Theory-ladenness of perception and cognition is pervasive and variable. Emerging maturationally natural perception and cognition, which are on-line, fast, automatic, unconscious, and, by virtue of their selectivity, theoretical in import, if not in form, define normal development. They contrast with off-line, slow, deliberate, conscious perceptual and cognitive judgments that reflective theories, including scientific ones, inform. Although culture tunes MN systems, their emergence and operation do not rely on culturally distinctive inputs. The sciences advance radically counter-intuitive representations that depart drastically from (...) MN systems’ deliverances. Extensive experience with RCI scientific theories can result in a practiced naturalness with their perceptual and cognitive consequences; nevertheless, automatic MN verdicts persistently intrude. Fodor suggests that the uniformity of the biases MN systems introduce can serve as a theory-neutral means for adjudicating scientific disputes. Findings about vision challenge Fodor’s proposal for circumventing problems that MN theory-ladenness presents. These considerations indicate that RCI scientific ideas are difficult to learn, master, and deploy; consequently, the corrective import of science’s social and institutional arrangements plays a critical role in its epistemic stature. (shrink)

The Nature of Thought: Maturity of Mind addresses the lack of physical maturation of the brain throughout the last 10,000 years of human evolution, which has resulted in an immaturity of thought throughout history to the present day. With an offering of working definitions for many new terms scholars have invented to deal with the issue, this work explores the ideal of a fundamental integrity of thought, and a maturity of mind, which is classless and upholds truth and reality to (...) further the development of civilization. (shrink)

In a number of recent articles, the debate on the ethics of fractional reserve “free” banking has been extended to loan maturity mismatching, specifically the banking practice of borrowing short and lending long. Barnett and Block :711–716, 2009; 2010) claim the practice is illicit, because like fractional reserve banking it creates duplicate property titles. They argue there is a continuum in the time dimension between the two kinds of activities. Bagus and Howden :399–406, 2009; 106:295–300, 2012a; Eur J Law Econ, (...) 2012b; Bus Ethics 22:235–245, 2013) maintain that loan maturity mismatching does not create duplicate titles and is not illicit, and that from an economic and legal perspective there is no continuum with fractional reserve banking. Cachanosky and Evans enter the debate from the free-banking standpoint and view both practices as legitimate. In this paper, I agree with the conclusions of Bagus and Howden, but adopt a different approach to support this position. Using the title-transfer theory of contract, I demonstrate from first principles why loan maturity mismatching does not create duplicate property titles and is a legitimate practice. Employing this same theory, I then present a novel argument to show why the contractual arrangements found in fractional reserve banking are logically contradictory and illegitimate. (shrink)

The paper undertakes three interdisciplinary tasks. The first one consists in constructing a formal model of the basic arithmetic competence, that is, the competence sufficient for solving simple arithmetic story-tasks which do not require any mathematical mastery knowledge about laws, definitions and theorems. The second task is to present a generalized arithmetic theory, called the arithmetic of indexed numbers (INA). All models of the development of counting abilities presuppose the common assumption that our simple, folk arithmetic encoded linguistically in the (...) mind is based on the linear number representation. This classical conception is rejected and a competitive hypothesis is formulated according to which the basic mature representational system of cognitive arithmetic is a structure composed of many numerical axes which possess a common constituent, namely, the numeral zero. Arithmetic of indexed numbers is just a formal tool for modelling the basic mature arithmetic competence. The third task is to develop a standpoint called temporal pluralism, which is motivated by neo-Kantian philosophy of arithmetic. (shrink)

This paper aims to measure Knowledge Management Maturity (KMM) in the universities to determine the impact of knowledge management on high performance. This study was applied on Al-Quds Open University in Gaza strip, Palestine. Asian productivity organization model was applied to measure KMM. Second dimension which assess high performance was developed by the authors. The controlled sample was (306). Several statistical tools were used for data analysis and hypotheses testing, including reliability Correlation using Cronbach’s alpha, “ANOVA”, Simple Linear Regression and (...) Step Wise Regression.The overall findings of the current study suggest that KMM is suitable for measuring high performance. KMM assessment shows that maturity level is in level three. Findings also support the main hypothesis and it is sub- hypotheses. The most important factors effecting high performance are: Processes, KM leadership, People, KM Outcomes and Learning and Innovation. Furthermore the current study is unique by the virtue of its nature, scope and way of implied investigation, as it is the first comparative study in the universities of Palestine explores the status of KMM using the Asian productivity Model. (shrink)

This paper aims to assess knowledge management maturity at HEI to determine the most effecting variables on knowledge management that enhance the total performance of the organization. This study was applied on Al-Azhar University in Gaza strip, Palestine. This paper depends on Asian productivity organization model that used to assess KM maturity. Second dimension assess high performance was developed by the authors. The controlled sample was (364). Several statistical tools were used for data analysis and hypotheses testing, including reliability Correlation (...) using Cronbach’s alpha, “ANOVA”, Simple Linear Regression and Step Wise Regression. The overall findings of the current study suggest that KMM is suitable for measuring and lead to enhance high performance. KMM assessment shows that the university maturity level is in level three. Findings also support the main hypothesis and it is subhypotheses. The most important factors effecting high performance are: Processes, KM leadership, People, KM Outcomes, Knowledge Process. Furthermore the current study is unique by the virtue of its nature, scope and way of implied investigation, as it is the first study at HEI in Palestine explores the status of KMM using the Asian productivity model. (shrink)

This article addresses some ambiguities and normative problems with the concept of mature care in professional relationships and in health care priorities. Mature care has recently been introduced in the literature on care ethics as an alternative to prevailing altruistic conceptions of care. The essence of mature care is an emphasis on reciprocity, where the mature agent has the ability to balance the concerns of self with those of others and act from a principle of not causing harm. Our basic (...) claim is that the prevailing concept of mature care does not capture the real nature of professional relationships and role obligations in health care. As the focus of attention in professional care is and must be the patient’s particular medical and care needs, such care must principally be altruistic. Furthermore, we argue that mature care cannot adequately address moral conflict in health care without accepting some more principle-based approaches and a richer notion of partiality. (shrink)

