bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Current trends in Chomsky
Authors: Crystal David 
Published: July 2007

When the editor first suggested that it might be useful to have a short, article introducing some of Noam Chomsky’s ideas, I agreed, and was about to begin when John Lyons’ book appeared and made the exercise rather redundant. His introduction is unquestionably the most lucid and coherent account of Chomsky’s linguistic work that we have, and I thought it would be pointless to write at that time an article which would in effect be little more than a paraphrase of its topic sentences. There are, however, a few things that might be said about recent trends, not dealt with by Lyons, which are needed in order to complete an outline understanding of the contemporary scene in generative linguistics; also a few critical comments, from someone a mite less sympathetic to the Chomskyan approach than Lyons is, might be helpful to anyone wanting to reach an evaluation of this field. Hence the following remarks. But first, some background, and a review of what Lyons does say.It is quite remarkable how Chomsky’s name has become a vogue word in intellectual circles. He is known about, sometimes, even when his discipline, linguistics, is not. To an academic linguist, of course, this can be embarrassing. I suppose it is always the way when a teenage discipline catches everyone’s attention through a famous practitioner: one does not know whether to be grateful, because of the publicity to the subject, or furious, because of the over-simplification and polemic which publicity invariably brings. In Chomsky’s case, in this country, the popular awareness of the man dates from the mid-sixties. I recall talking to a number of puzzled academics, in the spring of 1969, who could not understand why anyone should have queued in the rain to hear someone speak at Oxford, or queue without getting in at University College London, that same year. In common-rooms at that time, everyone seemed to be claiming his work to have particular significance to them—psychologists, philosophers, sociologists, educationalists, biologists—even, sometimes, linguists.
Does Moral Philosophy Pay?
Authors: Benson John 
Published: July 2007

Thirteen years ago Professor G. E. M. Anscombe gave reasons for thinking that it is not at present profitable for us to do moral philosophy. The steady flow of books since then shows how little notice was taken. The three I shall be considering in this article present an opportunity to consider the case she made and its continuing relevance.Miss Anscombe’s essay, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, is included in The Definition of Morality, together with twelve others which are meant to hang from the same peg: the question, ‘What is the meaning of “morality” ?’ The most interesting of them get up and walk away with the peg, opening up issues beyond the matters of usage which the editors tidily catalogue in their introduction. This is certainly true of Miss Anscombe’s. Her quarrel with modern moral philosophers is not that they are wrong in the way they use or define ‘moral’ and ‘morality’, but that in the way they use them these terms mean nothing at all. She argues that the concept of obligation, with its related moral sense of‘ought’, which has been given pride of place by moral philosophers since the eighteenth century, is intelligible only within a law-conception of morality. To speak of a moral ‘law’, of being ‘bound’, ‘obliged’ and so on, makes no sense unless one believes that there is someone who issues the law. The decay of divine law as a basis for morality has left these terms bereft of content, but not, unfortunately, of their ‘mesmeric force’. The smell remains for some time even when the gas-works has been dismantled. When ‘ought’ lacks the content provided by some actual law, telling a man that he ought not to commit adultery gives him no reason at all for not doing so.
Signposts Through the Hermeneutical Labyrinth
Authors: Mann Peter 
Published: July 2007

Introducing the hermeneutical problemIt is a pity that theological communication so often gets bogged down because a key concept is never satisfactorily and clearly explained. The key idea then degenerates to a kind of magical word, periodically invoked, temporarily perhaps exciting, but ultimately mystifying. A few years ago the word ‘existential’ underwent this process of degeneration. Although the word had a clear meaning in Heidegger’s early philosophy, and indeed, as ‘existential analysis’, signified an enduringly valuable method, the basic insight represented by it failed to shape and illuminate the popular theological discussion. (A fine example of the kind of communication that should have taken place on a much wider scale regarding this word is still Cornelius Ernst’s 1961 Introduction to Karl Rahner’s Theological Investigations.) Instead, the word ‘existential’ became used indiscriminately for anything remotely ‘relevant’ or ‘concrete’. This inflation ended by making the word worthless and unusable—where everything had to be ‘existential’, nothing could be any more. And the mystifying communicators and the befogged hearers concluded about the same time that the word had become meaningless. This need not have been the case: as so often before, a chance had been missed.Perhaps something similar is happening now with the word ‘hermeneutical’. Wheareas ‘existential’ was used indiscriminately, ‘hermeneutical’ is often used in an almost gnostic fashion, as if allusion is being made to some arcane discipline allowing a privileged few access to philosophical and theological mysteries. And before the general meaning of the word has been assimilated within theological discussion and satisfactorily communicated, particular ‘hermeneutics’ have begun to proliferate, producing a situation at once labyrinthine and mystifying.
Human Relationships, Celibacy and Sexuality
Authors: McDonagh Enda 
Published: July 2007

