bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Hostages to Stereotypes
Authors: Waxman Wayne
Published: February 2006

The finest early modern philosophers were adept at budgeting for subsequent change and progress so that readers would be able to devise Cartesian, Humean, Kantian, etc., solutions to almost any philosophical problems that may arise in later epochs. This chapter puts this rule to the test by examining current stereotypes predicated on the belief that subsequent progress in the abstract or empirical sciences has either refuted the doctrines of early modern philosophers or rendered them obsolete. It argues that the early modern philosophers devised their doctrines with the subtlety, flexibility, and range needed to prevent their efforts from being subsumed within any other.
Locke's Theory of Ideas
Authors: Waxman Wayne
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines Locke’s theory of ideas. He believes that the infallible “knowledge” of ideas is the same as the thinking of them, and has nothing to do with their use as grounds of cognition, much less their serving as a foundation for further cognition. The case of sensitive knowledge is no exception because it is not an instance of the knowledge we have of our ideas, but a special case of the kind of cognition we can have through them. For here we apply, and do not simply conceive, ideas such as body, the externality of one body with respect to another, the cognitive recognition of one body as mine, and the powers that body equips me with to sense and to imagine.
Perception and the Synthesis of Experience
Authors: Waxman Wayne
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines Locke’s theory on perception. Locke used Molyneux’s thought experiment — whether someone born blind and suddenly made to see could distinguish between a cube and sphere without touching them — to convince his readers of the extent to which visual depth perception is influenced by experience. Locke’s doctrine established the framework in which Berkeley, Hume, and Kant addressed the issues of realism and idealism. Berkeley’s theory of nature is simply the Molyneux problem writ large, while Kant’s theory of nature is a transformation of Berkeley’s, inspired by Hume instead of God.
Knowledge and Skepticism
Authors: Waxman Wayne
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines Locke’s theory of knowledge. Locke showed how it is possible to cognize necessary truth by means of ideas which originate empirically in sensation or reflexion. His proof of an external world and early modern skepticism are discussed.
Berkeleyan Idealism: The Inseparability of Existence, Sensation, and Perception
Authors: Waxman Wayne
Published: February 2006

Berkeley’s most famous, original, and influential thesis is: the esse of sensible things is percipi. The argument of esse is percipi idealism is that: ideas can exist only in being perceived; sensible objects (stones, trees, mountains, etc.) are ideas; and therefore, sensible objects can exist only in being perceived. Berkeley’s response to possible objections to esse is percipi, his psychologistic explication of existence, and interpretations of Berkeleyan idealism are discussed.
From Origins of Ideas to Ideas of Origins: Causality Psychologized
Authors: Waxman Wayne
Published: February 2006

This chapter discusses how Hume’s revolutionary associationist theory of ideas overcame deficiencies and transformed the question of origins itself. Hume believes that association, imagination, and objective understanding are one and the same; as soon as we withdraw the lens of association in and through which the microcosmos of the mind and the macrocosmos of the universe exist, these worlds dissolve into (1) transitions of thought, (2) the fleetingly existent data to and from which these transitions are made, and (3) the affections felt either in the making of these transitions or in the way the data involved are regarded. Hume’s solution to the problem of origins, the copy principle, is based on these three elements.
The Nature of Relation
Authors: Waxman Wayne
Published: February 2006

Hume believes that all ideas must either be copied from antecedent impressions or assembled from ideas copied from them. Where impression originals are lacking, there can be no ideas at all. The need for originating impressions is met by what is experienced in the interstices, between perceptions, whenever a transition is made from an impression to an idea. The fictions of relation, the essence of relation, the vivacity transference principle, projective illusion, and associative affects in the science of human nature are discussed.
The Role of Custom in Associative Understanding
Authors: Waxman Wayne
Published: February 2006

This chapter discusses Hume’s three fundamental principles of association essential to human understanding: association by resemblance to general ideas and discourse, association by contiguity to space and time, and association by understanding in particular. While these principles are neither infallible nor the sole causes of the unions of ideas, they are principles “so permanent, irresistible, and universal that their removal would cause human nature to perish and go to ruin”. However, it becomes evident that this is true insofar as association is supported by custom (habits of mind).
The Supreme Principle of Hume's Theory of Understanding
Authors: Waxman Wayne
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines Hume’s skepticism with regard to reason and the supreme principle of human understanding that emerges from it. It is argued that skepticism with regard to reason is intimately bound up with the pre-eminence Hume assigned to the affective dimension of mentation in the determination of thoughts and actions. The neglect of that dimension appears responsible for much of the incomprehension and hostility met by Hume’s skepticism in all its forms.
Israel Among the Nations
Authors: Hendel Ronald
Published: February 2006

