This collection brings together cutting-edge research on the metaphysics of human nature and soul-body dualism.Kevin Corcoran's collection, Soul, Body, and ...

Presents a new way of looking at what it means to be human, offering a convincing case that humans are more than immaterial souls or "biological computers".

In this paper a look is taken at the relatively new area of culturing neural tissue and embodying it in a mobile robot platform—essentially giving a robot a biological brain. Present technology and practice is discussed. New trends and the potential effects of and in this area are also indicated. This has a potential major impact with regard to society and ethical issues and hence some initial observations are made. Some initial issues are also considered with regard to the potential (...) consciousness of such a brain. (shrink)

Emerging cybertechnologies, such as social digibots, bend epistemological conventions of life and culture already complicated by human and animal relationships. Virtually-augmented niches of machines and organic life promise new free-energy-governed selection of intelligent digital life. These provocative eco-evolutionary contexts demand a theory of (natural and artificial) minds to characterize and validate the immersive social phenomena universally-shaping cultural affordances.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:LIGHT AND METAPHOR IN PLOTINUS AND ST. THOMAS AQUINAS KEVIN CORRIGAN St. Thomas More College University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan I HAVE TWO CONCERNS in this paper. The first is a broad concern, related to the nature of metaphor, which stems from the destructionist or deconstructionist tendencies in some contemporary phenomenology or phenomenological existentialism. According to these views, the logocentric emphasis of the Western tradition must be shown (...) for what it really is : an attempt to erect a cover upon a fundamental absence. In Nietzsche's well known view, "truths are illusions of which one has forgotten that they are illusions; worn-out metaphors which have become powerless to affect the senses, coins which have their obverse effaced and now are no longer of account as coins but merely as metal." 1 For Jacques Derrida all metaphoricity is caught up in an endless circle, which precludes any privileged vantage-point from which one might determine order, hierarchy and center-point. In particular, the unique heliotropic metaphor which, in Derrida's polemic, determines the whole course of Western philosophy " from the Platonic eidos to the Hegelian idea" 2 rests only upon the infinite absence of circularity, for the movement of transference " which turns the sun into metaphor " also inevitably "turns philosophical metaphor towards the sun." 3 1 Nietzsche, "On Truth and Falsity in their Ultramoral Sense (1873)," Works 2 (New York: Russell and Russell, 1964), p. 180. 2 J. Derrida, "White Mythology", trans. F. C. T. Moore, New Literary History 6 (1974), 1: 5-74 ["La mythologie blanche" in Rhetorique et philosophie, Poetique 5 (Paris: Editions du Seliu, 1971)], p. 55. a Ibid., p. 51. 187 188 KEVIN CORRIGAN In this paper I shall examine the thought of Plotinus and Aquinas, broadly described as idealist and realist respectively, with a view to determining whether or not this transference from the physical to the metaphysical is only an illicit, covert erasure of the material sense and a forgetting that all metaphor is self-implicating, that there is no non-metaphorical standpoint from which to grasp the order and structure of the metaphorical. My second concern is much more specific. It is, first, to compare Plotinus and Aquinas on light and metaphor-two thinkers who might be considered to be poles apart on these questions: on the one hand, Plotinus, the father of Neoplatonic emanationism with its insistence upon the primacy of divine light and the father, surely too, of the tradition of light-metaphysics in the later, mediaeval period; on the other hand, St. Thomas, staunchly realist in the Aristotelian tradition. Second, I will seek to show that this first impression of the gulf between the two thinkers is not borne out by a close textual analysis, and that their respective theories, despite the admitted significant difference in viewpoint, are in some respects very close indeed. Let us look briefly at the light-metaphysics tradition first. For Robert Grosseteste light is the source of all activity and its diffusion is not a material change or a change in place, but rather an instantaneous and substantial multiplication of itself in three dimensions.4 Thus, for the author of the De Intelligentiis light is the fundamental principle of motion and life: " Est autem prima lucis operatio in sensibilibus quad motum et vitam operatur in viventibus." 5 Since light is the noblest of corporeal things, it therefore has an intermediate place between pure form and matter, and for Grosseteste and also Bonaventure it is consequently named the forma corporeitatis, the fundamental form of body as 4 De philosophischen W erke des Robert Grosseteste, ed. Ludwig Baur, in Clemens Baeumker, Beitriige zur Geschichte der Philosophic des Mittelalters, vol. IX (Munster, 1912), De Luce, p. 51. 5 Clemens Baeumker, Witelo: Ein Philosoph und Naturforscher des XIII Jahrhunderts, Band III, Heft 2 of Beitriige zur Geschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters (Munster, 1908), Liber de intelligentiis IX, p. 11. PLOTINUS AND ST. THOMAS AQUINAS 189 such, since light introduces dimension into matter. Light then is the substantial form of the physical universe.6 But how is physical light related to spiritual light? For the light-metaphysics tradition, spiritual light (whether the Uncreated Light which is God himself or the... (shrink)

