Samkhya and Yoga are two of the oldest and most influential systems of classical Indian philosophy. This book provides a thorough analysis of the systems in order to fully understand Indian philosophy. Placing particular emphasis on the metaphysical schema which underlies both concepts, the author aptly develops a new interpretation of the standard views on Samkhya and Yoga. Drawing upon existing sources and using insights from both eastern and western philosophy and religious practice, this comprehensive interpretation is respectful to the (...) underlying spiritual purpose of the Indian systems. It serves to illuminate the relation between the theoretical and practical dimensions of Samkhya and Yoga. The book fills a gap in current scholarship. It will be of interest to those concerned with Indology as well as philosophies in general and their similarities and differences with other traditions. (shrink)

Do people hold robots responsible for their actions? While Clark and Fischer present a useful framework for interpreting social robots, we argue that they fail to account for people's willingness to assign responsibility to robots in certain contexts, such as when a robot performs actions not predictable by its user or programmer.

In The Borderline Culture: Intensity, Jouissance, and Death, Željka Matijašević examines contemporary culture through psychological borderline theory.

"JALONS" réunit un certain nombre d'exposés traitant de domaines qui suscitent de nombreuses interrogations, ainsi qu'un petit recueil de textes d'enseignement sous forme de poèmes.

Cet ouvrage est une réédition numérique d’un livre paru au XXe siècle, désormais indisponible dans son format d’origine.

The article defines the problem of the nature of ideas in Descartes’s philosophy according to the ontology of substances. First, it illuminates Descartes’s relation to antecedent theories of ideas (as platonic forms or as corporal images) and demonstrates that, in opposition to them, Descartes conceives ideas as modes of thinking substance. Then, it develops two possible explanations of his theory. The first one understands an idea as a complex consisting of perception and its necessary internal object, which enables the representation (...) of external objects. The second one understands it as an act with intrinsic representative structure. By using Arnauld’s analysis of Descartes’s texts, it demonstrates that in accordance with the second model, an idea is a singular mode of thinking substance, which should at the same time be understood as an act of mind and as a representation of objects. (shrink)

La presente obra navega entre dos conceptos —la heterotopía y la utopía— en el contexto de la posmetrópolis. La heterotopía, tal y como explican en el prefacio los coeditores, ha atraído una innegable atención en el ámbito de las ciencias sociales desde que Foucault trasladara el concepto del ámbito médico al espacial. Frente al no espacio de la utopía y su carácter ideal y regulador, las heterotopías serían lugares reales, en los que la diferencia se manifiesta al invertir y subvertir (...) aquellos órdenes que configuran nuestros espacios cotidianos. Siendo uno de estos lugares cotidianos la ciudad, y atendiendo a las posibilidades emancipatorias y reactivas que pronto se asociaron a lo heterotópico, cabe preguntarse por el estado actual de las heterotopías urbanas: ¿son las heterotopías actuales, como registra el título de la obra, utopías liberales? León Casero y Urabayen ofrecen en el prefacio un amplio panorama al respecto. (shrink)

Nella problematica generale dei rapporti tra Dio e l'uomo rientra il problema del diritto naturale. Tale problema si e manifestato in modo particolare nel secolo XVII come dimostra lo studio di Ugo Grozio (1583-1645). L'attualita delle sue idee e vivo anche oggi sia in Italia che all'estero; Grozio e ricordato soprattutto dai giuristi, nonostante la sua attivita si sia svolta anche in altri campi come dimostra l'opera bibliografica di Meulen J. Ter e Diermanse. Molti studiosi elogiano le sue impostazioni giuridiche (...) come per esempio G.B. Vico che lo chiama iurisconsultus generis humani. D'altra parte ci sono anche molti critici poco entusiasti del suo pensiero e che anzi lo accusano considerandolo l'iniziatore di una nuova corrente dottrinale che rompe la vera linea del diritto naturale iniziata dai greci, perfezionata dai romani e ripresa dalla scolastica. Da tutto questo appare chiaro che non e facile entrare nel pensiero del giurista di Delft. Questo lavoro vorrebbe dare una risposta al problema del diritto naturale e del suo rapporto con Dio. Si vuol vedere come si puo accordare la famosa affermazione una sola volta nel Prolegomena 11 del De iure belli ac pacis, che le norme del diritto naturale alocum aliquem haberent etiam daremusanon esse Deum, aut non curari a beo negotia humanaa la quale sembra separare il diritto dalla Divinita con la convinzione veramente religiosa di Grozio e con i suoi continui richiami all'autorita delle Sacre Scritture, dei Padri della Chiesa e dei teologi. (shrink)

Reseña de la obra de Parellada, Ricardo. El orgullo ¿vicio o virtud? Madrid: Síntesis, 2019.

