In order to assess and understand human behavior, traditional approaches to experimental design incorporate testing tools that are often artificial and devoid of corporeal features. Whilst these offer experimental control in situations in which, methodologically, real behaviors cannot be examined, there is increasing evidence that responses given in these contextually deprived experiments fail to trigger genuine responses. This may result from a lack of consideration regarding the material makeup and associations connected with the fabric of experimental tools. In a two-year (...) collaboration, we began to experiment with the physicality of testing tools using the domain of moral psychology as a case study. This collaboration involved thinkering and prototyping methods that included direct contact and consideration of the materials involved in experimentation. Having explored the embodied nature of morality, we combined approaches from experimental psychology, moral philosophy, design thinking, and computer science to create a new testing tool for simulated moral behavior. Although the testing tool itself generated fruitful results, this paper considers the collaborative methodology through which it was produced as a route to highlight material questions within psychological research. (shrink)

W. David Solomon sits at the very center of the revival of virtue ethics. Solomon's work extended what began with the publication of G. E. M. Anscombe's "Modern Moral Philosophy" (1958) by solidifying virtue ethics as a viable approach within contemporary moral philosophy. Beyond the Self: Virtue Ethics and the Problem of Culture comprises twelve chapters: eleven that employ Solomon's work and legacy, followed by a twelfth concluding chapter by Solomon himself. Each chapter deepens and develops virtue ethics as a (...) rich intellectual tradition rooted in Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Editor Raymond Hain divides the volume into three sections. The first addresses the historical contexts of happiness, justice, and mercy in the tradition of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. The second turns to recent themes in normative ethics, focusing on topics such as morality, virtue, and egoism. The third discusses broader ethical issues with significant cultural implications, such as human dignity, physician-assisted suicide, and secularization. Beyond the Self uncovers the shortcomings of contemporary moral philosophy and the depth and capacity of the Aristotelian and Thomistic traditions, reminding the reader that classical virtue ethics remains the most promising framework for understanding the moral life. Contributors include: Michael Beaty, Kevin L. Flannery, Raymond Hain, John Haldane, Thomas Hibbs, Irfan Khawaja, Alasdair MacIntyre, John O'Callaghan, Bryan C. Pilkington, W. David Solomon, Christopher Toner, and Candace Vogler. (shrink)

As Christians, we affirm that Scripture is our supreme guide to truth and righteousness. Some wish to go further and assert that it is our only guide. But how then can we account for the remarkable insight and moral integrity that many unbelievers seem to display? Indeed, how to account for the myriad ways in which believers themselves navigate the world based on knowledge and intuition not always derived from Scripture? Enter the doctrine of natural law. Frequently misrepresented as an (...) assertion of the autonomous power of human reason or as a uniquely Roman Catholic doctrine, natural law has actually been an integral part of orthodox Christian theology since the beginning, and is even clearly asserted in Scripture itself. In this brief guide, David Haines and Andrew Fulford explain the philosophical foundations of natural law, clear up common misunderstandings about the term, and demonstrate the robust biblical basis for natural law reasoning. (shrink)

Christians affirm that Scripture alone reveals truths about God which cannot be known by mere reason, such as the Trinity or the Gospel itself. But how do we account for Scripture’s apparent talk of a knowledge of God possible solely from creation? Or for our own sense of the divine in nature? Or for the startling insights of ancient philosophers about the nature of God? The answer: natural theology. Often misrepresented as a fruitless human attempt to comprehend God, natural theology (...) has in fact been a significant part of Christian theology throughout history. It has shaped the Christian doctrine of God and provided a starting point for evangelizing non-Christians. In an age when theologians and missionaries alike are in need of stronger doctrinal foundations, it is a doctrine as vital as ever. In this guide, David Haines first outlines the biblical basis for natural theology, suggesting that, if Scripture is correct, certain truths about God should be well attested by non-Christians. A thorough historical survey demonstrates that this is indeed the case, and that the Church has long made use of that which is revealed to reason in order to serve Christ, who is revealed to faith. (shrink)

This book traces rabbinic thought on the near-universal phenomenon of legal circumventions, finding licit ways to achieve otherwise illegal outcomes. Rabbinic literature does not fully reject or accept loopholing, but instead determine acceptability based on whether their outcome and their process maintain the values and the integrity of the law.

