References to energy of the universe have focussed upon the matter contribution, whereas the conservation laws must include a gravitational contribution as well. The conservation laws as applied to FRW cosmologies suggest a zero total energy irrespective of the spatial curvature when the value of the cosmological constant is taken to be zero. This result provides a useful constraint on models of the early universe and lends support to currently studied theories of the universe arising as a quantum fluctuation of (...) the vacuum. (shrink)

In the study of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel, a consistent area of debate between mainstream and conservative scholars is whether or not the ancient Israelites were monotheists who worshiped El Elyon as their highest god, and whether or not the Hebrew Bible retains any of this. One particular passage of interest has been Deuteronomy 32: 8–9, which most academics interpret as El Elyon distributing the nation to his children, one of whom is Yahweh. This essay seeks to address (...) the rebuttals of conservative scholars who have sought to deny this, by arguing that ancient Israel’s conception of Yahweh was and that he was not a son of El in Deut. 32. This essay rejects these conclusions, principally arguing against the work of Michael S. Heiser, bringing attention to some neglected data which conservative academics have often overlooked in trying to elucidate this passage and demonstrating that the consensus reading of the passage makes the most sense of the text. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.4 (2002) 619-637 [Access article in PDF] Maimonides and the Rise and Fall of the Sabians:Explaining Mosaic Laws and the Limits of Scholarship Jonathan Elukin The Koran mentions the Sabi'un three times (II 6-2, V 69, XXII 17). "Believers, Jews, Christians, and Sabi'un—whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day and does what is right—shall be rewarded by their Lord; they have nothing (...) to fear or to regret." This language is repeated in the second citation. The third appearance is slightly different: "As for true believers, the Jews, the Sabi'un, the Christians, the Magians, and the pagans, Allah will judge them on the Day of Resurrection. He bears witness to all things." 1 Early Islamic commentators often disagreed on the identity of the Sabi'un, and the confusion continued throughout the medieval Islamic period. 2 The term Sabi'un was applied by some early Koranic commentators to the survivors of an ancient Jewish-Christian sect, the Elchasites in southern Iraq. 3 One minority group of ethnic Arab "pagans" with a hellenized elite in Harran, in Arabia, also took the Koranic name Sabian in the third/ninth century to claim the status of a "people of the book" and therefore avoid persecution. It is this group that some later Muslims identified as Sabi'. 4 The scholarly consensus now suggests that [End Page 619] the term Sabian refers to some kind of Gnostic identity that can encompass "the disciples of Judeo-Christian baptizing sects... and, on the other, Harranian astrolators, the last representatives of decadent Greco-Roman paganism." 5The mysterious Sabians would play a key role in attempts by early modern European scholars to understand the origins of the Mosaic legislation. It was through Maimonides, the great twelfth-century Jewish scholar, that the Sabians were transmitted to Christian scholars. By the seventeenth century, the Sabians of Maimonides's Guide for the Perplexed had become a fixture in how scholars understood or at least debated the history of the origins of Mosaic law. Increasingly perceived as a diffuse paganism rather than a specific ethnic identity or subsumed by the more tangible reality of Egypt, Sabianism drifted to the margins of scholarship by the end of the Enlightenment. During the nineteenth century the Sabians became superfluous to scholarly efforts to understand the origins of Israelite monotheism. This study is an attempt to understand the growth of the enthusiasm for the Sabians by early modern scholars and then its precipitous decline. In a large degree it was the nature of the evidence itself regarding the Sabians that shaped and ultimately undermined the survival of the Sabians in European thinking. Still, both Christian and Jewish scholars well into the twentieth century lived with the ghosts of the Sabians as they sought to explain otherwise mysterious Mosaic commandments.In the Guide Maimonides argued that the sacrificial system legislated by Moses was an example of God's mercy. It would have been impossible for the Israelites to abandon suddenly the style of idolatrous worship learned in Egypt, and so Moses crafted the sacrificial system gradually to replace false gods with the true God. Maimonides still needed to explain the particular details and reasons for the sacrifices and the other ritual laws. 6 To that end he claimed to have read various texts, particularly the so-called Nabataen Agriculture, which purported to describe Abraham's education among and flight from the Sabians as well as a summary of the practices of the Sabians. 7 (The Sabians had made one brief appearance before Maimonides's discussion in the Guide; the tenth-century Karaite Jew, Qirqisani, declared in his Kitab al anwar, "the modern Christian philosophers assert that the laws of the Torah were given to the Children of Israel only because of God's wrath; and that they [Israel] have chosen these laws for themselves only on account of their resemblance to the laws of the Sabians, which was due to the fact that they became... (shrink)

