Introduction -- Overview -- Theism, simplicity, and properly anthropocentric metaphysics -- Materialism and dualism -- The power, knowledge, and motives of the primordial God -- The existence of the primordial God -- God changes -- Understanding evil -- The Trinity -- The Incarnation -- Concluding remarks.

A growing body of literature critical of ethics review boards has drawn attention to the processes used to determine the ethical merit of research. Citing criticism on the bureaucratic nature of ethics review processes, this literature provides a useful provocation for (re)considering how the ethics review might be enacted. Much of this criticism focuses on how ethics review boards _deliberate,_ with particular attention given to the lack of transparency and opportunities for researcher recourse that characterise ethics review processes. Centered specifically (...) on the conduct of ethics review boards convened within university settings, this paper draws on these inherent criticisms to consider the ways that ethics review boards might enact more communicative and deliberative practices. Outlining a set of principles against which ethics review boards might establish strategies for engaging with researchers and research communities, this paper draws attention to how _Deliberative communication_, _Engagement with researchers_ and the _Distribution of responsibility_ for the ethics review might be enacted in the day-to-day practice of the university human ethics review board. This paper develops these themes via a conceptual lens derived from Habermas’ (The theory of communicative action. Volume 1: Reason and the rationalization of society, 1984 ) articulation of ‘communicative action’ and Fraser’s (Social Text, 25(26), 56–80, 1990 ) consideration of ‘strong publics’ to cast consideration of the role that human ethics review boards might play in supporting university research cultures. _Deliberative communication_, _Engagement with researchers_ and the _Distribution of responsibility_ provide useful conceptual prompts for considering how ethics review boards might undertake their work. (shrink)

This paper concerns the structure of appearances. I argue that to be appeared to in a certain way is to be aware of one or more universals. Universals therefore function like the sense‐data, once highly favoured but now out of fashion. For instance, to be appeared to treely, in a visual way, is to be aware of the complex relation, being tree‐shaped and tree‐coloured and being in front of, a relation of a kind which could be instantiated by a material (...) object and a perceiver, which is thus instantiated in the veridical case but not in the non‐veridical. (shrink)

We present the findings of a worldwide survey that was administered to business ethic scholars to better understand journal quality within the business ethics academic community. Based upon the data from the survey, we provide a ranking of the top 10 business ethics journals. We then provide a comparison of business ethics journals to other mainstream management journals in terms of journal quality. The results of the study suggest that, within the business ethics academic community, many scholars prefer to publish (...) in the top business ethics academic journals over other mainstream management journals. Furthermore, the results of the study suggest that within the business ethics academic field there are two dominant academic communities: one in Europe and one in North America. Each of these academic communities has its own preferred publication outlets, suggesting a potentially problematic bifurcation of business ethics scholarship. (shrink)

How diverse is philosophy? In this paper we explore recent data on the racial, ethnic, and gender diversity of philosophy students and faculty in the United States. We have found that women are underrepresented in philosophy at all levels from first-year intention to major through senior faculty. The past four years have seen an increase in the percentage of women philosophy majors at the undergraduate level, but it remains to be seen if this recent increase in the percentage of women (...) will eventually also show at more advanced stages. Temporal trends since 2000 also show substantial increases in the racial and ethnic diversity of philosophy majors at all levels of education from first-year undergraduate through PhD, with substantial declines in the percentage of non-Hispanic White philosophy majors and substantial increases in all other commonly measured racial/ethnic groups except for Native American / Alaska Native. Despite generally increasing diversity, people who identify as Hispanic (any race), or non-Hispanic Native American, Alaska Native, or Black remain substantially underrepresented in philosophy at all levels compared to their presence in the U.S. population, and in some cases also as compared to other majors. (shrink)

Several authors, including Stephen Law in this journal, have argued that the case for an evil God is (about) as strong as for a good God. In this article I take up the challenge on behalf of theists who, like Richard Swinburne, argue for an agent of unrestricted power and knowledge as the ultimate explanation of all contingent truths. I shall argue that an evil God is much less probable than a good one. I do so by (1) distinguishing the (...) analogical predication of 'good' or 'evil' of God from the literal predication, (2) interpreting 'acting in a morally good way' to mean 'acting like a good consequentialist', and (3) relying on an axiarchist thesis about agency that is congenial to theists and perhaps even presupposed by theism. (shrink)

