Natural Desire Research Articles

The problem of the Desiderium Naturale in the Thomistic tradition

The theory of the desiderium naturale in St. Thomas Aquinas has raised some of the most difficult questions in the history of Roman Catholic thought. At issue is whether a natural desire to see the divine essence can be reconciled with the necessarily supernatural and gratuitous manner of this desire's fulfillment. The 16th century Dominican, Cardinal Cajetan strove to mollify the problem by proposing a duplex ordo in which the hypothetical state of pure nature would have its own natural end distinct from man's supernatural end. This ostensible solution to the issue was regnant until the broad ranging criticisms of the Nouvelle Theologie in the 20th century (represented especially by Henri De Lubac). The theologies of grace, which emerged after this critique---most notably that of Karl Rahner---sought to remedy the Neoscholastic separation of nature and grace by an equally problematic integration of the two orders. We propose that the dangers inherent in both the extrinsecism of Cajetan and the immanentis...

L'uomo e la donna nella dottrina di san Tommaso d'Aquino

The theory of the desiderium naturale in St. Thomas Aquinas has raised some of the most difficult questions in the history of Roman Catholic thought. At issue is whether a natural desire to see the divine essence can be reconciled with the necessarily supernatural and gratuitous manner of this desire's fulfillment. The 16th century Dominican, Cardinal Cajetan strove to mollify the problem by proposing a duplex ordo in which the hypothetical state of pure nature would have its own natural end distinct from man's supernatural end. This ostensible solution to the issue was regnant until the broad ranging criticisms of the Nouvelle Theologie in the 20th century (represented especially by Henri De Lubac). The theologies of grace, which emerged after this critique---most notably that of Karl Rahner---sought to remedy the Neoscholastic separation of nature and grace by an equally problematic integration of the two orders. We propose that the dangers inherent in both the extrinsecism of Cajetan and the immanentism of Rahner can be addressed by turning to alternative interpretations of the desiderium naturale (in particular that of Domingo Banez), which do greater justice to the harmony and integrity of the orders of nature and grace.

Minstrelsy Goes to Market: Prize Poems, Minstrel Contests, and Romantic Poetry

Minstrelsy Goes to Market:Prize Poems, Minstrel Contests, and Romantic Poetry Erik Simpson The natural desire of every man to engross to himself as much power and property as he can acquire by any of the means which might makes right, is accompanied by the no less natural desire of making known to as many people as possible the extent to which he has been a winner in this universal game. The successful warrior becomes a chief; the successful chief becomes a king: his next want is an organ to disseminate the fame of his achievements and the extent of his possessions; and this organ he finds in a bard, who is always ready to celebrate the strength of his arm, being first duly inspired by that of his liquor. This is the origin of poetry, which, like all other trades, takes its rise in the demand for the commodity, and flourishes in proportion to the extent of the market. —Thomas Love Peacock, The Four Ages of Poetry (1820) Poetry, and the principle of the Self, of which Money is the visible incarnation, are the God and Mammon of the world. —Percy Bysshe Shelley in response to Peacock, A Defence of Poetry (1821) In his Historical Memoirs of the Irish Bards (1786), Joseph Cooper Walker equivocates as he speculates on the existence of ancient contests of bards or minstrels: "We have good reason to believe, that the ancient Irish had MUSICAL CONTESTS; but, as we want the authority of history to support us, we will not venture to assert that they had."1 Walker has more "authority" to support a description of a modern contest, however, and he allows himself a long footnote on that subject. The note begins, Walker then reveals that the contest had been sponsored by a nationally-minded expatriate, a Mr. Dungan from Granard who had moved to Denmark. Dungan's motive—to employ his fortune "in charities to the country which gave him birth"—stems from Irish cultural nationalism, but his immediate inspiration is Scottish: About two years since, he observed in an English paper, an account of a prize having been offered in Scotland to the best Player on the Highland Bagpipe. He was pleased with the idea, and immediately wrote to a friend in Ireland, empowering him to offer the parties specified in the above Advertisement, to the best performers on the Irish Harp.—The contest was held at the appointed time. The company was large and brilliant; but the performers were only mediocre, and the music common, and ill selected.3 Perhaps because news of previous "mediocre" performances had not reached him, Walker seems unaware that this was not the first Dungan-sponsored contest. The first had taken place in 1781, four years earlier.4 Walker, that is, saw one of a series of contests leading up to the more famous Belfast Harper's Festival of 1792, held in July to coincide with the anniversary of Bastille Day. Despite occasional hints of nationalism in his own project—"Nothing," he says in a note, "can argue a greater insensibility to pure melody in the English, than their disrelish for Irish music"—Walker's account of the Granard contest presents its international roots and specific economic incentives, both elements that would seem out of place in explicitly patriotic projects such as the later Belfast festival.5 As a result, Walker unwittingly lets us glimpse the potential of bard and minstrel contests to become a vehicle by which writers could point to tensions within nationalist and Romantic models of poetry's function, both of which [End Page 692] downplayed or rejected the model of living poets competing for money. That is to say, Walker's account suggests but leaves untapped the potential for competing bards and minstrels to act as a figure for a competitive literary marketplace, something like Peacock's conception of poetic production rather than Shelley's in the passages quoted above. Later writers would follow Walker in discussing contests of bards and minstrels, but they would explore further the implications of the contest as a metaphor for modern writing. I. Marketing Disinterest: The University Prizes At roughly the same time the Scottish...

