The Introduction starts by discussing the history of Empirical Legal Studies. It explains how the editors came about compiling this book. It talks about interest in empirical legal research and how it is not confimed to the United States, the UK or common law countries. Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Spain, Israel, Russia, and Japan are mentioned. This book aims to provide succinct discussions and analyses of debates, controversies, methods, and trends in scholarship that are original and searching but (...) also easily accessible. The Introduction goes on to explain the perspective taken and coverage given in this book. (shrink)

_Teachers Investigate Their Work_ introduces the methods and concepts of action research through examples drawn from studies carried out by teachers. The book is arranged as a handbook with numerous sub-headings for easy reference and fourty-one practical methods and strategies to put into action, some of them flagged as suitable `starters'. Throughout the book, the authors draw on their international practical experience of action research, working in close collaboration with teachers. It is an essential guide for teachers, senior staff and (...) co-ordinators of teacher professional development who are interested in investigating their own practice in order to improve it. (shrink)

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) has been mainly described from a risk perspective, with a focus on endogenous, exogenous, and temporal risk factors that can interact to facilitate lethal outcomes. Here we discuss the limitations that this risk-based paradigm may have, using two of the major risk factors for SIDS, prone sleep position and bed-sharing, as examples. Based on a multipronged theoretical model encompassing evolutionary theory, developmental biology, and cultural mismatch theory, we conceptualize the vulnerability to SIDS as an imbalance (...) between current physiologic-regulatory demands and current protective abilities on the part of the infant. From this understanding, SIDS appears as a developmental condition in which competencies relevant to self-protection fail to develop appropriately in the future victims. Since all of the protective resources in question are bound to emerge during normal infant development, we contend that SIDS may reflect an evolutionary mismatch situation—a constellation in which certain modern developmental influences may overextend the child’s adaptive (evolutionary) repertoire. We thus argue that SIDS may be better understood if the focus on risk factors is complemented by a deeper appreciation of the protective resources that human infants acquire during their normal development. We extensively analyze this evolutionary-developmental theory against the body of epidemiological and experimental evidence in SIDS research and thereby also address the as-of-yet unresolved question of why breastfeeding may be protective against SIDS. (shrink)

The art, craft, and science of policing -- Crime and criminals -- Criminal process and prosecution -- The crime-preventive impact of penal sanctions -- Contracts and corporations -- Financial markets -- Consumer protection -- Bankruptcy and insolvency -- Regulating the professions -- Personal injury litigation -- Claiming behavior as legal mobilization -- Families -- Labor and employment laws -- Housing and property -- Human rights instruments -- Constitutions -- Social security and social welfare -- Occupational safety and health -- Environmental (...) regulation -- Administrative justice -- Access to civil justice -- Judicial recruitment, training, and careers -- Trial courts and adjudication -- Appellate courts -- Dispute resolution -- Lay decision-makers in the legal process -- Evidence law -- Civil procedure and courts -- Collective actions -- Law and courts on development and democratization -- How does international law work? -- Lawyers and other legal service providers -- Legal pluralism -- Public images and understandings of courts -- Legal education and the legal academy -- The (nearly) forgotten early empirical legal research -- Quantitative approaches to empirical legal research -- Qualitative approaches to empirical legal research -- The need for multi-method approaches in empirical legal research -- Legal theory and empirical research -- Empirical legal research and policy-making -- The place of empirical legal research in the law school curriculum -- Empirical legal training in the US academy. (shrink)

A path scheme for a game is composed of a path, i.e., a sequence of coalitions that is formed during the coalition formation process and a scheme, i.e., a payoff vector for each coalition in the path. A path scheme is called population monotonic if a player’s payoff does not decrease as the path coalition grows. In this study, we focus on Shapley path schemes of simple games in which for every path coalition the Shapley value of the associated subgame (...) provides the allocation at hand. Obviously, each Shapley path scheme of a game is population monotonic if and only if the Shapley allocation scheme of the game is population monotonic in the sense of Sprumont (Games Econ Behav 2:378–394, 1990). We prove that a simple game allows for population monotonic Shapley path schemes if and only if the game is balanced. Moreover, the Shapley path scheme of a specific path is population monotonic if and only if the first winning coalition that is formed along the path contains every minimal winning coalition. We also show that each Shapley path scheme of a simple game is population monotonic if and only if the set of veto players of the game is a winning coalition. Extensions of these results to other efficient probabilistic values are discussed. (shrink)

