Henry Sheffer’s 1908 Harvard Ph.D. thesis contains an interesting appendix on a central feature of the logical work of his thesis advisor, Josiah Royce. This is the claim in Royce’s 1905 article “The Relations of the Principles of Logic to the Foundations of Geometry” that an unsymmetric ordering relation can be defined on the single symmetric O-relation for which he gives postulates in that paper. Sheffer criticizes Royce’s specific definition from the point of view of the evolving twentieth century conception (...) of axiomatic method and also shows more generally that an unsymmetric1 order relation cannot be defined in the system of the 1905 paper based on the O-relation. In this article I wish to consider the nature.. (shrink)

This second volume arising from the Frontiers in American Philosophy Conference held at Texas A&M University is "festive, celebrating the diversity of thought and influences in American philosophy," say its editors. In these thirty-six essays, there is no attempt to define an American ethos; in fact, the editors conclude that, even pragmatism, identified by Tocqueville as America's defining attribute, should not be described as a national philosophy. It is, as Gerard Deledalle notes in his essay, "the new universal philosophy, because (...) it is the philosophy of experience and democracy that is any nation's `manifest destiny.'" These articles, by thoughtful scholars from North America and several European nations, look forward through the developments presently shaping philosophical inquiry in the United States and backward to the origins and plurality of the American intellectual heritage. Not a parochial or narrow perspective, the focus on American philosophy sharpens the dialogue that clarifies and explicates American thought in the context of a world community. (shrink)

Using a sample of 652 college students, we examined several implications of the hypothesis that the shape of the human penis evolved to enable males to substitute their semen for those of their rivals. The incidence of double mating by females appears sufficient to make semen displacement adaptive (e.g., one in four females acknowledge infidelity, one in eight admit having sex with two or more males in a 24-hour period, and one in 12 report involvement in one or more sexual (...) threesomes with two males). We also document several changes in post-ejaculatory behavior (e.g., reduced thrusting, penis withdrawal, loss of an erection) which may have evolved to minimize displacement of the male’s own semen. Consistent with predictions derived from a theoretical model (Gallup and Burch 2006), we discovered that most females report waiting at least 48 hours following an instance of infidelity before resuming sex with their in-pair partners. (shrink)

Writings of Charles S. Peirce: A chronological edition, volume 4, 1879?1884. Editor [in Chiefl, Christian J. W. Kloesel. Bloomington, Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1989. lxx + 698 pp. $57.50.

"Religions", Mahatma Gandhi once said, "are different roads converging to the same point". But in this stimulating assessment of Christianity, Buddhism, and Vedanta, Professor Burch develops the revolutionary theory that religions, starting from the same point, take divergent roads to different goals incompatible one with the other. Whereas Gandhi asks, "What does it matter that we take different roads so long as we reach the same goal?" Dr. Burch asks, "What does it matter that in taking different roads (...) we reach different goals?" Religions, he maintains, do not have to fight each other because of their differences, or abolish their differences to avoid fighting. He is a firm believer in coexistence for religions. Ecumenicity is good "in so far as it means, on the one hand, cooperation with other faiths in their common concerns of social activities and resistance to irreligion, and on the other hand mutual respect for the other faiths themselves". Dr. Burch argues for the coexistence of three alternative Absolutes: Truth which corresponds to the religion of Hindu Advaita Vedanta, Absolute Freedom which corresponds to Buddhism, and love which corresponds to Christianity. The religious quest requires absolute commitment to one or other of these irreducible alternatives; not to truth and freedom and love, but to truth or freedom or love. In his Foreword, Professor W. Norris Clarke, S.J., of Fordham University, subjects Dr. Burch's theory to the most rigorous critical analysis, but in the end invites each reader to make the effort himself of coming to grips with the author's profound and original challenge. (shrink)

An outgrowth of Ryle’s three week visit at Rice in the spring of 1972, this collection of critical essays bears some resemblance to the collection edited by Oscar P. Wood and George Pitcher in the Anchor series. The principle differences are: 1) the range of topics treated here and the detail of treatment is considerably less extensive than in the Wood collection, and 2) this volume contains two new essays by Ryle himself: "Thinking and Self-Teaching" and "Thinking and Saying." Four (...) papers by members of the philosophy staff at Rice form a group. Each of them discusses Ryle’s contribution to a problem in which the author is interested, carefully delineating Ryle’s analysis and treatment of the problem. Generally Ryle is regarded as having said some important things about the topic, having said some things which are questionable, and having at least advanced the topic in an important way. Subjects dealt with in roughly this fashion are "Reference and Existence" by Lyle Angene, "Sensations, Feelings, and Expression" by Richard J. Sclafani, "Dispositions and Hypotheticals" by Robert W. Burch, and "Why Virtue Cannot be Taught" by Thomas McElvain. As surveys of Ryle’s position and as assessments of his views, the essays are consistently good. (shrink)

This article considers the theme of discernment in the tradition of Ignatian spirituality emanating from the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus. After a brief introduction which addresses the central problematic of bad influences that manifest themselves as good, the article turns to the life and work of two Jesuits, the 16th C English missionary to India, Thomas Stephens and the 20th C French historian and cultural critic, Michel de Certeau. Both kept (...) up a constant dialogue with local culture in which they sought authenticity in their response to ‘events’, whether a hideous massacre which shaped the pastoral commitment and writing of Stephens in the south of the Portuguese enclave of Goa or the 1968 student-led protests in Paris that so much affected the thinking of de Certeau. Very different in terms of personal background and contemporary experience, they both share in a tradition of discernment as a virtuous response to what both would understand as the ‘wisdom of the Spirit’ revealed in their personal interactions with ‘the other’. (shrink)

