The progression of research and scholarly inquiry does not occur in isolation and is wholly dependent on accurate reporting of methods and results, and successful replication of prior work. Without mechanisms to correct the literature, much time and money is wasted on research based on a crumbling foundation. These guidelines serve to outline the respective responsibilities of researchers, institutions, agencies, and publishers or editors in maintaining the integrity of the research record. Delineating these complementary roles and proposing solutions for common (...) barriers provide a foundation for best practices. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Picking Up the Pieces of a Shattered Culture:Abandoning Sartre for AquinasR. E. HouserI expect to die in my bed, my successor will die in prison, and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. Then his successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the Church has done so often in human history.—Francis Cardinal George (2010)Here I propose to (...) present a feature of the ethics of Thomas Aquinas, his ethical doctrine of virtue, concentrating on the four cardinal virtues—justice, prudence or good practical judgment, courage, and temperance. Plato first selected them as the four premier virtues, but they go back at least to Homer, for whom wily Odysseus exemplified prudence, warlike Achilles courage, old Nestor justice, Penelope and Telemachus, Odysseus' wife and son, temperance. And I offer them as central to living the morally good life required to "rebuild civilization" in an America that so fair and judicious a man as Cardinal George could call a "ruined society." To see the need for Thomas's solution, we must begin with the problem. Now, all societies depend upon the deep and fundamental ideas of the most important thinkers, prophets and sages, saints, and yes, even philosophers. Their ideas "trickle down" to influence regular folk, like you and me, those who whose hard work actually makes a society thrive, or die. And when those fundamental ideas change, the moral principles of those who embrace those ideas change, and consequently their actions change, and as a result the wider society in which they live changes, for better or worse. Such effects can now be felt across America [End Page 135] by all; but most of us are unaware of the primary intellectual agents of these changes, since they operate at the level of fundamental ideas, not politics or business or day-to-day life. And often their originators have died before the ideas reach full cultural force. So, ignorance of history makes it difficult to deal with present problems caused by those ideas.My first conclusion will be that a major cause of the current coarsening of our culture is the group of ideas of the French philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, even though most Americans have never heard of him, and most of those who recognize his name have not read his works carefully enough to see the connection. Why Sartre? In the honors program at my university, I had a bright young lady of Muslim heritage who had gone to a lycée, one of France's elite classical secondary schools. "Did you read the classics?" "Yes." Expecting Montaigne or Pascal, I asked, "Who?" Her answer: "Sartre." So let us begin with the theory and practice of Sartre and his long-time lover Simone Beauvoir, whose book The Second Sex was an intellectual spark for the women's liberation movement. Then we turn to some real-life examples of Sartrean influence on ourselves and American culture. Finally, for the best remedy for non-Christian and Christian alike, I recommend Aquinas's doctrine of virtue, when taken in its full scope.Sartre's Ethics of Absolute FreedomIn 1946, the year I was born, Sartre gave a lecture to a meeting of French librarians, which became his most popular book, Existentialism is a Humanism. There he laid out the core of his thought about God, humans, and their ethical behavior. Here I arrange his main ideas in an order that facilitates comparison with Aquinas, beginning with his view of human ontology and proceeding to its impact on the four cardinal virtues.Human OntologySartre turned his back on the traditional metaphysical view that every creature is an individual substance defined by a nature or essence it has in common with all other things of that type. In his "first principle of existentialism," Sartre skips over other animate things, plants and animals, and compares humans to inanimate objects:Let us consider... a book or a paper-cutter: here is an object made by an artisan whose inspiration came from a concept.... One cannot postulate a man who makes a paper-cutter but does not know what it is... (shrink)

Aquinas’s theology, as presented in his Scriptum, is “scientific” in the Aristotelian sense of this term. Some of its arguments for conclusions are based on theology’s “proper” principles—the articles of faith—but many others are purely rational demonstrations. As the basis for his rational arguments in theology, and in particular his treatment of the divine essence in d. 8, he introduces philosophical principles, and offers dialectical arguments for them, which are thoroughly Avicennian. In order to understand Aquinas’s commentary on d. 8, (...) then, it is not just helpful but necessary to see how he makes use of doctrines coming from the Metaphysics of Avicenna’s Book of Healing. So we look first at Aquinas’s source texts in Avicenna, and then at how he makes use of them in his commentary on the Sentences, Bk. 1, d. 8. (shrink)

Here, I should like to tell a story, beginning with how the works of Aristotelian philosophy came to exist in Latin translations, then moving to the project of transforming Christian theology into an Aristotelian “science.” After that, I would like to look a bit more closely at the case of Br. Thomas of Aquino and his dependence upon the Muslim philosopher Ibn Sīnā. Finally, I shall end by drawing some wider conclusions based upon this important example.

