In this article, I explicate Martin Luther King, Jr.’s account of emancipatory history and activism by examining the influence of G. W. F. Hegel’s account of world-historical individuals on his thought. Both thinkers, I argue, affirm that history’s spiritual destiny works through individuals who are driven by the contingencies of their subjective character and given situation to undertake particular actions, and yet who nevertheless freely and decisively break the new from the old by forsaking subjective satisfaction to spur events forward (...) to a more rational state of affairs. This synthetic unity of abstract freedom and concrete embodiment reflects the ‘civil war’ between the universal and infinite essence, and particular and finite passions, that King and Hegel identify as equally constitutive of human will. Through an examination of King’s account of Rosa Parks’ pivotal arrest, I develop the consequences of this ‘Hegelian’ view for our understanding of political action and historical progress. (shrink)

Vernon, Jim, ‘A passion for justice’: Martin Luther King, Jr. and G. W. F. Hegel on ‘world-historical individuals’, Philosophy & Social Criticism, 43 February 2017 pp. 187–207, DOI 10.1177/0191453716680126 SAGE regrets that an error in the title of this article was included in the original publication. Subsequent online versions of this article will be corrected.

Gadamer's book extends and codifies the main hermeneutical concepts of Bultmann, Heidegger, and their adherents, and can be considered a summa of what Robinson calls "The New Hermeneutic." By Robinson and other theologians, and by Continental literary critics, Wahrheit und Methode has been welcomed as a philosophical justification for "vital and relevant" interpretations that are unencumbered by a concern for the author's original intention. On this point "The New Hermeneutic" reveals its affinities with "The New Criticism" and the newer "Myth (...) Criticism." All three have impugned the author's prerogative to be the determiner of textual meaning. Gadamer, however, grounds his anti-intentionalism only partially in aesthetics and not at all in the collective unconscious but primarily in the radical historicism of Martin Heidegger. (shrink)

Book reviewed in this article: The Philosophical Assessment of Theology: Essays in Honour of Frederick C. Copleston. Edited by Gerard J. Hughes. Language, Meaning and God: Essays in Honour of Herbert McCabe OP. Edited by Brian Davies. God Matters. By Herbert McCabe. Philosophies of History: A Critical Essay. By Rolf Gruner. The ‘Phaedo’: A Platonic Labyrinth. By Ronna Burger. Lessing's ‘Ugly Ditch’: A Study of Theology and History. By Gordon E. Michalson, Jr. Peirce. By Christopher Hookway. Frege: Tradition and Influence. (...) Edited by Crispin Wright. The Private World. Selections from the Diario Íntimo and Selected Letters 1890–1936. By Miguel de Unamuno, translated by Anthony Kerrigan, Allen Lacy, Martin Nozick. A Third Collection: Papers by Bernard J.F. Lonergan, S.J. Edited by Frederick E. Crowe. Philosophical Papers. By Charles Taylor. 2 vols. Principles of Language and the Mind. By T.P. Waldron. The Principle of Double Effect: A Critical Appraisal of its Traditional Understanding and its Modern Reinterpretation. By L.I. Ugorji. Human Rights: Fact or Fancy By Henry B. Veatch. Enlightenment and Alienation: An Essay towards a Trinitarian Theology. By Colin Gunton. Only Human. By Don Cupitt. The Roots of the Modern Christian Tradition. Edited by E. Rpzanne Elder. ‘Africanische Theologie’: Darstellung und Dialog.. By Heribert Rücker. African Religions in Western Conceptual Schemes. By Emefie Ikenga Metuh. The Destiny of Man: Dagaare Beliefs in Dialogue with Christian Eschatology. By Edward Kuukure. The World in Between: Christian Healing and the Struggle for Spiritual Survival. By E. Milingo. Theology in Africa. By Kwesi A. Dickson. The Future of Anglican Theology. Edited by M. Darrol Bryant. Reconciling. By John Coventry. The Genesis of Faith: The Depth Theology of Abraham Joshua Heschel. By John C. Merkle. Anthropology in Theological Perspective. By Wolfhart Pannenberg. Contemporary Approaches to the Study of Religion. Volume II: The Social Sciences. Edited by Frank Whaling. American Sociology: Worldly Rejections of Religion and Their Directions. By Arthur J. Vidich and Stanford M. Lyman. A Critical Theory of Religion: The Frankfurt School. By Rudolf J. Siebert. The Anthropology of Evil. Edited by David Parkin. The Wealth of Christians. By Redmond Mullin. Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel. By Michael Fishbane. Reading the Old Testament: An Introduction. By Lawrence Boadt. Old Testament Theology: Its History and Development. By John H. Hayes and Frederick C. Prussner. God's Conflict with the Dragon and the Sea: Echoes of a Canaanite Myth in the Old Testament. By John Day. Law and Wisdom from Ben Sira to Paul. By Eckhard J. Schnabel. The Order of the Synoptics: Why Three Synoptic Gospels? By Bernard Orchard and Harold Riley. The Making of Mark. By J. Duncan M. Derrett. Argumentation bei Paulus. By Folker Siegert. Christians and the Military: The Early Experience. Edited by Robert J. Daly. Origienes' Eucharistielehre im Streit der Konfessionen; Die Auslegungsgeschichte seit der Reformation. By Lothar Lies. L'église de Cappadoce au IVe siècle d'après la correspondance de Basile de Césarée. By Benpit Gain Cave Monasteries of Byzantine Cappadocia. By Lyn Rodley. Augustine of Hippo, Selected Writings. Translated with an Introduction by Mary T. Clark. Wisdom from St Augustine. By Vernon J. Bourke. A History of Religious Ideas, Vol. 3: From Muhammad to the Age of Reforms. By Mircea Eliade. Les Lectionnaires Copies Annuels: Basse‐Egypte. By Ugo Zanetti. Humanism and Scholasticism in Late Medieval Germany. By James H. Overfield. Wyclif. By Anthony Kenny. The Lady and the Virgin: Image, Attitude and Experience in Twelfth Century France. By Penny Shine Gold. Unquiet Souls: Fourteenth‐Century Saints and Their Religious Milieu. By Richard Kieckhefer. Luther: Theologian for Catholics and Protestants. Edited by George Yule. La Réforme Catholique: Le Combat de Maldonat. By Paul Schmitt. Roman Catholicism in England: From the Elizabethan Settlement to the Second Vatican Council. By Edward Norman. The Life of David Brainerd. Edited by Norman Pettit. Nineteenth Century Religious Thought in the West. Edited by Ninian Smart, John Clayton, Patrick Sherry and Steven T. Katz The Significance of Jesus Christ in Asia. By Hans Staffner. Is the Virgin Mary Appearing at Medjugorje? By René Laurentin and Ljudevit Rupčić. Mary Queen of Peace: Is the Mother of God Appearing in Medjugorje? By Lucy Rooney and Robert Fancy. (shrink)

