Argues that the Innocent Nation myth prevented many Americans from understanding, or even discussing, the complex motivations of the 9/11 terrorists. Identifies five key myths that lie at the heart of the American experience -- the myths of the Chosen Nation, of Nature's Nation, of the Christian Nation, of the Millennial Nation, and of the Innocent Nation. Drawing on a range of dissenting voices, Hughes shows that by canonizing these seemingly harmless myths of national identity as absolute truths, America (...) risks undermining the sweepingly egalitarian promise of the Declaration of Independence. (shrink)

Analogical reasoning relies on subprocesses of long-term memory and problem-solving. Stress, with its accompanying hormones dehydroepiandrosterone and cortisol, has been shown to impair memo...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:MEISTER ECKHART AND THE NEOPLATONIC HERITAGE: THE THINKER'S WAY TO GOD RICHARD Wooos, O.P. Loyola University of Ohioago Ohicago, Illinois IN BOTH HIS LIFE rand preaching, Meister Eokrhart's " way" was pre-eminently.a spirituality of the mind. The srpeoulat:ive inqui.rires.and p:roibings thaJt animate his iSChD'l-·arly woliks 1also f!:>iervrude his sermons ·and treatisies, while a pastoral, homiletic inrberrtion iieciproca:1ly permeates the scholarly.worrks, particularly in regard to.the Meister'1s fascination with rthe (...) Woil1d. Heinrich Deni:fle, 1who disonviered and first commented upon Eckhart's Laitin writings in the 1880s, concluded that the Meister faclmd the clarity of conception and precision of expression characteristic of the great scholastic figmes who preoeded him, partiou1ady Albert the Grea:t 1and 'lihomas Aquinrus.1 B:ut more reoent Eckhart scholars have increasingly •argued that Denifle's oonoern to :ve£ute uncritically inflated characteriz,ations of Eckhart's philosophloa:l genius, notrubly that of Wilhelm Preger,.led him to undel'V'alue and indeed misrepvesen:t •the Meister's ireal goal a;nd bme achievement. Indeed, tto the modern critical eye, aided :by a oontury 1 "Eckhart ein unklarer Denker war, der sich der Consequenzen seiner Lehrer resp. seiner ausdruckweise nicht bewusst war. Gerade bei den schwierigen Lehrpunkten, wo Klarheit und Scharfe der Begriffe und des Ausdrucks mehr als je geboten ist, tritt dies zu Tage. Gerade in den entscheidenden Momenten verlasst ihn die Klarheit.... Eckhart besass aber nicht die geistige Begabung iiber die Scholastik hinauszugeben und doch innerhalb der Granzen der Wahrheit zu bleiben." "Meister Eckharts lateinische Schriften, und die Grundanschauung seiner Lehre," in A.rahiv fii,r Literatur unCl Kirchengeschichte Cles Mittelalters, ed. H. Denifie and Franz Ehrle (Graz: Akademische Druck u. Verlagsanstalt, 1956), vol. 2, pp. 482, 521. 609 610 RICHARD WOODS, O.P. of ]urbher di:s:cioverieis 1rund study, " the scholastic Eckhart is an original.and spooulaxbivie til:rintker, 1and not only a spirit's itineriary fa~om.aJJJd ha:ck to its eternail. Sourioe-4hie Ohristian NoopLatonic schema th.at Eckhart im.heri'bed room St. Albert tb!e Greait rund, 1behind him, Hugh and Richa;rid of St. Victo:r, Thomas Ga1lus, John Sarraoenus, John Soottus Eriugena, Diornysiius the Areop1aigibe, P!l.'odus, and, penultimrutely, Pilotinus!himself. For thls gre:art theoa Meister Eckhart: Die deutschen und lateinischen Werke: Herausgegeben im Auftrage der Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft, 11 Vols. to date (Stuttgart and Berlin: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1958-). German sermons will be identified hereafter by their number in the Deutsche Werke and, for English translation, by the corresponding page number in the Walshe edition. 9 " Eine Koiner Handscrift mit lateinischen Eckhart-Exzerpten," Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 31 (1961) : 204-12. In volume three of his edition, Walshe includes a translation of a fragment of one of Eckhart's sermons discovered by Prof. Kurt Ruh in 1967 and published in the Zeitschrift fii,r deutohes Aitertum 111 (1982) : 219-25. See ed. cit., pp. 131-35. ECKHART AND NEOPLATONISM 618 ~ogical tradition, liecently examined in some detail iby John Macquarrie alllld Andrew Louth, stretches hack evoo £artlier to tbie Oappadocian Fraithe'I"s, Origien, Philo, :and at the source, Pilato.in Smee the 1app1e1amance of Eoklhamt'1s more aoadiemic Laltin wiorrks, op;inion has heen divided as 1 00 their importance :velative ibo the more familiar German sermons iand tT1eatises for understarndmg the Meister~s authentic tooching. Some recent commenibato 'l.1s 1 sti1l 1:Jend to favor the lattier aJ.moot enti'11ely, even wihile acknOW11edging t:hie impo'11tooce of the forn11er; some favor the Latin.11 Critical opinion :seems 'bo have turned in the direction of remphrusizing the importalllice of both.the Latin and the German :works in 01der 1bo unders:tand the whole Eckhartthe teacher and the p:veacheT.12 But to understand to what extent Ed.mart ias,a tlheologian, philosopher, arrd mystic was indebted to Obrisltian Nooplatmrism it is raliso n:ecess1acy to see him in the oonteJct of his,w;orks, his method, and his scholarly and apostolic career. The Scholar and His Temper While Echltart had ra ik!een phi1osorphica1 temperament, he did not 1rus,a rule compose racrudemic 1weatises. Ratiher, he scatltJeTed... (shrink)

