The belief that some misfortunes are punishments sent from God has been affirmed by many different cultures and religions throughout human history. The belief has proved a pervasive one, and is still endorsed today by many adherents of the great western religions of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Invariably, what is believed is that a present misfortune is divine punishment for a past sin. But could a present misfortune in fact be divine punishment for a future sin? That is, could God prepunish (...) people for their future transgressions? The aim of this paper will be to show that there are solid philosophical grounds for supposing that he could and would do so. (shrink)

In early modern times it was not uncommon for thinkers to tease out from the nature of God various doctrines of substantial physical and metaphysical import. This approach was particularly fruitful in the so-called beast-machine controversy, which erupted following Descartes’ claim that animals are automata, that is, pure machines, without a spiritual, incorporeal soul. Over the course of this controversy, thinkers on both sides attempted to draw out important truths about the status of animals simply from the notion or attributes (...) of God. Automatists – led by Nicolas Malebranche and Antoine Dilly – developed six such arguments, appealing to divine justice, providence, economy, glory (twice) and wisdom, while opponents to animal automatism developed two arguments, appealing to divine wisdom and goodness. In this article I shall examine the substance of all eight of these arguments, along with their origins, patronage, and variations, and the objections they elicited from opponents, with the aim of determining their suitability for use in contemporary debates about animal sentience and consciousness, and hence their relevance for contemporary philosophers. (shrink)

The concept of the best of all possible worlds is widely considered to be incoherent on the grounds that, for any world that might be termed the best, there is always another that is better. I note that underlying this argument is a conviction that the goodness of a world is determined by a single kind of good, the most plausible candidates for which are not maximizable. Against this I suggest that several goods may have to combine to determine the (...) goodness of a world, and because of logical conflicts between them, the goods can be optimized to give a genuine best of all possible worlds. (shrink)

Philosophers ... always demand that we should think of an eye that is completely unthinkable, an eye turned in no particular direction, in which the active and interpreting forces, through which alone seeing becomes seeing something, are supposed to be lacking; they always demand of the eye an absurdity and a nonsense.

This paper is focused on F. W. J. Schelling's view of freedom during the period of the Freiheitsschrift (1809) and related works. It is argued that the standard way this has been understood may be too simplistic. On this standard interpretation of his view, evil is made a matter of free choice by the agent, but where the choice does not concern individual actions, but the choice of the agent's essence in an atemporal act. As a result of this choice, (...) it is argued, Schelling can then make evil imputable. By contrast, I argue that for Schelling freedom does not involve choice, but necessity, but in a way that is still internal to the agent and hence non-coercive, and thus in a way that remains free and makes evil imputable. How Schelling comes to have this view is considered, and some responses are given to ways it might be challenged both interpretatively and philosophically. (shrink)

Ordinal polytheism is motivated by the cosmological and design arguments. It is also motivated by Leibnizian–Lewisian modal realism. Just as there are many universes, so there are many gods. Gods are necessary concrete grounds of universes. The god-universe relation is one-to-one. Ordinal polytheism argues for a hierarchy of ranks of ever more perfect gods, one rank for every ordinal number. Since there are no maximally perfect gods, ordinal polytheism avoids many of the familiar problems of monotheism. It links theology with (...) counterpart theory, mathematics and computer science. And it entails that the system of universes has an attractive axiological structure. (shrink)

This paper considers the analogies and disanalogies between a certain sort of argument designed to oppose scepticism about free will and a certain sort of argument designed to oppose scepticism about the external world. In the case of free will, I offer the ancient Lazy Argument and an argument of my own, which I call the Agency Argument, as examples of the relevant genre; and in the case of the external world, I consider Moore’s alleged proof of an external world. (...) I draw attention to analogies and disanalogies between the arguments offered in each case in order to suggest that although the Agency Argument shares with its Moorean relative the unfortunate property of being dialectically ineffective against some of those it is mainly hoping to convince, it will not be dialectically ineffective against all of them. It is also argued that the Agency Argument is less vulnerable than Moore’s proof to worries about its justificatory structure. (shrink)