This collection assembles some of Herbert Marcuse’s most important work and presents for the first time his responses to and development of classic Marxist approaches to revolution and utopia, as well as his own theoretical and political perspectives. This sixth and final volume of Marcuse's collected papers shows Marcuse’s rejection of the prevailing twentieth-century Marxist theory and socialist practice - which he saw as inadequate for a thorough critique of Western and Soviet bureaucracy - and the development of his (...) revolutionary thought towards a critique of the consumer society. Marcuse's later philosophical perspectives on technology, ecology, and human emancipation sat at odds with many of the classic tenets of Marx’s materialist dialectic which placed the working class as the central agent of change in capitalist societies. As the material from this volume shows, Marcuse was not only a theorist of Marxist thought and practice in the twentieth century, but also proves to be an essential thinker for understanding the neoliberal phase of capitalism and resistance in the twenty-first century. A comprehensive introduction by Douglas Kellner and Clayton Pierce places Marcuse’s philosophy in the context of his engagement with the main currents of twentieth century philosophy while also providing important analyses of his anticipatory theorization of capitalist development through a neoliberal restructuring of society. The volume concludes with an afterword by Peter Marcuse. (shrink)

The objectives of this study are to survey, post the latest Combined Code, current board practice concerning the appointment, evaluation and development of directors and performance evaluation of boards and their committees. The Company Secretaries of all FTSE 100 and 250 companies were invited to complete, online or on paper, a survey questionnaire designed to investigate several aspects of the performance of their Boards of Directors, including the impact of relevant parts of the latest Combined Code. The more positive findings (...) are that: the Code's principles yield discernible benefits for board and company performances; board performance is most affected by new appointments which has implications for director induction; New Directors' roles and competencies are well articulated by Nomination Committees; a majority use explicit performance criteria; a majority of directors commit 3 5 days per annum to their professional development. Areas for attention suggested by the findings are as follows: a minority translate explicit performance criteria into specific improvement targets; some ambivalence characterises public disclosure of board evaluation results; evaluation of Committees' performance is less rigorous than for Main Boards; the powers and responsibilities of Subsidiary/Divisional boards are not well defined; only a minority of Nomination Committees focus on Descriptors of High Performance; traditional methods of Director selection and induction prevail; Non-Executive Directors' suitability to coach their Executive Director colleagues or other members of the executive team; only one in seven boards uses External Facilitators to assist in benchmarking their performance. The implications of these results are discussed. (shrink)

This volume addresses the intriguing issue of indirect reports from an interdisciplinary perspective. The contributors include philosophers, theoretical linguists, socio-pragmaticians, and cognitive scientists. The book is divided into four sections following the provenance of the authors. Combining the voices from leading and emerging authors in the field, it offers a detailed picture of indirect reports in the world’s languages and their significance for theoretical linguistics. Building on the previous book on indirect reports in this series, this volume adds an empirical (...) and cross-linguistic approach that covers an impressive range of languages, such as Cantonese, Japanese, Hebrew, Persian, Dutch, Spanish, Catalan, Armenian, Italian, English, Hungarian, German, Rumanian, and Basque. (shrink)

