اندیشه‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌های توماس آکوئینی و ملاصدرا با اتکا بر اعتقادات مذهبی و دینی بر شالود‌‌‌‌‌‌‌ة کلمة‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌ «وجود» بنا شده است. توماس در میان فلاسفة مسیحی قرون وسطی تفوق فعل وجود را بر ذات کاملاً درک کرد. درواقع آن‌چه برای توماس در مرتبة اول اهمیت قرار دارد، اولویت هستی و وجود است و ملاصدرا نیز در فلسفة اسلامی با قراردادن وجود به عنوان موضوع مابعدالطبیعه، انقلاب بنیادینی در تفکر اسلامی به وجود آورد. هرچند توماس و ملاصدرا، در اعتقاد به وجود اعلی و (...) صفات او با یک‌دیگر اختلاف نظری ندارند، هنگام بیان و وصف و در خصوص تشریح ساختار وجود، مغایرت‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌هایی میان آنان بروز می‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌کند. در این مقاله کوشیده‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌ایم به مقایسة آرا و اندیشه‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌‌های این دو فیلسوف در خصوص مباحث هستی و ذات یا وجود و ماهیت بپردازیم. (shrink)

This work is a critique of orthodox conceptions of social exclusion in the global political economy. Following Foucault’s methodology, our argument is that orthodox political-economic discourses, from 18th and 19th century classical political economy to late 20th century neoliberalism, provide only partial and limited accounts of social exclusion, and as such obscure its production and reproduction within the global political economy. We uncover this problem by first examining the contemporary period of globalization, which reveals a discrepancy between orthodox discourse taken (...) at face value and the actuality of social exclusion. Marx’s critique of classical political economy exposes the fundamental basis of this discrepancy as the way in which the false assumptions of orthodox discourse make the market appear ‘natural’ to human social relations. Exclusion is thus conceived as the state of being on the outside of the market and associated structures and institutions. This obscures how both the historical construction and political governance of the market produce patterns of social exclusion. To move beyond this failing we employ Marx’s historical materialism as an alternative perspective which brings to light the production of exclusion within and as a product of social structures and institutions. We combine this with Foucault’s notion of power to establish a framework to investigate the production of social exclusion in terms of land, labour, capital, rights, gender and truth. Initially we develop this as a general mode of inquiry, leading to brief studies of feudal Europe, classical Islam and T’ang China. Then we apply this framework to the historical construction and political governance of the market within the capitalist global political economy, drawing upon the work of Marx along with Stephen Gill, Antonio Gramsci and David Harvey. We study three historical periods to show the production of social exclusion at work. First, agrarian capitalism and the Industrial Revolution in England and their impact upon world trade. Second, the post-1945 ‘Golden Age’ of capitalism. And third, the post-1970s era of globalization. This work makes a contribution to knowledge by being the first attempt to understand the global political economy as a whole in terms of inclusion / exclusion, and the first systematic application of the concept of social exclusion on a global scale. (shrink)

The paper offers a three-premise argument that a person with first-hand experience of possession and exorcism, such as an exorcist, can have a justified belief in the existence of demons. (1) “Exorcism involves a process by which the exorcist comes to believe that testimony is offered by a demon.” Cited for (1) are the Gospels, the Roman Ritual, some modern cases of exorcism, and exorcism practices in non-Christian contexts. (2) “If defeaters are absent, the exorcist may treat as reliable the (...) process by which he comes to believe that testimony is offered by a demon.” For (2) a case is offered that we have a reliable ability to identify when testimony is being offered and when it is being offered by particular types of agents, what is termed testifier-identification. (3) “In many cases of exorcism, defeaters are absent.” An inductive case is given for (3) by responding to possible defeaters, including several suggested recently by David Kyle Johnson. Therefore, in many cases of exorcism the exorcist may treat as reliable the processes by which he comes to believe that testimony is offered by a demon, and so can have a justified belief in the existence of demons. (shrink)

The very idea of promulgation has been given little to no treatment in the philosophy of law. In this exploratory essay, I introduce three possible theories of promulgation: the ‘no-theory theory’ (which treats promulgation as a matter of particular contexts), the ‘conveyance theory’ (which treats promulgation as a function of intellectual good faith interpreters), and ‘agonistic theory’ (which treats promulgation as indistinguishable from propaganda). I suggest that (at least) three kinds of models are consistent with the theories, and can potentially (...) help us understand when law is successfully promulgated in particular legal contexts: the spread model, the chain model, and the memetic model. I end the paper by comparing the two theories with respect to a case study. Throughout I will show that the conveyance and agonistic theories have a serious advantage over the no-theory theory, in that they allow us to comparatively examine the epistemic weaknesses of diverse theories about the grounding of law on the basis of their contents. (shrink)

