[Open access] In this book symposium the author takes up questions from phenomenology, hermeneutics, ethical theory, and intellectual history raised by a group of scholarly interlocutors from a range of backgrounds. In the course of engaging with these issues, he discusses, inter alia, McDowell’s realism, Jonathon Lear’s work on the end of a world, Michael Oakeshott’s view of selfhood, Heidegger’s conception of Jemeinigkeit, Uexküll’s notion of Umwelt, and Gadamer’s hermeneutic conception of truth.

David Miller elegantly and provocatively reformulates critical rationalism—the revolutionary approach to epistemology advocated by Karl Popper—by answering its most important critics. He argues for an approach to rationality freed from the debilitating authoritarian dependence on reasons and justification. "Miller presents a particularly useful and stimulating account of critical rationalism. His work is both interesting and controversial... of interest to anyone with concerns in epistemology or the philosophy of science." —Canadian Philosophical Reviews.

"In the first study of its kind, David W. Johnson's "Watsuji on Nature" reconstructs the astonishing philosophy of nature of Watsuji Tetsurō (1889-1960), situating it in relation both to his reception of the thought of Heidegger and to his renewal of core ontological positions in classical Confucian and Buddhist philosophy. Johnson shows that for Watsuji we have our being in the lived experience of nature, one in which nature and culture compose a tightly interwoven texture called "fūdo". By fully (...) unfolding Watsuji's novel and radical claim that this is a setting that is neither fully external to human subjectivity nor merely a product of it, this book also sets out what still remains unthought in this concept, as well as in the relational structure that underwrites it. Johnson argues that what remains unarticulated is nothing less than the recovery of a reenchanted conception of nature and an elucidation of the wide-ranging implications of a relational conception of the self for questions about the disclosive character of experience, the distinction between fact and value, and the possibility of a place-based ecological ethics. In an engagingly lucid and deft analysis, "Watsuji on Nature" radically expands our appreciation of twentieth-century Japanese philosophy and shows what it has to offer to a global philosophical conversation"--Provided by publisher. (shrink)

David Miller is the foremost exponent of the purist critical rationalist doctrine and here presents his mature views, discussing the role that logic and argument play in the growth of knowledge, criticizing the common understanding of argument as an instrument of justification, persuasion or discovery and instead advocating the critical rationalist view that only criticism matters. Miller patiently and thoroughly undoes the damage done by those writers who attack critical rationalism by invoking the sterile mythology of induction and justification (...) that it seeks to sweep away. In addition his new material on the debate on verisimilitude is essential reading for all working in this field. (shrink)

This paper articulates and defends a noncognitive, care-based view of identification, of what privileged psychic subset provides the source of self-determination in actions and attitudes. The author provides an extended analysis of "caring," and then applies it to debates between Frankfurtians, on the one hand, and Watsonians, on the other, about the nature of identification, then defends the view against objections.

Many philosophers have taken there to be an important relation between personal identity and several of our practical concerns (among them moral responsibility, compensation, and self-concern). I articulate four natural methodological assumptions made by those wanting to construct a theory of the relation between identity and practical concerns, and I point out powerful objections to each assumption, objections constituting serious methodological obstacles to the overall project. I then attempt to offer replies to each general objection in a way that leaves (...) the project intact, albeit significantly changed. Perhaps the most important change stems from the recognition that the practical concerns motivating investigation into personal identity turn out to be not univocal, as is typically thought, such that each of the different practical concerns may actually be related to personal identity in very different ways. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt to show that the moral/conventional distinction simply cannot bear the sort of weight many theorists have placed on it for determining the moral and criminal responsibility of psychopaths. After revealing the fractured nature of the distinction, I go on to suggest how one aspect of it may remain relevant—in a way that has previously been unappreciated—to discussions of the responsibility of psychopaths. In particular, after offering an alternative explanation of the available data on psychopaths and (...) their judgments of various sorts of norm transgressions, I put forward a hybrid theory of their responsibility, suggesting how they might be criminally responsible, while nevertheless failing to meet the conditions for an important arena of moral responsibility. (shrink)

