THIS author of this excellent article is in closest contact with current scientific literature and thought. He is at present abroad studying at the French house of philosophical studies on the Isle of Jersey. Rarely is The Modern Schoolman privileged to print so important an article as this. The Editor.

Mr. Klaas is one of the best friends of the SCHOOLMAN. His contributions have always been worth while. In "The Assault on Mysticism," he undertakes to point out the fallacy in the reasoning of the "religious psychologists" who are giving so much attention to mysticism today.

The linear model often serves as a starting point for applying statistics in psychology. Often, formal training beyond the linear model is limited, creating a potential pedagogical gap because of the pervasiveness of data non-normality. We reviewed 61 recently published undergraduate and graduate textbooks on introductory statistics and the linear model, focusing on their treatment of non-normality. This review identified at least eight distinct methods suggested to address non-normality, which we organize into a new taxonomy according to whether the approach: (...) (a) remains within the linear model, (b) changes the data, and (c) treats normality as informative or as a nuisance. Because textbook coverage of these methods was often cursory, and methodological papers introducing these approaches are usually inaccessible to non-statisticians, this review is designed to be the happy medium. For the purpose of promoting best practice in the application of the linear model, we provide a relatively non-technical review of advanced methods which can address non-normality. We also present three empirical examples to highlight distinctions between these methods' motivations and results. It is anticipated that our taxonomy will provide a useful overview and starting place for researchers interested in extending their knowledge in approaches developed to address non-normality from the perspective of the linear model. (shrink)

The removal of water from mines was one of the key issues that former miners had to deal with. Roman colonists brought new technology to the Iberian Peninsula that addressed this problem. However, they did not invent this technology because it had already been applied to the growth of other endeavours in the Hellenistic society throughout the Eastern Mediterranean. In the mine, the Archimedes screw, waterwheels, bucket pulleys, and Ctesibius pumps were the primary drainage systems. In this essay, the primary (...) characteristics, and modes of operation of machines are examined. Without leaving out the most significant finds made in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula, one of the regions with the longest history of mining exploitation. To serve as a foundation for future research in this field, this work compares the primary mining mechanisms in ancient Huelva on a qualitative and quantitative level by the implementation of a TOPSIS methodology, a multi-criteria decision analysis method. (shrink)

A fresh vision of the common good through pnumatological lenses Daniela C. Augustine, a brilliant emerging scholar, offers a theological ethic for the common good. Augustine develops a public theology from a theological vision of creation as the household of the Triune God, bearing the image of God in a mutual sharing of divine love and justice, and as a sacrament of the divine presence. The Spirit and the Common God expounds upon the application of this vision not (...) only within the life of the church but also to the realm of politics, economics, and care for creation. The church serves a priestly and prophetic function for society, indeed for all of creation. This renewed vision becomes the foundation for constructing a theological ethic of planetary flourishing in and through commitment to a sustainable communal praxis of a shared future with the other and the different. While emphatically theological in its approach, The Spirit and the Common Good engages readers with insights from political philosophy, sociology of religion, economics, and ecology, as well as forgiveness/reconciliation and peacebuilding studies. (shrink)

Endothelial cells line the inside of all blood vessels, forming a structurally and functionally heterogenous population of cells. Their complexity and diversity has long been recognized, yet very little is known about the molecules and regulatory mechanisms that mediate the heterogeneity of different endothelial cell populations. The constitutive organ‐ and microenvironment‐specific phenotype of endothelial cells controls internal body compartmentation, regulating the trafficking of circulating cells to distinct vascular beds. In contrast, surface molecules associated with the activated cytokine‐inducible endothelial phenotype play (...) a critical role in pathological conditions including inflammation, tumor angiogenesis, and wound healing. Differentiation of the endothelial cell phenotypes appears to follow similar mechanisms to the differentiation of hematopoietic cells, with the exception that endothelial cells maintain transdifferentiating competence. The present review offers a scheme of endothelial cell differentially expressed endothelial cell molecules as targets for directed therapeutic intervention. (shrink)

