I should first of all like to greet His Excellency Msgr Josip Bozanic, Archbishop of Zagreb, His Excellency Msgr Giulio Einaudi, Apostolic Nuncio in Croatia, Their Lordships the Bishops, the authorities both civil and academic, the teaching and non-teaching staff, the students, my fellow Jesuits, and all the colleagues and friends present at this solemn opening of the new Chair in the Faculty of Philosophy and of Theological Study of the Society of Jesus at Zagreb. I thank heartily all those (...) who have in any way helped to bring this project to completion. I hope that it will enable us to render a valuable service to the Church in Croatia and to the culture of the Croatian people, a service that the Society of Jesus has held dear from its very beginning, striving to contribute, through its intellectual endeavours, to the understanding of the work of creation. (shrink)

I should first of all like to greet His Excellency Msgr Josip Bozanic, Archbishop of Zagreb, His Excellency Msgr Giulio Einaudi, Apostolic Nuncio in Croatia, Their Lordships the Bishops, the authorities both civil and academic, the teaching and non-teaching staff, the students, my fellow Jesuits, and all the colleagues and friends present at this solemn opening of the new Chair in the Faculty of Philosophy and of Theological Study of the Society of Jesus at Zagreb. I thank heartily all those (...) who have in any way helped to bring this project to completion. I hope that it will enable us to render a valuable service to the Church in Croatia and to the culture of the Croatian people, a service that the Society of Jesus has held dear from its very beginning, striving to contribute, through its intellectual endeavours, to the understanding of the work of creation. (shrink)

It is for me a source of great joy to meet with our collaborators in this magnificent Aula Magna of the Ignatianum to share on the intellectual ministry. You have a right to know how we Jesuits perceive the nature and mission of our educational institutions. Even university and cultural circles at large seek to know the spirit with which the Society of Jesus enters the world of science, research, academic instruction, and cultural activity generally. The reflection I am about (...) to submit is also meant to give impetus to the process the Polish Jesuits are involved in of defining their presence in the sector of education that after the fall of communism is experiencing a tremendous growth. All this is taking place in conjunction with the worldwide assessment the Society is making of its commitment to university education and the role it intends to play in it. (shrink)

It is for me a source of great joy to meet with our collaborators in this magnificent Aula Magna of the Ignatianum to share on the intellectual ministry. You have a right to know how we Jesuits perceive the nature and mission of our educational institutions. Even university and cultural circles at large seek to know the spirit with which the Society of Jesus enters the world of science, research, academic instruction, and cultural activity generally. The reflection I am about (...) to submit is also meant to give impetus to the process the Polish Jesuits are involved in of defining their presence in the sector of education that after the fall of communism is experiencing a tremendous growth. All this is taking place in conjunction with the worldwide assessment the Society is making of its commitment to university education and the role it intends to play in it. (shrink)

It is for me a source of great joy to meet with our collaborators in this magnificent Aula Magna of the Ignatianum to share on the intellectual ministry. You have a right to know how we Jesuits perceive the nature and mission of our educational institutions. Even university and cultural circles at large seek to know the spirit with which the Society of Jesus enters the world of science, research, academic instruction, and cultural activity generally. The reflection I am about (...) to submit is also meant to give impetus to the process the Polish Jesuits are involved in of defining their presence in the sector of education that after the fall of communism is experiencing a tremendous growth. All this is taking place in conjunction with the worldwide assessment the Society is making of its commitment to university education and the role it intends to play in it. (shrink)

Devotion and knowledge, pietas and eruditio, form a binomial idea which belongs to the tradition of the Society of Jesus. This idea was already important at the University of Paris when Ignatius and his companions studiedthere. Nevertheless, they gave an original interpretation to pietas in line with what Ignatius had already discovered in his own existence: devotion is not only a purely interior attitude but also a deeply apostolic one. From the binomial idea pietas-eruditio, and from its subsequent more precise (...) articulation, the study of theology in the Society draws out particular conclusions which are faithful to tradition and at the same time attentive to the new issues of a complex world requiring highly qualified and competent teaching. Theology in the Society is itself an apostolic enterprise. (shrink)

Trees architectural study shows gradients in the meristematic activity. This activity is described by the number of internodes per growth unit, which is considered as the output of a dynamic random process. Several species were observed, which led us to propose and then estimate some mathematical models. Computing the functioning of a tree in a given environment therefore involves finding the probability function of the meristems and following the evolution of the parameters of this law along the botanical gradients (order, (...) trend, acrotony) within its architecture. (shrink)

