This chapter presents the text of a lecture on Chinese art and festival display given at the British Academy's 2009 Elsley Zeitlyn Lecture on Chinese Archaeology and Culture. This text suggests that Chinese art displayed in museums seem either unrelated to the passage of time or to defy its natural course. It analyzes the bond between Chinese visual culture and its temporal conventions in order to expand the interpretive framework for understanding Chinese pictorial art.

Insight problem solving is thought to underpin creative thought as it incorporates both divergent (generating multiple ideas and solutions) and convergent (arriving at the optimal solution) thinking approaches. The current literature on schizotypy and creativity is mixed and requires clarification. An alternate approach was employed by designing an exploratory web-based study using only correlates of schizotypal traits (paranoia, dissociation, cognitive failures, fantasy proneness, and unusual sleep experiences) and examining which (if any) predicted optimal performance on an insight problem-solving task. One (...) hundred and twenty-one participants were recruited online from the general population and completed the number reduction task. The discovery of the hidden rule (HR) was used as a measure of insight. Multivariate logistic regression analyses highlighted persecutory ideation to best predict the discovery of the HR (OR = 1.05; 95% CI 1.01–1.10, p = 0.017), with a one-point increase in persecutory ideas corresponding to the participant being 5% more likely to discover the HR. This result suggests that persecutory ideation, above other schizotypy correlates, may be involved in insight problem solving. (shrink)

Moral distress is a concept used to date in clinical literature to describe the experience of staff in circumstances in which they are prevented from delivering the kind of bedside care they believe is expected of them, professionally and ethically. Our research objective was to determine if this concept has relevance in terms of key health care managerial functions, such as priority setting and resource allocation. We conducted interviews and focus groups with mid- and senior-level managers in two British Columbia (...) (Canada) health authorities. Transcripts were analyzed qualitatively using constant comparison to identify key themes related to moral distress. Both mid- and senior-level managers appear to experience moral distress, with both similarities and differences in how their experiences manifest. Several examples of this concept were identified including the obligation to communicate or ‘sell’ organizational decisions or policies with which a manager personally may disagree and situations where scarce resources compel managers to place staff in situations where they meet with predictable and potentially avoidable risks. Given that moral distress appears to be a relevant issue for at least some health care managers, further research is warranted into its exact nature, prevalence, and possible organizational and personal responses. (shrink)

Dissociative symptoms have been related to higher rapid eye movement sleep density, a sleep phase during which hyperassociativity may occur. This may enhance artistic creativity during the day. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a creative photo contest to explore the relation between dissociation, sleep, and creativity. During the contest, participants (N = 72) took one photo per day for five consecutive days, based on specific daily themes (consisting of single words) and the instruction to take as creative a photo (...) as possible each day. Furthermore, they completed daily measures of state dissociation and a short sleep diary. The photos and their captions were ranked by two professional photographers and two clinical psychologists based on creativity, originality, bizarreness, and quality. We expected that dissociative people would rank higher in the contest compared with low-dissociative participants, and that the most original photos would be taken on days when the participants scored highest on acute dissociation. We found that acute dissociation predicted a higher ranking on creativity. Poorer sleep quality and fewer hours of sleep predicted more bizarreness in the photos and captions. None of the trait measures could predict creativity. In sum, acute dissociation related to enhanced creativity. These findings contribute to our understanding of dissociative symptomatology. (shrink)

This critical notice of Skorupski's large work is for the most part strongly positive: "Both as a work of scholarship and as a contribution to philosophy in its own right, an outstanding work". There are careful and detailed discussions of Mill's semantics, logic, philosophy of mathematics, logic of the moral sciences, and ethical writings (but not on religion, democracy, or women). Some issue is taken with Skorupski's account of and support for Mill's utilitarianism; broad agreement is expressed with Skorupski's interpretation (...) and criticism of Mill's other writings. Mill's naturalism emerges as a more coherent view than is usually thought. (shrink)

This essay critically comments on Contingent Future Persons (1997), an anthology of thirteen papers on the same topic as Obligations to Future Generations (1978), namely, the morality of decisions affecting the existence, number and identity of future persons. In my discussion, I identify the basic point of dispute between R. M. Hare and Michael Lockwood on potentiality; I criticize Nick Fotion's thesis that the Repugnant Conclusion is too far-fetched to be philosophically valuable; I object to Clark Wolf's "Impure Consequentialist Theory (...) of Obligation"; and I discuss the Non-Identity Problem in connection with essays by Robert Elliot and Ingmar Persson. (shrink)

