This study described the relationships between academic class and student moral sensitivity and reasoning and between curriculum design components for ethics education and student moral sensitivity and reasoning. The data were collected from freshman (n = 506) and senior students (n = 440) in eight baccalaureate nursing programs in South Korea by survey; the survey consisted of the Korean Moral Sensitivity Questionnaire and the Korean Defining Issues Test. The results showed that moral sensitivity scores in patient-oriented care and conflict were (...) higher in senior students than in freshman students. Furthermore, more hours of ethics content were associated with higher principled thinking scores of senior students. Nursing education in South Korea may have an impact on developing student moral sensitivity. Planned ethics content in nursing curricula is necessary to improve moral sensitivity and moral reasoning of students. (shrink)

This paper is an update of the documents we have concerning the Acts of the Christian martyrs, focused on three main aspects: 1) the kind of acts we know of and their classification from the point of view of their historic value; 2) the versions or editions of the texts that are most accepted by scholars; 3) the relevance of the different parts that make up these documents in order to discern the original text from passages that were rewritten or (...) underwent later variations. In this way, the article offers an exhaustive list of the documents for use in researching Christian martyrs in the Roman period. (shrink)

Introduction to the thinking of Greek, Roman, Jewish, Christian and Islamic theologians and philosophers, including short, characterizing fragments from their works.

A comparison between the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Notes on the Correct Way to present the Jews and Judaism in Preaching in the Roman Catholic Church by the Vatican Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, demonstrates the seriousness of the Cathechism's effort to take into account Jewish selfdefinition. Jesus' positive attitude to the Law, sabbath and Temple are rightly stressed. The Cathechism has not succeeded however in integrating these new insights into a coherent theology, which explains (...) the occurrence of elements of the theology of substitution next to affirmations of the lasting significance of Judaism within salvation history. Added to this there is a total lack of references to Judaism in history until today. The absence of the tragic events in the Middle Ages, of the persecution of the Jews, of anti-Judaism and antisemitism, of the Shoah and of the founding of the State of Israel, fosters the image of Judaism as no longer relevant after Biblical times. Earlier Vatican documents had stressed the importance of exactly these points for catechesis. After the evaluation of the Catechism's contents the article continues with evaluating its form. Two important elements within the Jewish idea of permanent education seem to be lacking in the Catechism: the connection between religion and daily life and the emphasis on differences of opinion as a fruitful means of educating religion. The connection between religion and daily life is prevented by the Catechism's exclusively theological language. In addition to that the Catechism is meant primarily for bishops. The Catechism itself admits that further 'adaptation' is needed in order to develop a genuine catechism. The Catechism's rather dogmatic and apodictic style does not invite to further discussion and to fruitful debate. However, nothing prevents believing Catholics to read the Catechism that way and to enrich Catholic tradition by 'adapting' and debating its contents. (shrink)

: Hagar and Ishmael have been portrayed in Jewish sources in an increasingly negative way, even before the rise of Islam. The culmination of that negative portrayal constitutes the story of the expulsion of mother and son as rendered by Pirke de rabbi Eliezer. This story in its basic pre-Islamic form, functioning as a midrash interpretation of the Bible relating Hagar’s expulsion and the twofold visit of Abraham to Ishmael, was to serve as the point of departure for Islamic stories (...) about Hagar. The first Islamic source for the story of Hagar, ʿAbd al-Razzāq, had already transformed the Jewish story into a highly positive account of Hagar as trusting in God and worthy of miracles. Simultaneously, this Islamic version harmonized the story with Qurʾānic statements about Abraham building the House, connected it to an utterance of Muhammad and buttressed the ritual of the Saʿy, the running between the two hills in Mecca, thereby refuting pagan associations as secondary deviations. As for Ishmael, he becomes associated with the pure Arabic tribe of the Jurhum. The story of the two wives of Ishmael, which serves in the Jewish version as a an exegesis of Gen 21:21 by adducing a derogatory statement on the Moabites and ending in a reconciliation between Abraham and Ishmael, is transformed into a foundation story of the Arabic offspring of Ishmael who marries into the Jurhum tribe. Whereas the Islamic stories, transmitted by al-Ţabarī and Bukharī, can be traced back two generations earlier than the latter, namely to ʿAbd al-Razzāq, his isnad in turn proves to be reliable up to Ibn Jubayr. Ibn Jubayr’s debate about different versions of the story took place around 700 C.E., an attribution that can be trusted, hence corroborating Harald Motzki’s overall but careful thesis about the reliability of the isnad. The integration of the Hagar story into the Qurʾānic story of Abraham building ‘the House’ together with Ishmael dates, at the latest, from 700 C.E. (shrink)

