Our topic is the ontology and persistence conditions of material objects. One widely held doctrine is that identity-over-time has causal commitments. Another is that identity-over-time is just identity as it relates one object that exists at two times. We believe that a tension exists between these two apparently sensible positions: very roughly, if identity is the primary conceptual component of identity-over-time and—as is plausible—identity is noncausal, then the conceptual origins of the causal commitments of identity-over-time become a mystery. We will (...) begin by formulating the two widely held doctrines and our puzzle more fully and more carefully. Then, the remainder of the paper will be devoted to analyzing views one might adopt that could minimize the tension. (shrink)
Our topic is the ontology and persistence conditions of material objects. One widely held doctrine is that identity-over-time has causal commitments. Another is that identity-over-time is just identity as it relates one object that exists at two times. We believe that a tension exists between these two apparently sensible positions: very roughly, if identity is the primary conceptual component of identity-over-time and—as is plausible—identity is noncausal, then the conceptual origins of the causal commitments of identity-over-time become a mystery. We will (...) begin by formulating the two widely held doctrines and our puzzle more fully and more carefully. Then, the remainder of the paper will be devoted to analyzing views one might adopt that could minimize the tension. (shrink)
In recent years there has been a tendency in some quarters to see an affinity between the views of Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein on the subject of religious belief. It seems to me that this is a mistake, that Kierkegaard's views were fundamentally at odds with Wittgenstein's. That this fact is not generally recognized is, I suspect, owing to the obscurity of Kierkegaard's most fundamental assumptions. My aim here is to make those assumptions explicit and to show how they differ from (...) Wittgenstein's. (shrink)
In City of God 19.24, Augustine rejects Cicero's definition of res publica as a society founded on justice for a new definition focused on common objects of love. Robert Markus, Oliver O'Donovan, and a host of Augustinian political theologians have depicted this move as a positive gesture toward secular society. Yet this reading fails to account for why Augustine waited so long to address Cicero's definition, first discussed in Book 2, and for the radical dualism Augustine sets forth between the (...) two cities throughout his text. I argue, in line with Rowan Williams and John Milbank, for a minority reading of Book 19 that draws upon the narrative structure of City of God. In Books 3–5, Augustine recounts the history of the earthly city according to Rome's penchant for violence and idolatry, both a function of love for temporal goods. In Book 18, Augustine traces the history of the earthly city before Rome according to the same themes, completing a narrative argument that humanity has always been divided according to differing loves. Book 19 advances the idea that such idolatry is injustice—a failure to grant God the worship he is due. With the new definition of 19.24, Augustine retains Cicero's emphasis on the importance of virtue in civic society while characteristically shifting the terms of discussion from justice to love. While such a definition means that Rome can be called a res publica, it also prompts a negative judgment upon her history according to her objects of love. Given her violence and idolatry, Rome is no better than Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, and Greece—all subject to withering critique in Book 18. Thus, Augustine's new definition does not retract but extends the polemic of City of God. (shrink)
Discovering Eve: Ancient Israelite Women in Context. By Carol Meyers.Wives, Harlots and Concubines. By Alice L. Laffey.Jonah. A Psycho‐Religious Approach to the Prophet. By Andre LaCocque and Pierre‐Emmanuel Lacocque.The Temptation and the Passion: The Markan Soteriology, Second Edition. By Ernest Best.Theios Aner and the Markan Miracle Traditions: A Critique of the ‘Theios Aner’Concept as an Interpretative Background of the Miracle Traditions used by Mark. By Barry Blackburn.The Shepherd Discourse of John 10 and its Context: Studies by Members of the (...) Johannine Writings Seminar. Edited with introduction by Johannes Beutler, S.J., and Robert T. Fortna.The Epistle to the Hebrews: A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. By Harold W. Attridge, edited by Helmut Koester.Structure and Message of the Epistle to the Hebrews. By Albert Vanhoye, translated by James Swetnam.Religious Pluralism and Unbelief: Studies Critical and Comparative. Edited by Ian Hamnett.7he Uniqueness of Christ in the 7heocentric Model of the Christian Theology of World Religions: An Elaboration and Evaluation of the Position ofJohn Hick. By Gregory H. Carruthers.The Jewish Roots of Christian Liturgy. Edited by Eugene J. Fisher.Women, Religion and Sexuuliry: Studies on the Impact of Religious Teachings on Women. Edited by Jeanne Becher.In Whose Image? God and Gender. By Jann Aldredge Clanton.Women