The focus of this small contribution to studies in the history of philosophy of American education falls upon the backside of the cultural upheaval between 1880 and 1920. The general purpose is to relate aspects of Herbert Spencer’s philosophy of education to pedagogical principles in the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education, a document of the National Education Association’s Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education, published in 1918. An attempt is made to implement this purpose by analyzing the educational (...) principles in the NEA report, by clarifying Spencer’s educational principles in relationship to the report, and by explaining Spencer’s philosophical principles and relating them to the CRSE document. In addition to similarities between specific Spencerian principles and the 1918 report, especially noted is the ideological proximity of the “spirit” of Spencer’s evolutionary naturalism and empiricism to the Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:378 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY these churches to deal reasonably with frontier conditions and popular prejudices is common knowledge, but it is often forgotten that their founder and guide during the critical days of growth was also an exponent of the late Scottish Enlightenment. To make this careful analysis of Campbell's philosophy, as an extraordinary specimen of empirical method, is a welcome achievement by an experienced empiricist. The volume also (...) contains a Foreword by President Perry E. Gresham of Bethany College, and a comprehensive bibliography of Campbell's writings compiled by Claude E. Spencer. HERBERT W. SCHNEIDER Claremont, Cali]ornia Hegel's First American Followers, The Ohio Hegelians: J. B. Stallo, Peter Kau]mann, Moncure Conway, August WiUich. By Loyd D. Easton. (Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1966. Pp. lx + 353. $7.00.) This expansion of the theme outlined in Professor Easton's article of 1962 gives us fulllength accounts of the careers and ideas of four picturesque characters of the Ohio River Valley during the 19th century. The four had little in common except Hegel, and even him they did not really share, for they interpreted him differently and used him for different interests. The author is somewhat generous in calling them "Hegelians" and "followers" of Hegel, for like practically all those Americans who have been influenced by Hegel, they followed him at a safe distance and not very long. But this diversity makes Easton's account all the more fascinating. He portrays not only four characters but also the culture of Cincinati and its environment. J. B. Stallo is better known among American historians and philosophers than the other three, and deservedly so, for he was more philosophical. But he gains in stature here, noteworthy not only for his philosophy of nature but also as a prominent citizen, judge of a Superior Court, and political leader of a large German community. Stallo had two very different careers: the early Catholic student and teacher of Oken's philosophy of nature, mixed liberally with Schelling's similar system and with Hegel's Encyclopedia and his Phenomenology. Emerson was probably right in getting out of Stallo's General Principles an idea of "nature's rhythmic unfolding" rather than an idea of historical dialectic. Then came the later Stallo (after 1855), a convert from Catholicism and transcendentalism to empiricism, and a devoted follower of Ernst Mach. It is this later Stallo, author in 1881 of The Concepts and Theories oJ Modern Physics, who is better known, and who used the term "relativity" to indicate that physics deals not with things-in-themselves but with the data given to observers. Peter Kaufmann is an excellent representative of those pietists who, when they came to the open spaces and free manners of America, made serious attempts to give their religious "perfectionism" a practical social embodiment in utopian, communal economies. He became a teacher in the Rappite "Community of Equality and Social Harmony" and after a few years founded his own "Society of Germans at Teutonia." The members of this society agreed to devote their communal surplus to the education of orphans, the conversion of Indians, the spreading of the Gospel to "the four corners of the earth", and publishing a weekly Herald o] Better Times. After four years of this Society he moved northward to Canton, Ohio, where he settled down comfortably as a publisher and promoter of public education. His major publication, The Temple oJ Truth, incorporated some ideas on dialectic taken from Hegel. He continued his contacts with many utopian communities and urged his fellow citizens to help in making the United States of America "a saviour nation of the rest of mankind." Moncure Conway, a native of Virginia and graduate of Dickinson College, became an itinerant Methodist minister. But in 1853 the Harvard Divinity School made a Unitarian of him and an enthusiast for the higher criticism of Strauss and the transcendentalism of Hegel. In 1858 his wife introduced him to her home town, Cincinnati, and there he became BOOK REVIEWS 379 the minister of a very influential and liberal congregation. In 1860 he began publication in Cincinnati of The Dial, successor to the New England transcendentalist journal, and used its... (shrink)

Anläßlich des 100. Geburtstages von Herbert Marcuse am 19. Juli 1998 erschien der Sammelband Feindanalysenneuen deutschen Mentalitätreeducation Deutschlands, so lautet Marcuses Fazit, habe diese spezifische Mentalität in ihr Kalkül aufzunehmen. Aus dem Inhalt: Peter-Erwin Jansen: Vorwort Detlev Claussen: Kopf der Leidenschaft. Herbert Marcuses Deutschlandanalysen. Die neue deutsche Mentalität...

