bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Metaphysics of Gender and Sexual Difference
Authors: Alcoff Linda Martín
Published: February 2006

This chapter focuses on women's specifically gendered identity and its basis in sexual difference. It argues that there are persuasive grounds for an objective rather than totally fluid account of sex categories, that objectivity does not require an escape from mediation in human knowledge or the ability to have “out of theory experiences”, and that the tendency for descriptive accounts to become prescriptive is a variable rather than uniform or absolute tendency and can be offset. The objective basis of sex categories is in the differential relationship to reproductive capacity between men and women, but a sexual categorization based on the biological division of reproductive labor does not establish a necessary link between reproduction beyond conception and heterosexuality.
Conclusion
Authors: Alcoff Linda Martín
Published: February 2006

This concluding chapter presents a synthesis of discussions in the preceding chapters. It argues that we have yet to formulate a theory that can incorporate with explanatory adequacy the struggles regarding social status, social class, and social identity into one overarching account. One of the most serious obstacles facing any attempt to formulate an overarching theory is that the ontological basis of the focal point is very different if we are talking about status, about class, or about social identity. The concept of identity, as it is actually used in common practice, does not entail or even necessarily suggest the reifying effects that identity critics portend. What identities really are (as opposed to what they are sometimes said to be) is nothing to be politically afraid of.
Autonomy and Its Discontents
Authors: Friedman Marilyn
Published: February 2006

Feminists, communitarians, and other social theorists have raised numerous challenges to the very possibility of the ideal of personal autonomy and its alleged value. This chapter offers a negative defense of autonomy by responding to six critical challenges that have been or may be leveled against it. These are that autonomy-self-determination is impossible because there are no selves; autonomy is impossible because selves cannot “determine” themselves: human actions are merely links in chains of interpersonal interactions; autonomy is impossible because selves cannot determine themselves: they cannot understand themselves accurately; autonomy is possible but not genuinely valuable, and may even be positively harmful, especially to socially subordinated or oppressed groups; autonomy is possible and genuinely valuable, but has been restricted in practice to elite social groups; and that autonomy is possible and genuinely valuable but can be, and has been, distorted in practice into something harmful.
Romantic Love and Personal Autonomy
Authors: Friedman Marilyn
Published: February 2006

This chapter focuses on the ideal of a merger, fusion, or union of lovers in heterosexual romantic love. It explores a recent cultural ideal of love that places value on personal autonomy in romantic relationships, and sketches out some persistent gender asymmetries that compromise those trends. It is argued that even women who place overriding importance on romantic relationships need some degree of autonomy in love.
Domestic Violence against Women and Autonomy
Authors: Friedman Marilyn
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines autonomy in regard to domestic violence. It discusses how intimate partner abuse diminishes autonomy. It is argued that professional care-givers should usually provide uncritical support for abused women who choose to remain in abusive relationships rather than trying rationally to persuade them to change their minds. Legal policy must treat individual cases with consideration for the material and symbolic impact of that treatment on a whole population.
Cultural Minorities and Women's Rights
Authors: Friedman Marilyn
Published: February 2006

This chapter aims to identify a common ground between liberals and defenders of cultural minorities that can serve as the basis for a mutually acceptable, yet still liberal, policy toward the treatment of women and girls by the cultural minority groups to which they belong. It also aims to defend the very project of a liberal policy by responding to some of the criticisms that Okin and others have received for defending women's rights in apparent opposition to some minority cultural traditions.
Religious Lawmakers on Moral Identity and Abortion Law
Authors: Peach Lucinda
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines the role that religion may play in the life of political leaders. It looks at how several prominent American political leaders have articulated the place of religion in their political and lawmaking activities, and the influence of their religious convictions in their public policy making on abortion. These include former New York governor Mario Cuomo, Judge John Noonan, Congressman Henry Hyde, Senator Mark Hatfield, former president Ronald Reagan, and Reverend Jesse Jackson. The views of these political leaders on religious public policy-making illustrate some of the inaccuracies of both liberal and communitarian theories of moral identity.
Communitarian Views of Religious Lawmaking
Authors: Peach Lucinda
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines communitarian approaches to religious lawmaking, focusing on the work of law professor Michael Perry. It is argued that although Perry’s views on religious lawmaking diverge in some respects from those of more traditional communitarian theorists, his approach shares certain deficiencies with other communitarian proposals. A satisfactory approach to religious lawmaking must be able to effectively address the potential conflicts engendered by religious lawmaking in a pluralistic society, the centrality that religion may have to the moral identity of lawmakers, and the social reality of gender and other inequalities in society.
Conclusion
Authors: Peach Lucinda
Published: February 2006

