Book reviewed in this article: Rights Talk: The Impoverishment of Political Discourse. By Mary Ann Glendon.

The essay is framed by conflict between Christianity and Darwinian science over the history of the world and the nature of human personhood. Evolutionary science narrates a long prehuman geological and biological history filled with vast amounts, kinds, and distributions of apparently random brutal and pointless suffering. It also strongly suggests that the first modern humans were morally primitive. This science seems to discredit Christianity's common meta-narrative of the Fall, understood as a story of Paradise Lost. The author contends that (...) this Augustinian story and its character of Adam as endowed with superhuman gifts, and yet as so fragile as to fall, as claimed, is implausible, at any rate, even apart from science. He proposes that Christians consider adopting a Supralapsarian metaphysics of divine purpose supported by the intuitions of Irenaeus, who depicted the first human beings as comparable to innocent, but morally undeveloped children. In this approach the existence of evils is part of the divine plan to "defeat" them in and through the Incarnation, Atonement, and Resurrection of Christ. Putting an "Irenaean Adam" in place of the "Augustinian" counterpart may not remove conflict with science completely, but at least reduces it, and leads to a Christian narrative that is more plausible, in the light of science. (shrink)

On the occasion of the centennial of his birth, Schrödinger's life and views are sketched and his critique of the interpretation of quantum mechanics accepted at his time is examined. His own interpretation, which he had to abandon after a short time, provides a prime example of the way in which the tentative meaning of central theoretical terms in a new and revolutionary theory often fails. Schrödinger's strong philosophical convictions have played a key role in his refusal to break with (...) many of the notions of classical physics. At the same time, they made him into a keen and incisive critic of the Copenhagen interpretation. His criticism is compared with present views on quantum mechanics. (shrink)

The church cleric Gregor von Nyssa celebrated the evolution of the hand as a bequest to the mouth and lips. Liberated from the compulsory, primordial pursuit of food, it can now devote itself to the functions of speech and rationality. The modern age has set about disencumbering he hand in an ever-expanding machine park. Elation, however, has been muted. If the hand no longer serves the mouth but the machine, isn't the association to the state of being human lost? The (...) modern age in conspicuous insistence, rejects the storm of technology, evolution and the animality of the human prerogative by meditating on the future fate of the hand. (shrink)

This paper resolves some puzzles regarding Spinoza’s appropriations and rejections of various aspects of Bacon’s methodology, and uses these solutions to resolve some long-standing puzzles concerning Spinoza’s modus operandi in the TTP. We argue first that, appearances to contrary, Spinoza takes a consistent line in his assessment of Bacon’s epistemic approach. We argue that Spinoza follows Bacon in grounding his overall epistemic method in a “historiola mentis” (a brief account or history of the mind), and that differences between Spinoza’s and (...) Bacon’s respective historiola mentis can explain Spinoza’s embrace of this inductive method for his interpretation of Scripture in the TTP, as well as his general abandonment of Bacon’s inductive method in the metaphysical investigation of the Ethics. In short, we argue that the “historiola mentis” constructed by Bacon depicts the intellect as an error-prone faculty that needs be continuously restrained by observation and experimentation—a depiction which motivates Bacon’s reformed inductive empiricism. Spinoza accepts this depiction in regard to a subset of the mind’s ideas—the ideas of the imagination, and hence sees the inductive method as suitable for interpreting Scripture. But contra Bacon, Spinoza’s “historiola mentis” also shows that the human mind includes a subset of ideas that yield true, certain knowledge of things “infinite” and sub specie aeternitatis. Spinoza finds these “intellectual” ideas to be quite useful for systematic metaphysics, but of limited use for interpreting historical texts like Scripture. (shrink)

Morality in Sport Sport continues to make its presence known throughout the world as it prospers at all levels. Amazingly, there is no end in sight to the popularity and growth of sport. Essential to sport's continued prosperity, growth, and overall livelihood is the sustenance of a firm moral base. It is the goal and hope of the author that you find this textbook to be a useful guide in helping you maintain and build upon the foundation of moral good (...) that is required for sport to exist now and in the future. The need to make good moral decisions in sport is constant. And, although opportunities to make such decisions in sport are seemingly endless, what is "moral" can be somewhat unclear. Given the various perspectives on morality and the lack of clear-cut distinctions between moral and immoral actions, disagreements regarding moral behavior and sport are likely to always exist. However, having a blatant disregard for good moral behavior in sport is difficult to defend from most any position. (shrink)