Thomas Aquinas was first and foremost a Christian theologian. Yet he was also one of the greatest philosophers of the Middle Ages. Drawing on classical authors, and incorporating ideas from Jewish and Arab sources, he came to offer a rounded and lasting account of the origin of the universe and of the things to be found within it, especially human beings.

Der Beitrag befasst sich mit dem Werk Herbert Rosenfelds, der Entwicklung seiner theoretischen Auffassungen und seines klinischen Vorgehens. Rosenfelds einzigartige Fähigkeit, sich in seine Patienten hineinzuversetzen, seine Offenheit und Unerschrockenheit hatten es ihm ermöglicht, erstmals auch psychotisch erkrankte Patienten psychoanalytisch zu behandeln. Mit seiner Konzeption des destruktiven Narzissmus gelang es ihm, die innere Dynamik schwerer narzisstischer Störungen verstehbar zu machen. In seinem späteren Werk – als er die Bedeutung und die Auswirkungen früher Verluste und Traumatisierungen zu berücksichtigen und zu (...) untersuchen begann – modifizierte Rosenfeld seine theoretischen Auffassungen und sein klinisches Vorgehen. Sein Blick richtete sich nun auf den Beitrag des Analytikers bei schwierigen Behandlungsverläufen, auf dessen blinde Flecken und Schwierigkeiten, den Patienten zu verstehen. Der sich dadurch eröffnende andere klinische Zugang zu seinen Patienten rief unter kleinianischen Kollegen kontroverse Reaktionen hervor, war aber auch Anstoß für theoretische und behandlungstechnische Weiterentwicklungen. (shrink)

Herbert Marcuse was concerned with many of the same issues that confront the Occupy Wall Street movement today. Change the militant “students” in the 1960s to the militant “occupiers” today, and his views on their philosophical bases and strategies for change remain similar. Militant protest is reacting to an aggressive, profit-driven system, reducing its subservient population to consumption-fixated one-dimensionality. The ideology-motivated militants cannot by themselves change things all at once, yet the ideological/psychological elements can lead the material bases of (...) the struggle to produce radical change in one area at a time, suggesting an agenda akin to the “long march through the institutions” of the 1960s. (shrink)