Towards Priesthood: Ministerial Politics and Feminist Praxis. By Jacqueline Field‐Bibb.Afrer Eve: Women, Theology and the Christian Tradition. Edited by J. Martin Soskice.Karl Barth: Biblical and Evangelical Theologian. By Thomas F. Torrance.Theology und Dialogue: Essay in Conversation with George Lindbeck. Edited by Bruce D. Marshall.From Theology to Social Theory: Juan Luis Segundo and the Theology of Liberation. By Marsha Aileen Hewitt.Liberation Theology at the Crossroads: Democracy or Revolution. By Paul E. Sigmund.Global Responsibility: In Search of a New World Ethic. By Hans Kung.Marxism, Moralig and Social Justice. By R. G. Peffer.The Political Philosophy of the British Idealists. By Peter P. Nicholson.The Political Philosophy of Michael Oakeshott. By Paul Franco.Divine Action. By Keith Ward.Free Willand the Christian Faith. By W. S. Anglin.Tracrurian Semantics: Finding Sense in Wirrgetisrein's ‘Tractatus’. By Peter Carruthers.The Metaphyics of the ‘Tracratus’. By Peter Carruthers.Realism with a Human Face. By Hilary Putnam.Explanation and its Limits. Edited by Dudley Knowles.Mencius and Aquinas: Theories of Virtue and Conceptions of Courage. By Lee H. Yearly.Hobbes. By Richard Tuck.Freedom and the End of Reason: On the Moral Foundation of Kant's Critical Philosophy. By Richard L. Velkley.Reason in Religion: The Foundarions of Hegel's Philosophy of Religion. By Walter Jaeschke.International Kierkegaard Commentary, VoL 13: The Corsair Affair. Edited by Robert L. Perkins.Ssren Kierkegaard: ‘Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses’. Edited by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong.Lonergan Workshop, Volume 6. Edited by Fred Lawrence.Holy City, Holy Places: Christian Attitudes to Jerusalem and the Holy Land in the Fourth Century. By P. W. L. Walker.Politics, Poetics and Hermeneutics in Milton s Prose. Edited by David Loewenstein and James Grantham Turner.Beauty and Holiness: The Dialogue between Aesthetics and Religion. By James Alfred Martin.Science Deified & Science Defied: The Historical Significance of Science in Western Culture. Volume 2: From the Earl? Modern Age through the Romantic Era ca. 1640 to ca. 1820. By Richard Olson.The Vatican and Zionism: Conflict in the Holy Land, 1895‐1925. By Sergio I. Minerbi.The Social Dimensions of Sectarianism: Sects and New Religious Movements Contemporary Society. By Bryan Wilson.Confessor between East and West: A Portrait of Ukrainian Cardinal Josyf Slipyj. By Jaroslav Pelikan. (shrink)
For Alesha to give valid and sufficient consent to a COVID-19 vaccine, she must possess both capacity and competency. Let us consider each in turn.Does Alesha have capacity? Is she approaching her...
While across the animal kingdom offspring are born smaller than their parents, notable exceptions exist. Several dipteran species belonging to the Hippoboscoidea superfamily can produce offspring larger than themselves. In this essay, the blood-feeding tsetse is focused on. It is suggested that the extreme reproductive strategy of this fly is enabled by feeding solely on highly nutritious blood, and producing larval offspring that are soft and malleable. This immense reproductive expenditure may have evolved to avoid competition with other biting flies. (...) Tsetse also transmit blood-borne parasites that cause the fatal diseases called African trypanosomiases. It is discussed how tsetse life history and reproductive strategy profoundly influence the type of vector control interventions used to reduce fly populations. In closing, it is argued that the unusual life history of tsetse warrants their preservation in the areas where human and animal health is not threatened. (shrink)
An argument for realism (i.E., The ontological thesis that there exist universals) has emerged in the writings of david armstrong, Fred dretske, And michael tooley. These authors have persuasively argued against traditional reductive accounts of laws and nature. The failure of traditional reductive accounts leads all three authors to opt for a non-Traditional reductive account of laws which requires the existence of universals. In other words, These authors have opted for accounts of laws which (together with the fact that there (...) are laws) entail that realism is true. This argument for realism which emerges from the work of armstrong, Dretske, And tooley is discussed and criticized. Conclusions from the discussion question the tenability of all reductive accounts of laws. (shrink)
Ted Sider aptly and concisely states the self-visitation paradox thus: 'Suppose I travel back in time and stand in a room with my sitting 10-year-old self. I seem to be both sitting and standing, but how can that be?' (2001, 101). I will explore a relativist resolution of this paradox offered by, or on behalf of, endurantists.1 It maintains that the sitting and the standing are relative to the personal time or proper time of the time traveler and is intended (...) to yield the result that Ted is sitting at a certain initial personal/proper time but is not standing relative to that time. Similarly, it is also supposed to yield that Ted is standing relative to a later personal/proper time, but not sitting relative to that .. (shrink)
