bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Introduction: The Atrocity Paradigm
Authors: Card Claudia
Published: October 2003

This book takes atrocities – such as genocide, slavery, torture, rape as a weapon of war, and the saturation bombing of cities – as paradigm evils. As atrocities are both perpetrated and suffered, the atrocity paradigm yields two basic dimensions of evils: culpable wrongdoing (by perpetrators) and foreseeable intolerable harm (to victims). Evils tend to ruin lives, depriving victims of basics necessary to make life possible, tolerable, and decent. Still, evils have degrees; some are worse than others, although comparisons can be difficult, complex, and sometimes impossible, given the multidimensionality of evils. Institutions, laws, and practices are evil when it is reasonably foreseeable that intolerable harm will result from their normal or correct operation and people with power to rectify them culpably fail to do so.
Prioritizing Evils Over Unjust Inequalities
Authors: Card Claudia
Published: October 2003

Noting that unjust inequalities need not be evils, this chapter argues that political activists (including feminists) should take evil, rather than inequality, as their guiding concept and prioritize addressing evils over simply eliminating wrongful inequalities. The atrocity theory supports the kinds of feminism that target severe oppression or those that target such evils as domestic violence, rape, severely hazardous working conditions, and involuntary homelessness as more urgent than, for example, workplace inequities or inequities addressed by affirmative action. Prioritizing evils need not mean ignoring lesser injustices or even spending most of our incomes to alleviate the plight of victims of evil. Rather, it means that over time and in the design of social institutions, we devote significant attention to the prevention or alleviation of evils, whatever else we may also do toward other ends.
Terrorism in the Home
Authors: Card Claudia
Published: October 2003

Against activists who advocate extending marriage to same‐sex couples, this chapter supports skepticism regarding the very institutions of marriage and motherhood by arguing that these institutions facilitate the evils of terrorism in the home, just as the institution of slavery facilitates the evil of torture. Insofar as marriage and motherhood shelter and enable domestic violence and child abuse, granting abusers enforceable intimate access to victims and extensive control over information about victims, thereby making abuse difficult to prove (or even detect) and placing obstacles in the way of holding perpetrators accountable, these institutions are themselves evils. More flexible intimate partnerships and more communal or distributed forms of childrearing, such as the distributed care envisioned by Bell Hooks and Eva Feder Kittay, might be improvements over current mainstream institutions of marriage and motherhood.
The Moral Powers of Victims
Authors: Card Claudia
Published: October 2003

The moral powers of victims include the negative power of blame, which can sometimes evoke guilt and a sense of obligation in wrongdoers, and the positive power of forgiveness, which can relieve burdens for both victims and wrongdoers that may be otherwise unrelievable, even by punishment. Punishment is an attempt at rectification and restoration of the balance disrupted by wrongdoing. But not all wrongs are rectifiable or completely rectifiable; moral remainders are what is left after all has been rectified that can be. This chapter extends the concept of remainders to include not only unexpiated wrongs but also emotional and attitudinal responses to them, such as forgiveness. But is forgiveness always good or even always possible? This chapter explores issues in the nature and ethics of forgiveness, with an extended look at Simon Wiesenthal's dilemma in his narrative, The Sunflower.
The Unfinished Semantic Agenda of Naming and Necessity
Authors: Soames Scott
Published: October 2003

This chapter sets out the unfinished semantic agenda of Kripke's Naming and Necessity, the first item of which is a positive theory of the meaning of proper names, and the propositions semantically expressed by sentences containing them. Although much of Kripke's discussion supports the Millian view that the meaning of a name is its referent and that the proposition expressed by a sentence containing the name is a singular Russellian proposition, these conclusions conflict with his contention that the propositions expressed by true identity sentences like Hesperus is Phosphorus or Cicero is Tully are knowable only a posteriori. It is shown that Kripke's argument for this contention is flawed, and that, because of this, the Millian conception of meaning remains a viable option – provided that the Millian can explain how speakers are able to use sentences that differ only in the substitution of one coreferential name for another to assert different things, to convey different information, and to express different beliefs. The second item on the unfinished semantic agenda of Naming and Necessity is showing how to extend the nondescriptive, Millian account of proper names to simple predicates involving natural kind terms. It is shown that many of Kripke's examples of true theoretical identity sentences contain such predicates, and that his explanation of the necessity of these sentences faces a serious challenge.
The Meaning of Names
Authors: Soames Scott
Published: October 2003