This concluding chapter presents a synthesis of the subjects discussed in the preceding chapters. It identifies the factors that determine the appropriate place of religious influences in politics. It argues that despite the usefulness of both the ideal Meadian and practical legal approaches, there are no completely acceptable solutions to the conflicts arising between incompatible religious perspectives in a constitutional democracy.
Induction and Consistency
Authors: Kyburg Henry E.
Published: February 2006

This chapter addresses the question of how a reasoning agent comes to accept conclusions that are based on inductive or uncertain inference. This is an important matter for plausible inference, particularly given the groundwork laid earlier in this book that puts induction at center stage for both common sense and rationality. Two approaches to uncertainty in dealing with such matters are considered. One is the Bayesian approach, which holds that observations or evidence is incorrigible, while all other statements have an associated number that indicates their degree of uncertainty. The other is a nonmonotonic approach, which supposes that people come to accept statements tentatively and that we might reject them when more evidence is collected. It is argued that the Bayesian reconstruction of induction is misguided both in its assumption that evidential statements are certain and in its attempt to avoid nonobservational acceptance. There is a way of casting the nonmonotonic approach in terms of probability intervals, which allows for the association of a level of error or uncertainty with individual statements and the recognition that the conjunction of all such statements is false, while still supporting the acceptance of each individual statement. Although the cost of this acceptance approach is that sometimes mistakes will be made, it is more realistic psychologically and more efficient computationally as a representation of rational inference.
How Good Are Fast and Frugal Heuristics?
Authors: Gigerenzer Gerd , Czerlinski Jean , Martignon Laura
Published: February 2006

This chapter argues that models of reasonable and rational judgment should look outside the mind to the structure of the environment in which the mind must operate. The everyday world presents reasoners with finite computational resources and limited time to solve problems for which there is often scarce and uncertain information. Problem-solving heuristics that are fast and frugal would seem particularly effective in such environments. Using several real-world data sets, it is shown in this chapter that certain fast and frugal heuristics performed nearly as accurately as and sometimes better than optimality methods (such as decision models that employ linear and multiple regression techniques). Such heuristics are ecologically valid satisficing strategies, that is, information-processing strategies that are effective for the real-world environment in which people must render most of their decisions.
The Huang-po Literature
Authors: Wright Dale S.
Published: February 2006

This chapter carries out a literary, philosophical, and historical study of the 9th century Buddhist texts that provide images of the Chan master Huang-po Hsi-yun, the Ch’uan-hsin Fa-yao, and the Wan-ling lu. It explores the relation of these texts to predecessor literature, the question of authorship in Zen, and the evolution of the “recorded sayings” (yulu) genre. The chapter summarizes the teachings of the Huang-po texts, including the ideas of transmission, mind, Buddha-nature, sudden awakening, and non-dualism.
Unprincipled Virtue
Authors: Arpaly Nomy
Published: February 2006

This book presents a positive theory of moral worth. Chapter 1 examines the complexities of moral life that appear to differ from the paradigmatic cases of moral psychology. Chapter 2 argues against the common assumption that akrasia is always irrational, or at least, always less rational than the corresponding self-controlled action. The theory is presented in Chapter 3 — that people are praiseworthy for acts of good will and blameworthy for acts of ill will or absence of good will, and the amount of praise or blame they deserve varies with the depth of their motivation or extent of their indifference. Chapter 4 and 5 defend this theory against potential objections to the effect that there is something wrong with its failure to invoke autonomy, and clarifies the theory’s implications about some issues in moral responsibility often associated with autonomy (i.e., responsibility of kleptomaniacs, drug addicts, makers of Freudian slips, and persons driven to murder by hypnotists).
Varieties of Autonomy
Authors: Arpaly Nomy
Published: February 2006

This chapter begins with a discussion of the concept of autonomy, focusing on the meaning of autonomy as self-control, as material independence, as psychological independence, and as normative autonomy. It then analyzes David Velleman’s distinction between autonomy, which he takes to be some form of self-control, and authenticity or being true to oneself. It argues that agent-autonomy is not as important to moral responsibility as generally assumed, and rejects the claim that only agent-autonomous action is blameworthy or praiseworthy.
Blame, Autonomy, and Problem Cases
Authors: Arpaly Nomy
Published: February 2006

This chapter presents examples which show that agent-autonomy is a necessary condition for moral praise- or blameworthiness. It argues that commonsensical conclusions about praise and blame can be held and accounted for, if one follows the theory of moral worth developed in Chapter 3. The cases of kleptomaniacs, of a person operating under the influence of a nefarious neurosurgeon or hypnotist who instills in him a bad desire, and the role of constitutive moral luck in moral life are discussed.
Introduction
Authors: Harrison Milmon F.
Published: February 2006

