Selection within the educational domain breeds a special kind of suspicion. Whether it is the absence of transparency in the selection procedure, the observable outcomes of the selection, or the criteria of selection itself, there is much to corroborate the suspicion many have that selection in practice is unfair. And certainly as it concerns primary and secondary education, the principle of educational equity requires that children not have their educational experiences or opportunities determined by their postcode, their ethnic status, first (...) language, or family wealth. Indeed educational opportunities determined by unearned advantage or disadvantage offend against basic notions of fairness. But are public schools even permitted to select their students, and if so, how can selection procedures used by schools be best structured to achieve equitable ends? In this article we delineate, describe, and defend what we believe are the essential features of selection and also why we need to pay equal attention to both the outcomes and the processes leading to those outcomes. Provided the selection is motivated and guided by the right reasons, as well as appropriately monitored, we argue that selection can be equity promoting. (shrink)

The Christian doctrine of the Incarnation maintains that the second person of the Trinity became a human being, retaining all attributes necessary for being divine and gaining all attributes necessary for being human. As usually understood, the doctrine involves the claim that the second person of the Trinity is the subject of the attributes of Jesus Christ, the first-century Jew whose deeds are reported in various ways in the New Testament. The fundamental philosophical problem specific to the doctrine is this: (...) how is it that one and the same thing could be both divine and human. Most of the philosophical effort devoted to the specifics of the doctrine has centered on this issue, which is the focus of this article. (shrink)

Friedrich Schleiermacher's groundbreaking work in theology and philosophy was forged in the cultural ferment of Berlin at the convergence of the Enlightenment and Romanticism. The three sections of this book include illuminating sketches of Schleiermacher's relationship to contemporaries, his work as public theologian as well as the formation and impact of his two most famous books, On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers and The Christian Faith. Richard Crouter examines Schleiermacher's stance regarding the status of doctrine, Church and political (...) authority, and the place of theology among the academic disciplines. Dedicated to the Protestant Church in the line of Calvin, Schleiermacher was equally a man of the university who brought the highest standards of rationality, linguistic sensitivity and a sense of history to bear upon religion. (shrink)

Contrary to a common assumption, I argue that there is full agreement between East and West on the issue of the relation between the divine essence and the divine persons. I defend this claim by using the understanding of universals found in D. M. Armstrong to cast light on the theories. Taking Gregory of Nyssa and John of Damascus as representatives of the Eastern tradition, I show that this tradition sees the divine essence as a numerically singular object that is (...) wholly present in each divine person. The Eastern tradition explicitly sees this object as a universal. The Western tradition ��� exemplified in Augustine and Aquinas – likewise sees the divine essence as a numerically singular object that is wholly present in each divine person. But this tradition customarily denies that such an object could be a universal, on the merely philosophical grounds that universals are divided amongst the particulars that share them, and thus cannot be numerically one. Having shown the fundamental consonance of the two traditions, I argue by way of conclusion that differences between social and non–social theories of the Trinity depend entirely on the nature and extent of the features that are supposed to distinguish the persons from each other. (shrink)

Upholding a univocity theory of religious language does not entail idolatry, because nothing about univocity entails misidentifying God altogether—which is what idolatry amounts to. Upholders and opponents of univocity can agree on the object to which they are ascribing various attributes, even if they do not agree on the attributes themselves. Neither does the defender of univocity have to maintain that there is anything real really shared by God and creatures. Furthermore, even if much of language is analogous, syllogistic argument—and (...) hence theology’s scientific status, as accepted by the scholastics—requires univocity. (shrink)

A classic of modern religious thought, Schleiermacher's On Religion: Speeches to its Cultured Despisers is here presented in Richard Crouter's acclaimed English translation of the 1799 edition, originally published in Cambridge Texts in German Philosophy. Written when its youthful author was deeply involved in German Romanticism and the critique of Kant's moral and religious philosophy, it is a masterly expression of Protestant Christian apologetics of the modern period, which powerfully displays the tensions between the Romantic and Enlightenment accounts of (...) religion. Unlike the revised versions of 1806 and 1821, which modify the language of feeling and intuition and translate the argument into more traditional academic and Christian categories, the 1799 text more fully reveals its original audience's literary and social world. Richard Crouter's introduction places the work in the milieu of early German Romanticism, Kant criticism, the revival of Spinoza and Plato studies, and theories of literary criticism and of the physical sciences, and his fully annotated edition also includes a chronology and notes on further reading. (shrink)

Gregory of Rimini (1300s motivations for accepting this view, and indeed how precisely he understands it.

