A recent addition to the growing corpus of Frege literature is Reinhardt Grossmann's metaphysical study of Frege's philosophical theories. Grossmann approaches Frege as a metaphysician whose philosophical concern centers around four main problems: the nature of logic, the analysis of various kinds of propositions, identity and truth. He has a genetic view of Frege's answers to these problems, and this is reflected in the arrangement and content of the chapters. In chapter I, Grossmann considers Frege's introduction of these problems in (...) the Begriffsschrift and his initial attempt at solutions in terms of the distinctions between thinking and judging, sentence and content, concept and object, function and argument. Grossmann here diagnoses Frege's alleged failure to recognize states of affairs as the fundamental shortcoming of these early views. (shrink)

St. Thomas is usually thought to have rejected abortion and euthanasia as murder (viz, the statement of The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith "On Procured Abortion"). By going back to Aquinas' own words I show that this is mistaken: that he explicitly states abortion prior to a certain point of fetal development to be non-murderous and that his position, when consistently developed, allows for euthanasia under analogous circumstances. These claims are argued by presenting an analytical expose of (...) Aquinas’ metaphysics of man and of human ontogenesis. The implications of this for current bioethical concerns are sketched briefly. (shrink)

St. Thomas is usually thought to have rejected abortion and euthanasia as murder (viz, the statement of The Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith "On Procured Abortion"). By going back to Aquinas' own words I show that this is mistaken: that he explicitly states abortion prior to a certain point of fetal development to be non-murderous and that his position, when consistently developed, allows for euthanasia under analogous circumstances. These claims are argued by presenting an analytical expose of (...) Aquinas’ metaphysics of man and of human ontogenesis. The implications of this for current bioethical concerns are sketched briefly. (shrink)

Frege: Philosophy of Language has been heralded as Michael Dummett's long-awaited magnum opus on Frege. Actually, however, as the author himself tells us, it is only the first of a two-volume series devoted to Frege's philosophy of language and his philosophy of mathematics respectively.The book itself has been long in preparation, the writing of it having been interrupted for several years. This fact could not help but leave some marks on the organization and content of the various chapters. Still, all (...) in all, it presents a remarkably interesting and provocative whole. It is topical, rather than purely genetic in approach, dealing with various fundamental features of Frege's philosophy of language in some 19 chapters; e.g., with his sense-reference distinction, his theory of assertions, his conception of the nature and place of truth-values, propositions and thoughts, his views on quantification and identity, the nature of proper names, his polemic about explicit vs. implicit definitions, his theory of incomplete expressions, and the like. However, the historical needs of the reader are also well-served. (shrink)

This paper is based on a semantic foundation of quantum logic which makes use of dialog-games. In the first part of the paper the dialogic method is introduced and under the conditions of quantum mechanical measurements the rules of a dialog-game about quantum mechanical propositions are established. In the second part of the paper the quantum mechanical dialog-game is replaced by a calculus of quantum logic. As the main part of the paper we show that the calculus of quantum logic (...) is complete and consistent with respect to the dialogic semantics. Since the dialoggame does not involve the 'excluded middle' the calculus represents a calculus of effective (intuitionistic) quantum logic. In a forthcoming paper it is shown that this calculus is equivalent to a calculus of sequents and more interestingly to a calculus of propositions. With the addition of the 'excluded middle' the latter calculus is a model for the lattice of subspaces of a Hilbert space. (shrink)

Whittaker, following Siebeck, pointed out the important role Plotinus assigns to the functions of imagination in psychic life. Imagination is the terminus ad quern of all properly human conscious experience; it is that faculty of man without which there can be no conscious experience. The sensitive soul is an imaginative soul below which there is Nature, or vegetative soul, which acts without being conscious. When the functions of reason are added to sensation to produce a rational human being, there is (...) conscious discursive thought as well as conscious sensation; and since the sensitive soul cannot be responsible for the imaging of rational concepts, Plotinus asserts the existence of a conceptual imagination. (shrink)

In a preceding paper [1] it was shown that quantum logic, given by the tableaux-calculus Teff, is complete and consistent with respect to the dialogic foundation of logics. Since in formal dialogs the special property of the 'value-definiteness' of propositions is not postulated, the calculus $T_{eff}$ represents a calculus of effective (intuitionistic) quantum logic. Beginning with the tableaux-calculus the equivalence of $T_{eff}$ to calculi which use more familiar figures such as sequents and implications can be investigated. In this paper we (...) present a sequents-calculus of Gentzen-type and a propositional calculus of Brouwer-type which are shown to be equivalent to $T_{eff}$ . The effective propositional calculus provides an interpretation for a lattice structure, called quasi-implicative lattice. If, in addition, the value-definiteness of quantum mechanical propositions is postulated, a propositional calculus is obtained which provides an interpretation for a quasi-modular orthocomplemented lattice which, as is well-known, has as a model the lattice of subspaces of a Hilbert space. (shrink)

In this article, the author focuses on the allocation of decision-making authority between parents and physicians. She argues that parents should have substantial room to decide whether genetic testing is good for their child and that they may appropriately consider interests in addition to those of their child in making such choices. A physician, however, may refuse to act pursuant to parental views about testing, when in the physician's view, the parents' choices would pose a risk of significant harm to (...) the child. The balance of control between parents and physicians is illustrated by discussion of a series of case vignettes. Refusal to perform requested testing is most often warranted for testing for carrier status and for genetic predisposition to late onset disease. The author concludes her analysis by discussing why it is appropriate to give increasing deference to the views of the child as the child grows older. (shrink)

Originally published in 1985, this distinguished and constructive critique of modern culture introduced into our language a brand-new term, ‘PN’, standing for ‘psychic nutrition’, which at the time promised to become a household expression. Drawing on his first-hand knowledge of oriental civilizations; on discoveries of Jung, especially his concept of psychic energy; on the ideas of the cultural anthropologists; and not least on the New Science implicit in microphysics and microbiology, E.W.F. Tomlin, whose philosophical books have been translated into several (...) languages, shows how the human psyche requires its own kind of nourishment just as urgently as the body needs food. In the industrial societies of the West, this need has often been ignored. Reformers, in their earnest though sometimes inept endeavours to create a better world, have too often exposed us to the dangers of psychic starvation and the noxious effects of what may be called ‘neg-PN’. Here lie the roots of violence and the lack of direction so conspicuously afflicting modern man and woman. Examples of PN, positive and negative, are given, lending the book an immediacy and practical character often lacking in studies of this kind. In the new scientific approach here adopted, the divisions between matter and life, and life and mind, are discarded, and the old conflict between science and religion shown to belong to an out-of-date world view. The result is a radical reappraisal of the nature and function of religion and art, the two great psychic forces in history. Indeed, the present crisis is shown to originate in the psychic sphere rather than in the political and economic order. Deeply felt and elegantly written, yet not lacking in wit and humour, the book ends with some concrete ideas on how a more balanced culture may be achieved. (shrink)

This response to the articles by Breck, Amundsen, and Bresnahan is argued from a traditional Orthodox point of view, which accepts the historical Tradition of the Church and recognizes the relevance of this Tradition in the modern world. Traditional Orthodox ethics is grounded in a radical perception of the Resurrection of Christ. Many Western and Eastern commentators on Orthodox religion and spirituality have noted the centrality of the Resurrection to all facets of our Tradition. Thus the discussion of euthanasia should (...) be seen in the light of the Resurrection of Christ. (shrink)

Introduction I The Use of Philosophy The kind of questions which we propose to discuss in this book and with which, it seems to us, all introductions to the ...