This paper criticizes the assumptions behind Robert Brandom’s reading of Hegel’s Phenomenology, contending that Hegel’s concern with the rational structure of experience, his valorization of reflection over ordinary experience and his idea of the necessit y of progress in knowledge cannot be accommodated within the framework of semantic pragmatism. The central contentions are that Brandom’s pragmatism never comes to terms with Hegel’s idea of truth as a result, leading to a historicist distortion, and also that Brandom’s failure to deal (...) with Hegel’s distinction between natural consciousness and the phenomenological observer collapses Hegel’s phenomenology into a philosophy restricted to the level of natural consciousness. (shrink)

For millennia, idleness and laziness have been regarded as vices. We're all expected to work to survive and get ahead, and devoting energy to anything but labor and self-improvement can seem like a luxury or a moral failure. Far from questioning this conventional wisdom, modern philosophers have worked hard to develop new reasons to denigrate idleness. In Idleness, the first book to challenge modern philosophy's portrayal of inactivity, Brian O'Connor argues that the case against an indifference to work and (...) effort is flawed--and that idle aimlessness may instead allow for the highest form of freedom. -/- Idleness explores how some of the most influential modern philosophers drew a direct connection between making the most of our humanity and avoiding laziness. Idleness was dismissed as contrary to the need people have to become autonomous and make whole, integrated beings of themselves (Kant); to be useful (Kant and Hegel); to accept communal norms (Hegel); to contribute to the social good by working (Marx); and to avoid boredom (Schopenhauer and de Beauvoir). -/- O'Connor throws doubt on all these arguments, presenting a sympathetic vision of the inactive and unserious that draws on more productive ideas about idleness, from ancient Greece through Robert Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, Schiller and Marcuse's thoughts about the importance of play, and recent critiques of the cult of work. A thought-provoking reconsideration of productivity for the twenty-first century, Idleness shows that, from now on, no theory of what it means to have a free mind can exclude idleness from the conversation. (shrink)

Preface to the Special Issue on Free Will and Epistemology written by Robert Lockie.

Throughout his philosophical career, Eric Voegelin had much to say about literature in both his published work and his private letters. Many of his most trenchant comments regarding the analysis of literature appear in his correspondence with critic Robert Heilman, and, through his familiarity with that exchange, Charles Embry has gained extraordinary insight into Voegelin’s literary views. _The Philosopher and the Storyteller_ is the first book-length study of the literary dimensions of Voegelin’s philosophy—and the first to use his (...) philosophy to read specific novels. Bringing to bear a thorough familiarity with both Voegelin and great literature, Embry shows that novels—like myths, philosophy, and religious texts—participate in the human search for the truth of existence, and that reading literature within a Voegelinian framework exposes the existential and philosophical dimensions of those works. Embry focuses on two key elements of Voegelin’s philosophy as important for reading literature: metaxy, the in-between of human consciousness, and metalepsis, human participation in the community of being. He shows how Voegelin’s philosophy in general is rooted in literary-symbolic interpretation and, therefore, provides a foundation for the interpretation of literature. And finally he explores Voegelin’s insistence that the soundness of literary criticism lies in the consciousness of the reader. Embry then offers Voegelinian readings that vividly illustrate the principles of this approach. First he considers Graham Swift’s _Waterland_ as an example of the human search for meaning in the modern world, then he explores the deformation and recovery of reality in Heimito von Doderer’s long and complex novel _The Demons,_ and finally he examines how Flannery O’Connor’s _The Violent Bear It Away_ mythically expresses the flux of divine presence in what Voegelin calls the Time of the Tale. _The Philosopher and the Storyteller_ unites fiction and philosophy in the common quest to understand our nature, our world, and our cosmos. A groundbreaking exploration of the connection between Voegelin and twentieth-century literature, this book opens a new window on the philosopher’s thought and will motivate readers to study other novels in light of this approach. (shrink)

Review of Richard Double, Metaphilosophy and Free Will; Thomas Pink, The Psychology of Freedom; and Robert Kane, The Significance of Free Will,.

International Journal of Philosophical Studies, Volume 19, Issue 5, Page 753-760, December 2011.

This book taps the best American thinkers to answer the essential American question: How do we sustain our experiment in government of, by, and for the people? Authored by an extraordinary and politically diverse roster of public officials, scholars, and educators, these chapters describe our nation's civic education problem, assess its causes, offer an agenda for reform, and explain the high stakes at risk if we fail.

