The brain adapts to changes that take place in the body. Deprivation of input results in size reduction of cortical representations, whereas an increase in input results in an increase of representational space. Amputation forms one of the most dramatic disturbances of the integrity of the body. The brain adapts in many ways to this breakdown of the afferent–efferent equilibrium. However, almost all studies focus on the sensorimotor consequences. It is not known whether adaptation takes place also at other “levels” (...) in the system. The present study addresses the question whether amputees dream about their intact body, as before the amputation, or about the body after the amputation and whether the dream content was a function of time since the amputation and type of amputation. The results show that the majority of the dreamers reported dreams about their intact body although the mean time that elapsed since the amputation was twelve years. There is no clear relation with the type of amputation. The results give modest evidence for the existence of a basic neural representation of the body that is, at least, partly genetically determined and by this relatively insensitive for changes in the sensory input. (shrink)

One of the new ways used by companies to demonstrate their social responsibility is to encourage employee volunteering, whereby employees engage in socially beneficial activities on company time, while being paid by the company. The reasoning is that it is good for employee motivation (internal effects) and good for the company reputation (external effects). This article reports an empirical investigation of the internal effects of employee volunteering conducted amongst employees of the Dutch ABN-AMRO bank. The study showed that (a) socio-demographic (...) characteristics from employee volunteers markedly differ from those of non-volunteers and community volunteers and (b) employee volunteering seems to have positive effects on attitudes and behavior towards the organization. (shrink)

One of the new ways used by companies to demonstrate their social responsibility is to encourage employee volunteering, whereby employees engage in socially beneficial activities on company time, while being paid by the company. The reasoning is that it is good for employee motivation (internal effects) and good for the company reputation (external effects). This article reports an empirical investigation of the internal effects of employee volunteering conducted amongst employees of the Dutch ABN-AMRO bank. The study showed that (a) socio-demographic (...) characteristics from employee volunteers markedly differ from those of non-volunteers and community volunteers and (b) employee volunteering seems to have positive effects on attitudes and behavior towards the organization. (shrink)

The reflections of Jean-Luc Marion on Aquinas’s notion of esse not only confirm the continued importance of the latter’s doctrines in the history of metaphysical speculation, but also reveal intriguing convergences of concern between Aquinas and this significant postmodern thinker. Marion’s embrace of phenomenological reflection tinted with Barthean and Heideggerian themes in order to retrieve Neoplatonic ‘theo-ontology’ ironically finds unsuspected corroborations along with important clarifications in Aquinas’s subtle assimilation of Neoplatonic sources and his rigorous causal analyses of the metaphysical (...) constitution of things and knowledge. (shrink)

ExtractA few years ago, I, an American, was giving a talk at a political philosophy conference in the United Kingdom. My topic was religion in democratic politics, and I delivered what I thought was a splendid line of argument supporting the idea that religion has at most a highly constrained role to play in democratic politics. The audience was appreciative enough, but during the question and answer session, there emerged the charge that my paper had addressed a uniquely ‘American’ problem, (...) a problem that was not of general significance to political philosophers outside of the United States. I replied that although the political scene in the contemporary United States provides many high-profile examples of the problem I had been addressing, the general problem of religion in politics confronts democracy as such. I then provided some cases from outside America in which the problem shows itself: the public slaying of Theo Van Gough, the controversy surrounding the publication of cartoon representations of Muhammad in Denmark, the reemergence of religiously-affiliated and reactionary political parties throughout Europe, and so on. Yet for the most part my audience remained unmoved.Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.RELIGION IN POLITICS: WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?Volume 12, Issue 33Robert B. TalisseDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000279Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. RELIGION IN POLITICS: WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?Volume 12, Issue 33Robert B. TalisseDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000279Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. RELIGION IN POLITICS: WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?Volume 12, Issue 33Robert B. TalisseDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000279Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation. (shrink)

