According to a well-known view in the philosophy of mind, intentional attitudes by their very nature satisfy requirements of rationality (e.g. Davidson 1980; Dennett 1987; Millar 2004). This view (which I shall call Constitutivism) features prominently as the ‘principle of minimal rationality’ in de Sousa’s monograph The Rationality of Emotion (1987). By explicating this principle in terms of the notion of the formal object of an attitude, de Sousa articulates an interesting and original version of Constitutivism, which differs in important (...) respects from other extant versions. In this paper, I explore this version of Constitutivism against the background of recent developments in the theory of rationality and make explicit its ramifications for the long-standing dispute over whether the mind is essentially normative. My focus will be on how to conceive of the form of the rationality requirements that attitudes as such must satisfy according to this principle. I argue that, although de Sousa seems officially to endorse a structuralist conception of rationality, according to which these requirements are requirements of coherence, his considerations on formal objects suggest that they are more aptly conceived in terms of a reasons-responsive conception of rationality. I further argue that which of these two readings we choose makes a significant difference to the prospect of vindicating the essential normativity of mind by invoking the principle of minimal rationality. (shrink)

The aim of this essay is to bring to light the role played by concern for the ēthos of citizens in the establishment and preservation of regimes by virtuous legislative activity, with special reference to democratic forms of government. To this goal, I will lay stress on the idea of “political friendship”, which Aristotle explores in his ethical works in relation to the power of virtuous legislative activity to shape the habits of citizens. An analysis of different types of democratic (...) regimes will show that they lack of authentic political friendship. I will also contend that, although democratic measures might occasionally ameliorate and preserve imperfect regimes, Aristotle continues to maintain a negative view of such politeiai. (shrink)

We argue that there is nothing that can do the work that normative reasons are expected to do. A currently popular view is that in any given situation, a set of normative reasons (understood as a set of facts, typically about the agent’s situation) always determines the ways we prospectively should or should not respond. We discuss an example that we think shows no such collection of facts could have this normative significance. A radical response might be to dispense with (...) reasons and explain the facts about the ways we should respond using something else entirely (e.g., expected value). We think a more fruitful approach is to explore the possibility of using decision-theoretic tools in a reasons-centred framework. (shrink)

An introduction to philosophy of language since Frege, focusing on the 20th century.

Deficits in gestures act as early signs of impairment in social interaction and communication in children with autism spectrum disorder. However, the pieces of literature on atypical gesture patterns in ASD children are contradictory. This investigation aimed to explore the atypical gesture pattern of ASD children from the dimensions of quantity, communicative function, and integration ability; and its relationship with social ability and adaptive behavior. We used a semi-structured interactive play to evaluate gestures of 33 ASD children and 24 typically (...) developing children. And we evaluated the social ability, adaptive behavior, and productive language of ASD and TD children by using the Adaptive Behavior Assessment System version II and Chinese Communication Development Inventory. No matter the total score of CCDI was corrected or not, the relative frequency of total gestures, behavior regulation gestures, SI gestures, and joint attention gestures of ASD children were lower than that of TD children, as well as the proportion of JA gestures. However, there was no significant group difference in the proportion of BR and SI gestures. Before adjusting for the total score of CCDI, the relative frequency of gestures without vocalization/verbalization integration and vocalization/verbalization-integrated gestures in ASD children was lower than that in TD children. However, after matching the total score of CCDI, only the relative frequency of gestures without vocalization/verbalization integration was lower. Regardless of the fact that the total score of CCDI was corrected or not, the relative frequency and the proportion of eye-gaze-integrated gestures in ASD children were lower than that in TD children. And the proportion of gestures without eye-gaze integration in ASD children was higher than that in TD children. For ASD children, the social skills score in ABAS-II was positively correlated with the relative frequency of SI gesture and eye-gaze-integrated gestures; the total score of ABAS-II was positively correlated with the relative frequency of total gestures and eye-gaze-integrated gestures. In conclusion, ASD children produce fewer gestures and have deficits in JA gestures. The deficiency of integrating eye gaze and gesture is the core deficit of ASD children’s gesture communication. Relatively, ASD children might be capable of integrating vocalization/verbalization into gestures. SI gestures and the ability to integrate gesture and eye gaze are related to social ability. The quantity of gestures and the ability to integrate gesture with eye gaze are related to adaptive behavior.Clinical Trial Registration:www.ClinicalTrials.gov, identifier ChiCTR1800019679. (shrink)

This book manuscript, entitled United Nations Human Rights Ethics: For The Greatest Success of the Greatest Number, critically examines most all major normative ethical theories since Socrates and finds Roman Stoic ethics to be the least deficient. It divides ethical theories into popular ones with little academic support, other popular ones that have had such support, and Kantian ethics standing alone as a philosopher's academic ethical philosophy with limited popular support. It criticizes the appropriation of human rights by the international (...) law profession to the exclusion of moral philosophy, despite the origin of "human rights" in the moral philosopher Rousseau. It blames the inability of moral philosophers to reach a professional consensus on the elements of normative ethics, not the legal profession. It laments both the failure of human rights education to human beings everywhere as requested by the Universal Declaration and the decline in popular support for human rights in favor of nationalism in current history since 2015. It advocates a way of redirecting human right education to people on the ground rather than mainly to law students. Such education has been overtaken by the Rule of Law movement fighting high crimes crimes against humanity unanticipated by the Universal Declaration. It argues for a way for ethicists to get on the same page in teaching elements in ethics and argues forcefully for a positive method for popular human rights education as well as for human rights-based elementary ethical theory. (shrink)

