Nearly three decades have passed since Antony Flew first issued his now famous falsification challenge: ‘What would have to occur or to have occurred to constitute for you a disproof of the love of, or of the existence of, God?’ The purpose of the question is to challenge the sophisticated believer to describe a state of affairs in which a basic putative theistic assertion like ‘God exists’ would be false. If the believer admits that he cannot provide such a description (...) then, Flew would argue, he is admitting that at least his putative theistic assertion is compatible with every state of affairs; consequently it is factually meaningless. The reason for this is that every factually significant assertion must deny that some describable state of affairs obtains. To illustrate, just as when we draw a circle we simultaneously draw in and draw out two particular areas, so when we state a fact we simultaneously deny a fact. Here is the difficulty, Flew would say, in which the sophisticated believer puts himself when he uses putative theistic assertions: factually he denies nothing, hence factually he asserts nothing. (shrink)

This essay is a personal tribute to the life of philosopher Antony Flew (1923–2010). After some brief comments about Flew’s life, the article is divided into academic and personal memories that were shared between Gary Habermas and him. Included are details of various academic publications, debates, critiques, as well as several private discussions.

While the claim that certain functional states are sufficient for conscious experience has received substantial critical attention, the claim that functional states are necessary is rarely addressed. Yet the latter claim is perhaps now more common than the former. I aim to revive and revise a neglected argument against the necessity claim, by Michael Antony. The argument involves manipulating a conscious subject's brain so as to cancel a disposition which is supposedly crucial to the realization of an experience that the (...) subject is having at the time. The key step in the argument is to show that, contrary to what the functional necessity claim implies, the experience can survive such a manipulation. I defend that key step in a new way, by arguing that since the manipulation cannot influence the subject's thoughts, emotions, or behavior, there is no reason to suppose that it alters his conscious experience. (shrink)

Through interviews with twelve distinguished philosophers—including atheists, agnostics, and believers—Talking God works toward a philosophical understanding and evaluation of religion. Along the way, Gary Gutting and his interviewees challenge many common assumptions about religious beliefs. As tensions simmer, and often explode, between the secular and the religious forces in modern life, the big questions about human belief press ever more urgently. Where does belief, or its lack, originate? How can we understand and appreciate religious traditions different from our own? Featuring (...) conversations with twelve skeptics, atheists, agnostics, and believers—including Alvin Plantinga, Philip Kitcher, Michael Ruse, and John Caputo—Talking God offers new perspectives on religion, including the challenge to believers from evolution, cutting-edge physics and cosmology; arguments both for and against atheism; and meditations on the value of secular humanism and faith in the modern world. Experts offer insights on Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism, as well as Judaism and Christianity. Topical and illuminating, Talking God gives readers a deeper understanding of faith today and how philosophers understand it. From Talking God: “[Some say] Buddhism is not a religion because Buddhists don’t believe in a supreme being. This simply ignores the fact that many religions are not theistic in this sense. Chess is a game, despite the fact that it is not played with a ball, after all.” —Jay Garfield, from chapter 10, “Buddhism: Religion Without Divinity” “Why think that the creator was all-knowing and omnipotent?— Maybe the creator was a student god, and only got a B minus on this project?” —Louise Antony, from chapter 2, “A Case for Atheism” “There are a large number—maybe a couple of dozen—of pretty good theistic arguments. None is conclusive, but each, or at any rate the whole bunch taken together, is about as strong as philosophical arguments ordinarily get.” —Alvin Plantinga, from chapter 1, “A Case for Theism” “If you cease to ‘believe’ in a particular religious creed, like Calvinism or Catholicism, you have changed your mind and adopted a new position— But if you lose ‘faith,’—everything is lost. You have lost your faith in life, lost hope in the future, lost heart, and you cannot go on.” —John Caputo, from chapter 3, “Religion and Deconstruction”. (shrink)

Over 300 years ago the father of microscopy, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, observed dried rotifers “coming back to life” upon rehydration. Since then, scientists have been fascinated by the enduring mystery of how certain organisms survive losing essentially drying out completely. Historically sugars, such as the disaccharide trehalose, have been viewed as major functional mediators of desiccation tolerance. However, some desiccation tolerant organisms do not produce this sugar, hinting that additional mediators, and potentially novel mechanisms exist. It has become apparent that (...) a common theme among such organisms is the production and use of intrinsically disordered proteins to mediate survival in this dry state. However, the basic biology of these proteins – which unlike globular proteins lack persistent three-dimensional structure – is poorly understood, as are the functional mechanisms utilized by these enigmatic proteins that allow them to mediate desiccation tolerance. We purpose that probing the biochemical and biophysical nature of stress-related IDPs will provide mechanistic insights into these fascinating proteins. Remarkably, organisms from every kingdom of life can survive losing nearly all their intracellular water. A hallmark of desiccation tolerance is the use of intrinsically disordered proteins, but how IDPs contribute to tolerance is poorly understood. Here, we discuss possible mechanisms and avenues for studying these enigmatic proteins. (shrink)