Ancient Israel was a nation in the Near East, but it conceived of itself as a unique people. This chapter investigates the ways that Israel constructed its cultural identity in relation to its neighbors, and how its cultural, religious, and ethnic boundaries were contested and reinterpreted in various biblical texts.
Remembering Abraham
Authors: Hendel Ronald
Published: February 2006

The figure of Abraham played an important role in Israelite culture: as the apex of the tribal genealogy, as a religious and cultural founder, and as a moral exemplar. This chapter examines these functions of Abraham in biblical memory, and how the figure of Abraham is sometimes mobilized to advocate differing social and religious claims.
Historical Memories in the Patriarchal Narratives
Authors: Hendel Ronald
Published: February 2006

The historical background of the patriarchal narratives has been much contested in modern scholarship. Among the authentic historical details advanced by scholars, three bodies of data have a strong claim to historical antiquity: the antiquity of the traditions about Abraham, the pre-Israelite worship of El, and the memory of an Amorite homeland.
The Archaeology of Memory
Authors: Hendel Ronald
Published: February 2006

This chapter investigates the interplay of cultural memory, historical realities, and narrative technique in the portrayal of Solomon and his kingdom. Of particular concern are the narratives of Solomon’s rise to power in 1 Kings 2 and his building activity in 1 Kings 9. Royal ideology and political controversy are keys to uncovering the relation between the historical Solomon and his biblical representation.
The Biblical Sense of the Past
Authors: Hendel Ronald
Published: February 2006

The distinctive features of the biblical sense of history may be illuminated by comparison with classical Greek and ancient Near Eastern concepts. The biblical view includes features of what we call myth, epic, and history. A useful category is “genealogical time,” in which the past provides a foundation, a model, and continuous connection to the present and future.
Introduction
Authors: Berkowitz Beth A.
Published: February 2006

This chapter introduces the book’s thesis that death penalty discourse helped both Rabbis and Christians to invent themselves in the first centuries of the common era. It reviews recent historiography of the early rabbinic movement, presents the book’s approach to reading rabbinic literature, and surveys the culture-critical concerns at the heart of the book: the politics of punishment, the politics of ritual, and the politics of imperialism. It addresses questions readers may bring to the subject, such as the historical reality of Jewish execution in antiquity, and the question of whether the classical Rabbis were for or against the death penalty. It also gives the plan of the book and describes the texts that the book will analyze.
Ritualization and Redemption
Authors: Berkowitz Beth A.
Published: February 2006

This chapter looks at the laws of rabbinic criminal execution as a ritual narrative and interprets that ritual, paying close attention to the way it constructs space and speech. It shows that the geography of the ritual dramatizes the connection between the rabbinic judges and the power of execution, while ensuring that the two entities remain distinct. It argues that the Mishnah’s ritual of execution makes claims that go well beyond the condemned criminal — the ritual claims for the Rabbis the power to redeem all Jews from sin and to establish for every individual a place in the world to come. It draws upon parallel rituals of execution: medieval, modern, and contemporary.
Paradoxes of Power
Authors: Berkowitz Beth A.
Published: February 2006

This chapter explores the relationship between rabbinic execution and Roman execution, asking how the rabbinic experience of Roman execution may have shaped the Rabbis’ own laws of execution. It focuses on a text from the Mishnah and Tosefta that features a dispute about the proper method of decapitation according to rabbinic law. It suggests that the barely concealed subtext of this dispute is whether rabbinic power should model itself on Roman power, or reject it entirely. It then considers whether other rabbinic laws of execution may be driven by the same concern. The chapter concludes with some reflections on the quandaries the Rabbis faced as a minority group within the Roman Empire.
The Caring Person
Authors: Held Virginia
Published: February 2006

In traditional virtue ethics, attention has not been paid to caring as one of the virtues. This chapter argues that although it is virtuous to be caring, the caring person not only has the right motive or disposition, but also participates adeptly in activities of care and in cultivating caring relations. Caring relations require responsiveness to need, sensitivity, empathy, and trust. It is characteristic of the ethics of care to see persons as relational, yet capable of autonomy.
Liberalism and the Ethics of Care
Authors: Held Virginia
Published: February 2006

This chapter contrasts the assumptions and implications of the ethics of care with those of traditional liberal individualism, and defends the ethics of care against liberal critiques. It examines the deficiencies of liberalism as a comprehensive morality. It argues for caring relations between fellow human beings as the wider network within which we can agree to treat persons as if they were liberal individuals for the limited purposes of legal and political interactions.
Caring Relations and Principles of Justice
Authors: Held Virginia
Published: February 2006