Based on a conference held at Wesleyan University, this book offers an illuminating compendium of opinion on several cardinal issues related to induction; specifically, the nature of explanation, probability, prediction, behavior theory, and the role of values in scientific inferences. Papers are presented by Hughes Leblanc, Wesley Salmon, W. Ross Ashby, Daniel Berlyne, Herbert Robbins, Adolf Grünbaum, N. R. Hanson, Sidney Morgenbesser, and Richard Braithwaite. Contributors to the subsequent discussions include Max Black, Michael Scriven, and Wilfrid Sellars. Both (...) the papers read and most of the ensuing discussions are reproduced in full, and the reader can witness the gestation of opinion and the sharpening of issues as vividly as though he were present himself.—T. S. V. (shrink)

In Minkowski spacetime, because of the relativity of simultaneity to the inertial frame chosen, there is no unique world-at-an-instant. Thus the classical view that there is a unique set of events existing now in a three dimensional space cannot be sustained. The two solutions most often advanced are that the four-dimensional structure of events and processes is alone real, and that becoming present is not an objective part of reality; and that present existence is not an absolute notion, but is (...) relative to inertial frame; the world-at-an-instant is a three dimensional, but relative, reality. According to a third view, advanced by Robb, Capek and Stein, what is present at a given spacetime point is, strictly speaking, constituted by that point alone. I argue here against the first of these views that the four-dimensional universe cannot be said to exist now, already, or indeed at any time at all; so that talk of its existence or reality as if that precludes the existence or reality of the present is a non sequitur. The second view assumes that in relativistic physics time lapse is measured by the time co-ordinate function; against this I maintain that it is in fact measured by the proper time, as I argue by reference to the Twin Paradox. The third view, although formally correct, is tarnished by its unrealistic assumption of point-events. This makes it susceptible to paradox, and also sets it at variance with our normal intuitions of the present. I argue that a defensible concept of the present is nonetheless obtainable when account is taken of the non-instantaneity of events, including that of conscious awareness, as that region of spacetime comprised between the forward lightcone of the beginning of a small interval of proper time t and the backward lightcone of the end of that interval. This gives a serviceable notion of what is present to a given event of short duration, as well as saving our intuition of the “reality” or robustness of present events. (shrink)

It is commonly held that there is no place for the 'now’ in physics, and also that the passing of time is something subjective, having to do with the way reality is experienced but not with the way reality is. Indeed, the majority of modern theoretical physicists and philosophers of physics contend that the passing of time is incompatible with modern physical theory, and excluded in a fundamental description of physical reality. This book provides a forceful rebuttal of such claims. (...) In successive chapters the author explains the historical precedents of the modern opposition to time flow, giving careful expositions of matters relevant to becoming in classical physics, the special and general theories of relativity, and quantum theory, without presupposing prior expertise in these subjects. Analysing the arguments of thinkers ranging from Aristotle, Russell, and Bergson to the proponents of quantum gravity, he contends that the passage of time, understood as a local becoming of events out of those in their past at varying rates, is not only compatible with the theories of modern physics, but implicit in them. (shrink)

