bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Kahn on the Pre-Middle Platonic Dialogues
Authors: Mcpherran Mark L
Published: November 2023

Professor Charles Kahn has recently argued that, contrary to the traditional consensus, the Gorgias is (in all probability) prior to the Protagoras in composition. But Kahn does not limit himself to a defence of this one chronological thesis. He also attempts to show how that thesis contributes to his broader project of offering a revisionist ordering and interpretation of the entire set of Plato's pre-middle dialogues (p. 69).
Passing on the Torch: Whewell’s Philosophy and the Principles of English University Education
Authors: Williams Perry
Published: November 2023

As Master of Trinity College, William Whewell was the most powerful person in the University of Cambridge at a time when university education was a major political issue. The industrialization and commercial expansion of the early nineteenth century had elevated new groups to rival the old established rulers of society: Dissenters challenged the Church of England, manufacturers challenged the landed gentry, radicals challenged the traditional politics of Whigs and Tories; and in these battles, the universities were disputed territory. People now thought of universities as having a national role, as institutions which might help to create (or preserve) the form of society they wanted to see; thus their struggle for different forms of society became also a struggle for different forms of university education. Whewell was a strong contender in this struggle, and this chapter will be about the form of education which he thought a university should supply, the role which he believed universities played in creating a nation’s future, and the effect on society he was trying to produce through his influence at the University of Cambridge.
Antithetical Knowledge
Authors: Fisch Menachem
Published: November 2023

As we have seen, Whewell’s Philosophy of 1840 was the culmination of a process of intense philosophical deliberation that spanned the best part of the two decades prior to its publication. In its finished form the Philosophy did not recapitulate the process of its formation, but rather (and typical of the outcome of a Whewellian investigation) argued back down, in semi-deductive fashion, from what one might term axioms of the Fundamental Idea of antithetical knowledge, to a detailed account of the emergence, the structure, and the nature of truth of a well-formed inductive science. In the Philosophy Whewell had accomplished what he had initially set out to achieve, namely, an empirically grounded and unitary theory of the emergence of antithetically structured science. He had attempted to put the theory to test, in part at least, in the History (neglecting, however, to update the work in the light of subsequent philosophical findings) and seems to have been largely satisfied with the results. No doubt the Philosophy was put together all too hastily, and, as Todhunter complained,2 its overall set-up left much to be desired. Nevertheless, the two subsequent editions of the work and the long and varied list of Whewell’s successive philosophical writings left the basic system of the Philosophy virtually intact. Whewell evidently felt no need to further schematize or modify the Philosophy after 1840. In the third edition of 1858-60 the work was taken apart at its natural seams and was republished in the form of three separate works; a conceptual history of the sciences entitled The History of Scientific Ideas (1858); a critical history of the philosophy of science entitled On the Philosophy of Discovery (1860); and Whewell’s own philosophical system tellingly dubbed Novum OrganumRenovatum (1858). However, nothing of importance was changed or added to the original philosophical system.
The Puzzle
Authors: Gibbard Allan
Published: November 2023

Why ponder our lives? At one extreme, the question is not a live one. We are a pondering species-and not each by himself; we are conversants. Silence is a discipline; too much is torment, as children learn in school. Sometimes we discuss earnestly, and in any case we banter and tease, quarrel and sulk. We gossip and tell stories, with verve if we can. Do these things engage us because they have point? Are they ways of working matters through with each other, or playing them through? Even when we are not pondering outright, we are caught up in equivalents.
Normative Psychology
Authors: Gibbard Allan
Published: November 2023

The analyses of the last chapter were incomplete. In that chapter, I analyzed two concepts central to ethical theory: a person’s being to blame for an act, and an act’s being wrong in the subjective sense. I put these analyses, though, in terms of another notion that I left unexplained-in terms of “accepting norms”. Not that I was entirely silent on the nature of norms; I did, after all, broach various claims. All norms, I suggested, are primarily norms of rationality: norms for what it “makes sense” to do, to believe, to feel, and the like. What it means to call something “rational” is to be understood in terms of what it is to think or believe it rational, and to think something rational is to accept norms that permit it. Missing, though, was any real attempt to explain what it means for a person to accept norms.
Natural Representation
Authors: Gibbard Allan
Published: November 2023

Part II of this book copes with two pieces of neglected business. The first is meanings; the second is emotions. Both emotions and meaningful thoughts are topics in psychology, and so both fit under one rubric: how to conceive aspects of the human psyche as parts of nature. In both discussions, nature is Darwinian. Beyond that, do not look for great thematic connections. First, then, to meaning, and start with a quick review.
Parochial Judgment
Authors: Gibbard Allan
Published: November 2023

