A computable structure $\mathcal {A}$ is $\mathbf {x}$-computably categorical for some Turing degree $\mathbf {x}$ if for every computable structure $\mathcal {B}\cong\mathcal {A}$ there is an isomorphism $f:\mathcal {B}\to\mathcal {A}$ with $f\leq_{T}\mathbf {x}$. A degree $\mathbf {x}$ is a degree of categoricity if there is a computable structure $\mathcal {A}$ such that $\mathcal {A}$ is $\mathbf {x}$-computably categorical, and for all $\mathbf {y}$, if $\mathcal {A}$ is $\mathbf {y}$-computably categorical, then $\mathbf {x}\leq_{T}\mathbf {y}$. We construct a $\Sigma^{0}_{2}$ set whose degree (...) is not a degree of categoricity. We also demonstrate a large class of degrees that are not degrees of categoricity by showing that every degree of a set which is 2-generic relative to some perfect tree is not a degree of categoricity. Finally, we prove that every noncomputable hyperimmune-free degree is not a degree of categoricity. (shrink)

In Home Building & Loan Assn. v. Blaisdell, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Minnesota Mortgage Moratorium Act. Under the terms of the Act---one of the many pieces of moratory legislation enacted due to the Great Depression---mortgagors who found themselves unable to make their payments could turn to the state courts for an alteration of their payment schedule. It is clear that if there ever was a state of affairs in which one could justify the imposition of debtor (...) relief, the circumstances in Minnesota during the early 1930s would have filled the bill. By most accounts, the Act was justifiable from a policy perspective. ;Nevertheless, the outcome did not please everyone. The question before the Court was whether the proceedings authorized by the Act violated the contracts clause of the Constitution. Article 1, §10 provides that "No State...pass any...law impairing the Obligation of Contracts." The Act did impair the obligation of mortgage contracts. Furthermore, the Act was exactly the kind of debtor relief legislation that the contracts clause meant to forbid. The basic premise underlying the majority opinion was that a constitutional provision should be interpreted both in the context of the entire Constitution and in the context of the social situation confronting the Court. According to the dissent, the framing of the Constitution fixed the meaning of a provision for all cases arising across time. The two approaches represent two extremes in constitutional interpretation. However, the basic agreement is over how the Constitution should evolve. The basic disagreement concerns the problem of constitutional change. ;In a recent work, Robert Lipkin radically rethinks modern constitutional jurisprudence, challenging the received view of constitutional change. His theory of "constitutional revolutions" implies that conventionalism, coherentism, pragmatism, and naturalism all fall short as the best theory of constitutional change. In addition to offering a critique of Lipkin's theory, the present work conducts an independent investigation the theories Lipkin rejects. Such an investigation will not only help ascertain the legitimacy of Lipkin's theory of constitutional revolutions in particular, but of radical constitutional change in general. (shrink)

Fragmento sintético de una investigación general, el presente articulo tematiza, en tres actos cortos, la singular analogía notada por Wittgenstein entre investigación filosófica e investigación estética . A partir del pensamiento de Wittgenstein, considerado como pensamiento musical, el artículo abre una perspectiva de estilo categorial, en su "isología"con el pensamiento musical, y define la posibilidad de una hermenéutica descriptiva de los estilos liberada de los modelos estructurales.

: Watsuji Tetsurō defined ethics as being generated by a double negation: the individual's negation of the community and the self-negation of the individual who returns to the community. Thus, ethics for him is based on the individual's sacrifice for the collectivity. This position results in the conception of the community as an absolute. I contend that there is a congruence between Watsuji's conception of ethics as self-sacrifice and the way he perceived the Japanese political system. To him, the imperial (...) system in Japan is based on the organic unity of the Japanese people, represented by the emperor, who embodies the general will of, and is therefore coterminous with, the Japanese nation. (shrink)

