New Blackfriars, Volume 102, Issue 1101, Page 677-693, September 2021.

New Blackfriars, Volume 102, Issue 1101, Page 834-849, September 2021.

New Blackfriars, Volume 102, Issue 1101, Page 728-744, September 2021.

This paper studies a class of infinite-valued predicate logics. A sufficient condition for axiomatizability of logics from that class is given.

The author is a social geographer, currently involved with research which addresses the socio-political aspects of renewable energy generation in Britain. The author’s areas of special interest are teaching excellence and ethics in engineering and engineering technology. The reviewer is currently head of Religious Education in a large comprehensive school in Norwich, UK. She is author of articles and school books, including titles on moral issues for GCSE students.

Is it ethical to perform a surgery whose purpose is to make a male look like a female or a female to appear male? Is it medically appropriate? Sexual reassignment surgery (SRS) violates basic medical and ethical principles and is therefore not ethically or medically appropriate. (1) SRS mutilates a healthy, non-diseased body. To perform surgery on a healthy body involves unnecessary risks; therefore, SRS violates the principle primum non nocere, “first, do no harm.” (2) Candidates for SRS may believe (...) that they are trapped in the bodies of the wrong sex and therefore desire or, more accurately, demand SRS; however, this belief is generated by a disordered perception of self. Such a fixed, irrational belief is appropriately described as a delusion. SRS, therefore, is a “category mistake”—it offers a surgical solution for psychological problems such as a failure to accept the goodness of one’s masculinity or femininity, lack of secure attachment relationships in childhood with same-sex peers or a parent, self-rejection, untreated gender identity disorder, addiction to masturbation and fantasy, poor body image, excessive anger, and severe psychopathology in a parent. (3) SRS does not accomplish what it claims to accomplish. It does not change a person’s sex; therefore, it provides no true benefit. (4) SRS is a “permanent,” effectively unchangeable, and often unsatisfying surgical attempt to change what may be only a temporary (i.e., psychotherapeutically changeable) psychological/psychiatric condition. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 9.1 (Spring2009): 97–125. (shrink)

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of 'lenses' and 'tensions' to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and (...) procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the 'mess' of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses. (shrink)

This paper concludes a special feature of Sustainability Science that explores a broad range of social value theoretical traditions, such as religious studies, social psychology, indigenous knowledge, economics, sociology, and philosophy. We introduce a novel transdisciplinary conceptual framework that revolves around concepts of ‘lenses’ and ‘tensions’ to help navigate value diversity. First, we consider the notion of lenses: perspectives on value and valuation along diverse dimensions that describe what values focus on, how their sociality is envisioned, and what epistemic and (...) procedural assumptions are made. We characterise fourteen of such dimensions. This provides a foundation for exploration of seven areas of tension, between: (1) the values of individuals vs collectives; (2) values as discrete and held vs embedded and constructed; (3) value as static or changeable; (4) valuation as descriptive vs normative and transformative; (5) social vs relational values; (6) different rationalities and their relation to value integration; (7) degrees of acknowledgment of the role of power in navigating value conflicts. In doing so, we embrace the ‘mess’ of diversity, yet also provide a framework to organise this mess and support and encourage active transdisciplinary collaboration. We identify key research areas where such collaborations can be harnessed for sustainability transformation. Here it is crucial to understand how certain social value lenses are privileged over others and build capacity in decision-making for understanding and drawing on multiple value, epistemic and procedural lenses. (shrink)

ABSTRACT There is limited guidance about whether and how to provide psychological assessment results to research participants. This paper considers several ethical challenges associated with offering individual research results in psychological assessment research. Additionally, the process used to return individual results within a study examining neurodevelopmental effects of anesthesia exposure in children and adolescents is described. Almost all participants requested to know if results were concerning; however, only around a third of those with concerning findings sought additional feedback. Ongoing research (...) and guidance are necessary to establish evidence-based practices and manage challenges that may emerge when disclosing such results. (shrink)