A speaker who calls something ‘rational’ exerts a conversational pressure; he issues a conversational demand. He demands, in effect, that what he says be accepted. In the last chapter I introduced these conversational demands, and I explored them from the standpoint of the hearer. Should a hearer ever accede to such a demand? Some cases were unproblematical; sometimes the only authority claimed is con textual. In some cases, though, claims to authority go beyond all con textual rationale. The speaker relies on more than the norms the hearer already accepts. Even then, I argued, it may make sense to accede to the speaker’s demands-to a degree, and with discrimination. Even with a rational audience, conversational demands need not be quixotic.
Rationale and Warrant
Authors: Gibbard Allan
Published: November 2023

We press each other toward coherence, and these pressures help nudge us toward consensus. We are pressed in other ways too: We need cooperation and mutual restraint, and normative discussion helps us get them. In discussion we find human fellowship. We depend on normative discussion for a sense of meaning in life. We need stability in our views of life and our surroundings.
The Dissolution of the Problem of the Elenchus
Authors: Benson Hugh H
Published: November 2023

The Socrates with whom I am concerned in this paper is the main character in Plato’s early dialogues.1 In these works Socrates converses by means of questions and answers with different interlocutors concerning the definitions of various moral concepts (e.g. virtue, justice, piety, and courage). Unfortunately, in these conversations Socrates is often ironic and the discussions frequently end inconclusively. In the past this has led many scholars to understand Socrates as merely a destructive critic, having no positive moral doctrines of his own.
The Subjecthood of Form: A Reply to Shields
Authors: Granger Herbert
Published: November 2023

Central to my dispute’ with Shields,2 Frede, and Patzig over the subjecthood of form or soul is the ambiguity I find in τó>ϵ τι. The subjecthood that they ascribe to form requires it to be what I called a ‘subject in sense (1)’, the mark of which is to be a τó>ϵ τι or a ‘this’, in contrast with what I called ‘subject in sense (2)’, the matter of the composite substance, which provides the subject of the composite’s form. Paradigmatic instances of subject in sense (1) are an animal and a man, which are concrete, particular things, what count as composite substances of matter and form. In keeping with these paradigms, Shields, Frede, and Patzig take form or soul to be a subject in the same sense as the composite substance (however they may exactly construe ‘composite substance’), and they take form to be a subject of the same sort of properties as the composite, the first-order properties of, for example, colour, size, shape, and the like. I acknowledged Aristotle’s speaking of form as a ‘subject’ in Metaphysics Z and in H , but held that subjecthood becomes useless as a criterion in Aristotle’s search for substance in the primary sense.
Semantic Structure and Logical Form*
Authors: Evans Gareth
Published: November 2023

THE validity of some inferences is to be explained by reference to the meanings of the particular expressions occurring in them, while that of other inferences is due, rather, to the way in which the sentences are constructed out of their parts. The inference from ‘John knows that snow is white’ to ‘Snow is white’ is given as an example of the first type of inference; for it is said to be explained by providing an analysis of the semantical primitive ‘knows’.
The foundations of presocratic atomism
Authors: Hasper Pieter Sjoerd
Published: November 2023

Why should one believe in the existence of atoms? Nowadays we are inclined to think that only explanatory considerations could justify such a belief; atoms are entities posited in order to explain the phenomena, such as the qualities and changes of visible objects. Of course, such explanations are part and parcel of Presocratic atomism as well, for example where Democritus ascribes certain shapes and sizes to the atoms involved in fire, the soul, or the experience of a bitter taste. But we should not forget that the atomistic theory did not come into being as the result of years of empirical research or even as a bold leap of the scientific imagination. Rather, Democritus believed in atoms because he thought he had a meta physical argument for their existence—an argument which would take into account the impressive arguments of Elea without yielding their devastating conclusions. Thus the foundations of Presocratic atomism were laid.
Proclus on Poetic Mimesis, Symbolism, and Truth
Authors: Ranoos Spyridon
Published: November 2023

The difficulty of digesting traditional myths which some Greek thinkers were facing led, so the mainstream modern argument goes, to the development of allegoresis. This method, ingenious though it appeared, was always replete with intellectual thorns.
Non-Reductive Arguments from Impossible Hypotheses in Boethius and Philoponus
Authors: Martin Christopher j.
Published: November 2023

Logjcjans in the twentieth century, like their predecessors in the twelfth, have argued with great heat over the proper account of conditional assertions, and in recent years relevantist logicians have proposed that the prevailing modal logic of the schools should be replaced with a logic which does not bring with it the so-called paradoxes of implication. In the twelfth century the debate proceeded in just the opposite direction as reJevantist theories were replaced by a general acceptance of the Parvipontanian account of the conditional as expressing what modal logicians now ca11 strict implication. Understood in this way, a conditional.is true just in case it is impossible for the conjunction of the antecedent and the contradictory of the consequent to be true.
Greek Philosophy from the Beginning to Plato
Authors: Kahn Charles h.
Published: November 2023