Introduction. Bert HAMMINGA and Neil DE MARCHI: Préface. Bert HAMMINGA and Neil DE MARCHI: Idealization and the Defence of Economics: Notes Toward a History. Part I: General Observations on Idealization in Economics. Kevin D. HOOVER: Six Queries about Idealization in an Empirical Context. Bernard WALLISER: Three Generalization Processes for Economic Models. Steven COOK and David HENDRY: The Theory of Reduction in Econometrics. Maarten C.W. JANSSEN: Economic Models and Their Applications. Adolfo GARCÍA DE LA SIENRA: Idealization and Empirical Adequacy in Economic (...) Theory. Izabella NOWAKOWA and Leszek NOWAK: On Correspondence between Economic Theories. Uskali MÄKI: Isolation, Idealization and Truth in Economics. Part II: Case Studies of Idealization in Economics. Nancy CARTWRIGHT: Mill and Menger: Ideal Elements and Stable Tendencies. Wolfgang BALZER: Exchange Versus Influence: A Case of Idealization. Kees COOLS, Bert HAMMINGA, Theo A.F. KUIPERS: Truth Approximation by Concretization in Capital Structure Theory. Daniel M. HAUSMAN: Paul Samuelson as Dr. Frankenstein: When an Idealization Runs Amuck. Hugo A. KEUZENKAMP: What if an Idealization is Problematic? The Case of the Homogeneity Condition in Consumer Demand. Werner DIEDERICH: Nowak on Explanation and Idealization in Marx's 'Capital'. Gérard JORLAND: Idealization and Transformation. Jack BIRNER: Idealizations and Theory Development in Economics. Some History and Logic of the Logic Discovery. Discussions. Leszek NOWAK: The Idealizational Methodology and Economics. Replies to Diederich, Hoover, Janssen, Jorland and Mäki. (shrink)

ExtractA few years ago, I, an American, was giving a talk at a political philosophy conference in the United Kingdom. My topic was religion in democratic politics, and I delivered what I thought was a splendid line of argument supporting the idea that religion has at most a highly constrained role to play in democratic politics. The audience was appreciative enough, but during the question and answer session, there emerged the charge that my paper had addressed a uniquely ‘American’ problem, (...) a problem that was not of general significance to political philosophers outside of the United States. I replied that although the political scene in the contemporary United States provides many high-profile examples of the problem I had been addressing, the general problem of religion in politics confronts democracy as such. I then provided some cases from outside America in which the problem shows itself: the public slaying of Theo Van Gough, the controversy surrounding the publication of cartoon representations of Muhammad in Denmark, the reemergence of religiously-affiliated and reactionary political parties throughout Europe, and so on. Yet for the most part my audience remained unmoved.Send article to KindleTo send this article to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Find out more about sending to your Kindle. Note you can select to send to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be sent to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply. Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.RELIGION IN POLITICS: WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?Volume 12, Issue 33Robert B. TalisseDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000279Your Kindle email address Please provide your Kindle [email protected]@kindle.com Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Dropbox To send this article to your Dropbox account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Dropbox. RELIGION IN POLITICS: WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?Volume 12, Issue 33Robert B. TalisseDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000279Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Send article to Google Drive To send this article to your Google Drive account, please select one or more formats and confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about sending content to Google Drive. RELIGION IN POLITICS: WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?Volume 12, Issue 33Robert B. TalisseDOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S1477175612000279Available formats PDF Please select a format to send. By using this service, you agree that you will only keep articles for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services. Please confirm that you accept the terms of use. Cancel Send ×Export citation. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:484 BOOK REVIEWS faith. Yet faith-knowledge alone is insufficient to account for Jesus' extraordinary gifts as a teacher: for this we must appeal to a special charism along the lines of an infused knowledge. According to Torrell this knowledge is best understood by reference to Aquinas's mature teaching on prophecy: God equipped the prophets with an infused light (but not infused ideas) enabling them to communicate divine truths to (...) others. Likewise, God conferred on Jesus an infused light akin to that of the prophets, but with this qualitative difference: in him the lumen is a permanent feature of his cognitive life (a habitus), while it is given to the prophets only intermittently (per modum actus). The foregoing i;ummary will have served its purpose if it has conveyed to the reader some sense of the very rich historical, philosophical, and theological reflections that comprise this volume. The editorial team of the Revue thomiste is to be commended for the high caliber of this and the other special publications it has produced in recent years: the 1992 commemorative volume on the theological achievement of M.-M. Labourdette; th~ 1993 centenary index ("tables generales 1893-1992"); the Gilson issue of 1994; and most recently an issue devoted to Thomas Aquinas and the onto-theo-logy debate (1995). This reviewer eagerly waits for more. Fordham University Bronx, New York GREGORY M. REICHBERG The Divine Initiative: Grace, World-Order, and Human Freedom in the Early Writings of Bernard Lonergan. By J. MICHAEL STEBBINS. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995. Pp. xxii + 399. $65.00 (cloth). Aquinas insists that the creator's primary intent is the "order of the universe," and Bernard Lonergan's dissertation on "operating grace" in Aquinas's writings managed to move beyond the stalemated discussion of "sufficient" and "efficacious" grace precisely because he displayed how any discourse about grace had to be connected with larger theorems of the creator's operation in creation. What speaking of the divine action called "grace" requires is a set of metaphysical skills adequate to speaking of the "order of the universe" as created. A tall order, whose scope the published edition of his dissertation-Grace and Freedom-so understated that its implications have been missed by many philosophers and theologians fascinated with such questions. Stebbins's careful reconstruction of that text reminds us of its daunting scope. And part of the reason it can do so is that he illustrates both the method and conclusions of Grace and Freedom through a later text which Lonergan had composed (in Latin) for a course on grace offered from 1947 to 1960: De ente supernaturali (which will appear in volume 16 [Early Latin Theology] of the Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, published by BOOK REVIEWS 485 University of Toronto Press). The significance of this collateral source is that it can profit from and respond to Henri de Lubac's epochal Surnaturel (1946). For those not familiar with Grace and Freedom, as well as some who thought they were, a list of Stebbins's chapters manages to convey the scope of Lonergan's achievement: 1. The Role of Understanding in Theological Speculation; 2. The Principal Instance of Supernatural Being: The Created Communication of the Divine Nature; 3. Thirteenth-Century Breakthrough (The "Theorem" of the Supernatural); 4. Supernatural Transformation of Human Activity; 5. Obediential Potency and the Natural Desire to See God; 6. Molinist and Bannezian Systems; 7. Theoretical Perspective on Divine Concourse; 8. Contingence, Sin and Divine Efficacy. As always, Lonergan must actively reflect on method while executing a theological inquiry, so Stebbins rightly begins with his insistence that such inquiry must be more than "just a networks of concepts; it is primarily an act of understanding" (xix)-Chapter 1. Then, following the expository order of De ente supematurali, he shows how Lonergan roots the supernatural in the theorems developed to speak of the natural: of creation itself. ("Theorem," as we shall see, is a favorite word of Lonergan's, intimating what it takes to move beyond our imaginations to a set of propositions able to articulate the metaphysical issues at stake.) Following the analogy of nature, we can see how the "two operations by which creatures... (shrink)

