This article explains and criticizes several of Hume's arguments regarding British economic policy. I focus on Hume's methodology, which is essentially utilitarian but also depends heavily on his philosophical account of human psychology. I claim that the arguments examined prevail over competing 18th century approaches to economic policy. And I explain the relevance of this methodology for present day public policy debates.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:570 BOOK REVIEWS like reasonable rule for economic life. This effort is worthy of more attention than is possible here, but let it be noted that it must inevitably suffer the same fate as any ethical calculus: someone must decide for others what is their due and what is not. How much wealth, for example, makes for a concentration [of wealth] that would be " demonstrably detrimental to some (...) people's exercise of their generic rights "? His is ultimately an entitlement or rights ethic, rather than an aitial ethic of goal-purposive fulfillment for the individual, projected outwards for a common good scenario. While his rejection of goal ethics's inability to detail principles for distribution of goods is noteworthy, it does not appear that a tightened version of generic rights theory will come closer to either of Phillips's desiderata: a justification of moral reasoning apart from any theory of nature or a calculus for its application. Desan and Phillips wish to think against the limits of the human situation. For Desan, rising above limitation is a moral task and obligation facing us each, if there is to be a common future. His call is to be World Citizen in a Polis of Nations. Phillips's vision is more concrete, a distribution of benefits to benefit all with well-being and freedom. But this mundane task is no less difficult than Desan's transcendent one. Indeed, according to Augustine, even the Divine Mind must utilize an artifice in dealing with human creation: "He loves each of us as though there were only one of us." Both ethicists have striven to show us how we might think this vision for ourselves, i.e., for each other of us. ]OIIN B. DAVIS, O.P. ' Detroit, Michigan Catholics, Anglicans, and Puritans: Seventeenth-Century Essays. By HUGH TREVOR-ROPER. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988. Pp. xiii + 317. $27.50 (hardbound). Even to list the changes and events which occurred in seventeenth century England is a difficult task: the century spans the period from the death of Queen Elizabeth to the Glorious Revolution and beyond, through the Civil War, the accession and exile (twice) of the Stuarts, the rise of science, the transformation of the theological and religious issues of the English Reformation, to name only the most obvious. To conceive a book, in the form of occasional essays, which not only addresses these changes and events but does so by establishing the connections which were present with European currents at the same time surely tempts fate, even when it does not tempt reviewers. BOOK REVIEWS 571 But Hugh Trevor-Roper is a master, both of the period under survey and of the form of the essay. With one exception, each of these essays began as a lecture or seminar paper, and the pleasantly legible style in which they are written must bear some trace of that origin. The occasional flashes of wit, mixed with rthe fairly non-technical style, make the book a joy to read and a welcome escape from the usually constipated style of scholarly prose. In his Introduction, the essayist clearly sets forth his thesis that English intellectual history does not exist apart from the currents of European intellectual history (a thesis for which Trevor-Roper has already staked a claim). That leads to what may very well be the major problem with these essays: its end is in its beginning. The list of names cited in these essays only partially coincides with the list of names in the index; the former is much longer than the latter. And while the style of the essay welcomes the reader to the period, it also throws up more names and places and events than can be explained or even annotated adequately. This occurs both on a large and on a small scale. The first essay, on "Nicholas Hill, the English Atomist" contains such a vast array of names that at times it becomes the prosopo· graphical equivalent of a telephone book. On a large scale, there is the problem with a definition of Arminianism. No definition, at least no formal definition, is attempted-and this is probably wise. But, particularly in... (shrink)

This paper explores the moral responsibility a manager has toward a worker. The primary focus is upon those relationships whereworkers have been led to trust their managers. I argue that in such circumstances, models of the employment relationship based on rational self-interest fail to adequately describe the behavior of the actors. Rather, I show through case studies how trust operates in these environments to supercede pure, self-interested behavior. I then explore the moral implications of this finding relative to those managers (...) who lead their workers to trust them. I make the claim that these managers cannot adequately discharge their moral obligations unless they take on positive moral obligations. I cast this responsibility as one of positive care for some portion of worker welfare and briefly discuss what this might mean in practice. (shrink)