A conception of language use is developed according to which an unambiguous, noncontext‐sensitive sentence may be used to assert and convey more than one proposition in a single context, and different propositions in different contexts, depending on the presuppositions of conversational participants. The meaning of such a sentence in the language of which it is a part – the proposition it semantically expresses – is information that is included in what would be asserted and conveyed by an assertive utterance of it in virtually any normal context in which competent language users speak literally, nonmetaphorically, and without canceling conversational implicatures. On this conception, the meaning of a linguistically simple proper name – that which it contributes to propositions semantically expressed by sentences containing it – is simply its referent. Hence, two sentences that differ only in the substitution of coreferential names mean the same thing, and semantically express the same proposition. Nevertheless, these (synonymous) sentences may frequently be used to assert different things and convey different information.
Ambiguity and Indexicality
Authors: Soames Scott
Published: October 2003

In this chapter, the account of meaning and assertion developed in Ch. 3 is extended and refined in order to handle the ambiguity of many proper names, and the context sensitivity of indexicals. The notion of semantic content is explained, and distinguished (in the case of indexicals) from that of meaning. It is argued that the semantic content of an indexical in a context – that which it contributes to the proposition semantically expressed in the context by a sentence containing it – is its referent, and the principles relating semantic content to information asserted and conveyed in different contexts are modified to account for indexicality. On this picture, the semantic content of a sentence relative to a context is information that a competent speaker/hearer can confidently take to be asserted and conveyed by an utterance of the sentence in the context, no matter what else may be asserted, conveyed, or imparted. It is a sort of minimal common denominator determined by the linguistic knowledge shared by all competent conversational participants, around which they can structure the totality of information the sentence is used to communicate in the given situation.
Partially Descriptive Names
Authors: Soames Scott
Published: October 2003

Ch. 5 discusses a rich and varied class of linguistically complex phrases, called partially descriptive names. These expressions display many of the most important features of simple proper names, and they are standardly recognized as names in their own right. However, they are not, strictly speaking, rigid designators – though they are nearly so, in that they always designate the same object, when they designate anything at all. It is argued that partially descriptive names are equivalent to special definite descriptions that combine direct reference to their referents with partial descriptions of them.
The Problem Posed by Propositional Attitude Ascriptions
Authors: Soames Scott
Published: October 2003

It is argued that propositional attitude ascriptions of the form a believes / asserts that S semantically express propositions that report that an agent bears the relevant attitude – belief or assertion – to the proposition semantically expressed by S in the context in which the report is made. Apparent instances of substitution failure – in which substitution of coreferential names or indexicals in S appears to change the truth value of the original attitude ascription – are then used to formulate a challenge to the views about the semantic contents drawn in earlier chapters. According to those views, the proposition semantically expressed by S is simply its Russellian semantic content, and attitude ascriptions differing only in the substitution of coreferential names or indexicals semantically express the very same proposition (and so have the same semantically determined truth conditions), even though assertive utterances of the two ascriptions in certain contexts may result in the assertion of propositions with different truth value. According to an alternative conception, such substitution really does change the semantically determined truth values of the attitude ascriptions, and the proposition semantically expressed by a sentence S is an amalgam of its Russellian semantic content plus the very sentence S itself (i.e., it is a linguistically enhanced proposition).
The Case Against Linguistically Enhanced Propositions
Authors: Soames Scott
Published: October 2003

This chapter examines and criticizes two leading semantic theories of attitude ascriptions of the form x believes / asserts that S. According to these theories, ascriptions of this sort report that an agent bears the relevant attitude to a linguistically enhanced proposition that contains words or mental representations among its constituents. One of these theories – the theory of interpreted logical forms developed by Richard Larson and Peter Ludlow, is a version of the semantic program of Donald Davidson, while the other – defended by Mark Richard – is a metalinguistic variant of Russellianism. It is argued that both theories, despite their virtues, face intractable problems that, in the end, defeat the idea that attitude ascriptions report relations to partially linguistic objects. In light of this, the best option is to return to the analysis of such ascriptions as reporting relations to ordinary, Russellian propositions.
What Is It for a General Term to Be a Rigid Designator?
Authors: Soames Scott
Published: October 2003

Ch. 9 initiates an investigation of the similarities between proper names and natural kind terms by arguing that although most proper names are clearly rigid, application of the notion of rigid designation to natural kind terms is highly problematic. Because natural kind terms come in a variety of syntactic and semantic types, and often function as predicates rather than singular terms, it is doubtful than any interesting notion of rigidity applies to them all. It is argued in particular that there is no notion of rigid designation for predicates that (1) is a natural extension of the notion of rigidity for singular terms, (2) is such that simple natural kind predicates are standardly rigid whereas many other predicates are not, and (3) plays the role imagined by Kripke in explaining the necessary a posteriori status of theoretical identities like Water is H2O and An object x is hotter than an object y iff x has a higher mean molecular kinetic energy than y. Because of this, a new explanation of the status of these sentences is needed.
What Do Natural Kind Predicates Have in Common With Proper Names?
Authors: Soames Scott
Published: October 2003