This is the first of ten volumes in the new Routledge  History  of  Philosophy, of which eight have now appeared. In addition to an introductory overview by the editor, Christopher Taylor, the volume consists of twelve chapters by different authors: six on the Presocratics, four on Socrates and Plato, with an initial chapter on the historical and cultural background, and one exceptional chapter which covers the early history of mathematics down to Plato. The who)e series ‘is intended not only for the specialist but also for the general reader’ (viii). The contributors to this first volume have, on the whole, succeeded in making the exposition accessible for the non-specialist, while at the same time offering an interpretation sufficiently original and we U-documented to interest and challenge the experts.
The Chronological Organization of Memory: Common Psychological Foundations for Remembering and Timing
Authors: Brown Gordon D A , Chater Nick
Published: November 2023

Time and memory are related at several different levels, many of which are explored in the present volume. In this chapter we focus on recent psychological models of human timing and human memory, show that there has recently been a clear convergence between models in these two different areas, and explore reasons for this convergence. Thus, according to many current models, memories are chronologically organized, and similar cognitive mechanisms may underpin human memory and timing behaviour.
Attributing Episodic Memory to Animals and Children
Authors: McCormack Teresa
Published: November 2023

The term ‘episodic memory’ was first introduced in the psychological literature by Tulving (1972), and has persisted despite some subsequent difficulties in defining and measuring this type of memory. It is a term that many psychologists have been reluctant to abandon, perhaps because it captures an important aspect of our common-sense understanding of memory (see Martin, Ch. 10, this volume). In this chapter, episodic memory is considered in the light of different ways in which a connection can be made between the central themes of this book (time and memory). These considerations have implications for whether or not we wish to attribute episodic memory to animals and to children.
Transcendental Arguments and Scepticism
Authors: Stern Robert
Published: November 2023

Robert Stern investigates how scepticism can be countered by using transcendental arguments concerning the necessary conditions for the possibility of experience, language, or thought. He shows that the most damaging sceptical questions concern neither the certainty of our beliefs, nor the reliability of our belief-forming methods, but rather whether we can justify our beliefs in the light of our doxastic norms. He concludes that although transcendental arguments cannot be used to resolve the first two issues, they can help us to address the issue of normative justification as raised by our belief in the existence of the external world, causal necessity, and other minds. Stern then reassesses transcendental arguments of the sort proposed by Kant in the Refutation of Idealism and the Second Analogy, by Hegel in his treatment of perception in the Phenomenology, and by Strawson in Individuals. Readable, well-informed, and original, Stern's discussion will provide a positive stimulus for further discussion of the philosophical and interpretative issues raised by this influential approach to the problem of scepticism.
Introduction
Authors: Stern Robert
Published: November 2023

All the advantages of theft over honest toil’. That is how. several years ago, someone once characterized transcendental arguments to me, reflecting a widespread conviction that there is something vaguely disreputable or even dishonest about them. This suspicion is fuelled by many sources: difficulties in giving a full definition of what a transcendental argument is and how it differs from other arguments; disappointed hopes regarding what they can really achieve; doubts about their respectability from a naturalistic perspective; a conviction that their apparent goal of refuting scepticism is one that they seem to achieve too easily; or a feeling that, when looked at in any detail, they often rest on dogmatic and unsubstantiated claims that beg too many questions to realy satisfy anyone who is not already committed to them. It is my hope that many of these understandable concerns will be addressed in what fo1lows. But it is important to see that it would be wrong to exaggerate them. It may be hard to give a brief and satisfactory definition of a transcendental argument: but examples of them are easy to recognize and are generally agreed upon without any difficulty. It may be that transcendental arguments should be viewed less optimistically than in the I 960s and 1970s, when P. F. Strawson’s powerful reading and reconstruction of Kant made them suddenly in vogue; but whilst much of the theorizing about transcendental arguments has come to an end, they still continue to be used, most recently and prominently by Hilary Putnam, Donald Davidson, and John Searle. It may be that someone committed to a strongly naturalistic programme in philosophy will be suspicious of transcendental arguments; but such suspicions are not worth much if they are merely programmatic and hardly cast doubt on transcendental arguments alone.
The Problem of the External World
Authors: Stern Robert
Published: November 2023

In this chapter, we will be considering the problem of the external world, and to what extent transcendental arguments can be used to address it. My claim will be that whilst such arguments cannot be used successfully when the problem is posed in epistemic or reliabilist terms, they have much greater force when it is put in a normativist manner. It will be shown how the failure of transcendental arguments to refute epistemic scepticism (in arguments put forward by Putnam. and the early Strawson) has Jed to the view that their only role can be to ‘silence’ scepticism, to show how (in Strawson’s words) ‘it is idle, unreal, a pretence’ 1 will argue, however, that transcendental arguments can do considerably more than this in relation to normativist justificatory scepticism over the external world. and that the latter provides an ideal target both for Kant’s Refutation of Idealism and for Hegel’s arguments in the Consciousness section of the Phenomenology of Spirit.
The Problem of Other Minds
Authors: Stern Robert
Published: November 2023