This article probes the advisability of regulating U.S. food and drug safety according to the precautionary principle. To do so, a precautionary regulatory regime is formulated on the basis of the beliefs that motivate most proponents of this initiative. That hypothetical regime is critically analyzed on the basis of an actual instantiation of a similarly stylized initiative. It will be argued that the precautionary principle entails regulatory constraints that are apt to violate basis tenets of political legitimacy. The modifications that (...) would change this finding would also change precautionary regulation to the point that it would be indistinguishable from orthodox safety protocols. It is concluded on the basis of its impoverished content that the precautionary principle should not be taken seriously as a formal approach to the regulation of U.S. food and drug safety. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:156 BOOK REVIEWS human being with happiness" (p. 34). I would only add that happiness is the reward of any reader who gives this book the attention that it deserves. Center for Thomistic Studies Houston, Texas JOHN F. x. KNASAS Henry VIII and the Conforming Catholics. By PAUL O'GRADY. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1990. Pp. 186. $11.95 (paper). The careers and writings of what this author has called (...) " Conforming Catholics " have been generally neglected by historians of the English Reformation, at least until recently. That is why it is even more remarkable that not only one, but two books should be published in 1990 on this subject. Glyn Redworth's life of Stephen Gardiner, bishop of Winchester (Jn Defense of the Church Catholic, London: Basil Blackwell) is primarily a historical and biographical account of this pivotal anti-papal Catholic, with particular emphasis on the period from 1540-1547. This book, while complete and well written, concentrated on the life of Bishop Gardiner almost to the exclusion of his writings, though some of these were mentioned in passing. Paul O'Grady's book suffers from almost the reverse of that problem. In his Introduction, he contends that " intellectual systems, once generated, have a logic of their own." His concentration on the " intellectual system " of anti-papal Catholicism at times overwhelms the historical considerations of the period, and he falls into at least the neglect of what Professor Geoffrey Elton calls " uncertainty as to what actually happened." Dates are plentiful in this consideration, to be sure, but the events selected are limited, and one gets the impression that there is quite a bit more to the story than the author is letting on. Quite a bit of familiarity with the period is assumed by the author on the part of the reader, and much that is quite germane to the topic and useful to following the text is relegated to footnotes. The great contribution of this study is that it raises a number of names to a higher profile, and highlights their writings. Gardiner, though relatively neglected (at least until recently), is one of the few names that surface about which a biography has been written. There has been a significant amount of groundwork done for this book, and merely the listing of titles by these authors is a valuable contribution. But there are problems, some of which are hardly the fault of the author. O'Grady uses the term "Henrician Catholic" in a number of BOOK REVIEWS 157 places, which causes one to wonder, what was the Catholicism of Henry VIII himself? J. J. Scarisbrick, in his magisterial biography of the king, certainly goes over the evidence, and O'Grady adds nothing new. The sources are scanty, and one is forced at times to make a series of assumptions (based on Henry's choice of bishops and councilors, for example) about what Henry actually believed that eventually become a series of assumptions piled on top of other assumptions. Noticeably and significantly absent from the consideration of Henry's management of his ecclesiastics is any attention to Henry's plan for the formation of a strong Tudor monarchy within England, the long standing work of Professor Elton. Foreign policy, another issue in the religious settlement of the period, is mentioned occasionally and briefly (here Professor Redworth's book more than makes up the difference). One cannot attempt to determine the king's theological positions in a vacuum, and although Henry VIII did (and still does) have some reputation as an " amateur theologian " in the period in question, there are few purely theological statements by that monarch. Theology, to all appearances, was just one lever used by Henry in erecting a strong modern state: the imposition of theological and liturgical uniformity was almost always a means to political uniformity, as the Prayer Book Revolts in Cornwall and the West showed in Edward's reign. Another problem arises in determining who, exactly, is an Henrician Catholic? It is fairly simple to differentiate this group from the Reformers -the controversies over the Sacrament and justification by faith do this clearly. But how can they he separated from the Roman Catholics? O'Grady... (shrink)