Prophets, Prophecy, and Ancient Israelite Historiography. Edited by Mark J. Boda and Lissa M. Wray Beal. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2013. Pp. xii + 400. $54.50.

Deux inscriptions découvertes à une centaine de mètres de la Synagogue font connaître des oί εν Δήλω Ίσραηλΐται οί άπαρχόμενοι είς ιερόν άγιον Άργαριζείν. Il s'agit de Samaritains comme l'indiquent la déclaration d'appartenance au Garizim et le nom d'Israëlites. Ces inscriptions ont la double utilité de révéler une nouvelle communauté étrangère à Délos et d'enrichir le dossier, encore très maigre, de la diaspora samaritaine. La date des inscriptions, fondée sur la seule paléographie, reste imprécise : la plus ancienne doit remonter (...) à la première moitié du IIe siècle ; la plus récente peut être postérieure à la destruction Temple du Garizim en 129 av. J.-C. Les « Israélites de Délos » possédaient leur local propre à 100 m au Nord de la Synagogue, nouveau qui invite à reconsidérer l'implantation hébraïque à Délos. (shrink)

This collection addresses a post-WWII shift in the hierarchy of scientific explanations, where the highest goal moves from reductionism towards some ...

The foundations of Wesson’s induced matter theory are analyzed. It is shown that the empty—without matter—5-dimensional bulk must be regarded as a Weylian space rather than as a Riemannian one. Revising the geometry of the bulk, we have assumed that a Weylian connection vector and a gauge function exist in addition to the metric tensor. The framework of a Weyl–Dirac version of Wesson’s theory is elaborated and discussed. In the 4-dimensional hypersurface (brane), one obtains equations describing both fields, the gravitational (...) and the electromagnetic. The result is a geometrically based unified theory of gravitation and electromagnetism with mass and current induced by the bulk. In special cases on obtains on the brane the equations of Einstein–Maxwell, or these of the original induced matter theory. (shrink)

In much of the current academic and public discussion, conspiracy theories are portrayed as a negative phenomenon, linked to misinformation, mistrust in experts and institutions, and political propaganda. Rather surprisingly, however, philosophers working on this topic have been reluctant to incorporate a negatively evaluative aspect when either analyzing or engineering the concept conspiracy theory. In this paper, we present empirical data on the nature of the concept conspiracy theory from five studies designed to test the existence, prevalence and exact form (...) of an evaluative dimension to the ordinary concept conspiracy theory. These results reveal that, while there is a descriptive concept of conspiracy theory, the predominant use of conspiracy theory is deeply evaluative, encoding information about epistemic deficiency and often also derogatory and disparaging information. On the basis of these results, we present a new strategy for engineering conspiracy theory to promote theoretical investigations and institutional discussions of this phenomenon. We argue for engineering conspiracy theory to encode an epistemic evaluation, and to introduce a descriptive expression—such as ‘conspiratorial explanation’—to refer to the purely descriptive concept conspiracy theory. (shrink)

Contingency is the presence of non-actualized possibility in the world. Fatalism is a view of reality on which there is no contingency. Since it is contingency that permits agency, there has traditionally been much interest in contingency. This interest has long been embarrassed by the contention that simple and plausible assumptions about the world lead to fatalism. I begin with an Aristotelian argument as presented by Richard Taylor. Appreciation of this argument has been stultified by a question pertaining to the (...) source of necessity and possibility and a closely related one regarding the nature of metaphysics itself. Answering these questions reveals the crucial issue here, to wit, necessity and possibility in a temporal world. This issue is investigated through an important later criticism of Taylor by David Foster Wallace. Wallace’s critique is significant because it brings to the fore the pivotal notion for understanding contingency in a temporal world, that of synchronic possibility, the idea that incompatible states of affairs are possible at a single moment. This notion provides the basis of distinguishing two systematic accounts of truth, modality and time: two metaphysics of contingency. On one account, Taylor’s Aristotelian argument is straightforwardly valid and compelling; on the other, it is fallacious. In closing, I present reasons why the former account, supporting the Aristotelian views of time and truth, is correct and make some comments to ameliorate this conclusion. (shrink)