A confluence of scholarly interest has resulted in a revival of Thomistic scholarship across the world. Several areas in the investigation of St. Thomas Aquinas, however, remain under-explored. This volume contributes to two of these neglected areas. First, the volume evaluates the contemporary relevance of St. Thomas's views for the philosophy and practice of education. The second area explored involves the intersections of the Angelic Doctor’s thought and the numerous cultures and intellectual traditions of the East. Contributors to this section (...) examine the reception, creative appropriation, and various points of convergence between St. Thomas and the East. (shrink)

Despite the prominence of thresholds and limits in theories of distributive justice, there is no general account of their role within such theories. This has allowed an ongoing lack of clarity and misunderstanding around threshold views in distributive justice. In this thesis, I develop an account of the conceptual structure of such views. Such an account helps understand and characterize threshold views, can subsume what may seem to be different debates about such views under one conceptual header, and can be (...) used to further examine and develop patterns of justice that draw on thresholds. In light of this account, I propose a novel characterization of sufficientarianism which sheds new light on the distinctiveness of sufficientarianism as a distributive principle and on the common objections to sufficientarianism. Moreover, I examine and defend limitarianism, which is the view that people should not have more than a certain amount of wealth. In particular, I argue in favour of limitarianism as a midlevel principle for guiding institutional design and individual actions and, furthermore, as a specification of what a just allocation of wealth requires under epistemic constraints. (shrink)

The late 19th-century Ignorabimus controversy over the limits of scientific knowledge has often been characterized as proclaiming the end of intellectual progress, and by implication, as plunging Germany into a crisis of pessimism from which Liberalism never recovered. My research supports the opposite interpretation. The initiator of the Ignorabimus controversy, Emil du Bois-Reymond, was a physiologist who worked his whole life against the forces of obscurantism, whether they came from the Catholic and Conservative Right or the scientistic and millenarian Left. (...) Du Bois-Reymond’s doubt that scientists would ever elucidate consciousness must therefore be seen as an endorsement, and not a rejection, of his faith in reason. (shrink)

Walter M. Miller, Jr.’s 1959 novel A Canticle for Leibowitz is on one level a theological reflection on the human propensity to sin. Not coincidentally, the story is located in an Albertinian abbey in the former American southwest six hundred years after a nuclear holocaust, recounting three separate historical periods over the following twelve hundred years: a dark age, a scientific renaissance, and finally a time of technological achievement where a second nuclear holocaust is imminent. Miller asks the question of (...) whether humans as a species cannot avoid committing acts of sin that cumulatively and continually lead to acts of societal and technological self-destruction; his response oscillates between a fatalistic pessimism (the final extinction of the human species) and a vague optimism (the “new creature,” the mutant Rachel, or perhaps a last group of humans leaving the Earth as the curtain falls). It is my thesis in this article that theological questions about sin (as explored by Augustine and later scholars) can be fruitfully approached by analogous genetic processes; more precisely by reference to the rising science of Epigenetics, which explores how genes can express themselves differently without mutating in response to life stressors. In light of the idea of a genetic and epigenetic expression of moral rules of existence, Augustine’s thesis of original sin as something that is inherited makes new sense. In this light, it may also be possible to approach the question that the Canticle proposes: are we destined to self-destruction, or is there a way out of this destructive cycle? (shrink)

In this thesis I set forth what I understand to be the criteria of a Christian anthropology. From this, I then evaluate the major anthropological systems that Christians tend to employ to develop their accounts of human persons, with special attention given to Christian materialism, substance dualism, and Thomistic hylomorphism. I contend that neither Christian materialism nor substance dualism adequately satisfy the criteria of a Christian anthropology, and that some of the best examples of these perspectives have unique philosophical problems (...) of their own. I then consider Thomas Aquinas’s hylomorphic account of human persons and argue that, while it does not perfectly satisfy the criteria of a Christian anthropology, it does fair better than both Christian materialism and substance dualism, and that there are ways to modify his account to enable it to better satisfy the Christian criteria. (shrink)

