The aim of this paper is to prove strengthenings of three theorems appearing in Jensen [1].

The aim of this paper is to prove strengthenings of three theorems appearing in Jensen [1].

Polarization is a topic of intense interest among social scientists, but there is significant disagreement regarding the character of the phenomenon and little understanding of underlying mechanics. A first problem, we argue, is that polarization appears in the literature as not one concept but many. In the first part of the article, we distinguish nine phenomena that may be considered polarization, with suggestions of appropriate measures for each. In the second part of the article, we apply this analysis to evaluate (...) the types of polarization generated by the three major families of computational models proposing specific mechanisms of opinion polarization. (shrink)

Curiosity and creativity are expressions of the trade-off between leveraging that with which we are familiar or seeking out novelty. Through the computational lens of reinforcement learning, we describe how formulating the value of information seeking and generation via their complementary effects on planning horizons formally captures a range of solutions to striking this balance.

Kyle Stanford has recently given substance to the problem of unconceived alternatives, which challenges the reliability of inference to the best explanation (IBE) in remote domains of nature. Conjoined with the view that IBE is the central inferential tool at our disposal in investigating these domains, the problem of unconceived alternatives leads to scientific anti-realism. We argue that, at least within the biological community, scientists are now and have long been aware of the dangers of IBE. We re-analyze the nineteenth-century (...) study of inheritance and development (Stanford’s case study) and extend it into the twentieth century, focusing in particular on both classical Mendelian genetics and the studies by Avery et al. on the chemical nature of the hereditary substance. Our extended case studies show the preference of the biological community for a different methodological standard: the vera causa ideal, which requires that purported causes be shown on non-explanatory grounds to exist and be competent to produce their effects. On this basis, we defend a prospective realism about the biological sciences. (shrink)

Nietzsche claims that we are fated to be as we are. He also claims, however, that we can create ourselves. To many commentators these twin commitments have seemed self-contradictory or paradoxical. The argument of this paper, by contrast, is that, despite appearances, there is no paradox here, nor even a tension between Nietzsche's two claims. Instead, when properly interpreted these claims turn out to be intimately related to one another, so that our fatedness emerges as integral to our capacity to (...) become self-creators. The paper also offers, in the course of undermining a false alternative that is deeply entrenched in the philosophical tradition, a reading of Nietzsche's doctrine of amor fati that actually – and perhaps uniquely – makes full sense of section 276 of The Gay Science, the chief source for this aspect of his thought. (shrink)

Accounts of causal explanation are standard in philosophy of science. Less common are accounts of experimentation to investigate causal relations: detailed discussions of the specific kinds of experiments scientists design and run. Silva, Landreth, and Bickle’s account of “connection experiments” derives directly from landmark experiments in “molecular and cellular cognition.” We start with its key components, and then using a detailed case study from recent social neuroscience we emphasize and extend three features of SLB’s account: a division of distinct types (...) of connection experiments, each providing a different type of evidence for a hypothesized causal relationship; the typically downward-looking nature of the experimental search for mediating causes in mainstream neurobiology; and most importantly, the centrality of multiple-experiment research programs, with each experiment designed such that if successful its results can be integrated with the others, toward the goal of confirming multiple-phenomena causal pathways. Our extension of SLB’s account complements existing philosophical work on experimentation in neurobiology. (shrink)

Perichoresis, or “mutual indwelling,” is a crucial concept in Trinitarian theology. But the philosophical underpinnings of the concept are puzzling. According to ordinary conceptions of “indwelling” or “being in,” it is incoherent to think that two entities could be in each other. In this paper, I propose a mereological way of understanding “being in,” by analogy with standard examples in contemporary metaphysics. I argue that this proposal does not conflict with the doctrine of divine simplicity, but instead affirms it. I (...) conclude by discussing how mutual indwelling relates to the concepts of unity and identity. (shrink)

