Let R be an associative ring with identity. It is shown that every Σ-cotorsion left R-module satisfies the descending chain condition on divisibility formulae. If R is countable, the descending chain condition on M implies that it must be Σ-cotorsion. It follows that, for countable R, the class of Σ-cotorsion modules is closed under elementary equivalence and pure submodules. The modules M that satisfy this descending chain condition are the cotorsion analogues of totally transcendental modules; we characterize them as the (...) modules M for which , for every countably presented flat module F. (shrink)

In a discussion-note in Mind, Father P. M. Farrell, O.P., gave an account, in what he admitted to be an embarrassingly brief compass, of the Thomist doctrine concerning evil. There is one sentence in this discussion which at first glance appears paradoxical. Father Farrell has been arguing that a universe containing ‘corruptible good’ as well as incorruptible is better than one containing ‘incorruptible good’ only. He continues: ‘If, however, they are to manifest this corruptible good, they must be corruptible and (...) they must sometimes corrupt.’ The final words, despite Father Farrell's italics, strike one as expressing, not a self-evident truth, but a non sequitur. The fact that I am capable of committing murder does not entail that I will at some time commit it. It is not immediately obvious that a similar entailment holds in the case of corruption and corruptibility. (shrink)

In this article, I shall present three arguments for thc pcrmissibility 0f physician-assisted suicide (PAS), and then examine several objections 0f 21 "K21nti2m" and non-Kantian nature against them. These are really 0bjcctions against certain types of suicide. I shall focus 0n active PAS (eg., when 21 patient takes 21 lethal drug given by E1 physician, in which case both thc physician and patient are active). I shall assume the patient is 21 competent, responsible, rational agent, who gives his being in (...) physical discomfort (pain, nausea, ctc.) as thc reason for intending his death. I am assuming, therefore, thc pain while 21 sourcc of suffering docs not undermine his rational agency in 21 way that threatens responsibility for choice.] Current legal proposals for permitting PAS focus 0n procedures.. (shrink)

Objective The UK Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine programme commenced in the autumn of 2008 for year 8 (age 12–13 years) schoolgirls. We examine whether the vaccine should be given when there is a difference of opinion between daughters and parents or guardians. Design Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews. Participants A sample of 25 stakeholders: 14 professionals involved in the development of the HPV vaccination programme and 11 professionals involved in its implementation. Results Overriding the parents' wishes was perceived as problematic (...) and could damage the relationship between school and parents. A number of practical problems were raised in relation to establishing whether parents were genuinely against their daughter receiving the vaccine. Although many respondents recognised that the Gillick guidelines were relevant in establishing whether a girl could provide consent herself, they still felt that there were significant problems in establishing whether girls could be assessed as Gillick competent. In some areas school nurses had been advised not to give the vaccine in the absence of parental consent. None of the respondents suggested that a girl should be vaccinated against her consent even if her parents wanted her to have the vaccine. Conclusions While the Gillick guidelines provide a legal framework to help professionals make judgements about adolescents consenting to medical treatment, in practice there appears to be variable and confused interpretation of this guidance. Improved legal structures, management procedures and professional advice are needed to support those who are assessing competence and establishing consent to vaccinate adolescents in a school setting. (shrink)