In the previous chapters, we considered a use for transcendental arguments that took as their target a form of normativist justificatory scepticism, which questions whether our belief in the external world and causal necessity can be given any basis that is sufficient (by our lights) to confer warrant upon them. In this chapter, it will again be argued that transcendental arguments can most effectively be used when the sceptical problem concerned is conceived of in justificatory, rather than epistemic, terms: that is, as showing that our beliefs about other minds are rational or warranted, rather than certain or indubitable. It will be claimed that this switch in target allows us to move from providing a truth-directed transcendental argument. to one of a more modest type, but which differs from those discussed in the previous chapters: namely, a transcendental argument that is of a concept-directed form, where it is claimed that the context in which S acquired the capacity to use a certain concept must have been of a particular kind, to make that acquisition possible. The suggestion will thus be that, in addressing the problem of other minds, this type of argument can be used as part of a modest criteriological transcendental argument strategy, in response to the justificatory sceptic on this issue.
Conclusion
Authors: Stern Robert
Published: November 2023

In one sense this book has been an experiment, to see whether, if the standard objections to transcendental arguments are taken to heart and accepted as valid, there is still anything of value in transcendental claims that are modest enough to avoid these objections. Has the experiment produced a positive result? I would like to think so, but four kinds of reason for denying this may remain, and all I can do in conclusion is spell out where and how I hope to have answered them in what has gone before.
Introduction
Authors: Preston John
Published: November 2023

In the mid-1970s one of the USA’s best-known philanthropic organizations, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, invested substantial funds in a programme designed to stimulate progress in a burgeoning cross-disciplinary study of the nature and workings of the mind: ‘cognitive science’. Although, with hindsight, it can be traced back to the 1950s, cognitive science came to public recognition (and was dubbed by the psychologist Christopher Longuet-Higgins) only in the early 1970s. It comprises a constellation of disciplines (the core members being psychology, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and neuroscience) which currently attempts to explain cognitive phenomena (thinking, reasoning, intelligence, perception, learning, understanding, belief, knowledge, memory, etc.) on the basis of hypotheses about the kinds of information-processing which support them.
Cyborgs in the Chinese Room: Boundaries Transgressed and Boundaries Blurred
Authors: Adam Alison
Published: November 2023

There is little doubt that, philosophically speaking, intentionality has aroused much passion among commentators on AI and cognition. Part of the reason for this would seem to be that it strikes right at the heart of what it is to be human, what separates us from, perhaps animals, but certainly machines. This may be why we are so reluctant to let go of the idea that intentionality is possibly the fundamental attribute which makes us human and therefore separate from that which is not human. This is part of a broader picture of the feelings towards humanity that AI stirs up. Holding onto intentionality come what may points to one of the last refuges of enlightenment thinking, the uniqueness of the human animal. I argue that John Searle’s desire to keep hold of human intentionality through all the increasingly elaborate versions of his Chinese Room thought-experiment may fruitfully be understood in this vein. I explore the implications of such a hypothesis in this chapter.
The Organizational Structure in 1989
Authors: Bradley Keith , Taylor Simon
Published: November 2023

The formal institutions of power, information, and accountability at the John Lewis Partnership have not changed significantly since the early 1950s. In this chapter they will be described and contrasted with those of a stereotypical capital-owned firm. We will also consider the form of industrial democracy on which the Partnership rests. Since 1950, the full ownership rights of the John Lewis Partnership have been vested in the John Lewis Partnership Trust Ltd, which owns all shares in the various sections of the Partnership. This company is controlled in normal circumstances by its chairman, who holds all the votes except in particular circumstances. The board comprises a deputy chairman and three trustees appointed by the Central Council, a predominantly elected body which links the individual partners and the very top of the decision-making tree.
The John Lewis Partnership and the Japanese Firm
Authors: Bradley Keith , Taylor Simon
Published: November 2023

Recent years have seen a great deal of interest in the apparently special characteristics of the Japanese firm. In fact, the very notion of the Japanese firm is somewhat misleading, since Japanese corporate practices are more diverse than Western discussions often assume. Nevertheless, there is some basis in reality for the ideal type (perhaps stereotype would be appropriate) that has fascinated Western observers. Clearly it is valuable for Western firms to ask what has enabled Japan, and increasingly other Asian states, to compete so effectively in world markets. But many business practitioners and academics have taken a counter-productive approach to this issue, turning their enquiries into a quest for the Holy Grail. The assumption seems to be that Western businesses can be invigorated by isolating, capturing and transplanting some secret ingredient of Japanese success, possibly with marginal modifications to fit local culture and circumstance.
Partnership Principles and Business: An Analysis
Authors: Bradley Keith , Taylor Simon
Published: November 2023