This study was developed around concerns about how indigenous knowledges have been represented and applied in environment and development education. The first phase of the study is a genealogical analysis after Michel Foucault. This probes representations and applications of plant-based indigenous knowledge in selected anthropological, botanical and environmental education texts in southern Africa. The emerging insights were deepened using a Social Realism vantage point after Margaret Archer to shed light on agential issues in environmental education and development contexts. Here her (...) morphogenetic/morphostatic analysis of social transformation or reproduction is used to trace changes in indigenous knowledge representations and applications over time . The second phase uses the same perspectives and tools to extend the analysis of power/knowledge relationships into the interface of indigenous communities and modern institutions in two case study settings in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. This study reveals colonially-derived hegemonic processes of modern/Western scientific institutional representations/interpretations of the knowledges of indigenous communities. It also tracks a continuing trajectory of their dominating and prescriptive mediating control over local knowledges from the pre-colonial context through into the post-colonial period in southern Africa. The analysis reveals how this hegemony is sustained through the deployment of institutional strategies of representation that transform local knowledges into the disciplinary knowledge discourses of modern scientific institutions. These representational strategies therefore generate/reproduce and validate disciplinary discourses about the other, constructing disciplinary 'regimes of truth'. In this way modern institutions appropriate and displace indigenous/local knowledges, silence the voices of local communities and regulate individual and community agency within a continuing subjugation of indigenous knowledges. This study reveals how working within modern institutions and disciplinary knowledges in participative education and development interactions can serve to implicate indigenous researchers in these institutional hegemonic processes. The study also notes evidence of a continued resistance to hegemonic Western knowledge discourses as indigenous communities have sustained many knowledge practices alongside Western knowledge discourses. There is also evidence of a recent emergence of counter-hegemonic indigenous knowledge discourses in environmental education and development practices in southern Africa. It is noted that these have been contingent upon the changing political terrain in southern Africa as this has opened the way for alternative discourses to the dominant conventional Western knowledges in formal education and development contexts. The counterhegemonic discourses invert power/knowledge relations, decentre hegemonic discourses and reposition indigenous knowledges in formal education and development contexts. This study suggests the need to foreground indigenous knowledges as a process of knowledge decolonisation that gives contextual and epistemic relevance to environmental education and development processes. This calls for a need for new strategies to transform existing institutions by creating enabling spaces for the representational inclusion of indigenous knowledges in formal/conventional knowledge discourses and their application in social contexts. This opens up possibilities for plural knowledge representations and for their integrative and reciprocal co-engagement in situated contexts of environmental education and development in southern Africa. (shrink)

Du langage et de l'humanité, tels sont les concepts clés qui structurent la problématique et le contenu des textes présents dans cet ouvrage.Pour mener un raisonnement en philosophie, la structure du langage obéit à un ensemble de principes dont la mise en application rigoureuse débouche sur la validité et la pertinence de ce qui y est dit. Pour cela, quand on parle d'humain en philosophie, le discours qui véhicule ce qui se dit n'a de valeur objective qu'en fonction de la (...) méthodologie qui structure l'énonciation de son discours. Ainsi, la structuration logique du langage philosophique détermine la discipline à laquelle est astreint tout chercheur dont l'ambition est d'énoncer un discours sur le réel ou l'humain, à partir des canons d'une méthodologie qu'on pourrait également trouver en mathématique."--Page 4 of cover. (shrink)

The paper is devoted to a conceptual model of cell patterning, based on a generalized notion of the epigenetic code of a cell determining its state. We introduce the concept of signaling depending both upon the spatial distance between cells and the distance between their cell states (s-distance); signaling can repel cells in the space of cell states (s-space) or attract them. The influence of different types of repelling signaling on the evolution of cells is considered. Stabilizing signaling, namely a (...) signaling monotonically decreasing with s-distance, causes the restoring of cell states after perturbations; destabilizing signaling, i.e., the one in which the signaling monotonically increases with s-distance, causes the appearance of pairs of cells with alternating cell states (one close to the state conventionally called “head”, and another close to the “tail” state). Non-monotonic (in s-space) signaling splits the cells into groups. The model shows that different types of signaling may provide different types of cellular patterns. General principles for applying this model to complex cellular structures are discussed. (shrink)

This simulating book gathers five lectures that ask questions of the broadest general intellectual interest: What is religion? Do other peoples have the same emotional states as we do? Why do humans make use of body imagery? In Circumstantial Deliveries, Rodney Needham shows that the comparative study of societies may furnish the answers. Circumstantial Deliveries challenges the methodology and substance of many conventional ideas about human nature and calls for more radical and comparative analyses. For instance, the author discredits the (...) notion that to primitive peoples the colors red, white, and black symbolize blood, semen, and feces, respectively, arguing that an extensive comparative study of primitive societies discovered no such relationship. These essays sound a common theme: "If a deeper appreciation of the value of life can be had from reading Crime and Punishment, or if a more acute assessment of the springs of action can be acquired from Hamlet, then in principle it should be conceded that like benefits may be derived from a sympathetic observation of other men engaged in their daily affairs.". (shrink)