Andrew Abbott's Department and Discipline calls to mind an exchange I once had with an economist—prompted by my characterization of a recent work of urban sociology as part of the “Chicago‐school tradition”—who reminded me that in his profession “Chicago school” was associated with Milton Friedman, free market ideology, and a world made up of rational, self‐interest‐maximizing actors. What I had in mind could hardly be further from that: the highly contextual, neighborhood‐based mode of analysis that became a hallmark of the (...) University of Chicago Department of Sociology from the late 1910s through the 1930s and that explained such phenomena as juvenile delinquency, race relations, poverty, and urban ennui as the products of complex, historically rooted social processes, ecologies, and group interactions.The essays that make up Department and Discipline ask that we rethink “conventional” notions of “Chicago‐school” sociology as a body of work produced by a particular group of faculty and students in a bygone era. Instead, in an engaging, unapologetically polemical, and ultimately prescriptive blend of historical analysis and disciplinary critique, Abbott conceptualizes the Chicago school as a tradition that was invented and reinvented over time, and within the ever‐changing relationship between the department and the broader discipline over the first half of the twentieth century. With this as his central theme, Abbott contemplates the—highly contested—meaning of the Chicago school in historiography and departmental history; the historical transformation of the Chicago‐based American Journal of Sociology from early, shaping influence to a mere organ of an increasingly narrow, professionalized discipline; and the capacity of the discipline to transcend what Abbott believes to be its contemporary state of professional and intellectual exhaustion.Even within sociology, “Chicago school” has had varying connotations over the years. Some associate it with Robert Park and his cyclical, assimilationist vision of race relations; others with the organic, ecological view of urban growth and mobility patterns captured in such still‐ubiquitous concepts as ethnic “succession”; still others with symbolic interactionism, the social psychological study of how people engage with, give meaning to, and ultimately act within the object world around them. More recently there has been talk of a “second Chicago school,” a post–World War II generation of qualitative and interactionist scholars who kept those traditions alive even as the discipline was headed in more quantitative, grand theoretical directions. Complicating matters still further, members of the initial, now‐legendary founding generation did not think of themselves as engaged in a single intellectual project or “school” of thought. Indeed, Abbott tells us that it was not until the 1970s, decades after Chicago lost its dominance in the discipline, that “the loose tangle of maxims and practices that had sustained the department in its glory years” was actually presented as “the Chicago school” .So does it make sense to talk about a or the Chicago school of sociology? Abbott argues that it does, albeit not as something that exists in the ideas, the body of research, or the considerable institutional apparatus that characterized the department during its interwar “glory years.” Rather, it existed in the interactions among a methodologically diverse, often deeply conflicted department faculty, out of which emerged an eclectic tradition of inquiry dedicated to understanding social processes in the context of time and place. Ironically, it took a moment of crisis—a year‐long self‐study in 1951–1952 prompted by administrative pressure and foundation efforts to define sociology as a bona fide science—to bring this vision of the Chicago‐school tradition into full view. By then, the tradition was on the way out: its practitioners retiring or moving elsewhere; its sensibilities displaced by a type of analysis C. Wright Mills would scornfully refer to as abstracted empiricism, dedicated to the construction and manipulation of variables outside of time and place.Though not a book for the uninitiated—Abbott's detailed rendering of behind‐the‐scenes personalities and squabbles requires some knowledge of the department and its landmark works—Department and Discipline makes an important contribution to social science history as well as to the literature on the Chicago school. Informed by extensive archival research, the book is animated by a powerful argument that is likely to resonate with historians, if not with the AJS editors who declined to publish the essay they had commissioned from Abbott for the journal's centenary: that sociology must reconnect with and reinvigorate the tradition of contextual analysis. While intriguing, Abbott's argument that the Chicago “school” exists in departmental processes and faculty relationships is less fully realized—occasional references to the Chicago‐school tradition in its 1920–1930s “heyday” sound awfully like the conventional view. It also makes for a book that gives short shrift to the actual ideas and body of research associated with Chicago sociology—and to their extraordinarily enduring influence among social practitioners and analysts alike. Still, when Abbott does turn to the work, the discussion is, like the rest of the book, original, thought provoking, and rewarding to read. (shrink)

