This paper proposes an unnoted major link, between the Mesopotamian Etana legend and Genesis’s Garden of Eden story by pointing to parallels between the two stories, apparent at different levels, from the structural to the lexical. Cumulatively these point to a dependence by the Eden story on Etana, though it is argued that the appreciation of these matters in tandem, as put forth in this study, serves mutually beneficial purposes. The identification of vestiges of Etana in Eden advances our understanding (...) of Etana no less than of Eden. Most significantly, perhaps, the reciprocal consideration of Etana and Eden sheds light on the manner by which the ancients’ reflection on language, respectively Akkadian and Hebrew, provided a key ingredient in the creation of both the Mesopotamian and Biblical tales—in a manner quintessential to the Semitic world. (shrink)

Foundations of Set Theory discusses the reconstruction undergone by set theory in the hands of Brouwer, Russell, and Zermelo. Only in the axiomatic foundations, however, have there been such extensive, almost revolutionary, developments. This book tries to avoid a detailed discussion of those topics which would have required heavy technical machinery, while describing the major results obtained in their treatment if these results could be stated in relatively non-technical terms. This book comprises five chapters and begins with a discussion of (...) the antinomies that led to the reconstruction of set theory as it was known before. It then moves to the axiomatic foundations of set theory, including a discussion of the basic notions of equality and extensionality and axioms of comprehension and infinity. The next chapters discuss type-theoretical approaches, including the ideal calculus, the theory of types, and Quine's mathematical logic and new foundations; intuitionistic conceptions of mathematics and its constructive character; and metamathematical and semantical approaches, such as the Hilbert program. This book will be of interest to mathematicians, logicians, and statisticians. (shrink)

My concern here is to motivate some theses in the philosophy of mind concerning the interpersonal character of intentions. I will do so by investigating aspects of shared agency. The main point will be that when acting together with others one must be able to act directly on the intention of another or others in a way that is relevantly similar to the manner in which an agent acts on his or her own intentions. What exactly this means will become (...) clearer once we understand what it is to act directly on one’s own intentions. But I take it to be a fundamental assumption of the prevailing individualism of the theory of action— one at the core of its conception of the separateness of individuals— that one person cannot act directly on another’s intention. I agree that there is an important way in which we are or can be separate and autonomous thinkers and agents. But the way the individualist tries to capture this separateness is misguided. (shrink)

When an agent suffers in their capacity as a knower, they are a victim of epistemic injustice. Varieties of epistemic injustices have been theorised. A salient feature across these theories is that perpetrators and victims of epistemic injustice belong to different social groups. In this paper, I argue for a form of epistemic injustice that could occur between members of the same social group. This is a form of epistemic injustice where the knower is first a victim of historical and (...) continuing oppression. Secondly, they internalise and appreciate the systems that harm them as a knower. This is possible because the victim subscribes to perniciously formed epistemic systems. This form of epistemic injustice is a valuable explanatory tool for non-standard and obscure instances of epistemic injustice where the victim a) accepts and appreciates the injustice they experience and b) is even the seeming perpetrator of the injustice against themselves. (shrink)

Shared activity is often simply willed into existence by individuals. This poses a problem. Philosophical reflection suggests that shared activity involves a distinctive, interlocking structure of intentions. But it is not obvious how one can form the intention necessary for shared activity without settling what fellow participants will do and thereby compromising their agency and autonomy. One response to this problem suggests that an individual can have the requisite intention if she makes the appropriate predictions about fellow participants. I argue (...) that implementing this predictive strategy risks derailing practical reasoning and preventing one from forming the intention. My alternative proposal for reconciling shared activity with autonomy appeals to the idea of acting directly on another's intention. In particular, I appeal to the entitlement one sometimes has to another's practical judgment, and the corresponding authority the other sometimes has to settle what one is to do. (shrink)