In this paper, I explore a possible convergence between two great twentieth century thinkers, Nishida Kitarō of Japan and Martin Heidegger of Germany. The focus is on the quasi-religious language they employ in discussing the grounding of human existence in terms of an encompassing Wherein for our being. Heidegger speaks of “the sacred” and “the passing of the last god” that mark an empty clearing wherein all metaphysical absolutes or gods have withdrawn but are simultaneously indicative of an opening wherein (...) beings are given. Nishida speaks of “the religious” dimension in the depths of one's being, that he calls “place,” and that somehow envelops the world through its kenotic self-negation. In both we find reference to a kind of originary space—the open or place—associated with quasireligious themes. I also point to their distinct approaches to metaphysical language in their attempts to give voice to that abysmal thought. (shrink)
I want to discuss a doctrine and a concept in theory of knowledge which has various manifestations from at least the seventeenth to the early twentieth century. The concept is that of direct or immediate cognition, the doctrine says that only what is like mind can be directly or immediately present to mind. This doctrine raises the question of how we can know things other than ourselves and our experiences: the concept of direct presence most usually had the consequence of (...) making our knowledge of the world indirect, uncertain, or impossible. The directly present must in some way inform us about the indirectly present. (shrink)
Is business intimately related to ethics or can the two be separated? I argue that examining this question by focusing on how the two areas might be separated is logically flawed. Examining how business and ethics are connected, however, can bear fruit. This examination shows that business is a proper subset of ethics. Understanding this intimate connection has two practical benefits. It removes the seemingly incommensurable conflict between financial and ethical responsibilities of managers and it gives us new and positive (...) insights into Milton Friedman’s view that the social responsibility of business is to increase its profits. (shrink)
This 2001 Presidential Address critically examines the mission of SBE and how it can be fulfilled. I begin with Brother Leo Ryan’s1994 Presidential Address, in which he asked how the SBE mission can be accomplished given the growing number of organizations that focus on business ethics. I take up his challenge by focusing on one objective of our stated mission: To help develop ethical business organizations. I examine two ways we might promote this objective: the Moral Market Model advocated by (...)John Boatright in his 1998 Presidential Address and the Market of Morality model advocated by Thomas Dunfee in his 1996 Presidential Address. I argue both views are limited because they focus only on market institutions. I conclude with an example of how breast cancer awareness among African-American women was increased by relying on a multi-institutional approach: organizations (beauty parlors), individuals (hairdressers, who distributed the information), personal relationships, culture, and educational and health care institutions. The question remains: Who are our hairdressers? (shrink)
Two major twentieth century philosophers, of East and West, for whom the nothing is a significant concept are Nishida Kitarō and Martin Heidegger. Nishida’s basic concept is the absolute nothing upon which the being of all is predicated. Heidegger, on the other hand, thematizes the nothing as the ulterior aspect of being. Both are responding to Western metaphysics that tends to substantialize being and dichotomize the real. Ironically, however, while Nishida regarded Heidegger as still trapped within the confines of Western (...) metaphysics with its tendency to objectify, Heidegger’s impression of Nishida was that he is too Western, that is, metaphysical. Yet neither was too familiar with the other’s philosophical work as a whole. I thus compare and assess Nishida’s and Heidegger’s discussions of the nothing in their attempts to undermine traditional metaphysics while examining lingering assumptions about the Nishida–Heidegger relationship. Neither Nishida nor Heidegger means by “nothing” a literal nothing, but rather that which permits beings in their relative determinacy to be what they are and wherein or whereby we find ourselves always already in our comportment to beings. Nishida characterizes this as a place that negates itself to give rise to, or make room for, beings. For Heidegger, being as an event that clears room for beings, releasing each into its own, is not a being, hence nothing. We may also contrast them on the basis of the language they employ in discussing the nothing. Yet each seemed to have had an intuitive grasp of an un/ground, foundational to experience and being. And in fact their paths cross in their respective critiques of Western substantialism, where they offer as an alterantive to that substantialist ontology, in different ways, what I call anontology. (shrink)
A colleague’s personal recollections of Jean van Heijenoort’s contributions to the editing of volumes I–III of Gödel’s Collected Works and of his interactions with the other editors.