In Ch.10, it is argued that the crucial similarities between proper names and natural kind terms, including simple natural kind predicates, are the result of the nondescriptionality of such terms, and the way in which their reference is standardly established. These in turn provide the basis needed to explain the necessary a posteriori status of many theoretical identification sentences with logical forms ∀x (Px ⊃ Qx) and ∀x (Px ≡ Qx)– which, it is argued, includes many of Kripke's most well‐known examples.
Natural Kind Predicates, Mass Nouns, and Abstract Singular Terms
Authors: Soames Scott
Published: October 2003

Building on work begun in Ch. 10, I attempt to find another way of characterizing the semantic similarities between natural kind predicates and proper names. In this chapter, I provide a different, more limited, vindication of the claim that the semantics of natural kind terms guarantee that certain theoretical identification sentences involving them are necessary, if true.
Identifying the Image of God
Authors: McKanan Dan
Published: October 2003

This book traces the development of a theology of nonviolence in the popular literature of antebellum social reform movements. Between 1820 and 1860, American social reformers pioneered a “politics of identification” that was deeply rooted in liberal Christian theology. Activists like William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass, along with sentimental authors like Catharine Sedgwick and Harriet Beecher Stowe, drew on the doctrine of the imago dei, or image of God, to argue that God is present both in the victims of violence and in those who use nonviolent means to overcome oppression. This posed a sharp alternative to the providential theology of Reformed orthodoxy, which was more inclined to see God's hand in wars and other violent events. Proponents of the new theology can be characterized as “radical Christian liberals.” They linked their liberal faith in human nature to the Christian doctrine of the imago dei, yet were willing to contemplate the overthrow of all social institutions, even ostensibly liberal or Christian ones, that blocked the free expression of the imago dei.
From Sentimentality to Social Reform
Authors: McKanan Dan
Published: October 2003

Offers an overview of antebellum social reform movements, with particular emphasis on temperance, abolitionism, and nonresistance. These movements had diverse causes, including Jeffersonian liberalism, Protestant revivalism, liberal Protestant theology, and direct encounters between privileged reformers and members of oppressed groups. Some key leaders of social reform movements may be classified as “radical Christian liberals” because they linked their liberal faith in human nature to the Christian doctrine of the imago dei, yet were willing to contemplate the overthrow of all social institutions, even ostensibly liberal or Christian ones, that blocked the free expression of the imago dei. Radical Christian liberals may be subdivided into three groups: ultra reformers (William Lloyd Garrison, Lydia Maria Child) who embraced absolute nonviolence; sentimental reformers (T. S. Arthur, Harriet Beecher Stowe) who were implicitly nonviolent insofar as they stressed literary rather than political action; and revolutionary reformers (Gerrit Smith, Frederick Douglass) who were open to the use of coercion in the pursuit of radical social transformation.
Looking for Victims
Authors: McKanan Dan
Published: October 2003

Traces the development of nonviolent theology in the popular literature of the antebellum temperance movement. Though the temperance movement is often portrayed as socially conservative, it had radical implications both for battered women and for the “drunkards” who organized the popular “Washingtonian” movement. A new genre, the “temperance tale,” grew out of the testimonies of “drunkards” and their wives. Temperance tales used a variety of sentimental techniques to promote identification with the victims of the “alcohol system.” Novels like T. S. Arthur's Ten Nights in a Bar‐Room also elaborated a sentimental Christology in which Christ‐like children would usher in a millennium of nonviolence.
Through the Blood‐Stained Gate
Authors: McKanan Dan
Published: October 2003

Traces the development of nonviolent theology in the fugitive slave narratives published by the abolitionist movement. The new genre of the “fugitive slave narrative” grew out of the creative encounter between escaped slaves and white abolitionists between 1836 and 1860. These texts – most famously the autobiographies of Frederick Douglass – made the practice of sentimental identification increasingly complex, as readers were asked to identify with the full humanity of former slaves. They also expressed a radical theology by asserting that slaves possessed the imago dei even before they were enslaved by human violence.
Violent Messiahs
Authors: McKanan Dan
Published: October 2003

This concluding chapter traces the decline of nonviolent theology as social reformers invested messianic hopes in a series of individuals – Frederick Douglass, John Brown, and Abraham Lincoln – who were willing to use violence to bring about social change. Douglass was certainly a radical Christian liberal, though he advocated a limited use of violence to achieve radical liberal ends. Brown blended some radical liberal themes with a strong emphasis on apocalyptic violence and an orthodox understanding of God's overarching providence. But it was Lincoln who helped the entire nation to see God's presence in the violence of the Civil War rather than the nonviolent actions of individual reformers. The popular Christological interpretation of Lincoln's death pushed radical Christian liberalism to the sideline of the American consciousness.
Not Passion's Slave
Authors: Solomon Robert
Published: October 2003

