v. 1. Revelation, redemption-salvation, time, and the triadic approach to the godhead -- v. 2. The concept of divinity.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Books ReceivedThe Act of Being: The Philosophy of Revelation in Mullā Sadrā. By Christian Jambet. Brooklyn: Zone Books, 2006. Pp. 497. Hardcover $38.95.Analysis in Śaṅkara Vedānta: The Philosophy of Ganeswar Misra. Edited by Bijayananda Kar. New Delhi: Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 2006. Pp. xxv + 190. Hardcover Rs. 240.00.Bhakti and Philosophy. By R. Raj Singh. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2006. Pp. 112. Hardcover $65.00.Brahman and the Ethos of Organization. (...) By Leonard R. Silos. Paseo de Roxas: Asian Institute of Management, 2006. Pp. xix + 344. Price not given.Buddhist Inclusivism: Attitudes Towards Religious Others. By Kristin Beise Kiblinger. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005. Pp. viii + 145. Hardcover $89.95.Classical Northern Wu Style Tai Ji Quan: The Fighting Art of the Manchurian Palace Guard. By Tina Chunna Zhang and Frank Allen. Berkeley: Blue Snake Books, 2006. Pp. xiii + 203. Paper $21.95.Classical Sāṃkhya and Yoga: An Indian Metaphysics of Experience. By Mikel Burley. London and New York: Routledge, 2007. Pp. xiv + 226. Price not given.Comparative Philosophy and Religion in Times of Terror. Edited by Douglas Allen. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2006. Pp. xiv + 257. Hardcover $62.00. Paper $32.00.Contemplative Science: Where Buddhism and Neuroscience Converge. By B. Alan Wallace. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007. Pp. vii + 211. Hardcover $29.50, £19.00.Contexts and Dialogue: Yogācāra Buddhism and Modern Psychology on the Subliminal Mind. By Tao Jiang. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2006. Pp. xi + 198. Paper $20.00.Dialogue Transcultural. Edited by Yue Diayun et al. Nanjing: Jiangsu Peoples Press, 2006. Pp. 335. Price not given.Dōgen on Meditation and Thinking: A Reflection on His View of Zen. By Hee-Jin Kim. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Pp. xiii + 169. Hardcover $65.50. Paper $21.95.The Garden of Loneliness: A Translation of Jayshankar Prasad's Āṅsū, "Tears." By Charles S. J. White. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2006. Pp. xv + 136. Hardcover Rs. 295. [End Page 608]The Happening of Tradition: Vallabha on Anumāna in Nyāyalīlāvatī. By Anna-Pya Sjödin. Stockholm: Elanders Gotab, 2006. Pp. 195. Price not given.Head, Eyes, Flesh, and Blood: Giving Away the Body in Indian Buddhist Literature. By Reiko Ohnuma. 2006. Pp. xvii + 372. Hardcover $45.00, £29.00.Hwa Yu T'ai Chi Ch'uan: Unlocking the Mysteries of the Five-Word Song. By Glenn D. Newth. Berkeley: Blue Snake Books, 2007. Pp. xiii + 160. U.S. $18.95. Can $24.95.A Jewish Philosopher of Baghdad: 'Izz al-Dawla Ibn Kammūna (d. 683/1284) and His Writings. By Reza Pourjavady and Sabine Schmidtke. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2006. Pp. xii + 274. Hardcover $130.00, €100.Letting Be: Fred Dallmayr's Cosmopolitical Vision. Edited by Stephen F. Schneck. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006. Pp. x + 382. Paper $35.00.Myth and the Existential Quest. By Vassilis Vitsaxis and translated by Deborah Brown Kazazis and Vassilis Vitsaxis. Boston: Somerset Hall Press, 2006. Pp. 301. Hardcover $49.95. Paper $39.95.Nietzsche-Buddha-Zarathustra: Eine West-Ost Konfiguration. By Michael Skowron. Daegu: Kyungpook National University Press, 2006. Pp. 293. Paper $18.00, Won 17,000.Popularizing Buddhism: Preaching as Performance in Sri Lanka. By Mahinda Deegalle. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006. Pp. xiii + 241. Hardcover $65.00. Paper $21.95.Ramana Maharashi: The Sage of Arunachala. By Arvind Sharma. New Delhi: Penquin Group, 2006. Pp. 215. Hardcover Rs. 295.Readings in Han Chinese Thought. Edited and translated by Mark Csikszentmihalyi. Indianapolis and Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 2006. Pp. xxx + 220. Hardcover $39.95. Paper $14.95.Religions of Korea in Practice. Edited by Robert E. Buswell Jr. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2007. Pp. xx + 542. Paper $24.95, £15.95.The Scripture on Great Peace: The Taiping jing and the Beginnings of Daoism. By Barbara Hendrischke. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Pp. x + 410. Hardcover $60.00, £38.95.The Self 's Awareness of Itself: Bhaṭṭa Rāmakantha's Arguments against the Buddhist Doctrine of No-Self. By Alex Watson. Vienna: Sammlung de Nobili, 2006. Pp. 433. Price not given... (shrink)

