Neopositivistic philosophers held that Popper's destructive criticism to inductive methods is wrong. The legend according to which Popper's criticism, in the final analysis, is inconsistent is greatly widespread also amongst neopositivistic Italian scholars. I argue that they are wrong, and that, in general, Popper's view about induction is true. According to Popper all scientific concepts are theoretical, for every assertion not only entails hypotheses but it is also hypothetical, that is not sure and always falsifiable. I argue that the validity (...) and the strength of Popper's criticism to induction is independent from the view according to which all scientific concepts are theoretical. (shrink)

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo mostrar lo que es una sana laicidad en la sociedad actual pluralista, multicultural, democrática y diversa. En primer lugar se presentan dos tentaciones de la iglesia hoy: refugiarse en el ghetto y cerrarse al mundo dando razón a los fundamentalistas laicos que la consideran como algo privado, o salir a la cruzada a imponer sus creencias y su mensaje. Luego se analiza el proceso histórico de formación del pluralismo, de la laicidad y de la libertad (...) religiosa con énfasis en los modelos norteamericano y francés. Se concluye con una visión de lo que es la laicidad en la doctrina de la iglesia católica hoy y una propuesta de lo que debe ser el verdadero pluralismo y la sana laicidad hoy. This article has as aim show what is a healthy secularism in the current pluralist, multicultural, democratic and diverse society. First, it presents two temptations of the church today: to shelter in the ghetto and to be closed to the world giving reason to the lay fundamentalists who consider faith to be something private, or to go out to the crusade to impose Christian beliefs and message. Then there is analyzed the historical process of formation of the pluralism, of the secularism and of the religious freedom emphatically in the models North American and French. The article concludes with a vision of what is the secularism in the doctrine of the catholic church today and a proposal of what must be the real pluralism and the healthy secularism today. (shrink)

Mexico, with the commissioning of the "National Crusade Against Hunger Program" in 2013, aimed at serving the population that presents both extreme poverty and food deprivation. The article aims to analyze whether the criterion of the selection of the municipalities of the State of Veracruz incorporated in the National Crusade Against Hunger Program (PNCH) show complementarity with the efforts in the fight against poverty in the social expenditure strategy applied in the Priority Attention Zones Program (ZAP) and the Priority Areas (...) Development Program (PDZP) and, particularly, the indigenous municipalities that have a greater degree of social exclusion. The adjustment of a binary logistic regression model is presented, in order to assess the incidence of contextual factors to interpret the scope of the strategy adopted by the federal government in the fight against poverty and hunger. As a result, it is evident that there is no continuity in the fight against poverty, since the municipalities included in the strategy Priority Areas of Attention and Program of Development of Priority Zones are not considered in the selection of municipalities incorporated in the National Program of Crusade Against Hunger, a situation that identifies the relationship between programs is not complementary. (shrink)

This new study of the “First” Crusade argues that “apocalyptic fervor” (p. 305) was the driving force of the expedition, as well as the Crusade movement. Previous studies, the author contends, have failed “to capture how precisely apocalyptic the First Crusade was” (p. xii). The remedy Rubenstein offers is a relentless focus on apocalypticism that ignores any weaknesses inherent in this approach and overlooks alternative explanations.

Istoria macabră a programelor anticomuniste de exterminare din ţările care nu făceau parte din sfera de influenţă sovietică este astăzi un subiect prea puţin confortabil pentru liderii şi savanţii „lumii libere”. „Studierea crimelor comunismului”, dimpotrivă. Prezentarea istoriei secolului 20 într‑o manieră maniheistă şi parţială este mult mai profitabilă. Un lucru e cert: indiferent ce dorim sau refuzăm să ştim despre istoriile deprimante ale succesului geopolitic american, cu certitudine amintirea lor nu se va şterge prea curând în comunităţile din Argentina, Bolivia, (...) Brazilia, Chile, Columbia, Timorul de Est, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonezia, Iraq, Mexic, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Filipine, Coreea de Sud, Sudan, Taiwan, Thailanda, Uruguay, Venezuela sau Vietnam. (shrink)

