God speaks. Hearing God. Two phrases of two words each are perhaps the most critical, misunderstood and even abused words in the existence of the Church and in particular for evangelicals. ‘I think God said’ and ‘I think God is saying’ are the most sagacious, precise, truthful and appropriate manner of responding to the conviction that God speaks and for shared engaging enriched discourse on what God says to ensure He is heard. The Bible must never be seen and interpreted (...) only as a handbook, instruction or rules book of propositional information, doctrine and description. Rather it is an astonishing and amazing book full of God’s wisdom for all people in all their situatedness. Peter Enns pointed out that the Bible must be seen as a source of godly wisdom to be explored, pondered, deliberated, and put into action. It is not a book about a God ‘mainly interested in whether we’ve read and understood the fine print; if not, God has no recourse but to punish us. Rather, I would beseech all Christians of all epochs to see it as a book full of wisdom relevant for each situatedness and ‘allows us to see God as a good parent, full of grace, love, and patience - the very character traits we value in earthly parents and that the people of God are to exemplify. Wisdom heals us to see God as God is.’ If there is any merit in this essay and conclusion of mine, then perhaps God can strike a straight blow with a very crooked stick. (shrink)

We present a proof for a conjecture previously formulated by Dzhafarov et al.. The conjecture specifies a measure for the degree of contextuality and a criterion for contextuality in a broad class of quantum systems. This class includes Leggett–Garg, EPR/Bell, and Klyachko–Can–Binicioglu–Shumovsky type systems as special cases. In a system of this class certain physical properties \ are measured in pairs \ \); every property enters in precisely two such pairs; and each measurement outcome is a binary (...) random variable. Denoting the measurement outcomes for a property \ in the two pairs it enters by \ and \, the pair of measurement outcomes for \ \) is \ \). Contextuality is defined as follows: one computes the minimal possible value \ for the sum of \ ) that is allowed by the individual distributions of \ and \; one computes the minimal possible value \ for the sum of \ across all possible couplings of the entire set of random variables \ in the system; and the system is considered contextual if \ ). This definition has its justification in the general approach dubbed Contextuality-by-Default, and it allows for measurement errors and signaling among the measured properties. The conjecture proved in this paper specifies the value of \ in terms of the distributions of the measurement outcomes \ \). (shrink)

In their target article, Cohen and Marks (2025) argue that recognizing something as exceptional is a contextual matter. The authors consider the question of whether psychedelics are exceptional by...

More than thirty years ago, Amari and colleagues proposed a statistical framework for identifying structurally stable macrostates of neural networks from observations of their microstates. We compare their stochastic stability criterion with a deterministic stability criterion based on the ergodic theory of dynamical systems, recently proposed for the scheme of contextual emergence and applied to particular inter-level relations in neuroscience. Stochastic and deterministic..

Experiments in cognitive neuroscience build a setup whose set of controlled stimuli and rules elicits a cognitive process in a participant. This setup requires researchers to decide the value of quite a few parameters along several dimensions. We call ‘’contextual factors’’ the parameters often assumed not to change the cognitive process elicited and are free to vary across the experiment’s repetitions. Against this assumption, empirical evidence shows that many of these contextual factors can significantly influence cognitive performance. Nevertheless, it is (...) not entirely clear what it means for a cognitive phenomenon to be context-sensitive and how to identify context-sensitivity experimentally. We claim that a phenomenon can be context-sensitive either because it is only triggered within a specific context or because different contexts change its manifestation conditions. Assessing which of these forms of context-sensitivity is present in a given phenomenon requires a criterion for individuating it across contextual variations. We argue that some inter-level experiments that, within the mechanistic approach to explanation, are required to identify relations of constitutive relevance between a phenomenon and a mechanism, are also necessary for individuating the phenomenon across its contextual variations. We articulate a criterion according to which behavioral variations across contexts indicate different phenomena if and only if the mechanistic activities, components and/or organizational properties recruited in each context are different. We support this approach by showing how it is applied in paradigmatic studies addressing cognitive performance differences resulting from contextual variations of task features, such as stimulus type and response modality. Finally, we address the challenge that a form of context-sensitivity possessed by the so-called ‘multifunctional mechanisms’ is incompatible with our proposal because it entails that the same mechanism can be recruited in different contexts to produce different phenomena. We examine key cases of multifunctionality and argue that they are consistent with our proposal because a single mechanism can have different components, activities and/or organizational properties in different contexts. Thus, these modifications may not affect the identity of a mechanism, and they could explain how it produced different phenomena in those contexts. (shrink)

Achieving understanding of nature is one of the aims of science. In this paper we offer an analysis of the nature of scientific understanding that accords with actual scientific practice and accommodates the historical diversity of conceptions of understanding. Its core idea is a general criterion for the intelligibility of scientific theories that is essentially contextual: which theories conform to this criterion depends on contextual factors, and can change in the course of time. Our analysis provides a general (...) account of how understanding is provided by scientific explanations of diverse types. In this way, it reconciles conflicting views of explanatory understanding, such as the causal-mechanical and the unificationist conceptions. (shrink)

We develop a probabilistic criterion for belief expansion that is sensitive to the degree of contextual fit of the new information to our belief set as well as to the reliability of our information source. We contrast our approach with the success postulate in AGM-style belief revision and show how the idealizations in our approach can be relaxed by invoking Bayesian-Network models.