Acclaimed throughout the world as a philosopher of liberation and revolution, Herbert Marcuse is one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. His penetrating critiques of the ways modern technology produces forms of society and culture with oppressive modes of social control indicate his enduring significance in the contemporary moment. This collection of unpublished or uncollected essays, unfinished manuscripts, and correspondence between 1942 and 1951, provides Marcuse's exemplary attempts to link theory with practice, and develops ideas that (...) can be used to grasp and transform existing social reality. These papers vividly chronicle Marcuse's increasing, yet reluctant estrangement from Max Horkeimer, director of the Institute for Social Research and his years as an analyst with various U.S. government agencies. Marcuse's later attempts to link theory and practice in the 1960s and 1970s in regard to the New Left, National Liberation Movements and other new social movements were grounded in his work from the 1940s. As the 1940s witnessed the rise to global prominence of German fascism and its defeat in World War Two, and the emergence of the Cold War, Marcuse strived to preserve the radical vision of his youth during a difficult historical period while many turned toward more conservative positions. Precisely the sort of broad theoretical and political theorizing that Marcuse undertook througout his life is needed today to analyze the momentous changes that we are currently undergoing. Excerpt: Personal history is interwoven with intellectual and political events in these papers. We debated whether letters belonged here: whether some should be published at all. My father had a deep sense of personal privacy, both as a character trait and as a political expression of resistance to the commodification of the private. Yet the letters contain substantive discussions also. We could have edited out, expurgated some of the material. While not publishing every letter my father wrote, our selection was based on interest, and every letter that is included is included in full. That decision was in part painful for me personally. The juxtaposition of the letters to Horkeimer and the exchange with Heidegger highlights the point. --from the Foreword by Peter Marcuse. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:504 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Earle's position, needless to say, is a radical one. If taken seriously it appears to commit him either to a private language doctrine or, more likely, to silence. If the concepts embodied in our language are public, intersubjective concepts, then either a minimal characterization of singular human existence is possible or Earle is stranded in a hopeless, speechless solipsism. I shall mention just one other (...) paper, Natanson's "Alienation and Social Role." Natanson distinguishes role-taking from the more basic activity which he refers to as the intentionality of role-taking or, as he terms it, "role-action." He attempts to give a phenomenological grounding to the notion of role-taking, thereby showing the relevance of phenomenology to problems in social philosophy and sociology. Though a difficult paper, "Alienation and Social Role" is a helpful study of various structures presupposed in social interaction. Natanson's analyses go a long way toward dispelling the view that a phenomenological starting point commits one to subjectivism. I might have mentioned other, equally instructive essays. These, however, give some indication of the diversity of concerns inherent in the American phenomenological tradition. Phenomenology in America documents these concerns well. STEPHEN A, ERICKSON Pomona College Heimkehr ins Eigentliche. By Walter Robert Corti. (Amriswil, Switzerland, Amriswiler BiichereL 1969. Pp. 152. n.p.) This collection of essays written between 1935 and 1966 gives a fine example of the changes in the concern for the meaning of human existence during these thirty years both in the mind and emotions of an individual philosopher and in Western culture generally. The essay from which the title is taken dates from 1958. It is a charming, poetic autobiography, describing the growth of philosophic and scientific wonder from the author's childhood, when he was thrilled by the wonders of biology and chemistry, to his more general wonder at being in and of the world of wonders, culminating in a self-conscious wonder about the implications of a wondering being in a wonderful world. The early essay of 1935, entitled Zu den Dingen is a vivid statement of a Heidegger-inspired existentialism, which analyses the difference between the attempt of Husserl to understand Sachen by his search for the essence of an object ;rod his formulation of phenomenology, and the very different appreciation of things in nature, which demands a non-verbal familiarity or "communion" with another natural being in existential terms, not in terms of the concept of "essence." The later essay of 1958 contains a critical history of the relations between the theories of explication, evolution, and development as cosmologies. After the historical survey it describes the physiological and mental restlessness of man. In this context, the problem of the meaning of existence is explored, not as a question to be answered, but as a significant form of human restlessness which has implications for a kind of restlessness in nature and in cosmic process. Beside these essays which are contributions to the history of recent philosophy, there are several other essays related to the varied and remarkable interests and BOOKS RECEIVED 505 achievements of Dr. Corti, partly in his activities as a distinguished Swiss public leader, partly in connection with his work as director of the Archly fiir genetische Philosophie in Winterthur. HERBERT W. SCHNEIDER Claremont, California BOOKS RECEIVED First Editions Adler, Mortimer. The Time of Our Lives: The Ethics of Common Sense. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, I970. Pp. xiii+361. $7.95. Allen, Gay Wilson. William lames. Pamphlets on American Writers, Number 88. Minneapolis : University of Minnesota, 1970. Pp. 48. $.95. Bahm, Archie. Directory o[ American Philosophers. V 1970-71. Alburquerque: Archie I. Bahm, I970. Pp. 436. $I4.95. Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo: A Biography. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969. Pp. 463. Paper. $2.95. A review of this book appeared in the Journal, ~ 4, Vol. 6. Cailliet, Emile. Journey Into Light. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1968. Pp. 117. $3.95. Cantore, Enrico. Atomic Order: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Microphysics. (~mbridge (Mass.): The MIT Press, 1969. Pp. xi+334. $12.50. Caponigri, A. Robert. Philosophy from the Renaissance to the Romantic Age. A History of... (shrink)

The article considers, in a historical setting, the links between varieties of nominalism—the extreme nominalism of the Quine-Goodman variety and the trope nominalism current today—and types of idealism. In so doing arguments of various twentieth century figures, including Husserl, Bradley, Russell, and Sartre, as well as a contemporary attack on relations by Peter Simons are critically examined. The paper seeks to link the rejection of realism about universals with the rejection of a mind-independent “world”—in short, linking nominalism with idealism.