In the context of this colloquium it may be as well to begin by indicating the purpose and scope of an opening paper on this topic. The topic itself is so wide that any adequate treatment would presuppose expertise and experience far beyond the range of the author and perhaps beyond any single individual’s range. My approach is necessarily conditioned by my professional interest and experience, a moral theologian who is, in fact, a celibate by choice. The more precise meaning of these qualifications will, I hope, emerge later.I can at once outline my approach and summarize my position by saying that I regard the celibate state as a form of human relationship in the way I regard the married state; that I see it as having in common with all other human relationships a sexual dimension; and that I am naturally concerned as a Christian theologian with the Christian meaning of human relationships and their sexual dimension.It may appear a little unusual to begin a discussion of Christian celibacy in terms of human relationships. In its more conventional presentation, whether in terms of ‘eunuchs for the kingdom of God’ (Mt. 19) or of nuns as ‘brides of Christ’ the emphasis was on the ‘relationship to God’. It is perhaps one more (overdue) example of how we have begun to translate ‘God-talk’ into ‘man-talk’, but it does not need to have the reductionist consequences which some such translations involve. Whatever its fashionableness the procedure will in this instance, I hope, lead to a more careful consideration of the full meaning of Christian celibacy, including its ‘relationship to God’ dimension.
The Burden of the White Man's God
Authors: van der Hart Rob 
Published: July 2007

In the land of our fathers there are many strangers. They have drifted away from their homes, across the sea, into the New World which they held to be ‘undiscovered’. Why did they seek a new land, and why did they leave their own? Why did they leave behind the soil from which they were born; why did they break away from the womb to which they belong?With their minds disconnected—and freed—from the earth, they could master the forces of nature. And so they took possession of the land that seemed so empty, so much there for the taking, because no one claimed it. They did not know that man does not naturally possess the land to which he belongs; he does not say: I own this soil’. For how can we own the soil from which we are born and to which we will return? Is not man’s life encompassed by the earth and her dark forces, as in a wider dimension from which things and deeds receive their meaning?Primitive man still knows this: he knows that the heat of the sun is only a blessing when it enkindles the potentialities of the earth, not when it scorches, burns into things so that everything withers. The warmth of God is felt in the fire that burns within the dark energies of the earth and that brings them to life. The God of natural man is an inward God whom he meets when dwelling with the mystery of his own existence, birth and death: the womb from which he is born and into which he will return. The earth is not God, but God is the earth, for here is the place where the divine presence is felt.
The Descent of Christ into Hell
Authors: van der Hart Rob 
Published: July 2007

In the Apostles’ Creed the Christian professes to believe ‘in Jesus Christ who was crucified, dead and buried, descended to hell, on the third day rose from the dead... ‘; the Catholics are told by the Fourth Lateran Council that Jesus Christ ‘descended into hell, rose from the dead and ascended to heaven’; the Anglicans are taught (Thirty-Nine Articles, art. 3) that ‘it is to be believed that Christ went down into hell’; and the Lutherans accept (art. 9 of the Formulae Concordiae) that ‘the entire Christ, God and man, after his burial descended to hell, overcame the devil, destroyed the power of hell, and deprived the devil of his prestige’.For once there is a doctrinal unity among the Christian confessions. But what is the Descent to me, a Christian of the twentieth century?Shall I drag you before the Inquisition, threatening eternal damnation if you refuse to submit to the collective teaching of the Christian Churches?But why should anyone want to force us into believing that Christ did indeed descend into hell when neither hell nor descent seem to have a real place in our lives?Besides, it will not prove difficult to get acquitted of such charges of unbelief. It is easy to relegate abstract and fanciful religious information to the colourful mythological flourishing which Christianity appears to have picked up on its journey through religious traditions from all over the world. Is there not also that grave warning from St Paul against man’s tendency to leave his proper abode, concerning himself proudly with the affairs of the divine, or bending too eagerly over the hideous and dark places at the unapproachable centre of existence?
Sinning and Forgiving Sins
Authors: Moonan Lawrence 
Published: July 2007

