In an earlier paper, written in reaction to those who argued that the African National Congress (ANC) had no alternative but to implement neoliberal economic policies in the context of the 'Washington Consensus', I discussed the strategic choices and ideological pitfalls of the 'political class' who took over state power in South Africa after the end of apartheid and implemented its own homegrown structural adjustment programme (Gibson 2001). Much of this transition has been scripted by political science 'transition literature' (...) and much of it is proactive, mapping out what should be done to establish a 'pacted', 'elite' democracy overseeing neoliberal economic policies (O'Donnell, Schmitter & Whitehead 1986). From another vantage point, I argued that Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth is perhaps one of the most perceptive critiques of the transition literature available. This article continues the discussion. (shrink)

Nearly forty years after his death, social philosopher Frantz Fanon remains a towering intellectual figure. Born in Guadeloupe and trained as a psychologist in France, Fanon rejected his French citizenship to join the Algerian liberation movement in the 1950s. A brilliant scholar who developed the theory that some neuroses are socially generated, Fanon's revolutionary works—The Wretched of the Earth, Toward the African Revolution, and Black Skin, White Masks—spurred an African intellectual awakening. The rebirth of Fanonism today in universities and the (...) English-speaking world is a testament to his relevance. Edited by distinguished African-studies professor Nigel C. Gibson, Rethinking Fanon opens with an authoritative biography which corrects fallacious assertions about Fanon's life, situating him in Marxism, Negritude, Pan-Africanism, and the historical context of postwar decolonization, specifically the Algerian revolution. Section one is highlighted by extended discussions of Marx, Fanon's theories on sophisticated forms of cultural racism, and "true liberation." The next section examines Fanon's humanist philosophy, his philosophical and geographical journeys, and his attitude toward the necessity of revolution. Also included is Homi Bhabha's well-known essay "Remembering Fanon," which contemplates the seeming rejection of Fanon in Britain in the 1970s, in contrast to his major following in America and the influence of Fanon on South African writer Steven Biko. Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Edward Said discuss the importance of the 1980s' and 1990s' cultural and literary debates on Fanon. Gates notes that Fanon has been reinstated -not as a global theorist of "third world" revolution, but instead as a critic of English writers and British romanticists. Benita Parry reexamines African nationalism and liberation, and sheds new light on Fanon's questions of identity and agency. This excellent collection reflects the continuing impact of Fanon's thought on African-American and African studies, feminism, postcolonialism, and cultural studies. (shrink)

The impetus for this paper was the attack on the shack dweller movement in South Africa in September 2009. One question that emerged from the attack is what can committed intellectuals do to create active solidarity with movements of "the damned of the earth" in times of crisis. Thinldng of Fanon's critique of middle class anticolonial intellectual in The Wretched of the Earth and of Abahlali's insistence that their thinldng counts, the paper considers Fanon concept of political education rejecting (...) the idea that it is something that a vanguard party, an avant garde artist, a self-appointed leader, the military or even a community educator provides. Instead, the paper advocates a radical ethical move toward a constant dialogue that encourages and appreciates the reason of those so often excluded from decision making. But while an ethical shift toward lived experience is a usefiil foundation, intellectual labor applies itself to a search for new beginnings through developing an intellectual space of action where, potentially, the reflecting "consciousness full of contradictions" can help articulate itsphilosophical principles and realize its notion in fiercely democratic grassroots movements which Abahlali's president, S'bu Zikode, calls a "living communism."One may recall that China and the tables began to dance when the rest of the world appeared to be standing still—pour encourager les autres.Marx, Capital (1977: 164). (shrink)

This chapter discusses slavery in South Africa. Chattel slavery existed in early colonial South Africa from the inception of the Dutch permanent settlement in 1658 until formal emancipation of slaves in the British empire in the 1830s. More than 80,000 slaves were imported from throughout the Indian Ocean world during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Although in the time of apartheid this slave heritage was buried in the public consciousness, since the 1990s museums, historians, and archaeologists have unearthed (...) and published a considerable historical record, endorsed by new heritage legislation which gives special value to sites of slavery. Slave history is taught in universities and schools. However, especially for those descended from slaves in the Western Cape region, the evocation of a slave past has been a vexed process, with slave heritage serving as both a resource and a weapon in contemporary identity struggles. (shrink)