The liberal enlightenment as well as the more radical left have both traditionally opposed religion as a reactionary force in politics, a view culminating in an identification of the politics of religion as fundamentalist theocracy. But recently a number of thinkers—Agamben, Badiou, Tabues and in particular Simon Critchley—have begun to explore a more productive engagement of the religious and the political in which religion features as a possible or even necessary form of human emancipation. The papers in this collection, deriving (...) from a workshop held on and with Simon Critchley at the University of Texas at San Antonio in February 2010, take up the ways in which religion’s encounter with politics transforms not only politics but also religion itself, molding it into various religions of politics, including not just heretical religious metaphysics, but also what Critchley describes as non-metaphysical religion, the faith of the faithless. Starting from Critchley’s own genealogy of Pauline faith, the articles in this collection explore and defend some of the religions of politics and their implications. Costica Bradatan teases out the implications of Critchley’s substitution of humor for tragedy as the vehicle for the minimal self-distancing required for any politics. Jill Stauffer compares Critchley’s non-metaphysical religiosity with Charles Taylor’s account of Christianity. Alistair Welchman unpacks the political theology of the border in terms of god’s timeless act of creation. Anne O’Byrne explores the subtle dialectic between mores and morality in Rousseau’s political ethics. Roland Champagne sees a kind non-metaphysical religion in Arendt’s category of the political pariah. Davide Panagia presents Critchley’s ethics of exposure as the basis for a non-metaphysical political bond. Philip Quadrio wonders about the political ramifications of Critchley’s own ‘mystical anarchism’ and Tina Chanter re-reads the primal site in the Western tradition at which the political and the religious intersect, the Antigone story, side-stepping philosophical interpretations of the story (dominated by Hegel’s reading) by means of a series of post-colonial re-imaginings of the play. The collection concludes with an interview with Simon Critchley taking up the themes of the workshop in the light of more recent political events: the Arab Spring and the rise and fall of the Occupy movement. (shrink)

An Islamic approach from its theological sources to address the spiritual pain related to palliative care of terminally ill patients can be established on attaining a spiritual stage of soul or spirit termed as reassured soul. The attainment of such stage is based on hope of the patient to receive mercy and forgiveness of God. And the way of attainment of hope is possible by doing the repentance, praying, and patience. In combating the pain and suffering, the patient is supposed (...) to understand that the life in its reality is a test and facing such a test is possible by two ways, one is patient centric by building patience within to endure the suffering and second is seeking help from God by praying. For the spiritual wellbeing, the patient should understand that his suffering is in fact expiation for his sins. On the other hand, the visitors and caregivers of patients have certain responsibilities that contribute to enhancing of the spiritual well-being of the patient, including comforting them by giving hope to the patients and at the same time praying for their recovery. These all elements enhance the spiritual well-being of patients and help in prevention of suffering by spiritual means. (shrink)

n Part I of this essay I take a canonical case of political theology, Schmitt’s theory of sovereignty (1985; 1922), and show how Agamben derives his account of sovereignty from an interpretation of Schmitt that relies on the interesting theological premise of an atemporal act or decision, one that is traditionally attributed to god’s act of creation, and that is only ambiguously secularized in the transcendental moment of German Idealism. In Part II I show how this reading of Schmitt can (...) be used to avoid a certain kind of negative political theology associated with deconstruction because Agamben’s reading of Schmitt explains the emergence of certain specific temporal structures associated with the sovereign political decision: the sovereign political decision cannot be represented as having a beginning, and hence recedes phenomenologically into a kind of a priori past; and the sovereign decision cannot be represented as completed, and hence it is experienced as a ‘perpetual expenditure of energy’ that lacks comprehensible relation to a goal. In Part III I defend Agamben’s interpretation of sovereignty as a transcendental act from Negri’s objection that Agamben simply equates without argument Negri’s radically democratic conception of revolutionary constituent power with Schmitt’s conception of sovereignty (1999, p. 13). My defense relies on identifying Agamben’s ‘paradox of sovereignty’ (Agamben 1998, pp. 15ff.) with a ‘paradox of democracy.’ (Mouffe 2000; Whelan 1983) In Part IV I realize a corollary of the identification of the two paradoxes, of sovereignty and democracy: that political borders are the spatial site of the application of the act of political sovereignty, and possess a kind of transcendental spatiality akin to the special temporality associated with sovereignty. I apply this understanding to the privileged special case of the US-Mexico border: the structures implicit in Agamben’s analysis explain some crucial features of this case of walling: its manifest failure to achieve, even in principle, the purpose for which it is allegedly intended; the failure of democratic polity to address those affected by the wall; the appeal to sovereign powers in the legal legitimation of border policy. I defend Agamben’s analysis against other apparently competing views, especially those of Wendy Brown (2010) and argue that the transcendental act of sovereignty comprises a kind of primary political repression that opens up the space for ideological understandings of the wall, but does not itself comprise one. In Part V I address the question whether Agamben’s derived category of ‘bare life’ can also be used in the context of the border, arguing that it can. I conclude with some critical remarks about the limits of Agamben’s view. (shrink)