This introductory chapter begins with a brief discussion of the Word of Faith Movement, one of many new forms of evangelical, charismatic Christianity to develop in the United States since World War II. It is a contemporary American religious subculture made up of denominationally independent churches, ministries, Bible training colleges and other educational institutions, voluntary organizations and fellowships, information and entertainment production facilities, and mass media broadcast networks. Rather than being part of a formal organizational structure, all of these entities are bound together into a relational network, based upon a shared understanding of the Bible, according to the movement's doctrine, the Faith Message. The founders of the movement, core beliefs and practices, and the structure and distribution of the movement are discussed.
Satisfying Our Eager Longing
Authors: Shuman Joel James , Meador Keith G.
Published: February 2006

The proper Christian response to sickness and suffering is care. Care refers to politics of the Christian community with respect to sickness and suffering, in that it encompasses the entire range of obligations the community has toward the sick person and vice‐versa. God has called women and men into a community of friends who are to offer hospitality to one another and to the world as a sign of God's care for the world. Such care requires the cultivation of virtue, especially the virtue of misericordia.
Acceptance, Belief, and Commitment
Authors: Costa Newton C. A. da , French Steven
Published: February 2006

The focus on the models or, more generally, the structures in which sentences are satisfied encourages a shift to a broadly representational and nonpropositional account of the objects of belief. The consequences of such a move have yet to be fully explored in this context. This chapter sets out a possible doxastic framework for understanding this shift in epistemic attention. It draws on Sperber's account of the difference between “factual” and “representational” beliefs, where the object of the latter is a “semipropositional” representation of incomplete conceptual content. It is argued that the fundamental idea behind this notion can be conveniently grasped in terms of partial structures: a “representational” belief that p is then understood as a belief that p is partially true only, whereas a factual belief that p is a belief that p is true in the correspondence sense.
From Pragmatic Realism to Structural Empiricism
Authors: Costa Newton C. A. da , French Steven
Published: February 2006

Ladyman has incorporated partial structures into his version of “structural realism” which he sees as realism's best hope in the face of the ontological perplexities presented by modern physics. On the other side of the divide, Bueno has also used partial structures to elaborate a form of “structural empiricism”, which extends van Fraassen's antirealist “constructive empiricism” in significant respects. This chapter does not aim to defend either realism or antirealism, but to indicate how both sides in the debate can benefit from the partial structures approach. This debate needs just the kind of detailed articulation that structural realism and empiricism offer, and that these positions represent at least two of the more interesting hopes for the future.
Extensions
Authors: Costa Newton C. A. da , French Steven
Published: February 2006

The twin notions of quasi truth and partial structures form the core of a rich and fruitful program with applications across philosophy of science. This chapter briefly discusses some of these further applications. It is argued that the complexity and variety of cognitive practices can be accommodated within a unitary framework by explicitly acknowledging the openness and partiality of representational structures.
Extending Ourselves
Authors: Humphreys Paul
Published: February 2006

Computational science, especially computer simulations, is now the dominant procedure in many areas of science. This book contains the first systematic philosophical account of this new scientific method, and draws a parallel between the ways in which such computational methods have enhanced our abilities to mathematically model the world, and the more familiar ways in which scientific instruments have expanded our access to the empirical world. This expansion forms the basis for a new kind of empiricism better suited to the needs of science than the older anthropocentric forms of empiricism. Human abilities are no longer the ultimate standard of correctness within epistemology. The book includes arguments for the primacy of properties rather than objects, for how technology interacts with scientific methods, and a detailed account of how the path from a computational template or model to a scientific application is constructed and revised. This last feature allows us to hold a form of selective realism in which anti-realist arguments based on abstract reconstructions of theories can be avoided. One important consequence of the rise of computational methods is that the traditional organization of the sciences is being replaced by an organization founded on computational templates.
Durkheim as a Teacher of Religion
Authors: Schmaus Warren
Published: February 2006

This chapter traces the development of Durkheim's thinking about religion in terms of courses in philosophy, sociology, and education that deal with religious topics. Durkheim's sociological view about religion is interpreted as a natural outgrowth of the metaphysical views he expressed in his earliest teaching about religion as a lycée philosophy professor, and it is argued that it was through his teaching that he developed the sociology of religion of The Elementary Forms of Religious Life.
Perspective
Authors: Stillwaggon Eileen
Published: February 2006

This chapter discusses the modes of transmission, worldwide distribution, and environmental conditions necessary for the spread of HIV. It explains the epidemiological framework for understanding disease spread, which includes characteristics of the pathogen, the host, and the environment. The appendix to this chapter presents cross-national survey data on sexual behavior. The data demonstrate that there is no correlation between higher national prevalence of HIV and countries with higher rates of early initiation of sex, premarital sex, or multipartnered sex.
Individual Bias in Methodology
Authors: Stillwaggon Eileen
Published: February 2006

