Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics, one of several popularizations paralleling Eastern mysticism and modern physics, is critiqued, demonstrating that Capra gives little attention to the differing philosophies of physics he employs, utilizing whatever interpretation suits his purposes, without prior justification. The same critique is applied and similar conclusions drawn, about some recent attempts at relating theology and physics. In contrast, we propose the possibility of maintaining a cogent relationship between these disciplines by employing theological hypotheses to account (...) for aspects of physics that are free from interpretive difficulties, such as the ability to create mathematical structures with extraordinary predictive success. (shrink)

Given that domestication provided animals with more stable environmental conditions, artificial selection by humans has likely affected animals' ability to learn novel contingencies and their ability to adapt to changing environments. In addition, the selection for specific traits in domestic animals might have an additional impact on subjects' behavioural flexibility, but also their general learning performance, due to a re-allocation of resources towards parameters of productivity. To test whether animals bred for high productivity would experience a shift towards lower learning (...) performance, we compared the performance of dwarf goats and dairy goats in a visual discrimination learning and reversal learning task. Goats were tested individually in a test compartment and were rewarded by choosing either a white or a black cup presented by the experimenter on a sliding board behind a crate. Once they reached a designated learning criterion in the initial learning task, they were transferred to the reversal learning task. To increase the heterogeneity of our test sample, data was collected by two experimenters at two research stations following a similar protocol. Goats of both selection lines did not differ in the initial discrimination learning task in contrast to the subsequent reversal learning task. Dairy goats reached the learning criterion slower compared to dwarf goats. Our results may indicate that the selection for milk production might have affected behavioural flexibility in goats. These differences in adapting to changing environmental stimuli might have an impact on animal welfare e.g., when subjects have to adapt to new environments or changes in housing and management routines. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Music Education and Spirituality:Philosophical Exploration IiAnthony J. PalmerMusic, beyond its pitches and rhythms, timbres and dynamics, has elusive qualities that many have difficulty identifying and discussing. In this regard Rabindranath Tagore speaks of the "ineffable":But when our heart is fully awakened in love, or in other great emotions, our personality is in its flood-tide. Then it feels the longing to express itself for the very sake of expression. Then (...) comes art, and we forget the claims of necessity, the thrift of usefulness; the spires of our temples try to kiss the stars and the notes of our music to fathom the depth of the ineffable.1Abraham Maslow points to a similar state of being:Transcendence refers to the very highest and most inclusive or holistic levels of human consciousness, behaving and relating, as ends rather than as means, to oneself, to significant others, to human beings in general, to other species, to nature, and to the cosmos.2 [End Page 143]One deep, the other beyond, both direct attention toward something richer, exceeding technical competence and excellent rendition of the score. Yet, the very realms where these qualities reside seem to be above our ability to assess other than to say, "we know it when we experience it."3 Is there some realization that we have transcended the mundane, passed over to another plane of existence and gone beyond an egocentric mind-frame? And could subjective reports satisfy any objective criteria that the event truly happened? Moreover, could one's experience be distinguished qualitatively from another's? This is one of the quandaries when attempting to assess experience of such an elusive nature. Although, these questions lie at the foundation of such an inquiry as this, answers await additional investigation at a later time. For the present, this study will be limited to laying the groundwork for these future explorations.A clarification of terms preceding this essay is imperative. To begin, the discourse will use 'spirituality' and 'transcendence' interchangeably. Various readings suggest that there is sufficient agreement that these terms describe the same noumenal experience. For example, physicist Fritjof Capra states that:Spiritual experience is an experience of aliveness of mind and body as a unity. Moreover, this experience of unity transcends not only the separation of mind and body, but also the separation of self and world. The central awareness in these spiritual moments is a profound sense of oneness with all, a sense of belonging to the universe as a whole.4This essay continues in this vein and that of my previous article on the subject5 that the religious and doctrinal are not part of the discussion. Therefore, an effort will be made to distance spirituality, as used here, from religion. In that light, a brief comparison will prove helpful.Spirituality has its roots in the Latin: "in + spirare (Latin to breathe). Archaic: to breathe or blow into or upon; to infuse (as life) by breathing."6 This "blowing upon" is no better illustrated than in the account in Genesis. Chapter 2, verse 4, line 7 reads: "Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being."7 Psyche in Greek and atman in Sanskrit have essentially the same meaning of breath and being alive, that is, embodying an animating force.This animating force, in my view, is not of metaphysical origins, but rather inherent in the evolution of the human species. Spirituality is a human quality as a product of supreme levels of consciousness. Additionally, it has the quality of knowing that we are conscious. C. G. Jung's statement is appropriate in describing this seemingly incomprehensible characteristic.Were organized religion to disappear by some quirk of social process, the human community still cannot and must not do without cultivating the spiritual, [End Page 144] what Jung calls the "attitude peculiar to a consciousness which has been changed by experience of the numinosum."8Diane Ackerman supports the non-metaphysical origins of the impulse.Our sensitivity to religion means that at some stage in human history, our chance of mating and surviving increased... (shrink)

