Background: Managing HIV treatment is a complex multi-dimensional task because of a combination of factors such as stigma and discrimination of some populations who frequently get infected with HIV. In addition, patient-provider encounters have become increasingly multicultural, making effective communication and provision of ethically sound care a challenge. Purpose: This article explores ethical issues that health service providers in the United States and Botswana encountered in their interaction with patients in HIV care. Research design: A descriptive qualitative design was used (...) to collect data from health service providers and patients using focused group discussions. This article is based on responses from health service providers only. Participants and context: This article is based on 11 focused group discussions with a total sample of 71 service providers in seven US sites and one Botswana site. Ethical considerations: Ethical review boards at all the study sites reviewed the study protocol and approved it. Ethical review boards of the study’s coordinating centers, Rutgers University and the University of California at San Francisco, also approved it. The study participants provided a written informed consent to participate. Findings: HIV service providers encountered ethical challenges in all the four Beauchamp and Childress’ biomedical ethics of respect for patients’ autonomy, beneficence, justice, and nonmaleficence. Discussion: The finding that HIV service providers encounter ethical challenges in their interaction with patients is supported by prior studies. The ethical challenges are particularly prominent in multicultural care and resource-constrained care environments. Conclusion: Provision of HIV care is fraught with ethical challenges that tend to pose different issues depending on a given care environment. It is important that strong partnerships are developed among key stakeholders in HIV care. In addition, health service providers need to be provided with resources so they can provide quality and ethically sound care. (shrink)

The 2005 International Consensus Conference on Intersex resulted in a substantive revision of the lexicon and guidelines for treating intersex conditions. The speed with which the new treatment protocol has been adopted by healthcare practitioners and providers is considered unprecedented. However, a number of intersex people and advocacy groups have complained that the recommended revisions are inadequately informed by the testimony of intersex people. In this paper, I argue that such complaints are valid and that, despite the conference conveners stated (...) intention, the revisions perpetuate the epistemic injustice long endured by intersex people. By analyzing the Consensus Conference and its results as a failed attempt to redress the epistemic marginalization of intersex patients and advocacy groups, I am able to identify lingering institutional hurdles to cultivating the virtue of epistemic justice in biomedical practice. (shrink)

Generally speaking, naturalism is the view that the methods of empirical science are our best, perhaps only, methods for obtaining knowledge. Merrick reshapes this debate by introducing a new question: Is naturalism compatible with fostering appreciative love for the created order? She argues the naturalism's operating paradigm for evaluating explanations is well-tailored to achieve the goal of scientific inquiry championed by Francis Bacon in the 17th century. But it systematically weeds out explanations more likely to induce appreciative love for the (...) phenomena. Merrick concludes by looking at C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves and Henri Nouwen's Life of the Beloved for attitudes and practices that inquirers should adopt. (shrink)

ABSTRACTWomen television journalists have long faced criticism and harassment regarding their appearance. The normalization of social media engagement in newsrooms, where journalists are expected t...

Scholars have posited both a positive and a negative relationship between political openness and transnational activism, arguing that while closed opportunity structures positively affect activism by creating strong incentives for activists to “go transnational,” they also negatively affect activism by inhibiting local groups from participating. The author argues that these contrary arguments are largely the result of an insufficiently developed comparative approach to the study of transnational activism. By examining countries at different levels of openness and multiple types of activism, (...) she shows that different types of activism are affected in distinct ways by the level of political openness. (shrink)

(2006). Taking Our Obligations to Research Participants Seriously: Disclosing Individual Results of Genetic Research. The American Journal of Bioethics: Vol. 6, No. 6, pp. 32-34.

