Recent articles in Religious Studies have underscored the questions of whether Buddhism presents any empirical doctrines, and whether, if it does, such doctrines are false or vacuous. In what follows I want to sketch an interpretation of Buddhism according to which it does not offer doctrines which are empirically false, on the one hand, or trivially true on the other. In doing so I take my cue from an earlier, and by now classic, paper by H. H. Price. For the (...) exposition of Buddhism I take the Pali Nikāyas, the single most significant collection of texts in the Buddhist tradition. The particular doctrine which is the focus of discussion here is the kammavāda or ‘karma view’ of early Indian Buddhism, for it is the focus of much of the recent literature cited above and a doctrine which some have thought amenable to statement in empirical terms. (shrink)

This paper responds to the issues raised by D. Chalmers by offering a research direction which is quite radical because of the way in which methodological principles are linked to scientific studies of consciousness. Neuro-phenomenology is the name I use here to designate a quest to marry modern cognitive science and a disciplined approach to human experience, thereby placing myself in the lineage of the continental tradition of Phenomenology. My claim is that the so-called hard problem that animates these Special (...) Issues can only be addressed productively by gathering a research community armed with new pragmatic tools for the development of a science of consciousness. I will claim that no piecemeal empirical correlates, nor purely theoretical principles, will really help us at this stage. We need to turn to a systematic exploration of the only link between mind and consciousness that seems both obvious and natural: the structure of human experience itself. In what follows I motivate my choice by briefly examining the current debate about consciousness at the light of Chalmer’s hard problem. Next, I outline the phenomenological strategy. Finally I conclude by discussing some of the main difficulties and consequences of this strategy. (shrink)

Geannoteerde briefwisseling van de twee geleerden over het vraagstuk van de evolutie.

Social scientific reasoning (SSR) is essential to social science education and to a democratic society as a whole. Students are challenged to analyze and reason about social problems such as social inequality, crime, and poverty. However, students experience difficulties with SSR. This study addresses the research question: Which design principles can guide teachers in designing lessons that promote social scientific reasoning? In this design-based research, four social science teachers employed a conceptualization of SSR and its levels together with three initial (...) design principles to develop curriculum materials and activities. These design principles and curriculum materials were piloted in two secondary education classes (9th and 10th grades) and evaluated by four social science teachers, four social science teacher educators and 90 students. The study produced six design principles that can promote students’ SSR. In combination with the curriculum materials, those design principles can help develop teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge and guide the design of tasks and units that develop SSR. (shrink)

Timothy Williamson, in various places, has put forward an argument that is supposed to show that denying bivalence is absurd. This paper is an examination of the logical force of this argument, which is found wanting.

Despite the salient experience of encoding threatening events, these memories are prone to distortions and often non-veridical from encoding to recall. Further, threat has been shown to preferentially disrupt the binding of event details and enhance goal-relevant information. While extensive work has characterised distinctive features of emotional memory, research has not fully explored the influence threat has on temporal memory, a process putatively supported by the binding of event details into a temporal context. Two primary competing hypotheses have been proposed; (...) that threat can impair or enhance temporal memory. We analysed two datasets to assess temporal memory for an in-person haunted house experience. In study 1, we examined the temporal structure of memory by characterising memory contiguity in free recall as a function of individual levels of heart rate as a proxy of threat. In study 2, we replicated marginal findings of threat-related increases in memory contiguity found in study 1. We extended these findings by showing threat-related increases in recency discriminations, an explicit test of temporal memory. Together, these findings demonstrate that threat enhances temporal memory regarding free recall structure and during explicit memory judgments. (shrink)

First published in 1818, The World as Will and Representation contains Schopenhauer's entire philosophy, ranging through epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and action, aesthetics and philosophy of art, to ethics, the meaning of life and the philosophy of religion, in an attempt to account for the world in all its significant aspects. It gives a unique and influential account of what is and is not of value in existence, the striving and pain of the human condition and the possibility of (...) deliverance from it. This new translation of the first volume of what later became a two-volume work reflects the eloquence and power of Schopenhauer's prose and renders philosophical terms accurately and consistently. It offers an introduction, glossary of names and bibliography, and succinct editorial notes, including notes on the revisions of the text which Schopenhauer made in 1844 and 1859. (shrink)

