The paper reviews a number of approaches for handling restricted quantification in relevant logic, and proposes a novel one. This proceeds by introducing a novel kind of enthymematic conditional.

The criminal law presently distinguishes between actions and omissions, and only rarely proscribes failures to avert consequences that it would be an offense to bring about. Why? In recent years it has been persuasively argued by both Glover and Bennett that, celeris paribus, omissions to prevent a harm are just as culpable as are actions which bring that harm about. On the other hand, and acknowledging that hitherto “lawyers have not been very successful in finding a rationale for it,” Tony (...) Honoré has sought to defend the law's differential treatment. He proposes a “distinct-duties theory” that in addition to the general duties we owe to everyone, we also owe distinct duties to a more limited collection of people and associations, specified by features of our relationship with them. Where a distinct duty holds, breach by omission may well be no better than breach by positive action. But absent a distinct duty, omissions, per Honoré, are less culpable. They are mere failures to intervene and improve or rectify things, whereas actions are positive interventions which make things worse. And, thus, the law has good reason to differentiate between them. (shrink)

Schwinger’s algebra of microscopic measurement, with the associated complex field of transformation functions, is shown to provide the foundation for a discrete quantum phase space of known type, equipped with a Wigner function and a star product. Discrete position and momentum variables label points in the phase space, each taking \(N\) distinct values, where \(N\) is any chosen prime number. Because of the direct physical interpretation of the measurement symbols, the phase space structure is thereby related to definite experimental configurations.

Compromise as a notion is frequently met in discussion and debate regarding many everyday decisions, including health care. It therefore seems that it may be of interest and value to try to give this some careful consideration. In the following pages, an attempt is made to discuss what one might mean when one uses this concept. Consideration is then given to some possible uses of compromise in health care. Having suggested that in certain situations compromise is a morally valuable process, (...) the author also considers some of the possible limits of compromise. (shrink)

Within the limitations which I have set for myself ‒ namely, those of a discussion of the attaining of the foundations for general knowledge, and of the construction of general knowledge once these foundatio11s have been obtained ‒Professor Yolton agrees with my argument. His major concern consists in urging me to extend my thesis into the domain of knowledge of nature. The main question is whether the method I have argued is present in Locke's Essay can help account for particular (...) knowledge claims Locke might make in physics rather than in the realm of conceptual relations, in the realm of the mixed modes of mathematics, geometry, and morals. The difficulty I here face is stated unambiguously by Locke himself. (shrink)

Aristotle's definition of the soul should be interpreted as: 'the soul is the entelechy of a natural body that serves as its instrument'.