ABSTRACTThis article examines how Christians who had been deprived of the direct sponsorship of the state articulated their claims for political and religious freedom. I examine four cases from the fifth and sixth century in the Eastern Roman Empire and Sasanian Iran. Here I argue that Scriptural models provided an important reservoir of political ideas that could be used by clerics to undermine state authority, whether to underscore the conditional nature of Roman claims to authority or to deny an equality (...) of religious freedom to non-Christian co-citizens. (shrink)

In his book Ockham on Concepts, Claude Panaccio suggests a strong externalist interpretation (SE) of Ockham’s view on perceptual content. I argue that his SE is in conflict with his another interpretation of Ockham’s view on conceptual similitude.

This paper explores the relationship between phenomenal properties and intentional properties. In recent years a number of philosophers have argued that intentional properties are sometimes necessitated by phenomenal properties, but have not explained why or how. Exceptions can be found in the work of Katalin Farkas and Farid Masrour, who develop versions of reductionism regarding phenomenally-necessitated intentionality (or "phenomenal intentionality"). I raise two objections to reductive theories of the sort they develop. Then I propose a version of primitivism regarding phenomenal (...) intentionality. I argue that primitivism avoids the pitfalls of reductionism while promising broad explanatory payoffs. (shrink)

Hilbert's program attempts to show that our mathematical knowledge can be certain because we are able to know for certain the truths of elementary arithmetic. I argue that, in the absence of a theory of mathematical truth, Hilbert does not have a complete theory of our arithmetical knowledge. Further, while his deployment of a Kantian notion of intuition seems to promise an answer to scepticism, there is no way to complete Hilbert's epistemology which would answer to his avowed aims.

The treatment of pregnant women addicted to drugs provides an especially important and illustrative example of how political and popular demands can successfully challenge professional ethical norms associated with clinical medicine — norms such as confidentiality, patient autonomy, and the right to consent to and to refuse treatment. One increasingly popular policy approach is to limit patient autonomy by coercing women in an attempt to change their behavior, either by involuntary civil commitment or by imprisoning them for drug abuse or (...) child neglect. Thirty-five states have criminally prosecuted women for substance abuse or alcohol use during pregnancy. Other states aggressively use involuntary civil commitment as a means to protect the yet-to-be-born from harm during pregnancy. Medical professionals have been forced to participate in these programs by mandatory reporting requirements. (shrink)

Few musical works loom as large in Western culture as Richard Wagner's four-part Ring of the Nibelung. In Finding an Ending, two eminent philosophers, Philip Kitcher and Richard Schacht, offer an illuminating look at this greatest of Wagner's achievements, focusing on its far-reaching and subtle exploration of problems of meanings and endings in this life and world. Kitcher and Schacht plunge the reader into the heart of Wagner's Ring, drawing out the philosophical and human significance of the text and (...) the music. They show how different forms of love, freedom, heroism, authority, and judgment are explored and tested as it unfolds. As they journey across its sweeping musical-dramatic landscape, Kitcher and Schacht lead us to the central concern of the Ring--the problem of endowing life with genuine significance that can be enhanced rather than negated by its ending, if the right sort of ending can be found. The drama originates in Wotan's quest for a transformation of the primordial state of things into a world in which life can be lived more meaningfully. The authors trace the evolution of Wotan's efforts, the intricate problems he confronts, and his failures and defeats. But while the problem Wotan poses for himself proves to be insoluble as he conceives of it, they suggest that his very efforts and failures set the stage for the transformation of his problem, and for the only sort of resolution of it that may be humanly possible--to which it is not Siegfried but rather Brünnhilde who shows the way. The Ring's ending, with its passing of the gods above and destruction of the world below, might seem to be devastating; but Kitcher and Schacht see a kind of meaning in and through the ending revealed to us that is profoundly affirmative, and that has perhaps never been so powerfully and so beautifully expressed. (shrink)

Heuristics are necessary but far from sufficient explanations for moral judgment. This commentary stresses: (a) the need to complement cold, cognitive-economizing functionalist accounts with hot, value-expressive, social-identity-affirming accounts; and (b) the importance of conducting reflective-equilibrium thought and laboratory experiments that explore the permeability of the boundaries people place on the “thinkable.”.

Here is a traditional way of thinking about human knowledge. Knowledge is a species of true belief. The crucial difference between knowledge and other kinds of true belief is that propositions that are known have a special property. Justified propositions either have intrinsic justification or else they are obtainable by means of a justification-conferring argument from other justified propositions that the knower believes. The only propositions with intrinsic justification are those that fall into one of two classes: the set of (...) a priori truths and the set of propositions recording the sensory experiences of the knower. (shrink)

We survey a variety of possible explications of the term “Individual Risk.” These in turn are based on a variety of interpretations of “Probability,” including classical, enumerative, frequency, formal, metaphysical, personal, propensity, chance and logical conceptions of probability, which we review and compare. We distinguish between “groupist” and “individualist” understandings of probability, and explore both “group to individual” and “individual to group” approaches to characterising individual risk. Although in the end that concept remains subtle and elusive, some pragmatic suggestions for (...) progress are made. (shrink)

Employing categories derived from the philosopher of science Imre Lakatos, this essay analyzes the theological thought of Wolfhart Pannenberg, with the aim of showing that he is engaged in a research program that takes seriously the various sciences and their understanding of the world on the one hand and the traditions of Christian faith and theology on the other. The course of the argument demonstrates that Pannenberg's thought extends comprehensively to provide a conceptuality that centers on the phenomena of contingency (...) and field and encompasses nearly every realm of science and the breadth of biblical and theological traditions. (shrink)

Ces contributions tentent de dégager les enjeux littéraires, philosophiques, politiques et psychologiques des "Dialogues", oeuvre méconnue de Rousseau, afin de cerner sa signification dans le parcours de l'écrivain.

This paper is in three sections. In the first I describe and illustrate three uses of indices of truth in semantics. The way I illustrate this classification is not completely uncontroversial, but I expect that my intuitions on this matter are generally shared. In the second section I broach a question which is central to the metaphysics of time, namely: how should certain temporal indices of truth - times - be fitted within this classificatory scheme? I sketch three proposals as (...) to how this might be done, and show how they constitute different metaphysical conceptions of the nature of time. Finally, in the third section I turn to a specific problem with the classification of times (as indices of truth) I call 'non-indexical'. Mellor (1981) thinks this problem insoluble, and argues that it shows this classification to be absurd. However, by appealing to the modal analogues of the issues involved, I first show that Mellor's argument is question- begging, and then go on to show how the non-indexical classification of times might undermine the presuppositions on which his argument rests. The paper attempts to contribute to a discussion of the question raised in section II, not to provide a definitive answer to it. (shrink)