Previous research on religion and helping has left some questions unanswered. In the present study, participants expressed willingness to help groups of people in need, and this after having been religiously versus non-religiously stimulated. The activation of religious context increased the willingness to help, but only the homeless. Orthodox religious people tended to consider the targets responsible for their problem, an association partially mediated by the belief in a just world for other. Symbolic thinking was associated with willingness for helping, (...) an association partially mediated by the belief in ultimate justice. Results suggest a limited and conditional prosociality as a consequence of religion. (shrink)

In his book Powers (2003), George Molnar argues against Dispositional Monism by presenting a posteriori reasons to believe in the existence of actual categorical features. In this paper I argue that either Molnar’s project is misdirected, since the properties he concentrates on are most possibly irrelevant for the debate between Dispositional Monism and Property Dualism, or, granted that the properties he chooses are indeed relevant, his arguments cannot prove that they are categorical without begging the question against Dispositional Monism.

My discussion will concern itself with mathematics, medicine and the possible relations between the two. It will be an exercise in logical analysis, a review of some sad, sad facts, and in some sense a promise of glad tidings. In short, it will be an effort to bring the immortal inhabitants of the mathematical heaven into harmonious relations with the mortal ills of man's vale of tears.As to the curious role of mathematics with respect to the natural sciences, several preliminary (...) observations insist on prompt consideration. It is a matter of common knowledge, for example, that mathematics is being constantly applied to physics. With great success, Galileo wedded the two in his study of motion down an inclined plane. The mathematics he used to describe the physical phenomenon involved the equation of a parabola. His daring genius thus got far beyond the conventional circles that were permitted to motion by theology. His courageous use of the then “higher mathematics” was followed by centuries of application of still higher and higher mathematics, till now a small army of mathematicians is busy almost exclusively with the problem of inventing or discovering new varieties of mathematics which could serve physics better and better. The mathematical physicist of to-day is a specialist, nine-tenths mathematician, one-tenth physicist, with the nine-tenths serving the one-tenth. (shrink)

“For there shall be days when you will say: Blessed is the womb which has not conceived, and those breasts which have not given suck.”The Apocryphal Gospel of Thomas (1)“ Oh man! why is the world becoming so narrow for you? You want to possess it alone; but if you had possessed it, it would not have been spacious enough for you:Ah! this is the pride of the devil who has fallen from heaven into hell.”.

Self–other discrimination was investigated with point-light displays in which actions were presented with or without additional auditory information. Participants first executed different actions in time with music. In two subsequent experiments, they watched point-light displays of their own or another participant’s recorded actions, and were asked to identify the agent . Manipulations were applied to the visual information and to the auditory information . Results indicate that self-recognition was better than chance in all conditions and was highest when observing relatively (...) unconstrained patterns of movement. Auditory information did not increase accuracy even with the most ambiguous visual displays, suggesting that judgments of agent identity depend much more on motor cues than on auditory or audiovisual information. (shrink)