The law giveth and the law taketh away. The question ‘Who is law for’ has of late received increased attention in mainstream jurisprudence.1 Whether at a general, conceptual level o...

Rebirth and the Stream of Life explores the diversity as well as the ethical and religious significance of rebirth beliefs, focusing especially on Hindu and Buddhist traditions but also discussing indigenous religions and ancient Greek thought. Utilizing resources from religious studies, anthropology and theology, an expanded conception of philosophy of religion is exemplified, which takes seriously lived experience rather than treating religious beliefs in isolation from their place in believers' lives. Drawing upon his expertise in interdisciplinary working and Wittgenstein-influenced approaches, (...) Mikel Burley examines several interrelated phenomena, including purported past-life memories, the relationship between metaphysics and ethics, efforts to 'demythologize' rebirth, and moral critiques of the doctrine of karma. This range of topics, with rebirth as a unifying theme, makes the book of value to anyone interested in philosophy, the study of religions, and what it means to believe that we undergo multiple lives. (shrink)

We hypothesize that threat of dehydration provided selection pressure for the evolutionary emergence and persistence of the anterior communicating artery (ACoA – the inter‐arterial connection that completes the Circle of Willis) in early amniotes.The ACoA is a hemodynamically insignificant artery, but, as we argue in this paper, its privileged position outside the blood‐brain barrier gives it a crucial sensing function for the osmolarity of the blood against the background of the rest of the brain, which efficiently protects itself from dehydration. (...) Till now, the questions of why the ACoA evolved, and what its physiological function is, have remained unsatisfactorily answered. The traditional view—that the ACoA serves as a collateral source of vascularization in case of arterial stenosis—is anthropocentric, and not in accordance with principles of natural selection that apply more generally. Diseases underlying arterial stenosis are associated with aging and the human lifestyle, so this cannot explain why the ACoA formed hundreds of millions of years ago and persisted in amniotes to this day.The peculiar hemodynamic properties of the ACoA could be selected traits that allowed for more efficient forebrain detection of dehydration and complex behavioral responses to water loss, a major advantage in the survival of early amniotes. This hypothesis also explains insufficient hydration often seen in elderly humans. (shrink)

We hypothesize that threat of dehydration provided selection pressure for the evolutionary emergence and persistence of the anterior communicating artery (ACoA – the inter‐arterial connection that completes the Circle of Willis) in early amniotes.The ACoA is a hemodynamically insignificant artery, but, as we argue in this paper, its privileged position outside the blood‐brain barrier gives it a crucial sensing function for the osmolarity of the blood against the background of the rest of the brain, which efficiently protects itself from dehydration. (...) Till now, the questions of why the ACoA evolved, and what its physiological function is, have remained unsatisfactorily answered. The traditional view—that the ACoA serves as a collateral source of vascularization in case of arterial stenosis—is anthropocentric, and not in accordance with principles of natural selection that apply more generally. Diseases underlying arterial stenosis are associated with aging and the human lifestyle, so this cannot explain why the ACoA formed hundreds of millions of years ago and persisted in amniotes to this day.The peculiar hemodynamic properties of the ACoA could be selected traits that allowed for more efficient forebrain detection of dehydration and complex behavioral responses to water loss, a major advantage in the survival of early amniotes. This hypothesis also explains insufficient hydration often seen in elderly humans. (shrink)

Ludwig Wittgenstein was an outstanding 20th-century philosopher whose influence has reverberated throughout not only philosophy but also numerous other areas of inquiry, including theology and the study of religions. Exemplifying how Wittgenstein's thought can be engaged with both sympathetically and critically, Wittgenstein, Religion and Ethics pushes forward our thinking about religion and ethics and their place in the modern world. Bringing Wittgenstein's ideas into productive dialogue with several other important thinkers, including Elizabeth Anscombe, St Thomas Aquinas, Georg Cantor, Søren Kierkegaard (...) and George Orwell, this collection fosters a highly informative picture of how different strands of contemporary and historical thought intersect and bear upon one another. Chapters are written by leading scholars in the field and tackle current debates concerning religious and ethical matters, with particular attention to the nature of religious language. This is a substantial contribution to religion and ethics, demonstrating the significance of Wittgenstein's ideas for these and related subjects. (shrink)