Ecological developmental biology (eco‐devo) explores the mechanistic relationships between the processes of individual development and environmental factors. Recent studies imply that some of these relationships have deep evolutionary origins, and may even pre‐date the divergences of the simplest extant animals, including cnidarians and sponges. Development of these early diverging metazoans is often sensitive to environmental factors, and these interactions occur in the context of conserved signaling pathways and mechanisms of tissue homeostasis whose detailed molecular logic remain elusive. Efficient methods for (...) transgenesis in cnidarians together with the ease of experimental manipulation in cnidarians and sponges make them ideal models for understanding causal relationships between environmental factors and developmental mechanisms. Here, we identify major questions at the interface between animal evolution and development and outline a road map for research aimed at identifying the mechanisms that link environmental factors to developmental mechanisms in early diverging metazoans.Also watch the Video Abstract. (shrink)

As John Henry Newman reflected on 'The Idea of a University' more than a century and a half ago, Bradley C. S. Watson brings together some of the nation's most eminent thinkers on higher education to reflect on the nature and purposes of the American university today. Their mordant reflections paint a picture of the American university in crisis. This book is essential reading for thoughtful citizens, scholars, and educational policymakers.

This book is a collection of secondary essays on America's most important philosophic thinkers—statesmen, judges, writers, educators, and activists—from the colonial period to the present. Each essay is a comprehensive introduction to the thought of a noted American on the fundamental meaning of the American regime.

What were Shakespeare's final thoughts on history, tragedy, and comedy? Shakespeare's Last Plays focuses much needed scholarly attention on Shakespeare's "Late Romances." The work--a collection of newly commissioned essays by leading scholars of classical political philosophy and literature--offers careful textual analysis of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, Cymbeline, The Winter's Tale, The Tempest, All is True, and The Two Noble Kinsmen. The essays reveal how Shakespeare's thought in these final works compliments, challenges, fulfills, or transforms previously held conceptions of the playwright (...) and his political-philosophical views. (shrink)

The contributors to The Moral of the Story, all preeminent political theorists, are unified by their concern with the instructive power of great literature. This thought-provoking combination of essays explores the polyvalent moral and political impact of classic world literatures on public ethics through the study of some of its major figures-including Shakespeare, Dante, Cervantes, Jane Austen, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Robert Penn Warren, and Dostoevsky. Positing the uniqueness of literature's ability to promote dialogue on salient moral and intellectual virtues, (...) editor Henry T. Edmonson III has culled together a wide-ranging exploration of such fundamental concerns as the abuse of authority, the nature of good leadership, the significance of "middle class virtues" and the needs of adolescents. This collection reinvigorates the study of classic literature as an endeavor that is not only personally intellectually satisfying, but also an inimitable and unique way to enrich public discourse. (shrink)

Renaturer la culture, reculturer la nature, par l'histoire : tel est le propos de ce livre. Il commence, en première partie, par la question du sujet, en montrant que l'exaltation du sujet individuel moderne a entraîné une décosmisation qui à terme est mortelle, car aucun être ne peut vivre sans un monde commun (kosmos). Nous devons donc recosmiser notre existence. La seconde partie montre que l'arrêt sur objet propre à la modernité aboutit à dépouiller les choses de leur sens, faisant (...) notamment du langage une aporie. Nous avons à remettre les mots et les choses dans le fil de leur histoire commune (leur croître-ensemble : concrescence), c'est-à-dire à les reconcrétiser. La troisième partie montre enfin que réembrayer la nature et la culture passe nécessairement par la question du rapport entre histoire et subjectivité, ce à tous les degrés de l'être, allant, par l'évolution, de la vie la plus primitive jusqu'à la conscience la plus humaine. Recosmiser, reconcrétiser, réembrayer : devant ces trois urgences, la pensée occidentale est aujourd'hui plombée par ce qui hier a fait sa force : la structure mère sujet-verbe-complément, qui à partir de la langue a orienté notre logique (avec le modèle sujet-prédicat), notre métaphysique (avec l'identité de l'être) et de là notre science (avec l'en-soi de l'objet), toutes fondées sur le double principe d'identité et de tiers exclu, c'est-à-dire sur la forclusion du symbolique. Des exemples tels que la langue japonaise, dont la structure mère était d'un autre genre, ou que le tétralemme développé par les penseurs indiens, qui inclut systématiquement le tiers, nous montrent la voie : dépasser les apories de la modernité ne se fera pas sans l'appoint, logique et ontologique à la fois, des grandes civilisations de l'Asie. On ambitionne ainsi de faire mentir le fameux adage de Kipling, Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet. (shrink)