Contemporary epistemology of religion may conveniently be treated as adebate over whether evidentialism applies to thebelief-component of religious faith, or whether we should insteadadopt a more permissive epistemology. Here evidentialism is theinitially plausible position that a belief is justified only if``it is proportioned to the evidence''. For example, supposea local weather forecaster has noticed that over the two hundred yearssince records began a wetter than average Winter is followed in 85% ofcases by a hotter than average Summer. Then, assuming for (...) simplicitythat the records are reliable, the forecaster is justified in believingwith less than full confidence that this Winter, which is wetter thanaverage, will be followed by a hotter than average Summer. Butevidentialism implies that it would not be justified to have fullbelief, that is belief with 100% confidence. Again, consider someonewho has a hunch that this Summer will be hotter than averagebut cannot justify that hunch further. Hunches are not consideredevidence, so the belief is not considered justified. If, however, thehuncher can cite a good track record of hunches about the weather thathave turned out correct then the belief would be consideredjustified. For although hunches are not considered evidence, memoriesabout past hunches are, as are the observations that corroborated thepast hunches. (shrink)

The concept ‘silence’ has diametrically opposed meanings; it connotes peace and contemplation as well as death and oblivion. Silence can also be considered a practice. There is keeping the rule of silence to still the mind and find inner truth, as well as forcibly silencing in the sense of subjugating another to one's own purposes. The concept of teaching runs the gamut between these extremes, from respectfully leading students to search and discover, to relentlessly bending them to one's own will. (...) This article examines contradictory connotations and practices of silence and teachers’ ambivalent perceptions of it in order to conceptualize a positive practice of silence for teacher education. (shrink)

During the pandemic lockdown period, residents had to stay at home and increased stress and other mental health problems have been associated with the lockdown period. Since most public parks were closed, community parks within gated residential areas became the most important green space in Chinese cities, and the use of such space might help to reduce the residents’ stress levels. This study aimed to investigate to what extent urban residents in China used community parks, engaged in outdoor activity during (...) the lockdown period and if the use of such spaces helped to reduce their stress levels. An online questionnaire survey was carried out from 23 March to 23 April 2020. Ordinary Least Squares regression was used to analyse the association between community park use, outdoor activity, willingness to engage in outdoor activity, and stress level. All results have been further analysed by two-sampled t-test to explore the difference between young and old age groups. We found that the overall self-reported stress level of the respondents was relatively moderate during the lockdown period. Respondents had generally reduced their use of community parks and engagement in outdoor activity. There was no significant association between stress level and the use of community parks or the engagement in outdoor activities. However, we found that older people showed much lower stress levels, used community parks more frequently, and engaged in more outdoor activities than younger adults. The findings suggest that outdoor activities and spatial characteristics in urban China differ from Western studies and advance the need to integrate the stress management role of community parks with urban green space policy to optimise the use of community parks blended in with everyday life, particularly during the lockdown period. (shrink)

Consider the things that exist—the entities—and let us suppose they are mereologically structured, that is, some are parts of others. The project of ontology within the bounds of bare mereology use this structure to say which of these entities belong to various ontological kinds, such as properties and particulars. My purpose in this paper is to defend the most radical section of the project, the mereological theory of the exemplification of universals. Along the way I help myself to several hypotheses: (...) the existence of merely possible worlds; that particulars have thisnesses; and that mereology is far from classical. Moreover, the way I characterize instantiation might be judged too complicated to be plausible. At the end of the paper, I reply to these objections based on complexity. (shrink)

Themistokles was ostracized in the late 470's, probably in spring 471 or 470; if we are to believe Thucydides, he did not write to Artaxerxes in Persia until 465 at the earliest. In some way or other his stay in Argos and visits to the rest of the Peloponnese, his wanderings in northern Greece, and his delay in Asia Minor must be extended to fill this gap of at least five years. There is evidence of a sort, there are arguments (...) good and bad for the lengthening or shortening of any of these episodes, but none of this evidence or argument is conclusive. Between 470 and 465 no event in Themistokles' life can be securely dated; there is no fixed chronological pattern into which a reconstruction of the political history of Athens and the Peloponnese during these years must fit. Since the reconstruction which I attempt here is itself based on evidence which is far from adequate, plausibility is the most that can be claimed for it or for the chronological scheme which I infer from it. (shrink)

The average educated Greek, I am sure, knew the early history of Greece as well as the average educated European knows the history of modern Europe, and could no more separate Theopompos from the first Messenian War or put Pheidon after Kypselos than we can separate Wellington from Waterloo or make Frederick the Great follow Napoleon. The professional historian, antiquarian, or chronographer would know much more, but could readily distort what he knew in trying to impose some theoretical pattern on (...) the past. Where so many of our sources are theoretical and when they survive in fragments which are rarely substantial enough to show in detail the theory on which they worked, it is not easy to see through to the core of Greek belief on which they were based. But facts there were and in the main it was from them that the theorizing started. (shrink)