Masaryk’s philosophical approach to reality is largely characterised by its orientation towards the positivism of Auguste Comte, which Masaryk sought to offset with the psychologism of J. S. Mill. The combination of these positivist approaches became the positive starting point for Masaryk’s ethics. But that was not the only influence on his ethics. Masaryk’s German translation of Hume’s book, titled Eine Untersuchung über die Prinzipien der Moral von David Hume (1883), reveals that the main stimuli that shaped Masaryk’s ideas about (...) ethics came from David Hume. Although the need for scientific evidence became a fundamental principle of Masaryk’s thought, the need to objectively anchor ethics in rational theism necessitated in this area a departure from his positivist outlook. Masaryk’s lectures on practical philosophy attest to this fact. The reason for his departure from a positivist stance was due to the metaphysical nature of his concept of psychology. (shrink)

The Austrian writer Stefan Zweig was a staunch cosmopolitan who, after the catastrophe of World War I, campaigned for peaceful cooperation between the peoples of Europe. He considered the biography of Erasmus of Rotterdam, a definite enemy of every kind of fanaticism, to be exemplary. In his novel “Triumph und Tragik des Erasmus von Rotterdam” (1934) he portrayed him as an antithesis to Luther, whose religious radicalism combined with nationalistic tendencies he detested. Zweig contrasted the cosmopolitan humanism of Erasmus with (...) the German Reformation of Luther. Under the impression of the political seizure of power by the National Socialists, which forced him to emigrate, Zweig's interest in the history of the Reformation in Europe grew. After “Maria Stuart” (1935) he saw in his novel “Castellio against Calvin” (1936) in Castellio an heir to Erasmus, who defended human freedom of conscience against the repressive theocratic Geneva regime. For Zweig, Calvin became a tyrant who in many ways resembled Hitler. (shrink)

In this paper I criticize arguments by Pauline Phemister and Matthew Stuart that John Locke's position in his An Essay Concerning Human Understanding allows for natural kinds based on similarities among real essences. On my reading of Locke, not only are similarities among real essences irrelevant to species, but natural kind theories based on them are unintelligible.

SUMMARYThis article investigates the Anglo–Dutch scholar and diplomat Isaac Dorislaus's sole published work, Praelium Nuportanum, on the battle of Newport in 1600. After presenting some new or little known information about the work, it discusses PN's intellectual context and concludes that the work is a reminder of successful Anglo–Dutch cooperation in the past, of Dutch indebtedness to English assistance, and the Republic's importance as an ally for England, all relevant to the negotiations running in 1640 for an Orange–Stuart wedding, (...) and their backgrounds in the British Civil Wars and Anglo–Spanish–Dutch relations at the time. After the troubles ensuing from Dorislaus's Cambridge lectures on Tacitus in 1627, PN shows the author reconciled with the Court and the Laudian faction. With respect to style and content, PN appears clearly Tacitist in style, with many direct quotations from Tacitus, but this Tacitism operates more on a literary than a political level. Much of PN's historical content is a reworking of Francis Vere's Commentaries. From the perspective of the Protestant ‘Anglo–Scoto–Dutch public sphere’ recently discussed in the scholarship, PN might perhaps be read as a warning of the gradual emergence of an Anglo–Dutch Calvinist–parliamentarian ‘realm’ as a force opposing the Crown. (shrink)

Dette kapitel fokuserer på ’etik og patientinddragelse’, men søger med afsæt i devisen ‘sapere aude’ også at skabe interesse for filosofi og etik blandt sygeplejestuderende. Kapitlet er en opfordring til sygeplejestuderende om at betjene sig af egen forstand og finde mod til at filosofere over problematikker i forbindelse med patientinddragelse frem for at falde tilbage i umyndighedens bekvemmelighed og vente på at andre træder til. Kapitlet starter med at se nærmere på, hvordan patientinddragelse italesættes i vor tid efterfulgt af en (...) kort eksposition af to af oplysningstidens vigtigste libera- le filosoffer, herunder pligtetikeren Immanuel Kant og nytteetikeren John Stuart Mill, hvis syn på henholdsvis autonomi og frihed influerer debatten om patientinddragelse. Efterfølgende præsenteres og diskuteres to eksempler, hvor patientinddragelse og etik er i rampelyset. Mere specifikt rettes fokus på 1) etik, patientinddragelse og den psykiatriske patient og 2) etik, patientinddragelse og unge mennesker. Eksemplerne er udvalgte med henblik på at belyse, hvad der kan komme på spil i sundhedsfaglige situationer udspændt mellem individuel frihed, herunder også ideen om autonomi; sygehusvæsenet, inklusive personale, som autoritær vi- dens-institution/aktør og det etiske, herunder ideen om ’det gode’ eller efterstræbelsesværdige. Afslutningsvis argumenteres der for, at sundhedsarbejdere med blik for etik og patientinddragelse kan udgøre en positiv kraft for den inddragede patient, men at det kræver, at denne vover at være vis. Afsnit: Resume Patientinddragelse i vor tid Autonomi, frihed og patientinddragelse Etik, patientinddragelse og den psykiatriske patient Etik, patientinddragelse og den unge Afslutning . (shrink)