IN Plato’s eyes, unity was a prime requisite of civil society: “there is no greater good than whatsoever binds the State together into one”. Plato carried his conception of unity to an extreme; for his organic conception has the defect of postulating members who are means to the life of the rest, and do not share in that life. And yet Plato argues from his organic conception of the state to the conclusion, that as in an organism part must be (...) proportioned to suit part, and all to suit the whole—as no part must grow unduly, lest every part should suffer—so in a State class must be proportioned to class, and all classes be adjusted to the good of the whole. (shrink)

Having declared that metaphysics had come to its demise in the technologized sciences, Heidegger tried a new way to reopen the question of being. For Blanchette, that Heidegger never got beyond the analysis of Dasein to such an ambitious project is not merely the result of the distractions of other career requirements at the university or of other entanglements along his life’s path. The problem was that the road he took was a road to nowhere, metaphysically speaking.

This volume is a comprehensive study of the basic questions of philosophy of religion. What is distinctive about its approach is the author’s encyclopedic command of the actual practices of the eleven major world religions now extant.

This book explores an undeveloped area in postmodern thought: organizational ethics. Ethical debates and analyses usually focus on a particular act or action, an actor, and/or how a secular society should address any of those particular persons or events. In the Post Modern age, ethical decisions and policies are characterized by moral and cultural pluralism. However, there is a second factor that complicates ethical and policy decisions even further. This book argues that in the postmodern age ethical decisions often need (...) to be understood as part of the decision making of organizations and bureaucracies. Organizational decisions often have direct bearing on the choices made by individuals. Two areas that exemplify postmodern issue are the areas of health care and education. For example the decision making of Admissions Officers in American higher education, are influenced by decisions that have been made by the university about the size of the class and the diversity of the class. Health Care organizations make policy decisions that affect every aspect of a patient’s care from admission to treatment and the types of care that are or are not offered. Both education and health care are the object of the significant investment of resources, both areas are value laden in postmodern, pluralistic societies, and yet we do not have a comprehensive method to understand them or evaluate them. This book is of interest to bioethicists, physicians, nurses, health care policy students, educational policy experts, students and government regulators. (shrink)

In this paper the authors argue that research ethics committees should not be paternalistic by rejecting research that poses risk to people competent to decide for themselves. However it is important they help to ensure valid consent is sought from potential recruits and protect vulnerable people who cannot look after their own best interests. The authors first describe the tragic deaths of Jesse Gelsinger and Ellen Roche. They then discuss the following claims to support their case: competent individuals are epistemologically (...) and ethically in the best position to say which risks are reasonable for them, so RECs should be no more restrictive than the “normal” constraints on people taking risks with themselves; RECs do not judge individual competence ; individual liberty is mostly limited by what serves the public interest, and RECs do not determine public interest; RECs may have a paternalistic role in preventing exploitation of competent people vulnerable to the use of incentives, and in protecting the interests of incompetent people; however, the moral and political authority of RECs has not been established in this respect. (shrink)

Introduction -- Tending the dark fire: the Boehmian notion of drive -- The night-side of nature: the early Schellingian unconscious -- The speculative psychology of dissociation: the later Schellingian unconscious -- Schellingian libido theory.

In examining Ennead VI 4[22], we find Plotinus in conflict with modern, i.e., Cartesian or Kantian, assumptions about the relation of soul and body and the identification of the self with the subject. Curiously, his images and exposition are more in tune with Twentieth Century notions such as wave and field. With these as keys, we are in a position to unlock the subtlety of Plotinus' analysis of the way soul and body are present together, with sensation structured through the (...) body and judgment coming from the soul. The problem of the self concerns not only the unity of the self in terms of body and soul, but also how the self is constituted in relation to other selves, both keeping its individuality and sharing its experiences at the same time. (shrink)

Menander's lost comedyThaiswith its famous protagonist, thehetairalover of Ptolemy I Soter and perhaps Alexander himself, was plainly well known at Rome, and is alluded to several times in Latin poetry of the Augustan and later periods, as Ariana Traill has shown. My purpose here is to argue that the literary characterisation of Thais in Menander's play underlies certain aspects of Lesbia as presented in the poetry of Catullus; that Catullus' poetry uses the plays of Menander has been demonstrated by Richard (...) Thomas, arguing that Catullus 8 shows clear traces of Demea's monologue in theSamia(325–56). (shrink)

The limitation of act by potency, central in the metaphysics of Thom as Aquinas, has its origins in Plotinus. He transforms Aristotle ’s horizontal causality of change into a vertical causality of participation. Potency and infinity are not just un intelligible lack of limit, but productive power. Form determines matter but is limited by recepti on into matter. The experience of unity begins with sensible things, which always have parts, so what is really one is incorporeal, without division and separation. (...) Unity is like the esse of Thomas, since it is the act that makes a thing what it is and has its fullness in God. (shrink)

How do we know that our own actions belong to us? How are we able to distinguish self-generated sensory events from those that arise externally? In this paper, I will briefly discuss experiments that were designed to investigate these questions. In particularly, I will review psychophysical and neuroimaging studies that have investigated how we recognise the consequences of our own actions, and why patients with delusions of control confuse self-produced and externally produced actions and sensations. Studies investigating the failure of (...) this 'self-monitoring' mechanism in patients with delusions of control will be discussed in the context of the hypothesis that overactivity in the parietal cortex and the cerebellum contribute to the misattribution of an action to an external source (). (shrink)