This paper examines the concept of manifestation process in Kashmir Shaivism from Shiva tattva to Prithvi tattva and their transcendental and immanent predicates (Prakrti and Purusa).This paper also shows that the ultimate reality, Paramshiva, manifests itself into various forms which likely represent the theory of causation. This research paper also provides answer to two questions; First, how ultimate reality with its thirty-six principles or elements manifest in various forms and what types of forms ‘Descent’ attains from the ‘universal self’? Second, (...) how manifestation process takes place from the ‘cosmic self’ (universal consciousness) to a ‘limited self’ (Jiva)? Since, this paper is based on philosophical exploration of manifestation process and contains interpretation and argumentation of Pratyabhijna philosophy only; it excludes manifestation due to Yogas (Upayas) and Karmas. Moreover, it explains the Trika form of reality (Shiva/God, Shakti/World, and Nara/Man) and also the identity between ‘ascent’ and ‘descent’. Manifestation further investigates the union of Shiva and Shakti with Maya and displays its character (Prakashvimarshmaya). This work further tries to describe the contribution of Abhinavagupta in the concept of manifestation. (shrink)

The development of Christian mysticism is deeply bound to poetics. This examination first considers Platonic poetry, Hebrew creation, and Christian kenosis as sources of poetic mysticism, before turning to an elaboration of the role of rhythm, language, and the poetic imagination. The appraisal then considers the historical development of mystical poetry, beginning with early Christian reflection on the figurative and lyrical use of scriptural language to express a deep personal relationship with God. The development of vernacular mysticism, and its adoption (...) of this scriptural model, is then explored through a detailed consideration of four mystical poets (Dante, Jacopone, Hadewijch, and Angelus Silesius). The interaction of poetic form and spiritual content is elaborated throughout, with the aim of demonstrating how poetics allows the mystical writer to achieve a result for the reader otherwise not possible in discursive forms of communication. (shrink)

"Based on extensive research in primary and secondary sources and on field research in Ghana, including more than 40 interviews, and applying her formidable expertise in African history, philosophy, historical anthropology and religious studies, Dr Louise Müller has produced a superb analysis of the history and transformation of the roles of chieftaincy in the religious institutions, rituals and ideas among the Asante." David E. Skinner, Professor of History - African and Islamic Studies. (Santa Clara University, USA .

The most discussed of architectural marvels tend to be the Temple of Zeus at Olympia, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus or the Parthenon at Athens, supposedly because they are the ones we happen to have nominated ‘world wonders’; but that doesn’t mean all the rest of temple-type sites to be found across the greater Mediterranean area have less wonder about them. On the contrary; when wanting to explore and explain the role temples played in the lives of their ‘subscribers’ and a (...) temple site’s place as often the nucleus of a community, the Serapeum at Alexandria is as excellent a piece of architecture to examine as any. (shrink)

In dealing with arguments against the Christian faith in his book The Philosophy of Religion, Herman Bavinck uses a series of argumentative strategies. One of these strategies is the apologetic of despair. This study tries to fi gure out whether this strategy tends to be observed in most essays of the book or its use is only circumstantial.

This is a reading of Spivak as an heir to Sri Avinavagupta and Sri Ramakrishna. We ignore the fact that Spivak is a Shakta in her corpus. This review corrects/revises our understanding of Spivak and reinstates her as she really deserves to be read: she is within the traditions of Tantra. Spivak, in her own writings and interviews, has long spoken of her Tantric roots. This review in Prabuddha Bharata, which is the mouthpiece of the Ramakrishna Mission whose disciple Spivak (...) is, published this review because it carries on, as it were, the cultural work of analysing the precomprehensible in Spivak. There is a typo in the review since nothing in this world is or can be, perfect! (shrink)

Dieser Forschungsbericht gibt einen Überblick über die aktuelle Debatte über motivierende Gründe in der Handlungs- und Erkenntnistheorie. Folgende drei Fragen werden schwerpunktmäßig behandelt: a) Was für eine Art von Entität sind motivierende Gründe? b) Welche Beziehung besteht zwischen einer Handlung oder Einstellung und ihren motivierenden Gründen? c) Welche kognitiven Bedingungen gelten für die Zuschreibung motivierender Gründe?

