In this thorough compendium, nineteen accomplished scholars explore, in some manner the values they find inherent in the world, their nature, and revelence through the thought of Frederick Ferré. These essays, informed by the insights of Ferré and coming from manifold perspectives—ethics, philosophy, theology, and environmental studies, advance an ambitious challenge to current intellectual and scholarly fashions.

In this thorough compendium, nineteen accomplished scholars explore, in some manner the values they find inherent in the world, their nature, and revelence through the thought of Frederick FerrZ. These essays, informed by the insights of FerrZ and coming from manifold perspectives—ethics, philosophy, theology, and environmental studies, advance an ambitious challenge to current intellectual and scholarly fashions.

_Distinguished scholars provide the first book-length consideration of the work of philosopher and theologian Robert Cummings Neville, including a response from Neville himself._.

Are ecosystems morally considerable-that is, do we owe it to them to protect their “interests”? Many environmental ethicists, impressed by the way that individual nonsentient organisms such as plants tenaciously pursue their own biological goals, have concluded that we should extend moral considerability far enough to include such organisms. There is a pitfall in the ecosystem-to-organism analogy, however. We must distinguish a system’s genuine goals from the incidental effects, or byproducts, of the behavior of that system’s parts. Goals seem capable (...) of giving rise to interests; byproducts do not. It is hard to see how whole ecosystems can be genuinely goal-directed unless group selection occurs at the community level. Currently, mainstream ecological and evolutionary theory is individualistic. From such a theory it follows that the apparent goals of ecosystems are mere byproducts and, as such, cannot ground moral considerability. (shrink)

Ewing, Harley; Ewing, Selena Review of: On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, Back Bay Books, 1995.

Autism is often taken to be a specific kind of mind. The dominant neuro‐cognitivist approach explains this via static processing traits framed in terms of hyper‐systemising and hypo‐empathising. By contrast, Wittgenstein‐inspired commentators argue that the coherence of autism arises relationally, from intersubjective disruption that hinders access to a shared world of linguistic meaning. This paper argues that both camps are unduly reductionistic and conflict with emerging evidence, due in part to unjustifiably assuming a deficit‐based framing of autism. It then develops (...) a new Wittgensteinian account—autism as a different form of life—which avoids these issues. Rather than autistic systemising being the basis of autistic cognition, it is taken to be a reaction to pre‐epistemic and semantic anxieties that come with developing as a minority within a different form of life. This re‐framing can provide a coherent account of the autistic mind, and has significant conceptual, practical, and ethical implications. (shrink)

The poetry and journalistic essays of Katherine Tillman often appeared in publications sponsored by the American Methodist church. Collected together for the first time, her works speak to the struggles and triumphs of African-American women.

Saímos da leitura ortodoxa da obra de Merleau-Ponty para lhe sermos mais sinceros e fiéis. Neste sentido, apresentamos as consequências para a filosofia que, de modo heroico e dramático, recupera a natureza trágica do transcendental como revelação e engajamento na contingência eterna. Mostramos que o tema privilegiado para esta filosofia, seu verdadeiro solo, é a ausência de limites precisos da fenomenologia e da ontologia. Nesses termos, analisamos de que maneira a fenomenologia estende e fortalece as fronteiras ordinárias do Logos, que (...) jamais foi humano, mas, desde sempre uma Natureza que manifesta o Ser. (shrink)

Através desse diálogo tivemos o objetivo de propor uma compreensão do homem através da explicitação do sentido ético de edificação. Apresentamos a cidadania do mundo como uma finalidade moral do homem, que estava presente e oculta na fundamentação metafísica do humanismo. Agora, se o antropológico se fortalece por meio da realização ética do mundo, defendemos que o dever do melhor não é uma finalidade moral que se realiza em um infinito separado da finitude humana. O antropológico só é cidadão se (...) ele se compreende como uma finitude sem infinito separado, ou seja, como um fim em si, como um lugar de chegada. (shrink)