A meta-ethical analysis demonstrates that care ethics is a grounded in a distinct mode of moral reasoning. This is comprised primarily of the rejection of principles such as impartiality, and the endorsement of emotional or moral virtues such as compassion, as well as the notion that the preservation of relations may override the interests of the individuals involved in them. The main conclusion of such a meta-ethical analysis is that such meta-ethical foundations of care ethics are not sound. Reasonable alternatives (...) for care ethics may be its formulation as an additional principle within an established principlist framework, or the move to a dialogical ethics, where the good to be acted upon is not decided in advance but rather critically discussed and established within the encounter of the parties involved. (shrink)

Inertial frames and Lorentz transformations have a preferred status in the special theory of relativity (STR). Lorentz transformations, in turn, embody Einstein's convention that the velocity of light is isotropic, a convention that is necessary for the establishment of a standard signal synchrony. If the preferred status of Lorentz transformations in STR is not due to some particular bias introduced by a convention on signal synchronism, but to the fact that the Lorentz transformation group is the symmetry group of the (...) theory, then the signal synchronism is not a matter of convention but rather a matter of fact. In order to explore the conventionalist thesis, that within the frame of STR isotropy in the velocity of light and, hence, signal synchronism is a matter of convention, we need a generalized Lorentz transformation group that does not embody Einstein's isotropy convention, and upon which STR can be based. We present here a new approach to the resulting search for a generalized STR, which is well suited for establishing some well-known results of Winnie as well as some new results. (shrink)

Anarchist theory has a long-standing history in political theory, sociology, and philosophy. As a radical discourse, anarchist theory pushes educators and researchers towards new conceptualizations of community, theory, and praxis. Early writers, like Joseph Proudhoun and Emma Goldman, to more contemporary anarchists, such as Noam Chomsky, have established anarchist theory as an important school of thought that sits outside the Marxist discourses that have dominated the radical academic scene. Today, anarchists have been responsible for staging effective protests (specifically, Seattle, 1999) (...) and have influenced autonomous groups like the Animal Liberation Front in their organizational and guiding philosophies. Interestingly, anarchism is glaringly absent from the literature in educational theory and research. In this article, I highlight aspects of anarchist theory that are particularly applicable to education, and also establishes specific ways that anarchist theory can inform one's own educational praxis. Specifically, I employ the anarchist framework of direct action and micro-level strategies, such as sabotage, that challenge people to resist the oppressive practices found in institutions today. (shrink)

Davidson held that the explanation of action in terms of reasons was a form of causal explanation. He challenged anti-causalists to identify a non-causal relation underlying reasons---explanation which could distinguish between merely having a reason and that reason being the one for which one acts. George Wilson attempts to meet Davidson’s challenge, but the relation he identifies can serve only in explanations of general facts, whereas reasons explanation is often of particular acts. This suggests that the relation underlying reasons explanation (...) is not only causal, but singular as well. A further proposal, extracted from Fred Dretske’s views, characterizes this singular causal relation in terms of non-mental triggers. But this suggestion underestimates the explanatory role of the environment at the time of action, and shares with Wilson’s proposal the inability to account for the rationalization of particular acts. A situational environmentalist conception of reasons explanation, however, does not face these difficulties. (shrink)

How far can one ascribe a spatial meaning to pain? When I have a pain, for instance, in my leg, how should one understand the “in” in the “pain in my leg”? I argue (contrary to Noordhof) that pain does have a spatial meaning, but (contrary to Tye) that the spatiality of pain is not to be understood in the standard sense of spatial enclosure. Instead, spatiality has a special meaning with regard to pain. By defining pain in phenomenological terms (...) as a disturbed form of bodily perception, I contend that the “in” in “pain in my body” has a dual spatial meaning: firstly, it signifies my internal perceptual relation to a disturbing part of my body; secondly, it denotes the external perceptual relation to my environment that the disturbance forces me to take. Once the spatiality of pain is understood in terms of such a perceptual relation, it is not restricted to localisable hurts, but pertains to all forms of pain, such as affliction and agony. (shrink)