The idea that we are, in some significant sense (and to some significant degree), responsible for our emotions is an idea that Robert Solomon has developed for almost three decades, following the philosophy of Jean‐Paul Sartre. Here, in a single volume, he traces the development of this theory of emotions and develops it in detail. Two themes run through his work: the first presents a “cognitive” theory of emotions in which emotions are construed primarily as evaluative judgments. The second proposes an “existentialist” perspective in which he defends the idea that, as we are responsible for our emotions, it follows that – in a limited sense – we “choose” them. While the first premise has gained increasing currency in the literature, his thesis on responsibility has met with considerable resistance: the new emphasis on evolutionary biology and neurology has reinforced the popular prejudice that emotions “happen” to us and are entirely beyond our control.

This volume is also a kind of intellectual memoir of Solomon's own development as a thinker. The essays written in the 1980s develop the themes of the “intentionality” of emotion and further elaborate upon the notion of “judgment”; in this period, he is also increasingly preoccupied with how emotions are identified and “read” in a variety of cultures. In the 1990s, his interests revolve around the social and political role of emotion theories and the growing recognition of the social nature of emotions: here he suggests that emotions themselves involve social narratives that go beyond mere social context. The culmination of a 30‐year preoccupation with some of the French thinker's ideas, the final section presents his own (considerably more refined) philosophical position. Despite his own critical assessment of his earlier work, he continues to argue that, in the final analysis, we have control over – and remain essentially responsible for – the emotional and existential quality of our lives.
Emotions and Choice (1973)
Authors: Solomon Robert C.
Published: October 2003

Emotions are evaluative judgments, not feelings. We can and do use our emotions to manipulate other people. Emotions are, to an unacknowledged extent, matters of choice and do not merely happen to us.
On Physiology and Feelings (1976)
Authors: Solomon Robert C.
Published: October 2003

Emotions are not physiological phenomena, as William James argued, nor are they feelings. Physiology and feelings turn out to be quite secondary features of emotion, effects and not essential.
Nothing to Be Proud of (1980)
Authors: Solomon Robert C.
Published: October 2003

The idea that emotions have “objects” is scrutinized. I reject the idea that emotions can be separated into components – the emotion itself and the object of the emotion. I also discuss David Hume 's attempt to capture intentionality in his account of pride.
The Politics of Emotion (1998)
Authors: Solomon Robert C.
Published: October 2003

I discuss two paradigms of emotion analysis, one by Aristotle and the other by William James. I argue that the emotions are political in a sense illuminated by Aristotle, and that the analysis of emotion – the choice between paradigms – is also political, in that it involves much more than a scientific notion of correctness. Emotions are (or can be) tools that we use to manipulate other people. The analysis of emotions also determines how we will behave and how we understand ourselves.
Against Valence (“Positive” and “Negative” Emotions) (2001)
Authors: Solomon Robert C.
Published: October 2003

I argue against the common idea that emotions can be defined in terms of their valence, as positive and negative affects. I argue that the polarity is simple‐minded and refers to many different contrasts. I also argue against the idea of emotion opposites (e.g. love and hate), as similarly simpleminded and based on the same oversimplification.
Thoughts and Feelings: What Is a “Cognitive Theory” Of the Emotions, and Does It Neglect Affectivity? (2001)
Authors: Solomon Robert C.
Published: October 2003

I again return to the thesis that emotions are judgments and “cognitive” theories in general, and argue that “judgment” is the best candidate to analyze the complexity of emotion, which has affinities with belief, thought, and perception but without being equivalent to any of these.
Animals and Religious Traditions
Authors: Waldau Paul
Published: October 2003

Because religious traditions are both complex and cumulative, this chapter analyzes what it means to claim generally that an entire religious tradition is, across time and place, characterized by a “view of” or “claims about” nonhuman animals. The issue of anachronism, i.e. imposition of modern constructs on ancient strata of these traditions, is addressed. The occurrence within religious traditions of some aspects of natural history (views of other animals that describe the features of their bodies and lives for identification purposes) is also evaluated.
Exclusion and the Concept of Speciesism
Authors: Waldau Paul
Published: October 2003

Focuses on the origin, history, and conceptual structure of “speciesism”. The central question asked is whether the notion of speciesism, under which inclusion of all humans within the purview of moral protections is paired with exclusion of all nonhumans from similar fundamental protections, is a valuable interpretive tool in discerning features of general views about nonhuman animals. Included is an overview of many uses of the term “speciesism,” including the seminal use by Peter Singer. The prevalence of ideology, in the sense of bias or prejudgment, in discussions regarding nonhuman animals is also identified. A working definition of “speciesism” is proposed: “Speciesism is the inclusion of all human animals within, and the exclusion of all other animals from, the moral circle.”
Criticisms of Speciesism
Authors: Waldau Paul
Published: October 2003

