Although Étienne Gilson did not change his position on Christian philosophy as defined in his 1931 Gifford Lectures, interesting modifications occur in his later formulations. Whereas Gilson's earlier formulations emphasized philosophy searching within the faith for what can become rational, his later formulations during the 1960s placed more emphasis on its Christian aspect, i.e., faith guiding reason. In the 1960s, Gilson emphasized faith and the Church as the guardians of Christian philosophy, expressed a relative indifference to the validity of rational proofs for the existence of God, and empathized with those accepting questionable philosophical approaches to understand the faith. Post-modernism with its rejection of a “pure” or “scientific” methodology in philosophy serves as an appropriate context in which to situate Gilson's later formulation of Christian philosophy.

Are modern artworks really comparable in any serious way to ancient monuments? Has Colin Renfrew changed sides in the conflict of reason with intuition in modern archaeology? Leo Klejn thinks so. Colin Renfrew responds, below.

Andrew Fleming takes phenomenology by the horns.

How has Turkey used archaeology to define itself and address political goals? How have these goals clashed with western Europeans in pursuit of the Hittites and ancient Greeks? The author analyses the context of her own work in the Black Sea coastal area of Turkey, and deconstructs its ethnic influences in the context of modern archaeology.

There has been very limited debate about the usefulness of links between later life and disability studies. The paper reviews the arguments for and against a closer association. The social model of disability makes crucial the separation of disability from impairment and shows that it is society that does the disabling. This is never so clear as in the case of housing policies for older people, the focus of this article. Older people suffer discrimination and have to submit to a medical model of later life if they receive health or social care services. The argument against an association between later life studies and disability studies is that later life is an immensely diverse experience, much of it nothing to do with disability. Moreover, some older people reject the negative connotation when later life is equated with disability. The paper argues, however, for a specific application of the social model of disability to the situation of older people with impairments who receive services. It also asserts that the social model of disability can be accommodated in critical gerontology and, in particular, in a post-modern perspective. The paper concludes with examples of the value of the social model of disability at both the policy and political levels.

This paper is concerned with the emergence of consumerism as a dominant theme in the culture surrounding the organisation and provision of welfare in contemporary societies. In it we address the dilemmas produced by a consumerist discourse for older people's healthcare, dilemmas which may be seen as the conflicting representations of third age and fourth age reality. We begin by reviewing the appearance of consumerism in the recent history of the British healthcare system, relating it to the various reforms of healthcare over the last two decades and the more general development of consumerism as a cultural phenomenon of the post World War II era. The emergence of consumer culture, we argue, is both a central theme in post-modernist discourse and a key element in the political economy of the New Right. After examining criticisms of post-modernist representational politics, the limitations of consumerism and the privileged position given to choice and agency within consumerist society, we consider the relevance of such critical perspectives in judging the significance of the user/consumer movement in the lives of retired people.