In the transition to Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity (SR), certain concepts that had previously been thought to be univocal or absolute properties of systems turn out not to be. For instance, mass bifurcates into (i) the relativistically invariant proper mass m0, and (ii) the mass relative to an inertial frame in which it is moving at a speed v = βc, its relative mass m, whose quantity is a factor γ = (1 – β2) -1/2 times the proper mass, (...) m = γm0. (shrink)

This is a reply to Samuel Levey's fine review of my Monads, Composition and Force (Oxford UP, 2018) in the same issue of the Leibniz Review. In it I take up various difficulties raised by Levey that may be thought to collapse Leibniz's position into idealism after all, and attempt to provide convincing responses to them.

This paper examines the efficacy of a statelessness reduction plan implemented by the country of Chile. We evaluate the programmatic alignment of Chile’s statelessness reduction plan, #Chilereconoce, with policy enacted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in that office’s campaign to eradicate statelessness by the year 2024. In addition to evaluating the structure of Chile’s statelessness reduction plan, we explore the policy outcomes of this plan in achieving its desired goal of reducing statelessness in Chile. We use Chile (...) as a case study because it implemented the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ 2014-2024 Action Plan and, therefore, can shed light on if such a plan can put a nation-state on the path to remedy the deleterious effects of statelessness. Our central argument is that Chile’s statelessness reduction plan can, in-fact, serve as a blueprint for governmental institutions to follow towards achieving the goal of reducing statelessness. The success of such a plan, however, is conditioned upon whether principle actors within governmental institutions confront, head on, structural challenges that otherwise tend to undermine the merging of a confluence of critical factors that must be aligned for success to occur. The Chilean project demonstrates that reducing statelessness requires community action, implementation of domestic legislative reform, and governmental accession to international treaties. (shrink)

It is well known that Leibniz advocated the actual infinite, but that he did not admit infinite collections or infinite numbers. But his assimilation of this account to the scholastic notion of the syncategorematic infinite has given rise to controversy. A common interpretation is that in mathematics Leibniz’s syncategorematic infinite is identical with the Aristotelian potential infinite, so that it applies only to ideal entities, and is therefore distinct from the actual infinite that applies to the actual world. Against this, (...) I argue in this paper that Leibniz’s actual infinite, understood syncategorematically, applies to any entities that are actually infinite in multitude, whether numbers, actual parts of matter, or monads. It signifies that there are more of them than can be assigned a number, but that there is no infinite number or collection of them, which notion involves a contradiction. Similarly, to say that a magnitude is actually infinitely small in the syncategorematic sense is to say that no matter how small a magnitude one takes, there is a smaller, but there are no actual infinitesimals. In geometry one may calculate with expressions apparently denoting such entities, on the understanding that they are fictions, standing for variable magnitudes that can be made arbitrarily small, so as to produce demonstrations that there is no error in the resulting expressions. (shrink)

This paper consists in a study of Leibniz’s argument for the infinite plurality of substances, versions of which recur throughout his mature corpus. It goes roughly as follows: since every body is actually divided into further bodies, it is therefore not a unity but an infinite aggregate; the reality of an aggregate, however, reduces to the reality of the unities it presupposes; the reality of body, therefore, entails an actual infinity of constituent unities everywhere in it. I argue that this (...) depends on a generalized notion of aggregation, according to which a thing may be an aggregate of its constituents if every one of its actual parts presupposes such constituents, but is not composed from them. One of the premises of this argument is the reality of bodies. If this premise is denied, Leibniz’s argument for the infinitude of substances, and even of their plurality, cannot go through. (shrink)

This article responds to a common criticism of Aristotelian naturalism known as the Pollyanna Problem, the objection that Aristotelian naturalism, when combined with recent empirical research, generates morally unacceptable conclusions. In developing a reply to this objection, I draw upon the conception of human nature developed by the ancient Chinese philosopher Mencius, and build up an account of ethical naturalism that provides a satisfying response to the Pollyanna Problem while also preserving what is most attractive about Aristotelian naturalism.

