This article traces the development of Sartre's metaphysics with three interrelated aims in mind. The first is to situate Sartre's metaphysical views in relation to those of his predecessors, his contemporaries, and current continental philosophy. The second is to show that Sartre's project informs some of the key changes he makes to his existentialism during his career. The third is to bring Sartre the metaphysician into dialogue with key thinkers in the current realism/antirealism debate in Continental philosophy by showing that (...) the defense of materialism he offers in his later work preserves many hard-won insights of phenomenology and has significant advantages over many contemporary articulations of realism. (shrink)

The practice of prenatal screening for disability is sometimes objected to because of the hurt and offence such practices may cause to people currently living with disabilities. This objection is commonly termed “the expressivist objection”. In response to the objection it is standardly claimed that disabilities are analogous to illnesses. And just as it would be implausible to suppose reduction of the incidence of illnesses such as flu sends a negative message to ill people, so it is not plausible to (...) suppose prevention of disability sends a negative message to disabled people. The expressivist objection hinges, however, upon a view of the relationship between disability and self identity which sees disability as part of the identity of the disabled person, in a way in which illnesses such as flu cannot be. This possibility is generally not considered in critiques of the expressivist objection. In this paper, an “identity claim” to the effect that disabilities can be identity constituting is accepted and the force of the expressivist argument is reconsidered in the light of its acceptance. It is concluded that even when such an identity claim is accepted, the expressivist objection is still not morally compelling. (shrink)

Jansen and Wall suggest a new way of defending hard paternalism in clinical research. They argue that non-therapeutic research exposing people to more than minimal risk should be banned on egalitarian grounds: in preventing poor decision-makers from making bad decisions, we will promote equality of welfare. We argue that their proposal is flawed for four reasons.First, the idea of poor decision-makers is much more problematic than Jansen and Wall allow. Second, pace Jansen and Wall, it may be practicable for regulators (...) to uncover the values that a potential research participant holds when agreeing to enter a research project, so their claim that we must ban such research projects for all if we are to ban them for poor decision-makers looks to be unmotivated. Third, there seem to be cases where the liberty to enter the sort of research project Jansen and Wall discuss is morally weighty, and arguably should outweigh concerns of egalitarian distribution. Fourth, banning certain types of research, which seem on the face of it to offer an unfavourable risk-benefit ratio, would have unwelcome consequences for all clinical research, which Jansen and Wall do not recognize. (shrink)

This paper has three main aims. The first is to provide a critical assessment of two rival concepts of suffering, that proposed by Cassell and that proposed in this journal by van Hooft. The second aim of the paper is to sketch a more plausible concept of suffering, one which derives from a Wittgensteinian view of linguistic meaning. This more plausible concept is labeled an ‘intuitive concept’. The third aim is to assess the prospects for scientific understanding of suffering.

We often hold others responsible, and are held responsible ourselves. Many philosophers claim that to evaluate such holdings, we must consider the standing of the holder. Many also claim that both hypocrites and meddlers lack standing. Little has been said, however, about what exactly standing is—about what it is that hypocrites and meddlers are supposed to lack. Though talk of standing is now widespread, ‘we do not,’ in Joseph Raz’s words, ‘have an unproblematic grasp of the phenomena referred to’ by (...) such talk. In this paper I attempt to improve that grasp. I offer an account of what it is to have, and lack, standing to hold others responsible. And I offer some reasons why, if this account is accepted, both hypocrites and meddlers should lack standing. (shrink)

Karl Marx (1818-1883) was trained as a philosopher and steeped in the thought of Hegel and German idealism, but turned away from philosophy in his mid-twenties towards politics, economics and history. It is for his these subjects Marx is best known and in which his work and ideas shaped the very nature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, Marx's engagement with philosophy runs through most of his work, especially in his philosophy of history and in moral and political philosophy. (...) In this outstanding introduction to Marx's philosophy Jaime Edwards and Brian Leiter begin with an overview of Marx's life and intellectual development, before examining and assessing the following important topics: Marx's theory of history: Hegel, dialectics, teleology, materialism functionalism and the causal explanation of historical change economics, history and the transition from communism to capitalism ideology, morality and religion human nature, alienation and the good life for human beings Marx's legacy and influence, including Western Marxism and the Frankfurt School. The addition of chapter summaries, annotated further reading and a glossary of technical terms make this an indispensable introduction to Marx's philosophy. It will also be useful to those in related disciplines such as politics, sociology, history and economics. (shrink)