ABSTRACTOrganization and management researchers praise the value of care in the workplace. However, they overlook the conflict between caring for work and for coworkers, which resonates with the dilemma of care allocation highlighted by ethicists of care. Through an in-depth qualitative study of two organizations, we examine how this dilemma is confronted in everyday organizational life. We draw on the concept of boundary work to explain how employees negotiate the boundary of their caring responsibilities in ways that grants or denies (...) care to coworkers. We argue that the possibility of an ethics of care for coworkers requires boundary work that suspends the separation of personal and professional selves and constitutes the worker as a whole person. We contribute to research on care in organizations by showing how care for coworkers may be enabled or undermined by maintaining or suppressing the care allocation dilemma. (shrink)

Management and organization researchers are being called to conduct research that is more caring, yet the concept of care and how to practice it within the profession is undertheorized. Adopting a feminist epistemology and methodology, we develop the concept of care by weaving the personal, ethical, and political into the research process. First, we reflect critically on how aspects of care—attentiveness, responsibility, competence, and responsiveness (Tronto, Moral boundaries: a political argument for an ethic of care, Routledge, 1993; Tronto, Caring democracy: (...) markets, equality, and justice, New York University Press, 2013)—unfolded in our personal research experiences, and secondly, we conduct a review of articles published in management and organization studies and analyse expressed or concealed conceptions of care in scholars’ accounts of research purpose and ethics. We find three ethical sensibilities at the heart of enacting care: encountering the ‘other’, interpreting roles and responsibilities, and deliberating needs and resources. We contribute to a feminist research ethics by highlighting issues related to care that are concealed in dominant ethos guiding management and organization research. Further, we develop methodological insights for implementing an ethic of care as an alternative ethical standpoint in business research ethics. Finally, we provide suggestions for how to embed more care within research ethics practices in academic institutions. (shrink)

We show that the class of all isomorphic images of Boolean Products of members of SR [1] is the class of all archimedean W-algebras. We obtain this result from the characterization of W-algebras which are isomorphic images of Boolean Products of CW-algebras.

En Sentir, desear, creer: Una aproximación filosófica a los conceptos psicológicos, Diana Pérez se plantea una empresa ambiciosa, análoga a la de Ryle en The Concept of Mind: dar cuenta de manera integral de la ontología, la epistemología, la semántica y, en parte, la psicología de los conceptos de los diversos estados y procesos psicológicos. La aportación principal consiste en una perspectiva genealógica, basada en el modo en que se atribuyen tales conceptos, desde una posición realista. Para ello, se desarrolla (...) como contribución más original la idea de una perspectiva de segunda persona, la perspectiva de la interacción intersubjetiva, como el modo en que uno se introduce en el ámbito de lo mental. En conjunto, una aportación muy relevante. In Sentir, desear, creer: Una aproximación filosófica a los conceptos psicológicos, Diana Pérez sets for herself an ambitious task, analogous to Ryle's in The Concept of Mind: that of offering a unified account of the ontology, epistemology, semantics and, partly, psychology of mental concepts. Its main contribution lies in a genealogical perspective, grounded in the development of mental concept attribution, from a realist standpoint. To this extent, its most original contribution is the idea of a second-person perspective, that of intersubjective interaction, as the way through which one gets involved in the mental realm. In sum, a highly relevant contribution. (shrink)

