Radical New Testament disciples may benefit from placing the 16th century South German Anabaptist theologian Pilgram Marpeck in conversation with the 20th century Swiss Reformed theologian Karl Barth. Marpeck and Barth will enrich ecumenical Christfollowers within both the Reformed and the Free Church traditions even as they remain confessional. Our particular effort is to construct a soteriology grounded in discipleship through correlating the coinherent work of the Word with the Spirit in revelation, through placing human agency within a divinely granted (...) response to the gracious sovereignty of God, and through providing a holistic doctrine of individual and communal life in union with Christ. (shrink)

A monster stalks the earth—a sluggish, craven, dumb beast that takes fright at the slightest noise and starts at the sight of its own shadow. This monster is the market. The shadow it fears is cast by a light that comes from the future: the Keynesian crisis of expectations. It is this same light that causes the world’s leaders to tremble before the beast. They tremble, Jean-Pierre Dupuy says, because they have lost faith in the future. What Dupuy calls Economy (...) has degenerated today into a mad spectacle of unrestrained consumption and speculation. But in its positive form—a truly political economy in which politics, not economics, is predominant—Economy creates not only a sense of trust and confidence but also a belief in the open-endedness of the future without which capitalism cannot function. In this devastating and counterintuitive indictment of the hegemonic pretensions of neoclassical economic theory, Dupuy argues that the immutable and eternal decision of God has been replaced with the unpredictable and capricious judgment of the crowd. The future of mankind will therefore depend on whether it can see through the blindness of orthodox economic thinking. (shrink)

“Why is there so much violence in our midst?” René Girard asks. “No question is more debated today. And none produces more disappointing answers.” In Girard’s mimetic theory it is the imitation of someone else’s desire that gives rise to conflict whenever the desired object cannot be shared. This mimetic rivalry, Girard argues, is responsible for the frequency and escalating intensity of human conflict. For Girard, human conflict comes not from the loss of reciprocity between humans but from the transition, (...) imperceptible at first but then ever more rapid, from good to bad reciprocity. In this landmark text, Girard continues his study of violence in light of geopolitical competition, focusing on the roots and outcomes of violence across societies latent in the process of globalization. The volume concludes in a wide-ranging interview with the Sicilian cultural theorist Maria Stella Barberi, where Girard’s twenty-first century emphases on the continuity of all religions, global conflict, and the necessity of apocalyptic thinking emerge. (shrink)

Family carers of individual’s living with Huntington’s Disease (HD) manage a distinct and unique series of difficulties arising from the complex nature of HD. This paper presents the validation of the definitive measure of quality of life for this group. The Huntington’s Disease Quality of Life Battery for carers (HDQoL-C) was expanded and then administered to an international sample of 1716 partners and family carers from 13 countries. In terms of the psychometric properties of the tool, exploratory analysis of half (...) of the sample, demonstrated good internal consistency and reliability. Some items on the full version did not meet psychometric thresholds and a short version (HDQoL-Cs) was developed based on more stringent criteria. Confirmatory Factor Analysis of the model structure showed a good fit for all Factors and, indicated that the HDQoL-C and HDQoL-Cs are psychometrically robust measures of quality of life. We found that carers who lived with and looked after their spouse/partner had reduced sense of coping, hope for the future and overall quality of life. Carers with children who were at risk, carried the gene or were symptomatic also had poorer quality of life outcomes. Findings indicated the HDQoL-C and HDQoL-Cs are valid in multiple languages and across varied cultures as measures of self-reported quality of life in family carers of individual’s living with HD. These psychometrically validated tools can aid and guide the implementation of therapeutic interventions to improve life quality in this population. (shrink)

Researchers from diverse disciplines, including organismal and cellular physiology, sports science, human nutrition, evolution and ecology, have sought to understand the causes and consequences of the surprising variation in metabolic rate found among and within individual animals of the same species. Research in this area has been hampered by differences in approach, terminology and methodology, and the context in which measurements are made. Recent advances provide important opportunities to identify and address the key questions in the field. By bringing together (...) researchers from different areas of biology and biomedicine, we describe and evaluate these developments and the insights they could yield, highlighting the need for more standardisation across disciplines. We conclude with a list of important questions that can now be addressed by developing a common conceptual and methodological toolkit for studies on metabolic variation in animals. (shrink)

Humean instrumentalism is the view that all of one’s reasons for action are ultimately grounded in one’s antecedent desires, whatever those happen to be. According to this view, what determines which actions are rational is ultimately what the agent wants or desires, while the role of rational deliberation is to inform the agent about how to best gratify these desires. In this paper I aim to weaken commitment to Humean instrumentalism by showing that (a) the main supporting argument for HI (...) fails and that (b) Humean instrumentalism conflicts with a very plausible principle of practical rationality. (shrink)

Humean instrumentalism is the view that all of one’s reasons for action are ultimately grounded in one’s antecedent desires, whatever those happen to be. According to this view, what determines which actions are rational is ultimately what the agent wants or desires, while the role of rational deliberation is to inform the agent about how to best gratify these desires. In this paper I aim to weaken commitment to Humean instrumentalism by showing that (a) the main supporting argument for HI (...) fails and that (b) Humean instrumentalism conflicts with a very plausible principle of practical rationality. (shrink)

Summary The common view has been that Darwin regarded species as artificial and arbitrary constructions of taxonomists, not as distinct natural units. However, in his transmutation notebooks he clearly subscribed to the reality of species, on the basis of the criterion of non-interbreeding. A consequence of this biological species concept was his identification of the acquisition of reproductive isolation as the mark of the completion of speciation. He developed in the notebooks a theory of geographic speciation on the grounds of (...) (a) an empirical correlation between barriers and the geographical distributions of allied species, (b) the analogy of artificial isolation in the formation of new domesticated varieties, and (c) the logical consequence of blending inheritance. A brief discussion of Darwin's species concept in later writings concludes the paper. (shrink)

Or future of Professor Skutsch , 60, 378), calling the contraction ‘impossible’ , insists on the latter; F. Vian in his Bude Apollonius leaves the question open. A.R.1.685 ~ 693.