I formulate and defend a version of the many universes (or multiverse) reply to the atheistic argument from evil. Specifically, I argue that (i) if we know that any argument from evil (be it a logical or evidential argument) is sound, then we know that God would be (or at least probably would be) unjustified in actualizing our universe. I then argue that (ii) there might be a multiverse and (iii) if so, then we do not know that God would (...) be (or at least probably would be) unjustified in actualizing our universe. It follows that we cannot know that the atheistic argument from evil is sound, in which case we cannot be certain that the argument succeeds, and so it is rational to refuse to reject theism because of such arguments. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to present some philosophical considerations about the supposed AI emergence in the future. However, the predicted timeline of this process is uncertain. To avoid any kind of speculations on the proposed analysis from a scientific point of view, a metaphysical approach is undertaken as a modal context of the discussion. I argue that modal claim about possible AI emergence at a certain point of time in the future is justified from a temporal perspective. Therefore, (...) worldwide society must be prepared for possible AI emergence and the expected profound impact of such an event on the existential status of humanity. (shrink)

An analysis of Derrida’s early work engaging Plato, Hegel, and the life sciences. Germs of Death explores the idea of genesis, or dissemination, in the early work of Jacques Derrida. Looking at Derrida’s published and unpublished work from “Force and Signification” in 1963 to Glas in 1974, Mauro Senatore traces the development of Derrida’s understanding of genesis both linguistically and biologically, and argues that this topic is an overlooked thread that draws together Derrida’s readings of Plato and Hegel. Demonstrating how (...) Derrida’s analysis liberates the understanding of genesis from Platonic and Hegelian presupposition, Senatore also highlights Derrida’s engagement with the biological thought of his day. Senatore also shows that the implications of Derrida’s insights extend into contemporary ethical and political questions relating to postgenomic conceptions of life. “Senatore here demonstrates with stunning insight, clarity, and economy that Derrida’s work of the 1960s and ’70s needs to be understood as a radical critique or deconstruction of both the philosophical concept of life (from Plato to Hegel) and the prevailing biological model of heredity as a ‘genetic program.’ It will be impossible henceforth to read Derrida on questions of the trace, dissemination, life, and so on, without coming to terms with ‘the germs of death.’” — Michael Naas, author of The End of the World and Other Teachable Moments: Jacques Derrida’s Final Seminar “The book represents a major contribution to the field of Derrida studies and phenomenology, particularly its attention to the concept of genesis that formed the basis of Derrida’s earliest study of Husserl and the origin of his concept of writing. The unique contribution is the inclusion of the works from the periods of the mid-1970s, which have been neglected in the mainstream scholarship on Derrida.” — Gregg Lambert, author of Philosophy after Friendship: Deleuze’s Conceptual Personae. (shrink)

In the accepted view, the basic disposition of believers is one of absolute obedience, humility, and lack of critique, doubt, or, indeed, defiance of God. Only through such a disposition do believers convey their absolute faith and establish the appropriate hierarchy between God and humans. This article challenges this view and argues that, in mainstream rabbinic tradition, the believer is not required to renounce his or her moral autonomy and certainly not his or her understanding of God and the world. (...) Indeed, faith rests on such understanding; moreover, human autonomy is the mechanism through which humans convey God’s goodness and perfection. Their questions and criticism are part of a persistent effort to close the evident gap between their assumptions about God’s goodness and the flawed imperfect reality. The analysis focuses on rabbinic tradition but its implications go beyond it, presenting a model of a life of faith that compels subjects, as believers, to preserve their constitutive foundations as rational autonomous creatures. (shrink)

This essay presents a new interpretation of Bolzano's account of necessary truth as set out in ?182 of the Theory of Science. According to this interpretation, Bolzano's conception is closely related to that of Leibniz, with some important differences. In the first place, Bolzano's conception of necessary truth embraces not only what Leibniz called metaphysical or brute necessities but also moral necessities (truths grounded in God's choice of the best among all metaphysical possibilities). Second, in marked contrast to Leibniz, Bolzano (...) maintains that there is still plenty of room for contingency even on this broader conception of necessity. (shrink)

