Showing papers on "Eudaimonia published in 1984"

God and the New Physics

Abstract: How did the universe begin and how will it end? What is matter? What is mind, and can it survive death? What are time and space, and how do they relate to ideas about God? Is the order of the universe the result of accident or design? The most profound and age-old questions of existence -- for centuries the focus of religion and philosophy -- may soon be answered through the extraordinary advances of a field of science known as the new physics. In this illuminating work, Paul Davies, author of the acclaimed "Other Worlds" and "The Edge of Infinity, " writes that the discoveries of 20th-century physics -- relativity and the quantum theory -- are now pointing the way to a new appreciation of man and his place in the universe. They could, in fact, bring within our grasp a unified description of all creation. Demanding a radical reformulation of the most fundamental aspects of reality and a way of thinking that is in closer accord with mysticism than materialism, the new physics, says Davies, offers a surer path to God than religion. Described by "The Washington Post" as "impressive," "God and the New Physics" is a fascinating look at the impact of science on what were formerly religious issues. Elegantly written, a book for both scholars and lay readers of science, it is, according to the "Christian Science Monitor, " a "provocative...rewarding intellectual romp."

When words lose their meaning : constitutions and reconstitutions of language, character, and community

Abstract: Through fresh readings of texts ranging from Homer's "Iliad," Swift's "Tale of a Tub," and Austen's "Emma" through the United States Constitution and "McCulloch v. Maryland," James Boyd White examines the relationship between an individual mind and its language and culture as well as the "textual community" established between writer and audience. These striking textual analyses develop a rhetoric a "way of reading" that can be brought to any text but that, in broader terms, becomes a way of learning that can shape the reader's life. "In this ambitious and demanding work of literary criticism, James Boyd White seeks to communicate 'a sense of reading in a new and different way.' . . . [White's] marriage of lawyerly acumen and classically trained literary sensibility equally evident in his earlier work, "The Legal Imagination" gives the best parts of "When Words Lose Their Meaning" a gravity and moral earnestness rare in the pages of contemporary literary criticism." Roger Kimball, "American Scholar" "James Boyd White makes a state-of-the-art attempt to enrich legal theory with the insights of modern literary theory. Of its kind, it is a singular and standout achievement. . . . [White's] selections span the whole range of legal, literary, and political offerings, and his writing evidences a sustained and intimate experience with these texts. Writing with natural elegance, White manages to be insightful and inciteful. Throughout, his timely book is energized by an urgent love of literature and law and their liberating potential. His passion and sincerity are palpable." Allan C. Hutchinson, "Yale Law Journal" "Undeniably a unique and significant work. . . . "When Words Lose Their Meaning" is a rewarding book by a distinguished legal scholar. It is a showcase for the most interesting sort of inter-disciplinary work: the kind that brings together from traditionally separate fields not so much information as ideas and approaches." R. B. Kershner, Jr., "Georgia Review""

The embers and the stars: A philosophical inquiry into the moral sense of nature

Abstract: "It is hard to put this profound book into a category. Despite the author's criticisms of Thoreau, it is more like "Walden" than any other book I have read. . . . The book makes great strides toward bringing the best insights from medieval philosophy and from contemporary environmental ethics together. Anyone interested in both of these areas must read this book." Daniel A. Dombrowski, "The Thomist" "Those who share Kohak's concern to understand nature as other than a mere resource or matter in motion will find his temporally oriented interpretation of nature instructive. It is here in particular that Kohak turns moments of experience to account philosophically, turning what we habitually overlook or avoid into an opportunity and basis for self-knowledge. This is an impassioned attempt to see the vital order of nature and the moral order of our humanity as one." "Ethics""