We investigate two formalizations of Optimality Theory, a successful paradigm in linguistics.We first give an order-theoretic counterpart for the data and processinvolved in candidate evaluation.Basically, we represent each constraint as a function that assigns every candidate a degree of violation.As for the second formalization, we define (after Samek-Lodovici and Prince) constraints as operations that select the best candidates out of a set of candidates.We prove that these two formalizations are equivalent (accordingly, there is no loss of generality with using violation (...) marks and dispensing with them is only apparent).Importantly, we show that the second formalization is equivalent with a class of operations over sets of formulas in a given logical language.As a result, we prove that Optimality Theory can be characterized by certain cumulative logics.So, applying Optimality Theory is shown to be reasoning by the rules of cumulative logics. (shrink)

Standard quantum theory is inadequate to explain the mechanisms by which potential becomes actual. It is inadequate and therefore unable to describe generation of events. Niels Bohr emphasized long ago that the classical part of the world is necessary. John Bell stressed the same point: that “measurement≓ cannot even be defined within the standard quantum theory, and he sought a solution within hidden variable theories and his concept of “beables.≓Today it is customary to try to explain emergence of the classical (...) world through a decoherence mechanism due to “environment.≓ But, we believe, as it was with the concept of measurement, “environment≓ itself cannot be defined within the standard quantum theory.We have proposed a semiphenomenological solution to this problem by introducing explicitly, from the very beginning, classical degrees of freedom, and by coupling these degrees of freedom, through a Lindblad type coupling, to the quantum world. The resulting theory, we call “event-enhanced quantum theory.≓ EEQT allows us to describe an event-generating mechanism for individual quantum systems under continuous observation. The objections of John Bell are met and precise definitions of an “experiment≓ and of a “measurement≓ have been given within EEQT. However EEQT is, essentially, a nonrelativistic theory.In the present paper we extend the ideas of L. P. Horwitz and C. Piron and we propose a relativistic version of EEQT, with an event-generating algorithm for spin one-half particle detectors. The algorithm is based on proper time formulation of the relalivistic quantum theory. Although we use indefinite metric, all the probabilities controlling the random process of the detector clicks are nonnegative. (shrink)

Technology and Ethics. A European Quest for Responsible Engineering, edited by B. Heriard Dubreuil and his team (University Lille) is in many regards an innovative publication. It is the first fully European contribution to the field of engineering ethics and the result of an intensive cooperation between ethicists and engineers from all the member countries of the European Union. The basic structure of the book is both the distinction and interaction between three levels of analysis: personal responsibility of engineers, the (...) institutional level (business organisations) and the impact of technology on society and culture. On the personal level, the book deals with problems such as the role of professional codes and the fact that engineers must cope with flexibility, shorter lines of decision and erosion of the boundaries between private and professional life. On the meso level, the book deals with different aspects of decision making in the context of business organizations, such as quality management, technology assessment procedures, business ethics committees etc... On the macro level, the authors focus on the power of technology. Together with the influences from other social, economic and political actors, the decisions of engineers change the world in a way which is of moral significance. (shrink)

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird ein Begriffsrahmen entwickelt, in dem sich Gemeinsamkeiten und Unterschiede zwischen drei Arten von Kulturprodukten klar aufzeigen lassen: Dichtung, Mythos und Wissenschaft. Die allen drei Phänomenen gemeinsame Struktur erfassen wir in §II und §III mit dem Begriff eines Repräsentationssystems, welcher in Anlehnung an die formale Modelltheorie semiotische Vorstellungen mit einem Denken in Systemen zusammenbringt. Die relevanten Unterschiede werden durch Differenzierung (§IV) jenes Begriffs festgemacht, d.h. die drei Phänomene werden durch jeweils spezielle Arten von Repräsentationssystemen erfaßt (§V). (...) Unser spezielles Augenmerk gilt dabei dem Mythos (§I), der sich in letzter Zeit eines wachsenden Interesses -- oft außerhalb des etablierten Wissenschaftsbetriebs -- erfreut. Es zeigt sich, daß der Mythos eine Mittelstellung zwischen Dichtung und Wissenschaft einnimmt: als "Bindeglied" vermittelt er sowohl zwischen der rein begrifflichen Struktur der Phänomene "Dichtung" und "Wissenschaft" als auch zwischen deren Unterschieden in Methode und Wahrheitsanspruch (die in engem Zusammenhang mit der begrifflichen Struktur stehen). Der hier entwickelte begriffliche Rahmen soll in weiteren Untersuchungen als Grundlage zur Herausarbeitung von Unterschieden in der Methode und im Wahrheitsanspruch dienen, die sich aus unserem Ansatz in natürlicher Weise ergeben. Diese müssen jedoch aus Platzgründen einer weiteren Arbeit vorbehalten bleiben. (shrink)