John Joseph Haldane

Many believe that at the end of her life Mary was assumed bodily ‘into heaven’ where she remains exalted by her divine son. This claim, magisterially entitled The Doctrine of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, strikes some as absurd. Even many traditional Christians are opposed to, or have doubts about this aspect of Catholic doctrine of the Theotokos[the one who ‘gave birth to’ God]).Typically critics regard the doctrine as being at best a sentimental piety and at worst a neo–Pagan accretion entirely lacking in support from any appropriate quarter. Others go further, however; suggesting that it is not simply without biblical or other evidential warrant but is in some way incoherent. Here I explore some of the sources of difficulties that confront any attempt to present and defend the doctrine.Ancient and mediaeval accounts often relate narratives of Mary’s final days. Significantly, however, they also reason that given Mary’s unique status the Assumption must have happened because it should have done. I consider this style of deductive theology before examining certain historical presentations, in which I argue that there may be material evidence of the tradition as far back as the end of the persecution of Diocletian around the time of the Edict of Milan.Thereafter I take up the philosophical problems, exploring various possibilities and suggesting that acknowledging Aquinas’s insistence on the impoverished nature of disembodied human souls, and their need of resurrected embodiment is consistent with Mary’s unique role that the mode of her present existence is of a different order to that of other separated subjects.

In opposition to compatibilism, it is argued that the thesis of universal causal determinism is at odds with the idea of free action. Free agency involves liberty of indifference -that is to say the non-determination of action by antecedent events-. Action issues from habitual behavioural tendencies; but this relation is neither deterministic nor random: it is one of propensity, in this case conditioned by practical rationality. In general, specifying reasons for action is not identifying antecedent causes but describing the intentional content of action -saying what kind of behaviour it is-. Practical reasons directs the agent's behaviour towards ends conceived of as good; it is further question whether, as Plato suggest, the end of action, standardly, is a, or the, good

Writing a little over a decade ago of developments in educational philosophy, R. F. Dearden remarked on the dearth of alternative approaches to that of conceptual analysis which predominated, at least in Anglophone cultures, at that time. One possible avenue of enquiry which he identified as conspicuously absent in this respect was the development of a distinctively Catholic approach to problems of educational philosophy, observing that a work of the mid-war years, Maritain's Education at the Crossroads, appeared to be well nigh the only modern effort in this direction. More than a decade on from this, in a climate no longer exclusively dominated by conceptual analysis - indeed, in which there is unprecedented interest in a wealth of different schools, traditions and approaches to philosophy of education - Dearden's remarks about the absence of a distinctively Catholic perspective still apply. In the following essay, therefore, the authors have undertaken, via a critical analysis of Maritain's educational speculations of half a century ago, to try to discern some of the principal issues and considerations which would need to be addressed in the interests of identifying a distinctively Catholic educational philosophy.

The following essay, whose title has been provided by me for this occasion, is taken from James Ferrier's work The Institutes of Metaphysic where it appears in Section I., the general theme of which is ‘The Epistemology, or Theory of Knowing’. The essay is a statement and elaboration of the ‘ninth proposition’ of the Institutes, and an examination of its implications as these bear upon knowledge of mind and self. The precise source of the text is the 3rd edition of the Institutes of Metaphysic (Edinburgh: William Blackwood and Sons 1875). Ferrier indicates earlier that ‘generally throughout this work the word “cognition” signifi es the known, the cognitum. This remark is necessary lest the reader should suppose that it signifi es the act rather than the object of knowledge’ (p. 156). In the last section of this introduction I list the preceding eight propositions

Perceptual experience is perspectival, and human minds occupy a variety of “viewpoints.” These considerations provide grounds for both realist and anti-realist philosophies. Each is represented in adjacent areas of thought, and often connects with familiar debates between “conservatives” and “liberals,” which in turn are commonly related to disputes about religious and naturalistic accounts of the world and of the place of human beings within it. These have been joined from an orthogonal direction by Thomas Nagel in his recent book Mind and Cosmos. This is considered and contrasted with the ideas of Thomas Aquinas before returning to the possibility of reconciling perspectivalism with an account of what it could mean to speak of the world as it is in itself

Thomism, conceived of as the set of broad doctrines and style of thought expressed in the works of St. Thomas Aquinas and of those who follow him, first emerged in the thirteenth century. Aquinas himself was born in 1225 into a religious culture in which the dominant tradition of speculative thought was a version of Christian neoplatonism heavily influenced by St. Augustine. Early in his studies as a Dominican, however, Aquinas came under the direction of Albert the Great, who was to exercise an important role in communicating his own enthusiasm for innovations in philosophical, theological and scientific thought.

This is the first volume in a series— Handbook [sic.] of Contemporary Philosophy of Religion —of which the author is also editor. Two things strike one immediately: first, it is very impressive in its range and depth of coverage; second, it is outrageously expensive. Kluwer’s pricing policy is a disgrace which reviewers ought not to let pass uncriticized. It is a disservice to individual readers, to institutions, and to writers. The present author has evidently labored long, hard, and fruitfully, yet his work is not likely to be widely read because of an unwarranted cost imposed by the publisher. It is conceivable, though unlikely, that this criticism will affect the pricing of subsequent volumes, but it will be a cruel irony if the editor’s own volume is then the one that is least widely read. Kluwer would be advised to reprice this volume at half the cost.

This essay is concerned with the drift of recent analytical philosophy of mind away from the view of persons as unified subjects of thought and action--human beings as rational animals--towards various forms of dualism (including materialist dualism) and eliminativism. It raises the question what view of persons would be able to accommodate (even if only as a hypothesis) the idea that human beings are images of God and that God took on a human nature in the person of Jesus Christ? The reply is in terms of a non-dualist, non-physicalist view: incarnational anthropology’

There is a common philosophical challenge that asks how things would be different if some supposed reality did not exist. Conceived in one way this can amount to trial by sensory verification. Even if that challenge is dismissible, however, the question of the relation of the purported reality to experience remains. Writing here in connection with the central claims, and human significance, of theism; and drawing on ideas suggested by C. S. Pierce, C. S. Lewis, Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, I aim to turn the tables and argue that the broad structure and basic features of human cognitive and affective experience indicate their fulfilment in God.

This collection of essays derives from a conference sponsored by the Royal Institute of Philosophy and the Centre of Philosophy and Public Affairs at the University of St Andrews. It brings together a number of prominent academics from the fields of philosophy and political theory along with politicians and social commentators. The subjects covered include liberalism, education, welfare policy, religion, art and culture, and cloning. The mix of contributors and the topicality of the subject matter should further promote a serious engagement between philosophy and public life.