As is well understood, the values inherent in the dominant neoclassical economic paradigm are self- interest and optimisation. These are the values that guide individuals and policymakers in advanced capitalist economies in their economic decision making. As a consequence, the economics discipline, arguably, is insufficiently oriented to helping people and organisations make wise choices, choices about what is really and truly in people's best interests. In other words, there is strong reason to believe that economics has a wisdom deficit. This (...) paper draws on great philosophers such as Aristotle to explain what wisdom is and why, although economics is concerned with the normative aspect of decision making, economics has too infrequently been used to help people or their societies make wise decisions. This paper is also concerned with how a society's economic decision-making processes can be improved in order that these processes incorporate a much greater dose of wisdom. One relevant question here is: can we learn with the help of philosophers, psychologists and organisation researchers how to make economic decisions that apply the practical wisdom that Aristotle advocated? This paper's overall purpose is first to point the way toward greater decision-making wisdom, and second to propose one method for improving the wisdom of important economic-related decision making. Hopefully, this paper will serve to put the issue of decision-making wisdom higher on the agenda of economists and, as a consequence, lead to wiser decisions in the economic sphere, thereby reducing the wisdom deficit. (shrink)

This chapter first introduces naturalistic approaches to ethics more generally and distinguishes methodological ethical naturalism (the focus of this chapter), from metaphysical ethical naturalism. The second part then discusses evolutionary ethics as a specific variant of methodological ethical naturalism. After introducing the concepts of evolutionary theory that are relevant for evolutionary ethics, I will sketch the history of evolutionary ethics, which offers an interesting lesson about why it became a controversial topic, and then focus on four central questions about ethics (...) that can be approached from within the framework of evolutionary ethics: 1. What should we do? 2. Why are we moral? 3. Are there moral facts? 4. Can we have justified moral beliefs and moral knowledge? (shrink)

This dissertation examines Avicenna's theory of efficient causation in light of his approach to central problems in metaphysics, from the proof of the Necessary Existent to his emanative cosmology. Avicenna provides an internally coherent metaphysical account of efficient causation. A metaphysical account of the efficient cause explains the existence of the effect or essence in a way that is not explained by the causes of motion, as investigated in physics. That is, a full explanation of the cause of the existence (...) of an essence is not found in the four causes of natural change and motion. Avicenna aims to clarify what the explanatory division of labor is between the account of the natural philosopher and that of the metaphysician. In so doing, Avicenna develops a theory of causation that ties his innovative concepts of the contingent in itself and necessary in itself to the concept of efficient causation. A central distinction that Avicenna advances in relation to the efficient cause is that between the cause of the effect qua species and the cause of the effect qua individual. The distinction is relevant to understanding his view of the role of the causes of the essence, including the Active Intellect. Drawing on the above theory of efficient causation, the study reexamines Avicenna's famous proof for the Necessary Existent. The analysis shows that his metaphysical account of efficient causation is at the heart of his proof for a Necessary Existent. The "cause of persistence", in particular, is argued to have a more critical role than previously acknowledged, and is explicated in the context of his theory of efficient causation in metaphysics. (shrink)

In this entry I will offer a systematic novel taxonomy of our imaginative abilities coherent with standard treatments in cognitive science, philosophy of mind and aesthetics. In particular, I will distinguish between the non-propositional imagination and the propositional imagination, which include several further sub-varieties such as the objectual imagination, imagery, experiential imagination, supposition, make-believe and more.

Desire has not been at the center of recent preoccupations in the philosophy of mind. Consequently, the literature settled into several dogmas. The first part of this introduction presents these dogmas and invites readers to scrutinize them. The main dogma is that desires are motivational states. This approach contrasts with the other dominant conception: desires are positive evaluations. But there are at least four other dogmas: the world should conform to our desires (world-to-mind direction of fit), desires involve a positive (...) evaluation (the “guise of the good”), we cannot desire what we think is actual (the “death of desire” principle), and, in neuroscience, the idea that the reward system is the key to understanding desire. The second part of the introduction summarizes the contributions to this volume. The hope is to contribute to the emergence of a fruitful debate on this neglected, albeit crucial, aspect of the mind. (shrink)