The key to what follows is to be found in knowing how to sin. Or again, it is not, for that could suggest that some appropriate advice was going to be given to those with practical difficulties in sinning. Now this is a matter on which advice may well be as undesirable as it is, for most of us, otiose; and in any case no such advice will be given here. No Kama Sutra of barratry, no Teach Yourself Embezzlement will be found in what follows. What will be found is some explanation of what is involved in saying that someone has sinned, which is far from otiose. For though sinning may be as easy as lying, the word ‘sinning’ can conceal a plurality of senses. Once this has been done, ‘forgiving sins’ is more than halfway to being explained. By way of a corollary it will then be shown why ‘forgiven- ness’, much talked of by some sensitive people today in connexion with forgiveness, cannot serve for explaining ‘forgiving sins’.A first step in the explanation proposed is to distinguish ‘sinning’ as simply designating some particular piece of sinning, some event or process in the world, from ‘sinning’ in its proper sense, as not only designating ... (as before), but in addition also connoting that what is so designated has been held to have been done, or has been done, out of disobedience to God, or whatever. (In medieval innocence I shall speak of ‘disobedience to God’: let theologians or catechists substitute the phrase of their choice.)
Redeeming the White Man's God
Authors: van der Hart Rob 
Published: July 2007

The violent interruption has subsided and Western imperialism has collapsed against the tenacious pliability of cultures that do not defend themselves by opposing, but by returning to their own perpetual shape, slowly but inevitably, absorbing any marks that have been left and cannot be forgotten.Christians, too, are having to readjust themselves now that colonialism is officially dead. They are shaking off feelings of disillusion and embarrassment with their own role in this drama, and are finding a new courage and enthusiasm in a willingness to serve rather than to rule, to develop and display a sympathetic understanding of other ways of thinking.But the basic question still remains: Why did they go out to invade these other minds in the first place? What really inspired the white man to leave his proper abode and to travel out to the four corners of the earth ? What gave to his soul that restless urge to preach his belief to all the nations? Was it only a burning love which no man can enjoy without sharing it with others, a fullness of grace that knows no rest so long as there are others who have no share in it?
Faith and Theology in the University
Authors: Strange Roderick 
Published: July 2007

In a recent lecture, Fr Edward Yarnold discussed the place of the theologian in the university. He mentioned the salutary effect of contact with other disciplines on the university theologian, the value of the ecumenical setting which a university provides for theology, and, in particular, the view, proposed by the 1952 Faith and Order Conference at Lund, that theologians should make for the centre of the Christian faith where they are united, and, working from that centre, justify their divisions. On this last point, however, Fr Yarnold registered misgivings, for, he asserted, ‘Theology is not a study which can be pursued with detachment: it requires faith’. He argued the issue with care on the principle that a living theology can only arise from a living tradition, and he went on to discuss the consequences of this viewpoint and draw out its advantages.At the same time, Fr Yarnold was aware that some theologians, while sympathetic to what he had to say about a living tradition in theology, would want to question the role he ascribed to faith: ‘Some theologians—I speak of my own country, but the cap may fit other heads—have thought that this need for commitment is incompatible with scholarly objectivity and freedom of conscience’. For them, in other words, commitment, or faith, threatens the integrity which academic theology requires. They feel that faith would prejudice the detached course which this theology has to take if it is to be true to itself as academic. They would make a distinction between academic and commitment theology.
Experiment in the Church
Authors: Hodgson Peter 
Published: July 2007

Ever since the Second Vatican Council it is being increasingly realized that experiment and adaptation are continuing conditions of the life of the Church. But what precisely is an experiment in this context ? Karl Rahner has recently tried to answer this question and he concludes that since history as such is not really open to experimentation in the scientific sense, experiment must have a different meaning in the two contexts, and so the Church can learn nothing useful from a study of scientific experiments. In support of this view Rahner points out that an experiment in the Church is an event in the Church itself and so changes the Church, while no scientific experiment changes the physical world. Thus the meaning of experiment is quite different in the two cases.In this he compares the subject of one activity with the object of another so the result is naturally misleading and unfruitful. The logical comparison shows a close similarity that deserves further study: just as a scientific experiment does not change nature, neither does an experiment in the Church change human nature; but just as a successful experiment in science is a stage in the growth of the understanding of the natural world by the scientific community, so a successful experiment in the Church is likewise an irrevocable stage in its onward spiritual pilgrimage.In view of this close similarity it is not surprising that Rahner’s account of the place of experiment in the life of the Church is much closer to scientific experience than he recognizes and thus a further exploration of the analogy may prove useful.
The Gospel and Brazil
Authors: de Alencar Tito 
Published: July 2007

