The Mandate of the Ecumenical Movement

This is the text of the address given by Willem A. Visser 't Hooft to the Uppsala Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in 1968 after being named honorary president of the WCC, following his retirement as general secretary two years earlier. In this address, Visser 't Hooft reviews the 20th‐century history of the ecumenical movement and the contemporary mandate of the WCC, in which the central issue is the relationship between the church and the world, where the vertical dimension to God of the church's unity determines the horizontal dimension of its service to the world. The address concludes with four challenges: no horizontal advance without vertical orientation; the ecumenical movement and the churches need each other; church unity is important; and youth expects answers.     

BOOK REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: CONCILIARITY PAST AND PRESENT: Councils and Assemblies, ed. G. J. Cuming and Derek Baker CONCILIARITY PAST AND PRESENT: “La Structure Synodale de l'Eglise dans la Théologie orientale”, by Pierre Duprey CCIA RETROSPECT: The Churches and the Nations, by Dr. O. Frederick Nolde, with foreword by Dr. W. A. Visser 't Hooft AN ECUMENICAL PIONEER: Alphonse Koechlin, pasteur et chef d'Eglise. Préface de W. A. Visser 't Hooft, by Henri d'Espine THE INFALLIBILITY DEBATE CHURCH AND SOCIETY THE DEBATE CONTINUES: Technology and Social Justice, by Ronald H. Preston (ed.)     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: The Fatherhood of God in an Age of Emancipation , by W. A. Visser 't Hooft . Umgang mit Mythen , by Walter J. Hollenweger     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Patrick Henry, The Ironic Christian' Companion: Finding the Marks of God's Grace in the World Harding Meyer, Versöhnte Verschiedenheit: Aufsätze zur ökumenischen Theologie I Thomas Herwig, Karl Barth und die Ökumenische Bewegung, Das Gespräch zwischen Karl Barth und Willem Adolf Visser't Hooft auf der Grundlage ihres Briefwechsels 1930–1968     

The 1920 Encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarchate and the Proposal for a “League of Churches”

In January 1920, the Ecumenical Patriarchate issued an encyclical – “Unto all the Churches of Christ Wheresoever They Be” – which has played a key role in the history of the ecumenical movement and the engagement of the Orthodox Church in it. The document was prepared by a group of theologians of the Ecumenical Patriarchate headed by Metropolitan Germanos (Strenopoulos). At the time of its publication, it had an official English version; however, it is usually referenced according to its later revised translation, undertaken in 1959 by W. A. Visser ’t Hooft. A significant difference is that the 1920 translation did not include what has come to be seen as the central feature of the 1920 encyclical: that is, the proposal to create a “League of Churches.” The article explores whether the revision is a more accurate translation of the Greek original or rather an interpretation of the encyclical that enshrines in the text its key concept – which was, however, not contained in the original document.     

The Bahá'í World Centre Library

The Bahá'í religon has its international center in Haifa/Acre, Israel. Among the functions carried out at the Bahá'í World Centre is the administration of a library containing the finest collection of published materials on the Bahá'í Faith. The chain of leadership in the community has established a large literature that has been published since the 1870s. The Bahá'í World Centre Library's history, organization, collections, services and future developments are discussed.     

What Philosophy Might be About: Some Socio-philosophical Speculations

The most important sources of contemporary American literary theory are neither the linguistics-based movement of French structuralism, as the term 'poststructuralism' implies, nor a 'modernity' that has been superseded, as the term 'postmodernism' implies, but rather a modernist tradition of aesthetics shaped by eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century German romanticism and idealism, movements that culminated in the work of Heidegger during the Weimar period between the World Wars and afterward, exercising an increasingly dominant influence on French theorists after World War II, from Sartre through Derrida, and subsequently on the development of poststructuralism and postmodernism during the 1970s and 1980s in the United States. This essay strives to put well-accepted facts and issues within what Wittgenstein called a 'perspicuous' perspective. Although it is common to observe that deconstruction shares with Romanticism certain very general features, the same judgment is not often applied to deconstruction's semiotic account of language as a system of arbitrary signs without positive values. The essay's claim, by contrast, is that romanticist, especially German influences, operating in complementary relation with influences from the English and French Enlightenments, provided the cultural and conceptual milieu in which literary theory's distinctively modern, characteristically ontological, and anti-metaphysical view of language developed.     

Proof and truth in Lakatos's masterpiece

Proofs and Refutations is Lakatos's masterpiece. This article investigates some of its central themes, in particular: the nature of proofs ('Proofs do not prove, they improve'); the nature of definitions (real, not nominal); and the consequences of all this for ontology (platonism vs Popper's World Three).     

Panta Rei--Re-Thinking Science,Re-Thinking Society

In the Chinks of the World Machine: Feminism and Science Fiction, by Sarah Lefanu, London: Women's Press, 1988, 288 pages, pb £5.95.     