ABSTRACTJacques Rohault is often considered to be one of the most meticulous followers of Descartes. Despite this, Rohault’s natural philosophy lacks much of the metaphysical bulwark that typifies Cartesian treatises of the seventeenth century. Instead, Rohault’s work, as well as his popular weekly meetings, strongly emphasized rigorous observation and experimentation. Traditionally, this emphasis on experiment over metaphysics is seen as a pragmatic omission to avoid the perils associated with censorship and Cartesian metaphysics. However, I find that the lack of explicit (...) metaphysics has real consequences that play out in the role Rohault assigns to experimentation. To show this, I highlight several areas where he adopts a broad experimental methodology even though Descartes explicitly rejects the relevancy of experiment on metaphysical topics. I place special emphasis Rohault’s extensive experiment on the void. In short, Rohault’s experimentation was designed to prove, through experimental mea... (shrink)

Propositional attitude verbs, such as think and want, have long held interest for both theoretical linguists and language acquisitionists because their syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties display complex interactions that have proven difficult to fully capture from either perspective. This paper explores the granularity with which these verbs’ semantic and pragmatic properties are recoverable from their syntactic distributions, using three behavioral experiments aimed at explicitly quantifying the relationship between these two sets of properties. Experiment 1 gathers a measure of 30 (...) propositional attitude verbs’ syntactic distributions using an acceptability judgment task. Experiments 2a and 2b gather measures of semantic similarity between those same verbs using a generalized semantic discrimination task and an ordinal scale task, respectively. Two kinds of analyses are conducted on the data from these experiments. The first compares both the acceptability judgments and the semantic similarity judgments to previous classifications derived from the syntax and semantics literature. The second kind compares the acceptability judgments to the semantic similarity judgments directly. Through these comparisons, we show that there is quite fine-grained information about propositional attitude verbs’ semantics carried in their syntactic distributions—whether one considers the sorts of discrete qualitative classifications that linguists traditionally work with or the sorts of continuous quantitative classifications that can be derived experimentally. (shrink)

While early optimists have seen online discussions as potential spaces for deliberation, the reality of many online spaces is characterized by incivility and irrationality. Increasingly, AI tools are considered as a solution to foster deliberative discourse. Against the backdrop of previous research, we show that AI tools for online discussions heavily focus on the deliberative norms of rationality and civility. In the operationalization of those norms for AI tools, the complex deliberative dimensions are simplified, and the focus lies on the (...) detection of argumentative structures in argument mining or verbal markers of supposedly uncivil comments. If the fairness of such tools is considered, the focus lies on data bias and an input–output frame of the problem. We argue that looking beyond bias and analyzing such applications through a sociotechnical frame reveals how they interact with social hierarchies and inequalities, reproducing patterns of exclusion. The current focus on verbal markers of incivility and argument mining risks excluding minority voices and privileges those who have more access to education. Finally, we present a normative argument why examining AI tools for online discourses through a sociotechnical frame is ethically preferable, as ignoring the predicable negative effects we describe would present a form of objectionable indifference. (shrink)

In 2022, an estimated 110,000 people died of an opioid-related drug overdose in the United States (Ahmad et al. 2024) primarily related to illicit fentanyl. However, fatal overdoses comprise only a...

This paper charts P.A.M. Dirac’s development of his theory of the electron, and its radical picture of empty space as an almost-full plenum. Dirac’s Quantum Electrodynamics famously accomplished more than the unification of special relativity and quantum mechanics. It also accounted for the ‘duplexity phenomena’ of spectral line splitting that we now attribute to electron spin. But the extra mathematical terms that allowed for spin were not alone, and this paper charts Dirac’s struggle to ignore or account for them as (...) a sea of strange, negative-energy, particles with positive ‘holes’. This work was not done in solitude, but rather in exchanges with Dirac’s correspondence network. This social context for Dirac’s work contests his image as a lone genius, and documents a community wrestling with the ontological consequences of their work. Unification, consistency, causality, and community are common factors in explanations in the history of physics. This paper argues on the basis of materials in Dirac’s archive that — in addition — mathematical beauty was an epistemological factor in the development of the electron and hole theory. In fact, if we believe that Dirac’s beautiful mathematics captures something of the world, then there is both an epistemology and an ontology of mathematical beauty. (shrink)