Among the extra-physical aspects of team sports, the ways in which players talk to each other are among the more colorful but understudied dimensions of competition. To contribute an empirical basis for examining the nature of “trash talk,” we present the results of a study of 291 varsity athletes who compete in the top division among US universities. Based on a preliminary review of trash-talk topics among student-athletes, we asked participants to indicate the frequency with which they have communicated or (...) heard others talk about opposing players’ athleticism, playing ability, physical appearance, boyfriends, girlfriends, sexual behavior, parents, and home institution during competitions. Our three main findings are: Trash-talking is most commonly about the proximately important topic of playing ability while ultimately relevant topics such as physical appearance also appear to be common; Men appear to trash-talk significantly more than women, and consistently across topics; and contact sports such as football, hockey, lacrosse, and wrestling are associated with trash talk significantly more than other sports. We also examined whether the anonymity provided by face-masked helmets in “combat sports” was associated with more trash talk than contact sports played without a helmet and found no consistent association with face masks. Our findings highlight the ways in which competitors in physical sporting contests attempt to use language—often in ways that focus on players’ kin or reproductive interests—in pursuit of victory while establishing a baseline for future research into trash-talking. (shrink)

Volume 20, Issue 5, June 2020, Page 18-20.

In this paper, I examine the terms on which John Simmons rejects all arguments for a moral obligation to obey the law and so defends “philosophical anarchism.” Although I accept his rejection of several criteria on which others might and often do insist, I criticize his reliance on the conditions of “generality” and “particularity.” In doing so, I propose an alternative to his influential conception of legitimacy.

This research contributes to emergent theories on subject formation by showing how community garden participants in a small rural town in Northern Peru came to embrace a set of ideas and practices related to organic agriculture. Most CG scholarship describes the myriad benefits for participants and their communities, as well as individuals’ motivations for wanting to grow their own food. Relatively little research has explored how various kinds of gardens and their organizers produce subjects. Drawing from scholarship on community gardens (...) and subject formation, I examine the emergence of what I call an “organic subjectivity” among garden participants. Based on interviews and fieldwork conducted in Peru, I argue that the making of organic subjects in the CG is the result of three primary influences: the changing agrarian context in the community marked by the adoption of conventional farming practices, the influence of the garden organizer as the agent of an organic ideology, and the material practices associated with CG participation. This case study reinforces the notion that CGs produce subjects and that such subjects could well be oriented towards an agenda of progressive agrarian change that promotes environmental awareness and ecological farming practices, key elements of emerging alternative food networks in the global North and South. (shrink)

Kevin Wm. Wildes, S.J.; Religion in Bioethics: A Rebirth, Christian bioethics: Non-Ecumenical Studies in Medical Morality, Volume 8, Issue 2, 1 January 2002, Pa.

The selection from Capreolus's work represented in this translation shows him defending Aquinas's conclusions on faith, hope, charity, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and the virtues against such adversaries.

Presburger arithmetic is the first-order theory of the natural numbers with addition. We characterize sets that can be defined by a Presburger formula as exactly the sets whose characteristic functions can be represented by rational generating functions; a geometric characterization of such sets is also given. In addition, ifp= are a subset of the free variables in a Presburger formula, we can define a counting functiong to be the number of solutions to the formula, for a givenp. We show that (...) every counting function obtained in this way may be represented as, equivalently, either a piecewise quasi-polynomial or a rational generating function. Finally, we translate known computational complexity results into this setting and discuss open directions. (shrink)

This book brings together a selection of Kevin Corrigan's works published over the course of some 27 years. Its predominant theme is the encounter with otherness in ancient, medieval and modern thought and it ranges in scope from the Presocratics through Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus and the late ancient period, on the one hand, and early Christian thought, especially Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine and, much later, Aquinas, on the other.

Franz Rosenzweig's The Star of Redemption comes before the Shoah and Maurice Blanchot's The Writing of the Disaster comes after it. The one addresses itself with hope to the figure of a star; the other meditates on the state of being without a guiding star. The figure of Emmanuel Levinas stands between these two works, since Totality and Infinity is marked by Rosenzweig's critique of totality and The Writing of the Disaster is in part a response to Levinas's philosophy. Both (...) Rosenzweig and Blanchot propose a new way of thinking, one that calls unity into question. This essay seeks to clarify what ‘thought’ means for Rosenzweig and for Blanchot. In what ways do Rosenzweig and Blanchot converge? In what ways do they diverge? (shrink)