Understanding evil spiritual forces is essential for Christian theology. Evil has typically been studied either from a philosophical perspective or through the lens of ‘spiritual warfare’. The first seldom considers demonology; the second is flawed by poor methodology. Furthermore, warfare language is problematic, being very dualistic, associated with violence and poorly applicable to ministry. This study addresses these issues by developing a new model for conceptualizing and counteracting evil using ‘non-warfare’ biblical metaphors, and relying on contemporary metaphor theory, which claims (...) that metaphors are cognitive and can depict reality. In developing this model, I examine four biblical themes with respect to alternate metaphors for evil: Creation, Cult, Christ and Church. Insights from anthropology, theology and science contribute to the construction of the model, and the concepts of profane space, sacred space and sacred actions guide the investigation. The role of the Holy Spirit in maintaining the boundaries of divine reality is emphasized, and the ontology of evil minimized. This model incorporates concentric circles, evil being considered peripheral to godly reality. I suggest metaphors of cleansing, ordering, separating and limiting evil and discuss potential applications of this model. (shrink)

My assertion is that God’s biblical image may not reflect entirely His existence in itself as well as His revealed image. Even if God in Himself is both transcendent and immanent at the same time, and He is revealing accordingly in the history of humankind, still the image of God constructed in the writings of the Old Testament is merely the perspective made upon God by His followers to whom the He has revealed. That could be the reason why for (...) centuries God’s biblical image seems to emphasize more His immanence, starting with Pentateuch, where God cohabites with Adam on Earth, then He reveals Himself to Abraham and Moses and so on. Somewhere, after the Babylonian exile, the image suffers slightly differences tilting towards God’s transcendence. In a path already created and grounded by Israel’s ancestors, even this new color of transcendence bears the nuances of immanence. How can this be possible? Let’s take a look on the revelation received by Abraham from God and see how this can fit the profile. Instead of the transcendence of God regarded by others in the differentness of Yahweh appointed by Abraham in his walking out of Mesopotamia, I will prove otherwise, that Abraham is on the contrary proving God’s immanency in this very differentness of His in relation with other gods by providence and omnipresence, indwelling His creation. (shrink)

Ācārya Umāsvāmī’s (circa 1st century CE) Tattvārthasūtra (spelled commonly as Tattvarthsutra or Tattvarthasutra), also known as Mokşaśāstra, is the most widely read Jaina Scripture. It expounds the Jaina Doctrine, the nature of the Reality, in form of aphorisms (sūtra), in Sanskrit. Brief and to-the-point, Tattvārthasūtra delineates beautifully the essentials of all objects-of-knowledge (jñeya). Sarvārthasiddhi by Ācārya Pūjyapāda (circa 5th century CE) is the first and foremost extant commentary on Tattvārthasūtra. Sarvārthasiddhi is an exposition of the reality – the true nature (...) of substances, soul and non-soul – the knowledge of which equips one to tread the path to liberation, as expounded in Tattvārthasūtra. There is beginningless intermingling of the soul (jīva) and the non-soul (ajīva) karmic matter. Our activities (yoga) are responsible for the influx (āsrava) of the karmic matter into the soul. Actuated by passions (kaşāya) the soul takes in particles of the karmic matter; this is bondage (bandha). Obstructing fresh inflow of the karmic matter into the soul – samvara – and its subsequent separation or falling off from the soul – nirjarā – are two important steps in attaining the infallible, utterly pristine, sense-independent and infinitely blissful state of the soul, called liberation (mokşa). (shrink)

Abstract: On one formulation, epistemological disjunctivism is the view that our perceptual beliefs constitute knowledge when they are based on reasons that provide them with factive support. Some would argue that it is impossible to understand how perceptual knowledge is possible unless we assume that we have such reasons to support our perceptual beliefs. Some would argue that it is impossible to understand how perceptual experience could furnish us with these reasons unless we assume that the traditional view of experience (...) is mistaken. For reasons explained here, I think that the epistemological argument for metaphysical disjunctivism rests on mistaken assumptions about reasons and their rational role. Neither disjunctivist view is needed to understand how perceptual knowledge is possible. (shrink)

Many argue that absolutist moral theories -- those that prohibit particular kinds of actions or trade-offs under all circumstances -- cannot adequately account for the permissibility of risky actions. In this dissertation, I defend various versions of absolutism against this critique, using overlooked resources from formal decision theory. Against the prevailing view, I argue that almost all absolutist moral theories can give systematic and plausible verdicts about what to do in risky cases. In doing so, I show that critics have (...) overlooked: (1) the fact that absolutist theories -- and moral theories, more generally -- underdetermine their formal decision-theoretic representations; (2) that decision theories themselves can be generalised to better accommodate distinctively absolutist commitments. Overall, this dissertation demonstrates that we can navigate a risky world without compromising our moral commitments. (shrink)

This article examines Machiavelli’s image of humanity. It argues against the prevailing views that characterize it either as pessimistic or optimistic and defends the thesis that the Florentine has a realist image of humanity. Machiavelli is a psychological egoist who conceives of man as a being whose actions are motivated by his drives, appetites, and passions, which lead him often to immoral behavior. Man’s main drives are “ambition” (ambizione) and “avarice” (avarizia). This article also investigates Machiavelli’s concept of nature and (...) shows that, for him, the constancy of human nature is the central premise that makes the scientific analysis of politics possible. Despite the fact that human drives and capabilities are the same at all times, good laws, military training, and religion allow man to be changed and educated toward “virtue” (virtù). To make such changes in man, however, presupposes a good legal and political order. Machiavelli justifies the state because of its capacity to reshape human nature and to improve man. The state is not only a coercive power but a moral institution. This leads to the conclusion that Machiavelli does not separate politics from morality as most scholars claim. (shrink)

