There was a man of the Pharisees, named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews: the same came to Jesus by night…John 3: 1–2A lady asked the famous Lord Shaftesbury what religion he was of. He answered the religion of wise men. She asked, what was that? He answered, wise men never tell.Diary of Viscount Percival , i, 113NEWTON AS HERETICIsaac Newton was a heretic. But like Nicodemus, the secret disciple of Jesus, he never made a public declaration of his private (...) faith – which the orthodox would have deemed extremely radical. He hid his faith so well that scholars are still unravelling his personal beliefs. His one-time follower William Whiston attributed his policy of silence to simple, human fear and there must be some truth in this. Every day as a public figure and as the figurehead of British natural philosophy, Newton must have felt the tension of outwardly conforming to the Anglican Church, while inwardly denying much of its faith and practice. He was restricted by heresy laws, religious tests and the formidable opposition of public opinion. Heretics were seen as religiously subversive, socially dangerous and even morally debased. Moreover, the positions he enjoyed were dependent on public manifestations of religious and social orderliness. Sir Isaac had a lot to lose. Yet he knew the scriptural injunctions against hiding one's light under a bushel. Newton the believer was thus faced with the need to develop a modus vivendi whereby he could work within legal and social structures, while fulfilling the command to shine in a dark world. This paper recovers and assesses his strategies for reconciling these conflicting dynamics and, in so doing, will shed light on both the nature of Newton's faith and his agenda for natural philosophy. (shrink)

Two prevailing paradigms explain the diversity of sex-determining modes in reptiles. Many researchers, particularly those who study reptiles, consider genetic and environmental sex-determining mechanisms to be fundamentally different, and that one can be demonstrated experimentally to the exclusion of the other. Other researchers, principally those who take a broader taxonomic perspective, argue that no clear boundaries exist between them. Indeed, we argue that genetic and environmental sex determination in reptiles should be seen as a continuum of states represented by species (...) whose sex is determined primarily by genotype, species where genetic and environmental mechanisms coexist and interact in lesser or greater measure to bring about sex phenotypes, and species where sex is determined primarily by environment. To do otherwise limits the scope of investigations into the transition between the two and reduces opportunities to use studies of reptiles to advance understanding of vertebrate sex determination generally. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. (shrink)

Kirshner may be right that domestic politics does matter, but he does not tell us how to understand domestic politics. How are we, for instance, to understand domestic cohesion? How are we to understand national purpose? More important, what is the impact of nuclear weapons? Do these weapons obliterate all past information about power? Are nuclear weapons all that matter? Is it possible to fight a limited nuclear war? Is North Korea as strong as the United States? Such questions have (...) been around since the 1950s. Kirshner does not help us to answer them. (shrink)

Of singular importance to the medieval theory of transcendentals was the position of John Duns Scotus that there could be a concept of being univocally common, not only to substance and accidents, but even to God and creatures. Scotus''s doctrine of univocal transcendental concepts violated the accepted view that, owing to its generality, no transcendental notion could be univocal. The major difficulty facing Scotus''s doctrine of univocity was to explain how a real, as opposed to a purely logical, concept could (...) be abstracted from what agreed in nothing real, in this case, God and creatures. The present article examines Scotus''s solution to this difficulty and its interpretation in four of his noted fourteenth-century followers. It is shown that the balance Scotus''s solution achieved between the competing demands of the real diversity between God and creatures, on the one side, and the conceptual unity of transcendental being, on the other, is taken in opposed directions by his interpreters. Either the real diversity of God and creatures is given priority, so that the concept of being becomes a purely logical notion, or the real unity of the concept of being is stressed, so that some sort of real community is posited between God and creatures. (shrink)