Attractions of overseas high-level returned talents have become a widely practiced talent policy, and the spatial structures of city-related interactions are drawing the attention of researchers from various fields. China is particularly an interesting case in point, as it has moved toward an innovation-oriented economy. Based on the movement trajectories of 2,846 returnees in a program entitled “Young Thousand Talents Plan” during 2011–2016, this paper identifies three city types in China: national core city, regional excellent city, and regional special city. (...) Subsequently, this paper employs spatial visualization and qualitative interviews. This paper also goes on to show that the national core cities that possess dense research resources that coincide with premium life conditions and have objectively more favorable conditions, wider opportunities for attracting highly qualified specialists. Moreover, the backflow pattern can be divided into circle route and linear route, which is driven by social proximity and innovation context. (shrink)

Our concern is the completeness problem for spi-logics, that is, sets of implications between strictly positive formulas built from propositional variables, conjunction and modal diamond operators. Originated in logic, algebra and computer science, spi-logics have two natural semantics: meet-semilattices with monotone operators providing Birkhoff-style calculi and first-order relational structures (aka Kripke frames) often used as the intended structures in applications. Here we lay foundations for a completeness theory that aims to answer the question whether the two semantics define the same (...) consequence relations for a given spi-logic. (shrink)

Contemporary yoga is popularly represented in various media by a fit, white woman. Yoga Journal is a magazine recognized by many as an industry cornerstone and an institution in and of itself. It represents the distinctive face of yoga. By analyzing the visual and textual content of the Yoga Journal magazine covers, from its first issue in 1975 to issue 313, we describe the produced and consumed portrait of yoga. By focusing on the cover themes, together with the objects and (...) persons depicted, we recognize three phases of development that have contributed to the understanding of the changing image of yoga in the media. While, in the initial phase, yoga was represented as a mystical and mysterious spiritual discipline that originated in the Orientalized East, in the later phase, it was depicted first as a global and universal phenomenon and then as a mainstream everyday fitness regime. Yoga’s depiction in the last phase is compatible with the scholarly representation of contemporary yoga as posture and body centered, but not with its earlier depictions. We found that in its mature phase, the yoga body, which is criticized for its lack of inclusiveness, emerged to become omnipresent. We conclude that the newly formed face of yoga is problematic, both for its female readers, who are encouraged to conform to a unique body type, and also for the yoga community, which encounters an appearance-based restriction of access. (shrink)

Just before the second world war, in a paper read to the British Association, Morris Ginsberg talked about the failure of social philosophy and the social sciences to work together in the universities ‘toward the rational ordering of society’. Some time after the war Alexander Macbeath complained to British sociologists of his own vain search for a social philosopher who could teach in a course on public administration. Then a few years later A. E. Teale told an inter-professional conference at (...) Keele that people who teach and train teachers, those who train social workers of all kinds, were disappointed when philosophers professed themselves unable to help those who had to ‘equip students with the skill to change prevailing moral attitudes and standards’. (shrink)

His “practical purpose” was first to express the popular notion of responsibility and then to relate it to the philosophical theories of “freewill and necessity.” For he could not approve the suggestion that to understand popular comments on morality was a worthless occupation; indeed, while he respected the Westminster Reviewers for the blunt declaration that vulgar responsibility was a “horrid figment of the imagination,” he plainly considered it his business as a philosopher to examine ordinary morality and to reconcile it, (...) if possible, with philosophical theory. (shrink)

We show the first examples of recursively enumerable (even decidable) two-dimensional products of finitely axiomatisable modal logics that are not finitely axiomatisable. In particular, we show that any axiomatisation of some bimodal logics that are determined by classes of product frames with linearly ordered first components must be infinite in two senses: It should contain infinitely many propositional variables, and formulas of arbitrarily large modal nesting-depth.

We prove that the two-variable fragment of first-order intuitionistic logic is undecidable, even without constants and equality. We also show that the two-variable fragment of a quantified modal logic L with expanding first-order domains is undecidable whenever there is a Kripke frame for L with a point having infinitely many successors (such are, in particular, the first-order extensions of practically all standard modal logics like K, K4, GL, S4, S5, K4.1, S4.2, GL.3, etc.). For many quantified modal logics, including those (...) in the standard nomenclature above, even the monadic two-variable fragments turn out to be undecidable. (shrink)