David Hume's writings on history, politics and philosophy have shaped thought to this day. His bold scepticism ranged from common notions of the 'self' to criticism of standard theistic proofs. He insisted on grounding understandings of popular religious beliefs in human psychology rather than divine revelation, and he aimed to disentangle philosophy from religion in order to allow the former to pursue its own ends. In this book, Professors David W Purdie and Peter S Fosl decipher some of (...) Hume's most challenging texts for the modern reader, while preserving the sharp intellect and undaunted nerve for which Hume is famous. Hume's spirit is brought alive for contemporary times and his writing is made accessible for its intended audience: the general public."-- Back cover. (shrink)

FICHTEANA: Review of J.G. Fichte Research 24 (2024) is now published. It contains a report of the 2024 London conference of the North American Fichte Society, and ten book reviews in English of recent publications on Johann Gottlieb Fichte and the Wissenschaftslehre, as well as a Bulletin with information about Fichte societies around the globe, and the latest Fichte editions, books, publications, CFPs, and conferences. Originally founded by Daniel Breazeale in 1993, since issue 22 (2022), FICHTEANA has appeared in an (...) expanded form with book reviews. Editor: David W. Wood; with associate editors Kienhow Goh and Gesa Wellmann. (shrink)

While a number of classical pragmatists crafted their philosophies in conjunction with a careful study of Hegel's works, others saw their philosophies emerge in antagonism with proponents of Hegel. In this paper, we offer an instance of the latter case. Namely, we show that the impetus for Charles S. Peirce's early articulation and avowal of realism (the claim that some generals are real) was William Torrey Harris's claim that the formal laws of logic lacked universal validity. According to Harris, the (...) leading representative of Hegelism in the United States, the universal validity of the laws of logic rested on a nominalistic metaphysics that a Hegelian-realism showed to be false. In response to this charge, we articulate how Peirce's attempt to prove the universal validity of the laws of logic resulted in avowing a realism that differed from both nominalism and Harris's Hegelian-realism. (shrink)

The interest in and enthusiasm for urban agriculture (UA) in urban communities, the non-profit sector, and governmental institutions has grown exponentially over the past decade. Part of the appeal of UA is its potential to improve the civic health of a community, advancing what some call food democracy. Yet despite the increasing presence of the language of civic agriculture or food democracy, UA organizations and practitioners often still focus on practical, shorter-term projects in an effort both to increase local involvement (...) and to attract funding from groups focused on quantifiable deliverables. As such, it seems difficult to move beyond the rhetoric of food democracy towards significant forms of popular participation and deliberation within particular communities. In this paper we provide a theoretical framework—deep democracy—that helps to contextualize nascent attempts at civic agriculture or food democracy within a broader struggle for democratic practices and relationships. We argue that urban agriculture efforts are well positioned to help citizens cultivate lasting relationships across lines of difference and amidst significant power differentials—relationships that could form the basis of a community’s collective capacity to shape its future. We analyze the theory of deep democracy through recent experiences with UA in Denver, Colorado, and we identify ways in which UA can extend its reach and impact by focusing more consciously on its political or civic potential. (shrink)

These excerpts from the writings of Sir Karl Popper are an outstanding introduction to one of the most controversial of living philosophers, known especially for his devastating criticisms of Plato and Marx and for his uncompromising rejection of inductive reasoning. David Miller, a leading expositor and critic of Popper's work, has chosen thirty selections that illustrate the profundity and originality of his ideas and their applicability to current intellectual and social problems. Miller's introduction demonstrates the remarkable unity of Popper's (...) thought and briefly describes his philosophy of critical rationalism, a philosophy that is distinctive in its emphasis on the way in which we learn through the making and correcting of mistakes. Popper has relentlessly challenged both the authority and the appeal to authority of the most fashionable philosophies of our time. This book of selections from his nontechnical writings on the theory of knowledge, the philosophy of science, metaphysics, and social philosophy is imbued with his emphasis on the role and by reason in exposing and eliminating the errors among them. (shrink)

Originally published in 1957, the primary aim of this study was to shed light upon the logical character of the psychology of perception. D.W. Hamlyn begins by delimiting the field of psychological inquiry into perception, then gives a detailed account of the types of explanation appropriate in the field. He maintains that these explanations have certain important peculiarities which distinguish them from other scientific inquiries. In view of the central importance of Gestalt Theory in this field an account is given (...) of its origins, and its main features are critically discussed. The work should still be of considerable interest to both philosophers and psychologists, as well as to all those interested in the relations between the two subjects. (shrink)

