The Augustinian text is being radically rewritten by contemporary theologians to render it compatible with various proposals for a postmodern Christianity. The proximate stimulus is Derrida's deconstruction of the argument of the Confessions. What is positive and what is wanting in his appropriation of the Augustinian dialectic is reviewed, as also what can and cannot be seen of the historical Augustine from within the purview of a postmodern theology.

Pushing past the constraints of postmodernism which cast "reason" and"religion" in opposition, God, the Gift, and Postmodernism, seizes the opportunity to question the authority of "the modern" and open the limits of possible experience, including the call to religious experience, as a new millennium approaches. Jacques Derrida, the father of deconstruction, engages with Jean-Luc Marion and other religious philosophers to entertain questions about intention, givenness, and possibility which reveal the extent to which deconstruction is structured like religion. New interpretations of (...) Kant, Heidegger, Husserl, and Derrida emerge from essays and discussions with distinguished philosophers and theologians from the United States and Europe. The result is that God, the Gift, and Postmodernism elaborates a radical phenomenology that stretches the limits of its possibility and explores areas where philosophy and religion have become increasingly and surprisingly convergent. Contributors include: John D. Caputo, John Dominic Crossan, Jacques Derrida, Robert Dodaro, Richard Kearney, Jean-Luc Marion, Frangoise Meltzer, Michael J. Scanlon, Mark C. Taylor, David Tracy, Merold Westphal and Edith Wyschogrod. (shrink)

The Influence of Augustine on Heidegger: The Emergence of an Augustinian Phenomenology, edited with an Introduction by Craig J. N. de Paulo Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press, 2006. Details: Preface by John Macquarrie and distinguished contributors include Robert Dodaro, O.S.A., Peg Birmingham, Theodore Kisiel, Daniel Dahlstrom, George Pattison, James K. A. Smith, Wayne Hankey and Matthias Fritsch. (Advance Praise by James J. O’Donnell, Jaroslav Pelikan and Joseph Margolis and reviewed in the American Catholic Philosophy Quarterly, vol. 82, (...) Spring 2008, issue no. 2, in article form.) Bishop de Paulo is the founder of "Augustinian phenomenology," a field within phenomenology that merges the Christian existential thought of Augustine with the methodology of Martin Heidegger. (shrink)

In the past two decades scholars such as Robert Dodaro, Kathy Eden, and Michael Cameron have called attention to the influence that Augustine’s rhetorical education had on his scriptural hermeneutic. Recently, M. Cameron has argued that Augustine began to incorporate the rhetorical concept of oeconomia into his scriptural hermeneutic during his time in Milan. This article expands on Cameron’s work by establishing that Augustine had in fact incorporated rhetorical oeconomia into his scriptural hermeneutic by 387 / 8 C.E. (...) through a focused reading of two texts from De moribus ecclesiae. This reading demonstrates that the terminology and logic that Augustine employs to argue for the unity of the Christian scriptures in mor. 1.17.30 and 1.28.56 mirror the terminology and logic of the Latin rhetorical tradition, revealing that Augustine uses the phrases mirifica dispositio and admirabilis ordo to represent the same concept that Quintilian had referred to with the phrase oeconomica dispositio. (shrink)

Neo-teleology is the two part thesis that, e.g., (i) we have hearts because of what hearts are for: Hearts are for blood circulation, not the production of a pulse, so hearts are there--animals have them--because their function is to circulate the blood, and (ii) that (i) is explained by natural selection: traits spread through populations because of their functions. This paper attacks this popular doctrine. The presence of a biological trait or structure is not explained by appeal to its function. (...) To suppose otherwise is to trivialize natural selection. (shrink)

Author Robert Wright shows how Buddhist meditative practice can loosen the grip of anxiety, regret, and hatred, and deepen your appreciation of beauty and other people." -- Adapted from book jacket.

Hegel's holistic metaphysics challenges much recent ontology with its atomistic and reductionist assumptions; Stern offers us an original reading of Hegel and contrasts him with his predecessor, Kant.

The first unquestionably big idea in the history of philosophy was the idea of form. The idea of course belonged to Plato, and was then domesticated at the hands of Aristotle, who paired form with matter as the two chief principles of his metaphysics and natural philosophy. In the medieval period, it was Aristotle’s conception of form and matter that generally dominated. This was true for both the Islamic and the Christian tradition, once the entire Aristotelian corpus became available. For (...) this reason, although there is much to say about the fate of Platonic Forms in medieval thought, the present chapter will focus on the Aristotelian tradition.1 Aristotelian commentators have been puzzled by form and matter for as long as there have been Aristotelian commentators. Indeed, it would not be too much to say that these are topics about which Aristotelians have never formed a very clear conception, and that their failure to do so was the principal reason why Aristotelianism ceased to be a flourishing research program from the seventeenth century onward. For those who aspire to a modern revival of Aristotelianism, the concepts of form and matter can easily take on the aspect of a kind of Holy Grail, such that if only we could get these ideas clearly in focus, we could see our way forward on any number of philosophical fronts, such as the union of mind and body, the coherence and endurance of substances, the nature of causality, and so on. The historical record, however, suggests that this hope is a snare and delusion, insofar as there has never been any such thing as the theory of form and matter. Although medieval philosophers of all kinds used this terminology incessantly, it had no more of a fixed meaning than does the ubiquitous contemporary philosophical talk of “properties.” Hence, the most a general survey of the topic can do is consider some of the more important areas of agreement and disagreement. (shrink)

