The seven works of Augustine that are contained in this volume all deal with the problem of faith in God. They were written over the course of three decades, beginning with True Religion (390) and extending to the Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Charity (c. 421). Hence this selection of writings provides an impressive insight into the intellectual and spiritual development of one of the greatest of all Western minds, as it grappled with a question that has never ceased to preoccupy and stimulate Western thought: Is it reasonable to believe in God, and what form might such belief take? Each of these seven works is a new translation into contemporary English, and each is introduced by the German Augustinian scholar Michael Fiedrowicz, who has also written a valuable general introduction.

The purpose of this book is to provide a comprehensive introduction to the complexities of the Old Testament; it also provides the basic knowledge required for students of O.T. theology. This widely used textbook appears here in its second English edition and is based on the fifth German edition (1995). This new edition has been expanded especially in regard to Pentateuch research and the anthropology of the O.T.

Published in 1997, this book is an examination of the Irish experience with active labour market policy. This text looks at training in comparison with employment programmes and examines this in the context of strong and weak market orientation. The study is based on a survey which is used to analyze the effect of programme participation on short and long-term employment prospects and on income. The results show that market-orientation is a significant factor in employment scheme success, a factor that has not been taken into account in recent policy changes. The book also points out the applications of this sort of study in other European countries.

This book offers an in-depth examination of the historical perspective on the death penalty, discusses the process involved in the sentencing and administration of justice, and clarifies facets of an issue which is riddled with inequities and ambiguities that reflect gender bias, and racial and economic disparity. For example, of the 3028 people on 'death row' as of August 1995, only 15% were women. Of those who are on 'death row' today, virtually all are poor, a significant number are mentally retarded or otherwise mentally disabled, more than 40% are African-American, and a disproportionate number are Native American, Latino and Asian. These facts need to be carefully weighed against the grief, pain, and anguish caused by the untimely death of a murder victim with regard to the family members, as well as the related legal costs to society.

A call to action in an ongoing battle against industrial agriculture From the early twentieth century and across generations to the present, In the Struggle brings together the stories of eight politically engaged scholars, documenting their opposition to industrial-scale agribusiness in California. As the narrative unfolds, their previously censored and suppressed research, together with personal accounts of intimidation and subterfuge, is introduced into the public arena for the first time. In the Struggle lays out historic, subterranean confrontations over water rights, labor organizing, and the corruption of democratic principles and public institutions. As California’s rural economy increasingly consolidates into the hands of land barons and corporations, the scholars’ work shifts from analyzing problems and formulating research methods to organizing resistance and building community power. Throughout their engagement, they face intense political blowback as powerful economic interests work to pollute and undermine scientific inquiry and the civic purposes of public universities. The findings and the pressure put upon the work of these scholars—Paul Taylor, Ernesto Galarza, and Isao Fujimoto among them—are a damning indictment of the greed and corruption that flourish under industrial-scale agriculture. After almost a century of empirical evidence and published research, a definitive finding becomes clear: land consolidation and economic monopoly are fundamentally detrimental to democracy and the well-being of rural societies.

A great thinker once said that "all philosophy is merely footnotes to Plato." Through Plato, Father O'Connell provides us here with an introduction to all philosophy. Designed for beginning students in philosophy, Plato on the Human Paradox examines and confronts human nature and the eternal questions concerning human nature through the dialogues of Plato, focusing on the Apology, Phaedo, Books III-VI of the Republic, Meno, Symposium, and O'Connell presents us here with an introduction to Plato through the philosopher's quest to define "human excellence" or arete in terms of defining what "human being" is body and soul, focusing on Plato's preoccupations with the questions of how and what it means to have a "good life" in relation to or as opposed to a "moral life."

As a young student in Paris, O'Connell was first enamored of the intriguing artistic imagery of Augustine's works. The imagery continued to impress him as his scholarship continued. Now, after many years of research and regarding study on the topic, a thorough treatment of Augustine's "image clusters" is revealed in this volume, Soundings in St. Augustine's Imagination. That St. Augustine's writings are empowered by use of poetic imagery is of interest to readers of philosophy, theology, as well as language. In this work, Augustine's imagery is used as a basis to shed light on some of his thought which had previously puzzled the scholarly world. Soundings in St. Augustine's Imagination is an imperative addition to any philosophical library and a rich reward for all intrigued by his dramatic use of language and metaphor.

When this book was originally published in 1969, it added fuel to a controversy (sparked by the author in a previous work) that continues unabated to the present day.Now, available for the first time in a paperback edition, it offers a new generation of readers a detailed exposition of the Confessions, showing how the Plotinian view of man as a fallen soul is present in this work and, furthermore, that it is the key to its interpretation.