"This collection of essays on aesthetics is the first set of Dufrenne's shorter pieces to appear in English. It is arranged thematically and includes works from as early as 1948 to as late as 1974.... In these essays Dufrenne covers a lot of ground and draws into his discussion of aesthetics a whole range of thinkers, including Barthes, Foucault, Lyotard, Metz, Freud and Derrida.... These essays are well worth reading both for the quality of the writing and for the continual (...) insights which come to the surface along the way. The text has been devotedly translated and a helpful introduction has been added." -- David Pollard, British Journal of Aesthetics. (shrink)

Im Folgenden werde ich über den Wenn-Dann-Ismus als Strategie zur Verringerung unserer ontologischen Verpflichtungen in der Mathematik sprechen. Ich beginne mit der Definition des Wenn-Dann-Ismus in Principles of Matemathics. Danach setze ich mich mit Puntnams Kritik des Wenn-Dann-Ismus auseinander. Es folgen einige Argumente von Cian Dorr, die diese Kritik unterstützen. Zuletzt soll von der ontologischen Sparsamkeit als allgemeinem Motiv für die Aneignung des Wenn-Dann-Ismus die Rede sein. Ich werde von der ontologischen Sparsamkeit in Zusammenhang mit dem Naturalismus sprechen und zugunsten (...) der These argumentieren, dass die Bevorzugung der ontologischen Sparsamkeit nicht aus dem Naturalismus hervorgeht. (shrink)

In this paper I am going to try to prove that if-then-ism is not an option. I will focus on if-then-ism as a strategy to reduce ontological commitments in mathematics. I will start with the definition of if-then-ism in The Principles of Mathematics. Then I am going to discuss the Putnam’s criticism of if-then-ism. Next I will move on to some arguments of Cian Dorr that support it. In the end, I will talk about ontological parsimony as the general motivation (...) for adopting the if-then-ism. I will discuss ontological parsimony in connection with naturalism and argue that demand for ontological parsimony does not follow from naturalism. (shrink)

Je parlerai dans cet article du si-alors-sinon comme d’une stratégie de nos obligations ontologiques dans les mathématiques. Je commencerai par la définition du si-alors-sinon dans les Principia mathematica. Ensuite, je discuterai la critique du si-alors-sinon par Putnam. Suivront certains arguments de Ciana Dorra qui l’appuient. Finalement, il sera question de la « parcimonie » ontologique en tant que motif d’adoption du si-alors-sinon. Je traiterai de la parcimonie ontologique en liaison avec le naturalisme en essayant de démontrer que la parcimonie ontologique (...) n’est pas une exigence découlant du naturalisme. (shrink)

In this paper, we explore the concept of bearing witness in nursing practice. We examine the description of bearing witness in the nursing literature, particularly that offered by William Cody who suggests that bearing witness results in the limited moral obligation of “true presence.” We then turn to Lorraine Code's work on testimony, drawing parallels between the concepts of testimony and bearing witness. Code suggests that receiving testimony results in a responsibility to respond, and that this is an ethico‐political obligation. (...) We discuss these ideas in relation to a Canadian exemplar of witnessing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's work to understand and address the historical injustices done to Indigenous peoples in Canada. Here, we focus on the Commission's definition of witnessing and highlight the experience of Shelagh Rogers who served as an honorary witness. As an outcome of our analysis, we suggest that bearing witness in nursing practice is most usefully conceptualized as both a moral and a political obligation. Implications for nursing practice are suggested, including first, the need to critically examine our own understandings of power and privilege in order to authentically bear witness and avoid being complicit in injustice, and second, the concomitant responsibility to take action to challenge injustice once we have borne witness to it. (shrink)

The debate between the Better and the Worse Argument, between the old and the new education, in Aristophanes’ Clouds, is a scene full of caustic humour and exquisite irony. In this paper we will try to provide a detailed analysis of the linguistic features that characterize these two characters, in order to confront how two clearly opposite linguistic registers are outlined, in line with their confrontation of ideas. In general terms, the Better Argument exhibits a stronger conversational tone than his (...) adversary, a greater inclination to the use of asyndeton in his syntax, more vulgar and abusive terms, a virtual absence of both poetic and paratragic words and certain linguistic innovations and variants of a lesser literary quality. In contrast, the Worse Argument does just the opposite. (shrink)