The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity' is an encyclopedic compendium, probably composed in tenth-century Iraq by a society of adepts with Platonic, Pythagorean, and Shi'i tendencies. Its 52 sections ('epistles') are divided into four parts (Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Sciences of the Soul and Intellect, and Theology). The current volume provides an edition, translation, and notes to Epistle 3 ('On Astronomia'), which forms one of the 14 sections on Mathematics. The content is a mixture of elementary astronomy and astrology, but (...) it is not a beginner's textbook. Rather, the purpose is to use examples from those disciplines to provide spiritual, moral, and soteriological guidance. Thus the Epistle uses the argument from design to show the necessity for a Creator who made the harmonious universe; this wondrous design is then employed by the authors as a model, providing humans with a paradigm for proper ethical, political, and even economic conduct; and the study of Astronomia helps the soul achieve ultimate happiness as it seeks to throw off the shackles of this mundane world and oppressive body in favour of the purity of the celestial realm.0Although by no means typical of Islamic astronomical literature, Epistle 3 of the Brethren of Purity gives a window into a fascinating and intriguing group operating during the early period of Islam who sought to continue and adopt one of the esoteric strands of Hellenistic philosophy within an Islamic context, meshing astronomy, astrology, Platonic-Pythagorean philosophy, Quranic and Biblical quotations, and anecdotes from the lives of the Abrahamic prophets. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:iA NOTE ON W. J. HILL'S "THE DOCTRINE OF GOD AFTER VATICAN II" F. F. CENTORE St. Jerome's Oollege, University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario GOD MAY NOT :be dead, hut certamly 1any strictly philosophical, scientific, rational approach to God 'WIOuld seem to ibe derud today. Modern thought, even rumong deeply religious people, seems to J:nwe despaired of ever being ruble to pwve rbhe existence oi God to anyone, even (...) to someone who not 'SO willfully prejudiced against relig~on. that he simply rrefuses to view the evidence in 1an open-minded, calm, am.d rreflective iway. However, this does :not mean that our,apip:voach to God must be strictly emotional and ir.rational. It may >still 1be reasonable rto believe in God, even though we cannot rprove his existence in 'Some strictly r:ationrul way. Rather,than beginning with our ordinary human experience of the real exbramenrtail world and,working our way up to a knowledge o:f the bet that God exists·, we might take a more inner.,directed, psychofogicail, humanistic, phenomenological, historical app1 voach to such knowledge. Such an aiprproach might even 1be more effective and more convincing rto un1believers. Reoent writers on the modern God-question ha1v;e emphasi~ed the notion that rational wgruments :for the existence (and natuire ) of God may :be :a:ll 1weH and :good hut only for ia oomputer or a rolbot. What modern man needs is not 1 so much 1a krrmwledge of God as ;a persona1 relrutionshlp to God. And perhaps the hesit 1w:ay to achieve this is not to throw out completely the role of reason in providing a.scientific support for God'1 s existence ibut to rev;errse the pmcess. We must first come to a personrul ruwaireneiss of God 1 and then proceed to v;alida;te rthfus 531 53~ F. F. CENTORE awareuess via scientific confirmation. After all, how can anyone ever hope even to 1begin the search for God unless he already hais some ·awareness of God's e:ristence? According to John Hick, fo.r inst:mce, this is especially true in the Juda.eo-Christian tradition and, hy extension, in those other religious traiditions 1 which derive f["om it, such as Islam. H " to kno·w " means " to be a1ble to prove hy syllogistic reasoning," then the Jews of the Old 'I1esbament did not know God. Instead of attempting to prove the existence of God they took his existence £or granted. " They thought of God as an experienced reality rather than as an inferred entity." i The ancient £aithful were as sure of the existence of their God as they we:ve of the material wo:rld which surrounded them. There was. no need to :become rationalistic rubout it. In iaddition, even if they had turned ra:tiona1listic it would hav;e been of no use whatsoever to them. F11om the point of view of faith, all of the theistic proofs (none of which is v;ery oompelling or cogent an;}'iway) are completely ir:velevant. They can actually do nothing to move anyone to :feel and act in a religious way. AH such proofs are only for pedants who are content to 1live an empty,and ·sterile rubstract life within their own minds rather than wailking in the living p:vesence of the divine. Although there may well. he a place for the rational development of our intuitive sense of the living presence of God as expressed in revelation, once we are in full possession of such a revelation, it must always hold a place secondary to the experienced fact of £aith. Thus, even though modern religious thinkers reject natuira:l theology, "This modern theofogioal rejection of natural theology is not necessarily motiva:ted ·by an ir:vationaJi.st distrust of reason." 2 There is a :vole :for reason, hut only so long as it comes: after we already know thrut God exists. Since reason ialone can never pirove the existence 0£ God, ·reve1 J. Hick, Philosophy of Religion, 3rd ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: PrenticeHall, 1983), pp. 59-60. 2 Ibid., p. 74. A NOTE ON W. J. HILL 533 lation 1 and ·faith... (shrink)