This chapter continues the discussion on universalizability in moral theory. It defends the ethics of care against the presumed requirement of dominant moral theories that universal principles of impartiality and reason must always be accorded priority over partial attachments. It defends the ethics of care against feminist critiques that hold that it attends insufficiently to equality for women. It suggests that the model of morality based on impartial justice and liberal individualism is persuasive only for limited legal and political contexts.
Civil Society, Rights, and the Presumption of Care
Authors: Held Virginia
Published: February 2006

This chapter shows how respecting the rights recognized as important presupposes that persons are sufficiently interconnected to care whether rights are respected. Community and shared identity are considered. The chapter considers how civil society can be understood in terms of caring relations, and explores what a caring society might be like.
Power, Care, and the Reach of Law
Authors: Held Virginia
Published: February 2006

Feminist critiques and reformulations of rights are examined. Arguments are made for limiting the reach of law and legalistic thinking, rather than imagining that law is the suitable model for all thinking about morality. The chapter explains how the ethics of care has the resources for dealing with power and violence, and should not be built on idealized images of family peace and harmony.
Care and Justice in the Global Context
Authors: Held Virginia
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines various assumptions made in thinking about international relations, and various effects of globalization in political economy. It explores the implications of the ethics of care for relations between states, and for the possibilities of global civil society. It suggests how the ethics of care offers promise beyond that found in theories of justice.
Farm, Land, Church
Authors: Peterson Anna L.
Published: February 2006

This chapter describes the religious, social, and environmental practices of Old Order Amish communities in the midwestern United States, focusing on the communities around Holmes County, Ohio. It looks at the sustainability of Amish agricultural practices, the relations between social and environmental ethics in the Anabaptist tradition, and the ways that religious ethics are translated into practical guidelines for everyday life.
Promised Land
Authors: Peterson Anna L.
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines rural social movements in El Salvador from the first rural social movements and peasant federations of the 1960s, through the civil war of the 1980s, and into post-war social and political life in rural areas today. It focuses on the movement to repopulate war-torn rural areas and the effort to transform economic and political institutions, reform agricultural practices and land tenure, practice environmental restoration, and create models of a “new society” based on progressive Catholic values.
The Goddess Lives in Upstate New York
Authors: Dempsey Corinne G.
Published: February 2006

This book is a portrayal of a flourishing Hindu temple in the town of Rush, New York, dedicated to the great south Indian goddess Rājarājeśwarī. Guided by an exuberant Sri Lankan guru known as Aiya, temple practitioners embrace yet definitively break with tradition. Known for its ritual precision and extravagance, the temple and its guru defy convention by training and encouraging non-brahmans and women to publicly perform priestly roles, and by teaching the secrets of Śrīvidyā, a highly exclusive Tantric tradition. Weaving together traditional South Asian tales, temple miracle accounts, and devotional testimonials, the book is organized into three parts reflecting various intersecting worldviews, traditions, and landscapes with which temple practices and participants contend. The book’s first part explores the temple’s emphasis on ritual performance and potency, and the resulting collisions between miraculous and mundane worldviews as experienced and understood by Aiya, temple participants, and the ethnographer-author. Part two explores how Aiya and his students deftly balance convention with non-convention, breaking rules of orthodoxy that make room for leadership and learning, and providing possibilities otherwise unavailable in traditional temple settings. Part three explores the diaspora condition as experienced within the Rush temple context. It chronicles the joys and challenges of negotiating domestic and foreign traditions, and the effects this has on human and divine participants, temple rituals, and the temple terrain itself. In sum, the book argues that in a setting where science illuminates the sacred, where traditional religious practices allow for breaking with the same, and where foreign terrain becomes home turf, the Goddess not only lives, she thrives.
Temple Entryways
Authors: Dempsey Corinne G.
Published: February 2006

This chapter introduces the reader to the rich ritual life at the Rush temple featuring, in particular, the practice of honoring the goddess and other deities by invoking their presence and making offerings into a homam fire. Also featured are the purported effects of ritual and internal discipline on the body involving such concepts as kundalini power and cakra points. In the process of describing the features and anticipated effects of external and internal rituals, this chapter also chronicles the author’s shifting engagement with temple participants, practices, and theologies, something she describes as being both within and outside her cognitive control. Implicit in this chapter is thus an evaluation of the challenges presented by ethnography performed within religious contexts.
Perspectives on Ritual Power
Authors: Dempsey Corinne G.
Published: February 2006