The phenomenological investigations of Siddhartha Gautama and Edmund Husserl arrive at the exact same conclusion concerning a fundamental and invariant structure of consciousness. Namely, that object-directed consciousness has a transcendental correlational intentional structure, and that this is fundamental -- in the sense of basic and necessary--to all object-directed experiences. This example of converging lines of evidence strongly suggests that phenomenology can indeed produce truths about consciousness, and thus that phenomenology has a rightful place in a science of consciousness. However, Siddhartha (...) challenges cognitive science's mainstream presuppositions concerning what the purpose of phenomenology is and what it means to study and understand consciousness. (shrink)

Democratic theorists, especially since the advent of the deliberative democracy paradigm in the 1980s, have focused primarily on relationships involving citizens and their political representatives, and have thus paid scant attention to the bureaucratic agencies within the modern state that are presumed merely to “flesh out,” implement, and enforce the decisions made by elected officials. This undertheorized space between markets and democratic decision making, in brief, is where corporations and other interested parties inter- act with regulatory agencies, their bureaucrats, and (...) the elected officials who are accountable for what governments do on their watch. How and why ought democratic governments to facilitate, regulate, or get out of the way of, markets and corporations in a so-called market democracy? We cannot possibly provide or defend a detailed answer to this question here. What we will attempt to do, however, is to make the case for why the question is too normatively and conceptually rich for political philosophers to continue to outsource it almost entirely to scholars in law and the social sciences. Although the tensions between lawmaking by bureaucrats and the ideals of representative democracy rarely merit more than a few sentences of abstract reflection by democratic theorists, we have tried to reconstruct the implicit assumptions that might explain this neglect. (shrink)

Many of U.S. President Donald Trump’s business interests—and those of his family and close associates—either conflict or could conflict with his position as the country’s top elected official. Despite concerns about the vitality of the journalism industry, these actual or potential conflicts have been reported in great detail across a number of journalism platforms. More concerning, however, are the partisan news organizations on both the right and left that deliberately sow social discord by exciting deeply polarized political tensions among the (...) U.S. populous. Often described as “fake” news, these organizations produce reports that seem designed to create outrage among audiences instead of enlightenment. This paper draws upon social epistemology and information ethics to offer a truth-based ethos for journalism to help overcome this pernicious form of exploitation. (shrink)

In this paper, I will discuss an objection to Buck-Passing accounts of value, such as Reasons Fundamentalism. Buck-Passing views take value to be derivative of or reducible to reasons. The objection is that since there can be value in possible worlds in which there are no reasons, value must not be ontologically derivative of reasons. Thus, BP is false. In this paper, I show that by accepting a dispositionalist revision, BP can allow such worlds while maintaining that reasons are interestingly (...) prior to value, and without having to adopt any controversial metaphysics. I show this by exploring the debate over the nature of dispositions, identifying the diverse resources BP can appeal to. The paper proceeds as follows. I first explain BP. Next, I discuss a few versions of the challenge, settling on what seems to be the strongest form. Following this, I show that on many accounts of dispositions, while we should accept that particular instances of dispositions are prior to their particular manifestations, we should also accept that there is a sense in which dispositions are dependent on their manifestations. This provides BP with resources to respond to the challenge: BP can accept a dispositional revision, without committing to a theory of dispositions. Finally, I will respond to two objections. The first is about whether there are dispositions with impossible manifestations, contrary to my thesis that dispositions depend on their manifestations. The second is about whether there could be value where it would be impossible for that value to give reasons. (shrink)