At the outset of the article I set forth a general characterization of Robert B. Brandom’s philosophy, as belonging to the post-empiricist tradition with inferential-ism as its main idea. In section 2 I discuss four dichotomies important to the method-ology which allows Brandom to construct his philosophical system. My point is to indicate the arbitrariness of the absolutist account of these dichotomies, which gives rise to misuse of relative categories. In effect, Brandom’s dichotomic way of theo-retical exposition does not (...) respect Davidson’s principle of relationism, which Bran-dom himself declares to accept. In the next section, I go on to consider two basic mo-tives for the resolute Brandomian attack on empiricism: strong inferentialist and an-tirepresentationalist theses. Pertaining to this view is also the claim of irreducible linguistic normativity. In section 4, these questions are treated in the context of the ap-parently novel theory of semantic pragmatism. Section 5 is crucial to my purposes. There I criticize the excessively narrow Brandomian conception of empiricism in the theory of meaning. I argue that Brandom’s attack on empiricism depends on a false analysis of the distinction between circumstances and consequences of application holding for sentences. In addition, the problem of conceptual content’s fine grainess is treated, as well as the Kantian dichotomy of reasons versus causes, interpreted by Brandom in terms of the social/natural distinction. Finally, section 6 deals with the relation holding between the concept of reason on the one hand, and the objectivism and representationalism theses, on the other. Despite appearances, in Brandom’s philosophical system there is no place for objective standards of procedural reason. (shrink)

The period 800–200 B.C.E. has been called an axial period or age because it was a period of major technological and cultural change that led to the development of new worldviews, which in turn called for and led to the emergence of the current major world religious traditions. The world is now in the midst of another period of major global scientific, technological, and cultural change that is leading to the development of a new global worldview. In this worldview, the (...) cosmos is taken to be more like an activity than a thing—more like an emergent complex of interrelated and interactive doing in space–time than a created complex of beings in space and time–and its complexity and space—time scale are understood to be enormously greater than heretofore supposed.These changes in worldview call for changes in theology, religion, and ethics. Most workers in the field of science and religion are heeding this call by attempting to reconcile traditional religious concepts with the new scientific concepts. Others, however, have become convinced that the new worldview differs so radically from the previous ones as to mark a new axial age, which calls for a new, post‐traditional theology, religion, and ethics, with a theos that is more like an activator of doing than a ground of being, and with meaning and purpose achieved more by a quality of doing than a quantity or quality of being. (shrink)