Ethics: Theory and Practice

Abstract: I. ETHICAL THEORY: FOUR APPROACHES TO ETHICS. 1. The Nature of Ethics. The Classical View of Ethics: Plato, Crito. A Contemporary View of Ethics: Edward Wastemarck, "Ethical Relativity," A Second Contemporary View of Ethics: A.J. Ayer, "Emotivism." A Contemporary Version of The Classical View: James Rachels, "Can Ethics Provide Answers?" 2. Natural Law Ethics. The Classical Version of Natural Law Ethic: Saint Thomas Aquinas, Treatise on Law and Justice. A Contemporary Version of Natural Law Ethics: Germain Grisez, "Ethical Arguments." 3. Kantian Ethics. The Classical Version of Kantian Ethics: Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals. A Contemporary Version of Kantian Ethics: R.M. Hare, "Moral Reasoning." 4. Utilitarian Ethics. The Classical Version of Utilitarian Ethics: J.S. Mill, Utilitarianism. A Contemporary Version of Utilitarian Ethics: Richard B. Brandt, "Toward a Credible Form of Utilitarianism." 5. Social Contract Ethics. The Classical Version of Social Contract Ethics: thomas Hobbes, Leviathan. A Contemporary Version of Social Contract Ethics: John Rawls: A Theory of Justice. II. ETHICS IN PRACTICE: CONTEMPORARY MORAL ISSUES. 6. Applying Moral Theory: The Issue of Torture. Michael Levin, "The Case for Torture." Henry Shue, "Torture." 7. The Ethics of Nuclear War. John R. Connery, "Morality of Nuclear Armament." John C. Ford, "The Hydrogen Bombing of Cities." Manuel Velasquez, "The Morality of Using Nuclear Weapons." Douglas Lackey, "Ethics and Nuclear Deterrence." Christopher W. Morris, "The Ethics of Nuclear Deterrence: A Contractarian Account." 8. The Ethics of Suicide. Germain Grisez and Joseph M. Boyle, Jr., "Suicide and Causing One's Own Death." Alan Donagan, "Duties of Human Beings to Themselves." Richard B. Brandt, "The Morality and Rationality of Suicide." 9. Ethical Issues in Abortion. Michael Tooley, "Abortion and Infantcide." Mary Anne Warren, "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion." Richard Werner, "Abortion: The Moral Status of the Unborn." Judith Jarvis Thomson, "A Defense of Abortion." John Finnis, "The Rights and Wrongs of Abortion." R.M. Hare, "Abortion and the Golden Rule." 10. The Ethics of Euthanasia. James Rachels, "Active and Passive Euthanasia." Tom L. Beauchamp, "A Reply to Rachels on Active and Passive Euthanasia." J. Gay-Williams, "The Wrongfulness of Euthanasia." Bertram and Elsie Bandman, "Rights, Justice, and Euthanasia." 11. Sexual Ethics. Thomas Nagel, "Sexual Perversion." Robert Solomon, "Sex and Perversion." Alan H. Golman, "Plain Sex." Donald Levy, "Perversion and the Unnatural as Moral Categories." John M. Finnis, "Natural Law and Unnatural Acts." Burton M. Leiser, "Homosexuality and the Unnaturalness Argument." Raymond A. Belliotti, "A Philosophical Analysis of Sexual Ethics." 12. Aid for the Needy. Peter Singer, "Famine, Affluence, and Morality." Garrett Hardin, "Carrying Capacity as an Ethical Concept." Alan Gewirth, "Starvation and Human Rights." James P. Sterba, "Human Rights: A Social Contract Perspective." Joseph M. Boyle, "The Concept of Health and the Right to Health Care." 13. Racism and Sexism. Thomas E. Hill, Jr., "Servility and Self-Respect." Joyce Trebilcot, "Sex Roles: The Argument from Nature." James W. Nickel, "Preferential Policies in Hiring and Admissions: A Jurisprudential Approach." George Sher, "Justifying Reverse Discrimination in Employment." 14. Capital Punishment. Steven Goldberg, "Does Capital Punishment Deter?" David A. Conway, "Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Some Considerations in Dialogue Form." Jeffie G. Murphy, "Marxism and Retribution." Richard B. Brandt, "A Utilitarian Theory of Criminal Punishment." 15. Ethics and the Environment. William T. Blackstone, "Ethics and Ecology." Ronald M. Green, "Intergenerational Distributive Justice and Environmental Responsibility." Joel Feinberg, "The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations." Peter Singer, "Not for Humans Only: The Place of Nonhumans and Environmental Issues." Martin Benjamin, "Ethics and Animal Consciousness."

