The confrontation between Philip the Fair and Boniface VIII has long been seen as a major turning point for the medieval papacy, for the rise of national monarchies, and for the political shaping of public opinion in late-medieval France. Philip's campaign to gain and display the support of the clergy, the nobility, and townspeople throughout the realm also generated a large body of documentation, much of which survives today. Although frequently explored and exploited during the last four centuries, (...) the archival record is not as straightforward as it appears. While recognizing it as part of a masterly propaganda campaign, one needs to look not simply at the shaping of opinion, but at the shaping of the written record—a case in which the silences, what is not recorded, are often as important as the voices on which our attention has been focused. But before turning to that issue, a brief review of events may be useful. (shrink)

In On the People’s Terms, Philip Pettit incorporates the Sieyèsian notion of constituent power into his constitutional theory of non-domination. In this article, I argue that Emmanuel Sieyès’s understanding of liberty precludes such an appropriation. While a republican, his conceptualisation of liberty in the face of commercial society stood apart from theories of civic vigilance, preferring instead to disentangle individuals from politics and maximise what he understood to be their non-political freedoms. Sieyès saw that liberty was heightened through relations (...) of representation and commercial dependency. This conception of liberty was pivotal to the identity of the nation, and so allowed Sieyès to assess forms of collective injustice committed by the French nobility. It also provided the normative foundation of his theory of constituent power. For Sieyès, constituent power guarded against legislative excess in a decidedly minimal sense, intending instead to separate citizens from the political sphere so they were not burdened with ongoing participation or public vigilance. (shrink)

Arendt Contra Sociology re-assesses the relationship between Hannah Arendt's work and the theoretical foundations of sociology, bringing her insights to bear on key themes within contemporary theoretical sociology. Departing from the view of Arendt as a political theorist who sought to rescue politics from society, and political theory from the social sciences, this book re-examines her distinctions between labour, fabrication and action as a theory of the fundamental ontology of human societies, revisiting her criticism of the tendency of many sociological (...) paradigms to conflate the activity of fabrication with that of action. (shrink)

Background In bioethics, especially nursing ethics, systematic reviews are increasingly popular. The overall aim of a systematic review is to provide an overview of the published discussions on a specific topic. While a meta-review on systematic reviews on normative bioethical literature has already been performed, there is no equivalent for systematic reviews of empirical literature on ethical topics. Objective This meta-review aims to present the general trends and characteristics of systematic reviews of empirical bioethical literature and to evaluate their reporting (...) quality. Research design Literature search was performed on PubMed and Google Scholar. Qualitative content analysis and quantitative approaches were used to evaluate the systematic reviews. Characteristics of systematic reviews were extracted and quantitatively analyzed. The reporting quality was measured using an adapted PRISMA checklist. Findings Seventy-six reviews were selected for analysis. Most reviews came from the field of nursing (next to bioethics and medicine). Selected systematic reviews investigated issues related to clinical ethics (50%), followed by research ethics (36%) and public health ethics or organizational ethics (14%). In all, 72% of the systematic reviews included authors’ ethical reflections on the findings and 59% provided ethical recommendations. Despite the heterogeneous reporting of the reviews, reviews using PRISMA tended to score better regarding reporting quality. Discussion The heterogeneity currently observed is due both to the interdisciplinary nature of nursing ethics and bioethics, and to the emerging nature of systematic review methods in these fields. These results confirm the findings of our previous review of systematic reviews on normative literature, thereby highlighting a recurring methodological gap in systematic reviews of bioethical literature. This also indicates the need to develop more robust methodological standards. Conclusion Through its extensive overview of the characteristics of systematic reviews of empirical literature on ethical topics, this meta-review is expected to inform further discussions on minimal standards and reporting guidelines. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander. Vol. II. Commentary on Books IV–VPhilip A. StadterBosworth, A. B. A Historical Commentary on Arrian’s History of Alexander. Vol. II. Commentary on Books IV–V. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995.In books 1–3, Arrian’s Alexander rushed from the Hellespont to Babylon, Susa, and Persepolis. In books IV and V the story changes: Alexander finds himself on the frontier, and beyond. No longer is (...) he confronting the enormous armies of the Persian king in set battles, but pushing beyond the frontiers of empire, seizing impregnable heights, and most important, struggling with his own Macedonians while defining himself.Bosworth, continuing his commentary after a fifteen-year interval, brings an exceptional background of historical, source critical, and literary studies. B. notes that his evaluation is “perhaps more sympathetic” than in his first volume, in part because the quality of the work “improves as it progresses” (v). The thoroughness [End Page 140] of the discussion (360 pages on the two books) is justified by the importance and complexity of the material. The reader is well served by an excellent subject index, a Greek index, ten maps, and four figures. An appendix on Nearchus suggests that that author may have reported much more than the journey from the Indus to the Persian Gulf found in the Indike, and may be a significant source for Arrian in the last four books of the Alexander history. Like the first volume, the commentary has Greek lemmata, translated only when there is a specific difficulty, but even Greekless readers can use it with the help of Brunt’s new Loeb text.Although the commentary deals frequently with textual questions, it focuses on elucidating the historical, geographical, stylistic, and interpretative problems of the text. B. ably notes the constant verbal reminiscences of Herodotus, Thucydides, and Xenophon, especially in the more elaborate passages, e.g., the speeches at the Hyphasis. Still more are undoubtedly to be found, such as the echo of Thucydides (1.110.1, 3.112.8, 87.87.6) in 5.27.6, ¹l¼goi ¨k poll©n. His elucidation of Arrian’s use of Megasthenes, Nearchus, and Eratosthenes in the digressions at the beginning of book 5 is a model of clarity and precision. Here as elsewhere he stresses Arrian’s purposeful blending of his sources: e.g., on 5.6.3–8: “It is an elaborately contrived passage, and the source material is carefully selected to fit the scheme of the argument. Arrian is not merely rewriting a passage of Eratosthenes.” Throughout, his comments on sources are precise and thoughtful.B.’s notes follow wherever the text leads, but he devotes special attention to the major focuses of Arrian’s attention: the great digression on Alexander’s orientalism, the murder of Cleitus, proskunesis, and the page’s conspiracy (4.7.4–14.4 5 45–101), the march to the Indus, with the siege of Massaga and the capture of Aornus (4.22.3–30.9 5 141–96), the series of digressions which begin book 5, (5.1.1–8.1 5 197–259), the battle on the Hydaspes against Porus (5.8.4–19.4 5 262–311), and the mutiny on the Hyphasis (5.24.8–29.5 5 337–60).Bosworth’s commentary on book 5 encompasses the multiple levels of the narrative: the reworking of Eratosthenes, Megasthenes, and Nearchus in the preliminary section; the topographical and tactical problems of the battle with Porus, and the rhetorical and stylistic subtleties of the debate at the Hyphasis. Throughout the book, Arrian shows Alexander going beyond his predecessors. By crossing the Indus he passes the limits of the Persian Empire. At Nysa he surpasses the mythical conquests of Dionysus (5.2.1). The digression on the Indus bridges recalls the bridges (and defeats) of Xerxes and Darius, as well as Roman imperial engineering (5.7.1–2). The crossing of the Hydaspes and great battle contrast with Cyrus’ disastrous battle with the Massagetae in Herodotus 1.204–14 (cf. 5.4.5). The description of the river systems of the Punjab (5.4.1–2) evokes Herodotus’ account... (shrink)