This article examines Śāntarakṣita’s and Kamalaśīla’s understandings of svatantra and prasaṅga proofs in the attempt to clarify how and why Tibetan Prāsaṅgikas came to portray svatantra inference as an instance of the very thing Madhyamaka rejects. The article proceeds in four parts. A brief comparison of Patsap Nyimadrak’s portrayal of svatantra inference with Bhāviveka’s and Candrakīrti’s employment of this expression shows that Patsap expanded the meaning of it, charging its users with embracing a realism at odds with Madhyamaka emptiness. Patsap’s (...) arguments against Śāntarakṣita’s “neither one nor many” proof lead us consider the latter’s and Kamalaśīla’s understanding of svatantra and prasaṅga proofs, which turns out to be consistent with, if more sophisticated than, Bhāviveka’s and Candrakīrti’s usage. An exploration of Kamalaśīla’s development of the proof of the naturelessness of all things, real and imagined, calls into question the svatantra-prasaṅga distinction but still leaves us without a source for Patsap’s characterization. A consideration of Śāntarakṣita’s and Kamalaśīla’s use of svatantra to characterize Mīmāṃsā conceptions of an authorless Veda and “intrinsic validity,” as well as their own view of “self-awareness,” offers potential sources for characterizing valid cognition and, by extension, inference as “autonomous.”. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 9, Page 6-7, September 2012.

Some think of art as opposed to philosophy and science, and indeed sometimes opposed to morality. Here, Wall explores the fundamental ways of pursuing aesthetics, speculation, science, mathematics, and morality. Conceptually these are not opposed. He illustrates the ideas with reference to an array of ancient and modern thinkers.

'This volume will make a lasting contribution to how we address the dilemmas that human rights theory and practice encounter - for instance, between democracy and human rights, negative and positive rights, or individual and group rights. Philosophers have become indispensable to lawyers' arguments about why human rights matter, and how they must be interpreted: this book superbly illustrates why.' - Olivier De Schutter, University of Louvain, Belgium and United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food.

In the sonnet Epic by Patrick Kavanagh, the poet wonders if it is justifiable to write about a quarrel in rural Ireland instead of about the Second World War. H.

Bioethics evolved from traditional physician ethics and theological ethics. It has become important in contemporary discussions of Medicine and ethics. But in contemporary secular societies the foundations of bioethics are minimal in their content and often rely on procedural ethics. The bioethics of particular communities, particularly religious communities, are richer than the procedural ethics of a secular society. Religious bioethics, situated within religious communities, are richer in content in general and in the lived reality.

Paul Hirst’s reconceptualization of his epistemology provides a basis for this exploration of the various aspects of the rationale for teaching literature. The article reflects the close analysis of knowledge and the curriculum in his early work and develops insights in his later work. This leads to the identification of five strands that form the rationale for the role of literature within the curriculum. The first strand refers to the knowledge of context, cultural background, or information necessary to engage with (...) many works of literature. The second strand concerns the role of literature in providing pleasure. The third strand considers the role of literature in offering multiple forms of understanding and insight. Strands four and five address the place of literature in the educational context. The fourth strand refers to the possibilities offered for education in language by the close study of literary texts. The fifth strand concerns the honing of the ability to propose and defend arguments in the interpretation of texts as a conduit to the development of one aspect of practical reason. (shrink)

In this essay, I introduce the symposium on Jordan Wessling’s book, Love Divine: A Systematic Account of God’s Love for Humanity, by discussing its origin as a book panel, providing the context for the significance of Wessling’s contribution, and previewing the essays that follow.

Dans cet article, je considère les travaux de Richard Bodéüs qui traitent de la manière dont Aristote envisage la relation entre loi, vertu, et éducation. Je soutiens qu’il y a une différence importante entre les exigences de la loi et celles de la raison, en particulier dans les régimes défectueux, qui sont aussi les plus communs. Cette différence existe aussi dans le meilleur régime possible pour la plupart des cités, le régime mixte qu’Aristote nomme «politie», parce qu’il représente un mélange (...) d’oligarchie et de démocratie. Dans ce régime, éduquer les citoyens exige ce qu’Aristote appelle la philosophie politique. (shrink)

This book makes accessible, to a wide audience, the thought of Evagrius and Gregory on the soul, in the context of ancient philosophy/theology and the Cappadocians generally. Corrigan argues that in these two figures we witness the birth of new forms of thought and of empirical science in a new key. Evagrius and Gregory are no mere receivers of a monolithic pagan and Christian tradition, but innovative, critical interpreters on the range and limits of cognitive psychology, the soul-body relation, reflexive (...) self-knowledge, personal and human identity and the soul's practical relation to goodness in the context of human experience and divine self-disclosure. This book provides a critical evaluation of their thought on these major issues and argues that in Evagrius and Gregory we see the important integration of many different concerns that later Christian thought was not always able to balance including: mysticism, asceticism, cognitive science, philosophy, and theology. (shrink)

In this paper I examine the phenomenological possibility of peculiarly theistic experience. I present and explicate William Forgie's very powerful arguments against the possibility of such experience and Nelson Pike's recent response to Forgie. I argue that although Pike's refutation of Forgie ultimately miscarries, there are good reasons for rejecting what is the central thesis upon which all of Forgie's arguments rest. After canvasing several of these reasons and recommending an alternative thesis, I conclude that Forgie has not succeeded in (...) establishing the phenomenological impossibility of theistic experience. (shrink)