In this article, I respond to David McIvor’s and Lars Rensmann’s discussion of my recent book, The Politics of Repressed Guilt: The Tragedy of Austrian Silence (2018, Edinburgh University Press). Both invited me to clarify my use of Arendt in my conception of embodied reflective judgment. I argue for a stronger connection between judgment and emotions than Arendt because one can effectively shut down critical thinking if one uses defense mechanisms to repress feelings of guilt. In response to McIvor, (...) I discuss the idea of the “subject-in-outline” and “embodied reflective spaces” to overcome the guilt/defense complex to engender a reparative politics of justice. Finally, in response to Rensmann, I point out that the lingering culture of repressed guilt helps us explain the general conditions that contributed to the rise of the far and extremist right in Austria, which I develop further in my new book Analyzing the Far Right. (shrink)

Cooperative learning processes have been rediscovered and are being used throughout the country on every level. The basic elements of cooperative goal structure are positive interdependence, individual accountability, face-to-face interaction, and cooperative skills. The teacher's role in structuring cooperative learning situations involves clearly specifying lesson objectives, placing students in productive learning groups and providing appropriate materials, clearly explaining the cooperative goal structure, monitoring students, and evaluating performance. For cooperative learning groups to be productive, students must be able to engage in (...) the needed collaborative skills. Cooperative skills and academic skills can be taught simultaneously. The implementation of cooperative learning needs to be coupled with the implementation of collaborative professional support groups among educators. Both the success of implementation efforts and the quality of life within most schools depend on teachers and other staff members cooperating with each other. Support for the program takes as careful structuring and monitoring as does cooperative learning. (JD). (shrink)

If we want to see justice done with regard to responsibility, then we must either (i) allow that people are never morally responsible, (iia) show that luck is not ubiquitous or at least that (iib) ubiquitous luck is not moral, or (iii) show that ascriptions of responsibility can retain justice despite the omnipresence of luck. This paper defends (iii); ascriptions of responsibility can be just even though luck is ubiquitous.

Some philosophers have argued recently that the content of perception is either entirely or mainly non- conceptual. Much of the motivation for that view derives from theories of information processing, which are a modern version of ancient considerations about the causal processes underlying perception. The paper argues to the contrary that perception is essentially concept- dependent. While perception must have a structure derived from what is purely sensory, and is thereby dependent on processes involving information in the technical sense which (...) Gibson said amounted to structure, the information which perception provides about the world depends on the concepts which we have. (shrink)

Derek Parfit claims that, at certain times and places, the metaphysical units he labels *'selves" may be thought of as the morally significant units (I.e., the objects of moral concern) for such things as resource distribution, moral responsibility, commitments, etc. But his concept of the self is problematic in important respects, and it remains unclear just why and how this entity should count as a moral unit in the first place. In developing a view I call *'Moderate Reductionism," I attempt (...) to resolve these worries, first by offering a clearer, more consistent account of what the concept of *'self ' should involve, and second by arguing for why selves should indeed be viewed as moral (and prudential) units. I then defend this view in detail from both *'conservative" and *'extreme" objections. (shrink)

This paper defends the permissibility of stem cell research against a theological objector who objects to it by appealing to "souls.".

In this paper we study abstract elementary classes using infinitary logics and prove a number of results relating them. For example, if is an a.e.c. with Löwenheim–Skolem number κ then is closed under L∞,κ+-elementary equivalence. If κ=ω and has finite character then is closed under L∞,ω-elementary equivalence. Analogous results are established for . Galois types, saturation, and categoricity are also studied. We prove, for example, that if is finitary and λ-categorical for some infinite λ then there is some σLω1,ω such (...) that and contain precisely the same models of cardinality at least λ. (shrink)

Two experiments using a realistic version of the selection task examined the relationship between participants' probability estimates of finding a counter example and their selections. Experiment 1 used everyday categories in the context of a scenario to determine whether or not the number of instances in a category affected the estimated probability of a counter-example. Experiment 2 modified the scenario in order to alter participants' estimates of finding a specific counter-example. Unlike Kirby 1994a, but consistent with his proposals, both studies (...) showed that probability estimates significantly predicted selection. Overall results point to the value of understanding selections in terms of their subjective expected utility. (shrink)