We turn now to a closer investigation of the John Lewis Partnership’s commercial operations, beginning with the thinking of its founder, John Spedan Lewis. Lewis explicitly rejected the notion (the so-called equity principle) that there should be an open-ended reward to capital invested in an enterprise, whereas labour received a relatively fixed reward. This chapter relates Lewis’s ideas on this point to his wider view of the world and draws connections to his theory of how to run a business successfully. We will first examine Lewis’s wider world-view as revealed in his writings and the recollections of those who knew him. This will be followed by an analysis of his rejection of the equity principle: connections will be drawn both to the fundamental debates carried on in the nineteenth century as to the proper relation between people and property, and to modern discussions of the role of share ownership in a property-owning democracy. We will then examine the application of Lewis’s more general beliefs to the problem of running a business, and in conclusion we consider the importance of the retailing context for Partnership Principles.
James Barr as Critic and Theologian
Authors: Barton John
Published: November 2023

The essays in this volume are intended not only to honour James Barr, but also to reflect the range and diversity of his own interests. He has been concerned from the beginning of his academic career with languages and linguistics— becoming one of the very greatest Semitists of our time— and with textual criticism and biblical exegesis. But equally important has been his interest in the place of the Bible (‘soundly and adequately interpreted’) within theology. And, unusually for a biblical scholar, he has also shown a strong awareness of theology as a discipline in its own right, and has resisted calls for biblical interpretation to usurp the place of theology proper. During his time in Oxford he held successively the Oriel Professorship of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture and the Regius Professorship of Hebrew— the first primarily a theological Chair, but with strong links to Oriental Studies, the second primarily in the Oriental Faculty but with a seat on the Board of the Theology Faculty, which he chaired for two years. This ‘dual citizenship’ is a perfect reflection of his many interests and skills, which are mirrored in the range of concerns found among his colleagues and former students who have contributed to this volume. All share the conviction that James Barr has made a huge and positive contribution to semitics, biblical studies, and theology.
Glosses, Interpolations, and Other Types of Scribal Additions in the Text of the Hebrew Bible
Authors: Toy Emanuel
Published: November 2023

The main topic of this paper is that of the appearance of glosses, interpolations, and other scribal additions in the textual traditions of the Old Testament. Upon investigating this topic one realizes time and again how complex the issues are, not only with regard to a definition of what actually constitutes a gloss and an interpolation, but also regarding the scribal practices as evidenced in the manuscripts. We therefore start with some definitions and a discussion of terminology, and for this purpose we have to look first at areas beyond the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible, since it is there where the terminology was first applied, especially in the realm of classical studies. The appearance of glosses in Sumerian and Akkadian sources likewise influenced the scholarship on the Hebrew Bible.
The Theological Significance of Biblical Poetry
Authors: Miller Patrick d.
Published: November 2023

In the last decade or so, vigorous and productive new efforts to characterize biblical poetry have advanced that enterprise and provided models and theories that have greatly illumined our understanding of the nature of biblical poetry. Some of these tend to be ways of perceiving the aesthetic of biblical poetry, while others are more an analysis of its linguistic character. Handbooks are now available that go far beyond the simple identification of parallelism and its breakdown into three categories of synonymous, antithetic, and synthetic. Studies of particular aspects of biblical poetry have clarified them and in some cases uncovered deeper and more complex dimensions than previously realized.
The Future of the ‘Servant Songs’: Some Reflections on the Relationship of Biblical Scholarship to its own Tradition
Authors: Barstad Hans m.
Published: November 2023

No problem of Old Testament studies, probably, has attracted the mind of the scholar to the same degree as the so- called ‘servant songs’ of Isa. 40—55. Anyone interested in this particular field of human enterprise is faced, not with hundreds, but with literally thousands of scholarly (or less scholarly!) books and articles, the total amount of which no one person can ever have any hope of digesting in a lifetime.
Historical Criticism in a ‘History-Centred Value-System’
Authors: mcintyre john
Published: November 2023

One circumstance which, more than any others, has controlled the discussion of the relation of faith to history, has been the assumption, held by both the theologians and the historical critics with whom they have been debating, that historical criticism is a single, and fairly simply identifiable, entity. Perhaps this assumption itself derives from a prior conviction that history itself is homogeneous and uniform, and that a uniform historical method can be applied to it right across the board. This assumption, it could be argued, was the common element, in the midst of their many theological differences, in the several attempts of theologians ranging from Kierkegaard to Pannenberg, to articulate the relation of faith to history. It is the task of this essay to look more closely at this assumption, to consider an alternative account of the matter; and thereafter, to examine the consequences for our understanding both of historical method and the kinds of criteria that it employs, and of theological method and its criterial options.
Influences and Sources
Authors: O’Daly Gerard
Published: November 2023

