Freedom and the Rule of Law takes a critical look at the historical beginnings of law in the United States, and how that history has influenced current trends regarding law and freedom. Anthony Peacock has compiled articles that examine the relationship between freedom and the rule of law in America. The rule of law is fundamental to all liberal constitutional regimes whose political orders recognize the equal natural rights of all.

James V. Schall presents, in a convincing and articulate manner, the revelational contribution to political philosophy, particularly that which comes out of the Roman Catholic tradition.

A collection of Fr. James Schall's recent essays, Political Philosophy and Revelation offers a learned, erudite, and coherent statement on the relationship between reason and revelation in the modern world. It addresses political philosophy in the context of an awareness of other humane and practical sciences, including history, literature, economics, theology, ethics and metaphysics.

Renewed interest in collective memory has raised the need for conceptual elaboration of the topic and how it can be studied. In an attempt to clarify how it fits into interdisciplinary discussion the following conceptual oppositions are laid out: memory versus remembering, collective versus individual remembering, history versus collective memory, and strong versus distributed versions of collective remembering. Collective memory is then analyzed from the perspective of M. M. Bakhtin's understanding of ‘text’ in which a ‘language system’ is contrasted with (...) an ‘individual, unique, and unrepeatable’ pole of textual analysis. These ideas are harnessed to examine forms of dialogicality that shape collective memory, especially in politically contested cases such as Estonian and Russian accounts of conflict over the past century. (shrink)

ExcerptThe twelve contributors to this collection of essays are all themselves members of what might be called the “Telos Family.” Each writer gives us some account of his or her relation to the journal, its origins, its direction, and its future. Many have also known Paul Piccone, Telos's dynamic founder. Piccone's death in 2004, as well as the subsequent direction of the journal, is noted by most of the volume's contributors. Every writer indicates a fondness for the journal, its flair, (...) its scope, and its willingness to discuss things that are too often bypassed or rejected in the professional academic…. (shrink)

Justice is a noble virtue, yet it seems everywhere incomplete, even when it seems complete. In Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address (March 4, 1864), for instance, we read: As was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said “the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether” (Psalm 19:9). With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work (...) we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle…. (shrink)

Background: Olfactory cues directly link the environment to gene expression. Two types of olfactory cues, food odors and social odors, alter genetically predisposed hormone-mediated activity in the mammalian brain. Methods: The honeybee is a model organism for understanding the epigenetic link from food odors and social odors to neural networks of the mammalian brain, which ultimately determine human behavior. Results: Pertinent aspects that extend the honeybee model to human behavior include bottom-up followed by top-down gene, cell, tissue, organ, organ-system, and (...) organism reciprocity; neurophysiological effects of food odors and of sexually dimorphic, species-specific social odors; a model of motor function required for social selection that precedes sexual selection; and hormonal effects that link current neuroscience to social science affects on the development of animal behavior. Conclusion: As the psychological influence of food odors and social orders is examined in detail, the socioaffective nature of olfactory cues on the biologically based development of sexual preferences across all species that sexually reproduce becomes clearer Keywords: behavior; development; evolution; odors; food; social; sexual; epigenetic; olfaction; pheromones; hormones; environment; animal; affect; effect; neuroscience (Published: 15 March 2012) Citation: Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology 2012, 2 : 17338 - DOI: 10.3402/snp.v2i0.17338. (shrink)

Original and penetrating, this book investigates of the notion of inference from signs, which played a central role in ancient philosophical and scientific method. It examines an important chapter in ancient epistemology: the debates about the nature of evidence and of the inferences based on it--or signs and sign-inferences as they were called in antiquity. As the first comprehensive treatment of this topic, it fills an important gap in the histories of science and philosophy.

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and (...) made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has been proofread and republished using a format that seamlessly blends the original graphical elements with text in an easy-to-read typeface. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

When William James spoke about belief to the philosophy clubs of Yale and Brown in 1896, he forewarned his audience of the nature of his comments by describing them as a “sermon on justification by faith” (James 13), titling the talk “The Will to Believe.” Although there is disagreement about the substance of James’s remarks, it is fairly innocuous to assert that James thought they were appropriate because of the prevalence of the “logical spirit” of many (...) of those who practiced academic philosophy that led them to the conclusion that religious faith was untenable. Aware of his audience, James presents his view on the permissibility of religious faith on the terms and grounds familiar to professional philosophers. .. (shrink)

This article seeks to expand the sociology of religion’s conceptual toolkit beyond the focus on religious belief and on organizational structures inherited from Western Christianity. After criticizing these origins, I use Ibn Khaldûn’s notion of al ‘assabiyyah or “group-feeling” to analyze the events surrounding the Marian apparitions at Medjugorje, Bosnia, in the 1980s and the later events in the same region during the 1990s Bosnian wars. This concept’s strength is its ability to treat religious and ethnic solidarity as part of (...) the same phenomenon—something that previous literature on Medjugorje and the Bosnian war failed to do. Its weakness is its focus on centripetal solidarity rather than solidarity created by heightened social boundaries. The solidarities at Medjugorje were more often of the latter kind. (shrink)

Simple hypotheses are intrinsically attractive, and, for this reason, need to be formulated with utmost precision if they are to be testable. Unfortunately, it is hard to see how Phillips & Singer's hypothesis might be unambiguously refuted. Despite this, the authors have provided much evidence consistent with the hypothesis, and have proposed a natural and powerful extension for information theoretic approaches to learning.