Pourquoi s'exile-t-on? Pour échapper à l'injustice, reconquérir une liberté menacée, fuir les violences, les persécutions, la mort, la misère ou s'arracher à la résignation. On part quand rien ne fait plus écran au risque d'anéantissement, que l'espérance devient lettre morte, alors même que la vie n'a pas été accomplie. Les épreuves qui conduisent aujourd'hui à l'exil ont leurs origines dans les déchirures du nouvel ordre mondial : la guerre économique sans merci des états de la planète ; l'incapacité à maîtriser (...) la réalité du marché financier ; le chômage de masse ; l'exclusion des citoyens sans abri de toute participation à la vie démocratique des états ; l'aggravation de la dette qui affame et réduit au désespoir une grande part de l'humanité ; les guerres interethniques qui se multiplient, guidées par le fanatisme et les fantasmes de la communauté absolue ; les effets destructeurs des dictatures ; les pathologies de l'identité collective fondées sur l'idéalisation de la haine ; la violence naturalisée réduite à une simple gestion ; la cruauté ; le nettoyage ethnique, etc. Pour ces raisons, il est temps de faire de l'exil une catégorie politique de portée universelle et signifiante pour la modernité. Prendre en compte cette exigence permet de repenser les termes de la politique afin de sortir de la passion identitaire et de poser la seule question qui vaille : est-ce qu'on peut faire quelque chose et sous quelle forme ou est-ce qu'on ne peut rien? L'objectif est d'esquisser une éthicosmopolitique qui se présente comme une politique de la condition humaine, un pari sur la capacité de chacun de répondre sans exception à la vulnérabilité d'autrui, un tout-autre-être-au-monde, une forme de vie qui nous lie les uns aux autres. L'enjeu est considérable. Penser politiquement l'exil, c'est chercher à comprendre ce que veut dire être-ensemble, être au monde, être sujet ; c'est ouvrir le monde à la totalité des possibilités qu'il contient. (shrink)

Non pas Pourquoi la fiction?, ni A quoi pense la fiction?, ni même Que fait la fiction?, mais : Comment fait la fiction? Comment la fiction fait-elle pour défendre ou illustrer une morale, alors qu'elle se définit par son indépendance à l'égard du monde dit réel? Peut-être, d'ailleurs, n'est-ce qu'en tant qu'elle est défictionnalisée que la fiction peut promouvoir ou publier une morale. Mais il est, pourtant, des morales qui contiennent une part constitutive de fiction, et qui, en quelque sorte, (...) appellent la fiction : ainsi de la morale intuitive de Victor Hugo, ou de la morale de la liberté de Sartre. La Fontaine, La Rochefoucauld, Vauvenargues, Hugo, Tolstoï, Sartre : à première vue, les auteurs convoqués ne sont pas tous faits pour s'entendre. C'est bien pour cela qu'ils sont ici réunis. Car la fiction et la morale ne sont pas plus immuables l'une que l'autre, et c'est dans leurs intermittences, dans leurs fluctuations, dans leurs variations qu'il convient d'étudier leurs noces improbables. (shrink)

L’objet de cet article consiste à interroger le traitement que subit le concept de « représentation » dans cette phase cruciale de la modernité que constituent l’idéalisme fichtéen et sa réception romantique, en particulier dans le travail de Novalis. La crise que subit la représentation chez Fichte va de pair avec la promotion d’un type de réflexivité inédit, dont Novalis hérite tout en en décalant, par un jeu de miroir déformant, les conséquences méthodologiques voulues par son maître. Le biais proposé (...) consiste en une lecture suivie de Die Lehrlinge zu Saïs, le « roman de la nature » de Novalis. On verra comment, investiguant l’espace, le Disciple s’éduque à la représentation, c’est-à-dire à l’image et à son intransitivité essentielle, à laquelle le langage lui-même le conduit, sans que la réflexivité de l’apprentissage ne soit sacrifiée un seul instant. Le but est de montrer de quelle manière la philosophie transcendantale, pour Novalis, loin de se muer en un irrationalisme complaisant, doit, pour faire valoir sa « scientificité », thématiser pour lui-même l’acte singulier de son invention. (shrink)