Wondrous Innocence

Early 20th-century American print advertising offered a new model of child rearing grounded in the presumed natural and positive wonderment of childhood that age destroyed and adults found rejuvenating. By focussing on advertising in major magazines that were designed to tap consumers’ sentiments and longings, we find representations of parental values. Advertising not only associated commodities with the child’s look of wonder, but suggested that children were the portals to the new world of consumption by their natural desires. Advertisers drew upon sentiments rooted in the romanticism of the 18th and early 19th centuries, but, by 1900, these ideas that associated children with a positive view of nature and timeless wonder were adapted to commercialization. While these ideas contrasted sharply with the rational/developmentalist ideas of early 20th-century child-rearing manuals, experts gradually adapted a permissive approach that largely coincided with the messages of advertising.

The Professional Conscience: A Psychoanalytic Study of Moral Character in Tolstoy's The Death of Ivan Ilych

Modern professional behavior all too often fails to meet high standards of moral conduct. An important reason for this unfortunate state of affairs is the expansive self interest of the individual professional. The individual's natural desire for his/her own success and pleasure goes unchecked by internal moral constraints. In this essay, I investigate this phenomenon using the psychoanalytic concepts of the ego ideal and superego. These concepts are used to explore the internal psychological dynamics that contribute to moral decision-making. The contrasts between self interest and concern for others, selfishness and moral values, and moral conscience and social conformity are examined in Tolstoy's study of the modern professional in The Death of Ivan Ilych. By reviewing Freud's work on the moral conscience, particularly its complex inner structure and liabilities to dysfunction, and applying it to Tolstoy's penetrating portrayal of Ivan Ilych's personal and professional life, an understanding of the inner (emotional) foundation of moral character, its dependence on the past through the links between generations, and the need to integrate idealism with moral values is generated. Examples from Enron Corporation will be used throughout the paper to relate the analysis and discussion to contemporary business ethics problems.

The Determination and Interpretation of the Rotation Parameter v sin i

In this paper we review the development of the concept of the stellar rotation parameter commonly known as v sin i. We emphasize that the interpretation of the parameter in terms of physical characteristics of the star always depends on comparison with a model that is intended to represent the physical properties of the star. To that end we will trace the development of such models along with the observational means of determining the parameter. Emphasis will be place on the traditional methods involving stellar spectroscopy, but some attention will be place on indirect methods involving direct measurement of the rotation period and recent interferometric determination of stellar oblatness. In addition we will comment on recent techniques involving the simultaneous measurement of many spectral lines and synthetic spectra to improve the accuracy of rotational half-widths.The natural desire for simplicity of such models has often resulted in erroneous values for stellar parameters. This is particularly the case for the most rapidly rotating stars generally of early spectral type, but may also be present in some giants and supergiants where rapid rotation is difficult to detect. Finally, we will comment on the possibilities of improving the quality of both the measurement and interpretation of this important stellar rotation parameter.

