It is well known that Augustine, Boethius, Anselm and Aquinas participated in a tradition of philosophical theology which determined God to be simple, perfect, immutable and timelessly eternal. Within the parameters of such an Hellenic understanding of the divine nature, they sought a clarification of one of the fundamental teachings of their Christian faith, the doctrine of the Trinity. These classical theists were not dogmatists, naively unreflective about the very possibility of their project. Aquinas, for instance, explicitly worried about and (...) fought to dispel the seeming contradiction between the philosophical requirement of divine simplicity and the creedal insistence on a threefold personhood in God. 1 Nevertheless, doubts abound. Philosophers otherwise friendly to Classical Theism still remain unsure about the coherence of affirming a God that is at once absolutely simple and triune. 2 A less friendly critic has even suggested that the theory of divine simplicity pressured Augustine and his medieval followers away from recognizing that real complexity within the life of God which Trinitarianism expresses. 3. (shrink)

Man has the urge to thrust against the limits of language. Think for instance about one's astonishment that anything exists. This astonishment cannot be expressed in the form of a question and there is no answer to it. Anything we can say must, a priori, be nonsense.

This first part of Thomas Aquinas’ third way has provoked a variety of allegations on the theme of a quantifier shift fallacy. For even if it be granted that every thing at some time does not exist, that is.

Aristotle assesses as valid three first figure syllogisms, each of which contains at least one premiss expressing a de re contingency. In fact, all three of these moods (namely, Barbara-QQQ, Barbara-XQM, and Barbara-LQM) are invalid. Utilizing the concept of ampliation, this paper shows how the mood Barbara-QQQ must be refined if it is to be deemed valid. It can then become clear as to how Barbara-XQM and Barbara-LQM can be disambiguated and ultimately validated. In treating all three moods, some theses (...) from S4 will be exploited in the context of distinguishing de dicto and de re modes of attributing possibility and necessity. Various Aristotelian propositional forms and rules of inference, including argumentation by ecthesis, will shape the presentation. The viability of Aristotle’s views on the convertibility of universal negative apodeictic propositions will emerge as decisive in evaluating the success of his modal syllogistic. (shrink)

Aristotle assesses as valid three first figure syllogisms, each of which contains at least one premiss expressing a de re contingency. In fact, all three of these moods (namely, Barbara-QQQ, Barbara-XQM, and Barbara-LQM) are invalid. Utilizing the concept of ampliation, this paper shows how the mood Barbara-QQQ must be refined if it is to be deemed valid. It can then become clear as to how Barbara-XQM and Barbara-LQM can be disambiguated and ultimately validated. In treating all three moods, some theses (...) from S4 will be exploited in the context of distinguishing de dicto and de re modes of attributing possibility and necessity. Various Aristotelian propositional forms and rules of inference, including argumentation by ecthesis, will shape the presentation. The viability of Aristotle’s views on the convertibility of universal negative apodeictic propositions will emerge as decisive in evaluating the success of his modal syllogistic. (shrink)

The first part of the paper sketches the rationale for the classical theistic thesis that, though God is not really related to the world, the world is really related to God. Part II delineates four sets of recent criticisms ofthis thesis: (a) an objection which assesses it as conflating transparent and opaque construals of intentional propositions, (b) a dilemma which regards it as undermining either free divine creativity or God’s knowledge of the contingent, (c) arguments which view its adherence to (...) an absolute divine immutability and independence as in conflict both with God’s knowledge of a changing creation and with human knowledge of God, and (d) two religiously inspired objections which contend that the thesis is contradictory to the biblical claim that God is personally related to the world. Part III develops the linguistic essence of the classical thesis through the syntactical insights of Sommers’ logic and defends it against the objections posed. (shrink)

The first part of the paper sketches the rationale for the classical theistic thesis that, though God is not really related to the world, the world is really related to God. Part II delineates four sets of recent criticisms ofthis thesis: (a) an objection which assesses it as conflating transparent and opaque construals of intentional propositions, (b) a dilemma which regards it as undermining either free divine creativity or God’s knowledge of the contingent, (c) arguments which view its adherence to (...) an absolute divine immutability and independence as in conflict both with God’s knowledge of a changing creation and with human knowledge of God, and (d) two religiously inspired objections which contend that the thesis is contradictory to the biblical claim that God is personally related to the world. Part III develops the linguistic essence of the classical thesis through the syntactical insights of Sommers’ logic and defends it against the objections posed. (shrink)

