Individuals are generally held to be morally and legally responsible only for actions carried out freely and deliberately, that is to say, for actions that result from our free choice. However, there is a quite widespread view that all of our actions are the result of the scientific laws that govern our physical bodies. If this should prove to be the case, then human choice would be an illusion, and therefore -- on the generally accepted principle just stated -- personal (...) responsibility would be a meaningless concept and blame and punishment would be inappropriate responses to wicked or criminal acts. In this paper I shall argue that we need to disentangle ‘responsibility’ from ‘choice'. I shall also outline reasons for holding that responsibility is ultimately a first-person matter -- I am responsible if I feel responsible, irrespective of choice -- and I shall briefly consider some of the consequences of this approach. (shrink)

We study logical systems for reasoning about equations involving recursive definitions. In particular, we are interested in "propositional" fragments of the functional language of recursion FLR [18, 17], i.e., without the value passing or abstraction allowed in FLR. The "pure," propositional fragment FLR$_0$ turns out to coincide with the iteration theories of [1]. Our main focus here concerns the sharp contrast between the simple class of valid identities and the very complex consequence relation over several natural classes of models.

I do not approach the question of free will as a scientist, like Colin Blakemore, or a lawyer, like David Hodgson, or philosopher, like Daniel Dennett, but as a priest -- someone who feels responsible for my own actions and who is called upon to counsel and absolve such as come to me with their shame and their guilt. Should I say that their sense of responsibility is illusory? Or should I encourage them to accept responsibility, and then to deal (...) with it in the various ways -- religious, psychological and practical -- that are open to them? (shrink)

We study logical systems for reasoning about equations involving recursive definitions. In particular, we are interested in "propositional" fragments of the functional language of recursion FLR [18, 17], i.e., without the value passing or abstraction allowed in FLR. The "pure," propositional fragment FLR 0 turns out to coincide with the iteration theories of [1]. Our main focus here concerns the sharp contrast between the simple class of valid identities and the very complex consequence relation over several natural classes of models.

An international team of ethicists refresh the debate about human enhancement by examining whether resistance to the use of technology to enhance our mental and physical capabilities can be supported by articulated philosophical reasoning, or explained away, e.g. in terms of psychological influences on moral reasoning.

In this article, we present results from a literature review of intrinsic, instrumental, and relational values of nature conducted for the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, as part of the Methodological Assessment of the Diverse Values and Valuations of Nature. We identify the most frequently recurring meanings in the heterogeneous use of different value types and their association with worldviews and other key concepts. From frequent uses, we determine a core meaning for each value type, which is (...) sufficiently inclusive to serve as an umbrella over different understandings in the literature and specific enough to help highlight its difference from the other types of values. Finally, we discuss convergences, overlapping areas, and fuzzy boundaries between different value types to facilitate dialogue, reduce misunderstandings, and improve the methods for valuation of nature's contributions to people, including ecosystem services, to inform policy and direct future research. © 2023 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. (shrink)

In our society, where interest in Buddhist meditation is expanding enormously, numerous scientific studies are now conducted on the neurophysiological effects of meditation practices and on the neural correlates of meditative states. However, very few studies have been conducted on the experience associated with contemplative practice: what it is like to meditate -- from moment to moment, at different stages of practice -- remains almost invisible in contemporary contemplative science. Recently, 'micro-phenomenological' interview methods have been developed to help us become (...) aware of lived experience and describe it with rigour and precision. The present article presents the results of a pilot project1 aimed at applying these methods to the description of meditative experience. The first part of the article describes these methods and their adjustment for the investigation of meditative experience. The second part provides micro- phenomenological descriptions of two processes of which meditation practice enables the practitioner to become aware: the process of losing contact with the current situation and generation of virtual ones in 'mind-wandering' episodes, and the process of emergence of a thought. The third part of the article highlights the interest such descriptions may have for practitioners and for teachers of meditation, defines the status of these results, and outlines directions for further research. (shrink)

