This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Section 1: Rational Judgment and Understanding Section 2: The Structure of Systematicity Section 3: Systematicity as Methodological Maxim? Section 4: Nature and Rational Structure.

ABSTRACT Why did the popping of the housing bubble bring the financial system—rather than just the housing sector of the economy—to its knees? The answer lies in two methods by which banks had evaded regulatory capital requirements. First, they had temporarily placed assets—such as securitized mortgages—in off‐balance‐sheet entities, so that they did not have to hold significant capital buffers against them. Second, the capital regulations also allowed banks to reduce the amount of capital they held against assets that remained on (...) their balance sheets—if those assets took the form of AAA‐rated tranches of securitized mortgages. Thus, by repackaging mortgages into mortgage‐backed securities, whether held on or off their balance sheets, banks reduced the amount of capital required against their loans, increasing their ability to make loans many‐fold. The principal effect of this regulatory arbitrage, however, was to concentrate the risk of mortgage defaults in the banks and render them insolvent when the housing bubble popped. (shrink)

Duchamp’s aspiration to become more philosophical in his art mirrors Heidegger’s aspiration to become more poetical in his philosophy. Their shared mistrust of subjectivity led them to question the continued viability of art on the one hand and of philosophy on the other. This article examines Heidegger’s essay in juxtaposition to Duchamp’s work, highlighting Heidegger’s (often underappreciated) playful approach to his weighty task, and, in regard to Duchamp, revealing just how serious art can be when it doesn’t appear to take (...) itself too seriously. (shrink)

Translations of the “myths” from Plato’s Protagoras (320c-324d), Symposium (189c-193d), Republic (614b-621d), Timaeus (20d-25d and 29d-34b), and Kritias (108e-121c).

The notion that Jesus' death is an atoning sacrifice is grounded in Jesus' own understanding of the temple and sacrificial cult in light of the dawn of the New Age.