‘For many Catholics in Brazil, the Dominican Order is synonymous with subversion and the destruction of genuine values.’(Brazilian daily O Globo, 1969)Tito de Alencar was one of the Dominicans imprisoned and tortured in Brazil; he was released in exchange for the kidnapped Swiss Ambassador. He is interviewed here by CLAUDIO ZANCHETTIN.* * *There are two sorts of revolutionaries; those of the drawing room and the real ones. The first talk about revolution, the others make it. Tito de Alencar, the young Dominican I went to interview in the convent of St Jacques in Paris is one of the real sort. His revolutionary struggles, imprisonment, torture and exile could have made a ‘hero’ of him. But Tito has nothing about him of the vain exhibitionist. For him revolution is a terribly serious matter.His sufferings have marked him greatly. When he speaks he conceals his emotion with difficulty. With fixed eyes he tries to get to the bottom of things straight away. His young life is consumed by two great passions; revolution and the gospel.At this time when the limelight of news is no longer directed at Brazil, I believe it to be a matter of urgency to contribute to breaking the wall of silence and complicity that surrounds the sufferings of the entire Brazilian people. It is so that this silence may be broken that Tito has agreed to answer my questions.Claudio Zanchettin
Natural Theology and the Historicity of Faith
Authors: Harris P. F. 
Published: July 2007

‘An existential system cannot be formulated. Does this mean that no such system exists ? By no means; nor is this implied in our assertion. Existence itself is a system—for God; but it cannot be a system for any existing spirit. System and finality correspond to one another, but existence is precisely the opposite of finality.’S. Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript* * *Philosophy of religion and theologyWe are by now too well acquainted with much that goes on under the heading of ‘philosophy of religion’ which seems to provide sport for some professional philosophers but has little to do with religious belief. The tactics are well known. A typical statement of a theological kind is set up for examination and is then put through the logical hoops without, apparently, any further need for reference to the theological context. The strategy often presumes that there is basically only one type of theological statement and that this can be dealt with adequately without looking at the complex structure of thought which surrounds it in its theological setting. Faith may indeed be simple, but its systematic exploration and articulation inevitably demands a complex and sophisticated exposition without which it becomes not only unreasonable, but even unintelligible. The discussions of some of the philosophers of religion have as a result only too often a rather tired and well-worn air, and frequently theologians find little resemblance between what they themselves are doing and what philosophers presume that they are about.
Disestablishment: Christianity in Wales
Authors: Brown J. P. 
Published: July 2007

For the older generation of Catholics, ‘Welsh Disestablishment’ recalls Chesterton’s Ode with its climax, ‘Chuck it, Smith!’ and with its implication that the religious affairs of Wales are not of much interest to the rest of Europe. It often seems that they are of little concern even to those Europeans who have settled in Wales. I have been asked to re-present for New Blackfriars readers the nature and origins of our complex denominational situation. I would suggest that ‘disestablishment’, i.e. separation of Church and secular power (especially the power of the State) is a unifying theme and that this may have the interest of novelty for most of Europe.The political backgroundIn an earlier article ‘By Law Established’, I argued that from the beginning Wales has been a nation without a sovereign state, i.e. the highest political power in Wales has usually had its seat outside Wales, in England, in fact. While Welsh nationhood has been based chiefly on the Welsh language, it has generally been reinforced by a type of Christianity distinct from that of England. Since the English State has, of course, been hostile to Welsh nationhood, it follows that Church and State here have often been on opposite sides.
Graham Greene: The Writer
Authors: Strange Roderick 
Published: July 2007

In September 1971 Graham Greene published his autobiography, A Sort of Life. The Times Literary Supplement took the opportunity to feature a leading article on his work in which it stated that the autobiography ‘reinforces Greene’s theories about the relations between art and life’, and at once added, ‘that is to say, between his art and his life’. The debate about the relationship between an author’s work and his life recurs constantly, but in Greene’s case the questions which are raised are particularly acute, his view of the matter being in marked contrast to that expressed by most of his critics.The critics frequently affirm that his books are principally about himself. Marie-Béatrice Mesnet, for example, hints at this when she compares his travel book, The Lawless Roads, with his novel, The Power and the Glory, both of which are set in Mexico. ‘His only addition to reality in the novel’, she writes, ‘lies in the characterization of his human material, in his power to conjure up life and the interior history of a man. The entire background is as close to actual fact as possible.’ Still more explicitly, Victor de Pange has claimed: ‘L’oeuvre de Greene peut se lire comme une autobiographic à peine transposee’.No doubt it is this trend in the criticism of Greene’s work that explains the reaction of the critics to his autobiography, for while they admire the quality of his writing, they confess to a sense of disappointment. They had hoped to learn his secret. Peter Lewis complained outright in the Daily Mail that ‘Many of Graham Greene’s admirers will be disappointed by A Sort of Life, the autobiography which might have thrown light on his secret’.