The emergence of mental states from neural states by partitioning the neural phase space is analyzed in terms of symbolic dynamics. Well-defined mental states provide contexts inducing a criterion of structural stability for the neurodynamics that can be implemented by particular partitions. This leads to distinguished subshifts of finite type that are either cyclic or irreducible. Cyclic shifts correspond to asymptotically stable fixed points or limit tori whereas irreducible shifts are obtained from generating partitions of mixing hyperbolic systems. These (...) stability criteria are applied to the discussion of neural correlates of consiousness, to the definition of macroscopic neural states, and to aspects of the symbol grounding problem. In particular, it is shown that compatible mental descriptions, topologically equivalent to the neurodynamical description, emerge if the partition of the neural phase space is generating. If this is not the case, mental descriptions are incompatible or complementary. Consequences of this result for an integration or unification of cognitive science or psychology, respectively, will be indicated. (shrink)

Sober and Lewontin's critique of genic selectionism is based upon the principle that a unit of selection should make a context‐independent contribution to fitness. Critics have effectively shown that this principle is flawed. In this paper I show that the context independence principle is an instance of a more general principle for characterizing causes,called the contextual unanimity principle. I argue that this latter principle, while widely accepted, is erroneous. What is needed is to replace the approach to causality characterized by (...) the contextual unanimity criterion with an approach based on the concept of causal mechanism. After sketching such an approach, I show how it can be used to shed light on the units of selection problem. (shrink)

Two types of contextual theories are distinguished and shown to be related. For theories of each type a criterion of locality is formulated which is weaker than the classical requirement of separability at spacelike intervals. The relations between the concepts of locality, realism, and ontic chance are discussed.

By means of an intriguing physical example, magnetic surface swimmers, that can be described in terms of Dennett's intentional stance, I reconstruct a hierarchy of necessary and sufficient conditions for the applicability of the intentional strategy. It turns out that the different levels of the intentional hierarchy are contextually emergent from their respective subjacent levels by imposing stability constraints upon them. At the lowest level of the hierarchy, phenomenal physical laws emerge for the coarse-grained description of open, nonlinear, and dissipative (...) non-equilibrium systems in critical states. One level higher, dynamic patterns, such as, for example, magnetic surface swimmers, are contextually emergent as they are invariant under certain symmetry operations. Again one level up, these patterns behave apparently rationally by selecting optimal pathways for the dissipation of energy that is delivered by external gradients. This is in accordance with the restated Second Law of thermodynamics as a stability criterion. At the highest level, true believers are intentional systems that are stable under exchanging their observation conditions. (shrink)

We propose that whatever quantity controls the Heisenberg uncertainty relations it should be identified with an effective Planck parameter. With this definition it is not difficult to find examples where the Planck parameter depends on the region under study, varies in time, and even depends on which pair of observables one focuses on. In quantum cosmology the effective Planck parameter depends on the size of the comoving region under study, and so depends on that chosen region and on time. With (...) this criterion, the classical limit is expected, not for regions larger than the Planck length, \, but for those larger than \^{1/3}\), where H is the Hubble parameter. In theories where the cosmological constant is dynamical, it is possible for the latter to remain quantum even in contexts where everything else is deemed classical. These results are derived from standard quantization methods, but we also include more speculative cases where ad hoc Planck parameters scale differently with the length scale under observation. Even more speculatively, we examine the possibility that similar complementary concepts affect thermodynamical variables, such as the temperature and the entropy of a black hole. (shrink)

The concept of proposed by Browne and Patterson seems to advance our understanding of rational nomination strategies under the Single Non-Transferable Vote. The plausibility of this concept hinges on the assumption of perfect information. However, perfect information not only cannot be obtained in practice, but is also impossible to obtain if we follow Browne and Patterson's approach. What their approach provides is a posthoc rationalization for parties' nomination strategies rather than a priori criterion against which whether parties make rational (...) decisions can be judged. This approach therefore may be helpful to the study of whether parties are punished for inappropriate nomination strategies, but is far from providing the rationale for them. (shrink)

In this article I critically examine a standard feature in conceptions of discrimination: the group-criterion, specifically the idea that there is a limited and definablegroup of traits that can form the basis of discrimination. I review two types of argument for the criterion. One focuses on inherently relevant groups and relies ultimately on luck-egalitarian principles; the other focuses on contextually relevant groups and relies ultimately on the badness of outcomes. I conclude that as neither type of argument is (...) convincing, the criterion is morally arbitrary, and as such untenable. Finally, I suggest both some of the conceptual and some of the practical implications of abandoning the criterion. (shrink)

In this essay, I attempt to assess Henk de Regt and Dennis Dieks recent pragmatic and contextual account of scientific understanding on the basis of an important historical case-study: understanding in Newton’s theory of universal gravitation and Huygens’ reception of universal gravitation. It will be shown that de Regt and Dieks’ Criterion for the Intelligibility of a Theory (CIT), which stipulates that the appropriate combination of scientists’ skills and intelligibility-enhancing theoretical virtues is a condition for scientific understanding, is too (...) strong. On the basis of this case-study, it will be shown that scientists can understand each others’ positions qualitatively and quantitatively, despite their endorsement of different worldviews and despite their convictions as what counts as a proper explanation. (shrink)

The best developed formulation of closed system quantum theory that handles multiple-time statements, is the consistent (or decoherent) histories approach. The most important weaknesses of the approach is that it gives rise to many different consistent sets, and it has been argued that a complete interpretation should be accompanied with a natural mechanism leading to a (possibly) unique preferred consistent set. The existence of multiple consistent sets becomes more problematic because it allows the existence of contrary inferences [1]. We analyse (...) the conceptual difficulties that arise from the existence of multiple consistent sets and provide a suggestion for a natural set selection criterion. This criterion does not lead to a unique physical consistent set, however it evades the existence of consistent sets with contrary inferences. The criterion is based on the concept of preclusion and the requirement that probability one propositions and their inferences should be non-contextual. The allowed consistent sets turn-out to be compatible with coevents which are the ontology of an alternative, histories based, formulation [2–4]. (shrink)

The purpose of this essay is to examine some of the ethical concerns raised regarding the use of neuroenhancers. Authors such as Fukuyama and Sandel argue that medical intervention should be limited to treatment of disease, and that enhancement should be outside of the scope of medicine. This commentary will examine the distinction between treatment and enhancement. I shall conclude that it is not a well-drawn distinction and should not be used to provide guidance with regards to the use of (...) psychopharmacological agents for the purpose of cognitive enhancement. I shall further examine whether concepts such as disability and normality could provide a criterion for determining whether enhancement is a permissible use of medical intervention. I conclude that as those concepts are contextually defined, they cannot be used to make principled arguments against enhancement. Finally, I shall review the charge that medicalization of cognitive performance enhancers is not morally permissible. I shall argue that medicalization might have both negative and positive consequences, and decisions about the moral permissibility of medicalization should be made on a case-by-case basis. (shrink)