Respect and Loving Attention

On Kant's view, the feeling of respect is the mark of moral agency, and is peculiar to us, animals endowed with reason. Unlike any other feeling, respect originates in the contemplation of the moral law, that is, the idea of lawful activity. This idea works as a constraint on our deliberation by discounting the pretenses of our natural desires and demoting our selfish maxims. We experience its workings in the guise of respect. Respect shows that from the agent's subjective perspective, morality is the experience of being bound and necessitated, but also of being free and emancipated from inclinations.Respect is a feeling that is generated by the agent's reflection on the nature of her own agency. It is not directed to anybody in particular, but to the very idea of rational agency, which is characterized by self-mastery and self-legislation. Contrary to animals, we do not derive our ends from nature, but we are capable of setting ends of our own, by exercising practical reason, that is, by engaging in the activity of law making.

The Colors of the Deep Sky

The equipment needed to take astronomical images of deep sky objects, those faint targets found only with optical assistance, is within the reach of dedicated amateur astronomers. In such low light levels there is no color, strictly, but there is a natural desire to make these images look as they might appear if our vision were sensitive enough to perceive color. This is a component of esthetic presentation, and the use of color for this subject is extremely useful in education. CCD imaging equipment allows us to record and measure the spectral energy in a specific band determined by a filter placed in front of the sensor. By making several such recordings through red, green, blue, and sometimes additional filters, a full color composite can be created. Of particular interest are emission nebulas, whose spectra comprise the lines of energized gases. These are present in a scene along with the broadband blackbody emissions of stars. Because the spectra of these objects are simple or well known, they can be modeled and their recordings calibrated. Conventional color science methods can then be used to generate colorimetrically correct renditions of the scene.

The (Public) Consequence of Literacy

Recently I asked students in a tutoring course that I teach to write a literacy narrative which, while beginning to tell the story of their own emerging literacy, had to conclude with the ways that their literacy has had or will have public consequences. As they shared each other’s drafts in class, it became clear that all the students had powerful stories to tell regarding their own struggles to become literate: stories of their coping with learning disabilities and personal loss, and stories of classroom failures that constrained their natural desire to play with language. For these students, the consequence of literacy couldn’t have been more obvious, as they recounted the shift from private powerlessness to personal empowerment.

A deeper freedom: liberal democracy as an everyday morality

Today those who believe in liberal democracy must reexamine and reaffirm their commitments. Here, Charles Anderson probes our urgent concerns and questions. Even those who believe that liberal democracy is the best form of government may think that liberal individualism leads to selfishness, permissiveness, and irresponsibility. Many would teach a cultural or religious counterethic to offset the excesses of freedom. Grounding his view in classic philosophic and religious ideals, Anderson argues that a deeper vision of individuality and freedom can lead to both a sound public philosophy and a worthy personal ethic. In the same way that we as humans try to understand our place in nature and the cosmos, Anderson seeks to understand how we, as unique individuals, can understand our place among our fellow humans. Beginning with friendship and love, he extends his inquiry to the relationships of teaching, community, work, and democracy. Anderson shows how the natural desire of free people to find meaning in relationships with one another can lead to depth and fullness both in private and public life.

City of Fear or Open City?

Richard Estes' image of a view of Manhattan from the Staten Island Ferry before September 11, 2001 juxtaposes two symbols representing the choice John Friedmann poses for us in his Longer View. On the right are the World Trade Center towers, now a symbol of America's vulnerability and possible need to retrench and protect itself. On the left is the Statue of Liberty, welcoming everyone to an open city and an open nation, despite the danger this might entail. Friedmann's essay argues for steering a course toward openness, with its many associated responsibilities and privileges. Estes is one of the best known artists of the photorealism movement in painting. Originally from Illinois, he studied at the Art Institute of Chicago before working as a commercial artist in publishing and advertising and then painting full time. His works hang in The Art Institute of Chicago, the Guggenheim Museum and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, DC, among others. He currently lives and works in New York and Maine. In the aftermath of September 11, there is a heightened sense of fear in our country and much talk about how to protect ourselves against terrorists and other threats to our lives and peace of mind. To counter the natural desire to retreat into fortress America, I propose a more positive strategy, an agenda for action to create what I call the Open City. Four aspects of this agenda are discussed: reducing the urban footprint, drafting charters of local citizenship, meeting basic human needs, and working towards new forms of city-regional governance. This article proposes the Open City as a series of experimental projects in major metropolitan regions across the country, arguing that planners have the requisite powers to set such projects in motion. Success in carrying them out would, at the same time, serve as an inspiration for cities beyond our own borders.