Philosophers have constituted business ethics as a field by providing a systematic overview that interrelates its problems and concepts and that supplies the basis for building on attained results. Is there a properly theological task in business ethics? The religious/theological literature on business ethics falls into four classes: (1) the application of religious morality to business practices; (2) the use of encyclical teachings about capitalism; (3) the interpretation of business relations in agapa-istic terms; and (4) the critique of business from (...) a liberation theological point of view. Theologians have not adequately addressed the questions of whether there are particular theological tasks in the field as they define it, and whether, if they define it, the theological definition is different from the philosophical. (shrink)

In this interview, C. P. Goodman invites British Polanyi scholar Richard T. Allen to reflect on his interest in Polanyi’s philosophical ideas and share what he believes is valuable in his thought.

Russell’s most important source for his book on Leibniz was C. I. Gerhardt’s seven-volume Die philosophischen Schriften von Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz. Russell heavily annotated his copy of this important edition of Leibniz’s works. The present paper records all Russell’s marginalia, with the exception of passages marked merely by vertical lines in the margin, and provides explanatory commentary.

This book gathers together for the first time an important body of texts written between 1672 and 1686 by the great German philosopher and polymath Gottfried Leibniz. These writings, most of them previously untranslated, represent Leibniz's sustained attempt on a problem whose solution was crucial to the development of his thought, that of the composition of the continuum. The volume begins with excerpts from Leibniz's Paris writings, in which he tackles such problems as whether the infinite division of matter entails (...) perfect points, whether matter and space can be regarded as true wholes, whether motion is truly continuous, and the nature of body and substance. Comprising the second section is Pacidius Philalethi, Leibniz's brilliant dialogue of late 1676 on the problem of the continuity of motion. In the selections of the final section, from his Hanover writings of 1677-1686, Leibniz abandons his earlier transcreationism and atomism in favor of the theory of corporeal substance, where the reality of body and motion is founded in substantial form or force.Leibniz's texts (one in French, the rest in Latin) are presented with facing-page English translations, together with an introduction, notes, appendixes containing related excerpts from earlier works by Leibniz and his predecessors, and a valuable glossary detailing important terms and their translations. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that the use of non-human animals in ritual sacrifices is not necessary for the Confucian tradition. I draw upon resources found within other religious traditions as well as Confucianism concerning carrying out even the most mundane, ordinary actions as expressions of reverence. I argue that this practice of manifesting deep reverence toward God through simple actions, which I call everyday reverence, reveals a way for Confucians to maintain the deep reverence that is essential for Confucianism, (...) while abandoning the use of non-human animal sacrifice. (shrink)

In preparation for his lectures on Leibniz delivered in Cambridge in Lent Term 1899, Russell started in the summer of 1898 to keep notes on writings by and about Leibniz in a large notebook of the type he commonly used for notetaking at this time. This article prints, with annotation, all the material on Leibniz in that notebook.

HellmanGeoffrey* * and ShapiroStewart.** ** Varieties of Continua—From Regions to Points and Back. Oxford University Press, 2018. ISBN: 978-0-19-871274-9. Pp. x + 208.

Pippin offers his reconstruction of Hegel's account of practical reason as a point of departure for contemporary social theory, yet he does not address the implications for us of Hegel's claim that social reflection can achieve its knowledge only on the basis of a world that has already become rational. After arguing that the unreasonableness of our world can be seen from the suffering it generates, I argue that an account of violence may be a way to retrieve the promise (...) of Hegelian insights so long as it draws in turn on existing challenges to violence and the suffering it causes. The argument discusses four kinds of violence (direct, formative, structural, and symbolic) and confronts these with a neo-Hegelian conception of social learning. (shrink)

This set is a carefully balanced selection of writings representing some of the most important currents in the thought of city and regional planning during the period 1870-1940 when urban planning emerged as a serious disciplinary field. The set consists of eight key books from this period, handsomely illustrated and reproduced in their entirety, and a separate volume of fifteen seminal short selections - all by major figures of the time, such as Abercrombie, Geddes, and the Olmsteds. Soria y Mata's (...) writings on the linear city also appear in translation for the first time. In addition to seminal works on city planning, the set covers themes such as neighbourhood, Utopian and visionary planning; planning for parks; housing; transportation systems, and public health. A wide variety of cities feature including Paris, Vienna, Amsterdam, Berlin, London, Manchester, New York and San Francisco, showing a great diversity of cultural styles. Early Urban Planning 1870-1940 is of continued importance today, as it highlights ideals which remain strikingly relevant in development of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. (shrink)