Group beneficial norms are common in human societies. The persistence of such norms is consistent with evolutionary game theory, but existing models do not provide a plausible explanation for why they are common. We show that when a model of imitation used to derive replicator dynamics in isolated populations is generalized to allow for population structure, group beneficial norms can spread rapidly under plausible conditions. We also show that this mechanism allows recombination of different group beneficial norms arising in..

Selected by CHOICE as an Outstanding Academic Book for 1995.

In this paper, I first present the ideas and arguments put forward by evolutionary psychologists that humans evolved certain capacities to creatively problem solve. Specifically, Steven Mithen thinks that creative problem solving is possible because the mind has evolved a conscious capacity he calls cognitive fluidity, the flexible exchange of information between and among mental modules. While I agree with Mithen that cognitive fluidity acts as a necessary condition for creative problem solving, I disagree that cognitive fluidity alone will suffice (...) for such an activity. I argue further that the flexible exchange of information between and among modules, as well as what I call scenario visualization - a conscious ability to segregate and integrate visual images in future scenarios - evolved in our species and accounts for certain kinds of creative problem solving. (shrink)

Mesoscale modeling is often considered merely as a practical strategy used when information on lower-scale details is lacking, or when there is a need to make models cognitively or computationally tractable. Without dismissing the importance of practical constraints for modeling choices, we argue that mesoscale models should not just be considered as abbreviations or placeholders for more “complete” models. Because many systems exhibit different behaviors at various spatial and temporal scales, bottom-up approaches are almost always doomed to fail. Mesoscale models (...) capture aspects of multi-scale systems that cannot be parameterized by simple averaging of lower-scale details. To understand the behavior of multi-scale systems, it is essential to identify mesoscale parameters that “code for” lower-scale details in a way that relate phenomena intermediate between microscopic and macroscopic features. We illustrate this point using examples of modeling of multi-scale systems in materials science and biology, where identification of material parameters such as stiffness or strain is a central step. The examples illustrate important aspects of a so-called “middle-out” modeling strategy. Rather than attempting to model the system bottom-up, one starts at intermediate scales where systems exhibit behaviors distinct from those at the atomic and continuum scales. One then seeks to upscale and downscale to gain a more complete understanding of the multi-scale system. The cases highlight how parameterization of lower-scale details not only enables tractable modeling but is also central to understanding functional and organizational features of multi-scale systems. (shrink)

An application of Young's Habermasian critical theory of education to classroom communication problems of teachers in schools, with a special focus on the question/answer cycle and its educational role. The book uses classroom transcripts extensively in the analysis.

Exploring Certainty: Wittgenstein and Wide Fields of Thought considers how, where, and to what extent the thoughts and ideas found in Wittgenstein’s On Certainty can be applied to other areas of thought, including: ethics, aesthetics, religious belief, mathematics, cognitive science, and political theory. Robert Greenleaf Brice opens new avenues of thought for scholars and students of the Wittgensteinian tradition, while introducing original philosophies about human knowledge and cognition.

Most human populations are subdivided into ethnic groups which have self-ascribed membership and are marked by seemingly arbitrary traits such as distinctive styles of dress or speech. Existing explanations of ethnicity do not adequately explain the origin and maintenance of group marking. Here we develop a mathematical model which shows that groups distinguished by both differences in social norms and in arbitrary markers can emerge and remain stable despite significant mixing between them, if (1) people preferentially interact in mutually beneficial (...) social interaction with people who have the same marker as they do, and (2) they acquire their markers and social behaviors by imitating successful individuals. We also show that the propensity to interact with people with markers like oneself may be favored by natural selection under plausible conditions. (shrink)

Complexity–nonlinear dynamics for my purposes in this essay–is rich with metaphysical and epistemological implications but is only recently receiving sustained philosophical analysis. I will explore some of the subtleties of causation and constraint in Rayleigh-Bénard convection as an example of a complex phenomenon, and extract some lessons for further philosophical reflection on top-down constraint and causation particularly with respect to causal foundationalism.

Understanding cooperation and punishment in small-scale societies is crucial for explaining the origins of human cooperation. We studied warfare among the Turkana, a politically uncentralized, egalitarian, nomadic pastoral society in East Africa. Based on a representative sample of 88 recent raids, we show that the Turkana sustain costly cooperation in combat at a remarkably large scale, at least in part, through punishment of free-riders. Raiding parties comprised several hundred warriors and participants are not kin or day-to-day interactants. Warriors incur substantial (...) risk of death and produce collective benefits. Cowardice and desertions occur. (shrink)

Rice, Robert James William Gleeson was born in Balaklava, a town in the mid-north of South Australia, on 24 December 1920. The son of John Joseph Gleeson and Margaret Mary O'Connell, he was the third born of six children - the elder brother of Thomas, John and Raphael (Ray), and the younger brother of Mary. The first-born child, also Mary, born in Balaklava on 6 May 1918, died one hour after birth. She was baptised during her short life.