Peter Abelard (1079–1142 ce) was the most wide‐ranging philosopher of the twelfth century. He quickly established himself as a leading teacher of logic in and near Paris shortly after 1100. After his affair with Heloise, and his subsequent castration, Abelard became a monk, but he returned to teaching in the Paris schools until 1140, when his work was condemned by a Church Council at Sens. His logical writings were based around discussion of the “Old Logic”: Porphyry's Isagoge, aristotle'S Categories and (...) On Interpretation and boethius'S textbook on topical inference. They comprise a freestanding Dialectica (“Logic”; probably c.1116), a set of commentaries (known as the Logica [Ingredientibus], c. 1119) and a later (c. 1125) commentary on the Isagoge (Logica Nostrorum Petititoni Sociorum or Glossulae). In a work Abelard called his Theologia, issued in three main versions (between 1120 and c.1134), he attempted a logical analysis of trinitarian relations and explored the philosophical problems surrounding God's claims to omnipotence and omniscience. The Collationes (“Debates,” also known as “Dialogue between a Christian, a Philosopher and a Jew”; probably c.1130) present a rational investigation into the nature of the highest good, in which the Christian and the Philosopher (who seems to be modeled on a philosopher of pagan antiquity) are remarkably in agreement. The unfinished Scito teipsum (“Know thyself,” also known as the “Ethics”; c.1138) analyses moral action. (shrink)

Pancreatitis is a complex, progressively destructive inflammatory disorder. Alcohol was long thought to be the primary causative agent, but genetic contributions have been of interest since the discovery that rare PRSS1, CFTR and SPINK1 variants were associated with pancreatitis risk. We now report two associations at genome-wide significance identified and replicated at PRSS1-PRSS2 and X-linked CLDN2 through a two-stage genome-wide study. The PRSS1 variant likely affects disease susceptibility by altering expression of the primary trypsinogen gene. The CLDN2 risk allele is (...) associated with atypical localization of claudin-2 in pancreatic acinar cells. The homozygous CLDN2 genotype confers the greatest risk, and its alleles interact with alcohol consumption to amplify risk. These results could partially explain the high frequency of alcohol-related pancreatitis in men. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

P. O. Bodunrin, in his 1981 essay, asks: ‘Is there an African Philosophy, and if there is, what is it?’ This question has occupied centre stage among younger African intellectuals for about a decade now. The most articulate among these intellectuals, who are themselves philosophers, are Bodunrin , Kwasi Wiredu , H. Odera Oruka , Marcien Towa and Eboussi Boulaga , and Paulin Hountondji . These philosophers among others are in dialogue with one another and currently are seen to be (...) the principal architects of a new orientation in African thought. (shrink)

Tradução para o português do artigo "Berkeley and the pyrrhonism" publicado originalmente em The Review of Metaphysics 5 (1951); reimpresso em Burnyeat, Myles (org.) The Skeptical Tradition. University of California Press, 1983, p. 377-396 e em Richard A. Watson and James E. Force (Editors). The high road to Pyrrhonism, p. 297-318.

Book Reviews RICHARD HARRIES, Religious Studies, FirstView Article.

The contributors to the volume are Seth Benardete, Michael Gillespie, Leon Kass, Robert B. Pippin, Robert Rethy, John M. Rist, Brian J. Shanley, O. P., Susan ...