A qualitative study with an exploratory, descriptive and documentary design that was conducted with the objective of identifying the elements to constitute a method for the analysis of accusations of and proceedings for professional ethics infringements. The method is based on underlying elements identified inductively during analysis of professional ethics hearings judged by and filed in the archives of the Regional Nursing Board of Santa Catarina, Brazil, between 1999 and 2007. The strategies developed were based on the results of an (...) analysis of the findings of fact (occurrences/infractions, causes and outcomes) contained in the records of 128 professional ethics hearings and on the structural elements (statements, rules and practices) identified in five example professional ethics cases. The strategies suggested for evaluating accusations of ethics infringements and the procedures involved in deliberating on ethics hearings constitute a generic proposal that will require adaptation to the context of specific professional ethics accusations. (shrink)

This paper examines and classifies the computational complexity of model checking and satisfiability for hybrid logics over frames with equivalence relations. The considered languages contain all possible combinations of the downarrow binder, the existential binder, the satisfaction operator, and the global modality, ranging from the minimal hybrid language to very expressive languages. For model checking, we separate polynomial-time solvable from PSPACE-complete cases, and for satisfiability, we exhibit cases complete for NP, PS pace , NE xp T ime , and even (...) N2E xp T ime . Our analysis includes the versions of all these languages without atomic propositions, and also complete frames. (shrink)

A rational migration policy has to be based on a coherent set of objectives and its instruments have to be chosen so as to best achieve these objectives. If the focus of migration policy is on the interests of the receiving country, it has to be decided, firstly, how many and what kind of immigrants are to be invited and, secondly, how many refugees are to be accepted for humanitarian reasons. The former are supposed to live permanently in the receiving (...) country, while the latter may stay only temporarily. For the determination of these objectives, the economic and the non-economic consequences of immigration for the native population need to be analyzed. As there will be conflicts of interest, an open debate about the objectives of migration policy is necessary. In particular, it needs to be acknowledged that economic self-interest motivates, at least in part, both the critics and the proponents of immigration. Only when objectives have been agreed upon, can the appropriate instruments be chosen. Among those, the instrument of the entrance fee may play an important role, especially with regard to selecting qualified immigrants. (shrink)

Drama is ingedikt conflict, meent Eric Schneider. Toch schonk één rol, gespeeld door één actrice, hem hoop en vertroosting.

Building on previous work, I continue the arguments for scientific realism in the presence of a natural level structure of science. That structure results from a cognitive antireductionism that calls for the retention of mature theories even though they have been "superseded". The level structure is based on "scientific truth" characterized by a theory's validity domain and the confirming empirical data. Reductionism (including fundamentalism) fails cognitively because of qualitative differences in the ontology and semantics of successive theories. This cognitive failure (...) exists in spite of the mathematical success of theory reduction. The claim for scientific realism is strongly based on theory coherence between theories on adjacent levels. Level coherence consists of mathematical relations between levels, as well as of reductive explanations. The latter refers to questions that can be posed (but not answered) on a superseded level, but which can be answered (explained) on the superseding level. In view of the pluralism generated by cognitive antireductionism, theory coherence is claimed to be so compelling that it provides strong epistemic justification for a pluralistic scientific realism. (shrink)

Nexuses such as exemplification are the fundamental ties that structure reality as a whole. They are “formal” in the sense of constituting the form, not the matter of reality and they are “transcendental” inasmuch as they transcend the categorial distinctions between the denizens of reality, including that between existents and non-existents. I shall advocate a moderately particularist view about (external) nexuses and argue that it provides not only the best solution to Bradley’s regress, but also an elegant account of symmetrical (...) relations (both formal and material), as well as of temporal and modal change. These advantages are illustrated by the reconstruction of an Aristotelian ontology of exemplification involving substances, kinds and material attributes. (shrink)