This article engages through an interdisciplinary approach to re-envision Tangintebu Theological College’s (TTC) model of theological education in the context of climate change in Kiribati. It utilises the anthropological theory of symbolic interactionism within missiological, cultural and, theological studies of climate change. It argues for the coconut tree as an appropriate cultural conceptual metaphorical idiom for translating and understanding Christian faith and shaping a theological pedagogy within the Kiribati context of climate change. The coconut image is an indigenous, holistic way (...) of knowing and learning informed by Kiribati cosmology embedded within people’s experiences and understanding of the coconut tree. Its life-centeredness has the potential to contextualise the theological curriculum and teaching methodology to assist in equipping theological students with climate change-sensitive approaches. The qualitative method was utilised to allow participants to reflect on their experiences of climate change in relation to the mission of the church. The data that informs this article was generated through unstructured interviews and focus group discussions with members of the Kiribati Uniting Church (KUC). The data was analysed using symbolic interactionism. The results suggest that the Kiribati people symbolically interact with God through their understanding of the coconut tree, which is conceived as the embodiment of God’s presence. It became clear that while this world view informs the faith of members of the KUC, the TTC curriculum has sidelined it, resulting in miseducation of pastors because this omission means they are not equipped to engage with the challenge of climate change. The participants argued that there is an urgent need to understand theological education and ministerial formation within the indigenous framework of Kiribati coconut imagination that is embedded in the promotion of justice and equitable society not only for human beings but for all of God’s creation through symbolic interaction with the presence of God in the coconut. (shrink)

There has been very little discussion of the appropriate principles to govern a modal logic of plurals. What debate there has been has accepted a principle I call (Necinc); informally if this is one of those then, necessarily: this is one of those. On this basis Williamson has criticised the Boolosian plural interpretation of monadic second-order logic. I argue against (Necinc), noting that it isn't a theorem of any logic resulting from adding modal axioms to the plural logic PFO+, and (...) showing that the most obvious formal argument in its favour is question begging. I go on to discuss the behaviour of natural language plurals, motivating a case against (Necinc) by developing a case that natural language plural terms are not de jure rigid designators. The paper concludes by developing a model theory for modal PFO-f which does not validate (Necinc). An Appendix discusses (Necinc) in relation to counterpart theory. Of course, it would be a mistake to think that the rules for "multiple pointing" follow automatically from the rules for pointing proper. Max Black—The Elusiveness of Sets In some influential articles during the 1980s George Boolos proposed an interpretation of monadic second-order logic in terms of plural quantification [4, 5]. One objection to this proposal, pressed by Williamson [22, 456-7], focuses on the modal behaviour of plural variables, arguing that the proposed interpretation yields the wrong results in respect of the modal status of atomic predications. In the present paper I will present this objection and argue against it. In the course of developing the argument, I will have cause to consider the under-investigated question of how a logic for plurals should be extended to incorporate modal operators. (shrink)

Responsibility is often thought of as primarily a legal concept. Even when it is moral responsibility that is at issue, it is assumed that it is above all in moralities based on law-centered patterns and models that responsibility takes center stage, so that responsibility is a legal concept at its core, and is applicable to the realm of private morality only by extension and analogy.

A simple mathematical extension of quantum theory is presented. As well as opening the possibility of alternative methods of calculation, the additional formalism implies a new physical interpretation of the standard theory by providing a picture of an external reality. The new formalism, developed first for the single-particle case, has the advantage of generalizing immediately to quantum field theory and to the description of relativistic phenomena such as particle creation and annihilation.

The purpose of this book is to develop a terminological structure in which private perceptions can be discussed publicly without bringing into existence the usual unnecessary philosophical problems of confused usage of language. chisholm displays an appraisive, quasi-ethical use of language, whereby he claims that a thing has some particular sensible property is to have adequate evidence that it actually does have that property. (staff).