In the City of God Augustine uses a large variety of literary sources, and in a variety of ways. Some are cited in passing, others are repeatedly used; some are referred to by name, others may be inferred; in some cases, a specific use or influence is disputed by modern interpreters. In the preceding chapters ( 6-r o) several such instances have been discussed. This chapter brings together and develops observations scattered throughout those chapters, cites the specific influences, and considers the nature and scope of Augustine’s readings in earlier and contemporary authors.
Introduction
Authors: Ziesler J A
Published: November 2023

Pauline Christianity is the earliest for which we have direct documentary evidence. Despite the arrangement of books in the New Testament, the earliest gospel was written after the latest of Paul’s letters, and it is Paul who lets us into the ground floor of the early church. A church receiving a letter from him probably had no other Christian writing, and as it was far removed from Palestine and from the memories of the followers of Jesus, it probably knew little of the oral tradition of his deeds and words. It had, of course, heard the preaching of Paul or someone else, and it may have had access to the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Jewish Scriptures), but we cannot assume any more than this. In large areas of the Christian world Paul’s gospel was the only one people had heard at first, and the idea that Paul complicated an originally simple gospel of Jesus simply does not fit; in many places it would be decades before a written gospel circulated. Of course there was earlier Christianity in Palestine, but all our documentary evidence for it is later than the undisputed letters of Paul.
Paul’s Inheritance
Authors: Ziesler J A
Published: November 2023

If we are to understand Paul, we must take note of the culture and the religious traditions in which he stood. He had conceptual and linguistic equipment that his hearers took for granted, but which is strange to us. Moreover, he lived within a mixing of cultures, arising from the Macedonian conquests under Alexander the Great in the Fourth Century BC. Thereafter, the Mediterranean world was always partly Greek, whatever else it was. Yet the conquered had their revenge on the conquerors, and Greek religion, culture, and thought were infiltrated by oriental ideas and practices. This whole phenomenon is what we call Hellenism: the Greek culture of the Graeco-Roman world as a whole, not that of Greece of the classical age.
The Centrality of Jesus Christ
Authors: Ziesler J A
Published: November 2023

Paul did not become a Christian because he had come to the end of his tether as a Jew. He was a happy and zealous Jew whose new belief that Jesus was the answer to human dilemmas made him find inadequacies in the Judaism that had hitherto satisfied him. The main reason for doubting this is a particular reading of Rom. 7, especially vv. 13-24, which takes it as autobiographical and as describing the moral impotence he experienced when he tried to keep the Law. On this reading, Paul knew from the Law what he ought to do, tried to do it, and failed. Only when Christ came to him did he find escape from this impotence and enter new life (v. 25). Throughout the passage, from v. 7, the occurrence of ‘I’ makes it natural to take it all autobiographically, so why not? It is quite uncertain whether Rom. 7: 13-24 describes divided life as a Christian, as a Jew, or as Jew from a Christian vantage point, but we may concede that the last rather than the first is the most likely. The logic of the letter suggests that in Chap. 7 he is talking about one of the things from which people are delivered by Christ, and it is difficult to suppose that he thinks Christians are as impotent and imprisoned by sinfulness as the chapter depicts. Granted this, however, it does not follow that he is talking about himself in particular or about how life under the Law seemed at the time.
Christ and his People
Authors: Ziesler J A
Published: November 2023

Paul’s understanding of Christ is not merely individualistic. Rather, Christ is the centre of a new people which is also an old people, both the fulfilment of historical Israel and the replacement of that part of contemporary Israel which rejected him (see the figure of the olive tree in Rom. 11). Before we take up the relation between church and Israel, we must first discuss one of the knottiest problems in Pauline study: the way in which Paul speaks of Christ in more than individual terms, what is sometimes called ‘the corporate Christ’. This is seen in three main areas, all apparently involving some sort of participation by believers in Christ.
Poen1s of Expression
Authors: Bailey Clinton
Published: November 2023

The entire gamut of the bedouin’s emotional life lends itself to poetical expression; not as abstractions, however, but as concrete manifestations of daily life. Thus, all the poems in the present chapter arose from direct personal experience: a man in jail longing for home at holiday time; a woman longing for menfolk away at war; a murdered boy’s father seeking vengeance; a traveller after a hearty meal and good cheer; a man incensed by a slur on the memory of a dead cousin; a bedouin snubbed at a state reception; another neglected during drought; a third denied welcome in a desert tent; others disconsolate at the loss of dear ones or of worldly possessions; a lad inspired by a shepherdess at the well.
Poems on the Margin of Historic Events (1882-1982)
Authors: Bailey Clinton
Published: November 2023