This chapter discusses the methodologies employed by health scientists and social scientists that prevent them from seeing the interactions that produce the epidemic spread of HIV, from measuring those interactions, and from using that information in prevention policy. It examines the methodological limitations in the fields of public health, epidemiology, and health economics that impede the understanding of health in the developing world and obstruct the prevention of HIV/AIDS. It criticizes the limitations of the transmission models used by major organizations administering AIDS funds to evaluate HIV-prevention programs.
HIV/AIDS Policies
Authors: Stillwaggon Eileen
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines the impact of misguided development policy and inadequate epidemiology and health economics methodology on the choice of interventions for HIV and other health problems in poor countries. It discusses the influence of post-World War II development policy and its preoccupation with population control in promoting HIV/AIDS prevention plans that are narrowly focused on provision of condoms, behavior modification, and treating cofactor STDs. It criticizes the programs of UNAIDS, USAID and its private-sector partners, and other AIDS organizations.
Workplace Interventions for STD and HIV/AIDS Prevention
Authors: Stillwaggon Eileen
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines workplace HIV/AIDS programs as an example of the limitations of global AIDS policy. It discusses practical, political, philosophical, and economic problems with workplace HIV programs, but supports the use of the workplace as a convenient venue for broad public health programs that also address HIV prevention and care. The chapter emphasizes the public goods nature of health-promotion programs and encourages government cooperation with businesses to achieve mutually beneficial health goals.
Guishan jingce (Guishan's Admonitions) and the Ethical Foundations of Chan Practice
Authors: Poceski Mario
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines the attitudes toward monasticism and conventional morality evidenced within the Hongzhou school of classical Chan. Its main focus is Guishan jingce, one of the key texts from the Hongzhou school’s literary output, which so far has been ignored by Chan/Zen scholarship. Composed by Guishan Lingyou (771-853), the foremost representative of the Hongzhou school’s third generation, this important text is the earliest Chan document that is primarily concerned with monastic discipline, or Rules of Purity, and the place of morality in the Chan path to awakening. Its contents shed unique light on the Hongzhou school’s rather conventional attitudes toward monastic ideals and mores, and brings into question the currently prevalent views about the iconoclastic turn that Chan supposedly took under the direction of Mazu (709-788) and his Hongzhou school.
Objective Understanding
Authors: Waxman Wayne
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines Locke’s theory of objective understanding. It discusses the presupposition of an empirical subject, the understanding of the existence and nature of substances, and Locke’s conception of mechanistic materialism. Locke believes that the ideas of primary qualities permit human understandings to conceive and know the constitutions of substances only up to a certain point, beyond which they lack the conceptual means to penetrate.
Objective Understanding Dismantled
Authors: Waxman Wayne
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines Berkeley’s use of the likeness principle to undermine the foundations of indirect realism. It then analyzes his use of the separability principle to prove that all ideas of sensation are ideas of secondary qualities. Berkeley’s three-pronged critique of early modern conceptions of substance is discussed.
Notions of Mind
Authors: Waxman Wayne
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines Berkeley’s theory of the mind, focusing on how he proposed to distinguish the perceiving mind from its perceptions without violating his own separability principle. Berkeley’s justification of treating the mind as substance, particularly a spiritual material, depended on whether reflexive perceptions provided notions of causal inefficiency. His psychologistic explications of causality and substance, the nonmanifold I, the mind as substrate of successive perceptions, and the substantiality of spirit are discussed.
Reasoning Reasonably
Authors: Waxman Wayne
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines Hume’s theory of empirical reason, and the difference between its rational and its irrational exercise (reasoning reasonably and unreasonably). The theory has five structural levels: (1) reasoning from one matter of fact or real existence to another takes the form of an inference from an impression to an idea; (2) necessary connections between cause and effect; (3) past experience and our remembrance of the constant junction of distinct, successive, contiguous objects; (4) our belief in the uniformity of nature; and (5) customary association. The role of customary association in regulating empirical rationality, first species probable reasoning, and contrariety are discussed.
Remembering Abraham
Authors: Hendel Ronald
Published: February 2006

The past in the Hebrew Bible is a represented past, not the past itself. This book argues that the biblical portrayal of the past consists of a complex interplay of historical memory, folklore, cultural self-definition, and literary brilliance. The chapters of this book attempt to survey and, to the degree possible, untangle these various layers, concentrating on the foundational narratives of the patriarchs, the Exodus, and the united monarchy. The biblical sense of the past combines traits that we separate into different genres — myth, epic, and history — but form a seamless synthesis in the biblical conception.
Execution and Invention
Authors: Berkowitz Beth A.
Published: February 2006