In my thesis, I aim to develop a systematic and philosophically coherent thesis of ultimate reality for Ibn Arabi. In this pursuit, I adopt the style of analytic philosophy, seeking to employ and utilise some of its methods and theories. The philosophical aspects of Ibn Arabi’s doctrine are in dire need of conceptual clarification and systematic analysis with a closer focus on argumentation. The analytic tradition will prove most helpful in this regard. In my thesis, I begin by tracing Ibn (...) Arabi’s related views and concepts as they are dispersed throughout his writings. I then clarify, sharpen and, in many cases, develop these views and concepts into fully constructed forms. Finally, I weave the developed concepts and views into a systematic thesis or set of sub-theses. Where necessary, I provide my own arguments and concepts to help substantiate and strengthen the structure of Ibn Arabi’s thesis. I propose that Ibn Arabi’s various, and sometimes apparently inconsistent, views are best presented in terms of three main concepts: the concept of ultimate reality as existence, which has long been known as Ibn Arabi’s thesis of the oneness of existence ; the concept of ultimate reality as the Divine Self ; and the concept of ultimate reality as God. The three concepts neither represent different ultimate realities nor different perspectives of the same ultimate reality. Instead, they represent the same ultimate reality but each one has its own unique scope and encompassment. The three concepts are aimed at encompassing Ibn Arabi’s various views and concepts of ultimate reality in a consistent and systematic manner. (shrink)

Faith is a central attitude in Christian religious practice. The problem of faith and reason is the problem of reconciling religious faith with the standards for our belief-forming practices in general (‘ordinary epistemic standards’). In order to see whether and when faith can be reconciled with ordinary epistemic standards, we first need to know what faith is. This chapter examines and catalogues views of propositional faith: faith that p. It is concerned with the epistemology of such faith: what cognitive attitudes (...) does such faith require, what epistemic norms govern these attitudes, and whether Christian faith can ever adhere to them. (shrink)

Taking the use of the logos in Ratzinger's Regensburg Lecture as its starting point, the thesis expands three horizons in Ratzinger studies. Firstly, it extends the understanding of Ratzinger as the author of a logos theology. Secondly, it shows how the Regensburg theme of the full breadth of reason, represented by the logos, is applied by Ratzinger in a critique of secular modernity. Thirdly, it claims that the logos theology of Joseph Ratzinger can provide a repair of the culture of (...) human rights. The thesis argues that if human rights are set exclusively within the framework of secular modernity, they fall sick and fail to meet the criterion of inclusivity and universality. Set within the framework of a Ratzingerian logos theology, their power is strengthened and their promise of inclusivity and universality restored. The thesis calls for a mutually reparative dialogue about human rights, based on the full breadth of reason, between the three constituencies of Christianity, the religions and secular modernity. The thesis concludes that the Regensburg Lecture, far from damaging the dialogue with Islam, and with secular modernity, opens up a new intercultural bridge based on a mutually enriching engagement with a logos-based culture of human rights. (shrink)

I will analyze the role of ostension in argumentation. Ostension involves gestures, bearing, postures, facial expressions, etc.; thus it can be argued that ostension can introduce non-verbal modes of argument, giving rise to multimodal arguments. Acts of ostension can be considered as a kind of speech acts according to the account in Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations §27. As such they can provide the premises of a certain sort of arguments. We have to distinguish the proper act of ostension from both its (...) content and the object of ostension. While the latter can serve as evidence, as support for a linguistic claim without being part of it, as Dove points out, the act of ostension is a genuine act of arguing since to argue is to present something as a reason for something else. Acts of ostension are not assertive but directive acts, and so their content is not a statement but what I call an imperative. Thus I contend that imperatives can act as premises in some kind of arguments. Finally I will discuss whether arguments by ostension may be taken to be a kind of multimodal arguments. (shrink)

As a result of vocal autism activists pushing against traditional views of autism, there is a bilateral debate that reflects a deeper philosophical divide between medical and social definitions of disability. Both sides seek to determine the manner in which autistics and their communities view autism, and thus influence the manner in which cures or treatments are sought, dispensed and taken up. Through an investigation of this debate, this project will explore the practical benefits and ethical obligations of accommodating autistic (...) differences. One side of this debate, which we will call the cure theory approach, seeks treatments that will eradicate or at least minimize autistic symptoms. The philosophical assertion that lies behind this objective is that autistic differences, particularly disruptive autistic differences, ought to be removed. The other side of the debate, which we will call the neurodiverse perspective, seeks to define autism as neurological difference, that is relationally determined, rather than a disorder or a syndrome. The neurodiversity movement recommends educating autistics and their communities regarding how to fully accommodate autistic differences. The underlying philosophical commitment of the neurodiverse perspective is that it is in the best interests of autistics and their communities to accommodate differences, rather than seek treatments that encourage conformity. I will argue that these two sides are not mutually exclusive. Through a synthesis of the neurodiverse and cure theory points of view I will enable the development of a method, which facilitates justice for autistics and their communities. This synthesis garners the maximum capabilities that the expression of autistic differences can offer, and maintains the freedom for all community members to actualize their capabilities. (shrink)