Robert Nozick's experience machine thought experiment is often considered a decisive refutation of hedonism. I argue that the conclusions we draw from Nozick's thought experiment ought to be informed by considerations concerning the operation of our intuitions about value. First, I argue that, in order to show that practical hedonistic reasons are not causing our negative reaction to the experience machine, we must not merely stipulate their irrelevance (since our intuitions are not always responsive to stipulation) but fill in the (...) concrete details that would make them irrelevant. If we do this, we may see our feelings about the experience machine becoming less negative. Second, I argue that, even if our feelings about the experience machine do not perfectly track hedonistic reasons, there are various reasons to doubt the reliability of our anti-hedonistic intuitions. And finally, I argue that, since in the actual world seeing certain things besides pleasure as ends in themselves may best serve hedonistic ends, hedonism may justify our taking these other things to be intrinsically valuable, thus again making the existence of our seemingly anti-hedonistic intuitions far from straightforward evidence for the falsity of hedonism. (shrink)

It is generally assumed that every adjective ending in -ης is an s-stem like εủγενς -ος; cf. γνος gen. γνε-ος, Lat. genus gener-is, Skr. janas janas-as) or δνσμευς . Solmsen, for instance, does not hesitate to regard μ-ηγερς as evidence for the s-stem geres which he wishes to find in γοστóς σ-τóς), and Bechtel infers a stem παγεσ - from περπαγς. The result of this well-nigh universal belief has been that hardly anybody has thought it worth while to examine these (...) words carefully. (shrink)

Roderick Firth's writings on epistemology amount to an exceptionally careful and cogent defense of an account of perceptual knowledge in the tradition Firth called 'radical empiricism.' This important book collects all of Firth's major works on epistemology; it also contains his only publication in ethics, the extremely influential essay on 'Ethical Absolutism and the Ideal Observer.' In addition, the book includes a number of important previously unpublished essays. Together, these writings constitute the most finished and compelling version of traditional (...) empiricist epistemology. This book will be of value to students and scholars of epistemology, phenomenalism, and ethics. (shrink)

This book is the first treatment at length of negative, or apophatic, theology within the analytic tradition. Apophatic theology holds that there is a significant sense in which we cannot say what God is. Important negative theological elements are present in a host of Christian thinkers, from Gregory of Nyssa to Aquinas, and yet apophaticism is neglected in philosophical theology as practiced within the analytic tradition. By contrast, Hewitt shows how apophatic theology is integral to how Christians have thought (...) about God, and how it can be defended against standard attacks in the philosophical literature. Hewitt diagnoses the unease with apophaticism amongst contempory philosophical theologicans as rooted in a certain picture of how language functions, here called referentialism. Arguing that this picture is not compulsory, an account of language which sits more comfortably with negative theology (originating from work of later Wittgenstein) is invoked, and applied to key themes in philosophical theology including divine personhood, the Trinity, the Incarnation and the afterlife. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Classical and intuitionistic logic both validate Ex Contradictione Quodlibet, according to which any proposition whatsoever follows from a contradiction. Many philosophers have found ECQ counter-intuitive, but criticisms of the principle have almost universally been directed from a position of support for relevance or other orthodox paraconsistent logics, according to which some, but not necessarily all, propositions follow from a contradiction. This paper draws attention to the historically significant view that nothing whatsoever follows from a contradiction – Ex Contradictione Nihil. (...) It addresses the key arguments – model-theoretic, proof-theoretic, meaning theoretic and holist – deployed by proponents of ECQ against their standard opponents, and shows that each can be defeated from a position of support for ECN. In the course of answering these arguments, some understanding is developed of possible motivations for ECN and a solid case is built that ECN deserves further investigation. (shrink)

Libertarianism needs a theory of class. This claim may meet with resistance among some libertarians. A few will say: “The analysis of society in terms of classes and class struggles is a specifically Marxist approach, resting on assumptions that libertarians reject. Why should we care about class?” A greater number will say: “We recognize that class theory is important, but libertarianism doesn't need such a theory, because it already has a perfectly good one.”.

