Luther's emphasis on the sin of pride, as it is confronted by God's justifying work in Christ, has resulted in a theology that has seemed to many to resist a coherent account of human agency. I argue, however, that important aspects of Luther's later theology have been obscured by a tendency to organize the whole of his theology around his important, but not exclusive, insight on justification. There are resources in Luther's later work, I suggest, that respond to important contemporary (...) concerns regarding the problem of passivity. Over time, the increasing failure of alleged Christians to produce "good works" apparently turned Luther's attention more and more to the sin of sloth. Human agency, particularly as it is expressed in the Christian life, became a matter of growing importance for Luther, as indeed, it is for many today. One finds in the mature Luther an increased appreciation of the self, viewed as both valuable and responsible—as capable of agency and as the legitimate focus of theological attention. (shrink)

Starting from two well-known avian metaphors for Godde, this article explores non-human and specifically avian imagery for the divine in a variety of contexts, including the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish tradition, the ancient Near East and contemporary world religions. The imagery has wide-ranging symbolic reference. It has the advantage of being counter to the androcentric and anthropocentric bias of much language about Godde, and reflecting the potential of birds and animals to image Godde.

Here is Lukcs among his friends, lovers, and peers in those important years before 1918, when he converted to Communism and Marxism at the age of thirty-nine.

Two aspects of mothering—using drugs during pregnancy and giving up the rearing of one's children—are the focus of this analysis of 58 addicted Chicana mothers who spent their adolescent years in barrio gangs. From a traditional stance, such women were doubly deviant, since they violated gender-role prescriptions by joining a barrio gang and by becoming involved in heroin and street life. Half of these women added to this deviance by using heroin during pregnancy, and 40 percent relinquished at least one (...) of their children. This article explores what distinguishes these classically “bad mothers” from addicts who maintain some degree of conventionality in their mothering. We found that Mexican gender-role traditionalism is not the only influence on these women. Many came from cholo or underclass families with a tradition of street involvement. In addition, their involvement in gang and heroin worlds may influence their behavior as mothers. We found that women who used drugs during pregnancy were more likely than abstainers to be cholas and to reject traditional gender-role values. However, those who gave up their children were more likely than those who kept their children to be from traditional families. We discuss the implications of these findings for research on deviance and the underclass among Hispanic women. (shrink)

Several decision rules, including the minimax regret rule, have been posited to suggest optimizing strategies for an individual when neither objective nor subjective probabilities can be associated to the various states of the world. These all share the shortcoming of focusing only on extreme outcomes. This paper suggests an alternative approach of ‘tempered regrets’ which may more closely replicate the decision process of individuals in those situations in which avoiding the worst outcome tempers the loss from not achieving the best (...) outcome. The assumption of total ignorance of the probabilities associated with the various states is maintained. Applications and illustrations from standard neoclassical theory are discussed. (shrink)

ExcerptWhen the U.S. State Department Commission on Unalienable Rights issued its report1 on August 26, 2020, one of the questions most frequently asked by journalists was: “What do you expect to become of it?” Or, as one put it more bluntly, “What will prevent this report from just accumulating dust on some forgotten library shelf?”.

Pope Francis's has described his vision for a synodal Church, not simply as a once off programme of renewal, but as God's desire for the Church of the third millennium. As such, it aims to concretise the ecclesiology of the Second Vatican Council, making the Church today more manifestly one of communion, participation, and mission. It differs from previous synods and Councils in history in that it more directly invites and involves all the baptised in a direct process of listening (...) and discernment to the voice of the Holy Spirit. This paper aims to understand from a theological perspective how listening will work in a synodal Church, by exploring firstly what we mean by the ecclesiology of communion from the Council. Such an ecclesiology, manifesting the equal dignity of the faithful in Christ, will ground listening at the level of participation in God as well as acknowledging the gift of infallibility given to the whole Church. It means calling on the Holy Spirit to help discern how and where, the apostolic deposit of faith has been received by members of the body. It also explores what we mean by listening to the sensus fidei of the whole body and how the authority of laity and hierarchy operate both in united but distinct ways within a synodal process grounded in communion ecclesiology. Overall, such listening is to be done carefully for the sake of the Church's mission as the sacrament of salvation to the world. (shrink)

