Terminal kidney patients are faced with lower quality of life, restricted diets and higher morbidity and mortality rates while waiting for deceased donor kidney transplantation. Fortunately, living kidney donation has proven to be a better treatment alternative (e.g. in terms of waiting time and graft survival rates). We observed an inequality in the number of living kidney transplantations performed between the non-European and the European patients in our center. Such inequality has been also observed elsewhere in this field and it (...) has been suggested that this inequality relates to, among other things, attitude differences towards donation based on religious beliefs. In this qualitative research we investigated whether religion might indeed (partly) be the explanation of the inequalities in living donor kidney transplants (LDKT) among non-European patients. Fifty patients participated in focus group discussions and in-depth interviews. The interviews were conducted following the focus group method and analyzed in line with Grounded Theory. The qualitative data analyses were performed in Atlas.ti. We found that religion is not perceived as an obstacle to living donation and that religion actually promotes helping and saving the life of a person. Issues such as integrity of the body were not seen as barriers to LDKT. We observed also that there are still uncertainties and a lack of awareness about the position of religion regarding living organ donation within communities, confusion due to varying interpretations of Holy Scriptures and misconceptions regarding the process of donation. Faith leaders play an important educational role and their opinion is influential. This study has identified modifiable factors which may contribute to the ethnic disparity in our living donation program. We argue that we need to strive for more clarity and awareness regarding the stance of religion on the issue of living donation in the local community. Faith leaders could be key figures in increasing awareness and alleviating uncertainty regarding living donation and transplantation. (shrink)

Through a close reading of the opening pages of Occidental Eschatology, this paper analyzes how Jacob Taubes relied on Martin Heidegger’s philosophy to understand the nature of eschatology. Taubes implemented Heidegger’s notions of truth, error, and history from his seminal essay “On the Essence of Truth,” (mis)interpreting the essay by ascribing an eschatological meaning to it. This surprisingly allowed him to find in Heidegger a model to come to terms with the Jewish experience of history. In order to fully understand (...) this untimely use of Heidegger’s work, the paper turns its attention to the correspondence of Jacob Taubes with his first wife, Susan Taubes. The conclusion asks to what extent Jacob Taubes’s uncritical use of Heidegger’s thinking plays into the latter’s notorious antisemitism. (shrink)

A concise yet rigorous introduction to logic and discrete mathematics. This book features a unique combination of comprehensive coverage of logic with a solid exposition of the most important fields of discrete mathematics, presenting material that has been tested and refined by the authors in university courses taught over more than a decade. The chapters on logic - propositional and first-order - provide a robust toolkit for logical reasoning, emphasizing the conceptual understanding of the language and the semantics of classical (...) logic as well as practical applications through the easy to understand and use deductive systems of Semantic Tableaux and Resolution. The chapters on set theory, number theory, combinatorics and graph theory combine the necessary minimum of theory with numerous examples and selected applications. Written in a clear and reader-friendly style, each section ends with an extensive set of exercises, most of them provided with complete solutions which are available in the accompanying solutions manual. Key Features: Suitable for a variety of courses for students in both Mathematics and Computer Science. Extensive, in-depth coverage of classical logic, combined with a solid exposition of a selection of the most important fields of discrete mathematics Concise, clear and uncluttered presentation with numerous examples. Covers some applications including cryptographic systems, discrete probability and network algorithms. Logic and Discrete Mathematics: A Concise Introduction is aimed mainly at undergraduate courses for students in mathematics and computer science, but the book will also be a valuable resource for graduate modules and for self-study. (shrink)

Preparing words in speech production is normally a fast and accurate process. We generate them two or three per second in fluent conversation; and overtly naming a clear picture of an object can easily be initiated within 600 msec after picture onset. The underlying process, however, is exceedingly complex. The theory reviewed in this target article analyzes this process as staged and feedforward. After a first stage of conceptual preparation, word generation proceeds through lexical selection, morphological and phonological encoding, phonetic (...) encoding, and articulation itself. In addition, the speaker exerts some degree of output control, by monitoring of self-produced internal and overt speech. The core of the theory, ranging from lexical selection to the initiation of phonetic encoding, is captured in a computational model, called WEAVER++. Both the theory and the computational model have been developed in interaction with reaction time experiments, particularly in picture naming or related word production paradigms, with the aim of accounting for the real-time processing in normal word production. A comprehensive review of theory, model, and experiments is presented. The model can handle some of the main observations in the domain of speech errors (the major empirical domain for most other theories of lexical access), and the theory opens new ways of approaching the cerebral organization of speech production by way of high-temporal-resolution imaging. (shrink)