En este trabajo buscamos proponer una teoría del color de inspiración deleuzeana, esto es, propondremos una teoría que atenderá al color en cuanto multiplicidad y acontecimiento. Para ello, ensayaremos un recorrido a través de ciertos pasajes deleuzeanos que nos permitirán avanzar en dicha propuesta y llevarla al territorio artístico para establecer una interferencia que implicará variar la dirección de nuestro trabajo al proponer un diálogo con Paul Klee. En definitiva, intentaremos desarrollar las siguientes preguntas: ¿Cómo pensar una teoría del color (...) de inspiración deleuzeana? ¿Cómo llevarla al terreno artístico? ¿Cómo concebir su relación con un cosmos-Klee? Y esto, para intentar establecer a través de una conversación que podría sostenerse con la obra de Paul Klee otra perspectiva de trabajo en torno a la obra de Gilles Deleuze. (shrink)

This paper addresses central issues in the debate about inclusive language for God by responding to Andrew Dell’Olio, who offered biblical, theological, linguistic, and ethical reasons for a “supplemental” use of feminine language for God. Since he leaves unclear whether “supplemental” means “secondary to” or “fully equal to” the masculine language of the biblical tradition, it is difficult to determine whether he makes his case. While a secondary role for feminine language for God is legitimate, I argue that giving feminine (...) language a status equal to the Bible’s masculine language for God is not warranted by the standard biblical and theological criteria of the Christian tradition. (shrink)

N.T. Wright has offered Christian philosophers a proposal where it is apparently possible to hold the belief in the intermediate state-resurrection of the body and an ontological holism in the same sense at the same time. I argue that this not only creates a basic contradiction in Wright’s ontological paradigm, but also it is not a coherent and tenable proposal despite the fact one might eventually find a potential solution to such a quandary.

The life of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, lord chancellor of England from 1515 to 1529, has inspired no small number of literary, historical, and dramatic retellings. A comprehensive study of these texts remains to be written, but this article seeks to make a start by examining how Tudor writers portrayed the cardinal's response to his deposition and subsequent disgrace. For some authors, Wolsey's fall only made him more proud, and he began to act erratically and disloyally, confirming the wisdom of the (...) king's decision to relieve him of office. For others, deposition moved Wolsey to become philosophical and penitent, and some such writers depict a cardinal who at the end of his life underwent nothing short of a conversion. This article traces both of these historiographical trajectories from their origins in writings of the late 1540s and 1550s through a range of late Tudor chronicle accounts. Elements of both narratives about the cardinal appear, prominently if not always congruously, in one of the best-known theatrical works about the events of the reign of Henry VIII, the play King Henry VIII by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher. Understanding the interrelationships between the Tudor texts presented here is essential to grasping later portrayals of Wolsey and his contemporaries. (shrink)

In this essay, I read Woolf’s To the Lighthouse together with philosopher Cora Diamond’s writing on literature and moral life, writing marked by her inheritance from Wittgenstein. I first attend to Woolf’s commitment (one she shares with Wittgenstein) to grappling with what I take to be signature issues of modernism: question, quest, and a longing for vision or revised understanding as a way of confronting the difficulty of reality. I then probe Woolf’s engagement with these issues by reading her novel (...) in light of Diamond’s essay “The Difficulty of Philosophy and the Difficulty of Reality.” Diamond’s insights about literature’s capacity for ethical instruction, and her discussion in that essay of the experience of an ordinary sublime so painful or astonishing that it resists our understanding and categories of thought, illuminate a new philosophical context in which to understand more clearly and profoundly the stakes and aims of Woolf’s novel. Reading Woolf alongside Diamond also prompts us to recognize important ways in which matters that lie at the heart of To the Lighthouseintersect with the Wittgensteinian preoccupations that inform Diamond’s own thinking—concerns about the ethics of difficulty; skepticism about what other people think and feel; the search for communicative and existential clarity; the capacity of literature and fairy tale to convey a sense of beauty or of the “terrible” in the world; the status of expressions of our ethical experience as necessarily nonsensical; a longing for the sense of wholeness, transformative understanding, wonder, safety, and peace to stave off illusion or despair. One important subsidiary effect of looking at Woolf and Diamond together is that doing so also allows us to make significant oblique connections between Woolf’s thinking and Wittgenstein’s, connections that continue to bring into focus the philosophical sympathies that attest to the mutual relevance of their peculiar brands of modernism. (shrink)

The aim of the paper is to investigate the role of allegory in Philo and spe­cifically in his text On the Migration of Abraham. This involves the twofold move of arguing that even though Philo remains a Platonist and that his language is Platonic in orientation what occurs is a transformation of seeing, which is an immediate activity, into reading, which is always mediate. The second elements stems from this insistence on mediation. It results in freeing allegory from the hold (...) of the allegorical/literal op­position. Allegory is transformed as a result in the name of an ineliminable allegoresis. (shrink)