This paper aims to relax the tension between the political requirements of making peace and the moral demands of doing justice, in light of the peace processes in South Africa and Northern Ireland. It begins by arguing that criminal justice should be reconceived as consisting primarily in the vindication of victims, both direct and indirect. This is not to deny the retributive punishment of perpetrators any role at all, only to insist that it be largely subservient to the goal (...) of vindication. Why should we take such an account of justice to be true? The paper offers two reasons. First, Christians – and even secularist liberals – have a prima facie reason in the consonance of this account with the Bible's eudaimonistic conception of justice as ordered to the restoration of healthy community. Second, since all concepts of criminal justice share the basic notion of putting right what is wrong, it would be odd if the repair of damage done to victims (i.e., their vindication) were not prominent among its concerns; and there are reasons to suppose that this vindication should actually predominate in relation to the other principles of justice (the retributive balancing of crime and punishment, and the reform of the criminal for his own sake). In its final sections, the paper applies the proposed conception of criminal justice to the peace processes in South Africa and Northern Ireland, and concludes that in both cases, notwithstanding concessions to the politics of peace-making, considerable justice has been done. (shrink)

The main conclusion of Nigel Hiscock's important but ill‐arranged book is that the ground plans of abbeys and cathedrals of the tenth and eleventh centuries incorporate Platonic wisdom—hence the “wise” in the title catchwords, which come from Paul's first letter to the Corinthians . There Paul likens himself to a sapiens architectus who lays the foundations on which others erect the building. In three of the four translations in The Complete Parallel Bible, however, Paul does not declare himself wise (...) but, rather, “skilled” or “trained.” The discrepancy makes an emblem for Hiscock's investigation: Did the architects deliberately express geometrical ratios significant in Platonic philosophy in their designs or did they proceed by applying their practical skill and training to the lie of the land and the resources available? A subsidiary question is also symbolized in Paul's verse: Was the designer a wise cleric who set the proportions and left the heavy work to someone else?Hiscock builds his answers in two ways. For one, he delivers a chrestomathy of Platonic snippets known in the tenth century and a few telling quotations from wise clerics—the latter concern the expression of significant numbers in the church fabric: a baptistery is octagonal because of an association between creation and the number eight, and a church with a half‐dozen altars is complete because of the perfection of the number six. But, Hiscock emphasizes, numerology does not account for floor plans, and to test the wisdom of the designers he scrutinizes plans of two dozen churches, especially those associated with monastic reformers. He expresses his results in color‐coded lines superposed on the plans, some one hundred of which comprise a valuable appendix.An example will indicate the interest of the findings and the riskiness of the business. The crossing of the transept at St. Michael's Abbey, Hildesheim, makes a square ABCD, proceeding clockwise from A in the northeast corner. AD and BC prolonged give the line of nave piers, AB and DC prolonged that of the arms of the transept. Lines drawn from B at angles of 54° and 60° with BC cut CD extended in E and F, respectively, locating the end piers in the side aisles. Now 60°, as the invariable angle of a three‐sided figure all of whose parts are equal, carries a cornucopia of Platonic and Christian symbolism. Also 54°, because derivable from a pentagon, has the pregnant significance of the figure five, which is the sum of the first male and first female numbers. Repetition of the transept square fixes the nave piers. Then lines between piers, pillars, and pilasters make the special angles with the north‐south and east‐west lines of the grid all over the plan.How much of this construction is mere coincidence? Requiring the intervals between piers in the same line to be equal, we have DE = FE = FD/2. And so it is: / = 0.51. Otherwise put, if angle FBC is 60° and E divides FD equally, angle EBC must be 54° without reference to a pentagon. Against such arguments, Hiscock observes that his analysis has uncovered previously unknown relations between churches confirmed by documents and that his technique, when applied to large nineteenth‐century buildings with repeated bays such as the Crystal Palace, picks out relatively few structurally significant elements.Hiscock is senior lecturer on the design, theory, and history of architecture at Oxford Brookes University and a master craftsman. His scrupulously prepared color‐coded drawings contain much of interest and pleasure for a geometer. Has he definitively answered the old vexed question whether the sapiens architectus intended to express ancient wisdom in his plans? If the architect thus proposed, did his builder faithfully dispose? Paul again may give guidance. “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile”. (shrink)