_Rediscovering Aesthetics_ brings together prominent international voices from art history, philosophy, and artistic practice to discuss the current role of aesthetics within and across their disciplines. Following a period in which theories and histories of art, art criticism, and artistic practice seemed to focus exclusively on political, social, or empirical interpretations of art, aesthetics is being rediscovered both as a vital arena for discussion and a valid interpretive approach outside its traditional philosophical domain. This volume is distinctive, because it provides (...) a selection of significant but divergent positions. The diversity of the views presented here demonstrates that a critical rethinking of aesthetics can be undertaken in a variety of ways. The contributions open a transdisciplinary debate from which a new field of aesthetics may begin to emerge. Contributors include: Claire Bishop, Diarmuid Costello, Paul Crowther, Arthur Danto, Nicholas Davey, Thierry de Duve, James Elkins, Francis Halsall, Michael Ann Holly, Julia Jansen, Michael Kelly, Robert Morris, Tony O'Connor, Peter Osborne, Adrian Piper, David Raskin, Carolee Schneemann, Richard Shiff, Wolfgang Welsch, and Richard Woodfield. (shrink)

Flannery O'Connor is considered one of America's greatest fiction writers. The immensely talented Robert Giroux, editor-in-chief of Harcourt, Brace & Company and later of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, was her devoted friend and admirer. He edited her three books published during her lifetime, plus Everything that Rises Must Converge, which she completed just before she died in 1964 at the age of thirty-nine, the posthumous The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor, and the subsequent award-winning collection of her (...) letters titled The Habit of Being. When poet Robert Lowell first introduced O'Connor to Giroux in March 1949, she could not have imagined the impact that meeting would have on her life or on the landscape of postwar American literature. Flannery O'Connor and Robert Giroux: A Publishing Partnership sheds new light on an area of Flannery O?Connor?s life?her relationship with her editors?that has not been well documented or narrated by critics and biographers. Impressively researched and rich in biographical details, this book chronicles Giroux?s and O?Connor?s personal and professional relationship, not omitting their circle of friends and fellow writers, including Robert Lowell, Caroline Gordon, Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, Allen Tate, Thomas Merton, and Robert Penn Warren. As Patrick Samway explains, Giroux guided O'Connor to become an internationally acclaimed writer of fiction and nonfiction, especially during the years when she suffered from lupus at her home in Milledgeville, Georgia, a disease that eventually proved fatal. Excerpts from their correspondence, some of which are published here for the first time, reveal how much of Giroux's work as editor was accomplished through his letters to Milledgeville. They are gracious, discerning, and appreciative, just when they needed to be. In Father Samway's portrait of O'Connor as an extraordinarily dedicated writer and businesswoman, she emerges as savvy, pragmatic, focused, and determined. This engrossing account of O'Connor's publishing history will interest, in addition to O'Connor's fans, all readers and students of American literature. (shrink)

��This paper investigates how an evolutionary al- gorithm with an indirect encoding exploits the property of phenotypic regularity, an important design principle found in natural organisms and engineered designs. We present the first comprehensive study showing that such phenotypic regularity enables an indirect encoding to outperform direct encoding con- trols as problem regularity increases. Such an ability to produce regular solutions that can exploit the regularity of problems is an important prerequisite if evolutionary algorithms are to scale to high-dimensional real-world (...) problems, which typically contain many regularities, both known and unrecognized. The indirect encoding in this case study is HyperNEAT, which evolves artificial neural networks (ANNs) in a manner inspired by concepts from biological development. We demonstrate that, in contrast to two direct encoding controls, HyperNEAT produces both regular behaviors and regular ANNs, which enables HyperNEAT to significantly outperform the direct encodings as regularity increases in three problem domains. We also show that the types of regularities HyperNEAT produces can be biased, allowing domain knowledge and preferences to be injected into the search. Finally, we examine the downside of a bias toward regularity. Even when a solution is mainly regular, some irregularity may be needed to perfect its functionality. This insight is illustrated by a new algorithm called HybrID that hybridizes indirect and direct encodings, which matched HyperNEAT’s performance on regular problems yet outperformed it on problems with some irregularity. HybrID’s ability to improve upon the performance of HyperNEAT raises the question of whether indirect encodings may ultimately excel not as stand-alone algorithms, but by being hybridized with a further process of refinement, wherein the indirect encoding produces patterns that exploit problem regu-. (shrink)

In Democracy and the Claims of Nature, the leading thinkers in the fields of environmental, political, and social theory come together to discuss the tensions and sympathies of democratic ideals and environmental values. The prominent contributors reflect upon where we stand in our understanding of the relationship between democracy and the claims of nature. Democracy and the Claims of Nature bridges the gap between the often competing ideals of the two fields, leading to a greater understanding of each for the (...) other. (shrink)