The traditional view was that a concept must be immediate if anything is, i.e., it must be something possessed directly by my mind. To deny this seems to be saying "I think but I don't have ideas." This is of course what the proponents of the linguistic philosophy are in effect saying, and perhaps for them it is all right. Professor Price has argued ingeniously against the whole linguistic position: against the possibility of a purely linguistic solution to the problem. (...) Yet whether we follow Price or the language philosophers we are forced into a rather puzzling situation. One likes to say that one has ideas, thoughts, concepts, but there is a serious question as to whether we can ever actually cognize such entities. Indeed Price introspects and does not find them. Most of us--including our linguistic colleagues--would be quick to agree. A thought cannot be introspected like an image. There just does not seem to be anything there. As thinkers of thoughts, we are looking inward toward nothing; we are indeed living examples of "hollow men." So it is that we are faced with a dilemma. Either we say we think but do not really have ideas, or we must somehow show that such concepts are actually immediate after all. Neither alternative seems the least bit welcome. The latter seems utterly impossible. (shrink)

This chapter describes the potential far‐reaching consequences of contemplative higher education for the fields of science and medicine.

Political violence in the form of wars, insurgencies, terrorism and violent rebellion constitutes a major human challenge. C. A. J. Coady brings a philosophical and ethical perspective as he places the problems of war and political violence in the frame of reflective ethics. In this book, Coady re-examines a range of urgent problems pertinent to political violence against the background of a contemporary approach to just war thinking. The problems examined include: the right to make war and conduct war, terrorism, (...) revolution, humanitarianism, mercenary warriors, the ideal of peace and the right way to end war. Coady attempts to vindicate the contemporary relevance of the just war tradition to current problems without applying the tradition in a merely mechanical or uncritical fashion. (shrink)

Hobbes’ account of these issues is conspicuously brief and puzzling. Indeed it has been criticized by some commentators as ‘confused.’ I hope to show, however, that it appears confused only because it has not been read with sufficient precision. Properly understood, Hobbes’ account is both exact and profound. It is also, in my view, far more interesting as a conception of natural right than the modern ‘confusions’ which have come to be read into it.To show this, the text must be (...) read as it is presented: on its own terms, analytically and exactly. In what follows, therefore, I shall focus upon Hobbes’ definitive account of the right of nature in chapter XIV of Leviathan, with only minimal reference to other passages and other works. I do not pretend that this is the only possible approach to Hobbes on this point; but it does show how his account may be read intelligibly, and with greater respect for the power and precision of his thought. (shrink)

Dr Ian Ramsey has made considerable use of the word ‘disclosure’ in what he has to say about religion and in his attempts to give an account of the meaning of religious language. He sometimes speaks of ‘discernment’ or ‘insight’ but ‘disclosure’ is the word he normally favours. In what follows I shall ask: what a disclosure is, to what extent Dr Ramsey's use of the notion leads to confusions, and what questions have to be faced in order to resolve (...) these confusions. (shrink)

Elephants show a rich social organization and display a number of unusual traits. In this paper, we analyse reports collected over a thirty-five year period, describing behaviour that has the potential to reveal signs of empathic understanding. These include coalition formation, the offering of protection and comfort to others, retrieving and 'babysitting' calves, aiding individuals that would otherwise have difficulty in moving, and removing foreign objects attached to others. These records demonstrate that an elephant is capable of diagnosing animacy and (...) goal directedness, and is able to understand the physical competence, emotional state and intentions of others, when they differ from its own. We argue that an empathic understanding of others is the simplest explanation of these abilities, and discuss reasons why elephants appear to show empathy more than other non-primate species. (shrink)

Upshot: We focus on the following issues: our intentions behind establishing the new Research Through Design conference series; epistemological concerns around “research through design”; and how we might find a balance between openness and specificity for the conference series going forward.

Seneca the Younger's tragedies are adaptations from the Greek. C. A. J. Littlewood emphasizes the place of these plays in the Latin literature and in the philosophical context of the reign of the emperor Nero. Stoics dismissed public reality as theatre, as illusion. The artificiality of Senecan tragedy, the consciousness that its own dramatic worlds are literary constructs, responds to this contemporary philosophical perception.