Criticisms of “speciesism” by various philosophers are engaged to provide a test for assessing limitations of the notion generally. Analogies of speciesism to racism and sexism are evaluated. The notion of “persons” is discussed in terms of Immanuel Kant's division of persons and things. Duty of inquiry as an obligation of ethics, and the notion of “species loyalty” or “species bond” is analyzed as a cultural artifact or conventionalism.
Other Complex Animals: Missed Opportunities?
Authors: Waldau Paul
Published: October 2003

Three groups of socially and cognitively complex nonhuman animals are discussed: elephants, cetaceans (whales and dolphins), and nonhuman great apes (gorillas, orangutans, bonobos, and chimpanzees). These are assessed in terms of a constellation of general characteristics that lead to rich social relationships among complex individuals, which in turn leads to ethical importance or considerability. The limits of epistemology and sociology of knowledge regarding factual realities are analyzed. The central place of language in ethical debates is assessed.
What Is an Animal?
Authors: Waldau Paul
Published: October 2003

The questions, “What do and can we mean when we talk about ‘animals’?” and “What does it mean to talk about a species?” are broken down into their components. Language habits, epitomized by Augustine and Descartes, are problematized. The dualism “humans and animals” is analyzed as a logical problem in religious traditions and the modern animal rights movement. The notion “principle of differentiated value” is presented to deal with claims about hierarchy. The notions of “essentialism,” “traits proper to a species,” and “natural kind” as they have been used in conjunction with claims about species membership are broken down into their components.
Other Animals in the Pali Canon
Authors: Waldau Paul
Published: October 2003

A review of generalizations and specific references to nonhuman animals in the Pali canon, including the Jataka stories, the Dhammapada, the Vinaya, and each of the Nikayas. Reviews those portions of the ancient collection of Buddhist texts known as the Pali Canon. The vocabulary used in these texts, and especially the manner of reference to nonhuman animals, reveals (1) some important negative attitudes and (2) a persistent refusal to investigate.
Science, Truth, and Democracy
Authors: Kitcher Philip
Published: October 2003

What should be the goal of science in a democratic society? Some say, to attain the truth; others deny the possibility (or even the intelligibility) of truth‐seeking. Science, Truth, and Democracy attempts to provide a different answer. It is possible to make sense of the notion of truth, and to understand truth as correspondence to a mind‐independent world. Yet science could not hope to find the whole truth about that world. Scientific inquiry must necessarily be selective, focusing on the aspects of nature that are deemed most important. Yet how should that judgement be made? The book's answer is that the search for truth should be combined with a respect for democracy. The scientific research that should strike us as significant would address the questions singled out as most important in an informed deliberation among parties committed to each others’ well‐being. The book develops this perspective as an ideal of ‘well‐ordered science’, relating this ideal both to past efforts at science policy and to the possibility that finding the truth may not always be what we want. It concludes with a chapter on the responsibilities of scientists.
The Next Christendom
Authors: Jenkins Philip
Published: October 2003

We are living through one of the greatest transformations in the history of religion worldwide. Over the last century, Christianity has enjoyed explosive growth in the global South–in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Within a few decades, Christianity will be overwhelmingly a non-European, non-white religion. Philip Jenkins argues that what we are seeing is no less than the creation of a new Christendom, which, for better or worse, will play a major role in world affairs. This book offers the first in-depth examination of the globalization of Christianity and discusses the implications for Christian worship, liturgy, culture, and political life. In addition, the denominations that are triumphing all over the global south are strongly traditional and even reactionary by the standards of economically advanced nations, and their message tends to be charismatic, visionary, and apocalyptic. This newly militant Christianity may give rise to renewed religious rivalry, especially since Islam is expanding in the same areas as Christianity. The resulting confrontations have already given rise to deadly conflicts in places such as Nigeria, Malaysia, and Indonesia. An unprecedented and potentially dangerous global change is underway. This book is an important first step toward understanding its challenges and its threats.
The Christian Revolution
Authors: Jenkins Philip
Published: October 2003

This first chapter of the book introduces the transformation that is occurring in Christianity worldwide. It describes how, over the past century, the center of gravity of the Christian world has shifted inexorably southward and forecasts that this trend will continue apace, so that, in contrast to earlier predictions that Western (“European”) Christianity (seen by some as the ideological arm of Western imperialism) is in its dying days and that Islam is the global faith of the future, Christianity should enjoy a worldwide boom in the twenty-first century. The different sections of the chapter discuss the new tradition of Christianity in the South–pointing out that most writers are neglecting this reality, and focusing on Western Christianity; the implications of this for theology and religious practice since Southern Christianity is far more conservative, even reactionary, and supernatural (charismatic, visionary, and apocalyptic); earlier predictions forecasting the death of orthodox (Western) Christianity, which did not allow for the globalization of the religion; the possible rise of a new Southern Christendom and the conflicts and struggles that this might cause; and the future responses of Northern/Western and Southern Christians to the rise of the Southern Christianity.
Disciples of All Nations
Authors: Jenkins Philip
Published: October 2003