The Weyl theory of gravitation and electromagnetism, as modified by Dirac, contains a gauge-covariant scalar β which has no geometric significance. This is a flaw if one is looking for a geometric description of gravitation and electromagnetism. A bimetric formalism is therefore introduced which enables one to replace β by a geometric quantity. The formalism can be simplified by the use of a gauge-invariant physical metric. The resulting theory agrees with the general relativity for phenomena in the solar system.

Elementary particles, regarded as the constituents of quarks and leptons, are described classically in the framework of the general relativity theory. There are neutral particles and particles having charges±1/3e. They are taken to be spherically symmetric and to have mass density, pressure, and (if charged) charge density. They are characterized by an equation of state P=−ρ suggested by earlier work on cosmology. The neutral particle has a very simple structure. In the case of the charged particle there is one outstanding (...) model described by a simple analytic solution of the field equations. (shrink)

An integrable version of the Weyl-Dirac geometry is presented. This framework is a natural generalization of the Riemannian geometry, the latter being the basis of the classical general relativity theory. The integrable Weyl-Dirac theory is both coordinate covariant and gauge covariant (in the Weyl sense), and the field equations and conservation laws are derived from an action integral. In this framework matter creation by geometry is considered. It is found that a spatially confined, spherically symmetric formation made of pure geometric (...) quantities is a massive entity. This may be treated either as a fundamental particle or as a cosmic body. In an F-R-W universe at the very beginning of the expansion phase the cosmic matter is created from an initial Planckian egg made of geometry, and during the following expansion geometric fields continue to stimulate the matter production. (shrink)

Issuing from a geometry with nonmetricity and torsion we build up a generalized classical electrodynamics. This geometrically founded theory is coordinate covariant, as well as gauge covariant in the Weyl sense. Photons having arbitrary mass, intrinsic magnetic currents, (magnetic monopoles), and electric currents exist in this framework. The field equations, and the equations of motion of charged (either electrically or magnetically) particles are derived from an action principle. It is shown that the interaction between magnetic monopoles is transmitted by massive (...) photons. On the other hand, the photon is massive only in the presence of magnetic currents. We obtained a static spherically symmetric solution, describing either the Reissner-Nordstrom metric of an electric monopole, or the metric and field of a magnetic monopole. The latter must be massive. In the absence of torsion and in the Einstein gauge one obtains the Einstein-Maxwell theory. (shrink)

In order to get to a geometrically based theory of gravitation and electromagnetism, a gauge covariant bimetric tetrad space-time is introduced. The Weylian connection vector is derived from the tetrads and it is identified with the electromagnetic potential vector. The formalism is simplified by the use of gauge-invariant quantities. The theory contains a contorsion tensor that is connected with spinning properties of matter. The electromagnetic field may be induced by conventional sources and by spinning matter. In absence of spinning matter, (...) the equations are identical with those of the gauge-covariant bimetric theory.(23). (shrink)

A spherically symmetric entity with the Weyl-Dirac geometry holding in its interior is investigated. The structure is determined by the presence of the Dirac gauge function, which creates a mass density. Two models are obtained, one that can describe a cosmic body, the other an elementary particle.

It is suggested that the dark matter of the universe is due to the presence of a scalar field described by the gauge function introduced by Dirac in his modification of the Weyl geometry. The behavior of such dark matter is investigated.

