Originally published: London: Allen & Unwin, 1936.

Reinhold Niebuhr, approaching the ethical field as a theologian rather than as a philosopher, has maintained that the Christian ethic is not single and indivisible, but that, on the contrary, it consists of what one might call an absolute ethic and a kind of interim ethic in which the notion of justice is prominent. Without commenting on Niebuhr's work I wish to put forward a view which, although more general than his, is perhaps not without a superficial resemblance to it.

Much problem solving and learning research in math and science has focused on formal representations. Recently researchers have documented the use of unschooled strategies for solving daily problems -- informal strategies which can be as effective, and sometimes as sophisticated, as school-taught formalisms. Our research focuses on how formal and informal strategies interact in the process of doing and learning mathematics. We found that combining informal and formal strategies is more effective than single strategies. We provide a theoretical account of (...) this multiple strategy effect and have begun to formulate this theory in an ACT-R computer model. We show why students may reach common impasses in the use of written algebra, and how subsequent or concurrent use of informal strategies leads to better problem-solving performance. Formal strategies facilitate computation because of their abstract and syntactic nature; however, abstraction can lead to nonsensical interpretations and conceptual errors. Reapplying the formal strategy will not repair such errors; switching to an informal one may. We explain the multiple strategy effect as a complementary relationship between the computational efficiency of formal strategies and the sense-making function of informal strategies. (shrink)

For a true Platonist the nature of the soul is, in a sense, unproblematic. So too is its status. It is an immaterial entity, with all the attributes that that entails, and it is independent of any body with which it might, from time to time, be associated. And yet this extreme dualism must be modified in some way or other, if any account is to be given of the life and activities of a man, or any other living thing, (...) at least some of which require a body for their exercise. The problems that produced are notorious. The purpose of this paper is to explore how some of them were formulated by one Platonist, John Philoponus of Alexandria, and some of the ways in which he attempted to solve them. (shrink)

Quantum entanglement has been focus of fundamental debate since the original paper of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen [1] and the work of Bell [2], discussing its implications on fundamental issues related to the concepts of physical reality and locality. It has only been during the last few years when it has been recognized that this feature of Quantum Mechanics may also have important applications in the fields of communication and computation. In particular, it has been shown that using entanglement would (...) allow to perform certain computational tasks, such as factoring, much faster. On the other hand, it provides the basis for provably secure secret communication and cryptography. (shrink)

Book Information The Weight of Finitude: On the Philosophical Question of God. By Ludwig Heyde. State University of New York Press. Albany. 1999. Pp. 177 + xviii. Paperback, US$17.95.

The controversy between teleologists and deontologists, whether under these names or in other guises, is one of the long-standing disputes of ethics. In different branches of philosophy the perennial nature of a dispute may point to different things: in some, for example, it may properly incline one to say “a plague on both your houses” and thereafter to look for some way of disposing of the whole problem around which the philosophical problem has raged; in ethics, on the other hand, (...) root-and-branch methods of excision are to be deplored, for here a perennial issue usually draws attention to points of view which have somehow to be reconciled if the problems underlying them are to be overcome. The deontology-teleology controversy seems to me a case in point. Here, if anywhere in ethics, a reconciliation must be effected; and in the present paper my primary aim is to induce deontologists and teleologists to abandon their mutual hostility. 1 I shall attempt to carry out this mission of philosophical good will through examining the ways in which we justify imperatives. In the first section of the paper I shall say something about the controversy itself, making it clear that I consider that it has roots which it would be inconvenient to expose at this stage of the inquiry; in the second I shall study the justification of a number of typical non-moral imperatives; in the third I shall apply the findings of the second to the justification of moral imperatives; and finally, in the fourth section I shall return to the deontology-teleology controversy and attempt to elucidate how it arises, to point out the two levels on which the same dispute can be found, and to suggest a way in which the essentials of the rival views may be accepted and combined. (shrink)

The most surprising development of philosophy in recent years has been the sudden interest, friendly or hostile, in theology—or at least in the philosophy of religion. Hence the present volume, Faith and Logic , appears at a propitious time. As a series of essays composed by teachers of theology or philosophy in the University of Oxford it follows in the succession of Essays and Reviews , Lux Mundi , and Foundations . Like all of these works it endeavours to adjust (...) Christian, and more specifically Anglican, doctrines to the changing intellectual problems of the contemporary world. Yet perhaps it is the differences that are most striking. (shrink)