In this article we describe our approach to understanding wrongdoing in medical research and practice, which involves the statistical analysis of coded data from a large set of published cases. We focus on understanding the environmental factors that predict the kind and the severity of wrongdoing in medicine. Through review of empirical and theoretical literature, consultation with experts, the application of criminological theory, and ongoing analysis of our first 60 cases, we hypothesize that 10 contextual features of the medical environment (...) (including financial rewards, oversight failures, and patients belonging to vulnerable groups) may contribute to professional wrongdoing. We define each variable, examine data supporting our hypothesis, and present a brief case synopsis from our study that illustrates the potential influence of the variable. Finally, we discuss limitations of the resulting framework and directions for future research. (shrink)

Research in psychology and behavioral economics shows that individuals’ choices often depend on “irrelevant” contextual factors. This presents problems for normative economics, which has traditionally used preference-satisfaction as its criterion. A common response is to claim that individuals have context-independent latent preferences which are “distorted” by psychological factors, and that latent preferences should be respected. This response implicitly uses a model of human action in which each human being has an “inner rational agent.” I argue that this model is (...) psychologically ungrounded. Although references to latent preferences appear in psychologically based explanations of context-dependent choice, latent preferences serve no explanatory purpose. (shrink)

Se realizó una investigación en sistemas y servicios de salud de tipo descriptiva transversal, con el objetivo de elaborar un sistema de acciones de capacitación para el profesional de la enfermería comunitaria en la prevención del embarazo en la adolescencia. Se aplicaron métodos teóricos y empíricos propios de la investigación científica. El universo lo constituyeron 20 profesionales de enfermería que laboran en consultorios del Área Salud "Tula Aguilera". La muestra quedó conformada por los 12 profesionales que aceptaron participar en el (...) estudio. El criterio de exclusión fue la libre decisión de cada individuo para participar o retirarse de la investigación. Se aplicó una encuesta estandarizada, previo consentimiento informado, para determinar el nivel de conocimientos sobre salud reproductiva en la adolescencia. Los resultados constatados reflejaron que la mayoría de los encuestados tenían criterios estrechos, no fundamentados científicamente ni actualizados sobre el tema, por lo que se diseñó un sistema de acciones de capacitación basado en conocimientos científicos actualizados, pertinentes y contextualizados. Cada actividad se propuso demostrar la factibilidad e importancia de utilizar técnicas participativas y la fundamentación de las ventajas de su uso en diferentes actividades comunitarias, encaminadas a enfatizar en la organización, movilización, concientización y capacitación a los diferentes sujetos sociales involucrados en la prevención del embarazo en la adolescencia, para que estos se conviertan en transformadores de su propia realidad, en correspondencia con sus necesidades y demandas sociales. A descriptive transversal study was carried out on health systems and services aiming at designing a system of training actions for the community professional nurses in order to prevent pregnancy in adolescence. Theorical and empirical methods were applied. The universe was made up of twenty professionals who consented to participate in the study. The inclusion criterion was the free decision of each individual on either participating or not in the investigation. A standard survey was applied -with a previous informed consent , to determine the knowledge about reproductive health in adolescence. The results revealed that most of the surveyed people had narrow criteria with no updated scientific grounds on the issue, thus a system of training actions based on updated scientific pertinent contextualized information was designed Each activity aimed at demonstrating the feasibility study of using participative techniques as well as the reasons for the advantages of their use in a variety of community activities to emphasize the organization and understanding of the different social subjects involved in the prevention of pregnancy in adolescence. (shrink)

This paper provides a perspective on where contemporary Muslim responses to biomedical-ethical issues stand to date. There are several ways in which Muslim responses to biomedical ethics can and have been studied in academia. The responses are commonly divided along denominational lines or under the schools of jurisprudence. All such efforts classify the responses along the lines of communities of interpretation rather than the methods of interpretation. This research is interested in the latter. Thus, our criterion for classification is (...) the underlying methodology behind the responses. The proposed classification divides Muslim biomedical-ethical reasoning into three methodological categories: 1) textual, 2) contextual, and 3) para-textual. (shrink)

I discuss a criterion for successful communication between a speaker and a hearer put forward by Buchanan according to which there is communicative success only if the hearer entertains, as a result of interpreting the speaker's utterance, a thought that has the same truth conditions as the thought asserted by the speaker and, furthermore, does so in virtue of recognizing the speaker's communicative intentions. I argue, against Buchanan, that the data on which it is based are compatible with a (...) view involving Fregean modes of presentation. In the second part of the article I critically discuss Unnsteinsson's claim that communicative success depends on the absence of contextually salient false distinctness beliefs about the subject matter of the conversation. I argue that this thesis leads to clearly counterintuitive consequences and that no fundamental role must be given to the presence or absence of false distinctness beliefs in one's account of successful communication. The upshot is that we should stick with Buchanan's criterion. I conclude by employing Strawson and Recanati's concepts of linking and merging to show how the criterion I favour is compatible with the fact that, when subjects hold no relevant false distinctness beliefs, communicative success does not seem to be disrupted by the hearer seemingly failing to recognize the speaker's intentions. (shrink)