In a series of radio broadcasts, one of which is translated for the first time in this issue (pp. 21-34), Adorno and Becker claimed that modern education is profoundly inadequate. Their views on education draw heavily on Kant’s notion of Enlightenment as a process for the development of personal and social maturity and responsibility. As such, education cannot just be a training but must itself be a developmental process which takes into account not only social and political realities but also (...) the complex psychodynamics involved in learning. However, Adorno and Becker arrive at a position that is close to self-contradictory, unable to solve the paradox inherent in the idea of an education that is at once authoritative and non-conformist. This might arise from their failure to reflect on the nature of their own dialogue, and it is suggested that friendship offers the social model of a dynamic relationship of the type they sought to articulate. Despite the fact that the discussion took place in 1969, in a climate of educational debate radically different from today’s, their work raises issues and poses questions of the profoundest importance 30 years on. (shrink)

The paper assesses Knowledge Management Maturity(KMM) in the universities to determine the impact of knowledge management on performance excellence. This study was applied on Al-Azhar University and Al-Quds Open University in Gaza strip, Palestine. This paper depends on Asian productivity organization model that used to assess KMM. Second dimension which assess performance excellence was developed by the authors. The controlled sample was (610). Several statistical tools were used for data analysis and hypotheses testing, including reliability Correlation using Cronbach’s alpha, “ANOVA”, (...) Simple Linear Regression and Step Wise Regression. The overall findings of the current study suggest that KMM is suitable for measuring performance excellence. KMM assessment shows that both universities maturity level is in level three. Findings also support the main hypothesis and it is sub- hypotheses. The most important factors effecting performance excellence are: Processes, KM leadership, People, KM Outcomes. Furthermore the current study is unique by the virtue of its nature, scope and way of implied investigation, as it is the first comparative study in the universities of Palestine explores the status of KMM using the Asian productivity Model. (shrink)

The notion of intentionality is what Franz Brentano is best known for. But disagreements and misunderstandings still surround his account of its nature. In this paper, I argue that Brentano’s mature account of the nature of intentionality construes it, not as a two-place relation between a subject and an object, nor as a three-place relation between a subject’s act, its object, and a ‘content,’ but as an altogether non-relational, intrinsic property of subjects. I will argue that the view is more (...) defensible than might initially appear. (shrink)

This chapter extends biogenetic structural theory to a consideration of the biopsychological principles underlying higher phases of consciousness, particularly those attained by the systematic exploration of consciousness called contemplation. The concepts of psychic energy, flow, centeredness, energy circulation, and dreambody are explored as presented in various mystical traditions, and a model of the underlying neurophysiology is presented in terms of ergotropic-trophotropic tuning. The psychophysiology of various forms of meditation together with emergent peak experiences is examined and integrated into the ergotropic-trophotropic (...) tuning model. Structural invariance of ergotropic-trophotropic tuning as well as invariant aspects of contemplation across different cultures and associated with different symbol systems is considered. Finally the nature and implications of Void Consciousness, God Consciousness, or Abssolute Unitary Being are examined. (shrink)

This essay investigates how Leibniz and Daniel Ernst Jablonski handled the ironing out of intra-protestant religious differences, notably on predestination in the years ca. 1697-1702. I shall be focusing on the recently published union document between the Lutherans of Hanover and the Calvinists of Brandenburg, entitled the Unvorgreiffliches Bedencken (hereafter UB) and on the equally recently published and hitherto practically unknown Meditationes pacatae de praedestinatione et gratia, fato et libero arbitrio of 1701-ca. 1706 2. This is a series of Leibniz’s (...) annotations on Jablonski’s Latin translation of article 17 (predestination) of the bishop of Salisbury, Gilbert Burnet’s Exposition of the 39 Articles of the Church of England. I shall try to show how the issue of predestination is handled in the UB by Leibniz and how his notes on the Meditationes complement and modify Jablonski’s Latin edition of the 17th article of Burnet’s Exposition the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. This will enable us to isolate the set of theological problems faced by the Lutheran and Calvinist participants in the negotium irenicum of 1697 -1702 and to point to the specific nature of the solutions proposed by Leibniz which were philosophical rather than theological. The underlying issue here is that of coexistence of philosophy and theology in Leibniz’s system. Indeed, one of the persistent questions about this philosopher concerns the exact relationship between his metaphysics (including physics and mathematics) and his theological views: which determined which? I hope to take the debate further here by analysing Leibniz’s contribution to the specifically theological issue of predestination, which, it will emerge, has direct bearing on Leibniz’s Essais de théodicée of 1710. (shrink)

This essay investigates how Leibniz and Daniel Ernst Jablonski handled the ironing out of intra-protestant religious differences, notably on predestination in the years ca. 1697-1702. I shall be focusing on the recently published union document between the Lutherans of Hanover and the Calvinists of Brandenburg, entitled the Unvorgreiffliches Bedencken (hereafter UB) and on the equally recently published and hitherto practically unknown Meditationes pacatae de praedestinatione et gratia, fato et libero arbitrio of 1701-ca. 1706 2. This is a series of Leibniz’s (...) annotations on Jablonski’s Latin translation of article 17 (predestination) of the bishop of Salisbury, Gilbert Burnet’s Exposition of the 39 Articles of the Church of England. I shall try to show how the issue of predestination is handled in the UB by Leibniz and how his notes on the Meditationes complement and modify Jablonski’s Latin edition of the 17th article of Burnet’s Exposition the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England. This will enable us to isolate the set of theological problems faced by the Lutheran and Calvinist participants in the negotium irenicum of 1697 -1702 and to point to the specific nature of the solutions proposed by Leibniz which were philosophical rather than theological. The underlying issue here is that of coexistence of philosophy and theology in Leibniz’s system. Indeed, one of the persistent questions about this philosopher concerns the exact relationship between his metaphysics (including physics and mathematics) and his theological views: which determined which? I hope to take the debate further here by analysing Leibniz’s contribution to the specifically theological issue of predestination, which, it will emerge, has direct bearing on Leibniz’s Essais de théodicée of 1710. (shrink)

