The context for biological emergence is modular hierarchical structures; their existence is what enables functional complexity to arise. Because of the openness of organisms to their environment, complete initial data (position, momentum) of all particles making up their structure is insufficient to determine future outcomes, because unpredictable new matter, energy, and information impacts each organism from the exterior. Consequently, through Darwinian evolution, life has developed processes to handle this issue functionally on short time scales as well on longer developmental timescales. (...) Symbolism and technology are the transforming factors handling this issue at the social levels, which is where the most sophisticated outcomes of openness occur. Considering the cosmological context, the issue is, should the universe itself be regarded as an open system over time? I make the case that is indeed so, because radically new outcomes occur such as the existence of aircraft, iPads, and the internet, which could not plausibly have been encoded in some form of data on the Last Scattering Surface in the expanding universe. (shrink)

Augustine, perhaps the most important and most widely read Father of the Church, first became preoccupied with the problem of evil in his boyhood, and this preoccupation continued throughout his life. Augustine's ideas about evil were to mark out the boundaries of the problem for those who came after him; his influence was greater and more widespread than any other early Christian thinker and is still of importance both with those who agree with him and with those who do not. (...) Augustine's personality, so loveably and intricately revealed in his Confessions, has always made him a figure of intense interest. (shrink)

I spell out two theses, one shared by Kant and Heidegger, the other Kant’s alone: (1) there is a difference between “within-time-ness” (Innerzeitigkeit) and original or pure time (the temporal difference); (2) the temporal difference is articulated by a self-conscious act not bound by time. While each agrees that the “time-less” original or pure time has limits within which particular temporal determinations have their significance, Kant goes further in asserting that the pure ‘I’ must cognize the determinate boundaries of original (...) or pure time if objective cognition is to be possible. The ‘I’ thus rejects time as a horizon of its own significance. Understanding this argument suggests why Kant’s position is not as obviously susceptible to Heidegger’s criticism: not only does Kant positively argue that the ‘I’ is atemporal, but the content of this argument tells us why it is impossible for this understanding of the ‘I’ to result in a conception of it as ‘extant’ or a superadded representation in need of unification with temporality . Finally, it suggests that the dispute between Kant’s and Heidegger’s philosophical orientations rests not on the question of a lack of understanding of temporality, but on the question of how the ultimate conditions of intelligibility relate to their limits. (shrink)

In this paper, I explain why people seeking to flourish together fairly in the im- perfect world we share today ought to support a universal carbon tax with no exception for international aviation. The argument proceeds in four steps. First, I provide a free-standing analysis of emissions behavior at the individual moral level. Second, I offer a picture of ideal and non-ideal coordination based mostly on Kantian social contract theory. Third, I argue that in a non-ideal context, moral signals about (...) right relation offer a coordinating fulcrum around which meaningful if only partly coordinated action is possible. Fourth, I apply these conclusions to the case of aviation exceptionalism, focusing especially on instances of incomplete, overlapping, partly coordinated climate actions. I conclude that these arguments together amount to a case for reversing the Chicago Convention and applying a universal carbon tax that does not exclude international flights, ending aviation exceptionalism. (shrink)

This article aims at exploring some recent developments in Catholic Church's recent relationship with religious others. It does so by exploring the theological-anthropological sources behind Vatican II and some subsequent Papal teachings concerning the Church's mission of dialogue. Specifically, it discusses the notion of common origin, destiny and common humanity as sources for praxis-oriented and faith-based initiatives in a Christian-Muslim dialogue. This article is divided into three sub-sections. First, it considers the Catholic Church's renewed dialogue with non-Christian believers, with particular (...) focus on the theological-anthropological turn in recent Church teaching. Second, it examines the prospects and challenges of Christian-Muslim dialogue based on belief in God the creator and divine revelation, and human beings' response to divine manifestations in history. Finally, it considers some faith-based humanistic and dialogic initiatives that emerge from the Christian-Muslim confession of one creator God. The paper suggests that a theology of dialogue that understands the world and human beings as the realm of encounter, uncovering and necessitating the divine and the Church's activity in human history, can foster faith-based humanistic and dialogic initiatives between Christians and Muslims. (shrink)

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work. This work is in the public domain (...) in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. (shrink)