The first segment starts with a definition of two dimensions of the concept of rule of law; related to the notion of sovereignty and as a concept to control arbitrariness on the part of the ruler. The segment proceeds to give a historical account of the notion and the different stages of its epistemological configuration, from the ancient Greek notion of Eunomia and its incompatibility with the popular rule to the current notion, where the rule of law has become fused (...) with democracy and human rights. The first segment also focuses on the relation between the concept of the rule of law and other principles, such as proportionality, neutrality, and effectiveness. The second segment of the paper analyses the phenomenon of juridification of the rule of law in international treaties and domestic constitutions. It pays particular attention to the role that constitutional accommodation plays in the process of rationalization of the rule of law as a prerequisite to its idealization and mystification. It analyses the reason why this principle is an essential feature of the constitutionalism despite the inner plurality of legal systems. The next aspect, analysed in the third segment of this paper, is the messianic use of the concept of the rule of law. The paper performs a critical definition of messianic, covering a theological perspective and the different theories and concepts that go hand in hand with the idea of the Messiah, such as the “coming”, prophetical and apocalyptical messianism, the phenomena of eschatology, expiation and redemption pictured in Judaism. The segment also covers the secular transplantation of the messianic thought. The last segment is a conclusion returning to the themes identified in the paper and summarises how the messianic thought is applied in the realm of the rule of law. (shrink)

L’article passe en revue le développement de l’histoire des femmes au Moyen Âge en Espagne depuis ses origines, la fin des années 1970, et discute l’influence que les thèses de Georges Duby ont exercée sur elle. Il relève que les regards venus de l’étranger ont contribué à discréditer et faire abandonner les préoccupations nationalistes qui avaient longtemps obsédé l’historiographie autochtone jusque dans la façon d’envisager et représenter les femmes. Le long et fécond parcours de l’histoire des femmes dans les vingt (...) dernières années est alors examiné, depuis l’orientation fondamentalement juridique et positiviste qui a marqué ses débuts jusqu’aux recherches récentes sur l’identité et la subjectivité féminines ou aux polémiques sur le pouvoir des femmes et leur participaton à la vie politique. La portée des thèses de G. Duby dans cette évolution ainsi que les critiques qu’elles se sont attirées sont finalement considérées. (shrink)

Philosophical postmodernism, since its beginning, has aroused controversies and was met with a great deal of criticism. One has to state, however, that there is an enormous confusion concerning what in essence this criticized philosophical approach is, i.e.: what is postmodernism? The aim of this paper is an attempt to clarify postmodernism by showing a significant part of its current reception, its relation with other philosophical currents, and pointing out some “myths” connected to it. As the title says, the presented (...) article is a “voice years later”, so it is a voice asking about postmodernism today — when it is more mature and grounded than in the 1970s or 1980s. From this perspective, the main question of the text is: what kind of postmodernism (or: what understanding of postmodernism) makes sense and has value for contemporary philosophy. (shrink)

The moral reinterpretation of Jesus conducted by Kant, Lessing and Feuerbach, is an interesting matter when it comes to the philosophy of religion. The abovementioned German philosophers claimed that Jesus ought to be understood only as a moral archetype and a revolutionist in morality. This concept arose on the grounds of moral religion which was one of the most interesting ideas of the Enlightenment. Thus, exploring this moral reinterpretation of Jesus is just an excuse to study the concept of moral (...) religion. Despite the fact that this idea is no longer current, it has immense influence on the contemporary philosophy of religion. Therefore, understanding the concept of moral religion can broaden the context of the contemporary discussion. (shrink)

In this paper I try to establish the relevance of Peirce's Semeiotics to the conceptual foundations of Cognitive Science. Given Cognitive Science's commitment to the Representational Theory of Mind, I try to clarify the nature of mental representation from the standpoint of Peirce's general theory of signs. As it turns out, mental representations, because of their special role as interpretants of non-mental signs, present especial problems for their interpretation, whose solution Peirce anticipated in a way very close to that developed (...) in Cognitive Science. (shrink)