Or future of Professor Skutsch, 60, 378), calling the contraction ‘impossible’, insists on the latter; F. Vian in his Bude Apollonius leaves the question open. A.R.1.685 ~ 693.

Analytic philosophers have, since the pioneering work of B.K. Matilal, emphasized the contributions of Nyāya philosophers to what contemporary philosophy considers epistemology. More recently, scholarly work demonstrates the relevance of their ideas to argumentation theory, an interdisciplinary area of study drawing on epistemology as well as logic, rhetoric, and linguistics. This paper shows how early Nyāya theorizing about argumentation, from Vātsyāyana to Jayanta Bhaṭṭa, can fruitfully be juxtaposed with the pragma-dialectic approach to argumentation pioneered by Frans van Eemeren. I illustrate (...) the implications of this analysis with a case study from Jayanta Bhaṭṭa’s satirical play, Much Ado about Religion (Āgamaḍambara). (shrink)

In this paper I argue that the stretch of dialogue from 385 b 2–d 1 in the Cratylus does not belong where it is found in the MSS. , but fits rather between 387 c 5 and 387 c 6. I suggest further that at any rate my negative thesis receives some measure of support from the fragments of Proclus' commentary on the dialogue.

A and B in signaling games (Lewis 1969). Members of the population, such as our prehistoric pair, are occasionally faced with the following ‘game’. Let one of the players be the receiver and the other the sender. The receiver needs to know whether B is true or not, but only possesses information about whether A is true or not. In some environmental contexts, A is sufficient for B, in others it is not. The sender knows nothing about A or B, (...) but does know that A is sufficient for B in some environments. This is a higher-order signaling game in which both players can benefit from sharing the information that they possess. How does a communication strategy evolve, and is it evolutionarily stable? (shrink)

Whewell, William (b Lancaster, England, 24 May 1794; d Cambridge, England, 6 March 1866) Born the eldest son of a carpenter, William Whewell rose to become Master of Trinity College, Cambridge and a central figure in Victorian science. After attending the grammar school at Heversham in Westmorland, Whewell entered Trinity College, Cambridge and graduated Second Wrangler. He became a Fellow of the College in 1817, took his M.A. degree in 1819, and his D.D. degree in 1844.

In this paper I argue that the stretch of dialogue from 385 b 2–d 1 in the Cratylus does not belong where it is found in the MSS., but fits rather between 387 c 5 and 387 c 6. I suggest further that at any rate my negative thesis receives some measure of support from the fragments of Proclus' commentary on the dialogue.

Puzzle solving in normal science involves a process of accommodation—auxiliary assumptions are changed, and parameter values are adjusted so as to eliminate the known discrepancies with the data. Accommodation is often contrasted with prediction. Predictions happen when one achieves a good fit with novel data without accommodation. So, what exactly is the distinction, and why is it important? The distinction, as I understand it, is relative to a model M and a data set D, where M is a set of (...) equations with adjustable parameters (i. e., M is a family of equations with no free parameters). Definition: Model M predicts data D if and only if either (a) all members of M fit D well, or (b) a particular predictive hypothesis is selected from M by fitting M to other data, and the fitted model fits D well. M merely accommodates D if and only if (i) M does not predict D, and (ii) the predictive hypothesis selected from M using other data does not fit D well. There will be cases in which a model M neither predicts nor accommodates D. These are the cases in which we are willing to say that data falsifies the model. So, the distinction between prediction and accommodation applies only when there is no falsification. (shrink)

The first stage of the break-up of the empire of Alexander the Great has not been a popular subject in recent years. Yet despite this lack of attention, a wholly satisfactory exposition of the source material relating to the political events of the period has not yet been written. Earlier writers, with rare exceptions, have been hamstrung in their interpretations by an over-rigid or static view of Macedonian Staatsrecht, elucidation of which was thought to be the key to the problems. (...) This article returns to the sources. And while the condition of our sources may preclude a final definitive interpretation, I hope to show that a more realistic account can be written than has been produced so far. (shrink)

The cross-cultural philosopher B.K. Matilal is one of many who have argued that some Indian philosophers are skeptics. Inspired by Matilal, in Three Pillars of Skepticism in Classical India, Ethan Mills argues that Nāgārjuna (150–200 CE), Jayarāśi (770–830 CE), and Śrī Harṣa (1125–1180 CE) are skeptics in a specific sense: as part of a textually inspired tradition of “skepticism about philosophy,” they share overlapping methods. Mills’ arguments about method are more successful than those about tradition, although the book’s engaging exposition (...) of these three thinkers will hopefully spark new interest in their work. (shrink)

The cross-cultural philosopher B.K. Matilal is one of many who have argued that some Indian philosophers are skeptics. Inspired by Matilal, in Three Pillars of Skepticism in Classical India, Ethan Mills argues that Nāgārjuna (150–200 CE), Jayarāśi (770–830 CE), and Śrī Harṣa (1125–1180 CE) are skeptics in a specific sense: as part of a textually inspired tradition of “skepticism about philosophy,” they share overlapping methods. Mills’ arguments about method are more successful than those about tradition, although the book’s engaging exposition (...) of these three thinkers will hopefully spark new interest in their work. (shrink)