Philosophy as a separate discipline is a rather new phenomenon. This presents problems for our understanding of what constitutes the history of philosophy. Past writers often approached their concerns from a multi-disciplinary perspective; thus to understand them we have to do more than answer a contemporary set of issues. To that end, I suggest we attend to Locke's advice on how to read a text. Following this advice may permit us to avoid several puzzles which result from misreading a text.
Like their predecessors throughout the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI have emphasized the importance of philosophy in the Catholic intellectual tradition. In his encyclical _Fides et ratio _, John Paul II called on philosophers “to have the courage to recover, in the flow of an enduringly valid philosophical tradition, the range of authentic wisdom and truth.” Where the late pope spoke of an “enduringly valid tradition,” Jacques Maritain and other Thomists often (...) have referred to the “perennial tradition” or to “perennial philosophy.” __Words of Wisdom__ responds to John Paul's call for the development of this tradition with a much-needed dictionary of terms. As a resource for students in colleges, universities, and seminaries, as well as for teachers of the perennial tradition and interested general readers, __Words of Wisdom __occupies a unique place. It offers precise, yet clear and understandable accounts of well over a thousand key philosophical terms, richly cross-referenced. It also explains significant terms from other philosophical movements with which Thomism has engaged—either through debate or through judicious and creative incorporation. Moreover, it identifies a number of theological and doctrinal expressions to which perennial philosophy has contributed. Finally, it provides a comprehensive bibliography of works by Aquinas in English, expositions and discussions of perennial themes, and representative examples from the writings of all philosophers and theologians mentioned in dictionary entries. “A good dictionary is a great thing. In over 1,000 entries, __Words of Wisdom __manages to be concise, as it must be, and complete where it should be. Its notes on usage by contemporary scholars I find particularly helpful. Students and teachers alike will be grateful to Dr. Carlson for taking up the challenge of John Paul II to appreciate and illuminate the ‘great tradition of philosophy.’” —_David Ruel Foster, Athenaeum of Ohio _. (shrink)
Though regarded today as one of the most important results in logic, the compactness theorem was largely ignored until nearly two decades after its discovery. This paper describes the vicissitudes of its evolution and transformation during the period 1930-1970, with special attention to the roles of Kurt Gödel, A. I. Maltsev, Leon Henkin, Abraham Robinson, and Alfred Tarski.
The goal of this paper is to critically examine the objections of John Locke’s contemporaries against the theory of substance or substratum. Locke argues in Essay that substratum is the bearer of the properties of a particular substance. Locke also claims that we have no knowledge of substratum. But Locke’s claim about our ignorance as to what substratum is, is contentious. That is, if we don’t know what substratum is, then what is the point of proposing it as a (...) bearer of properties? This question underlies the criticism Locke’s contemporaries raise against the notion of substratum. In section I, I lay out the context for Locke’s theory of substratum by pointing out his main motivation in proposing his theory. In section II, I give a brief analysis of the theory of substratum. In section III, I discuss the objections of Locke’s contemporaries against the theory of substratum.1 I focus on Edward Stillingfleet, Lee Henry, G. W. Leibniz and John Sergeant. In section IV, I conclude that there is no warrant to dismiss Locke’s theory of substance. (shrink)
What minimal role—if any—must consciousness of morally significant information play in an account of moral worth? According to one popular view, a right action is morally worthy only if the agent is conscious (in some sense) of the facts that make it right. I argue against this consciousness condition and close cousins of it. As I show, consciousness of such facts requires much more sophistication than writers typically suggest—this condition would bar from moral worth most ordinary, intuitively morally worthy agents. (...) Moreover, I show that the attraction to this flavor of consciousness condition rests on mistaken assumptions about what is required for a right act to be non-accidentally right and attributable to the agent. Drawing some lessons from the discussion, I defend a Value-Secured Reliability Theory of Moral Worth and show how a minimal yet indispensable role for consciousness falls out from it. On this independently plausible theory, an action can be morally worthy even when the agent is unaware of the right-making features of her action. (shrink)
Green’s book outlines a wholistic vision of human nature, the Christian life, and life after death using “neuro-hermeneutics,” his approach to biblical interpretation integrated with neuroscience and psychology. He argues that a comprehensive vision of Christianity implies body-soul monism and undermines dualism. I respond that these sciences are consistent with dualist as well as monist anthropologies. I examine his exegetical arguments for anthropological monism from the eschatological texts of Luke–Acts and the Corinthian epistles, find them wanting, and show why they (...) actually imply dualism. I conclude that Green has neither undermined dualism nor warranted monism. (shrink)