Following the spread of Platonic anthropology, Christianity has started, already since the 2nd century A.D., to be dominated by dualism – a trend undisturbed by somewhat more holistic Thomism, and further strengthened by Cartesianism, which distanced Christian theology and soul even further away from the body. During the 1960s, theologians have become aware of the far more positive and inclusive attitude that the Bible has towards the body. Yet, a century before, the Adventist movement was born in conditionalism such as (...) presented by Hobbes in Leviathan (XLIV). Man does not have a soul; he is a “living soul” – a body vivified by the “breath of life” (Gen 2:7). Without the body, there is no life, nor, consequentially, eternal hell. To this Adventists have also conjoined a philosophy of health reform in which the care of the body has a key role, and upon which depends man’s intellectual and spiritual wellbeing. On this foundation, they have built a rich healthcare and educational practice. This physicalist version of Christian anthropology is a unique worldview contribution to philosophy of the body and a subject worthy of academic attention. (shrink)

In this paper, the author approaches the question of why one should study philosophy from an affirmative point of view and argues pro philosophia, i.e. he justifies and promotes the possible taking up of the study of philosophy in the present day by considering its extra philosophical benefits. Thus, the author speaks from a particular perspective, looking at the study of philosophy from an opportunistic and instrumentalised angle. Namely, he does not consider the study as such, its philosophical justification and (...) quality, but looks for its potential in and for today’s world. That is, not for professions such as philosophy teachers or academic philosophers, but actually for almost everyone else. In this sense, the author elaborates ten possible benefits of studying philosophy: (1) Developing critical, logical and reflective, (2) careful and (3) creative thinking; (4) Identifying and formulating (essential) questions; (5) Making quality decisions (‘decision making’); (6) Developing problem-solving skills; (7) Enabling ethical reflection; (8) Identifying life values; (9) Human flourishing and the search for meaning; (10) Preparing for a range of possible professions outside the philosophical professions. (shrink)

Este artículo describe la evolución de los recursos de acogimiento residencial en el contexto del Estado Español, comenzando por la época de la dictadura franquista hasta la actualidad. Explicamos cómo fueron financiados los recursos mediante los cuales se daba ayuda a las personas menores de edad en situación de vulnerabilidad. Asimismo, se analiza la evolución de dichos recursos hasta hoy en día. Estos recursos se han ido profesionalizando a lo largo del tiempo y, hoy en día, dan respuestas especificas a (...) diferentes necesidades de los niños, niñas, adolescentes y jóvenes del territorio histórico de Bizkaia.Recibido. (shrink)

The recent article “The Prospects of Artificial Consciousness: Ethical Dimensions and Concerns” by Elisabeth Hildt (2023) in the AJOB Neuroscience presents a thorough examination of the ethical imp...

the aim of this paper is to prove that secession is inherently undemocratic. We will review the secessionist arguments: the one that starts from a wrong idea of selfgovernment and the one that starts from liberalism. then, we will oppose objections to both: defending the value of equality; rejecting internal homogeneity claims; picking up Buchanan’s classic objections; and finally, reformulating, with Habermas and Pogge, a concept of self-government in order to deduce that it is not legitimate to draw more boundaries (...) because an ideal democracy would require to eliminate the current borders. (shrink)

A pesar de ser una de las principales teorías de la justicia, el enfoque de las capacidades no ha abordado las cuestiones de las obligaciones hacia el medio ambiente y las generaciones futuras. Para corregir este problema, Gómez ha presentado ideas valiosas sobre cómo el enfoque podría incorporar estas obligaciones. Aunque las ideas de Gómez representan una meritoria aportación a la literatura sobre el enfoque de las capacidades, en este artículo defiendo que deben completarse con argumentos a favor de la (...) obligación de reducir el sufrimiento extremo. En particular, el enfoque de las capacidades debe defender el veganismo/vegetarianismo, la ayuda a los animales en la naturaleza y la reducción de la superpoblación humana. (shrink)