Cet article se déploie en deux temps. Tout d’abord, il s’agit d’analyser la conceptualisation hégélienne, à la fois descriptive et critique, correctrice, d’une part du contenu qui est celui des trois déterminations constitutives de la Trinité religieuse chrétienne, et, d’autre part, de leur statut dans ce contexte culturel originel d’elles-mêmes. Puis, dans un second moment, il s’agit de méditer le concept hégélien, non pas de la Trinité chrétienne, mais de la triplicité de l’être, afin d’apprécier ce que celle-ci a gardé (...) de celle-là, après que la philosophie, de Philon jusqu’à Kant, en a fait progressivement une pensée. (shrink)

This paper takes up the question, “What is the responsibility of the philosopher, specifically the Catholic philosopher, in teaching ethics at a Catholic university?” Examination of the constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae reveals that answering this question requires examining in turn the relationship between theology and philosophy. Accordingly, the paper proceeds to an analysis of the late Pope John Paul II’s encyclical, Fides et Ratio. Th is analysis shows, however, that the very distinction between theology and philosophy seems to become problematic (...) on the encyclical’s terms. The paper thus goes on to indicate a different means of distinguishing these disciplines, and concludes by considering the significance of this distinction for the question of the responsibility of the Catholic philosopher. (shrink)

L’auteur examine la définition de la personne chez John Locke à laquelle se réfère un nombre croissant de philosophes en bioéthique. L’auteur se concentre sur une lecture précise et critique du célèbre passage lockéen qui opère un transfert de la définition de la personne d’un plan substantiel à celui juridique et moral . Il développe les contradictions logiques internes à la définition de la personne comme conscience de soi et conscience morale chez le philosophe anglais, notamment le besoin de réinsérer (...) la corporéité dans sa définition afin de transcender le subjectivisme, comme du critère de souvenir authentique qui le différencie du pseudo-souvenir, du statut de l’être humain qui serait ivre ou qui n’exercerait plus de manière irréversible la conscience de soi en lien avec la théorie des intérêts. L’auteur conclut par une réflexion critique sur les conséquences éthiques contemporaines de la définition lockéenne de la personne performante. (shrink)

Presented at the Israeli Philosophical Association, at the Technion, in Spring 1988.

(1990). Fear and trembling and joyful wisdom1— The same book; A look at metaphoric communication. History of European Ideas: Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 93-104.

L’A. se propose un nouvel examen de l’unité du Phèdre, problème qui mobilise les commentateurs depuis l’Antiquité et a été récemment relancé dans les études françaises et anglo-américaines. De fait, Platon n’a pas explicité la charnière articulant le diptyque formé par le discours sur l’amour comme éros spiritualisé suivi de la réflexion sur la rhétorique du vrai. Au-delà de l’étrangeté formelle, l’enjeu est philosophique : la dualité même du dialogue signale la tentative platonicienne de maintenir à tout prix le travail (...) de la psychagogie, fondement de la recherche amoureuse de la vérité, sur le terrain de la parole politique, jusqu’à se heurter à l’éclatement mutuel des deux ordres. Reste alors, devant nos yeux, l’unité fracturée du métaphysique et du politique. (shrink)

To attempt in two short articles to provide an adequate review of present-day reflection about divine revelation to humans is folly; in addition to suggest and justify a particular understanding of revelation borders on the impossible. What I propose to do is something much more limited: within the content of contemporary discussion about revelation to examine only two critical and, I hope, illumining instances - namely, the revelation of the divine that occurs in prophetic experience (which I will deal with (...) here) and (in the sequel) human history as the symbolic agency through which revelation occurs. (shrink)

The vastly underrated Plutus receives at least some of its due in this paper. At its beginning, I attempt to locate Plutus within both the Hegelian discourse on comedy and within Hume's poetical and philosophical fictions. Employing the same method of close textual analysis that I employed in Philosophy and Comedy: Aristophanes, Logos, and Eros, I focus upon the thoroughgoing materialism of the poor farmer Chremylus who laments the unjust distribution of wealth, and who seeks to restore the god's sight (...) so as to obtain a large amount of the wealth he lacks. The critical section of the play occurs in an exchange with Poverty or Need, who is depicted as an ugly hag but who speaks beautifully. Aristophanic music subtly sings the glory of need as the spur to all that is good in human actions, as it mocks wealth as a standard of human worth. (shrink)