, participants who recalled a previous purchase motivated by the desire to be unique (versus to fit in) after generating message counterarguments were less persuaded (more resistant) and reported greater willingness to act (...) on their (negative) attitude. Moreover, attitudes mediated the effect of the purchase manipulation on intentions to act on the attitude. (shrink)

Henri de Lubac's contribution to Catholic theology is well‐known. But the work of the latter part of his career on medieval exegesis has received less scholarly acclaim. Historians of exegesis find it apologetic and too theological, and thus unhelpful in their field, while most theologians, with a few exceptions, have seemed to find it too historical for their work. This article argues that de Lubac's Medieval Exegesis is an exercise in theology, but specifically a tradition‐oriented historical theology. Drawing upon Maurice (...) Blondel's philosophical definition of tradition, de Lubac aims to describe the ‘fourfold sense’ as a tradition, a theological mentalité, often implicit, that suffuses ancient and medieval Christian theology. It is the author' hope that the recognition of the proper genre and aim of de Lubac's magnum opus et arduum is the catalyst for further, properly theological, reflection upon its claims about scripture and tradition. (shrink)