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:86 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY he solved the problem of his own existence, this picture of an erudite scholar systematically and unemotionally peeling off the foibles of the learned world as the only solution for the perplexing problems of the life, seems credible and direct. Since the essay presenting it is brilliantly written, with some of Bayle's own penetrating analyses, we can be sure that it will have its day (...) in court. Is it out of place to announce with this review that the Soc/$tg Arigdoise des science, lettres, e$ arts has purchased the house where Bayle was born at Carla-Bayle, and plans to make it into a monument-museumhonoring the philosopher? The house is in bad repair and there is a great need for funds; gifts of any size may be sent to the Socigtd, C.C.P. Toulouse 114-19, France. I presume that they are deductible. JoH~ B. WOLF University o] Illinois, Chicago Circle Entretiens sur les sciences. By Bernard Lamy. Edition critique pr~sent~e par FranCois Girbal & Pierre Clair. (u 5 of the series Le mouvement des idJes au XVII ~ si~cle) (Paris, 1966.Pp. 448. F 36.--) Father Bernard Lamy, 1640-1715, an Oratorian who was a contemporary of Malebranche, wrote his Entreticns sur les sciences not for the savants but for young gentlemen of the time who might have wanted to enter into the intellectual world. The work was first written be= tween 1676-80, and published by 1684. It developed through three stages in Lamy's lifetime, and was a popular exposition of modem learning throughout the eighteenth century. (It was last published in French in 1768, and in Spanish in 1800.) Drs. Clair and Girbal have provided a most useful edition of this minor classic, giving the variants from the different versions done by Lamy. The editors, who know the Oratorian and Jansenist currents of the time well, have included lots of informative notes. In these they have stressed the possible influence of Lamy's text on two of its important readers, Montesquieu and Rousseau, providing many clues to be followed out. The editors have also republished in their introduction the original review of Lamy's work by Pierre Bayle from the Nouvells de la R$publique des Lettres of August, 1684. The Entretien8 should be of interest to anyone concerned with late seventeenth-century thought. Although Lamy was not a particularly original thinker, his presentation of what was known provides an important picture of the world of learning of his time. Lamy was a Malebranchist first of all, tremendously impressed by the metaphysics and epistemology of his colleague, by the relevance of this philosophy to mathematical and scientific studies, and by the religious orientation of Malebranche's scientific thought. Lamy was also a Cartesian with re= gard to method and logic, greatly influenced by Amauld's and Nicole's Port-Royal Logic. But Lamy was also an eclectic who saw merit in the empirical work of his time, admiring Gassendi's efforts as well as those of Galileo, Boyle and of the Royal Society. For Lamy there should be no conflict between science and religion. A good deal of the Entreticns is devoted to explaining what mathematics and the sciences are about, and how they should be studied. Lamy was a great advocate and popularizer of the 'new science', the mechanistic approach from Galileo down to Malebranche and Newton. For him scientific study should lead to a better understanding of the Divine World. "Nous lotions la Science... lots qu'elle est plac6es dans une gme qui aime Dieu, qui est la v6rit6, & par consequent le v6ritable objet de la Science" (p. 47). In a world in which it is alleged that science was at war with religion, Lamy along with his hero Malebranche, and the philosophical Jansenists, sought not only for a harmony of the 'new science' and a Christian world view, but for the religious use of this science in a religious understanding of the world. Lamy's presentation, in an unexciting dialogue form, reveals many interesting facets of both his own outlook as well as of that of his contemporaries. Lamy's Cartesian methodology clearly shows the... (shrink)

L has …, P … Paley wanted to delete Subsequent editors did not take up the suggestion. J. Diggle on the other hand has proposed that was originally a gloss on ‘It would be no cause for surprise that a scribe who had never seen the like of Homer's should fuse the two versions by distributing the two in what he thought a fair and impartial manner.’ Diggle arrives at The metre is tidied up, the corruption explained. But would be (...) unique in Euripides. is the Euripidean Greek for ‘O dear one’. For ‘O dear Hector’ he writes . If he did want to create here by repetition a sense of there is no reason why he should not have written what is in L; compare Tro. 1081 , Su. 278 and Andr. 530. (shrink)

L has …, P … Paley wanted to delete Subsequent editors did not take up the suggestion. J. Diggle on the other hand has proposed that was originally a gloss on ‘It would be no cause for surprise that a scribe who had never seen the like of Homer's should fuse the two versions by distributing the two in what he thought a fair and impartial manner.’ Diggle arrives at The metre is tidied up, the corruption explained. But would be (...) unique in Euripides. is the Euripidean Greek for ‘O dear one’. For ‘O dear Hector’ he writes. If he did want to create here by repetition a sense of there is no reason why he should not have written what is in L; compare Tro. 1081, Su. 278 and Andr. 530. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: * Notes.

PLATO'S UNIVERSE by Gregory Vlastos. Clarendon Press: O.U.P., 1975. xiii+130 pp. £3.75.