Este trabajo tiene como objetivo mostrar lo que es una sana laicidad en la sociedad actual pluralista, multicultural, democrática y diversa. En primer lugar se presentan dos tentaciones de la iglesia hoy: refugiarse en el ghetto y cerrarse al mundo dando razón a los fundamentalistas laicos que la consideran como algo privado, o salir a la cruzada a imponer sus creencias y su mensaje. Luego se analiza el proceso histórico de formación del pluralismo, de la laicidad y de la libertad (...) religiosa con énfasis en los modelos norteamericano y francés. Se concluye con una visión de lo que es la laicidad en la doctrina de la iglesia católica hoy y una propuesta de lo que debe ser el verdadero pluralismo y la sana laicidad hoy. This article has as aim show what is a healthy secularism in the current pluralist, multicultural, democratic and diverse society. First, it presents two temptations of the church today: to shelter in the ghetto and to be closed to the world giving reason to the lay fundamentalists who consider faith to be something private, or to go out to the crusade to impose Christian beliefs and message. Then there is analyzed the historical process of formation of the pluralism, of the secularism and of the religious freedom emphatically in the models North American and French. The article concludes with a vision of what is the secularism in the doctrine of the catholic church today and a proposal of what must be the real pluralism and the healthy secularism today. (shrink)

W. V. Quine famously defended two theses that have fallen rather dramatically out of fashion. The first is that intensions are “creatures of darkness” that ultimately have no place in respectable philosophical circles, owing primarily to their lack of rigorous identity conditions. However, although he was thoroughly familiar with Carnap’s foundational studies in what would become known as possible world semantics, it likely wouldn’t yet have been apparent to Quine that he was fighting a losing battle against intensions, due in (...) large measure to developments stemming from Carnap’s studies and culminating in the work of Kripke, Hintikka, and Bayart. These developments undermined Quine’s crusade against intensions on two fronts. First, in the context of possible world semantics, intensions could after all be given rigorous identity conditions by defining them (in the simplest case) as functions from worlds to appropriate extensions, a fact exploited to powerful and influential effect in logic and linguistics by the likes of Kaplan, Montague, Lewis, and Cresswell. Second, the rise of possible world semantics fueled a strong resurgence of metaphysics in contemporary analytic philosophy that saw properties and propositions widely, fruitfully, and unabashedly adopted as ontological primitives in their own right. This resurgence — happily, in my view — continues into the present day. -/- For a time, at any rate, Quine experienced somewhat better success with his second thesis: that higher-order logic is, at worst, confused and, at best, a quirky notational alternative to standard first-order logic. However, Quine notwithstanding, a great deal of recent work in formal metaphysics transpires in a higher-order logical framework in which properties and propositions fall into an infinite hierarchy of types of (at least) every finite order. Initially, the most philosophically compelling reason for embracing such a framework since Russell first proposed his simple theory of types was simply that it provides a relatively natural explanation of the paradoxes. However, since the seminal work of Prior there has been a growing trend to consider higher-order logic to be the most philosophically natural framework for metaphysical inquiry, many of the contributors to this volume being among the most important and influential advocates of this view. Indeed, this is now quite arguably the dominant view among formal metaphysicians. -/- In this paper, and against the current tide, I will argue in §1 that there are still good reasons to think that Quine’s second battle is not yet lost and that the correct framework for logic is first-order and type-free — properties and propositions, logically speaking, are just individuals among others in a single domain of quantification — and that it arises naturally out of our most basic logical and semantical intuitions. The data I will draw upon are not new and are well-known to contemporary higher-order metaphysicians. However, I will try to defend my thesis in what I believe is a novel way by suggesting that these basic intuitions ground a reasonable distinction between “pure” logic and non-logical theory, and that Russell-style semantic paradoxes of truth and exemplification arise only when we move beyond the purely logical and, hence, do not of themselves provide any strong objection to a type-free conception of properties and propositions. -/- Most of my arguments in §1 are largely independent of any specific account of the nature of properties and propositions beyond their type-freedom. However, I will in addition argue that there are good reasons to take propositions, at least, to be very fine-grained. My arguments are thus bolstered significantly if it can be shown that there are in fact well-defined examples of logics that are not only type-free but which comport with such a conception of propositions. It is the purpose of §2 to lay out a logic of this sort in some detail, drawing especially upon work by George Bealer and related work of my own. With the logic in place, it will be possible to generalize the line of argument noted above regarding Russell-style paradoxes and, in §3, apply it to two propositional paradoxes — the Prior-Kaplan paradox and the Russell-Myhill paradox — that are often taken to threaten the sort of account developed here. (shrink)