Theophrastus of Eresus: On His Life and Work

Abstract: This series in the field of classics grew out of Project Theophrastus, an international undertaking whose goal is to collect, edit, and comment on the fragments of Theophrastus, Greek philosopher, Aristotle's pupil and second head of the Peripatetic School. Contributions are by international experts, and each volume will have a particular focus. Volume I is devoted to Arius Didymus, court philosopher to Caesar Augustus and author of an extensive survey of Stoic and Peripatetic ethics. Volumes II and III will concentrate on Theophrastus and disseminate knowledge gained through work on the project. Volume IV will focus on Cicero and his knowledge of Hellenistic philosophy. Contents and Contributors (Volume II): Michael Sullenberger, "New Edition of Diogenes Laertius' Life of Theophrastus"; Dimitri Gutas, "The Arabic Lives and Dicta"; Jonathan Barnes, "Hypothetical Syllogistic"; Pamela Huby, "The Intellect"; James Lennox, "The Limits of Teleology"; Robert Sharpies, "Tastes and Smells"; Eugene Ryan, "Rhetorical Arguments"; Dorren Innes, "The Theory of Style"; William Fortenbaugh, "Delivery"; Andrew Barker, "Analyzing Melody"; John Keaney, "Politics and the Critical Moment."

Philosophy, Reason, and Literacy

Abstract: Educational philosophers today, often from different vantage points, speak of rationality as fundamental to the literacy sought by means of education Some place their emphasis on reason as displayed in the making of critical judgments; some, on reason as expressed in the conceptualizing or symbolic structuring of experience; still others, on reason as it plays a part in the constructing of social realities There are those who direct particular attention to the regulative role of reason: They concern themselves with rule-governed or principled thought and action on the assumption that rules and principles either define or are created by human rationality There are those, too, who stress the centrality of critical reflection in lived situations For them, this type of reflection constitutes the most productive mode of rational action; they view it as a way of transforming the lived world The philosophic interest in reason has long roots, reaching back into the classical past In the western world, philosophy preceded by 2,000 years the growth of what we now conceive of as the natural and social sciences Indeed, philosophy was long thought to be the queen of the sciences, especially in the years when "science" was identified with mathematical and logical thought The paradigm was found in a reasoning process that involved no interventions in the phenomenal world To reason was to take the stance of the contemplative spectator and "see" with the eyes of the mind For Plato, the man who achieved the status of philosopher-king had the capacity to know the formal features of things and to trace the connections between the forms or "ideas" that constituted true "reality" (The Republic, nd, pp 277-290) To gain such absolute and universal knowledge, the philosopher had to detach himself from his temporal being as a participant in the transient, imperfect material world So detached, his rational faculty would disclose the objective patternings, the meanings of all appearances This concern for disclosure can be found in Aristotle as well, for all his abandonment of dualism and detachment For him, human rationality entailed the ability to grasp the design or the telos of reality But reason now was given both a theoretical and a deliberative dimension It could not only make possible knowledge of the truth for its own sake; it could enable rational beings to make useful or beautiful things and to guide their conduct according to an idea of the good Granting the importance of theoretical knowledge, Aristotle said, "To know what excellence is, is not enough; we must endeavor to acquire it and to act accordingly" (Nichomachean Ethics, Book 10, chap 9, 1179b) Here too, however, and throughout antiquity, the mind, in the right use of reason, was oriented not to the understanding of experience but to knowing the essential nature of things As late as the 16th century, Francis Bacon, in his preoccupation with the "idols" or the false ideas that blinded human beings to the truth (Novum Organum, pp 38-68), retained the notion that reason unassisted could come to know the truth if reason could be freed from error Bacon tried to develop an inductive logic that would replace Aristotle's deductive logic; but he expected to use induction to