The paper was prompted by B. H. Suitsʼ construction of Utopia and solutions for the meaningful and happy life of every single human, presented in The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia. The author considers, critically evaluates and confronts the role of human physical exercise and game-playing in four constructions of meaningful and happy human life, presented in three Renaissance philosophical writings: De optimo reipublicae statu deque nova insula Utopia libelous by T. More, La città felice by F. Patricius, and Civitas (...) Solis. Idea reipublicae philosophicae by T. Campanella, with the aforementioned B. H. Suitsʼ postmodern writing. The authorʼs thesis is that Suitsʼ solution to human meaningful and full life, which consists in constant game-playing or engaging in only autotelic and intrinsically valuable activities, contains all the leisured intentions of other considered constructions. Moreover, although Suits aims at contemporary humans, it is a solution for all historical periods, conditions or circumstances. (shrink)

This paper responds to Severin Schroeder's recent charge that Wittgenstein's philosophy of religion contains an ‘unresolved tension’ between three propositions, namely: (1) ‘As a hypothesis, God's existence (&c) is extremely implausible’; (2) ‘Christian faith is not unreasonable’; and (3) ‘Christian faith does involve belief in God's existence (&c)’. I argue as follows: that the first of these propositions has no place in Wittgenstein's thinking on religion; that the second is ill-phrased and should be re-worded as the proposition that ‘Christian faith (...) is neither unreasonable nor reasonable’; and that the third proposition (contrary to what Schroeder seems to assume) tells us nothing about the nature of the objects of religious belief. It follows from my argument that Schroeder has not exposed a tension in Wittgenstein's thoughts on religion. I end with some positive remarks about Wittgenstein's method. (shrink)

My dissertation deals with the Master Argument of Diodorus Cronus, a contemporary of Aristotle's. The argument was one of the most famous pieces of temporal and modal reasoning in ancient philosophy. It purports to prove that a proposition is possible if and only if it is true or will be true. The argument runs as follows: Everything that is past and true is necessary; The impossible does not follow the possible; Therefore, nothing is possible which neither is nor will be (...) true. Unfortunately, all accounts of the Master that have survived are so sketchy that we cannot determine whether the argument is valid or not. ;Several reconstructions of Diodorus' argument have been proposed. The purpose of the reconstructions is to show, using the resources of modal and tense logics, that the argument is valid. I analyze and critique most of these proposals, arguing in the final chapter for a new reconstruction which I believe to be more defensible than existing ones. ;The Master Argument is important for several reasons. It elicited much discussion among ancient philosophers and logicians both because of its reduction of modal logic to tense logic and its bearing on the free will/determinism debate. But, its influence also extends to contemporary philosophy and logic. In the 1950s and 60s, the Master inspired formal work on Diodorean systems. Much of the work on the calculus of tenses, e.g., by Prior, was undertaken in view of investigating Diodorus' argument. Finally, the literature that the argument has spawned has enriched and deepened our understanding of the connections between matters modal and temporal. (shrink)

Con este artículo pretendemos esbozar los fundamentos onto-lógicos esenciales de la propuesta metafísica de Alain Badiou; así como identificar los nexos dialécticos imprescindibles para la elaboración de lo que podemos considerar una metafísica contemporánea de lo múltiple infinito –frente a las clásicas metafísicas dogmáticas de lo Uno y las filosofías de la finitud– que incorpora de un modo dialécticamente inclusivo la matemática de la teoría de conjuntos, en _L’être et l’événement_, y la lógica matematizada de la teoría de categorías, en (...) _Logiques des mondes_. Sin adentrarnos en los pormenores de los conceptos vehiculares necesarios para pensar los procedimientos de verdad de la propuesta de Badiou, veremos cómo las relaciones dialécticas que se establecen a nivel onto-lógico en el interior de esta nueva metafísica concentran toda la historicidad del pensamiento de las correlaciones clásicas ser/aparecer, o ser/ser-ahí, univocidad/equivocidad, objeto/relación, extrínseco/intrínseco, lógica binaria/lógica trascendental y matemática/lógica en el pensamiento filosófico de la relación dialéctica contemporánea entre la teoría de conjuntos y la teoría de categorías. (shrink)