Although business ethicists have theorized frequently about the virtues and vices of employee loyalty, the concept of loyalty remainsloosely defined. In this article, we argue that viewing loyalty as a cognitive phenomenon—an attitude that resides in the mind of theindividual—helps to clarify definitional inconsistencies, provides a finer-grained analysis of the concept, and sheds additional light on theethical implications of loyalty in organizations. Specifically, we adopt the psychological contract perspective to analyze loyalty’s cognitivedimensions, and treat loyalty as an individual-level construction of (...) perceived reciprocal obligations. Based upon this perspective, we present a three-tiered framework of loyalty that provides a psychologically informed definition of the concept, specifies the variety of obligation types that loyalty can imply, and anticipates the potential for asymmetrical loyalty configurations between employers and employees. We use the framework to articulate moral issues associated with both symmetrical and asymmetrical loyalty configurations and discuss the implications of the framework for theory and practice. (shrink)

David. W. Wood. The Unknown Philosopher: Essays on the Life and Thought of Rudolf Steiner (Bonn: Topology, 2026), xi + 341pp. -/- This book contains ten essays that read Rudolf Steiner's work from the four perspectives of science, art, religion, and biography. It argues that Steiner's philosophy is a brand of monism whose first axiom or Archimedean point is living rational thinking.

Novalis. Kant Studies (1797). Introduced, translated from the German, by David W. Wood. In: Philosophical Forum 32 (2001): 323-338.

Some psychiatrists believe that “demoralization syndrome” is a diagnosable cognitive disorder characterized in its extreme form by morbid existential distress. If they are right, then it should be an important part of our thinking about end of life decisionmaking. A demoralized patient would be unable to think reliably about the remainder of her life, and therefore incompetent to decide to commit physician‐assisted suicide.

The principal thesis in this review-essay is that the key linguistic terms in Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre especially have two main meanings that appear at first sight to be almost in contradiction or opposed to each other. The reader of Fichte therefore has to work hard to overcome any apparent conflicts in the “double sense” of his philosophical terminology. Accordingly, I argue that Fichte’s linguistic method and use of language should be seen as part of his chief philosophical method of synthesis, where (...) we have to carry out a similar procedure and attempt to reconcile opposites using the power of the imagination. This thesis is put forward by means of a number of practical examples and in the context of some critical reflections on the recently published Cambridge Companion to Fichte, eds. David James and Günter Zöller. Review essay published in Volume 15 (December, 2017) of the journal Revista de Estud(i)os sobre Fichte (ed. Emiliano Acosta). (shrink)

Evolution is frequently concentrated in bursts of rapid morphological change and speciation followed by long‐term stasis. We propose that this pattern of punctuated equilibria results from an evolutionary tug‐of‐war between host genomes and transposable elements (TEs) mediated through the epigenome. According to this hypothesis, epigenetic regulatory mechanisms (RNA interference, DNA methylation and histone modifications) maintain stasis by suppressing TE mobilization. However, physiological stress, induced by climate change or invasion of new habitats, disrupts epigenetic regulation and unleashes TEs. With their capacity (...) to drive non‐adaptive host evolution, mobilized TEs can restructure the genome and displace populations from adaptive peaks, thus providing an escape from stasis and generating genetic innovations required for rapid diversification. This “epi‐transposon hypothesis” can not only explain macroevolutionary tempo and mode, but may also resolve other long‐standing controversies, such as Wright's shifting balance theory, Mayr's peripheral isolates model, and McClintock's view of genome restructuring as an adaptive response to challenge. (shrink)

Hannah Arendt's existential, republican concept of politics spurned Carl Schmitt's idea that enmity constituted the essence of the political. Famously, she isolated the political sphere from social conflict, sovereign regimes, and the realm of military violence. While some critics are now interested in applying Arendt's more abstract political ideas to international affairs, it has not been acknowledged that her original reconceptualization of politics was in fact driven by her analysis of global war, and in particular, the startling new challenges raised (...) by nuclear warfare. Arendt's early, unpublished manuscript on the nature of politics contains important reflections on the nature of war and empire. Surprisingly, these reflections tentatively explore the relationship between war and political freedom. A close reading of this work on war can help explain both her later, more radical non-violent concept of political action, and the difficulties she faced integrating her existential republicanism within the global context of conflict in the Cold War. (shrink)

This paper attempts to show how a reductionist approach to the metaphysics of personal identity might well be most compatible with a form of contractualism, not utilitarianism.