Spherically symmetric entities filled with matter and induced by the 5D bulk may be built in the empty 4D space-time. The substance of the entity, the latter regarded as a fundamental particle, is characterized by the prematter equation of state P=−ρ. The particle is covered in a Schwarzschild-like envelope and from the outside it is characterized by mass and radius. One can regard these entities as neutral fundamental particles being constituents of quarks and leptons. The presented classical models are developed (...) in the framework of a Weyl–Dirac version of Wesson’s Induced Matter Theory. (shrink)

The problem of measurement in theories based on geometry with nonmetricity and contorsion is analyzed. In order to enable the use of atoms as measuring standards, one has to remove the nonintegrability of length in the interior of atoms. Geometrical descriptions appropriate fo this purpose are found in the general case and in the case of two-covariant theories.

In Weyl’s geometry the nonintegrability problem and difficulties in defining measuring standards are reconsidered. Approaches removing the nonintegrability of length in the interior of atoms are given, so that atoms can serve as measuring standards. The Weyl space becomes a well founded framework for classical theories of electromagnetism and gravitation.

It is shown that all spherically symmetric distributions of prematter in the framework of general relativity are static. These results provide a justification for the models of elementary particles proposed previously.

For the theorists of crisis, the revolutionary state comes into existence through violence, and due to its inability to provide an authoritative katechon (restrainer) against internal and external violence, it perpetuates violence until it self-destructs. Writing during extreme economic depression and growing social and political violence, the crisis theorists––Joseph de Maistre, Juan Donoso Cortés, and Carl Schmitt––each sought to blame the chaos of their time upon the Janus-faced postrevolutionary ideals of liberalism and socialism by urging a return to pre-revolutionary moral (...) and religious values. They are united by three counterrevolutionary principles, all of which are purported to remedy revolutionary violence: traditional constitutional fidelity, the philosophy of the decision, and opposition to bourgeois liberalism. This essay is followed by the first complete English translation and publication of Donoso’s letter of October 24, 1851, which contains Donoso’s only reference to the “discussing class,” a political entity later popularized by Schmitt in his 1922 work Political Theology. (shrink)

The X-ray and bulk densities of PdIn alloys have been determined at ambient temperature on samples annealed at 1273 and 1373 K and quenched in water-ice mixtures. From these measurements the vacancy concentrations in this intermetallic phase have been obtained as a function of In concentration at these two temperatures. In addition, a generalized thermodynamic model is presented which considers the existence of antisite and vacancy defects on both sublattices without any dilute solution approximations. This model uses three energy parameters, (...) whose values have been obtained for PdIn using the measured vacancy concentrations and the chemical potentials of In. This model is able to describe all the available vacancy data and is suitable for calculating these values at compositions and temperatures when such data are not available. In addition, the model permits the calculation of the concentrations of the minority point defects. It is shown that dilute-solution approximations, which have invariably been used in this kind of modelling, are unsatisfactory. The present results and their analysis confirm that PdIn is a near-triple-defect type of intermetallic and not a near-Schottky type, as has been claimed recently. (shrink)

Reprint of paper first published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research in 1984.

Early in his Essays on Intellectual Powers, Reid draws a distinction between mental power, mental operation, and mental capacity (EIP 21). To the untrained eye, these terms could probably be used interchangeably, and Reid believes this is correct, up to a point. He argues that, if we are interested in understanding exactly how the human mind works, we must use these terms with more precise meanings. This is part of his more general strategy of trying to always use the words (...) with their common meanings, as much as possible, but also pointing out that certain philosophical distinctions are needed to carry out the project of laying out the foundations of the science of the mind. This paper explains what the distinction between power, operation, and capacity is, according to Reid, with the goal of understanding why it is important to draw such a distinction, not only for the Reidian project, but for action theory, more generally. (shrink)

This volume provides a philosophical introduction to and analysis of the study of metaphor. By proceeding from the concrete analysis of complex metaphors, White is able to identify a range of features which are incompatible with standard accounts of the way words function in metaphor.