Aristote, pendant l'Antiquité grecque, affirmait que "tous les hommes ont un désir naturel de savoir". De cette formule sont nées des questions essentielles dont une des plus importantes : comment connaît-on? Pour y répondre, Descartes, au début de la modernité, a également pensé à une disposition naturelle de l'homme à connaître. En supposant que "le bon sens est la chose du monde la mieux partagée", il faisait de la raison le signe distinctif existant entre l'homme et les autres êtres vivants. (...) La raison caractérise l'homme et s'emploie suivant une pluralité de modalités et en fonction des différentes sensibilités intellectuelles. Cet ouvrage, Le pluralisme des rationalités. Etats des lieux, débats et interrogations, est un ensemble de textes dont les auteurs expriment, en fonction de leurs sensibilités philosophiques, des champs d'expression de la raison. (shrink)

The relationship between tort law jurisprudence and the ethics and phenomenology of Emmanuel Levinas.

_Theurgy and the Soul_ is a study of Iamblichus of Syria, whose teachings set the final form of pagan spirituality prior to the Christianization of the Roman Empire. Gregory Shaw focuses on the theory and practice of theurgy, the most controversial and significant aspect of Iamblichus's Platonism. Theurgy literally means "divine action." Unlike previous Platonists who stressed the elevated status of the human soul, Iamblichus taught that the soul descended completely into the body and thereby required the performance (...) of theurgic rites—revealed by the gods—to unite the soul with the One. Iamblichus was once considered one of the great philosophers whose views on the soul and the importance of ritual profoundly influenced subsequent Platonists such as Proclus and Damascius. The Emperor Julian followed Iamblichus's teachings to guide the restoration of traditional pagan cults in his campaign against Christianity. Although Julian was unsuccessful, Iamblichus's ideas persisted well into the Middle Ages and beyond. His vision of a hierarchical cosmos united by divine ritual became the dominant world view for the entire medieval world and played an important role in the Renaissance Platonism of Marsilio Ficino. Even Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote that he expected a reading of Iamblichus to cause a "revival in the churches." But modern scholars have dismissed him, seeing theurgy as ritual magic or "manipulation of the gods." Shaw, however, shows that theurgy was a subtle and intellectually sophisticated attempt to apply Platonic and Pythagorean teachings to the full expression of human existence in the material world. (shrink)

In this paper, I aim to explain Peter John Olivi’s technical notion of “aspectus.” More specifically, I distinguish different uses of this notion by Olivi, not all of which have been made clear in the secondary literature, in order to help resolve a prima facie tension in the way Olivi puts together his active theory of cognition and his direct account of cognition (or “direct realism”). In brief, the issue is that Olivi builds his active theory of cognition out of (...) the commitment that the body cannot, strictly speaking, act as an efficient cause to produce an act of cognition in the spiritual soul; so, in order to account for soul-body interaction, Olivi will often speak of the soul having a seemingly one-way aspectus or orientation towards the body so that the soul can respond appropriately to changes in the body. However, given Olivi’s commitment to direct realism, the aspectus of cognition should go directly to the external object when, e.g., perceiving a present object. So, I take it Olivi must have some sort of distinction in mind between types of aspectūs in order to avoid contrariety. In short, my view is that by distinguishing between conscious/cognitive and non conscious/non-cognitive sorts of aspectūs in Olivi, one can understand how an aspectus towards inner corporeal changes can still contribute to direct cognition of external objects. Moreover, I take it that Olivi’s discussion of another technical notion, the mode of connection or “colligantia” between soul and body, provides further evidence for my interpretation. (shrink)

A central thesis of the book is that we can assume "the worst" about what science tells us about the human animal without having to sacrifice any of the things that are of most importance to ethics: virtue and the good life, harmony of the ...

The main aim of this study is to explain passage 35b4-37a2 of Plato’s Timaeus which deals with three main topics: the mathematization of the world’s soul, its movement, and its binding to the world’s body. First, it is argued that the mathematical structure of the world-soul allows it to participate in and be sensitive to harmony, which is essential for the correct workings of its cognitive capacities. Second, the division of the world-soul to the circle of the (...) same and the circles of the different and its self-motion comes in. This allows it to ‘touch’ and cognize the forms and the material things, as well as rule the movement of the corporeal world and care for it. In this aspect, the world-soul continues the process that started with the original creative act of the demiurge. Third, it is argued that the description of the world-soul’s binding to the world-body entails its conception as a spatially extended entity, which, in turn, explains of the possibility of an interaction between the corporeal world and its soul. (shrink)

In this work, new light is thrown on the philosophical method of the great Stoic Chrysippus on the basis of the fragments preserved by Galen in his De Placitis books II-III. Included is a study of Galen's aims and methodologies.