Execution and Invention: Death Penalty Discourse in Early Rabbinic and Christian Cultures argues that ancient rabbis and Christians used death penalty discourse to invent themselves as figures of authority. This approach runs counter to much previous scholarship on the subject, which claims that ancient Jews opposed the death penalty and would have abolished it if not for its presence in the Bible. The book explores this scholarship and shows it to have been fueled by modern anti-Semitism, polemics with the the Jewish Enlightenment’s inheritance of anti-rabbinism, as well as controversy in the United States over capital punishment and its abolition. The book moves beyond this “humanitarianism” approach, inviting us instead to see the problem of building and maintaining authority as the crux around which ancient death penalty discourse developed. Drawing on ritual theory, postcolonial theory, and scholarship on criminal execution in other historical contexts, Execution and Invention asks new questions of the ancient texts: How and why do ancient western religions talk about killing criminals? What are the social consequences of this kind of violent talk? What kind of authority is imagined by these texts, and What strategies do the texts use to make this authority seem compelling? Combining the contemporary theory with classical source critical approaches, the book closely reads a variety of ancient texts describing criminal executions. It newly interprets these texts, showing that their descriptions of violent deaths have a complex social function. In the process, the book spins out the social implications of capital punishment and overturns enduring stereotypes of Judaism and Christianity.
Reading Execution
Authors: Berkowitz Beth A.
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines the history of scholarship on the ancient Jewish death penalty, focusing in particular on the last century of scholarship in the United States and Israel. It includes within its survey a variety of approaches and disciplines: jurisprudence, responsa, New Testament historiography, religious denominational writing, Jewish intellectual history, philosophy, Zionist reformism. It give this scholarship “thick description,” contextualizing it within the social forces that shaped it. It also offers some concluding reflections on what aspects of the scholarship might be most productive for further study.
The Ethics of Care
Authors: Held Virginia
Published: February 2006

The book presents the ethics of care as a promising alternative to more familiar moral theories. The ethics of care is only a few decades old, yet it has become a distinct moral theory or normative approach, relevant to global and political matters as well as to the personal relations that can most clearly exemplify care. The book examines the central ideas, characteristics, and potential importance of the ethics of care. It discusses the feminist roots of this moral approach and why the ethics of care can be a morality with universal appeal. The book explores what is meant by “care” and what a caring person is like. Where such other moral theories as Kantian morality and utilitarianism demand impartiality above all, the ethics of care understands the moral import of ties to families and groups. It evaluates such ties, differing from virtue ethics by focusing on caring relations rather than the virtues of individuals. The book proposes how values such as justice, equality, and individual rights can “fit together” with values such as care, trust, mutual consideration, and solidarity. In considering the potential of the ethics of care for dealing with social issues, the book shows how the ethics of care is more promising than other moral theories for advice on how limited or expansive markets should be, showing how values other than market ones should have priority in such activities as childcare, health care, education, and in cultural activities. Finally, the book connects the ethics of care with the rising interest in civil society, and with limits on what law and rights are thought able to accomplish. It shows the promise of the ethics of care for dealing with global problems and with efforts to foster international civility.
The Ethics of Care as Moral Theory
Authors: Held Virginia
Published: February 2006

The ethics of care is a distinct moral theory, not merely a concern that can be added on to or included within the most influential moral theories such as Kantian morality, utilitarianism, or virtue ethics. The ethics of care arose out of feminists’ appreciation of the importance of care and caring labor. As a fully normative theory, it has developed far beyond its earliest formulations in the work of Sara Ruddick, Carol Gilligan, and Nel Noddings. It is recognized as highly relevant to political and global contexts as well as to the more personal ones of family and friendship. It includes concern for transforming the structures within which practices of care take place, so that they are no longer oppressive. The ethics of care has the great advantage in a moral theory of being based on experience that is truly universal: the experience of having been cared for.
Care as Practice and Value
Authors: Held Virginia
Published: February 2006

This chapter argues that for the ethics of care, “care” is defined as various practices that take place and various values by which to evaluate actual practices. As there are theories of justice to evaluate practices of justice, an ethics of care is needed to evaluate caring practices. The practice of taking care of children or those dependent in other ways or with special needs involves work, and should be done with appropriate motives and should meet appropriate standards. Practices incorporate values, but must also be evaluated to improve them.
Justice, Utility, and Care
Authors: Held Virginia
Published: February 2006