This paper argues that studying natural history helps make us more virtuous; that is, better and happier people. After sketching a broad conception of virtue, I discuss how naturalizing may improve our moral character and help develop our intellectual, aesthetic and physical abilities. I next assert essential connections between nonanthropocentrism and wisdom, and between natural history study and the achievement of a nonanthropocentric stance toward the world. Finally, I argue that the great naturalists suggest a noble, inspiring alternative to the (...) gross consumption and trivial pleasures offered by our destructive modern economy: the exploration, understanding and appreciation of nature. I conclude that a better understanding of our enlightened self-interest would do as much to further environmental protection as the acknowledgment of nature’s intrinsic value. (shrink)

This thesis is concerned with Immanuel Kant's mature philosophy as a whole. My aim is to show the systematic relationship among Kant's three Critiques, and the continuity of these with the Inaugral Dissertation. I use recent interpretations of Kant's projects in the Critique of Pure Reason and I offer my own interpretation of the Critique of Judgment, in which I highlight the importance of the final Appendix in that work, to argue that the goal of these three works taken together (...) is to replace traditional metaphysics with a new approach entirely. In place of the traditional approach in which the principles of metaphysics are supposed to be principles of the objective order of things quite apart from the way they appear to us, Kant argues in favour of a system of subjective principles that he believes will nevertheless allow us to achieve the goals of metaphysics. The new metaphysics will not be knowledge-based, as traditional metaphysics had been. Rather Kant's system is primarily ethics-based. That is, the primary principles of Kant's metaphysical system are those of his rational ethics, which have the function of regulating our activity in, and organization of, the world. Instead of knowledge, ethics, and theology being uneasily coordinated parts of philosophy, as they are in traditional metaphysical systems, all three become integrated within an ethical, and essentially teleological, framework in Kant's system. Showing the role of the Critique of Judgment in bringing about this change, as well as showing the importance of teleology for Kant's philosophy, are both important goals of the thesis. (shrink)

Limitations of Dienes & Perner's (D&P's) theory are traced to the assumption that the higher-order thought (HOT) theory of consciousness is true. D&P claim that 18-month-old children are capable of explicitly representing factuality, from which it follows (on D&P's theory) that they are capable of explicitly representing content, attitude, and self. D&P then attempt to explain 3-year-olds' failures on tests of voluntary control such as the dimensional change card sort by suggesting that at this age children cannot represent content and (...) attitude explicitly. We provide a better levels-of-consciousness account for age-related abulic dissociations between knowledge and action. (shrink)

This paper argues that Calvin provides an account of the radical unmaking of the human moral subject at the hands of sin and its even more radical remaking at the hands of divine grace. The moral significance of human continuity during this soteriological transit, including such things as reason and will as such, is shown to be overreached by that of what becomes of the human creature in its history at the hands of both sin and God’s grace. Calvin’s treatment (...) of the first and third uses of the law confirms and illumines this claim decisively. Insight into this matter is aided by consideration of J. Louis Martyn’s discussion of the status of the moral subject in Pauline paraenesis A Reformed theological ethic that takes its cues from Calvin’s teaching in this regard will thus regard the adventitious realities of sin and grace, and their serial consequences for the constitution of the human moral agent, to represent the most important meta-ethical realities to be considered. (shrink)

Reviews the basic Catholic moral principles that apply to health care, then uses them to assess three major current trends in the health care industry.