Qu'est-ce que la vérité? F. Kaplan tente de faire un examen exhaustif de toutes les théories, non seulement soutenues, mais concevables, pour répondre à cette question, ainsi que de tous les arguments et de toutes les critiques qu'on a ou qu'on aurait pu apporter pour soutenir ou réfuter ces théories. Pour spécialistes.

L'auteur cherche, d'abord, à définir les concepts de temps et d'espace, c'est-à-dire non ce qu'ils sont en réalité, mais ce que nous avons dans l'esprit lorsque nous en parlons. Il constate à partir de là que la réalité, en première analyse, ne leur correspond qu'à peu près - que ce sont des idéaltypes - et que nous sommes obligés de les " bricoler " pour les adapter à elle. La mécanique quantique, la cosmologie et la simple expérience psychologique semblent nous (...) faire aller plus loin et nous faire accéder à une réalité non temporelle et non spatiale, mais là encore, d'une manière ambiguë et seulement négative. Si alors, au lieu d'interroger la réalité, nous interrogeons le temps et l'espace eux-mêmes, nous constatons qu'ils sont essentiellement subjectifs comme le sont les sensations, c'est-à-dire qu'ils ne sont pas plus l'image de la réalité que la sensation du rouge produite par un coquelicot n'est l'image du coquelicot réel. Il est vrai qu'à la sensation du rouge correspond une onde électromagnétique. Quelque chose dans la réalité correspond donc nécessairement au temps et à l'espace, mais tandis que nous connaissons ce qui correspond dans celle-ci aux sensations, nous ne pouvons le faire en ce qui les concerne, faute d'un accès positif à une réalité absolument non temporelle et non spatiale. Ce qui nous oblige à vivre en double registre - sur le mode de la réalité du temps et de l'espace et sur le mode de leur irréalité. (shrink)

The misuse of alcohol inflicts a major toll on individual users, their families, and the wider society. This includes disruptions of family life, violence, absenteeism and problems in the workplace, child neglect and abuse, and excess morbidity and mortality. The World Health Organization estimates that alcohol ranks eighth among global risk factors for death and is the third leading global risk factor for disease and disability. In the United States, alcohol dependence affects four to five percent of the population at (...) any given time. Alcohol dependence also exacts a significant financial toll.... (shrink)

Christianity's relationship with the environment is considered. From the seventeenth century, Christianity contributed to the legitimization of scientific developments that had injurious consequences for the environment. These developments were secularizing; hence the ecological crisis participates in the broader problems of secularization. Under secular hegemony, the normative model of the person as atomistic individual is integral to the problem itself as well as bereft of the spiritual resources to challenge abusive attitudes that profane God's creation. This paper proposes that responses to (...) the ecological situation should be sought in a richer understanding of the human being: an anthropology that is not only part of the Christian legacy but also offered by contemporary sociobiology. (shrink)

Pope Francis beautifully describes how the perinatal journey starts in mystery. Doctors may forget this. We focus on the science that may partially explain how conception and implantation occur, how the placenta functions, and the gradual development of embryo and fetus. But science cannot address that meta-physical—or spiritual—reality. The question of “why?” is never too far away from the minds of expectant parents. Why now? Why me? Why did my baby develop these terrible problems? Why is my life being (...) challenged in this way? Maternal-fetal “cross-talk” is a reality that cannot be denied. It occurs both when the fetus is quiet and when the fetus is active. It may be facilitated by fetal imaging—an ultrasound of... (shrink)

Managers often ask why their firm should have an ethics program, especially if no one has complained about unethical behavior. The pursuit of business ethics can cost money, they say. It can lose sales to less scrupulous competitors and can drain management time and energy. But as Harvard business professor Francis Aguilar points out, ethics scandals (such as over Beech-Nut's erzatz "apple juice" or Sears's padded car repair bills) can severely damage a firm, with punishing legal penalties, bad publicity, (...) and irreparably injured customer relations. Equally important if less obvious, unethical behavior can undermine a firm's organizational spirit. On the other hand, Aguilar argues, in a well run firm, ethical programs can actually enhance corporate performance, strengthening the company at every level and supercharging employee risk taking and innovation. In Managing Corporate Ethics, Aguilar shows managers how to create ethical programs within their organizations that not only discourage large-scale wrongdoing, but can contribute substantially to the achievement of corporate excellence. Aguilar's program is down-to-earth and comprehensive, and based on his extensive research on highly successful, ethical companies, both large and small. He recommends action on three fronts: first, get senior management to provide effective ethical leadership; second, set up an ethics program that promotes concern for the interests of people affected by the firm's operations and that provides safeguards against corrupting business pressures; and third, staff the company with ethical people and surround the organization with ethical advisors (including legal, financial, accounting, tax, and marketing consultants). To illuminate this three-step program, Aguilar incorporates the lessons learned in his in-depth study of ten prominent firms with proven successful ethics programs--among them Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, Nucor Steel, Cray Research, ServiceMaster, and Texas Instruments. He examines Lincoln Electric's attention to compensation and job security to ensure quality products and to reduce the pressure or temptation to act unethically. He shows how General Mills, while pushing product line managers to compete aggressively, uses corporate staff units to guard against illegal or unacceptable claims (testing cake recipes, for example, to see if a product's quality fails under the less-than-perfect conditions of a normal kitchen). And he details how Armstrong World Industries uses pep talks, inspirational stories, role models, and ready access to management to promote ethical standards among employees. Throughout, Aguilar demonstrates convincingly that an ethical program pays dividends: that employees, suppliers, customers, and the community at large know when they are being treated in a positive and constructive manner, and are likely to respond in kind. Packed with real life examples of successful (and failed) ethical programs, Managing Corporate Ethics is a valuable roadmap to an often overlooked source of business success. (shrink)

Rapports fondamentaux.--Développements transcendantaux de la pensée (la loi de création d'après Wronski)--Développements métaphysiques de la réalité (l'armature métaphysique).