Care is often contrasted with justice. Historically, care, women, and the household have been devalued and considered irrelevant to morality compared to men’s activities in public life. Kantian moral theory and utilitarianism differ significantly, but both are theories of justice thought suitable for public life, emphasizing impartiality, rationality, universal principles, equality, and rights. This chapter contrasts the ethics of care with such theories, and explores the question of how care and justice might be meshed. It considers how we might conceptualize the fitting together of its various parts into a satisfactory, comprehensive, moral theory.
Care and the Extension of Markets
Authors: Held Virginia
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines the implications of the ethics of care for political and social issues. It addresses the question of whether corporate and market ways of conducting a range of activities should be expanded through privatization and commercialization, or limited. Childcare, healthcare, education, and cultural activities are considered. The chapter shows how dominant moral theories lack the resources to deal with this question, and how the ethics of care provides strong arguments for limiting markets. Market values are not the appropriate ones to be accorded priority in various fields.
Introduction: Residence on Earth
Authors: Peterson Anna L.
Published: February 2006

This chapter introduces the key themes in the book, including the role of religion in political change, the ways that religious ethics are lived out in concrete situations, the fate of utopian visions and social movements, and the relationship between environmental sustainability and social justice.
Nature
Authors: Peterson Anna L.
Published: February 2006

This chapter analyzes the ethical attitudes and practices regarding the natural environment in both the Salvadoran and Amish communities examined in chapters 1 and 2. Of particular interest are agricultural practices, the links between environmental sustainability and social justice, and the complex ways that religious values and beliefs influence both everyday practice and the shape of collective institutions. It also analyzes and compares the distinctive contributions of Anabaptist and progressive Catholic theology to thinking and practice regarding nature.
Utopia
Authors: Peterson Anna L.
Published: February 2006

This chapter reflects on the possibilities for reclaiming and rethinking progressive utopian thought in light of the experiences of both Amish and Salvadoran experiences in creating environmentally sustainable and socially just communities. The distinctive contributions of religion to these experiences are explored, as well as the significance of recent changes in the political left, in the nature of progressive social movements, and in religious and cultural life in the Americas.
The Changing Faces of Temple Worship
Authors: Dempsey Corinne G.
Published: February 2006

This chapter explores the effects of Aiya’s maverick approach on various types of temple participants: the youth, women, and everyone else. It begins by describing the Rush temple youth’s enthusiasm for full participation within their religious tradition, in contrast to many second-generation South Asians in North America who tend to be lukewarm about the religious practices of their parents. It also explores how women of all ages, typically marginalized within traditional religious settings, less so at diaspora temples, glean a sense of religious purpose and value at the Rush temple through their ability to participate publicly as Śrīvidyā initiates and temple priests. The fact that the Rush temple encourages initiation and priestly performance to all who are interested regardless of caste, gender, or ethnicity does not come without its challenges, however. Aiya’s creation of a community of priests who claim an equal stake in temple ownership, opening access to authority and divinity in ways otherwise unavailable, also leaves the door open for uncertainty and dispute.
Grounding the Sacred
Authors: Dempsey Corinne G.
Published: February 2006

This chapter describes the transplanting of South Asian divinities onto North American soil, and the transposition of South Asian sacred geography to rural upstate New York. It begins by recounting the circuitous route of Íri Rājarājeśwarī’s granite mūrti from an ashram in the Poconos to Aiya’s temple housed in his garage and, finally, to its current location that transformed a barn in Rush, New York, into a temple. It discusses the importance of sacred geography within Hindu traditions, and recounts the challenges and innovations involved in establishing sacred terrain at diaspora temples in general, and at Rush in particular. The chapter concludes by recounting narratives of traveling Hindu deities and accounts of their miraculous appearances at Rush, demonstrating divine as well as human creativity and adaptability.
Making Home at the Śrī Rājarājeśwarī Pīṭham
Authors: Dempsey Corinne G.
Published: February 2006

This chapter brings “home” the image of the temple most commonly invoked by inner core members, all of whom have been unmoored, at some level, from their cultural or religious heritage. Although seemingly mundane, the temple as “home” is a concept many devotees hold most sacred; it is where participants ultimately find comfort, security, and rest. The chapter begins by describing the challenges of an evolving temple, one that has moved from an intimate, homey, one-and-a-half car garage setting to its current public space. It includes testimonials shared by inner core participants that recount their discovery and eventual dedication to Aiya as guru. Also recounted are the different ways in which these participants construe the temple as home. The chapter finishes by featuring Aiya’s wife, Amma, an understated yet steady presence at the temple, whose no-nonsense homing influence is a force without which Aiya’s spiritual pyrotechnics could never get off the ground.
Are Any Moral Beliefs Justified?
Authors: Sinnott-Armstrong Walter
Published: February 2006