When we think of desire in the Middle Ages we immediately recall the religious exhortation to love God and despise the flesh. My present subject is not the desire for God but the less sublime theme of sexual desire, however the two may have been linked. Sexual desire was a central intellectual concern for medieval thinkers despite their reputed aversion to the subject. It was not, for example, the trifunctional schema of modern celebrity — oratores, bellatores, laboratores — that was (...) the earliest and most pervasive of medieval social classifications, but the trisexual division among coniugati, continentes, and virgines. In other words, the human race was fundamentally grouped according to sexual activity. As advocates of virginity, the monks were the first to pronounce on sexuality, and they formulated the terms of discourse lasting into the early Middle Ages. By 1200, however, I can find no new monastic treatise De laude virginitatis in northern France deemed worthy of transcribing because of the author's fame or the weight of its argument. Contemporary theologians were equally indifferent. (shrink)
Ethical reality is coextensive with human dignity. Therefore, one essential way to understand ethics is as the systematic effort to discern the imperatives of human dignity. Seeing ethics in this way highlights the fact that health care institutions have many centers of ethical responsibility (CERs) — the Chief Executive Officer, Board of Trustees, senior management team, etc. The Ethics Committee is only one such CER and not the most important one. These other CERs will benefit from identifying: (1) the fact (...) that they are consistently dealing with ethical reality and making ethical decisions; (2) some critical elements of good ethical decision-making: (i) having the appropriate community; (ii) making the guiding value priorities explicit and specific; (iii) gaining skill in using the needed intellectual tools; and (iv) fashioning appropriate process and structure for discernment. (shrink)
This article rejects Gideon Rosen's skeptical argument that attributions of blameworthiness are never epistemically justified. Granting Rosen's controversial claim that an act is blameworthy only if it is either akratic or the causal upshot of some akratic act, I show that we can and should resist his skeptical conclusion. I show, first, that Rosen's argument is, at best, hostage to a much more global skepticism about attributions of praiseworthiness, doxastic justification, and other phenomena which essentially involve causal‐historical facts about mental (...) states. I then show how, equipped with proper background knowledge, we can justifiedly attribute blameworthiness. (shrink)
It is important for our purposes to notice that in this first reduction of Theætetus' definition of knowledge as perception, Plato has introduced the distinction between sense object and physical object, for he has specifically said, "when the same wind is blowing, one of us feels chilly, the other does not." In using this example. Plato has, as Cornford observes, raised the question of how the several sense objects are related to the single physical object. This question is one of (...) the two major questions with which this paper will deal, since it is, as I have remarked, the more important question concerning the ontological status of sense-data. Cornford feels that Protagoras probably held that the physical object is both hot and cold, different observers perceiving different aspects of the same object. That is, Cornford suggests that Protagoras' own answer to this question of the relation between sense-data and physical objects is one of complete identification in every case. We will see that this theory is similar in many ways to the one worked out by Plato in the Theætetus, but the distinction between the physical object and the sense object, between the wind which feels hot and cold to different people, makes certain characteristic differences between Plato's and Protagoras' theory. Before going on to examine these differences, it is necessary to follow the further development of Plato's general theory of perception. (shrink)
Introduction I. The Aim: Defining Whitehead's Categories of Existence Ontology is the study of being or beings. But what is being? Which are the beings? ...
The backward induction argument purports to show that rational and suitably informed players will defect throughout a finite sequence of prisoner's dilemmas. It is supposed to be a useful argument for predicting how rational players will behave in a variety of interesting decision situations. Here, I lay out a set of assumptions defining a class of finite sequences of prisoner's dilemmas. Given these assumptions, I suggest how it might appear that backward induction succeeds and why it is actually fallacious. Then, (...) I go on to consider the consequences of adopting a stronger set of assumptions. Focusing my attention on stronger sets that, like the original, obey the informedness condition, I show that any supplementation of the original set that preserves informedness does so at the expense of forcing rational participants in prisoner's dilemma situations to have unexpected beliefs, ones that threaten the usefulness of backward induction. (shrink)
The unanimity theory is an account of property-level causation requiring that causes raise the probability of their effects in specified test situations. Richard Otte (1981) and others have presented counterexamples in which one property is probabilistically sufficient for at least one other property. Given the continuing discussion (e.g., Cartwright 1989; Cartwright and Dupre 1988; Eells 1988a,b), many apparently think that these problems are minor. By considering the impact of Otte's cases on recent versions of the theory, by raising several new (...) examples, and by criticizing natural replies, I argue that the problems for the unanimity theory are severe. (shrink)