Is love best when it is fresh? For many, the answer is a resounding “yes.” The intense experiences that characterize new love are impossible to replicate, leading to wistful reflection and even a repeated pursuit of such ecstatic beginnings. Aaron Ben-Ze’ev takes these experiences seriously, but he’s also here to remind us of the benefits of profound love—an emotion that can only develop with time. In The Arc of Love, he provides an in-depth, philosophical account of the experiences that (...) arise in early, intense love—sexual passion, novelty, change—as well as the benefits of cultivating long-term, profound love—stability, development, calmness. Ben-Ze’ev analyzes the core of emotions many experience in early love and the challenges they encounter, and he offers pointers for weathering these challenges. Deploying the rigorous analysis of a philosopher, but writing clearly and in an often humorous style with an eye to lived experience, he takes on topics like compromise, commitment, polyamory, choosing a partner, online dating, and when to say “I love you.” Ultimately, Ben-Ze’ev assures us, while love is indeed best when fresh, if we tend to it carefully, it can become more delicious and nourishing even as time marches on. (shrink)

Confucians think ritual propriety is extremely important, but this commitment perplexes many Western readers. This essay outlines the early Confucian Xúnzǐ’s defense of ritual, then offers a modified defense of ritual propriety as a real virtue, of value to human beings in all times and places, albeit one that is inescapably indexed to prevailing social norms in a non-objectionable way. The paper addresses five likely objections to this thesis, drawing on but going beyond recent Kantian defenses of courtesy and civility. (...) The objections concern cultural relativity, insincerity, separating style from substance, elitism, and possible incoherence in the virtue itself. (shrink)

Experimental philosophy offers an alternative mode of engagement for public philosophy, in which the public can play a participatory role. We organized two public events on the aesthetics of coffee that explored this alternative mode of engagement. The first event focuses on issues surrounding the communication of taste. The second event focuses on issues concerning ethical influences on taste. -/- In this paper, we report back on these two events which explored the possibility of doing experimental philosophical aesthetics as public (...) philosophy. We set the stage by considering the significance and current state of efforts in public philosophy, and by introducing the emerging sub-discipline of experimental philosophical aesthetics. Then, we discuss the research and outreach aspects of the two events on the aesthetics of coffee. Finally, we conclude by reflecting on the prospects and potential pitfalls of experimental philosophy as public philosophy. (shrink)

In our commentary we briefly review the work on the neurological differences between the rational ethical analysis used in professional contexts and the reflexive emotional responses of our daily moral reasoning, and discuss the implications for the claim that our normative arguments should not rely on the emotion of repugnance.

The objective of this study was to take a closer look at defense-related expenses for medical malpractice cases over time. We conducted a retrospective review of medical malpractice claims reported to the Physician Insurers Association of America's Data Sharing Project with a closing date between January 1, 1985 and December 31, 2008. On average a medical malpractice claim costs more than $27,000 to defend. Claims that go to trial are much more costly to defend than are those that are dropped, (...) withdrawn, or dismissed. However, since the overwhelming majority of claims are dropped, withdrawn, or dismissed, the total amount spent to defend them surpasses that spent on claims that go to trial. Defense attorney expenses account for the majority of defense-related expenses (74%), while expert witness expenses and other expenses split the remaining 26%. A strong association was also found between the average indemnity payment and the amount it costs to defend individual claims by specialty. Our study found that defense-related expenses for medical malpractice claims are not an insignificant cost. As state and federal governments debate how to repair the malpractice system, addressing the high cost of defending claims should not be ignored. (shrink)

The speed with which Bradley became an historical backwater has probably made it easier to think of him as a second-rate philosopher, who was either incompetent or careless, or at any rate uninteresting, and to suppose that his arguments have been refuted as well as rejected. But as far as his metaphysics are concerned this is not the case. His project and his premises are not those of contemporary analytic philosophy, but his arguments are none the less rigorous for that; (...) and attempts to convict him of poor reasoning often redound little to the credit of his critics, as I hope to show. If Bradley is not much read nowadays then the reason is that fashions have changed, rather than that his philosophical shortcomings have been found out. (shrink)

