G.E. Moore's theory of the nature of the quality referred to by the word good asserts that this quality is non-natural. If it is, further, supposed that this non-natural quality belongs necessarily and exclusively to those events, human acts, entities, etc., which possess certain strictly determined natural qualities, and those qualities only, then it becomes difficult to explain the relation and the supposed interdependence allegedly existing between the two so disparate categories of qualities. This paper purports to show that, in (...) fact, any mutual dependence of natural and non-natural qualities, including the causal one, is unconceivable. To deny this would allow no less but the possibility of deriving an ought from an is. A final consequence of this is that a non-natural quality, denoted by the predicate good, does, in fact, attach to a strictly delineated and limited morally relevant behaviour (and whatever else we may consider morally relevant), and to it only. But it is attached there in randomly; it is contingent, not inherent; it is there without regard to, and not as a consequence of, the natural qualities of what is the subject of moral judgment ... whether we like it or not. (shrink)

We consider${\cal S}$, the class of finite semilattices;${\cal T}$, the class of finite treeable semilattices; and${{\cal T}_m}$, the subclass of${\cal T}$which contains trees with branching bounded bym. We prove that${\cal E}{\cal S}$, the class of finite lattices with linear extensions, is a Ramsey class. We calculate Ramsey degrees for structures in${\cal S}$,${\cal T}$, and${{\cal T}_m}$. In addition to this we give a topological interpretation of our results and we apply our result to canonization of linear orderings on finite semilattices. In (...) particular, we give an example of a Fraïssé class${\cal K}$which is not a Hrushovski class, and for which the automorphism group of the Fraïssé limit of${\cal K}$is not extremely amenable but is uniquely ergodic. (shrink)

Jurisprudence has up until recently largely neglected international law as a subject of philosophizing. The Nature of International Law tries to offset against this deficiency by providing a comprehensive explanatory account of international law. It does so within an analytical tradition, albeit within the one which departs from the nowadays dominant method of the metaphysically-driven conceptual analysis. Instead, it adopts the prototype theory of concepts, which is directed towards determining typical features constitutive of the nature of international law. The book's (...) central finding is that those features are: normativity, institutionalization, coercive guaranteeing, and justice-aptness. Since typical features are context sensitive, their specificities at the international level are further elucidated. The book, finally, challenges the often raised claim that fragmentation is international law's unique feature by demonstrating that international institutional actors, particularly adjudicative ones, largely perceive themselves as officials of a unified legal order. (shrink)

The first part of the paper focuses on the current debate over the universality of human rights. After conceptually distinguishing between different types of universality, it employs Sen’s definition that the claim of a universal value is the one that people anywhere may have reason to see as valuable. When applied to human rights, this standard implies “thin” (relative, contingent) universality, which might be operationally worked-out as in Donnelly’s three-tiered scheme of concepts–conceptions–implementations. The second part is devoted to collective rights, (...) which have recently become a new topic of the human rights debate. This part provides the basis of political–philosophical justification and legal–theoretical conceptualization of collective rights, as rights directly vested in collective entities. The third part dwells on the problem of universality of collective rights. It differentiates between the three main collective entities in international law—peoples, minorities, and indigenous peoples—and investigates whether certain rights vested in these collectives might, according to Sen’s standard, acquire the status of the universal ones. After determining that some rights are, in principle, plausible candidates for such a status in international law, this paper concludes by taking notice of a number of the open issues that still need to be settled, primarily by the cooperative endeavor of international legal scholars and legal theorists. (shrink)

The second Yearbook of the Central East European Forum of Young Legal, Political and Social Theorists aims at reassessing some major legacies of jurisprudence and political philosophy, thereby celebrating one hundred years from the publication of the first important theoretical account of Hans Kelsen - Hauptprobleme der Staatsrechtslehre; the fifty-years anniversary of one of the most important contemporary books in legal theory - Herbert Hart's The Concept of Law; as well as the forty-years heritage of the most influential 20th century (...) account of justice - John Rawls's A Theory of Justice. On this occasion fourteen scholars from Eastern and Central Europe gave their accounts and interpretations of jurisprudential and political philosophical problems that persist or emerge anew in contemporary debates. (shrink)

In this paper the author discusses the conceptions of the subject and the method of the history of philosophy by Hegel, Windelband, Dilthey, Hartmann, and other philosophers of the history of philosophy. The history of philosophy as a philosophical discipline was first connected by Hegel with the very system of philosophy. His history of philosophy was the closing and integrating part of his philosophical system. The critics have accepted the view that Hegel had determined the intrinsic regularity of the historico-philosophical (...) development, but they rejected his identification of logical determinations of the idea with the sequence of appearances of philosophical systems in history. While Hegel followed the history of philosophical systems, Windelband followed the history of philosophical problems and concepts created for the solution of the same problems. Dilthey invented the “method of understanding,” which he applied to all products of cultural creativity of mankind through history. Dilthey substituted life for the Hegelian spirit. The life of the spirit expresses itself in language, religion, morality, art, philosophy and becomes evident only through history. History became by Dilthey the decisive form of the philosophical selfknowledge of man. The aim of Dilthey's spiritual-historical method was to follow the great role of cultural-historical factors in the shaping of philosophical doctrines. Contrary to Dilthey, Hartmann supports the problem-historical method. He was of the opinion that the history of philosophical problems contains the genuine historical continuity of philosophy. The philosophical problem is by nature the linking ring between history and philosophy.The conceptions of history of philosophy by all those philosophers are functionally dependent on their conceptions of philosophy.In addition to discussing the conceptions of the history of philosophy, of those four philosophers, the author also presents his own critical comments. (shrink)