Computability and Logic has become a classic because of its accessibility to students without a mathematical background and because it covers not simply the staple topics of an intermediate logic course, such as Godel's incompleteness theorems, but also a large number of optional topics, from Turing's theory of computability to Ramsey's theorem. This 2007 fifth edition has been thoroughly revised by John Burgess. Including a selection of exercises, adjusted for this edition, at the end of each chapter, it offers a (...) simpler treatment of the representability of recursive functions, a traditional stumbling block for students on the way to the Godel incompleteness theorems. This updated edition is also accompanied by a website as well as an instructor's manual. (shrink)

Memory sometimes yields knowledge and sometimes does not. It is, however, natural to suppose that i f a man remembers that p, then he knows that p and formerly knew that p. Remembering something is plausibly construed as a f o rm of knowing something which one has not forgotten and which one knew previously. We argue, to the contrary, that this thesis is false. We present four counterexamples to the thesis that support a different analysis of remembering. We propose (...) that a person remembers that p (at t) if and only if the thought or conviction that p comes from memory (at t) when, in fact, it is true that p. (shrink)

A recursive enumerator for a function h is an algorithm f which enumerates for an input x finitely many elements including h(x), f is a k(n)-enumerator if for every input x of length n, h(x) is among the first k(n) elements enumerated by f. If there is a k(n)-enumerator for h then h is called k(n)-enumerable. We also consider enumerators which are only A-recursive for some oracle A. We determine exactly how hard it is to enumerate the Kolmogorov function, which (...) assigns to each string x its Kolmogorov complexity: • For every underlying universal machine U, there is a constant a such that C is k(n)-enumerable only if k(n) ≥ n/a for almost all n. • For any given constant k, the Kolmogorov function is k-enumerable relative to an oracle A if and only if A is at least as hard as the halting problem. • There exists an r.e., Turing-incomplete set A such for every non-decreasing and unbounded recursive function k, the Kolmogorov function is k(n)-enumerable relative to A. The last result is obtained by using a relativizable construction for a nonrecursive set A relative to which the prefix-free Kolmogorov complexity differs only by a constant from the unrelativized prefix-free Kolmogorov complexity. Although every 2-enumerator for C is Turing hard for K, we show that reductions must depend on the specific choice of the 2-enumerator and there is no bound on the quantity of their queries. We show our negative results even for strong 2-enumerators as an oracle where the querying machine for any x gets directly an explicit list of all hypotheses of the enumerator for this input. The limitations are very general and we show them for any recursively bounded function g: • For every Turing reduction M and every non-recursive set B, there is a strong 2-enumerator f for g such that M does not Turing reduce B to f. • For every non-recursive set B, there is a strong 2-enumerator f for g such that B is not wtt-reducible to f. Furthermore, we deal with the resource-bounded case and give characterizations for the class ${\rm S}_{2}^{{\rm P}}$ introduced by Canetti and independently Russell and Sundaram and the classes PSPACE, EXP. • ${\rm S}_{2}^{{\rm P}}$ is the class of all sets A for which there is a polynomially bounded function g such that there is a polynomial time tt-reduction which reduces A to every strong 2-enumerator for g. • PSPACE is the class of all sets A for which there is a polynomially bounded function g such that there is a polynomial time Turing reduction which reduces A to every strong 2-enumerator for g. Interestingly, g can be taken to be the Kolmogorov function for the conditional space bounded Kolmogorov complexity. • EXP is the class of all sets A for which there is a polynomially bounded function g and a machine M which witnesses A ∈ PSPACEf for all strong 2-enumerators f for g. Finally, we show that any strong O(log n)-enumerator for the conditional space bounded Kolmogorov function must be PSPACE-hard if P = NP. (shrink)

Memory sometimes yields knowledge and sometimes does not. It is, however, natural to suppose that i f a man remembers that p, then he knows that p and formerly knew that p. Remembering something is plausibly construed as a f o rm of knowing something which one has not forgotten and which one knew previously. We argue, to the contrary, that this thesis is false. We present four counterexamples to the thesis that support a different analysis of remembering. We propose (...) that a person remembers that p (at t) if and only if the thought or conviction that p comes from memory (at t) when, in fact, it is true that p. (shrink)