This book is the first to trace the origins and significance of positivism on a global scale. Taking their cues from Auguste Comte and John Stuart Mill, positivists pioneered a universal, experience-based culture of scientific inquiry for studying nature and society—a new science that would enlighten all of humankind. Positivists envisaged one world united by science, but their efforts spawned many. Uncovering these worlds of positivism, the volume ranges from India, the Ottoman Empire, and the Iberian Peninsula to Central (...) Europe, Russia, and Brazil, examining positivism’s impact as one of the most far-reaching intellectual movements of the modern world. Positivists reinvented science, claiming it to be distinct from and superior to the humanities. They predicated political governance on their refashioned science of society, and as political activists, they sought and often failed to reconcile their universalism with the values of multiculturalism. Providing a genealogy of scientific governance that is sorely needed in an age of post-truth politics, this volume breaks new ground in the fields of intellectual and global history, the history of science, and philosophy. (shrink)

In the individual, social, and political dimensions, the shaping of the liberal tradition has met up with and will continue to meet up with the presence of the Roman Catholic Church with its own philosophy. Yet has this always led to sharp conflict between Catholicism and liberalism? Has the social thinking of the Church evolved in its assessment of the liberal tradition and vice versa? Have there been points in common in the two systems of thinking? In contrast, where have (...) sparks appeared? Does Catholicism support the stability of liberal democracy? A response to these questions comprises the primary aim of the work at hand. Herein is a presentation and appraisal of one of the most interesting and continually lively clashes, accompanied by a portrayal of both Catholicism and liberalism. Analysis will be conducted at the level of social philosophy, through incidental political practice, and from the historical perspective – all of which together will enable illustration of the dynamic relationship between Catholicism and liberalism. Due to the scope of liberalism, the analysis of the Catholicism-liberalism relationship will be limited solely to the philosophy of politics and of economics. Such a restricted social philosophy involves the following issues: the genesis, essence, and characteristics of social policy; its ultimate justification or lack thereof; the relationship between the political society and its members; the types of structured political communities; the genesis, nature and duties of political authorities; the definition of the law, its foundations and limitations; the essence and properties of economic life; types of ownership; and, finally, the relations taking place between politics and economics. The problem inherent in an encounter between the social thinking of the Roman Catholic Church and liberalism appear to be especially meaningful in the context of the Polish discourse regarding the new order, its theoretical bases and institutions, projects for the realization of individual freedom, and the superiority or inferiority of values in today’s pluralistic universe. This matter is of great consequence and significance – not only intellectually but above all practically – and manifests itself in political, economic, and cultural life. Nonetheless, for decades now, Polish research into this issue has been entangled in occasional conflicts of a worldview and political nature. In turn, there is a lack of understanding and objective theoretical reflection on the subject. In fact, there are no publications which attempt to understand liberalism and assess the validity of the accusations against it. The vast amount of literature devoted to this problem most frequently opens, right from the start, with arguments stemming from either a Marxist or Catholic apologetics. The liberal credo is not identified with the philosophy of politics, but rather the theory of pro-capitalist economics. This, as a result, not only misrepresents the crux of liberalism, but also narrows the catalogue of responses by the Church on this very topic – starting with the encyclical Rerum novarum (1891) by Pope Leo XIII. In order to resolve this problem, the analysis will be rooted in the broader philosophical and historical context. In other words, it will look into liberalism on the one hand, and into those Church documents in which that institution first spoke of liberalism on the other. The discussions and deliberations contained within this volume are laid out in an introduction, four chapters, and a conclusion. The introduction includes the theoretical bases and methodological assumptions of this work, taking into account the principles of philosophical reflection and analysis. The fundamental chapters present the evolution of an attitude towards liberalism in the social teachings of the Roman Catholic Church – from Pius VI to John Paul II – taking under consideration the key moments and figures in the development of liberalism (e.g., John Locke, John Stuart Mills, John Rawls). In this time period four stages of a Catholic reference to liberalism will be distinguished. The first three constitute: 1) animosity and condemnation (from Pius VI to Pius IX), 2) criticism accompanied by tolerance (from Leo XIII to Pius XII, and 3) criticism accompanied by limited concord (from John