Through extensive textual analysis, this book concludes that the prevailing opinion about the nature of modern and contemporary philosophy is wrong. It maintains that almost all modern and contemporary philosophy is deconstructed, secularized, Augustinian theology, not philosophy. The work is divided into eight chapters, a guest Foreword by Herbert I. London notes, bibliography, and an index. Chapter 1 considers Cartesian thought, Hobbes, and Newton. Chapter 2 examines Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Chapter 3 investigates Lessing and Rousseau. Chapters 4 and (...) 5 treat Kant. Chapters 6 and 7 deal with Hegel. Chapter 8 concludes that a lack of philosophical and historical experience coupled with a widespread inability to read philosophical texts according to the intention of the author causes us to mistake secularized theology for philosophy and is a main cause for the decline of contemporary universities. (shrink)

First published in 1987. Our understanding of the nature of power in western societies is currently undergoing a major reassessment. The significance of this reassessment emerges forcefully through comparing the writings of the principal exponents of Critical Theory - Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas - with those of Michel Foucault. Peter Miller suggests that these two traditions embody fundamentally distinct philosophical and sociological principles. He grounds his analysis in the concepts of domination and power. Miller identifies (...) the notion of subjectivity as central to a differentiation of the respective approaches of Critical Theory and Foucault. For Critical Theory it is the repression of subjectivity which provides the evidence of domination and the rationale for its critique, while for Foucault subjectivity in western societies is fabricated through power and linked to the deployment of specific knowledges. Miller shows that despite the achievements of Critical Theory in bringing to light the repressive nature of advanced industrial societies, its thinking is inadequate as a basis for future analysis and critique. He argues that Foucault's genealogy of the modern subject, which highlights the role of the human sciences in its fabrication, is a more fruitful basis for charting and investigating the mode of operation of contemporary forms of power. The book includes a survey of all published works by Foucault, up to the time of his death in 1984, and commentaries on the writings of Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse and Jürgen Habermas. (shrink)

Kolloquiumsbeiträge des XV. Deutschen Kongresses für Philosophie 1990 in Hamburg. Mit Beiträgen von Herbert Schnädelbach, Hilary Putnam, Karl-Otto Apel, Walter Ch. Zimmerli, Rudolf A. Makkreel, Wolfgang Bartuschat, Elke Hahn und Klaus Vieweg, Roland Simon-Schaefer, Ruedi Imbach, Georg Wieland, Jan Peter Beckmann, Pierre Aubenque, Annemarie Gethmann-Siefert, Gernot Böhme, Dietrich Böhler, Jürgen Habermas, Friedrich Kambartel, Oswald Schwemmer, Dieter Birnbacher, Karl-Friedrich Wessel, Friedrich Rapp, Otfried Höffe, Henning Ottmann und Terry Pinkard.