"What would it mean to make a decision against the acceleration of automation and for humanity? In An Artificial History of Natural Intelligence, David W. Bates lays the groundwork for such a decision by rethinking the history of human cognition and its entanglements with technology. Tracing evolving lines of thought from the early modern period to the present, Bates confronts the intimate connection between autonomy and automaticity in how we have understood the capacities of the human mind. At the (...) heart of this entanglement is a total mechanistic understanding of nature that began in the seventeenth century and saw the body as machine, the nervous system as control mechanism, and the brain as the center of cognition. Reading varied thinkers from Descartes to Kant to Turing, Bates reveals how new ideas and experiences reconfigured the ways in which the automaticity of the body could be linked with technical systems, while at the same time the mind could still create the space for autonomy. The result is a new theorization of the human in which the human, dependent on technology, produces itself as an artificial automation that has no "natural" origin"--. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 25 (2005) 9-14 [Access article in PDF] Religious Identity and Openness in a Pluralistic World David W. Chappell Soka University Guiding Issues How do I understand my own identity as a religious person in light of the fact that I am open to the validity of the beliefs held by other traditions?Has my understanding of my own religious tradition been transformed, purified, and enriched by the (...) ways in which I have come to understand the other traditions?Have I been changed by the dialogue, or do I remain the same? What difference has the dialogue made in my life, personally or theologically?How would I respond to this topic from the point of view that I am a religious person engaged in a specific area of expertise (environment, philosophy, etc.)? Thesis The increased mobility and diversity of relationships in the contemporary world has often made religious identity a complex issue, hardening it for some people and diffusing it for others. But in either case, I wish to challenge the view that highlights beliefs as a key to defining identity and instead propose that many other factors might be more important, and that in religious life identity is a secondary issue. Being Christian I was born, baptized, and raised in the Christian tradition. My father was a United Church of Canada minister and I became a United Church of Canada minister, while my mother was a Baptist and my brother became a Baptist minister. Religious values were important in my upbringing and throughout my adult life. While I have maintained a concern for ultimate values, however, my own beliefs have undergone radical changes. I am sure that many in the Christian community would say that I am no longer a Christian, but I have never taken that view and have never taken the step to renounce my ordination as a Christian minister. Instead, I question the assumption that beliefs are the best way to define a religious life or religious identity. [End Page 9]In 1961 I had the good fortune to go to McGill University to study with Wilfred Smith, and from him I have learned not to focus on the "beliefs" of others—namely, intellectual constructs—but on the "faith" of others as much more encompassing and important. Some religious communities—like the Jain and the Confucian—do not care about one's beliefs, only about one's practice, both ritually and morally. Wilfred Smith called it orthopraxy, rather than orthodoxy, and it provides an alternative means of marking religious identity.Why should I feel bound by the efforts of Emperor Constantine when he convened a church council in 325 CE to define Christian identity or by subsequent efforts of church institutions to do the same? Today, my Christian identity is nurtured and expressed by a constellation of moral values and cosmic trust, of faith and actions, that are connected to the early Jesus movement, especially as articulated by John Dominic Crossan. Living as we do in the modern era, we have very different beliefs about history and cosmology from these early Christians, as John Robinson discussed forty years ago in his book Honest to God. My affection for Christian church life and the early Jesus movement involves other factors than the concerns of those who formed Christian creeds. The Trinitarian doctrine makes sense as a conglomeration made from the conceptualization of several historical experiences important in the early Christian community, but the Trinitarian concept does not clarify or enhance my contemporary experience.In spite of the Trinitarian formulation, I still honor and value the powerful and enduring influence of my Christian upbringing. As a result, I have not renounced the name "Christian" or my ordination as a Christian minister, even though I have grown increasingly away from them. I am still the second son of Lynsin and Mary Chappell. Even though my parents may seem to be dead and gone, they are still alive for me. I treasure them and I still live my life in their embrace, as well as in the embrace of the fellowship of... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 21.1 (2001) 109-111 [Access article in PDF] Seventh International Buddhist-Christian Conference David W.Chappell Soka University of America Pack your bags! The annual meeting of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies in Nashville decided that the next international conference will be held August 5-12, 2003, in Chiang Mai, Thailand.An invitation was extended to the society by Dr. John Butt, director of the Institute for the Study of Religion (...) and Culture (ISRC), and by the president of Payap University, Dr. Boonthong Poocharoen. As a Presbyterian faculty member of the McGilvary Faculty of Theology, John has extensive interreligious experience in Thailand and participated in the society's last international conference held in Tacoma, Washington, in August 2000.The institute's associate director, Professor Saeng Chandrangam, is a former Buddhist monk and is one of Thailand's most highly respected Buddhist laymen. He was Chair of the Department of Oriental Studies and the Department of Modern Languages and was Dean of Humanities of the government's Chiang Mai University, where he taught philosophy and theology. Currently he teaches at a Buddhist university in Chiang Mai as well as serving as the associate director ofISRC. Also, Donald Swearer, who has been active with the society since the first international conference in 1980, will be in residence in Chiang Mai in the springs of 2002 and 2003 and can help plan the conference.Payap University was founded in 1974 by the Church of Christ in