The content of Christian spirituality that made waves since the inception of the early church soon took on different contours as the faith got adapted to different gentile contexts. The expression of this faith, along with its liturgical symbolism and sacramental observances, is still gaining momentum in African Christianity. The emerging practice of the use of ‘anointing oil’ in its religious expression is receiving more attention than the Christ of the Gospel. In this article, we argue that against its primitive (...) intent, the use of the ‘anointing oil’ by the African Church is a mere display of fetish ancestral religion that expresses its unique African traditional religious root rather than a true expression of Christian spirituality. Our thesis is framed on the basis that the manner in which some African churches apply the purported ‘anointing oil’ is discriminatory vis-à-vis its ancient understanding and purpose. In our attempt to address this damaging practice to true Christian spirituality, also standing as a huge challenge for pastoral theology, we undertook a careful historical–theological analysis of the extant biblical data and its contextual interpretation vis-à-vis its distortion today. We concluded that what pastoral theologians have to deal with within the Christian community in Africa is offering the right biblical perspective against the distorted mode of the application of the contemporary purported ‘anointing oil’ that is falsely projecting the Christian faith and belief in a bad light. Contribution: The application of the anointing oil in contemporary Christian religion in Africa is, to say the least, not an inherent textually prescribed requisite criterion for Christian spirituality, but merely an outburst of fetish ancestral religious worldview that stands contra the hermeneutics of the biblical text and its ancient tradition. That no Old Testament prophet, not even Jesus nor Paul, mentioned the subject, makes its contemporary application textually and theologically suspect, and therefore, heretically infectious for the spiritual health of the community of faith. These insights sit quite well with the textual hermeneutics within the mainline transdisciplinary religious and multidisplinary theological perspective of this journal. (shrink)

This paper addresses Peter Singer's claim that cognitive ability can function as a universal criterion for measuring moral worth. I argue that Singer fails to adequately represent cognitive capacity as the object of moral knowledge at stake in his theory. He thus fails to put forth credible knowledge claims, which undermines both the trustworthiness of his moral theories and the morality of the actions called for by these theories. I situate Singer's methods within feminist critiques of moral reasoning and (...) moral epistemology, and argue that Singer's methods are problematic for moral reasoning because they abstract from their object valuable contextual features. I further develop this claim by showing the importance of embodiment for the construal of objects of moral knowledge. Finally, I develop the moral and scholarly implications of this critique. By showing that the abstract, universal methods of reasoning Singer employs cannot credibly construe the objects of ethical inquiry, I call into question the validity of these methods as a means to moral knowledge in general. Furthermore, since moral reasoning takes place within an embodied moral landscape, it is itself a moral enterprise. Singer's moral reasoning, and ours, must be held accountable for its knowledge claims as well as its concrete effects in the world. (shrink)

Many edusemiotic writers have begun to closely align edusemitoics to biosemiotics; the basic logic being that, if the life process can be defined through the criterion of semiotic engagement, so can the learning process :373–387, 2006). Thus, the ecological concept of umwelt has come to be a central area of investigation for edusemiotics; allowing theorists to address learning and living concurrently, from the perspective of meaning and significance. To address the conceptual and experiential foundations of the edusemiotic perspective, this (...) paper will focus its attention on the basic semiosic processes that sustain the learner’s primary modelling system or umwelt—the world of meaning and sensory engagement that the organism is immersed in. This focus enables us to identify and explore four basic principles that an ecologically concerned edusemiotic perspective can be said to rest upon; the Iconicity Hypothesis, the Principle of Suprasubjective Relation, the Natural Learning Flow Principle, and the Continuity Principle. The identification and elaboration of these basic philosophical orientations will help establish the importance and relevance of the edusemiotic perspective for educational philosophy and theory in general. This task requires the methodological framework of Sebeok and Danesi’s Modelling Systems Theory, which; provides a biosemiotically grounded approach to understanding the diversity of modelling phenomena across all species, and; contextualizes the specific focus of this study within the broader forms of learning and knowing encompassed by a semiotic theory of learning. Hopefully such attention to the foundational doctrina of this new perspective will encourage more educational research to take what Semetsky has called the edusemiotic turn. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to explore the theme of ‘humanhood’ in the Fourth Gospel. The most important questions to be posed at the outset are the following: who is the model human presented in the gospel as per the Johannine community standards? How can a person acquire humanhood status according to the Johannine community? The divine and human interaction in the life and ministry of Jesus dynamically introduces the life ethics and mission aspects of the Johannine community. According to (...) the Johannine community standards, people can achieve ‘humanhood’ status exclusively in relation to Jesus. As the community of John emphasises humanhood in relation to Jesus, a person can overcome all sorts of human-made boundaries, including the sexual, racial and class-oriented boundaries through the mediation of Jesus. This further means that the all-inclusive mission of Jesus foregrounds a new criterion for ‘humanhood’ in the Johannine community context. The article concludes by stating that the Johannine understanding of humanhood can be considered as a paradigm in the contemporary global scenario. Contribution: This article contributes to the reader a wider hermeneutical framework and a new way forward in interpreting the gospel according to John by taking into consideration the humanhood aspects. As a theological and contextual interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, the article fits well within the scope of HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies. (shrink)

Much of the debate surrounding the concept of information in biology centers on the question of whether or not biological systems ‘really’ carry information. The criterion for determining if a system “really” carries information is whether or not there is a principled, theoretical account of information that captures the relevant biological usages. If biological systems do not carry information in this sense, information talk is termed merely heuristic and dismissed as philosophically uninteresting. To date, all three proposed theoretical accounts (...) of information—mathematical, causal and teleosemantic—fail to capture the meaning of biologists. Details of other biological practices that utilize informational concepts are often lost because the debate is too focused on one instance of information talk—genetic information and because biological representations are thought to need a certain kind of theoretical foundation. The problem with this methodology is that it takes the failure of philosophical accounts of information to capture current biological practices as conclusive evidence that informational representations in biology are incoherent. This approach is backwards. A better strategy is to get a clear understanding of biological practice and then to use it to shape our understanding of the philosophical significance of biological information. In this paper, I shift attention from abstract reasoning about information in the philosophical literature to concrete reasoning about informational models in biology. The current debate pays too little attention to the biologically prominent concept of signal. I develop a contextualized understanding of signaling models in biological practice. I argue that biologists use the concept of signal to model distinct functional roles in biological systems and not in any of the theoretical senses of information found in the current philosophical literature. For cell biologists, a signal causally indicates the state of a system at a given point and is used in the context of a style of functional explanation generally known as ‘causal role function,’ in which a mechanism or entity has a function if its behavior explains a contribution to a capacity of interest. I support this analysis with an example drawn from cell biology and reframe the debate over the significance of informational terms in biology. The focus on signal recasts the debate by highlighting examples of information talk which are central to active research programs in biology. The advantage of looking at these models is that their centrality to biological practice forces us to reconsider the adequacy of a methodology that dismisses biological models because we lack a particular kind of philosophical understanding of them. Standard philosophical accounts of information rely on assumptions appropriate for the needs of philosophers but are ill-suited for capturing biological practice. A contextualized understanding of the role of signal in biological practice allows us to work out from the details of practice to tackle broader philosophical issues. On this view, the significance of information talk in biology hinges more on our understanding of how biologists represent function than on our understanding of philosophical accounts of information. (shrink)