This collection of essays marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Frantz Fanon’s classic study of anticolonial struggle, _The Wretched of the Earth_. Scholars explore the relevance of Fanon’s work for current modes of psychoanalysis, postcolonial theory, and political thought. One contributor reposes a classic question of postcolonial scholarship: what does it mean for a colonial Caribbean man to practice a Continental intellectual tradition? Others identify Fanon’s experiences working at a mental institution in colonial French Algeria as a powerful (...) influence on his psychoanalytic perspective. This issue revitalizes Fanon’s canonical status as Third World theorist by asserting that the main imperatives of Fanon’s work remain as urgent as ever: combating the psychic and physical violence of colonialism, achieving real forms of liberation for colonized peoples, and ending the degradation of people of color. Contributors: Matthew Abraham, Gerard Aching, John E. Drabinski, Grant Farred, Nigel C. Gibson, Priyamvada Gopal, Joy James, Ranjana Khanna, Alfred J. López, Miguel Mellino, Simon Morgan Wortham, Richard Pithouse Grant Farred is Professor of Africana Studies and English at Cornell University. He is the former editor of the _South Atlantic Quarterly_ and the author, most recently, of_ Long Distance Love: A Passion for Football_. (shrink)

Introduction: "I chose therefore my party & am a whigg": the First and Third Earls of Shaftesbury as political icons / Patrick Muller, Dresden -- Part I. The First Earl of Shaftesbury -- Whig wit: Andrew Marvell and the Earls of Shaftesbury / Nigel Smith, Princeton University -- Trade for peace: a complete account of the First Earl of Shaftesbury: interest in Carolina's Indian trade / Andrew Agha, University of South Carolina, Columbia -- John Locke and the reputation (...) of the First Earl of Shaftesbury / Mark Goldie, University of Cambridge -- Part II. The Third Earl of Shaftesbury in his time -- Shaftesbury, an early voice of the radical enlightenment / Jonathan Israel, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton University -- Shaftesbury and Locke: a tale of three letters / Daniel Carey, National University of Ireland, Galway -- "An equal commonwealth": Lord Ashley and the republican project of the late 1690s / Patrick Muller, Dresden -- Party politics in characteristicks / Jacob Sider Jost, Dickinson College, Carlisle -- Psychological and political balances: the Third Earl of Shaftesbury's reading of James Harrington / Laurent Jaffro -- (Re)defining the commonwealth: Shaftesbury's concept of political freedom / Angela Taraborrelli, St. John's University of Rome -- Shaftesbury's non-secular cosmopolitanism / David Alvarez, DePauw University, Greencastle -- Taste, the people and the public according to the Third Earl of Shaftesbury / Lawrence E. Klein, University of Cambridge -- Part III. The Third Earl of Shaftesbury: afterlife -- Art, morality and choice: the Third Earl of Shaftesbury and John Molesworth / William Molesworth, Dublin -- "Moral painting, by way of dialogue": Shaftesbury in the cry / Rebecca Anne Barr, National University of Ireland, Galway -- "Virtue pointing to her rugged mountain": Shaftesbury in America / James Pratt, University of Toronto -- Radicalizing sympathy: William Godwin's reading of Shaftesbury / Roman A. Barton, Humboldt-Universitat, Berlin. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Ecological Suffering:From a Buddhist PerspectiveSulak Sivaraksa“There will be great suffering caused by our human-created climate change, but we may need to go through this process in order to see the ‘light.’”—Nigel Crawhall (IUCN, CEESP representative, South Africa)Ecological suffering is the result of centuries of abuse of our Earth and environment. It is the effects of numerous overlapping developments that are unsustainable for the most part. It results (...) from violent actions, whether in the shape of colonialism, industrial development, wars, economic growth, the arms race, or capitalist competition between states. More importantly, it is a flaw inherent in the global capitalist system—which is nevertheless seen as the best system to organize human life—and will bring down both capitalism and human survival if we act as if we don’t know about it. I explicitly name capitalism because without doing so any critique will be simply abstract, moralistic, and toothless—such as blaming greed in general or on particular greedy individuals, on human nature, on civilization, and so on. No. Ecological suffering is the result of systemic violence rooted in the global political economy. Although our world cherishes diversity and choice, it is increasingly intolerant of any form of living that resists free market fundamentalism. Ecological suffering is happening on a daily level even if we feel that nothing is happening. Ecological suffering sustains the normalcy of our everyday life as we drive to work, eat our lunch, talk on our mobile phones, connect to the Internet, and so on. It is woven into our daily existence. As such, we don’t want our daily life to be disturbed and often act as if we don’t know about ecological suffering. But it is also experienced unevenly: the poor majority more so than the rich minority, who for now could still buy their way out of the problem; developing societies more than developed ones; and so on.One thing is certain: Our ecosystem is crashing. What should be a circle of life, of interconnected life forms, has already started to work as individual parts going in different directions, leading to malfunctions and negative consequences in many parts [End Page 147] of the system. At the Inter-Religious Dialogue on Climate Change and Biodiversity Conservation in September 2012, a conclusion that was arrived at the conference was a simple but profound one: It is all connected; we are all connected. As I mentioned in my latest book, Wisdom of Sustainability,1 our world and nature works in the same way as the wheel of Dhamma. The wheel of Dhamma can be used to countenance the wheels of state and systemic violence. This is why tackling the environmental problem needs a religious or spiritual dimension.Below, I will reflect on the problems and challenges we face in coping with the impending ecological catastrophe. I link the postponement of the crisis and sustainability with the cultivation of spirituality in ourselves—that is, to search for what has been uprooted and what we need to reclaim or retrieve. Bringing in Buddhist ethics, I will tease out how an interfaith approach to problem solving can benefit our environment by pointing to some concrete suggestions.The starting points of this talk are drawn from The Wisdom of Sustainability and the conference overview of the Inter-Religious Dialogue on Climate Change and Biodiversity Conservation, and I will alternate between these two points, which also structure my talk. The dialogue was held in Sri Lanka in September 2012, at the Islander Center. It was organized by the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB), the Sewalanka Foundation, International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Sri Lanka National Office, and Commission on Environmental Economic and Social Policy (CEESP). At this conference faith leaders, environmental and climate scientists, conservationists, and social activists from all over the world gathered to collaboratively explore the scientific foundations of climate change and biodiversity loss; its social, political, and economic drivers; the impacts of climate change on human societies and the environment; and the underlying human behaviors that contribute to climate change.2The conference used three levels of engagement to frame the creation of a roadmap for action... (shrink)