In this study, we explain differences in support for interreligious lawful and violent protests against the religious outgroup. Combining religiosity and social identity approaches, we take three dimensions of religiosity (namely, practices, beliefs and salience) into consideration related to support for interreligious conflict, next to relevant control characteristics. The analysis is based on survey data ( N = 2026) collected among a random sample of Muslims ( n = 1451) and Christians ( n = 575) across the Indonesian archipelago. Our (...) findings show that members of the Muslim community are, on average, more inclined to support interreligious conflict, both lawful and violent protests. Participation in rites of passage is a crucial aspect of religious practices found to be positively related to both kinds of protest. Religious beliefs show great importance but vary in their influence: particularistic views and intratextual fundamentalism are related to support for lawful protest, whereas religiocentrism is related to support both for lawful and violent protests. In contrast, salience reduces support for violent protest. As such, the findings offer a differentiated way to understand present-day interreligious conflicts among the general population in Indonesia. (shrink)

Shortly following the Second World War, and under the medical direction of ex-army psychiatrist T. F. Main, the Cassel Hospital for Functional Nervous Disorders emerged as a pioneering democratic ‘therapeutic community’ in the treatment of mental illness. This definitive movement away from conventional ‘custodial’ assumptions about the function of the psychiatric hospital initially grew out of a commitment to sharing therapeutic responsibility between patients and staff and to preserving patients’ pre-admission responsibilities and social identities. However, by the mid-1950s, hospital practices (...) had come to focus pre-eminently on patients’ relationships with family members, and staff had developed a social model of mental health that focused on the family as the irreducible unit of mental treatment. By the late 1950s, this culminated in the in-patient admission of entire families for mental treatment, even when only one family member was exhibiting symptoms. At the heart of this growing post-war social-psychiatric preoccupation with the family was a new emphasis on the close relationship between mental health and individuals’ successful development toward mature responsible adulthood. The family came to be conceived as the quintessential space where both were forged. This article examines the process through which the Cassel’s social-psychiatric commitment to ‘therapeutic community’ became focused on the family as a key therapeutic site. While the family had become a central point of focus in social, political and psychological discussions of the foundation for stable democratic culture and political peace in post-war Britain, the Cassel Hospital actively experimented with these connections in therapeutic practice. This article thus illuminates the important, but frequently overlooked, role of psychiatric practices in the development of a post-war psychopolitics that established important links between the nuclear family, mental health and democratic social life. (shrink)

This paper argues that Frege's notoriously long commitment to Kant's thesis that Euclidean geometry is synthetic _a priori_ is best explained by realizing that Frege uses ‘intuition’ in two senses. Frege sometimes adopts the usage presented in Hermann Helmholtz's sign theory of perception. However, when using ‘intuition’ to denote the source of geometric knowledge, he is appealing to Hermann Cohen's use of Kantian terminology. We will see that Cohen reinterpreted Kantian notions, stripping them of any psychological connotation. Cohen's defense of (...) his modified Kantian thesis on the unique status of the Euclidean axioms presents Frege's own views in a much more favorable light. (shrink)

Critical thought on immersive theatres is gathering in pace with many arguments centred on explorations of audience/performer interaction and the unique relationship these theatres create. Within this paper I look beyond these debates in order to consider the implications of immersive theatres within contemporary culture, with the aim of furthering the ways in which immersive theatres are presently being framed and discussed. Theatre and science fiction have shared a somewhat limited relationship compared to their burgeoning usage within other forms of (...) entertainment. This paper focuses on how the conceits of science fiction are being staged within this theatrical setting. Primary focus is given to Punchdrunk’s… and darkness descended (2011) and The Crash of the Elysium (2011–2012). This is considered alongside The Republic of the Imagination’s (TROTI) Cerebellium (2012–14), an original narrative created for the performance which has been subsequently developed over a three-year period to date. This discussion is presented and framed through my personal experience as both a performer in Cerebellium and (later) as audience member. The particular use of dystopian narratives and alternate worlds is given consideration, with reflection on the way these works destabilize and call into question the audience’s sense of self either through their ability to survive or understand their sense of self. By making evident the spectrum of practice, I endeavour to delve further into identifying and de-mystifying immersive theatres and their differences to conventional theatre. (shrink)

Psychoanalysis has long cited poetry as the expressive vehicle for unconscious production. This article addresses the sexual politics of psychoanalysis's conjoining of poetry and the "feminine." The argument of this text is that the coupling of the "feminine" and the poetic in Lacanian discourse is a metaphorical double cross which most often leaves "woman" at a loss for words.