Die Idee eines selbständigen Bandes von "Pfander-Studien" entstand nach dem Internationalen Kongreß "Die Münchener Phänomenologie", der an läßlich des hundertsten Geburtstags von Alexander Pfander in München stattfand. Ursprünglich war geplant, die im zweiten Teil des Kongresses im Rahmen einer Arbeitstagung über "Das Werk und die Bedeutung Alexander pfänders" gehaltenen Referate, die bereits vervielfältigt waren, nebst Diskussionsberichten in den vorgesehenen Gesamtband über die Konferenz für die Serie Phaenomenologica einzuschlie­ ßen. Als sich herausstellte, daß der dort verfügbare Raum -für die meisten Beiträge (...) zu knapp bemessen war und nur die abgekürz­ ten Texte ohne Diskussion hätten aufgenommen werden' können, tauchte die Idee eines gesonderten Bandes auf. Sie führte alsbald zur Erwägung neuer Beiträge und sonstiger Hilfen für das Ver­ ständnis des alten und neuen Werkes Pfänders. Von den Kon­ greßbeiträgen war ohnehin der von Karl Schuhmann ftir ein gesondertes selbständiges Buch" Husserl über Pfänder" vorgese­ hen, das inzwischen in der Reihe Phaenomenologica erschienen ist. 1 Der Beitrag von Peter Schwankl "Alexander pfänders Nachlaßtexte über das virtuell Psychische" erschien im Journal 0/ Phenomenological Psychology. 2 Die beiden einleitenden Refe­ rate von Schwankl und Spiegel berg über die damals noch unge­ druckten Nachlaßwerke Philosophie auf phänomenologischer Grundlage und Ethik in kurzer Darstellung konnten nach deren Erscheinen fortbleiben. (shrink)

The famous mid-20th century debate between Patrick Devlin and Herbert Hart about the relationship between law and morality addressed the limits of the criminal law in the context of a proposal by the Wolfenden Committee to decriminalize male homosexual activity in private. The original exchanges and subsequent contributions to the debate have been significantly constrained by the terms in which the debate was framed: a focus on criminal law in general and sexual offences in particular; a preoccupation with the (...) so-called “harm principle,” a sharp delineation of the realms of law and morality, and a static conception of the relationship between them. This article explores the limitations imposed by these various starting-points and argues for a holistic and symbiotic understanding of the relationship between law and morality. (shrink)

In 1953, Richard McKeon contacted Hans-Georg Gadamer with the proposal to conduct a joint conference on the nature of philosophic controversies, their relation with ideological conflicts and the possible ways to handle and solve them. He suggested to treat this subject in the concrete by discussing problems connected with the opposed views and standpoints of philosophers concerning freedom. Gadamer was given a free hand to select the German participants, and the meeting finally took place in the following year in a (...) small castle near Darmstadt. There were 18 German philosophers attending and McKeon himself as the sole non German discussant. The paper explores the background of McKeon's initiative, the aims and results of the conference, and the way the discussions proceeded, using some yet unpublished material and documents. Whereas the conference seemed to have been a rather disappointing event for both parties, the German and the American, showing all the deficiencies of philosophical communication that McKeon wanted to analyze, it might have played a minor role in the genesis and development of the »begriffsgeschichtliche Forschung« in years following the meeting from 1954. Herbert G. Wells, explicitely in his 1920 edition for the British reader in which he states: »Human history is in essence a history of ideas«. From here the article follows the further use and development of the concept by British, American and European scholars. (shrink)

References to mirrors were frequent in medieval texts both theological and literary, and their meanings have been abundantly studied, especially recently. Medieval writers were primarily inspired by St. Paul's famous metaphor in his First Letter to the Corinthians 13.12–13: “Now we see only puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face. My knowledge now is partial; then it will be whole, like God's knowledge of me. In a word, there are three things that last forever: (...) faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of them all is love.” Mirrors were also likened to art in many texts; and so they have functioned mightily in investigations of visuality. To cite just one medieval text among many, on Mallorca in 1276, Inghetto Contardo defended pictures against a Jew's alleged attack by asserting that “the holy mother Church sets images out as a kind of mirror, so that seeing them with corporal eyes they see them with the eyes of the mind.” The claim here was that physical images, made possible by Christ's incarnation, were available to human senses and could be formed into a complete picture when they were assimilated with a memory of God's true nature. Hildegard of Bingen had already summed up the idea succinctly: “That [faith] Adam had when he saw with bodily eyes the invisible light of God … but after his disobedience, neither Adam nor any other man could have this vision; for that reason, the faithful can gaze at God only with the interior vision of the soul, in the mirror of faith, and trust to be able to be saved with him who can do all things.” Inghetto was also assimilating the ancient trope to new theories of vision being promulgated at the time by Roger Bacon, Robert Grosseteste, and Witelo and in such popular works as Peter of Limoges's Tractatus moralis de oculo, a preacher's manual composed exactly at the time of the Mallorca debate and very widely circulated afterward. In these, the site of seeing was literally a mirror, namely, the “crystalline humor” where God's light, located in the anterior part of the brain, is unified with rays from the eyes into a double vision. (shrink)