Nigel Blake; Peace Education and National Security, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 19, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 27–38, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.

The word 'athletics' is derived from the Greek verb 'to struggle for a prize'. After reading this book, no one will see the Olympics as a graceful display of Greek beauty again, but as war by other means. Nigel Spivey paints a portrait of the Greek Olympics as they really were - fierce contests between bitter rivals, in which victors won kudos and rewards, and losers faced scorn and even assault. Victory was almost worth dying for, and a number (...) of athletes did just that. Many more resorted to cheating and bribery. Contested always bitterly and often bloodily, the ancient Olympics were not an idealistic celebration of unity, but a clash of military powers in an arena not far removed from the battlefield. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Nigel Blake; Justifying Peace Education: a reply to Professor Flew, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 20, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 257–264, https://.

This book argues that the institutions of law, and the structures of legal thought, are to be understood by reference to a moral ideal of freedom or independence from the power of others. The moral value and justificatory force of law are not contingent upon circumstance, but intrinsic to its character. Doctrinal legal arguments are shaped by rival conceptions of the conditions for realization of the idea of law. In making these claims, the author rejects the viewpoint of much contemporary (...) legal theory, and seeks to move jurisprudence closer to an older tradition of philosophical reflection upon law, exemplified by Hobbes and Kant. Modern analytical jurisprudence has tended to view these older philosophies as confused precisely in so far as they equate an understanding of law's nature with a revelation of its moral basis. According to most contemporary legal theorists, the understanding and analysis of existing institutions is quite distinct from any enterprise of moral reflection, but the relationship between ideals and practices is much more intimate than this approach would suggest. Some institutions can be properly understood only when they are viewed as imperfect attempts to realize moral or political ideals; and some ideals can be conceived only by reference to their expression in institutions. (shrink)

Sinnott, Nigel Review of: Dare to stand alone: The story of Charles Bradlaugh, by Bryan Niblett, Oxford: Kramedart Press, 2010, 2011, viii, 391 pp., 4 plates. ISBN 978-0-9564743-0-8.