Entrepreneurs have a unique opportunity to cultivate the moral direction and development of their organizations, precisely because those organizations are new. Towards this end, we suggest that the Golden Rule is a simple, practical heuristic for entrepreneurs seeking to establish a fair social contract with their stakeholders. Because justice is an important central moral criterion in organizations, we attempt to show theoretically that the Golden Rule passes critical tests of justice, as outlined in the work of John Rawls, and (...) can also serve as a universally relevant hypernorm which have been argued to ground all social contracts. We introduce some important contextual findings from the entrepreneurship literature in order to ground our discussion and create realistic scenariosfor entrepreneurs and their stakeholders. In so doing, we present an important potential limitation of the Golden Rule in practice and suggest how entrepreneurs might reconcile it. Ultimately, we believe that if entrepreneurs were to reflect upon their particular situation, they would have good reasons to choose to employ the Golden Rule as a part of their overall strategy for moral and economic success. (shrink)

As its title is meant to suggest, this paper is a reply to Sir Tim Lankester’s article “International Aid: Experience, Prospects and the Moral Case”, published in the World Economics last year 1 . Therefore, I would like to begin by expressing my gratitude for the author’s responsiveness to my interest and queries in the area of development economics. The main point of Sir Lankester’s article was, I believe, to strengthen the case for international aid by showing first, that it (...) was not just a theoretical matter 2 and second, that its efficiency was not a self-evident fait accompli, but a still-to-achieve objective, entirely contingent upon human and institutional factors such as the will, interests, and past experience of donors, as well as the system of governance and existing policies from the recipient countries. Moreover, the human factor is actually two-fold, in the sense that one can focus either on the external part engaged in the aid mission – the donor –, or on the internal one – the recipient. Sir Tim Lankester looks into what motivates the former, whereas I intend to unpack the life-experience of the latter, for I strongly believe that what ultimately decides the success or failure of development projects has more to do with understanding their life situation, than with the actual quantum of aid. Although the two cases grounded on the above-mentioned claims may seem completely separated in Tim Lankester’s article for he allocates distinct sections to them, I have reasons to believe that they are not only inter-connected, but also deeply inter-dependent, which is crucial for the kind of existentialist scenario that I intend to outline here. In order to prove this, I am going to combine two sets of argumentative tools: one will be logical, the other – empirical. The former will help us address the issues at stake in Tim Lankester’s moral case, and find ways of strengthening it; the latter will help reminding the real goal of this attempt – which is to improve the prospects of aid missions in real-life scenarios, rather than in theory. The first, rather theoretical section will consist of an extended analysis of the moral case that Sir Lankester started to build. The focus will be not only on the supposedly fruitful aspects of social justice theories, but also on their potential risks; both heroes and villains will emerge from the analysis, and new leads will be discovered. The main criterion for testing whatever findings will remain the pragmatic one: questioning their implications on the life-experiences of the poor. The other approach that I have mentioned will consist of providing a description of life in a particular community, which I have known and learnt from. In this case, the ‘empirical’ obviously means more than just the use of examples – which can be invented, or refined: it actually involves relying on a set of personal experiences and convictions, thereby testifying in – rather than just advocating – the case for aid and development projects, under discussion here. Again, the purpose will be not so much to prove that my claim has the sort of objective validity that a theoretician would normally seek to achieve, as to enforce it by whatever relevant testimonies – be them contextual, perhaps even biased; in this case, the ‘biased’ aspect consists of using an example derived from lifeexperiences in a particular developing country: my own. And it is exactly what I regard as the strength of it; indeed, I would not be writing this, had I not learnt that lesson. (shrink)

This paper is based on the "cratylus", although there is occasional reference to other dialogues. In plato's contrast between the language of the gods and the language of mortals, we may discern something like the contrast between ideal and ordinary language. By names he means terms which have both reference and sense necessarily; such terms are also verbs, for verbs are names of actions and actions are realities; for instance, a blow. The criterion for the identity of names is (...) that they mean the same thing. "statements".unlike names, statements have meaning without necessarily having any reference. A word is a name "only" if what it names exits, whereas a statement may be false. A statement achieves meaning by purely internal criteria as to its composition. "the structure of statements". A statement is not a list of names; it is a unity and has meaning only in its character as a unity. Ryle's view that the terms in a sentence are not independent constituents and that their meaning is contextual is presented. The author concludes that plato is undecided on this matter. (shrink)