Throughout more than two millennia philosophers adhered massively to ideal standards of scientific rationality going back ultimately to Aristotle’s Analytica posteriora. These standards got progressively shaped by and adapted to new scientific needs and tendencies. Nevertheless, a core of conditions capturing the fundamentals of what a proper science should look like remained remarkably constant all along. Call this cluster of conditions the Classical Model of Science. In this paper we will do two things. First of all, we will propose a (...) general and systematized account of the Classical Model of Science. Secondly, we will offer an analysis of the philosophical significance of this model at different historical junctures by giving an overview of the connections it has had with a number of important topics. The latter include the analytic-synthetic distinction, the axiomatic method, the hierarchical order of sciences and the status of logic as a science. Our claim is that particularly fruitful insights are gained by seeing themes such as these against the background of the Classical Model of Science. In an appendix we deal with the historiographical background of this model by considering the systematizations of Aristotle’s theory of science offered by Heinrich Scholz, and in his footsteps by Evert W. Beth. (shrink)

Twaalf inheemse en religieuze leiders uit verschillende werelddelen spreken zich in dit boek uit over de heiligheid van de natuur. Hun eeuwenoude wijsheden inspireren ons om anders te gaan denken over onze omgang met alles wat leeft. Aan het woord komen de Groenlandse sjamaan Angakkorsuaq, de Amerikaanse indianenleider Chief Lane Jr., masaileider Mwarabu, de boeddhistische geestelijke Shih, de dichtende islamgeleerde Ur Rehman Chishti, orthodox rabbijn Slifkin, Maya-priester Sac Coyoy, hindoe-prins Jhala, Aztekenleider Sanchez, leider van de Canadese Bear Clan Wawatie, bisschop (...) Smeets van Roermond en theoloog Valerio van Rochester Cathedral. 0Oeroude natuurwijsheden uit alle streken! (shrink)

Throughout the twentieth century, German writers, philosophers, theologians, and historians turned to Gnosticism to make sense of the modern condition. While some saw this ancient Christian heresy as a way to rethink modernity, most German intellectuals questioned Gnosticism's return in a contemporary setting. In No Spiritual Investment in the World, Willem Styfhals explores the Gnostic worldview's enigmatic place in these discourses on modernity, presenting a comprehensive intellectual history of Gnosticism's role in postwar German thought. Establishing the German-Jewish philosopher Jacob (...) Taubes at the nexus of the debate, Styfhals traces how such figures as Hans Blumenberg, Hans Jonas, Eric Voegelin, Odo Marquard, and Gershom Scholem contended with Gnosticism and its tenets on evil and divine absence as metaphorical detours to address issues of cultural crisis, nihilism, and the legitimacy of the modern world. These concerns, he argues, centered on the difficulty of spiritual engagement in a world from which the divine has withdrawn. Reading Gnosticism against the backdrop of postwar German debates about secularization, political theology, and post-secularism, No Spiritual Investment in the World sheds new light on the historical contours of postwar German philosophy. (shrink)

Joseph Butler als zedekundige beschouwd en gewaardeerd by Willem Hendrik Weeda. This book is a reproduction of the original book published in 1899 and may have some imperfections such as marks or hand-written notes.

Dr. Willem Meijer [van W. G. van der Tak]--Lijst der in druk verschenen geschriften van dr. W. Meijer. [Door E. E. Eckstein]--Benedicti de Spinoza philosophiæ brevis commentatio.--Extracten uit de jaarverslagen van den secretaris der vereeniging Het Spinozahuis over het tijdvak 1897-1922.--Lijst der in de verslagen van de vereeniging Het Spinozahuis besproken boeken en tijdschriftartikels.