XXIII to Paul VI). Today, and with increasing frequency, voices are heard speaking of the teachings of John Paul II as marking a new caesura in the Catholic-liberalism relationship. Hence it is worth re-evaluating and re-analyzing if such opinions are justified. The volume closes with a conclusion comprising an attempt to answer the following questions. Are Catholic accusations addressed at liberalism correct or not? Has liberalism turned out to be a philosophy open to criticism and capable of modification as the weak points in liberal theory and practice are disclosed? Can Catholic values enrich the liberal political order? Can Catholic moral-religious norms, introduced into the realm of political responsibilities, endanger the foundations of the liberal system? Reviewing the evolution of Catholicism as well as liberalism, has Catholicism found its place amidst the pluralistic harmony of liberal democracy? Kształtowanie się tradycji liberalnej napotykało i będzie napotykać na promowaną przez Kościół rzymskokatolicki filozofię, zarówno w wymiarze indywidualnym, społecznym, jak i politycznym. Czy zawsze prowadziło to do ostrego sporu między katolicyzmem a liberalizmem? Czy społeczna myśl Kościoła ewoluowała w swojej ocenie tradycji liberalnej i vice versa? Czy w obu systemach myślowych istniały punkty wspólne? Czego dotyczyły ogniska zapalne? Czy katolicyzm wspiera stabilność liberalnej demokracji? Te pytania sprawiły, że głównym celem niniejszej pracy jest prezentacja i ocena jednego z najbardziej interesujących i wciąż aktualnych sporów, a pośrednio przedstawienie dwóch filozofii – katolicyzmu i liberalizmu. Analiza tego sporu prowadzona jest na płaszczyźnie filozofii społecznej, incydentalnie – praktyki politycznej w ujęciu historycznym, co umożliwia ukazanie dynamiki relacji między katolicyzmem i liberalizmem. Z powodu zakresu liberalizmu w analizie relacji katolicyzm – liberalizm praca ta ogranicza się jedynie do filozofii polityki i filozofii gospodarki. Tak okrojona filozofia społeczna interesuje się następującymi problemami: genezą, istotą i cechami społeczności politycznej, jej ostatecznym uzasadnieniem lub brakiem takowego oraz relacjami między społeczeństwem politycznym a jego członkami, typami ustrukturyzowania wspólnoty politycznej, genezą, naturą i zadaniami władzy politycznej, definicją prawa, jego podstawą i ograniczeniami, istotą i właściwościami życia gospodarczego, rodzajami własności, stosunkami zachodzącymi między polityką a ekonomią. Problem spotkania myśli społecznej Kościoła katolickiego z liberalizmem wydaje się szczególnie znaczący również w kontekście polskich dyskusji o tworzącym się ładzie, jego teoretycznych podstawach i instytucjach, projekcie realizacji indywidualnej wolności oraz wyższości i niższości wartości w dzisiejszym, pluralistycznym uniwersum. Problem ten ma olbrzymie znaczenie nie tylko intelektualne, ale przede wszystkim praktyczne, objawiające się na poziomie życia politycznego, ekonomicznego i kulturowego. Jednak od wielu dziesięcioleci polskie studia nad tym zagadnieniem są uwikłane w doraźne konflikty o charakterze światopoglądowym i politycznym, natomiast brakuje rozumiejącej i obiektywnej refleksji teoretycznej na ten temat. Właściwie nie ma publikacji próbujących zrozumieć liberalizm i ocenić zasadność stawianych mu zarzutów. Ogrom literatury poświęcony temu problemowi najczęściej zawiera prace już na wstępie wychodzące z pozycji apologetycznie marksistowskich czy katolickich. Utożsamia się w nich credo liberalizmu nie z filozofią polityki, lecz z teorią ekonomii prokapitalistycznej, co nie tylko zakłamuje istotę liberalizmu, lecz także zawęża katalog wypowiedzi Kościoła na jego temat, rozpoczynając je od encykliki Rerum novarum (1891) Leona XIII. Aby sprawę wyjaśnić w niniejszej książce, analiza jest umieszczona w szerszym kontekście filozoficznym i historycznym, czyli „ma wgląd”, z jednej strony w liberalizm, z drugiej – w dokumenty Kościoła, w których on po raz pierwszy zabrał głos w sprawie liberalizmu. Rozważania zawarte w niniejszej pracy podzielone są na wstęp, cztery rozdziały i zakończenie. We wstępie prezentuję podłoże teoretyczne i założenia metodologiczne rozprawy, przestrzegając zasad refleksji i analizy filozoficznej. Rozdziały przedstawiają ewolucję stosunku do liberalizmu w społecznej nauce Kościoła rzymskokatolickiego, od czasów Piusa VI do Jana Pawła II, z uwzględnieniem ważniejszych momentów rozwoju myśli liberalnej (John Locke, John Stuart Mill, John Rawls). W omawianym okresie wyróżniam cztery etapy katolickiego odniesienia do liberalizmu: pierwszy – wrogości i potępienia (od Piusa VI do Piusa IX), drugi – krytyki, ale zarazem tolerowania (od Leona XIII do Piusa XII), trzeci – krytyki, choć i ograniczonej zgody (od Jan XXIII do Pawła VI) i czwarty – powszechnie oceniany jako przełom w katolickiej percepcji liberalizmu (pontyfikat Jana Pawła II). Całość rozważań zamknie zakończenie, którego treścią jest próba odpowiedzi na pytania: czy katolickie zarzuty pod adresem liberalizmu są trafne czy też nie? Czy liberalizm okazał się filozofią otwartą na krytykę, zdolną do modyfikacji pod wpływem ujawniania słabych stron teorii lub praktyk liberalnych? Czy wartości katolickie mogą wzbogacić liberalny porządek polityczny? Czy też katolickie normy moralno-religijne, wprowadzone w obręb obowiązków politycznych, zagrażają fundamentom ustroju liberalnego? Czy zarówno wobec ewolucji katolicyzmu, jak i liberalizmu katolicyzm odnalazł się w pluralistycznej harmonii liberalnej demokracji? (shrink)