This article is an attempt to explore the theme of 'humanhood' in the Fourth Gospel. The most important questions to be posed at the outset are the following: who is the model human presented in the gospel as per the Johannine community standards? How can a person acquire humanhood status according to the Johannine community? The divine and human interaction in the life and ministry of Jesus dynamically introduces the life ethics and mission aspects of the Johannine community. According to (...) the Johannine community standards, people can achieve 'humanhood' status exclusively in relation to Jesus. As the community of John emphasises humanhood in relation to Jesus, a person can overcome all sorts of human-made boundaries, including the sexual, racial and class-oriented boundaries through the mediation of Jesus. This further means that the all-inclusive mission of Jesus foregrounds a new criterion for 'humanhood' in the Johannine community context. The article concludes by stating that the Johannine understanding of humanhood can be considered as a paradigm in the contemporary global scenario.CONTRIBUTION: This article contributes to the reader a wider hermeneutical framework and a new way forward in interpreting the gospel according to John by taking into consideration the humanhood aspects. As a theological and contextual interpretation of the Fourth Gospel, the article fits well within the scope of HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Philosophy and Literature 31.1 (2007) 133-141MuseSearchJournalsThis JournalContents[Access article in PDF]Virtue EthicsBen Lazare Mijuskovic California State University, Dominguez HillsIt has been suggested that the roots of virtue or character ethics ultimately reach back to Plato and especially to Aristotle's discussion of moral character as proposed by G. E. M. Anscombe's essay, "Modern Moral Philosophy," originally published in 1958.1 Thus it was maintained that virtue or character ethics emphasized traditionally neglected (...) topics, such as motives, education, training, temperance (phronesis), happiness, (eudaimonia), magnanimity, and especially the cardinal virtue of friendship as all deriving from certain dispositional qualities in the person, from a relatively constant state of character, from a stable personality.2In terms of Plato, it is the early, aporetic, Socratic dialogues that are indicated as especially concerned with character. And that may be but clearly in these conversations Socrates concludes, as a negative revelation, that a condition for virtue (Virtue as Knowledge of the Good) requires the realization that one does not know what virtue is, that conceited ignorance (amathia) first must be recognized before proceeding positively toward the unchanging Form of Goodness. And just as certainly, although, in the Republic, Socrates does emphasize the relation of happiness to justice, nevertheless it is fairly obvious that for Plato the truly happy and just man is so only in so far as he is able to intellectually and intuitively grasp the eternal Form of the Good as his criterion. However, this is hardly an emphasis on character. Similarly, we can say that as far as Aristotle is concerned, despite the fact that he does focus on the dispositional attributes of a virtuous or happy [End Page 133] character (or life), nevertheless the Philosopher is very specific in stating that there is an absolutely right thing to do in each circumstance and it is grounded in the mean between two vices. The mean, for instance, between cowardice and rashness is courage. Thus, there is an absolute (albeit contextual) criterion for a boy, a girl, a man, a woman, an old man, an old woman, etc., an objective measure for each in various situations requiring courage. This standard, which is based in the immediate perception of pleasure or pain, which directly follows an act, may be developed by training; but certainly Aristotle has more to say about the mean and how to achieve it than he does about training, except for the brief statements that we become virtuous by doing virtuous acts and good by the practically wise choices we make. Thus, for Aristotle, it is possible to evaluate specific, particular acts by invoking the measure of the mean. Essentially for both Plato and Aristotle, the criteria "subsist" independently of the act, person or polis. Hence, both Plato and Aristotle remain predominantly rule-oriented.By contrast, in Homerian ethics—as opposed to Platonic or Peripatetic guidelines—it is the whole person who is admirable, not the act; it is the "being" of Achilles, it is his "substance" that is praiseworthy and not whether or not he weeps for his departed companion. It is the entire man that expresses the standard of value. And just as obviously there are times and instances when an agent or an action misses the Aristotelian mark or the "mean" and yet we do not criticize the individual as either morally or psychologically deficient precisely because we consider instead the overall person, we take other factors into consideration, features deeply embedded in his or her personality, including how he or she handled the situation and not whether or not the individual measured up to some abstract, independent, theoretical standard. The noble or laudable hero or heroine does not concern himself or herself with dissecting and separating himself or heself from their actions, from their motives or emotions, as if the latter could stand apart from themselves. And thus it appears to be a mistake to think that the Homeric character would obsess about either the consistency, conformity, or applicability of a rule in regard to their actions and responses.And here we might interject an interesting... (shrink)

The recent drastic development of agriculture, together with the growing societal interest in agricultural practices and their consequences, pose a challenge to agricultural science. There is a need for rethinking the general methodology of agricultural research. This paper takes some steps towards developing a systemic research methodology that can meet this challenge – a general self-reflexive methodology that forms a basis for doing holistic or (with a better term) wholeness-oriented research and provides appropriate criteria of scientific quality.From a philosophy of (...) research perspective,science is seen as an interactive learning process with both a cognitive and a social communicative aspect. This means, first of all,that science plays a role in the world that it studies. A science that influences its own subject area, such as agricultural science, is named a systemic science. From this perspective, there is a need to reconsider the role of values in science. Science is not objective in the sense of being value-free.Values play, and ought to play, an important role in science – not only in form of constitutive values such as the norms of good science, but also in the form of contextual values that enter into the very process of science. This goes against the traditional criterion of objectivity. Therefore, reflexive objectivity is suggested as a new criterion for doing good science, along with the criterion of relevance. Reflexive objectivity implies that the communication of science must include the cognitive context, which comprises the societal,intentional, and observational context. Ina ccordance with this, the learning process of systemic research is shown as a self-reflexive cycle that incorporates both an involved actor stance and a detached observer stance. The observer stance forms the basis for scientific communication.To this point, a unitary view of science as a learning process is employed. A second important perspective for a systemic research methodology is the relation between the actual,different, and often quite separate kinds of science. Cross-disciplinary research is hampered by the idea that reductive science is more objective, and hence more scientific, than the less reductive sciences of complex subject areas – and by the opposite idea that reductive science is necessarily reductionistic. Taking reflexive objectivity as a demarcator of good science, an inclusive framework of science can be established. The framework does not take the established division between natural, social, and human science as a primary distinction of science.The major distinction is made between the empirical and normative aspects of science,corresponding to two key cognitive interests.Two general methodological dimensions, the degree of reduction of the research world and the degree of involvement in the research world, are shown to span this framework. The framework can form a basis for transdisciplinary work by way of showing the relation between more and less reductive kinds of science and between more detached and more involved kinds of science and exposing the abilities and limitations attendant on these methodological differences. (shrink)

