Thomas Jefferson and Philosophy: Essays on the Philosophical Cast of Jefferson’s Writings is a collection of essays on topics that relate to philosophical aspects of Jefferson’s thinking over the years. Much historical insight is given to ground the various philosophical strands in Jefferson’s thought and writing on topics such as political philosophy, moral philosophy, slavery, republicanism, wall of separation, liberty, educational philosophy, and architecture.

Formulated by Aquinas, commented on by post-Copernican philosophers and theologians, analysed in depth by C.S. Lewis, and deliberated by some contemporary writers, the question of multiple incarnations either within humanity or amongst extra-terrestrial sentient species is all too intermittently examined: ‘Can the Christ be incarnated more than once in our reality, or somewhere else in the universe, or another reality?’ In this paper, we examine the debate and the conclusions: that is, Lewis’s position within his philosophical theology and his analogical (...) narratives; also, some contemporary philosophers of religion and theologians (Karl Rahner, with Christopher L. Fisher and David Fergusson; Sjoerd L. Bonting and William B. Drees; E.L. Mascall and Brian Hebblethwaite; Oliver Crisp and Keith Ward). How do they relate to Aquinas’s handling of the question and how do they compare with Lewis’s approach based on a theology of the imagination (grounded in Augustine and Alice Meynell)? Can Lewis resolve the argument? Could alien species have witnessed wholly different acts, equally unique, costly to God, and necessary to the process of salvation? Any answer or explanation relates to the function and purpose of the incarnation: the Fall, original sin—therefore, how we define the boundaries, limits, of atonement. (shrink)

This article examines the ACPA/NASPA Competencies as functional protocol of the neoliberal state. Described as ‘not a checklist’, Competencies structure rubrics, conferences, jobs, and performance as static, indicative of a power/knowledge rooted in protocol. We utilize post qualitative thinking, specifically poetics, to create a series of experimentations (in)tension with Competencies. This micropolitical practice disrupts protocol, opening imaginative space for subversion, movement, and becoming ∼ professional.

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Can Levinas’ thought of the other be extended beyond the relation to the other human being? This article seeks to demonstrate that Levinas’ philosophy can indeed be read in such a sense and that this serves to open up a new way of understanding human thinking. Key to understanding such an extension of Levinas’ philosophy will be his account of the face and, more particularly, his claim that the relation to the face is ‘heard in language’. Through explicating what is (...) at stake in this claim, we will work to show how Levinas’ philosophy leads us away from what might be called a tradition of understanding human thought through the medium of light and takes us toward a conception of thinking that is conditioned by sound. In the final section of the article, we consider what such a shift might suggest for the ways we understand thinking in both educational and everyday contexts. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article applies Deleuze's metaphysics of multiplicities to groups of people, arguing that organized groups can be said to have mental states in the same sense as individuals. I begin by outlining the genealogy of Deleuze's use of the concept of multiplicity, beginning with Riemann and continuing through Bergson. Deleuze's transformation of these two thinkers' ideas results in a concept of any individual as a conjunction of two types of multiplicity, one relating to its material parts and one relating (...) to its ideal or virtual parts. I then turn to Deleuze's theory of the mental faculties and argue that it describes a virtual multiplicity that, for Deleuze, is instantiated in human beings and other entities that can be said to think or have minds. I argue that many organized social groups have these mental faculties in the same way that individual people do and that therefore they can be said to have minds and mental states of their own, independent of the mental states of their members. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:RELIGION AND SYMBOLIC VIOLENCE Paul Ricoeur Université de Nanterre Paris X These are issues that I take very much to heart, so I will risk my own thoughts on the relation between religion and violence, not excluding the violence in and ofreligion. This is to say that I am not evading the objection made by Jean-Pierre Changeux in a recent discussion, namely, that religion as such produces violence. (...) I do not wish to evade the objection nor to hide behind the collateral explanation that it is when religion is detoured by politics that it produces violence. It is the presupposition that religion produces violence that brings me into discussion with René Girard. I encountered his work several decades ago and I have met him intermittently, with moments of distancing and rediscovery. This is the case for me again today regarding one of his later books, The Scapegoat. I cannot forget the dazzling excitement of 1972 when Violence and the Sacred first appeared. And then for me came a moment of hesitation, of doubt: isn't this explanation too psychologizing? Aren't the Gospels too easily exonerated ofthe accusation ofviolence? But I thereafter experienced disappointment with alternative accounts, principally sociological ones, and in particular with the one given by Maurice Bloch in La Violence du religieux. I am going to take the risk of a personal interpretation ofthe intimate relation between religion and violence. My own conviction, at bottom, is that I have been able, by broadening and deepening the issue, to discern the point where this very movement of going deeper bifurcates and branches out toward external violence. I have clarified my position in La Critique et la conviction and in my more recent debate with J.R Changeux, Ce quifait que nouspensons on this complicity between religion and violence. And it was in pursuing the direction opened up in La Critique et la conviction that I rediscovered an 2 Paul Ricoeur interest in The Scapegoat. I found his interpretation not only to be complementary to my own, but its necessary complement. I will now proceed to show how René Girard's thesis is necessary to my own thinking. So now I will go directly to my interpretive proposal, then I will turn to the position of Bloch in La Violence du religieux, a sociological interpretation, in order to come back in the end to Girard. It is by way of reflection on tolerance considered as a progressive initiation that I arrived at the interpretation I am going to present. At its minimal state, we find only the tolerance ofthe intolerant person, who states, "I don't agree with what you believe, I disapprove of it, but I cannot prevent it. I tolerate it in the sense of not being able to prevent it; I would like to prevent it, but I do not have the power to do so." At a second level, tolerance is more positive, saying, "I maintain the conviction that I am the one who has the truth, but I recognize, by way of being accommodating, that you have the right to profess what I hold as false, and I do this in the name ofjustice. That is to say, you certainly have the right, and it is one equal to mine, to profess what you believe, although I take it as false." I would say that the force of the principle ofjustice as thus expressed is this: any other life is worth as much as mine. Let us say that what I recognize here is the right to error. But at this stage I am torn within by the truth that I believe to be unilaterally mine and the justice that entails recognition ofthe other, which I place on another level from that oftruth. I make a further step in pursuing the issue, at a level farther advanced, when I say, "My adversary has perhaps a part ofthe truth but I don't know what it is." I would say that this is the perspectival version oftolerance: the other person sees a side of things, which I cannot see. But our positions cannot be substituted for each other. At this stage there is a... (shrink)