We began with three propositions: that people have a right not to be treated as mere means to the ends of others, that a woman who voluntarily becomes pregnant nevertheless has the right to an abortion, and that a woman who voluntarily gives birth does not have a right to abandon her child until she finds a substitute caretaker. These propositions initially seemed inconsistent, for the prohibition on treating others as mere means appeared to rule out the possibility of positive (...) rights, thus making it impossible to countenance the right to abort or the right not to be abandoned . But we have seen that the prohibition on treating people as mere means to the ends of others is best understood as ruling out basic positive rights while permitting derivative ones. Since a willing mother is responsible for bringing her child into the world in the first place, she cannot abandon it without violating its negative right not to be killed, and so such a child has a derivative positive right not to be abandoned. A pregnant woman, on the other hand, has a negative right not to have her body invaded, and from this negative right derives a positive right to abort her fetus, so long as doing so is not disproportionate to the seriousness of the threat . Therefore, far from being in conflict, propositions , , and have been shown to be in harmony with one another, the latter two being plausibly grounded in the first. Insofar as we have reason to accept , then, we have reason to accept and . Moreover, we have seen that a proper understanding of allows us to embed and in a larger moral perspective in which the limits of compulsory altruism are firmly drawn: enforceable rights to the use or assistance of others may be allowed into the moral domain only if they are “sponsored” by some negative right. Every putative positive right must find such a sponsor, or perish. (shrink)

The book contains elaborate notes, two appendices, critical textual matter, a diagram of topical parallels, a bibliography, and an index.

J. S. Mill's distinction between higher and lower pleasures is often thought to conflict with his commitment to psychological and ethical hedonism: if the superiority of higher pleasures is quantitative, then the higher/lower distinction is superfluous and Mill contradicts himself; if the superiority of higher pleasures is not quantitative, then Mill's hedonism is compromised.

It may be seen, then, that if one was prepared to accept the existence of insulating sheaths on the nerves, all the arguments raised against the proposed identification of the nervous and electrical fluids, except one, could be answered satisfactorily. The single exception involved the question of how an electrical disturbance in the brain could be confined to a single nerve, and, as was indicated earlier, it was scarcely fair to hold this sort of objection against the electrical theory alone. (...) In that case, there remained no convincing argument to show why one should not accept the identification of the two fluids. On the other hand, of course, it remained an open question as to whether there was any convincing argument to show why one should accept the identification either. Galvani thought that his experiments provided just such an argument. (shrink)

James Stacey Taylor, in his book Markets With Limits, argues that Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski, in their book Markets Without Limits, systematically mischaracterize the views of the anti-commodification theorists they are critiquing, attributing to them positions (e.g., semiotic essentialism and an asymmetry thesis) that they do not hold. Further, Taylor offers an anti-commodification hypothesis of his own to explain why talented academics like Brennan and Jaworski could fall into such systematic mistakes – namely, that the intrusion of market norms (...) into academia incentivizes scholars to prioritize original arguments in prominent venues over careful fact-checking. I argue that Taylor is correct in charging that Brennan and Jaworski have gotten their opponents’ views wrong; and I show how their subsequent replies to Taylor’s criticisms have been unconvincing. I also argue, however, that Taylor may be over-hasty in identifying the likely causes of their errors. (shrink)

A Lagrangian formulation is constructed for particle interpretations of quantum mechanics, a well-known example of such an interpretation being the Bohm model. The advantages of such a description are that the equations for particle motion, field evolution and conservation laws can all be deduced from a single Lagrangian density expression. The formalism presented is Lorentz invariant. This paper follows on from a previous one which was limited to the single-particle case. The present paper treats the more general case of many (...) particles in an entangled state. It is found that describing more than one particle while maintaining a relativistic description requires the specification of final boundary conditions as well as the usual initial ones, with the experimenter’s controllable choice of the final conditions thereby exerting a backwards-in-time influence. This retrocausality then allows an important theoretical step forward to be made, namely that it becomes possible to dispense with the usual, many-dimensional description in configuration space and instead revert to a description in space–time using separate, single-particle wavefunctions. (shrink)