BackgroundDealing with end of life is challenging for patients and health professionals alike. The situation becomes even more challenging when a patient requests a legally permitted medical service that a health professional is unable to provide due to a conflict of conscience. Such a scenario arises when Victorian health professionals, with a conscientious objection (CO) to voluntary assisted dying (VAD), are presented with patients who request VAD or merely ask about VAD. The Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 (Vic) recognizes the (...) inherent conflict of conscience that may arise for some health professionals when asked to provide VAD and responds by affording broad protection to conscientious objectors who wish to refuse to take part in the VAD process.MethodsSeventeen semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with Victorian health professionals with a self-identified CO to VAD in the lead-up to the implementation of VAD in Victoria. Interviews explored how participants anticipated they would manage their CO in practice. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and analyzed thematically.ResultsOur results reveal that the way in which health professionals claimed they would approach CO conversations is variable and was dependant on the strength of their opposition to VAD. We categorized conscientious objectors according to their approach as either dissuasive non-referrers, passive non-referrers, facilitators or negotiators. Our study also explores the perceived difficulties of exercising one’s CO as identified by our participants.ConclusionThe broad protection offered by the Voluntary Assisted Dying Act 2017 (Vic) encourages a range of behaviors from conscientious objectors, due to the minimal obligations imposed. In order to assist conscientious objectors, more policy, institutional guidance, and education needs to be available to conscientious objectors explicitly addressing how to effectively manage one’s CO. Such guidance is imperative to ensuring that their moral integrity is preserved and that they are exercising their CO appropriately. (shrink)

The paper assumes that to be of practical interest process must be understood as physical action that takes place in the world rather than being an idea in the mind. It argues that if an ontology of process is to accommodate actuality, it must be represented in terms of relative probabilities. Folk physics cannot accommodate this, and so the paper appeals to scientific culture because it is an emergent knowledge of the world derived from action in it. Process is represented (...) as a contradictory probability distribution that does not depend on a spatio-temporal frame. An actuality is a probability density that grounds the values of probabilities to constitute their distributions. Because probability is a conserved value, probability distributions are subject to the constraint of symmetry and must be zero-sum. An actuality is locked-in by other actualities to become a zero-sum symmetry of probability values. It is shown that the locking-in of actualities constructs spatio-temporal locality, lends actualities specificity, and makes them a contradiction. Localization is the basis for understanding empirical observation. Because becoming depends on its construction of being, processes exist as trajectories. The historical trajectories of evolution and revolution as well as the non-historical trajectory of strong emergence are how processes are observed to exist. (shrink)

Built on the foundations laid by Peirce, Schröder, and others in the 19th century, the modern development of relation algebras started with the work of Tarski and his colleagues [21, 22]. They showed that relation algebras can capture strong first‐order theories like ZFC, and so their equational theory is undecidable. The less expressive class WA of weakly associative relation algebras was introduced by Maddux [7]. Németi [16] showed that WA's have a decidable universal theory. There has been extensive research on (...) increasing the expressive power of WA by adding new operations [1, 4, 11, 13, 20]. Extensions of this kind usually also have decidable universal theories. Here we give an example – extending WA's with set‐theoretic projection elements – where this is not the case. These “logical” connectives are set‐theoretic counterparts of the axiomatic quasi‐projections that have been investigated in the representation theory of relation algebras [22, 6, 19]. We prove that the quasi‐equational theory of the extended class PWA is not recursively enumerable. By adding the difference operator D one can turn WA and PWA to discriminator classes where each universal formula is equivalent to some equation. Hence our result implies that the projections turn the decidable equational theory of “WA + D ” to non‐recursively enumerable (© 2009 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim). (shrink)

En este trabajo abordo el problema de la herencia nietzscheana en el pensamiento de Jacques Derrida como base para plantear la cuestión de la huella de éste último en la filosofía actual. Para ello, me aproximo a la relación entre vida e ideal de vida, tal como la pensaron ambos. Partiendo de este aspecto, planteo el problema de la relación entre vida y obra, la cuestión de la identidad personal, la valoración del pensamiento como actividad crítica y la cuestión de (...) la posibilidad de lo imposible, que resulta central en el pensamiento derridiano. A través de todo ello, pretendo poner de manifiesto la enorme proyección de futuro que a mi juicio tiene la obra de Derrida. (shrink)

Según plantea Heidegger en Ser y tiempo, la pregunta por el ser no es fruto de la espontaneidad de la llamada conciencia natural, aunque tampoco en la racionalidad científica pueda encontrar los elementos adecuados para su formulación. Sabemos, en todo caso, que la ciencia puede contribuir a la respuesta, aunque no ayude a comprender lo que el hecho mismo de esa enunciación implica. La tesis que se defiende en este trabajo es que la correlación entre la pregunta por el ser (...) y la pregunta por el tiempo, posee unas dimensiones objetiva, subjetiva e histórica, estas tres dimensiones todavía no han sido, a mi entender, suficientemente exploradas. La conclusión a que se llega puede resumirse afirmando que en cada una de ellas acaba implicado el problema de la autenticidad, un problema que no puede ser tratado de forma adecuada desde la concepción heideggeriana del tiempo desarrollada en Ser y tiempo. According to what Heidegger exposed in Being and Time, the question of being is not the result of the spontaneity of what we call natural consciousness, although we cannot find in scientific rationality the right items for its formulation. We know, in any case, that science can contribute to the answer, but does not help us understand what the fact of this statement implies. The thesis defended in this work is that the correlation between the question of being and the question of the time has an objective, subjective and historical dimension, not yet fully explored. The conclusion reached is that in all of them is involved the problem of authenticity, that can’t be addressed adequately from Heidegger's conception of time exposed in Being and Time. (shrink)