Some Peirceans have defended a form of moral cognitivism according to which “moral judgments fall within the scope of truth, knowledge, and inquiry.”1 The idea is that our moral beliefs can be either true or false and this can be discovered through inquiry. There have been more than a few thinkers who have placed Charles S. Peirce within this camp and have said that his theories of truth and inquiry provide us with a framework within which we can understand moral (...) judgments. If, through inquiry, we find reasons for thinking that our moral judgments are false, then we should at the very least be willing to subject those moral judgments to doubt, which would then make us more hesitant to operate based on those moral.. (shrink)

Marilyn McCord Adams argues that God’s goodness to individuals requires God to defeat horrendous evils; it is not enough for God to outweigh these evils through compensatory goods. On her view, God defeats the evils experienced by an individual if and only if God’s goodness to the individual enables her to integrate the evil organically into a unified life story she perceives as good and meaningful. In this essay, we seek to apply Adams’s theodicy of defeat to a particular form (...) of suffering. We argue that God’s goodness to individuals requires that God defeat the suffering to which a range of disabilities can give rise. (shrink)

Recently Graham Badley :631–641, 2016) made the case that the "pragmatic university” represents a viable future for the post-modern institution. In his construction of the pragmatic university, Badley largely draws upon the vision laid out by Richard Rorty. While Rorty’s neopragmatism offers an important perspective on the pragmatic institution, I believe that John Dewey’s classical pragmatism offers a richer and more capable vision of the university. The aim of this paper is to develop a view of the pragmatic university drawn (...) from Dewey’s philosophy. His writings on the university offer a unique and viable path forward because he directly engages a reconstruction of the relationship between knowledge and experience in the context of post-secondary education. (shrink)

This article explores Michael Faraday’s “Historical Sketch of Electro‐Magnetism” as a fruitful source for understanding the epistemic significance of experimentation. In this work Faraday provides a catalog of the numerous experimental and theoretical developments in the early history of electromagnetism. He also describes methods that enable experimentalists to dissociate experimental results from the theoretical commitments generating their research. An analysis of the methods articulated in this sketch is instructive for confronting epistemological worries about the theory‐dependence of experimentation. †To contact the (...) author, please write to: 10289 Saint Katherine Lane, Saint Ann, MO 63074; e‐mail: [email protected]. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:The Mystery of Sacramentality:Christ, the Church, and the Seven SacramentsCharles JournetTranslated by Aaron D. Henderson, with Introduction and NoteOriginally: Charles Journet, "Le Mystère de la sacramentalité: Le Christ, l'Église, les sept sacrements," Nova et Vetera 49 (1974): 161–214.Translator's IntroductionThe thought of Charles Cardinal Journet, venerable founder of the present journal and unparalleled twentieth-century master of Thomistic ecclesiology, merits a wider reception and a more ardent love.1 Not a (...) few have recognized this of late, producing articles and books dedicated to explicating his teaching.2 Nevertheless, much remains to be done to ensure that English speakers have fuller access to Journet's corpus. For instance, only the first [End Page 611] volume of L'Église du Verbe incarné,3 his magnum opus, has been translated into English.4 It is with this in mind that we set out to translate the article below. And it is no meager article that is reproduced below (though such a work is foreign to Journet), but one of considerable substance and importance. After all, it is a wonderful (and wonderfully extensive) expression of his post-conciliar Christology, ecclesiology, and sacramental theology. Indeed, written in 1974, but one year before his death, this article represents the mature fruit of many years of contemplation and prayer.With respect to his ecclesiology, Journet was influenced by the Second Vatican Council, in which he participated after his elevation to the episcopacy and cardinalate. As an example of this influence, an influence evident in the article below, the conciliar documents speak in several places of the sacramentality of the Church.5 The Church is, in Christ, a sacrament, "a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and of the [End Page 612] unity of the whole human race."6 Describing the Church as a sacrament is part of the Council's effort to unfold for the Catholic faithful and for the whole world the Church's inner nature and universal mission. Following the teaching of the Council, therefore, Journet includes the Church herself, in her being and action, in "the mystery of sacramentality."7But the mystery of sacramentality includes more than the Church. Indeed, there is a respect in which the entire economy of salvation is sacramental. Furthermore, the Church is a sacrament (a sign and instrument) only in a derived sense, in a way wholly dependent on her divine Spouse and Head. It is for this reason that Journet refers to Christ as "the sacrament of the divine life in its source" and to the Church as "the sacrament of the divine life communicated." Both Christ and the Church, then, are sacraments, but not in precisely the same manner. As Journet puts it, "Now, to which of these two is the Second Vatican Council's definition, 'universal sacrament of salvation,' suited? To Christ and to his Church respectively, though proportionally (that is, analogically)."8Journet's systematic ordering (first Christ, then the Church, and finally the sacraments) is intelligible and consonant with others who suggest that, had St. Thomas written an ecclesiological treatise in the Summa theologiae, it would be situated between the questions on Christ (ST III, qq. 1–59) and the questions on the sacraments (ST III, qq. 60–90).9 Journet begins [End Page 613] his work, however, with a reality that he refuses to call a sacrament, namely, the Most Holy Trinity. The Trinitarian mystery stands at the heart of the Christian faith; it is the source of the mystery of sacramentality. We see the splendor of the entire economy of salvation, and of the New Law especially, in the mystery of the Trinitarian indwelling and missions of the Son and Spirit. The Word became flesh, became human, so that he might rescue our sin-ravaged world. Jesus is, in his sacred humanity, the sacrament of the Trinity, the sacrament of the divine life in its source, to employ again Journet's language.Journet describes the Word as seizing or taking hold of the depths of his sacred humanity in his being and in his action. The Gospels bear authoritative witness to this, but they... (shrink)