For the past century governments have pursued their national interests in Sinai and the Negev as if there were no local population to take into account. In 1882 Great Britain invaded and occupied Egypt, including the Sinai peninsula. The Negev at the time belonged to the Ottoman Empire; but in the First World War Britain defeated Turkey and ruled the Negev for the next thirty years.
Composing Bedouin Poetry: Art and Technique
Authors: Bailey Clinton
Published: November 2023

We have seen the pervasiveness of poetry in bedouin society and the important roles it plays as a vehicle for preserving cultural values and as a means of expression, communication, and entertainment. We have also had a glimpse of the variety and intricacy of the bedouin poems themselves. The question naturally arises of how an illiterate bedouin is able to compose a poem often of more than twenty lines and containing two rhymes for each line.
Probability and Theistic Explanation
Authors: Prevost Robert
Published: November 2023

The past twenty years have seen a revival of interest in the epistemic of religious belief. Two philosophers who have led the way are Basil Mitchell and Richard Swinburne. Both believe that religious belief can be justified using inductive ‘best explanation’ arguments. However, their similarity ends there. Swinburne’s approach is formal, utilizing the calculus of Bayes’s Theorem in assessing the weight of the evidence; Mitchell’s is informal due to his recognition of judgement as central to such assessment. This book is the first full-length comparison of these two styles of justifying religious belief.
Theism As An Explanatory Hypothesis
Authors: Prevost Robert
Published: November 2023

Swinburne’s conception of explanation plays an important role in his interpretation and evaluation of the theistic hypothesis. Theistic explanation, on his account, is a personal explanation: God intentionally brings about various phenomena such as the existence of the universe (though, according to Swinburne, since we do not know what God’s intentions were in acting to cause these phenomena, theistic explanation is at best partial explanation).
The Concept Of God And Natural Theology
Authors: Prevost Robert
Published: November 2023

In the previous two chapters I have explored the fundamental integrative concept of theism: God conceived of as a person existing by logical necessity with specific purposes for the creation of the universe. This particular concept of God, I believe, provides maximal integrative power, and, for that rea on, it may be argued that it gives the best integrative explanation. However, the reader may find this description of God problematic and may question my identification of it with traditional theistic belief about God. Many may contest, for example, the relatively straightforward description of God as a person as being too anthropomorphic. Patrick Sherry makes this observation very pointedly in his criticism of Swinburne. He writes: ‘The spirit described in Swinburne’s thought-experiment sounds more like a super-Frankenstein than the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.’
Our Knowledge of Ourselves
Authors: Jeffner Anders
Published: November 2023

It is obvious that many of Butler’s main arguments belong to the empiricist tradition as it was further developed by Hume and later refined in modern empiricism. When I dealt with the writings of Butler and Hume some twenty-five years ago, I found Butler’s way of connecting to the empiricist tradition particularly interesting as it linked him quite closely to contemporary discussions. But I noted too, of course, that he deviated from empiricism on fundamental points, notably in his metaethics and in his general view of the universe. When I now return to Butler’s texts I find these non-empiricist parts of his epistemology (which rest on the heritage from Clarke) to be even more interesting than his empiricism. Here I intend to analyse some of Butler’s arguments in ’Of Personal Identity’. I believe that his intuitionist arguments in this brief and lucid essay may have relevance for contemporary discussions that focus on the persistent question of ‘the mind’s I’.
Butler on Benevolence
Authors: Mcnaughton David
Published: November 2023

Butler believes that the elements of the human mind are hierarchically ordered. While it is universally agreed that he places the particular appetites, passions, and affections at the bottom of the heap there is much dispute about the number and ranking of the superior principles. In particular, there has been a protracted debate about the position of benevolence in the hierarchy. Is benevolence a third superior principle, to be included with self-love and conscience, or is it merely a particular affection, with no more claim to authority than any other? If it is a superior principle, should it be ranked on a par with self-love or just below it? Of the two (relatively) undisputed superior principles, it is with self-love that benevolence is most naturally compared. Both are affections concerned with the promotion of well-being or happiness.
Butler and Deism
Authors: Brown David
Published: November 2023

Butler’s Analogy of Religion of 1736 was intended as a response to deism and so successful was it that it can in many ways be seen as having dealt the mortal blow. As Hume’s attitude well illustrates, Butler’s reputation was quickly established, and the work was to remain a classic text for over a century. In determining the reasons for this success Butler’s own account of his strategy is somewhat misleading. He talks of the same sort of difficulties being found in nature to which the deists take exception in the case of Scripture. But one suspects that for most readers the argument was read in a much more positive light: that, so far from the God of revelation adding nothing significant to the God of nature (as the deists claimed), revelation could be seen as the natural next step to what had already been disclosed in nature. So, for instance, dramatic discontinuities in nature such as worms into flies (A. I. I. 2) established an already existing pattern of divine action upon which the scriptural hope of a post mortem existence could build, just as the suffering of the innocent on behalf of the guilty (A. 2. 5. 2I) already points the way towards the scriptural doctrine of the atonement. Put that way, it also becomes much easier to comprehend why the popularity of the work plummeted in the second half of the nineteenth century.
Bishop Butler and the Zeitgeist: Butler and the Development of Christian Moral Philosophy in Victorian Britain
Authors: Garnett Jane
Published: November 2023