In this short text, a distinguished philosopher turns his attention to one of the oldest and most fundamental philosophical problems of all: How it is that we are able to sort and classify different things as being of the same natural class? Professor Armstrong carefully sets out six major theories—ancient, modern, and contemporary—and assesses the strengths and weaknesses of each. Recognizing that there are no final victories or defeats in metaphysics, Armstrong nonetheless defends a traditional account of universals as the (...) most satisfactory theory we have.This study is written for advanced students, but as Armstrong goes considerably beyond his earlier work on this topic, it will interest professional scholars as well. Carefully plotted and clearly written, Universals is both a paradigm of exposition and a case study on the value of careful analysis of fundamental issues in philosophy. (shrink)

Bioethics has paid surprisingly little attention to the special problems faced by women and to feminist analyses of current health care issues other than ...

In this important study D. M. Armstrong offers a comprehensive system of analytical metaphysics that synthesises but also develops his thinking over the last twenty years. Armstrong's analysis, which acknowledges the 'logical atomism' of Russell and Wittgenstein, makes facts the fundamental constituents of the world, examining properties, relations, numbers, classes, possibility and necessity, dispositions, causes and laws. All these, it is argued, find their place and can be understood inside a scheme of states of affairs. This is a comprehensive and (...) rigorously this-worldly account of the most general features of reality, argued from a distinctive philosophical perspective, and it will appeal to a wide readership in analytical philosophy. (shrink)

Arguably no concept is more fundamental to science than that of causality, for investigations into cases of existence, persistence, and change in the natural world are largely investigations into the causes of these phenomena. Yet the metaphysics and epistemology of causality remain unclear. For example, the ontological categories of the causal relata have been taken to be objects (Hume 1739), events (Davidson 1967), properties (Armstrong 1978), processes (Salmon 1984), variables (Hitchcock 1993), and facts (Mellor 1995). (For convenience, causes and effects (...) will usually be understood as events in what follows.) Complicating matters, causal relations may be singular (Socrates’s drinking hemlock caused Socrates’s death) or general (Drinking hemlock causes death); hence the relata might be tokens (e.g., instances of properties) or types (e.g., types of events) of the category in question. Other questions up for grabs are: Are singular causes metaphysically and/or epistemologically prior to general causes or vice versa (or neither)? What grounds the intuitive asymmetry of the causal relation? Are macro-causal relations reducible to micro-causal relations? And perhaps most importantly: Are causal facts (e.g., the holding of causal relations) reducible to non-causal facts (e.g., the holding of certain spatiotemporal relations)? (shrink)

In this paper I argue that both defence and criticism of the claim that humans act ‘under the guise of the good’ neglects the metaphysical roots of the theory. I begin with an overview of the theory and its modern commentators, with critics noting the apparent possibility of acting against the good, and supporters claiming that such actions are instances of error. These debates reduce the ‘guise of the good’ to a claim about intention and moral action, and in so (...) doing have become divorced from the theory's roots in classical and medieval philosophy. Aristotle and Aquinas’ ‘guise of the good’ is primarily a metaphysical claim resting on the equivalence between actuality and goodness, from which conclusions about moral action are derived. I show the reasoning behind their theory and how it forms the basis for the claims about intention and action at the centre of the modern debate. Finally, I argue that the absence of its original foundation is apparent in recent attacks on the ‘guise of the good’. It is unsurprising that modern action theory and ethics have not always been able to comfortably accommodate the ‘guise of the good’; they are only telling half of the story. (shrink)

In _Matter and Consciousness_, Paul Churchland presents a concise and contemporary overview of the philosophical issues surrounding the mind and explains the main theories and philosophical positions that have been proposed to solve them. Making the case for the relevance of theoretical and experimental results in neuroscience, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence for the philosophy of mind, Churchland reviews current developments in the cognitive sciences and offers a clear and accessible account of the connections to philosophy of mind. For this (...) third edition, the text has been updated and revised throughout. The changes range from references to the iPhone's "Siri" to expanded discussions of the work of such contemporary philosophers as David Chalmers, John Searle, and Thomas Nagel. Churchland describes new research in evolution, genetics, and visual neuroscience, among other areas, arguing that the philosophical significance of these new findings lies in the support they tend to give to the reductive and eliminative versions of materialism. Matter and Consciousness, written by the most distinguished theorist and commentator in the field, offers an authoritative summary and sourcebook for issues in philosophy of mind. It is suitable for use as an introductory undergraduate text. (shrink)