Education and training are of critical importance to individual employment prospects. This book questions whether the policies that govern education, training and employment actually facilitate or inhibit social integration. The authors analyse initial entry into the labour market and subsequent movements between employers, and explore links between education, training and the labour market. The book argues that although education is a good predictor of labour market integration and employment potential, and despite political efforts, social background nevertheless remains influential. The importance of continued training to improve opportunities for promotion is also demonstrated. The volume draws on economic, sociological and political science research to examine the potential for lifelong learning to enhance social integration, and new theories and evidence on the transitional labour market of learning and working are discussed. A wide range of European countries are also analysed using data from the European Community Household Panel surveys (ECHP), as well as national enterprise-level surveys and case studies. Education, Training and Employment Dynamics will be welcomed by a varied audience; economists will find the challenge to human capital theory inspiring, and sociologists are offered a new approach to life course research, whilst political scientists will find an interesting study of multi-level policy making in the EU.

A call to action in an ongoing battle against industrial agriculture From the early twentieth century and across generations to the present, In the Struggle brings together the stories of eight politically engaged scholars, documenting their opposition to industrial-scale agribusiness in California. As the narrative unfolds, their previously censored and suppressed research, together with personal accounts of intimidation and subterfuge, is introduced into the public arena for the first time. In the Struggle lays out historic, subterranean confrontations over water rights, labor organizing, and the corruption of democratic principles and public institutions. As California's rural economy increasingly consolidates into the hands of land barons and corporations, the scholars' work shifts from analyzing problems and formulating research methods to organizing resistance and building community power. Throughout their engagement, they face intense political blowback as powerful economic interests work to pollute and undermine scientific inquiry and the civic purposes of public universities. The findings and the pressure put upon the work of these scholars-Paul Taylor, Ernesto Galarza, and Isao Fujimoto among them-are a damning indictment of the greed and corruption that flourish under industrial-scale agriculture. After almost a century of empirical evidence and published research, a definitive finding becomes clear: land consolidation and economic monopoly are fundamentally detrimental to democracy and the well-being of rural societies.

William James' celebrated lecture on "The Will to Believe" has kindled spirited controversy since the day it was delivered. In this lively reappraisal of that controversy, Father O'Connell contributes some fresh contentions: that James' argument should be viewed against his indebtedness to Pascal and Renouvier; that it works primarily to validate our "over-beliefs" ; and most surprising perhaps, that James envisages our "passional nature" as intervening, not after, but before and throughout, our intellectual weighing of the evidence for belief.

William James' celebrated lecture on "The Will to Believe" has kindled spirited controversy since the day it was delivered. In this lively reappraisal of that controversy, Father O'Connell contributes some fresh contentions: that James' argument should be viewed against his indebtedness to Pascal and Renouvier; that it works primarily to validate our "over-beliefs" ; and most surprising perhaps, that James envisages our "passional nature" as intervening, not after, but before and throughout, our intellectual weighing of the evidence for belief.

A great thinker once said that "all philosophy is merely footnotes to Plato."Through Plato, Father O'Connell provides us here with an introduction to all philosophy. Designed for beginning students in philosophy, Plato on the Human Paradox examines and confronts human nature and the eternal questions concerning human nature through the dialogues of Plato, focusing on the Apology, Phaedo, Books III-VI of the Republic, Meno, Symposium, and O'Connell presents us here with an introduction to Plato through the philosopher's quest to define "human excellence" or arete in terms of defining what "human being" is body and soul, focusing on Plato's preoccupations with the questions of how and what it means to have a "good life" in relation to or as opposed to a "moral life."

As a young student in Paris, O'Connell was first enamored of the intriguing artistic imagery of Augustine's works. The imagery continued to impress him as his scholarship continued. Now, after many years of research and regarding study on the topic, a thorough treatment of Augustine's "image clusters" is revealed in this volume, Soundings in St. Augustine's Imagination. That St. Augustine's writings are empowered by use of poetic imagery is of interest to readers of philosophy, theology, as well as language. In this work, Augustine's imagery is used as a basis to shed light on some of his thought which had previously puzzled the scholarly world. Soundings in St. Augustine's Imagination is an imperative addition to any philosophical library and a rich reward for all intrigued by his dramatic use of language and metaphor.

The Phenomenon of Man, by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, has been characterized as metaphysics, poetry, and mysticism-virtually everything except what its author claimed it was: a "purely scientific memoir." Professor O'Connell here follows up on a nest of clues, uncovered first in an early unpublished essay, then in the series of essays contained principally in The Vision of the Past. Those clues all point to Teilhard's intimate familiarity with the philosophy of science propounded by the celebrated Pierre Duhem. It was Duhem's central claim that science, to remain true to itself, must aim at establishing a genuine "natural classification" phenomenal reality. That insight, Professor O'Connell argues, guided Teilhard's lifelong effort to describe the "imposed reality-factors" which science in its variety of forms suggests as ingredients and operative at every phase in the evolutionary development of planet Earth. Limiting his focus to the way Teilhard unfolded his vision of the past, Professor O'Connell concludes that those who deprecate Teilhard as unscientific betray little awareness of how sophisticated his understanding of science truly was.