Either from concrete examples such as tomatoes on a plate, an egg carton full of eggs and so on, or simply because of the braces notation, we come to have some intuitions about the sorts of things sets might be. (See Maddy 1990.) First we tend to think of a set of particulars as itself a particular thing.. Second, even after the distinction between settheory and mereology has been carefully explained we tend to think of the members of a set (...) as in some sense parts. And third we tend to think that there is something represented by the braces. Now if there were experts who got their intuitions from elsewhere then we could discard these rather crude ideas about egg cartons and so on. But I suspect the intuitions of experts are, just like those of the rest of us, based on notation and simple examples. (shrink)

Science undermines the certitude of non‐naturalistic answers to the question of whether human life has meaning. I explore whether evolution can provide a naturalistic basis for existential meaning. Using the work of philosopher Daniel Dennett and scientist Ursula Goodenough, I argue that evolution is the locus of the possibility of meaning because it has produced intentionality, the matrix of consciousness. I conclude that the question of the meaning of human life is an existentialist one: existential meaning is a product of (...) the individual and collective tasks human beings undertake. (shrink)

The rejection of evolution in favor of creation by a supernatural deity is not the only feature of intelligent design creationism that marks it as a religious movement. Its integral but lesser known features include anti-modernism, anti-secularism, religious exclusionism, and anti-rationalism. The intelligent design movement, following a Wedge Strategy, seeks not only to return American education to a premodern understanding of science, but to move the country culturally and politically away from secular democracy and toward a premodern, Christian commonwealth. The (...) movement’s leader, Phillip Johnson, brands secular academics as apostates and warns Christian students against relying on “your own thinking”. Scientists must join concerned citizens in stopping the advance of intelligent design in the public school science class. (shrink)

In Chapter II of Appearance and Reality, Bradley writes.

In this paper I compare two versions of non-eliminative physicalism (reductive physicalism and supervenience physicalism) with four of the five theses of classical theism: divine non-contingency, divine transcendence, divine simplicity, and the aseity thesis. I argue that:1. Both physicalism (either version) and classical theism require intuition-transcending identifications of some properties or possibilities.2. Among other identifications, both reductive physicalism and classical theism need to identify psychological with functional properties.3. Both reductive physicalism and classical theism have a problem with consciousness.4. Both reductive (...) physicalists and classical theists should distinguish fine and coarse grained theories of properties. (shrink)

William Rowe in his Can God be Free? argues that God, if there is a God, necessarily chooses the best. Combined with the premise that there is no best act of creation, this provides an a priori argument for atheism. Rowe assumes that necessarily God is a ‘morally unsurpassable’ being, and it is for that reason that God chooses the best. In this article I drop that assumption and I consider a successor to Rowe ’s argument, the Argument from Arbitrariness, (...) based on the premise that God does not act arbitrarily. My chief conclusion will be that this argument fails because, for all we know, there can be non- arbitrary divine choices even if there is no best act of creation. (shrink)

Book Information Warranted Christian Belief. By Alvin Plantinga. Oxford University Press. New York. 2000. Pp. xx + 508.

In this paper I defend the Direct Actualisation of Conditional Situations as a way of explaining how God answers prayers without assuming that God acts on the world after the prayer is made. My hypothesis states that God, in creating, brings about conditionals without either preventing the antecedent or bringing about the consequent. I compare this hypothesis with some rivals, notably the appeals to foreknowledge and to middle knowledge.

This article provides a biographical sketch of the Russian composer and educator D. B. Kabalevsky, a discussion of his philosophy of music and education, and an overview of his music for children. Kabalevsky's philosophy of education and music encompassed a wide range of ideas that were developed over his life-time. Central to his philosophy is the belief that music and the arts should be accessible to all children and, in turn, to all people.

OBJECTIVE: To review the ethical and legal implications of the involvement of medical practitioners in workplace screening for drug misuse. CONCLUSIONS: Workplace screening for drugs of abuse raises many ethical issues. If screening is considered as being part of medical practice with the involvement of occupational health physicians, as suggested by the Faculty of Occupational Medicine, then the ethical requirements of a normal medical consultation are fully applicable. The employee's full and informed consent to the process must be obtained and (...) the employee should have an unfettered right of access to all the relevant records and to the urine sample he/she has provided in the event that he/she wishes to challenge the opinion expressed by the physician. If the process is not part of medical practice then employees should have the same rights as they would have if required to provide intimate body samples in the course of a criminal investigation, given the potentially serious consequences of an erroneous positive finding for their livelihood. (shrink)

Book Information Epistemic Justification. By Richard Swinburne. Clarendon Press. Oxford. 2001. Pp. vi + 262. Hardback, US$55.00.