Is a coherent worldview that embraces both classical Christology and modern evolutionary biology possible? This volume explores this fundamental question through an engaged inquiry into key topics, including the Incarnation, the process of evolution, modes of divine action, the nature of rationality, morality, chance and love, and even the meaning of life. Grounded alike in the history and philosophy of science, Christian theology, and the scientific basis for evolutionary biology and genetics, the volume discusses diverse thinkers, both medieval and modern, (...) ranging from Augustine and Aquinas to contemporary voices like Richard Dawkins and Michael Ruse. Aiming to show how a biologically informed Christian worldview is scientifically, theologically, and philosophically viable, it offers important perspectives on the worldview of evolutionary naturalism, a prominent perspective in current science–religion discussions. The authors argue for the intellectual plausibility of a comprehensive worldview perspective that embraces both Christology and evolution biology in intimate relationship. (shrink)

How often does an interest or pleasure in your life become something that has to be managed, given a hierarchical position amongst other tasks, and thus becomes a chore alongside other chores? When content and possibility are stripped by scheduling and the demands of capitalist required labour mean that free play or time required for speculative and/or creative thought is removed in the interests of deadlines, what happens to the compassionate, generous and intimate functioning of thought and life? This paper (...) considers how Guattari argues that subjectivities are produced and organised by what he describes as machinic assemblages. Machinic assemblages are those aspects of life that operate to regulate the affective powers of life. Guattari's work on activities such as art making, game play, music and performance provides ways to consider the labour of subjectivity outside of work. I ask the reader to consider what the notion and motivation for play signal. Arguing that a singular life at play is the collective event of play, I describe play as a mediatising form for the production of subjectivity. The play field situates and directs the machinic assemblage of subjectivation through its own forms of mediatisation. (shrink)

A morally perfect God necessarily desires that all rational agents behave morally. An omnipotent and omniscient God has the power and knowledge to ensure that all rational agents have sufficient moral knowledge to do what morality requires. So, if God exists, there are no rational moral agents who lack sufficient moral knowledge to act morally. However, there has been a wide range of moral agents who, without blame, have lacked the moral knowledge to behave morally. Therefore, God does not exist. (...) The preceding argument from non-blameable moral ignorance of our fundamental moral obligations is resistant to some of the standard theistic responses to the problem of evil and divine hiddenness. Moreover, some of the standard theistic responses to the traditional arguments for God’s non-existence lend support to the argument from blameless moral ignorance. (shrink)

I argue that the concept of 'longitudinal form', which Poplawski and Gillett have introduced into ethical discussions about embryos and gametes, involves too many metaphysical subtleties to be a useful aid to making moral decisions. I conclude by suggesting a criterion for relevance in medical ethics.

Il presente articolo ha come proprio oggetto specifico di indagine la questione dell’allattamento del bambino. L’autore si propone, più specificatamente, di sottolineare i vantaggi dell’allattamento naturale. Questi non si limitano a dei vantaggi per la salute del bambino, ma hanno anche una ricaduta psicologica sul rapporto madre-bambino.

Il gruppo riveste una grande importanza nella crescita del singolo. I valori sociali si strutturano e consolidano attraverso i processi di socializzazione, la formazione di un legame emozionale tra individuo e società, e l’interiorizzazione delle norme, processi e legami questi che si danno nel gruppo. L’articolo offre un’analisi delle fasi, le dinamiche e i percorsi che si danno nello sviluppo del gruppo di animazione, con lo scopo di offrire agli educatori uno strumento valido per l’educazione dei ragazzi. A questo riguardo, (...) in un primo momento, viene analizzata la ricerca fatta dall’individuo per essere accettato all’interno del gruppo quale motivazione primaria per la formazione del gruppo. In seguito, l’articolo si propone di studiare la nascita del gruppo come insieme teso al fare. Infine, verrà preso in considerazione il come si determina la creazione di legami interpersonali da dove sorgono i valori sociali. (shrink)