This article attempts to historically reconstruct the phenomenological critique of psychoanalysis in order to establish a new framework of understanding psychoanalytic theory and practice, given the need for a new phenomenological justification of psychoanalysis as a special intersubjective experience of the analyst-analysand interaction. At the beginning of the twentieth century, a number of phenomenologically oriented psy- chotherapies emerged within Western psychiatry. All of them were more or less influenced or exist in polemics with psychoanalytic teaching and relied primarily on phenomenology (...) in its broadest sense. First of all, we should mention such eminent psychiatrists as Eugene Minkowski, who created the original project of phenomenological existential psychopathology, and also Ludwig Binswanger with his existential, or Dasein-analytical anthropology. All these attempts in one way or another correspond to the general attitude of phenomenology to the critique of psychologism, and ultimately to naturalism of any kind. Therefore, their critique of psychoanalysis is primarily destructive, and psychoanalysis itself serves as one of the distinct examples of naturalistic reductionism of the highest type. These all leads to the rejection of psychoanalytic theory and practice as scientific, that is, one that is based on the Newtonian and Cartesian mechanistic conception of nature, and therefore makes any anthropology impossible. That is why all the mentioned phenomenological projects of psychotherapy at one time or another positioned themselves as projects of philosophical anthropology in a therapeutic perspective. The latest attempts at the phenomenological discovery of psychoanalysis can be seen as the rehabilitation of Kronfeld’s guidelines for the phenomenological justification of psychoanalytic experience. (shrink)

A short introduction to an endless task -- Hegel and his project -- Hegel contra Kant on philosophical critique and the limits of knowledge -- Transcendental versus linguistic idealism -- The nature and development of will -- Hegel's critique of Kant's moral theory.

Introduction 3 Chapter One: Natural Cognition 11 Chapter Two: Maturational Naturalness 31 Chapter Three: Unnatural Science 83 Chapter Four: Natural Religion 145 Chapter Five: Surprising Consequences 223.

This essay elaborates on my essay, “Confucius’ Complaints and the Analects’ Account of the Good Life,” responding to issues and criticisms raised by Michael Ing and Manyul Im. Ing’s and Im’s critiques most invite reflection on regret, both as it might situate in Confucius’ own life and as it could feature more broadly in developed moral maturity. I consider two modes of regret: regret concerning compromises of conscience and end-of-life regret. The latter can naturally include elements of the former, but (...) may nonetheless have special features not exhausted by it. I argue that the model of Confucius is consistent with versions of both of these forms of regret while also acknowledging that where the Analects is concerned, much of what we might say about regret will inevitably be somewhat speculative. The essay thus dwells in some of the ambiguities suggested by the Analects. (shrink)

Isaiah Berlin viewed value conflict as tragic, as it requires the sacrifice of some values for others. It is a mark of maturity, he thought, to accept this tragic truth. This view raises certain conceptual problems that can be attributed to Berlin’s subtle departures from the German authors (Kant, Schelling, and Hegel) who originated the doctrine of tragic maturity—figures who had, in turn, transformed the earlier idea that enlightenment is a natural and morally neutral process of maturation. Kant moralized the (...) notion of enlightened maturation by portraying it as contingent on our courage to bring it about, such that we are responsible if we remain immature. This theory of maturity rested on the idea, which would have been uncongenial to Berlin, that we are intelligible creatures inhabiting the noumenal realm, duty bound to exercise moral freedom, even though this duty surpasses our ability to carry it out, as we also inhabit the phenomenal realm, where our natural inclinations tend to make us resist laboring to fulfill our duties. However, according to Kant, the metaphysical limitations we face as individuals can be transcended to an extent, allowing us to make moral progress as a species—so long as we do not lazily persist in our immaturity. Schelling built upon Kant’s notion of freedom to bring out the tragic and heroic dimension of individual moral life, where the tragedy is our doomed but noble struggle to exert moral freedom in a world of natural necessity. Hegel turned these metaphysical notions in a more recognizably Berlinian direction by extending Schelling’s account of tragic conflict to conflicts of values. But he identified the ultimate tragic hero as an ethical totality that enacts eternal justice by reconciling such conflicts, while Berlin attempted to repudiate both the notion of a historical totality and the possibility of reconciliation on empirical grounds, even though these are metaphysical claims. Thus, Berlin asserted the absolute, trans-historical necessity of tragic value conflict, while the evidence for this assertion was merely his personal conviction that in his particular time and place, specific values were, as a matter of empirical fact, tragically irreconcilable. In this manner he illicitly portrayed Cold War value pluralists (such as himself) as courageously accepting the tragic inevitability of value conflict, while Marxists, the legatees of Hegel and thus German Idealism, immaturely shrank from this reality by embracing the fantasy of total reconciliation. (shrink)

Robert McCauley's Why Religion Is Natural and Science Is Not provides a summary interpretive statement of the standard model in cognitive science of religion, what I have previously called the HADD + ToM + Cultural Epidemiology model, along with a more general argument comparing religious cognition to scientific thinking and a novel framework for understanding both in terms of the concept of the maturationally natural. I here follow up on some observations made in a previous paper, developing them in light (...) of McCauley's own response to my previous arguments. (shrink)

Drawing on the results of modem psychology and cognitive science we suggest that the traditional theory of concepts is no longer tenable, and that the alternative account proposed by Kuhn may now be seen to have independent empirical support quite apart from its success as part of an account of scientific change. We suggest that these mechanisms can also be understood as special cases of general cognitive structures revealed by cognitive science. Against this background, incommensurability is not an insurmountable obstacle (...) to accepting Kuhn's position, as many philosophers of science still believe. Rather it becomes a natural consequence of cognitive structures that appear in all human beings. (shrink)