Asymptotic efficiency of two-stage disjunctive testing

We adapt methods originally developed in information and coding theory to solve some testing problems. The efficiency of two-stage pool testing of n items is characterized by the minimum expected number E(n, p) of tests for the Bernoulli p-scheme, where the minimum is taken over a matrix that specifies the tests that constitute the first stage. An information-theoretic bound implies that the natural desire to achieve E(n, p) = o(n) as n /spl rarr/ /spl infin/ can be satisfied only if p(n) /spl rarr/ 0. Using random selection and linear programming, we bound some parameters of binary matrices, thereby determining up to positive constants how the asymptotic behavior of E(n, p) as n /spl rarr/ /spl infin/ depends on the manner in which p(n) /spl rarr/ 0. In particular, it is shown that for p(n) = n/sup -/spl beta/+o(1)/, where 0 < /spl beta/ < 1, the asymptotic efficiency of two-stage procedures cannot be improved upon by generalizing to the class of all multistage adaptive testing algorithms.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Thoughts on Gary Marx's Essay on “Thomas I. Voire”

(2002). Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Thoughts on Gary Marx's Essay on “Thomas I. Voire”. The Sociological Quarterly: Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 435-438.

Reel Nature: America's Romance with Wildlife on Film

Like so much of post–World War II American pop culture, nature and wilderness on film was not quite what it seemed to millions of baby boom families in their suburban living rooms. Gregg Mitman, assistant professor of the history of science and technology at the University of Oklahoma, suggests in this thought-provoking study of the art and artifice of nature films that contemporary beliefs about environmental policy had their origins in a century of movies, television shows, photography books, and the like. “We no longer work with animals,” notes Mitman; instead, “we predominantly watch them.” In progressing toward an ever-more-urban and -postindustrial life, “nature films then and now reveal much about the yearnings of Americans to both be close to nature and yet distinctly apart.” It is this question of the “sentimentalizing” of wilderness as represented on screen that drives Mitman's analysis of middlebrow (and at times burlesque) readings of the world around us. From the efforts of Progressives such as President Theodore Roosevelt (himself the product of contrived images of manliness and vigor) to maintain the best of the American frontier tradition through the late-twentieth-century desire for nature without humans, the wealthiest nation in the world underestimated the costs of comfort and security. Whether dealing with the sexuality of dolphins, the anthropomorphism of animals, or the redefinition of Africa from a “dark continent” to an ecological paradise, Americans have chosen to believe what they wanted about the blessings and curses of resource development.

Surgical sperm retrieval: A review of current practice

Although pregnancies were achieved after surgical sperm retrieval and in vitro fertilization 8 years before the introduction of intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), it is the development of ICSI that has led to the rapid expansion of surgical procedures to obtain sperm from azoospermic males for use in assisted conception cycles. The natural desire for couples to achieve a pregnancy using their own gametes and a national shortage of donor sperm have driven the demand for an expansion of this service. Males who have previously been considered unable to father their own genetic child can now be offered treatment, which, in most cases, will lead to the recovery of sperm for use in treatment. This article considers the development of the techniques available to clinicians and provides an overview of the many treatments (and their acronyms) to assist clinicians unfamiliar with the practicalities of surgical sperm retrieval. In reviewing the current published studies, we also offer some guidelines as to the optimization of the potential future provisions of surgical sperm retrieval treatments for azoospermic males, either secondary to obstruction (particularly after vasectomy) or from non-obstructive causes.