Rue, Charles Review of: Laudato si': An integral ecology and the catholic vision, by Anthony J. Kelly, Adelaide: ATF, 2016, pp. 207, paperback, $24.95.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Handbook of Research and Policy in Art EducationCharles M. DornHandbook of Research and Policy in Art Education, edited by Elliot Eisner and Michael Day. Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2004, 879 pp., $90.00 paper.The Handbook of Research and Policy in Art Education is an 875-page compendium of articles addressing nearly every conceivable issue in the field and is, if nothing else, a valuable tour de force for any reader (...) who wants to come up to speed on issues in the field. It is not, however, either strictly a handbook or a complete exploration of either art education policy or research. This in no way diminishes its potential value as a source for policy issues and research that are of significant concern to the field.The publication presents 36 individual or joint authored chapters on (1) historical currents in art education, (2) policy perspectives impacting the teaching of art, (3) learning in the visual arts, (4) teaching and teacher education, (5) forms of assessment in art education, and (6) emerging visions of the field. Each of the six sections begins with a short introductory statement by the researcher responsible for reviewing the essays in that session. These section editors include F. Graeme-Chalmers, Ralph Smith, Anna Kindler, Enid Zimmerman, Elisabeth Soep, and Arthur Efland. Forty-one authors contributed to the book's contents, all of which have nationally recognized expertise in handling the topic discussed.Editors Elliot Eisner and Michael Day view the book as an effort to bring together research and theory, policy, and concepts that guide and give shape to what people in art education try to accomplish—which is, of course, a rather ambitious goal. Even the editors admit the Handbook meets some but not all of these competing orientations. They also claim that the Handbook serves as an assertion that art education is a scholarly field, perhaps even to a fault through mostly ignoring qualitative issues regarding goals, expressive art form, and aesthetics. Also, the editors admit that the Handbook will be a disappointment, which is true, especially with respect to its emphasis on rationales rather than policy problems, on assessment appreciation rather than policy and research, on assessment in art education history as a record of events rather than as policy windows, and on emerging visions as older forms of social and political discourse rather than policy issues, implementation, and evaluation.Nevertheless, the Handbook addresses a number of important policy issues, providing well-developed and valuable views of the field by a variety of important authors and, in some cases, with some rarely seen insights into the nature of the field. I will only review the most salient ideas of the chapter authors in each of the six sections and then comment on what I believe are promising, and sometimes somewhat troubling, directions pointed out in the chapters, including what promises have not been fulfilled. [End Page 111]Section I, on historical currents, includes chapters by F. Graeme Chalmers; Mary Ann Stankiewicz, Pat Amburgy, and Paul Bolin; and John Howell White. Chalmers provides a very thorough overview of the literature on the history of art education, including what he calls the broad perspectives on art education, history, and research interests of art education historians. Overall, he references nearly 300 publications. Stankiewicz, Amburgy, and Bolin then address specific movements in nineteenth-century art education and art, including a brief history of the social function of art, drawing instruction in schools, industrial drawing, manual training, the arts and crafts movement picture study, and progressive education with over 120 references. White, who follows, provides a similar review of major forces, focusing mainly on art education influences in the twentieth century, addressing the contributions of various art educators, arts organizational leaders, artists, government initiatives, and the critical and divergent influences of key post–WW II art education writers. He also documents his work with nearly 300 sources.Section II, on policy perspectives, contains seven chapters, including ones by Ralph Smith; Samuel Hope; Constance Bumgarner Gee; Lois Hetland and Ellen Winner; H. Gene Blocker; and E. Louis Langford and Kelly Scheffer. In Section II, Sam Hope outlines the power of policy and its effect... (shrink)

Should engineering ethics be taught? Despite the obvious truism that we all want our students to be moral engineers who practice virtuous professional behavior, I argue, in this article that the question itself obscures several ambiguities that prompt preliminary resolution. Upon clarification of these ambiguities, and an attempt to delineate key issues that make the question a philosophically interesting one, I conclude that engineering ethics not only should not, but cannot, be taught if we understand “teaching engineering ethics” to mean (...) training engineers to be moral individuals (as some advocates seem to have proposed). However, I also conclude that there is a justification to teaching engineering ethics, insofar as we are able to clearly identify the most desirable and efficacious pedagogical approach to the subject area, which I propose to be a case study-based format that utilizes the principle of human cognitive pattern recognition. (shrink)

Despite its importance, the linkage between genetic and cultural evolution has until now been little explored. An understanding of this linkage is needed to extend evolutionary theory so that it can deal for the first time with the phenomena of mind and human social history. We characterize the process of gene-culture coevolution, in which culture is shaped by biological imperatives while biological traits are simultaneously altered by genetic evolution in response to cultural history. A case is made from both theory (...) and evidence that genetic and cultural evolution are inseverable, and that the human mind has tended to evolve so as to bias individuals toward certain patterns of cognition and choice rather than others. With the aid of mathematical models we trace the coevolutionary circuit: The genes prescribe structure in developmental pathways that lay down endocrine and neural systems, imposing regularities in the development of cognition and behavior; these regularities translate upward into holistic patterns of culture, which can be predicted in the form of probability density distributions ; natural selection acts within human history to favor certain epigenetic rules over others; and the selection alters the frequencies of the underlying genes. The effects of genetic and cultural changes reverberate throughout the circuit and are consequently tested with the passage of each life cycle. In addition to modeling gene-culture coevolution, we apply methods from island biogeography and information theory to examine the cultural capacity of the genes, the factors determining the magnitude of cultural diversity, and the possible reasons for the uniqueness of the human achievement. (shrink)