The identification of regularities in time-dependent functional structures leads to turn patterns, observed according to a given time resolution, into functional attractors on which it is first possible to found any complex system. Rationality is introduced under the form of probabilities for functions to make up a given attractor beyond the first rough descriptive pattern. These physically characterized attractors are the medium enabling the definition of value as an extension of the Prospect Theory overall utility, considering that the actions produced (...) by their functions are outcomes which are modulated by PT psychological value functions and an operational value appears naturally as an optimization taking account of diminishing sensitivity to action efficiency. Nevertheless, this diminishing sensitivity, when applied to negative actions, introduces also a bias of negative externalities underestimation. An attractor-based complex system evolution in an industrial context is described according to Manufacturing Readiness Level and to the main milestones of an industrial project, corresponding to singular points of maturity expressed in terms of probability—or decision—weighting, up to the system release to the market. So, a maturity assessment heuristics is proposed both for the system development and for its marketing. The supply and demand law is established, highlighting that the ideal case of a purely mature economy can be a good approximation reducing the complexity of the exchanges analysis. Equilibria are discussed as depending on an initial point from which the usual Gaussian probability distribution and a speculative weight qualify equilibrium. (shrink)

Essays that put noted political thinkers of the past—including Plato, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Wollstonecraft, Marx, and Confucius—in dialogue with current environmental political theory. Contemporary environmental political theory considers the implications of the environmental crisis for such political concepts as rights, citizenship, justice, democracy, the state, race, class, and gender. As the field has matured, scholars have begun to explore connections between Green Theory and such canonical political thinkers as Plato, Machiavelli, Locke, and Marx. The essays in this volume put important figures (...) from the political theory canon in dialogue with current environmental political theory. It is the first comprehensive volume to bring the insights of Green Theory to bear in reinterpreting these canonical theorists. Individual essays cover such classical figures in Western thought as Aristotle, Hume, Rousseau, Mill, and Burke, but they also depart from the traditional canon to consider Mary Wollstonecraft, W. E. B. Du Bois, Hannah Arendt, and Confucius. Engaging and accessible, the essays also offer original and innovative interpretations that often challenge standard readings of these thinkers. In examining and explicating how these great thinkers of the past viewed the natural world and our relationship with nature, the essays also illuminate our current environmental predicament. Essays on Plato • Aristotle • Niccolò Machiavelli • Thomas Hobbes • John Locke • David Hume • Jean-Jacques Rousseau • Edmund Burke • Mary Wollstonecraft • John Stuart Mill • Karl Marx • W. E. B. Du Bois • Martin Heidegger • Hannah Arendt • Confucius Contributors Sheryl D. Breen, W. Scott Cameron, Peter F. Cannavò, Joel Jay Kassiola, Joseph H. Lane Jr. Timothy W. Luke, John M. Meyer, Özgüç Orhan, Barbara K. Seeber, Francisco Seijo, Kimberly K. Smith, Piers H. G. Stephens, Zev Trachtenberg, Andrew Valls, Harlan Wilson. (shrink)

Humans have a much longer juvenile period (weaning to first reproduction, 14 or more years) than their closest relatives (chimpanzees, 8 years). Three explanations are prominent in the literature. (a) Humans need the extra time to learn their complex subsistence techniques. (b) Among mammals, since length of the juvenile period bears a constant relationship to adult lifespan, the human juvenile period is just as expected. We therefore only need to explain the elongated adult lifespan, which can be explained by the (...) opportunity for older individuals to increase their fitness by providing for grandchildren. (c) The recent model by Kaplan and colleagues suggests that longevity and investment in "embodied capital" will coevolve, and that the need to learn subsistence technology contributed to selection for our extended lifespan.We report experiments designed to test the first explanation: human subsistence technology takes many years to learn, and spending more time learning it gives reproductive benefits that outweight lost time. Taking away some of this time should lead to deficits in efficiency. We paid Hadza foragers to participate in tests of important subsistence skills. We compared efficiency of males and females at digging tubers. They differ greatly in time spent practicing digging but show no difference in efficiency. Children who lost "bush experience" by spending years in boarding school performed no worse at digging tubers or target archery than those who had spent their entire lives in the bush. Climbing baobab trees, an important and dangerous skill, showed no change with age among those who attempted it. We could show no effects of practice time.These findings do not support what we label "the practice theory," but we discuss ways in which the theory could be defended; for example, some as-yet-untested skill may be greatly impaired by loss of a few years of the juvenile period. Our data also show that it is not safe to assume that increases in skill with age are entirely due to learning or practice; they may instead be due to increases in size and strength. (shrink)

Wittgenstein’s “Lectures on Religious Belief” (LRB) provide a source for as yet unexplored connections to religious ideas as treated in Robert N. McCauley’s book Why Religion is Natural and Science is Not (2013), and to other CSR scholars who focus attention on how “cognitively speaking it is religion that is natural and science that is largely unnatural.” Tensions are explored in this paper between our “maturationally natural” religious inclinations to adopt religious ideas and the “unnatural” demands sometimes made upon people, (...) either a) by imposition of evidentialist norms over religious utterances, or b) by an agent’s adherence to perceived demands of theological correctness and to a particularly demanding conception of genuine or authentic faith. Wittgenstein uses Bertrand Russell and Father O'Hara to articulate these two tensions, and to offer alternatives which to some degree assuage them. I argue that such tensions are not only illuminating of the more and less helpful models of the relationship between reason and faith, but also open up new research questions which connect contemporary CSR and Wittgensteinian (or more broadly Continental) approaches to philosophy of religion. (shrink)

When mature minors face a decision with important consequences, such as whether to undergo a risky but potentially life-saving medical procedure, who should decide? Relying on liberal political theory’s account of the importance of decisional autonomy for adults, and given the scalar nature of the capacities needed to exercise decisional autonomy, I argue that mature minors with the requisite capacities and commitments have a right to decisional autonomy though they are not yet 18. I argue for this right using a (...) ‘balancing of interest’ account of rights: the interest mature minors have in decisional autonomy outweighs their parents’ interest in shaping their children as a means of ‘creative self-extension’. But I propose two limitations on this right: requests for waivers of the rule that one must be at least 18 to decide cannot be so numerous as to make adjudication impractical; and though a competent adult’s voluntary decision to refuse medical treatment should generally be respected, the state may reject a mature minor’s decision upon review by an indifferent judge of the minor’s capacities and reasons. The judge reviews not the substantive merits or prudence of the decision, but whether the decision promotes the interest in decisional autonomy, by asking among other things whether the decision is the minor’s own, is tethered to core commitments rather than based on arbitrary preferences, and could be regarded as reasonable to the minor’s ‘future self’. (shrink)

There has been a renewed interest of late in the thought of Henry of Ghent.1 Scholars have recognized that Henry was an influential figure at the University of Paris in the late-thirteenth century and that his influence extended well past his own generation. It is also widely acknowledged that Henry's thought developed significantly over the span of his career.2 The critical edition of Henry's works has proven to be crucial in assessing this development.3 Nonetheless there is little consensus on the (...) nature of the development, particularly with respect to his theory of cognition. One reason for the diversity of opinions is that no single trend can be identified in his doctrine as a whole; rather, distinct .. (shrink)

A reassessment of the influence of John Dewey's mature work, especially "Experience and Nature" on recent trends in cognitive science.