In a recent article, Herbert Hochberg portrays my ontological position, that of a trope nominalist who is sceptical about relational tropes, as deviating into idealism. Since there are few philosophical views I find more repugnant than idealism, I must either resist the accusation or recant. I choose to resist, by showing how relational tropes are not needed as truth-makers for a wide range of truths, and raising the real possibility that they may not be needed at all, without lapsing (...) into either monism or idealism. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:528 BOOK REVIEWS Proofs for Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy. By HERBERT A. DAVIDSON. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Pp. 428. $37.50. In the Introduction to his book, Proofs for the Eternity, Creation and the Existence of God in Medieval Islamic and Jewish Philosophy, Herbert A. Davidson proclaims his work " to be exhaustive as regards Arabic and (...) Hebrew arguments; that is, I have undertaken to examine every medieval Arabic and Hebrew philosophic argument for eternity, creation, and the existence of God" (p. 7). In addition, he says, "In a number of instances I have pursued the penetration of Islamic and Jewish arguments into medieval Christian philosophy, and in a few instances into modern European philosophy. There, though, I make no pretense at exhaustiveness, and the citations are of a kind that are ready at hand in obvious primary and secondary sources" (p. 7). To a large extent Davidson's work appears to be what he claims it to be. At the very least, it is an impressive piece of scholarship which provides a wealth of source material for those wishing to do research into medieval Islamic and Jewish arguments for eternity, creation, and the existence of God. The claim that it is exhaustive, however, is a bit of an exaggeration. Even ten times the four hundred plus pages which he devotes to the topic is not likely to achieve the goal which he claims to have reached. An excellent source book it is; exhaustive it is not. One of the reasons the text is not exhaustive has to do wih its current date of publication. The hook was completed in 1980, and many of the references to secondary sources are from the 1960s and before. While the work depends heavily upon primary sources, one would expect, nonetheless, that an exhaustive analysis of a subject would refer to current work by other scholars in the field. One would ex· pect that even a work completed in 1980 would make reference to ex· tensive scholarly research in the field close to the date of completion. Another problem the work has is that terms such as "eternity," "creation," and "existence" rtend :to be used in very technical ways by medieval thinkers, but Davidson seems to ignore this fact in much of his discussion. Regarding the term "creation," for example, he says in a footnote, " I employ the term ' creation ' to mean the thesis that the world came into existence after not having existed, not the more specific thesis that a creator brought the world into existence " (p. 1). Such a use of the term " creation " is rather odd, but Davidson never gives a clear explanation why he would examine medieval Islamic and Jewish arguments for creation from this usual sense BOOK REVIEWS 5~9 of the word rather than from the way the word was commonly understood by the medievals themselves. In addition, a word like " eternity " is used ambiguously by many thinkers of the medieval period. On the one hand, it refers to a measure of the way God possesses His being as a perfect and simultaneous whole; on the other hand, it refers to temporal existence without end. One would assume that this same sort of distinction was to some extent present among medieval Islamic and Jewish thinkers studied by Davidson, hut he makes no reference to it; and even if it played no role in their discussions, Davidson's understanding of discussions of eternity in Christian and modern thought becomes seriously flawed by omission of this distinction. Similarly, the term "existence" has various meanings for different medieval thinkers, and the meaning of this term plays a significant role in understanding the notions of eternity and creation. Yet Davidson does not devote much attention to the role it plays in the various arguments he examines. Such attention, however, would have to paid by a thoroughly exhaustive study of these issues. The hook consists of twelve chapters which reflect a great deal of painstaking scholarship for which studnts of medieval and Islamic and Jewish thought should he grateful. The first chapter gives a general introduction to the problem and a statement of... (shrink)