This chapter recounts some of the Rush temple’s conceptions of and rationales behind its dedication to ritual performance. In contrast to most North American Hindu temples that typically downplay the role of ritual power, the Rush temple, informed by its Śrīvidyā tantric tradition, enthusiastically embraces, analyzes, and celebrates it. How Śrīvidyā’s understandings of ritual performances and bodily practices assume an interrelationship between humanity and divinity, body and ritual, and, somewhat related to this, between science and the sacred are explored. Aiya, the temple guru whose own guru was a nuclear physicist, uses scientific terminology to explain the mechanics of ritual efficacy based on the sacred diagram (yantra) that lies beneath each main temple statue (mūrti). He also describes temple teachings in which human faith, focus, and discipline are essential to ritual effectiveness.
Maverick Guru with a Cause
Authors: Dempsey Corinne G.
Published: February 2006

This chapter begins with a religious autobiography as recounted by Aiya, the temple guru, beginning with his dramatic conversion from teenage atheist to religious enthusiast. It chronicles his insistent attempts to gain religious knowledge in spite of impediments due to his caste status as non-brahman. It explores the rationale behind the Śrīvidyā tradition’s close guarding of its secrets, keeping them off-limits to all but a select few. It describes how Aiya, once firmly entrenched within the Śrīvidyā path — thanks to his own maverick guru — becomes a different kind of nuisance to the status quo when he, at the request of his guru, enthusiastically propagates an otherwise exclusive tradition. Aiya’s unconventional approach succeeds not only because of his guru’s endorsement but, ironically, because of the respect he earns by running a temple dedicated to orthodoxy in ritual performance. This chapter also describes the ambivalent responses Aiya has received from upholders of religious orthodoxy in both North America and India.
Expanding Turf for Racial and Religious Others
Authors: Dempsey Corinne G.
Published: February 2006

This chapter highlights some of the ups and downs of converging ethnicities and religions as experienced by temple participants and Rush community members, and contextualizes this discussion by offering background information on the history of South Asian immigration to North America. It begins by describing childhood encounters with racism and intolerance as related by second-generation South Asian temple members, and includes European American accounts of religious exclusion while in India. Also recounted are temple neighbors’ perceptions of and reactions to a Hindu temple moving next door. The chapter ends with theologies built upon the realities of religious pluralism espoused by Aiya and temple devotees. Aiya’s favorite pluralism story involving a miraculous cure attributed to Padre Pio, a recently canonized Catholic saint, is presented.
What Is Moral Epistemology?
Authors: Sinnott-Armstrong Walter
Published: February 2006

This chapter locates moral epistemology within general moral theory, introduces the central questions of moral epistemology, and then distinguishes several versions of moral skepticism. It ends with a discussion of whether there is a presumption against moral skepticism which places the burden of proof on moral skeptics.
Are Moral Beliefs Truth‐Apt?
Authors: Sinnott-Armstrong Walter
Published: February 2006

This chapter discusses expressivism as a form of moral skepticism that denies the truth-aptness of moral beliefs and judgments. It focuses on whether expressivists can solve the problem of embedding (also known as the Frege problem) by allowing that some moral beliefs have a minimal kind of truth, and whether expressivists can account for the apparent objectivity of moral beliefs. It concludes that if expressivists succeed in mimicking all apparently realistic moral language, then expressivism does not really matter to moral epistemology.
Are Any Moral Beliefs True?
Authors: Sinnott-Armstrong Walter
Published: February 2006

This chapter explores moral nihilism and error theories, which hold that moral beliefs are truth-apt but never true. Arguments for such views from relativity, evolution, and epistemological, psychological, and metaphysical queerness are all explained and critically assessed. The logical and semantic coherence of moral nihilism is then defended. The result is that moral nihilism is far from proven, but remains a serious contender in moral epistemology.
In Contrast with What?
Authors: Sinnott-Armstrong Walter
Published: February 2006

This chapter develops a contrastivist account of justified belief in general, not only within morality. It argues that contrary to contextualism, no contrast class is ever really the relevant one, even in a given context. The result is a general theory of epistemology called “classy Pyrrhonian skepticism,” that is compatible with the moderate skeptical claim that some beliefs are justified out of a modest contrast class, but none is justified out of an unlimited or extreme contrast class.
Naturalism
Authors: Sinnott-Armstrong Walter
Published: February 2006

This chapter surveys traditional responses to the skeptical regress problem for justified moral belief. It looks at naturalism, which attempts to derive “ought” from “is” or, more precisely, to formulate a deductively valid argument from non-normative premises to a moral conclusion. An example from Nelson is discussed, and it is shown that this argument, though logically valid, cannot be used to solve the skeptical regress problem.
Intuitionism
Authors: Sinnott-Armstrong Walter
Published: February 2006

This chapter criticizes moral intuitionism, which claims that some moral beliefs are justified independently of any ability to infer them from other beliefs. It defines moral intuitionism, and argues that beliefs need confirmation when they are partial, controversial, emotional, or formed in circumstances that are conducive to illusion or unreliability. Empirical research is cited to show that moral beliefs are subject to these problems and, hence, need confirmation by some inference, so moral intuitionism cannot solve the skeptical regress problem.
Interchangeable Parts and Mass Production
Authors: Ruttan Vernon W.
Published: February 2006