In this paper, I join the so-called voluntarism debate on Descartes’s theory of will and judgment, arguing for an indirect doxastic voluntarism reading of Descartes, as opposed to a classic, or direct doxastic voluntarism. More specifically, I examine the question whether Descartes thinks the will can have a direct and full control over one’s suspension of judgment. Descartes was a doxastic voluntarist, maintaining that the will has some kind of control over one’s doxastic states, such as belief and doubt. According (...) to a long-held reading, the control that the will has over doxastic states in Descartes’s theory is direct; the doxastic states are affected by the mere act of will. This reading is called direct doxastic voluntarism (DDV), or direct voluntarism (DV) for short, and it states that we are capable of assenting, rejecting and suspending a judgment based only on our will to do so. Thus, these actions would be utterly and merely volitional. DV can be divided into two further positions, direct positive voluntarism (+DV) and direct negative voluntarism (-DV). Direct positive voluntarism deals with the act of forming judgments, maintaining that one can accept or deny a proposition wilfully and either merely believe or not believe something voluntarily. Direct negative voluntarism deals with the suspension of judgment, maintaining that it can likewise be accomplished by a simple act of will. However, I support an alternate account of Descartes’s voluntarism, which is called indirect doxastic voluntarism (IDV), or indirect voluntarism (IV) for short. By this account, the will is capable of affecting a doxastic state indirectly by making one concentrate on essential tasks for forming that state, such as gathering up and paying attention to strong reasons and evidence. IV is also possible to divide into indirect positive voluntarism (+IV) and indirect negative voluntarism (-IV). Per indirect positive voluntarism the will needs to pay attention to reasons for accepting or denying some proposition. Likewise, by indirect negative voluntarism, in order to suspend judgment the will needs to direct this attention to the reasons for doubt. By attending to these reasons, the will also comes face-to-face with its own freedom. This feeling of freedom can be described as affectivity of the reasons for belief (assent) and doubt (suspension). (shrink)

Leibniz claimed that the universe, if God-created, would be physically and morally optimal in this conjoint sense: Of all possible worlds, it would be richest in phenomena, but its richness would arise from the simplest physical laws and conditions. This claim raises two difficult questions. First, why would this “richest/simplest” world be morally optimal? Second, what is the optimal balance between these competing criteria? The latter question is especially hard to answer in the context of a multiverse or multi-domain universe. (...) Leibniz focused on goodness as God’s motive in creation. “This is the cause of the existence of the best: that his wisdom makes it known to God, his goodness makes him choose it, and his power lets him produce it.” This article suggests that love is God’s motive. Since love entails acting to both benefit and be with the beloved, limitless love would entail God’s becoming as much unified reality as possible. The physical laws that govern the universe and its vast richness of phenomena appear to be those that we should expect if this claim is true and there are ways of testing the closeness of this fit. The claim that God has become the world (pandeism) also offers a satisfying resolution to the problem of evil. (shrink)

In this essay, I argue that the Incarnation of the Son of God, understood in a traditionally orthodox way, is incompatible with an atemporalist concept of God. First, I explain what I mean by atemporalism, namely the idea that God exists outside time. I also show the main corollaries of that doctrine, most notably that all of God’s life occurs eternally simultaneously. Second, based on New Testament teaching and widely accepted creeds, I spell out philosophically what I mean by the (...) Incarnation. In short, I take it to be the doctrine that the Second Person of the Trinity at some point in time took on a human body as part of a fully human nature. I then proceed to my central argument, which derives a contradiction from the definitions of the Incarnation and of atemporalism, respectively. In the last section, I shall treat some possible objections to my argument and show that they do not solve the problem satisfactorily. (shrink)