Dialogical ethics are a procedural alternative to substantive ethics such as consequentialism, deontology, principlism, casuistry, virtue ethics and care ethics. Dialogical ethics are procedural in that they do not establish goods in advance, unlike substantive ethics, but rather determine goods through a procedure enacted by the actual parties involved (although some substantive notion of justice may still be required); and they are dialogical in that the procedure is that of dialogue, involving both empathic critical discussion and negotiation. A fundamental tenet (...) of dialogical ethics may be the use of appropriate rules of order regulating dialogue among the parties involved. Some of the central characteristics of such rules of order are that they are reciprocally regulated by dialogue, that they override other ethical considerations, and that they institute empathic critical discussion and negotiation within the ethical dialogue. Dialogical bioethics are the application of dialogical ethics to ethical problems in medicine. The approach of dialogical bioethics has proven fruitful for resolving bioethical problems such as that of medical futility, where approaches of substantive ethics have reached an impasse. There is room for further study of special challenges within dialogical bioethics, such as the incompetence of some involved parties, conflicts of interests of third parties, and the cost-effectiveness of this ethical approach. (shrink)

In an important new book on shared agency, Michael Bratman develops an account of the normative demand for the coordination of intentions amongst participants in shared agency. Bratman seeks to understand this form of normative guidance in terms of that associated with individual planning intentions. I give reasons to resist his form of reductionism. In addition, I note how Bratman’s discussion raises the interesting issue of the function or purpose of shared intention and of shared agency more generally. According to (...) Bratman, the function of shared intention is to promote interpersonal coordination of intention and action. I suggest that power sharing amongst participants must also be included as a function of shared intention. (shrink)

Informed consent to breaking (or waiving) bad news is an important yet neglected topic. It is distinct from informed consent to diagnosis and to treatment, and may be logically and ethically sound, provided patients are competent and that no considerable harm may be caused to others by breaking or waiving bad news to patients. This requires a differential assessment procedure in order to balance patient autonomy, benefit and justice towards others, preferably exploring patients’ values, expectations and needs with them, so (...) that an acceptable decision can be made on whether to act on their consent to breaking or waiving bad news, or to ignore it and act on informed consent by proxy. Future study should attempt to provide a detailed characterization of procedures for attaining informed consent to breaking or waiving bad news, and to test their success in establishing ethically sound health care. (shrink)

The theories of complexity comprise a system of great breadth. But what is included under this umbrella? Here we attempt a portrait of complexity theory, seen through the lens of complexity theory itself. That is, we portray the subject as an evolving complex dynamical system, or social network, with bifurcations, emergent properties, and so on. This is a capsule history covering the twentieth century. Extensive background data may be seen at www.visual-chaos.org/complexity.

In the early twentieth century Walter Benjamin introduced the idea of epochal and ongoing progression in interaction between mind and the built environment. Since early antiquity, the present study suggests, Benjamin’s notion has been manifest in metaphors of gender in city-form, whereby edifices and urban voids have represented masculinity and femininity, respectively. At the onset of interaction between mind and the built environment are prehistoric myths related to the human body and to the sky. During antiquity gender projection can be (...) detected in western perceptions linking natural and built environments, commencing with Plato’s Atlantis and his Myth of Er, and later as a likely import of the Chinese yin-yang mythology. Culminating with the Age of Discovery, alongside advances in experiential awareness of the Earth’s sphericity, respective feminine and masculine earmarks can be detected in early modern perspicacity of the Earth’s southern and northern hemispheres. Our conceptions of natural and built environments inherently continue to contain gender traits. Yet urban voids, as the feminine face of city-form, have been severely understated in the built environment. Through design and configuration of urban voids, allegories of femininity in city-form ought to be celebrated, not discarded. (shrink)

Jakovljevic and Crnčevic review the concept of comorbidity in relation to mental disorders, which is timely. Yet they seem to ignore a longstanding and important notion of comorbidity, highlighted in psychiatry particularly by Sigmund Freud. The ignored notion is that of compensatory comorbidity. Compensatory comorbidity is a special case of compensatory phenomena in relation to disrupted health.