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this article: Knowledge and Human Interests. By Juurgen Habermas . Aquinas on Metaphysics: a Historico-doctrinal study of the Commentary on the Metaphysics. By James C. Doig . Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Language: Some Aspects of its Development. By James Bogen . The Private Language Argument. Edited by O. R. Jones . Logico-Linguistic Papers. By P. F. Strawson . Philosophical Problems in Logic, Some Recent Developments. Edited by Karel Lambert . Logic as Philosophy. Edited by Peter T. Manicas . Readings on Logic. Edited by Irving M. Copi and James A. Gould . Body and Mind. By Keith Campbell . Human Values and the Mind of Man. Edited by Ervin Laszlo and James B. Wilbur . Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions. By Jean -Paul Sartre . Memory. By Don Locke . Insights and Illusions of Philosophy. By Jean Piaget , translated by Wolfe Mays . Personality and Science. Edited by I. T. Ramsey and Ruth Porter . Drugs, Mysticism and Make-Believe. By R. C. Zaehner . The Psychology of Religious Mysticism. By James H. Leuba . Mysticism and Dissent: Religious Ideology and Social Protest in the Sixteenth Century. By Steven E. Ozment . Anabaptism: A Social History, 1525-1618. By Claus -Peter Clasen . Popular Belief and Practice: Studies in Church History Vol. 8. Edited by G. J. Cuming and Derek Baker . The Faith of the People of God. By John Macquarrie . The Apostles’Creed in the Light of Today's Questions. By Wolfhart Pannenberg Faith: Its Nature And Meaning: Maynooth Summer School Papers 1970. Edited by Paul Surlis . The Christ. By Piet Schoonenberg . Translated by Della Couling . Trinität und Vernunft. Untersuchungen zur Möglichkeit einer rationalen Trinitätslehre bei Anselm, Abaelard, den Viktorinern, A. Günther und J. Frohschammer. By Walter Simonis . Semantics in Biblical Research. New Methods of Defining Hebrew Words for Salvation. By John F. A. Sawyer . List of Septuagint Words Sharing Common Elements. By Xavier Jacques , S. J. Bibliographie Biblique 1930-1970. By Paul -Émile Langevin , S. J. The Study of Judaism. Bibliographical Essays. By Richard Bavier and others. Contemporary Community: Sociological Illusion or Reality ? By Jacqueline Scherer . Memoirs. By W. A. Visser ‘T Hooft .     

Modernity,the Principles of Public Welfare ( maşlaşa ) and the End Goals of Shari ¥ ˛a ( maqa ¥ şid ) in Muslim Legal Thought

Modernity is often assumed to be a unilateral schema that everybody could follow. This essay examines the adaptability of certain notions embedded in the literature about development in the Muslim world. The discourse on modernity in Muslim societies has taken shape mostly post World War II after the Muslim nations asserted their independence, and it has continued till contemporary times. How did this discourse change over the years? How did the exchange of ideas also affect the Muslim 'other'? Are there common grounds between 'modernity' and Islamic legal percepts (which are central to Muslim political thought)? This essay will examine these queries and discuss the importance of the principle of 'Public Welfare' in our contemporary discourse on modernity in Muslim societies.     

Knowledge,criticism, and coherence

I am indebted to Stuart Silvers, Keith Lehrer and Henk Visser for commentary and correspondence.     

Behaviorism in 1942: A Précis of Tilquin's Le Behaviorisme: Origine et Développement de la Psychologie De Réaction en Amérique

Book-length treatments of behaviorism from a philosophical and historical perspective are few in number. Tilquin''s (1942) is one of these, but its publication in French during World War II and the limited number of available copies make for difficult access. In this paper, I summarize the contents of the book for a general audience of behavior analysts. Tilquin''s work is a useful tour of the behaviorism of its time, and most of the topics discussed in it remain relevant to behavior analysis.     

Early markers of lexical stress in visual word recognition

The goal of the present study was to investigate the time-course of suprasegmental information in visual word recognition. To this aim we measured event-related brain potentials (ERPs) during a simple lexical decision task in Italian. Two factors were manipulated: Stress dominance (the most frequent stress type) and stress neighborhood consistency (the proportion and number of existent words sharing orthographic ending and stress pattern). Participants were presented with target words either bearing dominant (on the penultimate syllable; 'graNIta,' 'seNIle,' slush, senile) or non-dominant stress (on the antepenultimate syllable; 'MISsile,' 'BIbita,' missile, drink), and either having a consistent (graNIta, MISsile) or an inconsistent stress neighborhood (seNIle, BIbita). Our results showed in the initial stages of processing an effect that we interpreted as an early orthographic marker of stress neighborhood in interaction with dominance. Later, from 250 ms after target onset, a marker of the lexical stress difference also emerged. The role of stress assignment in word recognition is discussed.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Schöpfung am Abgrund. DIE Theologie vor Der Umweltfrage. Grenzgespräche, Band 5, by Günter Altner God, Marx and the Future. Dialogue With Roger Garaudy, by Russell B. Norris Black Theology: the South African Voice, edited by Basil Moore Heeft de Oecumenische Beweging Toekomst? by W. A. Visser'T Hooft Ecclesiologia ed Etica Politica in Giovanni Calvino, by Valdo Vinay Fe Cristiana y Cambio Social en América Latina. Instituto Fe y Secularidad     