_The Foundations of Knowing _ was first published in 1982. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. This collection of essays on the foundations of empirical knowledge brings together ten of Roderick M. Chisholm's most important papers in epistemology, three of them published for the first time, the others significantly revised and expanded for this edition. The essays in Part I constitute (...) a thoroughgoing defense of foundationalism—the doctrine that our justification for believing always rests upon a self-evident basis. In Part II, Chisholm applies foundationalist principles to various areas within the theory of knowledge, and in part III he presents a history of twentieth-century American epistemology. "Roderick M. Chisholm's work has been most influential both in the development of epistemology and in the widespread application of his analytic method. I am sure this publication featuring the unification of his views will be of great value to those working on the central issues of philosophy." Hector-Neri Castañeda, Indiana University Roderick Chisholm is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities in the department of philosophy at Brown University. Among his books are _Perceiving: A Philosophical Study, Theory of Knowledge, Person and Object_,and _The First Person _. (shrink)

In this article, I draw on historical and conceptual arguments to show, first, that disenchantment and the influential view of the relationship between science and religion to which disenchantment gives rise are rooted in the metaphysics of theism. I then introduce the alternative metaphysical position of panentheism and identify Jungian psychology as an important, if implicit, mid-twentieth-century instance of panentheistic thought. Using the example of Jungian psychology, I demonstrate how the viewpoint of panentheism undoes the implications of disenchantment for the (...) relationship between science and religion, promoting greater opportunities for dialogue and reconciliation between science and religion. I note, however, that these closer relations may depend on understanding science and religion differently from how they are understood under disenchantment. While the original tension between science and religion is eased, another tension—between panentheistic and disenchanted understandings of science and religion—is exposed. I conclude by reflecting on some implications of this discussion for sociology. (shrink)

The interpretation of quantum mechanics is an area of increasing interest to many working physicists. In particular, interest has come from those involved in quantum computing and information theory, as there has always been a strong foundational element in this field. This paper introduces one interpretation of quantum mechanics, a modern ‘many-worlds’ theory, from the perspective of quantum computation. Reasons for seeking to interpret quantum mechanics are discussed, then the specific ‘neo-Everettian’ theory is introduced and its claim as the best (...) available interpretation defended. The main objections to the interpretation, including the so-called “problem of probability” are shown to fail. The local nature of the interpretation is demonstrated, and the implications of this both for the interpretation and for quantum mechanics more generally are discussed. Finally, the consequences of the theory for quantum computation are investigated, and common objections to using many worlds to describe quantum computing are answered. We find that using this particular many-worlds theory as a physical foundation for quantum computation gives several distinct advantages over other interpretations, and over not interpreting quantum theory at all. (shrink)

We first introduce the intuitive idea of a relation of grounding between facts . Then we propose a definition of this idea, based on a certain theory of the structure of facts . Finally we consider the idea of proofs of a special kind, namely proofs which follow the grounds of what is proved.

Physician assistants (PAs), nurse practitioners (NPs), and medical residents constitute an increasingly significant part of the American health care workforce, yet patient assent to be seen by nonphysicians is only presumed and seldom sought. In order to assess the willingness of patients to receive medical care provided by nonphysicians, we administered provider preference surveys to a random sample of patients attending three emergency departments (EDs). Concurrently, a survey was sent to a random selection of ED residents and PAs. All respondents (...) were to assume the role of patient when presented with hypothetical clinical scenarios and standardized provider definitions. Despite presumptions to the contrary, ED patients are generally unwilling to be seen by PAs, NPs, and residents. While seldom asked in practice, 79.5% of patients fully expect to see a physician regardless of acuity or potential for cost savings by seeing another provider. Patients are more willing to see residents than nonphysicians. (shrink)