In this paper we provide a compact presentation of the verisimilitudinarian approach to scientific progress (VS, for short) and defend it against the sustained attack recently mounted by Alexander Bird (2007). Advocated by such authors as Ilkka Niiniluoto and Theo Kuipers, VS is the view that progress can be explained in terms of the increasing verisimilitude (or, equivalently, truthlikeness, or approximation to the truth) of scientific theories. According to Bird, VS overlooks the central issue of the appropriate grounding of (...) scientific beliefs in the evidence, and it is therefore unable (a) to reconstruct in a satisfactory way some hypothetical cases of scientific progress, and (b) to provide an explanation of the aversion to falsity that characterizes scientific practice. We rebut both of these criticisms and argue that they reveal a misunderstanding of some key concepts underlying VS. (shrink)

Le premier chapitre d'une Phénoménologie de l'acte philosophique, que nous publions ici, met en lumière la structure onto-théo-logique de toute philosophie possible. II comporte les paragraphes suivants: 1. Existence et Pensée. – Une définition radicale de la pensée humaine présuppose une réflexion sur le Sum dans lequel s'enracine le Cogito. Cette première réflexion ne peut se faire que de manière spontanée et naïve. L'identité de l'existence et de la pensée n'est pas une possibilité humaine, mais oriente et fonde comme idéal (...) le mouvement philosophique. 2. Archè - ousia - telos. – L'essence de l'être humain est tendance et mouvement (kinèsis) d'une nature spéciale. 3. La destination (Bestimmung) de l'homme. – Par une réflexion transcendentale sur le dynamisme appétitif de l'homme on découvre la „position” ontologique d'une Fin absolue et infinie comme fondement a priori de toute vie humaine en tant qu'elle est besoin et désir. Les étappes de la voie qui conduit au Fondement ultime de la perfection humaine, sont les suivants : 1) l'accueil naïf de l'être qui se montre, 2) la perte de tous les étants dans le Néant, résultant dans une angoisse profonde, et 3) la découverte du Bien infini comme „Rien de tout cela”. 4. „Tune me chercherais pas, situne m'avais trouvé” (Pascal) ou: „Comment le Dieu arrive - t - il dans la philosophie?" (Heidegger). - En tant que recherche du pourquoi radical, la philosophie - et, plus fondamentalement, l'être humain comme être pensant et „logique” - ne peut s'effectuer qu'en affirmant a priori, dans tout ce qu'elle demande, dit, met en doute etc., le Fondement dernier et premier de toute vérité : la Vérité elle-même, qui, dès le début de la vie humaine et philosophique, se présente en s'absentant. 5. Unica demonstratio Dei. – La preuve métaphysique et la preuve anthropologique de l'existence de Dieu sont deux paraphrases radicalement identiques du mouvement de „fondation” qui est l'essence de l'être humain. Tous les arguments conduisant à l'affirmation philosophique de Dieu, ne composent en réalité qu'une seule démonstration, qui coïncide avec le tout de la philosophie. Pour acquérir une connaissance explicite de ce qu'est le Fondement radical, le philosophe doit rendre plus concret le contenu de la fondation transcendentale qui relie ce Fondement au fond de l'existence humaine. Dans ce but il parcourt et traverse les stades 1) de l'existence „économique” jouissant du cosmos (argument cosmologique ; cosmo -théo -logie) , 2) de l'existence sociale se découvrant a) obligée au respect et b) appelée à la communion fraternelle (socio-théo-logie), et 3) de l'ipséité qui fait l'expérience de soi-même comme don gratuit, – pour apprendre finalement que le cercle égologique englobant les étapes énumérées, est lui-même un don du Dieu donnant, qui - peut-être - va parler. 6. Vérité et apparence. – La philosophie est essentiellement une explicitation de la fondation originaire qui affirme Dieu-dans-le-monde ou le-monde-en-Dieu. A cause de la déviation historique de toute philosophie concrète, l'expérience de la recherche du vrai comporte aussi et d'abord une (re-) Conversion au véritable Fondement, qui est la fin et le début de tout penser. 7. Itinerarium mentis in Deum. – Une phénoménologie de l'acte philosophique doit surmonter les phénoménologies superficielles par une réflexion sur les différentes philosophies de notre passé, dans lesquelles elle reconnaît des „phénomènes” systématiques explicitant l'affirmation originaire de la Vérité elle-même. Pour préparer une méthodologie de cette phénoménologie méta-philosophique, une discussion avec le projet de la Phénoménologie de l'Esprit hégélienne s'impose. Ce chapitre ne donne qu'une ébauche de quelques lignes directrices d'une telle méthodologie. (shrink)