Economic historians have characterized the American system of manufacturing, or more appropriately the New England armory system, as the assembly of complex products produced from individual interchangeable parts. Its first important application was the manufacture of firearms at the U.S. army armories in Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and Springfield, Massachusetts. During the second half of the 19th century, “armory practice” spread to other branches of manufacturing, such as sewing machine and bicycle manufacture and, in the early twentieth century, to the “Fordist system” of mass production of automobiles.
Military and Commercial Aircraft
Authors: Ruttan Vernon W.
Published: February 2006

The aircraft industry was unique among modern U.S. manufacturing industries in that a government research and development organization, the National Committee on Aeronautics (NACA), was established prior to U.S. entry into World War I to conduct research on military and commercial aircraft technology and design. NACA made a series of economically important technical and scientific contributions prior to its absorption into the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) in 1958. Demand for military aircraft during the two world wars played an important role in the development of the aircraft industry and in the transition from the piston-propeller to jet aircraft propulsion system after World War II. The development of a mature commercial jet aircraft technology, epitomized by the Boeing 747 wide-bodied jet, was derivative of a series of military contacts for the design and production by Boeing of a series of military transports.
Nuclear Energy and Electric Power
Authors: Ruttan Vernon W.
Published: February 2006

Nuclear power is an example of a technology that, in the absence of military and defense-related research, development, and procurement, would not have been developed at all. The demonstration of controlled nuclear fission at the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field on December 2, 1942 initiated a chain of events that led to the development of the atomic bomb and nuclear power. The design of the first nuclear power reactor, located at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, was adapted from nuclear reactors developed to power nuclear submarines. Premature commitment to light water reactor technology appears, in retrospect, to have been a source of failure of the nuclear power industry to realize the promise it appeared to have in the 1950s. It is possible that during the first half of the 21st century, nuclear power will be able to make a significant contribution to meeting the growth in demand for electric power; by substituting for carbon-based fuels, it may also contribute to slowing the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
The Computer Industry
Authors: Ruttan Vernon W.
Published: February 2006

The first all-purpose digital computer, completed in 1946, was developed by John W. Mauchly and J. Prosper Eckert, and associates at the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering, with funding from the U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory. The first working transistor emerged from the solid state research program at Bell Laboratories led by William Schokley, John Bardeen, and Walter Brattain. The transition between initial development of the transistor and the subsequent development of military and commercial application in the 1950s were substantially funded by the Army Signal Corps. Intensification of the Cold War in the early 1950s provided the impetus for IBM to develop a fully transistorized computer for commercial use. Development of the integrated circuit at Texas Instruments in the late 1950s and of the microprocessor at Intel in the late 1960s set the stage for the development of both modern supercomputers and the personal computer.
Inventing the Internet
Authors: Ruttan Vernon W.
Published: February 2006

The development of the Internet involved the transformation of a computer network that was initially established in the late 1960s by the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) of the Department of Defense, to enable defense industry and university contractors to communicate with each other and with ARPA more effectively. Realization of this objective was demonstrated at the First International Conference on Computer Communication in October 1972. Important advances in hardware, software, and application were required not only to enable communication among individual computers, but to facilitate communication between different computer networks. It was not until the early 1980s, however, that cooperation between ARPA and the National Science Foundation opened up access to the Internet to the wider non-profit and university communities. Although the network was transferred to civilian control in 1983, full privatization of the Internet was not achieved until the early 1990s.
The Beauty and the Scandal of the Cross
Authors: Viladesau Richard
Published: February 2006

Christianity has always had an “aesthetic” theology: an understanding of faith that is truly reflective but whose reflection is embodied in artistic modes of thinking and communicating. This more primary aesthetic theology is important as a source of the faith tradition and as a parallel reflection on it. The historical relationship between the aesthetic and conceptual mediations of theology is complex: Christian art has frequently functioned as an illustration of dogma, but it is also an independent mode of understanding that goes beyond doctrinal formulations and is sometimes in tension with them. The cross provides a particularly fruitful subject for the study of this relationship. As the central symbol of Christianity, it embodies the paradox of the scandal of Christ’s ignominious death becoming a locus of beauty. This study compares classic paradigms of conceptual theology with styles of Christian art.
Nominalism, Naturalism, and the Intensification of Passion Piety
Authors: Viladesau Richard
Published: February 2006