In this article, we entangle with Aaron Kuntz’s book The Responsible Methodologist, extending the conversation beyond research into the realms of teaching, learning, and daily lived practices as twenty-first century academics. Kuntz advocates for parrhesiastic living and inquiry, defined as truth-telling and intervention toward ends of disrupting normative practices of knowing and being and enacting socially just ends. We grapple with three philosophical ∼ theroetical propositions made by Kuntz: entangled knowing ∼ being; citizenship; and logics of extraction. Utilizing examples from (...) our own lived experiences, pedagogy, and inquiry, we open a series of philosophical and theoretical dialogues around these three topics to better understand their possibilities and limitations, grappling, and debating how they are jumping off points for living more parrhesiastically. (shrink)

This volume addresses a wide variety of moral concerns regarding slavery as an institutionalized social practice. By considering the slave's critical appropriation of the natural rights doctrine, the ambiguous implications of various notions of consent and liberty are examined. The authors assume that, although slavery is undoubtedly an evil social practice, its moral assessment stands in need of a more nuanced treatment. They address the question of what is wrong with slavery by critically examining, and in some cases endorsing, certain (...) principles derived from communitarianism, paternalism, utilitarianism, and jurisprudence. (shrink)

Quantificational determiners are often said to be devices for expressing relations. For example, the meaning of _every_ is standardly described as the inclusion relation, with a sentence like _every frog is green_ meaning roughly that the green things include the frogs. Here, we consider an older, non-relational alternative: determiners are tools for creating restricted quantifiers. On this view, determiners specify how many elements of a restricted domain (e.g., the frogs) satisfy a given condition (e.g., being green). One important difference concerns (...) how the determiner treats its two grammatical arguments. On the relational view, the arguments are on a logical par as independent terms that specify the two relata. But on the restricted view, the arguments play distinct logical roles: specifying the limited domain versus supplying an additional condition on domain entities. We present psycholinguistic evidence suggesting that the restricted view better describes what speakers know when they know the meaning of a determiner. In particular, we find that when asked to evaluate sentences of the form _every F is G_, participants mentally group the Fs but not the Gs. Moreover, participants forego representing the group defined by the intersection of F and G. This tells against the idea that speakers understand _every F is G_ as implying that the Fs bear relation (e.g., inclusion) to a second group. (shrink)