In a series of publications beginning in the 1980s, John Etchemendy has argued that the standard semantical account of logical consequence, due in its essentials to Alfred Tarski, is fundamentally mistaken. He argues that, while Tarski's definition requires us to classify the terms of a language as logical or non-logical, no such division is guaranteed to deliver the correct extension of our pre-theoretical or intuitive consequence relation. In addition, and perhaps more importantly, Tarski's account is claimed to be incapable of (...) explaining an essential modal/epistemological feature of consequence, namely, its necessity and apriority. Bernard Bolzano (1781-1848) is widely recognized as having anticipated Tarski's definition in his Wissenschaftslehre (or Theory of Science ) of 1837. Because of the similarities between his account and Tarski's, Etchemendy's arguments have also been extended to cover Bolzano. The purpose of this article is to consider Bolzano's theory in the light of these criticisms. We argue that, due to important differences between Bolzano's and Tarski's theories, Etchemendy's objections do not apply immediately to Bolzano's account of consequence. Moreover, Bolzano's writings contain the elements of a detailed philosophical response to Etchemendy. (shrink)

This article begins with a brief survey of Kant’s pre-Critical and Critical approaches to theodicy. I maintain that his theodical response of moral faith during the Critical period appears to be a dispassionate version of what Leibniz called Fatum Christianum. Moral rationality establishes the existence and goodness of God and translates into an endless and unwavering commitment to following the moral law. I then argue that Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason offers a revision of Kant’s 1791 conception of (...) “authentic theodicy.” Kant comes to recognize that the ends of morality and virtue, as well as the action needed to respond to the noumenal evil at the heart of humanity, outstrip the “religion of good life conduct.” This leads Kant to argue in favor of a new form of moral life embedded in a religious community and based on the love of God and of one’s fellow humans. Such a life is rooted in the incorporation of a holy principle in our noumenal selves that he terms “divine blessedness.”. (shrink)

Kant scholars have rarely addressed the notion of optimism as it was interpreted by the Königsbergian philosopher in the mid-18th century. The notion originates from Leibniz’s Theodi­cy and from debates over whether the actual world is the best of all possible worlds. The first of a two-part series, this article studies the historical context in which appeared Kant’s 1759 lecture advertisement leaflet entitled An Attempt at Some Reflections on Optimism. The study describes the requirements of the 1755 Berlin Academy of (...) Sciences’ competition for a comparison of G. W. Leibniz’s and A. Pope’s systems and an assessment of optimism. Another focus is the philological difficulties of translating Pope’s proposition “Whatever is, is right” into the French language — which was part of the competition task. The author considers the ways the proposition was translated into the Russian and German languages. The article shows the contribution of Voltaire and his Poem on the Lisbon Disaster and Candide: or, Optimism to the post factum changes in the perception of the competition results and to the emergence of new shades of meaning in the concept of optimism. The Lisbon earthquake of 1755 had a profound effect on Europe and on the perception of optimism and of the idea that the actual world is the best of all possible worlds. However, Kant’s epistolary legacy leads one to the conclusion that the philosopher examined the problem in the framework of a polemic on Crusian philosophy. This article presents Crusius’s arguments against the theory that this is the best of all possible worlds and in favour of the theory that there are several good worlds. God’s choice of the actual world owes therefore to the freedom of contradiction (libertas contradictionis) and to the freedom of contrariety (libertas contrarietatis), which are eliminated in the teaching of optimism. (shrink)

God is traditionally understood to be a perfect being who is the creator and sustainer of all that is. God's creative and sustaining activity is often thought to involve choosing a possible world for actualization. It is generally said that either there is (a) exactly one best of all possible worlds, or there are (b) infinitely many increasingly better worlds, or else there are (c) infinitely many unsurpassable worlds within God's power to actualize. On each view, critics have offered arguments (...) for atheism that turn on God's choice of a world. In what follows, I first discuss some background issues, and I then survey the contemporary literature on these arguments. (shrink)