Antoine Cantin-Brault | : Après avoir établi le bien-fondé de la constitution onto-proto-logique de la métaphysique, trouvée dans les travaux de B. Mabille, cette constitution qui montre que la métaphysique est assurément onto-théo-logique mais aussi mé-onto-logique, l’article veut montrer que cette métaphysique est tout entière déjà présente dans la pensée d’Héraclite. Si les métaphysiciens comme Hegel et Heidegger ont plutôt eu tendance à s’installer dans une de ces deux pulsations métaphysiques en récusant l’autre, Héraclite est peut-être le seul à les (...) scander toutes les deux. L’article cherche donc, à partir d’un élargissement de la constitution heideggérienne de la métaphysique, à montrer quels sont les fragments de l’Obscur qui permettent d’y voir précisément cette métaphysique nouvellement constituée comme onto-proto-logie, et suggérer l’importance d’un contact avec Héraclite pour comprendre la métaphysique en son ensemble et son histoire. | : After having established the merits of the onto-proto-logical constitution of metaphysics as presented in the works of B. Mabille — a conception which demonstrates that metaphysics is at once onto-theo-logical as well as me-onto-logical — the following article will seek to demonstrate that this understanding of metaphysics is already present in its entirety in the thought of Heraclitus. If metaphysicians such as, for example, Hegel and Heidegger have tended to place their thought in one of the two metaphysical pulsations while rejecting the other, Heraclitus was perhaps the first to chant both of them. By means of a broadening of the Heideggerian constitution of metaphysics, this article thus seeks to examine those fragments of the Obscure which reveal precisely this understanding of a metaphysics newly constituted as onto-proto-logy and, furthermore, to suggest the importance of consideration of Heraclitean thought for a fuller understanding of metaphysics in its entirety and history. (shrink)

In seiner Einladung zur Mitwirkung hatte der Herausgeber als Arbeitstitel für diesen Band formuliert: "Erziehungswissenschaft am Ausgang der Moderne"; von dieser Vorgabe sind meine Überlegungen an geregt worden. 2 Dahmer I Klafkis (1968) "Ausgangs' -Diagnose war fast noch druckfrisch als die Renaissance der geistes wissenschaftlichen Pädagogik einsetzte. 3 Auf die sich die Postmoderne-Debatte aber nicht reduzieren läßt. 4 Weitere Varianten sind im Kontext evolutionstheoretischer Entwürfe der Pädagogik oder im Anschluß an new-wave-philosophies entstanden, vgl. z.B. Treml 1987 sowie Huschke-Rhein 1988. Auf (...) diese Arbeiten will ich im folgenden nicht eingehen, weil dadurch eine immanente Diskussion von,System' -Denken not wendig würde, die nicht nur von erziehungswissenschaftlichen Problemen, sondern gelegentlich über haupt von Theorieproblemen wegführen würde. 5 Die Rezeptionsgeschichte bei Oelkers/Tenorth 1987 b; Seiler I Meyer 1987 können im übrigen durch den Bezug auf die Herbart-Rezeption zeigen, daß solche eigentümlich verzerrenden Formen der Aneignung von Theorie in der wissenschaftlichen Pädagogik keineswegs singulär sind. 6 Mit,Systemtheorie' sei im folgenden die Form bezeichnet, zu der sich die Systemtheorie modo Luh mann I Schorr in der Rezeption der Pädagogen gewandelt hat. Meine Bemerkungen gelten beiden Modi der Systemtheorie. 7 Ich nutze einen Begriff, mit dem Th. Luckmann den Effekt analysiert, den die phänomenologische Theo rie und Philosophie den Weltbildern der Sozialwissenschaften zugefügt habe. 8 In der Analyse pädagogischer Argumente liegen solche Erweiterungen vor, z.B. bei Künzli 1986, Paschen 1988. 9 Am bekanntesten vielleicht in der pädagogischen Formel vom,Implikationszusammenhang von Ziel, In halt und Methode' vertreten. (shrink)