Spinoza rarely refers to art. However, there are extensive resources for a Spinozist aesthetics in his discussion of health in the Ethics and of social affects in his political works. There have been recently been a few essays linking Spinoza and art, but this essay additionally fuses Spinoza’s politics to an affective aesthetics. Spinoza’s statements that art makes us healthier (Ethics 4p54Sch; Emendation section 17) form the foundation of an aesthetics. In Spinoza’s definition, “health” is caused by external objects that (...) maintain our power to act in a variety of ways. Humans need such objects because our complex bodies constantly lose or consume many parts necessary to our overall functioning. Notably, Spinoza defines humans’ bodies through this complexity (2p13Sch), so health as maintenance of complexity is a distinctly human endeavor. Further, while art is not the only healthy activity, I argue that art is a particularly potent cure, which explains Spinoza’s otherwise opaque comment that music can cure melancholy (by which he meant a near-total inability to act, akin to death). Rather than only causing frivolous pleasures, art may be as essential to human flourishing as are other human beings in general; other people are “most useful” because of the variety of actions they make possible (4p35Cor & Sch1). Art’s production of a dizzying variety of affects is likewise most useful for health. -/- Having established how art in general affects the individual, I then explain the role of artists in shaping social groups. Artists use vivid and highly charged affective techniques, as do political sovereigns and religious prophets (TTP chapters 1-2 & 15-16). However, sovereigns and prophets are concerned exclusively with “morality,” defined by Spinoza as the use of affects (primarily based on fear and hope) to produce “obedience” in the generic multitude or people at large. An artist, however, rarely causes affects in the whole nation, affecting instead only a smaller niche or “sub-genre” of people. The affects produced in this group are also not identical to those used by sovereigns, since artists do not primarily deploy sad affects of hope and fear but instead use a wide variety of joyful affects. Further, in Spinoza’s analysis of ceremonies (TTP chapter 5), we see how small groups exposed to repeated ceremonies or social practices eventually develop new strengths which they lacked before. Repeated exposure to shared aesthetic “ceremonies” (e.g., live music performances) of the same sub-genre will over time create the capacity of new powers in the sub-genre of people, which distinguishes them from the masses. Spinoza says sovereigns forge a “second nature” for the generic people through affects; we can then affirm that smaller groups exposed to a distinct sub-genre of art can acquire a new “third nature” which will contain unique powers extending beyond healthy maintenance of their existing bodies. That is, art in general is necessary to flourish and remain whole (maintaining health), but it can also occasionally expand what one is to unforeseen heights (through specific artistic sub-genres). (shrink)

Nesta entrada irei apresentar uma nova taxonomia sistemática das nossas capacidades imaginativas, coerente com os tratamentos convencionais em ciência cognitiva, filosofia da mente e estética. Em particular, irei distinguir entre a imaginação não-proposicional e a imaginação proposicional, o que inclui ainda outras subvariedades, como a imaginação objectual, a imagética, a imaginação experiencial, a suposição, o faz-de-conta e outras.

This dissertation is on infinite regress arguments in philosophy. Its main goals are to explain what such arguments from many distinct philosophical debates have in common, and to provide guidelines for using and evaluating them. Two theories are reviewed: the Paradox Theory and the Failure Theory. According to the Paradox Theory, infinite regress arguments can be used to refute an existentially or universally quantified statement (e.g. to refute the statement that at least one discussion is settled, or the statement that (...) discussions are settled only if there is an agreed-upon criterion to settle them). According to the Failure Theory, infinite regress arguments can be used to demonstrate that a certain solution fails to solve an existentially or universally quantified problem (e.g. to demonstrate that a certain solution fails to settle all discussions, or that it fails to settle even one discussion). In the literature, the Paradox Theory is fairly well-developed, and this dissertation provides the Failure Theory with the same tools. (shrink)

My doctoral research presents my self-enquiry as an Irishwoman who has lived and worked in Ireland and Italy for over thirty five years. This context throws light on my life and practice in Kenya over the last nine years. I then focus more specifically on the evolution of my work with staff and students at Strathmore University in this time span. Through my research I show how I have sought to understand the meaning of my life and practice in greater (...) depth while trying to improve my teaching practice at Strathmore University. I express my new knowledge in my living educational theory and show how my work contributes to the knowledge base of practitioner research. I employ a methodology which I developed using elements of a living educational theory approach which embraces values and diverse forms of meaningful representation such as personal reflective narrative, autoethnography, intellectual representation and visual narrative. I use philosophical and theological reflection and analysis to explain the deeper meaning of the values that emerge in the course of my research as well as in the explanation of my living educational theory. I provide evidence of my contributions to knowledge using feedback from students, colleagues, friends and family members. I present the living values which give meaning to my life and practice as creating a spiration of love, in freedom, for personal growth. This expression illustrates how I understand these values as an analogical mirroring of the free flow of love among the Divine Persons of the Blessed Trinity as I explain in my living theory. (shrink)