This volume contains essays dealing with complex relationships between Judaism and Christianity, taking a bold step, assuming that no historical period can be excluded from the interactive process between Judaism and Christianity, conscious or unconscious, as either rejection or appropriation.

In recent literature, panpsychism has been defended by appeal to two main arguments: first, an argument from philosophy of mind, according to which panpsychism is the only view which successfully integrates consciousness into the physical world (Strawson 2006; Chalmers 2013); second, an argument from categorical properties, according to which panpsychism offers the only positive account of the categorical or intrinsic nature of physical reality (Seager 2006; Adams 2007; Alter and Nagasawa 2012). Historically, however, panpsychism has also been defended by appeal (...) to a third argument based on considerations about the nature and observability of causation. This argument has not been much discussed in recent times. Here is a concise version from William James: "… the concrete perceptual flux, taken just as it comes, offers in our own activity-situations perfectly comprehensible instances of causal agency … If we took these experiences as the type of what actual causation is, we should have to ascribe to cases of causation outside of our life, to physical cases also, an inwardly experiential nature. In other words, we should have to espouse a so-called “pan-psychic” philosophy" (James 1911: 218). James here suggests that we have direct experience of causation in our own agency. He thereby directly contradicts David Hume, who famously denied that we have any experience of causation. James goes on to claim that if this experience is representative of causation in general, it follows that all causation is mental, and that panpsychism is true. This kind of argument for panpsychism can be called the argument from (experience of) causation. This chapter offers, first, a history of this argument and arguments closely related to it, and second, an analysis of the argument – is it valid, are its premises in any way defensible, and how does it relate to the other, more popular arguments for panpsychism from philosophy of mind and categorical properties? (shrink)

Ibn al-ʻArabī, 1165-1240; views on freedom; Sufism; Islamic philosophy.

Greek text, english translation and commentary on the surviving fragments of Empedocles (fragments as known in 1981, does not include more recent finds).

Contrary to Vaesen's argument that humans are unique with respect to nine cognitive capacities essential for tool use, we suggest that although such cognitive processes contribute to variation in tool use, it does not follow that these capacities arenecessaryfor tool use, nor that tool use shaped cognition per se, given the available data in cognitive neuroscience and behavioral biology.

There are obvious benefits to be gained from the study of logic: heightened ability to express ideas clearly and concisely, increased skill in defining one's terms, enlarged capacity to formulate arguments rigorously and to analyze them critically. But the greatest benefit, in my judgment, is the recognition that reason can be applied in every aspect of human affairs.

What are conspiracy theories? And what, if anything, is epistemically wrong with them? I offer an account on which conspiracy theories are a unique way of holding a belief in a conspiracy. Specifically, I take conspiracy theories to be self-insulating beliefs in conspiracies. On this view, conspiracy theorists have their conspiratorial beliefs in a way that is immune to revision by counter-evidence. I argue that conspiracy theories are always irrational. Although conspiracy theories involve an expectation to encounter some seemingly disconfirming (...) evidence (allegedly planted by the conspirators), resistance to all counter- evidence cannot be justified on these grounds. (shrink)

This paper is devoted to the study of some subvarieties of the variety Qof Q-Heyting algebras, that is, Heyting algebras with a quantifier. In particular, a deeper investigation is carried out in the variety Q 3 of three-valued Q-Heyting algebras to show that the structure of the lattice of subvarieties of Qis far more complicated that the lattice of subvarieties of Heyting algebras. We determine the simple and subdirectly irreducible algebras in Q 3 and we construct the lattice of subvarieties (...) (Q 3 ) of the variety Q 3. (shrink)