Book 1. How can we know if Christianity is true? Book 2. Questions of God, man and the universe. Book 3 Questions about Jesus Christ.

The capture of Mosul in Iraq by ISIS in June 2014 focused the world’s attention on Islamism, or political Islam. In addition to all the political issues faced by the rest of the world, Christians are faced with some special challenges and have not always responded with a single voice. If we are to think in a distinctively Christian way about Islamism and violence carried out in the name of Islam, what are the key questions that we need to be (...) asking? (shrink)

A brief survey of events and movements from the first century to the present day provides the background for understanding the complexity of questions relating to the presence of Christians in the Middle East at the present time. Some of these issues affect all Christians, while others are specific to particular countries in the region. Given the steep decline in the numbers of Christians for a variety of reasons over the centuries, is it possible to have any optimism about their (...) future in the region? (shrink)

THE mind is the locus of various dispositions, of developed sources and motives of action, which are not mere reflex habits but trained abilities and bents, tendencies, liabilities or inhibitions. Human knowing is more an intending of facts or states of affairs than a relation to them. Knowledge is not a predicamental relation. Consciousness is related to its object not as North Pole to South Pole, nor as container to contained, but as matter to form, and to the physical form (...) of the object of consciousness there corresponds the intentional form of the consciousness itself. To know reality is not to acquire it, grasp it, have it, possess it, contemplate it or dwell in it; it is to be informed by it i.e. intentionally to become it. Knowledge is the form rather than the cause of rational behaviour: technique, method, knack, skill, expertise, know-how, flair, strategic sense, prudence, taste, discretion, caution, judiciousness, decorum, conscientiousness, style, discipline, sagacity, discrimination, wisdom, respect for sense. Such principles operate not by description of nor prescription for, but by incarnation in and information of performance. It is, for instance, man’s respect for sense that is the form of a logically clear expression, and ideas are skills in the use of words. This human capacity and achievement is an intentional becoming, an actuation of the subject, bringing him to act. Yet, properly speaking, it is not action but passion. For knowing is an effect of which reality is the cause, and this causality is not a relation: actio est in passo—not in the agent, nor between the agent and the patient, but in the patient as from the agent, an actuation of the subject in dependence on the object. Of course it may be argued that non datur actio in distans, but far from requiring some intellectual ether, this only means that action and passion are not candidates for the application of spatial or temporal predicates. The known need not be close to the knower. True knowledge is the form of our reason when it is truly about matters of fact. It is not, then, a relation between subject and object, but a knowledge of states of affairs or facts constituted by interrelated objects which, to be known, must comprise some states of affairs of whose constituent objects some, at least, are knowing subjects. Inquiry is related to insight as searching to finding, or as trying to succeeding. Knowing is the second act or actualization of the intellect Thomists regard as second potency, first act, or accidental passive potency. But knowing is not a transitive activity. It is an achievement of intention, not an episode. It is a capacity, disposition, proneness or inclination, in so far as it connotes the abiding possibility of its contents’ polymorphic propositional and non-propositional expression in rational behaviour, which is an effect of knowing as an achievement, though it is also rightly said to be informed by know-how rather than caused by it. The act of self-knowledge consciously intends the self, but the self is intended as known and not as conscious. Thus, though true of consciousness, the distinction between consciously judging and consciously being tickled is not in consciousness but in knowledge of consciousness. Knowledge should be studied not in its products, but in its various expressions, especially in linguistic ones. For words and sentences are the most easily inspected class of things that we think in. (shrink)

For some time now, Aristotle’s ethics – to be exact: the Nicomachean Ethics – have influenced or inspired a considerable array of theoretical options in contemporary moral philosophy. As a result, Aristotle’s ethical works have assumed a dignified systematic place next to such modern strains as the consequentialist, utilitarian or deontological ones. The precise relation of Aristotle’s ethics to these modern theories remains ambiguous, however : depending upon the particular systematic intere...