Given the contemporary ambivalent standpoints toward the future of artificial intelligence, recently denoted as the phenomenon of Singularitarianism, Gregory Bateson’s core theories of ecology of mind, schismogenesis, and double bind, are hereby revisited, taken out of their respective sociological, anthropological, and psychotherapeutic contexts and recontextualized in the field of Roboethics as to a twofold aim: the proposal of a rigid ethical standpoint toward both artificial and non-artificial agents, and an explanatory analysis of the reasons bringing about such a polarized outcome (...) of contradictory views in regard to the future of robots. Firstly, the paper applies the Batesonian ecology of mind for constructing a unified roboethical framework which endorses a flat ontology embracing multiple forms of agency, borrowing elements from Floridi’s information ethics, classic virtue ethics, Felix Guattari’s ecosophy, Braidotti’s posthumanism, and the Japanese animist doctrine of Rinri. The proposed framework wishes to act as a pragmatic solution to the endless dispute regarding the nature of consciousness or the natural/artificial dichotomy and as a further argumentation against the recognition of future artificial agency as a potential existential threat. Secondly, schismogenic analysis is employed to describe the emergence of the hostile human–robot cultural contact, tracing its origins in the early scientific discourse of man–machine symbiosis up to the contemporary countermeasures against superintelligent agents. Thirdly, Bateson’s double bind theory is utilized as an analytic methodological tool of humanity’s collective agency, leading to the hypothesis of collective schizophrenic symptomatology, due to the constancy and intensity of confronting messages emitted by either proponents or opponents of artificial intelligence. The double bind’s treatment is the mirroring “therapeutic double bind,” and the article concludes in proposing the conceptual pragmatic imperative necessary for such a condition to follow: humanity’s conscience of habitualizing danger and familiarization with its possible future extinction, as the result of a progressive blurrification between natural and artificial agency, succeeded by a totally non-organic intelligent form of agency. (shrink)

A reading of Solon's elegy to eunomia through Castoriadis's seminal theory of autonomy as the explicit and reflective self-institution of society can elucidate the question of what constitutes sound governance. Solon proposes that the dignified realm of mortal life is the ethos of citizenship in a political state. Accordingly, this regime, which relies on intrinsic justification, needs to be understood in ethico-political terms. Its inherent ordinance is the rule of justice - the reciprocity of equitable proportion governing relations among citizens. (...) It is the responsibility of these citizens to safeguard the governing reciprocity, and when they neglect it, the entire state suffers the dire consequences of hubris. The political order that best observes and promulgates the rule of justice is good governance, which functions both as self-limitation and as a balancing measure by arranging the contest of civic forces into a fitting harmony. (shrink)

Conducting marine mammal research can raise several important ethical issues. For example, the continuation of whaling for commercial purposes despite the international moratorium provides opportunities for scientists to obtain data and tissue samples. In 2021 we analysed 35 peer-reviewed papers reporting research based on collaborations with Icelandic whalers. Results highlighted little consideration or understanding of the legal and ethical issues associated with the deliberate killing of whales amongst those researchers, funding bodies, universities and journals involved. Ethical statements were rarely provided. (...) Those that were written were incomplete. Whilst research using whaling data may seem acceptable to some, it often becomes hard to justify when subject to scrutiny by the media and the public. Thus, there is a particular danger of reputational harm for early career researchers who may become unwittingly involved in such activities. Here we also consider the broader variety of ethical issues raised by non-lethal research (both historical and recent) on marine mammals including tagging and biopsy. We discuss instances where study animals were harmed or even killed and where the public mistook tags for harpoons. Without clear guidelines, reviewers and journal editors are put in an impossible position when considering whether to reject papers on ethical grounds. We propose that for such studies, universities, funders, journals, and permit issuers must require ethical assessments and that journals more effectively implement their existing policies on publishing ethical statements. The professional marine mammal societies need to work together to produce modern ethical guidance. Such guidance should require transparency in the provenance of data and samples while including advice on law, welfare issues, involvement of local scientists, and offshoring. Furthermore, it should require appraisal of and justification for the absolute necessity of invasive procedures. As is already the case in biomedical disciplines, ethical statements should be required in marine mammal science. (shrink)

This book explores the dispositional and categorical debates on the metaphysics of properties. It defends the view that all fundamental properties and relations are contingently categorical, while also examining alternative accounts of the nature of properties. Drawing upon both established research and the author's own investigation into the broader discipline of the metaphysics of science, this book provides a comprehensive study of the many views and opinions regarding a most debatable topic in contemporary metaphysics.

How can we be certain of what a physics theory is talking about and, at the same time, not have a clue what the theory is about? Yet, this seemingly nonsensical question lurks in the background since the advent of quantum physics and is intimately entangled with the cluster of issues constituting the raw material for philosophers of science striving to negotiate the so-called classical to quantum divide.The discourse of theoretical physics unfolds on two levels: the experimental and the mathematical. (...) It is based on the competent use of everyday language, significantly enriched with sharply defined concepts, in order to deploy necessary resources, to set up and faithfully describe an experimental procedure, and to unambiguously communicate its results. And it expresses in mathematical form properties, states, their interrelations and transformations in the context of an overall conceptual framework.The synthesis of the two levels of discourse, established through the co-evolution of phy .. (shrink)