While a standard procedure in mental health internment facilities, physical restraint, as an extreme form of coercion in mental health, has been claimed to be abolished. Three sorts of arguments have been provided: an argument from dignity, and argument from informed consent, and a consequentialism argument. In this chapter we discuss these arguments and conclude that these arguments are not decisive to completely ban such forms of coercion. Restraint, in particular, may be justified in exceptional circumstances, where an imminent risk (...) for the personal integrity of anybody involved, including the person with the mental health problem. However, this sort of case is infrequent, while restraint is often the first option. This conclusion also suggests that much can be done to prevent reaching such extreme circumstances where coercion may be the only option. The discussion also clarifies how coercion should be carried out, when justified, making it supervised and as short as possible. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Isaac Barrow on the Mathematization of Nature: Theological Voluntarism and the Rise of Geometrical OpticsAntoni MaletIntroductionIsaac Newton’s Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy embodies a strong program of mathematization that departs both from the mechanical philosophy of Cartesian inspiration and from Boyle’s experimental philosophy. The roots of Newton’s mathematization of nature, this paper aims to demonstrate, are to be found in Isaac Barrow’s (1630–77) philosophy of the mathematical sciences.Barrow’s attitude (...) towards natural philosophy evolved from his earnest interest in medicine of around 1650, when a young Cambridge graduate, to natural philosophy (apparently under Henry More’s influence); from his thesis on the insufficiency of the Cartesian hypothesis to geometrical optics and the strong program of mathematization of natural philosophy of the middle 1660s; from Lucasian professor of Mathematics to Chaplain of his Majesty and eminent Restoration divine. Contemporary accounts of Barrow’s life suggest that he grew ever more skeptical about the worth of natural philosophy and mathematics. 1 In his last years he became a prolific [End Page 265] author of sermons and theological works. Published shortly after his death by John Tillotson (1630–94), later archbishop of Canterbury, they occupy over two thousand folio pages. Overloaded with involved philosophical arguments, Barrow’s sermons were apparently not very popular, but they were highly regarded by scholars and the Anglican hierarchy. 2 It is on certain of his sermons, as well as on the philosophical discussions contained in the Mathematical Lectures that our account of Barrow’s philosophy of the mathematical sciences will rest. 3 Barrow’s understanding of the mathematical sciences will allow us to discuss together three issues often analyzed independently: the theological background to English natural philosophy, the changing notion of mixed mathematical sciences during the seventeenth century, and finally the philosophical foundations of modern geometrical optics.It has long been recognized that significant relationships exist between theological voluntarism or intellectualism and views on natural philosophy. In particular Robert Boyle’s theological voluntarism is seen as grounding his experimentalist approach to natural philosophy. It is not quite so clear, however, how well theological voluntarism may relate to a strong program of mathematization such as the one embodied in Newton’s Principia Mathematica. In fact it has been suggested that the relationship is a negative one. This is derived from the necessary character of mathematical laws, which would put unwanted restrictions on God’s absolute dominion over nature, and also from the notion that theological intellectualism is conducive to a deductive, a priori science—the paradigm of which is of course geometry. However, Barrow’s theological voluntarism lead him to heighten the role of mathematics within natural philosophy.During the seventeenth century the so-called mixed or subalternate mathematical sciences changed profoundly. In the Enlightenment mixed mathematics—meaning above all rational mechanics—became one of the most prestigious and influential disciplines. The mixed mathematics of the Enlightenment, however, was markedly different from the Aristotelian [End Page 266] mixed mathematical sciences. The differences are noticeable both in the subject matter and in the substitution of mathematical infinitesimal analysis for geometrical synthesis, but also in the way of grounding mathematical theory on empirical evidence. Barrow’s Mathematical Lectures (delivered at Cambridge from 1664 to 1666) offer a fresh insight into the metamorphosis of these sciences just when Newton’s “mathematical principles” were in the making. Not the least interesting feature of Barrow’s discussion is that God’s omnipotence allows an evaluation of the truth of mathematical theories that do not apply to this world. Therefore, Barrow is led to introduce the distinction between the internal consistency, or mathematical truth, of a mathematical theory and its physical truth. This, in turn, leads him to the notion that theories need testing.Barrow on Matter and GodRecent literature has established significant correlations between theological voluntarism and empiricism, as well as between theological intellectualism and rationalism. As E. B. Davis writes, “the Christian doctrine of creation is a dialogue between God’s unconstrained will, which utterly transcends the bounds of human comprehension, and God’s orderly intellect, which serves as the model for the human mind.” Intellectualist theology considers God’s omniscience His... (shrink)

No paradox exists in the fact that, in the Special Relativity, for the mass of a material body, considered in motion at constant speed, whose measure is u, the formula: m = m0/√ can be written, while for a photon the same formula holds, when between its source and the observer a state of relative motion at constant speed, whose measure is u, exists and it is observed along the direction perpendicular to the direction of his speed.

This study aims to analyze the different translations and interpretations of χώρα that appears in Chalcius’ Commentary on Timaeus, for demonstrate that all modifications of the original platonic text was introduced with the purpose to associate the Timaeus with the Old Testament. With this aim, we analyze five points: Chalcidius’s substitution of χώρα by ὕλη the relation among the space and the second genre of the being; the identity between matter and nothing; the relations among matter, intellect and necessity; and (...) the problems of the human perception. (shrink)

Reseña de Critchley, Simon 2015, Bowie, philosophie intime, París: Éditions La Découverte-Philharmonie de Paris/Cité de la musique, trad. de l’anglès Marc Saint-Upéry. ISBN 978-2-7071-8540-2, 128 páginas.