As one of the earliest Western physics teachers, Richard Rufus of Cornwall helped transform Western natural philosophy in the 13th century. But despite the importance of Rufus's works, they were effectively lost for 500 years, and the Physics commentary is the first complete work of his ever to be printed. Rufus taught at the Universities of Paris and Oxford from 1231 to 1256, at the very time when exposure to Aristotle's ibri naturales was revolutionizing the academic curriculum; indeed Rufus (...) gave the earliest surviving lectures on physics and metaphysics. Rufus not only expounded the views of Aristotle and the commentator Averroes, but he also challenged them, and this lively discussion proved to be enormously influential. Rufus rejected Aristotle's theory of projectile motion, and this rival view was later adopted by Franciscus de Marchia. His revised account of the place of the heavens was taken up by Roger Bacon and Thomas Aquinas; and his defence of creation, still considered a cogent reply to Aristotle's claims for a beginningless universe, was to be embraced by both Bacon and Bonaventure. Professor Wood's meticulous edition sheds light on that Crucial period when the medieval West for the first time acquired a comprehensive scientific account of the cosmos. (shrink)

Peirce’s True Gorgias is a brief dialogue from his essay “Grounds of Validity of the Laws of Logic”, published in 1869. The True Gorgias exposes the fallacy of existential import. It has received no sustained attention in the secondary literature, perhaps because the fallacy is now familiar. Peirce’s assessment of the fallacy involved in the reasoning, however, changes between 1865 and 1869, and he only arrives at the contemporary account of existential import in 1880. Moreover, a careful examination of the (...) context in which the True Gorgias appears reveals it provides an argument in support of Peirce’s early Aristotelian realism about universals in contradistinction to non-Aristotelian varieties of realism advocated by W.T. Harris, editor of the journal in which the True Gorgias was published. (shrink)

According to a well-known interpretation, Henry of Ghent holds that possible but non-existent essences – items merely with what Henry labels ‘esse essentiae’ – have some reality external to the divine mind, but short of actual existence (esse existentiae). I argue that this reading of Henry is mistaken. Furthermore, Henry identifies any essence, considered independently of its existence as a universal concept or as instantiated in a particular as an item that has some kind of reality in the divine intellect, (...) and that constitutes an object of thought for that intellect. This object is distinguished from the universal concepts of creaturely cognition. (shrink)

"And I have felt / A presence that disturbs me with the joy / Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime."--William Wordsworth A Sense Sublime is a record of a life lived during the last years of the twentieth century on the northern edge of the tallgrass prairies of Illinois, where seas of flowing grasses give way to the glaciated hills of Wisconsin. With camera in hand, Richard Quinney walked the streets and byways and traveled the country roads. Quinney watched (...) through his viewfinder the rising and passing of all things, giving attention to the wonder of daily existence. He captures the transcendental landscape; land and sky powerfully meld into one. The black and white of shadow on snow explores the light and darkness we know and experience in human existence. Gothic images of weathered homes and barns of long-gone settlers and shaded cemeteries still haunt the landscape, while romantic vistas of clouds majestically drifting over magnificent prairies instill an agrarian sublimity akin to Wordsworth or Thoreau. The photographs, from the end of a century, document the passing of the seasons and the years. Quinney's photographs are historical artifacts, framed of portions of the world within his spiritual eye, the camera's viewfinder. The photos, accompanied with notes from Quinney's journals, as well as the words of others, are extensions of the long tradition of transcendental writers, romantic poets, and landscape painters. They are Quinney's own attempt to solve the mystery of human existence and a way to experience the sublime in everyday life. These were the years lived as a camera. (shrink)