... and customs prevail in Japan. In my attempts to give satisfactory replies to M. de Laveleye and to my wife, I found that without understanding feudalism ...

The matter of the soul has been one of the most important and central matters in the history of Islamic science and thought. For the soul constitutes one of the two elements that make up the human being, and the issue of the human being has undoubtedly been one of the most prominent matters in Islamic civilization and has been a major preoccupation for Islamic intellectuals. In this context, the Islamic basin of knowledge and thought has constructed two (...) main definitions of the soul, one based on the Qur’anic teachings and the other inspired by Ancient Greek philosophy. Theologians conceived of the soul as a “subtle body”. Philosophers, on the other hand, conceived it as an “abstract substance”. This dispute between kalām and philosophy over the soul has not only been confined to the physical realm, but has also extended to the eschatological dimension, leading to a polemic that has lasted for centuries. As with many issues in post-classical Islamic thought, the influence of philosophy on this issue has been seen to be greater than that of other traditions. In fact, in the aforementioned period and later on, works on the soul from a theological perspective could not bypass the philosophical perspective. Within this framework, the theological perspective criticized the philosophers because they disagreed with it and especially because one end of the issue extended to the eschatological axis, and found it important to refute their conceptions in this regard. One of the most prominent figures of the aforementioned period, i.e., post-classical Islamic science and thought, was Abū Muhammad Rukn al-Dīn Ubaydallāh b. Muhammad b. ‘Abd al-‘Abd al-‘Aziz al-Samarqandī (d. 701/1301), a member of the Māturīdī and Hanafī sects. Samarqandī wrote many works and treatises on kalām, Qur’anic sciences, tafsīr, fiqh, hadīth, and mysticism. Among the author’s works/risālas/treaties that have reached the present day, there is a work titled “Risālat al-rūḥ” on the humanitarian-nātik (speaking) rational human soul (al-rūh al-nātiq al-insānī). Comprising an introduction and ten chapters, al-Samarqandī used a theological and mystical style, drawing on the teachings of the Qur’ān on the one hand, and partly on rational arguments on the other. The work includes the subject of the soul and the essence of the human being in this context, the definition and essence of the soul, the comparison between the views of the Ahl al-Sunnah and the philosophers in this regard, and the criticisms against the philosophers, the issue of ma‘ād (the end) in eschatology, the thoughts of the Sufis on the soul, the perception of Allah through the saying “Whoever knows himself, knows his Lord”, which the author considered as a hadith, and similar issues. As a mutakallim and following the line of Ahl al-Sunnah, the main problem of al-Samarqandī’s treatise revolves around what should be understood when it comes to “human being”, the nature of the soul, the manner in which ma‘ād will be realized, and his criticisms of philosophers over these issues. Based on our research and studies, it has been observed that the aforementioned treatise has not yet been analyzed and published. Furthermore, two manuscript copies of the treatise in question were found as a result of our investigations. This study covers the critical edition and review of al-Samarqandī’s Risālat al-rūḥ. (shrink)

La 4e de couverture indique :"Dans une société inflationniste en droit, libérale à cause de la logique capitaliste et où la laïcité conditionne les valeurs démocratiques, il est légitime que l'homme ressente une sorte de dépaysement ou de désenchantement, puisqu'il semble ne plus être au centre des réflexions philosophiques et scientifiques qui faisaient de lui une valeur absolue. Cet ouvrage est un ensemble de textes abordant, à partir des thématiques multilatérales, une question centrale portant sur la re-centration de l'homme. Il (...) s'est agi, pour chacun des auteurs, suivant sa sensibilité philosophique, de savoir si l'homme n'est plus le centre ou au centre du monde. En fait, avec l'économie libérale, une rationalité (bio)-technologiquement conditionnée et enfin une sécularisation de l'humain, l'homme est dans l'obligation de penser les conditions d'une redéfinition de son exceptionnalité.". (shrink)