Biobank research is potentially fruitful. It is argued that broad consent is acceptable for future research on biological material because a) the benefit is high, b) it pays respect to people’s autonomy, c) it is consistent with current practices and d) because the risk is low. Furthermore, broad consent should be allowed if information is handled safely, people can withdraw and expanded research should be approved by an ethics review board. However, these arguments are flawed and the criteria for broad (...) consent are either too restrictive to allow any research or fail to address important challenges with biobank research. Broad consent for biobank research can hide substantial ethical challenges and threaten trust in research. This does not mean that biobank research should be abandoned or that people cannot authorise future research on donated biological material. (shrink)

In this paper I consider a number of metaphilosophical problems concerning the relations between logic and philosophy of science, as they appear from the neo-classical perspective on philosophy of science outlined by Theo Kuipers in ICR and SiS. More specifically, I focus on two pairs of issues: (A) the (dis)similarities between the goals and methods of logic and those of philosophy of science, w.r.t. (1) the role of theorems within the two disciplines; (2) the falsifiability of their theoretical claims; (...) and (B) the interactions between logic and philosophy of science, w.r.t. (3) the possibility of applying logic in philosophy of science; (4) the possibility that the two disciplines are sources of challenging problems for each other. (shrink)

In this paper I attempt to o f fer a concept of discretion and to an a l yse the forms of control that can be e x ercised in this matte r . F rom the concept of l e g al ce r taint y , w e can obse r v e h o w discretion eme r ges in those cases that are e n visaged b y the norms and in the so called hard cases. (...) F requent l y it is maintained h o w e v e r , that, the on l y limit on discretion can be found in arbitrariness and that, apa r t from that, a n y decision w ould be co r rect. This could result in e xcluding discretiona r y decisions from l e gal control. A g ainst this opinion, there are authors that think that l e gal control of discretionary decisions is possi b le because th e y defend the e xistence of on l y one co r rect an sw e r . Other authors reject the e xistence of on l y one co r rect an sw er or the possibility of f inding it. N e v er theless, e v en accepting that there are some aspects of discretiona r y decisions that do not der i ve from l e gal no r ms bu t from personal preferences, those preferences must be coherent with some theo r y that contains no r mat i v e l y co r rect criteria. These criteria must be as coherent as possi b le with the dominant system of v alues in the socie t y. (shrink)

In this book, David B. Wong defends an ambitious and important new version of moral relativism. He does not espouse the type of relativism that says anything goes, but he does start with a relativist stance against alternative theories such that there need not be only one universal truth. Wong proposes that there can be a plurality of true moralities existing across different traditions and cultures, all with one core human question as to how we can all live together.

This paper challenges a pervasive, if not always explicit assumption of the present state of theorising in business ethics. This is the idea that a workable theory of organizational ethics must provide a unified perspective on its subject matter. In this paper we will sketch the broad outlines of an alternative understanding of business ethics, which focuses on constraints on corporate conduct that cannot reasonably be rejected. These constraints stem from at least three different levels or spheres of social reality, (...) i.e. the preconditions of a well-ordered society, the internal morality of economic activity and the preconditions of autonomous agency. (shrink)

Human adaptive behavior in sensorimotor control is aimed to increase the confidence in feedforward mechanisms when sensory afferents are uncertain. It is thought that these feedforward mechanisms rely on predictions from internal models. We investigate whether the brain uses an internal model of physical laws to help estimate body equilibrium when tactile inputs from the foot sole are depressed by carrying extra weight. As direct experimental evidence for such a model is limited, we used Judoka athletes thought to have built (...) up internal models of external loads as compared with Non-Athlete participants and Dancers. Using electroencephalography, we first tested the hypothesis that the influence of tactile inputs was amplified by descending cortical efferent signals. We compared the amplitude of P1N1 somatosensory cortical potential evoked by electrical stimulation of the foot sole in participants standing still with their eyes closed. We showed smaller P1N1 amplitudes in the Load compared to No Load conditions in both Non-Athletes and Dancers. This decrease neural response to tactile stimulation was associated with greater postural oscillations. By contrast in the Judoka’s group, the neural early response to tactile stimulation was unregulated in the Load condition. This suggests that the brain can selectively increase the functional gain of sensory inputs, during challenging equilibrium tasks when tactile inputs were mechanically depressed by wearing a weighted vest. In Judokas, the activation of regions such as the right posterior inferior parietal cortex as early as the P1N1 is likely the source of the neural responses being maintained similar in both Load and No Load conditions. An overweight internal model stored in the right PPC known to be involved in maintaining a coherent representation of one’s body in space can optimize predictive mechanisms in situations with high balance constraints. This hypothesis has been confirmed by showing that postural reaction evoked by a translation of the support surface on which participants were standing wearing extra-weight was improved in Judokas. (shrink)