La experiencia de la finitud no otorga, en sí misma, un sentido a la vida, pero sí introduce en ella algo que la hace intensamente humana. La finitud de la existencia queda marcada por la certeza de la presencia ineludible de la muerte. La angustia que produce la certeza de la inevitabilidad de la propia muerte es la forma más radical en que se nos manifiesta la naturaleza del Ser, no la ausencia de éste. La referencia a las ideas de (...) Derrida, Heidegger y Jankélévitch, nos permite perfilar en este trabajo una línea de reflexión relevante sobre un eterno problema filosófico: la significación de la muerte y su relación con el sentido de la vida. El modesto objetivo que persigo con este trabajo es mostrar, no sólo que sigue teniendo sentido reflexionar sobre uno de los temas ineludibles en la historia de la filosofía, sino también poner de manifiesto la pertinencia de la reflexión filosófica, aun cuando abordamos a través de ella asuntos que de antemano sabemos que jamás se podrán resolver de forma definitiva. (shrink)

El objetivo primordial de este artículo es poner en valor las contribuciones de Jacques Derrida a la filosofía del derecho. En esa línea, una de las tareas más importantes que se abordan en él es mostrar que la labor de deconstrucción, se refiera ésta a cualquier ámbito filosófico o jurídico, es ante todo poner en evidencia los límites, carencias e incoherencias internas que se dan en dicho ámbito. Además de ello, se expone en este trabajo cómo Jacques Derrida, el creador (...) de este método de análisis, al aclarar el sentido y operatividad de la deconstrucción nos explica que ésta se plantea la tarea de desmontar lo que se presenta como construido con una inconmovible solidez. Se pone asimismo de manifiesto en este artículo que la deconstrucción puede contribuir a la concreción de la justicia, en diversos contextos, que van desde el mismo proceso judicial a la dimensión colectiva de las acciones que conducen a la materialización de un orden justo. (shrink)

El objetivo de este trabajo es ofrecer al lector un recorrido por las más signifi cativas interpretaciones del mito de Prometeo, intentando, a la luz del contenido de las mismas, contribuir al esclarecimiento de la relación entre ley moral y ley política. En particular, se trata de poner de relieve cómo hay en la actitud de Prometeo algo que delata la presencia de una conciencia, fuertemente individualizada, cuyo dictado le conduce a asumir el choque con el poder en su máxima (...) expresión. Por otro lado, se analizan las diferentes interpretaciones del concepto griego de Ley, estudiando cómo la máxima expresión de la misma es deudora de la idea de destino. En base a la Ley, se establece un orden común, que enlaza a dioses y hombres, si bien no con los mismos grados de sujeción. (shrink)

Más allá del principio del poder es el título de la contribución de Derrida al homenaje a Foucault, que realizó la Universidad de New York tras la muerte del filósofo. Acerca de su contenido trata este pequeño ensayo. En su intervención, Derrida pone en relación las ideas de Freud y las de Foucault, con las suyas propias, a propósito de la relación entre saber, poder y sexualidad.Su objetivo final es hacer hablar, pero al mismo tiempo acallar la voluntad de destrucción, (...) encontrando la forma de imponer la vida a la muerte, aún en la misma muerte y más allá de la muerte. Este es el imposible que ha de imponerse a la voluntad de destrucción del otro, a la persistente búsqueda de su absoluta sumisión aniquiladora, que conllevaría a su vez el aniquilamiento del verdugo. (shrink)