Complex dynamical systems theory is an evolution of nonlinear dynamics, developed for modeling and simulation of biological systems. Here, we speculate on the potential of this strategy for the emerging theory of social systems, and the implications for the future of our own planetary society.

Boxing was arguably the most popular and controversial sport in colonial Zimbabwe. To tame the sport's violence, which was considered too extreme, colonial officials in Zimbabwe sought guidance and advice from South Africa from the mid-1930s on how best to regulate the sport. South Africa occupied a unique position in this regard, not only because of the relationship it had with colonial Zimbabwe as a neighbouring white settler colony, but also because of how sections of its white settler community responded (...) to the triumphs of Black boxers over white opponents around the world. The colony of South Africa played a significant role in shaping the control of boxing in colonial Zimbabwe. The relationship between the two colonies culminated in the passage of the Boxing and Wrestling Control Act of 1956 in colonial Zimbabwe, an identical version to a similarly named law that South Africa had passed just two years prior. (shrink)

Cuauhtémoc HERNÁNDEZ MARTÍNEZ Editorial Universidad de Guanajuato, 2019, 213 pp. Guanajuato, ISBN : 978-607-441-688-6 ISBN : 978-607-441-689-3.

Nul n'était mieux qualifié que l'autour de ce livre - docteur en philosophie et rabbin de la synagogue de Birmingham - pour entreprendre le véritable tour de force qu'il a réussi en réalisant la synthèse de l'enseignement contenu dans le Talmud. La richesse de son information n'a d'égale que la maîtrise avec laquelle il répartit son savoir en une suite de chapitres aussi clairs que précis. Cet ouvrage, pendant longtemps encore, rendra d'inestimables services à ses lecteurs.

The debate over the grounds of full moral status relies heavily on the “method of cases.” In the method of cases intuitions about particular cases are taken as evidence for philosophical theories. Much in the debate over the grounds of full moral status turns on our intuitions regarding the moral status of individuals with intellectual disability. This paper argues that the intuitions of those in close personal relationships with individuals with intellectual disability are more reliable than the intuitions of those (...) who lack such a relationship. When theorizing about full moral status, we should privilege the intuitions of those who have a close personal relationship with an individual with intellectual disability. (shrink)

"אניה פון ברמזן נולדה בדירה קומונלית סוריאליסטית במוסקבה, דירה שבה שמונה-עשרה משפחות חלקו מטבח אחד. בילדותה שרה שירי הלל ללנין, ניהלה בבית הספר סחר שוק שחור של מסטיקים בטעם פירות וערגה לטעימה מהמערב האגדי... ב-1974, כשהיתה בת עשר, נמלטו אניה ואמה לארצות הברית, ללא מעילי חורף וללא אפשרות לשוב למולדת. כיום היא הכוהנת הגדולה של כתיבה על אוכל גורמה... בממואר הטרגי-קומי הסוחף שלפניכם אניה בוראת מחדש שבעה עשורים של היסטוריה סובייטית דרך אמנות הבישול והאוכל. היא משחזרת שלושה דורות של היסטוריה (...) משפחתית שהיא חלק מאפוס היסטורי רחב יותר: המדיניות האכזרית של החרמת התבואה שהנהיג לנין, הרעב בתקופת מלחמת העולם השניה, נימוסי השולחן של סטלין, ויכוחי המטבח של חורשצ'וב, מלחמתו הרת האסון של גורבצ'וב באלכוהול והתמוטטותה הסופית של ברית המועצות. כל אלה נעשים למקשה אחת בזכות שנינותה העוקצנית של אניה, הנוסטלגיה הנלהבת שלה וההבחנות החדות והמדויקות". -- מעטפת אחורית. (shrink)

La edición y el estudio del teatro breve del Siglo de Oro es uno de los campos donde las aportaciones han sido más numerosas y relevantes en las últimas décadas. Se ofrece en este trabajo un recorrido desde los años sesenta hasta el presente, que se cierra con una bibliografía selecta de libros, artículos y fuentes principales de carácter electrónico.….