This edition aims to make Cavendish's most mature philosophical work more accessible to students and scholars of the period. Grounds of Natural Philosophy is important not only because it is Cavendish's final articulation of her metaphysics, but also because it succinctly outlines her fundamental views on 'the nature of nature'--or the base substance and mechanics of all natural matter--and vividly demonstrates her probabilistic approach to philosophical enquiry. Moreover, Grounds spends considerable time discussing the human body, including the functions of the (...) mind, a topic of growing interest to both historians of philosophy and literary scholars. This Broadview Edition opens to modern readers a vibrant, unique, and provocative voice of the past that challenges our standard view of seventeenth-century English philosophy. (shrink)

Today, in any mature information society, we live neither online nor offline but on life, that is, we increasingly live in that special space that is both analogue and digital, both online and offline. Imagine someone asking whether the water is fresh or salty in the estuary where the river meets the sea. That someone has not understood the special nature of the place. Our information society is that place. And our technologies are perfectly evolved to take advantage of it, (...) like mangroves growing in brackish water. In the mangrove society, machine-readable data, new forms of agency and interactions are constantly evolving. The consequences of such a radical transformation are many, but one is particularly significant and rich in consequences: how should we design the mangrove society, when it comes to the relationship between the natural and the digital? In this text, I argue that the digital blue is a great ally of the environmental green. The two work best in tandem. And if the world will enjoy a sustainable development for the environment that is also socially preferable for humanity, it will be because the green and the blue will have created a virtuous circle of nature and technology. It can be done. There is just no time to waste. (shrink)

The discovery of a novel polypeptide (Islet Amyloid Polypeptide: IAPP) isolated from human and cat islet amyloid and from amyloid of a human insulinoma is reviewed. Structurally, IAPP from the human and cat resembles calcitonin gene‐related peptide (CGRP). The structural similarities between the neuropeptide CGRP and IAPP support the premise that IAPP is hormonal in nature. Our immunohistochemical studies also indicate that normal islet B‐cells of several mammalian species (including man and cat) give strong immunoreactivity with antiserum directed to a (...) synthetic peptide segment of IAPP. The fact that IAPP is deposited as amyloid in the pancreatic islets of type 2 (noninsulin‐dependent) diabetics strongly supports an important but yet unknown link between IAPP and the development of this disease. (shrink)

Natural Right and History is widely recognized as Strauss’s most influential work. The six lectures, written while Strauss was at the New School, and a full transcript of the 1949 Walgreen Lectures show Strauss working toward the ideas he would present in fully matured form in his landmark work. In them, he explores natural right and the relationship between modern philosophers and the thought of the ancient Greek philosophers, as well as the relation of political philosophy to contemporary political science (...) and to major political and historical events, especially the Holocaust and World War II. Previously unpublished in book form, Strauss’s lectures are presented here in a thematic order that mirrors Natural Right and History and with interpretive essays by J. A. Colen, Christopher Lynch, Svetozar Minkov, Daniel Tanguay, Nathan Tarcov, and Michael Zuckert that establish their relation to the work. Rounding out the book are copious annotations and notes to facilitate further study. (shrink)

This thesis is an investigation of Edith Stein’s later philosophical works with respect to the question of the human person to reveal in what way she engages with the thought of Thomas Aquinas while continuing to practice philosophy according to the phenomenological method of investigation. The investigation is focused primarily upon the confluence of understanding found in two of Stein’s later works, Endliches und ewiges Sein and Der Aufbau der menschlichen Person, with supplementary reference also made to Potenz und Akt. (...) Through an examination of these works under the themes of human nature, the human individual, and the human being’s relation to God, I show that Stein’s mature anthropology is expanded and augmented through her assimilation of certain anthropological and metaphysical teachings of Aquinas, namely, the classical definition of the person, the substantial unity of human nature and the soul as form of the body, and the analogy of being understood as an analogy of proportionality. Conversely, I show that Stein’s engagement with the thought of Aquinas, while simultaneously performing an independent phenomenological investigation of the human person, leads to a fundamental substantiation and development of these same received anthropological and metaphysical teachings. I propose that this complementary process of assimilation and development—a process I describe as a ‘progressive incorporation’ of the ‘conceptual apparatuses’ of Aquinas—leads to a significant reinterpretation of the conceptual content of each received teaching, a reinterpretation that I identify as a fundamental ‘personalization’ of the metaphysical anthropology of Aquinas brought about through Stein’s distinctively phenomenological perspective. Throughout the investigation, I seek to highlight the deep accord in the mature thought of Stein with the received teachings of Aquinas while also attending to any outstanding disagreements, most notably those regarding the formal structure of human nature, and formal bases of the individual being of the human being. Finally, I suggest that Stein can to a limited degree be read as a ‘Thomist’, if by ‘Thomist’ one understands a living philosophical confrontation with central Thomistic theses towards their clarification and development; and, moreover, that Stein’s mature anthropology can to a limited degree be understood as a ‘Thomistic anthropology’, inasmuch as it contains central Thomistic teachings now reinterpreted through their distinctive ‘personalization’. (shrink)

Life is supported by a myriad of chemical reactions. To describe the overall process we have formulated entropy for an open system undergoing chemical reactions. The entropy formula allows us to recognize various ways for the system to move towards more probable states. These correspond to the basic processes of life i.e. proliferation, differentiation, expansion, energy intake, adaptation and maturation. We propose that the rate of entropy production by various mechanisms is the fitness criterion of natural selection. The quest for (...) more probable states results in organization of matter in functional hierarchies. (shrink)