In this paper we discuss James Buchanan’s contribution in the narrow domain of understanding committee voting under majority rule. We then go on to discuss Charles Plott’s seminal experimental work on the topic that sparked a wave of public choice experimental work. However, given Plott’s claims that Buchanan influenced him significantly, it is puzzling that his work with Morris Fiorina explores a question outside of those which Buchanan and Tullock found interesting. We suggest several ways to resolve this tension. Our (...) chapter concludes by discussing a lacuna in the experimental public choice literature in which Buchanan was particularly interested—logrolling, or vote trading. (shrink)

Technical best management practices are the dominant approach promoted to mitigate agriculture’s significant contributions to environmental degradation. Yet very few social science studies have examined how farmers actually use these practices. This study focuses on the outcomes of farmers’ technical best management practice adoption related to synthetic nitrogen fertilizer management in the context of Midwestern corn agriculture in the United States. Moving beyond predicting the adoption of nitrogen best management practices, I use structural equation modeling and data from a sample (...) of over 2500 farmers to analyze how the number of growing season applications a farmer uses influences the rate at which synthetic nitrogen is applied at the field-level. I find that each additional application of N during the growing season is associated with an average increase of 2.4 kg/ha in farmers’ average N application rate. This result counters expectation for the outcome of this practice and may suggest that structural pressures are leading farmers to use additional growing season applications to ensure sufficiently high N rates, rather than allowing them to reduce rates. I conclude by discussing the implication of this study for future research and policy. (shrink)

For an economist, ultimate goals of neuroeconomic research include improving economic policy analysis. One path toward this goal is to use neuroeconomic data to advance economic theory, and productive efforts have been made towards that end. Equally important, though less studied, is how neuroeconomics can provide quantitative evidence on policy, and in particular the way in which it might inform structural econometric inference. This paper is a first step in that direction. We suggest here that key forms of preference (or (...) decision strategy) heterogeneity can be identified by brain imaging studies and, consequently, linked stochastically to observable individual characteristics. Then, recognizing that brain-imaging studies are substantially costly, we derive conditions under which the probabilistic link between observable characteristics and type, a quantity critical to policy analysis, can be estimated more precisely by combining data from traditional and brain-based decision studies. (shrink)