The article endeavours to compare the reflections on the Shoah of two of the most celebrated intellectuals of Jewish origin of the 20th century, namely the German philosopher Hans Jonas and the Soviet writer Vasily Grossman. Both Jonas’ essay on The Concept of God after Auschwitz and Grossman’s novels and reports, such as The Hell of Treblinka, Life and Fate, and The Sistine Madonna, are characterised by a thorough enquiry into the ambivalence of the human condition, that tries to shed (...) some light on the disturbing abyss of Auschwitz and the Shoah. Although neither Jonas nor Grossman considered themselves as religious believers, thanks to the Shoah they recollected their Jewish roots and developed peculiar and innovative thoughts on the meaning and vulnerability of life, human freedom, immortality, and God. The article endeavours to highlight the main similarities and differences between these two authors, who tackled the issue of thinking after Auschwitz. (shrink)

In the book "When I needed a neighbour were you there? Christians and the Challenge of Poverty" I highlight the overwhelming evidence that involvement with poor people and the issues of poverty is a fundamental part of what it means to be Christian. The life and teaching of Jesus Christ suggest that all Christians should be seriously concerned about the plight of poor people. Why? Let me explain. Jesus is the foundation of the Christian faith and role model for Christian (...) behaviour in the world. In his life on earth he showed deep compassion for all people marginalized by society – for the poor, for widows, children, and the sick. Many of his stories and actions illustrate the extent to which he prioritized the relief of human suffering in his own ministry. The emphasis in the ministry of Jesus on compassion for marginalized people was nothing new in ancient Israel. A constant theme in the Old Testament was an imperative to show concern for marginalized people, especially widows, orphans, strangers, and poor people. As in the New Testament, caring for society’s vulnerable members was tied to the central religious obligations required of the ancient Israelites. I seek to uncover ethical values in the biblical texts that can enrich our understanding of how best to deal with poverty. This book is primarily directed at non-poor Christians to persuade them to take the plight of poor people more seriously. It also aims to present biblical perspectives on poverty that can be empowering to those who personally face the challenges of poverty. (shrink)

The film A Serious Man cinematically deconstructs the life of a mid-twentieth century, mid-western American physics professor named Larry Gopnik. As it happens, Larry is up for tenure with a wife who is about to leave him, an unemployed brother who sleeps on his couch, and two self-obsessed teenage children. The film presents a Job-like theodicy in which the mysteries of quantum physics are haunted both by questions of good and evil as well as the spectre of an un-named God, (...) reverently referred to as Hashem. The following paper examines the broader set of philosophical, theological and ethical concerns which arise from the film’s themes, using it to illustrate those concerns. Just as Newtonian physics underwrote Kant’s evocation of the image of starry skies above and moral law within, quantum physics underwrites a new set of ethical anxieties, which the film narrates as a key facet of contemporary western culture’s postmodern re-enchantment. Although some, such as Slavoj Zizek, see this as a positively charged opportunity to rethink metaphysics and ethics, the film leaves the audience with more sinister conclusions. (shrink)

Augustine on select metaphysical topics: hylomorphism vs. dualism, theories of God, angels.

The thesis aims at a methodological reflection of logical reconstruction and tries to develop this method in detail, especially with regard to the reconstruction of natural language arguments. First, the groundwork for the thesis is laid by presenting and, where necessary, adapting its foundations with regard to the philosophy of language and the theory of argument. Subsequently, logical reconstruction, especially the logical reconstruction of arguments, is presented as a hermeneutic method and as a tool for the application of (formal) logic (...) and argumentation theory to natural language arguments. Logical reconstruction is presented as a special type of exegetical interpretation by paraphrase that is subject to (adapted) hermeneutic maxims and presumption rules that govern exegetical interpretation in general. However, in contrast to the interpretation of texts by natural language paraphrases, logical reconstruction leads to interpretantia that are logically explicit formal language texts and can be analyzed using formal methods and meta-theoretical concepts that are not directly applicable to natural language texts. By providing explicit and precise records of different readings, logical reconstruction can thus help to clarify (and maybe even solve) persistent interpretation controversies. Through an adaptation and specification of hermeneutic maxims and presumption rules, the thesis aims at providing suitable means for the systematic guidance and evaluation of logical reconstructions of argumentative texts. As a genuinely interpretative undertaking, logical reconstruction will be distinguished from the non-interpretative enterprise of formalization and from the development of theories of logical form, which provide a framework in which formalization and reconstruction take place. As exegetical interpretations, logical reconstructions of texts that are not readily formalizable can still be assessed with respect to their hermeneutic quality. The hermeneutic method of logical reconstruction can thus widen the scope for the application of logic and argumentation theory, because it allows us to use formal methods for the analysis and assessment of "difficult" natural language texts in a non-arbitrary, albeit indirect way. The last part of the thesis presents a manual for the logical reconstruction of natural language arguments, whose application is illustrated step by step. (shrink)

