The passage in Proverbs 31:10–31 is a beautiful depiction of the virtuous wife, also known as the Proverbs 31 woman. This passage is often used as a guide for women in their roles within their families and communities. The heart of her husband trusts in her” (Proverbs 31:11). She seeks wool and flax and works with willing hands” (Proverbs 31:13). She opens her hand to the poor and reaches out her hands to the needy” (Proverbs 31:20). 4. She opens her (...) mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue” (Proverbs 31:26). Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised” (Proverbs 31:30). The Role of the Husband and Family The passage also highlights the role of the husband and family in relation to the virtuous wife. The husband of the virtuous wife is respected and known in the gates, which indicates that he benefits from her hard work and reputation (Proverbs 31:23). The children and husband of the virtuous wife praise her, and her works bring them honor (Proverbs 31:28). Reflection on Proverbs 31:10–31 The passage in Proverbs 31:10–31 provides a timeless model of a woman who is dedicated to her family, diligent in her work, and deeply rooted in her faith. It serves as a source of inspiration and encouragement for women in their various roles within the family and society. (shrink)

John Rist surveys the history of ethics from Plato to the present and offers a vigorous defence of an ethical theory based on a revised version of Platonic realism. In a wide-ranging discussion he examines well-known alternatives to Platonism, in particular Epicurus, Hobbes, Hume and Kant as well as contemporary 'practical reasoners', and argues that most post-Enlightenment theories of morality (as well as Nietzschean subversions of such theories) depend on an abandoned Christian metaphysic and are unintelligible without such grounding. He (...) also argues that contemporary choice-based theories, whether they take a strictly ethical or more obviously political form, are ultimately arbitrary in nature. His lively and accessible 2001 study is informed by a powerful sense of philosophical history, and will be of interest to both students and scholars of ethics. (shrink)

The phenomenon of trash has rarely been addressed in the cultural theoretical literature. However, its structural similarity with the concept of taboo as well as its role in the dynamics of culture has been stated. Current paper aims to summarize the partial contributions that have been made so far, localize them in a larger semiotic framework, and deriving from Lonnan's approach to culture suggest a few further ideas for a semiotic definition of trash. It is proposed to define trash as (...) a phenomenon marking the boundary between culhlre and non-culture/nature. In the context of the deepening environmental crisis (to which accumulation of trash contributes) a semiotic approach opens a new perspective for identifying the origin of the problem in our mind/culture rather than in nature. (shrink)

Literature on the Stoa usually concentrates on historical accounts of the development of the school and on Stoicism as a social movement. In this 1977 text, Professor Rist's approach is to examine in detail a series of philosophical problems discussed by leading members of the Stoic school. He is not concerned with social history or with the influence of Stoicism on popular beliefs in the Ancient world, but with such questions as the relation between Stoicism and the thought of Aristotle, (...) the meaning and purpose of such Stoic paradoxes as 'all sins are equal', and the philosophical interrelation of Stoic physics and ethics. There are chapters on aspects of Stoic logic and on the thought of particular thinkers such as Panaetius and Posidonius, but ethical problems occupy the centre of the stage. (shrink)

The author attempts to chart Aristotle's philosophical progress, using the techniques of both philology and philosophical analysis. His aim is to see where Aristotle came from philosophically and what impelled him to develop his ideas in particular directions. The first chapter is an overall account of Aristotle's philosophical activities as his life progressed; the remaining sections discuss in detail the development of such key themes as the possibility of metaphysics, activity and potentiality, categories, mind, substance, God, human nature and happiness, (...) and the nature of society, including the proper role for women and the phenomenon of slavery. (shrink)

As John Rist presents Augustine, he was a man who “lived on the frontier between the ancient world and mediaeval Western Europe”. Among the the many who tried to transform ancient thought, Rist tells us, Augustine was “the most radical and the most influential”.