Thailand, a consortium ofThai Christian congregations begun by Presbyterian, American Baptist, and Disciples missionaries. However, about 95 percent of Payap University's nine thousand students are Buddhist since Chiang Mai is centrally located in the Burmese-Thai axis with the heaviest concentration of Buddhists in the world. As a result, the conference will be set in a context of Protestant missions within a Theravadin Buddhist culture. This setting will increase the presence of conservative and evangelical Christians, as well as Theravadin Buddhists, to serve as an important balance to the already strong Mahayana and Catholic dialogue leaders in our international conferences. John wrote that "Holding the next conference here would demonstrate that there are other forms of Christian faith quite different from that represented by the evangelical missionaries" and that there are other ways of understanding and approaching other different religious communities. Accordingly, a possible theme [End Page 109] might be "Rethinking Mission Motivation and Practice (both Buddhist and Christian) for the Twenty-first Century."Chiang Mai is a city of a population of about three hundred thousand that preserves much of the charm of traditional Thai culture, while also having modern conveniences like Western fast foods and ATMs, but has not yet succumbed to the congestion of Bangkok. Its weather should be in the eighties or nineties and its hotels are inexpensive (about twenty-five dollars per day for two). The meetings at Payap University will be in air-conditioned rooms in a picturesque setting. Payap has three campuses and is affiliated with the McCormick Hospital. It offers twenty-four undergraduate degrees, as well as master's degrees in divinity, linguistics, business administration, international business, Teaching English as a Foreign Language, philosophy, and Christianity.Payap University can draw on considerable experience for hosting foreign programs. The vice president for external affairs, Martha Butt (wife of John), heads a committee that has planned, developed, and operated the in-country segments of all the Thai Elderhostel programs involving over three thousand participants. Also, they will be joined by faculty members from Mahidol, Chulalongkorn, and Thammasat Universities, including Dr. Parichart Suwanbubbha of Mahidol University, a Thai Buddhist (with a degree from Chicago comparing the concepts of karma and grace), who attended the Tacoma conference in 2000.ISRC is located on the Crystal Spring campus of Payap University and was founded in 1996 to serve as a research and study center for scholars and others interested in the comparative study of religion and culture. The institute's primary goal is to provide and nurture a broad ecumenical religious vision for the people ofThailand and Southeast Asia and for others visiting or working... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Christian Ethics in a Technological Age by Brian BrockDavid W. GillChristian Ethics in a Technological Age Brian Brock Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2010. 408 pp. $34.00Brian Brock is a lecturer in moral and practical theology at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland, and the author of Singing the Ethos of God: On the Place of Christian Ethics in Scripture (Eerdmans, 2007). Christian Ethics in a Technological [End Page 188] (...) Age was originally Brock’s doctoral thesis at King’s College, London. Brock begins by highlighting and finding wanting the modern practice of “technology assessment” as epitomized in the establishment of the US Office of Technology Assessment in 1972. We live in a world, a milieu, of ever-multiplying new technologies and technological artifacts. “Technology assessment” attempts to evaluate their impacts as thoroughly as possible through scientific, managerial methods. Costs and benefits, benefits and harms, short-term and long-term, near and distant effects: how can we measure what we know and extrapolate to what we need to know?In part 1 Brock engages in some detail the thinking of Martin Heidegger, George Grant, and Michel Foucault on technology. Although Heidegger and Foucault in particular are not ultimate authorities for Brock, his chapters on their work provide a helpful philosophical critique of the inadequacies of today’s narrow managerial approaches to technological assessment. The real problems lie much deeper: in the ways technology reflects and restructures our whole way of thinking about life, materiality, subjects and objects, and means and ends.Having used Heidegger, Grant, and Foucault to unmask the complex reality of technology in the modern era, Brock turns in part 2 to Augustine, Karl Barth, and Bernd Wannenwetsch to try to build a Christian theological ethics of technology and work that will, in the end, provide a richer texture for our interactions with the questions raised by new technologies. In briefest terms, he argues that our questions and judgments about technology should arise within the church gathered for worship rather than within the management team gathered for measurement of effects. It could be said that in the former it is God who questions technology whereas in the latter technology and its servants constitute an implicit challenge to God and the world external to themselves.Brock’s study will be of particular interest to students of his primary six sources: Heidegger, Grant, Foucault, Augustine, Barth, and Wannenwetsch, whose ideas and quotations dominate the pages of this book. Without any doubt Christian Ethics in a Technological Age is a significant work that deserves careful consideration in graduate seminars and among specialists in the field; nonetheless, I have three criticisms. First, the work would have been much stronger if it demonstrated awareness and understanding of the work of Jacques Ellul, Carl Mitcham, Albert Borgmann, and other leading thinkers in this arena. Second, Brock’s writing style (long, complex Germanic sentence structures, eccentric vocabulary choices such as the recurrent use of “purchase”) gets in the way of successful communication—especially with the very managers and technologists he presumably would like to influence. Third, while sympathizing with his rejection of managerial formulas for analysis, some much more concrete and practical counsel on the implications of his position would have been [End Page 189] helpful. How do trust and trustworthiness get reestablished? How does a worshipping congregation hear God’s guidance about its particular engagements with technologies? We have some eloquent statements of the concepts but little by way of illustration or example.David W. GillGordon-Conwell Theological SeminaryCopyright © 2013 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