Resumen: El pasado 6 de junio se cumplieron 30 años de la muerte del pensador Vladimir Jankélévitch, acaecida en Paris en 1985. Se trata de un lapso temporal considerable, casi un tercio de siglo, que nos permite realizar un balance de la actualidad y previsible pervivencia en el futuro de su obra. En el presente trabajo pretendo realizar un breve recorrido por algunos de los temas filosóficos que abordó en sus obras más relevantes, reivindicando la vigencia de su pensamiento en (...) este siglo XXI, que va abriéndose paso entre profundos dramas humanos. En cierta forma, tan complejas circunstancias constituyen otras tantas proyecciones de las que Jankélévitch conoció a lo largo de su extraordinaria peripecia vital. Con todo ello como telón de fondo, focalizaré mi atención en cinco grandes asuntos: el estatuto del saber filosófico, la ética como base de la relación con el otro, el amor, la muerte y la búsqueda de la pureza.: On June 6 the 30th anniversary of the death of Vladimir Jankélévitch, happened in Paris in 1985. After a considerable time lag, almost a third of a century, allows us to take stock of the present and foreseeable future survival of his work. In this paper we try to provide a brief overview of some of the philosophical issues addressed in his most important works, vindicating their importance thought this century, which are presented through deep human dramas. In a way, such complex circumstances are projections of those that Jankélévitch met throughout his extraordinary life. With all this as background, I will focus my attention on five major issues: the status of philosophical knowledge, ethics as the basis for the relationship with the other, love, death and the search for purity. (shrink)

En el cuarto volumen de la Historia de la sexualidad de Michel Foucault, podemos encontrar un relevante conjunto de conceptos y reflexiones que nos permiten emprender una aproximación singular al asunto que constituye el objeto de estudio del presente trabajo, a saber las relaciones entre sexualidad, identidad personal y Derecho. Un aspecto central en esa obra es el estudio de las ideas de Agustín de Hipona, referidas a dichas relaciones. Estas ideas han tenido una enorme repercusión histórica, contribuyendo a conformar (...) la concepción de la identidad sexual predominante en Occidente. En ella la idea de la sexualidad como potencia subyacente sobre la que el propio individuo difícilmente alcanza a tener un control, ha marcado la visión de las relaciones entre subjetividad y sexualidad. (shrink)

A partir de J.-P. Sartre y M. Heidegger, se aborda la relación entre temporalidad, conciencia y comprensión, y se examina la experiencia de la indeterminación vinculada a la intuición del límite de lo pensable y expresable, con el fin de articular la filosofía y la poesía como formas de acercamiento a dicho límite. Se plantean dos presupuestos: el cuestionamiento de la demarcación radical entre indagación filosófica y expresión poética, y la aproximación racional, pero sin prejuicios racionalistas, a los límites del (...) pensar y del decir. Con ello se reivindica una forma de entender la filosofía que parte de M. Heidegger y alcanza brillantes expresiones en M. Foucault y J. Derrida. On the basis of J.-P. Sartre and M. Heidegger, the article addresses the relation among temporality, consciousness, and understanding, and examines the experience of indeterminacy that is linked to the intuition of the limits of what can be thought and expressed, in order to articulate philosophy and poetry as forms to approach that boundary. Two presuppositions are set forth; the questioning of the radical demarcation between philosophical inquiry and poetic expression, and the rational approach to the limits of thinking and saying, but without rationalist prejudices. Thus, we assert a way of understanding philosophy that originates in M. Heidegger and achieves a brilliant expression in M. Foucault and J. Derrida. (shrink)

A partir de J.-P. Sartre y M. Heidegger, se aborda la relación entre temporalidad, conciencia y comprensión, y se examina la experiencia de la indeterminación vinculada a la intuición del límite de lo pensable y expresable, con el fin de articular la filosofía y la poesía como formas de acercamiento a dicho límite. Se plantean dos presupuestos: el cuestionamiento de la demarcación radical entre indagación filosófica y expresión poética, y la aproximación racional, pero sin prejuicios racionalistas, a los límites del (...) pensar y del decir. Con ello se reivindica una forma de entender la filosofía que parte de M. Heidegger y alcanza brillantes expresiones en M. Foucault y J. Derrida. (shrink)

There are two known general results on the finite model property of commutators [L0,L1]. If L is finitely axiomatizable by modal formulas having universal Horn first-order correspondents, then both [L,K] and [L,S5] are determined by classes of frames that admit filtration, and so they have the fmp. On the negative side, if both L0 and L1 are determined by transitive frames and have frames of arbitrarily large depth, then [L0,L1] does not have the fmp. In this paper we show that (...) commutators with a “weakly connected” component often lack the fmp. Our results imply that the above positive result does not generalize to universally axiomatizable component logics, and even commutators without “transitive” components such as [K3,K] can lack the fmp. We also generalize the above negative result to cases where one of the component logics has frames of depth one only, such as [S4.3,S5] and the decidable product logic S4.3×S5. We also show cases when already half of commutativity is enough to force infinite frames. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)