Deciphering the neural basis of subjective experience remains one of the great challenges in the natural sciences. The structural complexity and the limitations around invasive experimental manipulations of the human brain have impeded progress towards this goal. While animals cannot directly report first-person subjective experiences, their ability to exhibit flexible behaviours such as motivational trade-offs are generally considered evidence of sentience. The worm _Caenorhabditis elegans_ affords the unique opportunity to describe the circuitry underlying subjective experience at a single cell level (...) as its whole neural connectome is known and moreover, these animals exhibit motivational trade-offs. We started with the premise that these worms were sentient and then sought to understand the neurons that were both necessary and sufficient for a motivational trade-off involving the rewarding experience of food and the negative experience of an aversive odour. A simple hierarchical network consisting of two chemosensory neurons and three interneurons was found to produce an output to motoneurons that enabled worms to respond in a contextually appropriate manner to an aversive odour according to the worm's hunger state. Given that this circuitry is like that found in the human spinal cord, retina, and primary visual cortex, three regions which are neither necessary nor sufficient for subjective experience, we conclude that motivational trade-offs are not a criterion for subjective experience in worms. Furthermore, once the neural substrate for a behaviour is described, we question the explanatory role of subjective experience in behaviour. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to describe the use of cognitive convenience in color naming and to find possible cognitive, physical, pragmatic, and logical reasons for such a phenomenon. By the term cognitive convenience, we mean the naming of or referring to objects of a certain color, for which their hue is not as important as their brightness, in which case, they might fall under another focal color. For example, in various languages, grapes are “white” and “black”, even though (...) their real hue is usually a certain shade of green or purple. Along with a brief typological comparison of examples of cognitive convenience in unrelated languages, we report the results of a survey demonstrating that vagueness and brightness context influenced color naming, thus confirming our main hypotheses. We concluded that in conversation, the main criterion for choosing and identifying a referent of an NP with a color adjective—when the choice is based on color—is the proximity of its shade to the prototypical shade of the named color. In this process, contextual factors may affect the speaker’s and hearer’s preciseness. We claim that this phenomenon can be explained not only from a philosophical and pragmatic standpoint, but from an information-entropy standpoint as well. For an overall unifying theory, we will connect the informational entropy to the pragmatic notion of semantic vagueness and then inspect the overall choice of a fuzzy predicate logic that is able to incorporate such references. (shrink)

In the study of reference assignment, the question of what pragmatic criteria are used to evaluate the resulting interpretation seems not yet to have been properly dealt with. This paper addresses the issue by examining factors which affect the acceptability of various cases of bridging reference. It demonstrates that even highly successful accounts of reference assignment which place major emphasis on accessibility factors, e.g. the accessibility of candidate referents and the accessibility of contextual assumptions, must nonetheless involve some pragmatic (...) class='Hi'>criterion with which hearers can evaluate the resulting interpretation. Moreover, it argues that the pragmatic criterion used in reference assignment is not the truth-based one, which has been widely accepted, but the criterion of consistency with the principle of relevance proposed by Sperber and Wilson. Various accounts are tested against a wide range of examples on which I have conducted experimental tests with several sets of subjects. (shrink)

In the article, the phenomenon of deviation, which is one of the important subjects of stylistics and rhetoric is discussed. The deviation is divided into three categories in terms of phonetic, word and grammar. The study was limited to morphological deviation defined as a transition from form to another. The morphological deviations and their relation with meaning reveal the importance of changes in word level. The linguistic and contextual elements are considered as two complementary parties in contextual linguistics. From phonetic (...) level to text consitency many linguistic elements play an important role in expression. Apart from the linguistic phenomenons that affect the meaning, non-linguistic elements should also be considered. In the research also word selection, meaning transfer and context are indicated. The deviation has expanded the use of Arabic words as well as the rich word derivation potential. In terms of Qur'ānic verses, it is an important criterion relationship of the word formula in the meaning for the Arabic language. The subtleties of this language phenomenon which is detected in Qur'ānic verses and fascinates the reader are explained by examples. Summary: Semantics, that is one of the most important areas of linguistics, initially focused on identifying the meanings of words; however, today it goes beyond that and tries to clarify the other elements of the language field. Linguists emphasize that the main goal of language studies is theme and the efforts made in this context are aimed at capturing the meaning. Metaphor and the ways of other extension of meaning should be considered in this context. As Ibn Jinnī (d. 392/1002) stated, language is generally composed of metaphor. This situation points to the necessity of examining the language with a wider perspective than the formal understanding in the field of linguistics research.In the writings of linguists such as Sībawayhi (d.180/796), Ibn Jinnī and al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) and the works that focus on the superiority of wording of Qur'ān, it is seen that there is no distinction between the structure and function of language. Each sentence style is shaped for a purpose. What directs them to such a method is the thinking of first person, interlocutor and context together. It is possible to find this understanding in linguistic and religious sources such as qirā’āt, rhetoric and exegesis. Today, this relationship between grammar and meaning is one of the basic subjects of linguistics.Besides the grammatical structure, word selection is also significant. It is easy to determine a sentence with a grammatical error. While the use of a word is correct in a sentence, it may not be appropriate elsewhere. The degree of accuracy of the sentence is affected by the word selection, which is also a matter of grammatical tasks. This is the expression of the meaning in the appropriate language structure. Depending on the context of the statement, the appropriate word and phrase style should be chosen. The word choice has a great influence on the superiority of the style of the Qur'ān. When the Qur'ānicverses are examined, it is seen how well the chosen words are used.One of the main factors determining the accuracy of the word is context. The same word can be assumed to be true or false due to the context. In addition to linguistic elements, non-linguistic factors such as psychological status, socio-cultural factors and educational background are a measure of value in language.The factor that determines the function of word is the position of word in the phrase. Missing sentence structures gain new meanings as a result of a number of transformations. In Arabic sentence structures it is possible to see how the language structures affect the meaning. The expression tools should be enriched through sorting, increasing, decreasing and changing which are the factors contributing to the understanding of the superficial and deep structure of the language. In this context, the flexibility in the grammatical rules and the issue of deviation, which provides richness to phrases, are important in terms of revealing the place and value of meaning in the language.The deviation phenomenon is called as language deviation in Turkish sources. Due to a semantic and communicative concern deviation is a new way of expressing by leaving the built-in style in the language in order to strengthen the language, draw attention to the text, give a holistic effect, remove the word out of the ordinary and make the indicators more effective in terms of sound and meaning. The deviation is an important part of the stylistics, which goes beyond the path expressions and increases effect of the word. The development of the stylistics, which was accepted as an extension of the rhetoric in the modern period, raised interest rates for deviation. The deviation is divided into three categories in terms of voice, word and grammar.Morphological deviation, which is defined as the transition from one mold to another, is a phenomenon that gives the power of persuasion, influence and subtlety to the word that is appears in the mold and context of phrase. The context is the most important determinant of the deviationthrough which the literary meanings are gained that is the aim of the rhetoric. The effect of morphological deviationon meaning changes is an important subject of language researches. From this point the meanings which were added to the Qur'ānicwords by morphological deviationwas analyzed in detail in this article. Besides this, numerous verses have been handled with the idea that such a method will contribute to understanding of the subtlety meanings of the verses and transferring of their meanings to non-Arabic languages in the best way.Linguists have pointed to the meaning differences between Arabic patterns by taking into consideration the meaning potential of word molds. The language researches, which reveal the role of the word molds in determining the meanings, reflect that there are no two patterns of which meanings are exactly overlapping in Arabic language that is the views of the linguists. It is seen that the patterns such as active and passive participle, resembling participle, hyperbolic participle and gerund are used interchangeably because of their meaning relationship between each other. Similar uses of the verb should be added to this since time change in verbs is one of the linguistic phenomena in which deviationhas occurred. Types of deviationare the significant stylistic features of theQur'ānand have effects on meaning and expression. The fact that the Qur'ānpossesses an unusual style, but such a quality prevents its addressing from becoming ordinary. It is important to determine these kinds of uses, which are called as morphological deviation, to grasp the meaning of the word. When the language structures related to deviationare examined, it is understood that there is a deeply relationship between deviationand meaning. It is important to solve deviationthat enriches the meaning in the word, as well as other linguistic structures to comprehend the gnomic structure of the style of the Qur'ān. (shrink)