The fresco of the crucifixion by Giotto in the Arena chapel represents the beginning of naturalism in Western painting. The theology of the cross during this period shows the increasing influence of the philosophy of the nominalism of William of Ockham and his followers. The separation of faith from reason, combined with incipient artistic naturalism and the religious pessimism that followed the great Plague, contributed to a new emphasis on the sufferings and wounds of Christ, which dramatically expressed the consequences of human sin. This was expressed artistically in expanded and emotional treatments of the crucifixion in drama (the passion plays), as well as new images like the pietà, that stressed compunction with Mary.
Free Will and Luck
Authors: Mele Alfred R.
Published: February 2006

This book aims to help readers think more clearly about free will. It identifies and makes vivid the most important conceptual obstacles to the justified belief in the existence of free will, and meets them head on. It also clarifies the central concepts in the philosophical debate about free will and moral responsibility, criticizes various influential contemporary theories about free will, and develops two overlapping conceptions of free will: one for readers who are convinced that free will is incompatible with determinism (incompatibilists), and another for readers who are convinced of the opposite (compatibilists). Luck poses problems for all believers in free will, and this book offers novel solutions. One chapter explains influential neuroscientific studies of free will, and debunks some extravagant interpretations of the data. Other featured topics include abilities and alternative possibilities, control and decision-making, the bearing of manipulation on free will, and the development of human infants into free agents.
Introduction
Authors: Mele Alfred R.
Published: February 2006

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the book, defines some key terms, makes salient a serious problem luck poses for libertarianism (the conjunction of incompatibilism and belief in free will), and provides background on the following topics: the expression “free will,” the nature of decision, the timing of actions, and agents’ abilities.
Libertarianism, Luck, and Control
Authors: Mele Alfred R.
Published: February 2006

This chapter critically examines recent work on free will and moral responsibility by Randolph Clarke, Robert Kane, and Timothy O’Connor, in an attempt to clarify issues about control and luck that are central to the debate between libertarians (agent causationists and others) and their critics. It is argued that present luck, that is, luck at the time of action, poses an as yet unresolved problem for libertarianism.
Frankfurt‐style Cases, Luck, and Soft Libertarianism
Authors: Mele Alfred R.
Published: February 2006

This chapter clarifies principles of alternative possibilities both for moral responsibility and for free action, locates the most important challenge that Frankfurt-style cases pose for libertarianism, and begins to develop an answer to that challenge.
A Daring Soft Libertarian Response to Present Luck
Authors: Mele Alfred R.
Published: February 2006

This chapter constructs a libertarian view that grants the main moral of Frankfurt-style cases, and offers a resolution of the problem of present luck. Attention to how human beings may develop from neonates who do not even act intentionally into free, morally responsible human agents proves instructive in developing the resolution.
Compatibilism
Authors: Mele Alfred R.
Published: February 2006

This chapter develops compatibilist replies to the most popular styles of argument for incompatibilism (consequence-style arguments and manipulation arguments), and concludes that these arguments leave compatibilism in the running. Differences among various kinds of compatibilism, including semicompatibilism, are examined.
My Compatibilist Proposal
Authors: Mele Alfred R.
Published: February 2006

This chapter defends a history-sensitive compatibilist view of free action and moral responsibility against various criticisms by compatibilists (including Daniel Dennett). It constructs a new argument for incompatibilism that makes vivid a problem that luck poses for compatibilism: the zygote argument. It is argued that the zygote argument is much more powerful than more familiar arguments for incompatibilism, and that, even so, compatibilism may survive the attack.
The Prehistoric Roots of the Modern Mind
Authors: Tremlin Todd
Published: February 2006

This chapter explains why the process of human evolution is crucial to understanding the structures and functions of the modern human mind. Tracing hominid development up to the appearance of Homo sapiens, the chapter explores some of the selective pressures faced in our ancestral past, and the cognitive adaptations that gave rise to human intelligence. It shows how the ultimate success of Homo sapiens was the result of mental mechanisms (e.g., theory of mind, social intelligence, and language) that fitted humans to the “cognitive niche” — an adaptive space characterized by the gathering and strategic use of information — and that remain the hallmarks of human thought and behavior today.
Minds, Other Minds, and the Minds of Gods
Authors: Tremlin Todd
Published: February 2006

This chapter examines some evolved mental mechanisms that play key roles in the representation of god concepts. The incorrigible operation of an Agency Detection Device (ADD) and a Theory of Mind Mechanism (ToMM) helps explain why people naturally entertain religious ideas. God concepts are parasitic on mental mechanisms designed for different though functionally related purposes. The study of these and other predispositions of thought also reveal what, from a cognitive perspective, “gods” really are — easily anthropomorphized thinking intentional agents. The real attributes of gods align with the mind’s intuitive knowledge bases and the natural inferences they produce rather than with the abstract, theological attributes taught in religious doctrine. At the same time, the counterintuitive properties of god concepts account for their widespread transmission.
Cognition and Religious Systems
Authors: Tremlin Todd
Published: February 2006

