In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Mystical Consciousness: Western Perspectives and Dialogue with Japanese ThinkersPamela D. WinfieldMystical Consciousness: Western Perspectives and Dialogue with Japanese Thinkers. By Louis Roy, O.P.Albany: State University of New York Press, 2003. Pp. 229. Hardcover $62.50. Paper $20.95.Mystical Consciousness: Western Perspectives and Dialogue with Japanese Thinkers by Louis Roy presents a stimulating array of thinkers on the subject of consciousness, self-reflective consciousness, and mystical consciousness. Louis Roy's primary sources focus (...) on the somewhat standard canon of via negativa and Zeninfluenced thinkers and practitioners (Plotinus, Eckhardt, Schleiermacher, Nishitani, Hisamatsu, and Suzuki), but he also includes Bergson, Brentano, Heidegger, Hume, Husserl, Nietzsche, Nishida, Sartre, Schelling, and Tillich in his discussion. His secondary sources range widely, so the competing terminologies and conceptual schemes of Crosby, Forman, Granfield, Heiler, Helminiak, James, Johnston, Moore, Morelli, Price, Searle, and Tart can at times be confusing without an outline or chart. He aptly organizes his material into three sections, however: part 1 summarizes major Western philosophies of consciousness, part 2 presents three classic mystical writings from the Western canon, and part 3 compares Western views of the self and nothingness with those of Zen Buddhism. Roy's careful research and terse writing style, moreover, serve as an excellent introduction and basic starting point for further research into each one of these individual thinkers.Of all these sources however, it is evident that Roy favors the fourfold scheme of the Jesuit theologian Bernard Lonergan. As he states in his preface, Roy sets out "to develop an understanding of consciousness, mostly rooted in Bernard Lonergan's works and applied to the mystical life" (p. x). Lonergan traces the trajectory of human intentionality across four levels: (1) averting to an object, (2) knowing it, (3) [End Page 493] judging it to be true, and (4) appreciating its value. Following Lonergan's cue, Morelli has consequently claimed that "Being in love with God is the basic fulfillment of our conscious intentionality" (p. 32), and Michael Sharkey has characterized Lonergan's philosophy as a nondualistic "cognition by communion, and not encounter."1 Roy now articulates a threefold scheme to explicate the transition from everyday objectifying consciousness to this mystical, unitive consciousness.In order to accomplish this transition, Roy establishes a middle baseline B-consciousness that mediates between everyday and mystical consciousness. This analytic scheme can be outlined as follows.2(1) Consciousness C: "consciousness of" things. This everyday positional awareness engenders subject-object dualism.(2) Consciousness B: ordinary "consciousness in" that permeates all mental acts (noesis). This is a baseline non-positional consciousness that pervades and underlies all subject-object distinctions. In moments of self-reflection, this kind of "consciousness-in" can itself become C's object of awareness (what Plotinus calls antilepsis).(3) Consciousness A: mystical (as opposed to ordinary) "consciousness in." This is the same as consciousness B but is present in objectless states. Roy indicates that this highest or deepest consciousness refers to union with God, the divine, the sacred, or emptiness or nothingness in the Zen Buddhist sense. He argues that since consciousness C can become aware of B, then it can avert to, know, accurately judge, and appreciate A as well. Roy writes:Thanks to his [i.e. Lonergan's] efforts, we have come to realize that our conscious intentionality [what Roy calls consciousness-of, also called consciousness C] is able to develop an account of ordinary consciousness [consciousness B] and to employ this account analogically so as to make true judgments about mystical consciousness [consciousness A], without presuming that the latter can be fully comprehended.(p. 188)Throughout the volume, Roy provides ample evidence that we can become aware of our own noetic activity and noematic content (i.e., the act of thinking as well as our thoughts). He also surveys a wide range of apophatic mystics and philosophers who seem to indicate that this intentional process extends to becoming aware of consciousness A's "no-thinking" and "no-thought" as well (what Zen Buddhism terms munen-musō). But can our everyday objectifying awareness truly grasp the subjectless-objectless state of no-thingness so often described by mystics the world over? Can union with the Godhead or... (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Traditional Dilemma Beyond Mind‐Body Dualisms The Failed Remedies of Spinoza and Materialist Reductions Dilemmas of the Aristotelian Solution Hegel's Conceptual Breakthrough for Comprehending the Nondualist Relation of Mind and Body Limits of Searle's Parallel Proposal The Self‐Development of Embodied Mind.

This theory accords to volitions the status of basic mental actions, maintaining that these are spontaneous exercises of the will--a "two-way" power which ...