This chapter distinguishes different ways for moral beliefs and believers to be justified: instrumentally or epistemically, permissively or positively, slightly or adequately, and personally or impersonally. It explains the two main arguments against justified moral belief: the skeptical regress argument and the skeptical hypothesis or scenario argument. It concludes that these arguments pose a dilemma because their flaws are hard to detect, and their conclusions are hard to believe.
Classy Moral Pyrrhonism
Authors: Sinnott-Armstrong Walter
Published: February 2006

This chapter applies the general epistemology in Chapter 5 to moral beliefs in particular, and discusses the relevance of moral nihilism. It presents a moderate classy Pyrrhonian moral skepticism, which claims that some moral beliefs can be justified out of a modest contrast class, but no moral beliefs can be justified out of an unlimited contrast class. Since neither contrast class is the relevant one, no moral belief is justified without qualification.
Normativism
Authors: Sinnott-Armstrong Walter
Published: February 2006

This chapter covers normativism, which attempts to derive moral conclusions from normative but non-moral premises. One version refers to moral explanations, another version includes contractarianism and contractualism, which justifies moral beliefs by reference to contractors who are rational, impartial, and/or reasonable. Neither version can solve the skeptical regress problem.
Coherentism
Authors: Sinnott-Armstrong Walter
Published: February 2006

This chapter explains moral coherentism as the view that some moral beliefs are justified by virtue of cohering with a system of belief that is coherent in the sense that it is consistent, connected, and comprehensive. Second-order beliefs about reliability are introduced to handle standard objections to coherentism. It concludes that coherence can make some moral beliefs justified out of a modest contrast class, but not out of an extreme contrast class with moral nihilism. This final chapter, together with the rest of Part 2, thus leads to moderate moral skepticism.
The Beauty of the Cross
Authors: Viladesau Richard
Published: February 2006

This volume represents the first part of a study of the concept and the symbol of the cross in Christian theology and imagination. It examines the theology of the cross in both its conceptual and aesthetic mediations within specific historical contexts, from the early church to the eve of the renaissance. Each chapter is introduced by a discussion of an artwork — a representation of Christ’s crucifixion — that exemplifies the focus of the chapter. There follows an exposition of a theological paradigm for the interpretation of the Christ’s passion as a salvific event, i.e., a particular Christian soteriology, as seen in the works of classic theologians. These theological ideas are compared and contrasted with aesthetic works that were contemporaneous with the theological classics or that illustrate a parallel theological attitude. The general method is one of correlation between two kinds of interpretation of the Christian tradition and of human experience: between theology as explicit systematic thought and as affective and communicative images. Within the aesthetic realm, this volume emphasizes visual art (various styles of cross and crucifix) and Christian poetry, both liturgical and non-liturgical.
The Cross in the New Testament and the Patristic Paradigm
Authors: Viladesau Richard
Published: February 2006

The pagan drawing known as the graffito of Alexamenos illustrates the scandal of the worship of a “crucified God” in the Roman Hellenistic world. From Roman documents, an approximate idea of what the historical crucifixion of Jesus was like can be reconstructed. However, this historical event was soon translated into the spheres of religious myth and theology. The New Testament itself provides an early aesthetic mediation of the meaning of the cross. The Fathers of the Church, in particular Athanasius and Augustine, expand on New Testament concepts and images to understand the cross as the symbol of Christ’s divine victory, and produce a variety of conceptual explanations of its function in human salvation. Representations of the cross in this period, like the hymns of Venantius Fortunatus and the Byzantine liturgy, present it as the sign and instrument of Christ’s victory over sin and death.
Corporate Financial Reporting and Regulation in the European Union
Authors: Benston George J. , Bromwich Michael , Litan Robert E. , Wagenhofer Alfred
Published: February 2006

The EU has for a long time strived to harmonize the financial disclosure of companies headquartered in the EU member states. However, financial reporting in these states continues to differ, reflecting the ongoing role of national accounting traditions and regulatory structures. This chapter surveys both the areas where rules have been harmonized and those where national differences remain. The discussion highlights many of the issues that likely to arise in efforts to achieve harmonized rules on a global scale.
1 A Chapter in the History of Biblical Exegesis
Authors: Cooper Stephen Andrew
Published: February 2006

This chapter highlights the importance of the history of patristic exegesis for both the historical and the theological study of the Bible. A serious part of modern biblical scholarship through the early twentieth century, the study of patristic exegesis suffered a decline and became a sub-field of church history or historical theology, being thus removed from the scientific study of the biblical text. Recent trends in biblical studies, however, such as the rediscovery of rhetoric and the acknowledgement of the position of the interpreter, have created a climate in which patristic exegesis can again become part of the scholarly discussion of the Bible. Victorinus’ commentaries on Paul must be understood in the context of both pagan and Christian practices of the interpretation of canonical texts. The manuscript tradition of Victorinus’ commentaries on Paul is discussed.
4 Exegesis and Interpretation in Victorinus' Commentaries
Authors: Cooper Stephen Andrew
Published: February 2006