Why decolonize knowledge and philosophy? Pascah Mungwini proposes that epistemic decolonization should be implemented to remain true to the spirit of philosophy and to the idea of humanity. Aaron Creller, Michael Monahan, and Esme Murdock focus on different aspects of Mungwini’s proposal in their individual responses. Creller suggests some “best practices” so that comparative epistemology can take into account the parochial embeddedness of universal reason. While Monahan underscores that world philosophy as a project must openly acknowledge its own incompleteness (...) and its instantiation in different world philosophies, Esme Murdock uses Glissant’s thoughts to make a case for the right to opacity as a strategy for subverting the dominating power of Euroamerican reason. In his reply, Mungwini underscores that philosophy will be able to increase the amount of justice, beauty, and truth in this world only when its practitioners begin to exhibit genuine pluralism in their work. (shrink)

In this paper I explore Peirce's account of association and his view that it is the only force which exists within the intellect. I look to the British Associationists, especially Hume, for the background. From there, Peirce's theory of attention becomes important for explaining the formation of associations. Finally, I argue that resemblance and contiguity are reduced to association by utility motivated by the individual's interests. Placing association in a general theory of the individual's interests is important for understanding the (...) habits and critical self-control that are essential for the ultimate aim of the growth of concrete reasonableness. (shrink)

In this paper I argue that, according to Peirce’s mature account of perception, we directly perceive generals, or "Thirds," in external reality which should be described as physical and not as mental. I argue against three other interpretations of the role of Thirdness in Peirce’s account: (I) we do not directly perceive Thirds, although they are involved in the interpretive and judgmental part of perception; (II) we directly perceive Thirds, but they are imposed on external objects by our minds; and (...) (III) we directly perceive Thirds in external objects, but external reality is comprised of the representations of an objective mind. I address questions about the role of the percept and the percipuum in his account, in what exact sense he thought that perception is interpretive, and how he thought it is even possible to directly perceive generals in the external world. (shrink)

Jewish culture and universal perspectives.