John Rist surveys the history of ethics from Plato to the present and offers a vigorous defence of an ethical theory based on a revised version of Platonic realism. In a wide-ranging discussion he examines well-known alternatives to Platonism, in particular Epicurus, Hobbes, Hume and Kant as well as contemporary 'practical reasoners', and argues that most post-Enlightenment theories of morality depend on an abandoned Christian metaphysic and are unintelligible without such grounding. He also argues that contemporary choice-based theories, whether they (...) take a strictly ethical or more obviously political form, are ultimately arbitrary in nature. His lively and accessible 2001 study is informed by a powerful sense of philosophical history, and will be of interest to both students and scholars of ethics. (shrink)

Stakeholder participation is an increasingly popular ingredient within environmental management and decision-making. While much has been written about its purported benefits, a question that has been largely neglected is whether decision-making informed through stakeholder participation is actually likely to yield decisions that are morally justified in their own right. Using moral methodology as a starting point, we argue that stakeholder participation in environmental decision-making may indeed be an appropriate means to produce morally justified decisions, the reason being that such participation (...) may constitute an efficient way to satisfy the standard requirements on moral reasoning and moral justification. This finding also emphasizes the importance of identifying those settings most conducive to allowing different stakeholders to both challenge each other’s arguments and to adopt each other’s perspectives in order to make effective use of participation in environmenta... (shrink)

The Road to Reality John M. Rist. 13 THE ORIGINALITY OF PLOTINUS ' It is necessary to take the notable opinions of the ancients and consider whether any of them agree with ours.' (Enneads 3.7.7.15) It will not have escaped the reader's  ...

This collection of essays by John M. Rist deals with Platonism in the Imperial Roman age and with its various and complicated relationships with the growing Christian recognition of the necessity to think.

The role and precise significance of Intelligible Matter in the philosophy of Plotinus has been neglected or dismissed with many questions unanswered. In view of the fact that, unless this role can be properly understood, the whole doctrine of the procession of the Second Hypostasis must remain mysterious, this paper is intended to shed light on two important aspects of that Hypostasis: the nature of Intelligible Matter itself and the relation of that Matter to the Forms.

This major work constitutes a significant attempt to provide a detailed and accurate account of the character and effects of Augustine's thought as a whole. It describes the transformation of Greco-Roman philosophy into the version that was to become the most influential in the history of Western thought. Augustine weighed some of the major themes of classical philosophy and ancient culture against the truth he found in the Bible and Catholic tradition, and reformulated these in Christian dress.

The role and precise significance of Intelligible Matter in the philosophy of Plotinus has been neglected or dismissed with many questions unanswered. In view of the fact that, unless this role can be properly understood, the whole doctrine of the procession of the Second Hypostasis must remain mysterious, this paper is intended to shed light on two important aspects of that Hypostasis: the nature of Intelligible Matter itself and the relation of that Matter to the Forms.

This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press’s mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1978.

In this book, John M. Rist offers an account of the concept of 'person' as it has developed in the West, and how it has become alien in a post-Christian culture. He begins by identifying the 'mainline tradition' about persons as it evolved from the time of Plato to the High Middle Ages, then turns to successive attacks on it in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, then proceeds to the 'five ways' in which the tradition was savaged or distorted in (...) the nineteenth century and beyond. He concludes by considering whether ideas from contemporary philosophical movements, those that combine a closer analysis of human nature with a more traditional metaphysical background, may enable the tradition to be restored. A timely book on a theme of universal significance, Rist ponders whether we persons matter, and how we have reached a position where we are not sure whether we do. (shrink)

This book studies the nature, growth and prospects of Roman Catholic culture, viewed as capable of appropriating all that is noble both from internal and external sources. John Rist tests his argument via a number of avenues: man's creation in the image of God and historical difficulties about incorporating women into that vision; the relationship between God's mercy and justice; the possibility of Christian aesthetics; the early development of the see of Rome as the source of an indispensable doctrinal unity (...) for Christian culture; the search for the proper role of the Church in politics. He also argues that such an understanding of Catholic culture is necessary if contemporary assumptions about inalienable rights and the value of the human person are to be defended. The alternatives are a value-free, individualist universe on the one hand, and a fundamentalist denial of human nature and of history on the other. (shrink)

