Is it possible that one and the same object x has opposing dispositions at the same time? One's first reaction might be that it is evidently impossible. On the assumption that x is incombustible, it seems to follow that it is not combustible. Surprisingly enough, however, it is claimed that there are a number of examples in support of the possibility of simultaneous co-instantiation of opposing dispositions. In this paper, I will bring under scrutiny some of the examples and come (...) to the conclusion that none of them achieve the desired goal. This will give support to the initial intuition that opposing dispositions cannot be co-instantiated by one and the same object at the same time. (shrink)

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

Purpose: Examination of the main arguments for radical constructivism and the critical arguments put forward against it. Findings: Although there is no reason to doubt the value of constructivism as such, it can be stated that any epistemological radicalism lacks plausibility. There is ample evidence that we still can adopt a critical realist outlook, even if every part of our world view is a construction. Implications: We should engage ourselves in the development of an anti-metaphysical, non-objectivist epistemology. By far the (...) most promising contribution should be a version of pragmatism. (shrink)

Presents opposing viewpoints about the relationship between religion and science, both historically and in the present.

A disposition mask is something that prevents a disposition from manifesting despite the occurrence of that disposition’s characteristic stimulus, and without eliminating that disposition. Several authors have maintained that masks must be things extrinsic to the objects that have the masked dispositions. Here it is argued that this is not so; masks can be intrinsic to the objects whose dispositions they mask. If that is correct, then a recent attempt to distinguish dispositional properties from so-called categorical properties fails.

Construction of the trunk/caudal region of the vertebrate embryo involves a set of distinct molecules and processes whose relationships are just coming into focus. In addition to the subdivision of the embryo into head and trunk domains, this “caudalisation” process requires the establishment and maintenance of a stem zone. This sequentially generates caudal tissues over a long period which then undergo differentiation and patterning in the extending body axis. Here we review recent studies that show that changes in the signalling (...) properties of the paraxial mesoderm act as a switch that controls onset of differentiation and pattern in the spinal cord. These findings identify distinct roles for different caudalising factors; in particular, Fibroblast Growth Factor (FGF) inhibits differentiation in the caudal stem zone, while Retinoic acid (RA) provided rostrally by somitic mesoderm is required for neuronal differentiation and establishment of ventral neural pattern. Furthermore, the mutual opposition of FGF and RA pathways controls not only neural differentiation but also mesoderm segmentation and might also underlie the progressive assignment of rostrocaudal identity by regulating Hox gene availability and activation. BioEssays 26:857–869, 2004. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

The leading arguments against the existence of a priori knowledge are addressed. The opposing arguments fall into three broad categories: conceptual arguments, which offer an analysis of the concept of a priori knowledge and allege that no cases of knowledge satisfy the conditions in the analysis; radical empiricist arguments, which offer radical empiricist accounts of knowledge of propositions alleged to be knowable only a priori; and incompatibility arguments, which maintain that a priori knowledge is incompatible with epistemic naturalism. This chapter (...) contends that the negative arguments fail: the conceptual arguments impose implausible conditions on a priori knowledge; the radical empiricist accounts do not establish that the propositions in question are not also known a priori; and the incompatibility arguments fail to show that a priori knowledge is incompatible with either of the two leading forms of epistemic naturalism: philosophical and scientific. (shrink)

Medicine often views hospice care as “giving up,” which results in a reduced quality of end-of-life care for many patients. By integrating a theology of the Sabbath with modern medicine, hospice becomes a sacred and valuable way to honor the dying patient in a comprehensive and holistic way. A theology of Sabbath as “Sacredness in Time” can provide the foundation for a shift in understanding hospice as a legitimate care plan, which shifts the focus from controlling and manipulating space for (...) the body, to rest and enjoyment of time for the whole person. First, I explore vitalism and its negative effects on the institution of hospice. Second, I address the main misconceptions and biases surrounding hospice in order to establish hospice as an appropriate option for the terminally ill. Finally, I argue for a shift away from sacredness in space (as seen in vitalism) to sacredness in time. (shrink)

Derrida's purpose in ‘Death Penalties’ (2004), is to show how both arguments in favour of capital punishment, exemplified by Kant's, and arguments for its abolition, such as those of Beccaria, are deconstructible. He claims that ‘never, to my knowledge, has any philosopher as a philosopher, in his or her own strictly and systematically philosophical discourse, never has any philosophy as such contested the legitimacy of the death penalty.’ (2004, 146) Derrida also asks how it is possible ‘to abolish the death (...) penalty in a way that is based on principle, that is universal and unconditional, and not because it has become not only cruel but useless, insufficiently exemplary?’ (2004, 137) In my paper, I examine Derrida's claim about the lack of systematic opposition to the death penalty on the part of philosophers and suggest an answer to his question concerning the possibility of a universal and unconditional opposition to capital punishment. (shrink)

Presents opposing viewpoints on various ethical, moral, legal, and medical issues concerning euthanasia.