Martin Heidegger devotes extensive discussion to medieval philosophers, particularly to their treatment of Truth and Being. On both these topics, Heidegger accuses them of forgetting the question of Being and of being responsible for subjugating truth to the modern crusade for certainty: ‘truth is denied its own mode of being’ and is subordinated ‘to an intellect that judges correctly’. Though there are some studies that discuss Heidegger’s debt to and criticism of medieval thought, particularly that of Thomas Aquinas, there is (...) no constructive reply to his assertions. As a result, Heidegger’s critique had an unprecedented effect on the credibility of medieval philosophy, whereby great portions of the philosophical community dismiss it altogether as an illegitimate Onto‐Theology. It is the aim of this study to offer a constructive reply that will fundamentally grapple with these allegations. By constructive reply we mean not only a reply that avoids the problems Heidegger raises regarding existence, essence and truth, but more importantly, one that uses Heidegger’s criticism in order to present a more insightful account of these notions. The present study is composed of two parts where the second serves as a sort of addendum. The first part, the core of this study, is an attempt to develop an understanding of the distinction between essence and existence that, on the one hand, accords with Heidegger’s criticism while on the other hand advances our understanding of how we think and understand reality. After presenting Heidegger’s depiction of Aquinas’s distinction between essence and existence (esse) as a real distinction, the study will present several views propounded by scholars of Aquinas regarding the status of this distinction. It will be argued that it is not clear whether the distinction is real, formal or conceptual, and that different types of distinction are applied in different places, particularly in regard to the phantasm that Aquinas considers essential to the human act of thinking. The second part diverges from the first part and focuses on Heidegger’s criticism of Aquinas’s conception of truth as adequation, i.e., what it is that grounds the possibility of truth as adequation. This divergence is necessary in order to present a full metaphysical response to Heidegger’s criticism. Since the aim of the present study is to argue that Aquinas’s philosophical system can contend with Heidegger’s criticism, a partial reply would greatly diminish its effectiveness. (shrink)

In the scientific communities most criticisms are constructive, while they are destructive in the humanistic circles. Indeed, scientists circulate their drafts among colleagues and students, hoping to elicit their comments and suggestions before submitting their work to publication. In contrast, philosophers and political thinkers attack their rivals, without sparing arguments ad hominem or even insults. The reason for this difference is that scientists are after the truth, whereas most humanists fight for more or less noble causes, from swelling their own (...) curricula to joining crusades for or against rationality, realism, justice, or what have you. (shrink)

Monotheism is a product of abstract thought. Although it does not exactly overlap with the view of God in today's monotheistic religious beliefs, the thought of God in Ancient Greek philosophy, that is, the creative thought other than the creature, found its cores in Plato's Demiurge [Dēmiourgos], and this thought continued to develop with Aristotle, Plotinus and St Augustine. Thus, it can be said that the Christian faith, which includes the Jewish religion in terms of belief and Greek philosophy in (...) terms of thought, easily managed to gain a place in the medieval world of thought. With the effort to rationalize and ground the Christian faith, philosophy has become an end rather than a means on this path. -/- The translation of Aristotle's logical works (by Boethius) at the beginning of the 6th century gave an important impetus to the grounding of knowledge in sacred texts. However, the real influence of Aristotle occurred after the 13th century. The Crusades (1096-1272) and the Islamic world known through trade played an important role in this because the developments in Western Philosophy until the 13th century were largely based on translations and commentary texts in the Islamic world. In the Middle Ages, the person who was seen as the best commentator of Aristotle and who took the title of "commentator" [Shareh] was Averroes (1126-1198), who was also a member of this productive Islamic world of thought. He is known as the "commentator" because he interpreted Aristotle's works by adhering to his teachings. It is also said that Averroes pioneered Aristotle's recognition by westerners. Averroes’ commentaries are divided into three as long, middle, and short. In long commentaries, he blends Aristotle's philosophy with his own thoughts; he interprets Aristotle's philosophy in the middle commentaries; in short commentaries, he gives a summary of Aristotle's thoughts. -/- Aristotle's philosophy played an active role in shaping the thought system of Averroes. So much so that his epistemology is largely similar to Aristotle's epistemology: The source of knowledge, knowledge of knowledge with causes, the processes of the formation of human knowledge, etc. Here, a point where he differs from Aristotle is the source of knowledge, since he is an Islamic thinker. According to Averroes, God is the source and cause of things, and things are the source and cause of human knowledge. The formation of human knowledge consists of three stages: outer sense, inner sense, and mind. Another important issue of his epistemology, apart from the knowledge produced by man and the knowledge of God, is causality. Through causality, knowledge is formed, and since causality is continuous and necessary, this situation brings order with it. This ensures that the information is verified and thus genuine information is obtained. -/- Averroes’ understanding of ontology is in harmony with the teachings of Islam. He mainly talks about the relationship between philosophy and religion and thinks that these two actually talk about the same reality. He explains that philosophy and religion seem to conflict with the fact that the holy book has two meanings, visible and hidden. Thus, philosophy and religion do not actually conflict and do not say contradictory things. -/- Averroes, who followed Aristotle's way in terms of epistemology and ontology, took Plato as an example, not Aristotle, in his political philosophy for technical reasons. For this reason, his thoughts on state structuring are similar to Plato's The Republic [Politeia]. Averroes’ political philosophy is based on ethics. His thoughts on politics can be summarized with the basic concepts of happiness, justice, and equality. As in Plato and Aristotle, happiness is important for Averroes and the state is responsible for providing and protecting it. For this reason, it describes a virtuous city, and the virtue of justice is, in a sense, the condition of existence for all other virtues. -/- Averroes has been an important thinker for both the East and the West. He played a significant role in the efforts of the Middle Ages to reconcile religion and philosophy and became one of the names that the Western world benefited from most in establishing its bond with Greek thought. Averroes became famous as an Aristotelian commentator, but since he did not know Greek, he got to know Aristotle through translated works and wrote his comments on these translated works. Nevertheless, Aristotle's philosophy played an active role in shaping Averroes’ thought system, as he was an Aristotle commentator. (shrink)