This book traces one exegetical, interpretative principal, divine accommodation, in Jewish and Christian thought from the first to the nineteenth century. The focus is upon major figures and the place of accommodation in their work.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Philosophy 40.1 (2002) 125-126 [Access article in PDF] Book Review Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence James E. Force and Richard H. Popkin, editors. Newton and Religion: Context, Nature, and Influence. International Archives of the History of Ideas. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999. Pp. xvii + 325. Cloth, $168.00. When James Force and Richard Popkin published their Essays on the Context, Nature, and (...) Influence of Isaac Newton's Theology in 1990, they launched a new sub-genre in Newton studies. Their seminal work opened up new scholarly vistas in the study of Newton's antitrinitarian theology, his millenarian prophetic hermeneutics, the relations between his theology and his natural philosophy, and the historical legacies of these until recently under-researched aspects of his thought. Force and Popkin have excelled particularly in leading the attack on the two variants of the "two-Newton" thesis: first, that Newton's theological and alchemical works were the result of a putative post-middle-aged madness or the meandering mind of an old man and, second, that Newton somehow disassociated his "pure" science from the problematic contaminations of alchemy and theology. This new volume of thirteen essays is the latest product of this effort to restore unity to Newton's life and thought.The first paper, by Deborah Harkness, outlines the work of the Elizabethan magus John Dee for the purpose of suggesting possible analogies with Newton. In the second essay, Allison Coudert seeks to update the Yates thesis: the proposal that modern science received an early and powerful stimulus from occult philosophy. Unlike Yates, who focused on Hermeticism, Coudert sees the main occult impetus to the rise of science in a renewed Gnosticism that emphasized the need to recover the original prisca sapientia (ancient wisdom). Coudert locates Newton in this latter tradition. In the third paper, James Bono sets out to revise and extend William Ashworth's 1990 study of the impact on the history of science of the "emblematic" world view. Bono seeks to show that Newton retained a commitment to the unity of the Books of Nature and Scripture, even while rejecting what he saw as the corruption and idolatry of man-made systems of symbols in favor of a program of discovering God's hand at work in creation.In the fourth and fifth papers, Justin Champion and Rob Iliffe detail aspects of Newton's engagement with Catholicism. Champion skillfully demonstrates how and why Newton appropriated what he saw as acceptable elements of the incipient textual criticism of the Catholic priest Richard Simon. Notwithstanding his use of this product of Catholic scholarship, Newton's virulent anti-Catholicism is detailed in a sophisticated account by Iliffe, who shows that it extended well beyond Newton's already explicated anti-papist prophetic exegesis.The sixth, seventh, and ninth essays examine Newton's study of history. In the sixth paper, Robert Markley shows how Newton deployed universal history in his quest to trace the origin and subsequent corruption of pure religion. Continuing the theme of religious apostasy, in the seventh essay Matt Goldish examines Newton's ecclesiastical history "Of the Church." Goldish describes how Newton's painstaking research uncovered the corruption of primitive religion by paganism, gnosticism, kabbalism, emanationist doctrines, and other such human interventions. The ninth paper by Kenneth Knoespel contains a study of Newton's ponderous and often impenetrable manuscript Theologiae gentilis origins philosophicae. Knoespel argues that this document helps illustrate Newton's belief that his Principia not so much represented a discovery of new knowledge as it embodied a recovery of ancient revealed truth.The eighth, tenth, and thirteenth papers feature accounts of Newton's prophetic exegesis and millenarian thought. The eighth and thirteenth papers, by Sarah Hutton and Reiner Smolinski respectively, make great strides in the understanding of the unity of Newton's theology by illustrating how crucial aspects of his heterodox doctrine helped shape his prophetic thought. Hutton focuses on the impact of Newton's Arian Christology on his exegesis of Revelation, while Smolinski relates Newton's mortalism and rejection of evil spirits to... (shrink)

This paper enacts a work of mourning inspired by Drucilla Cornell’s own writings on the work of mourning in The Philosophy of the Limit. I begin by reflecting on the theme of the ‘beyond’ across her writings and, in particular, on how this ‘beyond’ names the space-time of the Other that keeps the present out of joint so that neither the past nor the future can ever be captured by an ontology of ‘presence’. It then looks at how she links (...) the ‘beyond’ to the work of mourning – a letting go of any attempt to capture or possess the Other. Reading these reflections through Derrida’s thinking of writing as the prosthesis of memory, I argue for a practice of reading Drucilla’s texts as a work of mourning that allows her to live on in the traces of her life that are her books. I then (re)turn to the interpretation of Fanon’s psychoanalytic papers offered by Drucilla and me in our collaborative work, The Spirit of Revolution, to link the work of mourning to the collective politics of revolution. For Drucilla, I argue, it is through collective struggle, in fidelity to those who have died in the name of justice, that keeps the necessary work of mourning from sliding into individualized melancholia or destructive ‘acting-out’. (shrink)

The Meaning of Life and the Great Philosophers reveals how great philosophers of the past sought to answer the question of the meaning of life. This edited collection includes thirty-five chapters which each focus on a major figure, from Confucius to Rorty, and that imaginatively engage with the topic from their perspective. This volume also contains a Postscript on the historical origins and original significance of the phrase 'the meaning of life'.

Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) have emerged as an attractive means of implementing logic circuits, providing instant manufacturing turnaround and negligible prototype costs. They hold the promise of replacing much of the VLSI market now held by mask-programmed gate arrays. FPGAs offer an affordable solution for customized VLSI, over a wide variety of applications, and have also opened up new possibilities in designing reconfigurable digital systems. Field-Programmable Gate Arrays discusses the most important aspects of FPGAs in a textbook manner. It provides (...) the reader with a focused view of the key issues, using a consistent notation and style of presentation. It provides detailed descriptions of commercially available FPGAs and an in-depth treatment of the FPGA architecture and CAD issues that are the subjects of current research. The material presented is of interest to a variety of readers, including those who are not familiar with FPGA technology, but wish to be introduced to it, as well as those who already have an understanding of FPGAs, but who are interested in learning about the research directions that are of current interest. (shrink)

Ethics and politics are inseparable sciences. Understanding them requires that we understand human nature and right reason.

International lockdown and social distancing as a response to COVID-19 indicate planetary interconnectedness. This South African case study compared global coherence, healing meditations using HeartMath Global Coherence and Inner Balance electronic applications before and during a 3-week lockdown period. Methodology integrated quantitative and qualitative components. Findings revealed significant meditation coherence and achievement increases and significant correlational cluster patterns between meditation data and global coherence increases, magnetometer readings. Local and global healing phenomena, dynamics, mechanisms and implications are discussed.Contribution: This article represents (...) research within a paradigm in which the intersection of philosophy, religious studies, social sciences, humanities and natural sciences generate an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary and transdisciplinary contested discourse. (shrink)

Using a sample of seventy-seven countries, this paper focuses on marginal tax rates and the income thresholds at which they apply to examine how the tax changes of the 1980s and 1990s have influenced economic growth, the distribution of income, and the share of taxes paid by various income groups. Many countries substantially reduced their highest marginal rates during the 1985-1995 period. The findings indicate that countries that reduced their highest marginal rates grew more rapidly than those that maintained high (...) marginal rates. At the same time, the income distribution in several of the tax cutting countries became more unequal while there was little change or even a reduction in income inequality in most countries that maintained high marginal rates. Finally, the evidence suggests that there was a shift in the payment of the personal income tax away from those with low and middle incomes and toward those with the highest incomes. (shrink)

Pickering & Garrod deserve appreciation for their cogent argument that dialogue merits greater scientific consideration. Current models make little contact with behaviors of dialogue, motivating the interactive alignment theory. However, the theory is not truly “mechanistic.” A full account requires both representations and processes bringing those representations into harmony. We suggest that Grossberg 's adaptive resonance theory may naturally conform to the principles of dialogue.

Within the context of questions raised by gender and sexuality studies about the relationship between sex and technics, I develop a theory of sexuation derived from Gilbert Simondon’s philosophy of individuation. First, I provide an overview of Simondon’s philosophy of individuation, from the physical to the collective. In the second section, I turn to the question of sexuality, outlining an ontogenetic account in which sexuation is conceived as a process of both individuation and relation that is fundamental to certain living (...) beings. Then, drawing on Simondon’s theorization of technics in its mediating function between humans and the world, I resituate understandings of the relation between sex and technics. While each section – Individuation, Sexuation, Technicity – argues for the significance of these concepts to feminist and queer theory, overall the essay uses Simondon’s work as a new paradigm for gender and sexuality studies and calls for the invention of a sexuate culture. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Metaphysics Epistemology Ethical theory.

Background To determine whether fetal care paediatric and maternal–fetal medicine specialists harbour differing attitudes about pregnancy termination for congenital fetal conditions, their perceived responsibilities to pregnant women and fetuses, and the fetus as a patient and whether self-perceived primary responsibilities to fetuses and women and views about the fetus as a patient are associated with attitudes about clinical care.Methods Mail survey of 434 MFM and FCP specialists .Results MFMs were more likely than FCPs to disagree with these statements : ‘the (...) presence of a fetal abnormality is not an appropriate reason for a couple to consider pregnancy termination’ ; ‘the effects that a child born with disabilities might have on marital and family relationships is not an appropriate reason for a couple to consider pregnancy termination’ ; and ‘the cost of healthcare for the future child is not an appropriate reason for a couple to consider pregnancy termination’ . 65% MFMs versus 47% FCPs disagreed that their professional responsibility is to focus primarily on fetal well-being . Specialists did not differ regarding the fetus as a separate patient. Responses about self-perceived responsibility to focus on fetal well-being were associated with clinical practice attitudes.Conclusions Independent of demographic and sociopolitical characteristics, FCPs and MFMs possess divergent ethical sensitivities regarding pregnancy termination, pregnant women and fetuses, which may influence clinical care. (shrink)