Non-Humean accounts of the metaphysics of nature posit either laws or powers in order to account for natural necessity and world-order. We argue that such monistic views face fundamental problems. On the one hand, neo-Aristotelians cannot give unproblematic power-based accounts of the functional laws among quantities offered by physical theories, as well as of the place of conservation laws and symmetries in a lawless ontology; in order to capture these characteristics, commitment to governing laws is indispensable. On the other hand, (...) ontologies that entirely exclude some kind of power ascription to worldly entities face what we call the Governing Problem: such ontologies do not have the resources to give an adequate account of how laws play their governing role. We propose a novel dualist model, which, we argue, has the resources to solve the difficulties encountered by its two dominant competitors, without inheriting the problems of either view. According to the dualist model, both laws and powers are equally fundamental and irreducible to each other, and both are needed in order to give a satisfactory account of the nomological structure of the world. The dualist model constitutes thus a promising alternative to current monistic views in the metaphysics of science. (shrink)

This is an exposition of what the author calls ‘non-classical epistemology’ in close relationship with the emergence and development of quantum mechanics. Guiding the reader along the meandering routes taken by the theory’s founders, Plotnitsky unfolds a nuanced presentation of the so-called ‘Copenhagen spirit’ or, more precisely, of the ideas of his central hero, Niels Bohr, taken to their logical conclusion. -/- Bohr’s inception and elaboration of his concept of complementarity, in conflict with his nemesis, Einstein, and alongside the other (...) pioneers of the quantum revolution is meticulously laid out in a thought-provoking narrative, punctuated with references to philosophers ranging from Aristotle and Hegel to Nietzsche and Deleuze, and to modern ground-breaking mathematical approaches to quantum mechanics. -/- Plotnitsky repeatedly stresses that he offers only ‘an’ interpretation, one among many, and a minority view at that. Nevertheless, it can arguably be said to constitute a most coherent ... (shrink)

What does it mean to be real? Could reality, taken in itself, have a sense? Or, can a reality different from and independent of any thinking possess sense? But if thinking were not of reality, would it still be able to be as such? Furthermore, is all genuine thinking in some sense unreal? The present essay addresses these issues. However, first of all, certain definitions are necessary, the most controversial being, undoubtedly, that of reality. Let us begin by trying to (...) establish the boundaries of the real, so as to be in a position to discover if there is some possibility of transcending them. (shrink)

Is not trying to define uniqueness somehow an aberration? Any definition implies a determination and an expression ; how is it possible to determine that which resembles no other thing and to express something that has no other expression but its own? A definition is a general form of thinking, a form that includes a generality; the larger this generality, the more valuable the definition. Thus, how could we hope it to include the unique, which is so unlike everything else (...) that it cannot be contained in any generalization, and which, coinciding with the universal, breaks the particular/general relation? Since these two terms are not able to account for the unique, this one is not to be treated as a concept, but as an idea. Further, it is not too great an effort to recognize that the idea of the unique stems from the idea of the One. But who can define the One except by a tautology? (shrink)

Until recently, the powerful qualities view about properties has been effectively identified with the so-called identity theory. Yet, the difficulties that the latter faces (especially concerning the interpretation of its core claim that dispositionality and qualitativity are identical) have led some metaphysicians to propose (at least provisionally) new versions of the powerful qualities view. This paper discusses the prospects of three such versions: the compound view, the higher-order properties theory and the dual aspect account. It is argued that the compound (...) view is in fact property dualism in disguise, while the higher-order properties theory does not by itself provide a metaphysically convincing solution to Armstrong’s dilemma concerning the modal status of the relation between dispositionality and categoricality. Finally, it is argued that it is not clear whether the dual aspect account is distinct from identity theory and pure powerism. (shrink)

Are there trans-religious, trans-cultural constants in psychological aspects of religion across different religions and cultures? An excessively culturalistic approach may overlook this possibility, putting an emphasis on the uniqueness of the religious phenomenon studied as emerging from a complex of multiple contextual factors. This article reviews empirical studies in psychology of religion in the 1990s that mainly include participants from different Christian denominations, but also from other religions: Muslims, Jews and Hindus. It appeared, at first, that several cross-cultural/religious differences can (...) be documented , but the interpretation of these differences is not simple, as other factors may interfere. Secondly it turned out that an impressive series of psychological constants also exist across different denominations, religions, and cultures. These constants include personality correlates, gender and gender orientation, positive and negative values, cognitive and affective aspects, identity formation, social attitudes and consequences. (shrink)