In the field of ʿUlūm al-Qurʾān, in which the conceptual framework of the science of interpretation is drawn and the main rules used in tafsīr are discussed, independent books have been compiled since early periods. Some of these works stand out as foundational texts because they make important determinations about the nature, function, methodology, and relationship of the science of tafsīr with other Islamic sciences. The masterpiece entitled Fahm al-Qurʾān by al-Khāris al-Muhāsibī, a scholar of sufism, tafsīr, kalām, and hadīth (...) is one of these books. Al-Muḥāsibī was a writer who lived in a period when philological and Sharīʿah sciences gained a systematic structure and schools were born and developed. Muhāsib'i's multifaceted scholarly depth, the requirements of his time, and the characteristics of his work distinguish Fahm al-Qurʾān from other works in the field in terms of its problematic, content, and style. It can be said that Fahm al-Qurʾān consists of two main chapters. In the first chapter, the issues of kalām, meaning, and reason are subjected to a quiddity inquiry. In the second chapter, the linguistic aspect of kalām is emphasized and the content and style of the Qur'ān are discussed under the headings of muhkam- mutashābih, naskh and üslūb al-Qur'ān. In this work, al-Muḥāsibī suggests that before asking How we should understand the Qur'ān?, the reader should ask What exactly is being understood and what is meaning? The first of these questions includes the question Who am I? While the sources of The Sciences of the Qurʾān mostly focus on how to understand the Qurʾān at the epistemological and methodological level, in Fahm al- Qurʾān, the meaning of understanding the Qurʾān is problematized and a theory of reason and meaning that is competent with moral training is built. Thus, the conceptual inquiries of the work extend to the existential philosophy of the author. Despite these privileges, it is surprising that Fahm al-Qurʾān did not gain a prominent place among the main sources of tafsir methodology in later periods. This may be due to the theorization of a theory of meaning in which moral maturation is placed at the center. In this research, while trying to reveal the original value that Muhāsibī added to the field with Fahm al-Qurʾān, the systematic structure of the science of interpretation, its connection with other religious sciences, the relationship between speech adjective and language were made problematic and tried to be resolved in the context of the research hypothesis. In this context, it has been determined that al-Muḥāsibī's Fahm al-Qurʾān draws the conceptual framework of tafsīr methodology in relation to the authentic structure of the sharī'ah sciences at a very early period. The fact that Fahm al-Qurʾān carries important signs regarding the position of tafsīr in the hierarchy of sciences and its relationship with other sharī'ah sciences increases the value of the work in identifying the codes of the traditional paradigm. In the research, in which induction methods were used in text analysis and deduction methods were used in discourse analysis, it was determined that Fahm al-Qurʾān had a fiction that shapes the traditional paradigm and depicts the authentic structure of religious sciences. (shrink)

Natural Right and History is widely recognized as Strauss’s most influential work. The six lectures, written while Strauss was at the New School, and a full transcript of the 1949 Walgreen Lectures show Strauss working toward the ideas he would present in fully matured form in his landmark work. In them, he explores natural right and the relationship between modern philosophers and the thought of the ancient Greek philosophers, as well as the relation of political philosophy to contemporary political science (...) and to major political and historical events, especially the Holocaust and World War II. Previously unpublished in book form, Strauss’s lectures are presented here in a thematic order that mirrors Natural Right and History and with interpretive essays by J. A. Colen, Christopher Lynch, Svetozar Minkov, Daniel Tanguay, Nathan Tarcov, and Michael Zuckert that establish their relation to the work. Rounding out the book are copious annotations and notes to facilitate further study. (shrink)

Do experiences with nature –– from wilderness backpacking to plants in a preschool to a wetland lesson on frogs, promote learning? Until recently, claims outstripped evidence on this question. But the field has matured, not only substantiating previously unwarranted claims but deepening our understanding of the cause-and-effect relationship between nature and learning. Hundreds of studies now bear on this question, and converging evidence strongly suggests that experiences of nature boost academic learning, personal development, and environmental stewardship. This brief integrative review (...) summarizes recent advances and the current state of our understanding. The research on personal development and environmental stewardship is compelling although not quantitative. Report after report –– from independent observers as well as participants themselves –– indicate shifts in perseverance, problem-solving, critical thinking, leadership, teamwork, and resilience. Similarly, over fifty studies point to nature playing a key role in the development of pro-environmental behavior, particularly by fostering an emotional connection to nature. In academic contexts, nature-based instruction outperforms traditional instruction. The evidence here is particularly strong, including experimental evidence; evidence across a wide range of samples and instructional approaches; outcomes such as standardized test scores and graduation rates; and evidence for specific explanatory mechanisms and active ingredients. Nature may promote learning by improving learners’ attention, levels of stress, self-discipline, interest, and enjoyment in learning, and physical activity and fitness. Nature also appears to provide a calmer, quieter, safer context for learning; a warmer, more cooperative context for learning; and a combination of “loose parts” and autonomy that fosters developmentally beneficial forms of play. It is time to take nature seriously as a resource for learning — particularly for students not effectively reached by traditional instruction. (shrink)

Hegel's natural philosophy is an integral part of his objective idealist philosophical system, is his encyclopedic narration of all the achievements in the natural sciences attained up to the early years of the nineteenth century. Only after a long process of distillation did he tie together his philosophy of thought and of natural science to establish his rich and comprehensive natural philosophy. His On the Orbits of the Planets , written to secure his teaching credentials for the University of Jena, (...) marked the opening phase in the process of the formation of his philosophical thought on nature. Hegel's Philosophical Manuscripts written at the University of Jena and his Philosophy Primer compiled at the Gymnasium in Nuremberg represent his important transitional middle period. Part II of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy , from his lectures at the University of Heidelberg, was his already distilled and mature Natural Philosophy. (shrink)

Religion has to do with one's total response to the universe. Mature religion involves a healthy skepticism, a sense of humor, and a respect for persons, accepting only internal gods, and basing itself on the rational processes of scientific thinking. Intertwining with this statement is an attempted analysis of the nature and sources of "immature," "heard" religion, presented in a dogmatic manner--K. P. F.