I propose an ecologically attuned criterion for genuine virtue, namely, the criterion of ecosustainable virtue: a genuine virtue includes the goal of ensuring ecosystem sustainability. I show how this criterion emerges from environmental practice and how it can be supported by syllogistic reasoning.

The main result of this paper is the following theorem: Let M be a premouse with a top extender, F. Suppose that (a) M is linearly coarsely iterable via hitting F and its images, and (b) if M * is a linear iterate of M as in (a), then M * is coarsely iterable with respect to iteration trees which do not use the top extender of M * and its images. Then M is coarsely iterable.

According to Frege, we need a criterion for recognising when different sentences express the same thought to make progress in logic. He himself hedged his own equipollence criterion with a number of provisos. In the literature on Frege, little attention has been paid to the problems these provisos raise. In this paper, I will argue that Fregeans have ignored these provisos at their peril. For without these provisos, Frege’s criterion yields wrong results; but with the provisos in (...) place, it is of no use for Frege’s purposes. This is connected to what Frege took to be the ‘greatest difficulty for philosophy’: natural language sentences don’t just express thoughts; they convey evaluations and communicative hints. Because of this, Frege’s recognition criterion for thoughts cannot be applied to them and we cannot make logical progress by ‘recognising a thought in different linguistic guises’. (shrink)

There are many reasons to assume that the contents expressible by declarative sentences are generally truth-evaluable. This assumption of global truth-evaluability, however, appears to conflict with the view that the contents of some sentences do not admit of truth or falsehood for lack of objectivity of their subject matter. Could there be a notion of truth on which the truth-evaluability of a content does not rule out the non-objectivity of its subject matter?In this paper, I discuss Crispin Wright's criterion (...) of Cognitive Command as a criterion for objectivity. This criterion faces the Problem of A Priori Error. I reject Wright's response to that problem and propose to solve the problem by relativising truth. This move allows for the possibility of contents that are truth-evaluable yet non-objective. (shrink)

Physicists routinely claim that the fundamental laws of physics are 'time symmetric' or 'time reversal invariant' or 'reversible'. In particular, it is claimed that the theory of quantum mechanics is time symmetric. But it is shown in this paper that the orthodox analysis suffers from a fatal conceptual error, because the logical criterion for judging the time symmetry of probabilistic theories has been incorrectly formulated. The correct criterion requires symmetry between future-directed laws and past-directed laws. This criterion (...) is formulated and proved in detail. The orthodox claim that quantum mechanics is reversible is re-evaluated. The property demonstrated in the orthodox analysis is shown to be quite distinct from time reversal invariance. The view of Satosi Watanabe that quantum mechanics is time asymmetric is verified, as well as his view that this feature does not merely show a de facto or 'contingent' asymmetry, as commonly supposed, but implies a genuine failure of time reversal invariance of the laws of quantum mechanics. The laws of quantum mechanics would be incompatible with a time-reversed version of our universe. (shrink)

A common objection to Quine's set theory "New Foundations" is that it is inadequately motivated because the restriction on comprehension which appears to avert paradox is a syntactical trick. We present a semantic criterion for determining whether a class is a set which motivates NF.

Let T be a theory. If T eliminates \, it need not follow that \ eliminates \, as shown by the example of the p-adics. We give a criterion to determine whether \ eliminates \. Specifically, we show that \ eliminates \ if and only if \ is eliminated on all interpretable sets of “unary imaginaries.” This criterion can be applied in cases where a full description of \ is unknown. As an application, we show that \ eliminates (...) \ when T is a C-minimal expansion of ACVF. (shrink)

This paper presents a new correctness criterion for marked Danos-Reginer graphs (D-R graphs, for short) of Multiplicative Cyclic Linear Logic MCLL and Abrusci's non-commutative Linear Logic MNLL. As a corollary we obtain an affirmative answer to the open question whether a known quadratic-time algorithm for the correctness checking of proof nets for MCLL and MNLL can be improved to linear-time.