The explanatory gap refers to the lack of concepts for understanding “how it is that . . . a state of consciousness comes about as a result of irritating nervous tissue.” By assuming that there are colours in the outside world, Block needlessly widens this gap and Lycan and Kitcher simply fail to see the gap. When such assumptions are abandoned, an unnecessary and incomprehensible constraint disappears. It then becomes clear that the brain can use its own neural language for (...) representing aspects of the outside world. While this may not close the gap, it becomes clearer where we need new concepts. (shrink)

We report the identification of a recurrent, 520-kb 16p12.1 microdeletion associated with childhood developmental delay. The microdeletion was detected in 20 of 11,873 cases compared with 2 of 8,540 controls and replicated in a second series of 22 of 9,254 cases compared with 6 of 6,299 controls. Most deletions were inherited, with carrier parents likely to manifest neuropsychiatric phenotypes compared to non-carrier parents. Probands were more likely to carry an additional large copy-number variant when compared to matched controls. The clinical (...) features of individuals with two mutations were distinct from and/or more severe than those of individuals carrying only the co-occurring mutation. Our data support a two-hit model in which the 16p12.1 microdeletion both predisposes to neuropsychiatric phenotypes as a single event and exacerbates neurodevelopmental phenotypes in association with other large deletions or duplications. Analysis of other microdeletions with variable expressivity indicates that this two-hit model might be more generally applicable to neuropsychiatric disease. © 2010 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved. (shrink)

The relation between morality and religion has often been discussed. However, it is not always recognized that the relation varies greatly according to the variety of religions. I shall here be concerned solely with Christian theism in its traditional form. I take the latter to signify, essentially, belief in a morally perfect Creator who exists in the threefold form of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and who, in the person of the Son, became man in Christ for our salvation. I (...) thus exclude from consideration all non-theistic accounts of God or the Absolute. Also I shall consider, not simply bare theism of the kind that Christians share with Jews and Muslims, but also the distinctively Christian form of theism that is generated by distinctively Christian revelation. Many otherwise sound descriptions of the relation between morality and theism are defective because they fail to consider the distinctively Christian contribution to the theistic concept of God and of his relation to the world. (shrink)

Many writers often generalise about mysticism without a sufficiently close analysis of texts. Consequently the generalisations are often invalid. My present aim is to analyse one text and, in the light of this analysis, to offer some observations concerning mysticism in general and Christian mysticism in particular.

Christianity affirms, with Judaism and Islam, that God is the omnipotent Creator of all things. But it diverges from them in also affirming that the Creator assumed a human nature in one figure of history, Jesus of Nazareth. Christ thus differs from other men in kind, not merely in degree; he is absolutely, not just relatively, unique. Admittedly many Christian theologians have held that the difference between Christ and other men is only one of degree. Yet the Church's traditional claim, (...) as expressed in the Chalcedonian Definition, is that Jesus was both creature and Creator, both fully man and fully God. (shrink)

First published in 1935, The Life and Writings of Giambattista Vico is a succinct biography of the Italian philosopher, Giambattista Vico. Carefully documented, the book comments on Vico's life as well as his oeuvre in a bid to extend his audience to the English-speaking population. From his early childhood to the influence of his writings after his death, the book provides a keen insight into the many facets of his philosophy. This book will be of interest to students of philosophy (...) and history. (shrink)

This contribution is a gentle introduction to so-called dynamic epistemic logics, that can describe how agents change their knowledge and beliefs. We start with a concise introduction to epistemic logic, through the example of one, two and finally three players holding cards; and, mainly for the purpose of motivating the dynamics, we also very summarily introduce the concepts of general and common knowledge. We then pay ample attention to the logic of public announcements, wherein agents change their knowledge as the (...) result of public announcements. One crucial topic in that setting is that of unsuccessful updates: formulas that become false when announced. The Moore-sentences that were already extensively discussed at the conception of epistemic logic in Hintikka’s ‘Knowledge and Belief ’ (1962) give rise to such unsuccessful updates. After that, we present a few examples of more complex epistemic updates. (shrink)

The contemporary debate on justice is understandably dominated by theories and arguments addressing the problems of justice pertinent to nearly just societies, as virtually all the theorists participating in this debate live in such societies. They are obviously, and rightly so, first and foremost concerned with the philosophical problems of their own societies. Although almost all the contemporary theories of justice were formulated in the context of nearly just societies, why can we not apply them to the issues and problems (...) of radically unjust societies? The view that such a move is permissible and wise is at present no more than an unexamined assumption, an unargued view. Such an unargued view leads to the suspicion that a strong case may be made that radically unjust societies generate problems of social and political justice that should be considered in their own right. This does not imply that theories of justice developed in the context of, and aimed at, those issues current in nearly just societies should be disregarded or discarded. What is required are arguments to indicate to what extent the theoretical insights and wisdom contained in these theories can be utilized in a discussion of the social and political problems of radically unjust societies. I argue for the view that the contemporary debate on justice contains a major deficiency. In this article, I attempt to specify this major deficiency, namely that exclusive attention is given to the problems of nearly just societies while the problems of radically unjust societies are mostly ignored. The strategy will be to raise issues pertinent to radically unjust societies and note the extent to which clear and unambiguous solutions could be provided by participants in the contemporary debate on justice. (shrink)

This paper is a contribution toward developing a theory of expansions of semi-Heyting algebras. It grew out of an attempt to settle a conjecture we had made in 1987. Firstly, we unify and extend strikingly similar results of [ 48 ] and [ 50 ] to the (new) equational class DHMSH of dually hemimorphic semi-Heyting algebras, or to its subvariety BDQDSH of blended dual quasi-De Morgan semi-Heyting algebras, thus settling the conjecture. Secondly, we give a criterion for a unary expansion (...) of semi-Heyting algebras to be a discriminator variety and give an algorithm to produce discriminator varieties. We then apply the criterion to exhibit an increasing sequence of discriminator subvarieties of BDQDSH . We also use it to prove that the variety DQSSH of dually quasi-Stone semi- Heyting algebras is a discriminator variety. Thirdly, we investigate a binary expansion of semi-Heyting algebras, namely the variety DblSH of double semi-Heyting algebras by characterizing its simples, and use the characterization to present an increasing sequence of discriminator subvarieties of DblSH . Finally, we apply these results to give bases for “small” subvarieties of BDQDSH , DQSSH , and DblSH. (shrink)

H. P. Owen; VII—The Evidence for Christian Theism, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Volume 64, Issue 1, 1 June 1964, Pages 123–138, https://doi.org/10.1.

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