This landmark work provides a systematic introduction to systems of modal logic and stands as the first presentation of what have become central ideas in philosophy of language and metaphysics, from the "new theory of reference" and non-linguistic necessity and essentialism to "Kripke semantics.".

Appearing in English for the first time, Schelling’s 1842 lectures develop the idea that many philosophical concepts are born of religious-mythological notions.

This book analyzes the evolutions confronting the state in the contemporary international system from the double perspective of power and interdependence in a complex environment characterized by the rise of new, non-state actors, the globalization, and the impact their interactions have on both the state and earlier configurations of power.

With precision and profundity born of 30 years of devoted study, John Boyle offers an essential introduction to St. Thomas Aquinas on Scripture, shedding helpful light on the goals, methods, and commitments that animate the Angelic Doctor's engagement with the sacred page. Because the genius of St. Thomas's approach to the Bible lies not so much in its novelty but rather in the fidelity and clarity with which he recapitulates the riches of the preceding interpretive Tradition, this initiation into St. (...) Thomas's vision of Scripture is itself an orientation to the Church's vision of Scripture, from the Fathers through and beyond the Middle Ages. St. Thomas's embeddedness within the Church's Tradition and his own historical context is integral to his approach to Scripture, yet it sets him at some distance from modern readers, for whom his interpretive vision may seem perplexing or even impenetrable. In this Primer, Boyle first provides an acclimation to this medieval context through a survey and explanation of pertinent technical terminology used by St. Thomas and characteristic of the scholastic theology of the time. With an eye to the medieval practice of considering Scripture according to the fourfold division of causes, Boyle builds on this initial foundation by exploring in turn St. Thomas's accounts of the end or use of Scripture (final cause), its divine and human authorship (efficient cause), its order and division (material cause), and its literary styles or genres (formal cause). Drawing on writings from across St. Thomas's corpus, but especially his work On the Commendation and Division of Sacred Scripture and the prologues to his biblical commentaries, Boyle masterfully elucidates both the hermeneutical principles and deep wisdom of the Angelic Doctor's approach to Scripture, imparting invaluable guidance not only for reading and understanding St. Thomas and other great masters of the Tradition, but also-and ultimately-for understanding Scripture in light of this Tradition and reading it with greater benefit and joy. (shrink)

Depuis le 19e siècle, le rôle et l'importance de l'Etat ont connu une profonde évolution. Celle-ci, partant d'une conception de l'Etat assez étroite, assez proche, somme toute, de la vision Hegelienne, s'est progressivement élargie, évoluant vers une institution complexe et omniprésente dans les différents aspects de la vie quotidienne des citoyens : l'Etat-Providence. Le phénomène de mondialisation/globalisation n'a pas manqué d'affecter en profondeur le rôle de l'Etat, non seulement dans les domaines politique et économique, l'acteur étatique étant interpellé dans ces (...) deux domaines, tant sur la scène internationale que sur la scène interne, envers les citoyens. Ainsi, la réflexion sur la globalisation attire irrésistiblement le débat vers la question de la gouvernance. Face à l'affaiblissement, l'érosion ou l'assujettissement de l'Etat par rapport à un processus de globalisation qui le dépasse, certains proposent des formes alternatives de gouvernance. Dans ce contexte, le débat sur le rôle de l'acteur étatique se déploie principalement autour de trois axes. Un premier axe explore la piste d'un ordre politique avec moins d'Etat, voire la substitution de ce dernier par d'autres acteurs plus efficients. Un deuxième axe prône, au contraire, plus d'Etat pour faire contrepoids à des mouvements qui portent atteinte à la cohésion sociale. Un troisième axe, plus nuancé, conçoit l'Etat autrement, comme une instance politique à redéfinir dans sa raison d'être et ses fonctions. Il importe dès lors de réfléchir sur des formes alternatives de ce qu'on appelle désormais "gouvernance". Le présent ouvrage regroupe des travaux de politologues, philosophes, juristes et sociologues sur cette évolution de la conception et du rôle de l'Etat, ainsi que sur la conception alternative souvent avancée de la gouvernante, dans le contexte nouveau d'une globalisation, souvent présentée comme primordialement économique. (shrink)

This work presents a blueprint or set of guidelines for the planning and development of sustainable national centers dealing with the safety of nanomaterials and nanotechnologies toward public health and environment. The blueprint was developed following a methodological approach of EU-wide online survey and workshop with several stakeholders. The purpose was to identify the key elements and challenges in the development and sustainability of a national nanosafety center. The responses were received from representatives of 16 national nanosafety centers across Europe (...) and 44 people from 18 EU member states who represented the stakeholder groups of researchers, academics, industry, regulators, civil society, and consultants. By providing an overview of the organizational design of existing national nanosafety centers across EU and converging demands in the field of nanosafety, the blueprint principally benefits those EU member states who do not have a national nanosafety center, but intend to develop an entity to manage the human health, environmental, ethical, and social concerns/risks toward the growing nationwide activities on engineered nanomaterials, e.g., their production, use or disposal, at national level. (shrink)