Religious people and their religions are not always harmonized. Scholars have long noted two faces of religious practice, one corresponding to an “official” set of beliefs and actions taught in texts, maintained by institutions, and communicated by specialists; the other is a “folk” form of religion pursued by ordinary people in everyday life. This chapter applies a dual-process model of cognition to the problem of “divergent religion,” arguing that how religious people think and act is directly linked to the way the brain processes religious concepts. Evidence drawn from social psychology and comparative religion suggests that religious concepts can proceed along two contrasting mental pathways to differing affect. This account of cognitive processing provides a new way of understanding duplicitous forms of religious thought, explaining common episodes of religious change (e.g., doctrinal and ritual innovation, syncretism, conversion, and the formation of new religions), and mapping an important set of selective forces at work on the content and stability of religious systems. Pentecostal Christianity and Theravada Buddhism provide case studies.
Corporate Disclosure Diversity: A Comparative Assessment
Authors: Benston George J. , Bromwich Michael , Litan Robert E. , Wagenhofer Alfred
Published: February 2006

While there are substantial differences in the regulatory regimes, cultures, economic history, nature of government, and institutions among the countries surveyed in the book, these countries have also faced common problems. This chapter provides a comparative assessment of how differences in some of these factors have affected accounting, auditing, and corporate governance. It shows that diversity in financial reports prevails worldwide, and discusses various ways used by companies and users of financial reports to cope with this diversity. The appendix illustrates accounting diversity by describing crucial differences among international financial rules and standards (IFRSs) and national standards, in particular, U.S. generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).
Global Financial Reporting Standards: Their Establishment and Enforcement
Authors: Benston George J. , Bromwich Michael , Litan Robert E. , Wagenhofer Alfred
Published: February 2006

Standard setters are attempting to structure a single set of global accounting standards. This chapter examines the costs and benefits of such convergence and finds that it is not a viable solution. It outlines a system of “constrained competition” in standards, within which a small set of high-quality standards would offer the most feasible and flexible setting that would cope with increasingly global capital markets. Three alternatives of such competition — among countries, between exchanges, and competition at the firm level — are outlined and discussed. The chapter also discusses harmonization of audit oversight and enforcement worldwide, and stresses that quality assurance is more important than the convergence of accounting standards.
Summing Up and Charting a Future for Standard Setters
Authors: Benston George J. , Bromwich Michael , Litan Robert E. , Wagenhofer Alfred
Published: February 2006

This chapter reiterates the major themes of the book and then further discusses a number of current key issues in financial reporting: that “fair values” based on estimates are unlikely to be seen as trustworthy and may be difficult, if not impossible, to verify; that financial reports can never provide all the information necessary for entity valuation; and that national differences in accounting requirements mean that any global set of accounting standards is likely to fragment in use. It suggests that a better approach is to entertain a small set of competitive international accounting standard regimes.
Marius Victorinus' Commentary on Galatians
Authors: Cooper Stephen Andrew
Published: February 2006

Marius Victorinus, the first Latin commentator on the Pauline epistles, has generally been considered out of the mainstream of fourth century Latin Christianity. This judgment is largely due to two factors: the dominant place of Neoplatonism in his Christian writings; and Jerome’s scornful remarks on Victorinus as an expert in profane authors who had the temerity to take upon himself the task of commenting on the Bible. This opinion does not do justice to the author or his exegetical work. This book, the first full-length study in English of Marius Victorinus the biblical exegete, presents the first English translation of his commentary on Galatians. An extensive introduction situates Victorinus within the historical and theological setting of the Roman church c. 350-365, and treats the disputed issues pertaining to his work as a biblical commentator. Despite Victorinus’ deep immersion in the world of late Roman rhetoric and philosophy, his commentaries on Paul are very much the work of the churchmen. This confirms the impression made by his better-known Trinitarian treatises: that his conversion to Christianity brought him into the church as a public intellectual eager to address both internal disputes (the Trinitarian Controversy; Judaizing) and the criticisms of an increasingly embattled paganism. Victorinus’ works on Paul are shown to have provided an important precedent for later Latin commentators like Ambrosiaster and Augustine, who followed Victorinus in adapting the literary-critical techniques of the Latin schools of grammar and rhetoric. Victorinus was indeed the initiator of the ‘rediscovery of the apostle Paul’ in the Latin church. This study of his commentary on Galatians shows the late antique rhetor to have undertaken a commentary on the Pauline corpus with a view to providing an intermediate-level introduction to the essentials of Christianity, encompassing both doctrine and moral life. It is argued that this schema parallels the graded approach to philosophical paideia favored by contemporary Neoplatonic schools. Victorinus chose the Pauline corpus as an object of commentary because this portion of the New Testament offered the best vehicle for promoting orthodoxy and orthopraxy in the church.
2 The Life and Times of Marius Victorinus
Authors: Cooper Stephen Andrew
Published: February 2006