Although most scholars trace the Liar Paradox to Plato’s contemporary, Eubulides, the paper argues that Plato builds something very like the Liar Paradox into the very structure of his dialogues with significant consequences for understanding his views. After a preliminary exposition of the liar paradox it is argued that Plato builds this paradox into the formulation of many of his central doctrines, including the “Divided Line” and the “Allegory of the Cave” and the “Ladder of Love”. Thus, Plato may have (...) been the first to formulate the view that Graham Priest calls dialetheism, roughly, the view that some contradictions are, in an illuminating way, inescapable and true. The paper argues that Plato builds this Liar paradox into the formulation of his signature views because he holds that the attempt by finite human beings to theorize about transcendent realities results in the simultaneous necessity, and impossibility, of transgressing the limits of language—leading to the paradoxes. Finally, it is argued that the existence of these paradoxes in these Platonic doctrines is the direct result of an intrinsic hermeneutical circle in Plato’s aforementioned signature views. (shrink)

The history of ideas and contemporary genocide studies conjointly suggests a meaningful secular conception of evil. I will show how the history of ideas supplies us with a cumulative pattern, or an eventual gestalt, of the sought-for conception of universal secular evil. This gestalt is a result of my examination of the history of ideas. The historical analysis of evil firmly grounds my research in the tradition of philosophical inquiry, where I shift the focus from the problem of evil, which (...) is indebted to theological discourse, to an analysis of the concept of evil. Next, I show how this gestalt applies to genocide studies. Specifically, I show how a secular concept of evil meaningfully functions in this research program. The examination of genocide studies serves as a test-bed for the fruit of my historical examination. There, I show, first, in what way a secular notion of evil is irreducible, or elementary; second, how the concept used in genocide studies compares to the cumulative historical pattern; and third, in what way genocide studies have progressively enriched the pattern. Armed with these results, I then engage with the contemporary literature that criticizes the possibility of a meaningful concept of evil, and attempts to reduce this notion of secular evil to relativistic particulars. Here, I describe relevant arguments and objections. It is interesting to explore whether, and if so, how, some aspects of the objections may lend themselves to an actual refinement of the concept of evil. Finally, then, I present a summary account of evil on the basis of my findings. (shrink)

It is widely believed that the semantic contents of some linguistic and mental representations are determined by factors independent of a person’s bodily makeup. Arguments derived from Hilary Putnam’s seminal Twin Earth thought experiment have been especially influential in establishing that belief. I claim that there is a neglected version of the mind-body relation which undermines those arguments and also excludes the possibility of zombies. It has been neglected because it is counterintuitive but I show that it can nonetheless be (...) intelligibly worked out in detail and all obvious objections met. This suggests that we may be faced with a choice between embracing a counterintuitive interpretation of the mind-body relation or accepting that a currently very promising theory in cognitive science, Prediction Error Minimization, faces a fundamental problem. Furthermore, blocking that threat entails that any physicalist/materialst theory of mind is freed from the spectre of zombie worlds. The proposal also makes the ideas of personal teleportation of mind uploading more plausible. (shrink)

