John Joseph Haldane

In recent years it has become increasingly common in the United States and in the United Kingdom for newspapers and other media to expose problematic aspects of the private lives of political figures; or, since the facts may already be in the public domain, to draw wider attention to them and to make them the subject of commentary. These “problematic aspects” may include past or continuing physical or psychological illness, eating disorders, drug and alcohol abuse or dependence, financial difficulties, family conflict, infidelity, or certain sexual proclivities of both the political figures themselves and of their family members or intimates. In the United States, the most prominent cases are probably those of President Bill Clinton in relation to a series of alleged extramarital affairs leading up to the scandal involving White House intern Monica Lewinsky, and of President John F. Kennedy, also in relation to marital infidelities. The latter exposure was, of course retrospective, as were revelations of similar matters concerning other presidents and holders of high office. Up until the mid-1960s, while it was sometimes known to the press that politicians had “problems” in their private lives, it was rare for these to be made public. Sometimes it might be reported, or more likely hinted, that a figure had a “complex” or “difficult” personal life, and the public was left to infer whatever it might from this . The recent culture of exposure results from a combination of factors, including changed attitudes toward public discussion of sexual conduct, changed standards of sexual behavior, recognition of the scale of Cold War espionage and of its practice of blackmail, a general decline in social deference, a threat to the print media posed by the growth of television, and the rise of satirical entertainment. All of these elements were present in the case that marked the establishment of the culture of exposure in the U.K.: the ‘Profumo scandal’ of 1963. For those unaware of this episode, it may be sufficient to say that it involved the then-secretary of state for war, members of the British aristocracy, a Soviet naval attaché, and a number of “society” call girls, and that it contributed to the resignation of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan and the subsequent fall from power of the Conservative Party. In the United States, the culture of exposure developed somewhat later and took shape in the period of the Watergate scandal, which damaged the American public's perception of the governing classes just as the Profumo scandal had in Britain

Contemporary writers often refer to 'Brentano's Problem' meaning by this the issue of whether all intentional phenomena can be accounted for in terms of a materialist ontology. This, however, was not the problem of intentionaUty which concerned Brentano himself. Rather, the difficulty which he identified is that of how to explain the very contentfulness of mental states, and in particular their apparently relational character. This essay explores something of Brentano's own views on this issue and considers various other recent approaches. It then examines the scholastic doctrine of 'intentional inexistence' in the version associated with Aquinas, according to which content is explained by reference to the occurrence in esse intentionale of the very same features (forms) as contribute to the constitution of extra-mental reality. Various interpretations and aspects of this view are considered and a version of it is commended as providing a plausible solution to Brentano's problem.

Elizabeth Anscombe was one of the most gifted and productive philosophers of the decades following the Second World War. Her writings present challenges to readers: some of them are very difficult to comprehend while others seem philosophically-minded yet situated outside of philosophy as such. There are also the issues of whether she had a philosophical method and of the influence of Wittgenstein on the manner of her approach. A summary and estimate of Anscombe’s enduring contributions is presented before exploring the style and aims of her philosophical work. Then two of her writings on religion are examined and their implications for her attitude to philosophy considered.

The renaissance of philosophy of mind within the analytical tradition owes a great deal to the intellectual midwifery of Ryle and Wittgenstein. It is ironic, therefore, that the current state of the subject should be one in which scientific and Cartesian models of mentality are so widely entertained. Clearly few if any of those who find depth, and truth , in the Wittgensteinian approach are likely to be sympathetic to much of what is most favoured in contemporary analytic philosophical psychology. Finding themselves in a minority, they might well look elsewhere for support, hoping to establish the idea that opposition to scientific and Cartesian ways of thinking is by no means philosophically eccentric. Perhaps this partly explains the increasing British and North American interest in ‘continental’ thought, particularly as it bears on the nature of human beings. Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Sartre are obvious enough subjects for such attention

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’

This slim volume derives from the John Locke Lectures delivered in Oxford in 1991 and expands and develops the themes presented there and in a series of influential articles published during the last decade and a half. McDowell offers the prospect of "re-enchanting" a world laid bare by reductive "bald" naturalism, drawing support in this effort from Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, Wittgenstein, and Sellars. Others who feature prominently are Donald Davidson, Gareth Evans, Richard Rorty, and Sir Peter Strawson.

This new edition of The Heart is the flagship volume in a series of Dietrich von Hildebrand's works to be published by St. Augustine's Press in collaboration with the Dietrich von Hildebrand Legacy Project. Founded in 2004, the Legacy Project exists in the first place to translate the many German writings of von Hildebrand into English. While many revere von Hildebrand as a religious author, few realize that he was a philosopher of great stature and importance. Those who knew von Hildebrand as philosopher held him in the highest esteem. Louis Bouyer, for example, once said that "von Hildebrand was the most important Catholic philosopher in Europe between the two world wars." Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger expressed even greater esteem when he said: "I am personally convinced that, when, at some time in the future, the intellectual history of the Catholic Church in the twentieth century is written, the name of Dietrich von Hildebrand will be most prominent among the figures of our time." The Heart is an accessible yet important philosophical contribution to the understanding of the human person. In this work von Hildebrand is concerned with rehabilitating the affective life of the human person. He thinks that for too long philosophers have held it in suspicion and thought of it as embedded in the body and hence as being much inferior to intellect and will. In reality, he argues, the heart, the center of affectivity, has many different levels, including an eminently personal level; at this level affectivity is just as important a form of personal life as intellect and will. Von Hildebrand develops the idea that properly personal affectivity, far than tending away from an objective relation to being, is in fact one major way in which we transcend ourselves and give being its due. Von Hildebrand also developed the important idea that the heart "in many respects is more the real self of the person than his intellect or will." At the same time, the author shows full realism about the possible deformities of affective life; he offers rich analyses of what he calls affective atrophy and affective hypertrophy. The second half of The Heart offers a remarkable analysis of the affectivity of the God-Man.

In 1990 Harvard produced Realism with a Human Face, a collection of twenty-two of Putnam's essays and lectures introduced by James Conant. Now, in similar format, Harvard presents a further twenty-nine pieces for which Conant has written a seventy-six-page introduction preceded by an epigraph drawn from Putnam himself: "Any philosophy that can be put in a nutshell belongs in one." Conant's contribution to both collections is significant, for he offers perspectives on Putnam's work that serve to place its parts within a whole, and the whole within the context of a style of philosophical reflection that is, to use Strawson's distinction, "descriptive" rather than "revisionary."

In this book two philosophers, each committed to unambiguous versions of belief and disbelief, debate the central issues of atheism and theism. Considers one of the oldest and most widely disputed philosophical questions: is there a God? Presents the atheism/theism issue in the form of philosophical debate between two highly regarded scholars, widely praised for the clarity and verve of their work. This second edition contains new essays by each philosopher, responding to criticisms and building on their previous work.

Contemporary medical ethics is generally concerned with the application of ethical theory to medico-moral dilemmas and with the critical analysis of the concepts of medicine. This paper presents an alternative programme: the development of a medical philosophy which, by taking as its starting point the two questions: what is man? and, what constitutes goodness in life? offers an account of health as one of the primary concepts of value. This view of the subject resembles that implied by ancient theories of goodness, and in later sections of the paper it is shown how Aristotle points us towards a coherent theory of human nature as psycho-physical, which overcomes the inadequacies of dualism and physicalist reductionism. What is on offer therefore, is the prospect of an integrated account of human nature and of what constitutes its flourishing: to be healthy is to be an active unity-of-parts in equilibrium