This collection of essays is a sequel to the editors' 1976 volume Studies in Nietzsche and the Classical Tradition. Philosophers, theologians, and literary historians discuss important aspects of Nietzsche's attack on Judaism and Christianity. The book contains studies of his view of biblical figures, Luther and Pascal as well as comparisons of his thought with that of Spinoza, Lessing, Heine, and Kierkegaard. Nietzsche's critique of the Old Testament, the Jewish religion of the diaspora, and historical Christianity are also investigated. Of (...) the eighteen articles included here, thirteen were prepared expressly for this volume--five were translated from German, one from French, and one from Hebrew. Contributors to this volume are: Eugen Biser, Harry Neumann, Israel Eldad, Charles Lewis, Jorg Salaquarda, Joan Stambaugh, Max L. Baeumer, Brendan Donellan, Diana Behler, Sander L. Gilman, Gerd-Gunther Grau, Josef Simon, James C. O'Flaherty, Bernd Magnus, Georges Goedert, Hans Lung, and Karl Barth. (shrink)

James's ethical thought could frequently be consequentialist, but it could also on occasion show a deontological side, or "streak," as I contended in "William James on the Courage to Believe". This shows up when he speaks of the "strenuous" as against the "easy-going" moral mood, in "The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life," and it preserves the precursive intervention of our "passional natures" in "The Will to Believe" from lapsing into "wishful thinking." Toned down slightly, perhaps, in "Varieties of Religious (...) Experience", it reasserts itself in "Pragmatism", and, it could be shown, in James's succeeding works as well. (shrink)

Biological evolution provides a creative fount of complex and subtle adaptations, often surprising the scientists who discover them. However, because evolution is an algorithmic process that transcends the substrate in which it occurs, evolution’s creativity is not limited to nature. Indeed, many researchers in the field of digital evolution have observed their evolving algorithms and organisms subverting their intentions, exposing unrecognized bugs in their code, producing unexpected adaptations, or exhibiting outcomes uncannily convergent with ones in nature. Such stories routinely reveal (...) creativity by evolution in these digital worlds, but they rarely fit into the standard scientific narrative. Instead they are often treated as mere obstacles to be overcome, rather than results that warrant study in their own right. The stories themselves are traded among researchers through oral tradition, but that mode of information transmission is inefficient and prone to error and outright loss. Moreover, the fact that these stories tend to be shared only among practitioners means that many natural scientists do not realize how interesting and lifelike digital organisms are and how natural their evolution can be. To our knowledge, no collection of such anecdotes has been published before. This paper is the crowd-sourced product of researchers in the fields of artificial life and evolutionary computation who have provided first-hand accounts of such cases. It thus serves as a written, fact-checked collection of scientifically important and even entertaining stories. In doing so we also present here substantial evidence that the existence and importance of evolutionary surprises extends beyond the natural world, and may indeed be a universal property of all complex evolving systems. (shrink)

Chauncey Wright (1830–1874) was one of the first American philosophers to explore the implications of Charles Darwin's work in evolutionary biology. Wright became a strong supporter of the idea of natural selection and a strong critic of the anti-selectionist and teleological arguments of St. George Jackson Mivart and Herbert Spencer, and he laid the groundwork for the field that is today called evolutionary epistemology. As the mentor of the original Cambridge "Metaphysical Club" (William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, and (...) Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.), Wright was also instrumental in the development of the American school of Pragmatism. Although his analytical brilliance was widely acknowledged, he never became professionally successful, and he died in 1874 in his 45th year. (shrink)

Este artigo compara e contrapõe a abordagem naturalista pragmatista para a peculiaridade da linguagem, exemplificada, principalmente, mas, não exclusivamente, por John Dewey, com a extensa abordagem de Charles Taylor em seu O animal linguístico. Taylor, inspirado pelas obras de Hamann, Herder, e Humboldt, conta com recursos filosóficos e conceituais diferentes para o delineamento do que ele denomina de ‘a forma’ da capacidade linguística humana. Porém, Dewey e Taylor chegam a posições que se sobrepõem sem se identificar: a linguagem é (...) a característica definidora constitutiva dos seres humanos. Seres humanos são definidos pelo surgimento da ‘como’ consciência, uma ‘ruptura’ em nossa imersão imediata no mundo, e, como Peirce e Dewey mostraram de maneira tão lúcida, um reflexivo estar consciente do uso de signos e sistemas de signos de todos os tipos. Esses sistemas potencializam e transformam nosso acesso ao mundo e a nós mesmos. Eles não apenas rotulam um mudo já existente. Eles criam âmbitos de significados e valores que não surgiram sem eles. A distinção crucial de Taylor entre os modelos designativo e constitutivo da linguagem é apoiada plenamente pela consideração pragmatista da linguagem, a qual Taylor não declara. Essa distinção mostrará ser de importância especial para Dewey e Taylor na criação de paisagens existencialmente vitais de significado incorporados nas autodescrições e nas práticas delicadas das artes de auto-reflexão. Tanto Dewey quanto Taylor mostram que assim como as texturas abertas da experiência crescem por suas extremidades, assim a própria linguagem possui sua própria “extremidade” e nos aponta para os domínios “liminares” que sustentam o limiar do sentido para além do totalmente dizível. Esses domínios, que eles mostram de maneiras diferentes mas complementares, são acessados como realidades por formas não discursivas que abrangem as obras de arte, o que Taylor denomina de ‘representações,’ e rituais performativos e restaurativos, tanto pessoais, cívicos e religiosos que incorporam os significados. Dewey e Taylor, divergem, entretanto, sobre se e de que maneira estes domínios precisam transcender a natureza. (shrink)