This paper offers an imminent interpretation of Kant's political teleology in the context of his response to Moses Mendelssohn in Theory and Practice III concerning prospects of humankind's moral progress. The paper assesses the nature of Kant's response against his mature political philosophy in the Doctrine of Right . In `Theory and Practice III' Kant's response to Mendelssohn remains incomplete: whilst insisting that individuals have a duty to contribute towards humankind's moral progress, Kant has no conclusive answer as to how (...) individuals might act on that duty. `Theory and Practice III' lacks a clear conception of the distinctness of political morality from the domain of virtue; Kant's resort to teleological argumentation is indicative of his lack of an account of instituting Right. The latter can be found in the Doctrine of Right —yet Kant's earlier teleological arguments contribute crucially to the development of his mature morality of Right. Key Words: inborn duty • moral progress • political teleology • principles of Right. (shrink)

The author defends the naturalizing program of the notion of representation against the primitivist view according to which the notion of representation as belonging to psychology as a mature science is irreducible. First, the author concedes that the original teleological project trivializes the concept of representation by applying it to bacteria, protozoa, amoeba, when the best available explanation is the assumption that primitive organisms and artifacts are merely indicating proximal stimulation rather than representing the distal causes of stimulation. Yet, the (...) author does not believe that this presents an unsurmountable obstacle for the naturalizing program when what is in question is genuine sensory representation, namely perception. In the author’s view, what matters for the naturalizing program are not cases in which the concept of representation is misemployed, but rather cases in which the focus is genuine sensory representation, that is, genuine perceptions; or so he shall argue. (shrink)

Kant was centrally concerned with issues in the philosophy of natural science throughout his career. The Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science presents his most mature reflections on these themes in the context of both his 'critical' philosophy, presented in the Critique of Pure Reason, and the natural science of his time. This volume presents a new translation, by Michael Friedman, which is especially clear and accurate. There are explanatory notes indicating some of the main connections between the argument of the (...) Metaphysical Foundations and the first Critique - as well as parallel connections to Newton's Principia. The volume is completed by an historical and philosophical introduction and a guide to further reading. (shrink)

Natural philosophy encompassed all natural phenomena of the physical world. It sought to discover the physical causes of all natural effects and was little concerned with mathematics. By contrast, the exact mathematical sciences were narrowly confined to various computations that did not involve physical causes, functioning totally independently of natural philosophy. Although this began slowly to change in the late Middle Ages, a much more thoroughgoing union of natural philosophy and mathematics occurred in the seventeenth century and thereby made the (...) Scientific Revolution possible. The title of Isaac Newton's great work, The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, perfectly reflects the new relationship. Natural philosophy became the 'Great Mother of the Sciences', which by the nineteenth century had nourished the manifold chemical, physical, and biological sciences to maturity, thus enabling them to leave the 'Great Mother' and emerge as the multiplicity of independent sciences we know today. (shrink)

Establishing a precise definition of moral innocence is a difficult task. Ordinarily philosophers explore the necessary and sufficient conditions of a term or concept in order to determine its meaning. Doing so with “moral innocence” proves difficult because the concept is mutable. The term is used in varying contexts to refer to ignorance, naiveté, sexual inexperience, legal and moral culpability, noncombatants in war, and moral purity. For our present purposes, we can exclude the contexts of law and war because they (...) are too specialized to aid us in identifying the commonalities present in the more general uses of the term. Once we take the other common uses into consideration—ignorance, naiveté, and sexual inexperience—a shared feature surfaces. Each of these conditions of character or states of being is a mode of immaturity. Now we are impelled to ask: what are the qualities of this immaturity? More specifically, what are the features of moral immaturity? To answer this question, the first section of this chapter argues that moral innocence ought to be interpreted in terms of illusion and inability. The innocent hold certain illusions about the moral order that make them unable to engage in practices constitutive of the moral community. Specifically, the morally innocent falsely believe that a life of moral purity—that is, a life devoid of wrongdoing—is possible to achieve. This illusion is based on the following three elements characteristic of an immature and rudimentary understanding of moral interaction: the belief that human nature has only a propensity for goodness; the belief that following ethical rules is sufficient to avoid transgressing moral values; and, the inability to see oneself as a perpetual source of wrongdoing. The subsequent sections establish why each of these elements hinders the development of a realistic and mature moral acumen. We will proceed by examining the thought of two figures in the history of philosophy who have not previously been associated with the notion of moral innocence, and yet through the present analysis and interpretation can provide insight into its nature. First, Immanuel Kant’s theory of radical evil demonstrates that the human propensity to evil is so pervasive that it is, practically speaking, unavoidable. Therefore, to believe that one can avoid acting upon temptations to evil is self-deception. The final section engages in a thorough analysis of Søren Kierkegaard’s philosophy and interprets it in a new way as a theory of moral maturity. The morally mature individual is one who questions ethical rules and who, through self-reflection, recognizes herself as a potential source of wrongdoing. As a result of these arguments, we will identify rule-questioning, self-reflection, and locating wrongdoing in terms of one’s own agency as essential features of moral maturity. We will determine the essential characteristics of moral innocence by examining its positive attributes before establishing it as a negative counterpart to moral maturity. (shrink)

The hypothesis that father absence during childhood, as well as other forms of childhood psychosocial stress, might influence the timing of sexual maturity and adult reproductive behaviors has been the focus of considerable research. However, the majority of studies that have examined this prediction have used samples of women of European descent living in industrialized, low-fertility nations. This paper tests the father-absence hypothesis using the Cape Area Panel Study (CAPS), which samples young adults in Cape Town, South Africa. The sample (...) contains multiple racial groups (blacks, coloureds [mixed race], and whites) and includes both males and females. Dependent variables include age at menarche, age at first sexual intercourse, and age at first pregnancy. Childhood stress is measured by father absence by age six (either never lived with father or lived with father some but not all years) and an index of childhood exposure to violence (measuring threatened or actual verbal or physical abuse). The hypothesis received no support for effect on age at menarche but was supported for age at first sex and first pregnancy. The model showed stronger support for coloureds and whites than blacks and had no predictive power at all for black males. (shrink)