In the introduction to a new edition of Butler’s Analogy and Two Dissertations published in 1851, the Revd Albert Barnes asserted that ’Butler’s Analogy stands complete ... a collection of Principles to be carried into every region of morals and theology, as a standard of all other views of truth.’ The Guardian in December 1853 produced a similarly absolute statement: ’It is impossible to overrate either the value of his writings, or the interest of his character, standing as he does, like Melchizedec, without progenitor or descendants, in the midst of an infidel age.’ Yet in 1873, in a letter to James Knowles, Gladstone could exclaim, ’And oh! that this age knew the treasure it possesses in him, and neglects!’ How much of a change in Butler’s status did Gladstone’s comment in fact represent, and what sort of transition was it? This essay addresses the pattern of Butler’s reputation over the second half of the nineteenth century, the changing context in which his works were read, and the implications which this had for his continuing influence. It suggests that to focus too much on the rhetoric of praise and dispraise which attached itself to Butler in the mid-century is to neglect significant ways in which his works continued to form a central pivot of debate.
Butler and Human Ignorance
Authors: Penelhum Terence
Published: November 2023

A fundamental feature of Butler’s apologetic is his persistence in reminding us of the limits of our knowledge and understanding. He thinks, for example, that the deists who are his main targets in the Analogy of Religion do not show enough awareness of these limits, and are accordingly too ready to say that God would not choose to reveal himself to us in the ways Christians say he has. A similar form of argument appears in his ethics: his case against the equation of morality with benevolence is that we are not able to foresee the consequences of those choices that the exigencies of daily life continually force us to make. My purpose in this essay is that of clarifying and evaluating the nature and range of those arguments in which Butler stresses our epistemic limitations, as we find them in his defence of Christianity.
A God most Particular: Aspects of Incarnation in Butler’s Morality
Authors: Kendal Gordon
Published: November 2023

Butler’s moral philosophy is a blend of English common sense and pastoral sensitivity, interleaved with elements from the long natural law tradition and (even more significantly, though not so overtly) with a conviction that the death of Jesus was a redemptive action by an omnipresent God. This theological determinant of his thought is rarely placed in the centre, either by Butler himself or by his expositors and critics, but it is crucial. For Butler the supreme and decisive instance of a moral action (’instance’ is too weak, as we shall see), the volitional event that ought to condition and shape the whole of our moral analysis, already exists in history; in (paradoxically) the death of a man, a man with divine ramifications. This is why morality and moral philosophy are so important. What we might call the ’moral relationship to reality’ is, if not fundamental in human life, at least very nearly so, and at any rate inescapable: in engaging in it we are, humanly speaking, being conducted as far as we might ever conceive ourselves being conducted into the unfathomed mysteries of existence.
The Good Bishop (1735—1753)
Authors: Berman David
Published: November 2023

Returning from America, Berkeley and his family remained in London from late 1731 until early 1734. While this was for Berkeley a prolific period of writing and publication, rivalling that of 1709-13, it was also, as Luce notes, ‘a second period of waiting, of waiting for a mark of Royal favour’; for without some mark of favour, Berkeley’s ‘position would have been difficult, if not intolerable’, given the failure of his American project (Life, 153). The necessary preferment came in January 1734, when he was appointed Bishop of Cloyne. In February he resigned as Dean of Derry. Three months later he was back in Ireland, where in St Paul’s Church, Dublin, on 19 May, he was conse, crated Bishop of Cloyne.
Vermigli and Predestinarian Controversies
Authors: James Frank A
Published: November 2023

Predestination is a doctrine which has occupied an uneasy place in the history of the church. It has always been problematic and has raised difficult questions for which there are only uncomfortable answers. Few have attempted to construct their theological system on the edifice of predestination. As most scholars now recognize, not even Calvin made predestination the central dogma from which all other doctrines derive. If predestination generates troublesome questions, it also invites theologians to grapple with the most profound implications of a religion which proclaims a sovereign creator. Taken seriously, it forces one to consider the ultimate questions of meaning, existence, and salvation. How one understands the relationship between God and humankind is fundamentally affected by one’s acceptance or rejection of predestination. It touches on all the main theological doctrines: the doctrine of God (theology proper), the doctrine of humanity (anthropology), the doctrine of sin (hamartology), the doctrine of salvation (soteriology), the Christian life (sanctification), eternal judgement (eschatology), as well as the perennial quest for the ultimate cause of the initial impetus in individual salvation. Without necessarily occupying the centre, a strong doctrine of predestination is like a pebble dropped in a pond; it creates ripples throughout the entire theological system.