Originally published in 1965. This is a textbook of modern deductive logic, designed for beginners but leading further into the heart of the subject than most other books of the kind. The fields covered are the Propositional Calculus, the more elementary parts of the Predicate Calculus, and Syllogistic Logic treated from a modern point of view. In each of the systems discussed the main emphases are on Decision Procedures and Axiomatisation, and the material is presented with as much formal rigour (...) as is compatible with clarity of exposition. The techniques used are not only described but given a theoretical justification. Proofs of Consistency, Completeness and Independence are set out in detail. The fundamental characteristics of the various systems studies, and their relations to each other are established by meta-logical proofs, which are used freely in all sections of the book. Exercises are appended to most of the chapters, and answers are provided. (shrink)

Written over the last 18 months of his life and inspired by his interest in G. E. Moore's defence of common sense, this much discussed volume collects Wittgenstein's reflections on knowledge and certainty, on what it is to know a proposition for sure.

This book, published in 1986, addresses questions concerned with a central normative principle in contemporary assessments of economic policies and systems. What does 'consumer sovereignty' mean? Is consumer sovereignty an appropriate principle for the optimization and evaluation of the design and performance of economic policies, institutions and systems? If not, what is a more appropriate principle? The author argues that the conception of consumer sovereignty has to be broadened so that it is not limited to the market mechanism but includes (...) environmental, work and social preferences. However, even this version runs into serious difficulties as the principle of consumer sovereignty still relies on too subjectivist a conception of the interests of individuals to be suitable for the evaluation of economic institutions. An alternative basis for such evaluation is 'human interests' that are not contingent on particular economic systems, After considering various possibilities, a basic-needs approach is proposed and its use in economic evaluation illustrated. (shrink)

In REG 73 and 75 I discussed various points connected with the Peace of Philocrates, a number of which have been assailed by M. M. Markle in CQ N.S. 24 in an article entitled ‘The Strategy of Philip in 346 B.C.’. Time passes, and, although de Ste. Croix in his Origins of the Peloponnesian War , p.105, felt able to declare that ‘a book shortly to be published by M. M. Markle makes a valuable and original contribution to our understanding (...) of the Peace of Philocrates’, and Markle himself confirms that a book is indeed forthcoming, some comment on his preliminary comments may be permitted. (shrink)

Molly Farneth’s Hegel’s Social Ethics hearkens back to the tradition of Josiah Royce, which has continued in the work of Richard Bernstein and Jeffrey Stout. At the same time, it reflects the impact of three decades of interpretive work which has offered an alternative to the 19th and early 20th century reading of Hegel as a metaphysical systematizer. In this new reading he was from the beginning a social critic and political theorist who looked to lay the groundwork for post‐Enlightenment (...) vision of the social world as evolving toward one of social cooperation based on mutual recognition. Farneth has developed this reading of Hegel into one of powerful resources for democratic pluralism. (shrink)