Sinnott, Nigel I had been looking forward to 29 July 1962 for a very long time. It marked the end often years spent at two English private boarding schools with their ethos of 'muscular Christianity': a proto-fascist mix of semi-monastic living, lots of compulsory sport and relentless Anglican religious indoctrination. I had loathed almost every day I had spent at these schools, as I disliked ball games and strenuous exercise from the outset, and by the time I was ten, (...) or maybe a few months older, I was a staunch atheist. I was by temperament a studious, imaginative and inquiring boy, but I loathed the formality, petty regimentation, narrow conservative mind-set, intolerance and sometimes brutality of the school system in which I found myself. I had spent a decade feeling confined, frustrated, very bored, often cold and sometimes frightened. I resolved that, if I ever had children of my own, they would never be brought up and 'educated' like this. (shrink)

Nigel Harris argues that the notion of national capital is becoming redundant as cities and their citizens, increasingly unaffected by borders and national boundaries, take center stage in the economic world. Harris deconstructs this phenomenon and argues for the immense benefits it could and should have, not just for western wealth, but for economies worldwide, for international communication and for global democracy.

(2002). Against war as a response to terrorism. Philosophy & Geography: Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 29-34.

This is in part a reflection on issues raised by David Cooper in his paper entitled ‘The Idea of Environment’ , a paper that I have an ambiguous attitude towards. On the one hand it has opened my eyes to a way of thinking about the environment, namely as a field of significance, but on the other hand it seems to be unfortunate in its tone of negative criticism of much of the thinking of deep environmentalists, and wrong in its (...) dismissal of the idea that the environment as a whole should be a field of significance. (shrink)

There is currently a debate about resilience and wellbeing of law students and legal practitioners. Tension has developed between a movement promoting the wellbeing of students and those who critic...

Actualmente existe una importante interfaz entre matemáticas y física teórica, que ha producido áreas completamente nuevas. Este artículo está basado en un debate en una mesa redonda organizada en el entorno del International Congress of Mathematicians en 2006 de Madrid, explora algunos de estos temas: los diferentes objetivos y pasado de ambas disciplinas, las interacciones actuales y sus precedentes, las posibilidades para el futuro y el papel de las matemáticas para entender el mundo en que vivimos.

One of the most significant philosophical voices of the twentieth century - the philosopher of 'the Other' - Emmanuel Levinas' work offers a challenge to the discipline of anthropology that claims knowledge of the human. Levinasian philosophy considers subjectivity and identity as 'secret'. For him an attempt to document humanity should then be placed in an ethics of ignorance and 'not-knowing' so that 'otherness' can be inspired. Anthropology thus reaches the Levinasian challenge of defining itself as a humanistic science as (...) well as a humanistic documentation of social life. This book endeavours to take Levinasian and anthropological precepts equally seriously and offers tentative conclusions. (shrink)

As the 20th century began, few effective therapies existed. This soon changed with major therapeutic discoveries turning the century into what has been called the golden age of therapeutics.1 The emphasis of most of these developments was on medicines for common disorders as they presented the greatest need. However, it also allowed pharmaceutical manufacturers to produce blockbuster drugs that provided a large return on investment. Rare disorders were overlooked because most are genetic in origin and scientific knowledge was lacking, making (...) it difficult to find treatments. The first genetic disorder with a therapy was phenylketonuria. The biochemist who proposed the first successful treatment in the 1950s was actively discouraged as phenylketonuria was genetic and ‘incurable’.2 Another reason was an absence of incentives to invest in developing medicines for which the return was limited, given the small numbers of potential patients. This changed from 1983 as several countries began introducing orphan drug policies, with Canada being a notable exception. As the millennium changed, some drugs for rare disorders were available, but the sequencing of the human genome in the early 2000s provided scientific knowledge to develop many more. The new therapies are often costly because they require millions, even billions, of dollars and years to develop, test and satisfy regulatory standards. …. (shrink)

The first book to look architectural narrative in the eye Since the early eighties, many architects have used the term "narrative" to describe their work. To architects the enduring attraction of narrative is that it offers a way of engaging with the way a city feels and works. Rather than reducing architecture to mere style or an overt emphasis on technology, it foregrounds the experiential dimension of architecture. Narrative Architecture explores the potential for narrative as a way of interpreting buildings (...) from ancient history through to the present, deals with architectural background, analysis and practice as well as its future development. Authored by Nigel Coates, a foremost figure in the field of narrative architecture, the book is one of the first to address this subject directly Features architects as diverse as William Kent, Antoni Gaudí, Eero Saarinen, Ettore Sottsass, Superstudio, Rem Koolhaas, and FAT to provide an overview of the work of NATO and Coates, as well as chapters on other contemporary designers Includes over 120 colour photographs Signposting narrative's significance as a design approach that can aid architecture to remain relevant in this complex, multi-disciplinary and multi-everything age, Narrative Architecture is a must-read for anyone with an interest in architectural history and theory. (shrink)

In Cosmopolitan Love and Individuality, Nigel Rapport outlines his quest for an ethic of social recognition and inclusion based on shared humanity rather than membership of fictional social, and cultural groupings such as nationalities, religions, and ethnicities. The book proposes love as the glue for social inclusion, where love is the emotional recognition of other individual human beings.