"FICHTEANA Review of J.G. Fichte Research" is an online publication in English devoted to new scholarship on the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte. It publishes information and reviews of the latest Fichte editions, books, publications, conferences, and Calls for Papers. Originally founded by Daniel Breazeale in 1993, since issue 22 (2022), FICHTEANA has appeared in an expanded form with book reviews. It is co-edited by Daniel Breazeale and David W. Wood, with associate editor Kienhow Goh. -/- .

This issue 23 of FICHTEANA is dedicated to Daniel Breazeale, who passed away on 30 December 2023. -/- "FICHTEANA Review of J.G. Fichte Research" is an annual online publication in English devoted to new scholarship on the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte. It publishes information and reviews of the latest Fichte editions, books, publications, conferences, and Calls for Papers. Originally founded by Daniel Breazeale in 1993, since issue 22 (2022), FICHTEANA has appeared in an expanded form with book reviews. Editors: Daniel (...) Breazeale (†) and David W. Wood; with associate editors Kienhow Goh and Gesa Wellmann. -/- . (shrink)

Rudolf Steiner, Goethe’s Theory of Knowledge, with Special Reference to Schiller (Tiburon, C.A.: Chadwick Library Press, 2021), translated by David W. Wood, David Ecklund, and Clifford Venho, 176pp.

Rudolf Steiner. The Riddles of Philosophy, Presented in an Outline of Their History. Two Volumes, 645 pp. Originally translated by Fritz C. Koelln in 1973; translation substantially revised and corrected by David W. Wood (Great Barrington MA: Chadwick Library Edition, 2018).

Fichte-Studien 49 (2021), edited by David W. Wood, published by Brill/Rodopi, 471pp. -/- Presenting new critical perspectives on J.G. Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre, this volume of articles in English by an international group of scholars addresses the topic of first principles in Fichte’s writings. Especially discussed are the central text of his Jena period, the 1794/95 Grundlage der gesammten Wissenschaftslehre, as well as later versions like the Wissenschaftslehre nova methodo (1796-99) and the presentations of 1804 and 1805. Also included are new (...) studies on the first principles of the particular sub-disciplines of Fichte’s system, such as the doctrines of aesthetics, nature, right, ethics, and history. The volume also contains a number of miscellaneous essays on Fichte research, as well as several book reviews. (shrink)