High prevalence of musicians’ physical and mental performance-related health issues (PRHI) has been demonstrated over the last 30 years. To address this, health promotion strategies have been implemented at some post-secondary music institutions around the world, yet the high prevalence of PRHI has persisted. In 2018, an international group of researchers formed the Musicians’ Health Literacy Consortium to determine how best to decrease PRHI, and to examine the relationship between PRHI and health literacy. An outcome of the Consortium was the (...) development of a new health literacy tool for musicians, the MHL-Q19, which drew from the theoretical framework of the European health literacy suite of tools, HLS-EU. The aim of the current study was to evaluate the validity and reliability of the MHL-Q19. Participants completed a battery of questionnaires, including the HLS-EU-Q16 for the assessment of general health literacy; the Musculoskeletal Pain Intensity and Interference Questionnaire for Musicians (MPIIQM); the RAND-12 quality of life questionnaire; and the General Self-Efficacy scale (GSE). We hypothesized that the MHL-Q19 would have a weak correlation with the HLS-EU-Q16; moderate correlation with the physical component scale and weak correlation with the mental component scale of the RAND-12; moderate correlation with the GSE; and finally, moderate correlation with pain interference and weak correlation with pain intensity of the MPIIQM. A total of 549 post-secondary music students from six English-speaking countries completed the battery of questionnaires, and 328 of these participants provided valid responses to the MHL-Q19 alone 2 weeks later. The tool showed acceptable internal consistency and test–retest reliability. Three of our hypotheses were supported, although the strength of the correlations varied from what we had predicted. The fourth hypothesis was not supported; our findings indicate that lower health literacy scores were weakly related to higher MPIIQM pain intensity and interference scores. The results of this study support the notion that musicians’ health literacy is a distinct construct that cannot be fully evaluated with existing health literacy tools. Given that this is a new instrument, the evidence presented is positive and promising. Further studies will be needed to refine the tool. (shrink)

Prior negative performance and wrongdoing are difficult for applicants to overcome during their job search. The result has often been that they resort to lies and deception in order to obtain employment. The present study examines “stealing thunder” as a trust repair tactic that might be useful for overcoming prior indiscretions when it is used by applicants during the selection interview process. Stealing thunder refers to the self-disclosure of negative information that preempts allegations of wrongdoing by third parties such as (...) hiring managers. Data were collected using a scenario-based 2 X 2 experimental design in which perceptions of integrity, trust, and employability were measured. Results indicated that a stealing thunder strategy that involved accepting responsibility under a low likelihood of transgression discovery led to higher ratings of trust than blaming others when discovery of wrongdoing was imminent. The stealing thunder strategy was somewhat more effective than when a traditional, post-allegation apology was used. But stealing thunder did not lead to higher levels of an overall willingness to hire the applicant. (shrink)

While primary malignant brain tumors account for only two percent of all adult cancers, these neoplasms cause a disproportionate amount of cancer-related disabilities and death. The five-year survival rates for brain tumors are the third lowest among all types of cancer. Malignant gliomas comprise the most common types of primary central nervous system tumors and have a combined incidence of five to eight cases per 100,000 people. The median survival rate of conservatively treated patients with malignant gliomas is 14 weeks; (...) with surgical resection alone, 20 weeks; with surgery and radiation, 36 weeks; and with the addition of newer biochemotherapies such as temozolomide and bevacizumab, upward of 14-18 months.The profound cost of caring for terminally ill patients with primary malignant brain tumors raises ethical considerations for the American public; the stewardship of health care dollars for the population at large maintains a juxtaposed tension against a dynamic, necessary balance of hope, care, rehabilitation and research efforts for affected patients and their advocates. (shrink)

Racism in nursing is multifaceted, ranging from internalized racism and interpersonal racism to institutional and systemic (or structural) elements that perpetuate inequities in the nursing profession. Employing the socio‐ecological model, this study dissects the underlying challenges across various levels and proposes targeted mitigation strategies to foster an inclusive and equitable environment for nursing education. It advances clear, context‐specific mitigation strategies to cultivate inclusivity and equity within nursing education. Effectively addressing racism within this context necessitates a tailored, multistakeholder approach, impacting nursing (...) students, faculty, administration, professional organizations, and licensing and accrediting bodies. This all‐encompassing strategy recognizes that the interplay of interpersonal dynamics, community culture, institutional policies, and broader societal structures intricately shapes individual experiences. Nurses, nurse leaders, educators, organizations, and policymakers can work together to create a more equitable and inclusive nursing profession by targeting each of these levels. This transformational process can yield positive outcomes across various environments where nurses learn, work, and serve people and enable the demographic composition of nurses to better match the populations served. (shrink)