‘Ivravit in mea uerba tota Italia sponte sua et me belli quo uici ad Actium ducem depoposcit.’ In these words the Emperor Augustus clearly meant to suggest that the war in which he got rid of Mark Antony was none of his making, but was imposed upon him by the free and self-determined action of the Italian nation. Modern historians have unanimously refused to regard Augustus as a passive instrument in the hands of the Roman people at large; yet they (...) have generally accepted his account of the oath-taking of 32 B.C. as the outcome of a spontaneous burst of enthusiasm in his behalf, which they interpret as the reflex result of the nation's resentment against Antony's un-Roman and treasonable behaviour. (shrink)

B C Hurst; Cooper on Equality and Excellence in Education, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 15, Issue 1, 30 May 2006, Pages 119–124, https://doi.org/1.

To a student audience seduced by the claims of a ‘secular Christianity’, Professor Gordon Rupp once urged the combined loyalties of ‘worldmanship’ and ‘other-worldmanship’. The Muslim world shows little friendship to secularist ideologies which explicitly reject the eschatological dimension, but Muslims are increasingly involved in secularising processes; many of these are ‘Islamised’, if they are compatible with Islamic social or political ideals, and the stigma of bid‘ah , innovation, is thereby avoided. A Lebanese author, Muhammad Darwazah, in his Dustūr al-Qur’ (...) ānī , Cairo 1956, advocated a ‘Qur'ānic Constitution’ for the modern world since the Qur'ān’s world-view is both in-worldly and other-worldly: ‘Islam is a religion of the world , of government, society, morals and order, to the same extent as it is a religion of faith and belief and the next world .’. (shrink)

Modern science developed in the interflow of culture between west and east. Combing of pratice technology with philosophic thoughts formed experimental method. Holistic views contacting atomism produced system theory. System thoughts are applicated in the science and engineering of biosystems, and the cencepts of system biomedicine (Kamada T.1992), systems biology (Zieglgansberger W, Tolle TR.1993), system bioengineering and system genetics (Zeng BJ. 1994) were established. From positive to synthetic thoughts, philosophy have been developed ontology, cosmology, organism theories. Structurity is structure logic (...) system founded on entity, develop, exist axioms, tolerance, adaptation, fluctuate, interweave, transform theorems and integrate, adaptation, construct laws. Structurity be discussed on the cosmos, life, culture system, creation, hologram theories of structure ontology, construct mutation, simi-structure organism and entity emergence, symbol implication. From the relation of structure, function and development, the structurity put forward the cycle, spiral, triangle structure stability patterns of self-organization in structure complement each other and stratification, functional couple and interflow bounds growth, coordinativetransformation and holographic symmetry. (shrink)

This essay explains the inescapability of moral demands. I deny that the individual has genuine reason to comply with these demands only if she has desires that would be served by doing so. Rather, the learning of moral reasons helps to shape and channel self- and other-interested motivations so as to facilitate and promote social cooperation. This shaping happens through the “embedding” of reasons in the intentional objects of motivational propensities. The dominance of the instrumental conception of reason, according to (...) which reasons must be based in desires of the individual, has made it harder to recognize that reasons shape desires. I attempt to undermine this dominance by arguing that the concept of a self that extends over time is constructed to meet the demands of social cooperation. Prudential reasons to act on behalf of the persisting self's desires are often taken to constitute the paradigm of reasons based on desires of the individual. But such reasons, along with the very concept of the persisting self, are constructed to promote human cooperation and to shape the individual's desires. (shrink)

Principled discussions of civil rights became inherently less likely as a direct result of the observation by Earl Warren, in Brown v. Board of Education, that, respecting freedmen, “Education of Negroes was almost non-existent, and practically all of the race were illiterate,” and in proportion as that observation increasingly became the foundation of common opinion on the subject. Warren's observation was not true in any meaningful or non-trivial sense. Nevertheless, it served to perpetuate the myth of a backward people needing (...) help to catch up instead of the truth of a people being held back. That is the perspective – the disadvantaged group perspective – that ultimately infected all discussion of civil rights, even after the designation of so-called “disadvantaged groups” had been extended beyond American blacks. To define civil rights, we may well begin with what all mankind would likely recognize. Thus the dictionary definition of “civil rights” stands: “the rights that belong to all individuals in a nation or community touching property, marriage, and the like.” In that definition the term “rights” may be further expanded to mean “legitimate claims,” following the definition of right as law – as “a claim or title or interest in anything whatever that is enforceable by law.” This definition applies with minimal distinction of regimes intruding and, therefore, without the host of recent complications in the United States that create the impression that civil rights have something to do with pluralism. Previously, the generic definition was thought to exhaust the meaning of the term in the United States. (shrink)

B. Falk; XII*—Portraits and Persons, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 75, Issue 1, 1 June 1975, Pages 181–200, https://doi.org/10.1093/aristoteli.