Only by distinguishing corporate, moral, social and legal responsibility can GM know how to weigh and respond to its various responsibilities. Corporate responsibility stems from the ends for which the corporation is formed. In addition the corporation is responsible for meeting the moral demands that come from the moral law. The corporation is responsible for meeting legitimate social demands proposed by society. If society uses the law to express its demands, the demands yield legal responsibilities. Those demands that are social (...) but neither moral nor legal may not be legitimate demands that GM must respond to at all. (shrink)

In this paper I try to sort out a tangle of issues regarding time, inertia, proper time and the so-called “clock hypothesis” raised by Harvey Brown's discussion of them in his recent book, Physical Relativity. I attempt to clarify the connection between time and inertia, as well as the deficiencies in Newton's “derivation” of Corollary 5, by giving a group theoretic treatment original with J.-P. Provost. This shows how both the Galilei and Lorentz transformations may be derived from the relativity (...) principle on the basis of certain elementary assumptions regarding time. I then reflect on the implications of this derivation for understanding proper time and the clock hypothesis. (shrink)

This work is a publication of a manuscript left unfinished at his death by the author. From the time of their conversations in 1936, William Henry Werkmeister has studied the phenomenon of Martin Heidegger's thought and the critical literature commenting on it. During a period spanning 36 years, Werkmeister wrote some nine articles and reviews about his findings. He turned to other interests, but the Heidegger phenomenon continued to reside at the back of his mind. At age ninety, Werkmeister set (...) out once again to write a work that would unify Heidegger's thought, clarify a number of its essential features, place Heidegger's chief works in an order that corresponds to the time line of his thought, critically appraise the development of his thought against the work of other German philosophers, and assess the question of Heidegger's alleged Nazi sympathies. (shrink)

Business ethics, which grew out of religion's interest in ethics in business and management education's concern with social issues, has become an interdisciplinary academic field. Thus far it has centered on teaching undergraduates. The easy work has now been done and the field has reached a plateau. To develop further it requires development on the MBA level, high quality research on new questions, positive models, better interdisciplinary integration, and attention to international business. Ultimately the field will stand or fall on (...) the quality of research those in it produce. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to explain the significance of Alfred A. Robb’s philosophy of time stemming from his interpretation of relativity theory; and at the same time, to investigate the reasons for the failure of his philosophical contemporaries to appreciate its significance, with special attention to its reception on Russell’s part. The study of Russell’s reaction to Robb exposes shortcomings in Russell’s own philosophy of time, which has been extremely influential through the years. It also highlights the philosophical (...) differences between Minkowski and Robb, the shared idealistic premises of Russell and McTaggart, and the confluences between the views of Russell, Eddington and McTaggart. The paper closes with an account of how Robb’s interpretation has been vindicated by its adoption in modern physics. (shrink)

The reappearance of the question of moral judgments by historians makes a reappraisal of the issues timely. Almost all that has been written on the subject addresses only the propriety of moral judgments in the written texts historians produce. However, historians have to make moral choices when selecting a subject upon which to write; and they make a tacit moral commitment to write and teach honestly. Historians usually dislike making explicit moral evaluations, and have little or no training in how (...) to do so. They can argue it’s not their job; they are only finders of fact. Historians holding a determinist view of actions do not think it appropriate to blame people for doing what they couldn’t help doing; for those believing there is an overall pattern to history, individual morality is beside the point. Finally, since earlier cultures had values different from ours, it seems unjust to hold them to contemporary standards. This essay modifies or rejects these arguments. Some historians have manifested ambivalence, acknowledging it is difficult or impossible to avoid making moral evaluations . Ordinary-language philosophers, noting that historiography has no specialized vocabulary, see it as saturated by the values inherent in everyday speech and thought. I argue that the historicist argument about the inevitably time-bound limitation of all values is exaggerated. Historians who believe in the religious grounding of values obviously disagree with it; but even on a secular level, morals are often confused with mores. If historians inevitably make moral evaluations, they should examine what philosophical ethicists—virtue ethicists, deontologists, and consequentialists—have said about how to make them; and even if they find no satisfactory grounding for their own moral attitudes, it is a brute fact that they have them. I end with an argument for “strong evaluations”—neither treating them as a troublesome residue in historiography nor, having despaired of finding a solid philosophical ground for moral evaluations, concluding that they are merely matters of taste. I believe historians should embrace the role of moral commentators, but that they should be aware that their evaluations are, like all historical judgments, subject to the criticisms of their colleagues and readers. Historians run little risk of being censorious and self-righteous; the far greater danger is acquiescing in or contributing to moral confusion and timidity. (shrink)