Abstract While agreeing that dynamical models play a major role in cognitive science, we reject Stepp, Chemero, and Turvey's contention that they constitute an alternative to mechanistic explanations. We review several problems dynamical models face as putative explanations when they are not grounded in mechanisms. Further, we argue that the opposition of dynamical models and mechanisms is a false one and that those dynamical models that characterize the operations of mechanisms overcome these problems. By briefly considering examples involving the generation (...) of action potentials and circadian rhythms, we show how decomposing a mechanism and modeling its dynamics are complementary endeavors. (shrink)

SECTION I. OP MORAL LAW. Ethics, or Moral Philosophy, is the Science of Moral Law. The first question which presents itself is, What is moral law ? ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 26.1 (2002) 157-172 [Access article in PDF] Symposium: On Ken Burns's "Jazz" Jazz: America's Classical Music? 1 Lee B. Brown I VIEWERS OF KEN BURNS'S third cultural epic "Jazz" probably fell into one of three categories. 2 Some found it gripping. Some found it grating. Some found it both at once.The series has unforgettable moments: spectacular jitterbug sequences; Jimmy Lunceford's horn men fanning their trumpet bells (...) with hat mutes in sync; the close-up of the whirring cross-hand drumming of Art Blakey; the bitter-sweet glance Billie Holiday and Lester Young exchange in their last filmed appearance together; the occasional marriage of visuals to music. One riveting three minutes comes when the talking heads tune out, a 78-rpm disk of Louis Armstrong's "West End Blues" is set spinning, and the thrilling notes pour out on a carousel of visual imagery—finally freeze-framing on the face of the young genius himself.On the downside, the series is massively repetitious. As a result of Burns's decision to track two major figures—Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington—from cradle to grave, the same cuts of Armstrong appear again and again, no matter what the time frame. Some of the series' commentators are particularly annoying—the fiddler of Burns's Civil War series, Matt Glaser, for instance, with his fatuous theories [End Page 157] about Louis Armstrong and Albert Einstein. And the documentary's heavy load of social freight—by Wynton Marsalis, and his mentors Albert Murray and Stanley Crouch 3 —threatens to flatten the music.The series is designed as informative entertainment, not Jazz 101. But Burns pays a price here, as he did in his documentary about baseball, in which not even the basics of the game, let alone any of the subtleties, were explained. In "Jazz" we get no explanation of what Jelly Roll Morton did to transform ragtime into jazz. (The series could easily have pressed Morton himself into service. With no sacrifice of his considerable charm, Morton did explain it, beautifully, in his recorded Library of Congress interviews. 4) Although the swing era gets big billing, no attempt is made to explain how swing rhythm actually works, as contrasted with earlier practices. (I have watched swing drummer Panama Francis entertain a packed hall with a brief but riveting illustration of how it works.)As jazz history, the film also has problems. Some legendary figures are resurrected unconvincingly. When Marsalis tells us what the legendary trumpet player Buddy Bolden sounded like, the illustrative off-camera trumpet is Marsalis's, not Bolden's, who embedded not one note in a record groove. Further, we face the tiresomely obvious problem of omissions. We hear nothing of Albert Ayler, Keith Jarrett, Sun Ra, Mildred Bailey, Benny Carter, Lennie Tristano, Erroll Garner, Eric Dolphy, Art Pepper, or Woody Herman. All we learn about Bill Evans—whose influence on jazz piano was huge—is that Miles Davis hired him even though he was white. Omissions are inevitable, of course. But there is a muted pattern to the exclusions. It was impossible for the series to avoid Benny Goodman, given his central role in the swing era. But white figures are too often either ignored or treated as alienated outsiders. We hear New York Times columnist Margo Jefferson opine that Bix Beiderbecke drank himself to death because he wasn't allowed to play with black musicians. In fact, many of the greatest players—white and black—never played with musicians of their own caliber.Most figures covered in the film are treated either with respect or with reverence. But things get nasty when matters turn to avant-gardists. Thus, Branford Marsalis—Wynton's talented brother—singles out the volcanic pianist Cecil Taylor for a particularly hostile attack. 5 Instead of explaining what Ornette Coleman meant by "free jazz," Albert Murray tells us that jazz is, by definition, free music—and by implication, that Coleman's concept must be fatuous. And Wynton has complained [End Page 158] elsewhere about a jazz avant-garde retreat into what he calls "a... (shrink)

Narrative theology views the truths of scripture through an iconographic lens to indicate God's intimate involvement in human life. However, when narrative theology becomes "narrative theological ethics," the transformative power of narrative about God receives more emphasis than the power of God itself. Narrative theology quickly moves toward linguistic idolatry when God's grace is valued merely as an important facet of a powerful narrative rather than as the foundation of Christian moral action.

Recently, it has been provocatively claimed that dynamical modeling approaches signal the emergence of a new explanatory framework distinct from that of mechanistic explanation. This paper rejects this proposal and argues that dynamical explanations are fully compatible with, even naturally construed as, instances of mechanistic explanations. Specifically, it is argued that the mathematical framework of dynamics provides a powerful descriptive scheme for revealing temporal features of activities in mechanisms and plays an explanatory role to the extent it is deployed for (...) this purpose. It is also suggested that more attention should be paid to the distinctive methodological contributions of the dynamical framework including its usefulness as a heuristic for mechanism discovery and hypothesis generation in contemporary neuroscience and biology. (shrink)