Indonesia’s weak labor movement transformed local wage councils from institutions of wage restraint into institutions that delivered generous wage increases. This article argues that the arrival of direct elections created an opportunity for unions to leverage elections to alter the balance of power on the wage councils. Activating that leverage required increased contentiousness and coordination among unions. As unions mobilized around wages, conflict with capital intensified and produced disruptive protests that led incumbents to side with workers. Unions also developed innovative (...) tactics to sustain momentum in nonelection years. As unions turned the wage councils in their favor, employers fought back by shifting the scale of the conflict to the national level; the result was the recentralization of wage setting and more modest increases. In a global context of ever weakening organized labor, the Indonesian case shows how weak unions can gain power by mobilizing politically at the local level. (shrink)

The current study examines similarity or disparity of a frontally mediated physiological response of mental effort among multiple executive functioning tasks between children and adults. Task performance and phasic heart rate variability (HRV) were recorded in children (6 to 10 years old) and adults in an examination of age differences in executive functioning skills during periods of increased demand. Executive load levels were varied by increasing the difficulty levels of three executive functioning tasks: inhibition (IN), working memory (WM), and planning/problem (...) solving (PL). Behavioral performance decreased in all tasks with increased executive demand in both children and adults. Adults’ phasic high frequency HRV was suppressed during the management of increased IN and WM load. Children’s phasic HRV was suppressed during the management of moderate WM load. HRV was not suppressed during either children’s or adults’ increasing load during the PL task. High frequency phasic HRV may be most sensitive to executive function tasks that have a time-response pressure, and simply requiring performance on a self-paced task requiring frontal lobe activation may not be enough to generate HRV responsitivity to increasing demand. (shrink)

Studies on informed consent to medical research conducted in low or middle-income settings have increased, including empirical investigations of consent to genetic research. We investigated voluntary participation and comprehension of informed consent among women involved in a genetic epidemiological study on breast cancer in an urban setting of Nigeria comparing women in the case and control groups.

Simone Téry (1897–1967), French journalist and novelist, joined the French Communist Party in the mid-1930s after visiting the Soviet Union. She worked as a correspondent for L'Humanité, Vendredi and Regards; the latter post took her to Spain during the Civil War. The resulting texts, Front de la liberté: Espagne 1937–1938 (1938) and Où l'aube se lève (1945), form the basis of my analysis of Téry's desire to write the history of the present in inter-war France. These texts, a work of (...) reportage and a novel respectively, illustrate the relationship between the poetic, or imaginative, and the historical, or factual, in historical fiction. This relationship is particularly relevant to the literary history of 1930s France, given the highly politicized nature of literary production in the period and the resulting debates over the nature and future of the realist novel. Téry's rejection of modernism in favour of socialist realism suggests a conversion, common in left-wing writers of the period, to the notion that the modernist text is incapable of ‘containing’ history. The essay raises the question of French women writers’ relationship to committed literature in the 1930s, and demonstrates that women were active in this domain. (shrink)

Bu çalışmada, bitkibilimde kullanılan bir terim olan liken kelimesine, kök anlamına sadık kalarak Türkçe yeni bir karşılık önerilmektedir. Bu önerinin mantıksal çerçevesi, Antik Yunancadan, Orta Çağ Arapçasına, Orta Çağ Latincesine ve nihayetinde de Türkçeye kadar uzanan bir yelpazede, konuya esas teşkil eden tarihî metinlere ve onların kaydedildiği elyazmalarına dayanmaktadır. Türkçe metinlerde liken terimi yerine yalaç teriminin kullanımı öneri lmektedir. Bu öneri ülkemizdeki dilbilim, onomastik ve bitkibilim uzmanlarının eleştirel dikkatine sunulmaktadır.