Desires matter. How are we to understand the intentionality of desire? According to the two classical views, desire is either a positive evaluation or a disposition to act: to desire a state is to positively evaluate it or to be disposed to act to realize it. This Ph.D. Dissertation examines these conceptions of desire and proposes a deontic alternative inspired by Meinong. On this view, desiring is representing a state of affairs as what ought to be or, if one prefers, (...) as what should be. Desire involves a deontic manner of representing: a norm of the ought-to-be type features in desire’s intentional mode, as opposed to content. The dissertation is structured in three parts. In order to defend this conception, I formulate three main desiderata for a promising theory of the intentionality of desire in the introduction (§0). The first concerns desire’s direction of fit, i.e. the intuition that the world should conform to our desires. The second concerns the death of desire principle, i.e. the intuition that one cannot desire what one represents as actual. The last pertains to desire’s role in psychological explanations, i.e. the intuition that desires can explain some mental states and be explained by other mental states. The first part examines the main conceptions of desire in light of these desiderata. I argue that the classical pictures of desire do not adequately meet our desiderata. The first chapter is devoted to the evaluative conception (§1), while the second examines the motivational approach (§2). Following these criticisms, I then present the deontic view of desire (§3). In the second part, I defend this conception with the help of three arguments. The main idea is that appealing to norms of the ought-to-be type can satisfy our chief desiderata: the world should conform to norms (world-to-mind direction of fit, §4), norms are grounded on values and in turn ground obligations (explanation, §5), and norms are about non-actual states of affairs (death of desire principle, §6). In the last part, I develop the deontic view to draw a cartography of the various types of desire. Some desires are correct, while others are inappropriate. This distinction is explained by the deontic conception, as it matches that between states of affairs that ought to obtain and states that should not obtain (§7). Two study cases are examined: caprice and the impermissibility of desire aggregation. Intuitively, hopes, wishes, or urges are types of desire. The next chapter presents a typology inspired by the deontic view and the type of norms there are (§8). The last chapter discusses the main objections to the deontic approach (§9). In conclusion, I show the relevance of the deontic view for several debates in philosophy of mind and ethics. Desires are crucial because they are the ‘eye’ of what should be. (shrink)

Classical Trinitarians claim that Jesus—the Son of God—is truly God and that there is only one God and the Father is God, the Spirit is God, and the Father, Son, and Spirit are distinct. However, if the identity statement that ‘the Son is God’ is understood in the sense of numerical identity, logical incoherence seems immanent. Yet, if the identity statement is understood according to an ‘is’ of predication then it lacks accuracy and permits polytheism. Therefore, we argue that there (...) is another sense of ‘is’ needed in trinitarian discourse that will allow the Christian to avoid logical incoherence while still fully affirming all that is meant to be affirmed in the confession ‘Jesus is God.’ We suggest a sense of ‘is’ that meets this need. (shrink)

The purpose of the article is to investigate the philosophical and theological validity and coherence of the classical concept of a miracle within the contemporary scientific world view. The main tool in this process will be the cognitive standard model of the formation of religious beliefs operative in the cognitive science of religion. The application of this model shows why an intentional agent is assigned as responsible for the occurrence of events with no visible cause such as a miracle: miracles (...) are events that violate the intuitively expected behaviors observable in the physical reality. It will become evident that much of the conceptual content of the classical understanding of miracles can be retained despite of the ontological and epistemological challenges of the contemporary science. In particular, this concerns the semantic view of miracles in which a miracle does not occur as an objective Divine intervention but qualifies as religious interpretation of the natural course of events always in reference to a cultural and personal context that is unique to those who directly experience these events either as direct recipients or as observers. (shrink)

It is sometimes claimed that faith is a virtue. To what extent faith is a virtue depends on what faith is. One construal of faith, which has been popular in both recent and historical work on faith, is that faith is a matter of taking oneself to have been spoken to by God and of trusting this purported divine testimony. In this paper, I argue that when faith is understood in this way, for faith to be virtuous then it must (...) be accompanied by intellectual humility. I defend this view by showing how someone ought to respond to purported divine testimony if her faith is to be intellectually humble, and how, if it fails in this respect, it will instead be accompanied by the vices of either servility or arrogance. (shrink)

This dissertation employed Ernest L. Boyer's scholarship of integration by synthesizing Seligman, Aristotle, and Smith's literature to discuss what constitutes happiness, a good life, and how to apply Martin Seligman's framework to achieve these objectives. The dissertation will also discuss how happiness was defined during the Aristotle era and how happiness is measured in contemporary society and societal perspective toward individual economics and happiness. This integration is especially necessary for studying humanities, which I used to understand the past and its (...) influence on the present. Understanding our past encourages us to appreciate the present and work with others to establish productive and positive future systems. Thus, increasing our understanding of what it means to be human in the age of technology. (shrink)

In this essay I will try to convince you: (1) that the question of God’s relation to time is of practical relevance for every believer (2) that the idea of God being outside time is a philosophically untenable concept which creates major clashes with Christian doctrine and therefore that every Christian should adopt some temporalist view of God To do that, I will present four arguments against the “outside time” view of God. I then briefly treat the question where the (...) idea of God’s timelessness presumably came from and conclude with an outlook on problems that temporalist accounts of God must face. (shrink)