In a recent article Mark Ian Thomas Robson argues that there is a clear contradiction between the view that possible worlds are a part of God's nature and the theologically pivotal, but philosophically neglected, claim that God is perfectly beautiful. In this article I show that Robson's argument depends on several key assumptions that he fails to justify and as such that there is reason to doubt the soundness of his argument. I also demonstrate that if Robson's argument were sound (...) then this would be a problem for all classical theists and not just those who hold the possible worlds view. (shrink)

This is a survey of the concept of continuity. Efforts to explicate continuity have produced a plurality of philosophical conceptions of continuity that have provably distinct expressions within contemporary mathematics. I claim that there is a divide between the conceptions that treat the whole continuum as prior to its parts, and those conceptions that treat the parts of the continuum as prior to the whole. Along this divide, a tension emerges between those conceptions that favor philosophical idealizations of continuity and (...) those that are more readily available for mathematico-scientific use. (shrink)

The article examines Kant's various criticisms of the broadly Cartesian ontological argument as they are developed in the Critique of Pure Reason. It is argued that each of these criticisms is effective against its intended target, and that these targets include—in addition to Descartes himself—Leibniz, Wolff, and Baumgarten. It is argued that Kant's most famous criticism—the charge that being is not a real predicate—is directed exclusively against Leibniz. Kant's argument for this thesis—the argument proceeding from his example of a hundred (...) thalers—although it may seem to beg the question, in fact succeeds against Leibniz. It does so because the charge of begging the question can be rebutted if one makes certain Leibnizian assumptions. (shrink)

Leibniz's principle of sufficient reason (PSR) is the claim that everything has a sufficient reason. But is Leibniz committed to the necessity or to the contingency of his great principle? I argue that Leibniz is committed to its contingency, given that he allows for the absolute possibility of entities that he claims violate the PSR. These are all cases of qualitatively indiscernible entities, such as indiscernible atoms, vacua, and bodies. However, Leibniz's commitment to the contingency of the PSR seems to (...) stand in tension with his inference of the PSR from his theory of truth. I argue that this apparent tension can be resolved satisfactorily. When it comes to his modal views on the PSR, Leibniz's position is entirely consistent. (shrink)

The guise of the good is the claim that whatever I desire or intentionally do is seen by me as good in some respect. Historical scholarship has so far predominantly focused on ancient and medieval...

For the mature Leibniz, a living being is a created substance composed of an infinitely complex organic body and a simple, immaterial soul. Soul and body do not interact directly, but rather their states correspond according to a harmony preestablished by God. I show that Leibniz’s theory faces challenges with respect to the question of whether substances need to possess knowledge of how they bring about their effects, and I argue that, to address these challenges, Leibniz turns to a concept (...) of “divine preformation” that he attributes to both soul and body. Insofar as divine preformation provides Leibniz with an explanation for how soul and body can both act without possessing explicit knowledge of what they are doing, it serves as a key tool for justifying the theory of preestablished harmony. (shrink)

A remarkable but little studied aspect of current evolutionary theory is the use by many biologists and philosophers of theological arguments for evolution. These can be classed under two heads: imperfection arguments, in which some organic design is held to be inconsistent with God's perfection and wisdom, and homology arguments, in which some pattern of similarity is held to be inconsistent with God's freedom as an artificer. Evolutionists have long contended that the organic world falls short of what one might (...) expect from an omnipotent and benevolent creator. Yet many of the same scientists who argue theologically for evolution are committed to the philosophical doctrine of methodological naturalism, which maintains that theology has no place in science. Furthermore, the arguments themselves are problematical, employing concepts that cannot perform the work required of them, or resting on unsupported conjectures about suboptimality. Evolutionary theorists should reconsider both the arguments and the influence of Darwinian theological metaphysics on their understanding of evolution. (shrink)

The Argument from Inferiority holds that our world cannot be the creation of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent being; for if it were, it would be the best of all possible worlds, which evidently it is not. We argue that this argument rests on an implausible principle concerning which worlds it is permissible for an omnipotent being to create: roughly, the principle that such a being ought not to create a non-best world. More specifically, we argue that this principle is plausible (...) only if we assume that there is a best element in the set of all possible worlds. However, as we show, there are conceivable scenarios in which that assumption does not hold. (shrink)