What's a one-time bishop of Hippo got to do with the third millennium? -- The foundations of Augustine's moral Empiricism: truth, love and sin -- Scientific philosophy and first-person confession -- Against autonomy: ought and can -- The state: persecution, war, justice and regret -- Against political panaceas -- Utilitarians and Kantians: a parallel journey to triviality -- Rights theory -- The inevitable irrelevance of most contemporary theology -- Austin's brag: conventional relativism, nihilism or the Catholic tradition -- Transcript of (...) a radio interview with Bishop Austin Redivivus: 1.4.2016. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to distinguish 'gender ideology' from a legitimate and needed study of the perception and expectations of women in historical societies. It would be a serious - and unfortunately common - mistake to dismiss the latter because of a contempt for the former.

All this might be of only antiquarian interest, the ramifications of a supposedly long-outworn metaphysic. But Plotinus’ critique of Aristotle and consequent development of his own position present a number of features of wider interest. First of all, in contrast to much preceding Greek "theology," Plotinus’ One may not be anthropomorphic. Early Greek philosophers, like Xenophanes, had criticized the poets and mythologists on this score, but Plato and Aristotle, in their different ways, are similarly open to attack. For Aristotle mind (...) is what makes each of us a man, rather than an animal. Men cannot, it is true, use their minds on the non-contingent all the time; gods can. But the difference looks to be one of degree, not of kind. Mind may perhaps come "from outside," that is, not be part of the body-soul complex, and have an eternal existence in some form, but that only emphasizes the essential similarity of the "human" and the "divine" mind. And in Aristotle all the evidence for the working of mind comes from an examination of human psychology, and from a theory about the way in which we think. The results of this analysis are then applied, in a perfect form, to God. Aristotle’s active intellect, different in each individual man, looks so like the Prime Mover that the better commentators have often failed to distinguish them. Certainly they should be distinguished, but the commentator can hardly be blamed for failing to do so, when he is faced with the difficulty, very real to him at least, that otherwise Aristotle would come near to postulating a non-identity of indiscernibles—except that the Prime Mover is in some sense a bigger and better example of mind than the active intellect. And Aristotle’s problem is Plato’s too. No one has yet explained satisfactorily why Plato distinguishes so sharply—for example in the myth of the Phaedrus-between souls and gods. That there must be a difference is clear enough; souls may fall, gods do not. But how can a fall be possible when a purified soul looks so like a god? (shrink)

The role and precise significance of Intelligible Matter in the philosophy of Plotinus has been neglected or dismissed with many questions unanswered. In view of the fact that, unless this role can be properly understood, the whole doctrine of the procession of the Second Hypostasis must remain mysterious, this paper is intended to shed light on two important aspects of that Hypostasis: the nature of Intelligible Matter itself and the relation of that Matter to the Forms.

This study makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of the development of ancient Platonism and of the influence of Greek philosophy on Christian thought. The author examines a number of themes such as Eros, Virtue, and Knowledge in the writings of Plato.

This study makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of the development of ancient Platonism and of the influence of Greek philosophy on Christian thought. The author examines a number of themes such as Eros, Virtue, and Knowledge in the writings of Plato.

In two of his dialogues especially, the Sophist and the Parmenides, Plato concerns himself at length with problems presented by the Eleatics. Despite difficulties in the interpretation of individual passages, the Sophist has in general proved the less difficult to understand, and since some of the problems at issue in the two works indicate the same or similar preoccupations in Plato's mind, it is worth considering how far an interpretation of the ‘easier’ dialogue can be used to forward an interpretation (...) of the more difficult. First, therefore, we must identify problems common to the two works; then we must see whether we can understand what Plato understood Parmenides to have done—this may help towards an understanding of what he did in fact do; finally we can apply our findings to the Parmenides itself, particularly to the problem of the unity of the dialogue, in the hope that Plato's intentions may become clearer. (shrink)