The theme of this series is given a human touch in Medieval Masters. All of the contributors in this memorial volume are paying tribute to their mentor, former University of Toronto (St. Michael's College) professor, Rev. Edward A. Synan. These essays provide ample proof that Synan's legacy of excellence will continue to influence students of philosophy for decades to come. In addition to ten essays, the volume contains a Synan bibliography and a very heartfelt opening remembrance from M. Jean Kitchel. (...) The essays are wide ranging, exploring Bonaventure, John Duns Scotus, Averroes, and Albert the Great, as well as the Thomistic themes of essence and existence; creation, numbers, and natures; and friendship and Christology. There is also a discussion of the treatment of the problem of universals in Boethius, Porphyry, and Abelard. Anyone who studies philosophy, whether a Thomist or not, will find this a valuable volume. That is as much a tribute to Father Synan as it is to the contributors, who were the grateful recipients of his generous and sage teaching. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Facing the Space of ReasonsKevin Houser (bio)The Face and ExplanationAnalytic philosophers often appeal to reason and reasons to explain ethics. By Levinasian lights, this is backward. It is not because we are already open to reason that we are ethically open to others. It is through “the welcoming of [others] that the will opens to reason.” We do not respond to others’ needs because we are reasonable; being (...) reasonable is itself “a response to... a face, [who already] speaks.” The structure of reason, theoretical or practical, does not produce ethical obligation. On the contrary, “the... ethical [is] the... irreducible structure upon which all other structures rest” (TI 79).The implications of Levinas’s project are, for reason-centered philosophy, nothing short of Copernican. For a tradition that chiefly speaks of reasons to be for the other and of being for the other because of reason, there is no more radical critique than the counter-claims that our encounter with the Other is what makes us reason-able and that the-one-for-the-other is reason. Yet after over nearly four decades in English, the impact of Levinas’s project on reason-centered philosophy has been decidedly less than Copernican. Why? [End Page 121]A large part of the answer is this: when these philosophers ask how a claim of reason could result from the claim of ethics, they are quite properly referred to the face — only to be told the face itself is inexplicable. To the follow-up queries “But what is it? And why does it have this effect rather than another?” the questioners are referred to Levinas’s comments on what the face “is” — namely, “other-ness,” “alterity,” “vulnerability,” and “exposure to wounds and outrage.” But these references strike earnest investigators as rhapsodies or Continental catechisms: poetically rich and propositionally poor. Worse, they fail to address — much less answer — the second question. To say that the face, qua otherness, commands us is not to show how it has this effect. The former without the latter gives the perplexed no reason to suppose the vulnerability, otherness, or alterity of others produces responsibility rather than something else entirely — say, subconscious rivalry or prereflective resentment. Finally, though it is common for Levinasians to deny that any further account of the face can be given, the absence of an explanatory link between the face and its responsibility-inducing function has a formidably high cost.1 For without an account of how the face generates obligation there can be no account of how we are opened to reason by it. If we do not say how the face provokes an original ethical imperative, we cannot say how reason is ethically provoked. This means treating the face as an unsplitable explanatory atom is unacceptable by Levinas’s own lights. For that “the first rationality gleams forth in... the face to face” is not merely an explanatory aspiration at which Levinas gestures. It is something that, by the end of Otherwise than Being, he thinks he has shown.But this halt to Levinas’s Copernicanism about reason is unnecessary. We can explain what the face is and how the face does what it does. We can do so within the explanatory strictures Levinas sets out, using resources Levinas himself provides. With Kantian reason and respect as a foil and orienting point, I will describe the nature of the face’s alterity and show how this alterity “becomes [ethical] proximity... understood as responsibility.” And I will show how responsibility — a prereflective [End Page 122] obligation to one another we accept without a reason to do so — is a responsibility to which Kantian reason is itself a perpetual response.A quick note on method: Levinas has a vexed relationship with explanation that, in the language of the following, I have simplified. Granted: reperforming Levinas’s endless and eloquent struggles — to both say and unsay, to speak in the present about what was never present, to at once assert and evoke — is required for a full understanding of him. But my humbler goal here — or humbler meta-goal — is to defend Levinas as explainer, without ignoring these other registers in and... (shrink)

This paper has two goals: 1) to understand justice as a cardinal virtue, according to Aquinas; and 2) to use his conception of justice as a cardinal virtue to understand how one engages in acts of “general” justice. The argument proceeds in four stages: 1) how Aquinas understands the virtues by looking to their “objects”; 2) the two distinct “modes” of the four cardinal virtues, as “general” and “specific” virtues; 3) the triangle of three kinds of justice, seen in terms (...) of their “objects”; 4) Aquinas’s doctrine of justice as a “general” virtue (ST 2-2.58.5–6) shows that we can perform operations of “general” justice in two ways, as do the ruler and his minsters, and as ordinary folk do. Surprisingly, it is the latter mode of acting for “general” justice that is primary, not the former. (shrink)

Thomas of Aquino, from the time he wrote his commentary on the ’Sentences’ through writing the ’Summa of Theology’, recognized how far beyond Aristotle’s was the rational theology of Avicenna. After perfecting his approach to proving the existence of God in the "five ways," Aquinas further developed Avicenna’s organization for treating God’s nature by simplifying Avicenna’s often convoluted thought and added his own developments in content and order. In sum, Aquinas’s treatment of God’s nature depends closely upon Avicenna’s treatment of (...) the subject in his ’Metaphysics’ 8.3-7, even more so than upon Aristotle. This conclusion can be seen by comparing the doctrines of Aristotle, Avicenna and Aquinas on the divine nature. (shrink)