In this paper the need for valid evidence of the cost-effectiveness of treatments that have not been properly evaluated, yet are already available, albeit in short supply, are examined. Such treatments cannot be withdrawn, pending proper evaluation, nor can they be made more widely available until they have been shown to be cost-effective. As a solution to this impasse the argument put forward recently by Toroyan et al is discussed. They say that randomised controlled trials of such resources could be (...) done but only if resources are randomly allocated independently of a research context. Relevant outcome data could then be collected for research, given this opportunity. We agree. We disagree with Toroyan et al on a number of points. First, they claim that no ethical issue relating to equipoise arises. We disagree and this disagreement depends on our showing that equipoise should be maintained in a relationship that they do not consider. Secondly, they say that consent to data collection is always needed. Again we disagree. Thirdly, they claim that the previous two issues are the only possible ethical issues that could arise. We argue, instead, that there is a further conflict of interests that has ethical import. (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)

The problem of mixed conjunctions, due to Tappolet (2000), threatens to undermine alethic pluralism by showing that it cannot account for the truth of conjunctions in which the conjuncts spring from different domains of discourse. In this paper I argue, firstly, that the problem is not just a problem for alethic pluralism and, secondly, that the problem can be solved.

This book uses scientific validity measures to create empirical value science and a normative new science of axiological psychology by integrating cognitive psychology with Robert S. Hartman’s formal theory of axiological science. It reveals a scientific way to identify and rank human values, achieving values appreciation, values clarification, and values measurement for the twenty first century. Rem B. Edwards edited it for publication, but its author is Leon Pomeroy.

This paper examines one particular justification for the screening and termination of embryos/fetuses which possess genetic features known to cause disability. The particular case is that put forward in several places by John Harris. He argues that the obligation to prevent needless suffering justifies the prevention of the births of disabled neonates. The paper begins by rehearsing Harris's case. Then, drawing upon claims advanced in a recent paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics, it is subjected to critical scrutiny, focusing (...) on Harris's “suffering claim” .1 It is argued that the suffering claim must be false if understood as an empirical claim. And, even if understood as a conceptual truth, it mistakenly assimilates the concepts of harm and suffering. Finally, again focusing on Harris's recent work in this area, his characterisation of disability as a “harmed condition” is shown not to apply in the case of at least some moderate forms of intellectual disability. (shrink)

As the usual regulatory framework did not fit well during the last Ebola outbreak, innovative thinking still needed. In the absence of an outbreak, randomised controlled trials of clinical efficacy in humans cannot be done, while during an outbreak such trials will continue to face significant practical, philosophical, and ethical challenges. This article argues that researchers should also test the safety and effectiveness of novel vaccines in wild apes by employing a pluralistic approach to evidence. There are three reasons to (...) test vaccines in wild populations of apes: i) protect apes; ii) reduce Ebola transmission from wild animals to humans; and iii) accelerate vaccine development and licensing for humans. Data obtained from studies of vaccines among wild apes and chimpanzees may even be considered sufficient for licensing new vaccines for humans. This strategy will serve to benefit both wild apes and humans. (shrink)

Much time has been spent arguing about the soundness of But in the philosophical literature there is no single such principle; there are many harm principles. And many objections pressed against are objections to only some of these principles. The first half of this paper draws a number of distinctions between harm principles. It then argues that each harm principle is compatible with many other principles that impose limits on the law, including but not limited to other harm principles. The (...) second half of the paper applies the lessons of the first to a number of prominent objections to That principle has been accused of a) being underinclusive; b) misrepresenting the reasons why many act-types ought to be legally proscribed; c) permitting lawmakers to treat people as mere means of achieving their ends; and d) being overinclusive. The paper argues that one harm principle survives all four objections. (shrink)