This paper describes the matrimonial and reproductive behaviour of Italians who migrated to Belgium after the Second World War. Migrants were either already married, or later became married, to other Italians. Among the children of migrants, men equally chose Italian or Belgian wives but women tended to prefer Italian partners. Italian-Belgian marriages were more frequent among the better educated groups. Family size is smaller among migrants marrying after migration and in heterogamous marriages. Significant differences in birth intervals are found when (...) marriage occurred before or after migration, between generations, and between homogamous and heterogamous marriages. (shrink)

"The chief business of twentieth-century philosophy” is “to reckon with twentieth-century history," claimed R. G. Collingwood. In this remarkable collection of essays, Frank Ankersmit demonstrates the prescience of that remark and goes a long way toward meeting its challenge. Responding to the work of Hayden White, Arthur Danto, and Hans-Georg Gadamer, he examines such issues as the difference between historical representation and artistic expression, the status of metaphor in historical description, and the relation of postmodernism to historicism. Ankersmit's fluent grasp (...) of European thought and his ability to incorporate concepts from literary theory, art history, the philosophy of science, and political thought into his analyses assure that this collection will interest readers throughout the humanities. (shrink)

Ethics for Enemies comprises three original philosophical essays on torture, terrorism, and war. F. M. Kamm deploys ethical theory in her challenging new treatments of these most controversial practical issues. First she considers the nature of torture and the various occasions on which it could occur, in order to determine why it might be wrong to torture a wrongdoer held captive, even if this were necessary to save his victims. In the second essay she considers what makes terrorism wrong--whether it (...) is the intention to harm civilians, rather than harm to them being 'collateral damage,' or something else--and whether terrorism is always wrong. The third essay discusses whether having a right reason, in the sense of a right intention, is necessary in order for a war to be just. Kamm then examines ways in which the harms of war can be proportional to the achievement of the just cause and other goods that war can bring about, so as to make the declaration of war permissible. (shrink)

The essays in this collection address different aspects of Dewey's philosophy of logic, from his work at the beginning of the twentieth century to the culmination of his logical thought in the 1938 volume, Logic: The Theory of Inquiry.

The limited aim here is to explain what John Dewey might say about the formulation of the grue example. Nelson Goodman’s problem of distinguishing good and bad inductive inferences is an important one, but the grue example misconstrues this complex problem for certain technical reasons, due to ambiguities that contemporary logical theory has not yet come to terms with. Goodman’s problem is a problem for the theory of induction and thus for logical theory in general. Behind the whole discussion of (...) these issues over the last several decades is a certain view of logic hammered out by Russell, Carnap, Tarski, Quine, and many others. Goodman’s nominalism hinges in essential ways on a certain view of formal logic with an extensional quantification theory at its core. This raises many issues, but the one issue most germane here is the conception of predicates ensconced in this view of logic. (shrink)

The increased use of human biological material for cell-based research and clinical interventions poses risks to the privacy of patients and donors, including the possibility of re-identification of individuals from anonymized cell lines and associated genetic data. These risks will increase as technologies and databases used for re-identification become affordable and more sophisticated. Policies that require ongoing linkage of cell lines to donors’ clinical information for research and regulatory purposes, and existing practices that limit research participants’ ability to control what (...) is done with their genetic data, amplify the privacy concerns. (shrink)

Laughter as superiority -- The elements of laughter -- The one necessary thing -- Objections to the normative thesis -- Comic virtues and vices -- The social virtues -- The charismatic virtues -- Machine law -- Machine scholarship -- Machine art and machine cities -- The battle of the norms -- Resistance to laughter -- The sociability thesis -- Conclusion.

I present a possible worlds semantics for a hyperintensional belief revision operator, which reduces the logical idealization of cognitive agents affecting similar operators in doxastic and epistemic logics, as well as in standard AGM belief revision theory. (Revised) belief states are not closed under classical logical consequence; revising by inconsistent information does not perforce lead to trivialization; and revision can be subject to ‘framing effects’: logically or necessarily equivalent contents can lead to different revisions. Such results are obtained without resorting (...) to non-classical logics, or to non-normal or impossible worlds semantics. The framework combines, instead, a standard semantics for propositional S5 with a simple mereology of contents. (shrink)

razdel I. Istoriko-filosofskie issledovanii︠a︡ -- razdel II. Filosofskie i sot︠s︡ialʹno-politicheskie problemy -- razdel III. Istorii︠a︡ v lit︠s︡akh.

We will show that there is a strong form of emergence in cell biology. Beginning with C.D. Broad's classic discussion of emergence, we distinguish two conditions sufficient for emergence. Emergence in biology must be compatible with the thought that all explanations of systemic properties are mechanistic explanations and with their sufficiency. Explanations of systemic properties are always in terms of the properties of the parts within the system. Nonetheless, systemic properties can still be emergent. If the properties of the components (...) within the system cannot be predicted, even in principle, from the behavior of the system's parts within simpler wholes then there also will be systemic properties which cannot be predicted, even in principle, on basis of the behavior of these parts. We show in an explicit case study drawn from molecular cell physiology that biochemical networks display this kind of emergence, even though they deploy only mechanistic explanations. This illustrates emergence and its place in nature. (shrink)