In October 2017, the Trump administration announced that it would not participate in a $17 billion ‘WaterFix’ plan to remake California’s water conveyance system by drilling two massive tunnels und...

“Speciesism” accords greater value to human beings and their interests. It is supposed to be opposed to a liberationist stance, since it is precisely the numerous forms of discounting of animal interests which liberationists oppose. This association is mistaken. In this paper I claim that many forms of speciesism are consistent with upholding a robust liberationist agenda. Accordingly, several hotly disputed topics in animal ethics can be set aside. The significance of such clarification is that synthesizing liberationism with speciesism substantially (...) modifies some of the coordinates of the debates over animal ethics. Secondly, defusing some counterintuitive implications of liberationism may make liberationism more popular than it currently is. Liberationism would no longer demand the eradication of ingrained speciesist intuitions. The paper finally presents a form of speciesism that does oppose liberationism, but is too strong and (fortunately) shared by few. (shrink)

Philosophers disagree over whether dispositions can be intrinsically finked or masked. Choi suggests that there are no clear, relevant differences between cases where intrinsic finks would be absurd and those where they seem plausible, and as a result rejects them wholesale. Here, I highlight two features of dispositional properties which, when considered together, provide a plausible explanation for when dispositions can be subject to intrinsic finks and when not.

John Anderson was Australia's most important philosopher in the first half of this century. Coming from Scotland as a young man, he held the chair of philosophy at the University of Sydney for thirty years until his retirement in 1958. The doctrinaire Scots empiricist would become as Australian as a magpie. He developed his own distinctive system of realism and fathered a vigorous local school characterised by inquiry, independence and a deep commitment to philosophy as a way of life. Far (...) from being a remote, albeit distinguished, technical philosopher and university man, he was a formidable public figure and fierce controversialist who, over decades, outraged many of Sydney's clergy and conventionally minded citizenry. From an early Marxist phase, he espoused and applied 'freethought' and criticism in everything, opposing all forms of censorship and mind control - except perhaps, as one intrepid student observed, his own. Anderson was no secular saint and this, his first biography, is no hagiography. Brian Kennedy has uncovered much new material, including personal letters and diaries, about Anderson's Scottish past and his conflicted public and private life in Australia. His relations with students were complex; with women, they were decidedly problematic. Warts and all, Anderson has much to teach us about universities and the intellectual life, as this lucid and incisive book makes clear. In the aftermath of the revolution that has swept our universities and colleges into a brave new world, Anderson's uncompromising calls to unfettered inquiry, criticism and the Socratic way of life are timely. (shrink)

To avoid the mystical rapture that seizes interpreters put before the theme of unitas oppositorum in Cusanus and Leibniz, this contribution shall move from the prosaic question: what does ensue from such opposites or from their conjunction? 2) interweave the analysis with some external point of view, notably that of Erasmus. This question will be investigated on the background of two antitethical traditions in dealing philosophically with opposition and contradiction, although in the end we shall try and find out other (...) ways and reasons for connecting the two thinkers on the ground of the various possible unitates oppositorum, than those of the metaphysical doctrine of the opposites. (shrink)

Disjunctivists hold that perceiving external objects is fundamentally different from any experiential state that is not a perception. In fact, roughly speaking, disjunctivists say that they have nothing in common. Suppose that it appears to someone as though she perceives something. Disjunctivists say that there are two disparate sorts of facts that could make this true. Either she is genuinely perceiving something, or she is in an experiential state of merely apparent perception. An apparent perception is fundamentally unlike a perception. (...) Disjunctivists differ in what they say the fundamental difference is. We’ll get to some of that shortly. First I’ll say where I’m headed here. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

The article critically examines the arguments of Raef Zreik regarding the 2023 war in Gaza. It first analyzes the use of the concept of narrative in defending political causes and actions. It shows that due to their subjective nature two opposing narratives can be equally valid as long as they satisfy conditions of internal coherence and fidelity to the facts. It then shows that Zreik’s argument of ‘fragmentation’ is double edged and cannot be used for laying full responsibility on Israel. (...) It then proceeds to criticize the claim that Zionism is a colonialist enterprise and shows that Zionism does not consist of all the basic characteristics of colonialism. Finally, it analyzes the common argument of self-defense as the only justification of starting a war and shows the limitation of such an argument in a theory of war, mainly because in most wars both sides have the right to defend themselves, including the allegedly unjust party. All that remains after showing the weakness of most arguments for this or that side to the conflict is the conclusion that compromise is the only way out of the deadlock, having the virtue of being pragmatic rather principled. (shrink)

The concept of distributive justice and its history are far more complex than most contemporary scholars are aware of. This introduction to the volume "New Perspectives on Distributive Justice" elucides the different meanings of the concept in the tradition of Plato and Aristotle on the one hand, and in contemporary political philosophy on the other.