The American public has increasingly identified health care as a key issue of concern. In order to address the multiple problems relating to the access and affordability of health care, President Obama and federal lawmakers across the political spectrum continue to call for major health reform. In any debate on health reform, a predictable set of complex policy, management, economic, and legal issues is likely to be raised. Due to the diverse interests involved, these issues could lead to a series (...) of high-stakes policy debates. Therefore, it is critical that advocates of reform strategies anticipate such issues in order to decrease the likelihood that legally resolvable questions become barriers to substantive health reform. In an effort to frame and study legal challenges and solutions in advance of the heat of political debate, the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have crafted the “Legal Solutions in Health Reform” project. (shrink)

This chronological collection of Moore's most compelling and dramatic images, taken as the movement progressed through Alabama, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Georgia, highlights activity from 1958 to 1965. Included are the iconic scenes of black protestors huddled in a doorway to escape the crippling blasts of fire hoses in Birmingham; a white bigot swinging a baseball bat seconds before cracking it on the head of a black woman during the desegregation of the Capitol Cafeteria in Montgomery; a young and stunned Dr. (...) Martin Luther King Jr. pinned to the counter of a police precinct, his arm twisted behind his back; the devastating aftermath of "Bloody Sunday" on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma; and Bull Connor's police dogs tearing mercilessly at the legs of a protestor in downtown Birmingham. Celebrity protestors--comedian Dick Gregory, poet Galway Kinnell, singers Joan Baez, Mary Travers, Pete Seeger, and Harry Bellafonte, actor Pernell Roberts, and writer James Baldwin--are featured alongside the many nameless but committed participants and the recognized major leaders of the movement. (shrink)

Are science and religion compatible when it comes to understanding cosmology (the origin of the universe), biology (the origin of life and of the human species), ethics, and the human mind (minds, brains, souls, and free will)? Do science and religion occupy non-overlapping magisteria? Is Intelligent Design a scientific theory? How do the various faith traditions view the relationship between science and religion? What, if any, are the limits of scientific explanation? What are the most important open questions, problems, or (...) challenges confronting the relationship between science and religion, and what are the prospects for progress? These and other questions are explored in Science and Religion: 5 Questions--a collection of thirty-three interviews based on 5 questions presented to some of the world's most influential and prominent philosophers, scientists, theologians, apologists, and atheists. Contributions by Simon Blackburn, Susan Blackmore, Sean Carroll, William Lane Craig, William Dembski, Daniel C. Dennett, George F.R. Ellis, Owen Flanagan, Owen Gingerich, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, John F. Haught, Muzaffar Iqbal, Lawrence Krauss, Colin McGinn, Alister McGrath, Mary Midgley, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Timothy O'Connor, Massimo Pigliucci, John Polkinghorne, James Randi, Alex Rosenberg, Michael Ruse, Robert John Russell, John Searle, Michael Shermer, Victor J. Stenger, Robert Thurman, Michael Tooley, Charles Townes, Peter van Inwagen, Keith Ward, Rabbi David Wolpe. (shrink)