We study a propositional bimodal logic consisting of two S4 modalities £ and [a], together with the interaction axiom scheme a £ϕ → £ aϕ. In the intended semantics, the plain £ is given the McKinsey-Tarski interpretation as the interior operator of a topology, while the labelled [a] is given the standard Kripke semantics using a reflexive and transitive binary relation a. The interaction axiom expresses the property that the Ra relation is lower semi-continuous with respect to the topology. The (...) class of topological Kripke frames characterised by the logic includes all frames over Euclidean space where Ra is the positive flow relation of a differential equation. We establish the completeness of the axiomatisation with respect to the intended class of topological Kripke frames, and investigate tableau calculi for the logic, although tableau completeness and decidability are still open questions. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Multidisciplinary Inquiry in the Study of Religion:The Next GenerationF. LeRon Shults (bio)Bob Neville and I began our introduction to Religion in Multidisciplinary Perspective: Philosophical, Theological, and Scientific Approaches to Wesley J. Wildman, by describing the latter as "the most original, audacious, creative, encyclopedic, and integrative thinker working within and across the fields of philosophy, ethics, theology, and the scientific study of religion in our time."1 Notice we did not (...) say "one of the most," but "the most." We stand by the claim. Active members of the Institute for American Religious and Philosophical Thought (IARPT), the professional association that sponsors the American Journal of Theology and Philosophy (AJPT), will be familiar with Wildman's work and not at all surprised by this assertion. For those less well acquainted with Wildman, and so understandably somewhat suspicious of such a claim, I hope that the essays in the special issue—and of course the Festschrift to which they respond—will diminish their skepticism and pique their curiosity.It was Wesley who invited me to join IARPT all those many years ago (when it was still HIARPT), a unique group of pragmatist and process philosophers, most of whom are (more or less religious) naturalists. It is an association of professionals and friends within which I have found a happy home. It has been a joy to be able to put together the book and this special issue to honor Wesley and promote further engagement with his work.It was a difficult task for Bob Neville and me to categorize Wildman's multidisciplinary corpus, but eventually we decided to invite contributors to approach his work from the general direction of one of three areas—philosophy, theology, or science—while simultaneously reaching across disciplines. In the aforementioned introduction, we offered a brief academic biography and summary of some of Wildman's most significant books for those not familiar with his writings. The three major parts of the volume, which I will summarize below, offer several scholarly engagements with Wildman's thought, each approaching it with a multidisciplinary perspective. For those unfamiliar with his philosophy, a good place to start for understanding his approach to philosophy is Religious Philosophy as [End Page 5] Multidisciplinary Comparative Inquiry.2 A good place to begin getting familiar with his approach to theology is In Our Image: Anthropomorphism, Apophaticism, and Ultimacy.3 A good place to get a feel for his approach to the scientific study of religion is Science and Religious Anthropology: A Spiritually Evocative Naturalist Interpretation of Human Life.4Whether in philosophy, theology, or the scientific study of religion, Wildman has not hesitated to "boldly go where no one has gone before." With the courage of a Captain Kirk and the intelligence of a Mr. Spock, not to mention the ingenuity of a Scotty and therapeutic skills of a Dr. McCoy, Wildman has trekked through the unknown (and in the case of theology, he would add, unknowable) conceptual space of more disciplinary systems that one would think possible. His intellectual voyages exploring strange new multidisciplinary worlds have been an inspiration to many in the next generation of scholars interested in engaging American religious and philosophical thought. People who know Wesley well also know how much energy he has committed to nurturing this next generation. The younger authors who have contributed to this special issue may not even get my references to the original Star Trek, which aired in the 1960s, and are perhaps even too young even to remember Star Trek: The Next Generation, which first aired in 1987, with Captain Jean Luc Picard and the gang. Well, one gets to a certain age and one has to come to terms with using the cultural references one has.In the film Star Trek Generations, which came out 30 years ago, the same year (indeed, the same month) that I met Wesley, Captain Picard finds himself facing another galactic crisis and (spoiler alert) ends up being pulled into the "Nexus," an extra-dimensional realm of wish fulfillment, where he finds Captain Kirk, long presumed dead, enjoying himself immensely. Kirk agrees to help Picard alter space-time and together they save the universe (again). OK, let... (shrink)

Ethical guidance from the British Medical Association about treating doctor–patients is compared and contrasted with evidence from a qualitative study of general practitioners who have been patients. Semistructured interviews were conducted with 17 GPs who had experienced a significant illness. Their experiences were discussed and issues about both being and treating doctor–patients were revealed. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to evaluate the data. In this article data extracts are used to illustrate and discuss three key points that summarise the BMA (...) ethical guidance, in order to develop a picture of how far experiences map onto guidance. The data illustrate and extend the complexities of the issues outlined by the BMA document. In particular, differences between experienced GPs and those who have recently completed their training are identified. This analysis will be useful for medical professionals both when they themselves are unwell and when they treat doctor–patients. It will also inform recommendations for professionals who educate medical students or trainees. (shrink)