This article discusses Ronald Preston's understanding of William Temple and the relationships between the two thinkers. It shows how both develop a theology of Christian realism which places great emphasis on the autonomy of the social sciences and the importance of economic expertise. Questions are raised about the appropriateness of this method, as well as their understanding of the state as an order of creation: these can easily lead to the reduction of the sphere of political morality and its substitution (...) with a form of technical rationality. After a brief discussion of the cult of the expert and the manager in contemporary British politics, and the limitation of political action through the rhetoric of ‘there is no alternative', the article concludes by calling for a remoralisation of political life against an economic reductionism which threatens to remove ethics from politics altogether. (shrink)

This chapter considers some of the philosophical writings of Alice Ambrose (1906–2001) and Margaret MacDonald (1903–1956), particularly in relation to their responses to Russell’s work. It argues that both need to be recovered and reconsidered as significant philosophers in their own right, who have important contributions to make to the familiar problems posed by ordinary language in relation to philosophy. Ambrose worked mainly in mathematics and symbolic logic and her earliest publications drew a critical response from Russell himself. Responding in (...) turn to the work of Russell, among others, she went on to bring clarity to the various ways in which ordinary language featured in contemporary philosophical discussion, and identified the centrality of ‘linguistic innovation’ to much philosophical practice. MacDonald found much to agree with in Russell’s work on analysis, but she, too, was troubled by his dismissive attitude to ordinary language. She argued that many philosophical problems can be solved by understanding how language is ordinarily used, and published her case before more celebrated ‘ordinary language philosophers’, most notably J. L. Austin. She also set out ideas and terminology which were later to be associated with Austin’s speech act theory in her contributions to ethics and aesthetics. Both Ambrose and MacDonald contributed to and extended the application of the study of ordinary language in analytic philosophy in ways which deserve to be recovered and to be subjected to further philosophical scrutiny. (shrink)

In recent years, William J. Abraham has suggested the creation of a new subdiscipline for examining the epistemology of theology. This article provides an overview of this proposal, highlighting some of the philosophical concepts, such as ‘Aristotelian epistemic fit’ and particularism, that Abraham drew upon when formulating this approach. It then proceeds to an examination of Abraham’s application of these ideas to his preferred theological scheme, canonical theism. Limitations and challenges to Abraham’s position are discussed as well as ways in (...) which weaknesses in his approach might be addressed. (shrink)

This book is intended as an exposition of a particular theory of time in the sense of an interrelated set of attempted solutions to philosophical problems about it. Generally speaking there are two views about time held by philosophers and some scientists interested in philosophical issues. The first called the A-theory (after McTaggart's expression A-determinations for the properties of being past, present or future) is often thought to be closer to our commonsense view of time or to the concept of (...) time presupposed by ordinary language. It includes at least the following theses, (a) Logic ought really to include tensed quantifiers for existence on one of its important usages means, present existence. More generally, we can't reduce all tensed locutions to tenseless ones. (b) The distinction between past, present and future is an objective one. It is not, for example, dependent on our consciousness of change; some A-theorists hold also, that the distinction, in effect, is an absolute one. (shrink)

Whenever we read any philosophical work dealing with the nature of qualities, the status of universals, or similar problems, we find continual references to colour; redness and blueness meet us on every page. Even Whitehead, whose obscurity is, at least in part, due to his avoidance of particular instances, condescends to cite colours as examples of “eternal objects” and other cases will occur at once to every reader.

Creative Intelligence: Essays in the Pragmatic Attitude represents an attempt at intellectual cooperation. No effort has been made, however, to attain unanimity of belief nor to proffer a platform of "planks" on which there is agreement. The consensus represented lies primarily in outlook, in conviction of what is most likely to be fruitful in method of approach. As the title page suggests, the volume presents a unity in attitude rather than a uniformity in results. Consequently each writer is definitively responsible (...) only for his own essay. The reader will note that the Essays endeavor to embody the common attitude in application to specific fields of inquiry which have been historically associated with philosophy rather than as a thing by itself. Beginning with philosophy itself, subsequent contributions discuss its application to logic, to mathematics, to physical science, to psychology, to ethics, to economics, and then again to philosophy itself in conjunction with esthetics and religion. The reader will probably find that the significant points of agreement have to do with the ideas of the genuineness of the future, of intelligence as the organ for determining the quality of that future so far as it can come within human control, and of a courageously inventive individual as the bearer of a creatively employed mind. (shrink)