In this article, we first present the platform and the Dislog language, designed for discourse analysis with a logic and linguistic perspective. The platform has now reached a certain level of maturity which allows the recognition of a large diversity of discourse structures including general-purpose rhetorical structures as well as domain-specific discourse structures. The Dislog language is based on linguistic considerations and includes knowledge access and inference capabilities. Functionalities of the language are presented together with a method for writing discourse (...) analysis rules. Efficiency and portability of the system over domains and languages are investigated to conclude this first part. In a second part, we analyse the different types of arguments found in several document genres, most notably: procedures, didactic texts and requirements. Arguments form a large class of discourse relations. A generic and frequently encountered form emerges from our analysis: ?reasons for conclusion? which constitutes a homogeneous family of arguments from a language, functional and conceptual point of view. This family can be viewed as a kind of proto-argument. We then elaborate its linguistic structure and show how it is implemented in . We then investigate the cooperation between explanation and arguments, in particular in didactic texts where they are particularly rich and elaborated. This article ends with a prospective section that develops current and potential uses of this work and how it can be extended to the recognition of other forms of arguments. (shrink)

Compromise is a pervasive fact of life. It occurs when obligations conflict and repudiating one obligation entirely to satisfy another entirely is unacceptable—for example, when a single parent cannot both raise a child satisfactorily and earn the income that living together demands. Compromise is unsettling, but properly negotiating difficult circumstances develops moral and emotional maturity. Yet compromise has no place in moral philosophy, where it is logically anathematized and deemed to violate integrity. This paper defends compromise with more expansive accounts (...) of reason and integrity that comport with our finite moral agency and infuse our moral lives. (shrink)

This contribution is aimed at some provocation by questioning the basic assumptions of current development discourse. It asks for conceptual clarification and differentiation on the meaning of various process terms. It needs to be recognised that the word development remains a metaphor than can indeed be extended but can also become over-extended and ossified. The concept of development is then contrasted with the process of maturation. It is argued that the concept of maturation is, better able to indicate the final (...) goal of the process than most other process terms, recognises inherent limitations and follows natural cycles better than exponential growth, sustained development or endless progress. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 126-127 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment T. J. Hochstrasser. Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Pp. xiii + 246. Cloth, $54.95. In a worthy addition to Cambridge's Ideas in Context series, T. J. Hochstrasser undertakes an excavation. His aim is to provide a description, and to (...) demonstrate the importance within the German Frühaufklärung, of a largely forgotten philosophical approach: eclecticism. Hochstrasser argues that the triumph of Wolffian rationalism in the Protestant universities in the middle of the eighteenth century occluded the importance of eclecticism for Kant, who in turn occluded it for everyone afterward. But the price of forgetting eclecticism is high. Not only are we left with no account--or a skewed account--of the development of German thought from the first stirrings of the Enlightenment to the emergence of the Critical philosophy, but our understanding of the development of the historiography of philosophy is badly compromised. For among their many accomplishments--in natural jurisprudence, in university reform--the eclectics were the first critical historians of philosophy, their distinctive genres being historically aware treatises on natural law and Whig histories of natural jurisprudence. Hochstrasser's study traces the development of eclecticism, from the work of its founders, Samuel Pufendorf and Christian Thomasius, through a devolution in the hands of Thomasius's later disciples, to the eventual oblivion in the middle of the eighteenth century. This review will focus on the beginning of this narrative, as Pufendorf is the leading figure in the book.Eclecticism began with Pufendorf's attempt, in his mature work on natural law, to reconcile his conflicting inheritances from Grotius and Hobbes without simply endorsing the work of either. He was impressed both by Grotius's explanation of the law of nations in terms of human sociability--but also by Hobbes's criticisms of Grotius, rooted in the latter's analysis of the state of nature. At the same time, he wished to reject Grotius's method of induction from sociological observation and Hobbes's minimally constrained voluntarism. Contributing further to his perplexity was his increasing disaffection from the geometric approach he had adopted in his Elementa Jurisprudentiae Universalis.The way out of this impasse, Hochstrasser contends, was revealed to Pufendorf in correspondence with Hermann Conring, the leading constitutional lawyer of his time, and Johann Böcler, Grotius's most erudite commentator. Böcler chastised Pufendorf for his neglect of history, and both of Pufendorf's correspondents pointed out his need for some non-Hobbesian criterion by which he could validate his first principles, whatever they turned out to be. Stung particularly by Böcler's remarks, Pufendorf returned to the Stoics and there discovered a via media between Hobbes's pessimism and Grotius's optimism: a synthesis anticipating Kant's doctrine of "unsocial sociability." For the purposes of Hochstrasser's study, the key aspects of Pufendorf's solution are these: first, it avoids mere voluntarism; second, it does this by means of a moral epistemology that sharply distinguishes natural law [End Page 126] from moral theology; finally, the validating criterion for Pufendorf's first principles is located in critical appropriation of the history of moral philosophy. These were to be hallmarks of Pufendorf's school.On the first and second points, Hochstrasser seems to me substantively correct, though I think he misunderstands the nature of Pufendorf's escape from mere voluntarism and thereby underplays the religious dimensions of Pufendorf's theory. Among recent Anglo-American commentators on Pufendorf, only Robert Adams has in my view properly construed Pufendorf's thought: that it involves a command theory of obligation proper, but posits the natural advantageousness of some hierarchies as a buttress against mere voluntarism. Hochstrasser is thus right to insist, against Leibniz, that Pufendorf's account of obligation is coherent. But he is wrong to suggest that "there was nothing in Pufendorf's theory... to oblige him to introduce fear of punishment by a superior... " (105). He is... (shrink)

This article takes a ‘naturalistic’ look at the historically changing nature of the individual and its implications for the terms on which democracy might be realized, starting from classical Athens, moving through early debates in evolutionary theory, to contemporary moral and political thought. Generally speaking, liberal democracy sees individuality as the mark of an evolutionarily mature species, whereas socialist democracy sees it as the mark of an evolutionary immature species. Overall, the individual has been ‘de-naturalized’ over time, resulting in the (...) indeterminate figure who thrives in the post-truth condition. (shrink)