This paper has two goals: 1) to understand justice as a cardinal virtue, according to Aquinas; and 2) to use his conception of justice as a cardinal virtue to understand how one engages in acts of “general” justice. The argument proceeds in four stages: 1) how Aquinas understands the virtues by looking to their “objects”; 2) the two distinct “modes” of the four cardinal virtues, as “general” and “specific” virtues; 3) the triangle of three kinds of justice, seen in terms (...) of their “objects”; 4) Aquinas’s doctrine of justice as a “general” virtue shows that we can perform operations of “general” justice in two ways, as do the ruler and his minsters, and as ordinary folk do. Surprisingly, it is the latter mode of acting for “general” justice that is primary, not the former. (shrink)

Near the end of his Euboean Discourse, Dio attacks prostitution because it encourages men to seek sexual pleasure from other sources as well, including youths from noble households. While some scholars find no evidence in this diatribe for Dio's revulsion against male-male sexual relations per se, others conclude that it does indeed reflect Dio's contempt for all sexual relations between men. This study considers afresh Dio's treatments of sexual relations between men in his Discourses, and concludes that Dio may endorse (...) both male-male and male-female sexual relations when the agent initiating sexual contact pursues philia and eunoia. On the other hand, Dio expresses his disgust when the agent uses sexual relations self-indulgently for pleasure. The content and form of his arguments illustrate his familiarity with both Stoic doctrine and the forms of popular moralizing discourse. The paper first examines Dio's remarks in the third Discourse on Kingship, where he praises sexual relations in a measured way, indicating his familiarity with Stoic teachings on eros. Second, it considers Dio's remarks in the Euboean Discourse and supports John Winkler's argument that Dio objects to prostitution because it is rooted in self-indulgent pleasure-seeking. Dio's rhetorical approach reflects his awareness of popular teachings against self-indulgence typical of Cynic-Stoic diatribe. Third, the essay argues that Dio's remarks in the First Tarsian oration condemn adult male sexual passivity, not all aspects of sexual relations between males. Fourth, brief remarks in his Borystheniticus are not to be taken as evidence for Dio's hostility to sexual relations between men, though they possibly indicate his discomfort with how he imagines non-Greeks engage in sex. (shrink)

Si bien la importancia de Avicena como fuente del pensamiento de Tomás de Aquino es generalmente reconocida, los detalles de esa dependencia apenas comienzan a trabajarse. Este artículo se ocupa de las enseñanzas de Avicena en lo que respecta a los “sujetos” de las ciencias teoréticas —física, matemáticas y metafísica— tal y como se presentan en la Introducción al Libro de la Curación. Posteriormente, se muestra su influencia en el comentario de Tomás de Aquino al De trinitate, de Boecio, q. (...) 5, art. 1. A través de una comparación entre Avicena y Tomás se muestra la profunda influencia que tuvo Avicena en la comprensión tomista del rango de las tres clases de ciencias teoréticas. (shrink)

Analytic philosophers often appeal to Reason and reasons to explain ethical relations. By Levinasian lights, this is backwards. It is not because we are already open to Reason that we are ethically open to others. It is through “the welcoming of [others] that the will opens to Reason.” We do not respond to others’ needs because we are reasonable; being reasonable is itself “a response to . . . a face, [who already] speaks.” The structure of reason, theoretical or practical, (...) does not produce ethical obligation. On the contrary, “the . . . ethical [is] the . . . irreducible structure upon which all other structures rest”. -/- While the implications of Levinas’s ethics-first claim are, for Reason-centered philosophy, nothing short of Copernican, the actual impact of Levinas's contentions has been negligible. I argue that this absence of impact results from a remarkable absence in the secondary literature to explain what the face 'is' and how it has the reason-prompting effect Levinas clearly says it has. Using a key contrast between Levinasian responsibility and Kantian respect, I offer a reconstruction of Levinas's often-obscure arguments about what the face 'is'--a persisting imperative to respond to the physical vulnerability of others-- and consider how facing this vulnerability could have this extraordinary reason-inaugurating power. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Der Islam Jahrgang: 94 Heft: 1 Seiten: 66-93.

Depuis une dizaine d'années, des centaines des millions d'internautes ont donné naissance à des édifices informationnels novateurs. Ces dispositifs dits Web 2.0 constituent de nouveaux modèles éditoriaux. Ces changements,qui s'inscrivent dans la continuité de l'histoire des techniques et des usages, accélèrent considérablement les processus historiques en cours. Par la métaphore des frontières, cet article analyse les profondes mutations intervenues dans le domaine des savoirs : question de l'accès, enjeux de la mémoire collective, transformation de la nature des savoirs.