This paper discusses two interrelated questions about ontological commitment in the thought of Gregory of Rimini (d. 1358), questions having to do with both hylomorphic composites of matter and substantial form, and with complexe significabilia that typically obtain in cases of substance–accident composition. The first question is that of the existence of real relations: neither hylomorphic composites nor complexe significabilia require real relations tying their various co-located components together. The second is that of the reducibility of such wholes to the (...) sum of their parts: neither hylomorphic composites nor complexe significabilia are anything other than their co-located parts. And all such items can be disunited merely by a divine volition, requiring nothing extramental added to the ontology, and no change in position. (shrink)

Ponderings II–VI begins the much-anticipated English translation of Martin Heidegger's "Black Notebooks." In a limited edition binding, this series of small notebooks with black covers, Heidegger confided sundry personal observations and ideas over the course of 40 years. The five notebooks in this volume were written between 1931–1938 and thus chronicle Heidegger's year as Rector of the University of Freiburg during the Nazi era. Published in German as volume 94 of the Complete Works, these challenging and fascinating journal entries shed (...) light on Heidegger's philosophical development regarding his central question of what it means to be, but also on his relation to National Socialism and the revolutionary atmosphere of the 1930s in Germany. Readers previously familiar only with excerpts taken out of context may now determine for themselves whether the controversy and censure the "Black Notebooks" have received are deserved or not. This faithful translation by Richard Rojcewicz opens the texts in a way that captures their philosophical and political content while disentangling Heidegger's notoriously difficult language. (shrink)

This article highlights five areas of Scotus' philosophy that have recently been the subject of scholarly discussion. (1) Metaphysics : I outline the most current accounts of Scotus on individuation (thisness or haecceity) and the common nature. (2) Modal theory : I consider recent accounts both of Scotus' innovations in spelling out the notion of the logically (and broadly logically) possible, and of his account of the independence of modality. (3) Cognitive psychology : I examine recent views of Scotus' theory (...) of intentionality and the nature of mental content. (4) Semantics : I look at contemporary expositions of Scotus' view that words signify things. (5) Metaethics and ethics : I briefly describe conflicting interpretations of Scotus' metaethics, and discuss whether Scotus should be thought of as adopting some kind of divine-command theory or not. I note too Scotus' claim that virtues and passions can be located in the will. (shrink)

The article defends a modern version of the correspondence theory of truth, one which explains the truth of a statement in terms of referential relations between its parts and aspects of the world. Davidson's views on truth are discussed in detail and, in particular, a critical eye is cast over his degradation of the concept of reference which, if successful, would preclude the possibility of developing a full-blooded correspondence theory.

Lukacs’ analysis of reification is potentially fruitful for analyzing structural (or institutional) violence as well as cultural or symbolic violence. But he did not make an explicit theme of such violence. Thanks to the neglect of violence, Lukacs did not explore the politics of nonviolence. Perhaps this reflects the secondary place of violence and nonviolence in the tradition of working class politics on which he drew. The later emergence of anti-colonial politics (for example, as theorized by Gandhi and Fanon) included (...) a more explicit focus on violence and nonviolence, as did evolving anti-racist and feminist struggles. While in the meantime many such movements have typically retreated from (or even questioned) the more systematic focus of anti-capitalism and the construction of socialism, they have developed violence as a more explicit and politically relevant theme. In pursuing these themes, I hope to show that Lukacs’ critique of reification can identify and help challenge the structural violence that is imposed by the expansive commodification of capitalist economies. Doing so requires that we attend to functions of symbolic activity in experience generally as well as more specifically in contexts of violence. Elaborating on some of the philosophical aspects of this claim is the task of the first section of this paper. From there I will turn to themes of symbolic activity that are useful for social theory and then proceed to conceptions of violence and of power. These themes bear on the problem of compromised agency that figures prominently in Lukacs’ thought. (shrink)

John of Ripa’s (fl. 1350s) Christology is highly unusual in the context of late medieval theology, since it is a form of the old “homo assumptus (assumed man)” Christology found in St. Augustine and the Victorines, but not generally in later theologians. Ripa explains the Incarnation by supposing that the divine essence is in some sense the form of the human nature, such that both “God” and the whole panoply of divine properties can be predicated of it. This move allows (...) Ripa to secure the truth of claims mandated by the authoritative Council of Chalcedon, such as “this human being is eternal.” Ripa appeals to a kind of relative identity to argue that the human being is (non-classically) identical with the divine person, such that positing something that “is God, but not the deity” does not result in an additional God or additional divine person. (shrink)