In this paper I critique the ethical implications of automating CCTV surveillance. I consider three modes of CCTV with respect to automation: manual, fully automated, and partially automated. In each of these I examine concerns posed by processing capacity, prejudice towards and profiling of surveilled subjects, and false positives and false negatives. While it might seem as if fully automated surveillance is an improvement over the manual alternative in these areas, I demonstrate that this is not necessarily the case. In (...) preference to the extremes I argue in favour of partial automation in which the system integrates a human CCTV operator with some level of automation. To assess the degree to which such a system should be automated I draw on the further issues of privacy and distance. Here I argue that the privacy of the surveilled subject can benefit from automation, while the distance between the surveilled subject and the CCTV operator introduced by automation can have both positive and negative effects. I conclude that in at least the majority of cases more automation is preferable to less within a partially automated system where this does not impinge on efficacy. (shrink)

My thesis is original in placing together Wittgenstein's ideas of how language works, and arguments for the philosophical significance of the embodied and relational figure of the mother. I both use and resist a Wittgensteinian therapy to overcome the problem of the forgetting of the mother in philosophy. I begin with the problem of essentialism, important to Wittgenstein and to feminist philosophy. My reading of Wittgenstein finds an ignored lacuna between language and experience. I add in to the debate the (...) type specimen approach from botany. Adopting this approach enables me to avoid a classification which requires a true inner essence to mothering, and provides a way for me to denote the significant place of the language games of mothering in language games about women. I argue for a different symbol of the mother. I agree with Wittgenstein's account of language, but add to it. I show the importance of Wittgenstein's insight that although meaning is not fixed independently of use, use does not fix meaning in that I create new meanings for the figure of the mother. I argue, through an exploration of Wittgenstein's concept of `übersichtlichen Darstellung ; that Wittgenstein can help us to see the phenomena of our life differently, in a way that makes space for understanding female difference. His concept of a form of life provides such openings. As the Wittgensteinian agent seems distinctly un-female, I bring in the philosophy of Kierkegaard in my argument for a different relational self as mother. I argue for a Kierkegaardian flexible maternal self with mobile edges. I insert the language games of the mother into Kierkegaard's writing on women. My aim is a more adequate representation of a reality. I use the work of John Wisdom to make a bridge between Wittgenstein and the narrative form, which I use throughout. Wisdom's strategy is to engage in unconventional reflection in looking for new ways of telling philosophical stories, and in finding new patterns of meaning in the familiar. I claim that the narrative form enables me to express the shifting essence of the mother and the diversity of mothers; and to acknowledge the silences which are part of the mother's story. My aim in this thesis is creative. I use Wittgenstein to create a new kind of relation to philosophy. I do not offer a correct reading of Wittgenstein or Kierkegaard. Instead, aided by the insights provided by feminist philosophy, I write in the language games of the mother to their ideas. Thus, I bring into existence through utterance a different, feminist philosophical symbol of the mother. (shrink)

Suppose we were to randomly pick out a book on Buddhism or Eastern Philosophy and turn to the section on 'no-self' (anatt?). On this central teaching, we would most likely learn that the Buddha rejected the Upanisadic notion of Self (?tman), maintaining that a person is no more than a bundle of impermanent, conditioned psycho-physical aggregates (khandhas). The rejection of ?tman is seen by many to separate the metaphysically 'extravagant' claims of Hinduism from the austere tenets of Buddhism. The status (...) quo has not, however, gone unchallenged. I shall join forces against this pernicious view, integrating some recent contributions into a sustained, two-pronged argument against no-?tman theories of anatt?. At the end it shall be suggested, in line with Thanissaro Bhikkhu, that anatt? is best understood as a practical strategy rather than as a metaphysical doctrine. (shrink)

Comparative philosophical studies can seek to fit some Eastern patterns of thought into the general philosophical framework, or, on the contrary, to improve understanding of Western ones through the view "from abroad". I try to hit both marks by means of establishing, firstly, the parallels between Indian versions of theodicy and the Hellenic and Christian ones, then by defining to which of five types of Western theodicy the Advaita-Vedanta and Nyaya versions belong and, thirdly, by considering the meaning of the (...) fact that some varieties of Western theodicy, like the explanation of evil by free will and divine dispensation aiming at the improvement of man, have Indian counterparts while others lack them. Some considerations concerning the remainders of primordial monotheisms ("an argument from theodicy") under the thick layers of other religious world-outlooks are also offered to the reader at the end of the article. (shrink)

