I emphasize four points: Socratic dialectic challenges the interlocutor not only to acquire the correct moral opinions, but to question and think for oneself and to develop one's own moral rationality; it involves anticipatory acts of several types of virtue: courage, moderation, and justice and concern for the common good as opposed to competition and jealousy; what is at stake is not only the topic of the particular exchange, but the opportunity for membership in a rational/educational community; and the fact (...) that Socrates' interlocutors typically reject the opportunity for moral insight and personal growth he makes available to them explains why he cannot be said to possess a techne of moral education, and why he insists that virtue cannot be taught. The process of education through the elenchus is not a matter of correct instruction, but of rational elicitation, which must be responded to by personal choice. Thus Socrates' principles may represent not only beliefs he has tested over many years of dialogue, but also values he has come to through participation in elenctic inquiry, the idealized extension of norms required by and created in the practice of dialectic. Socratic education involves the interlocutor in the confrontation with a self whose irrational attachments of appetite and ego are exposed and must be overcome for the interlocutor to experience catharsis. (shrink)

I contend that Jews, Christians, and Muslims who seek peace should not be reluctant to acknowledge the existence of their sometimes profound disagreements, or to affirm the truth of their own beliefs and practices. Since this places me at odds with John Hick, I analyze his views, granting the strengths of his critical realism and arguing that his revisionist-pluralist theory of religion has significant limitations for interreligious dialogue. Since the veridical-pluralist alternative I propose facilitates rather than stifles disagreement, I examine (...) three different conceptions of dialogue that acknowledge the importance of disputes among those searching for truth. I also discuss three virtues--honesty, empathy, and humility--whose cultivation would make us less likely to fail in our search for truth and the peace that is its sign and fruit. (shrink)

There is an immense amount of conceptual confusion on the notions of equality and human rights not only among lay people but also among contemporary philosophers and political and legal theorists. There is reason for this. These concepts have been used in a multiplicity of ways in the history of thought. Furthermore they constitute a substratum from which we somehow deduce norms which constitute part of our moral and political frameworks, norms about which all of us feel strongly one way (...) or another; and for this reason more heat than light is often the result of talk about these concepts. Clarity on these concepts is badly needed, and not simply for the sake of conceptual clarity, though that by itself is desirable. But it is plain to me that lack of clarity about these concepts could be in part responsible for what some of us, at least, would characterize as morally reprehensible behavior on the part of some quite well-intentioned human beings. This I will try to show later in this paper. My primary concern, however, is to make our ideas of these concepts clearer, as Peirce would put it. I do not pretend that the analysis which I offer is adequate, but I do hope that the distinctions introduced take us a few steps along the way. I will also consider the issue of the justification of equality and human rights as norms. My paper, then, will include both conceptual and metaethical elements as well as normative ones. The former I regard as a necessary preliminary to the latter. (shrink)

An elementary-particle picture developed primarily by Barut as an alternative to the standard model is re-examined. This model is formulated on the basis of strong short-range magnetic interactions among the stable particles (p, e−, v) and at present is able to account qualitatively for most of the known phenomena.

Brindley proposed that we initially generate movements , under higher cerebral control. As the movement is practiced, the cerebellum learns to link within itself the context in which the movement is made to the lower level movement generators. Marr and Albus proposed that the linkage is established by a special input from the inferior olive, which plays upon an input-output element within the cerebellum during the period of the learning. When the linkage is complete, the occurrence of the context (represented (...) by a certain input to the cerebellum) will trigger (through the cerebellum) the appropriate motor response. The movement is distinguished from the conscious movement by its now being automatic, rapid, and stereotyped. The idea is still controversial, but has been supported by a variety of animal studies and, as reviewed here, is consistent with the results of a number of human PET and ablation studies. I have added to the idea of context-response linkage what I think is another important variable: novel combinations of downstream elements. With regard to the motor system and the muscles, this could explain how varied combinations of muscles may become active in precise time-amplitude specifications so as to produce coordinated movements appropriate to specific contexts. In this target article, I have further extended this idea to the premotor parts of the brain and their role in cognition. These areas receive influences from the cerebellum; they are active both in planning movements that are to be executed and in thinking about movements that are not to be executed. From recent evidence, the cerebellar output extends even to what has been characterized as the ultimate frontal planning area, the cortex, area 46. The cerebellum thus may be involved in context-response linkage, and response combination even at these higher levels. The implication would be that, through practice, an experiential context would automatically evoke a certain mental action plan. The plan would be in the realm of thought, and could lead to execution. The specific cerebellar contribution would be one of the context linkage and the shaping of the response, through trial and error learning. The prefrontal and premotor areas could still plan without the help of the cerebellum, but not so automatically, rapidly, stereotypically, so precisely linked to context, or so free of error. Nor would their activities improve optimally with mental practice. (shrink)

The first volume of a projected two-volume work in mathematical logic. Along with an introduction containing brief but careful and remarkably compact discussions of such topics as the kinds of expressions occurring in formalized language, the logistic method, syntax, and semantics, the book comprises clean and precise treatments of the propositional calculus, and first- and second-order functional calculi, including parenthetical remarks about the intended semantical interpretations of these calculi, some development of the calculi themselves, and discussions of completeness and consistency. (...) A great number of exercises are included, ranging from elementary exercises in technique to brief sketches of theories not treated in the text.--W. T. (shrink)