This chapter discusses Victorinus’ commentary on Galatians in terms of its exegetical techniques and genre. These aspect of his work on Galatians are compared with both Christian and non-Christian commentaries of the third and fourth centuries. His use of prefaces and exegetical techniques, such as paraphrase (including his appropriation of the apostle Paul’s first-person) are examined. Victorinus’ hermeneutical vocabulary provides a key for understanding what he intends by the manner of commentary he denominated commentatio simplex, which is can only somewhat misleadingly be called ‘literal’. Victorinus’ commentaries on Paul with their philosophical excurses have affinities with non-Christian philosophical eisagogic commentaries in their attempt to establish a basic platform as prerequisite for deeper philosophical or theological understanding.
Introduction
Authors: Coope Ursula
Published: February 2006

As a preliminary to Aristotle’s account of time, it is necessary to understand his views on change and on indivisibles. He has an account of change (in terms of actuality and potentiality) that makes no reference to time. His view of indivisibles is important because he thinks that the now is indivisible. It is argued that, according to his view, an indivisible is a boundary of, or potential division in, some continuum. An indivisible is, then, ontologically dependent on the continuum that it (potentially) divides.
2 The Ancient Stoics: People and Sources
Authors: Brennan Tad
Published: February 2006

This chapter provides an introduction to the major figures in the history of Ancient Stoicism, and describes the sources of knowledge in Stoic philosophy. The Stoic school began a little before 300 BC, and reached the height of its theoretical elaboration in the next century. Stoic philosophers include Chyrsippus, Epictetus, Zeno of Citium (founder of the Stoic school), Cleanthes, Diogenes of Babylon, Antipater of Tarsus, and Cicero. The four sources accounting for more than half the bulk of testimony and evidence on Stoicism are: Cicero, Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus. The most important source of biographical information about early Stoics and their philosophy is the author Diogenes Laertius.
4 An Overview of Stoic Ethics
Authors: Brennan Tad
Published: February 2006

This chapter presents an overview of the Stoic system. Stoics assume that all human beings wish to be happy, and that happiness is the end of everything one does. They insist that it is wrong to think that pleasure is good; that money and fame are good; and that health, freedom, and life are good. It is also wrong to think that their opposites (poverty, dishonor, illness, slavery, and death) are bad. Vice alone is bad; and everyone is awash in vice. Stoics like to discuss ethics by describing what a perfectly virtuous person, a Stoic Sage, would be like.
11 What Makes an Action Befitting?
Authors: Brennan Tad
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines the Stoic theory of kathekon, translated as ‘befitting actions’. These are actions that people who are already virtuous do, and also the ones that people do to make progress towards virtue. What makes an action befitting has something to do with how it accords with the nature of the agent, and with the nature of the universe that is revealed in the special circumstances of action that may arise. For instance, the nature of plants is such that they perform their befitting actions by photosynthesising. The nature of humans is such that they perform their befitting actions by walking, bending, or stretching their fingers in certain ways; by asking or answering questions; or by taking care of their health.
12 Discovering the Befitting: Two Models
Authors: Brennan Tad
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines two models of how Stoics decide what to do: the Salva Virtute deliberation and Indifferents-Only deliberation. The Indifferents-Only model is superior to the Salva Virtute model for deliberating on an actual situation. The Salva Virtute model is unable to provide any content to the notion of doing the ‘virtuous thing’ beyond saying that the virtuous action is whatever the Sage will actually do. The Indifferents-Only model proposes that virtue is not mentioned among the inputs to deliberation. The deliberation will eventuate in the specification of a virtuous action, but will start by describing the various courses of action purely in terms of how various indifferents — promoted and demoted — are distributed.
17 The Evolution of the Will
Authors: Brennan Tad
Published: February 2006

The Stoic theory of fate had a great influence on the way other philosophers talked about topics such as free will and moral responsibility. Many of the central concepts and controversies surrounding the modern problem of free will emerged from the Stoic system, and can be traced back to the doctrines that Stoics held, or attacks that their opponents launched against them, or misunderstandings that arose as Stoicism was blended into the revival of Platonic philosophy. The ancient debate over the issue of moral responsibility is discussed.
The European Machinery Industry Under Pressure
Authors: Crouch Colin
Published: February 2006

This chapter discusses the theoretical foundations for the four case studies presented in chapters three to six. It describes the rise and fall of the European machinery industry between the 1980s and 1990s, particularly in France, Germany, Italy, and the UK. It focuses on the emergence of clusters of small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) around industrial districts, and the benefits provided by local collective competition goods (LCCGs).