This chapter discusses the ancient testimonia to Victorinus, and reconstructs a probable vita of Victorinus. A professor of rhetoric at Rome who authored important school-treatises, and a translator of Neoplatonic writings (the libri Platonicorum mentioned by Augustine) and Aristotelian works, Victorinus was a significant late Roman academic whose secular works had an influence in his own time and on Boethius, as well as later medieval scholasticism. The events of the Trinitarian Controversy at Rome during the reign of Constantius II are examined to situate Victorinus in this milieu. After converting to Christianity c. 355, Victorinus continued teaching rhetoric until the Emperor Julian’s school-law of 362 interdicted Christians from holding state professorial posts. The anti-Christian initiatives undertaken by Julian, as well as earlier anti-Christian polemics, may have contributed to Victorinus’ agenda as he began to write his commentaries on Paul, probably not earlier than late 363.
3 The Apostle Paul in Fourth‐Century Roman Art
Authors: Cooper Stephen Andrew
Published: February 2006

This chapter traces the development of the first hundred years of Pauline iconography in all media (sarcophagi, catacomb frescos, church mosaics, small objets d ’art). Particular attention is paid to the variety of ternary scenes featuring the apostles Peter and Paul flanking Christ. The various depictions of Christ (denominated Christus magister and traditio legis) in the scenes with his chief apostles are correlated to the verbal portraits of Paul, and his relation to Christ evident in the early commentaries on the Pauline epistles. Victorinus presents Paul as a direct recipient of Christ’s revelation, and thus as a prime authority in matter of both doctrine and morals; such an understanding of Paul is also suggested by the depictions of Christ with Paul which become common after the mid-point of the fourth century. The development of both Pauline iconography and commentary on the epistles in Rome are shown to be part of the popular piety arising around the various Roman sites claiming the relics of the chief apostles.
6 Influence of Victorinus' Commentaries on Later Latin Exegetes
Authors: Cooper Stephen Andrew
Published: February 2006

This chapter attempts to resolve the question concerning which of the later Latin commentators of the fourth and early fifth century had read Victorinus on Paul. The claim of Harnack that Augustine’s Paulinism was influenced by Victorinus, largely rejected but now maintained by recent scholars again, is sustained by a comparative analysis of the commentaries of Victorinus and Augustine on Galatians. The influence of Victorinus on Ambrosiaster is also apparent and more strongly supported than the case for his influence on Augustine. Jerome is likely to have read Victorinus’ commentary on Galatians, since he argues against the latter’s exegesis of Gal. 2: 11-14. Of the fifteen passages from Galatians discussed in the comparative analysis, twelve suggest the influence of Victorinus on Ambrosiaster and eleven indicate Augustine’s reading of Victorinus’ commentaries. The history of scholarship on this issue is fully discussed.
The Introductory Puzzles
Authors: Coope Ursula
Published: February 2006

Aristotle raises three introductory puzzles (aporiai) about time. The first two are arguments that time cannot be something that is, since it is divisible into the past (which is no longer), and the future (which is not yet). The third puzzle is an argument that the now cannot always be different, but also cannot always be the same. This chapter suggests that Aristotle can answer the first two puzzles by appealing to his view of the way in which time depends upon change. His response to the third puzzle depends upon his view that a now only exists insofar as it is marked out in some way.
The Before and After
Authors: Coope Ursula
Published: February 2006

This chapter explains Aristotle’s notions of the before and after in time, in change, and in place. Aristotle says that the before and after is first of all in place; the before and after in change depends in some way on the before and after in place, and the before and after in time depends on the before and after in change. It argues that the before and after in change depends on the before and after in place because of an analogy between change and magnitude, whereas the before and after in time depends on the before and after in change in a different way (that stems from the fact that time follows change). This provides an answer to the objection (made by philosophers such as Owen) that Aristotle’s account of the before and after in time is circular.
The Definition of Time as a Kind of Number
Authors: Coope Ursula
Published: February 2006

This chapter explains Aristotle’s definition of time. He defines time as a kind of number of change. It is argued that when he says that time is a number, he means that it is what we count when we count nows in a certain way. In defining time as a kind of number, he is saying that it is essentially a kind of order, not (as is often supposed) that it is essentially measurable. It is argued that when he says that time is a number that it is countable and not a number with which we count, he is saying that time, though a number of a sort, is not a discrete plurality (and hence, not a number that could be used to count things). If ‘number’ is understood in the way that is suggested, then the claim that time is a number is compatible with the claim that time is continuous.