This chapter addresses the myth of Western Christianity and outlines the true origins and development of Christianity, as opposed to those presented in the history books. Accounts are given of the early Eastern churches, particularly those in Ethiopia and Armenia, and of the survival of Christian traditions in Asia and Africa through the Middles Ages, and under Islamic (Muslim) rule. Next, an analysis is presented of the size of Christian communities that survived under Muslim rule in ancient and medieval times and up to the early twentieth century, and the question addressed as to why, when Christians survived Muslim conquests so successfully, they form such a small minority in the modern Middle East. Further sections of the chapter discuss the Catholic missions that took place from about 1500 and the different ways in which Christianity developed in countries beyond the reach of the European empires, where missionaries where not able to enforce their will politically, and in those countries where this was not the case; and the adaptation of the gospel to local cultures, customs, and practices in countries where there was no imperial backing is described, with particular reference to the “silk strategy” in Japan (where the priests dressed in silk in preference to cotton and thus identified themselves with the social elite, who were able to assist in the spread of Christianity), and Jesuit missions to China. The last part of the chapter looks at Protestant missions from the late eighteenth century in Africa and China.
Missionaries and Prophets
Authors: Jenkins Philip
Published: October 2003

This chapter looks at the nature of the religious changes involved in successful Christian missions and the resulting expansion of Christianity in Asia and Africa: success that is impossible to understand if the new Christians were only responding out of fear or envy of imperial conquerors. The chapter starts by examining the view developing in the West in the mid-twentieth century that the Christian mission venture was solely misguided imperialism and an attempt to export Western culture. It goes on to analyse the reasons for Southern Christian expansion, and the synthesis of this Christianity into local cultures. The last two sections investigate the newer autonomous (independent) Christian churches in Africa; these are one of the most notable aspects of Southern Christianity and can be expected to play an increasing role in world Christianity.
Coming Home
Authors: Jenkins Philip
Published: October 2003

This chapter discusses possible responses of the global North to the rise of a new global Christianity emanating from the Southern churches, where the future of Christianity may well lie. Although no one expects a literal Southern invasion of Europe or North America, and traditional Christianity is weakening in large sections of the North, it is indeed being reinforced and reinvigorated by the Southern churches by means of immigration and evangelization. Various aspects of this scenario are discussed, including: the fear of a “Black” planet, where Whites have a conspicuous global minority; Catholic politics and the fact that the Catholic Church has long had to deal with trends that other religious communities are only now beginning to face since the majority of the world’s Catholics have been in the South for a generation; support from the global South to Northern religious conservatives on gender, sexual, and moral issues, to which the African and Asian churches have highly conservative attitudes; and the possibility of the evangelization of the North by Southern Christians, both through missionary work and immigration. Numerous European examples of the latter are given, and there are also examples in Canada, although the situation in the United States is very different owing to the fact that the country has never experienced the same kind of secularization as Europe and American Christianity is alive and well.
The Real Man
Authors: Almog Joseph
Published: October 2003

This chapter reviews the real distinction of Chapter 1 in the light of the pressure put on generic dualism by the integrationist challenge to give way to robust essences. It revisits the question of conceivability, in particular conceivability illusions such as the apparent conceivability of disembodiment and man–mind swaps. The full essence of the specific entities involved in the conceivability attempts holds the key to unravelling the illusion. It is not conceivable of the mind that it exists disembodied—contrary to first‐blush—if the full essence of the mind is brought to bear upon the question, the mind being what it is, namely, the mind of a human being. Two kinds of integrations are distinguished: generic versus tight, depending on whether the mind is made to depend existentially on any body of a given kind, or whether it is inextricably connected to a particular human body. The final pages contain a discussion of Descartes's primal question (what am I?) and finds that there is ‘appeal and confidence’ in Descartes's primal answer to that question: a man.
Introduction
Authors: Batterman Robert W.
Published: October 2003

This chapter introduces a number of key concepts that are important throughout the book. It offers an informal discussion of the nature of universality; an important, related, distinction between types of explanatory why‐questions; and a distinction between kinds of potential reductive relations between theories. I provide a broad overview of the role asymptotic reasoning plays in the proper understanding of explanation, reduction, and emergence.
Asymptotic Reasoning
Authors: Batterman Robert W.
Published: October 2003