The Pragmatism Reader is the essential anthology of this important philosophical movement. Each selection featured here is a key writing by a leading pragmatist thinker, and represents a distinctively pragmatist approach to a core philosophical problem. The collection includes work by pragmatism's founders, Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey, as well as seminal writings by mid-twentieth-century pragmatists such as Sidney Hook, C. I. Lewis, Nelson Goodman, Rudolf Carnap, Wilfrid Sellars, and W.V.O. Quine. This reader also includes the most (...) important work in contemporary pragmatism by philosophers like Susan Haack, Cornel West, Hilary Putnam, Richard Rorty, Cheryl Misak, and Robert Brandom. Each selection is a stand-alone piece--not an excerpt or book chapter--and each is presented fully unabridged. The Pragmatism Reader challenges the notion that pragmatism fell into a midcentury decline and was dormant until the advent of "neopragmatism" in the 1980s. This comprehensive anthology reveals a rich and highly influential tradition running unbroken through twentieth-century philosophy and continuing today. It shows how American pragmatist philosophers have contributed to leading philosophical debates about truth, meaning, knowledge, experience, belief, existence, justification, and freedom. Covers pragmatist philosophy from its origins to today Features key writings by the leading pragmatist thinkers Demonstrates the continuity and enduring influence of pragmatism Challenges prevailing notions about pragmatism Includes only stand-alone pieces, completely unabridged Reflects the full range of pragmatist themes, arguments, concerns, and commitments. (shrink)

Postmodernism today is driven by a set of theoretical stances that grow increasingly problematic. But as the theoretical contradictions emerge, it becomes possible to contrast this theoretical discourse to the ambitions that initially led writers and artists to pursue their version of postmodern perspectives. So this book explores what remains viable and valuable in some representative versions of what these writers and artists created. Altieri begins with an essay defining five basic contradictions in postmodern theory and outlining specific artistic strategies (...) for dwelling with and within those contradictions. Part Two then sets the historical stage with two essays—one focusing on the efforts to overthrow late modernism by Jasper Johns and John Ashbery, the other tracing the emergence of a logic of contingency in the poetics of Robert Creeley, Frank O'Hara, and Sylvia Plath. With Part Three the focus shifts to essays proposing different value frameworks for postmodern poets, frameworks that range from moral philosophy to the resources of the tradition of love poetry. Part Four turns to visual artists first engaging the efforts to politicize the postmodern in the 1980s, then showing how Frank Stella's work can be put in dialogue with that of Jacques Derrida. Finally, the book swallows its own tail by proposing an argument that the only version of the sublime that today does not collapse into self-congratulation is the sublime of self-disgust. _Postmodernism Now_ holds out the possibility that the arts have been America’s richest negotiations of postmodernity, and it insists that criticism need not displace art into social allegories in order to develop their relevance to social life. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:NOTES AND DISCUSSIONS 69 in pre-Socratic scholarship. But he does not do justice to the religious mood which pervades the whole poem (a mood which is set by the prologue which casts the whole work into the form of some kind of religious revelation). The prologue is considerably more than a mere literary device, and the poem is more than logic. Generally, Jaeger9 and Guthrie are surely correct in (...) their judgment that any adequate interpretation of Parmenides' work (as well as that of the other early Greek thinkers) must be willing to take into account its essentially theological character and religious inspirationl~ not always grasped through strict analysis and exegesis. g Theolooy of the Early C-reekPhilosophers, trans. Edward S. Robinson (Oxford, 1947), p. lff, 90ft. agCf. Guthrie's excellent statement: "...Parmenides was at one with Heraclitus in claiming a prophetic or apocalyptic authority for his teaching." And again, the Greeks believed in "an inspiration whereby-the poet is granted deeper insight into the truth than other men" (p. 6). ED. L. MILLER University of Colorado AN UNKNOWN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY FRENCH TRANSLATION OF SEXTUS EMPIRICUS* I. Introduction Included in a collection of manuscripts and early printed books recently acquired by the Library of the University of California, Los Angeles, from the Paris bookdealer Paul Jammes ~ are three manuscripts attributed to a certain Nicolas de la Toison, Baron de Bussy. Two of the three volumes contain extensive Latin commentaries on the major writings of Aristotle.2 The third is a miscellaneous volume written in three different hands, which contains, among other things, a complete French translation of the extant writings of Sextus Empiricus (c. A.D. 160-210).3 I * I would like to express my thanks to Mr. Richard O'Brien, Western European Bibliographer of the UCLA Library, for his help in numerous ways, who made it possible for me to consult this material during my sojourn in Los Angeles, even before it had been officially catalogued by the Library. I would also like to thank Professors Donald Kalish and Robert Yost of the UCLA Department of Philosophy for their support in making it possible for the collection to be purchased. 1For a brief description of the collection as a whole see Charles B. Schmitt, "Acquisition of Early French Books and Manuscripts", UCLA Librarian, XIX (1966)~25. 2These two manuscripts are bound m red leather with gold tooling. Thear present shelf mark is Collection 968, Box 2. On the spines is written: (1) PHILOSOPHIA.TO.I, and (2) METAPHYSIC ET PHYSICA TO.2. They measure approximately 10 X 14 cm. and each contains about 600fois. At the beginning of Vol. I, in a later hand (19th century?), we read: "Nicolas de la Thoison, baron de Bussy, qui 6crivit ces m6moires, 6tait conseiller laic au Parlement de Bourgogne. Il fur pourru par la r6signation de Pierre Catherine le IV Ddcembre M.DC.XLV et regu le XXIX janvier M.DC.XLVI. I1portait: de queueles dune bands d'or charges en coeur d'une quints feuiUe d'azur--ainsi qu'on le volt dans le Parlement de Bourgogne [Dijon, 1649]de Pierre PaiUot, p. 326." There is also a drawing of the coat-of-arms which has been described. That the de la Toison coat-of-arms is a quintefeuille is verified by Theodore de Renesse, Dictionnaire des figures h$raldiques (Brussels, 1894-1903) III, 461. The passage cited above from the manuscript is directly quoted from Pierre Paillot, Le Parlement de Bouroongne [I], son origins, son $tablissemerit, et son progr~s (Dijon, 1649), p. 326. s A description of this manuscript will be found in the Appendix. 70 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY shall here only give a preliminary survey of this third manuscript, pointing out some of the more interesting features and mentioning some problems connected with it which should be investigated further in more detail. As is now well-known the writings of Sextus Empiricus, which form the major extant compendium of ancient skeptical philosophy, had quite a significant impact on sixteenth and seventeenth-eentury thought, after their reintroduction in the sixteenth century. ~ Sextus' works were available in printed Latin editions after 15695 and the Greek text was printed in... (shrink)