The first part of this article discusses recent skepticism about character traits. The second describes various forms of virtue ethics as reactions to such skepticism. The philosopher J.-P. Sartre argued in the 1940s that character traits are pretenses, a view that the sociologist E. Goffman elaborated in the 1950s. Since then social psychologists have shown that attributions of character traits tend to be inaccurate through the ignoring of situational factors. (Personality psychology has tended to concentrate on people's conceptions of personality (...) and character rather than on the accuracy of these conceptions). Similarly, the political theorist R. Hardin has argued for situational explanations of bloody social disputes in the former Yugoslavia and in Africa, rather than explanations in terms of ethnic hatred for example. A version of virtue ethics might identify virtues as characteristics of acts rather than character traits, as traits consisting in actual regularities in behavior, or as robust dispositions that would manifest themselves also in counterfactual situations. (shrink)

Knowledge and Reality brings together a selection of Colin McGinn's philosophical essays from the 1970s to the 1990s, whose unifying theme is the relation between the mind and the world. McGinn defends a realist view, but emphasises the epistemological problems that come with it. He has written a new postscript to each essay, placing it in its philosophical context and offering his current reflections on the topic.

Our goal in this paper is to provide enough of an account of the origins of cognitive ethology and the controversy surrounding it to help ethicists to gauge for themselves how to balance skepticism and credulity about animal minds when communicating with scientists. We believe that ethicists’ arguments would benefit from better understanding of the historical roots of ongoing controversies. It is not appropriate to treat some widely reported results in animal cognition as if their interpretations are a matter of (...) scientific consensus. It is especially important to understand why loose references to “cognitive ethology” by philosophers can signal ignorance of the field to scientists who are more deeply immersed in the relevant literature. Understanding the variety of approaches to cognitive phenomena in animals is essential if such capacities are to form the foundation of scientifically-informed ethical reasoning about animals. (shrink)

This paper discusses the Bayesian updating rules of ordinary and Jeffrey conditionalisation. Their justification has been a topic of interest for the last quarter century, and several strategies proposed. None has been accepted as conclusive, and it is argued here that this is for a good reason; for by extending the domain of the probability function to include propositions describing the agent's present and future degrees of belief one can systematically generate a class of counterexamples to the rules. Dynamic Dutch (...) Book and other arguments for them are examined critically. A concluding discussion attempts to put these results in perspective within the Bayesian approach. (shrink)

Contributing to renewed scholarly interest in R. D. Laing and his circle, and in the radical therapeutic community of Kingsley Hall, London, this article offers the first article-length reading of Mary Barnes’ and Joseph Berke’s Mary Barnes: Two Accounts of a Journey through Madness. This text offers views of anti-psychiatry ‘on the ground’ that critique the 1960s utopianism of Laing’s championing of madness as a metanoic, quasi-psychedelic voyage. Barnes’ story, too, reveals tensions within the anti-psychiatric movement. Moving beyond existing criticism (...) of the text, Barnes, it is argued here, emerges as far more than an exemplary patient, victim or anti-psychiatric puppet. Particular attention is paid in this reading of Two Accounts to the following: the ways in which the spiritually inclined Barnes and the psychoanalytic Berke differ in this dual narrative text; the ways in which each differs from Laing; the metaphor of the journey; and the setting of Barnes’ story in the often conflicted, experimental household of Kingsley Hall. (shrink)

Donald Griffin has suggested that cognitive ethologists can use communication between non-human animals as a "window" into animal minds. Underlying this metaphor seems to be a conception of cognition as information processing and communication as information transfer from signaller to receiver. We examine various analyses of information and discuss how these analyses affect an ongoing debate among ethologists about whether the communicative signals of some animals should be interpreted as referential signals or whether emotional accounts of such signals are adequate. (...) We discuss the food-calling behavior of a group of rhesus monkeys to develop these issues. (shrink)