The author presents and defends three theses: (1) "the first is that it is not profitable for us at present to do moral philosophy; that should be laid aside at any rate until we have an adequate philosophy of psychology." (2) "the second is that the concepts of obligation, And duty... And of what is morally right and wrong, And of the moral sense of 'ought', Ought to be jettisoned if this is psychologically possible...." (3) "the third thesis is that (...) the differences between the well-Known english writers on moral philosophy from sidgwick to the present day are of little importance." (staff). (shrink)

The field of Philosophy of Sport has been developing in Anglo-Saxon scholarship since the 1960s and since then has achieved considerable consolidation. However, this is a progressing field in Latin American countries like Brazil. This paper aims to analyse the trajectory of the Philosophy of Sport in Brazil, presenting an overview of its development since the 1980s and some prospects that have been generated since the turn of the century. In conclusion, the article points out that the field of Philosophy (...) of Sport in Brazil is in the process of disciplinary consolidation, presenting a plurality of agents, institutions and theoretical approaches in its structure. (shrink)

Derek Parfit’s view of personal identity raises questions about whether advance decisions refusing life-saving treatment should be honored in cases where a patient loses psychological continuity; it implies that these advance decisions would not be self-determining at all. However, rather than accepting that an unknown metaphysical ‘further fact’ underpins agential unity, one can accept Parfit’s view but offer a different account of what it implies morally. Part II of this article argues that contractual obligations provide a moral basis for honoring (...) advance decisions refusing life-saving and/or life-sustaining medical treatment; advance decisions have similarities to contracts, such as life insurance policies and will-contracts, that come into effect when the psychological discontinuity is through death. (shrink)

Scientific research and ethics -- Ethical theory and decision making -- Data acquisition and management -- Mentoring and professional relationship -- Collaboration in research -- Authorship -- Publication and peer review -- Misconduct in research -- Intellectual property -- Conflicts of interest and scientific objectivity -- The use of animals in research -- The use of human subjects in research -- The use of vulnerable subjects in research -- Genetics, cloning, and stem cell research -- International research.

It is a commonly accepted view that men think to live, and do not live to think, that conation, and not cognition, is the primary object of living. Impression, affect, and expression constitute the complete psychic process. The term philosophy, the love of wisdom, also suggests that man's thought has a practical and not a theoretical objective. In this connection, however, two errors must be avoided: on the one hand an exaltation of the intellect as in rationalism, and on the (...) other hand a depreciation of the intellect as in pragmatism. (shrink)

The poet’s words: “A man’s reach should exceed his grasp” are not merely a command of whatought to be, they are a description of what is. Man has always been stretching himself beyond his own measure. He has a sense of the Infinite: Eternity has been set in his heart: he has not been content to look only on the things seen, his gaze has ever been towards the Unseen. Whatever stage of development he may have reached, he seeks for, (...) and strives after, what is above and beyond himself and his world. In science he tries to get behind thephenomenalreality as his senses apprehend it, to thenoumenal, mind. In philosophy he endeavours to bring the multiplicity of his experience, outer and inner, into a unity that will evidence itself to his reason as coherent, and not contradictory. In morality he is not content with the customs and standards of the society of which he is a member; but conscious of their inadequacy, he conceives and aspires to realize an ideal adequate to his nature; hisought to beis always challenging hisis. The impulse or motive of progress in all spheres of human interest and activity is “the best is yet to be.”. (shrink)

Die Edition prasentiert Rees Bucher Psychologische Beobachtungen (1875), Der Ursprung der moralischen Empfindungen (1877), Die Entstehung des Gewissens (1885) und Die Illusion der Willensfreiheit (1885).

Winfield’s explication of Hegel’s theory of mind, especially Hegel’s theory of intelligence, is, he suggests, important for solving three problems that continue to haunt contemporary work in the philosophy of mind and epistemology: 1) A problem concerning the acquisition of language and its place in an account of consciousness, 2) A problem concerning the objectivity of representations, and 3) A problem concerning the grounds of knowing. I think Winfield is correct in identifying all three problems as having their (...) source in Kantian philosophy. I examine these three problems more carefully through a critical lens aimed at recent work by John McDowell and Robert Brandom. Both philosophers claim certain Hegelian influences. I argue that, in crucial ways, both Brandom and McDowell have each inherited the problems Hegel sought to solve and that are so clearly articulated in Winfield’s essay. (shrink)

The role of power in healthcare can raise many ethical challenges. Power is ownership, whether given, ceded, or taken of another person’s autonomy. When a person has power over someone else, they can control or strongly influence the decision-making freedom of that person. From the principalist perspective1,2 of healthcare ethics, denying a person their freedom to choose, should only occur when justifying conditions related to beneficence and nonmaleficence are sufficiently satisfied. In healthcare, it is rare to be able to identify (...) situations where paternalism is justified. However, experience suggests that abusive power in healthcare is used too frequently without justifying criteria. (shrink)

This text provides a truly comprehensive guide to one of the most important and challenging works of modern philosophy. The systematic complexity of Hegel's radical project in the Science of Logic prevents many from understanding and appreciating its value. By independently and critically working through Hegel's argument, this book offers an enlightening aid for study and anchors the Science of Logic at a central position in the philosophical canon.

Here is a universal biology that draws upon the contributions of Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel to unravel the mystery of life and conceive what is essential to living things anywhere they may arise. The book develops a philosopher’s guide to life in the universe, conceiving how nature becomes a biosphere in which life can emerge, what are the basic life processes common to any organism, how evolution can give rise to the different possible forms of life, and what distinguishes the (...) essential life forms from one another. (shrink)