This book is a new scholarly edition of Lincoln Steffensâ classic, â oemuck-rakingâ account of Gilded Age corruption in America. It provides the broader political background, theoretical and historical context needed to better understand the social and political roots of corruption in general terms: the social and moral nature of corruption and reform. Steffens enjoyed the support of a multitude of journalists with first-hand knowledge of their localities. He interviewed and came to know political bosses, crusading district attorneys and indicted (...) corruptionists spanning a cast of hundreds. He also benefited from the support of a large-scale, nationally prominent network of anti-corruption specialists and luminaries, including President Theodore Roosevelt. Steffens explored in detail the high Gilded Age corruption of New York City, Chicago, â oecorrupt and contentedâ Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, St. Louis and Minneapolis. His work culminated in a well-documented record of Gilded Age corruption in the cities; and, with the addition of the editorial annotations, Chronology and Introduction of this edition, the reader is placed in a position to gain an overview and considerable insight into the general, moral and social-political phenomenon of corruption. This book will be of interest for students and professionals in political philosophy, political science, American history and American studies. (shrink)

This book advances an examination of the main arguments and counter-arguments put forward by the advocates of realism in political philosophy in support of the two methodological theses they defend: 1) that political philosophy is not and cannot be understood (just) as a branch of ethics or as „applied moral philosophy” (as moderate realists claim); and 2) that political philosophy should be done completely “outside ethics”, i.e., that it should stop using arguments based on “pre-political” moral principles or values (as (...) radical realists claim). The book pleads for four main conclusions: 1) that radical realism is nothing but moralism in disguise and that its methodological request – giving up moral principles or values in political philosophy – is „unrealistic” (unfeasible), as long as no plausible (i.e., egalitarian) account of political legitimacy or authority can be grounded without appeal to the principle of basic human equality or the principle of treating people as (free and) equals; 2) that political philosophy is not quite accurately described as a branch of ethics, as moralist political philosophers usually do, but this is not because of the reasons usually offered by moderate realists, but because political philosophy includes at least one project that cannot be unquestionably subsumed to this characterization (i.e., the project of the purely epistemic justification of liberal democracy); 3) that moralism is a methodology that political philosophy is perfectly justified to use and no (radical) realist counter-argument touches its validity and necessity; and 4) that all objections brought in the realists’ crusade against moralism are not tenable (most of them being the fruit of serious misunderstandings or distortions of the positions the philosophers accused of this “methodological vice” endorse, the result of sophistic reasoning or of confusions, such as the confusion between political philosophy and political science, between normative and descriptive, between political philosophy and motivational speech for citizens or politicians, or the confusion between moralism as a methodology of political philosophy – or as a thesis about the proper methodology of political philosophy – and moralism as a theory or an evaluative practice concerning politics and political behavior). The four conclusions can be synthesized in the general conclusion that realists – be they radical or moderate – are wrong when they argue (and believe they have good reasons for the thesis) that political philosophy is not (just) a branch of ethics or for the thesis that it should be done completely “outside ethics”. The most central questions of political philosophy are, in their overwhelming majority, moral questions (about the political). In addition, the recourse to “pre-political” moral principles or values is imperative and inescapable for political philosophy. Therefore, political philosophy has no other option than remaining what, essentially, it has ever been: an area of moral philosophy, a discipline whose research interests are continuous with those of ethics. As its title suggests, this book can be described, as well, as a (new) defence of this general conclusion concerning the specific of and the path to follow by political philosophy. (shrink)

Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth Sikh Guru, was a divine preceptor and crusader for noble cause of human welfare. He was a great religious leader, a poet and a mystic, a true scholar and philosopher. He was also a fearless warrior and a military commander, who always fought against tyranny and oppression, to establish a just and benign state. In his hymns of 'Bachitar Natak', he proclaimed his mission as 'to protect the righteous, oppressed and downtrodden people and to destroy (...) the evil-doers'. He stressed on the unity between humans, rejected all sorts of discriminations and preached equality and goodwill. Being a prolific writer and a poet of rare sensibility, Guru Gobind Singh greatly enriched the literary heritage of India. His poetic vision depicts the glorious epitome of medieval Indian literary traditions. Through his compositions, he enunciated a doctrine of armed struggle for the protection of truth and justice. The fusion of the devotional and martial, of the spiritual and the heroic ethos is the most important feature of his literary work and his charismatic leadership. With his spiritual dynamism, he attempted to reconcile the transcendent with the immanent through his creation of the Khalsa. The commonwealth of the Khalsa was founded based on all round equality and total dedication to one Supreme Reality. Guru Gobind Singh was a pioneer Indian leader to introduce republican set up and democratic institutions. His teachings have great relevance for the modern man to build a global society with a commitment to peace and goodwill across all sorts of constraints and geographical boundaries. (shrink)

The connection between leadership style, on the one hand, policing and perception of corruption, on the other hand, has received little attention in the literature on leadership theory and organizational processes. Hence, the aim of this study is to examine the relationship between transformational leadership and perception of corruption within the police institution, especially in this instance, the Nigeria Police Force. Based on a sampling process of cross sectional approach, the data were collected by administering questionnaires on 156 respondents in (...) Alausa police district in Lagos State. The descriptive result shows that while transformational leadership is practiced in the Nigeria Police Force, the perceived level of corruption remains high. Though in varying degree, the results indicate a positive correlation between the attributes of transformational leadership (charisma, individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation) and the dimensions of corruption. While charisma consistently has a positive influence on the facets of corruption, individualized consideration and charisma influence the dimension of transparency within the police force. In addition, individualized consideration influences the facet of crime. Thus, transformational leadership seems to play an important, but complex role in the reduction of corrupt practices within the police institution. The findings were discussed in the specific contexts of transformational leadership theory, organizational practices and police corruption. The practical implications for organizational development, police reform and crusade against police deviances were also underscored. (shrink)

Cathars, a Christian dualist-gnostic order of the Middle Ages, is not known well in our country and has some certain striking features among the religious movement in this cultural area. The Cathars were denounced as heretics due to the mentioned features, and attracted the antagonism of the Churchseverely by their irreconcilable stances in basic dogmas and practices including the perception of God, baptism, Jesus Christ, Holy Virgin, the primordial sin, the Sacred Scripture. Thus, they witnessed the greatest massacres in a (...) manner unprecedently throughout the history. As a result of the attacks of the Papacy and the Inquisition against their leaders as well as their proponents, thousands of their followers were sacrificed. Moreover, the Cathars put their stamp on history as one of the most oppressed societies within the history in consequence of the carnages carried out by a certain Crusade called Albigeois, and they were exterminated by burning at the stake, which indicates the extent of the oppression they witnessed. (shrink)

A chronological presentation on man's religious beliefs focusing on Christianity and its early adversaries. From the Egyptian Pharaohs, Pagan Greek Gods, to various early Christian sects, this book establishes the similarities of faith.