The first five chapters of the second book of Aristotle's Politics contain a series of criticisms levelled against Plato's Republic. Despite the abundance of studies that have been done on Aristotle's Politics, these chapters have for the most part been neglected; there has been no book-length study of them this century. In this important new book, Robert Mayhew fills this unfortunate gap in Aristotelian scholarship, analyzing these chapters in order to discover what they tell us about Aristotle's political philosophy. (...) Mayhew demonstrates that in Politics II 1-5, Aristotle is presenting his views on an extremely fundamental issue: the unity of the city. Indeed, he states, almost all of Aristotle's criticisms of the Republic center on this important subject in one way or another. Only by understanding Aristotle's views on the proper unity of the city, Mayhew explains, can we adequately discover his views on the proper relationship between the individual and the city. Students and scholars of classical political philosophy will be greatly interested in this innovative book. (shrink)

Based on the thesis of R. Muller (doctoral)--Universite de Paris IV.

"This book discusses the vast and complex range of choices in between blanket amnesty and total accountability through criminal justice, and does so with ...

We compare Gödel’s and Brouwer’s explorations of mysticism and its relation to mathematics.

In this accessible and comprehensive work, Robert Solomon and Kathleen Higgins cover the entire history of philosophy--ancient, medieval, and modern, from cultures both East and West--in its broader historical and cultural contexts. Major philosophers and movements are discussed along with less well-known but interesting figures. The authors examine the early Greek, Indic, and Chinese philosophers and the mythological traditions that preceded them, as well as the great religious philosophies, including Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, and Taoism. Easily understandable to students without (...) specialized knowledge of philosophy, A Short History of Philosophy demonstrates the relevance of philosophy to our times, illuminating the impact of the revolutions wrought by science, industry, colonialism, and sectarian warfare; the two world wars and the Holocaust; and the responses of philosophy in the schools of existentialism, postmodernism, feminism, and multiculturalism. In addition, the authors provide their own twists and interpretations of events, resulting in a broad view of the nature of philosophy as an intellectual discipline and its sometimes odd and dramatic consequences. (shrink)

1. We are unknown to ourselves, we knowing ones, we to our own selves, and for a good reason. We have never sought ourselves – so how could it happen, that one day we would find ourselves? Someone once correctly said: “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also”;1 our treasure is where the beehives of our knowledge are. We are always on the way to finding it; as winged creatures and honey-gatherers of the spirit, we truly care (...) for only one thing from the heart: to “bring something home.” Whatever else concerns life, the so-called “experiences” – who among us has enough seriousness for them? Or enough time? In these matters we have been, I fear, somewhat distracted: our hearts have not quite been in it, and not even our ears! More often, like some divine scatter-brain absorbed-in-himself into whose ear the bell has tolled the twelve strikes of noon at full power, who then suddenly wakes up and asks himself, “What was really just struck?”, just like that we rub our ears afterwards and ask, completely amazed, completely embarrassed, “what did we really experience?” and further, “who are we really?” and afterwards, as said, count the twelve trembling bell-strikes of our experience, our life, our being – ugh! and miscount them . . . We necessarily remain strangers to ourselves, we do not understand ourselves, we must get ourselves wrong, for us the saying “Each is furthest from himself” holds for all eternity – we are not “knowing ones” with respect to ourselves. (shrink)

Uses textual and archaeological evidence to argue that emerging Egyptian and Greek architectural technologies were crucial to the origins and development of Greek philosophy.

It is often held that to have a conscious experience presupposes having some form of implicit self-awareness. The most dominant phenomenological view usually claims that we essentially perceive experiences as our own. This is the so called “mineness” character, or dimension of experience. According to this view, mineness is not only essential to conscious experience, it also grounds the idea that pre-reflective self-awareness constitutes a minimal self. In this paper, we show that there are reasons to doubt this constituting role (...) of mineness. We argue that there are alternative possibilities and that the necessity for an adequate theory of the self within psychopathology gives us good reasons to believe that we need a thicker notion of the pre-reflective self. To this end, we develop such a notion: the Pre-Reflective Situational Self. To do so, we will first show how alternative conceptions of pre-reflective self-awareness point to philosophical problems with the standard phenomenological view. We claim that this is mainly due to fact that within the phenomenological account the mineness aspect is implicitly playing several roles. Consequently, we argue that a thin interpretation of pre-reflective self-awareness—based on a thin notion of mineness—cannot do its needed job within, at least within psychopathology. This leads us to believe that a thicker conception of pre-reflective self is needed. We, therefore, develop the notion of the pre-reflective situational self by analyzing the dynamical nature of the relation between self-awareness and the world, specifically through our interactive inhabitation of the social world. (shrink)