"La dimension philosophique de la pensée et de l'œuvre de Novalis constitue le cœour de cet ouvrage bilingue. Des philosophes examinent sous toutes les coutures, en allemand et en français, les écrits scientifiques, littéraires et philosophiques du penseur romantique, non sans s'appuyer sur - et majorer - la dimension proprement réflexive de cette œuvre."--Page 4 de la la couverture.

Cet article a pour objectif de revenir sur le problème du langage dans la première philosophie de Fichte. Si le « je suis », c’est-à-dire la proposition inaugurale de la Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre (1794), est aujourd’hui généralement compris comme un acte performatif, il convient d’évaluer cette compréhension à l’aune du premier système dans son ensemble. En effet, certains problèmes apparaissent, d’une part, lorsque l’on tente de rabattre l’activité en tant que telle sur le langage, d’autre part, lorsque l’on confronte (...) le « je suis » spéculatif aux analyses de l’essai de 1795 sur l’origine du langage. Ce dernier texte semble de prime abord dépouiller le langage du pouvoir créateur et immédiat que la science spéculative lui accorde. Le présent article discute cette question et y répond par la mise en évidence une forme de tension entre l’exigence spéculative et la perspective historique sur le langage. (shrink)

Patristics is a lively scholarly domain in which theologians and historians contribute to the study of Christian antiquity. But modern trends in patristic study (especially the application of contemporary critical theory to ancient sources) are not always conducive to theological research. This paper identifies the preoccupation in modern patristic study with heresy as a major source of problems. The modern study of Evagrius Ponticus (c. 345–99) provides an exemplary case in which some of these problems can be identified and explored. (...) The initial presentation of modern scholarship will bring into focus the way that Evagrius' relationship to the sixth-century condemnations of Origenism is interpreted by most scholars. Next, the paper identifies and evaluates recent indications that Evagrius is prized precisely because he is considered a heretic. In the final section of the paper, attention is paid to the problem of presuming that subsequent events disclose the theological meaning of earlier writings and to the problem of foreclosing independent theological assessment in order to preserve ancient condemnations. The conclusions suggest that preoccupations with alleged heresy can be every bit as detrimental to understanding of theological writings as preoccupations with orthodoxy. (shrink)

In his Christian Theology and Natural Science , E. L. Mascall refers to a criticism by Elizabeth Anscombe of C. S. Lewis's well-known argument against determinism that appears in his Miracles . Both Lewis's argument and Anscombe's response appeared originally as papers delivered in the 40s to the Oxford Socratic Club. A certain historical interest attaches to that exchange in that Lewis seems to have been ‘deeply disturbed’ by it. 2 I think he need not have been. But, more importantly, (...) the sequence of Lewis's article followed by Anscombe's reply and then Mascall's comments on both, provides a suggestive presentation and examination of a certain kind of argument against determinism. Essentially it is a negative rebuttal of a retortive kind, such as Aristotle uses against the sceptic in the Metaphysics . But its treatment by these three writers indicates a metaphysical insight that could possibly furnish a positive refutation of any kind of radical determinism. (shrink)

A thought-provoking comparative take on two seminal thinkers in Christian history In this book -- the first volume in the Kierkegaard as a Christian Thinker series -- Lee Barrett offers a novel comparative interpretation of early church father Augustine and nineteenth-century philosopher-theologian Soren Kierkegaard. Though these two intellectual giants have been paired by historians of Western culture, the exact nature of their similarities and differences has never before been probed in detail. Barrett demonstrates that on many essential theological levels (...) Augustine and Kierkegaard were more convergent than divergent. Most significantly, their parallels point to a distinctive understanding of the Christian life as a passion for self-giving love. Approaching Kierkegaard through the lens of Augustine, Barrett argues, enables the theme of desire for fulfillment in God to be seen as much more central to Kierkegaard's thought than previously imagined. (shrink)