A Georgetown professor’s look at the subjects one needs to study for a truly well-rounded education. A Student’s Guide to Liberal Learning is an inviting conversation with a learned scholar about the content of an authentic liberal arts education. It surveys ideas and books central to the tradition of humanistic education that has fundamentally shaped our country and our civilization. This accessible volume argues for an order and integration of knowledge so that meaning might be restored to the haphazard approach (...) to study currently dominating higher education. Freshly conveying the excitement of learning from the acknowledged masters of intellectual life, this guide is also an excellent blueprint for building one’s own library of books that matter. (shrink)

Adding the phrase “Roman Catholic” to “political philosophy” implies that political philosophy is a work of reason that, in its own order, reaches legitimate issues and problems that it cannot itself resolve. This phrase suggests that, contained within revelation, are responses to the unanswered issues as posed in political philosophy. These responses suggest that there is a coherent relation between reason and revelation that arises directly out of political philosophy as such.

At its beginning, every age has been "modern." We speak of "pre-" and "post-" modern ages. We are likewise tempted to identify what is most up-to-date with what is true. But to he up-to-date is to be out-of-date. If we Find what is really true in any age, it will he true in all ages. This proposition is central to this hook. Moreover, what is true will appear in different guises, as will what is false. The "modern age" had often (...) considered itself relativist, or secular, or skeptical. It strove to divest itself of its theological and metaphysical back-grounds, only to find that the central themes from this tradition recur again and again, most often under political or even scientific forms. This book proposes to "see" these classical and revelational roots within their modern forms. But we also find the proposition that what exists is only what we make. We find no "truth" but that of our own confection. When we find only our own "truth" however, we do not really find or know ourselves. We do not cause what it is to be ourselves in the first place. The central truth that the "Modern age" does not acknowledge is that its own existence along with that of the world itself is first a gift. When we see the "modern age" in this light we can again rediscover what we really are. Hopefully, we can choose and rejoice what we are intended to be in any age as the gift of being is something that transcends all ages even while dwelling within them. (shrink)

Introduction: "A certain crime unobserved" -- On Catholic thinking -- The mind that is Catholic -- "Infinitized by the spirit" : Maritain and the intellectual vocation -- Chesterton, the real "heretic" : "the outstanding eccentricity of the peculiar sect called Roman Catholics" -- "The very graciousness of being" -- Reckoning with Plato -- On the uniqueness of Socrates : political philosophy and the rediscovery of the human body -- On the death of Plato : some philosophical thoughts on the Thracian (...) Maidens -- What is piety? -- The abiding implications of friendship -- Aristotle on friendship -- The totality of society : from justice to friendship -- The Trinity : God is not alone -- The medieval experience -- The point of medieval political philosophy -- "Possessed of both a reason and a revelation" -- Aquinas and the defense of ordinary things : on "what common men call common sense" -- Implications of Catholic thought -- The "realism" of St. Augustine's "political realism" : Augustine and Machiavelli -- "Mystifying indeed" : on being fully human -- Transcendence and political philosophy -- Mysticism, political philosophy, and play -- Things practical and impractical -- Sports and philosophy -- The real alternatives to just war -- Where does it lead? -- On choosing not to see -- The ultimate meaning of existence -- "The beginning of the real story" -- Conclusion: On being allowed to read Monte Cristo. (shrink)

An undergraduate introduction to the Philosophy of Science intended for non-philosophers. The five chapters concern the formation, development, nature, use, and limitations of scientific ideas in an attempt to bridge the gap of misunderstanding between the sciences and the humanities.

In this groundbreaking new volume, James Wertsch proposes a new formulation of sociocultural research that connects the various perspectives of the social sciences in an integrated, nonreductive fashion.

Noting the widespread concern about the quality of education in our schools, Schall examines what is taught and read (and not read) in these schools. He questions the fundamental premises in our culture which do not allow truth to be considered. Schall lists various important books to read, and why.

Initially, let me say that no man can write anything about Chesterton's Orthodoxy that will be better than reading or re-reading Orthodoxy itself. But the glory of the sun ought not to prevent us from seeing what is in its light. Indeed, if we see only the sun, we will see nothing else, which not seeing is neither the point of the sun nor of Chesterton. The temptation to “explain” Chesterton better than Chesterton explained himself is the hazard that comes (...) with loving Chesterton. Though under no illusions, I freely confess to having succumbed to this insidious enticement frequently as…. (shrink)

Introduction -- A university lecture -- Violence and God's nature -- What Is Europe? -- Modernity and the three waves of dehellenization -- Revelation and culture -- Conclusion.