Judaic Logic is an original inquiry into the forms of thought determining Jewish law and belief, from the impartial perspective of a logician. Judaic Logic attempts to honestly estimate the extent to which the logic employed within Judaism fits into the general norms, and whether it has any contributions to make to them. The author ranges far and wide in Jewish lore, finding clear evidence of both inductive and deductive reasoning in the Torah and other books of the Bible, and (...) analyzing the methodology of the Talmud and other Rabbinic literature by means of formal tools which make possible its objective evaluation with reference to scientific logic. The result is a highly innovative work – incisive and open, free of clichés or manipulation. Judaic Logic succeeds in translating vague and confusing interpretative principles and examples into formulas with the clarity and precision of Aristotelean syllogism. Among the positive outcomes, for logic in general, are a thorough listing, analysis and validation of the various forms of a-fortiori argument, as well as a clarification of dialectic logic. However, on the negative side, this demystification of Talmudic/Rabbinic modes of thought (hermeneutic and heuristic) reveals most of them to be, contrary to the boasts of orthodox commentators, far from deductive and certain. They are often, legitimately enough, inductive. But they are also often unnatural and arbitrary constructs, supported by unverifiable claims and fallacious techniques. Many other thought-processes, used but not noticed or discussed by the Rabbis, are identified in this treatise, and subjected to logical review. Various more or less explicit Rabbinic doctrines, which have logical significance, are also examined in it. In particular, this work includes a formal study of the ethical logic (deontology) found in Jewish law, to elicit both its universal aspects and its peculiarities. With regard to Biblical studies, one notable finding is an explicit formulation (which, however, the Rabbis failed to take note of and stress) of the principles of adduction in the Torah, written long before the acknowledgement of these principles in Western philosophy and their assimilation in a developed theory of knowledge. Another surprise is that, in contrast to Midrashic claims, the Tanakh (Jewish Bible) contains a lot more than ten instances of qal vachomer (a-fortiori) reasoning. In sum, Judaic Logic elucidates and evaluates the epistemological assumptions which have generated the Halakhah (Jewish religious jurisprudence) and allied doctrines. Traditional justifications, or rationalizations, concerning Judaic law and belief, are carefully dissected and weighed at the level of logical process and structure, without concern for content. This foundational approach, devoid of any critical or supportive bias, clears the way for a timely reassessment of orthodox Judaism (and incidentally, other religious systems, by means of analogies or contrasts). Judaic Logic ought, therefore, to be read by all Halakhists, as well as Bible and Talmud scholars and students; and also by everyone interested in the theory, practise and history of logic. (shrink)

Thomas Hobbes took a new look at the ways in which society should function, and he ended up formulating the concept of political science. His crowning achievement, Leviathan, remains among the greatest works in the history of ideas. Written during a moment in English history when the political and social structures as well as methods of science were in flux and open to interpretation, Leviathan played an essential role in the development of the modern world. This edition of Hobbes' landmark (...) work is based on the original text. It incorporates the author's own corrections and retains the period spelling and punctuation, offering both flavorful authenticity and the utmost clarity of expression. (shrink)

This thesis will construct a model of person through a comparison of ideas relating to a concept of person in the Byzantine and Pratyabhijnii traditions. Questions will be asked, such as, whether a concept of person can be constructed within these two traditions, and how can ideas developed from these traditions be utilised to construct a model of person? This thesis will provide an in depth examination of terms and concepts that will be related to a concept of person within (...) the two traditions, examining the ontological and existential implications of those terms. This work will also develop, from a subsequent convergence of the theologies of the two traditions, a model of person that is inter-religious and dialogical. Though this work is analytical in nature, in its deconstructing philosophical and theological models relating to person, it is also constructive, taking what is useful from the Byzantine and Pratyabhijnii traditions so as to construct a new model of person through the development of the term, Atman-hypostasis which looks to understanding human personhood in the fullest mystical state within the human condition. A comparison of the two traditions has not been attempted before in relation to the theological discourse of person; neither has such an extensive examination and deconstruction of the concept person in Byzantine and Pratyabhijnii traditions been undertaken in relation to contemporary studies; neither has a construction of this type of model of person been undertaken. This work, in constructing a new term Atmanhypostasis, which emerged from this research as an outcome of the comparison of terms and ideas relating to a concept of person in both traditions, will contribute to the academic theological field of personhood and this thesis will also contribute to the field of inter-religious dialogue in developing an anthropological model that aims to overcome the barriers that separate and divide. (shrink)

Amidst the politically-charged climate of seventeenth-century England, a small, but influential makeshift group of Baptist divines developed an eschatological system that both encouraged their congregations to greater holiness and threatened the very existence of the proto-denomination. Even as most of the nascent group of dissenting congregations known as Baptists sought acceptance by the more mainstream dissent, those divines who accepted this particular form of millenarianism garnered unwanted attention from the authorities as they pressed remarkably close to the line of radical (...) dissidence. Three of those Baptist divines—Vavasor Powell, Hanserd Knollys, and Benjamin Keach—provide helpful insights both into the range of millenarianism adopted by this group of Baptists and into the legitimacy of the charges of radicalism. This article examines the published works of these three ministers, comparing their visions for the eschatological future and analyzing the charges of radicalism placed against them by their contemporaries. (shrink)

ABSTRACTIn Jewish tradition, expectations of the ideal teacher are very high, especially because the teacher is a role model for the next generation. So how does one become an ideal teacher? What is the proper image of a teacher according to Jewish ethics? The present paper is an attempt to answer a series of questions about what makes an ideal teacher based on an analysis of hundreds of texts, including halachic rulings and responsa as well as documents that outline various (...) communities’ guidelines and demands. The Jewish texts make up the ethic mosaic that profiles the ideal teacher, who must work with the students as well as with their families. In view of the importance of the education as it has been understood by arbiters throughout the ages, we can appreciate why there should be zero tolerance for mistakes and inadequacies. (shrink)