This paper raises the question under what circumstances a plurality forms a set, parallel to the Special Composition Question for mereology. The range of answers that have been proposed in the literature are surveyed and criticised. I argue that there is good reason to reject both the view that pluralities never form sets and the view that pluralities always form sets. Instead, we need to affirm restricted set formation. Casting doubt on the availability of any informative principle which will settle (...) which pluralities form sets, the paper concludes by affirming a naturalistic approach to the philosophy of set theory. (shrink)

UK blood services, supported by the Health Protection Agency/Health Protection Scotland, carried out an exercise over the summer of 2005 to notify 110 donors whose blood was transfused to three recipients who later developed vCJD. These donors were to be informed that they were now considered 'at risk of vCJD for public health purposes'. The notification began on 20 July 2005 and was completed (barring follow-up) at the end of the first week of October 2005. Apart from two donors who (...) had died, contact was attempted with all donors, including four who were not currently registered with a GP. The lessons learnt about the conduct of such notification have been reviewed. The limited ad hoc feedback available suggests the process and content of this notification was acceptable to donors and their GPs. (shrink)

Firth argues that austin's criticisms of the argument from illusion do not destroy the argument. We can reformulate it in two ways so that it succeeds as a method of ostensibly defining terms denoting the sensory constituent of perceptual experience. One way maintains the act-Object distinction of the cartesian tradition and the other uses the language of "looks." (staff).

Franz Brentano developed an original theory of intrinsic value which he attempted to base on his philosophical psychology. Roderick Chisholm presents here a critical exposition of this theory and its place in Brentano's general philosophical system. He gives a detailed account of Brentano's ontology, showing how Brentano tried to secure objectivity for ethics not through a theory of practical reason, but through his theory of the intentional objects of emotions and desires. Professor Chisholm goes on to develop certain suggestions (...) about intrinsic value made by Brentano and his students, and discusses their relevance to theodicy and the problem of evil. Brentano, as the teacher of Husserl, Meinong, Twardowski, and others, stands at the origin of the phenomenological tradition and of the Polish school of philosophy that developed after World War I. He has also had considerable influence on Anglo-American philosophy. This book will interest those concerned with the origins of phenomenological value theory and more generally with the connections between ethics and philosophical psychology. (shrink)

Professor Roderick John Flower, Biochemical Pharmacology, William Harvey Research Institute, St Barts and the London School of Medicine Queen Mary University of London Charterhouse Square, London EC1M 6BQ, UK; [email protected] O'Neill, a molecular biologist in Frank Herbert's 1982 novel ‘The White Plague’,1 seeks retributive justice for the death of his wife in a terrorist bomb blast by infecting those he holds responsible with an engineered pathogen that kills only women. The eponymous plague soon spreads uncontrollably with predictable catastrophic global (...) consequences.When the definitive history of armed conflict is written, the chapter on biological weapons will make for a long and disagreeable read. Now, happily, disavowed by most nations under the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, the presumption is that any future deployment would be at the hands of rogue states, criminal gangs or perhaps terrorist organisations, to whom they could appeal because of their apparent ease of preparation and dissemination coupled with their sinister reputation and potential for causing mass casualties.But Herbert's villain is different. He is a trained scientist possessing expert skills and with access to pathogens, reagents and cutting-edge technology. Such a person might appear outwardly to be part of the conventional academic establishment except that their motives impel them to act covertly outside the accepted ethical and legal boundaries of their profession. Such ‘outsiders’ evade detection because they act alone and can, through their privileged position, anticipate and thwart regulation or investigation. But is this frightening scenario more than just a plot for apocalyptic novels? Is it a credible threat?In reality, such occurrences seem to be rare. In a comprehensive analysis of 180 incidents involving the use of biological agents during the last century, for instance, Carus2 noted that none of the confirmed bioterrorist attacks by non-state actors …. (shrink)