The scientific world-outlook is something quite different from natural science. The word “science” in its legitimate modern usage represents both a kind of knowledge and the method of obtaining that knowledge. By “science” we may mean an objective body of facts and relationships concerning the physical world and arrived at by the scientific method of observation and reasoning—preferably quantitative observation and mathematical reasoning: thus we may say that the law of constant proportions is a part of the science of chemistry. (...) But we may also use the word science to denote that scientific method which I have just mentioned: thus I may say that science is the key to the investigation of nature—or that some inaccurate or biased piece of work is unscientific. Science, in either of these senses, does not contain any world-outlook, for it is quite impersonal. Thus science in the first sense consists of certain statements and relationships e.g.—that sulphur is yellow, that Jupiter has eight satellites, that all solutions of acids in water conduct electricity; while the scientific method indicates the manner in which from the data of our sense-impressions we can infer statements and conclusions, such as the above, which will be found to represent the phenomena correctly. But a scientific world-outlook means something different, because it is a world -outlook, the attitude of a man or woman towards the whole of that of which he or she is conscious. (shrink)

The general context of this paper is the locality problem in quantum theory. In a recent issue of this journal, Redei (1991) offered a proof of the proposition that algebraic Lorentz-covariant quantum field theory is past stochastic Einstein local. We show that Redei's proof is either spurious or circular, and that it contains two deductive fallacies. Furthermore, we prove that the mentioned theory meets the stronger condition of stochastic Haag locality.

Response to the Commentary on ‘The View from Within’ The numerous commentators to this Special Issue have greatly enhanced its focus and usefulness. We thank them all very sincerely for their efforts. Within the restricted space of this rejoinder we cannot respond in detail to all the issues raised. Instead, we shall concentrate first on some fundamental criticisms.The remaining additions and complementary ideas will only be touched on briefly, merely to see them in perspective. We shall start with our two (...) main critics of the global enterprise, Baars and Nixon. They both offer arguments that our enterprise is misguided, but their arguments fall on two opposite extremes: empirical and hermeneutical. (shrink)

RESUMENPresento una exposición de los argumentos de M. Dummett contra el proyecto davidsoniano de reducir, al menos en la formulación de una teoría del significado, la fuerza de habla de una emisión al sentido de una oración que funcione como un adscriptor de dicha fuerza. Constitutivas de tales argumentos son las tesis de que no hay fuerza sin convenciones lingüísticas y de que la fuerza de la aserción es un factor esencial en la determinación de la creencia.PALABRAS CLAVEFUERZA DEL HABLA-MODO (...) VERBAL-ASERCIÓN-CREENCIAABSTRACTAs it is known Frege distinguished two factors in meaning, sense and force. Now, the force of an utterance cannot be identified syntactically with the verbal mood of a sentence. On face of it Davidson tries to maintain a very formal conception of language analyzing the force in terms of truth-conditions, that is to say, in terms of sense.He introduces his paratactic analysis. But there is an objection by Dummett that the force is beyond the sense and so the meaning has a factor of use which is not formally reducible.KEYWORDSMEANING-FORCE-SENSE-PRATACTIC ANALYSIS. (shrink)

Narrativist philosophy of history rejects all attempts to establish an epistemological link between the past and its historical representation. Two forms of narrativism should be distinguished. The first form attacks epistemology by stressing the autonomy of historical writing with regard to the past itself ; the second form does the same by de-contextualizing the elements of the past—the very idea of the past thus becomes problematic and epistemological queries can no longer even be formulated. The first form of narrativism is (...) synthetical, suggesting that the historian should construct broad panoramical views of the past ; the second, on the contrary, aims at a dispersive dissolution of the past. The article concentrates upon the dispersive form of narrativism. It is exemplified in Ginzburg's 'micro-storie'. The implication that these 'micro-storie' should not primarily be seen as historiography in the proper sense of the word but rather as a form of narrativist philosophy of history (expressing a theory of historical representation) is accepted wholeheartedly. It is shown that the 'micro-storie' come very close to Derrida's deconstructivist reading of texts. For in both cases we have to do with 'ruptures' announcing themselves in small, seemingly insignificant details. The conclusion of the article is that the synthetical and the dispersive forms of narrativism need each other and that we can give meaning to the concept of an objective historical reality only if we accept both of them. (shrink)