This article considers the various emergence of an explicitly recognized right to life in papal teaching and the canon law of the last century and a quarter. The Church's opposition to abortion is deeply embedded within the tradition and law of the Church. It was, however, only in recent times, since the middle twentieth century, really, that the Church began to speak explicitly of a right to life. This paper explores the consequences for papal thought of this explicit recognition of (...) rights. By speaking of a right to life, the Church has moved beyond the abortion debate to embrace a variety of other concerns. This is not to say that abortion does not remain important. Direct participation in abortion is a crime at canon law that results in automatic excommunication. But the language of rights has allowed the Church to address such matters as the protection of refugees; the moral requirement of adequate health care; the odious use of child-soldiers; and the use of economic embargoes that have the effect of destroying the civilian infrastructure (and public health systems) of entire societies. (shrink)

The dominant argument for the introduction of propensities or chances as an interpretation of probability depends on the difficulty of accounting for single case probabilities. We argue that in almost all cases, the "single case" application of probability can be accounted for otherwise. "Propensities" are needed only in theoretical contexts, and even there applications of probability need only depend on propensities indirectly.

We shall get to the crux of the issue if we ask, "What is it that reason is after, and hopes to achieve?" According to Blanshard, it is the grasp of necessity; it is the knowledge not simply of what is, but also and at the same time of what in the strictest sense must be. For reason seeks a final answer to the question, "Why?"; and only when one's knowledge is necessary is a further "Why?" found to be entirely (...) superfluous. Now perfect necessity may be grasped, thinks Blanshard, only in a context of total knowledge. The final goal of reason is thus a knowledge of the world which is perfectly necessary, and by virtue of this fact perfectly complete. (shrink)

O livro Bioética e Biodireito – Fim da Vida reúne diversos temas inovadores e de total relevância frente às inovações tecnológicas e estudos relacionados à Bioética, ao Biodireito, ao direito de morrer e à escolha por um processo de morrer humanizado, bem como as proposições doutrinárias e jurisprudenciais sobre o patenteamento do material genético humano que vislumbra para análise comparativa das legislações de propriedade intelectual de alguns países da América Latina, bem como as especificidades da Diretiva Biotecnológica 44/98. Sendo tema (...) de grande relevância às decisões sobre o fim da vida, não somente abordando o conceito de pessoa humana para, mediante o es elecimento de um referencial antropológico – filosófico, estudando a questão da discussão que hoje se trava entre a solução da oferta de uma morte digna ou de um processo de morrer com cuidados que respeitem a dignidade humana, inclusive na fase final da vida, bem como a relevante consideração de aspectos regulatórios e procedimentais necessários para a garantia efetiva do direito à autodeterminação no fim de vida para que não seja uma defesa vazia do ou pelo formalismo, mas uma forma de assegurar o mais amplo respeito à autonomia e a dignidade humana. (shrink)

UMA ANÁLISE DA SANÇÃO DE SUSPENSÃO DOS DIREITOS POLÍTICOS POR IMPROBIDADE ADMINISTRATIVA A PARTIR DAS DECISÕES DO STF ACERCA DA INTERNALIZAÇÃO DO PACTO DE SÃO JOSÉ DA COSTA RICA.

By revisiting Hegel's Philosophy of Right, I mount a Hegelian defense of same‐sex marriage rights. I first argue that Hegel's account of the Idea of freedom articulates both the necessity of popular shifts in the determinations of the institutions of right, as well as the duty to struggle to progressively actualize freedom through them. I then contend that Hegel, by grounding marriage in free consent, clears the path for expanding this ethical institution to include all monogamous couples. Lastly, I close (...) by sketching the specifically Hegelian reasons we ought to actively struggle to expand the institution of marriage. (shrink)

Comte is best known for his law of three states. According to this law, history necessarily develops through three stages, the theological, the metaphysical, and the scientific. However, the notion of "development" takes on three meanings within his works. First, he describes it as the unfolding of an inherent principle of growth analogous to the individual life process. Second, development is a causal sequence for organic growth. The individual's life is not the fulfillment of an immanent purpose but is the (...) outcome of past achievements. Finally, Comte considered change a progressive elaboration through a variety of environments. Though history had an end, events are not a contingent sequence of steps toward that end, but are rather anticipations of it. Comte's paradigms of the process of secularization demonstrate the importance of these distinctions. (shrink)