Los análisis husserlianos estáticos y genéticos de ciertos temas son primero tomados como hilos conductores para una aproximación generativa del concepto husserliano de ciencia. La justificación de la comprensión de las tres aproximaciones como esencialmente entrelazadas y correlativas, se inspira en las expresiones de la Crisis de Husserl—“nos hallamos en una suerte de círculo, y no hay otra elección que la de avanzar y retroceder en zigzag.” La aproximación estática a la reducción fenomenológica hacia las estructuras, funciones y modo de (...) la vida subjetiva es regresiva (deconstructiva); mientras que las aproximaciones genética y generativa reconstruyen las vías progresivas de las constituciones de sentido y validez, individuales y colectivas (i.e., históricas). Finalmente, se aborda el papel de las emociones en la constitución de los “valores epistémicos”—y los “sesgos cognitivos”—debido al entrelazamiento de las esferas cognitivas, emotivas y volitivas de la vida consciente y sus estratos y funciones preconscientes. (shrink)

Francis Bacon, the English philosopher, statesman and jurist, is best known for developing the empiricist method which forms the basis of modern science. Bacon's writings concentrated on philosophy and judicial reform. His most significant work is the Instauratio Magna comprising two parts - The Advancement of Learning and the Novum Organum. The first part is noteworthy as the first major philosophical work published in English. James Spedding and his co-editors arranged this fourteen-volume edition, published in London between 1857 and 1874, (...) not in chronological order but by subject matter, so that different volumes would appeal to different audiences. The material is divided into three parts: philosophy and general literature; legal works; and letters, speeches and tracts relating to politics. Volume 9, published in 1862, contains letters and political writings from 1595 to 1601, including papers relating to the treason trial of Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex. (shrink)

Cost-benefit analysis is commonly understood to be intimately connected with utilitarianism and incompatible with other moral theories, particularly those that focus on deontological concepts such as rights. We reject this claim and argue that cost-benefit analysis can take moral rights as well as other non-utilitarian moral considerations into account in a systematic manner. We discuss three ways of doing this, and claim that two of them (output filters and input filters) can account for a wide range of rights-based moral theories, (...) including the absolute notions of moral rights proposed by Hayek, Mayo, Nozick, and Shue. We also discuss whether the use of output filters and input filters can be generalized to cover other non-utilitarian theories, such as Kantian duty ethics and virtue ethics. (shrink)

The Clinton administration has been characterized by numerous efforts to encourage the use of technology in public education, rooted in the conviction that such activities are a prerequisite for improvements in the econonomy, the environment, and the overall quality of life. Urban public schools face particularly difficult challenges to such technology implementation. The challenges include aged physical plants, extreme funding difficulties, high levels of administrative turnover, and inadequate professional development programs. This article examines the implications of attempting to integrate extensive (...) technology into such environments and considers the perspective that technology is best viewed as part of, rather than a competitor to, the implementation of a school reform model. (shrink)

The dynamic developmental theory of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) proposes that hypodopaminergic functioning results in anomalous delay-of-reinforcement gradients in ADHD, which in turn might account for many of the observed behavioral and cognitive characteristics. However, hyperdopaminergic functioning might also impair mnemonic representation of codes for spatial, motoric, and reward information and contribute to the purported shorter delay gradients in ADHD.

Based on a conference held in June 2007 at the University of California Santa Cruz.

We show that for any countable homogeneous ordered graph G, the conjugacy problem for automorphisms of G is Borel complete. In fact we establish that each such G satisfies a strong extension property called ABAP, which implies that the isomorphism relation on substructures of G is Borel reducible to the conjugacy relation on automorphisms of G.

This comprehensive and lucid study examines the development of Anselm's thought, treatise by treatise, in the light of his early interest in the problems of language and epistemology attempting to talk or write about God.

The important and no longer novel insight from ecology that ecosystems are dynamic and ever-changing along immensely complex causal pathways prompts the further insight that environmental protection regimes should promote not a particular ecosystemic end state, but rather ecosystem resilience, or the capacity to absorb and adapt to stress without compromising essential function. For law to embrace resilience as an objective, it is argued, it must itself be dynamic and flexible, capable of learning and adaptation. This poses potentially serious challenges (...) to law’s resilience: to what extent are flexibility and adaptability at odds with what Niklas Luhmann argues is an essential feature of normative systems, namely, resistance to learning in the face of disappointment? The potentially rapid rate of change expected of a law oriented to ecosystem resilience could overwhelm law’s capacity to provide the measure of order, stability, and predictability that are core to its contribution, or prestation, to society. This paper takes this challenge seriously, but also explores another possible implication of law in the pursuit of ecosystem resilience: if environmental law is no longer conceived of in primarily instrumental terms, as a means to bring about a specific set of ecosystem objectives, there may be some possibility for its own resilience to be enhanced. (shrink)