In secularized modern Western societies, moral opposition to the liberalization of abortion, gay adoption, euthanasia, and suicide often relies on justifications based on other-oriented motives. Moreover, some argue that the truly open-minded people may be those who, against the stream, oppose the established dominant liberal values in modern societies. We investigated whether moral and religious opposition to, vs. the acceptance of, the above four issues, as well as the endorsement of respective con vs. pro arguments reflect “compassionate openness”, “compassionate conservatism”, (...) or “self-centered moral rigorism”. The results, to some extent, confirmed the third pattern. Thus, compassionate openness does not seem to underline modern moral opposition, possibly in contrast to some rhetoric of the latter. (shrink)

Le saint et le héros sont plus que deux versions de la même figure qui s’adapterait en fonction du domaine de référence . En tirant profit entre autres des études récentes en psychologie de l’héroïcité et en psychologie de la religion, l’article examine les similitudes et les divergences entre le saint et le héros en les considérant comme deux figures anthropologiques avec des psychologies sous-jacentes spécifiques. Ces figures partagent évidemment des structures similaires et se renforcent mutuellement . Toutefois, les rapports (...) spécifiques que chacune de deux figures entretient avec une série des réalités obligent à envisager chaque modèle comme distinct voire par moments comme étant en partie aux antipodes de l’autre. (shrink)

Most recently Smart and Thébault revived an almost forgotten debate between Katzav and Ellis on the compatibility of Hamilton’s Principle with Dispositional Essentialism. Katzav’s arguments inter alia aim to show that HP presupposes a kind of metaphysical contingency which is at odds with the basic tenets of DE, and offers explanations of a different type and direction from those given by DE. In this paper I argue that though dispositional essentialists might adequately respond to these arguments, the question about the (...) compatibility of HP with DE has not been answered yet; therefore, dispositional essentialists have not yet provided an illuminating DE-friendly metaphysical account of HP. (shrink)

The Identity Theory of properties (IDT) is an increasingly popular metaphysical view that aims to be a middle way between pure powerism and pure categoricalism. This paper’s goal is to highlight three major difficulties that IDT should address in order to be a plausible account of the nature of properties. First, although IDT needs a clear definition of the notion of qualitativity which is both adequate and compatible with the tenets of the theory, all the extant proposals fail to provide (...) such a definition. Second, the suggested definitions of qualitativity are characterised by a metaphysical ‘neutrality’ that threatens to trivialise the important metaphysical debate regarding the question whether properties confer by themselves dispositions on their bearers (and so they are inherently modal and active) or need the ‘assistance’ of laws of nature to do that. Finally, none of the extant alternative understandings of the core identity-claim of IDT can adequately meet the objection that the claim in question is unintelligible. (shrink)

The vast majority of metaphysicians agree that powers (in contrast to categorical properties) can exist unmanifested. This paper focuses on the ontological distinction between unmanifested and manifested powers underpinning that fact and has two main aims. First, to determine the proper relata of the distinction and second, to show that an unrestricted version of dispositional monism faces serious difficulties to accommodate it. As far as the first aim is concerned, it is argued that the distinction in question, in order to (...) be free of irrelevant features, must hold between an un- manifested power-instance and the same power-instance being manifested. To the second end, the paper examines two possible candidate distinctions (actual vs. possible, be- ing-in-energeia vs. being-in-capacity). It is argued that the former fails to be a good fit for the role that the distinction under consideration should play in a dispositional monistic context. It is also argued that a specific version of the latter can ground a promising solution to the difficulty discussed in the paper. That solution, however, presupposes the inclusion of aspects of the Aristotelian metaphysical framework for powers to the dispositional monistic context. (shrink)

The Identity Theory of properties is an increasingly popular metaphysical view that aims to be a middle way between pure powerism and pure categoricalism. This paper’s goal is to highlight three major difficulties that IDT should address in order to be a plausible account of the nature of properties. First, although IDT needs a clear definition of the notion of qualitativity which is both adequate and compatible with the tenets of the theory, all the extant proposals fail to provide such (...) a definition. Second, the suggested definitions of qualitativity are characterised by a metaphysical ‘neutrality’ that threatens to trivialise the important metaphysical debate regarding the question whether properties confer by themselves dispositions on their bearers or need the ‘assistance’ of laws of nature to do that. Finally, none of the extant alternative understandings of the core identity-claim of IDT can adequately meet the objection that the claim in question is unintelligible. (shrink)