The French writer, philosopher, and mystic Simone Weil (1909-1943) was one of the most original spiritual personalities of the 20th century. Now Coles presents a brilliant portrait of the beloved and controversial figure who was a spiritual influence on T.S. Eliot, Flannery O'Connor, Adrienne Rich, and Albert Camus.

Do the rich descriptions and narrative shapings of literature provide a valuable resource for readers, writers, philosophers, and everyday people to imagine and confront the ultimate questions of life? Do the human activities of storytelling and complex moral decision-making have a deep connection? What are the moral responsibilities of the artist, critic, and reader? What can religious perspectives—from Catholic to Protestant to Mormon—contribute to literary criticism? Thirty well known contributors reflect on these questions, including iterary theorists Marshall Gregory, James Phelan, (...) and Wayne Booth; philosophers Martha Nussbaum, Richard Hart, and Nina Rosenstand; and authors John Updike, Charles Johnson, Flannery O'Connor, and Bernard Malamud. Divided into four sections, with introductory matter and questions for discussion, this accessible anthology represents the most crucial work today exploring the interdisciplinary connections between literature, religion and philosophy. (shrink)

This book presents Robert S. Hartman’s formal theory of value and critically examines many other twentieth century value theorists in its light, including A.J. Ayer, Kurt Baier, Brand Blanshard, Paul Edwards, Albert Einstein, William K. Frankena, R.M. Hare, Nicolai Hartmann, Martin Heidegger, G.E. Moore, P.H. Nowell-Smith, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Charles Stevenson, Paul W. Taylor, Stephen E. Toulmin, and J.O. Urmson.