The Bahá'í Global Vision

The Bahá'í faith made a formal presentation to the Rio de Janeiro summit in 1992; this developed into the internationally published policy statement on global development issues, published in 1995, entitledThe Prosperity of Humankind. This article explores aspects of Bahá'í teaching on global development and conflict resolution highlighted both in this document, in the earlier The Promise of World Peace (1985), and in other writings. It examines key concepts such as consultation, justice, trusteeship, the unity in diversity of humankind, equality and equity, and planetisation. It explores the relevance of the Bahá'í vision to contemporary society, politics, business and religion, finding parallels in contemporary secular writings; and it questions whether dogmatic belief helps or hinders the process of global consultative development, that is whether future developments will be BaháY initiatives.     

Effort and Aspirations in Tax Evasion: Experimental Evidence

Is the effort exerted to earn taxable income considered in compliance decisions? And if so, is hard‐earned income or easy money more likely to be concealed from authorities? While economic theory postulates that prior costs should not affect present decisions, psychological research shows that prior investments of money, time, or effort do matter. Findings from previous studies on the impact of effort on abstract decision tasks suggest two contradictory predictions for the context of tax compliance decisions: Either taxable income earned by high effort is subjectively of higher value, and therefore more likely to be evaded, or investments of effort cause a shift of the reference point through the establishment of an aspiration level, resulting in honest declaration of income. Two experiments were conducted to test these predictions. In a business simulation, taxable income was obtained by different levels of effort and consequently had to be reported to authorities. Results show that tax evasion was more pronounced in low‐effort conditions. This suggests that effort changes the reference point rather than the slope, and provides evidence that in tax compliance decisions aspiration levels serve as reference points. Implications for tax audits are discussed. L'effort déployé pour obtenir des revenus imposables est‐il pris en compte dans les décisions qui en découlent? Et si c'est le cas, est‐ce l'argent facile ou les revenus durement gagnés qui présentent une plus forte probabilité d'être soustraits au fisc? Alors que la théorie économique postule que le coût antérieur n'a pas de retombées sur les décisions présentes, les recherches de psychologie montrent que les investissements passés en argent, temps ou effort ont leur importance. Des travaux sur l'impact de l'effort sur des tâches de décision abstraite débouchent sur deux prédictions contradictoires en ce qui concerne les décisions relatives à l'impôt: ou le revenu imposable obtenu à la suite d'un effort substantiel est subjectivement fortement valorisé et a de fortes chances d'être camouflé, ou l'effort investi provoque un changement de référence à travers l'instauration d'un niveau d'aspiration, ce qui a pour conséquence une déclaration honnête des revenus. On a réalisé deux expériences pour mettre à l'épreuve ces prédictions. Dans une simulation commerciale, le revenu imposable a été obtenu suite à différents niveaux d'effort et devait être portéà la connaissance du fisc. Les résultats montrent que l'évasion fiscale était plus accentuée dans les conditions où l'effort était modeste. Il faut en conclure que l'effort entraîne une mutation du système de référence plutôt qu'une simple modification de niveau et que dans les décisions relatives à l'impôt les niveaux d'aspiration servent de point de référence. On réfléchit aux leçons à en tirer pour le contrôle fiscal.     

Why Subjectivists About Welfare Needn't Idealize

It is commonly thought that subjectivists about welfare must claim that the favorable attitudes whose satisfaction is relevant to your well‐being are those that you would have in idealized conditions (e.g. ones in which you are fully informed and rational). I argue that this is false. I introduce a non‐idealizing subjectivist view, Same World Subjectivism, that accommodates the two main rationales for idealizing: those given by Peter Railton and David Sobel. I also explain why a recent argument from Dale Dorsey fails to show that subjectivists must idealize. Because Same World Subjectivism is a plausible non‐idealizing view, subjectivists about welfare needn't idealize.     

A critique of the ontology of consumer enchantment

The concept of enchantment offers a plausible explanation of the lures and thrills of consumer culture. We examine the theoretical foundation of the concept through a critique of Ritzer's enchantment thesis. We begin by assessing the enchantment/disenchantment discourse through a review of the main theoretical contributions to the area, first summarizing Max Weber's initial outline of the notion of disenchantment in the Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism. We then consider Colin Campbell's critique of Weber and George Ritzer's development in Enchanting a Disenchanted World. Finally, we apply Jean Baudrillard's Order of Simulacra to further resolve some of the open questions concerning the possibility of enchantment in contemporary consumer culture. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article: Courage for Dialogue : Ecumenical Issues in Inter -Religious Relationships , by S. J. Samartha. Voices of Unity : Essays in Honour of Willem Vissert Hooft on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday , ed. Ans J van der Bent.