La parole est l'entre-deux qui sépare et unit moi et le monde, moi et toi, moi et moi-même. On se demande quelle est la relation entre moi et ma parole, si la parole découle de l'essence même de mon être. Une analyse phénoménologique, qui partirait du dialogue comme d'un donné indubitable, ne suffit pas tout à fait, puisqu'il il s'agit d'un sens éventuel du dialogue pour le tout de mon être. Il faut donc aborder la question d'un point de vue (...) d'où le dialogue lui-même est mis en suspens. Commençons par l'indubitable absolu : l'être. Il y a quelque chose, quoi que ce soit, il y a au moins la question même de l'être. Mais cette question qui se met elle-même en question, se sait être. Et qu'est cela sinon moi-même, pas encore opposé, il est vrai, à toi, à lui, à nous ? Pourtant je ne suis pas l'être ; il y a en moi une dualité entre essence et être, et une dualité entre être et penser. Je sais que je suis, je cherche encore qui je suis. Eh bien, je suis « ici et maintenant » , c. à. d. je suis dans un ordre spatio-temporel, par mon corps, qui est donc ce qui m'exprime à moi-même, ma parole. Mais mon corps est originellement en commerce avec les êtres du monde, et j'ai le sentiment de cette situation par la perception et le comportement. En révélant le sens des êtres du monde, en leur donnant des noms de mon point de vue, je me nomme moi-même. En revenant sur la voie parcourue jusqu'ici, l'article démontre que ce n'est pas seulement mon monde que je nomme. Le « moi » de la certitude absolue est un « nous » pas encore détaillé. Et à l'intérieur de ce « nous » jaillit, par ta foi en moi, l'opposition communicative entre moi et toi, que j'expérimente surtout dans la corrélation de la voix et de l'ouïe. La parole fonde la communauté, puisqu'en exprimant mon être elle s'adresse à vous, et manifeste ainsi mon être comme « être-avec » . L'être même est infini, et donc communicabilité pure, et donc parole. Mais notre parole humaine n'est que participation déficiente de la communication immédiate qui serait l'identité de l'être, le connaître et l'aimer. Elle reste moyen, et donc succédané de l'immédiat, et donc ambigue. Notre dialogue doit se transcender dans l'inexprimable, dans le silence. La parole essentielle, la parole de l'amour, est pour les hommes la parole la plus dangereuse et la plus incertaine. Elle ne se prouve que par la fidélité. Mais tout ce que nous disons et faisons est destiné à devenir l'incarnation de cette parole. (shrink)

C. A. J. Littlewood approaches Seneca's tragedies as Neronian literature rather than as reworkings of Attic drama, and emphasizes their place in the Roman world and in the Latin literary corpus. The Greek tragic myths are for Seneca mediated by non-dramatic Augustan literature. In literary terms Phaedra's desire, Hippolytus' innocence, and Hercules' ambivalent heroism look back through allusion to Roman elegy, pastoral, and epic respectively. Ethically, the artificiality of Senecan tragedy, the consciousness that its own dramatic worlds, events, and people (...) are literary constructs, responds to the contemporary Stoical dismissal of the public world as mere theatre. (shrink)

In this article, I present a critical literature study of the theoretical approach of practical theologians in South Africa to our discipline, in honour of Yolanda Dreyer on her 60th birthday. Some of my colleagues' approaches at the universities of Stellenbosch, Free State, Pretoria, Unisa and NWU are discussed. All of them work with practical theological hermeneutics. The basic hermeneutic approach of Daniël Louw is widened with an integrated approach by Richard R. Osmer in which practical theology as a hermeneutic (...) discipline also includes the empirical aspect which the action theory approach has contributed to the discussion. After discussing Louw's basic hermeneutic approach, all the other colleagues who basically accepted Osmer's approach in their publications are discussed. Important and new ground is being broken by contemporary colleagues, including research in public practical theology, without neglecting the focus on Christian congregations, and new work is being done at the grass roots level of African issues in our country. (shrink)