This book challenges the common assumption that the predominant focus of the history of science should be the achievements of Western scientists since the so-called Scientific Revolution. The conceptual frameworks within which the members of earlier societies and of modern indigenous groups worked admittedly pose severe problems for our understanding. But rather than dismiss them on the grounds that they are incommensurable with our own and to that extent unintelligible, we should see them as offering opportunities for us to revise (...) many of our own preconceptions. We should accept that the realities to be accounted for are multi-dimensional and that all such accounts are to some extent value-laden. In the process insights from current anthropology and the study of ancient Greece and China especially are brought to bear to suggest how the remit of the history of science can be expanded to achieve a cross-cultural perspective on the problems. (shrink)

In Chapter 2 of the Philosophical Fragments, Søren Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Johannes Climacus poetises about a “king who loved a maiden.” Climacus concludes this venture with a bold claim: what he has just described is “so different from any human poem” that it should not be regarded as a poem at all, but as “the wonder” [Vidunderet] which leads one to exclaim in adoration that “[t]his thought did not arise in my own heart!” In the subsequent chapter of Philosophical Fragments, Climacus (...) proceeds to offer a number of arguments against demonstrations of God’s existence, leading many scholars to conclude that he represents an unequivocally anti-rationalist perspective. Against such interpretations, this paper will seek to highlight how Climacus’ claims track those of the seventeenth century Dutch lens-grinder and rationalist philosopher, Baruch Spinoza. From this, it will be argued that “the wonder” in Climacus’ thought takes the form of an indirect, ethico-existentialist argument for the truth of Christianity’s incarnate God. (shrink)

There is frequently an appearance of conflict between medicine and economics. This arises first because the nature of health and health care requires the doctor to make decisions on behalf of the patient and thus serves to explain why medical ethics exist. But secondly it is due to the relative lack of acceptance of the ethics of the common good within medical ethics. As a result while economics in the field of health has as an objective the maximisation of the (...) health of the community, subject to resource constraints, medical ethics pushes individual doctors to try to maximise the health of their patients. There is no reason to believe that the latter will sum to the former. To make the maximisation of health of the community the goal of the medical profession requires institutional changes, particularly with regard to budgeting, which will cajole and if necessary coerce doctors to adopt the good of the community as their objective. (shrink)

This study examines BDI logics in the context of Gabbay's fibring semantics. We show that dovetailing can be adopted as a semantic methodology to combine BDI logics. We develop a set of interaction axioms that can capture static as well as dynamic aspects of the mental states in BDI systems, using Catach's incestual schema G^[a, b, c, d]. Further we exemplify the constraints required on fibring function to capture the semantics of interactions among modalities. The advantages of having a fibred (...) approach is discussed in the final section. (shrink)

Plotinus (204/5–270 CE) was the first and greatest of Neoplatonic philosophers. His writings were edited by his disciple Porphyry, who published them sometime between 301 and 305 CE in six sets of nine treatises each (Enneads), with a biography of his master in which he also explains his editorial principles.

Open peer commentary on the article “The Autopoiesis of Social Systems and its Criticisms” by Hugo Cadenas & Marcelo Arnold. Upshot: I discuss two aspects of Cadenas & Arnold’s target article. The first concerns some clarifications of the sociological importance of the concept of autopoiesis and the second the criticisms of this concept and its applications in the social sciences.

En 2011 el señor Mario Posada Ochoa donó a la Universidad EAFIT una extensa y poco conocida colección de arte; acaso unos cuantos amigos habrían visto de cerca las 480 obras que recibió la Universidad, de artistas como Segundo Angelvis, Inés Acevedo Bernal, Sergio Trujillo Magnenat, Luis A. Rengifo y Ramón Vásquez, entre otros. Algunas de ellas carecían de la firma del autor o de un dato que comprobara la autoría, y estaban deterioradas, más que por el tiempo, por el (...) improvisado bodegaje: don Mario las había guardado durante cuarenta años en su hermosa casa de Maracaibo, en el centro de la ciudad. En Extensión Cultural de EAFIT han procurado, desde entonces, conservar este legado. (shrink)