The Colors of the Deep Sky

The term deep sky object is popular among astronomers to describe those faint patches among the stars that can be found only with optical assistance. The equipment needed to take pictures of deep sky objects is within the reach of dedicated amateur astronomers. In such low light levels there strictly is no color, but there is a natural desire to make these images look as they might appear if our vision were sensitive enough to perceive color. This is a component of esthetic presentation, and the use of color for this subject is extremely useful in education.CCD imaging equipment, because of its linearity, allows us to record and measure the spectral energy in a specific band determined by a filter placed in front of the sensor. By making several such recordings through red, green, and blue filters, a full color composite can be created. Of particular interest to astrophotographers are emission nebulas, whose spectra frequently comprise the dominant lines of hydrogen and ionized oxygen. These are present in a scene along with the wideband blackbody emissions of stars. Stars that shine into clouds of interstellar dust show yet other characteristic color. What is the representation of the recorded channels to portray a colorimetrically correct picture of these deep sky objects? This is the topic that will be addressed in this paper.

Paradoxical Donne: Biathanatos and the problems with political assimilation

John Donne's Biathanatos helps to clarify an essentially paradoxical element of its author's views on assimilation and rebellion in the political realm. While ostensibly a traditional mock encomium, in this instance a praise of suicide, Donne's treatise includes a number of historical anecdotes which disclose something contradictory about the structure of political institutions. By positing a natural “desire of death “ — a desire that allegedly affects everybody, as he attempts to show — the author in turn suggests a fundamental conflict between what he designates as natural and civil laws. In order for political institutions to survive, then, it becomes essential to rewrite these ostensibly natural desires as a form of madness, and thus to effectively estrange its citizens from themselves. Although Donne officially adopted a conservative public persona during his years as preacher and Dean, his paradoxical treatise reminds us of this sense of lingering estrangement, even if it did lie somewhere beyond his official beliefs.

La relación entre teología y antropología filosófica en el Liber creaturarum de Ramón Sibiuda

One of last century's most suggestive solutions to the problem of the relation between faith and reason may be found in the reconciliation of nature and supernature as proposed by the so-called "Nouvelle Theologie" and which has been taken on by Karl Rahner and his "transcendental-anthropologic" approach. Yet, this solution is not absolutely unprecedented in the history of Theology and Philosophy as is shown by the interesting case of Ramon Sibiuda, whose Liber creaturarum, which was written some time before 1436, proposes precisely a Philosophical Anthropology as the privileged access to Theology and its mysteries of faith. The present paper depicts the general outlines of Sibiuda's argumentation while it points out the actuality of some of his key concepts, as, for instance, experience and the natural desire towards God.

History of Development and the State of Fruit Sorter in Japan

Currently, there are so many packinghouses, large and small, in the world. And large quantity of fruits are classified into the standards of quality such as standard of size (weight, shape), standard of color or standard of appearance by a large variety of sorting machines, after the pretreatment (washing, cleaning). Moreover, maturity, sugar content (brix), acidity and internal quality (ex: existence of internal defect) are measured and shipped to the consumer with the wrap and quantity they desire. I believe this deed of “Sorting fruit” has started when human being were born. At the present, we are having the same desire as the people lived in 300000 years ago that is the wish to eat “safe, fresh, fully ripened and flavorful fruit”, and I think natural desire has lead to current development of sorting, packing and distribution technologies. Hence, it may safely be said that the deed of “Sorting Fruit” is one of the oldest cultures in our history. On the other hand, the history of “Sorting System for Fruit” is only approximately 120 years. And agriculture has changed according to the change of structure of society within this period. Today, I am going to give a presentation of history of development for fruit sorting system in Japan, and will show corroborative evidence of the current NIR-internal quality grader by using video with my wish that this presentation of the history of fruit sorting system can be a guide to people in the world to consider the future of agriculture.

Need I repeat myself? Non-repeating computer-aided designs for printed textiles

Historically, repeating patterns have been a technological and commercial restraint of mass-produced printed textiles. However, we have a natural desire to find, or make, patterns and order in many aspects of our visual lives, making many repeating patterns pleasing to the eye. Now that the technology has the capability to produce lengths of fabric directly from computer to ink-jet printer, both the technological and commercial restraints are being lifted. This paper addresses the possibilities for non-repeating patterns on fabric, investigating both the practicalities and design considerations through the use of examples created in my own practical research. As the designer and programmer of the software I have been able to produce designs which look intriguingly like they may repeat, but in fact, never do.