Violence is essential to religion, while religion holds the promise of transcending violence. The designation religious refers not to a type of violence, but to a specific issue of violence, namely the claim to higher justification. This religious aspect is not confined to religion; it is also evident in the secular domain. A critique of religious violence needs to show the gap between violence and its justifications, experienced affectively in horror. This horror in response to the unspeakable is structurally akin (...) to mystical experience, the temporal structure of which indicates the failure of the theodical justification for violence. (shrink)

We contemplate Deleuze and Guattari's discussion of in/compossibility through engagement with practices of spatial planning and development at the urban fringe in Australia. In such sites of ecosystem transformation, the presence of wildlife, such as mosquitoes, is often deemed incompossible with felicitous human habitation. We suggest that regarding worlds like those of mosquitoes and humans as divergent, rather than incompossible, opens up opportunities for inclusive disjunctive syntheses which affirm the disjoined terms without excluding one from the other. Relating inclusive disjunction (...) to intensive milieu, we call for development of a more milieu-based approach to planning to facilitate more-than-human coexistence differently. (shrink)

Leibniz speaks, in a variety of contexts, of there being two realms—a "kingdom of power or efficient causes" and "a kingdom of wisdom or final causes." This essay explores an often overlooked application of Leibniz's famous "two realms doctrine." The first part turns to Leibniz's work in optics for the roots of his view that nature can be seen as being governed by two complete sets of equipotent laws, with one set corresponding to the efficient causal order of the world, (...) and the other to its teleological order. The second part offers an account of how this picture of lawful over-determination is to be reconciled with Leibniz's mature metaphysics. The third addresses a line of objection proposed by David Hirschmann to the effect that Leibniz's doctrine undermines his stated commitment to an efficient, broadly mechanical account of the natural world. Finally, the fourth part suggests that Leibniz's thinking about the harmony of final and efficient causes in connection with corporeal nature may help to shed light on his understanding of the teleological unfolding of monads as well. (shrink)

I will consider how the notion of incommensurability, as championed by Parfit (Reasons and persons, 1984), Griffin (Well-being: its meaning, measurement and importance, 1986), Chang (Ethics 112:659–688, 2002), and Hare (Philos Perspect 23:165–176, 2009), might affect both the argument from slight pain (which suggests God’s non-existence can be inferred from the merest stubbing of one’s toe) and Leibniz’s reply to this argument. I conclude that the notion of incommensurability may ultimately strengthen Leibniz’s general position.

Considérons deux mondes épistémiquement possibles qui sont aussi similaires que possible, sauf que l’athéisme est vrai dans un monde et que le théisme est vrai dans l’autre monde. Quel monde est-il rationnel de préférer? J’examine la défense la plus forte de l’affirmation quelque peu contre-intuitive selon laquelle il est rationnel de préférer le monde athée. Je discute également de la conclusion opposée, à savoir qu’il est rationnel de préférer le monde théiste. Étonnamment, ma conclusion est qu’il est difficile de dire (...) s’il faut préférer le théisme ou l’athéisme en général. (shrink)

In this essay I offer a new interpretation of Kant’s discussion of “the old formula of the schools” in the Critique of Practical Reason – “nihil appetimus, nisi sub ratione boni; nihil aversamur, n...

Either a ‘best world’ scenario is true or a ‘no best world’ scenario is true. In a ‘best world’ scenario, God actualizes a world that is unsurpassable. In a ‘no best world’ scenario, for any possible world God actualizes, God could have actualized a better world. A ‘no best world’ scenario precludes theism, so the theist should endorse a ‘best world’ scenario. However, a ‘best world’ scenario leads to the highly counter-intuitive conclusion of modal collapse: the position that nothing could (...) have turned out differently than it did. A tentative solution to modal collapse is if the ‘best world’ scenario turns out to be the theistic multiverse containing many universes. (shrink)

In the Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Locke maintains that ?Reason must be our last Judge and Guide in every Thing,? including matters of religious faith, and this commitment to the primacy of reason is not abandoned in his later religious writings. This essay argues that with regard to the relation between reason and religious faith, Locke is primarily concerned not with evidence, but with consistency, meaning, and how human beings ought to respond to their inclinations, including their inclinations to believe. (...) Leibniz, on the other hand, stakes out an alternative conception of the relationship between faith and reason that assigns to faith the role of a primary truth. For Leibniz, some religious propositions can be believed immediately and without an additional examination and evaluation by reason. The essay maintains that the differences between the two regarding faith and reason are tied to a broader disagreement about how much of the human understanding is due, in Locke's words, to ?Labour, Attention and Industry? (shrink)

Philosophical Papers, Volume 41, Issue 1, Page 149-165, March 2012.