This article points to the highly centralized nature of the British tax system. A first section shows how all tax law derives from Parliament, the “onlie begetter” of legally enforceable instruments. It is suggested that this system is not democratically accountable at sub-national levels of government. Reforms of the Thatcher era have resulted in the privatization of many public services, leading to the stabilization of State expenditure as a proportion of GDP. However, at the same time, both tax revenue and (...) expenditure have become increasingly centralized. Public service tasks are determined and financed by central government, and local government is for the most part merely the agent through which government policy is realized. The creation of the Scottish and Welsh Assemblies does not alter this overall assessment. Given the high level of centralization, taxes are uniform throughout the country and there is no scope for meaningful regional fiscal competition. Since regional economic development in Britain is notoriously uneven, the author notes that fiscal uniformity does not lead to economic convergence. A final section is devoted to showing why this is not surprising and why fiscal harmonisation at a European level would be a source of growing, not reduced, disparities.Cet article met l’accent sur la nature hautement centralisée du système fiscal britannique. Une première section montre comment toutes les lois fiscales proviennent du Parlement, la “source unique” des instruments légaux exécutoires. Nous considérons que ce système n’est pas démocrat- iquement defendable aux niveaux subnationaux de gouvernement. Les réformes de l’ère Thatcher ont conduit à une privatisation de beaucoup de services publics, entrainant une stabilisation des dépenses de l’Etat en pourcentage du PIB. Cependant, dans le meme temps, à la fois les recettes fiscales et les dépenses sont devenues de plus en plus centralisées. Les taches du service public sont définies et financées par le gouvernement central et le gouvernement local est dans la majeure partie des cas l’agent à travers lequel la politique du gouvernement s’exerce. La creation des Assemblées Ecossaises et galloises ne modifie pas cette evaluation d’ensemble. Etant donné le niveau élevé de centralisation, les impôts sont uniformes à travers le pays et il n’y a pas de possibilité pour une concurrence fiscale régionale significative. Alors que le développement économique regional en Grande Bretagne est notoirement inégal, l’auteur remarque que l’uniformité fiscale ne conduit pas à uneconvergence économique. Une section finale est consacrée à montrer pourquoi cela n’est en rien surprenant et pourquoi l’harmonisation fiscale à un niveau européen serait une source de disparités croissantes, et non décroissantes. (shrink)

Ce billet a déjà été publié dans Rouge, études diachroniques. Regards croisés de l'art préhistorique à l'art contemporain le 24 juin 2018. Nous remercions Mathilde Buratti de nous avoir autorisé à le reproduire ici. Kupka, artiste complet du XXe siècle notamment connu pour ses abstractions colorées, est à l'honneur au Grand Palais jusqu'au 30 juillet 2018. Cette rétrospective met en avant la conception originale du peintre. Tout au long de sa carrière, tant dans ses productions abstraites que - Arts plastiques (...) et autres – GALERIE – Nouvel article. (shrink)

2.1 The Myth of Religious Neutrality ………………..………..………………… 2 2.2 ID and Creationism …………………………………………………………… 7 2.3 Methodological Materialism ……………………………….………………… 9 2.4 ID’s Contribution to Science ……………………………..………………… 13 3 Robert Pennock ………………...…..………………………….……..…………….. 17 4 John Haught ………………………………………………….……..…..………….. 23 5 Kevin Padian …………………………………………………..…….…..………….. 27 6 Kenneth Miller …………...……………………………………………..………….. 34..

Les interprétations et traductions habituelles de l’affirmation d’Aristote en Métaphysique Λ, 1075b12-13 πάντες δ᾽ οἱ τἀναντία λέγοντες οὐ χρῶνται τοῖς ἐναντίοις, ἐὰν μὴ ῥυθμίσῃ τις se fondent sur une compréhension contestable de la signification du verbe ῥυθμίζω. Une brève analyse de la signification et de l’usage du verbe au ve et ive siècle av. J.-C., ainsi qu’une étude des principaux interprètes anciens et médiévaux (le Ps.-Alexandre, Thomas d’Aquin, Averroès, Thémistius), dévoilent les difficultés que la compréhension de ce passage d’Aristote suscitaient (...) dès l’Antiquité et permettent de supposer que ῥυθμίζω doit ici être entendu dans son sens technique, métaphysique (« former », « ajouter une forme »), selon un usage que l’on trouve aussi chez Démocrite et Antiphon. La compréhension correcte de ce verbe autorise alors à présenter une nouvelle interprétation de ce bref passage d’Aristote et d’y découvrir une critique plus complète et précise des thèses qu’il entend dénoncer. (shrink)