For at least 50 years science fiction’s dangerousness has sprung largely from its leaps into the transgressive. But something has now changed; the biggest problem today for anyone trying to create dangerous science fiction is that in the developed countries we now live largely in a libertarian, post-transgressive culture. There is, however, at least one target for science fiction that grows increasingly dangerous; the border between scarcity and post-scarcity. This danger is perhaps best realized in the great Mars trilogy by (...) Kim Stanley Robinson, which not only imagines a bridge from our current scarcity-based culture to a post-scarcity culture, but also shows people building this very bridge up from the foundations of our life today. Perhaps more dangerously, he then follows Marcuse and Mumford in envisioning not only an end to the economic problem of poverty but also to the social, anthropological and psychical forces of scarcity, showing step-by-step the dramatic changes in psychology, values and lives that post-scarcity would bring. And so, like certain tales by Plato and Tolstoy, it is a ‘threshing tale’, a tale that forces us into an imaginative confrontation with our current values, intending to winnow the false from the true. This epic sets out to alter the way we see ourselves and our social sphere, hoping – like William Blake – that altering the eye alters all; perhaps nothing but such a plausible, non-utopian and social vision of life in post-scarcity can be truly dangerous to the way we now think, love, work and war. (shrink)

Moral theories which, like those of Plato, Aristotle and Aquinas, give a central place to the virtues, tend to assume that as traits of character the virtues are mutually compatible so that it is possible for one and the same person to possess them all. This assumption—let us call it the compatibility thesis—does not deny the existence of painful moral dilemmas: it allows that the virtues may conflict in particular situations when considerations associated with different virtues favour incompatible courses of (...) action, but holds that these conflicts occur only at the level of individual actions. Thus while it may not always be possible to do both what would be just and what would be kind or to act both loyally and honestly, it is possible to be both a kind and a just person and to have both the virtue of loyalty and the virtue of honesty. (shrink)

Vleeskens, F. D. A. Spinoza en zijn tijd.--Klever, W. N. A. Ervaring en rede.--Petry, M. J. De Regenboog.--Bend, J. G. van der. Spinoza's liberale rechtsstaat.--Sperna Weiland, J. Vrijheid.

discussion de l'auteur. peu de théorie additionnelle. question de l'acceptation de la punition p330.

The article discusses the long-term experience of humanitarian education and the formation of moral values of the medical profession at the Volgograd State Medical University. It is considered the activities of the University for development of professional and scientific research competencies of students in the interdisciplinary field of medical and social sciences. The material of scientific research conducted by students shows the process of internalization by them of humanistic models of healing, experience of empathy and compassion, internalization of bioethics and (...) medical law. The article substantiates the conclusion that the practice of educational and scientific work in the field of bioethics, the productive collaboration of teachers of humanitarian and medical disciplines, successful publishing, active participation in all international scientific and educational events in the field of biomedical ethics and healthcare law, allows us to recommend the experience of Volgograd State Medical University as a model for the formation of the social and humanitarian space of medical education for a university s of the Ministry of Health of Russia. (shrink)

The question of providence and contingency in contemporary Western thought: a critical study from an Islamic perspective.

Name der Zeitschrift: Semiotica Jahrgang: 2014 Heft: 202 Seiten: 41-79.

Acknowledging the considerable degree of identity which developed between Episcopalianism and the Jacobite movement in Scotland, this study investigates the character of Episcopalian thought at the end of the seventeenth and in the first decade of the eighteenth century, making particular use of the writings of Bishop John Sage (1652–1711) and Principal Alexander Monro (d. 1698). It comments on the origins of that thought, with reference to both locally and temporally specific circumstances and the intellectual traditions of the seventeenth century, (...) notably an increasing emphasis on historical method and the cultivation of neo-Stoicism. In commenting on the content of this thought, it centrally seeks to explain the relationship of the dominant theological theme of the writings examined to the intellectual, social and political threats to theocratic order offered by the period in general and the revolution of 1688–1689 in particular. It argues that it is chiefly in this way that Episcopalian Jacobite thought can be placed in the context of Enlightenment/counter-enlightenment debate. (shrink)

Among the characteristic features of Russian philosophy, there is its openness and connections with other realms of public consciousness. In the Middle Ages Orthodox religion was trying to take over the main functions of Russian philosophy. Philosophy was not just under the aegis of religion, as it was in Western Europe and Byzantium, but in its depths. Active philosophical life manifested itself under non-philosophical covers. Russian literature also is involved in philosophy. A plenty of a philosophical writers could doubtlessly be (...) called great. They are: Nikolai Gogol, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, etc. The things that each of them has brought into philosophy are very different in size and direction. As a result of the openness of Russian philosophy appears a unique ideological element which borders on natural science. This element was philosophical on its nature, but it had a strong and sound ties with natural science. No less important for Russian philosophy its connection with historical science. Philosophical ideas and categories are involved in the study of historical events and processes. Historical science, enriched with philosophy, does not remain extraneous to it. Philosophical historians also influenced different sections of philosophy: philosophy of history, social and political philosophy, philosophy of religion, philosophical anthropology… Russian philosophy penetrated into other spheres – music, painting, etc., where it was represented by quite significant figures, in particular – Alexander Scriabin, Nikolay Roerich. The philosophical views of Scriabin and Roerich were not limited to the framework of their theoretical, philosophical constructions. Artistic intuition embodied these constructions in the creation of art. Nowadays contacts of Russian philosophy in its various manifestations with other areas of intelligence also do not lose their attractiveness. (shrink)

We investigate an approach for drawing logical inference from inconsistent premisses. The main idea in this approach is that the inconsistencies in the premisses should be interpreted as uncertainty of the information. We propose a mechanism, based on Kinght’s [14] study of inconsistency, for revising an inconsistent set of premisses to a minimally uncertain, probabilistically consistent one. We will then generalise the probabilistic entailment relation introduced in [15] for propositional languages to the first order case to draw logical inference from (...) a probabilistic set of premisses. We will show how this combination can allow us to limit the effect of uncertainty introduced by inconsistent premisses to only the reasoning on the part of the premise set that is relevant to the inconsistency. (shrink)

Originally published in 1954, on behalf of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, this book presents a general review of British economic statistics in relation to the uses made of them for policy purposes. The text begins with an examination, in general terms, of the ways in which statistics can help in guiding or assessing policy, covering housing, coal, the development areas, agricultural price-fixing, the balance of external payments and the balance of the economy. The problems of statistical (...) application are then separately discussed under the headings of quality, presentation and availability, and organization. A full bibliography and reference table of principal British economic statistics are also included. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in British economic history and statistics. (shrink)