A new understanding of Kant’s theory of a priori knowledge and his natural philosophy emerges from Jeffrey Edwards’s mature and penetrating study. In the Third Analogy of Experience, Kant argues for the existence of a dynamical plenum in space. This argument against empty space demonstrates that the dynamical plenum furnishes an a priori necessary condition for our experience and knowledge of an objective world. Such an a priori existence proof, however, transgresses the limits Kant otherwise places on transcendental arguments (...) in the _Critique of Pure Reason_ because it establishes a _material_ transcendental condition of possible experience. This finding motivates Edwards to examine the broader context of Kant’s views about matter, substance, causal influence, and physical aether in connection with the developmental history of his theory of transcendental idealism. Against the backdrop of early modern metaphysics and contemporaneous physical theory, Edwards explicates the origins of the Third Analogy in Kant’s early work on the metaphysics of nature. The argument against empty space presented in the Third Analogy reveals a central aspect of Kant’s transcendental theory of experience that Edwards explains lucidly. By clarifying the epistemological standpoint at issue in the Third Analogy, he shows that the fundamental revisions to which Kant subjects his theory of knowledge in the _Opus postumum_ not only originate in his precritical metaphysics of nature but are developments of an argument central to the _Critique of Pure Reason_ itself. Edwards’s work is important to scholars working in the history of philosophy and the history and philosophy of science, as well as to Kant specialists. (shrink)

This paper explores how consideration of the notions of naturalness and eligibility, which have played an increasingly significant role in contemporary metaphysics, might impact on the study of truth. In particular, it aims to demonstrate how taking such notions seriously may be of benefit to ‘representational’ theories of truth by showing how the naturalness of truth on a representational account provides a response to the ‘Scope Problem’ presented by Lynch (2009).

In this paper I investigate the claim that truth is a relational property. What does this claim really mean? What is its import?—Is it a basic feature of the concept of truth; or a distinctive feature of the correspondence theory of truth; or even both? After introducing some general ideas about truth, I begin by highlighting an ambiguity in current uses of the term ‘relational property’ in the truth debate, and show that we need to distinguish two separate ideas: that (...) truth is a relational property, and that truth is an extrinsic property. I go on to examine what both of these ideas are in more detail, and consider what would need to hold for truth to be in either of these categories. I then discern where all the main competitors in the truth debate stand on these issues. In doing so we learn more about these views and what they entail, and build a general picture of what stances different theories of truth take on whether truth is extrinsic or relational. Moreover, in doing this we will be able to answer one of the questions with which we began: whether truth’s being extrinsic or relational is something that, if accepted, lends support to the correspondence theory of truth. We will see that this is not so, and discern some interesting variations between various theories of truth on the issues of whether truth is extrinsic or relational. Following this we will be in a better position to judge whether the notions of extrinsicality or relationality are basic features of the concept of truth. In the final part of the paper I argue that, even if we are not in a position to conclude that they are basic features, they are features that any prospective theory of truth needs to take seriously. (shrink)

An almost unbelievable amount of false philosophy has arisen through not realizing what ‘existence’ means…. [It] rests upon the notion that existence is, so to speak, a property that you can attribute to things, and that the things that exist have the property of existence and the things that do not exist do not. That is rubbish . I have dared to puncture several metaphysical balloons and nothing came out of them but hot air.

In the years 2020–2021, journalists, lawyers, scholars, and civil society actors noticed an unusual spike in the refusal of francophone African immigrants in Québec, Canada. While Immigration, refugee and citizenship Canada’s systemic racism problem were already documented, the novelty appeared to be how standardized and sometimes, “nonsensical” the reasons given to many of the applicants were. This eventually prompted a lawsuit against IRCC in which it was revealed that a new piece of software called “Chinook” had been deployed since 2018, (...) approximately at the same time application refusal started spiking. Online and media-fueled speculations culminated in a broad debate about whether Chinook was an artificial intelligence-based technology. Such controversy, for instance, unfolded during parliamentary consultations in which it was finally disclosed that Chinook was not AI per se., but more of a half-baked automated interface. The present article aims to understand how the performative ambiguity of Chinook informs on the progressive becoming of the Canadian Federal state and its immigration control practices in the current Machine Learning hype. Furthermore, it seeks to understand how the interlacing of public–private partnership, in which the private sector is mobilized to produce AI-driven technology, recursively transforms the exercise of governance and governmentality. We argue, through the Chinook controversy and its unfolding, that there is a shift occurring where AI becomes ever more central in statecraft “anarchitecture” and cybernetic adaptability. (shrink)