B. A. Farrell; XIII*—Temporal Precedence, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 73, Issue 1, 1 June 1973, Pages 193–216, https://doi.org/10.1093/arist.

Ṣāliḥ bin ʿAbd al-Quddūs of Persian origin was born in Basra, the crossroad of religions and teachings with its socio-cultural, scientific and intellectual structure. He grew up in a family that values religion, politics and literature. Rich scientific background and cross-cultural integration of Basra significantly influenced his scientific and intellectual development. However, in historiographical sources, he is an intellectual who has come to the fore with his literary identity. His ‘sectarian’, ‘political’, ‘wise’ (ḥikami), ‘didactic’ and 'gnomic' poems form the main (...) theme of his literary writings. Various titles have been attributed to him by the authors of history and biography. "Master of poets, street preacher, storyteller, theologian and philosopher" are a number of them. Before the translation of philosophical works, he became one of the important representatives of the 'literary theology', the dialectical technique of the period. Thus, besides his poetic and literary identity, he is mentioned as one of the six theologians of Basra. Over time, he was able to attract the attention of the political power with his theoretical and literary works for both theo-political and social adjustment. However, he was not understood adequately, and his poems did not attract the necessary attention since philosophical/wise expressions were widely found in them. In his poems, it is possible to see every tone of hope and hopelessness. He reflects hope, rights, justice, equality, freedom, moral virtues, but more often; despair, death, transience of the world, ascetism and distancing from people. For this reason, he is also referred to as the "poet of despair." From this point of view, his call to the life of ascetism was interpreted as dualism. The opinions of Ṣāliḥ calling for social adjustment, justice and equality were perceived as a threat by the political authority and he was killed with the accusation of heresy. Although it is generally accepted that he was executed due to heresy, there is much speculative information about the subject. Of two examples are that he subjected to ethnic discrimination due to his Persian origin, and that he was a philosopher of dualism and a follower of Manichaeism. However, the reason for the murder of Ṣāliḥ was neither his theological choice nor ethnic origin. His poetry, which motivated social morality, intellectual development, freedom and social enlightenment, turned him into a threat to the political power. It would appear that his opposition to Arab nationalism and privilege in the ranks of Šuʿūbiyya, a populism movement and his demand that justice and equality should spread throughout all layers of society, caused political prosecution. In this process, the rule chose the easiest way to silence any opposing voice by implementing the accusation of heresy. The concept of heresy, especially with the Abbasids, quickly turned away from its religious concerm and changed into a political notion. As a result, academic discussions conducted at the scientific and intellectual level in Basra were moved to a practical arena by politics, and the dose of criticism and violence increased. First of all, with its scientific and bureaucratic elements, the state embarked on an intellectual and actual struggle with heretical teachings, which aims to distort the essential principles of Islam by dissimulation (taqīyya). Although this political attitude towards heresy, which aims to break down Islamic values, can somehow be considered reasonable, the area of accusation of heresy expanded in time; causing every opposing movement to be evaluated within this scope. However, when the main theme of his poems is examined, the first point, attracting attention is his call to believe in God, the truth of the hereafter, reckoning consciousness, responsibility, justice, equality, freedom, etc. In fact, referring to the Qur’ān and ḥadīth in his poems already proves that he was a Muslim. Nevertheless, his poems were sometimes interpreted and presented as an evidence of his heresy and whenever he was found stating the right, his statements were found invalid because of accusation of dissimulation. Considering all these facts, this article will make a logical consistency analysis of the information and narrations about Ṣāliḥ. It will also examine the validity of the accusations of heresy against him, based on his literary discourses, religious identity and political attitude. As a result, it will determine whether the negative (theological) attribution to him is really an accusation or truth by an analytical inference. (shrink)

The essays in this volume critically analyze and revitalize agrarian philosophy by tracing its evolution in the classical American philosophy of key figures such as Franklin, Jefferson, Emerson, Thoreau, Dewey, and Royce.