Pragmatists have traditionally been enemies of representationalism but friends of naturalism, when naturalism is understood to pertain to human subjects, in the sense of Hume and Nietzsche. In this volume Huw Price presents his distinctive version of this traditional combination, as delivered in his René Descartes Lectures at Tilburg University in 2008. Price contrasts his view with other contemporary forms of philosophical naturalism, comparing it with other pragmatist and neo-pragmatist views such as those of Robert Brandom and Simon Blackburn. Linking (...) their different 'expressivist' programmes, Price argues for a radical global expressivism that combines key elements from both. With Paul Horwich and Michael Williams, Brandom and Blackburn respond to Price in new essays. Price replies in the closing essay, emphasising links between his views and those of Wilfrid Sellars. The volume will be of great interest to advanced students of philosophy of language and metaphysics. (shrink)

This volume brings together Paul Williams's previously published papers on the Indian and Tibetan interpretations of selected verses from the eighth and ninth chapters of the Bodhicaryavatara. In addition, there is a much longer version of the paper 'Identifying the Object of Negation', and nearly half the book consists of a wholly new essay, 'The Absence of Self and the Removal of Pain', subtitled 'How Santideva Destroyed the Bodhisattva Path'. This book will be of interest to those concerned with (...) the history and interpretation of Indian and Tibetan philosophy. (shrink)

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Science can reveal or conceal the breathtaking wonders of creation. On one hand, knowledge of the natural world can open us up to greater love for the Creator, give us the means of more neighborly care, and fill us with ever-deepening astonishment. On the other hand, knowledge feeding an insatiable hunger for epistemic mastery can become a means of idolatry, hubris, and damage. Crucial to world-respecting science is the role of wonder: curiosity, perplexity, and astonishment. In this volume, philosopher (...) class='Hi'>William Desmond explores the relation of the different modes of wonder to modern science. Responding to his thought are twelve thinkers across the domains of science, theology, philosophy, law, poetry, medicine, sociology, and art restoration. (shrink)

Joyful Human Rights espouses a joy-centered approach that provides new insights into foundational human rights issues. William Paul Simmons offers a framework -- surveying a more comprehensive understanding of human experiences -- for theorizing and practicing a more affirmative and robust notion of human rights.

Journal of Applied Philosophy, EarlyView.

Samuelson's text was first published in 1948, and it immediately became the authority for the principles of economics courses. The book continues to be the standard-bearer for principles courses, and this revision continues to be a clear, accurate, and interesting introduction to modern economics principles. Bill Nordhaus is now the primary author of this text, and he has revised the book to be as current and relevant as ever.

The Samadhi of Direct Encounter with the Buddhas of the Present: An Annotated English translation of the Tibetan version of the Pratyutpanna-Buddha-Sammukhavasthita-Samadhi-Sutra. Translated by Paul Harrison., The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, Tokyo 1990. xxxviii, 346 pp. n.p.

This volume comprises studies written by prominent scholars working in the field of German Idealism. These scholars come from the English speaking philosophical world and Continental Europe. They treat major aspects of the place of religion in Idealism, Romanticism and other schools of thought and culture. They also discuss the tensions and relations between religion and philosophy in terms of the specific form they take in German Idealism, and in terms of the effect they still have on contemporary culture. The (...) authors consider figures such as Kant, Fichte, Hegel, and Jacobi. The book will prove very informative to researchers and teachers working in the fields of philosophy, philosophy of religion, and classical German philosophy. (shrink)

The Golden Rule is regularly used in ordinary life, across many different cultures, to acquire new moral knowledge. At the same time, the Golden Rule is widely ignored both in ethics and metaethics because it seems to be an implausible normative theory. Most philosophers who have paid it any attention have thought that, at best, it is an initially tempting thought whose appeal should be explained by the ultimately correct normative theory. My aim in this paper is to attend to (...) an alternative possibility: the Golden Rule teaches us something about metaethics, in the form of moral epistemology, rather than normative ethics. I will argue that sentimentalism, the view that the emotions are an essential source of moral knowledge, provides a compelling explanation of the usefulness of the Golden Rule. Before giving the sentimentalist explanation, I explain why proposed alternative sources of moral knowledge provide less compelling explanations of its usefulness. (shrink)