Nigel Blake; A Position in Society, an Intimate Constraint, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 26, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 271–276, https://doi.org/.

Nigel Blake; Intellectual Freedom and the Universities: a reply to Anthony O'Hear, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 22, Issue 2, 30 May 2006, Pages 25.

Timely and much-needed theory of humanity's relation to the planet.

Against the domination of moral deliberation by rights-talk In Defence of War asserts that belligerency can be morally justified, even while it is tragic and morally flawed. Recovering the early Christian tradition of just war thinking, Nigel Biggar argues in favour of aggressive war in punishment of grave injustice.

World Ethics: The New Agenda identifies different ways of thinking about ethics, and of thinking ethically about international and global relations. It also considers several theories of world ethics in the context of issues such as war and peace, world poverty, the environment and the United Nations. The discussion is grounded in an awareness of the post-9/11 world in which we live and offers a more detailed exploration of the idea of global citizenship and a global or cosmopolitan ethic.

What can computers do in principle? What are their inherent theoretical limitations? These are questions to which computer scientists must address themselves. The theoretical framework which enables such questions to be answered has been developed over the last fifty years from the idea of a computable function: intuitively a function whose values can be calculated in an effective or automatic way. This book is an introduction to computability theory (or recursion theory as it is traditionally known to mathematicians). Dr Cutland (...) begins with a mathematical characterisation of computable functions using a simple idealised computer (a register machine); after some comparison with other characterisations, he develops the mathematical theory, including a full discussion of non-computability and undecidability, and the theory of recursive and recursively enumerable sets. The later chapters provide an introduction to more advanced topics such as Gildel's incompleteness theorem, degrees of unsolvability, the Recursion theorems and the theory of complexity of computation. Computability is thus a branch of mathematics which is of relevance also to computer scientists and philosophers. Mathematics students with no prior knowledge of the subject and computer science students who wish to supplement their practical expertise with some theoretical background will find this book of use and interest. (shrink)

The following remarks were prepared as a response to Mary Ellen O'Connell's plenary address, "The Just War Tradition and International Law against War: The Myth of Discordant Doctrines," at the 2015 annual meeting of the Society of Christian Ethics. O'Connell's essay appears in this issue of the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. After noting some points of agreement, the response discusses five main issues: the moral complexity of "peace," the consonance of a peremptory norm against aggression with just (...) war thinking, the formative role of controversial political convictions in the interpretation of international law, the political defects of the current international legal system, and the efficacy of military intervention. (shrink)

Recent events, such as the widespread acceptance of the book, Final Exit, show that the very foundation upon which all humane medical practice is ba sed is in danger of being replaced with ethical relativism. Cameron's book could very well be a rallying point for those in the profession who know something is wrong. Endorsed by C. Everett Koop.

Analysis of the degree of intraspecific morphological polymorphism during the evolutionary history of trilobites using an informatic approach1 provides striking evidence of a long‐suspected but previously unsubstantiated pattern: degrees of polymorphism are markedly higher in phylogenetically basal, stratigraphically early species. This unequivocal pattern prompts further exploration of the relationship between microevolutionary variance and macroevolutionary history. It demonstrates that the ‘traditional’ fossil record of skeletonized organisms can provide unique insight into questions of major evolutionary interest. BioEssays 29:1081–1084, 2007. © 2007 Wiley (...) Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Theoretical identity statements of the form "water is H2O‟ are allegedly necessary truths knowable a posteriori, and assert that nothing could be water and not be H2O. The necessary a posteriori nature of these identity claims has been taken by Kripke, Putnam and Donnellan to justify a move from talk of reference (language) to talk of essence (metaphysics), and has motivated much of contemporary essentialism. In this paper I will contest this move from reference to essence, and argue that (i.) (...) the only way to derive essentialism from semantics (specifically direct reference) is to assume it as a premise, (ii.) that contemporary essentialism is a metaphysical assumption not a thesis, and (iii.) – assuming the accuracy of the analogy between proper names and natural kind terms – present an alternative version of natural kinds classification that is interest-relative, dependent on practical application and reflects the contingent state of affairs which is our world. (shrink)