This essay responds to Jan Narveson’s libertarian commentary on my earlier work “Liberal Dependency Care.” There, I argued that the underlying logic of the circumstances of justice warrants adding care to a liberal theory of justice. In this essay, I rebut Narveson’s skeptical claims about the liberal credentials of my justificatory argument by identifying the extent to which my view shares the same reasonable constraints on liberty as those defended by John Stuart Mill. I also suggest that a libertarian (...) refusal to add care to the core functions of the state is plausible only if women’s labor remains invisible. Finally, I refute Narveson’s contention that my strong procedural principle of care provision is incipiently totalitarian. The case for public support to teach basic levels of attentiveness and responsiveness is analogous to the case for teaching the foundational skills of arithmetic, which are legitimately taught in primary and secondary schools. (shrink)

This book examines the concept of post-truth and the impact it is having on contemporary life, bringing out both its philosophical and political dimensions. Post-truth is contextualised within the philosophical discourse of truth, with particular reference to theories of scepticism and relativism, to explore whether it can take advantage of these to claim any intellectual credibility. Sim argues that post-truth cannot be defended on either sceptical or relativistic grounds – even those provided by recent iconoclastic philosophical movements such as poststructuralism (...) and postmodernism. The affinity between post-truth and conspiracy theory is emphasised, and the extent to which post-truth plays a role in religious doctrine is also considered. Post-truth is seen to constitute a threat to liberal democratic ideals and our Enlightenment heritage, raising the question of whether we are moving into a post-liberal age where the far right would hold power. To prevent this, post-truth urgently needs to be countered. (shrink)

Due to the intense selection pressure against inbreeding, humans are expected to possess psychological adaptations that regulate mate choice and avoid inbreeding. From a gene’s-eye perspective, there is little difference in the evolutionary costs between situations where an individual him/herself is participating in inbreeding and inbreeding among other close relatives. The difference is merely quantitative, as fitness can be compromised via both routes. The question is whether humans are sensitive to the direct as well as indirect costs of inbreeding. Using (...) responses from a large population-based sample (27,364 responses from 2,353 participants), we found that human motivations to avoid inbreeding closely track the theoretical costs of inbreeding as predicted by inclusive-fitness theory. Participants were asked to select in a forced choice paradigm, which of two acts of inbreeding with actual family members they would want to avoid most. We found that the estimated fitness costs explained 83.6% of participant choices. Importantly, fitness costs explained choices also when the self was not involved. We conclude that humans intuit the indirect fitness costs of mating decisions made by close family members and that psychological inbreeding avoidance mechanisms extend beyond self-regulation. (shrink)