If we consider their fundamental role in the makeup of simple substances, our understanding of Leibnizian appetites or ‘appetitions’ seems far from satisfactory. To promote a better understanding of Leibniz’s mature view of appetites, I present a new reading of the appetitive nature of simple substances, focusing on key texts where Leibniz stresses how appetites fail to reach what they strive for. Against the “standard reading,” according to which appetites are the direct causes of subsequent perceptual states, I propose an (...) alternative, more complex picture of appetitive activity within simple substances. On my account, what Leibniz typically refers to as ‘appetites’ do not directly cause subsequent states, but are strivings or desires to be in states of less unease or greater happiness, states that the creature might actually fail to enjoy. This reading of appetites, I argue, is consistent with there being an additional, distinct strand of appetitive activity, one that corresponds to the primitive forces of simple substances. In contrast to the first strand of appetitive activity, this second strand is directly causal in that its final causality is operative in the exceptionless occurrence of the series of perceptual states prescribed in the “law of the series.” The resulting picture is one in which simple substances are appetitive through and through, with teleological activity permeating the substance at the levels of both primitive and derivative forces. (shrink)

In this article I argue that the Critical Kant endorses the claim that God creates the best possible world, and that this claim is best understood as committing him to the view that God creates an infinitely valuable world. Kant’s understudied Critical theory of the best possible world differs significantly from his better-known quasi-Leibnizian pre-Critical account insofar as it uses an axiological rather than ontological metric for the goodness of worlds. The axiological metric introduces unique challenges for a Kantian account (...) of the best possible world. These challenges are in turn resolved via an infinite value interpretation. (shrink)

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz endorses a version of the guise of the good thesis: he holds that whenever we do something intentionally, we do it because it seems good to us. This paper explores Leibniz...

The relationship between God and morality has been a topic of philosophical discussion since Socrates engaged Euthyphro in the agora. In recent years, it has received a lot of attention, as theistic philosophers have attempted to show that divine command theory and other theistic meta‐ethical accounts are defensible. Whether metaphysical naturalism is compatible with moral realism is a related (and equally controversial) topic. This essay surveys the main issues in these debates.

Monads, Composition, and Force: Ariadnean Threads through Leibniz’s Labyrinth, by ArthurRichard. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. ix + 329.

I demonstrate that the pre-Critical Kant is essentialist and intellectualist about the relational properties of substances. That is to say, God can choose whether or not to create a substance, and whether or not to connect this substance with other substances, so as to create a world: but God cannot choose what the nature of the relational properties is, once the substance is created and connected. The divine will is constrained by the essences of substances. Nonetheless, Kant considers that essences (...) depend upon God, in that they depend upon the divine intellect. I conclude by gesturing towards some possible implications of this interpretation, when considering the role that might be played by God – both historically and conceptually – in relation to the notion of ‘laws of nature’, and when understanding Kant's transcendental idealism and his Critical conception of freedom. (shrink)

This paper defends the thesis that counterfactuals are strict conditionals. Its purpose is to show that there is a coherent view according to which counterfactuals are strict conditionals whose antecedent is stated elliptically. Section 1 introduces the view. Section 2 outlines a response to the main argument against the thesis that counterfactuals are strict conditionals. Section 3 compares the view with a proposal due to Aqvist, which may be regarded as its direct predecessor. Sections 4 and 5 explain how the (...) view di ers from the theories of counterfactuals advocated by Stalnaker and Lewis, and from some contextualist strict conditional accounts of counterfactuals that have emerged recently. Finally, section 6 addresses the thorny issue of disjunctive antecedents. (shrink)