This excellent book provides a novel analysis of medieval theories of faith, using as its conceptual basis the notion of doxastic voluntarism: the thought that belief is in some sense in our power to choose. This notion fits very neatly with medieval accounts, since, other than in cases in which the intellect's assent is compelled, the medieval philosophers all maintained that assent to a given proposition—paradigmatically the supernatural claims of Catholic Christianity, the principal interest of the earliest thinkers in Nicolas (...) Faucher's account—was in some sense voluntary. Indeed, one thing that the book illustrates very nicely is the way in which problems that begin in the... (shrink)

Giles of Rome systematically distinguishes two kinds of modes, which in this essay are labelled ‘conjunction modes’ and ‘category modes’. The latter - according to which a substance might have the mode of an accident, and an accident the mode of a substance - are ontologically innocent, and predications about them are parasitic on conjunction modes. Conjunction modes are features of the universe, and are deposited in their subjects by things united to but really distinct from their subjects. For example, (...) a quantity-thing, united to a substance, deposits a quantity-mode in the substance; and an existence-thing, united to a particular essence, deposits an existence-mode in the essence. In this essay, some attempt is made to defend this view against objections raised by Ockham. (shrink)

The High Middle Ages were remarkable for their coherent sense of 'Christendom': of people who belonged to a homogeneous Christian society marked by uniform rituals of birth and death and worship. That uniformity, which came under increasing strain as national European characteristics became more pronounced, achieved perhaps its most perfect intellectual expression in the thought of the western Christian thinkers who are sometimes called 'scholastic theologians'. This book offers the first focused introduction to these thinkers based on the individuals themselves (...) and their central preoccupations. (shrink)

"In the same period Wagner was deeply inspired by the works of Shakespeare, an influence that runs throughout this volume. The title essay, "Actors and Singers," is one of Wagner's most deliberate and philosophical writings. He wrote, "Art ceases, strictly speaking, to be Art from the moment it presents itself as Art to our reflecting consciousness. " He described how the unconsciousness of art, and thus art's power, connected natural genius to cultivate traditions.

1. Buch. Methodik.--2. Buch. Metaphysik.--3. Buch. Psychologie.--4. Buch. Ethik.

A mime presented on videotape Adler’s six great ideas of truth, goodness, beauty, liberty, equality, and justice; their opposites; and the transitions from the positive or “good” concepts to their opposites. Using Johansson’s (1973) technique, the performer’s 12 joints were marked with points of light. Overall, the viewers had marginal success in identifying the concepts, but females were much more successful than males in identifying the “bad” ones of evil, slavery, falsehood, and ugliness, averaging 62% correct to the males’ 23%. (...) The results agree with Hall’s (1984) discussion of sex differences in the interpretation of nonverbal behavior. (shrink)

Professor Noam Chomsky is a fierce critic of US wars and foreign policy, and a brilliant analyst of the propaganda and psychological mechanisms through which the liberal-bureaucratic establishment achieves public consent and endorsement of the aggressive actions of the state. For this he is intensely admired in some quarters, and detested and reviled in others. Between the extremes of the uncritical campus adulation and the vicious ad hominem abuse to which he is sometimes subjected, there are genuine critiques to be (...) made and refreshing doses of the unvarnished truth to be found in his voluminous output over the years. (shrink)

Rymarz, Richard An important theme in the contemporary disposition of the church toward the wider culture is the need for a new evangelisation. The thinking was given great impetus by St John Paul II. Whilst a bold strategy, there is little doubt that any attempt to evangelise contemporary secular cultures also presents significant challenges. The church, understood however as an agent of evangelisation not by choice but by its very nature, must carry on its Pauline mission with an eye (...) to more long-term goals and not be discouraged by the task ahead of it. The commitment to engage the wider culture needs to be consistent, realising that the task ahead is difficult but that its difficulty can be mitigated by intelligence and resourcefulness. As Lonergan remarked: 'Ours is a new age, and enormous tasks lie ahead. But we shall be all the more likely to surmount them, if we take the trouble to understand what is going forward and why'. (shrink)

Conferência apresentada no Departamento de Filosofia da UFRN, no dia 22 de novembro de 2007. Título original: “The Existence of God”.