Chagnon’s analysis of a well-known axe fight in the Yanomamö village of Mishimishiböwei-teri (Chagnon and Bugos 1979) is among the earliest empirical tests of kin selection theory for explaining cooperation in humans. Kin selection theory describes how cooperation can be organized around genetic kinship and is a fundamental tool for understanding cooperation within family groups. Previous analysis on groups of cooperative Lamaleran whale hunters suggests that the role of genetic kinship as a principle for organizing cooperative human groups could (...) be less important in certain cases than previously thought (Alvard Human Nature 14:129–163, 2003b). Evidence that supports a strong role for genetic kinship—groups are found to be more related than expected by chance—may be spurious because of the correlation between social structure and genetic kinship. Reanalysis of Chagnon’s data using matrix regression techniques, however, confirms that genetic kinship was the primary organizing principle in the axe fight; affinal relations were also important, whereas lineage identity explained nothing. (shrink)

CELL AND PSYCHE THE BIOLOGY OF PURPOSE By EDMUND W. SINNOTT. PREFACE TO THE TORCHBOOK EDITION: SINCE the publication of this little book, as the McNair Lectures at the University of North Carolina, the author has written two others, as well as a number of papers, on the same gen eral theme. Though these elaborate the argument a little further, the essence of it is in Cell and Psyche. This is admittedly a specula tion, but one based solidly on biological (...) fact. It has been regarded as rather visionary and metaphysical by some people, but others have been attracted to it by the suggestion it offers for a better understanding of the ancient problem of how mind and body are related to each other. This problem is of such paramount impor tance, not only for a knowledge of what man really is but for the construction of a satisfying life philosophy, that any light thrown on it should be welcome. The suggestion that man's physical life grows out of the basic goal-seeking and purposiveness found in all organic behavior and that this, in turn, is an aspect of the more general self - regulating and normative character evident in the development and activities of living organisms, is at least worth serious consideration. If we are to avoid a dualistic idea of man's nature and to construct a true monism that does not require the sacrifice of the significance of either mind or body, some such conception as this seems a rea sonable means of doing so. It is to be hoped that the wider distri bution now made possible for the present book may result in a more general consideration of this particular relationship between biol ogy and philosophy* E. W. S. CONTENTS: Introduction. i I. Organization, the Distinctive Character of All Life 15 II. Biological Organization and Psychological Activity 43 IIL Some Implications for Philosophy 75 Suggested Readings. 112 Index. 117. INTRODUCTION: IN THE CLAMOR and confusion of our times one fact grows ever clearer beliefs are important. One of the major problems with which men now are faced per haps, indeed, the most important one is the wide dis agreement which still exists in their fundamental philos ophies. What course a man will follow, or a nation, is set in no small measure by his basic creed, by what he really thinks about the true nature of a human being his personality, his freedom, his destiny, his relations to others and to the rest of the universe; by the judgments lie makes as to what qualities and courses of action are admirable and should command his allegiance. These are not academic questions merely. They arc ancient mys teries which long have troubled human hearts and seem today almost as far as ever from solution. The answer a ny* n gives to them is the most significant thing that one can know about him. We may be tempted to under estimate the importance of these inner directives and turn instead to outer influences, to economic and social factors, as more decisive for our actions. But when we look at what the philosophy of Marx has done to set one half the world against the other, at the basic divergence between the thinking of East and West, and at so many other differences in political and religious beliefs which now divide mankind, we can hardly doubt the profound practical import of men's philosophies. It is still true today that as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he. In the minds of men are the most fateful battles fought. Against those ideologies we condemn, force in the end will fail. If our opponents cannot be convinced, or their ideas reconci. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sighs and Tears:Biological Signals and John Donne's "Whining Poetry"Michael A. WinkelmanPhebe: Good shepherd, tell this youth what 'tis to love. Silvius: It is to be all made of sighs and tears...—Shakespeare, As You Like It (5.2.83–84)ISighs and tears permeate John Donne's poetry, as well they should. Crying in particular functions as a costly signal in biological terms: a blatant, physiologically-demanding, involuntary indicator of hurt feelings. "Tears dim mine eyes," (...) laments Donne's Sappho ("Sappho to Philaenis," l. 56); they are "Fruits of much grief" in "A Valediction of Weeping" (l. 7).1 The theory of costly signaling, related to the handicap principle, was developed fairly recently by Israeli zoologists Amotz and Avishag Zahavi. As the Zahavis explain: "in order to be effective, signals have to be reliable; in order to be reliable, signals have to be costly."2 Initially their idea was resisted, but it has since become widely accepted and it has proven very helpful in making sense of both animal and human behavior. Wasteful conspicuous consumption among upper-class Americans, as noted a century ago by sociologist Thorstein Veblen, exemplifies this handicap principle in action. Like gazelles jumping in place or stotting rather than running away when wolves appear, it indicates fitness by flaunting excess resources.Shedding tears when feeling sad is an evolved human adaptation that broadcasts unhappiness. The wailing of infants demands attention, and crying does something similar for grown-ups: among other things, it tests the commitment of hearers to appease the distressed. For instance, in Chaucer's tragic medieval romance Troilus and Criseyde, Pandarus advises [End Page 329] Troilus to provoke a suitable reaction from Criseyde by embellishing his billet-doux: "Towchyng thi lettre... Biblotte it with thi teris ek a lite" (touching thy letter... Be-blot it with thy tears a little).3 Early modern authors also knew their importance. In the words of Robert