Books Reviewed in this Article: Introduction to the Critical Study of the Text of the Hebrew Bible. By J. Weingreen. Pp.vii, 103, Oxford, Clarendon Press; New York, Oxford University Press, 1982, £5.50. The Archaeology of the Land of Israel. By Yohanan Aharoni. Pp.xx, 344, Philadelphia, The Westminster Press, 1982, $27.50, $18.95 ; London, SCM Press, 1982, £12.50. A Commentary on the Gospel of Mark. By Terence J. Keegan. Pp.183, New York, Paulist Press, and Leominster, Fowler Wright Books, 1981, £4.45. The (...) Panorama of Luke: An Introduction to the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles. By Neil Richardson. Pp.116, London, Epworth Press, 1982, £3.95. The Synoptic Gospels: An Introduction. By Keith F. Nickle. Pp.119, London SCM Press, 1982, £5.50. What is a Gospel? By Nicholas King. Pp.132, Leigh‐on‐Sea, Kevin Mayhew, 1982, £3.00. The Women Around Jesus: Reflections on Authentic Personhood. By Elisabeth Moltmann‐Wendel, translated by J. Bowden. Pp.xii, 148, London, SCM Press, 1982, £3.95. Paul and Paulinism: Essays in honour of C.K. Barrett. Edited by M.D. Hooker and S.G. Wilson. Pp.xxvii, 404, London, SPCK, 1982, £25.00. Divine Revelation and the Limits of Historical Criticism. By William J. Abraham. Pp.222, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1982, £15.00. The Social Teaching of Vatican II. By Rodger Charles with Drostan Maclaren. Pp.xxvi, 569, San Francisco, Ignatius Press; Oxford, Plater Publications, 1982, £12.75. Option for the Poor: A Hundred Years of Vatican Social Teaching. By Donal Dorr. Pp.viii, 328, New York, Orbis Books; Dublin, Gill & Macmillan, 1983, £7.95. The Kindness that Kills. Edited by Digby Anderson. Pp.xii, 170, London SPCK, 1984, £3.95. Communism in the Bible. By José Porfiro Miranda. Pp.x, 86, London, SCM Press Ltd. 1982, £3.50. Why I am still a Catholic. Edited by Robert Nowell. Pp.157, London, Collins, 1982, £4.95. Does God Answer Prayer? By Peter Baelz. Pp.55, London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1982, £1.95. A Cry for Mercy. By Henri J.M. Nouwen. Pp.175, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1982, £3.50. The Living Reminder. By Henri J.M. Nouwen. Pp.80, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1982, £2.95. Making All Things New. By Henri J.M. Nouwen. Pp.95, Dublin, Gill and Macmillan, 1982. £2.95. Picturing God. By Norman Pittenger. Pp.x, 147, London, SCM Press, 1982, £4.50. Christotherapy II, The Fasting and Feasting Heart. By Bernard J. Tyrrell. Pp.xiii, 337, New York, Paulist Press, 1982, £6.70. With Respect: A Doctor's Response to a Healing Pope. By Frank Lake. Pp.xxiii, 327, London, Darton, Longman and Todd, 1982, £6.95. Euthanasia and Clinical Practice: Trends, Principles and Alternatives: The Report of a Working Party. Pp.viii, 88, London, The Linacre Centre, 1982, £2.75. Essays in Religion and Morality. By William James. Pp.xxviii, 345, Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1982, £17.50. Freud and Jung: Conflicts of Interpretation. By Robert Steele. Pp.vii, 390, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982, £14.95. Archetype: A Natural History of the Self. By Anthony Stevens. Pp.xi, 324, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982, £12.50. The Seeing Eye: Hermeneutical Phenomenology in the Study of Religion. By Walter L. Brenneman Jr. and Stanley O. Yarian, in association with Alan M. Olson. Pp.xii, 177, University Park and London, The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1982, £8.10. Contemporary Philosophy of Religion. Edited by S.M. Cahn and D. Schatz. Pp.x, 310, Oxford University Press, 1982, £6.95. Beyond Empiricism: Philosophy of Science in Sociology. By Andrew Tudor. Pp.xii, 213, London, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982, £4.95. Philosophy and Human Geography: An Introduction to Contemporary Approaches. By R.J. Johnston. Pp.viii, 152, London, Edward Arnold, 1982, £5.50. The Literate Revolution in Greece and its Cultural Consequences. By Eric A. Havelock. pp.viii, 362, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1982, £17.70, £6.30. The Philosophy of Robert Grosseteste. By James McEvoy. Pp.xviii, 560, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1982, £35.00. Kant's Life and Thought. By Ernst Cassirer, translated by James Haden, introduction by Stephan Körner. Pp.xxiii, 429, New Haven, Yale University Press, 1981, £17.50. Kant's Theory of Form: An Essay on the Critique of Pure Reason. By Robert B. Pippin. Pp.xii, 247, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1982, £16.50. The Basic Problems of Phenomenology. By Martin Heidegger, translated by Albert Hofstadter. Pp.xxxi, 396, Bloomington, Indiana, Indiana University Press, 1982, £16.50. In the Active Voice By Mary Douglas. Pp.xi, 306, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982, £9.75. Structural Sociology. Edited by Ino Rossi. Pp.xiv, 363, New York, Columbia University Presss, 1982, £45.50. A Vanquished Hope: The Movement for Church Renewal in Russia, 1905–1906. By J.W. Cunningham. Pp.384, Crestwood, St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1981, £7.95. Christians in Ulster 1968–1980. By Eric Gallagher and Stanley Worrall. P.241, Oxford University Press, 1982, £10.00. Scotland and the Papacy. By John Cooney. Pp.126, Edinburgh, Paul Harris, 1982, £8.95, £4.95. Scotia Pontificia. Edited by Robert Somerville. Pp.xiii, 177, Oxford, Clarendon Press: Oxford University Press, 1982, £25.00. (shrink)