It has been much debated whether Tractarian objects are what Russell would have called particulars or whether they include also properties and relations. This paper claims that the debate is misguided: there is no logical category such that Wittgenstein intended the reader of the Tractatus to understand his objects either as providing examples of or as not providing examples of that category. This is not to say that Wittgenstein set himself against the very idea of a logical category: quite the (...) contrary. However, where Russell presents his logical variety of particulars and the various types of universal, and Frege presents his of objects and the various types of function, Wittgenstein denies the propriety of such a priori expositions. Wittgenstein envisages a variety of logical types of entity but insists that the nature of these types is something to be discovered only through analysis. (shrink)

In this article I critically examine Adam Moore's claim that the threshold for overriding intangible property rights and privacy rights is higher, in relation to genetic enhancement techniques and sensitive personal information, than is commonly suggested. I argue that Moore fails to see how important advances in genetic research are to social justice. Once this point is emphasised one sees that the issue of how formidable overriding these rights are is open to much debate. There are strong reasons, on grounds (...) of social justice, for thinking the importance of such rights is likely to be diminished in the interests of ensuring a more just distribution of genes essential to pursuing what John Rawls calls a person's `rational plan of life'. (shrink)

In the conclusion, McGinn distinguishes the ‘commandment’ paradigm and the ‘parable’ paradigm of ethical reflection, and argues that analytical moral philosophy, despite its emphasis on moral language, tends to follow the former. In this book, McGinn has argued that the latter, as exemplified in fictional narrative, with its appeal to our aesthetic sensibility, is the true vehicle of moral thought and persuasion. The fictional world is ideal for the exploration of ethical questions and the acquisition of ethical knowledge.

Jenkins (2007) charges that the language advanced in Beall (2007) is either expressively impoverished, or inconsistent. We argue that Jenkins’ objections are based on unreasonably strong constraints on formal theories of truth. Our primary concern is not to defend the ‘paranormal’ framework advanced in Beall, but to respond to a common – and implausible – ‘revenge’-style charge directed at a certain class of formal theories of truth and paradox.

The ancient Confucians developed a particular notion of ritual and placed it at the center of their moral cultivation program. This book examines the Confucian ritual method through the lens of modern developmental theory and creates a theoretical framework for deploying ritual as an invaluable tool in contemporary moral education pursuits.

Property rights are the rules governing ownership in society. This Element offers an analytical framework to understand the origins and consequences of property rights. It conceptualizes of the political economy of property rights as a concern with the follow questions: What explains the origins of economic and legal property rights? What are the consequences of different property rights institutions for wealth creation, conservation, and political order? Why do property institutions change? Why do legal reforms relating to property rights such as (...) land redistribution and legal titling improve livelihoods in some contexts but not others? In analyzing property rights, the authors emphasize the complementarity of insights from a diversity of disciplinary perspectives, including Austrian economics, public choice, and institutional economics, including the Bloomington School of institutional analysis and political economy. (shrink)

develops themes from the dissertation. I argue that two models of prosopagnosia are best understood as idealizing models, and as such are subject to importantly different methodological constraints from non-idealized theories of face recognition.

Against Maudlin, I argue that machines which merely reproduce a pre-programmed series of changes ought to be classed with Turing’s O-Machines even if they would counterfactually show Turing Machine-like activity. This can be seen on an interventionist picture of computational architectures, on which basic operations are the primitive loci for interventions. While constructions like Maudlin’s Olympia still compute, then, claims about them do not threaten philosophical arguments that depend on Turing Machine architectures and their computational equivalents.

Depuis des millénaires l'homme est à la recherche de ses origines. Hésiode montre que l'ordre doit remplacer le chaos et sa Théogonie est une première analyse d'un changement nécessaire. Zeus fait la guerre contre les manifestations du Chaos afin d'imposer sa propre conception de l'ordre ce qui revient à opposer l'intelligence et la Ruse à la Matière. Or, la prise de pouvoir par Zeus n'est que la preuve de ce que les mortels doivent entreprendre pour dominer leur vie, se conduire (...) en héros et mourir glorieusement. Ce dépassement de soi, organisé et encouragé, n'est qu'un choix humain projeté dans l'absolu du divin. Zeus apporte la justesse d'une solution au problème que pose l'existence. (shrink)