This is the first wide-ranging, multi-authored handbook in the field of philosophy of medicine, covering the underlying conceptual issues of many important social, political and ethical issues in health care. It introduces and develops over 70 topics, concepts, and issues in the field. It is written by distinguished specialists from multiple disciplines, including philosophy, health sciences, nursing, sociology, political theory, and medicine. Many difficult social and ethical issues in health care are based on conceptual problems, most prominently on the definitions (...) of health and disease, or on epistemological issues regarding causality or diagnosis. Philosophy is the discipline that deals with such conceptual, metaphysical, epistemological, methodological, and axiological matters. This handbook covers all the central concepts in medicine, such as ageing, death, disease, mental disorder, and well-being. It is an invaluable source for laypeople, academics with an interest in medicine, and health care specialists who want be informed and up to date with the relevant discussions. The text also advances these debates and will set the agenda for years to come. (shrink)

This book looks at how the notion of the learning society has developed over the years, and how, and why, flexibility has become a more central concept in much policy and academic debate.

Released mid-November 2022, Galactica is a set of six large language models (LLMs) of different sizes (from 125 M to 120B parameters) designed by Meta AI to achieve the ultimate ambition of “a single neural network for powering scientific tasks”, according to its accompanying whitepaper. It aims to carry out knowledge-intensive tasks, such as publication summarization, information ordering and protein annotation. However, just a few days after the release, Meta had to pull back the demo due to the strong hallucinatory (...) tendencies or underwhelming performances of the model. This article aims to study, through a critical threefold argument, the potential impacts of LLMs once deployed in the scientific value chain. Our first argument is a technical one. By examining the technicity of Galactica, it is possible to explain the descripancies between its promotional corporate discourse and abysmal outputs. Second, by going back to debates in both computer science and computational philosophy on the automation of abduction, we argue from the epistemological front that LLMs indeed cannot produce strong abductions and, therefore, claims about the automation of hypothesis generation remains chambering. Finally, our third argument is a sociological one. By conceptualizing the scientific field through Nancy Katherine Hayles’ cognitive assemblage theory, we aim to outline the potential steering of science by LLMs, mainly through information ordering. The core of our argument rests on the assertion that excessive control on information risks contravening a certain serendipitous aspect inherent to scientific discoveries. (shrink)

This work examines the evolution of law and legal method, and challenges the law's claim to neutrality by examining its role in creating and reproducing inequality between the sexes. It considers many of the current debates, and in each, the law is stated with reference to recent developments in statute and judicial decisions in the UK and other jurisdictions. The author illustrates how each issue is shaped by the current political climate and, where relevant, by the European Court. Reference is (...) also made to US and Australian case law. The book should be of interest to students studying women and the law, family law, criminal law and jurisprudcence, as well as those on criminology and sociology courses. It should also be useful to family and criminal practitioners. (shrink)

Edwards, Denis All those who read Laudato Si' are struck by the way Pope Francis says over and over again that everything is interconnected, or that everything is interrelated. In this article I will seek to explore the significance of this theme. In particular, I will ask about its theological meaning, attempting to bring out two aspects of Pope Francis's thought: the insight that interrelationships of the natural world can be seen as a pale reflection of the dynamic relations (...) of trinitarian life; the conviction that ecological conversion-learning to relate to the natural world, as well as to other humans and to God-is essential to the very nature of the human made in the image of the dynamically relational God. (shrink)

Psychology has benefited from an enormous wealth of knowledge about processes of cognition in relation to how the brain organizes information. Within the categorization literature, this behavior is often explained through theories of memory construction called exemplar theory and prototype theory which are typically based on similarity or rule functions as explanations of how categories emerge. Although these theories work well at modeling highly controlled stimuli in laboratory settings, they often perform less well outside of these settings, such as explaining (...) the emergence of background knowledge processes. In order to explain background knowledge, we present a non-similarity-based post-Skinnerian theory of human language called Relational Frame Theory (RFT) which is rooted in a philosophical world view called functional contextualism (FC). This theory offers a very different interpretation of how categories emerge through the functions of behavior and through contextual cues, which may be of some benefit to existing categorization theories. Specifically, RFT may be able to offer a novel explanation of how background knowledge arises, and we provide some mathematical considerations in order to identify a formal model. Finally, we discuss much of this work within the broader context of general semantic knowledge and artificial intelligence research. (shrink)