A propositional logic is defined which in addition to propositional language contains a list of probabilistic operators of the form P ≥s (with the intended meaning ‘‘the probability is at least s’’). The axioms and rules syntactically determine that ranges of probabilities in the corresponding models are always finite. The completeness theorem is proved. It is shown that completeness cannot be generalized to arbitrary theories.

This book provides a new and wide-ranging study of law's normativity, examining conceptual, descriptive and empirical dimensions of this perennial philosophical issue. It also contains essays concerned with, among other issues, the relationship between semantic and legal normativity; methodological concerns pertaining to understanding normativity; normativity and legal interpretation; and normativity as it pertains to transnational law. The contributors come not only from the usual Anglo-American and Western European community of legal theorists, but also from Latin American and Eastern European communities, (...) representing a diversity of perspectives and points of view – including essays from both analytic and continental methodologies. With this range of topics, the book will appeal to scholars in transnational law, legal sociology, normative legal philosophy concerned with problems of state legitimacy and practical rationality, as well as those working in general jurisprudence. It comprises a highly important contribution to the study of law's normativity. (shrink)

Starting from the generalized concept of syntactically and semantically trivial differences between two formal theories introduced by Arsenijević, we show that two systems of the linear continuum, the Cantorian point-based system and the Aristotelian interval-based system that satisfies Cantor's coherence condition, are only trivially different. So, the 'great struggle' (to use Cantor's phrase) between the two contending parties turns out to be 'much ado about nothing'.

Canada’s Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) legislation changed in 2021; persons without a reasonably foreseeable natural death (RFND) could now be eligible for MAID and would have to wait at least 90 days before their intervention. This legislative change caused a new ethically complex question to arise, which we explore in this commentary, namely: Where should individuals without a RFND wait (for 90 days) in a publicly funded health system?

This review article discusses the conception of collective rights necessary to ground contemporary entrenchments of minority educational rights, Indigenous rights and collective bargaining rights, as discussed in Miodrag Jovanović’s book, Collective Rights: A Legal Theory. Jovanović argues for a role for value collectivism in elucidating a rationale for the entrenchment of rights held by what he conceives of as pre-legally existing groups with interests not reducible to those of their individual members. This approach can offer an explanation for the (...) entrenchment of minority educational rights and Indigenous rights. The article extols Jovanović’s attempt to grapple with an explanation for rights not explained within standard liberal theory, even in Will Kymlicka’s attempt to justify minority rights within liberalism. The review also critiques the argument offered by Jovanović. First, the review argues that a full-fledged adoption of value collectivism is not necessary to provide a justification for irreducibly collective rights and that the unnecessary adoption of such a theoretical construct may, in practical terms, work counter to the ongoing entrenchment of the rights it seeks to justify, thus becoming what it will categorize as a ‘self-threatening theory’. Second, the review argues that Jovanović’s stark division of rights held by pre-legally existing groups and legally constituted collective entities undermines his account’s ability to explain collective bargaining rights of trade unions that are entrenched in some jurisdictions. (shrink)

This comprehensive and important volume includes contributions by activists, journalists, lawyers and scholars from twenty-one countries. The essays map the directions the movement for women's rights is taking--and will take in the coming decades--and the concomittant transformation of prevailing notions of rights and issues. They address topics such as the rapes in former Yugoslavia and efforts to see that a War Crimes Tribunal responds; domestic violence; trafficking of women into the sex trade; the persecution of lesbians; female genital mutilation; and (...) reproductive rights. (shrink)

Review of Primary Ousia: An Essay on Aristotle's Metaphysics Z and H, by Michael J. Loux (Cornell University Press: 1991).

Professor Bergmann is an original thinker who has for many years wrestled with some of the most important and difficult problems of philosophy. Although at first mainly interested in epistemology, he has gradually come to the conclusion that the fundamental questions of philosophy are ontological and that even epistemology is in the last analysis “the ontology of the knowing process.” He holds that by neglecting the explicit formulation of his ontology, a philosopher courts intellectual disaster because the inadequacies of the (...) ontological foundation are likely to affect all philosophical superstructures built on it. In his last book [1], Bergmann explains some of the main features of his ontology in systematic form and criticizes competing systems, especially those of Brentano and Meinong, by comparing them with his own. In the critical parts of his work he tries to show that the competing ontologies are not adequate to the tasks for which they are intended and why this is so. The constructive and the critical parts supplement each other very well, since Brentano's and Meinong's questions and emphases are similar to Bergmann's. Broadly speaking, he regards his own ontology as a phase in a development of ontological insight which consists, at least negatively, in the gradual elimination of three major errors: nominalism, reism, and representationalism. (shrink)

Liberalizm i svoboda -- Restrikt︠s︡ionizm i ogranichenie -- Liberal-restrikt︠s︡ionizm i garmonicheskai︠a︡ t︠s︡ivilizat︠s︡ii︠a︡.