In times in which we ask ourselves how political cruelty and torments can be forgotten, Nietzsche's pleadoyer for pain to serve the purpose of education, surprises. What might sound like a mere provocation, rather lies at the heart of the Nietzschean philosophy. As is pointed out, Nietzsche's contention that pain is the most powerful aid to mnemonics, originates from his philosophy of pain as the main condition of all forms of creation. The title “educating (bilden) pain” expresses Nietsche's advocacy of (...) an education towards pain as the dynamo of creation. In this paper I explore how Nietzsche's notion of pain is linked to two concepts of Bildung. In the first part I investigate the relation between pain and “Bildung” in the sense of “creation”, and in the second part I link this to the relation between pain and “Bildung” in the sense of “education”. By these means, I try to answer the question: how far can pain, which is seen as the condition of creation, be linked to conditions of education. S. Afr. J. Philos. Vol.21(2) 2002: 122-132. (shrink)

Are toleration and pluralism possible in Jewish religion? -- Yeshayahu Leibovitz : the man against his thought -- Leibowitz and Camus : between faith and the absurd -- Jewish religion without theology -- The critique of theodicy : from metaphysics to praxis -- The Holocaust : a theological or a religious-existentialist problem? -- Tikkun Olam : between utopian idea and socio-historical process.

Symmetry permeates our existence from end to end. It was born in space and on Earth long before the emergence of human civilization - the Solar system is proof of this. After man began conscious existence, he became imbued with natural symmetry in space and time. He also began to create symmetrically arranged things in his environment and events in his behavior. In the end, symmetry has become integral to human life, society, and our consciousness.

For a stationary set $S \subseteq \omega_{1}$ and a ladder system C over S, a new type of gaps called C-Hausdorff is introduced and investigated. We describe a forcing model of ZFC in which, for some stationary set S, for every ladder C over S, every gap contains a subgap that is C-Hausdorff. But for every ladder E over \omega_{1} \ S$ there exists a gap with no subgap that is E-Hausdorff. A new type of chain condition, called polarized chain (...) condition, is introduced. We prove that the iteration with finite support of polarized c.c.c. posets is again a polarized c.c.c poset. (shrink)

Buddhist Critical Spirituality. Prajña and Sunyata. Shohei Ichimura, Motilal Banarsidass, New Delhi 2001. xvii, 435 pp. Rs 795. ISBN 81-208-1798-2.

Abstract Street has argued that the meta-ethical realist is faced with a dilemma. Either evolutionary forces have had a distorting influenced on our ability to track moral properties or evolutionary forces influenced our beliefs in the direction of tracking moral properties. Street argues that if the realist accepts the first horn of the dilemma, the realist must accept implausible skepticism regarding moral beliefs. If the realist accepts the second horn of the dilemma, the realist owes an explanation of the fitness (...) producing nature of moral beliefs. As Street establishes the dialectic, the anti-realist’s explanation is better. I will argue that Street’s first horn is question begging then I will grasp the second horn of the dilemma and argue that only the realist can explain the role of moral beliefs in our evolutionary history. My argument will take the form of a dilemma. For our evaluative judgments to be fitness conducive, they must be responsive to the right sort of external world properties. The non-reductive realist can provide such a set of properties. On the first horn of the dilemma, the anti-realist cannot. The realist, unlike the anti-realist, can explain why our evaluative judgments are fitness conducive. The realist has won the explanatory battle. On the second horn of the dilemma, the anti-realist can provide a set of non-normative external world properties that our evaluative attitudes are responsive to. In doing so, the anti-realist has provided the heretofore-missing component of the reductive realist’s project. Again, the realist has won. (shrink)