In his classic 1936 paper Tarski sought to motivate his definition of logical consequence by appeal to the inference form: P(0), P(1), . . ., P(n), . . . therefore ∀nP(n). This is prima facie puzzling because these inferences are seemingly first-order and Tarski knew that Gödel had shown first-order proof methods to be complete, and because ∀nP(n) is not a logical consequence of P(0), P(1), . . ., P(n), . . . by Taski's proposed definition. An attempt to resolve (...) the puzzle due to Etchemendy is considered and rejected. A second attempt due to Gómez-Torrente is accepted as far as it goes, but it is argued that it raises a further puzzle of its own: it takes the plausibility of Tarski's claim that his definition captures our common concept of logical consequence to depend upon our common concept being a reductive conception. A further interpretation of what Tarski had in mind when he offered the example is proposed, using materials well known to Tarski at the time. It is argued that this interpretation makes the motivating example independent of reductive definitions which take natural numbers to be higher-order set theoretic entities, and it also explains why he did not regard the distinction between defined and primitive terms as pressing, as was the distinction between logical and nonlogical terms. (shrink)

In this series of lectures on the painters Hsia Kuei (twelfth-thirteenth centuries), Shen Chou (fifteenth-sixteenth centuries), and Shih-t'ao (seventeenth-eighteenth centuries), Richard Edwards explores the special relationship between the self and landscape in Chinese art. These three painters, each important in his own time and deemed a master by later critics, were all concerned with the subjective in the objective world. In Chinese painting there is no clear desire to separate these two realms; rather, there is a constant, conscious play (...) between the physical reality of the world and the subjective vision of the artist. The artist is continually imitating the world--sometimes more, sometimes less--but he never denies its appearance to the point of total abstraction; nor, in the other extreme, does he claim for the physical world an existence independent of his own involvement. Richard Edwards is Professor Emeritus of East Asian Art and Art History, University of Michigan. (shrink)

Now that learning is seen as lifelong and lifewide, what specifically makes a learning context? What are the resultant consequences for teaching practices when working in specific contexts? Drawing upon a variety of academic disciplines, Rethinking Contexts for Learning and Teaching explores some of the different means of understanding teaching and learning, both in and across contexts, the issues they raise and their implications for pedagogy and research. It specifically addresses What constitutes a context for learning? How do we engage (...) the full resources of learners for learning? What are the relationships between different learning contexts? What forms of teaching can most effectively mobilise learning across contexts? How do we methodologically and theoretically conceptualise contexts for learning? Drawing upon practical examples and the UK’s TLRP, this book brings together a number of leading researchers to examine the assumptions about context embedded within specific teaching and learning practices. It considers how they might be developed to extend opportunity by drawing upon learning from a range of contexts, including schools, colleges, universities and workplaces. (shrink)

The Consensus Statement of the Third International Congress on Concussion in Sport in November 2008 defined concussion as a “complex pathophysiologic process affecting the brain, induced by traumatic biochemical forces.” Definitions of concussion vary slightly between various professional organizations of neurosurgeons, neurologists, and orthopedic surgeons, but all share the common characteristics of trauma affecting the head or body resulting in transient neurologic deficits or symptoms. Underlying the symptoms of concussion is a complex pathophysiologic process at the cellular level. While concussion (...) is typically thought of as resulting from a direct impact to the head, a concussion can also be sustained as a result of an impact to the body causing the force of the impact to be transmitted to and absorbed by the brain. (shrink)