Supercommentary on Jayatīrtha's R̥gbhāṣyaṭīkā, which in turn is a supercommentary on Madhva's R̥gbhāṣya, setting forth the Dvaita point of view in Hindu philosophy.

On the Viśiṣṭādvaita philosophy of Rāmānuja, 1017-1137.

Biography of Madhva, 13th cent. Hindu religious leader and founder of Mādhva sect.

Contributed articles on relations in Indian philosophy and Sanskrit grammar.

This study investigates the variations in the quality and comprehensiveness of 104 corporate social responsibility reports published by the world’s largest financial institutions in 2012. Using a novel measure of CSR report quality, we examine the impact of certain national, legal, and firm-level factors that might explain differences in the overall quality and extent of coverage of various issues in these reports. Our findings show that legal factors and CSR environment in a firm’s country of headquarters play an important role (...) in firms’ CSR reporting quality. Common law countries exhibit systematically higher overall CSR reporting quality than code law countries. Countries with higher CSR standards, policies, and regulations in place also produce significantly higher quality CSR reports. Firm size, on the other hand, has no major impact on the overall quality of CSR reports. In further analysis of the individual aspects of CSR disclosures, namely environment, philanthropy, bribery and corruption, and integrity assurance, we document that larger firms report at a higher quality on philanthropy and bribery and corruption. Bribery and corruption is reported at a higher quality in countries with common law tradition, high-quality legal regimes, and high CSR standards and regulations in place. We also observe higher quality integrity assurance in common law countries. CSR-minded countries and countries with low-quality legal environment also report on philanthropy at a higher quality. Finally, we offer guidelines for companies toward improving the quality of their reports, and suggestions for scholars and researchers for further avenues of research. (shrink)

A brief presentation of the major conclusions contained in the recently published monograph entitled "The Ascent to Law: Searches and Solutions," written over a period of many years. Chapter headings are: The law - an objective reality. The dogma of the law. The drama of scholarship. Searching. "The entire" substance of the law. Juridical constructs. The logic of laws. The secret of the law. Law - the highest purpose. Law in the life and fate of mankind.

Le mot «milieu» est précieux pour souligner que les installations humaines – l’architecture, la ville – tiennent compte de leur environnement, naturel ou bâti. Avant de configurer «un monde», l’art humain configure un lieu et même l’élit et le transfigure en le métamorphosant, faisant de milieux donnés des «lieux» habitables voire mémorables aux multiples formes de délimitations, d’échanges et de devenir. La notion de milieu habité est mise en perspective et pensée en termes de limites, passages, liens et métamorphoses.

The purpose of the present study was to address the shortcomings of Cronbach’s alpha concerning the semantic overlap between items. Using an example from a motivational measure, the correction of Cronbach’s alpha was applied by partialing out the effects due to conceptual overlap. The significance of Cronbach’s alpha was tested using simulated random data derived from the measure and by estimating the confidence intervals with known and unknown distributions. The results indicated that the uncorrected conceptual overlap coefficient alpha was equal (...) to 0.89 and 0.66 following the correction. After simulating the corrected statistical results, the distribution of alpha with random numbers had an estimate of 95%, equal to 0.41. The lower bound of the corrected alpha distribution was equal to 0.41, suggesting that the corrected alpha could easily belong to the distribution of alpha developed from simulated random numbers. Thus, the semantic overlap between items on a measure represents a significant threat to the validity of the alpha coefficient. (shrink)

This paper brings together the work of Nicholas Wolterstorff and William Alston in speech-act theory with the aim of providing a deeper understanding of the nature of divine speaking through the medium of Scripture. Despite the fecundity of Wolterstorff's seminal work on the philosophical theology of Scripture, aspects of his speech-act centric account are underdeveloped and would benefit from the contributions of William Alston. In particular, his account of divine speech-acts could be fruitfully expanded by incorporating the concept of ‘taking (...) responsibility’ that is central to Alston's analysis of the nature of illocutionary acts. This would elucidate both the way in which readers of Scripture encounter divine practical authority in the reading process and the nature of the response of faith that is demanded of them. (shrink)

Several recent papers dealing with Plato's position on the imperfection of the phenomenal world draw heavily on the differences between two kinds of predicates in order to show the following: In the middle dialogues, Plato posits Forms only as referents of what the writers call incomplete predicates. He does not posit Forms as referents for complete predicates. When interpreters ignore the differences between these kinds of predicates, they ascribe too radical a view regarding the imperfection of the phenomenal world to (...) the middle dialogues. The ontology of these dialogues includes sensible particulars which retain their identity over time even though they are continually changing in some respect or other. (shrink)