This chapter introduces asymptotic reasoning through the consideration of several examples, including the universal behavior of buckling struts and swinging pendula. It demonstrates the importance of asymptotic methods for the understanding of such universal behavior as well as their importance for understanding various types of relations between scientific theories.
Philosophical Models of Reduction
Authors: Batterman Robert W.
Published: October 2003

This chapter begins with a discussion of Nagelian and neo‐Nagelian models of reduction. It also considers the multiple realizability argument against reduction of the special sciences and argues that one must think of multiple realizability as an instance of universality. This raises the possibility of providing an account of multiply realized regularities of the special sciences in analogy to that provided for universality in physics. Asymptotic methods provide these explanatory accounts. One particularly important consequence of the discussion is that one can have explanations of special sciences regularities in terms of lower‐level physical theory without having a reduction of the former to the latter.
Intertheoretic Relations—Optics
Authors: Batterman Robert W.
Published: October 2003

This chapter discusses limiting correspondence relations between the wave theory of light and the ray theory of light. The limit is singular and there is no reductive relation between the theories. The focus is on the particular problem of understanding certain universal features of rainbows. The fruitfulness of studying this singular limit is demonstrated. The main conclusion of this chapter is that the fundamental theory (the wave theory) turns out to be explanatorily deficient and a new (asymptotic) explanatory theory characterizes the asymptotic borderland between the two theories.
Intertheoretic Relations—Mechanics
Authors: Batterman Robert W.
Published: October 2003

This chapter discusses limiting correspondence relations between quantum mechanics and classical mechanics. The semiclassical limit is singular and no reductive relation obtains between these two theories. It is argued that the fundamental theory (quantum mechanics) is explanatorily deficient in that it cannot fully account for aspects of the asymptotic borderland between classical and quantum mechanics.
The Interaction Between Religion and Culture in Peace and Conflict
Authors: Gopin Marc
Published: October 2003

This introductory chapter highlights the role of culture and religion (which, for purposes of this book is treated as a subset of cultural phenomena) in conflict generation and peacemaking. The importance of cross‐religious study is also emphasized, particularly in the case of religions with very complex origins such as the Abrahamic faiths (Islam, Judaism, and Christianity) in which interrelatedness betrays the causes of rivalry and historical conflict, and the chapter also uncovers places for conflict resolution and peacemaking by discovering points of convergence. The aim of the book is to discover the deeper roots of the Middle East conflict and to apply them to the challenges and possibilities for future Palestine–Israel relations.
Political and Mythic Interdependencies
Authors: Gopin Marc
Published: October 2003

It is argued that the rational processes of political negotiation and diplomacy can never progress very far without taking account of the (cultural) myths underlying the attitudes of all parties (and intervenors) involved. Such myths are often expressed in terms of some idealized self‐image, together with a demonized mythic construct of the “other.” These arguments are illustrated by addressing the contemporary examples of the coup against Milosevic in Serbia, and peacemaking processes in which the author has been involved in Israel/Palestine. The latter covers the work of Rabbi Frohman in Israel, attempts to get the US Administration under Clinton involved in a Jewish–Muslim dialog, and steps toward the Jerusalem Religious Peace Agreement (the Islamic/Jewish treaty).
Conflict, Injury, and Transformation
Authors: Gopin Marc
Published: October 2003

Addresses the role of memories of personal and collective injury – the scars of conflict and violence – in retarding peacemaking processes. The important role of organized religion in this kind of “perpetuated mourning,” and its role in conflict generation and avoidance, and self‐examination and self‐judgment, is discussed. It is noted that systems of coping with ultimate loss must become part of any conflict resolution between enemies, and that although each community involved must accomplish this separately, peacemakers should coordinate the process. Two things are needed to disengage a group from the need to be violent: manufactured injury (often based on the political ambitions of leaders) must be separated from actual injury; and manufactured injuries that are rooted in weak internal self‐conceptions must be replaced by a strong sense of self that does not need injury to survive. In the case of the Israel/Palestine conflict, these processes are as important for Jews in relation to the Holocaust as for Palestinians in relation to the loss of their country in 1948.
De‐Escalation Plans and General Steps Toward a New Relationship
Authors: Gopin Marc
Published: October 2003

It is suggested that obsession with the mind and personality of key leaders in a conflict situation is a deflection from the real work of conflict prevention and resolution, since the overwhelming, unrecognized and feared power actually rest with the moods and instincts of the majority of the people embroiled in the conflict. In this context, the chapter focuses on cultural shifts in the Israeli/Palestinian communities that are the key to determining possible elite concessions, compromises, and creative problem solving. Before this, however, the author gives his opinion on what went wrong between Arafat and Barak in the summer of 2000, and led to the resulting spiral of violence; the opinion includes cross‐cultural considerations, and personality and political issues. The cultural conflict de‐escalation plan for Israel and Palestine presented next makes some very explicit recommendations for de‐escalating the violent confrontations as of winter 2002, with specific attention to culture and religion. The chapter ends with some general recommendations for the future.
Specific Steps Toward a New Relationship
Authors: Gopin Marc
Published: October 2003