Social media and Internet technologies present several emerging and ill-explored issues for a modern healthcare workforce. One issue is patient-targeted Googling, which involves a healthcare professional using a social networking site or publicly available search engine to find patient information online. The study’s aim was to address a deficit in data and knowledge regarding PTG, and to investigate medical student use of SNSs due to a close association with PTG. The authors surveyed final year medical students at the Otago Medical (...) School, University of Otago in January 2016. A subset completed focus groups that were analysed using thematic analysis to identify key themes relating to students’ attitudes towards PTG, and reasons why they might engage in PTG. Fifty-four students completed the survey, which showed that PTG was uncommon. Attitudes were varied and context dependent. Most participants saw problems with PTG and favoured more explicit guidance on the issue. SNS usage was high ; participants were concerned by the content of their SNS profiles and who they were connecting with online. Participants showing high SNS use were 1.83 times more likely to have conducted PTG than lower use groups. The diverse attitudes uncovered in this study indicated that teaching or guidelines could be useful to healthcare professionals considering PTG. Though ethically problematic, PTG may be important to patient care and safety. The decision to conduct PTG should be made with consideration of ethical principles and the intended use of the information. (shrink)

This article is about structural realism, historical continuity, laws of nature, and \emph{ceteris paribus} clauses. Fresnel's Laws of optics support Structural Realism because they are a scientific structure that has survived theory change. However, the history of Fresnel's Laws which has been depicted in debates over realism since the 1980s is badly distorted. Specifically, claims that J.~C. Maxwell or his followers believed in an ontologically-subsistent electromagnetic field, and gave up the aether, before Einstein's \emph{annus mirabilis} in 1905 are indefensible. Related (...) claims that Maxwell himself did not believe in a luminiferous aether are also indefensible. This paper corrects the record. In order to trace Fresnel's Laws across significant ontological changes, they must be followed past Einstein into modern physics and nonlinear optics. I develop the philosophical implications of a more accurate history, and analyze Fresnel's Laws' historical trajectory in terms of dynamic ceteris paribus clauses. Structuralists have not embraced ceteris paribus laws, but they continue to point to Fresnel's Laws to resist anti-realist arguments from theory change. Fresnel's Laws fit the standard definition of a ceteris paribus law as a law applicable only in particular circumstances. Realists who appeal to the historical continuity of Fresnel's Laws to combat anti-realists must incorporate ceteris paribus laws into their metaphysics. (shrink)

Most crises of knowledge stem from lack of information. The current crisis of romantic knowledge stems from the opposite reason: too much information. The abundance of romantic information is the main reason for this crisis, making the romantic realm more complex, diverse and flexible than ever. In recent times, there has become a significantly greater emphasis on romantic ignorance. Romantic abundance facilitates finding a romantic (and sexual) partner, but is an obstacle for initiating and maintaining enduring, profound romantic relationships. A (...) major optimal tool for overcoming these difficulties is a combination of intuition and deliberate thinking. The abundance of romantic information does not make adequate knowledge easy to obtain, and conversely has created a far more complex minefield to navigate. Nevertheless, our contemporary society has enabled the most flourishing romantic environment in the history of love. (shrink)

Glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists are effective for treating obesity, but the high cost of these medications endangers the financial viability of our health care system. To ensure that these drugs are available to Medicare beneficiaries, pharmaceutical manufacturers must lower their prices.

Hope is crucial human agency, but its fragility grounds a substantive challenge to Christian belief. It is not clear how a perfectly loving God could permit despairinducing experiences of divine silence. Drawing upon a distinctively Christian psychology of hope, this paper seeks to address this challenge. I contend that divine silence can act as a corrective to misplaced natural hopes. But there are risks in God’s choice to allow a person to lose all natural hope. Thus, if God is perfectly (...) loving, God ought to find a way to demonstrate goodness to those who are tempted by theological despair. I argue that the Church demonstrates God’s goodness through its merciful care and hope for the afflicted. The local community can act to sustain or recover a person’s capacity to remain open to the gift of hope even in the midst of divine silence. (shrink)

The silence of God either by itself or in circumstances of profound suffering can induce hopelessness and despair, eroding a person’s ability to act in ways conducive to her own good. Given the role of hope in human agency, the loss of hope is an event of a significant moral and personal concern. And the standard responses to the problem of divine hiddenness may not address the existential crises occasioned by God’s silence. This paper seeks to develop and address this (...) challenge by evaluating two potential responses to the problem of despair-inducing experience of divine silence. (shrink)