In this article I clarify the concepts of ‘pain’, ‘suffering’. ‘pains of body’, ‘pains of soul’. I explore the relevance of an ethic to the clinical setting which gives patients a strong prima facie right to freedom from unnecessary and unwanted pain and which places upon medical professionals two concomitant moral obligations to patients. First, there is the duty not to inflict pain and suffering beyond what is necessary for effective diagnosis. treatment and research. Next, there is the duty to (...) do all that can be done to relieve all the pain and suffering which can be alleviated. I develop in some detail that individuality of pain sensitivity must be taken into account in fulfihing these obligations. I explore the issue of the relevance of informed consent and the right to refuse treatment to the matter of pain relief. And I raise the question of what conditions, if anv, should override the right to refuse treatment where pain relief is of paramount concern. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Changing Functions, Moral Responsibility, and Mental IllnessCraig Edwards (bio)Keywordsmental illness, responsibility, character, dysfunction, personhoodI thank both Wakefield and Tomasini for their illuminating comments. Both commentaries are thought provoking and warrant a full response. However, as always, space is limited and I must make the all-too-predictable apology for not addressing both commentaries in full. Wakefield's contribution more directly engages with, and challenges, my claims, and so I focus on (...) addressing his concerns.ClarificationsWakefield correctly notes that I am interested in how mental illness (and illness generally) operates to remove moral responsibility for one's actions. Despite this, it seems at several points that he and I are talking about two different, albeit related, concepts of mental illness. 'Mental illness' is used to both explain and excuse certain behaviors, but these two functions, explanatory and exculpable, do not always operate simultaneously. As we discover biological explanations for apparently immoral behaviors, the question arises as to whether the explanation should remove the immorality and liability for punishment. The 'sick role' can be divided into two aspects. One is the role of deserving and warranting medical treatment. The other is the negation of moral responsibility. Wakefield's own example, pedophilia, involves the first sense of the sick role but not the second. Wakefield's use of this example is unusual, because it deftly highlights the limitation of his HD account. Pedophilia is a mental disorder in the sense of warranting treatment, and is a mental illness under Wakefield's model, but it is not something that negates moral responsibility. There is a sense of the term 'mental illness'—an important and, as I argue, an objective sense—that is relevant to establishing one's moral responsibility for such behaviors.In addressing my account of mental illness as though it contained two distinct answers, 'mental illness as dysfunction of rational agency, or 'mental illness as moral judgment,' it is unclear whether Wakefield takes them to be conjunctive or alternative. Hence it is worth reiterating in point form the structure of my account:1. Illness involves dysfunction;2. The 'proper function' of a bodily or psychological mechanism is determined by the purpose that we impose upon that mechanism (within the constraints of our biological needs);3. Dysfunction of rational agency is necessary, but not sufficient, for 'mental illness' in the normative sense relevant to negating moral responsibility; and [End Page 105]4. The distinction between 'mental illness' (in the above sense) and the many dysfunctions of rational agency for which we are morally responsible, turns upon (objective) normative facts rather than features internal to the dysfunctions themselves.Functions and ValueWakefield misses the point when he criticizes my comment that, although bodily mechanisms are fairly uniformly valued, there is substantial historical and cross-cultural variation in the way people value personhood. He notes—accurately, but irrelevantly—that people almost always place great value on their capacity for rational agency, probably more so than many aspects of their physical health. My comment, taken in context, has nothing to do with how much people value personhood, but has everything to do with what kinds of purposes people want their mental and physical processes to achieve. A heart has the same function for a Londoner today as it did for a Japanese peasant a thousand years ago, and although it is possible for us to want it to achieve other purposes, any culture that seriously imputes a different set of vital functions on the heart is likely to be rather disappointed. By contrast, our species has experienced vast changes in the demands we make of our rational and intellectual capacities—dysfunctions like dyslexia and alcoholism were irrelevant before the availability of written communication and alcohol.Wakefield's HD account is unable to deal with the relevance of such change. The link between evolutionary function and illness is tenuous in any event. Evolutionary explanations of specific mechanisms are often untestable, simply positing some evolutionary purpose that happens to fit our understanding of what the mechanism does. If we were to discover that alcoholism evolved as a means of increasing birthrates, or (perhaps more plausibly) that anxiety disorders occur among those for whom... (shrink)

A thorough examination of John Wesley’s writings will show that he was not a biblical literalist or infallibilist, despite his own occasional suggestions to the contrary. His most important principles for interpreting the Bible were: We should take its words literally only if doing so is not absurd, in which case we should “look for a looser meaning;” and “No Scripture can mean that God is not love, or that his mercy is not over all his works.” Eleven instances of (...) his not taking biblical texts literally are examined. His real view was something like this: Biblical language is infallibly and literally true if and only if it does not contradict more basic scriptures and is not absurd, that is, not construed literally when metaphorical, or not misleadingly metaphorical, or not oversimplified or exaggerated, or not culture bound, or not contrary to reason and experience, or not ethically unconscionable and unloving. (shrink)