This article builds on the notion of legal tolerance and analyzes the scope of its definition. It situates the notion in the complex set of relations occurring between the major systems of society. Generally, legal tolerance, as a concept, is understood in light of the possibilities of the legal system of influencing other major systems? responses. On the other hand, tolerance is also the response of the legal system in respect to other major systems? communications. Although there is a common (...) understanding of tolerance as ?under punishing bias? in criminology or as political tolerance in political science, 1 the focus of this article is different. The central points here are, first, the analysis of legal tolerance as part of systemic communications and, second, the historicity of the transformations of the nation-state in its ability to cope with the growth of separate, distinct and partial systems of society. Tolerance seems relational and raises questions such as: ?How much can the legal system tolerate?? And also, ?Which societal topics belong to the social system's domain-matter?? These questions are relevant given that the concept of legal tolerance depends on the possibilities of a given system to steer, to direct or to influence other major systems? behavior, or to resist, respond or to address other systems, which are in its environment. The concept of legal tolerance requires an analysis of a cluster of related definitions to assess the implications of the concept. These definitions are the following: (1) The concepts that result from the historical process of structuration and that explain the emergence of social systems. (2) The definition of reflexivity and its relation with the ?second order cybernetics dilemma.? This is the place where heuristic and epistemological problems are found. Such problems result from both the problem of representation and from the ontological status of the real. This analysis will show why reflexivity is a key concept to explaining the transformations suffered by such systems. Then, legal tolerance is a newer development in respect to the idea of planning. As an alternative to hard planning, legal tolerance creates a fostering environment. Instead of a single system directing other systems, legal tolerance is relational and created collectively by the organizational national state using its (limited) power of legal creation. Legal tolerance also stems from the concerned subsystems of the society (economy, law, politics, science, along with others) by means of a variety of legislative products, public policies, alliances, and legal and other scientific communications that emerge as coordinating mechanisms among the alluded major subsystems. (shrink)

This article aims to elucidate and explore the significance of a distinction in Schopenhauer's pessimism which has not yet received detailed attention in the secondary literature. Schopenhauer is well known to have argued for the thesis that the fundamental feature of sentient life is pervasive suffering, and on these grounds held that individual lives are not worth living. However, he similarly claims with frequency that the nonexistence of the world “as a whole” is preferable to its existence. This is a (...) distinct thesis, and it is unclear how Schopenhauer thinks it relates to the first. This investigation seeks to rectify this, arguing that the ambiguous concept of the world “as a whole” has at least two interpretations in Schopenhauer's texts. Moreover, that this “world-pessimism”—once properly understood—may avoid certain objections that pessimism at the level of the individual is vulnerable to. (shrink)

In this paper we discuss the question whether God intends that sin occur. We clarify the question, consider some of the answers given in the Christian tradition, and give a careful commentary on a few especially telling passages from the Christian Scriptures. We consider two philosophically informed interpretative strategies, one derived from the work of Frances Kamm, the other from Reformed scholasticism, against our interpretation of these passages. While we concede that in other passages such interpretations may allow a way (...) of escaping our argument, we conclude that in the case of the telling passages we have selected there is simply no comparably plausible alternative interpretation. (shrink)

Abstract: This paper identifies two central paradoxes threatening the notion of amor fati [love of fate]: it requires us to love a potentially repellent object (as fate entails significant negativity for us) and this, in the knowledge that our love will not modify our fate. Thus such love may seem impossible or pointless. I analyse the distinction between two different sorts of love (eros and agape) and the type of valuation they involve (in the first case, the object is loved (...) because we value it; in the second, we value the object because we love it). I use this as a lens to interpret Nietzsche's cryptic pronouncements on amor fati and show that while an erotic reading is, up to a point, plausible, an agapic interpretation is preferable both for its own sake and because it allows for a resolution of the paradoxes initially identified. In doing so, I clarify the relation of amor fati to the eternal return on the one hand, and to Nietzsche's autobiographical remarks about suffering on the other. Finally, I examine a set of objections pertaining both to the sustainability and limits of amor fati, and to its status as an ideal. (shrink)