Like the last chapter, this one focuses on cultural shifts in the Israeli/Palestinian communities that are the key to determining a new relationship between them. This is contextualized by summarizing insights from the previous chapters in a phrase: myth matters. The author advocates a turning of conflict prevention and resolution methodologies toward a synergistic and humble engagement with the lived uses of ritual already in place in peacemaking in the region. In addition, he seeks a creative investigation and experimentation with the vast reservoir of Abrahamic uses of ritual to heal, establish basic patterns of civility, transform broken relationships, mourn, repent, end war, and make peace. The recommendations presented are given under the headings of Education and Training, Myth, Ritual, and Ceremony, Land Attachments, The Poor, Study as Peacebuilding, Social Contract and Covenants, Trust Building, Self‐examination and the Move From Barrier To Bridge, and Recommendations To Officials.
Stability and Justification in Hume's Treatise
Authors: Loeb Louis
Published: October 2003

Working within a philosophical tradition that values tranquillity, Hume favors an epistemology that links justification with settled belief. Hume appeals to psychological stability to support his own epistemological assessments, both favorable regarding causal inference and unfavorable regarding the imagination. The theory's success in explaining Hume's epistemic distinctions gives way to pessimism or ”skepticism,” since Hume contends that reflection on beliefs is deeply destabilizing. So much the worse, Hume concludes, for placing a premium on reflection. Hume endorses and defends the position that stable beliefs of unreflective persons are justified, though they would not survive reflection. At the same time, Hume relishes, and strains to establish, the paradox that unreflective beliefs enjoy a preferred epistemic status. A series of amendments to the Treatise secures a more positive result for justified belief while maintaining Hume's fundamental principles. These include a stratum of psychological doctrine beyond associationism, a theory of conditions in which beliefs are felt to conflict and of the resolution of this uneasiness or dissonance. This theory of mental conflict is also essential to Hume's strategy for integrating empiricism about meaning with his naturalism. However, Hume fails to provide a general account of the conditions in which conflicting beliefs lead to persisting instability, so his theory is incomplete.
Spiritual, but not Religious
Authors: Fuller Robert C.
Published: October 2003

This book explores the history and present status of unchurched spirituality in the U.S. Nearly 20% of all Americans consider themselves interested in spiritual issues even though they never step inside a church or synagogue. Most would describe themselves as spiritual at a personal level, but in some way alienated from organized religion. Today's alternative spirituality is the outgrowth of long‐standing traditions in American religious life. Colonial Americans were astonishingly eclectic in their religious pursuits, availing themselves of sundry magical and occult religious philosophies. In the nineteenth century, a number of metaphysical systems (e.g., Transcendentalism, Swedenborgianism, mesmerism, and spiritualism) penetrated deep into the spiritual vocabulary of middle‐class Americans who were eager to synthesize science and religion into a single vision of the universe. By the early twentieth century, there was already something of an “American tradition” of unchurched spirituality. Diverse interests including alternative medicine, parapsychology, the hidden powers of the unconscious mind, and Asian religions all contributed to the spiritual journeys of those who looked for religious inspiration outside America's established churches. The book concludes by demonstrating that far from the kooky and self‐absorbed dilettantes they are often made out to be, America's unchurched spiritual seekers embrace a mature and dynamic set of beliefs.
The Emergence of Unchurched Traditions
Authors: Fuller Robert C.
Published: October 2003

In colonial America, only 15% of the population belonged to a church. The majority was nonetheless spiritual at a personal level, but fashioned their personal beliefs by drawing upon a variety of magical and occult philosophies. Astrology, divination, and witchcraft permeated everyday life in the colonies. By the early and mid‐nineteenth century, the writings of the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg and the American Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson gave middle‐class Americans a new vocabulary for describing their inner‐relationship to unseen spiritual dimensions of life. And, by the latter part of the nineteenth century, both mesmerism and spiritualism provided general audiences with new ways of exploring this inner‐relationship to the spirit world.
Alternative Medicines, Alternative Worldviews
Authors: Fuller Robert C.
Published: October 2003

Many of America's alternative healing systems function as vehicles for the transmission of alternative spiritual philosophies. Chiropractic medicine, Osteopathy, Holistic Healing, Therapeutic Touch, and Alcoholics Anonymous are but a few of the alternative healing systems that have deep roots in the American metaphysical tradition. So, too, do various New Age healing practices such as color or crystal healing that believe in the existence of “subtle energies.” It is clear that many of those who are drawn to our alternative healing systems do so not just for relief from physical ailments but also for spiritual growth and edification.