The study we report in this article addresses the results of comparing the rhetorical trees from two different languages carried out by two annotators starting from the Rhetorical Structure Theory. Furthermore, we investigate the methodology for a suitable evaluation, both quantitative and qualitative, of these trees. Our corpus contains abstracts of medical research articles written both in Spanish and Basque, and extracted from Gaceta Médica de Bilbao. The results demonstrate that almost half of the annotator disagreement is due to the (...) use of translation strategies that notably affect rhetorical structures. (shrink)

This article reflects upon the debate, initiated by Bernard Williams in 1973, concerning the desirability of immortality, where the latter expression is taken to mean endless bodily life as a human or humanoid being. Williams contends that it cannot be desirable; others have disputed this contention. I discuss a recent response from Timothy Chappell and attempt to pinpoint the central disagreement between Chappell and Williams. I propose that neither side in the debate has firm grounds for its claims, and then (...) proceed to consider four reasons for suspecting that the whole debate has yet to be placed on a conceptually coherent footing. (shrink)

The Dempster–Shafer approach to expressing beliefabout a parameter in a statistical model is notconsistent with the likelihood principle. Thisinconsistency has been recognized for some time, andmanifests itself as a non-commutativity, in which theorder of operations (combining belief, combininglikelihood) makes a difference. It is proposed herethat requiring the expression of belief to be committed to the model (and to certain of itssubmodels) makes likelihood inference very nearly aspecial case of the Dempster–Shafer theory.

In 1980 Morris Kline wrote this engaging book, in which he took on many of the myths about the nature and history of mathematics. This new edition will probably be as seldom read as the original, which is too bad because it contains important messages, including perhaps some comfort for anomalies researchers. I will briefly present an overview of the book’s contents, and then say what I think these comforts are. · · · The ancient Greeks developed the seed of (...) what we now think of as mathematics. Kline points out that their mathematical concepts arose from consideration of the natural world, and then the fact that numbers, shapes, and relationships corresponded to things in the real world convinced them that reality itself was in some mystical way generated by numerical principles. The regular patterns that they found in geometric forms and simple integers reflected the regularities of nature, and so provided keys to understanding how things were, and why they were that way. The faith that mathematics lay behind the mundane world of observations became an unquestioned truth, at least as important as the practical techniques the Greeks devised, and passed along through the Middle East and the medieval period to modern Europe. (shrink)

The great problem in writing a theory of everything is that it may turn out to be a theory of nothing. Here is how it works. If you develop a theory that only explains some small, simple Thing, then the theory is very strong. It is precise, understandable, and it always works. As you expand the theory to encompass another Thing, it becomes weaker. It may still be precise and understandable, but it is now more complicated, and because it involves (...) two things rather than one, it starts to become conditional. This means that in order for it to work with regard to the second Thing, we may have to take into account something about the first Thing. And so it goes. As the theory covers more and more Things, it becomes less precise, less understandable, and parts need to be added on in order cover multiple contingencies. People who go down this path inevitably come to a critical point, at which their theory has become so precisely complicated that it can barely be understood, and gargantuan efforts become necessary to make it work at all. To resolve this impasse, they have a terminological epiphany. They suddenly find a language (that is, an arcane vocabulary) which confers the appearance of simplicity to the morass they have created. Precision is replaced by undefined terms and relationships, described in forceful but impenetrable prose. Argumentation becomes not an activity of rational thought, but a magical experience in which a swirling array of undefined concepts assembles itself in just the right way to come to whatever conclusion is desired. In the mouth of its inventor the theory does indeed explain everything, but in the ears of the audience it explains nothing. (shrink)

Many publications in the field of animal ethics consider the theories of Peter Singer and Tom Regan as the main arguments for the direct moral consideration of non human animals. This paper argues that both those theories have to face serious problems that make them difficult to accept and to apply, and proposes instead an alternative based on the recent work of M. C. Nussbaum. She has drafted a theory in favor of the direct moral consideration of non human animals, (...) which solves part of the problems that the proposals of Singer and Regan could not. (shrink)

Via a discussion of various ways in which putative descriptions or explanations can be deemed to be morally insensitive, this article investigates the role of “contemplation” in philosophy of religion and ethics, and especially in connection with the “problem of evil.” Focusing on the Wittgenstein-influenced methods of D. Z. Phillips, the question is considered whether a tension obtains between, on the one hand, a “contemplative conception of philosophy,” and on the other hand, the sort of critique of theodicy according to (...) which the theodicist’s attempt to maintain a contemplative stance with respect to evil and suffering is morally corrupt. (shrink)