The Logic of Law Making in Islam: Women and Prayer in the Legal Tradition. By Behnam Sadeghi. Cambridge Studies in Islamic Civilization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xxi + 215. $99.99, £64.99.

The defense argument in favor of abortion sees the fetus as an invader, a trespasser, someone against whom violence is justified, since this very young person (the fetus) has initiated violence against his mother. Hewitt [30] rejects this argument. The present paper maintains the justification of this defense argument. My perspective is based on the private property rights of the mother. She owns her person. It is as if her body is her house, and a trespasser has invaded it. (...) Surely, she has the right to evict such a person. This analogy is relatively easy to see in the case of rape. The unwanted fetus, now occupying a part of her body is in effect a intruder. If she really owns her body, which I contend she certainly does, she has a right to expel this person from her property. I also argue that voluntary sexual intercourse does not constitution an “invitation” for the pre-born baby to occupy her premises for nine months. (shrink)

Abstract The leadership of the black community is concerned with welfare, with equality, with unemployment, with discrimination, with racism, with the pay gap, and with dozens of other such traditional issues. Oh, yes, they are also apprehensive about the use of addictive drugs. But, as we speak, young male members of this community are being incarcerated at frightful rates, and, even worse, are killing each other to boot. One would think that this latter issue would occupy the interest of (...) black leaders front and center. After all, there are few worse problems than being jailed or killed. The present paper is dedicated to making the case that the black leadership has its priorities all wrong; that if they were to exercise true leadership, they would see the jailing and murder of young black men as perhaps the greatest threat to their community; and, if so, they would fervently support the legalization of all drugs. (shrink)

The ``Many Sides of Logic'' is a volume containing a selection of the papers delivered at three simultaneous events held between 11-17 May 2008 in Paraty, RJ, Brazil, continuing a tradition of three decades of Brazilian and Latin-American meetings and celebrating the 30th anniversary of an institution congenital with the mature interest for logic, epistemology and history of sciences in Brazil: CLE 30 - 30th Anniversary of the Centre for Logic, Epistemology and the History of Science at the State University (...) of Campinas (UNICAMP) XV EBL -15th Brazilian Logic Conference XIV SLALM - 14th Latin-American Symposium on Mathematical Logic Several renowned logicians, philosophers and mathematicians gathered in colonial Paraty, a historic village on the Brazilian coast founded in the 17th Century and surrounded by the luscious Atlantic rain forest to deliver lectures and talks celebrating the many sides of logic: the philosophical, the mathematical, the computational, the historical, and the multiple facets therein. The topics of the joint conferences, well represented here, included philosophical and mathematical Logic and applications with emphasis on model theory and proof theory, set theory, non-classical logics and applications, history and philosophy of logic, philosophy of the formal sciences and issues on the foundations of mathematics. The events have been preceded by a Logic School planned for students and young researchers held at the UNICAMP campus in Campinas, SP. (shrink)

The pioneering work of Edwin T. Jaynes in the field of statistical physics, quantum optics, and probability theory has had a significant and lasting effect on the study of many physical problems, ranging from fundamental theoretical questions through to practical applications such as optical image restoration. Physics and Probability is a collection of papers in these areas by some of his many colleagues and former students, based largely on lectures given at a symposium celebrating Jaynes' contributions, on the occasion of (...) his seventieth birthday and retirement as Wayman Crow Professor of Physics at Washington University. The collection contains several authoritative overviews of current research on maximum entropy and quantum optics, where Jaynes' work has been particularly influential, as well as reports on a number of related topics. In the concluding paper, Jaynes looks back over his career, and gives encouragement and sound advice to young scientists. All those engaged in research on any of the topics discussed in these papers will find this a useful and fascinating collection, and a fitting tribute to an outstanding and innovative scientist. (shrink)

In their debate on whether or not the young should be allowed to study history, Degory Wheare and Gerhardus Vossius quote Bartholomäus Keckermann and state that he wants to exclude the young from studying history, Wheare arguing for Keckermann’s purported position, Vossius opposing it. Their disagreement is part of a larger controversy on the relevance of history for moral instruction in general, contemplating the question whether or not history is best understood as ‘philosophy teaching by example.’ But the (...) interpretation of Keckermann’s position presupposed by both Wheare and Vossius is wrong. Keckermann’s Ramist predecessors argued against a central presupposition of Wheare’s views, i.e., the exclusion of the young from studying moral philosophy. Keckermann’s own position in this regard is not fully clear. But a closer analysis of his distinction between methods for writing and for reading history shows that Keckermann did want the young to study history. If Keckermann had believed that such exclusion were necessary, it could only have been related to reading historical texts, not to writing them: writing texts about historical figures or events does not require moral precepts, but only the application of certain logical tools. A view that implies that writing a historical text should be possible for students, whereas reading such a text would go beyond their capabilities, is absurd. Hence, we can assume that Keckermann expected the young to study both history and moral philosophy. (shrink)