This book deals with the history of the problem whether or not time can fully exist without the mind. This has been a vital issue in the philosophy of time, with intriguing arguments and solutions, from Aristotle to the present.

This intelligent and often subtle introduction to rationalist metaphysics focuses on the development of the concept of substance in Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. After briefly reviewing the Aristotelian background in the introduction, Woolhouse spends the first three chapters presenting the broad outlines of each thinker’s account of substance. These are followed by three chapters devoted more specifically to the metaphysics of extended substance and to foundational issues in early modern physics. Next come two chapters on thinking substance and its relation (...) to extended substance, and finally a chapter on the relation between created and uncreated substance, which Woolhouse describes as "an organizing centre of the whole book". (shrink)

The paper consists of two parts. The first contains the paradox of Truth-teller, i.e. a sentence which asserts own truth. The paradox appears when we apply logic of rejection to the Truth-teller sentence. The Truth-teller paradox is symmetric with respect to the Liar paradox. The second part considers a sentence which asserts own provability. This sentence is unprovable on the base of rejection logic. This leads to counterparts of the Gödel incompleteness theorems and other metamathematical results.

James E. Huchingson's Pandemonium Tremendum draws on a surprisingly fruitful analogy between metaphysics and thermodynamics, with the latter motivated through the more accessible language of communication theory. In Huchingson's model, God nurtures creation by the selective communication of bits of order that arise spontaneously in chaos.

The semantically ambiguous nature of the sign and aspects of non-classicality of elementary matter as described by quantum theory show remarkable coherent analogy. We focus on how the ambiguous nature of the image, text and art work bears functional resemblance to the dynamics of contextuality, entanglement, superposition, collapse and decoherence as these phenomena are known in quantum theory. These quantumlike properties in linguistic signs have previously been identified in formal descritions of e.g. concept combinations and mental lexicon representations and have (...) been reported on in the literature. In this approach the informationalized, communicated, mediatized conceptual configuration—of e.g. the art work—in the personal reflected mind behaves like a quantum state function in a higher dimensional complex space, in which it is time and again contextually collapsed and further cognitively entangled. The observer–consumer of signs becomes the empowered ‘produmer’ creating the cognitive outcome of the interaction, while loosing most of any ‘classical givenness’ of the sign. These quantum-like descriptions are now developed here in four example aesthetic signs; the installation Mist room by Ann Veronica Janssens, the installation Sections of a happy moment by David Claerbout, the photograph The Falling Man by Richard Drew and the documentary Huicholes. The Last Peyote Guardians by Vilchez and Stefani. Our present work develops further the use of a previously developed quantum model for concept representation in natural language. In our present approach of the aesthetic sign, we extend to individual—idiosyncratic—observer contexts instead of socially shared group contexts, and as such also include multiple idiosyncratic creation of meaning and experience. This irreducible superposition emerges as the core feature of the aesthetic sign and is most critically embedded in the ‘no-interpretation’ interpretation of the documentary signal. (shrink)

Summary The claim about the resurrection of Jesus Christ is marked by relative semiotic indeterminacy. The lack of an experiential reference for this claim means that we have to see it as the result of an abductive interpretation. Against a backdrop founded on a pragmatist semiotic theory that includes the analytical differentiation between contexts of discovery and contexts of justification, the claim about the resurrection is analyzed with reference to the categories revelation, experience, and recognition. Abduction is at work with (...) regard to all of these categories. Among the consequences emerging from this approach is that there is no way to prove the fact of the resurrection: it remains an interpretation of signs. (shrink)

With Plato, ethics answer a fundamental problern of man: the desire to own more and more. In Christianity this problern finally reaches the dimension of evil. By opposing Tiermensch and Vernunftmensch, Kant's moral philosophy is no Ionger related to the solution of this problem. Kant tries to constitute moral philosophy as a science. From this point of view the author discusses central notions of Kant's moral philosophy: general rule, knowledge, faith, autonomy.