Herrick, "tears are tongues," while Claudius suspects that "There's matter in these sighs, these profound heaves" (Hamlet, 4.1.1).4As a case in point, Donne was overwhelmed by the death of his dear wife Anne in 1617. As his contemporaneous biographer Izaak Walton reported: "his very soul was elemented of nothing but sadness; now, grief took so full a possession of his heart, as to leave no place for joy."5 Donne even hoped to be literally entombed with her soon: "as the grave is become her house, so I would hasten to make it mine also; that we two might there make our beds together in the dark" (Walton, p. 51). His miserable mood was revealed in his initial sermon after her demise:His first motion from his house was to preach, where his beloved wife lay buried (in St. Clement's Church, near Temple-Bar, London) and his text was a part of the Prophet Jeremiah's Lamentation: "Lo, I am the man that have seen affliction."And indeed, his very words and looks testified him to be truly such a man; and they, with the addition of his sighs and tears expressed in his Sermon, did so work upon the affections of his hearers as melted and molded them into a companionable sadness; and so they left the Congregation.(Walton, p. 52)Listeners responded in kind to his honest confessions, a textbook illustration of the empathy generated by crying. (A related issue—how and why literature affects audiences so strongly—is currently generating some very interesting work from New Humanists investigating the question from an evolutionary perspective.)These qualities make sighs and tears fundamental to love poetry. In other words, writers deploy them because they reflect universal states of mind, rather than originating as some arbitrary, socially-constructed literary device. The copious opening sonnet of Petrarch's magnificent Rime sparse codifies the theme:6You who can hear in scattered rhymes the soundof all that sighing which once fed my heartin my first youthful error, when in partI was a person of a different kind—my changing manner as I weep and reason, [End Page 330] between vain aspirations and vain grief,leads everyone who has known... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:ALISTER McGRATH ON CROSS AND JUSTIFICATION MICHAEL RooT Imtitute for liloumenical Research Strasbourg, France Ay REGULAR reader of theological book advertisements has encountered the name of Alister McGrath. Since 1984, he has published a two volume history of the doctrine of justification, a study of Luther's theofogy of the cross, a general introduction to the thought of the Reformation, a study of the late medieval background of the Reformation, (...) a history of German Protestant Christology from the Enlightenment through the present, and popular books on the cross, the Trinity, and Christology. All the while he has lectured in Christian doctrine and ethics at Oxford. What is McGrath saying in this amazing flow of publications? Here I wiH look at three representative works. Iustitia Dei, which traces the understanding of the doctrine of justification from the Bible to Gerhard Ebeling, must be considered the centerpiece of his work to date.1 Luther's Theology of the Cross can be taken as typical of his more monographic work.2 Fina;lly, The Mys.tery of the Cross can exemplify his popular writings.3 I. lustitia Dei has an obvious claim on our attention. As McGrath notes in the first sentence of the Preface, this has 1[ustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doct1·ine of Justification, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986). 2 Luther's Theology of the Gross: Martin Luther's Theological Breakthrough (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985). a The Mystery of the Gross (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1988). 705 706 MICHAEL ROOT been a history waiting to be written (except perhaps for the first volume of Ritschl's The Christian Doctrine of Justification and Reconciliation). The Reformers stated that the docrtrine of justification was the root of their movement. McGrath has chosen an ecumenically decisive topic to survey. Although the length of McGrath's history (378 pages of text) may not justify its separation into two volumes, the division of the volumes follows a clear structural division of the work, a division McGrath finds in the history of the doctrine. After a definition of the subject and a six page discussion.of the pre~Augustinian tradition, the first volume rapidly comes to Augustine, the " fountainhead '' of the Western discussion of justification. The tradition from Augustine to the Reformation is sufficiently unitary that it can be discussed topically under such headings as " the righteousness of God," " the concept of merit,'' and " the relation between predestination and justification." In fact, the topics are so arranged that something of a chronological progression is produced, with the problems that dominated the late medieval period coming last. While the first volume deals with continuity, the second is structured by the major discontinuities of the Reformation and the Enlightenment. A major contention of McGrath is that the Reformation constitutes a break with a relatively continuous tradition. Another, even more radical break comes with the Enlightenment. Thus, the second volume is arranged chronologically and discusses developments from the Reformation through recent hermeneutically oriented interpretations of the doctrine. This outline of the structme of McGrath's hisrtory should make clear its most important characteristic. lt is a history of the discussion of justification in the West on the terms set by Augustine. After a six page leap from the New Testament to the late fourth century, the East is quickly dismissed, never to appear again. Even within the West, the history is selective. The six eenturies between Augustine and Anselm are passed over with only brief mention of the Semi-Pdagian disputes ON ALISTER MC GRATH 707 following Augustine's death and the controversies surrounding Gottschalk rGodescalc] of Orbais. Well over half the book deals with the period between 1050 and 1600 in the West. Following the Reformation, attention is given only to selected figures from the German and English Enlightenment, to Kant and Schleiermacher as critics of the Enlightenment (though Schleiermacher's own doctrine of justification, which in important ways recaptures that of the Reformation, is ignored), to Newman, and to the most prominent German Protestant theologians of recent times (Ritschl, Barth, Bultmann, Tillich, Ebeling). Except for Newman, who is treated in the context of Anglicanism, no Roman Catholic is mentioned after the condemnation of Jansenism... (shrink)