This book rounds off Robert O'Connell's study of St. Augustine's view of the human condition, begun is St. Augustine's Early Theory of Man, A.D. 386-391, and continued in St. Augustine's Confessions: The Odyssey of Soul. The central thesis of the first book, and guiding hypothesis of the second, proposed that Augustine thought of us, in "Plotinian" terms, as "fallen souls," and that in all sincerity he interpreted the teachings of Scripture as reflecting that same view. Professor O'Connell sees the weightiest objection to his proposition as stemming from what scholars generally agree to be Augustine's firm rejection of that view in his later works. The central contention in this new book is that Augustine did indeed object his earlier theory, but only for a short time. He came to see the text of Romans 9:11, apparently, as compelling that rejection. But, then, his firm belief that all humans are guilty of Original Sin would have left traducianism as his only acceptable way of understanding the origin of sinful human souls. The materialistic cast of traducianism, however, always repelled Augustine. Hence, he struggles to elaborate a fresh interpretation of Romans 9:11, and he eventually finds one that permits him to return to a slightly revised version of his earlier view. That theory, Professor O'Connell argues, is encased in both the De civitate Dei and the final version of De Trinitate.

The Catholic Liturgy is a mystery. It transcends time and space, re-presenting a sacrifice that happened once, but is seen every day. Fr. Jean Corbon gives a thorough exposition of many aspects of the Catholic Liturgy, ranging from the historical to the transcendant. Divided into three parts--

In his preceding work, Soundings in Augustine's Imagination, Father O'Connell outlined the three basic images Augustine employs to frame his view of the human condition. In the present study, he applies the same techniques of image-analysis to the three major "conversions" recounted in the Confessions. Those conversions were occasioned, first, by Augustine's youthful reading of Cicero's Hortensius, then by his reading of what he calls the "books of the Platonists", and finally, most decisively, by his fateful reading in that Milanese garden of the explosive capitulum, or "chapterlet", from St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans. Dissection of Augustine's imagery discloses a chain of striking connections between these conversions. Each of them, for instance, features a return to a woman - now a bridal, now a maternal figure, and finally, a mysterious stand-in for Divine Wisdom, both bridal and maternal. Unsurprisingly, conversion-imagery also provokes a fresh estimate of the sexual component in Augustine's religious biography; but the sexual aspect is balanced by Augustine's insistent stress on the "vanity" of his worldly ambitions. Perhaps most arresting of all is Father O'Connell's analysis showing that the text that Augustine read from Romans consisted of not only two, but four verses: hence the dramatic procession of images which make up the structure of the Confessions, Book VII; hence, too, the presence, subtle but real, of those same image-complexes in the Dialogues Augustine composed soon after his conversion in A.D. 386.

In international commentary and debate on the effects of the Great Recession and austerity, Ireland has been hailed as the poster child for economic recovery and regeneration out of deep economic and fiscal contraction. While the genesis of Ireland's financial, economic, and fiscal crisis has been covered in the literature, no systematic analysis has yet been devoted to the period of austerity, to the impact of austerity on institutions and people, or to the roots of economic recovery. In this book a group of Ireland's leading social scientists present a multidisciplinary analysis of recession and austerity and their effects on economic, business, political, and social life. Individual chapters discuss the fiscal and economic policies implemented, the role of international, and, in particular, of EU institutions, and the effects on businesses, consumption, work, the labour market, migration, political and financial institutions, social inequality and cohesion, housing, and cultural expression. The book shows that Ireland cannot be viewed uncritically as a poster child for austerity. While fiscal contraction provided a basis for stabilizing the perilous finances of the state, economic recovery was due in the main to the long-established structure of Irish economic and business activity, to the importance of foreign direct investment and the dynamic export sector, and to recovery in the international economy. The restructuring and recovery of the financial system was aided by favourable international developments, including historically low interest rates and quantitative easing. Migration flows, nominal wage stability, the protection of social transfer payments, and the involvement of trade unions in severe public sector retrenchment - long-established features of Irish political economy - were of critical importance in the maintenance of social cohesion.

This book takes a lofty vision of "recovery" and of "a life in the community" for every adult with a serious mental illness promised by the U.S. President's 2003 New Freedom Commission on Mental Health and shows the reader what is entailed in making this vision a reality. Beginning with the historical context of the recovery movement and its recent emergence on the center stage of mental health policy around the world, the authors then clarify various definitions of mental health recovery and address the most common misconceptiosn of recovery held by skeptical practitioners and wroried families. With this framework in place, the authors suggest fundamental principles for recovery-oreinted care, a set of concrete practice guidelines developed in and for the field, a recovery guide model of practice as an alternative to clinical case management, and tools to self-assess the recovery orientation of practices and practitioners. In doing so, this volume represents the first book to go beyond the rhetoric of recovery to its implementation in everyday practice. Much of this work was developed with the State of Connecticut's Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, helping the state to win a #1 ranking in the recent NAMI report card on state mental health authorities. Since initial development of these principles, guidelines, and tools in Connecticut, the authors have become increasingly involved in refining and tailoring this approach for other systems of care around the globe as more and more governments, ministry leaders, system managers, practitioners, and people with serious mental illnesses nad their families embrace the need to transform mental health services to promote recovery and community inclusion. If you've wondered what all of the recent to-do has been about with the notion of "recovery" in mental health, this book explains it. In addition, it gives you an insider's view of the challenges and strategies involved in transforming to recovery and a road map to follow on the first few steps down this exciting, promising, and perhaps long overdue path.