For much of the 20th century, dance writers and critics regularly bemoaned a shortage of male dancers. As one writer put it, the average American father would rather see his son dead than performing on stage in tights. This article looks at commentary about male dancing as a means of understanding popular conceptions of effeminacy. It addresses the way discourses about sport, physical prowess and hard bodies have been appropriated in attempts to validate the manliness of male dancers. Drawing on (...) works by dance educators, critics and dancers, such as Gene Kelly and American modern dancer Ted Shawn, the article looks at gendered notions of the body and movement and the way these have been shaped by the late 19th-century conflation of effeminacy and homosexuality. The athleticism and muscularity of male dancers were to have brought them mainstream respect; that they have yet to do so at all but elite levels reminds us that even the hardest bodies must be read through the limitations of the discursive contexts in which they move. (shrink)

In The Powers of Aristotle’s Soul, Thomas Kjeller Johansen offers a fresh treatment of Aristotle’s De Anima, showing that Aristotle can successfully explain the cause of life and activities of living things by appealing to a minimal number of definitionally independent capacities, in much the way that a faculty psychologist would. Johansen situates Aristotle’s account of the soul within the framework of his natural philosophy, arguing that the definitional independence of the soul’s capacities does not conflict with the internal unity (...) of the soul. In doing so, he offers explanations of the further abilities and capacities of the soul, including phantasia and locomotion.In the first eight chapters of the book .. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Some Basic Definitions Historiography and Myth in Ancient Greece Mythical Historiography in Antiquity Myth vs. Historiography References.

ABSTRACT The criteria for adequate explanation have been the subject of intense debate in the philosophy of social science. This paper examines a variety of explanations of a decade of violence in Kampuchea in order to clarify the dimensions of the Kampuchean tragedy and to challenge both the hypothetico‐deductive and the Verstehen models of explanation central to contemporary debates in the philosophy of social science. Using the Kampuchean case as an example, I suggest that the analyst's propensity to assimilate new (...) information into a tacit, pre‐supposition‐laden conceptual framework contributes to an oversimplification or caricature of the event to be explained. For this reason, no individual explanation of an event can be definitive. An adequate explanation can emerge only from the juxtaposition of and extrapolation from multiple, non‐privileged interpretations representing different methodological and ideological perspectives on the socio‐political event to be explained. (shrink)

Originally published in 1967.This book illustrates how, during the nineteenth century, the idea grew up that the provision of universal education was one of the functions of the state.

A thorough account of the philosophy of mathematics. In a cogent account the author argues against the view that mathematics is solely logic.

Aristotle’s notoriously difficult Metaphysics Ζ, which investigates substance, has been the subject of intense debate in the past twenty years. Myles Burnyeat’s Map of Metaphysics Zeta is a ground-breaking intervention in that discussion. Burnyeat examines the overall shape of Ζ, particularly the signposts that structure the argument and link it to the larger project of First Philosophy in Metaphysics, as well as to the Organon. On his approach, to understand what Ζ says, we must first attend to how the issues (...) are addressed and why they are addressed in that way. The result is a book that challenges cherished assumptions and forces the rethinking of Ζ from several new perspectives. (shrink)

This article draws on ethnographic field data collected during an investigation of the informed consent process and AIDS clinical trials. It describes the involvement of care providers (physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants) during the enlistment, or recruitment, phase of the informed consent process. It shows that sometimes care providers are involved in the receipt, evaluation and distribution of information on clinical trials through their interactions with research professionals and patients. It suggests that the involvement of care providers has the potential (...) to influence the informed consent process. Some of the ethical and practice considerations of this are discussed. (shrink)

Segundo de uma série de três artigos que visam a analisar a utilização do discurso alegórico – em sua vertente alegórica e hermenêutica – em três obras de José Saramago: Memorial do convento, Manual de pintura e caligrafia e O evangelho segundo Jesus Cristo. Neste segundo ensaio, enfocaremos a visão clássica sobre alegoria e metáfora, destacando as três qualidades básicas para a “boa mímeses” – a brevidade, a clareza e a verossimilhança – e os fines da alegoria retórica, os quais (...) eram determinados em função da maior ou da menor clareza existente entre sentido literal e figurado. Analisaremos ainda as diferenças estabelecidas pela Retórica clássica entre tota allegoria, permixta apertis allegoria e mala affectatio, considerando ainda como o Maneirismo e o Barroco, inverteram esses valores e de que modo o Memorial do Convento e o Manual de Pintura e Caligrafia, de José Saramago, resgatam a concepção barroca da alegoria construtiva ou retórica. (shrink)

An exploration of the limitations of the language of "mental health" in the light of suicide epidemics at universities, and a sketch of the existentialist understanding of death as alternative.