This paper concentrates on some aspects of the history of the analyticsynthetic distinction from Kant to Bolzano and Frege. This history evinces considerable continuity but also some important discontinuities. The analytic-synthetic distinction has to be seen in the first place in relation to a science, i.e. an ordered system of cognition. Looking especially to the place and role of logic it will be argued that Kant, Bolzano and Frege each developed the analytic-synthetic distinction within the same conception of scientific rationality, (...) that is, within the Classical Model of Science: scientific knowledge as cognitio exprincipiis. But as we will see, the way the distinction between analytic and synthetic judgments or propositions functions within this model turns out to differ considerably between them. (shrink)

This article considers Ruth Millikan's relationship to Robert Brandom and most especially their common influence, Wilfrid Sellars.

This chapter contains sections titled: Quine, the Dogmas, and Sellars The Transcendental Argument for Sense Impressions Are Sense Impressions Casually Idle? A Sideways‐On View from Nowhere Sensation and the Phenomenology of Perception Concluding Remarks Notes References.

A summary of Sellars' argument that the Given is a myth--there is no such thing as a given in our knowledge.

Inleiding, gebaseerd op een collegedictaat en een syllabus voor studenten aan de Economische hogeschool te Rotterdam.

This chapter contains section titled: “One Must Die to Know the Truth” “Prayer to the Cloud of Unknowing” Bored, as in Really Bored The Boxing of D'Anna Biers Notes.

Levelt, reviewing the AGL field from a psycholinguistic perspective, identifies various gaps and makes a number of concrete suggestions for improving several currently used experimental designs. He raises the question whether artificial (and natural) grammar learning is about detecting ‘rules’, as is commonly assumed, or rather the detection of a set of ‘constraints’. He cautions the community to not ignore ‘semantics’, and recommends to consider less artificial tasks, that may be needed for learning more complex rules by human or nonhuman (...) animals. (shrink)

Zuidema et al. illustrate how empirical AGL studies can benefit from computational models and techniques. Computational models can help clarifying theories, and thus in delineating research questions, but also in facilitating experimental design, stimulus generation, and data analysis. The authors show, with a series of examples, how computational modeling can be integrated with empirical AGL approaches, and how model selection techniques can indicate the most likely model to explain experimental outcomes.

Experientialist accounts of wellbeing are those accounts of wellbeing that subscribe to the experience requirement. Typically, these accounts are hedonistic. In this article I present the claim that hedonism is not the most plausible experientialist account of wellbeing. The value of experience should not be understood as being limited to pleasure, and as such, the most plausible experientialist account of wellbeing is pluralistic, not hedonistic. In support of this claim, I argue first that pleasure should not be understood as a (...) broad term to describe valuable experiences generally. I then analyze responses to the main argument against a monistic view on the value of experience: the philosophy of swine objection. I argue that such responses deviate from the central hedonistic view that only pleasure and pain matter for wellbeing. I then argue that the argument can be avoided on a pluralistic account, and formulate a plausible candidate for an account of pluralistic experientialism, in which, besides pleasure, non-hedonic aspects of experience like novelty, compassion, and aesthetic value also contribute to wellbeing. (shrink)

According to Vallicella's‘Relations, Monism, and the Vindication of Bradley's Regress’ , if relations are to relate their relata, some special operator must do the relating. No other options will do. In this paper we reject Vallicella's conclusion by considering an important option that becomes visible only if we hold onto a precise distinction between the following three feature‐pairs of relations: internality/externality, universality/particularity, relata‐specificity/relata‐unspecificity. The conclusion we reach is that if external relations are to relate their relata, they must be relata‐specific (...) . As it eschews unmereological complexes, this outcome is of relevance to defenders of the extensionality of composition. (shrink)

In the history of Jewish, Christian and Muslim culture, religious identity was not only formed by historical claims, but also by the usage of certain images: “images of God”, “images of the others”, “images of the self.”This book includes a discussion of the role of these images in society and politics, in theology and liturgy, yesterday and today.