John Gower and the Uses of Allusion

Abstract: Yeager studies the poet's "art of allusion" through a close reading of the first 466 lines of Book 6 of CA. "Interweaving material drawn from various sources," he concludes, "Gower creates a intricately-textured poetry designed to portray the evils of drunkenness on three levels simultaneously: as social problem (love-drunkenness), as moral problem (drunkenness as sin, as loss of reason, etc.), and finally as spiritual problem of the highest kind (thirst of the soul for 'living water' which ends all thirst by faith and grace)" (p. 211). The conjunction of the amatory and the moral senses is part of the basic thematic pattern of CA; in this passage, however, using the equation between love and wine, Gower is particularly successful in linking "gluttonous intoxication" with the effects of love, both in Genius' discourse and in Amans' description of his own loss of reason. Like the drunkard, Amans is less satisfied the more he "drinks" of his rapturous vision of his lady, and what he really needs is a "reles" (6.253) from his driving need rather than more "wine." The spiritual dimension is introduced more subtly, first through Amans' allusions to "paradise" and the suggestion of higher objects of love; then in his unwitting allusion to the living well of John 4:1-15 in 6.276-91. The imagery of this passage is echoed in the allusion to Philippians 4:7 in "Jupiter's Two Tuns," and in a more complex way in the tale of "Bacchus in the Desert," which links "thirst" to "grace" with allusions to John 4:19-24, Genesis 22:12-13, and Apoc. 22:1 and 17. Gower has made two important additions to his source in this tale, Bacchus' prayer, and the reference to Bacchus as Jupiter's son, which creates a parallel to Christ and God the Father that informs the Biblical allusions in the tale. The link between Jupiter and God and between Bacchus and Christ is also found in another context in Ovide Moralise', which may explain Gower's substitution of "Bacchus" for the less familiar name "Liber" used by Hyginus. Here and elsewhere, according to Yeager, Gower invokes the familar "Christianization" of classical narrative of Ovide Moralise' as an "allegorical back-up" to the web of allusion that he has created in his own poetry. [PN. Copyright The John Gower Society. JGN 7.2]

Visualization and Signification in John Huston's Wise Blood: The Redemption of Reality. . .

Abstract: (For Ronald Campisi 1937-81 who understood the world of Flannery O'Connor in which caritas and the grotesque often co-existed.) "Wise Blood ... I can see signs . . . It's a gift like the gift of the Prophets." (Wise Blood) One property of film and drama alike is that narratives are performed, are spatialized, are seen. They are situated in a tangible world which in itself possesses certain signifying properties. Marshall Brown in an article titled "The Logic of Realism: A Hegelian Approach" has recently argued that "silhouetting" or the juxtaposition of "dramatic action" with background is an essential aspect of the realist aesthetic, a method of establishing "context and representative significance"1 in which the sources of signification are naturalized or historicized. We may note that in the case of the stage, the background or set, however naturalistic, retains a certain degree of artifice. However, in film, especially films made on location and which have a certain documentary-like quality, the background-landscape, cityscape, and a host of artifacts that have signifying properties-often effectively interacts with, overdetermines, or strongly characterizes key aspects of the dramatic action. Thus if we view film as a configuration of signs, we may say that narratives are silhouetted in relation to the material and cultural environment (i.e., culture congealed or instantly transformed into artifacts as well as present in the form of prevailing codes, values, and ideas). Flannery O'Connor, in stating that the serious artist must "have the ability to see different levels of reality in one image or one situation,"2 was articulating an Aristotelian realism characteristic not only of her theological perspective, but of social and aesthetic philosophies (including Marxist cultural studies) which see larger patterns manifested, congealed, or signified in surface reality. O'Connor's metaphors for understanding are visual: the artist should possess "anagogical vision. "3 Elsewhere she cites Conrad's dietim-also the creed of Griffith and Eisenstein-"before all to make you see,"4 vision being awareness, simultaneous perception of levels of reality in art and in the world. Thus it is hardly surprising that after reading an early version of Wise Blood Caroline Gordon wrote to Flannery O'Connor, praising the novel's visual and signifying qualities: You . . . provided a firm Naturalistic ground-work for your symbolism. In consequence one of the things I admire about the book is the fact that all the passages are symbolic, like life itself. . . . (They go on exploding, as it were depth on depth. As . . . E.M. Forester would say: You have more than one plane of action.5 "More than one plane." "Depth upon Depth." Or, to refer to the terminology of the critical appendices of Caroline Gordon and Allen Tate's House of Fiction: "scene and panorama," "incident" and "enveloping action" or "milieu."6 Once again the notion of visualisation incorporates a significant meaning, creating relation between foreground and background, or by extension between context and event. In her letter to Flannery O'Connor, Caroline Gordon praises Wise Blood as "the most original book I have read in a long time,"7 and compares it to the works of Kafka, Proust, Chekhov and Flaubert. However, she also offers criticism: Any scene in a play takes place on some kind of set. I feel that the sets in your play are quite wonderful but you never let us see them.8 She cites fourteen or fifteen scenes in the ms of the novel that, she argues, could have been more successful had they been more effectively visualised. (Some were revised by Flannery O'Connor before the final version of Wise Blood was published in book form.) It is especially interesting that they are the source of some of the most effectively realized scenes in John Huston's film of Wise Blood, in part because the inherent potential of the camera eye for mimesis silhouettes dramatic action in relation to the background of milieu, but also as a result of a shift of emphasis or interpretation. …