Focusing on Correspondence from the Double-Cassia Studio (Shuanggui xuan chidu 雙桂軒尺牘), a collection of letters by a gentlewoman named Ding Shanyi 丁善儀 (1799–after 1861), this paper examines how elite women in mid-nine- teenth-century China applied epistolary conventions in their social life. Com- pared to other literary collections of individual women in late imperial China, Ding’s letter collection is exceptional in recording the life of its author through the epistolary genre and in revealing the sociopolitical dynamics that underlay elite women’s epistolary (...) gentility. Ding’s letters are indicative of the noticeable concerns shared by gentlewomen in mid-nineteenth-century China and provide specific contexts for understanding some of the epistolary techniques used by lit- erary women to facilitate social networking. This paper uncovers Ding’s life and explores three major themes in her epistolary collection: her responses to crises, concerns about health, and cultivation of friendship. Ding’s letters show how elite women evinced sophistication and erudition in their epistolary composition, which was an important way for them to express themselves and demonstrate their mas- tery of language and rhetorical tradition. (shrink)

This paper fills a gap in the existing metaphilosophical research on paradoxes byfocusing on the role of scenarios. Typical philosophical paradoxes contain a scenariodescription whose contribution to paradoxes remains unexplored. I argue that sce-narios are examples or instantiations of the abstract schema of paradoxes. As such,scenarios contribute to paradoxes on two levels. First, they make the argument moreconcrete, thus enhancing the dialectical force of paradoxes and facilitating their under-standing, especially for non-experts. This function is external to the paradox itself, buthas (...) important practical implications for the use of paradoxes and their effect on philo-sophical debates, and it contributes to explaining why philosophical paradoxes areusually introduced by a scenario. Second, and more crucially, scenarios are essentialto the epistemic dimension of paradoxes. By definition, paradoxes have two neces-sary components: the argumentative structure and the plausibility/implausibility ofthe premises/conclusion. By providing examples of the abstract schema, scenarioscontribute to making the premises plausible. In particular, scenarios are the source ofplausibility and justification for those premises that contain an empirically groundedassertion of existence. Examples of such paradoxes are the Sorites paradox, the Lot-tery paradox, and the Grue paradox. Contrary to the dialectical role, the epistemicfunction of scenarios is indispensable, as it connects paradoxes to the real world andunderscores their significance in specific debates. (shrink)