Angélique Arnauld (1591—1661) The reforming abbess of the convent of Port-Royal, Mère Angélique Arnauld developed an Augustinian philosophy deeply influenced by the Jansenist movement. Her philosophy of God follows the via negativa in its stress on God’s incomprehensibility. Her theory of moral virtue is emphatically theocentric; even such natural virtues as patience are presented as emanations of grace. The monastic virtues of poverty and humility

Modern Chinese Philosophy The term “modern Chinese philosophy” is used here to denote various Chinese philosophical trends in the short period between the implementation of the constitutional “new policy” (1901) and the abolition of the traditional examination system (1905) in the late Qing (Ch’ing) dynasty and the rise and fall of the Republic of China in mainland China (1911-1949). As an ancient cultural entity, China

Socialism Socialism is both an economic system and an ideology (in the non-pejorative sense of that term). A socialist economy features social rather than private ownership of the means of production. It also typically organizes economic activity through planning rather than market forces, and gears production towards needs satisfaction rather than profit accumulation. Socialist ideology asserts the moral and economic superiority of an economy with

Surrogate Parenting Surrogate parenting is an arrangement in which one or more persons, typically a married infertile couple (the intended rearing parents), contract with a woman to gestate a child for them and then to relinquish it to them after birth. Surrogate parenting is also sometimes referred to as “contract pregnancy,” in part, so as not to beg the question about who is the child’s

William Mitchell (1861—1962) Sir William Mitchell was the first major philosopher to live in South Australia. He worked at Adelaide University from 1895 to 1940 primarily in the area of what is now known as cognitive science. His major work: Structure and Growth of the Mind is a treatise on philosophical psychology. Mitchell anticipated the claims of Nagel, McGinn, and Chalmers and their emphasis on

Simone Weil (1909—1943) The French philosopher Simone Weil is a confronting and disconcerting figure in modern philosophy. This is not simply because she was so many things at once—ascetic and mystic, teacher and factory worker, labour activist and political militant, social thinker and piercing moral psychologist, critical Marxist and heterodox Christian theologian—but because of the striking “untimeliness” of her thought. For unlike philosophers in the