"Meaning" and "Mental Process": Some Demurrals to Wittgenstein

Abstract: W ITTGENSTEIN'S UNUSUAL STYLE of presenation in the Philosophical In. vestigations is one of he chief charms of his work, but also one of the main sources of the uncertainty about his line of argument and its cogency. His interpreters seem often enough to be put in the position of having to supply the joints and articulations of the very structure whose firmness they are supposedly testing. Under these circumstances, many sympathetic expositors have a tendency to be very generous indeed in their estimate of the soundness of his reasoning, while adverse critics may experience an impatience at the size of the job that faces them. The latter are easily accused of missing the point of his thought, and may be so lacking in assurance about their own perceptiveness in this novel case that they are half-tempted to concur in the accusation. Nevertheless, it is by no means clear that adverse criticism of Wittgenstein constitutes prima facie evidence of misunderstanding. On the contrary, because he was incapable by temperament of providing the kind of sustained exposition that would have rendered his thought prosaically accessible, the prudent suspicion would be that there might well be errors and false starts lurking in the inspired utterances which comprise his work. To increase the difficulty, his friendly commentators, who could have been of most help here, have not by and large subjected him to the severe scrutiny his thought calls for; in spite of the wealth of secondary literature, too much has been allowed to pass relatively uncontested. This has had the effect of allowing his followers to retain some of the air of a coterie while they have been in the process of be-

Medical Ethics' Assault on Medical Values

Abstract: To the — The notion that "autonomy ethics" has emerged as a result of the "dominant school in medical ethics... subvert[ing] values intrinsic to medicine" is naive. Emphasis on individual rights and avoidance of paternalism over the weak and stress on the freedom of individuals to choose for themselves are themes that have dominated all aspects of American society for the last two decades. The expression of these themes within medicine in the form of "autonomy ethics" is but one example of the way medicine reflects the values of the larger society. After criticizing moral philosophers for seeking universal and absolute status for their principles and rejecting the alternatives to autonomy ethics as "subjective," Clements and Sider 1 offer up their own moral absolutes in the form of "biological norms." Yet Clements and Sider's naturalistic, biological norms are just as assuredly "social constructs" as is the concept of autonomy. There are

Medical Ethics-Reply

Abstract: In Reply.— It is difficult in a short article for physicians to do full justice to all the intricacies of philosophic ethics and the medical ethics that is deduced from it. The best approach is to look at possible conceptual moves. We argue that the predominant intellectual move is "autonomy ethics," by whatever name an individual ethicist calls it. This may be anathema to ordinary language philosophy, but in the world of practice, operations count more than names. For Culver and Gert, 1 paternalism always involves violating a moral rule. They also want to consider some violations "justified." They employ the notion that an irrational action is defined as harming oneself without an adequate reason. Reasons, which are not "motives" in their system, make otherwise irrational acts rational (we could substitute "cognitively demonstrated" or "intellectually proved"). Finally, "competent patients should make their own medical decisions" (p 49) and the "consent