Dutch Mathematician Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer (1881-1966) was a rebel. His doctoral thesis... was the manifesto of an angry young man taking on the mathematical establishment on all fronts. In a short time he established a world-wide reputation for himself; his genius and originality were acknowledged by the great mathematicians of his time... The Intuitionist-Formalist debate became a personal feud between the mathematical giants Brouwer and Hilbert, and ended in 1928 with the expulsion of Brouwer from the editorial board (...) of the Mathematische Annalen by dictat of Hilbert. Forsaken, humiliated and disillusioned Brouwer abandoned his Intuitionist Programme and withdrew into silence just about the time when the Formalist Programme appeared to be fundamentally flawed and major opposition collapsed... This book attempts to follow the `genetic' development of Brouwer's ideas, linking the man Brouwer, his Weltanschauung, his philosophy of mathematics and his reconstruction of mathematics. Brouwer's own writings, his publications as well as his unpublished papers, are its immediate and main source of reference. It is the second volume in the new series Studies in the History and Philosophy of Mathematics, and is written for the specialist as well as for the general reader interested in mathematics and the interpretation of its status and function. (shrink)

Bertrand Russells Buch A Cntical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz bildet einen Meilenstein in der Leibniz-Forschung, vor allem in den angelsächsischen Ländern. In diesem Aufsatz untersuche ich zunächst die Entstehungsgeschichte dieses Werkes (Russells intensive Beschäftigung mit Leibniz anläßlich einer Vorlesung, die Quellen, die Russell benutzt hat, und die Hilfe und Unterstützung, die ihm von Philosophen wie James Ward und G. E. Moore zuteil wurden). Anschließend behandle ich das Echo, das Russells Buch gefunden hat. Am Schluß suche ich Russells Einstellung (...) zu Leibniz' Denken zu verdeutlichen. Dabei berücksichtige ich Russells spätere Werke, soweit sie mit Leibniz in Beziehung stehen. Meine Aufmerksamkeit gilt im besonderen Maß dem Briefwechsel mit Louis Couturat und dem Einfluß, den Couturat auf Russell ausgeübt hat. As an original and critical position regarding Leibniz, Russell's [A Critical Exposition of the Philosophy of Leibniz] is not outdated. It is a work still young, one worked out by the "young Russell", and of fundamental importance for the historical and philosophical investigation of Bertrand Russell's thought. But even more fundamental is what we derive from reading it : the understanding of the history of philosophy in terms of dialogue, where the speculative affinities are properly complemented by that critical perspective which calls into question those divergences which set the limit of philosophical reflections and assess their value circumstantially. (shrink)

Huemer [33] argues against the killing of animals. I offer a critical libertarian analysis of his claim.

The first English translation of Fichte’s second set of 1804 lectures on the Wissenschaftslehre.

What is the proper punishment from the perspective of the libertarian philosophy? More specifically, in what way, if at all, may a thief benefit from his robbery? The present essay attempts to wrestle with these challenging questions.

There is a new sheriff in town on the abortion question. It is called evictionism. It diverges, philosophically, from both the pro-life and the pro-choice positions. It assumes that the birth of a human being starts with the fertilized egg but claims that the unwanted baby is a trespasser that may be evicted in the gentlest manner possible.

Heumer and I debate animal rights, utilitarianism, libertarianism, morality and philosophy. We agree that suffering is a problem, and diverge, widely, on how to deal with it. I maintain that this author’s reputation as a libertarian, let alone an intellectual leader of this movement, is problematic. Why? That is because libertarianism, properly understood, is a theory of intra-human rights; this philosophy says nothing about right from an extra-human perspective, Heumer to the contrary notwithstanding. That is to say, he is improperly (...) importing into the freedom philosophy considerations extraneous to it. (shrink)

SummaryThe problems of operations research, optimized at the tactical and strategic level, have a domain of interest much broader than many of its earlier suboptimization problems. Its appeal to scientific method requires the construction of a model from which predictions can be made. This model must have the comprehensive character of those proposed by philosophy and the sciences. Such a model is available in the form of war gaming, a traditional military training vehicle transformed in such a way as to (...) make it a research tool of great power and flexibility and which can assume a multitude of forms. The war game as a new research tool, when applied to the important problems at a high level of optimization, carries with it the excitement of a pioneering venture and the promise of contributions of greatly increased importance to the development of military science. (shrink)

In light of recent advances, I reconsider Jacques Ellul's technological imperative in which he places technology in a broad framework of “technique” (including but not limited to machines) meaning any complex of standardized procedures having absolute efficiency for attaining a predetermined result. He conceptualizes technique as a self-perpetuating, totalizing, and deterministic force inevitably leading to self-destruction if not transcended. Here, I provide support for some of Ellul's claims while addressing some of the important criticisms. I suggest a different kind of (...) imperative that supersedes the technological imperative but does not diminish its importance. The new imperative is hierarchical social structures that now prevail at many levels—from global to local—and that reciprocally relate to many social forces, including technique. Central to the maintaining of social hierarchies are both individual and collective goals and beliefs. I argue the importance of ideology in both science and society, and in technological and hierarchical imperatives. Specifically, I argue the necessity to account for the mutual and reciprocal relationship among beliefs, context, and human attributes to fully comprehend technology and education. (shrink)

Erik Erikson's work in psychosocial developmental theory has made valuable contributions to the field of religious ethics on some very basic issues. This paper makes scattered elements of Erikson's explicit ethical perspective available in concise fashion for critical ethical reflection. It does this in such a way as to highlight the centrally important fact for religious ethics that implicitly operative in Erikson's view is a criterion of "self-transcendence" as definitive of mature personal (fully human, ethical) development.